i am that

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The oldest Vedantic school, Advaita [‘not two’], represents an extreme and purist position in arguing that Brahman alone is real. The self and the world are within Brahman, with any apparent difference arising from illusion [maya] and ignorance [avidya]. It is as with a rope, which seems to be a snake, or a seashell, which seems to be of silver. 

This world is like the foam on the sea, or a peacock’s egg, created simply for play [lila]. Since Brahman is all, Brahman is without attributes. When the mind, which is given to maya, tries to conceive of Brahman, it sees Ishvara in one of his many forms. If certain Upanishadic statements appear to be theistic, it is because their author (nominally,Brahman) is catering to his audience. 

Only in deep sleep, when we are no longer dreaming, might we experience something of the formlessness of Brahman. We are then pure, disengaged consciousness, like the sun after it has set. This is the experience of disembodied Atma, of death, of home.

—Neel Burton

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Never get involved with God, and above all never in any really intimate way. 

Get involved with people and imagine that together with them you are involving yourselves with God.


—Søren Kierkegaard
Works of Love (1847)

 

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So much time spent, Seeking what one is.

So much better is it to understand

What one is not.

Then what remains is pure and

What one is.


—Wu Hsin

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the self is time itself

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The classical idea that objects and processes exist “in” space and time is now dead ... space and time should instead be seen as phenomena that somehow “emerge” from relationships.


—Alexander Wendt
Quantum Mind and Social Science

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We must look on everything in this world as time. 

Each thing stands in unimpeded relation just as each moment stands unimpeded. Therefore, (from the standpoint of time) the desire for enlightenment arises spontaneously; (from the standpoint of mind) time arises with the same mind. This applies also to training and enlightenment. 

Thus we see by entering within: the self is time itself.

—Dogen

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Wherever you go, you carry with you the sense of here and now. This is what distinguishes any present experience from memory. It reveals that space and time are in you and not the other way around. 

Most people are not acquainted with the sense of their being but only with the knowledge of their doing.


—Wu Hsin

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questions

 

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You want somehow or other to maintain that the world is real. 

What is the standard of reality? 

That alone is real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging. Does the world exist by itself? Was it ever seen without the aid of the mind? In deep sleep there is neither mind nor world. 

When awake, there is the mind and there is the world. What does invariable concomitance mean? You are familiar with the principles of inductive logic which are considered the very basis of scientific investigation. Why do you not decide this question of the reality of the world in the light of those accepted principles of logic?

Of yourself, you can say “I exist”. That is, your existence is not mere existence; it is existence of which you are conscious. Really, it is existence identical with consciousness. 

Consciousness is always Self-consciousness. If you are conscious of anything you are essentially conscious of yourself. Unselfconscious existence is a contradiction in terms. It is no existence at all. It is merely attributed existence, whereas true existence, the SAT, is not an attribute, it is the substance itself. It is the Vastu (Reality). 

Reality is therefore known as SAT-CHIT, being consciousness, and never merely the one to the exclusion of the other. The world neither exists by itself, nor is it conscious of its existence. 

How can you say that such a world is real?

And what is the nature of the world? It is perpetual change, a continuous, interminable flux. A dependent, unselfconscious, ever-changing world cannot be real.


—Sri Ramana Maharshi 

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When the mind is seen as continually kidnapped by thoughts,

the first step toward freedom has been taken. 

Now, cease listening to what is being heard. 

Instead, listen to what is listening.

—Wu Hsin

 

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we are that

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The thinker of thoughts is merely 

Another thought.

The one who knows this is

No longer in his own way.

—Wu Hsin

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Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, the individual self and the immortal Self are perched on the branches of the self-same tree. 

The former tastes of the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the latter, tasting of neither, calmly observes.


—The Mundaka Upanishad

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