“When you feel this sense of being, this pure ‘I-am,’ you find that it does not fall into any category. It is neither yours nor is it not yours, it is neither divided from other people nor united with them; it just is. And it is pure, simple consciousness.” With practice, you can rest in Being, just as you now breathe or eat. And, as with breathing or eating, there …
What do you have to do? Pack your bags, Go to the station without them, Catch the train, And leave your self behind. Quite so: the only practice—and once. In this rare picture is Wei Wu Wei, Robert Powell and Douglas Harding. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Wei Wu Wei (Terrance Gray) wrote a number of books and articles on the process of seeing who we really are. …
The dream analogy has always appealed to me as a meaningful explanation of this so-called “life” of mine. Of course, as far as pointing towards one’s true nature, there is nothing like actually pointing and looking, but the dream analogy confirms what I see when I See, and helps break the ties to deeply conditioned beliefs. It goes something like this: When I dream I experience a world that is …
The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist. In pursuing spiritual disciplines such as yoga, Zen, and also psychotherapy, there arises a difficulty. This difficulty lies in wanting to find a method whereby I can change my consciousness and improve myself. But the self that needs to be improved is the one that …
“It is well to remember that the entire universe is composed of others, with one trifling exception.” —John Andrew Homes There did this sense of separation come from? How did we get ourselves into this predicament? Did we think ourselves here? As a child, a word or a concept is so novel that we play with it. We repeat the new word. We hear its sound, feel its quality, and …
The Gate of the Eternal Present “Actually there is no real teaching at all for you to chew on or squat over. But not believing in yourself, you pick up your baggage and go around to other people’s houses looking for Zen, looking for Tao, looking for mysteries, looking for awakenings, looking for Buddhas, looking for masters, looking for teachers. You think this is searching for the ultimate and you …
Deep down inside I am spirit. Deep down inside you are spirit. It is what and who we all really are, behind the masks we wear, beyond the roles we play. Spirit is indivisible—mysteriously, each of us is all of it. It is our native condition, what we have always been and always will be. We cannot do anything with this inner core of ourselves, cannot change it or bend …
The essence of a man is pure Spirit, Being or Universal Consciousness. This Spirit prowls in the lion, spreads its limbs in the trees, endures in the stone; in man alone it not only lives but knows it lives. It is said in various scriptures and by teachers that a spiritual seeker should make effort on the path but that grace is also necessary. It is also said that in …
I am often asked, “If you were stranded on a desert island and had only one book, what would it be?” The book you are now holding in your hands–Talks with Ramana Maharshi–isone of the two or three I always mention. And the Talks top the list in this regard: it is the living voice of the greatest sage of this century and, arguably, the greatest spiritual realization of this …
He sang with complete abandon, playing huge symbols and occasionally ringing a large bell mounted on the ceiling. Every day, as part of the daily routine, Nisargadatta Maharaj would play his part in keeping alive the spirit of his Guru’s teachings and the lineage from which they derive. More than just hymns of praise, these songs reflect the highest wisdom; they represent spontaneous outpourings from the hearts of sages past. …
September 11, 2001 While assembling articles for this issue (Fall 2001), we began to receive several telephone calls, asking if there would be selections that addressed the September 11th events. Though we hadn’t thought of this, it began to feel like it would be a good idea. As more people called to request these articles, we decided to defer printing of the existing materials until a later date. This collection …
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. —Mahatma Gandhi At Public School 202 in Brooklyn, I had Mrs. Braverman for music appreciation. The class met in the school assembly hall, where Mrs. Braverman taught us to memorize classical pieces by matching word rhymes to the melody. I listened to her but was …
“Seeing into nothingness is the true seeing, the eternal seeing.” —Shen-hui This seeing is, quite simply, a matter of turning round the arrow of one’s attention. The Katha Upanishad puts it this way: “God made the senses turn outwards. Man therefore looks outwards, not into himself. But occasionally a daring soul, desiring immortality, has looked back and found himself.” Contrary, no doubt, to one’s first impression, there’s no seeing, no …
Stories about the Indian Sage, Neem Karoli Baba Remember to listen to the silence into which the stories are set, for the true meeting with Maharajji lies between the lines and behind the words. For this effort, you will be amply rewarded through meeting a being of a spiritual stature rarely known on this earth. —Ram Dass How vividly I recall, after my first meeting with Maharajji, how all my …
Sri Ramana Maharshi, just before his death when the devotees were grieving over his imminent departure, reassured them with the above statement. What is the meaning of these immortal words? We have the idea that upon death, we are going somewhere; we are departing from this earth, from this world. It is necessary and, I think, very fruitful to thoroughly investigate this situation for oneself. In the first place, what …
Toni Packer is relentlessly simple and unseductive. She doesn’t look to the past for the answers. Her words come out of listening, now, in this moment. Born in 1927, Toni Packer grew up in Nazi Germany, the daughter of two scientists. Her mother was Jewish, but because of her father’s prestigious career, the family was spared from the Holocaust. Growing up in the midst of war, Toni realized early on …
