Behind My Hand

“ When you cling to the body-mind you become separate from the manifested world and see different entities. In that state you will have all kinds of desires to improve yourself or somebody else. The next state is “I Amness”, in which every action is myself, every manifest thing is myself. In that state there is no question of improving. You are just manifestation, “I am everything”. Next is the unborn state, where there is no beingness to understand “I Am”. That is the highest state.”   - Nisargadatta Maharaj in Seeds of Consciousness; p.152 ————-

You study only those concepts which arise from within you. Those concepts which you do not like will not occur to you. Suppose you do not like mathematics, that subject will not appeal to you; it is a stranger to your concepts. You will be involved with only those subjects or matters which you like. Analyze your thoughts and see if this is not true. Find out the nature of your thoughts. Are they spiritual? I abide in the state where there is no mind. ————- Nisargadatta Maharaj, June 18, 1981.

Nisargadatta Maharaj:  January 9, 1981 Questioner: What are thoughts? Maharaj: They are the result of previous conditioning which the mind has had. Q: Are the thoughts of the jnani and the ignorant one different from one another? M: The difference is that the jnani has divorced himself from the body-mind, the body-mind thoughts will come and go but the jnani is not concerned; whereas, the ignorant one gets involved in those thoughts and the ignorant one considers himself as a name and a form. —- —- —- Ramana Maharshi:   June 19, 1936, Talk 211 D.: What is this mind? M.: A bundle of thoughts July 13, 1935, Talk 65 The ajnani takes the world to be real; whereas the Jnani sees it only as the manifestation of the Self. It is immaterial if the Self manifests itself or ceases to do so. —- —- —- Ramana Maharshi: February, 1939, Talk 623 Sri Bhagavan said to another devotee that there are five states: (1) Sleep, (2) Before waking, a state free from thoughts, (3) Se

Presently this body is undergoing a lot of agony: dizziness, pain; all these things are happening at the physical level. In spite of this state, the talk comes out inspiringly. What permits that? It is the guna, the beingness. That beingness not only experiences your visits here, but it also experiences various changes and transformations in this body and in the world. Nisargadatta Maharaj, Consciousness and the Absolute, Feb 12, 1981

There have been so many saints, sages, and jnanis, and each one has been enamored of a particular concept that he wanted the world to know about. Ultimately, the different religions were only individual concepts which appealed to the consciousness in a particular individual at a particular time. - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, 12 March 1981,  “Consciousness and the Absolute”.

"Whatever you try to become, that is not you. Before the words come out, before you say "I Am", that is you. You must be concerned only with yourself. Don't worry about anybody else. What are you?" (Nisargadatta Maharaj, Consciousness and the Absolute, January 12, 1981)

The Guru you have in mind, one who gives you information and instructions, is not the real Guru. The real Guru is he who knows the real, beyond the glamour of appearances. To him your questions about obedience and discipline do not make sense, for in his eyes the person you take yourself to be does not exist, your questions are about a non-existing person. What exists for you does not exist for him. What you take for granted, he denies absolutely. He wants you to see yourself as he sees you. Then you will not need a Guru to obey and follow, for you will obey and follow your own reality. realise that whatever you think yourself to be is just a stream of events; that while all happens, comes and goes, you alone are , the changeless among the changeful, the self- evident among the inferred. Separate the observed from the observer and abandon false identifications. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj in I Am That, p. 169 

M.: The birth of the ‘I-thought’ is one’s own birth, its death is the person’s death. After the ‘I-thought’ has arisen the wrong identity with the   body arises. Thinking yourself the body, you give false values to others and identify them with bodies. Just as your body has been born, grows and will perish, so also you think the other was born, grew up and died. Did you think of your son before his birth? The thought came after his birth and persists even after his death. Inasmuch  as you are thinking of him he is your son. Where has he gone? He  has gone to the source from which he sprang. He is one with you. So long as you are, he is there too. If you cease to identify yourself with  the body, but see the real Self, this confusion will vanish. You are eternal. The others also will similarly be found to be eternal. Until  this truth is realised there will always be this grief due to false values arising from wrong knowledge and wrong identity. -Ramana Maharshi in Talk 276

Belief is the final resort of those who have given up the search.

You are the god of your world and you are both stupid and cruel. Let God be a concept -- your own creation. Find out who you are, how did you come to live, longing for truth, goodness and beauty in a world full of evil. Of what use is your arguing for or against God. when you just do not know who is God and what are you talking about. The God born of fear and hope, shaped by desire and imagination, cannot be the Power That is, the Mind and the Heart of the universe.  - “I Am That” - Nisargadatta Maharaj

To ignore diversity is not enlightenment. To cling to the world is not enlightenment. Such acts prevent innateness.

If you take on the attitude of the jnani without the Heart of a jnani your words and actions will be anathema.

from Talk 429 In order to give up the sense of doership one must seek to find out who the doer is. Enquire within; the sense of doership will vanish. Vichara (enquiry) is the method. - Ramana Maharshi

The idea 'non-duality' is only valid as opposition to 'duality'. Both are vichara fodder, no more no less.

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'It is the mind, alone, that is the cause of people's bondage and liberation. One whose mind is devoted to the world (of objects) is bound. One whose mind is not devoted to the world (of objects) is liberated. So it is declared (by the wise)!'  - Amrtabindu Upanishad 2 No invocations, rites or paraphernalia required. Just the elimination of mindstuff's concoctions. 

The question 'Who am I' has no answer. No experience can answer it, for the Self is beyond experience.  ... It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore, helps to go beyond consciousness.   "All I can say truly is: 'I am', all else is inference. But the inference has become a  habit. Destroy all habits of thinking and seeing. The sense 'I am' is the manifestation of a deeper  cause, which you may call self, God, reality or by any other name. The 'I am' is in the world; but it is  the key which can open the door out of the world. The moon dancing on the water is seen in the  water, but it is caused by the moon in the sky and not by the water."  (Nisargadatta, in "I am That")  --- --- --- Dr. Srinivasa Rao asked Bhagavan, “When we enquire within ‘who am I?’ what is that?” Bhagavan: It is the ego. It is only that which makes the vichara also. The Self has no vichara. That which makes the enquiry is the ego. The ‘I’ a

All practice is simply a rehearsal for that eternal, innate and spontaneous enquiry. 

Dance the eternal dance of the Self.  In essence, the rhythm of existence  Felt as the sphurana ‘I-I’.

The jnani's anger is anger without attachment. It remains uncultivated. It  equates to the anger one might feel towards the finger which just poked its  own eye.