Behind My Hand

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

D.: How shall I reach the Self? M.: There is no reaching the Self. If the Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not now and here, but that it should be got anew. What is got afresh, will also be lost. So it will be impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving for. So I say, the Self is not reached. You are the Self. You are already That. The fact is that you are ignorant of your blissful state. Ignorance supervenes and draws a veil over the pure Bliss. Attempts are directed only to remove this ignorance. This ignorance consists in wrong knowledge. The wrong knowledge consists in the false identification of the Self with the body, the mind, etc. This false identity must go and there remains the Self. D.: How is that to happen? M.: By enquiry into the Self. Ramana Maharshi in Talk 251; Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi

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

I nsubstantial unrelenting ? ... tada!

It is by delusion that one says: 'I have seen this Sage; I shall see that one also;' if he knows the Sage that is within himself, then all Sages will be (seen to be) one and the same. Guru Ramana Vachana Mala by 'Who', Tiruvannamalai; 1998 - 131

Complete understanding in the blink of an eye. Devoid of linearity. It has nothing to do with reason per se and yet reason can point to it. Although the meanings of the individual words contribute to the ‘flash’ it is quite different from them and can flash even before the utterance has been completed. Pure Pratibhā is the individual's experience of suchness. Pratibhā is not limited to words and sentences. It is the innate ' shining ' principle in all living beings. By means of Pratibhā the spontaneous natural behaviour of all birds and animals takes place without instruction or any other prompting. It is the reason the Indian cuckoo sings in Spring, for example. Although any experience of Pratibhā is uniquely interpreted, by each and every individual, words can be used to convey it. Words, bound by time and space, point to it, but, on their own, never give a true representation of it. Pratibhā on the part of the hearer [or reader, viewer, etc.] is required. In essence...