Behind My Hand

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

Vichara is the highest flight of Bhakti. Bhakti is the highest flight of Vichara.

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!