The Self does not arise, it is existence, consciousness, bliss Absolute, self-existing, self-shining as it is.  There is no creator, creature, or creation whatsoever, all that is appearance only or what we call Maya in Advaita which points to This ever-fresh unqualified immediacy.  This naked unborn awareness is what you truly and ever are; you cannot negate it nor can you ever grasp it with any acquired word or concept.  This knowing that you are is the key to the very truth and actuality of non-duality.
 If you want this mystery to reveal itself to you ponder over this fact of your own being.  This miracle, this tiny pin prick of the consciousness I am, how did it come about, how did I come to be?  A seemingly limitless universe appearing here in this seeming point of consciousness.  It is an impossibility, an illusion, reason and question in this way to transcend the vice-like grip of the time-bound consciousness, I am.  There I was existing infinitely and eternally and in that non-dual essence I did not know anything at all, I had no knowledge of existence or non existence; then for no reason or purpose this consciousness arose out of nothing or no thing announcing this I am news.  “There is no basis for consciousness, it has come uninvited.  It rises and then passes away.””This knowledge is actually easy and open; therefore there are not many takers for it.  People are attracted to what is difficult and complicated.” (Nisargadatta Maharaj)
 “Love of the Self eliminates concern with anything else; it is without attachment.  You are that love that is formless, nameless, and indestructible.” – Nisargadatta Maharaj.  ” No greater proof of the love of God is there than this:  I was not existing, You brought me into existence.  I wandered away from You, but You brought me back to your service and taught me to love You”.  Prior to that I was loving a lot of other things that were impermanent and transitory like dew drops appearing on the grass in the early morning sun.  ‘Non-dual devotion’ is devotion to your own Self.  Pay attention to “That,” which is always with you.  You must feel its necessity.”  Turn around, look back to see where the seeing is arising from.  You’ll be as the Buddha and what flashed through his mind on the attainment of Enlightenment – Nirvana – ‘As on a crag on crest of mountain standing, a man might watch the people far below, E’en so do thou, O wisdom fair, O seer of all, the terraced heights of Truth, Look down, from grief released upon the nations Sunken in grief, oppressed with birth and age.’
 ‘To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.’  True spirituality is possible only when you let go of everything.  Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was NIL – until we let go absolutely.  Not-knowing is the key to all this, to let go and to be comfortable in this no-knowing, no mind state.  In this world of Suchness, this no mind(time) no knowing stateless state there is neither self nor other-than-self.  All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power.  Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value.  All knowledge in this sense is a form of ignorance, it is dualistic and hence false.  One is ignoring one’s true nature or natural state.
 “Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone.” (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)  One is imagining all kinds of things that are not true.  Imagining human beings, animals, trees, being born and dying over and over, all this is nothing but imagination, the foam of Maya, pure imagination and utterly illusory without any substance or independent nature of its own apart from the thinking and conceptualizing about them.  Illusion is itself illusory.
 Cease to ignore this Omnipresence, this conscious presence, I am That I am.  You already ‘know’ that you are, but what you are you don’t know.  What could be simpler than this?  You don’t know what you are and this is the very ignorance that we are pointing to here.  How were you one hundred years back and six months prior to conception in the womb of the mother?  Find out for yourself, don’t fall back on some guru, priest, or authority.  Do you need to consult anyone else to know that you are?  No, so full stop!  I am completely stopping.  Are you going to stop and pause for a moment to ponder this great matter of know thyself, or are you going to continue on endlessly looking in your time-bound mind to find an answer there where it can never be found? 

 Ask yourself these questions as there is no one here, no separate entity or person saying or speaking these words or concepts.  There is a knowing there that you don’t know what you are.  Good enough, this knowing that you don’t know is the real knowing – jnana – prajnana.  “Seeing into nothingness — this is true seeing and eternal seeing.” (Shen – Hui)  Come back to the only fact that you are absolutely certain of and that is the fact of your own being here and now, not at some future time.  Time is only a mental concept and there is no time in this immediacy of now.  Time is only relevant in the appearance of ‘things’ and comes into play only when you engage in the thinking process.
 Is there time when you are not thinking about it?  No there is not, there is only this naked non conceptual awareness or presence.  Notice this presence without thinking or conceptualizing about it.  “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.”  Thought is not the enemy and is useful in a certain context.  Thought is a good servant but a terrible master for the simple fact that in itself thought is limited and time-bound.  Understanding the nature of thought you can then use thought without it using you, telling you that you are not good enough, you are not enlightened yet, you are going to need more time to be who you already are.  On and on this chatter goes in the mind if you don’t see that it is telling you a lot of rubbish, untruths, and conceptual nonsense generally.
 Who thinks they are thinking these thoughts?  Isn’t it just ego “me”?  See for yourself that there is no such thing as an ego when you really look and try to find this non existing phantom called ego.  If you are earnest and look you will not be able to find any such separate entity, person or thing called ego at all.  All you find is this impersonal presence of awareness or awareness of presence.  What a discovery, all this so called time you have been in bondage to a phantom, a non existing entity, the child of a barren woman so to speak.  Everything from Brahma to a clump of grass has no independent nature of its own apart from this unborn, non conceptual awareness-emptiness, which in itself in its suchness is nothing to the mind, which is time, nothing or no thing to this time-bound “me” of memory.
 If you don’t look for yourself or depend instead on the authority of some fake guru, then this phantom ego continues to run the show and create endless psychological suffering and misery for you.  Poor me, I haven’t arrived yet, nobody loves me etc, and so it goes.  Who is doing this to you, who is responsible for all this suffering?
 Thinking is not problematic; it is nothing but vibrating energy appearing in the form of thoughts.  Energy or intelligence-knowing has no shape, form, color or separate nature of its own.  There is no thinker of a thought, thoughts arise spontaneously by themselves and subside effortlessly as well as long as you don’t attach to them, personalize them and claim them as ‘my’ thoughts.  See that there is no thinker of a thought and that thoughts arise spontaneously.  Then being thought-free is to allow thoughts to flow freely without the effort to alter, modify or correct the flow of them in any particular way.  See that you are not choosing your thoughts and they are arising spontaneously.  Questioning your thoughts like this a few times and seeing their illusory nature they will cease to hold total sway over you and lose the sting that they had prior to this questioning of them.
 Who is the choice maker?  Who is choosing these thoughts?  If you were choosing your thoughts why would you have these unhappy and fearful thoughts?  See that you are not the choice maker nor are you the doer of your actions.  Choices are made, deeds are done but there is no choicemaker, no doer of any deeds, all happens spontaneously and naturally by itself.  Has anything ever happened when awareness is unborn, unceasing, utterly still and silent?  THIS hasn’t changed, grown old or suffered any hurts, dramas or traumas.  Reality is That which doesn’t change.
THE ESSENCE OF RIBHU GITA  5.  The universe was neither born, nor maintained, nor dissolved; this is the plain truth.  The basic screen of pure Being-Awareness-Stillness devoid of all the moving shadow pictures of name and form of the universe is the sole, eternal existence.
See that you are the basic screen of pure Being-Awareness-Stillness being referred to here and that it is your essential nature to remain unaffected, as unstained and uninjured as your TV screen is by all the murders and shooting and burning that rage on it.  As unsoiled as your mirror is by what it mirrors so faithfully and non selectively.  The screen is not affected by anything that appears on it.  These present words and thoughts, what are they appearing on?  Isn’t there an awareness of them here and now?  Aren’t you in essence that awareness?  See for yourself that it has not moved away, changed or altered in any way.
 Re-cognize this basic screen of Awareness whenever you seemingly lose sight of it and know that you can never really lose sight of it because you are That Awareness.  This is then, Self-Liberation through seeing with naked awareness.  This seeing is the primary function, and not hearing, tasting, feeling or touching, which are secondary and only possible because of the seeing which is unceasing, timeless.  This seeing is unlimited and goes on forever, it sees forever and beyond time and space.  Time and space are in this unlimited seeing and not the other way round.  Seeing is not limited to time or space, it is unlimited and goes on forever there at zero degrees from where you truly and ever are.
 King James Bible – “Without the vision My people perish.”  “On a clear day rise and look around you and you will SEE who you are.  On a clear day how it will astound you that the glow of your being outshines every star.  You’ll feel part of every mountain, sea and shore and you will hear from far and near a sound you’ve never heard before.  Oh on that clear day you can see forever and forever more.”  Follow this instruction closely without resorting to thought, thinking , memory or imagination.  On present evidence with eyes closed and not thinking, how big are you?  Well I don’t know about you, but right here on present evidence with eyes closed I can’t find any boundaries at all and there is simply limitless pure being.  Again on present evidence with eyes closed, where do I end and the world begins?  Nowhere at all, I am boundless and limitless.  See if this is not true for you also.  Of course you have to do this experiment for yourself and not just take my word for it, otherwise this will only be conceptual and you will not have the actual experiencing of your own limitless and boundless nature.
 See that all divisions and boundaries appearing in this basic screen of pure Being-Awareness-Stillness are arbitrary, relative, man made and illusory.  See that there is only That non dual Absolute and that there is no person, thing or object existing separate or apart from That Absolute.  What it amounts to is this, that phenomena are real when experienced as the Self and illusory when seen apart from the Self, the Absolute alone is real.  The world, the individual and God are, like the illusory appearance of silver in the mother-of-pearl, imaginary creations in the Self.
 Now see which is your real nature.  Is it that which is free of thoughts or that which is full of thoughts?  Being is continuous.  The thoughts are discontinuous.  So which is permanent? D:  Being. That is it.  Realize it.  That is your true nature.  Your true nature is simple Being, free from thoughts. Because you identify yourself with the body you want to know about creation.  The world and the objects including your body appear in the waking state but disappear in the state of sleep.  You exist all through these states.  What is it then that persists through all these states?  Find it out.  That is your Self.
  “What is known without knowing never changes.  The greatness of the whole world lies in the heart of the human being.  This is so simple, yet people do incredible austerities for its sake.  In this vast Consciousness there is no religion, no karma, and no time.  It exists prior to the sense “I am”. Do not try to know it, but hold on to this understanding. – Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Related Posts