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I AM That (33-34) > Ron > 05/28/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, May 28, 2023 3:45 pm (California Time)
We are a small group of friends;
together we read some paragraphs in
Nisargadatta’s I AM THAT
and then talk about it.
Feel warmly welcome
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
Greetings to One and All!
Hope everyone is celebrating Memorial Day by remembering the Self!
For those whose eyes and mind are growing weary from reading:
here is a link to someone reading highlights from I Am That.
A nice review. Enjoy…
Peace Peace Peace
Ron@Nondual.Community
Chapter 33 – Everything Happens by Itself
Q: What mistake do we make about the body?
NM: There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body,
not even in the idea ‘I am the body’.
But limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake. 136
Q: What is the answer to ‘Who am I’?
NM: The question ‘Who am I’ has no answer.
No experience can answer it,
for the Self is beyond experience. 136
Q: Still, the question ‘Who am I’ must be of some use?
NM: It has no answer in consciousness and, therefore,
helps to go beyond consciousness. 136
Q: Here I am – in the present moment.
What is real in it, and what is not?
NM: Your question is wrong. It is unnecessary.
You said: ‘Here and now I am’.
Stop there, this is real.
Don’t turn a fact into a question.
There lies your mistake. 136
Q: Why does not the Self help the man without you?
NM: But I am the Self!
You imagine me as separate, hence your question.
There is no ‘my self’ and ‘his self’.
There is the Self, the only Self of all.
Misled by diversity of names and shapes,
minds and bodies, you imagine multiple selves.
We both are the Self, but you seem to be unconvinced.
This talk of personal self and universal self
is the learner’s stage; go beyond,
don’t be stuck in duality. 137
Q: How strangely does your mind work?
NM: You are strange, not me.
I am normal. I am sane.
I see things as they are, and therefore
I am not afraid of them.
But you are afraid of reality. 138-139
Q: How can fear be overcome?
NM: It is ignorance of yourself that makes you afraid
and also unaware that you are afraid.
Don’t try not to be afraid.
Break down the wall of ignorance first. 139
Q: You mean that one who cannot die, cannot live?
NM: Put it as you like;
attachment is bondage,
detachment is freedom.
To crave is to slave…
Death gives freedom and power.
To be free in the world,
you must die to the world.
The happiness of being absolutely free
is beyond description.
On the other hand,
he who is afraid of freedom cannot die. 139
Q: Is such progress ruled by causality,
or is it accidental?
NM: Man imagines that he works
for an incentive, towards a goal.
He has always a reward in mind
and strives for it…
From my point of view
everything happens by itself,
quite spontaneously. 139
Q: What is true creation?
NM: To want nothing and do nothing
– that is true creation!
To watch the universe emerging
and subsiding in one’s heart is a wonder. 140
Q: Is there no need of effort then?
Q: When effort is needed, effort will appear.
When effortlessness becomes essential,
it will assert itself.
You need not push life about.
Just flow with it
and give yourself completely
to the task of the present moment. 140
Q: What is the right attitude to the world and the self?
NM: Get hold of the main thing
that the world and the self
are one and perfect.
Only your attitude is faulty and needs readjustment. 140
Chapter 34 – Mind is Restlessness Itself
Q: My knowledge of Yoga did not end my search for peace of mind?
NM: Naturally.
There will be no end to it,
because there is no such thing as peace of mind.
Mind means disturbance;
restlessness itself is mind…
It may go blank occasionally,
but it does it for a time and reverts
to its usual restlessness…
A becalmed mind is not a peaceful mind. 141-142
Q: So what remains to do?
NM: Striving too is a form of restlessness…
The Self does not need to be put to rest.
It is peace itself, not at peace.
Only the mind is restless.
All it knows is restlessness,
with its many modes and grades…
What we call progress is merely a change
over from the unpleasant to the pleasant.
But changes by themselves cannot bring us
to the changeless,
for whatever has a beginning
must have an end.
The real does not begin;
it only reveals itself as
beginningless and endless,
all-pervading, all-powerful,
immovable prime mover,
timelessly changeless. 142
Q: I am trying to rejoin the personality
back to the real self?
NM: The personality (vyakti) is but a product of imagination.
The self (vyakta) is the victim of this imagination.
It is the taking of yourself to be what you are not that binds you.
The person cannot be said to exist on its own right;
it is the self that believes there is a person
and is conscious of being it.
Beyond the the self (vyakta) lies the unmanifested (avyakta),
the causeless cause of everything.
Even to talk of re-uniting the person with the self is not right,
because there is no person, only a mental picture
given a false reality by conviction.
Nothing was divided and there is nothing to unite. 143
Yoga helps in the search for and the finding of the self?
You can find what you have lost. But you cannot find what you have not lost…It only shows that you believe you have lost. But who believes it? And what is believed to be lost? Have you lost a person like yourself? What is the self you are in search of? What exactly do you expect to find? 143
Q: I expect to find the true knowledge of the self?
NM: The true knowledge of the self is not a knowledge.
It is not something that you find by searching,
by looking everywhere.
It is not to be found in space or time.
Knowledge is but a memory,
a pattern of thought,
a mental habit.
All these are motivated by pleasure and pain.
It is because you are goaded by pleasure and pain
that you are in search of knowledge.
Being oneself is completely beyond all motivation.
You cannot be yourself for some reason.
You are yourself, and no reason is needed. 143
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link for Sunday ❤️
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Created: May 27, 2023
Last modified: July 16, 2023
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