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I AM That (38) > Ron > 07/30/2023
Posted by Holger Hubbs:
Sunday, July 30, 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!
“Asserted and Re-asserted”…
This is one of the reasons we continue to meet each week…
you can’t hear the Teaching too many times.
Until the ‘penny drops’…
we’ll keep reminding each other of the Truth.
Sharing is Caring.
See you Sunday between 6:45-7:00 ET.
Peace Peace Peace
Chapter 38, Spiritual Practice
is Will Asserted and Re-Asserted
Q: What you cannot give is not your own.
NM: I claim nothing as my own.
When the ‘I’ is not, where is the ’mine’?
…Believe me, I am not close-fisted,
holding back your share of reality.
On the contrary, I am all yours,
eat me and drink me.
But while you repeat verbally:
‘give, give’, you do nothing
to take what is offered.
I am showing you a short and easy way
to being able to see what I see,
but you cling to your old habits of thought,
feeling and action and put all the blame on me.
I have nothing which you do not have.
Self-knowledge is not a piece of property
to be offered and accepted.
It is a new dimension altogether,
where there is nothing to give or take.
170-171
Q: Give us at least some insight
into the content of your mind
while you live your daily life?
NM: The common things of life:
I experience them just as you do.
The difference lies in what I do not experience.
I do not experience fear or greed, hate or anger.
I ask nothing, refuse nothing, keep nothing.
In these matters I do not compromise.
Maybe this is the outstanding difference between us.
I will not compromise, I am true to myself,
while you are afraid of reality.
171
Q: To sit in a corner all by oneself
and keep on repeating: ‘I am God, God I am’,
appears to be plain madness.
How to convince a Westerner
that such practices lead to supreme reality?
NM: The man who claims to be God and the man who doubts it
– both are deluded. They talk in their dream.
171
Q: If all is dreaming, what is waking?
NM: How to describe the waking state in dreamland language?
Words do not describe, they are only symbols.
171
Q: Without confidence and fervor,
repeating mechanically the same sounds,
will he ever achieve anything?
NM: Why not?
It is the urge, the hidden motive that matters,
not the shape it takes.
Whatever he does, if he does it for the sake
of finding his own real self,
will surely bring him to himself…
Whatever you do for the sake of truth,
will take you to truth.
The shape it takes hardly matters.
171-172
Q: Then there is no need of giving expression to one’s longing?
NM: No need.
Doing nothing is as good.
Mere longing, undiluted by thought and action,
pure, concentrated longing,
will take you speedily to your goal.
It is the true motive that matters, not the manner.
172
Q: Unbelievable!
How can dull repetition in boredom
verging on despair, be effective?
NM: The very facts of repetition,
of struggling on and on
and of endurance and perseverance,
in spite of boredom and despair
and complete lack of conviction
are really crucial.
They are not important by themselves,
but the sincerity behind them is all-important.
There must be a push from within and pull from without.
172
Q: What is the obstacle to spiritual practice?
NM: Spiritual practice is will asserted and re-asserted.
Who has not the daring will does not accept the real even when offered.
Unwillingness born out of fear is the only obstacle.
172
Q: What is there to be afraid of?
NM: The unknown.
The not-being,
not-knowing,
not-doing.
The beyond.
172
Q: Not everyone has the chance of meeting you.
NM: Meet your own self.
Be with your own self,
listen to it, obey it, cherish it,
keep it in mind ceaselessly.
You need no other guide.
As long as the urge for truth affects
your daily life, all is well with you.
Live your life without hurting anybody.
Harmlessness is a most powerful form of Yoga
and it will take you speedily to your goal.
This is what I call Nisarga yoga,
the Natural yoga.
It is the art of living in peace and harmony,
in friendliness and love.
The fruit of it is happiness, uncaused and endless.
173
Q: If a man tells me that what he knows
cannot be conveyed in words,
then I watch him closely and try to make it out?
NM: And this is exactly what I want you to do!
Be interested, give attention,
until a current of mutual understanding is established.
Then the sharing will be easy.
As a matter of fact, all realization is only sharing.
173
Q: What prevents me from knowing?
NM: What prevents you from knowing
is not the lack of opportunity,
but the lack of ability to focus in your mind
what you want to understand.
If you could but keep in mind
what you do not know,
it would reveal to you its secrets.
But if you are shallow and impatient,
not earnest enough to look and wait,
you are like a child crying for the moon.
173
Chapter 39
By Itself Nothing Has Existence
Q: Words merely add to the confusion and the
only wise course is the silent search within.
NM: After all, it is the mind that creates illusion
and it is the mind that gets free of it.
Words may aggravate illusion,
words may also help dispel it…
People need hearing words,
until facts speak to them louder than words.
174
Q: So, we are children to be fed on words?
NM: As long as you give importance to words,
you are children.
174
Q: Your answer is always the same.
A kind of clockwork which strikes
the same hours again and again?
NM: It cannot be helped.
Just like the one sun is reflected in a billion dew drops,
so is the timeless endlessly repeated…
You get tired of my words
because you do not see [experience]
the living truth behind them.
Contact it and you will find the full meaning
of words and of silence – both.
174-175
Q: The mind is consciousness in motion
and consciousness is the conditioned (saguna)
aspect of the Self.
The unconditioned (nirguna) is another aspect
and beyond lies the abyss of the absolute (paramartha)?
NM: Quite right – you have put it beautifully.
175
Q: But these are mere words to me.
Hearing and repeating them is not enough,
they must be experienced.
NM: Nothing stops you but preoccupation
with the outer which prevents you
from focusing on the inner.
It cannot be helped;
you cannot skip your sadhana.
You have to turn away from the world
and go within, until the inner and the outer
merge and you can go beyond the conditioned,
whether inner or outer.
175
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
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Image Source:
“File:’I Am That’ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Book Cover.jpg”
by Vyacheslav Argenberg is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Pennies:
https://unsplash.com/photos/TBHOuN6URGU
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Created: July 30, 2023
Last modified: July 30, 2023
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