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I AM THAT >>> Let’s take a week break. << 09/03/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, September 10, 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!
Labor Day Weekend.
I have family responsibilities, maybe you do as well?
Let’s take a week break.
Below are some highlights to reflect on during the upcoming week.
In addition, here is a remarkable youtube for reflection.
I encourage you to listen to it (more than once)
when you are in a quiet and receptive mood.
Enjoy!
See you next Sunday (09-10-2023).
Peace Peace Peace
Chapter 41
Develop the Witness Attitude
Q: Does not a jnani feel sorrow
when his child dies, does he not suffer?
NM: He suffers with those who suffer.
The event itself is of little importance,
but he is full of compassion for the suffering being,
whether alive or dead, in the body or out of it.
After all, love and compassion are his very nature.
He is one with all that lives
and love is that oneness in action.
183
Q: Imagine you are ill…
The doctor tells you the condition is serious,
there are only a few days left to live.
What would be your first reaction?
NM: No reaction.
As it is natural for the incense stick
to burn out, so it is natural for the body to die.
Really, it is a matter of very little importance.
What matters is that I am neither the body nor the mind.
I am. 183-184
Q: The family will be desperate, of course.
What would you tell them?
NM: The usual stuff: fear not, life goes on,
God will protect you,
we shall soon be together again and so on.
But to me the entire commotion is meaningless,
for I am not the entity
that imagines itself alive or dead.
I am neither born nor can I die.
I have nothing to remember or forget.
184
Q: The particular may not matter to the whole,
but it does matter to the particular.
The whole is an abstraction,
the particular, the concrete, is real.
NM: That is what you say.
To me it may be the other way
– the whole is real,
the part comes and goes.
The particular is born and reborn,
changing name and shape,
the jnani is the Changeless Reality,
which makes the changeful possible.
But he cannot give you the conviction.
It must come with your own experience.
With me all is one, all is equal.
184
Q: Are sin and virtue one and the same?
NM: These are all man-made values!
What are they to me?
What ends in happiness is virtue,
what ends in sorrow is sin.
Both are states of mind.
Mine is not a state of mind.
184
Q: Is the practice of silence as a sadhana effective?
NM: Anything you do for the sake of enlightenment
takes you nearer.
Anything you do without remembering enlightenment
puts you off.
But why complicate?
Just know that you are above and beyond
all things and thoughts.
What you want to be, you are it already.
Just keep it in mind.
185
Q: I hear you saying it, but I cannot believe.
NM: I was in the same position myself.
But I trusted my Guru and he proved right.
Trust me if you can.
Keep in mind what I tell you:
desire nothing, for you lack nothing.
The very seeking prevents you from finding.
185
Q: You seem to be so very indifferent to everything!
NM: I am not indifferent. I am impartial.
I give no preference to the me and the mine.
A basket of earth and a basket of jewels are both unwanted.
Life and death are the same to me.
185
Q: Impartially makes you indifferent.
NM: On the contrary, compassion and love are my very core.
Void of all predilections, I am free to love.
185
Q: If you would talk like this in the West,
people would take you for mad.
NM: Of course they would!
To the ignorant all that
they cannot understand is madness.
What of it?
Let them be as they are.
I am as I am, for no merit of mine
and they are as they are, for no fault of theirs.
The Supreme Reality manifests
itself in innumerable ways.
Infinite in number are its names and shapes.
All arise, all merge in the same ocean,
the source of all is one.
Looking for causes and results
is but the pastime of the mind.
What is, is lovable.
Love is not a result,
it is the very ground of being.
Wherever you go, you will find being,
consciousness and love.
Why and what for make preferences?
185-186
Q: How can anything be without cause?
NM: In every event the entire universe is reflected.
The ultimate cause is untraceable.
The very idea of causation
is only a way of thinking and speaking.
We cannot imagine uncaused emergence.
This, however, does not prove the existence of causation.
186
Q: Man has a mind. Why is it so perverse?
NM: You are too quick to condemn.
Do not worry about others.
Deal with your own mind first.
When you realize that your mind too
is a part of nature, the duality will cease.
186
Q: There is some mystery in it
which I cannot fathom…
Forces beyond my control determine my behavior.
NM: Develop the witness attitude and you will find
in your own experience that detachment brings control.
The state of witnessing is full of power,
there is nothing passive about it.
186
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
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“File:’I Am That’ by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Book Cover.jpg”
by Vyacheslav Argenberg is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
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Created: September 4, 2023
Last modified: September 4, 2023
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