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I AM That (34 + 35) > Ron > 06/11/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, June 11, 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!
Here is the second half of chapter 34 and the first half of chapter 35.
Stella has raised the question of the need for the ego to die.
Who/What is the ego?
Does it need to die?
Can it die?
What would it mean?
What would it be like?
Who would know?
Is it necessary?
Who says so?
Roy will be facilitating this Sunday,
Fasten your seatbelts!
Peace Peace Peace
Ron@Nondual.Community
Chapter 34 – Mind is Restlessness Itself
Q: Does Yoga help in the search for and the finding of the self?
NM: 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
Q: I expect to find peace?
NM: Can there be peace apart from yourself?
…Your book knowledge is useful to begin with, bu
t soon it must be given up for direct experience,
which by its very nature is inexpressible…
You got into this present state through verbal thinking;
you must get out of it the same way. 143-144
Q: What are the means of perceiving that immovable state
which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind?
NM: In life nothing can be had without overcoming obstacles.
The obstacles to the clear perception of one’s true being
are desire for pleasure and fear of pain.
It is the pleasure-pain motivation that stands in the way.
The very freedom from all motivation,
the state in which no desire arises is the natural state. 144
Q: Well, pleasure may be imaginary. But pain is real?
NM: Pain and pleasure go always together.
Freedom from one means freedom from both.
If you do not care for pleasure, you will not be afraid of pain.
But there is happiness which is neither, which is completely beyond…
It would be a grievous mistake to identify yourself with something external. 145
Q: Many teachers have I followed and studied many doctrines,
yet none gave me what I wanted?
NM: The desire to find the Self will surely be fulfilled,
provided you want nothing else.
But you must be honest with yourself and really want nothing else. 145
Q: But my desires and fears are still there?
NM: Where are they but in your memory?
Realize that their root is in expectation
born of memory – and they will cease to obsess you. 145
Q: What is ahimsa?
NM: Primarily, ahimsa is what it says: ‘don’t hurt’.
It is not doing good that comes first,
but ceasing to hurt, not adding to suffering.
Pleasing others is not ahimsa. 146
Q: How does one go beyond the need of help?
And can one help another to do so?
NM: When you have understood that all existence,
in separation and limitation, is painful,
and when you are willing and able to live integrally,
in oneness with all life, as pure being,
you have gone beyond all need of help.
You can help another by precept and example
and, above all, by your being. 146
Q: If what I am, as I am, the person I take myself to be,
cannot be happy, then what am I to do?
NM: You can only cease to be – as you seem to be now.
There is nothing cruel in what I say.
To wake up a man from a nightmare is compassion.
You came here because you are in pain,
and all I say is: wake up, know yourself, be yourself. 146
Q: In the ultimate state there can be no happiness?
NM: Nor sorrow. Only freedom.
Happiness depends on something or other and can be lost;
freedom from everything depends on nothing and cannot be lost.
Freedom from sorrow has no cause and, therefore,
cannot be destroyed. Realize that freedom. 147
Q: My knowledge is limited, my power negligible?
NM: Have your being outside the body of birth and death
and all your problems will be solved.
They exist because you believe yourself born to die.
Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person. 147
Chapter 35 – Greatest Guru Is Your Inner Self
Q: Ignorance of oneself causes desires
and desires perpetuate ignorance.
I find the condition impossible of fulfillment?
NM: There are no conditions to fulfill.
There is nothing to be done,
nothing to be given up…
It is your idea that you have to do things
that entangle you in the results of your efforts…
Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it. 148
Q: Where is the self?
NM: There is no self in the ideas in the mind,
and the words that express them…
To look for it on the mental level is futile.
Stop searching, and see – it is here and now –
it is that ‘I am’ you know so well.
All you need to do is to cease taking yourself
to be within the field of consciousness. 148
Q: Has devotion (bhakti) any place in your teaching?
NM: Without trust there is no peace.
Somebody or other you always trust…
Of all the people the knower of the Self,
the liberated man, is the most trustworthy.
But merely trust is not enough.
You must also desire…
The greatest Guru is helpless
as long as the disciple is not eager to learn.
Eagerness and earnestness are all-important. 149
Q: Who is the greatest Guru?
NM: The greatest Guru is your inner self…
He alone can take you to your goal
and he alone meets you at the end of the road…
And do not waste energy and time on regrets.
Learn from your mistakes and do not repeat them. 149
Q: What is the greatest injury?
NM: Forgetting your Self is the greatest injury;
all the calamities flow from it.
Take care of the most important,
the lesser will take care of itself…
So, let us wait with improving others
until we have seen ourselves as we are – and have changed. 150
Q: Are not the body and the dweller in the body one?
NM: The body and the embodied are not the same order of reality.
The body exists in time and space, transient and limited,
while the dweller is timeless and spaceless,
eternal and all-pervading.
To identify the two is a grievous mistake
and the cause of endless suffering. 150
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link for Sunday ❤️
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Created: June 10, 2023
Last modified: July 16, 2023
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