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I AM That (37) > Ron > 07/09/2023
Posted by Holger:
Sunday, July 9, 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!
The Relative has turned up the heat in our neck of the woods…
Maybe the message is to slow down?
The summaries seem to be getting longer and longer…
I am having difficulty figuring out which words to leave out!
Holger will be facilitating this Sunday…
Maybe he can tell us which words to leave out!
Hope Stella is enjoying her stay on her private island…
we will have you in our thoughts!
Cool Cool Cool
Chapter 37
Beyond Pain and Pleasure there is Bliss
Q: Where do I begin?
NM: You must realize first of all that you are the proof of everything, including yourself…you are timeless being and awareness. 160
Q: What you say is true; what I understand is false…
There is a gap between us. How to close the gap?
NM: Give up the idea of being what you think yourself to be and there will be no gap.
By imagining yourself as separate you have created the gap.
You need not cross it.
Just don’t create it.
All is you and yours.
There is nobody else.
This is a fact. 161
Q: The very same words which to you are true, to me are false?
NM: Let them be true or untrue.
Words don’t matter.
What matters is the idea you have of yourself, for it blocks you.
Give it up… Move on! 161
Q: Easier said than done?
NM: Don’t be childish!
Easier to change, than to suffer.
Grow out of your childishness, that is all. 161
Q: Such things are not done.
They happen?
NM: Everything happens all the time, but you must be ready for it.
Readiness is ripeness.
You do not see the real because your mind is not ready for it. 161
Q: If reality is my real nature, how can I ever be unready?
NM: Unready means afraid.
You are afraid of what you are.
Your destination is the whole.
But you are afraid that you will lose your identity.
This is childishness, clinging to the toys,
to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas.
Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself.
This self-assertion is best expressed in words as: ‘I am’.
Nothing else has being.
Of this you are absolutely certain. 161
Q: I am moving from now into now – I do not move at all.
Everything else moves – not me?
NM: Granted. But your mind does move.
In the now you are both the moveable and the immovable.
So far you took yourself to be the movable and overlooked the immovable.
Turn your mind inside out.
Overlook the movable and you will find yourself to be the ever-present,
changeless reality, inexpressible, but solid like a rock. 162
Q: You are wise and I am stupid; you see, I don’t.
Where and how shall I find my wisdom?
NM: If you know yourself to be stupid,
you are not stupid at all! 162
Q: There may be such a state as the abeyance of the mind.
Does consciousness then appear as the witness?
NM: The witness only registers events.
In the abeyance of the mind even the sense ‘I am’ dissolves.
There is no ‘I am’ without the mind. 163
Q: All I know is that sometimes the mind works and sometimes it stops.
The experience of mental silence I call the abeyance of the mind?
NM: Call it silence, or void, or abeyance,
the fact is that the three – experiencer, experiencing, experience – are not.
In witnessing, in awareness, self-consciousness, the sense of being this or that, is not.
Unidentified being remains. 164
Q: My mind reels!
NM: Your difficulty stems from the idea
that reality is a state of consciousness,
one among many.
You tend to say:
“This is real.
That is not real.
And this is partly real,
partly unreal”,
as if reality were an attribute or quality
to have in varying degrees. 164
Q: What is your objection to consciousness?
NM: It is a burden… All consciousness is of conflict…
As long as there is consciousness, there must be pleasure and pain.
It is in the nature of the ‘I am’,
of consciousness, to identify itself with the opposites…
Beyond pain and pleasure there is bliss. 165
Q: I am the pain-pleasure man?
NM: Pain and pleasure are both ananda (bliss).
Here I am sitting in front of you and telling you
– from my own immediate and unchanging experience –
pain and pleasure are the crests and valleys
of the waves in the ocean of bliss.
Deep down there is utter fullness. 165
Q: All I know is desire for pleasure and fear of pain?
NM: That is what you think of yourself. Stop it…
Questioning the habitual is the duty of the mind.
What the mind created, the mind must destroy.
Or realize there is no desire
outside of the mind and stay out [of the mind]. 166
Q: Honestly, I distrust this explaining everything as mind-made…
What it means to you I do not know?
NM: As long as you take your stand in the mind,
you will see me in the mind. 166
Q: How inadequate are words for understanding!
NM: Without words, what is there to understand?
The need for understanding arises from mis-understanding.
What I say is true, but to you it is only a theory.
Q: How will I come to know that it is true?
NM: Listen, remember, ponder, visualize, experience.
Also apply it in your daily life.
Have patience with me and, above all,
have patience with yourself,
for you are your only obstacle.
The way leads through yourself beyond yourself.
As long as you believe only the particular to be real,
conscious and happy and reject the non-dual reality as something imagined,
an abstract concept,
you will find me doling out concepts and abstractions.
But once you have touched the real within your own being,
you will find me describing what for you is the nearest and dearest. 166
Please RSVP to Ron@Nondual.Community
and you will receive a free Zoom link ❤️
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Created: July 8, 2023
Last modified: July 16, 2023
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