Awareness is Free – Nisargadatta Maharaj

“The main thing is to be free of negative emotions — desire, fear etc., the ‘six enemies’ of the mind. Once the mind is free of them, the rest will come easily. Just as cloth kept in soap water will become clean, so will the mind get purified in the stream of pure feeling.
When you sit quiet and watch yourself, all kinds of things may come to the surface. Do nothing about them, don’t react to them; as they have come so will they go, by themselves. All that matters is mindfulness, total awareness of oneself or rather, of one’s mind.
You can observe the observation, but not the observer. You know you are the ultimate observer by direct insight, not by a logical process based on observation. You are what you are, but you know what you are not. The Self is known as being, the not-self is known as transient. But in reality all is in the mind. The observed, observation and observer are mental constructs. The Self alone is.
To divide and particularize is in the mind’s very nature. There is no harm in dividing. But separation goes against fact. Things and people are different, but they are not separate. Nature is one, reality is one. There are opposites, but no opposition.
Use every opportunity to remind yourself that you are in bondage, that whatever happens to you is due to the fact of your bodily existence. Desire, fear, trouble, joy, they cannot appear unless you are there to appear to. Yet, whatever happens, points to your existence as a perceiving center. Disregard the pointers and be aware of what they are pointing to. It is quite simple, but it needs be done. What matters is the persistence with which you keep on returning to yourself.
The body is a material thing and needs time to change. The mind is but a set of mental habits, of ways of thinking and feeling, and to change they must be brought to the surface and examined. This also takes time. Just resolve and persevere, the rest will take care of itself.
Don’t bully yourself. Violence will make you hard and rigid. Do not fight with what you take to be obstacles on your way. Just be interested in them, watch them, observe, enquire. Let anything happen — good or bad. But don’t let yourself be submerged by what happens.
The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there is the background of awareness, which does not change. The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun during solar eclipse. Just realize that nothing observable, or experienceable is you, or binds you. Take no notice of what is not yourself.
To be aware is to be awake. Unaware means asleep. You are aware anyhow, you need not try to be. What you need is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness. You are always conscious of the mind, but you are not aware of yourself as being conscious.
The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly, even when you do not look at them. When you know what is going on in your mind, you call it consciousness. This is your waking state — your consciousness shifts from sensation to sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to idea, in endless succession.
Then comes awareness, the direct insight into the whole of consciousness, the totality of the mind. The mind is like a river, flowing ceaselessly in the bed of the body; you identify yourself for a moment with some particular ripple and call it: ‘my thought’. All you are conscious of is your mind; awareness is the cognizance of consciousness as a whole.
There is consciousness, in which everything appears and disappears. Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness. As waves they come and go. As ocean they are infinite and eternal. Know yourself as the ocean of being, the womb of all existence. These are all metaphors of course; the reality is beyond description. You can know it only by being it.
If you want to live sanely, creatively and happily- search for what you are. While the mind is centered in the body and consciousness is centered in the mind, awareness is free. The body has its urges and mind its pains and pleasures. Awareness is unattached and unshaken. It is lucid, silent, peaceful, alert and unafraid, without desire and fear. Meditate on it as your true being and try to be it in your daily life, and you shall realize it in its fullness.
Mind is interested in what happens, while awareness is interested in the mind itself. The child is after the toy, but the mother watches the child, not the toy.
One is what one is timelessly. It is the mind that realizes as it gets cleared of desires and fears. The man who seeks realization is not addicted to desires; he is a seeker who goes against desire, not with it. A general longing for liberation is only the beginning; to find the proper means and use them is the next step. The seeker has only one goal in view: to find his own true being. Of all desires it is the most ambitious, for nothing and nobody can satisfy it; the seeker and the sought are one and the search alone matters.
The seeker will dissolve, the search will remain. The search is the ultimate and timeless reality. The search for reality is itself the movement of reality. In a way all search is for the real bliss, or the bliss of the real. But here we mean by search the search for oneself as the root of being conscious, as the light beyond the mind. This search will never end, while the restless craving for all else must end, for real progress to take place.
One has to understand that the search for reality, or God, or Guru and the search for the Self are the same; when one is found, all are found. When ‘I am’ and ‘God is’ become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one.
Since you are neither body nor mind, destiny has no control over you. You are completely free. The cup is conditioned by its shape, material, use and so on. But the space within the cup is free. It happens to be in the cup only when viewed in connection with the cup. Otherwise it is just space. As long as there is a body, you appear to be embodied. Without the body you are not disembodied — you just are.
As long as you are a beginner certain formalized meditations, or prayers may be good for you. But for a seeker for reality there is only one meditation — the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts. To be free from thoughts is itself meditation.
You begin by letting thoughts flow and watching them. The very observation slows down the mind till it stops altogether. Once the mind is quiet, keep it quiet. Don’t get bored with peace, be in it, go deeper into it.
Don’t go by past experience. Watch your thoughts and watch yourself watching the thoughts. The state of freedom from all thoughts will happen suddenly and by the bliss of it you shall recognise it.
I am reading newspapers, I know what is going on [with wars and suffering in the world]. But my reaction is not like yours. You are looking for a cure, while I am concerned with prevention. As long as there are causes, there must also be results. As long as people are bent on dividing and separating, as long as they are selfish and aggressive, such things will happen. If you want peace and harmony in the world, you must have peace and harmony in your hearts and minds.
Such change cannot be imposed; it must come from within. Those who abhor war must get war out of their system. Without peaceful people how can you have peace in the world? As long as people are as they are, the world must be as it is. I am doing my part in trying to help people to know themselves as the only cause of their own misery. In that sense I am a useful man. But what I am in myself, what is my normal state cannot be expressed in terms of social consciousness and usefulness.
I may talk about it, use metaphors or parables, but I am acutely aware that it is just not so. Not that it cannot be experienced. It is experiencing itself! But it cannot be described in the terms of a mind that must separate and oppose in order to know.
The world is like a sheet of paper on which something is typed. The reading and the meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper is the common factor, always present, rarely perceived. When the ribbon is removed, typing leaves no trace on the paper. So is my mind — the impressions keep on coming, but no trace is left.
This world of yours, that so much needs looking after, lives and moves in your mind. Delve into it, you will find your answers there and there only. Man becomes what he believes himself to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself and you will find yourself to be the pure witness, beyond all that can happen to the body or the mind.”

-Nisargadatta Maharaj, 1971~
Excerpts from “I Am That” Chapter 48

బాల కృష్ణాష్టకం (simply melodious)

లీలయ  కుచేల  మౌని  పాలితం  కృపాకరం  నీల  నీల  మింద్ర  నీల  నీలకాంతి  మోహనం
బాలనీల  చారు  కొమలాలకం  విలాసగోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే   ||
ఇందుకుంద  మందహాస  మిందిరా  ధరధారం  నందగోపనందనం సనందనాది  వందితం  |
నందగోధనం   సురారి  మర్ధనం  సమస్త గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే   ||
వారి  హార  హీరా  చారు  కీర్తితం  విరాజితం  ద్వారకా  విహారమంబుజారి  సూర్య  లోచనం  |
భురిమేరు  ధీరమాది  కారణం  సుసేవ్య   గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే   ||
శేషభోగ   సాయినం విశేష  భూషనొజ్వలమ్  ఘోషమాన కింకిణి  విభీషనాది పోషణం  |
శోశనాక్రుథామ్బుధిమ్  విభీషనార్చితం పదం  గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే  ||
పండితాఖిలస్తుతం  పుండరీక  భాస్వరం  కుండలప్రభాసమాన తున్డగండమండలం |
పుండరీక  సన్నుతం  జగన్నుతం  మనోగ్న్యకం గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే  ||
 ఆంజనేయ  ముఖ్య  పాల  వానరేంద్ర  కృంతనం  కుంజరారి భంజనమ్  నిరంజనం  శుభాకరం  |
మంజు  కంజ  పత్ర నేత్ర  రాజితం  విరాజితం గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే  ||
రామణీయ యజ్ఞధామ భామిని  వరప్రదం  మనోహరం  గుణాభిరామ మున్నతోన్నతం  గురుం  |
సామ  గాన  వేణు  నాద లొలమర్చితాశ్టకమ్ గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే  ||
రంగ  డింఢి రాంగమంగళాంగ   సౌర్యభాసదా  సంగదాసురోత్తమాంగా భంగక  ప్రదాయకం  |
తుంగవైర  వాభిరమ  మంగళామ్రుతమ్  సదా   - గోపాలబాలచార  చొర  బాలక్రిష్ణమాశ్రయే  ||
బాలకృష్ణ  పుణ్యనామ లాలితం శుభాస్తకం  యె పఠన్తి  సాత్వికోత్తమాసదా  ముధాచ్యుతం  |
రాజమాన  పుత్ర సంపాదాది శోభనానితే సాధయంతి  విష్ణులోకమవ్యయం  నరాస్చాతే || 

Pale Blue Dot--Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan titled his 1994 book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space after the photograph. In it, he expresses his thoughts on a deeper meaning of the image:--

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Nasadiya sukta( Song of creation)

------------ In Hindi --------------
सृष्टि से पहले सत नहीं था

असत भी नहीं

अंतरिक्ष भी नहीं

आकाश भी नहीं था

छिपा था क्या, कहाँ किसने ढका था

उस पल तो अगम अतल जल भी कहां था

नही थी मृत्यु , जी अमरता भी नही,

नही था दिन, रात भी नही,

हवा भी नही, साँस थी स्वयमेव फिर भी,

नही था कोई कुछ भी , परम तत्त्व से अलग , या परे भी

कर्म बनकर बीज पहला जो उगा,

काम बनकर वो जगा।

कवियों, ज्ञानियों ने जाना ,

असत और सत का निकट सम्बन्ध पहचाना

पहले सम्बन्ध में - हिरण्य

परम तत्त्व उसपर

ऊपर या नीचे ....... वह था बंटा हुआ ।

पुरूष और स्त्री बना हुआ ....

ऊपर .......नीचे ......

सृष्टि यह बनी कैसे ,

किससे आई है कहाँ से ।

क्या कोई जानता है ,बता सकता है ।

देवों को नही ज्ञान,

वे आए सृजन में क्यों ??

सृष्टि का कौन है कर्ता? कर्ता है या है विकर्ता?

ऊँचे आकाश में रहता

सदा अध्यक्ष बना रहता

वही सचमुच में जानता 

या नहीं भी जानता

है किसी को नही पता

नही पता

नही है पता

नही है पता

-वह था हिरण्य गर्भ सृष्टि से पहले विद्यमान

वही तो सारे भूत जात का स्वामी महान

जो है अस्तित्वमान धरती आसमान धारण कर

ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करे हम हवि देकर

जिसके बल पर तेजोमय है अम्बर

पृथ्वी हरी भरी स्थापित स्थिर

स्वर्ग और सूरज भी स्थिर

ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करे हम हवि देकर 

गर्भ में अपने अग्नि धारण कर पैदा कर

व्यापाथा जल इधर उधर नीचे ऊपर

जगा जो देवों का एकमेव प्राण बनकर

ऐसे किस देवता की उपासना करे हम हवि देकर 

ओअम ! सृष्टि निर्माता स्वर्ग रचयिता पूर्वज रक्षा कर

सत्य धर्म पालक अतुल जल नियामक रक्षा कर

फैली है दिशाएं बाहु जैसी उसकी सब में सब पर

ऐसे ही देवता की उपासना करे हम हवि देकर

ऐसे ही देवता की उपासना करे हम हवि देकर

Neither existence nor nonexistence was there

Neither matter nor space around

What covered it, where it was and who protected?

Why, that plasma, all pervading, deep and profound?

Neither death nor immortality was there

And there was neither day nor night

But for that breathless one breathing on its own.

There was nothing else, surely nothing

It was darkness concealed in darkness

And an uninterrupted continuum of fluid

Out came in material form and shape

That one lying deep inside, on its own intent.

In the cosmic mind, all pervading Desire,

 the primal seed made its first appearance

And the wise men, seeking deep in their heart

Could see the link between ‘that is’ and ‘that is not’.

Reins of the link, a grid of crisscross lines,

Holds all the seeds and mighty forces,

Microcosmic forces within

And macro forces out above.

Who really knows,

who can declare When it started or where from?

And where will the creation end?

Seekers and sought entered later –

And so who knows when all this manifested?

That one, out of which the creation came May hold the reins or not,

Perceiving all from above, That one alone

Knows the beginning – may not know too.

Consciousness

The senses cannot feel It and mind cannot understand it.Consciousness alone is everywhere and rises as 'I" within you.It is the shining of the sun and the motion of the earth.It is beyond space and time which derive their existence from it.The mind cannot go to touch it, or to reach it,and will miss it if it tries to find it.These attempts are movements hiding the Stillness.It is found only by itself when mind does not move.Check all movements of the mind for one moment only,stop all desires and all thought for one second only,and you are beyond the cycle of birth and death forever.This cycle is samsara, your own imagination.It has no beginning and only Self knowledge will end it.The question "Who am I?" will end it.So firmly decide, "I have to do it Now."This human birth is such a blessing, don't waste it!Postponement is samsara, the cycle of suffering.Whenever you are in trouble ask, "Am I dreaming?"This is "Who am I?" and it will wake you upand make you fall in love with your own Self.Then you will know all "others,"and will take this candle wherever you go!~ Papaji

KEEP QUIET..PAPAJI

When I speak about quietness - when I tell you to keep quiet - it is not easy for everyone to follow. Most people here are from different backgrounds, practices, sadhanas; and therefore feel they need to do something, to put something into practice. When I say, "Keep quiet." it is not a practice. There is nothing to be done and nothing to be undone. This cannot be followed. There is nothing to think about, no need to make any kind of effort. This is an indication of the quietness I am speaking about. Truth always exists. Existence alone is. It is called satyam.
We speak about enlightenment, but first we have created bondage. Bondage does not exist. How can you remove that which does not exist? First, teachers impose a concept of bondage and then various practices are prescribed. There may be millions of books in the world, thousands more are published every day. Nowhere does it say, "Be quiet". When you simply say "Keep quiet," what is the rest of the book to be about?
There is no ignorance at all; there is only existence - there is only satyam. If you simply keep quiet you will know that only this exists. Before the sun rises early in the morning it does not first try to remove the darkness of the night. The sun does not say, "Let me brush away the darkness and only then, in the daytime, I will rise." For the sun there is no light, there is no darkness to be removed. The sun does not even know that such a thing as night exists. What practice is needed to remove darkness, where is this darkness? All practices imply the reality of darkness, of ignorance, when in fact they do not exist. The river in the sand is a mirage; it does not exist, it never existed. If you go closer and closer the sand not even is wet; it is only a belief that makes us run after a mirage, nothing else. There is only satyam; there is only Truth. What need is there of practice? It is only practice which is concealing the truth.
You have been given a concept by most of the teachers that there is darkness, and that you have to spend your whole life clearing this darkness. No one speaks about light; everyone is trying to remove darkness and ignorance when it does not really exist.
First of all, look for yourself! Has anyone seen any ignorance? Sometimes when people who come to see me come closer to keeping quiet they say, "I do not understand." What is there to understand? Simply keep quiet - this is what you really are. How can there be any doubt? In keeping quiet you discover what you really are.
Through spiritual practices you overlook the one who is causing this to happen. Who is involving your limbs in the practice, your intellect in the practice? Who is causing your mind to be involved in trying to get understanding? If the one causing activity is not there you cannot conduct any practice. This is why I tell you to simply keep quiet. Then you will know what you truly are and what you have always been, and this is indestructible. All else will be destroyed, only Existence itself remains. The Truth will always remain - it Is - it is eternal. That which is not this truth does not exist at all.
You have two choices: Either you follow most teachers and spend your life trying to remove or clean out the mind. First you will have to find out if the mind exists. No one has seen the mind. Even if you found it, how do you propose to clean it? Everyone is practicing cleaning the mind but there is no one so far who has cleaned it. Where is this mind to be cleaned?
The second choice is to keep quiet and you will know who really you are. This is very simple. It is not going to take you time; in fact time does not appear. There is nothing outside that can help you, you have just to keep quiet - that's all - and you will know then you are eternal. You are Eternal Existence itself.

PAPAJII

Q&A With Jiddu

Question: Man must know what God is, before he can knowGod. How are you going to introduce the idea of God to man without bringing God to man's level?

Krishnamurti: You cannot, Sir. Now, what is the impetus behind the search for God, and is that search real? For most of us, it is an escape from actuality. So, we must be very clear in ourselves whether this search after God is an escape, or whether it is a search for truth in everything - truth in our relationships, truth in the value of things, truth in ideas. If we are seeking God merely because we are tired of this world and its miseries, then it is an escape. Then we create god, and therefore it is not God. The god of the temples, of the books, is not God, obviously - it is a marvellous escape. But if we try to find the truth, not in one exclusive set of actions, but in all our actions, ideas and relationships, if we seek the right evaluation of food, clothing and shelter, then, because our minds are capable of clarity and understanding, when we seek reality we shall find it. It will not then be an escape. But if we are confused with regard to the things of the world - food, clothing, shelter, relationship, and ideas - how can we find reality? We can only invent "reality." So, God, truth, or reality, is not to be known by a mind that is confused, conditioned, limited. How can such a mind think of reality or God? It has first to decondition itself. It has to free itself from its own limitations, and only then can it know what God is, obviously not before. Reality is the unknown, and that which is known is not the real.
So, a mind that wishes to know reality has to free itself from its own conditioning, and that conditioning is imposed either externally or internally; and as long as the mind creates contention, conflict in relationship, it cannot know reality. So, if one is to know reality, the mind must be tranquil; but if the mind is compelled, disciplined to be tranquil, that tranquillity is in itself a limitation, it is merely self-hypnosis. The mind becomes free and tranquil only when it understands the values with which it is surrounded. So, to understand that which is the highest, the supreme, the real, we must begin very low, very near; that is, we have to find the value of things, of relationship, and of ideas, with which we are occupied every day. And without understanding them, how can the mind seek reality? It can invent "reality", it can copy, it can imitate; because it has read so many books, it can repeat the experience of others. But surely, that is not the real. To experience the real, the mind must cease to create; because, whatever it creates is still within the bondage of time. The problem is not whether there is or is not God, but how man may discover God; and if in his search he disentangles himself from everything, he will inevitably find that reality. But he must begin with the near and not with the far. Obviously, to go far one must begin near. But most of us want to speculate, which is a very convenient escape.That is why religions offer such a marvellous drug for most people. So, the task of disentangling the mind from all the values which it has created is an extremely arduous one, and because our minds are weary, or we are lazy, we prefer to read religious books and speculate about God; but that, surely, is not the discovery of reality. Realizing is experiencing, not imitating....