| “Teaching
Essence”
- In the vast ocean of cause and effect, actions happen and impermanent
results follow. If one takes them as ‘my’ actions the
idea of having a free will gets stronger. This sense of personal doership
gives rise to a feeling of guilt or pride and effectively blocks the
spiritual understanding that everything happens according to the will
of God.
- When there is total acceptance that all actions happen purely by
the will of God, and if the fruits and the consequences are accepted
as His grace, the mind gets purified and attains freedom from expectations.
- Accepting and understanding that God has created the world
for His sport and God is playing the lila through billions
of body-mind organisms, is better than chanting the sacred names of
the Lord, which in turn is superior to worshipping the image of the
Lord with body, mind and speech.
- When there is an understanding that God himself has become the manifestation;
when, by His grace, one feels His presence in the phenomenal existence
one obtains the blessings of worshipping the Lord of eight-fold forms
without neglecting one's responsibilities.
- Understanding that nothing happens according to ‘my’
will and merely witnessing the billions of body-mind organisms act
under God's will is excellent. It is superior to singing the glories
of the Lord or reciting His sacred names.
- When there is an understanding that God's will prevails all the
time and witnessing happens without any ‘one’ to witness,
it is like the stream of ghee (clairified butter) or the
flow of a river. This is true meditation. It is much better than meditating
with an assumption that one has free will.
- The nondualistic approach of understanding that ‘I AM’
is God is far more purifying and superior than the dualistic approach
of assuming the difference between God and the ‘me’ and
struggling to be one with Him.
- By the grace of God or the Master when one is firmly established
in the ‘I AM,’ devoid of the thinking mind, with an impersonal
knowing that there is no ‘me’ to get involved, that is
Supreme Devotion.
- The dissolving of the thinking mind in the Heart, purely by the
grace of God or the Master, is true devotion, Yoga and understanding.
- Through the act of regulating breath the mind is subdued, just as
a bird is restrained when caught in a net. This helps in checking
the involvement of the thinking mind at that moment.
- Thought and breath have their origin in Consciousness.
- When the mind is absorbed, in work or otherwise, and the thinking
mind is not active it may be said that the mind is in control temporarily,
only to become active again. When, through the deep understanding
that “God is the doer and no ‘one’ has any control
over thoughts and actions” the thinking mind is totally annihilated,
then it can be said that the thinking mind in that body-mind organism
is dead and only the working mind remains.
- The thinking mind can be temporarily suspended through the control
of breath. It can be annihilated only when there is total understanding
that God's will prevails all the time and the different forms are
only puppets having no free will of their own. With this understanding
three beautiful things happen: there is no ‘one’ to feel
guilty or proud, to get frustrated or to have a sense of enmity. Life
becomes simple.
- The Sage, whose
thinking mind has been destroyed by the total acceptance of the fact
that nothing happens unless it is the will of God, and Who rests in
the ‘I AM’ does all the actions with the knowledge that
Consciousness alone functions through the billions of body-mind organisms.
- When the enquiry, “What is the thinking mind?” occurs,
the thinking mind understands intuitively that it has no free will
and stops thinking itself to be the doer and gives way to the feeling
of ‘I AM.’ This is the Direct path.
- In the ordinary
man when a thought occurs the ego takes delivery of it as ‘my
thought’ and gets involved. The thinking mind is nothing but
the ego identifying with a thought and getting involved. In the enlightened
Sage, when a thought arises, witnessing happens and involvement with
the thought does not take place. Ramana Maharshi says, “The
Sage has no thinking mind and therefore there are no ‘others’
for him.”
- When one enquires,
“Where has the ‘me’ come from?” it will vanish
into Consciousness revealing the truth that the ‘me’ has
really come from Totality as part of the Divine Hypnosis. Consciousness
has created the ego and Consciousness will annihilate the ego by initiating
the process of Self-enquiry.
- When we accept that
God's will prevails all the time and not the individual will, the
‘me’ as the doer gets smaller and smaller till it gets
completely merged in Consciousness.
- When the sense of
personal doership disappears with the total acceptance that “All
there is, is Consciousness,” the thinking mind ceases to exist
during the waking hours as in deep sleep. What remains is the light
of pure Consciousness, the indestructible ‘I AM.’
|