A great quote by Ramana Maharshi

[Someone here]

[ConsciousDreamer666]

👌🙏💫

[Mandy]

❤️

[Someone here]

See, Ramana Maharshi said what he had to convey, but how many understood?

Yes…. maybe only 1% of the whole human population will understand.. or maybe this too is a huge number.

Following someone IS bondage. if you are following this path of sadhana or that path of sadhana, this person for this philosophy or that person for that philosophy, then please understand…. Ramana is not for you. 

For bondage, you need something that binds you. maybe love…. may be anger… may be sadhana too 

For liberation, you need nothing.

The Idea of getting something by doing something can work in the world of the mind. But when you need to be liberated from this very mind…. doing things with the mind for getting liberation from the mind is foolishness.

[Mandy]

7 minutes ago, Someone here said:

See, Ramana Maharshi said what he had to convey, but how many understood?

 

0

[Someone here]

@Mandy  I fully understood the first sentence.

But what do you think he means by "getting rid of the false notion that we are bound "? How to get rid of an illusion? 

Any clarification? 

[Phil]

@Someone here

The ‘wish for liberation’ is a thought. Thoughts appear. 

That the thought is discordant, is the evidence the thought is in discord with that which is already unbound. 

It (the thought) doesn’t fit. Isn’t aligned. 

 

‘It’, which is not to be freshly acquired, is that which is not acquire-able. 

All but self is acquire-able. 

Self isn’t raised, attained, obtained, increased, or found somewhere. 

Self is already present & unconditional, and is only obscured by the wish. 

 

To ‘get rid of the false notion’ is to let the thought, ‘the wish for liberation’, go. 

Simply by the felt recognition, the acknowledgement of how the thought feels, acknowledging the discord & allowing the willingness to let go. 

 

Self can not get rid of an illusion. The illusion is that, whatever that is, is not self. 

[Mandy]

@Someone here The sense of separation or externally imposed bounds is the illusion. We cannot "get rid" of illusion because in the attempt to exclude it, we create it. DON'T think about using exclamation marks in your reply. You weren't thinking about that, but now that I've tried to control you in some manner, you ARE thinking about using them now, aren't you? Anything we tell ourselves in an attempt to control based on the assumption of separation is the same way. You can't get rid of the illusion that there's water in the desert but you can "get rid of" or rather dispel the belief that if you chase it a little further, and suffer a little longer, you'll get a drink. The realization of your true nature is not ever a possession.  No one "gets" it. No one understands it. All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion, the false understanding, in other words, stop believing that the drink of water is found in the future, no longer believing that separation is actual and so suffering should be put up with, and emotional guidance ignored for the future pursuit for the non actual separate self.

[Someone here]

16 minutes ago, Phil said:

@Someone here

The ‘wish for liberation’ is a thought. Thoughts appear. 

That the thought is discordant, is the evidence the thought is in discord with that which is already unbound. 

It (the thought) doesn’t fit. Isn’t aligned. 

 

‘It’, which is not to be freshly acquired, is that which is not acquire-able. 

All but self is acquire-able. 

Self isn’t raised, attained, obtained, increased, or found somewhere. 

Self is already present & unconditional, and is only obscured by the wish. 

 

To ‘get rid of the false notion’ is to let the thought, ‘the wish for liberation’, go. 

Simply by the felt recognition, the acknowledgement of how the thought feels, acknowledging the discord & allowing the willingness to let go. 

 

Self can not get rid of an illusion. The illusion is that, whatever that is, is not self. 

Nice 🙂. This is actually in line with Ramana's teaching. Although he spoke more about "the Self" and less about no-self. 

But he does say Time and again, we don’t need to discover the truth.

We only need to give up our habit of seeing the untrue as true.

There is only Awareness.etc

Whatever we think it is, it will graciously appear that way to us.

There’s no use searching in the magic mirror to find the truth that we seek.

What we encounter in our search will be whatever we put there.

I like the idea of letting go of the wish of liberation. Ramana didn't say that we should search for liberation. As it's clearly stated that "our true nature is freedom from all bondage ". 

But I have a question.. Why are you awake and I am not? How does people like you or ramana or @Mandygain this understanding and clarity ? 

17 minutes ago, Mandy said:

@Someone here The sense of separation or externally imposed bounds is the illusion. We cannot "get rid" of illusion because in the attempt to exclude it, we create it. DON'T think about using exclamation marks in you reply. You weren't but now that I've tried to control you in some manner, you ARE thinking about it now, aren't you? Anything we tell ourselves in an attempt to control based on the assumption of separation is the same way. You can't get rid of the illusion that there's water in the desert but you can "get rid of" or dispel the belief that if you chase it a little further, and suffer a little longer, you'll get a drink. The realization of your true nature is not ever a possession.  No one "gets" it. No one understands it. All that is necessary is to get rid of the false notion, the false understanding, in other words, stop believing that the drink of water is found in the future, no longer believing that separation is actual and so suffering should be put up with, and emotional guidance ignored for the future pursuit for the non actual separate self.

Awesome. Perfect explanation. Thank you. 🙏

I just have one question.. Isn't seeking an inevitable part of the path? Like before you surrender all your seeking and get disappointed and disillusioned by everything.. Then you can relax and accept reality unconditionally.. Correct? 

[Mandy]

11 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Like before you surrender all your seeking and get disappointed and disillusioned by everything.. Then you can relax and accept reality unconditionally.. Correct? 

That would be like continuing to look for your sunglasses after you realized they were on your head. The relaxation happens first by letting go of the sense that something is missing or not understood. We're in a kind of stand off with this feeling we want, thinking it to be the result of something occurring in the future, when we can only go to feeling itself right now. 

[Phil]

17 minutes ago, Someone here said:

But I have a question.. Why are you awake and I am not? How does people like you or ramana or @Mandygain this understanding and clarity ? 

Those beliefs, or, that activity of thought simply settles meditatively. Then when the rhetoric of separate selves having consciousness is heard (the materialist’s paradigm), the discord felt is listened to. How what’s said feels is listened to instead of what’s said being believed, and feeling being suppressed. 

 

What’s “no-self”? 

 

Similarly, what does “burning through your karma” mean? 

[Blessed2]

 

8 hours ago, Someone here said:

The Idea of getting something by doing something can work in the world of the mind. But when you need to be liberated from this very mind…. doing things with the mind for getting liberation from the mind is foolishness.

 

Not quite ime. "Mind" and "using the mind" is really just another thought. 😄

 

8 hours ago, Someone here said:

But what do you think he means by "getting rid of the false notion that we are bound "? How to get rid of an illusion? 

Any clarification? 

 

Yeah you can't "get rid of" what is not really there. "Trying to get rid of" is just making it real for you, as if there was actually that thing that could be get rid of.

 

The way is to simply see the illusion as illusion. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Someone here said:

We only need to give up our habit of seeing the untrue as true.

 

YUP!

 

"A Course In Miracles" means "A Course In Giving Up Your Habit Of Seeing The Untrue As True" btw. It's a pretty damn good book. Just reading like one page a day you can feel the habit melting away. At least for me.

 

 

There is already a spark in you that recognizes the untrue from the true. Emotional Guidance like Phil calls it. Holy Spirit like ACIM calls it. Just feed it and it'll become a raging fire.

 

The Emotional Scale is food for the spark.

 

So is ACIM, simple mindfulness meditation, self-inquiry

 

Basically all in the "Tools" and "Meditations" - section on the AoB website.

 

This forum is great too. Whenever you notice a belief that feels like crap, make a thread about it on the Emptying-section and see what comes up.

 

This is pretty good too:

 

 

[Phil]

12 hours ago, Someone here said:

Why are you awake and I am not?

You are awake when I am not. 

 

12 hours ago, Someone here said:

understanding and clarity ? 

Never is there the two. Understanding is the activity of thought. The very thought,… “understanding”.

The term points to that which is ‘under’ ‘standing’.

As in prior, appearing as, dude, world. 

Which is, clarity… appearing as… the thought… the (potentially) believed albeit apparent thought, that there is… “understanding”. 

(The term “understanding” does not point to concepts, philosophies, cognition, a possession, or an ‘second’ which is understood, by a separate self which understands. The term “ego” points to this illusion.)

Understanding is the bondage. 

The self imposed veil.

The perpetuation of the seeking. 

Beware of deception. 

[Someone here]

@Blessed2 I just now checked the book quickly. It is meant to be studied. It’s not a read-from-cover-to-cover-in-a-few-sittings type of book. One has to sit with it, reflect on it, let it transform one’s mind. And this is just the text. Then there’s the workbook which really gets you to practice seeing the world in a different way.is it merely  this process is that you are shifting from seeing the world through the ego, the separate self .. to seeing it through the One Self?

@Phil didn’t quite understand. Can you put in a different simplistic way?

 

[Phil]

@Someone here

😂 nice. 

[Blessed2]

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I just now checked the book quickly. It is meant to be studied. It’s not a read-from-cover-to-cover-in-a-few-sittings type of book. One has to sit with it, reflect on it, let it transform one’s mind.

 

Yeah. One page, one chapter at a time. Sometimes one paragraph or even one line at a time. Calmly and mindfully. There's no hurry, you're not gonna get enlightened any faster by getting to the end. 😄

 

6 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Then there’s the workbook which really gets you to practice seeing the world in a different way.is it merely  this process is that you are shifting from seeing the world through the ego, the separate self .. to seeing it through the One Self?

 

That's one way to put it. Like you could say meditation means sitting down, focusing on breathing and letting the mind calm down. That's not the actuality of meditation though.

 

Another way to put it, like I mentioned, that spark you already have within you. ACIM is the same fire, just in a form of book.

[Joseph Maynor]

That quote is key to spiritual enlightenment.  There's different avenues one can come at that from, but if you're looking at results, that's a good description of attainment or embodiment.  It's definitely a part of it in my opinion.  

Edited April 5, 2023 by Joseph Maynor