A Moment of Reflection
Allow these qutoes from Rajivji to gently evoke in you an intuitive feel for the nature of Reality
There is only one step, one pointer: abidance in I AM, abidance in the Self.
❧
EVERYTHING is an opportunity to go within to your Self.
❧
If we can recognize the ‘space’ that connects us, then there would not be any space between us.
❧
Many point TO the Truth, but not many show HOW to get there. ISIP is the HOW.
❧
Many of us have been told about the background I-AM, which I call the “male principle.” All the spiritual practices we have all been doing are concerned solely with strengthening this male principle I-AM. Practices like witnessing, abiding in the “I” or the Self, and actively raising the Kundalini up the spine, are all concerned with the male background I-AM.But there is another I-AM, a very important one. It has not been talked about, but presents itself again and again in our lives: The “Foreground I-AM”. That foreground I-AM is like Mother Kali who arrives with the noble motive of freeing us from our habitual tendencies (vasanas). But She then intensifies Her attack directly on anything we have latched onto, protected, or guarded. Ego is never really eliminated until Kali visits. Facing Her, the subtlest trace of ego that remains hidden in us is plucked out.
❧
More than the NOW… we need the HOW!
Nothing really deep or meaningful happens in the “here and now”, or in the “present moment”, after a certain stage. What is often observed or experienced in the “present moment” is either a fight or flight response. The first is reacting to everything in a habitual manner and is typical of a worldly pattern, while the latter is escaping from everything in a habitual manner and is typical of a spiritual pattern. Real teachings are never immediate as they allow for unfolding and a gradual transformation of consciousness.
❧
All the deities that you worship are within you.
You are Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh.
In the waking state you create worlds of ideas and imaginings (BRAHMA).
During the day you preserve these projections and work towards them (VISHNU),
while in sleep you destroy them altogether (SHIVA).
❧
Initially in your practice you abide in your sense of beingness and remain there.
Later, something else abides in you, holds you and possesses you.
The first is full of effort, while the latter is effortless.
❧
Do not ask “Why me?”
Ask instead, “To whom?”
When you go tracing all the way back, you will find neither questions
nor solutions as the very questioner will have disappeared.
❧
At regular intervals ask “Who is the seeker now?”
Has the seeker changed over a period of time?
❧
Realization is so damn ordinary that we completely miss seeing it.
Within the seed manifests an entire tree with its branches, leaves, trunk, fruit, etc. doesn’t it?
Similarly, within the seed I AM manifests an entire Universe.
What seems as ordinary is the seed (I AM), and within that seed lie the extraordinary wonders of the Universe.
Everyone is intoxicated and amused by the extraordinary, but alas, no one is looking at the seed (the Source).
❧
Practice must not be mechanical, or else it will dull your intellect.
Sadhana must be dynamic. It is like flying a kite.
The kite is your beingness, while awareness is the string you hold and which connects you to the kite.
Sometimes you bring the beingness close to you (by pulling the string),
and sometimes you let it go (transcend it by loosening the string).
Whatever you do, you never let go of the string of awareness even once.
❧
Mankind is used to looking through a keyhole and taking that glimpse through the hole as its reality.
Meditation means opening the door itself and simply looking at the complete picture of what lies there.
❧
There is nothing mystical about meditation.
Mind has created that projection and various theories have exploited it.
Meditation simply means “To Look”.
❧
Have you looked beyond the waking state?
If not, then your “looking” is not total.
❧
Do not just keep looking for the looker.
Rather FEEL the looker. Melt into the background.
❧
To awaken and to remain awake are two different things.
When you try to “remain awake” as most do in meditation,
you will always keep bringing the mind into it;
while to awaken means to go beyond mind, prana
and Consciousness itself.
❧
Hunger is felt in the stomach but that does not mean you eat through the stomach.
Similarly, even though the arising of bliss is first predominately at the heart, it does not
necessarily mean that you focus or concentrate on the right side of the chest.
❧
A true heart has no center.
As long as you practice going inwards, feeling your sense of beingness,
and investigate further by going deep down to its very root,
you will see that no matter what kind of Sadhana you practice,
the true heart will be revealed.
True Heart is the SELF.
❧
Transcendence of fear, anger and lust does not mean they are absent.
It only means that you know that you stand apart from them.
They have to be accepted first, felt and looked at without interference of any thought.
❧
I tell you, thoughts do not exist at all.
Right at this very moment try looking for them ― you simply will not find them.
❧
Apart from the sinking and falling backwards techniques, try this at regular intervals:
Hold on to your sense of beingness and at the same time look at the thoughts.
This will prepare your mind to penetrate deeper and help you to
ignore thoughts, which will then seem to be playing on the surface.
❧
Thoughts, emotions do not even happen to you.
Have you inquired if they really do?
❧
You can drop concepts and knowingness only after you have attained them in the first place.
Consider that there are two apple trees in your backyard.
Tree #1 bears apples while tree #2 never grows any.
On a given day, all apples on tree #1 ripen and fall off.
Both the trees now appear to be exactly the same.
But which of the two trees can claim that it has dropped the fruit?
Obviously tree #1.
Similarly, seekers who have attained an understanding of various manifestations
and forms of ‘I’ (bodies) can alone know that the real ‘I’ lies beyond these forms.
❧
Reality cannot be known directly, it must pass through the doors of falseness.
❧
Consider yourself liberated only when you have seen the state
of knowingness as well as non-knowingness coming and going.
Beyond all knowingness and non-knowingness is YOU.
❧
Ice turns into water, water into vapor and the vapor disappears into the sky.
The same comes back as rain and becomes water, and then water becomes ice.
This cycle is repeated day in, day out.
But unfortunately man identifies only with the ice (Gross body).
That is the cause of all suffering.
With the gaze of intense awareness the ice will melt away into nothingness and eventually to non-being.
❧
Non-knowingness must pass through the gates of perfect knowingness.
Non-knowing is NOT a state of complete forgetfulness or
non-remembrance such as is experienced in normal sleep.
❧
There is no greater happiness than to remain as non-knowing,
but the mind will not easily accept this. It will resist.
❧
Do not identify with the problem; know that the problem is the identification.
❧
Practicing pranayamas and khumbhaks without the direct guidance of a physical Guru
is like holding a naked sword and playing with it.
❧
The reflection (Turiya) is not you, but is certainly yours.
❧
In a sense, you can only be aware of Turiya and never of yourself, as the SELF;
just as you can never be the object of your own gaze, nor can the eye see itself.
That is why some conclude that Turiya is SELF.
❧
The moment you say I am, or I am here, it is still ignorance.
The “present” is not the goal. It is only a bridge to the timeless.
So do not stop there. Keep exploring…
❧
The greatest of all knowledge is Turiya, and that’s the final state of ignorance too!
❧
Words of Masters can inspire you but cannot expire ‘you’!
They can create a dent in your false identification, but they cannot destroy it completely.
❧
Vasanas (desires) to a Jnani are like holding a candle flame under a kettle of water.
The kettle can feel the heat yet it is incapable of boiling the water within.
Similarly, the Jnani’s body can feel the stirrings of vasana but not to the
extent of its boiling over and triggering an uncontrollable reaction.
❧
Drop ignorance before the body drops.
❧
If you have a valid and noble cause before you seeking your attention,
and you turn your face away from it, then you turn away from boundless joy and happiness.