#Self-inquiry

[compassionmattersmost]

Exploring the Origins of Thought: A Synthesis of Jung, Ramana Maharshi, Kabbalah, and Tibetan Buddhism

In our journey to understand the nature of thoughts and the Self, we find ourselves drawing from the wisdom of various traditions—Jungian psychology, Vedanta as taught by Ramana Maharshi, the mystical insights of Kabbalah, and the profound teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. These perspectives, though rooted in different cultural and philosophical backgrounds, converge in fascinating ways, offering a…

[shinymoonbird]

Hridaya Kuhara Madhye 'Sloka Chanting'

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हृदयकुहर मध्ये केवलं ब्रह्ममात्रम्। ह्यमहमिति साक्षद् आत्मरुपेण भाति॥

हृदि विश मनसास्वं चिन्वता मज्जता वा। पवन चलन रोधाद् आत्मनिष्ठो भव त्वम्॥

hṛdayakuhara madhye kevalaṃ brahmamātram। hyamahamiti sākṣad ātmarupeṇa bhāti॥

hṛdi viśa manasāsvaṃ cinvatā majjatā vā। pavana calana rodhād ātmaniṣṭho bhava tvam॥

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‘Hridaya-Kuhara-Madhye’, In the centre of the Heart cave

In the centre of the cave which is the Heart, the one (non-dual) Brahman alone shines directly in the form of Self as ‘I-I’ (or ‘I am I’ ). Enter the Heart (by the mind) sinking scrutinizing Self, or by the mind sinking along with the breath, and be one who abides in Self.

~  Ulladu Narpadu - Anubandham (Reality in Forty Verses - Supplement), V. 8

Note: One day in 1915 a devotee named Jagadiswara Sastri started to compose a Sanskrit verse beginning with the words. ‘Hridaya-Kuhara-Madhye’, (In the centre of the Heart cave), but finding that he was unable to proceed any further to express in verse form the idea which he had in mind, he implored Sri Bhagavan to complete the verse for him. Sri Bhagavan accordingly completed the verse and wrote underneath ‘Jagadisan’, thereby indicating that the ideas in the verse were those of Jagadiswara Sastri and not His own. Some years later, at the request of some Tamil devotees who did not know Sanskrit, Sri Bhagavan translated this verse into Tamil, and the Tamil version, which is given above, was later added in the Anubandham.

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Kavyakanta Ganapati Muni also included this verse in his Sri Ramana Gita, ch. II, v. 2.

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___________________ The Sanskrit verse is a facsimile of Sri Ramana Maharshi’s handwriting reproduced from the manuscript.

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Eka Sloki of Sri Ramana Maharshi, his most important verse, was mounted during Bhagavan´s lifetime, obviously with his consent, above his ornate marble couch in the New Hall, where the verse is engraved in gold Sanskrit letters on a tablet of polished black marble.

Image credit: https://www.facebook.com/RamanaMaharshi - Post dated 12.06.2020

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[turiyatitta]

Dark Nights, Bright Lights 

The term dark night of the soul evokes images of struggle, confusion, and a seeming absence of light. Yet, this darkness can often serve as a powerful portal, guiding one to a level of spiritual illumination unreachable by any other path. Many consider it a crucible of transformation, an intense phase in which the familiar sense of self collapses, leaving one in a space of profound unknowing. Out…

[thegodwithinblog]

Your mental health

It becomes an addiction, an obsession, a source for you to seek excuses for your own lack of health. Don't deny this. By denying...

It requires from you full honesty If you struggle with depression, or anxiety, or any negative pattern of thinking. If you sometimes feel unworthy, or less than another, or somehow unable to reach certain goals or dreams for yourself. Ask yourself why this is. But seek the real answer. Don’t blame your genetics fully. Or your childhood fully. Or your surroundings fully. Human beings tend to…

[ixlander]

[part of a conversation at a retreat with rupert spira found on youtube]

[rupert spira:] I don't like calling them exercises because that sounds too mechanical. only do these loving contemplations of your experience when that seems to you the most interesting and enjoyable thing you could possibly be doing at that moment. so you do it in the same way that you look out here, across the fields, and you think “oh it's so inviting, I’d just love to go for a walk,” and you go for that reason. it's just the thing you'd want to be doing more than anything else at that moment, the most interesting, the most enjoyable, that's when to do these loving contemplations, when nothing interests you more in that moment than exploring the reality of your experience.

all we know is experience - I mean, isn't that the most extraordinary miracle, that there is experience? I mean, walking on water just pales into insignificance next to the fact that there is experience. wow! I mean, isn't that incredible? and that experience is made of *something*? yeah, it's made of *something*. what is it made of, that it can take the shape of all this? it can take the shape of this incredible diversity, and yet it's all the same stuff, called knowing or experiencing. what could that stuff be? what could be more interesting than knowing what that stuff is? our culture tells us that it's made out of dead stuff called matter, and that matter gives rise to mind, and mind gives rise to consciousness. is the stuff out of which experience is made dead and inert? that doesn't quite make sense because if that was true then experience would be essentially dead and inert, but it's not. all experience is pervaded by the knowing of it, it is aware and alive. we never come in contact with anything other than this totally alive stuff called experience. and it never goes away, it doesn't start or stop, it stays the same, it's never changing but ever-changing, what is this stuff?

so when you feel that kind of interest in experience, then follow it. if you find something more interesting to do than that then do it, like going to the cinema, or, it's fine. do whatever is the most interesting thing for you at that moment, the most enjoyable, interesting thing. I mean spiritual life should be like going to the best party you can imagine. it should be the most enjoyable, the most interesting thing to do. and the beauty of it is that you don't have to put aside a particular time or a particular place to do it. you can do it while you're having lunch, when you're walking down the street, when you're brushing your teeth, when you're sitting on your chair doing nothing, you can explore this all the time. to make a practice, to make a discipline out of it is blasphemous. it's so disrespectful to think that we could turn this investigation, this exploration of our experience into a practice or a discipline. it's so disrespectful.

keep life simple, just do it when you feel like doing it. when you're suffering, when you're happy, when you're in between somewhere, just do it whenever you feel this is what I love to do. don't do it as a practice when you're suffering in order to get rid of suffering, don't do it for a reason. just do it because it is the most interesting thing to do, for its own sake. like a mad scientist studying a particular rare species of butterfly's wing, what its wing is made out of, why it's that fluorescent green, I mean what a crazy thing to do, but people spend their lives doing this. it's so beautiful, just for the joy of discovery. it's not for any reason. and that's how an artist works, and a sports person, in the moment they are just dancing, for no reason. whether that dance takes on the form of scientific exploration or creativity or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. just do it for no reason, not in order to gain something at the end, just because it's the most enjoyable, most interesting thing you could do at that moment.

instead of doing this in order to get rid of suffering, do it to understand suffering. so you're still studying the same thing, you're still exploring the same thing. this phenomenon is appearing called suffering, this rare this strange species of butterfly has appeared and you're fascinated by it. you know, “how do you eat? how do you reproduce? how do you go around your life?” you want to study all of its habits, but you have to be very careful with the butterfly, you don't want to touch it, you touch it and you're going to destroy it, because it's so so [fragile]. you just observe it, don't touch it, don't get busy trying to change the butterfly, you're studying it under all sorts of different [circumstances]. you study it in the daytime, in the night, when its mates are around, when they're not, what it eats, what it goes towards. you're just interested in this phenomenon.

see suffering just like a phenomenon. after all, it is a phenomenon. just explore it, be interested in it, don't go to war with it. suffering is already made out of resistance. by going to war with it you are just resisting it, you are piling one resistance on top of an already existing resistance, you're compounding the problem, compounding the suffering, by trying to get rid of it. and that's why as we all know very well all the conventional means of getting rid of suffering don't work. they just at best temporarily alleviate it, but subtly perpetuate it. so take your hands off suffering. explore it out of interest, “what are you made of?” when you find yourself suffering, you think “okay, great. here, this butterfly appeared again, I'm going to explore it.” explore it on the level of the mind, and explore it on the level of the body, both. really think and feel, “I want to understand this phenomenon that appears so often in my life.”

the only thing suffering cannot stand is being seen clearly. the reason is that at the root of suffering is an illusion. you can't do anything to an illusion, because there's nothing there. you can't do anything to the water in a mirage. you can't go and collect it, you can't purify it, you can't drink it, you can't do anything to it because it's not there. the very best you can do is to go up to it, and see that it's not there. that seeing relieves the desire to manage it or collect it or [whatever]. so, it's like that with suffering. at the heart of suffering there is an illusion, a non-existent self. you can't do anything to a non-existent self, there is nothing there to do anything to. *seeing*, which means experiential understanding, clear seeing, is the best you can do, and as a result, as a byproduct of that clear seeing this suffering vanishes, dissolves in time, because in order to remain present, suffering needs the illusion of a separate self, it revolves around the illusion of a separate self. if that is truly seen to be non-existent the suffering simply cannot stand.

there may be old habits in the body-mind that run for some time, but because they are no longer supported by the belief and feeling of a separate self, these old habits gradually dissipate. so suffering vanishes as a byproduct of this exploration, not as its goal. suffering vanishes in the same way that a headache vanishes, you wake up in the morning with a headache, you get to the evening and you realize “oh, my headache’s gone. I don't know when it went, I don't know where I was when it went, I don't know why it went, I don't know how it went,” you just notice “oh it's just not there anymore.” that's how suffering disappears, its disappearance is a by-product, not a goal. if you make it your goal you perpetuate suffering. in fact, this is one of the ways the separate self perpetuates itself, sometimes for decades, by trying to get rid of itself.

suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body, yeah? you put your hand in the fire, if you experience pain, the pain is not a mistake. it's not something wrong, the pain is the intelligence of the body telling you “take your hand out of the fire,” yeah? so pain is working on behalf of your well-being. suffering is exactly the same at the level of the mind. it is cooperating with your desire for happiness, it's telling you “you've got your hand in the fire.” in this case it's telling you “you have mistaken yourself for a separate limited awareness, take a look.” “take a look,” that's what suffering says. so suffering is to the mind what pain is to the body, it's just a wake-up call. it's saying “you've mistaken yourself for an object, for a limited self. have another look.”

you’re doing it in order to look at the separate self that you have mistaken yourself for. in that moment you are thinking and feeling on behalf of a separate self. so you are now looking at the separate self, on whose behalf you are thinking, feeling and acting. it's like you spend your life preparing jars to collect the water in a mirage. your suffering tells you go and have a look in the mirage, go and have a look at this water you are spending your entire life organizing and planning around. what's going to happen when you go up to the mirage and see the water isn't there, what's going to happen to your your water jar business? you're just going to lose interest in it, you're just going to stop manufacturing, yeah? there's no water there to collect, you just forget it and move on. so suffering is saying “go up to the mirage, see that there is no water there. go into your experience, see that there is no separate self there.” and that seeing will take care of everything else. and then if you want, you can engage in these loving contemplations, which is a kind of cooperation with the dismantling of the water jar business.

just keep exploring what you truly are. “am i a separate limited awareness? or is the awareness that I know myself to be totally open, unlimited, and ever-present?” because that single belief, and feeling, that what I am comes and goes, and is limited, and therefore lacking, that is at the heart of all your suffering. that's the only thing in suffering that needs to be explored. not the whole paraphernalia of whatever it is that seems to be causing the suffering, because if you explore each of the causes in turn it's just endless. money, work, relationships, it goes on forever. all these different colors, different facets of suffering, it all hinges on one thing: the belief that what I am, the I that is knowing my thoughts and reading these words right now, the awareness that I know myself to be, shares the limits and the destiny of the body-mind. that's it. with that belief we seem to shrink into a separate self and all our suffering is dependent upon that belief and feeling alone.

so, once that's clear you become naturally one-pointed. you see that all your suffering is just based on one thing, so all your disparate energies are now gathered together in that one direction, “what am i truly?” you even forget about suffering because you're dealing with what's at the heart of it, you forget about the paraphernalia of suffering. “who is this one, this self that is suffering? who is this one on whose behalf I spend my life thinking and feeling, acting and relating? I spend my life serving this self, who is it? I've never seen it, where are you? come out, I want to make your acquaintance, show me what you're made of.”

the analogy I give, you may have heard it before sometimes, is of a servant who's been living in this big old house serving an old man all his life. and the old man is extremely demanding and unreasonable and the servant is up at five o'clock every morning cleaning his shoes, making his fire, doing his breakfast etc. he spends his whole life, from morning til night, serving this old man. and yet he never actually sees the old man. the old man is a bit of a recluse, and he lives in his bedroom. the servant just goes through his routine. and he begins to get curious. he goes to the pub every now and then on a rare day off, and his friends tell him “you should go and talk to the old man, you should go and see him if he's so unreasonable.” so eventually you go back, and you pluck up courage, you go and knock on the door. you want to to discuss your work with him, and he doesn't answer. you think “oh that's typical, he just doesn't want to talk to me” but then the next day, you pluck up courage again, you knock on the door, he does not answer again. so you open the door and you just peek in. “anything? oh. that's funny, I can't see him.” and then the next day you have a bit more courage, you open the door a bit more and you put your head around it and you know, “he's not there.” so then you get a bit bolder, you go in and you look around, “anything? odd, it's funny, he's just not here.” you look in his bathroom, you think “he must be?” he's not there. you look in his cupboards, he's not there, you look in the drawers, you explore the whole room, and you realize “this man that I've been serving all my life, this tyrannical man on whose behalf I have been laboring, he’s not there. he was never there.”

the separate self is like that. we spend our lives thinking, feeling, acting and relating on behalf of a self that is not there. so that's what we do here, we explore first the bedroom, then the bathroom, then the cupboards, then the drawers, we look everywhere. and the more we look, the greater our confidence grows in knowing that he's not there. now, it doesn't necessarily happen at one moment, “okay, *now* I've discovered that it's not there,” there is just a growing confidence day-by-day. it may come in one moment, but it usually doesn't. this confidence, this conviction just grows in you, “he's not there,” and in direct proportion to your conviction that the old man is not there, your thoughts feelings activities and relationships begin to change accordingly. you may never be able to say, “at that moment I discovered he wasn't there.” it's not necessary, most people can't say that.

[sheilamurrey]

“The true seeker”

“THE TRUE SEEKER” When a true seeker, after self-observation and self-inquiry, finally comes to the point of full-opening their eyes to the core of …“The true seeker”

[ecowellco]

Dying to live again

We know this, that sacrifice is often needed for personal evolution. So, what does it look like to release old patterns, relationships, and versions of yourself to embrace authentic growth and unabashed self-love?

Something has to go to make room for something else. That reality of sacrifice being realized; the elimination that makes room for evolution. And in truth, it’s okay if this process is sucky, or unbearable, or filled with you wanting to isolate or latch on to the very thing that must die. Shoot, I’m there right now, juggling between sharing the rage and disappointment I feel and going into…

[orgyaxolotl]

How To Be: The Passion for Art and Business

I just can’t focus to study now. I am studying for the National Medical Admission Test, as a review for the upcoming test I shall be taking next year. Guess what, the monkey took over the ship again. Then, Master Pro Crashtinator will be its co-captain. Why? Well I have the urge to write. Had the zest with my fingers to write out. More like an impulse, too. See, this is one of my challenges on…

[pgoodnight]

What is the Soul? - Osho

What is it that you call atman, soul? Is this soul consciousness itself or is it something individual? Really, no matter what we call it, we will miss it. Any conceptualization is going to miss the real – any conceptualization – so whatever has been known as the self, the soul, the atman, is not the real thing. It cannot be. All those who have defined it, have defined it with a condition: that…

[soulcruzerone]

6 reasons why adding self-inquiry to your journaling practice can deepen your self-awareness

Why journal? Journaling is a powerful tool for self-expression, reflection, and personal growth. It provides a safe and private space to explore our innermost thoughts, feelings, and experiences without fear of judgement or criticism. By putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), we engage in a process of self-discovery and meaning-making that can be deeply transformative. When we journal,…

[compassionmattersmost]

Comforting the Ego Through Self-Inquiry: A Gentle Path into the Mystic

The Tibetan teaching that the ego is a belief in a separate self with no inherent existence aligns perfectly with the process of self-inquiry. As we engage in the practice, the recognition that the ego has no independent reality allows it to gradually dissolve. What remains is the awareness that transcends the illusion of separation—the true nature of the Self. For many years, I’ve engaged in…

[shinymoonbird]

🔱  Om Namo Bhagavathe Sri ArunachalaRamanaya   🔱  

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The Paramount Importance of Self Attention, by Sri Sadhu Om, As recorded by Michael James

Part Five - Mountain Path: April – June 2013 - Excerpt

Note of 6th January 1978

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Swami Natanananda: What is meditation? Who can meditate? Can the body meditate? Can self meditate? Meditation is just a means of feeding the non-existent 'I'. The true sādhanā is to be vigilant, at all times, against the rising of this 'I'.

One way to prevent the rising of 'I' is to try to behave [inwardly as well as outwardly] in every situation as you think Bhagavan would behave. If you practise this, there will be less and less of 'I' and more and more of Bhagavan, until finally you will be swallowed by him.

Whenever peace is disturbed, it is due to the rising of 'I'. Peace cannot be enjoyed while 'I' is active. Therefore the only means to hold on to peace is to be self-vigilant, thus guarding against the intrusion of disturbing thoughts. Self-attention is not an activity, but a calm state of being vigilant, keenly watching 'I' and thereby preventing the intrusion of mental activity.

Meditation, which is a mental activity, is unreal, so it can never reveal what is real. Non-meditation, which is avoiding mental activity, alone can reveal the realίty. In the first mangalam verse of Ulladυ Narpadu Bhagavan says:

[...] Since the reality ['I am'] exists without thought in the heart, how to meditate upon that reality, which is called 'heart'? Being in the heart as it is [that is, as 'I am'] is alone meditating [correctly upon the reality].

Since thought is paying attention to second or third persons, the only effective means to avoid thought is self-attention. The rising of 'I' is attention to second and third persons, so attention to the first person alone can make 'I' subside.

The reason why Bhagavan emphasises that the appearance of the world is dependent upon the delusion 'I am this body' is to kindle vairāgya [desirelessness] by making us understand that 'I am the body' is the root of all misery, and that it must therefore be eradicated.

Cutting the branches or even the trunk of the tree of delusion is futile, because its root, 'I am the body', must be destroyed. It is destroyed only by self-attention. This is why Bhagavan says in verse twenty six of Ulladu Narpadu:

If the ego, which is the embryo [or root], comes into existence, everything comes into existence. If the ego does not exist, everything does not exist. The ego itself is everything. Therefore, know that investigating 'what is this [ego]?' is alone giving up everything.

We must fly on the two wings of viveka [discrimination] and vairāgya [desirelessness].

Sadhu Om: We all have a clear knowledge of our own existence, 'I am'. If we give importance only to that, and try to remain as it, that is self-attention, guarding against the rising of 'I', avoiding attention to second and third persons, and vigilance against the intrusion of thoughts.

In everything we do there is 'am'-ness: I am walking, I am thinking, and so on. If we attend to this 'am'-ness and try to abide as it that is sufficient. There is no need to be concerned about thoughts: let them come or go. Thoughts are only thoughts because we attend to them. If we ignore them, they do not exist. Our sense of 'am'-ness [asmi-tva] signifies our self-awareness or mere being. Mere being is the final goal. That is why Natananandar was saying that one day we will laugh at our present efforts.

🔱 🔱 🔱 🔱 🔱 🔱

[turiyatitta]

Beyond Illusion

Discovering the Space Between The mind creates identities and builds a sense of self out of thoughts, emotions, and past experiences. These constructs shape beliefs around who you think you are and who you think you aren’t. This entire narrative, though compelling, is merely a distortion. It presents itself as reality but, in truth, is nothing more than an intricate mental creation. We become…

[gpwalsh]

To learn more about Lisa, GP and OM School and to register for the Light letter go to https://omschool.ca If you would like to support this work of bringing deep healing conversation to the world, please consider supporting us on Patreon ad https://Patreon.com/gpwalsh You can also make a one time donation at Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gpwalsh To join the private Facebook group go to https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh There was a time, and not that long ago, that we were completely at the mercy of our heritage. We adopted the values, morals and assumptions of our parents and the culture in which we all lived. We were fish, at the mercy of the pond. But something has changed. This strange thing called awakening has started to happen. Some of us began to question whether the way things were are the way they have to be. Of course, there have always been people in history who have done that. Some completely transformed culture. Others ended up barbecued on a stake. But never has it happened on such a massive scale as to cause disruption and even chaos, not just in one isolate place, but everywhere. But, while we can look outward at the current turmoil of the world, that is only a reflection of the deeper alchemy at work within our own hearts. The liberation of the world and all the social systems it contains, can only occur following the liberation of individual human souls. Breaking the long chain of ancestral burdens requires deep self examination, in the bright light of wisdom. And at the heart of that wisdom is a simple insight. Your conditioning was your training not your being None of us escaped childhood without enormous parts of our natural brilliance repressed. Our parents did to us what their parents did to them. And their parents did to them and so on and so on and so on back into the primordial soup. What is different now though is that many. many of us are aware of it. We are recognizing conditioning as conditioning. Thus it is not essentially who we are. As far as I am concerned this is the second biggest discovery a human being can make. And it opens the door to the biggest discovery of all... what you essentially are. That recognition of conditioning as conditioning sets in motion a process, a practice, a sadhana. The ancestral burden has infiltrated every aspect of individual life; thought, emotion and sensation and thus has shaped all experience. Integrating this wisdom into your everyday life is the true spiritual path. And that opens the door to a stunning realization. Since the current state of the world is a reflection of the inner state of the human collective i have a power I didn't know I had. My individual, every day embodiment of freedom from conditioning is, simultaneously, the liberation and healing of the entire world Your liberation from ancestral burdens is the liberation of the whole. Do you want to save the world? Well, now you know how. The buck really does stop here. Join myself and host/producer Lisa Berry for the next episode of "The Flow" every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time. at http://youtube.com/gpwalsh or in the private facebook group https://facebook.com/groups/gpwalsh

[thegodwithinblog]

Is it so...??

Do not let your mind remain proud and vainglorious in this. Do not just say to yourself, "Oh I'm not...

If someone disturbs you, annoys you, or is constantly making you uncomfortable, then stop and ask yourself why is bothering you so much. How is it really affecting my daily living?? How is it really hurting me?? Is it really interrupting my life and my activities?? Or is it just my ego attaching itself to what somebody else does?? Am I being overdramatic?? Judge yourself and find out the real…

[know-the-self]