Speaking Truth - The Acid Test

Swami Rama :

I remember an occasion when I was traveling with my master. The station master in a town we were passing through came to me and said, “Sir, give me something to practice, and I promise I will follow it faithfully.”

My master said to me, “Give him something definite to practice.”

I said, “Why should one fool misguide another? It will be better if you instruct him.”

So my master said, “From this day on, don’t lie. Practice this rule faithfully for the next three months.”

Most of the employees of the railroad in that area were dishonest and took bribes. But this man decided that he would not take bribes or lie any more.

That very same week a supervisor from the head office came to investigate him and his assistants. The stationmaster answered the probing questions of the supervisor honestly. This inquiry brought serious trouble to his staff. All the employees who had been taking bribes, including the stationmaster himself, were prosecuted. He thought, “It has been only thirteen days, and look at the difficulty I am in. What is going to happen to me in three months’ time?”

Soon his wife and children left him. Within a month his life had crumbled like a house of cards from a single touch.

That day the stationmaster was in great agony, and we were some three hundred miles away on a bank of the Narmada River. My master was lying under a tree when he suddenly began laughing. He said, “Do you know what is happening? That man whom I instructed not to lie is in jail today.” I asked, “Then why are you laughing?” He answered, “I am not laughing at him, I am laughing at the foolish world!”

Twelve people in that man’s office had gotten together and said he was a liar, although he had been speaking the truth. They accused him of being the only one guilty of taking bribes. He was put in jail and all the others were released.

When the stationmaster went to court the judge looked down at him from the bench and asked, “Where is your attorney?”

“I don’t need one.”

The judge said, “But I want someone to help you.”

“No,” said the stationmaster, “I don’t need an attorney; I want to speak the truth. No matter how many years you put me behind bars, I won’t lie. I used to share in bribes. Then I met a sage who told me never to lie, no matter what. My wife and children have left me, I have lost my job, I have no money or friends, and I am in jail. All these things have happened in one month. I have to examine truth for two more months no matter what happens. Sir, put me behind bars; I don’t care.”

The judge called a recess and quietly called the man to his chamber. He asked, “Who is the sage who told you this?” The man described him. Fortunately the judge was a disciple of my master. He acquitted the stationmaster and said, “You are on the right path. Stick to it. I wish I could do the same.”

After three months that man did not have anything. On the exact day that the three months were up he was sitting quietly under a tree when he received a telegram saying, “Your father had a huge plot of land that was taken long ago by the government. The government now wants to give you compensation.” They gave him one million rupees [about $100,000]. He had not known about the land, which was in a different province.

He thought, “Today, I have completed three months of not lying and I have been rewarded so much.” He gave the compensation to his wife and children, and they happily said, “We want to come back to you.”

“No,” he said. “Until now I have only seen what happens by not lying for three months. Now I want to find out what will happen if I do not lie for the rest of my life.”

Truth is the ultimate goal of human life, and if it is practiced with mind, speech and action, the goal can be reached. Truth can be attained by practicing non-lying and by not doing those actions which are against one’s own conscience. Conscience is the best of guides.

Swami Rama
Living with the Himalayan Masters

Sadhus subsist only upon alms offered to them with love. - Papa Ramdas

Why don't you earn your own bread?
A story by papa ramdas

There was a Sadhu in Malabar, a tall and stout person. He was in the police service before he became a Sadhu. He used to wear only a small towel round his waist. Once when he was going for his Bhiksha, a householder, seeing his good physique, asked him why he should not work and earn his bread, instead of begging for it. The Sadhu was told that he would be given a meal if he was prepared to cut a few logs of firewood that were lying in the householder's courtyard. The Sadhu, without uttering a word, started splitting the firewood with an axe given to him and, within a short time, cut the whole lot and stacked the pieces in the proper place.

Then, leaving the axe near the stack, the Sadhu simply walked away.

The householder saw the Sadhu going without taking food. He called him back and asked him why he was going before taking his meal.

The Sadhu then replied, "I do not take my food where I work, and I do not work where I take my food!". This means Sadhus subsist only upon alms offered to them with love.

There is no meditation in concentration, but there is already concentration in meditation. - Swami Rama

Many teachers these days think meditation can be attained without concentration. That ignorant idea is misleading. The mind as it is in its ordinary nature remains in a dissipated state. Without gathering together and concentrating the energy of mind, the deeper state of meditation is not possible. The student who practices sitting in a quiet and calm place even for a short time can experience a bit of unusual joy, though he is not able to experience the deep joy of the meditative state. Why should one be afraid of concentration? Some say that concentration of mind can bring about strain and stress and thus should not be practiced. They even say that discipline is not needed, and they create simplified methods and call them meditation. Such teachings appear to make difficult sadhana easy, but these methods do not lead one to the higher dimensions of life.

Swami Rama
Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita commentary, Chapter 6

Guru's Grace and Self-Realization

Sri Totakacharya ~ "Guru - Disciple Relationship"

Sri Sankara, was the greatest expounder of Advaita Vedanta. Totakacharya was a disciple of Sri Sankara. 

When Śaṅkara was at Śṛṅgeri, he met a boy named Giri. Śaṅkara accepted the boy as his disciple. Giri was a hard-working and loyal servant of his Guru, Ādi Śaṅkara, though he did not appear bright to the other disciples. The reverence which he had for his Guru, the great Sankaracharya so completely dominated him that Giri had no other interest in his life except to serve the great Master. Tradition has it that the devotion of Giri to his Master was very profound; but he did not profit much by the teachings. He seems to have felt that a strong personal devotion to the Guru was of far greater importance than a mere intellectual grasp of the teachings. He had neither the learning of other disciples like Sureshwara and Padmapada nor the realisation of Hastamalaka. His co-disciples naturally entertained a lesser idea of his intellect. Even Padmapada was not free from this misconception. 

One day, Giri was washing his Guru's clothes, when Ādi Śaṅkara sat down to begin a lesson on Advaita Vedānta. He however did not start the lesson saying he was waiting for Giri to come back from his chores and singing lessons. At this, Padmapada pointed to a wall and said that it would be the same if Ādi Śaṅkara taught to this dumb wall as he taught to Giri. Sri Shankara naturally did not relish this remark. Ādi Śaṅkara wanted to reward Giri for his loyalty and devotion. Thus Sankara out of compassion mentally granted Giri the complete knowledge of all the śāstras (sciences).

When Giri returned from the river, he was literally in bliss. He addressed the Acharya in a few brilliant stanzas in Totaka metre each verse ending with the refrain, “bhava sankara desika me saranam.”. Since then, known before as Giri, he got the title of Totakacharya. The other disciples were dumb founded by the instant illumination that shone forth in the out pour of devotion coupled with knowledge with all trace of dullness dispelled.
Sri Totakacharya's life is an example that the Guru's Grace alone can carry one over the stormy ocean of worldliness to the safe shores of self realization. The grace of the master alone can illuminate one as even the essential effort needed for spiritual progress can only aid one to a certain extent. The rest that remains which cannot be accessed by the mind, is with the beyond or the Grace that throws opens the portals of enlightenment.

Just Be yourself

You may wonder how you can function in society and do your work if you're always innocent and childlike. But to be innocent and childlike doesn't mean to be a weakling - far from it! You have to be strong and assertive if the situations so demand. But, still, you should always, as far as possible, be as open and receptive as a child

Everything has its own dharma, and we have to act according to that. If a cow chews up a precious plant, and we politely tell it to move, saying, "My dear cow, would you mind moving?" of course, it's not going to move. On the other hand, if we shout, "Hey cow! Move!" then the cow will go away. We cannot call this action egoistic; it is a role we adopt to correct the ignorance of another being, and theres nothing wrong with that. But we should always have a profound inner attitude of being a beginner, retaining the innocence of a child.

~ Amma

The master makes the disciple go through numerous tests to mold him or her properly. ~ Amma

When two disciples make the same mistake, the master may get angry with one of them and be very loving toward the other, acting as though nothing has happened. The master knows the level of mental strength and maturity in each disciple. Because of their ignorance, onlookers may criticize the master. They see only what is happening outwardly. They lack the insight to see the changes taking place in the disciples.

The tree can't emerge until the outer shell of the seed breaks. Similarly, you cannot know the Truth without totally destroying the ego. The master will test the disciple in various ways to ascertain whether he or she has come to the master out of a short-lived surge of enthusiasm or out of love for the spiritual goal. Those tests can be compared to surprise tests in the classroom; there is no advance warning. It is the master's duty to measure how much patience, renunciation, and compassion the disciple has, and to test whether he or she becomes weak when faced with certain situations, or has the strength to overcome them. The disciples are expected to provide the world with leadership in the future. Thousands of people may come to them one day, placing their complete trust in them. The disciples have to possess enough inner strength, maturity, and compassion to live up to that trust. If a disciple goes out into the world without those qualities, and lacks enough inner purity, that will be the greatest type of betrayal. As a result, the one who is supposed to protect the world would become a destructive enemy instead.

The master makes the disciple go through numerous tests to mold him or her properly.
~ Amma

The way to accept impermanance and still relish Life

To contemplate impermanence on its own is not enough: You have to work with it in your life. Let’s try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose what you are clinging to. That’s why you hold on.

But there’s another possibility: You can let go and yet keep hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand over so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space around it.

So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Choose your own deity.

“Look at the sky and try to visualise the form of your beloved deity there. Try to imagine that He or She is moving with you. Try to see your beloved deity’s face in the moon or imagine that the moon is the face of the Divine Mother or of Krishna or Rama. As the wind blows, try to feel that it is the gentle caress of your beloved deity. Look into the water and visualise the smiling face of your beloved deity there. You can imagine that your beloved deity is calling you near, hugging you, kissing you, caressing you, blessing you, and then hiding in the clouds and coming out again a little later. By this kind of imagination you go deeper and deeper into your own consciousness. You enshrine His or Her form within your heart. You open up more and more, and you get closer and closer to your own Self.” ~ Amma

Get out of maya and be free

One of the students of Swami Turiyananda was psychic. One day Swami Turiyananda found her practising automatic writing. Making her mind passive, she sat with a pencil in her hand, and automatic writing would begin. The hand would begin to move and write, and our friend would see afterwards what was written. In that way beautiful things would be written on the paper. But when Swami Turiyananda saw her thus engaged, he rebuked her severely. "What is this foolishness?" he called out. "Do you want to be controlled by spooks? Give up that nonsense. We want mukti, liberation. We want to go beyond this world and all worlds. Why should you want to communicate with the departed? Leave them in peace. It is all maya. Get out of maya and be free!"

Don't live in hypocrisy

Once, to illustrate the futility of empty, theoretical advaitic knowledge, Papa narrated the following story. He was staying in a small mandir in Jhansi when a man approached him and asked, "Who are you?"

"I am Ramdas," he replied simply.

"No, you speak a lie there," returned his visitor. "You are Ram Himself. When you declare you are Ramdas, you do not know what you say. God is everything and in everything. He is in you and so you are He. Confess it right away.

"True, dear friend," Ramdas replied, "God is everything. But at the same time, it must be noted God is one, and when He is in you and everywhere around you, may I humbly ask to whom you are putting this question?"

After a little reflection, the man could only answer, "Well, I have put the question to myself ".

Papa always stressed the necessity of absolute honesty and sincerity as essential in the great Quest. Better an honest, dualistic bhakti than a hypocritical advaita. Whereas bhakti, however dualistic, will lead ultimately to jnana as jnana mata, the mother of jnana, advaita practiced only with the head leads merely to confusion and hypocrisy.

Swami Satchidananda

'Become aware that what is seen is the seeing." - Nisaragadatta

Sit quietly. Stop all thoughts [including day dreaming and all imagining]. Be aware of yourself, this is most important. If you are sitting on a chair be aware of your weight on the seat and of the back of the chair. Sense the pressure of your feet on the ground and of the clothing on your skin -- you bring an observer into the picture by doing this. Whilst stopping thoughts, and being aware of yourself, expand your attention. See all that is facing you and on either side, smell and hear, and without turning around be aware of all those around you. Hold this. Watch what you see, feel, taste, smell and hear. Note what happens inside you. All this with no discursive thoughts.

Just Be aware. Observe -- do not interfere. Do not worry about anything.

Consciously experience. Not as an achievement, or a conclusion or a goal. Become aware that what is seen is the "seeing".

'Become aware that what is seen is the seeing." And then experience seer, seen and seeing, merging into Youself. What remains is "I Am", Hold It. Keep holding It as long as one can. Remain fully aware. If swerved, become aware of yourself once again and just be.

Nisaragadatta Maharaj

Listening to voice of Anandmayi Ma.

Live Fully Now - Alan Watts

Living in the Eternal Now - Amma

To begin to work toward establishing yourself in the eternal now, first limit time and space by not thinking about or discussing events that happened more than four days past or will happen more than four days in the future. This keeps awareness reined in, focused. Be aware. Ask yourself, "Am I fully aware of myself and what I'm doing right now?"

Once you have gained a little control of awareness in this way, try to sit quietly each day and just be. Don't think. Don't plan. Don't remember. Just sit and be in the now. That's not as simple as it sounds, for we are accustomed to novelty and constant activity in the mind and not to the simplicity of being. Just sit and be the energy in your spine and head. Feel the simplicity of this energy in every atom of yourself. Think energy. Don't think body. Don't think about yesterday or tomorrow. They don't exist, except in your ability to reconstruct the yesterdays and to create the tomorrows. Now is the only time. This simple exercise of sitting and being is a wonderful way to wash away the past, but it requires a little discipline. You have to discipline every fiber of your nerve system, work with yourself to keep the power of awareness expanded. Regular practice of meditation will bring you intensely into the eternity of the moment. Practice supersedes philosophy, advice, psychology and all pacifiers of the intellect. We have to practice to keep awareness here and now. If you find yourself disturbed, sit down and consciously quiet the forces in yourself. Don't get up until you have completely quieted your mind and emotions through regulating the breath, through looking out at a peaceful landscape, through seeking and finding understanding of the situation. This is the real work of meditation that is not written much about in books. If you can live in the eternity of now, your life will be one of peace and fulfillment.

Amma.

Is Old Age a curse ? Ramdass shares his wisdom.

Expand your perception of the world to include the horrible beauty of decay. Look at decay and see how beautiful it is in its own way. My dear friend Laura Huxley had a collection of beautiful pharmaceutical jars in her kitchen over the sink. She’d taken old beet greens and orange peels and things and put them in water in the jars and let them slowly mold and decay into beautiful formations catching the light. It was decay as art. There is true beauty in that.

There’s horror and beauty in everything. I look at my hand, and it’s decaying. It’s beautiful and horrible at the same moment, and I just live with it. See the beauty and perfection of decay in the world around you and in yourself, and just allow it to be.

There are some unappreciated advantages to aging. The very frailty of age guards its secrets. To many people you become irrelevant, which gives you more time to do inner work. Francis, a resident in a nursing home, wrote to me, “Lack of physical strength keeps me inactive and often silent. They call me senile. Senility is a convenient peg on which to hang nonconformity. A new set of faculties seems to be coming into operation. I seem to be waking to a larger world of wonderment – to catch little glimpses of the immensity and diversity of creation. More than at any other time of my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planet and the sky above. Old age is sharpening my awareness.”

Ramdass

 

It is interesting to see how aging can work to one’s advantage spiritually. I used to go to Burma to sit in meditation. I’d go into a cell. I’d just sit down – no books, no television, no computers, no one to talk to. I’d just sit and go inward. I’d go into as quiet a place as I could find. Just look at what happens when you get old. You lose your hearing, you lose your sight, you can’t move around so well, you slow down. What an ideal time to meditate. If any message is clear, that’s it. Yet we treat aging as an error or a failing.
That distortion comes from defining ourselves in terms of doing instead of being. But behind all the doings, all the roles, you just are – pure awareness, pure consciousness, pure energy. When you reside fully in the present moment, you are outside of time and space.

Trungpa Rinpoche notes, “Our lives awaken through ordinary magic.” It’s in everyday things that the miraculous happens. If we practice being here now, we develop the sensitivity to perceive and appreciate the daily miracles of our lives.

Source Link :  http://www.ramdass.org/being-with-what-is/

Give up everything for a truthful existence. - Jeff Foster.

Speak your deepest truth, even if it means losing  everything--your pride, your status, your image, even your way of life.

A life of lies and half-truths, the burden of unspoken things, will eventually suffocate you and everyone around you.

Give up everything for a truthful existence. Know that you can only lose what's non-essential.

~ Jeff Foster

Night is the time when the yogis remain awake." - Amma.

"At night the atmosphere is calm, for at that time
the birds, animals and worldly people are all subdued  by sleep. There are, therefore, fewer worldly thought  waves in the atmosphere at night. Flowers bloom in  those late hours. At that time the atmosphere has a  unique, energizing effect. If you meditate then, your mind will easily become one-pointed and be absorbed in meditation for a long time. Night is the time when the yogis remain awake."

—AMMA

Where, there is witnessing, and nothing to judge, life becomes celebration

Witnessing....

Some people abused and threw stones at Ramateertha when he was in New York. When he returned home, he was dancing.

A disciple asked, ”What happened, why are you so happy?”

Ramateertha replied, ”It is a matter of joy. Today Ramateertha was in great difficulty. Some people started abusing him, ridiculing him and some people started throwing stones at him. It was great fun seeing Ramateertha being harassed and trapped. He was badly trapped!”

His disciples were puzzled and they asked, ”Who are you talking about? Who is this Ramateertha?”

Ramateertha replied, keeping his hands on his chest, ”This Ramateertha was badly trapped and I was just watching and enjoying seeing him trapped. I saw those who were abusing him and I also saw that man Ramateertha who was trapped and being abused.

I kept watching the whole scene.”

Inspiring Reality to learn, for those, whose body is not supporting them

Osho : One very great mystic of India – I have spoken on him for almost half a year continuously. His name was Ashtavakra. And what he has written is tremendously important; each sentence has so many dimensions to be explored, but the man himself was in a very difficult situation.

Ashtavakra – the name was given to him, because he was almost like a camel. In eight places he was distorted in the body – one leg was longer, one arm was shorter, his back was bent – in eight places he was distorted. That’s how he was born, with a crippled, distorted body. But even in a crippled and distorted body the soul is as beautiful as in the most beautiful body.

He became enlightened, but his body was too rigid to change with his inner change. His eyes started showing something of the beauty, but the whole body was in such a mess.

The story is that the emperor of India in those days was Janak and he was very much interested in philosophical discussions. Each year he used to call a big conference of all the scholars, philosophers, theologians or whoever wanted to participate. It was a championship competition.

One very famous philosopher, Yagnavalkya came a little late. The conference had started and he saw standing outside one thousand beautiful cows. Their horns were covered with gold and diamonds. This was going to be the prize for the champion. It was a hot day and the cows were perspiring.

He told his disciples, ”You take these cows. As far as winning the competition is concerned, I am certain. Why should the cows suffer here? You take them to our place.” They had their own place in the forest.

Even Janak could not prevent him, because he knew that he had been the champion continuously for five years, and he would be the champion this time, because there was nobody else who could defeat him. It is not right to take the reward before you have won, but his victory was so certain to everybody that nobody objected. And his disciples took away all the cows.

While Yagnavalkya was discussing, a very unknown scholar was also present in the conference. Ashtavakra was this unknown philosopher’s son. His mother was waiting for her husband to come home. It was getting late and the meal was getting cold. So she sent Ashtavakra to bring his father home, because he could not win the competition. Why should he unnecessarily waste his time? He was a poor scholar and there were great scholars there. Ashtavakra went. There were at least one thousand people in the conference, the highly cultured and sophisticated scholars of the country.

As Ashtavakra entered, looking at his distorted body they all started laughing. But Ashtavakra was a man of tremendous integrity. As they started laughing, he laughed even louder. Because of his loud laugh they stopped. They could not believe that he was laughing.

Janak asked him, ”I can understand why they are laughing – because of your body; but I cannot understand why you are laughing. And you stopped all their laughing with your laughter.” A single man stopped one thousand people’s laughter.

Ashtavakra said to Janak, ”I thought this conference was for scholars and philosophers, but these are all shoemakers. They can understand only the skin. They cannot see the inner, they can only see the outer.”

There was a great silence. What he was saying had a great truth in it. Janak dissolved the conference and said, ”Now I would like to inquire of Ashtavakra only. He has defeated you all just by his laughter and his statement that, ‘You can’t see the inner, you can only see the outer; you are all shoemakers.’ Shoemakers work with the skin of different animals. I dissolve the conference and, Yagnavalka, return those one thousand cows, because you also laughed. And when Ashtavakra laughed, you also stopped!”

It was a very strange situation; it had never happened before. And then began the long inquiry of Janak, the emperor. He asked questions and Ashtavakra answered them. Each answer in itself carried so much meaning and significance.

Because his body was in such a bad shape he could not get identified with it. Sometimes blessings come in such disguise. He could not go out, because wherever he went people would laugh, ”Look at that man! Have you seen anything uglier than this?”

So most of the time he was in the house, meditating, figuring out, ”Who am I? Certainly I am not this body, because I can be aware of this body, I can observe this body from within. Certainly that awareness has to be different from the body.”

Because of his crippled body he experienced enlightenment. The only barrier is identification with the body. But he could not identify, the body was so ugly. He never looked in a mirror; it would have been such a shock.

But Yagnavalkya had to return those one thousand cows to Ashtavakra’s house. He was young and he defeated one thousand old philosophers, well-versed in the ancient scriptures.

It is one of the strangest things in this country that on every book written by any prominent mystic there have been hundreds of commentaries, but nobody has commented before me on Ashtavakra.

And he must be at least five thousand years old. For five thousand years nobody has bothered to look into his statements, which are so significant.

But his inner enlightenment, his inner understanding could not change his outer appearance. And yet for those who are going deeper into themselves, the outer does not matter. They would have seen even in Ashtavakra tremendous beauty, but it would not have been of the outer circumference, but of the center.

Most often the inner change changes the outer, if the outer is not too rigid. But the outer never changes the inner.

You need to have eyes, going deep into people’s beings, which is possible only if you are going inwards yourself. The deeper you go into yourself the deeper you can look into other people’s beings. And then a totally new world opens its doors.

OSHO

When your friend is in grief and you want to help him.......

Jeff Foster :

'YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL'
Just to sit with a dear friend who is experiencing pain or grief or anger, or stuck temporarily in a view that there is something horribly wrong with the world...

Just to be there with them, and for them, without a plan, without expectations, without judgements, without pity, without trying to ‘fix’ them in any way, or manipulate their experience to suit your idea of how it should be, in order to remove your discomfort...

Just to listen, just to receive their experience, without playing the role of ‘the one who knows’, 'the enlightened one', 'the one with all the answers' or even 'the great listener', without pretending in any way...
Just to allow them to feel what they feel, to breathe how they breathe, to stay present with them in the midst of their nightmare, to be silent if necessary, to reflect their experience back at them in words spoken from silence, to show that you are listening, to shine light on the darkest places...
... this can be the beginning of great healing, for you and your dear friend.

When we go beyond mind-created roles of 'victim' and 'saviour', 'teacher' and 'student', even 'healer' and 'healed', and we truly meet in not-knowing, unprotected and undefended, open to life's vast intelligence, true healing is possible.

We cannot heal in the past, friends. We cannot heal in the future, and it is not our job to fix others in the present. We can only bring our living presence, our deep listening, our tender curiosity to 'what is', and trust the healing power that lies within each of us, however 'sick' or 'beyond help' we have judged ourselves or others to be.

Healing is not measured in terms of how many symptoms have disappeared, or how many test results have come back 'negative', but in terms of how deeply we can love, how beautifully we can dream, how profoundly we can connect, how willingly we can show up for life, even when we'd rather not show up at all.