Through negation the positive comes into being

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.

Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’
After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are.
The ‘I am’ is certain. The ‘I am this’ is not.
Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

To know what you are, you must first investigate
and know what you are not.

Discover all that you are not
— body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that —
nothing, concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you.
The very act of perceiving shows you
that you are not what you perceive.

The clearer you understand that on the level of mind
you can be described in negative terms only,
the quicker will you come to the end of your search
and realize that you are the limitless being.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – I Am That – Introduction (VI)

Longing

Before the end of my journey
may I reach within myself
the one which is the all,
leaving the outer shell
to float away with the drifting multitude
upon the current of chance and change.

— Rabindranath Tagore – Fireflies

True liberation is not for the “I”, but from the “I”

Selfishness is not living as one wishes:
it is asking others to live
as one wishes to live.

— Oscar Wilde

What determines the true worth of a man
in the first place, is to what degree
and in what sense
he has attained liberation from “I”

— Albert Einstein

How do you know that you do not know your self?

Your direct insight tells you that yourself you know first, for nothing exists without your being there to experience its existence. You imagine you do not know your self, because you cannot describe your self. You can only say: “I know that I am” and you will refuse as untrue the statement “I am not”. But whatever can be described cannot be your self, and what you are cannot be described. You can only know your being by being yourself without any attempt at self-definition and self-description. Once you have understood that you are nothing perceivable or conceivable, that whatever appears in the field of consciousness cannot be your self, you will apply yourself to the eradication of all self-identification, as the only way that can take you to a deeper realization of your self.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – I Am That – p. 517-8

What is needed is a radical change in one’s attitude towards life

The human spirit has always been in search of the infinite, to see and hear and know what is unseen, unheard and unknown. But, all along man’s search has remained directed to the exterior regions only – the vast expanses of land, oceans and the sky. Few have cared to peep into their own internal regions, their heart and mind and soul. Fewer still have realized that it is only through our inner consciousness that we experience what is outside. For a pilgrimage into one’s interior, into one’s own self, it is not necessary for one to be a learned man or a religious man, nor is it necessary to seek the help of a spiritual guide or guru. What is needed is a radical change in one’s attitude towards life, beginning with the dispersal of ego. And no bookish knowledge, no spiritual guide can be a substitute for such a deliberate inward orientation. With the dispersal of ego the basic duality between the self and not-self, abam and idam, progressively disappears and a new realization of I am that dawns – I am that. I am the cosmos. I am Brahman. My body is a micro-cosmos in constant change, yet maintaining a changeless design-pattern, as in the case of the cosmos, which is both a living unity and a bewildering diversity, like myself.

— Sudhakar S. Dikshit – I am All (p. 17-18)

I am That

Because in me you all exist, for me there is no separation:
but because you do not possess me,
for you there is separation and sorrow.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti – By What Authority!

There is nothing in the world that you cannot know,
when you know yourself.
Thinking yourself to be the body,
you know the world as a collection of material things.
When you know yourself as a centre of consciousness,
the world appears as the ocean of mind.
When you know yourself as you are in reality,
you know the world as yourself.

— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: I Am That

Out of my deeper Heart

Out of my deeper heart a bird rose and flew skywards.

Higher and higher did it rise, yet larger and larger did it grow.

At first it was but like a swallow, then a lark, then an eagle, then as a vast spring cloud, and then it filled the starry heavens.

Out of my heart a bird flew skywards. And it waxed larger as it grew. Yet it left not my heart.

O my faith, my untamed knowledge, how shall I fly to your height and see with you man’s larger self pencilled upon the sky?

How shall I turn this sea within me into mist, and move with you in space immeasurable?

How can a prisoner within the temple behold its golden domes?

How shall the heart of a fruit be stretched to envelop the fruit also?

O my faith, I am in chains behind these bars of silver and ebony, and I cannot fly with you.

Yet out of my heart you rise skyward, and it is my heart that holds you, and I shall be content.

— Khalil Gibran – Out of my deeper Heart – The Forerunner

Make the interests of others your own

Widen your shriveled heart, make the interests of others your own and serve them as much as you can by sympathy, kindness, presents and so forth. So long as one enjoys the things of this world and has needs and wants, it is necessary to minister to the needs of one’s fellow men. Otherwise one cannot be called a human being. Whenever you have the opportunity, give to the poor, feed the hungry, nurse the sick – do service as a religious duty and you will come to know by direct perception that the person served, the one who serves and the act of service are separate only in appearance.

— Sri Ananadamayi Ma

The View

“Once you have the View, although the delusory perceptions of samsara may arise in your mind, you will be like the sky; when a rainbow appears in front of it, it’s not particularly flattered, and when the clouds appear, it’s not particularly disappointed either. There is a deep sense of contentment. You chuckle from inside as you see the facade of samsara and nirvana; the View will keep you constantly amused, with a little inner smile bubbling away all the time.”

— Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Sogyal Rinpoche – p. 170)

Moods and Habit Patterns

“One way to understand moods is that they are just the habit patterns of our mind continually playing themselves out in different scenarios. According to the view of Dharma, we don’t need to understand them or consider them so much as we need to replace them with new habits. This is where practice comes in. When we practice, we involve our body, emotions and mind in a new habit which is much more “real” in the sense that it is in line with the reality of enlightenment. This is the definition of purification.
The problem with paying much attention at all to emotional states is that we must on some level believe that they are real if we are considering them at all. We reinforce our sense of egoic reality by examining and exploring them, much in the way Narcissus was enamored of his reflection. When we come to practice from that place, we create extra obstacles and encounter even greater resistance.”

— A’dzom Rinpoche

(…related to the 3 previous articles)