Where has the dream gone?

What am I? I am the screen and the image projected on the screen. There is no image separate from the screen. The image is the screen, there is no independent image on the screen. “The world is Other, the body is Me and the Mind is Me!”, thinks the I-thought that has fooled himself. All is One, all is perfect in Love. As life happens to Me the movie goes on in all its beauty and love in its continual flow in the Now. There is no ‘I’ and there is no ‘Other’. The past is gone and the future is an illusion. There is nothing witnessing the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ because the ‘Witness’, the ‘I’ and the ‘Other’ are all one in the ultimate present Now. What and where is the world, the body and the mind without Me? Where has the dream gone when I woke up?

Happiness cannot be acquired

Anthony de Mello

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don’t you experience it? Because you’ve got to drop something. You’ve got to drop illusions. You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!

— Anthony de Mello – Awareness

(image source: unknown)

By God, you are not that!

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Oh you who have devoted yourself to strife,
you have not discerned yourself from others!
Whenever you come upon a form,
you stop and say, “I am this.”
By God, you are not that! . . .
How can you be that?
You are that unique one, happy, beautiful,
and intoxicated with yourself.
You are your own bird, prey, and snare,
your  own seat of honor, carpet, and roof.
“Substance” subsists in itself,
those things that derive from it are accidents.
If you are born of Adam,
sit like him and behold his progeny within yourself.
What does the vat contain that is not in the river?
What does the room encompass that is not in the city?
This world is the vat, and the heart the running stream,
this world the room, and the heart the city of wonders.

— Jalalud’din Rumi – Mathnawi IV: 803-811 – “The Sufi Path of Love” (transl. William C. Chittick)

(image source: rumibook.info)

The illusion of separatedness

Eckhart Tolle

Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate “other.” You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.

— Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now

(image source: belovingawareness.wordpress.com)

It is false to speak about realisation.

Ramana Maharshi

It is false to speak of realisation. What is there to realise?
The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before. The illustration given in books is this. We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long samskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone.

— Ramana Maharshi -“Be As You Are” – The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi – Edited by David Godman

(image source: solidaryart on Flickr)

Names, Images, Labels

We have names for everything. What if we forgot about those names? And we stopped seeing things as something? What if we just observed things, watched things, without giving them a name, without coming to a conclusion? What do you think would happen? You would transcend everything.

— Robert Adams – Silence of the Heart – (p. 198)

Observing everything with full attention becomes a way of life

The mind must come to a state of silence, completely empty of fear, longing and all images. This cannot be brought about by suppression, but by observing every feeling and though without qualification, condemnation, judgement, or comparison. If unmotivated alertness is to operate the censor must disappear. There must simply be a quiet looking at what composes the mind. In discovering the facts just as they are, agitation is eliminated, the movement of thoughts becomes slow and we can watch each thought, its cause and content as it occurs. We become aware of every thought in its completeness and in this totality there can be no conflict. Then only alertness remains, only silence in which there is neither observer nor observed. So do not force your mind. Just watch its various movements as you would look at flying birds. In this uncluttered looking all your experiences surface and unfold. For unmotivated seeing not only generates tremendous energy but frees all tension, all the various layers of inhibitions. You see the whole of yourself.

Observing everything with full attention becomes a way of life, a return to your original and natural meditative being.

— Jean Klein – The Ease of Being (p. 28)

Listen!

Is it possible to hear criticism, even insult, and find deep acceptance in any response that emerges in the moment – grounded in the unshakeable knowing that what you really are doesn’t need defending? And then, being radically open, is it possible to find a nugget of truth in what they are saying, even if it results in momentary humiliation, and destruction of the image of the one you thought you were? This doesn’t mean you become passive and weak. Quite the opposite. You stop identifying as ‘victim’ or ‘hurt one’, and stop seeing the other as ‘enemy’, and you remain open and vast, the infinite capacity for all life, for all thought and sensation and feeling. And here, in the midst of conflict, you discover the place where conflict ceases to be conflict at all – and wake up to a love beyond reason. Yes, every human relationship is a constant invitation to let go. Your mother, your father, your friends, your lovers, your co-workers, everyone you meet – here are your final gurus, your ultimate teachers. Listen to them.

— Jeff Foster

Sifter of Dust

Suppose you know the definitions
of all substances and their products,
what good is this to you?
Know the true definition of yourself.
That is essential.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it,
that you may attain to the One who cannot be defined,
O sifter of the dust.

— Jalalud’din Rumi – Sifter of Dust – The Rumi Collection

Playing a Role

You are in a play, playing a role, and believing that the role and the play are both real. Why would you believe such nonsense? Because “your mind” is the playwright, the author of every scene.

When Maharaj said, “You are not in the world…the world is in you,” what did he mean? He meant, “You are not in the world,” that is, there is no “you” that is real or in any world. “The world is in you” means that the world is in your “mind” and is nothing more than a figment of your programming-and-conditioning-induced imaginings.

— Floyd Henderson