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Talking about enlightenment

When I was sitting with my teacher, Arvis, we'd all go into the kitchen after the meditation and dharma talk and have some fruit and tea, and we'd talk openly about our lives. For the most part we didn't focus on our spiritual experiences, but they were a part of the mix. Then these same people would do retreats at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and have big awakenings, and the folks in L.A. began to wonder what was happening in this little old lady's living room up north. Arvis's view was simple: The only thing I'm doing that they're not, she said, is that we sit around casually and talk, and what's happening on the inside for people isn't kept secret or hidden. This way, people get beyond the sense that they're the only ones who are having this or that experience. They come out of their shell, which actually makes them more available to a deeper spiritual process.

The tradition of talking about certain experiences only in private with your teacher keeps enlightenment a secret activity reserved for special people. I can understand the drawbacks of being more open, of course. Some people may blab on about how enlightened they are, and become more egotistical. But when everything remains open to inquiry, then even the ego's tendency to claim enlightenment for itself becomes obvious in the penetrating light of public discourse. In the long run, both ways have their strengths and weaknesses, but I've found that having students ask their questions in public breaks down the isolation that many spiritual people feel - the sense that nobody else could possibly understand what they're going through, or that they're so rotten at their practice, or that nobody could be struggling like they are. And when people have breakthroughs and talk about them in public, awakening loses its mystique. Everyone else can see that it's not just special people who have deep awakenings, it's their neighbor or their best friend. (Adyashanti, TE.)

Teachers - Only the enlightened can teach

See The Guru - Only the enlightened can become gurus

Therapy - Advice to therapists

Q: Do you have any advice for therapists?

A: Endeavor to be as honest yourself and with yourself as you would ask whoever you're with to be. To me, this is the true field of transformation. (Adyashanti, SM.)

Q: A woman recently asked you at a public meeting whether you thought therapy would help her awaken, and you answered, 'No." Why is that?

A: In a traditional sense, therapy is trying to put a nicer looking tutu or lipstick on the pig, which is great. It makes the story better and enables one to dream better, which means to function as an ego better.

Q: What can we do as therapists, if anything, to help people awaken?

A: Well, be awakened yourself. If one isn't to some extent awake, there's nothing you can do, and you're better off leaving the whole subject alone, because you'll probably do more damage than good. (Adyashanti, SM.)

Third Eye

Dwelling in flesh, or departing, or one with the gunas, Knowing their moods and motions, he is invisible Always to the ignorant, but his sages see him With the eye of wisdom. (Sri Krishna, BG, 112.)

With the [Third or Inner] eye I [shall] perceive Thee as ... Lord of all life's deeds. (Zarathustra, GZ, 187.)

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, (1) thy whole body shall be full of light. (2) (Jesus, Matthew 6:22.)

(1) That is, if the Third Eye be opened. (2) You will be enlightened.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

And their eyes were opened, (1) and they knew him; and h e vanished out of their sight.

And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us, (2) while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? (Luke 24:30-2.)

(1) The Third Eye. (2) Perhaps a reference to spiritual awakening.

Only the mind's eye can contemplate this mighty beauty. (1) (Plotinus, EP, 43.

(1) Only the third eye can look upon the Self.

The sutras say, ... "The opening of the inner eye is the door of the Great Vehicle." (1) (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 24.)

(1) The opening of the Third Eye indicates impending enlightenment.

I see with the inward eye. (Mohammed, DR, 15.)

Over and over again Gautama [the Buddha] declares that the "noble truths" taught ... were not "among the doctrines handed down" but that "there arose within me the eye to perceive them, the knowledge of their nature, the understanding of their cause, the wisdom that lights the true path, the light that expels darkness." (Bucke, CC, 84.)

To be able to see is to have attained perception. (1) (Ascended Master, probably the Master Hilarion, channelling through Mabel Collins, LOP, 21-2.)

(1) I.e., to have opened the Third Eye.

Between the eyebrows there is a third eye, the eye of wisdom. When this eye is opened a fountain of joy is released, and the whole universe seems merged in bliss. (Swami Brahmananda, EC, 189.)

[Lahiri Mahasaya's] eyes sparkled and danced with the joy of the Divine. They were half closed, peering through the inner telescopic orb (1) into a sphere of eternal bliss. (Paramahansa Yogananda, AY, 35.)

(1) The Third Eye.

[The point between the eyebrows is] the seat of the "single" or spiritual eye. At death the consciousness of man is usually drawn to this holy spot, accounting for the upraised eyes found in the dead. (Paramhansa Yogananda, AY, 38.)

The physical body has two eyes -- positive and negative, due to the law of relativity. The astral body has only one eye, which is variously named -- the spiritual eye, the single eye (the Christian Bible), the third eye (the Hindu Bible), the star of the east, the star of wisdom, the dove descending from Heaven, the inner eye, the intuitive eye, Shiva's eye, the star through which the wise men saw, etc. , etc. During the baptism by the Holy Ghost, as perceived by Jesus Christ, He perceived it as a cosmic sound or Heaven, and the spiritual eye as the dove. This spiritual eye is a spiritual telescope with three rays as its lenses. The outer circle is golden. The inner lens of light is blue, and is studded with a five-pointed, silver star (as the third ray). The microcosmic cosmic energy ... manifests itself in the human body as the specific reflected life energy or the astral body. The spiritual or astral eye is the individualized cosmic energy in the human body. In meditation, first the life force must be withdrawn from the body, and must cross the portals of cosmic energy represented by the golden ring. Then it must plunge in the blue light representing Christ Consciousness. Then it must penetrate through the silver star representing Spirit, in the region of the Infinite. These three -- golden, blue, and silver light -- contain all walls of rays of ultra-violet, electronic, and atomic rays -- rays of cosmic energy through which one has to penetrate before one can reach Heaven. The golden halo and the blue central light are the two wings of the dove and the little white star represents the mouth of the dove. The outer golden light is the Holy Ghost or Cosmic Energy or Nature, the blue represents God the Son or Christ, and the silver star represents God the Father.

So Jesus, during His baptism, saw the cosmic energy manifested in bodily shape, or materialized out of the ether, as the telescopoc spiritual astral eye; and out of that spiritual eye representing the cosmic energy came a voice, or intelligent, all-creative, cosmic sound, saying, or vibrating, in intelligible voice (for all language comes from the Holy Ghost), "Thou art my Son (or my manifestation) I am glad thou hast risen (lifted thy consciousness from matter) [to] my Omnipresence." (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 18-9.)

All the Yogis (those who seek scientific union with God) of India lay the utmost importance on keeping the spine straight during meditation, and upon concentration on the point between the eyebrows. The idea is that when the attention is switched off from the senses it begins to withdraw the currents from the sense telephones, and to reverse them towards the Spiritual Eye, situated between the two physical eyes and the medulla.

The Spiritual Eye is a reflection of the medulla. As one switch throws light into the two lights of an automobile, so the medulla throws the current into the two physical eyes, but by making the eye single; i.e., concentrating on the point between the two eyes, one can see the medulla reflected as only one light.

The Pineal Eye and the Medulla Eye are one and the same reflected through the two outer eyes. By making the eyes single again, the diffused light of the two physical eyes is seen as one Spiritual Eye. Jesus said: "If, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

Attention is the conductor of our life currents and consciousness. Those who greedily indulge in the pleasures of the senses of touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight find the searchlights of their consciousness and Life Force turned outwards towards matter, but when, by self-control and meditation, the attention is foicused on the point between the eyebrows in the spiritual sensorium, then the Life Force and consciousness steadily begin to throw a revealing light over the Christ Consciousness Omnipresent in all finite Creation.

Every spiritual aspirant should know that a bent spine during meditation offers real resistance to the process of reversing the life currents. A bent spine throws the vertebra out of alignment and pinches the nerves, making it impossible for the Life Force to reverse its direction and flow towards the Spiritual Eye and the medulla.

John, Esaias, and Yogis say that to receive Christ Consciousness from Jesus, or from a real Yogi preceptor, more than a simple physical contact is necessary. One must know how to meditate with a straight spine, how to keep the attention switched off from the senses, and how to keep it fixed on the altar of the Spiritual Eye between the two eyes, where Christ Consciousness can be received in all its glory. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 85-7.)

John [the Baptist] spoke of the Christ Consciousness, immanent in all vibratory Cosmic energy, as symbolized in the dove-like Spiritual Eye, the star-marked opal-blue light encased in a ring of golden ray. This light is symbolized by a dove because it brings perennial peace. The star represents the mouth of the dove and is the secret passage to Cosmic Consciousness. (1) The blue and golden lights are the two wings of the dove. The blue represents the Cosmic tunnel leading to the perception of the subjective Christ intelligence in all Creation. The ring of light represents the objective Cosmic energy, Cosmic Vibration, or the Holy Ghost.

The Spiritual Eye is composed of the lifetron (2) (like electron) or the finest ultimate unit of intelligence and energy. It is finer than electrons, of which all matter and consciousness are composed. Each microcosmic lifetron contains in miniature the essence of all the macrocosmic creation. The Cosmos is made of the transcendental God, the Father, the consciousness beyond all Creation; and God, the Son, (the consciousness of the Father reflected in the womb of Cosmic Energy as the Only Begotten, only reflected Christ Consciousness) and the Holy Ghost, or Cosmic Vibration. This Cosmic Vibration appears as the Cosmic Sound of all lifetrons and Cosmic Energy.

Microcosmically each lifetron, or the Spiritual Eye in man, is composed of the elements God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or of transcendental Cosmic Consciousness, of Christ Consciousness, and of Cosmic Energy. However, John said: "I saw the Spirit descending from His abode of Heavenly Bliss, in the form of a microcosmic Spiritual Eye, and rest upon Jesus. The spiritual telescopic eye of Jesus was opened through this, and he could perceive the macrocosmic manifestations of Cosmic Consciousness, Christ Consciousness, and Cosmic Energy. Ordinary man, through physical eyes, sees only his body and a little portion of the earth at a time, but [a man] like Jesus, can see the spiritual dove alight in him; i.e., behold through his telescopic Spiritual Eye the entire kingdom of Cosmic Energy and the consciousness existing in and beyond it. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 89-90.)

(1) Cf. Jesus in Matthew 19:24: "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Yogananda suggests that the worldly, whose senses are turned outwards, cannot pass through the Third Eye into the kingdom of God. (2) Perhaps the same as what Buddha called the "kalapa."

In experience, the onset of this process [of God-realization] is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his former light has gone out and left him in darkness, the contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into hiding. In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as we thought if should be. ...

From here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time. (Bernadette Roberts, PNS2, 131.)

Three Poisons (Craving, Aversion and Ignorance or Greed, Anger, and Delusion)

See also Greed, Anger, and Ignorance

Do you want to know what the threefold world is? It is nothing other than the mind-ground that you ... are standing on. When you have a moment of greed in your mind, that is the world of desire. When you have a moment of anger in your mind, that is the world of form. When you have a moment of ignorance in your mind, that is the world of formlessness. These are the pieces of furniture in your house. (Lin-Chi, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 54.)

The three realms are greed, anger and delusion. To leave the three realms means to go from greed, anger and delusion back to morality, meditation and wisdom. Greed, anger and delusion have no nature of their own. They depend on mortals. And anyone capable of reflection is bound to see that the nature of greed, anger and delusion is the buddha-nature. Beyond greed, anger and delusion is the buddha-nature. Beyond greed, anger and delusion there is no other buddha-nature. The sutras say, "Buddhas have only become buddhas while living with the three poisons and nourishing themselves on the pure Dharma." The three poisons are greed, anger and delusion. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 23.)

Long ago, when that great bodhisattva was cultivating the seed of enlightenment, it was to counter the three poisons that he made his three vows. Practicing moral prohibitions to counter the poison of greed, he vowed to put an end to all evils. Practicing meditation to counter the poison of anger, he vowed to cultivate all virtues. And practising wisdom to counter the poison of delusion, he vowed to liberate all beings. Because he persevered in these three pure practices of morality, meditation and wisdom, he was able to overcome the three poisons and reach enlightenment. By overcoming the three poisons, he wiped out everything sinful and thus put an end to evil. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 44.)

If you can simply concentrate your mind's inner light (1) and behold its outer illumination, you'll dispel the three poisons and drive away the six thieves once and for all. (2) (Bodhidharma in ZTB, 56.)

(1) Become absorbed in contemplating the Light of the Self or Child of God.

(2) Reach Self-Knowledge.

Whoever denies entry to the three poisons and keeps the gates of his senses pure, his body and mind still, inside and outside clean, builds a monastery [and thereby earns the merit of doing good works]. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 47.)

Don't hate life and death or love life and death. Keep your every thought free of delusion, and in life you'll witness the beginning of nirvana, and in death you'll experience the assurance of no rebirth. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 29.)

The three poisonous elements [are] greed, hatred, and illusion. (Hui Neng, SHN, 28.)

Over the years, equanimity seemed to develop. One found that anger, annoyance and aversion began to fade out. And when your mind no longer inclines towards dwelling in aversion, you begin to have some joy and peace of mind. (Ajahn Sumedo, CIT, 63.)

Time - Past, Present and Future

Only with reference to the present can the past and the future exist. They too, while current, are the present. To try to determine the nature of the past and the future while ignoring the present is like trying to count without the unit. (Ramana Maharshi, FVR, verse 15.)

Apart from us where is time and where is space? If we are bodies, we are involved in time and space, but are we? We are one and identical now, then, and forever, here, and everywhere. Therefore we, timeless, and spaceless Being, alone are. (Ramana Maharshi, FVR, verse 16.)

There is neither Past nor Future. There is only the Present. Yesterday was the present to you when you experienced it, and tomorrow will be also the present when you will experience it. Therefore experience takes place only in the present, and beyond experience nothing exists. ... Even the Present is mere imagination, for the sense of time is purely mental. Space is similarly mental; therefore birth and rebirth, which take place in time and space, cannot be other than imagination. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 44.)

Time - Past, Present and Future - The past

The past is you in the present, remembering events. In a sense, you cannot be otherwise than in the "here and now" because the past for you is a figment of your imagination in the "here and now."

You remember how you chose to act in the past. You choose to remember certain details and overlook others, according to your wants and intentions right now.

You choose to present events to your listeners in a certain way, for purposes that exist right now. You're choosing in the present to lock energy on certain issues that exist in the moment. Locking energy in the ways you do benefits you in some way. Look at what the benefits are to see what it is you want.

When you see what it is you want, consider whether you would rather take the energy off the past and move to secure the object of your longing now or stay with nostalgia and longing. (John Enright, Awareness, Responsibility, Communication Seminar, February 15, 1978.)

Timing

Nothing can be achieved except in its proper time. Some persons must pass through many experiences and perform many worldly duties before they can turn their attention to God, so they have to wait a long time. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in GSR, 162.)

Everything happens in its own time. One who is ready for the Absolute will be made somehow to hear of it and the start the practice. He will immediately recognize the value of Atmavidya and will follow it with determination. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 93.)

Tolerance

To the ordinary being, others often require tolerance. To the highly evolved being, there is no such thing as tolerance, because there is no such thing as other. She has given up all ideas of individuality and extended her goodwill without prejudice in every direction. Never hating, never resisting, never contesting, she is simply always learning and being.

Transmission

I am a window, Look through me, not at me. (Adyashanti, MSS.)

The way we usually listen is a way in which whatever we hear or read, we take in through our filter. So whatever we take in, either unconsciously or very consciously, we are comparing it with what we already know. ...

Usually, this happens almost unconsciously but very often we are comparing everything we hear with what we know, with our own experience, with what we've heard, read, and thought. So in fact, we are not listening so much to what is said as to whatever is triggered within us by what is said.

The reason this is so important, especially in spirituality, is because when you truly listen, for just one split moment, to something that's true, then your get what is being said. Traditionally, this has been called transmission between the teacher and the student. The transmission is not the understanding by the mind of what is said, which is usually mixed up with everything that's heard and known, and with the whole internal process. But when you truly listen to someone in this way, you not only perceive what they're saying (Adyashanti, the words), but also where the words are coming from. That's the transmission! (Adyashanti, "Transmission," downloaded 11 March 2006 from Nonduality Salon Highlights, http://www.nonduality.com/hl359.htm.)

Trials and Tribulations

For the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins. (Psalm 7:9.)

My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:

For whom the Lord loveth he corrected; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. (Proverbs 3:11-12.)

The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 13:3.)

Jesus said: Let him who seeks, not cease seeking until he finds, and when he finds, he will be troubled, and when he has been troubled, he will marvel and he will reign over the All. (Jesus, GATT, 3.)

He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. (1) (Jesus, Matthew 24:13.)

(1) I.e., enlightened, liberated.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of [everlasting] life. (1) (James 1:12.)

(1) That is, freedom from birth and death.

Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. (1) (John 16:20.)

(1) On the day on which enlightenment is attained.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life. (1) (James 1:2.)

(1) That is, immortal life through enlightenment.

The sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (St. Paul, Romans 8:18.)

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. (1) (St. Paul, II Corinthians 4:17.)

(1) That is, brings us to illumination in time.

You have to be tried in all things to your very ground if things are to turn out right for you. ... Among the countless sufferings awaiting you, I shall name only three.

First, until now you have been punishing yourself with your own hand and, if you felt pity for yourself, you stopped whenever you wanted. Now I will take you away from yourself and hand you over defenceless to be dealt with at the hands of others. Then you will have to accept the public destruction of your reputation in the estimation of some blind men. ... Your earlier [mortification] exercises caused you to be highly esteemed by people, but now you shall be beaten low and must be utterly ruined.

The second suffering is this. However often you have inflicted bitter and deathly agony upon yourself, by a determination of God you have kept your tender, loving nature. It is going to happen that in those places where you especially look for love and loyalty you shall experience deceit, much suffering, and hardship. The suffering will be so manifold that those people who have a special loyalty toward you will have to suffer along with you out of pity.

The third suffering is this. Until now you have been a baby and a pampered sissy, and have moved about in divine sweetness like a fish in the sea. This I shall now take form you and will let you wither and go to ruin. You shall be abandoned both by God and the whole world, and shall be persecuted publicly by friends and enemies. In short, everything that you undertake out of joy or to be consoled will go awry, and whatever is suffering or repulsive to you will prosper. ...

Pull yourself together! I shall be with you myself and shall graciously help you to conquer these prodigious visitations. (Angel guide to Blessed Henry SUSO, HSU, 100-1.)

The darknesses and trials, spiritual and temporal, that fortunate souls ordinarily encounter on their way to the high state of perfection are so numerous and profound that human science cannot understand them adequately; nor does experience of them equip one to explain them. He who suffers them will know what this experience is like, but he will find himself unable to describe it. (St. John of the Cross, CWSJC, 69-70.)

It will happen that while an individual is being conducted by God along a sublime path of dark contemplation and aridity, in which he feels lost, he will encounter in the midst of the fullness of his darknesses, trials, conflicts and temptations someone who, in the style of Job's comforters, will proclaim that all of this is due to melancholia, or depression, or temperament, or to some hidden wickedness, and that as a result God has forsaken him. Therefore the usual verdict is that, since such trials afflict this person, he must have lived an evil life.

Others will tell him that he is falling back since he finds no satisfaction or consolation as he previously did in the things of God. Such talk only doubles the trials of the poor soul, because its greatest suffering is caused by the knowledge of its own miseries; that it is full of evil and sin is as clear as day, and even clearer, for, as we shall see presently, God is the author of this enlightenment in the night of contemplation. And when this soul finds someone who agrees with what it feels (that these trials are all its own fault), its suffering and distress grow without bounds. And this suffering usually becomes worse than death. Such a confessor is not satisfied with this but, in judging these trials to be the results of sin, he urges souls who endure them to go over their past and make many general confessions -- which is another crucifixion. The director does not understand that now perhaps is not the time for such activity. Indeed, it is a period for leaving these persons alone in the purgation God is working in them, a time to give comfort and encouragement that they may desire to endure this suffering as long as God wills, for until then, no remedy -- whatever the soul does, or the confessor says -- is adequate. (St. John of the Cross, CWSJC, 71.)

The mind is like a needle covered with mud, and God is like a magnet. The needle cannot be united with the magnet unless it is free from mud. Tears wash away the mud, which is nothing but lust, anger, greed, and other evil tendencies, and the inclination to worldly enjoyments as well. As soon as the mud is washed away, the magnet attracts the needle, that is to say, man realizes God. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 98.)

This [second movement of the soul] seems to be a stage in which, if exterior trials are not forthcoming, the contemplative may seek them because the energy created by this union must move outward (as a unit and not as a scattered force) to find expression, to accept challenge -- even suffering -- as a way to both reveal and affirm this enduring love. (Bernadette Roberts, ENS, 12.)

This is not a journey for those who expect love and bliss; rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried in fire and have come to rest in the tough, immoveable trust in "that" which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union, and even beyond love and trust itself. (Bernadette Roberts, ENS, 13.)

Trials and Tribulations - The Dark Night of the Soul

In experience, the onset of this process [of God-realization] is the descent of the cloud of unknowing, which, because his former light has gone out and left him in darkness, the contemplative initially interprets as the divine gone into hiding. In modern terms, the descent of the cloud is actually the falling away of the ego-center, which leaves us looking into a dark hole, a void or empty space in ourselves. Without the veil of the ego-center, we do not recognize the divine; it is not as we thought if should be. ...

From here on we must feel our way in the dark, and the special eye that allows us to see in the dark opens up at this time. (Bernadette Roberts, PNS2, 131.)

Trials and Tribulations - The first dark night

This purification of the soul ... we can call the dark night..., whether it is the purification of the sense or of the spirit. (St. John of the Cross in CWSJC, 71-2.)

A soul must ordinarily pass through two principal kinds of night (which spiritual persons call purgations or purifications of the soul) in order to reach the state of perfection. Here we shall term these purgations nights, because in both of them the soul journeys in darkness as though by night.

The first night, or purgation ... concerns the sensory part of man's nature. The second [night is] the night of the spiritual part of man's soul. [The third night is] the passive purgation.

[The] first night is the lot of beginners, at the time God commences to introduce them into the state of contemplation.... The second night or purification takes place in those who are already proficients, at the time God desires to lead them into the state of divine union. This purgation, of course, is more obscure, dark, and dreadful. (St. John of the Cross in CWSJC, 73.)

[The first] dark night is a privation and purgation of all sensible appetites for external things of the world, the delights of the flesh, and the gratifications of the will. All this deprivation is wrought in the purgation of sense. ... One is not freed from the sufferings and anguish of the appetites until they are tempered and put to sleep. ... The first [reason we call this journey toward union with God a night] has to do with the point of departure, because the individual must deprive himself of his appetite for worldly possessions. This denial and privation is like a night for all his senses. (St. John of the Cross in CWSJC, 74.)

Trials and Tribulations - The second dark night

After passing through the first night (the privation of all sensible objects), a man soon enters the second night by living in faith alone, not a faith that is exclusive of charity, but a faith that excludes other intellectual knowledge. ... For faith does not fall into the province of the senses. ... God, by means of faith, which is the second night, communicates Himself so secretly and intimately that He becomes another night for the soul. (St. John of the Cross in CWSJC, 75.)

Trials and Tribulations - The third dark night

While this communication of God is in progress, the night ... becomes far darker than those other two nights. When this third night (God's communication to the spirit, which usually occurs in extreme darkness of soul) has passed, a union with the Spouse, who is the Wisdom of God, (1) then follows. ... In actuality these three nights comprise only one night, a night divided into three parts, just as the natural night. The first part, the night of the senses, resembles early evening, that time of twilight when things begin to fade from sight. The second part, faith, is completely dark, like midnight. The third part, representing God, is like the very early dawn just before the break of day. (St. John of the Cross in CWSJC, 75.)

(1) This Wisdom is the Divine Mother or Holy Spirit.

The Trimurthy - The Trimurthy is identical with the gunas

Vishnu is Sattva; Brahma is Rajas; and Siva, Tamas. (Swami Ramakrishnananda, GDI, 107.)

The Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Christianity; Brahman, Atman and Shakti in Hinduism; God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Child (or Self)

Brahman, (1) the absolute, impersonal existence, when associated with the power called Maya (2) ... is known as ... the First-Born. (3) (UPAN, 21.)

(1) God the Father. (2) God the Mother. (3) The Self.

Part of myself (1) is the God within every creature, (2) Keeps that nature eternal, yet seems to be separate, Putting on mind and senses five, the garment Made of Prakriti. (3) (Sri Krishna, BG, 111.)

(1) God the Father or Brahman. God the Son or Atman. God the Mother or Prakriti/Shakti.

Brahman (1) is that which is immutable, and independent of any cause but Itself. When we consider Brahman as lodged within the individual being, we call him the Atman. (2) The creative energy of Brahman (3) is that which causes all existences to come into being. (Sri Krishna, BG, 74.)

(1) God the Father. (2) The Self (3) God the Mother, Shakti. Thus, the Mother takes a seed of the Father and wraps it in Herself. This is the Self, which "gives birth" to Itself at the instant of Self-Realization.

You must understand that both Prakriti (1) and Brahman (2) are without beginning. All evolution and all the gunas proceed from Prakriti. From Prakriti the evolution of body and senses is said to originate. The sense of individuality in us (3) is said to cause our experience of pleasure and pain. The individual self, (4) which is Brahman mistakenly identified with Prakriti, experiences the gunas which proceed from Prakriti. It is born of pure or impure parents, according to that kind of guna to which it is most attached. (Sri Krishna, BG, 103.)

(1) Prakriti, or Procreatrix, is the Mother, Shakti. (2) Brahman is the Father. (3) This individual self is called in Hinduism the "Jivatman." (4) Again, the jivatman.

The Way begot one, And the one, two; Then the two begot three And three, all else. (Lao-Tzu, WOL, 95.)

[In response to his disciples’ request for a password, Jesus said:] Tell them a movement and a rest. (1) (A. Guillaumont et al. The Gospel According to Thomas. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1959, 29.)

(1) The Mother is that movement; the Father is that rest.

For I was my father's (1) son, (2) tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. (3) (Proverbs 4:3.)

(1) God the Father or Brahman (2) God the Mother, the H oly Spirit, or Shakti. (3) The Self or Atman, the Child of God, one with God the Father, or Brahman.

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost (1) shall come upon thee, and the power (2) of the Highest (3) shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God [or Self]. (Luke 1:35.)

(1) The Mother. (2)Identifying the Holy Spirit with the power of God; i.e., Shakti or energy. (3) The Father.

One can neither discuss nor understand the One, the Superunknowable, the Transcendent, Goodness Itself, that is, the Triadic Unity possessing the same divinity and the same goodness. (Pseudo-Dionysius, CWPD, 53.)

"Brahman" may refer to God, (1) the ruler of Maya (2) and creator of the universe. The "Atman" may refer to the individual soul, (3) associated with the five coverings which are effects of Maya. Thus regarded, they possess opposite attributes. But this apparent opposition is caused by Maya and her effects. It is not real, therefore, but superimposed.

These attributes caused by Maya and her effects are superimposed upon God and upon the individual soul. (Shankara, CJD, 72-3.)

(1) God the Father. (2) God the Mother. (3) God the Child, or Self.

The threefold Logos [is] as the Trinity: the First Logos, the fount of all life, being the Father; the dual-natured Second Logos the Son, God-man; the Third, the creative Mind, the Holy Ghost, whose brooding over the waters of Chaos brought forth the worlds. Then come "the seven Spirits of God" and the hosts of archangels and angels. (Annie Besant, AW, 30-1.)

A different conception of the trinitarian Reality [is] Sat, Tat, Aun; or Father, Son, Holy Ghost. (Paramhansa Yogananda, AY, 487n. The Cosmos is made of the transcendental God, the Father, the consciousness beyond all Creation; and God, the Son, (the consciousness of the Father reflected in the womb of Cosmic Energy as the Only Begotten, only reflected Christ Consciousness) and the Holy Ghost, or Cosmic Vibration. This Cosmic Vibration appears as the Cosmic Sound of all lifetrons and Cosmic Energy.

Microcosmically each lifetron ... is composed of the elements God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or of transcendental Cosmic Consciousness, of Christ Consciousness, and of Cosmic Energy. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 89-90.)

Then the Spirit found that the Holy Ghost could not sustain itself just by its inactive omnipresence, so it made itself manifest as the active Christ Intelligence in all vibratory creation, to create, recreate, preserve, and mould it according to its divine purpose. So the distinct, active, differentiated, conscious intelligence, existing in all specks of vibratory creation, or Holy Ghost, is called the Only Begotten (Christ) Son. It must be remembered that Christ consciousness in all specks of creation is the only existing reflection of God the Father; hence, Christ intelligence is spoken of as the only begotten Son. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 27-8.)

Just as the husband is born again in the wife as the son, so inactive God the Father, active and manifest in Holy Ghost became the only reflected, only begotten Son. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 29.)

God the Father differentiated Himself into the Holy Ghost or Cosmic Vibratory Creation.... In the womb of the Holy Ghost or Cosmic Vibratory Creation was born the Christ Intelligence of God the Father. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 2, 3.)

In the Vedas, reality experienced at the transcendental level is called Brahman. (1) (Swami Nikhilananda, HIN, 29.)

(1) The Father.

According to the Vedas, ultimate reality (1) is all-pervading, uncreated, self-luminous, eternal spirit, the final cause of the universe, the power behind all tangible forces, the consciousness which animates all conscious beings. (Swami Nikhilananda, HIN, 24.)

(1) The Father.

As the pure Brahman (1) in association with maya (2) becomes the conditioned Brahman, or Isvara (the Personal God), so also in association with the same maya, it becomes the individual soul or jiva. (3) ... The supreme soul, as we have seen, assumes through maya a body and becomes finite and individualized: but this individualization is neither final nor real. (Swami Nikhilananda, HIN, 49-50.)

(1) The Father. (2) The Mother or Holy Spirit. (3) The Self, Child of God, or Son of God, the pearl of great price.

Atman in man and Brahman in the universe are completely identical. (1) (Swami Nikhilananda, HIN, 53.)

(1) I and my Father are one. (Jesus, John 10:30.)

Maya, (1) which is not essentially different from Brahman, (2) is the material cause, and Brahman, as pure intelligence, is the efficient cause of the universe. After projecting all material forms, Brahman enters into them as life (3) and consciousness and animates them. Thus Brahman, which is transcendental, becomes immanent in the universe. (Swami Nikhilananda, HIN, 45.)

(1) Maya is a name for the Divine Mother. (2) The Heavenly Father. (3) The Atman, Self, or Son of God.

To the daring devotee who wants to see the transcendental Absolute, (1) She (2) reveals that form by withdrawing Her garment of the phenomenal universe. Brahman is Her transcendental aspect. She is the Great Fact of the universe, the totality of created beings. She is the Ruler and the Controller. (Swami Nikhilananda,"in VYW, 24.)

(1) The Father. (2) The Mother.

The goal of man's life [is] the reunion with the Holy Family, or the blessed Trinity of Father, Mother and Child. (White Eagle, WWE, 23.)

Truth

Truth alone succeeds, not untruth. By truthfulness the path of felicity is opened up, the path which is taken by the sages, freed from cravings, and which leads them to truth's eternal abode. (UPAN, 47.)

The truth is noble and sweet; the truth can deliver you from evil. There is no saviour in the world except the truth.

Have confidence in the truth, although you may not be able to comprehend it, although you may suppose its sweetness to be bitter, although you may shrink from it at first. Trust in the truth.

... Errors lead astray; illusions beget miseries. ... Self is a fever; self is a transient vision, a dream; but truth is wholesome, truth is sublime, truth is everlasting. There is no immortality except in truth. For truth alone abideth forever. (Buddha, GB, 42.)

They who imagine truth in untruth, and see untruth in truth, never arrive at truth, but follow vain desires. They who know truth in truth, and untruth in untruth, arrive at truth and follow true desires. (Buddha, TCB, 53.)

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (Jesus, John 8:32.)

By adhering to truth one attains God. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 749.)

God is realized by following the path of truth. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 162. Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. (Krishnamurti, CHT.)

The truth frees.... The highest state of inaction is the action of truth. (Krishanmurti, COL, 2, 37.)

Truth alone liberates, and not your desire to be free. The very desire and effort to be free is a hindrance to liberation. (Krishnamurti, COL, 2, 104.)

Truth realizes itself. (Adyashanti, Downloaded from http://www.zen-satsang.org/, 16 May 2004.)

If you filter my words through any tradition or "-ism", you will miss altogether what I am saying. The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond - awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that. (Adyashanti, Downloaded from http://www.zen-satsang.org/, 16 May 2004.)

Truth is a sleeping giant which, once aroused and awakened, becomes an unstoppable liberator. Arousing the fire of truth and keeping it burning is the task of all true seekers and teachers of the Way. (Adyashanti, Downloaded from http://www.members.shaw.ca/adyashanti/, 16 May 2004.)

If you would simply look towards what's true in every single situation, at all moments, all during the day, in everything you do, then full self-realization surely couldn't be far away. It is only because you only seldom look for the truth that you don't find it. (Adyashanti, Downloaded from http://www.members.shaw.ca/adyashanti/, 16 May 2004.)

Truth - Its nature

The truth ... is in the middle between the real and the unreal. (Sage Vasistha, CYV, 50.)

Truth is the understanding of what is from moment to moment without the burden or the residue of the past moment. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 20.)

As long as there is the experiencer remembering the experience, truth is not. Truth is not something to be remembered, stored up, recorded, and then brought out. What is accumulated is not truth. (Krishnamurti, COL, 2, 66.)

Truth is outside of all patterns, fears and hopes. If you would discover the supreme happiness of truth, you must break away from all ceremonies and ideological patterns. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 24.)

Truth is not an end, a result, a goal; it cannot be invited, for it is not a thing of the mind. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 25.)

Truth is not to be conquered; you cannot storm it; it will slip through your hands if you try to grasp it. Truth comes silently, without your knowing. What you know is not truth, it is only an idea, a symbol. That shadow is not the real. (Krishnamurti, COL, 2, 56.)

The highest cannot be attained; there is no path, no mathematically progressive growth to it. Truth must come, you cannot go to truth, and your cultivated virtue will not carry you to it. What you attain is not truth, but your own self-projected desire; and in truth alone is there happiness. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 324.)

Truth must be discovered anew from moment to moment, it is not an experience that can be repeated; it has no continuity, it is a timeless state. The division between the many and the one must cease for truth to be. It is not a state to be achieved, nor a point towards which the mind can evolve, grow. If truth is conceived as a thing to be gained, then the cultivation of knowledge and the accumulation of memory become necessary, giving rise to the guru and the follower, the one who knows and the one who does not know. (Krishnamurti, COL, 3, 4.)

Repetition of a truth is a lie. Truth cannot be repeated, it cannot be propagated or used. That which can be used and repeated has no life in itself, it is mechanical, static. A dead thing can be used, but not truth. You may kill and deny truth first, and then use it; but it is no longer truth. The propagandists are not concerned with experiencing; they are concerned with the organization of sensation, religious or political, social or private. The propagandist, religious or secular, cannot be a speaker of truth. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 63.)

Truth - Must be free from desire

To see the false as the false, and the truth in the false, and the true as the true, is not easy. To perceive clearly, there must be freedom from desire, which twists and conditions the mind. (Krishnamurti, COL, 2, 125.)

To give up in order to gain is no renunciation at all. To see the false as the false, to the see the true in the false, and to see the true as the true -- it is this that sets the mind free. (Krishnamurti, COL, 3, 4.)

Truth - Truthfulness

Truthfulness alone is the spiritual discipline in the Kaliyuga. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 177.)

Truth - Falsehood

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight. (Proverbs 12:22.)

Truth -- The highest truth

There are two selves, the apparent self and the real Self. Of these it is the real Self, and he alone, who must be felt as truly existing. To the man who has felt him as truly existing he reveals his innermost nature.

The mortal in whose heart desire is dead becomes immortal. The mortal in whose heart the knots of ignorance are untied becomes immortal. These are the highest truths taught in the scriptures. (UPAN, 24.)

He who is free from delusion, and knows me as the supreme Reality, knows all that can be known. Therefore he adores me with his whole heart.

This is the most sacred of all truths I have taught you. He who has realized it becomes truly wise. The purpose of his life is fulfilled. (Sri Krishna, BG, 113.)

The body is called the Field, because a man sows seeds of action in it, and reaps their fruits. Wise men say that the Knower of the Field is he who watches what takes place in the body. Recognize me as the Knower of the Field in every body. I regard discrimination between Field and Knower as the highest kind of knowledge. (Sri Krishna, BG, 100.)

The Atman is one with Brahman: this is the highest truth. (Shankara, CJD, 69.)

The essence of each creature is to be sought in that which is highest in it and peculiar to it. (Al-Ghazzali, AH, 23.)

Truth - How to know something is true

There are infinite possibilities of self-deception. To protect the aspirant from error and delusion the seers of Vedanta lay down three criteria of Truth. These are scriptural authority (Sruti), reasoning (yukti), and personal experience (anubhava). Any one of these, singly, may enable a man to realize partial truth, but when all three point to the same conclusion, the aspirant may be assured that he has realized the whole of Truth. The meaning of the scriptures, which contain the recorded experience of knowers of Truth of the past, must be explained by a competent teacher. In order to free reasoning from the pitfalls of rationalisation, rigorous mental disciplines are prescribed so that the aspirant may be grounded in detachment not only from the external world but also from his own pet ideas and exclusive loyalties. The aspirant must be able to view his own thinking objectively and submit it to a searching analysis. Ultimate values must be judged by the standard of eternity and not of time. Ultimate Truth, the basis of the universe, is self-evident, non-contradictory, and free from fear and friction. The seer perceives Truth everywhere and in everything, and thus becomes completely free from fear, sorrow, and expectation, which characterize the life of falsehood in the relative world. (Nikhilananda, "Introduction" to SK, 20-1.)

Turn from the World to God

You find yourself in this transient, joyless world. Turn from it, and take your delight in me. Fill your heart and mind with me, bow down to me in self-surrender. If you set your heart upon me thus, and take me for your ideal above all others, you will come into my Being. (Sri Krishna in BG, 85.)

The soul of every man does possess the power of learning the truth and the organ to see it with; and that, just as one might have to turn the whole body round in order that the eye should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until its eye can bear to contemplate reality and that supreme splendour which we have called the Good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing, the conversion of the soul, in the readiest way; not to put the power of sight into the soul's eye, which already has it, but to ensure that, instead of looking in the wrong direction, it is turned the way it ought to be. (Socrates in REP, 232.)

Only those reach [the Good] who rise to the intelligible realm, face it fully, stripped of the muddy vesture with which they were clothed in their descent ... and enter in nakedness, having cast off in the ascent all that is alien to the divine. (Plotinus in EP, 40.)

[One who has seen God] loves with a true love, with desires that flame. All other loves than this he must despise and all that once seemed fair he must disdain. (Plotinus in EP, 41.)

What is this vision like? How is it attained? How will one see this immense beauty that dwells, as it were, in inner sanctuaries and comes not forward to be seen by the profane? Let him who can arise, withdraw into himself, forego all that is known by the eyes, turn aside forever from the bodily beauty that was once his joy. He must not hanker after the graceful shapes that appear in bodies, but know them for copies, for traceries, for shadows, and hasten away towards that which they bespeak. ... Withdraw into yourself and look. ... Do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be beautified: he cuts away here, he smoothes it there, he makes this line lighter, this other one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. Do you this, too. Cut away all that is excessive. straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one radiance of beauty. Never cease "working at the statue" until there shines out upon you from it the divine sheen of virtue.... Have you become like this? Do you see yourself, abiding within yourself, in pure solitude? Does nothing now remain to shatter that interior unity, nor anything cling to your authentic self? Are you entirely that sole true light which is not contained by space, not confined to any circumscribed form, not diffused as something without term, but ever immeasurable as something greater than all measure and something more than all quantity? Do you see yourself in this state? Then you have become vision itself. Be of good heart. Remaining here you have ascended aloft. You need a guide no longer. Strain and see. (Plotinus, EP, 40-3.)

Fellow believers, I tell you there is no Dharma to be found outside. (Master Lin-Chi, ZTML, 57.)

People who try to do something about what is outside themselves are nothing but blockheads. (Master Lin-Chi, ZTML, 31.)

Followers of the Way, if you want to attain Buddhahood, don't chase around after the ten thousand things. ... If only the mind does not arise, then the ten thousand things will be blameless. (Master Lin-Chi, ZTML, 72.)

If you want to be no different from the patriarchs and the buddhas, then never look for something outside yourselves. ... And simply because you do not rush around seeking anything outside yourselves, you can command these fine faculties. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 24.)

Followers of the Way, don't take the Buddha to be some sort of ultimate goal. In my view he's more like the hole in a privy. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 76.)

Things like the twelve divisions of the scriptures all speak of surface or external matters. But students don't realize this and immediately form their understanding on the basis of such surface and external words and phrases. All this is just depending on something and whoever does that falls into the realm of cause and effect and hasn't yet escaped the threefold world of birth and death. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 36.)

The buddhas are born from the realm that leans on nothing. If you can waken to this leaning on nothing, then there will be no Buddha to get hold of. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 36.)

Seeking outside for some Buddha possessing form -- This hardly becomes you! If you wish to know your original mind, Don't try to join with it, don't try to depart from it. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 62.)

The elect of God, indeed, eat and drink 'in God', and all their thinking is directed Godwards; they attend to mundane matters only as need - not lust - may require. They have to talk of earthly things of course, but they do so with reluctance, and they never dwell thereon. Mentally they turn back to God with all speed, and spend the rest of the time with divine duties. (Richard Rolle, FOL, 49.)

Our love for him, rooted in our hearts and steadfast, changes us into his own likeness, and with its fiery love feeds into our minds a glory of another sort, one which is divine.

For his love is a fire which sets our hearts aflame so that they glow and burn; and it purges them from all the foulness of sin. This fire blazes in his chosen ones, and makes them (in mind at least) look heavenwards, and to long ceaselessly for the release of death. (Richard Rolle, FOL, 56-7.)

Fasting is effective in the control of the desires of carnal lust, and in the mastery of a wild and wayward mind. But in him who attains the heights of contemplation with joy and ardent love, the desires of the flesh now lie virtually dead. It means death to evil longings for the man who surrenders himself to contemplation, whose inner self is being changed to a glory and pattern that is different. Now it is no longer he who lives, but Christ who live sin him, and as a result he is overwhelmed by love and longing for him. (Richard Rolle, FOL, 78.)

Wealth goes, beauty vanishes, life flies, power fly - but the Lord abideth forever. ... Stick to God. Who cares for what comes, in the body or anywhere? Through the terrors of evil, say, "My God, my Love!" Through the pangs of death, say, "My God, my Love!" ... Do not go for glass beads, leaving the mine of diamonds. This life is a great chance. What! Seekest thou the pleasures of this world? He is the fountain of all bliss. Seek the highest, aim for the highest, and you shall reach the highest. (Swami Vivekananda in GLWT, 48.)

Find God. Nothing else matters. (Swami Vivekananda in GLWT, 48.)

Turn from the World to God - The senses were made to turn outwards

The senses derive from physical objects, physical objects from mind, mind from intellect, intellect from ego, ego from the unmanifested seed, and the unmanifested seed from Brahman -- the Uncaused Cause. (UPAN, 19-20.)

The Self-Existent made the senses turn outward. Accordingly, man looks toward what is without, and sees not what is within. Rare is he who, longing for immortality, shuts his eyes to what is without and beholds the Self. (UPAN, 20.)

Only that yogi Whose joy is inward, Inward his peace, And his vision inward Shall come to know Brahman. (Sri Krishna, BG, 61.)

You find yourself in this transient, joyless world. Turn from it, and take your delight in me. Fill your heart and mind with me, bow down to me in self-surrender. If you set your heart upon me thus, and take me for your ideal above all others, you will come into my Being. (Sri Krishna, BG, 85.)

Patiently, little by little, a man must free himself from all mental distractions, with the aid of the intelligent will. He must fix his mind upon the Atman, and never think of anything else. No matter where the restless mind wanders, it must be drawn back and made to submit to the Atman only. (Sri Krishna, BG, 66.)

Stop up your senses; Close up your doors: Be not exhausted As long as you live. Open your senses; Be busier still: To the end of your days There's no help for you. (Lao-Tzu, WOL, 105.)

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. (St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:18.)

People who try to do something about what is outside themselves are nothing but blockheads. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 31.)

Things like the twelve divisions of the scriptures all speak of surface or external matters. But students don't realize this and immediately form their understanding on the basis of such surface and external words and phrases. All this is just depending on something and whoever does that falls into the realm of cause and effect and hasn't yet escaped the threefold world of birth and death. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 36.)

The buddhas are born from the realm that leans on nothing. If you can waken to this leaning on nothing, then there will be no Buddha to get hold of. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 36.)

You can't seem to stop your mind from racing around everywhere seeking something. That's why the patriarch said, 'Hopeless fellows -- using their heads to look for their heads!' You must right now turn your light around and shine it on yourselves, not go seeking somewhere else. Then you will understand that in body and mind you are no different from the patriarchs and buddhas, and that there is nothing to do. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 68.)

Eyes that aren't attached to form are the Gates of Zen. Ears that aren't attached to form are also the Gates of Zen. In short, those who perceive the existence and nature of phenomena and remain unattached are liberated. Those who perceive the external appearance of phenomena are at their mercy. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 30.)

Fellow believers, I tell you there is no Dharma to be found outside. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 57.)

Followers of the Way, don't take the Buddha to be some sort of ultimate goal. In my view he's more like the hole in a privy. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 76.)

Seeking outside for some Buddha possessing form -- This hardly becomes you! If you wish to know your original mind, Don't try to join with it, don't try to depart from it. (Lin-Chi, ZTML, 62.)

With a controlled mind and an intellect made pure and tranquil, you must realize the Atman directly, within yourself. (Shankara, CJD, 53.)

God works in us from within outward, whereas all creatures work from without inward. Grace and all God's gifts and inspirations thus come from within, in the unity of our spirit, and not from without, in the imagination by means of sensible images. (John Ruusbroec, JR, 75.)

Attention is the conductor of our life currents and consciousness. Those who greedily indulge in the pleasures of the senses of touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight find the searchlights of their consciousness and Life Force turned outwards towards matter, but when, by self-control and meditation, the attention is focused on the point between the eyebrows in the spiritual sensorium, then the Life Force and consciousness steadily begin to throw a revealing light over the Christ Consciousness Omnipresent in all finite Creation. (Paramahansa Yogananda, SCC, 1, 86.)

The more externalized we are, the more sensations and distractions there must be, and this gives rise to a mind that is never quiet, that is not capable of deep search and discovery. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 14.)

Sensation is always seeking further sensation, ever in wider and wider circles. There is no end to the pleasures of sensation; they multiply, but there is always dissatisfaction in their fulfilment; there is always the desire for more, and the demand for more is without end. (Krishnamurti, COL, 1, 239.)

Turn from the World to God - Turn away from the world towards God

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. (1) (I John 2:15-7.)

(1) Wins immortality or eternal life and need not be reborn.

The ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle: Totally fascinated by the realm of the senses, It swings from one desire to the next One conflict to the next One self-centered idea to the next. If you threaten it, it actually fears for it life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there. (Lao Tzu, HHC, 13.)

Let him who can arise, withdraw into himself, forego all that is known by the eyes, turn aside forever from the bodily beauty that was once his joy. He must not hanker after the graceful shapes that appear in bodies, but know them for copies, for traceries, for shadows, and hasten away towards that which they bespeak. ... Withdraw into yourself and look. ... Do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be beautified: he cuts away here, he smooths it there, he makes this line lighter, this other one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. Do you this, too. Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one radiance of beauty. Never cease "working at the statue" until there shines out upon you from it the divine sheen of virtue.... Have you become like this? Do you see yourself, abiding within yourself, in pure solitude? Does nothing now remain to shatter that interior unity, nor anything cling to your authentic self? Are you entirely that sole true light which is not contained by space, not confined to any circumscribed form, not diffused as something without term, but ever immeasurable as something greater than all measure and something more than all quantity? Do you see yourself in this state? Then you have become vision itself. Be of good heart. Remaining here you have ascended aloft. You need a guide no longer. Strain and see. (Plotinus in EP, 40-3.)

One should learn to live inwardly [and] die in blessedness. (Blessed Henry SUSO, HSU, 57.)

Cut off the Past, and shut out the Future, and you lose the Life of the World of Men; yet when the Life of the World fades away, the Light of Eternity will dawn upon your eyes. (Anon., SAO, 34.)

Hate to think of anything but God himself, so that nothing occupies your mind or ever will but only God. Try to forget all created things that he ever made, and the purpose behind them, so that your thought and longing do not turn or reach out to them in general or in particular. Let them go, and pay no attention to them: it is the work of the soul that pleases God most. All saints and angels rejoice over it, and hasten to help it on with all their might. (Anon., CU, 53.)

Just do one thing: always try to remember God. I also do that. (Swami Brahmananda in GLWT, 115.)

As in the works of knowledge, so in dealing with the workings of the heart, we are obliged to make a preliminary distinction between two categories of movements, those that are either moved by the true soul or aid towards its liberation ... and those that are turned to the satisfaction of the unpurified vital nature. ... A division can be made between religious emotions and mundane feelings and it can be laid down as a rule of spiritual life that the religious emotions alone should be cultivated and all worldly feelings and passions must be rejected and fall away from our existence. (Sri Aurobindo, SOY, 141.)

There is no way back Home if you weave around you a snare of worldly desires. You came to play your part on the stage of time, to fill the role that you were designed for in the divine drama; but the essential part of your role is to think of Him and to do His will, naught else. Every thought, every act, is deluded that does not place Him first. (Paramahansa Yogananda, MEQ, 459.)

Although the force of desires is strong, the potency of Divine Will is stronger. The Will is in you and will work through you, if you permit it, and if you refuse to let worldly motivations weave nets of incarnations around you. (Paramahansa Yogananda, MEQ, 459.)

God teaches [the seeker] that if the mind can be detached from the outside world, then no evil will exist for him. Matter is the cause of all misery, of all misfortune. The less we have to do with matter, the better it is for us. (Ramakrishnananda, GDI, 36.)

We are conscious and God is conscious, and it becomes evident that if we want God, we shall have to search Him out in our inner consciousness. We must always seek consciousness in consciousness. Just as we must seek a bird among birds, not among beasts; in the same way we must not search for God in unconsciousness. What is unconscious? Matter is dead and unconscious, therefore God must not be sought in matter. We must seek him in consciousness, that is, inside our own self. (Ramakrishnananda, GDI, 37.)

Searching for God outside is like trying to catch fish by emptying the ocean. Therefore, become introverted. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 45.)

Truth cannot be gained by searching outside. ... Search for It within. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 29.)

When there is awareness of the world there is no awareness of the Self. When there is awareness of the Self, awareness of the world is not there. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 39.)

The ignorant ones who are drowning themselves in worldliness cannot know the Truth. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 48-9.)

The effect should merge in the cause some day. The effects are the sense organs, mind, intellect, vital forces, etc. The world itself is an effect. Real life is a dispassionate, constant effort to merge these into the Supreme Self (Paramatma) which is the Cause. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 24.)

Turn from the World to God - Turn the mind inward

"Whence does this 'I' arise?" Seek for it within; it then vanishes. This is the pursuit of Wisdom. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 24.)

The Divine gives light to the mind and shines within it. Except by turning the mind inward and fixing it in the Divine, there is no other way to know Him through the mind. (Ramana Maharshi, FVR, verse 22.)

[Turning the mind inward] is done by practice and dispassion and that succeeds only gradually. The mind, having been so long a cow accustomed to graze stealthily on others' estates, is not easily confined to her stall. However much her keeper tempts her with luscious grass and fine fodder, she refuses the first time; then she takes a bit; but her innate tendency to stray away asserts itself; and she slips away; on being repeatedly tempted by the owner, she accustoms herself to the stall; finally even if let loose she would not stray away. Similarly with the mind. If once it finds its inner happiness it will not wander outward. (Ramana Maharshi, TWSRM, Question 213.)

By repeated practice one can become accustomed to turning inwards and finding the Self. One must always and constantly make an effort, until one has permanently realized. Once the effort ceases, the state becomes natural and the Supreme takes possession of the person with an unbroken current. Until it has become permanently natural and your habitual state, know that you have not realized the Self, only glimpsed it. (Ramana Maharshi, CI, n.p.)

The mind should not be allowed to wander towards worldly objects and what concerns other people. However bad other people may be, one should bear no hatred for them. Both desire and hatred should be eschewed. All that one gives to others one gives to one's self. If this truth is understood who will not give to others? When one's self arises, all arises; when one's self becomes quiescent, all becomes quiescent. To the extent we behave with humility, to that extent there will result good. If the mind is rendered quiescent, one may live anywhere. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 16-7.)

[The quest] has to begin with the mind turned inward to oppose the rushing thoughts and to understand the location of the 'I'. When the mind eventually sinks in the Heart, undisturbed bliss is overwhelmingly felt. There is then feeling which is not divorced from pure awareness, i.e., head and heart become one and the same. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 80.)

Turn from the World to God - The Self is to be found within

Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (Jesus, Luke 17:21.)

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24.)

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? (St. Paul in Corinthians, 13:5.)

The Sutra of the Ten Sages says, "In the body of mortals is the indestructible buddha-nature. Like the sun, its light fills endless space. But once veiled by the dark clouds of the five shades, (1) it's like a light inside a jar, hidden from view." (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 39.)

(1) Matter.

Someone who seeks the Way doesn't look beyond himself. He knows that the [original] mind is the Way. But when he finds the mind, he finds nothing. (1) And when he finds the Way, he finds nothing. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 29.)

(1) God is nothing, no-thing, a Void, emptiness.

Deluded people don't realize that their own mind is the buddha. They keep searching outside. They never stop invoking buddhas or worshipping buddhas and wondering where is the buddha? Don't indulge in such illusions. Just know your mind. (Bodhidharma in ZTB, 12.)

If you want to be no different from the patriarchs and the buddhas, then never look for something outside yourselves. The clean pure light in a moment of your mind -- that is the Essence-body of the Buddha lodged in you. ... And simply because you do not rush around seeking anything outside yourselves, you can command these fine faculties. (Master Lin-Chi , ZTML, 24.)

With a controlled mind and an intellect made pure and tranquil, you must realize the Atman directly, within yourself. (Shankara, CJD, 53.)

The real Christ and Buddha are in us. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in Anon., LSR, 47.)

God dwells within us. If one knows that, one feels like giving up all activities and praying to God with a yearning soul. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 112.)

The devotee has within him the scroll on which the scriptures are written in letters of life; but, alas, few care to read them. (Unnamed Baul devotee in Sen, HIND, 104.)

I can only teach you the laws. You were told many years ago that the kingdom of heaven is within. It is not without. It is not to be found in the rush of the world of matter. It is to be found within the soul. (Silver Birch, SBA, 16.)

Turn from the World to God - Turn towards the heart, where the Self resides

Worship his feet in the lotus of your heart. (Mahendranath Gupta, GSR, 141.)

Regard most earnestly your own heart. ... For through your own heart comes the one light which can illuminate life and make it clear to your eyes. (Ascended Master, probably the Master Hilarion, channelling through Mabel Collins, LOP, 27-8.)

The thought "I am the body" is the string On which are threaded divers thoughts like beads. Therefore on diving deep upon the quest "Who am I and from whence?" thoughts disappear And consciousness of Self ... flashes forth As the "I-I" within the cavity Of every seeker's Heart. And this is Heaven, This is that Stillness, the abode of Bliss. (Ramana Maharshi, WHO, 27.)

Enquire into the nature of that consciousness which knows itself as 'I' and it will inevitably lead you to its source, the Heart, where you will unmistakably perceive the distinction between the insentient body and the mind. The latter will then appear in its utter purity as the ever-present, self-supporting intelligence, which creates, pervades its creation, as well as remains beyond it, unaffected and uncontaminated. Also finding the Heart will be experienced as being the Heart. When this experience becomes permanent through constant practice, the much-desired Self-Realisation or Mukti is said at long last to have been achieved - the 'I-am-the-body' illusion has broken for ever. (Ramana Maharshi, GR, 95-6.)

Turn from the World to God - Meditate on the Self

Shutting off sense From what is outward, Fixing the gaze At the root of the eye-brows, Checking the breath-stream In and outgoing Within the nostrils, Holding the senses, Self-controlled, Cut free from desire, Curbing the heart And knowing the Atman, Man finds Nirvana That is in Brahman, Here and hereafter. (Sri Krishna, BG, 62.)

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. (Proverbs 5:15.)

People of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the buddha, they attain the understanding of a buddha without using the mind. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 35.)

Turn from the World to God - Only if God allows it will we see Him

One can see God only if He turns His light toward His own face. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna in GSR, 174.)

Turn from the World to God - You cannot love both the world and God

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Jesus in Matthew 6:24.)

Love for God and love for the world cannot coexist in the same soul: the stronger drives out the weaker, and it soon appears who loves the world, and who follows Christ. The strength of people's love is shown in what they do. The lovers of Christ set themselves against the world and the flesh, just as those who love the world oppose God and their own soul. (Richard Rolle, FOL, 49.)

Turn from the World to God - Worldliness, worldly desires must utterly go - See also Karma Yoga - Control the senses - Without sense control, enlightenment is impossible

The secret (1) waits for the insight Of eyes unclouded by longing; (2) Those who are bound by desire See only the outward container. (Lao Tzu, WOL, 53.)

(1) Knowledge of God. (2) Longing for objects and sensations.

It were well to cast kingdoms aside and the domination of the entire earth and sea and sky if, by this spurning, one might attain this vision. (Plotinus in EP, 41.)

Purify your soul from all undue hope and fear about earthly things, mortify your body, deny self - affections as well as appetities -- and the inner eye will begin to exercise its clear and solemn vision. (Plotinus, Bucke, CC, 122.)

Only those reach [the Good] who rise to the intelligible realm, face it fully, stripped of the muddy vesture with which they were clothed in their descent ... and enter in nakedness, having cast off in the ascent all that is alien to the divine. (Plotinus, EP, 40.)

The wise wake up [from desiring and seeking]. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the season. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. (Bodhidharma, ZTB, 2-3.)

A human soul cannot know the fire of eternal love unless first he has completely cut adrift from worldly vanity of every kind. There must be a serious intention to study heavenly things, to long continually for the love of Hod, and to give every creature its due meed of affection. For it is for God's sake that we love everything, we love God in it rather than the thing itself. (Richard Rolle, FOL, 106.)

Know, O beloved, that man was not created in jest or at random, but marvellously made and for some great end. (1) Although he is not from everlasting, yet he lives for ever; (2) and though his body is mean and earthly, yet his spirit is lofty and divine. When in the crucible of abstinence he is purged from carnal passions he attains to the highest, and in place of being a slave to lust and anger becomes endued [sic] with angelic qualities. Attaining that state, he finds his heaven in the contemplation of Eternal Beauty, and no longer in fleshly delights. (Al-Ghazzali, AH, 17.)

(1) Enlightenment. (2) Although his body is temporal, his spirit is eternal, immortal.

The attainment of our goal demands that we ... must continually mortify our appetites rather than indulge them. ... The soul ... will not be transformed in God if it has only one imperfection. (St. John of the Cross, CWSJC, 98.)

The craving for worldly things, which is chronic in man, is like the patient's craving for water. There is no end to this craving. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 246.)

Without giving up worldliness a man cannot awaken his spiritual consciousness, nor can he realize God. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 176.)

There is no hope for a worldly man if he is not sincerely devoted to God. But he has nothing to fear ... if he attains sincere devotion [to God] by practising spiritual discipline now and then in solitude. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 126.)

One cannot obtain jnana if one has the least trace of worldliness and the slightest attachment to [lust and greed]. This is not the path for the Kaliyuga. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 150.)

You will feel restless for God when your heart becomes pure and your mind free from attachment to the things of the world. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 375.)

Sri Ramakrishna could not bear to hear any worldly talk. (Lakshmi Devi in TLWG, 60-1.)

Men who have the Cosmic Sense give up everything for it -- this whole volume is proof of it. (Bucke, CC, 105.)

The tendency to enjoy sensual pleasures should completely leave the mind. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 31.)

Turn from the World to God - Choose either happiness or greatness

My dear Mary, I will tell you a great lesson I have learnt in this life. It is this: "The higher your ideal is, the more miserable you are," for such a thing as an ideal cannot be attained in the world - or in this life, even. He who wants perfection in the world is a madman - for it cannot be. How can you find the infinite in the finite?

You, Mary, are like a mettlesome Arab [i.e., Arabian stallion] - grand, splendid. You would make a splendid queen.... But, my dear sister, you will make one of the worst wives. You will take the life out of our easy-going, practical, plodding husbands of the everyday world. Mind, my sister, although it is true that there is much more romance in actual life than in any novel, yet it is few and far between. Therefore my advice to you is that until you bring down your ideals to a more practical level, you ought not to marry. If you do, the result will be misery for both of you. In a few months you will lose all regard for a commonplace, good, nice young man, and then life will become insipid.

There are two sorts of persons in this world - the one strong-nerved, quiet, yielding to nature, not given to much imagination, yet good, kind, sweet, etc. For such is this world - they alone are born to be happy. There are others, again, with high-strung nerves, tremendously imaginative, with intense feeling - always going high, and coming down the next moment. For them there is no happiness. The first class will have almost an even tenor of happiness. The second will have to run between ecstacy and misery. But of these alone what we call geniuses are made. There is some truth in a recent theory that genius is "a sort of madness."

Now persons of this class, if they want to be great, must fight to be so - clear the deck for battle. No encumbrance - no marriage - no children, no undue attachment to anything except the one idea, and live and die for that. I am a person of this sort. I have taken up the one idea of "Vedanta," and I have "cleared the deck for action." You and Isabel are made of this metal - but let me tell you, though it is hard, you are spoiling your lives in vain. Either take up one idea, clear the deck, and to it dedicate the life, or be contented and practical, lower the ideal, marry, and have a happy life. Either "bhoga" or "yoga" - either enjoy this life or give up and be a yogi. None can have both in one. Now or never - select quick. "He who is very particular gets nothing," says the proverb. Now sincerely and really and for ever determine to "clear the deck for the fight," take up anything - philosophy or science or religion or literature - and let that be your God for the rest of your life. Achieve happiness or achieve greatness. (Swami Vivekananda to Mary Hale in VYW, 105.)

Turn from the World to God - Intellectuals find it difficult to renounce the world

Book scholars will speak about renunciation but cannot withdraw their minds from sensual objects. (Mata Amritanandamayi, AC, I, 35.)

Turn from the World to God - Deny the illusion

It is a venerable way and plain, but hard and difficult for the soul to go in that is in the body.

For first it must war against its own self, and after much strife and dissention, it must be overcome of one part; for the contention is of one against two, (1) while it flies away, and they strive to hold and detain it.

But the victory of both is not like, for the one hasteth to that which is God, but the other is a neighbour to the things that are Evil; and that which is Good desireth to be set at liberty, but the things that are Evil love Bondage and Slavery.

And if the two parts be overcome, they become quiet, and are content to accept of it as their Ruler; but if the one be overcome of the two, it is by them led and carried to be punished by its being and continuance here. (2)

This is, O Son, the Guide in the way that leads thither; for thou must first forsake the Body before thy end, and get the victory in this contention and strifeful life, and when thou hast overcome, return. (3) (Hermes, DPH, 2.)

(1) One interpretation of this rich passage is the strife is between unitive and dualistic consciousness. (2) If unitive consciousness be overcome by dualistic consciousness, it is led by dualistic consciousness into birth after birth. (3) You must overcome the demands and desires of the body in this life and reach enlightenment first; then you can turn your attention to the world.

As long as one is conscious of the body, one is also conscious of objects. Form, taste, smell, sound and touch -- these are the objects. It is extremely difficult to get rid of the consciousness of objects and one cannot realize 'I am He' as long as one is aware of objects. (Paramahansa Ramakrishna, GSR, 181.)

This world is a superstition. We are hypnotized into believing it real. The process of salvation is the process of de-hypnotization. ... This universe is just the play of the Lord - that is all. It is all just for fun. (Swami Vivekananda in GLWT, 61.)

Turn from the World to God - Parables of finding the Self and contemplating Its identity with the Father is seen - See also The Self - After seeing it, contemplate on it and reach the Father

The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, (1) which a man took, (2) and sowed in his field: (3) Which indeed is the least of all seeds: (4) but when it is grown, (5) it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. (6) (Jesus in Matthew 13:31-2.)

(1) The Self.

(2) That is, saw in the Fourth-Chakra enlightenment or Illumination.

(3) Became absorbed in contemplating.

(4) Said to be smaller than the smallest. (UPAN, 18.)

(5) As we contemplate the Atman, it is said to approach until we enter into it and discover it to be identical to the Father. (6) It expands infinitely in the experience of Self-Realization, creating a sage who ministers to those still wandering in worldly life.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, (1) he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. (2) (Matthew 13:44.)

(1) In the first vision of light called "spiritual awakening," consequent upon the spiritual current reaching the fourth chakra. (2) Renounced everything and became absorbed in it until he "bought it" or reached permanent God-realization or Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi, making it his own. Cf. Bodhidharma: "If you can simply concentrate your mind's inner light and behold its outer illumination, you'll dispel the three poisons and drive away the six thieves once and for all." (Bodhidharma in ZTB, 56.)

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:

Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, (1) went and sold all that he had, and bought it. (2) (Jesus in Matthew 13:45-6.)

(1) The Self.

(2) Renounced everything, contemplated the Self, and won it forever in the experience of permanent God-Realization or Sahaja Nirvikalpa Samadhi.