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Mahasiddha Shabaripada - Shavaripa

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In the forest of ignorance lurks a deer,
The deer called alienation.
Taking out the great bow of wisdom and skillful means,
And shooting the single arrow of ultimate truth,
The deer dies – yes, conceptual thoughts die!
There is the flesh – a feast of non-duality,
And, the taste is that of Great Bliss (Mahāsukha),
And the goal, the Mahamudra is accomplished!

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Mahasiddha Shabaripada - Shavaripa

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Though he expresses with manifold variety of chattering,
The mind of the Yogi does not depart from the one.
In that oneness, there is not even oneness!
Therefore, the manifold is also free from any basis.
He dwells like a madman, careless and vacant,
In effortless conduct, like a baby.



In the state of carefree enjoyment of one’s realization,
When the plight of confused beings become evident,
Tears come forth through the power of overwhelming compassion.
Exchanging self for others, (the Yogi) engages for the benefit of others.

Evgeny shared a Bodhidharma quote         SHARE URL

Bodhidharma

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Those who understand both speech and silence are in Samadhi. If you speak when you know, your speech is free. If you are silent when you don’t know, your silence is bondage. If your speech is not attached to appearances, it is free. If your silence is attached to appearances, it is bondage. Language by itself is not bondage. Because, language by itself is not attachment. And, attachment has nothing to do with language.

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Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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ANNAMALAI SWAMI REMEMBERED
ASHRAM LIFE,
part 4

Bhagavan would also occasionally get angry with other ashram workers if they deliberately disobeyed him. There was an office worker called Mauni Srinivasa Rao who once incurred Bhagavan's displeasure by trying to override his instructions. One of Mauni Srinivasa Rao's jobs was to draft replies to all the spiritual queries which came to the ashram by post. These first drafts would be shown to Bhagavan, who would then scrutinize them and make all necessary corrections. On one occasion,

Mauni Srinivasa Rao refused to accept that Bhagavan's corrections were definitive. He corrected Bhagavan's alterations and sent the letter back to the hall. Bhagavan went through the letter for the second time, deleting all the corrections which had been added by Mauni Srinivasa Rao. When the letter went back to the office, Mauni

Srinivasa Rao again altered some of Bhagavan's corrections. He brought the new draft to the hall and tried to get Bhagavan to read it, but Bhagavan refused even to look at it.

Instead, he threw the letter at Mauni Srinivasa Rao and said, very angrily, 'You do what you like!'

Sometimes Bhagavan showed his displeasure in more subtle ways. One night, after the evening meal, there was a big quarrel in the dining room which resulted in Subramaniam Swami hitting Krishnaswami in the face. Krishnaswami immediately went and complained to Bhagavan but Bhagavan appeared to take no interest in the matter.

Someone had paid for a big bhiksha for the following day, which meant a lot of work for everyone in the kitchen. Ordinarily, Bhagavan would have come to the kitchen at 3 a.m. to help Subramaniam to cut the vegetables but that morning he remained in the hall and made Subramaniam do all the work by himself. Subramaniam spent the first two hours wondering why Bhagavan was late but eventually he realized that he was being punished for attacking Krishnaswami. Bhagavan confirmed his theory by refusing to talk to him, or even look at him, for the rest of that day. Although Subramaniam worked full-time in the ashram, it was well-known that he had little interest in the spiritual life. Once, while Bhagavan was talking to me in the hall about the unreality of the world; Subramaniam Swami came in and listened for a while. After a few minutes, he interrupted by saying, 'How to make the world disappear from the mind?

Bhagavan, knowing that he had no real interest in spiritual matters, responded to his query by saying, 'Go and swallow a ball of ganja [cannabis]. That will make the world disappear.' And then he carried on talking to me.

Bhagavan always discouraged people from taking ganja but in this case, his flippant reply was rather appropriate. Both Subramaniam and his father were ganja users and neither of them had any serious interest in spiritual matters.

— Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 99

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Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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A CINEMA SHOW

The body thought is a distraction from the Self. For whom is the body or birth? It is not for the Self, the spirit. It is for the non-self which imagines itself separate.
Just as a miser keeps his treasures always to himself and never parts with them, so the Self safeguards the vasanas in that which is closest to itself, i.e. within the Heart.

The Heart radiates vitality to the brain and thus causes it to function. The vasanas are enclosed in the Heart in their subtlest form and later projected on the brain, which reflects them with high magnification.

This is how the world is made to go on and this is why the world is nothing more than a cinema show.

— Conscious Immortality

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Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Please, understand that the Guru stands for reality, for truth, for what is. He is a realist in the highest sense of the term. He cannot and shall not come to terms with the mind and its delusions. He comes to take you to the real; don’t expect him to do anything else.

Evgeny shared a Серафим Саровский quote         SHARE URL

Серафим Саровский

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Господь ищет сердца, преисполненного любовью к Богу и ближнему - вот престол, на котором Он любит восседать и на котором Он является в полноте Своей пренебесной славы.

Evgeny shared a Mahavatar Babaji ~ Babaji Nagaraj quote         SHARE URL

Mahavatar Babaji ~ Babaji Nagaraj

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Truth is for earnest seekers, not for those of idle curiosity. It is easy to believe when one sees; there is nothing then to deny. Supersensual truth is deserved and discovered by those who overcome their natural materialistic skepticism.

Evgeny shared a Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj quote         SHARE URL

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Who is the Guru, after all? He who knows the state in which there is neither the world nor the thought of it, he is the Supreme Teacher. To find him means to reach the state in which imagination is no longer taken for reality.

Evgeny shared a Arnold Ehret quote         SHARE URL

Arnold Ehret

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A radical 'fruit cure' or a 'long fast' without necessary knowledge of when and how to discontinue the fast often cause serious impairment of an already weakened vital energy.

— Tragedy of Nutrition

Evgeny shared a Meister Eckhart quote         SHARE URL

Meister Eckhart

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The quickest horse that carries you to perfection is suffering.

Evgeny shared a Fyodor Dostoevsky quote         SHARE URL

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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It requires something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

Evgeny shared a Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi quote         SHARE URL

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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Weaning His Child

Annamalai Swami was born in 1905, November 14th and came to Sri Ramana in 1929 after leaving his family and home. Bhagavan was his god and guru who guided him day after day. Soon he was asked to supervise the constructions of all the main buildings that were started at that time. Besides being a strenuous task in itself – he was allowed to have an umbrella and sandals – Bhagavan used the constellation for a training ground for Annamalai and Bhagavan’s brother Chinnaswami, who was called the ‘sarvadhikari’ which means ‘Ruler over all’. The ashram needed a manager that could assert himself and many were afraid of his strict ways. Throughout his years of service, Bhagavan arranged it in such a way that Chinnaswami’s plans were changed by Annamalai Swami. After instructing him very detailed, Bhagavan always ended: ‘If Chinnaswami comes and argues with you about this plan, don’t tell him that I asked you to work like this. Pretend that you are doing it on your own authority.’ Of course, this led each time to a big clash.

After serving in this challenging way for more than a decade Bhagavan embraced Annamalai seemingly in jest. This triggered a deep experience of the Self and ended the working phase in the ashram for him. He moved to Palakottu, as sadhu-colony close by and began an intensive meditative life that finally culminated in the realization of the Self. The following touching narration tells how Bhagavan severed the outer relationship between them.

‘These nightly visits were a special time for me. Whenever I visited him Bhagavan would always talk to me with a lot of love and affection. Unfortunately, as I was soon to discover, this period of my life was drawing to a close.

A few days later, when I entered the hall, Bhagavan covered his head and face with a dhoti and refused to look at me. This was very unusual. He normally greeted me with a few friendly words whenever I entered the hall. He behaved in exactly the same way on the two nights that followed.

On the third day, I asked him, ‘Why is Bhagavan covering his face like a Muslim woman every time I come into the hall? Does this mean that I should not come anymore?’

Bhagavan replied, rather cynically, ‘I am just behaving like Siva. Why are you talking to me?’

The first sentence of Bhagavan’s answer is a literal translation of a phrase which has the more general meaning, ‘I am sitting here, just minding my own business.’
I took this to be an indication that Bhagavan didn’t want me to come to see him anymore. I walked out of the hall and stood under a tree. After some time Bhagavan called me back into the hall. I noticed that there was no one else there at the time.
‘Are you an atheist who has no belief in God?’ asked Bhagavan.

I was too puzzled to make a reply.

‘If one has no faith in God,’ Bhagavan eventually continued, ‘one will commit a lot of sins and be miserable. But you, you are a mature devotee. When the mind has attained maturity, in that mature state, if one thinks that one is separate from God, one will fall into the same state as an atheist who has no belief in God.

‘You are a mature sadhaka [spiritual seeker]. It is not necessary for you to come here anymore. Stay in Palakottu and do your meditation there. Try to efface the notion that you are different from God.’

I left the ashram and never went back again. Although my room is only about 200 yards from the ashram gate, I have not visited the ashram once since that fateful day in the 1940s.

About twenty days later, as Bhagavan was walking in Palakottu, he came up to me, smiled and said,
‘I have come for your darshan’. I was quite shocked to hear Bhagavan speak like this even though I knew he was joking.

When I asked him for an explanation he said, ‘You have obeyed my words. You are living simply and humbly as I have taught. Is this not great?’

Though Bhagavan had asked me not to come to the ashram any more, I still thought that I had the freedom to talk to him when he visited Palakottu. Bhagavan disabused me of this notion shortly afterwards when I went to see him while he was walking on the hill.

He turned to me and said, ‘You are happier than I. What you had to give you have given. What I had to give I have given. Why are you still coming to see me?’
These were his last words to me. I obeyed his instructions and never approached him again. I still had Bhagavan’s darshan when he came on his daily walk to Palakottu but we never spoke to each other again. If we met accidentally he would walk past me, without acknowledging my presence.

Bhagavan had once told me: ‘Do not cling to the form of the Guru, for this will perish; do not cling to his feet for his attendants will stop you. The true Bhagavan resides in your Heart as your own Self. This is who I truly am.’

By severing the personal link between us, Bhagavan was trying to make me aware of him as he really is. Bhagavan had frequently told me that I should not attach a name and form to the Self or regard it in any way as a personal being.

Bhagavan gave me his grace and then severed the personal relationship between us. The bond of love and devotion was not separated; it was just restricted to the mind and the heart.

When Bhagavan became very sick at the end of the 1940s I was sorely tempted to visit him. I never succumbed because I knew that Bhagavan had instructed to stay away from his outer presence. Some people who were not aware of what Bhagavan had had told me (criticized this):

‘Annamalai Swami served Bhagavan for a long time’, they said, ‘but he is not coming to see Bhagavan now that Bhagavan is seriously ill.’

Bhagavan remarked, ‘He is the one who is not causing any trouble.’

Then he added, ‘You people are here but your minds are elsewhere. He is elsewhere but his mind is here. ‘

In the years that followed I tried to remain in contact with the real Bhagavan, the Bhagavan who exists eternally in the heart.’

- Living by the words of Bhagavan

Evgeny shared a Садхгуру quote         SHARE URL

Садхгуру

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Красота заключена не в формах и очертаниях, а в том, что вы излучаете.

Evgeny shared a Mooji quote         SHARE URL

Mooji

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Nothing can 'get in the way' of the true, for Truth is not to be found in any direction. It is always present as the core of your being.

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Milarepa

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If you do not uncover the inner sources of joy, the outer sources of joy will become the cause of your misery.

Evgeny shared a Миларепа quote         SHARE URL

Миларепа

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Если не создадите внутренних источников счастья, внешние станут причиной страдания.

Evgeny shared a Рамана Махарши quote         SHARE URL

Рамана Махарши

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К чему слова, когда сердце говорит с сердцем?

Evgeny shared a Русские Пословицы quote         SHARE URL

Русские Пословицы

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Что от сердца исходит, то до сердца и доходит.

Evgeny shared a Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi quote         SHARE URL

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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ANNAMALAI SWAMI REMEMBERED

Ashram Animals, part 8

Bhagavan's compassion towards animals did not extend to all the members of the insect kingdom, for he seemed quite happy to permit insects to be killed if they were causing a nuisance.

One morning, for example, shortly before lunch, Bhagavan noticed that a large number of black ants were entering the hall through the drainage hole.
Indian stone or cement floors are regularly washed with water. In such rooms, there will be a small drainage hole, about an inch in diameter, at the junction of one of the walls and the floor. Many floors are slightly tilted so that water naturally drains towards this hole.

Turning to me Bhagavan said, 'Find out where these ants are coming from. If there is a nest in there, block up the exit so that the ants cannot come into the hall. You must do this work quickly because all the devotees will be coming back at 3 p.m.'

I prized out the flagstone that the drainage hole was on. As I pulled the stone out of the wall (a few inches of it were embedded there) I saw a large colony of black ants living in a hole behind it. The ants reacted to their discovery by pouring out into the hall.

Some of them even started to swarm over Bhagavan's sofa. There were so many on the floor around my feet that I couldn't have taken a step without killing some of them. Bhagavan noticed that I had been immobilized by my fear of unnecessarily killing any ants.

'Why are you just standing there and looking at them?' asked
Bhagavan. 'You must clop ip the hole before the devotees come back. Tell me what you need to finish the job properly. Whatever you need—mud, water, bricks—tell me and I shall bring it for you.'

As I was much too worried about killing some of the ants to give Bhagavan an answer, Bhagavan repeated his offer: Tell me what you want and I shall go and fetch it for you. Shall I bring some broken bricks and a little cement?'

This time I managed to explain my inactivity.

'There are ants everywhere, Bhagavan. I cannot move or do any work without killing some of them.'

Bhagavan dismissed my excuse. 'What is sin?' he asked. 'Is it you who are doing this? You are doing something that is for the good of everyone. If you give up the idea "I am doing this," then you will not have any trouble. This is not something that you have decided to do yourself. You are only doing this because I am asking you to do it.'

Bhagavan could sense that I was still reluctant to tread on any of the ants so he tried a different approach.

'In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna asked Arjuna to kill his enemies. When Arjuna hesitated Krishna explained that he had already decided that these people were to die. Arjuna would be merely the tool which would carry out the divine will. Likewise, because I am telling you to do this work, no papam [the karmic consequences of performing immoral acts] will come to you.'

When Bhagavan had given me this assurance I filled in the hole with bricks and cement. Many ants died in the process.

I discovered later that Bhagavan generally discouraged devotees from killing insects unless they were causing, or about to cause, injury or suffering to people or animals. However, if they were causing a problem, he had no compunction about killing them. I once saw Bhagavan take unni [blood-sucking insects] off one of the ashram dogs and kill them by throwing them into the burning charcoal in his kumutti.

A devotee who was watching asked, 'Is it not a sin to kill insects like this?'
Ramaswami Pillai, who used to take insects off dogs and kill them in the same way, justified the activity by telling a story about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.
'It seems,' he said, 'that one of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's devotees was wondering whether it was as a sin to kill bedbugs. He went to ask Sri Ramakrishna about this. When he got there he found Sri Ramakrishna killing the bedbugs in his own bed. The devotee's question was thus answered by a direct demonstration.'

Bhagavan did not answer the questioner himself, but when Ramaswami Pillai had completed his story he nodded his head and said 'Yes'.

On another occasion, when a visitor maintained that one should not kill any kind of insect life, Bhagavan replied, 'If you cook and cut vegetables, you cannot avoid killing a few insects. If you think that killing worms is a sin, then you cannot eat vegetables.'
If Bhagavan saw people deliberately killing harmless insects he would usually show some sign of disapproval. One day, for example a small brahmin boy came to the hall and began to catch and kill flies just to amuse himself. He would clap his hands together and squash the flies between his palms.

Bhagavan told him, 'Don't attack the flies like this. It is a sin.' Unperturbed, the boy replied with what he thought was a teIling counter-argument: 'You have killed a six-feet-long tiger and you are sitting on the skin. Is this not also a sin?'

Bhagavan laughed and let the matter drop.

Other people occasionally asked Bhagavan why he chose to sit on a tiger skin. Most of them felt that he was condoning the killing of tigers by sitting on their skins.

Bhagavan would usually reply that the skins had come to the ashram us unsolicited gifts and that he had not asked that any tigers be killed on his behalf.

Bhagavan strongly opposed the killing of all the higher lifeforms. He gave orders that even snakes and scorpions should not be killed in the ashram. The general rule seemed to be: insects could be killed if they were causing pain or were potentially harmful, but all higher forms of life, including dangerous and poisonous animals, were sacrosanct.

— Living by the words of Bhagavan, p. 93 ff.

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Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Your very nature has the infinite capacity to enjoy. It is full of zest and affection. It sheds its radiance on all that comes within its focus of awareness and nothing is excluded. It does not know evil nor ugliness, it hopes, it trusts, it loves.

Evgeny shared a Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi quote         SHARE URL

Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

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THE UNIVERSE EXISTS WITHIN THE SELF

Q: What is existence?

M: It is subject to birth and decay in order to remind us that it is not our true state.
The universe exists within the Self. Therefore it is real, but only because it obtains its reality from the Self. We call it unreal, however, to indicate its changing appearance and transient form, whereas we call the Self real because it is changeless.
After realization, the body and all else does not appear different from the Self.

— Conscious Immortality

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Shams Tabrizi

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A hundred years of education is nothing compared to one moment spent with God.

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Annamalai Swami

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CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Q: Is the relationship between the Guru and the disciple a real relationship or a maya relationship? If it is a maya relationship, how can it help us to transcend maya?
AS: Bhagavan used to give, as an example, the story of an elephant which dreamed that it was being attacked by a lion. The shock of seeing the lion in the dream was sufficient to wake the elephant up.

The Guru, according to Bhagavan, is the roaring lion who appears in our maya dream and shocks us so much that we wake up into jnana. While the dream is in progress the lion is very real for us, but when we wake up there is no lion and no dream.
In the state of jnana, we become aware that there was no Guru and no disciple; there is only the Self.

But we should not have that attitude prior to realization. While we are still trapped by maya we must accept the Guru-disciple relationship as being real because this relationship provides the only way of transcending all the wrong ideas we have about ourselves.

Even though we may know intellectually that all is one, we should revere the form of the Guru because it is only through his grace that our ignorance can be dissolved. We should respect the Guru and his teachings at all times. We cannot do this if we start treating him as an ordinary person who is no different from any other manifestation of the Self.

Respect for the Guru and faith in his teachings are essential for all those who want to make progress.

— Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 359

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Paramahansa Yogananda

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The company you keep is important. If you leave your coat in a room where people are smoking, pretty soon it will smell of smoke. If you leave it outside in the garden, later on, when you bring it indoors, it will carry with it the fragrance of fresh air and flowers.

Such is the case with the mind. Your garment of thoughts absorbs the vibrations of those with whom you mix. If you mingle with pessimists, in time you will become a pessimist. And if you mingle with cheerful, happy people, you yourself will develop a cheerful, happy nature.

Environment is stronger than will power. To mix with worldly people without absorbing at least some of their worldliness requires great spiritual strength.

Beginners on the spiritual path, especially, should be very careful in the company they keep. They should mix with other devotees, and try not to mingle with ego-saturated, worldly people. They should especially avoid people who are negative, even if those people are devotees.

Whether one becomes a saint or a sinner is to a great extent determined by the company he keeps.

— The Essence of Self-Realization

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