what is enlightenment?

What is enlightenment? What is that state of Cosmic Consciousness, the ultimate awareness called variously - enlightenment, nirvana, satori, samadhi, self-realization, rapture, salvation, ascension, unity consciousness, voidness, and many other terms by many various religions? It is the goal of life, the ultimate destination of every individualized being. It is brought about when the individual personality ascends beyond the illusionary perception of self separateness to merge in the Universal Self from which it originated so very long ago. Spiritual evolution towards this goal takes place over ages but the final ascent of Spirit can happen in an instant of time.

each soul is potentially divine

"Each soul is potentially Divine. The Goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature external and internal. Do this either by work or worship or psychic control or philosophy - by one or more or all of these - and be free. This is the whole of Religion. Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details." [SwamiVivekananda]

we need to stand back

"We need to stand back from all that is going on in
the world, enter that timeless part of ourselves and
learn to feel what it is to be alive. Then we can live
in the world if we wish, but not be a product of it.
Whatever society is today, it will change. All
cultures and civilizations have a limited life span
and what is fashionable at one time is unfashionable
at another. But underlying all that goes on in the
world, our true nature is always there, underlying our
sense of who we are.

We are never apart from our true nature, except
psychologically, whilst we believe in the play that is
being enacted in the world, whilst we identify with it
and immerse ourselves in it. But we always have, if we
are aware of it, the option of standing back and going
into the silent emptiness of our true nature. If we
don’t take this option, then we get swallowed up by
the world and all the meaningless activity, and thus
miss the plot entirely."

--Roy Whenary

the love that moves the stars moves also the heart of man

The finite in man longs for the infinite. The love that moves the stars moves also the heart of man and a law of spiritual gravitation leads his soul to the soul of the universe. Man sees the sun by the light of the sun, and he sees the spirit by the light of his own inner spirit. The radiance of eternal beauty shines over this vast universe and in moments of contemplation we can see the Eternal in things that pass away. This is the message of the great spiritual seers; and all poetry and art and beauty is only an infinite variation of this message.

the more one gives, the more one has

Contrary to the law of matter, where to give more means to have less, in the law of love the more one gives, the more one has. - Juan Mascaro

the finite longs for the infinite

The finite longs for the infinite and we feel the sorrowof things that pass away; but beyond the tears of mankind there is the rainbow of joy. We can love the infinite in all, and thus we can find joy in all.

the spirit can see that all energy is love

Just as the rational mind can see that all matter is energy, the spirit can see that all energy is love, and everything in creation can be a mathematical equation for the mind and a song of love for the soul.

what matters

what matters is not to think much, but to love much - St Teresa

love alone

it is love alone that unites the soul with God - St John of the Cross

To Be or not to Be, that is the question

glimpses of the joys of paradise

whatever pleasures we may get from our emotions, they cannot equal those moments of silent peace that are glimpses of the joys of paradise.

in order to be all

In order to be All, do not desire to be anything.
In order to know All, do not desire to know anything.
In order to find the joy of All, do not desire to enjoy anything.

being can be felt in the silence of the soul

Being can be felt in the silence of the soul. When an inner surrender of the self concious will takes place, there is great peace of mind and body, and gradually the movements of the mind seem to stop. There is no thinking, but there is a deep feeling of Being, of a deeper reality than the reality of ordinary conciousness. Faith in being then becomes absolute: how could one doubt the deepest experience of one's life?

there is no reason

There is no reason why we should want everyone else to follow our path - St Theresa

as a tortoise

When in recollection, he withdraws all his senses from the attractions of the pleasures of sense, even as a tortoise withdraws all its limbs, then his is a serene wisdom. - Bhagavad Gita 2.58

peace in the infinite

Man can only find peace in the infinite, not the finite. "When you set your heart on anything, you cease to throw yourself into the all" St John of the Cross. If we desire anything for its finite pleasure, we shall miss its infinite joy. We should be able to leave all things behind and not look back - it is not to leave a vacuum in the soul, but to desire the highest in all with the fire of burning love.

Even as all waters flow into the ocean

Even as all waters flow into the ocean, but the ocean never overflows, even so the sage feels desires, but he is ever one in his infinite peace. - Bhagavad Gita 2.70

the inner light of being

If we want things as objects of possession we are in the lower region of 'having', but if we find in things objects of contemplation and inner communion we are in the higher region of 'being'. All true love is love of eternity, and the inner light of being is revealed only when the clouds of becoming disappear.

resting unshaken in divine contemplation

When thy mind leaves behind its dark forest of delusion, thou shalt go beyond the scriptures of times past and still to come.
When thy mind, that may be wavering in the contradictions of many scriptures, shall rest unshaken in divine conemplation then the goal of Yoga is thine.

What is Brahman?

Brahman cannot be defined because it is infinite. It is beyond thought and beyond imagination. It is nothing in the mind and nothing outside the mind,nothing past or present or future. These are only conceptions in time and space. But the nearest conecption of Brahman we can have is to say that it is a state of conciousness beyond time when SAT, CHIT and ANANDA, being, conciousness and joy, are one - modern translation of the Upanishads.

There is a spirit

There is a spirit which is mind and life, light and truth and vast spaces. He contains all works and desires and all perfumes and all tastes. He enfolds the whole universe, and in silence is loving to all.
This is the spirit that is in my heart, smaller than a grain of rice, or a grain of barley, or a grain of mustard seed, or a grain of canary seed or the kernel of a grain of canary seed.
This is the spirit that is in my heart, grater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than heaven itself, greater than all these worlds. This is the Spirit that is in my heart, that is Brahman.
- Chandoga Upanishad

Brahman and Atman

Brahman and Atman. They are two names for one truth, and the two are One and the same. The Truth of the Universe is Brahman: our own inner truth is Atman. The scared Om is a name for both Atman and Brahman. This can be divided into three sounds, but the three roll into one: AUM. One of the meanings of Om is Yes. Brahman, Atman, Om, is the positive truth, the yes, of all.

There was not then

There was not then what is nor what is not. There was no sky, and no heaven beyond the sky. What power was there? Where? Who was that power? Was there an abyss of fathomless waters?
There was neither death nor immortality then. No signs were there of night or day. The ONE was brathing by its own power, in deep peace. Only the ONE was: there was nothing beyond.
Darkness was hidden in darkness. The all was fluid and formless. Therein, in the void, by the fire of fervour arose the ONE.
And in the ONE arose love. Love, the first seed of soul. The truth of this the sages found in their hearts: seeking in their hearts with wisdom, the sages found that bond of union between being and non-being.
Who knows in truth? Who can tell us whence and how arose this universe? The gods are later than its beginning: who knows therefore whence comes this creation?
Only that god who sees in highest heaven: he only knows whence comes this universe, and whether it was made or uncreated. He only knows, or perhaps he knows not.
- Rig Veda x. 129 excerpt from Song of Creation

And I have felt a presence that disturbs me

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey

Gayatre

Let our meditation be on the glorious light of Savitri. May this light illumine our minds.

in the world of the thinking mind

When you are in the world of the thinking mind, you are somewhere in the remembered past or the imagined future. You are in a world of thought, memory, concept, idea,
opinion and belief. You are not here now. What you are experiencing is not of the present moment. It is not real. You are in a world of illusion (Maya) and yet you have
come to believe that it real. Almost the entire human population is lost in this illusion. It is the sole source of our suffering. - Leonard Jacobson

can you forget the self?

Whenever a thought arises, do not be carried away by it. You become aware of the body when you forget the Self. But can you forget the Self ? Being the Self how can you forget it? There must be two selves for one to forget the other. It is absurd.
So the Self is not depressed, nor is it imperfect. It is very happy. The contrary feeling is a mere thought which actually has no stamina in it. Be rid of thoughts. Being the Self one remains always realised. Only be free from thoughts. - Ramana Maharshi

god clothed in rags

Man is a god clothed in rags, he is a master of the universe going about begging a crust of bread. He is a king prostrated before his own servants, a prisoner walled in by his own ignorance. He could be free. He has only to walk out of his self-constructed prison, for none holds him there but himself. - Paul Twitchell

words cannot describe everything

Words cannot describe everything. The heart's message cannot be delivered in words. If one receives words literally, she will be lost. If she tries to explain with words, she will not attain enlightenment in this life. -Mu-mon 1228

The "Sublime Joke'' of the Journey

Knowing that we are looking for something we already have and are does not, of course, mean that the journey is unnecessary, only that there is a vast and sublime joke
waiting to be discovered at its end.

wandering from room to room

You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!
Rumi

zen opens a man's eyes

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every
palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden. - DT Suzuki

every thought

Every thought in consciousness has been born into form, a temporary form and then it dies and goes onto another form. You could say the whole world is consciousness
having taken birth as form, manifesting as form temporarly, and then dying which means dissolving as form. What always remains is the "essence" of all that exists - consciousness itself. - Eckhart Tolle

the real glory of meditation

The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign
that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous "wisdom of egolessness." When you live in the wisdom home, you'll no longer find a barrier between "I" and "you," "this" and "that," "inside" and "outside;" you'll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality.
Sogyal Rinpoche - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

moving beyond mistaken concepts

When we learn to move beyond mistaken concepts and see clearly, we no longer solidify reality. We see waves coming and going, arising and passing. We see that life, composed of this mind and body, is in a state of continual, constant transformation and flux.
There is always the possibility of radical change. Every moment - not just poetically or figuratively, but literally - every moment we are dying and being reborn, we and all of life.

'Loving-Kindness - The Revolutionary Art of Happiness' Sharon Salzberg

There is pleasure in the pathless woods

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
~Lord Byron

What is life?

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890