Month: November 2013

“I think there’s a big misconception about what “ego” means. The traditional psychological term “ego” really means self, the basic sense of self. But the way I use it, ego and self aren’t the same thing, exactly. Ego is an attachment to self. It’s an identification.

Identification with self is the issue. That’s what ego is: it’s a tendency to say, “I am my thoughts” or “I know who I am.” After awakening, there’s still a sense of self, but it’s surrendered into unknowing. But there’s a sense of it hanging around. It’s allowed.”

– James Wood, Gratitude

“Truth is a very high standard. It’s not a plaything. To tell what’s true within ourselves isn’t to tell what we think, it’s not to tell our opinion, it’s not to dump the garbage can of our mind onto someone else – this is what I think about you, this is what I feel about you, this is my judgment about you – none of that’s true. That’s illusion. That’s distortion. That’s one’s own garbage. It’s one’s own problem. It’s one’s projection.

What is Truth? Truth isn’t to unload our opinions onto someone. That’s not truth. Truth isn’t to tell our beliefs about things. That’s not truth. Those are ways that we actually hide from truth. Truth is much more intimate than that. Whenever we tell the truth it has much more of the sense of a confession – I don’t mean a confession of something bad or wrong – but I mean, the sense, where we come completely out of hiding.

Truth is a simple thing. To speak the truth is to speak from a sense of total and absolute unprotectedness. And to do that, with any consistency, we have to not only have met every place in ourself that is afraid of doing that, we have to see – what is the belief structure I have that tells me I can’t do that? Because those belief structures are by their very nature based in unreality. But just to know that’s not enough – you have to actually see it, really perceive, exactly what one believes… what are the exact belief structures that cause you to go into duality?, that cause you to go into conflict and hiding?”

– Adyashanti, The End of Your World

“Can a man honestly see that he is in psychological prison? That is the question. We cannot escape from self-imprisonment unless we observe it as a fact. Does he get upset when things go wrong? That is one cell of psychological prison. Does he harbor secret resentments and antagonisms? That is another. Is he bound by mechanical habits which he can neither break nor endure? Does he suffer at the hands of daily incidents? Is he afraid of himself? All this is what is meant by psychological jail.”

– Vernon Howard, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, p. 226

“Sincerity will really be alright, even when it gets something wrong, whereas a lack of sincerity will not be alright, even if it gets something right.”    – John de Ruiter

 

 

“Realizers appear to help break the spell”

– Adi Da

 

“Human beings are caged inside their own anxious thoughts. And because anxiety is not understood, the individual with the tension
and nervousness becomes bad, and does and says and feels bad things.

But you can’t get away with being bad. Underline that, please – you can’t get away with being bad. Your nerves won’t forgive your
wrongness.

I am telling you now, therefore; to stop trying to find yourself in the world of your mind.  Give up trying to find yourself inside your
intellect; you’re not there. When you give up, God gives down. You remember that, and you remind yourself where you have to give up, what you have to give up. And if you can think about it, that’s what you have to give up.”

– Vernon Howard, from a talk given 11/27/1987, Vernon Howard’s Higher World

“The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp. When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.”

– Eckhart Tolle

“You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone reminds, and that is the Self.”

“All other knowledge are only petty and trivial knowledge; the experience of silence alone is the real and perfect knowledge.”

– Ramana Maharshi

“I am everywhere. Bring me myself. In a conscious or awakened condition, forms are like little presents, little containers. And it’s fun to open them, there’s just nothing in there but who we are, and it’s everything.

It’s like it’s saying Come to me. I will dissolve you. I will take you into Me and surrender self into Unknowingness, into this Mystery of who we are, together.

So there can’t be any enemies. The illusion of others persists because self persists. They arise simultaneously. And when people come to do this work and are willing to sit and trust, it’s powerful.

Do you ever look around and realize the world is just people rushing around thinking they know what’s going on and no one does? No one. Our greatest scientists, our greatest philosophers — no one agrees on anything. I love that. I love it.

I want to meet you. I want to meet my friends. I want to say “Hey, what is this? I don’t know.” Deeper. “What is it? What is it? Who are we together? What is this?”

“Silence” is about as close as I can get.

So I’m grateful for all of it. I think gratitude is a good practice.”

– James Wood, Gratitude