Self Expression

...But reality is not as the ego supposes. There are no boundaries. There is no separate self in opposition to the world. There is only the Divine creating each moment fresh from itself. Everything is the Divine expressing itself as tree, as dog, as person, as thought, as emotion, as light, as sound. No boundaries. No one. Only One. Only the Divine creating and expressing itself through life.

from Radiance by Gina Lake

Existence: Impossible

LISTEN. AMONG HUMAN BEINGS, it is said that any individual human being can attain enlightenment. Now, within the context in which it is said, this is undoubtedly true. However, it tells you absolutely nothing about enlightenment – because ‘enlightenment’ means precisely: the impossibility of the existence of any individual human being.

David Carse

As Within, So Without

To begin with, we seem to be in the world, then the world seems to be in us, and finally the distinction between ourself and the world dissolves.

Rupert Spira

Beyond Intimacy

The truth, Who you Are, what ‘really’ Is, is always here; has always been here. It is not something new you have to learn. It is actually completely and totally familiar to us, even though we are not conscious of realising it. This is the shock of recognition when it occurs: complete familiarity. Of course, this has always been!

More than familiar. This truth is what is most intimate to you: more familiar and intimate than anything that you think or believe or ‘know’ about yourself. Because these things turn out to be constructs, beliefs, an added layer, outside the most intimate truth, which you have convinced yourself that you don’t know. But you do. Go back. It is your own Self.

from Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse

The Alone

From me everything is born; on me everything is supported; into me everything is again dissolved. I am this Brahman, One-without-a-second. Of inconceivable power am I; without eyes I see; without ears I hear.

Kaivalya Upanishad

Homecoming

Healing stealing
Flying weaving
Before time
We come

How the One
Burning Heart
Longs for Itself
Seeing Itself
Everywhere
Everywhen

Water
Slaking

Sun
Dispelling

Wind
Filling
Lifting

Earth
Nurturing

Quintessence
Pervading

Still point
Dancing

Love
Embracing
Itself
Swoons
In ecstasy

Home

Tides

When we understand that what we deeply long for can never be found in an object, substance, activity, relationship or state, our longing naturally and effortlessly loses its direction and dynamism, flows back to its source, and is revealed as the happiness for which we were in search.

Rupert Spira

Let The Light In

In ancient times,
Before there were individuals,
There were no problems.
Then, the individuals
Turned this against that and
Problems arose.

Identification with a body is
Merely a habit,
Taught to the child
Early in its life.
Breaking this habit is like
A chick breaking its shell.
What a wondrous world awaits.

Wu Hsin

No Can Do

There is a belief of separateness,
That you are separate from the rest.
There is nothing you can do
To rid yourself of this belief because
“You” is the belief.

Wu Hsin

Selfie

What, then, is the heart of the highest truth,
The core of knowledge, the wisdom supreme?
It is, “I am the Self, the formless One;
By my very nature, I am pervading all.”

Song of the Avadhut

No Where, No Who, No When, No Way

....In the Understanding, all three words are seen to be redundant; all there is is being, there is only here, there is nothing other than now. Where else can I possibly be but here, now? Even if there is being lost in a memory of the past, that ‘past’ exists only as that memory, that thought, happening now, here. Even when there is worrying about the future or daydreaming happening in a body/mind organism, that worrying or daydreaming is what is happening in that organism, here, now. There can never be anything other than being, here, now. There is only here, and it is all, unbounded, undivided. There is only now, and it is eternal, unbounded, undivided. So relax. There is no effort needed to be here now. You cannot not be. Enjoy.

David Carse

Homesickness

Regard that pain, always there, rarely acknowledged.
You know, that dull ache in the chest
Which sometimes arises when you're alone.

Look directly at it. Don't be afraid.
Sense the great love hiding there.
It is your best friend
Calling you home.

Ask where it lives.
Listen carefully to the answer
For within it is your salvation
And that of all humanity.

That which we consider most personal
Is always also the most universal

As within, so without
There is no boundary

If no boundary
Then where are you?

Where is Home?

Being Silent

If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. 

Thoreau

Power of Attention

My notion of how to proceed in a society to bring change is not to protest the thing that is evil, but rather to let it die its own death. And I think we can state that the power structure is dying because it cannot make any inspiring statements about what it is doing. I think that protests about these things, contrary to what has been said, will give it the kind of life that a fire is given when you fan it, and that it would be best to ignore it, put your attention elsewhere, take actions of another kind, of a positive nature, rather than to continue to give life to the negative by negating it.

John Cage

Intimacy

Experience is one seamless, unnameable, intimate whole. It is thought alone that divides this intimacy into an apparent multiplicity and diversity of objects and selves, thereby imagining a ‘me’ and a ‘not me’.

Rupert Spira

Aim at the Whole

To believe in Him under any particular form is not enough. Accept Him in His numberless forms, shapes and modes of being, in everything that exists. Aim at the whole and all your actions will be whole.

Anandamayi Ma

Transparency

So finally , in letting go even more, there is only this. I sometimes describe this as stillness reflecting itself . Because that is how I experience it. Yet even that isn’t quite right. Because really, it’s just this. There’s no way to conceptualise this.

The simplest way in which I have found to know if there is a fixation on identity is this: fixation on identity means that love will seem to come and go . Even with very expansive identities, love will ebb and flow. Yet when identity is transparent it is clear that there is only love. It’s not the love of butterflies in the stomach as experienced in romance. Rather, it is when instead of finding nothing at the source of all things there is love. Simple , effortless, still, and overflowing love.

Joey Lott

Resting

"To rest or abide as awareness means to feel what awareness feels like. Of course, awareness is not itself a feeling, but it elicits a particular feeling tone or presence. It is a bit like asking someone what the sun feels like on their skin. The sun is not itself a feeling but it gives off warmth that you can feel.

In the same manner, awareness elicits subtle feeling tones in and around the body that are sometimes called presence, openness, stillness, silence, or intimacy. To abide as awareness means to take note of these subtle feeling tones of awareness, to rest in the feeling and experience of them. This can draw you more deeply into the core of your being, the realization of which can only come by grace, which means spontaneously."

Adyashanti

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fisherman in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda

Self Worship

The division between bodies is only imagined;
The division between places is only imagined.
Truly, I’m Shiva, the one supreme Self.
How, then, should I worship? To whom should I bow?

Song of the Avadhut

Intelligence

This is purely and simply a machine functioning automatically. The mechanism is functioning in an automatic way but with an extraordinary intelligence that is there. It knows what is good for it. There is a tremendous intelligence which is guiding the mechanism of the human body and its interest is protection, to protect its survival. Then the senses become very important factors. They begin to function at their peak capacity without the interference of thought except when there is a demand for it.

U G Krishnamurti

Haven't You Been Listening?

I’ve told you all that constitutes the very core of Truth;
There’s no you, no me, no superior being, no disciple, and no Guru.
The nature of the supreme Reality is self-evident and simple;
I’m nectarean knowledge, unchanging bliss; I’m everywhere, like space.

Avadhuta Gita

Explosive Silence

You can never understand the tremendous peace that is always there within
you, that is your natural state. Your trying to create a peaceful state of mind is
in fact creating disturbance within you. You can only talk of peace, create a
state of mind and say to yourself that you are very peaceful, but that is not
peace, that is violence. There is no use in practicing peace or reason to
cultivate silence. Real silence is explosive. It is not the dead state of mind that
spiritual seekers think. That doesn't mean anything at all. This is volcanic in its
nature. It's bubbling all the time—the energy, the life—that is its quality.

U G Krishnamurti