Pieces Of A Puzzle? |
Just some unrelated quotes/thoughts which Ive come across at random points in time, but felt like they seemed to form part of a bigger picture, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle :-) Trying to put them together here. Some may look a bit complex... the reader is adequately warned here; this page is not recommended for idle time pass! You need not read them in sequence... if one entry does not hold your interest, try reading the next one, or maybe the last one...
"You discover who you really are by first understanding who you
Feelings like fear, sadness, anger, are all interpretations of the mind. They are like dust on the mirror, which prevent us from seeing our true self. Clean them by meditation, which is a much hyped up word having so many different variations given by different people, but in its purest form is actually nothing but practicing constant awareness, not just while sitting in one place but during all our normal day to day activities. This dust has the nature of continuosly dissipating automatically, manifesting as some kind of thoughts or behaviour. By not reacting and simply being aware and equanimous, new dust stops getting accumulated, and over time, the true Self will reveal itself. Not one sudden bright day but slowly and incrementally. And this is easily reversible... even when a person comes closer to his Self, it is only temporary, he always has the vulnerabilty to fall back into the games of the mind if his awareness reduces. This is what the Gita says about the Self: "Weapons cleave it not, fire burns it not, water drenches it not, and wind dries it not." The full text... Lord Krishna says... Why grieve for those for whom no grief is due, and yet profess wisdom? The wise grieve neither for the dead, nor the living. There was never a time when I was not, nor thou; As the soul experiences in this body infancy, youth and old age, So finally it passes to another. The wise have no delusion about this. That which is not, shall never be. That which is shall never cease to be. To the wise these truths are self evident. The Spirit, which pervades all that we see, is imperishable. Nothing can destroy the Spirit. As a man discards his threadbare clothes and puts on new, Weapons cleave it not, fire burns it not, water drenches it not, and wind dries it not.
It is eternal, all-pervading,unchanging, immovable and most ancient. It is named the unmanifest, the unthinkable, the immutable.
Wherefore knowing the Spirit as such thou hast no cause to grieve.
"Death is just another phase in life" A zen story
Twin boys in the womb were involved in a spirited discussion. "Are the walls getting smaller or are you getting bigger?" asked one twin. "Can't tell, but it sure is getting crowded," said the other. "Kind of a dull life." "Oh, not bad. Don't have to breathe or eat. Just float around in this warm bath." "But is this all there is to existence?" "Don't worry yourself." "I heard about something called birth." "Rumors. Now move your leg and shut up so I can get some sleep." In the early hours next morning a horrendous contraction awoke the twins. "It's an earthquake!" shouted one. "The house is collapsing," said the other. "I'm slipping," shouted one. "Where are you going?" "Don't know. Help me." "I can't" "Goodbye brother. I am going ... going." "Oh, this is horrible," moaned the remaining twin as he felt himself begining to slide. "This is surely the end of everything."
Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." - Buddha
The Fourth State Of Consciousness
Indian philosophy’s focus is to determine the nature of that spirit or self
which is the centre of everything, the animating force which makes a person
alive, alert and aware.
"Picture yourself standing on the shores of a lake, watching your
"A woman wanted to know how to deal with anger. I asked when anger arose whose
anger it was. She said it was hers. Well, if it really was her anger, then she
should be able to tell it to go away, shouldnt she? But it really isn't hers to
command. Holding on to anger as a personal possession will cause suffering. If
anger really belonged to us, it would have to obey us. If it doesn't obey us,
that means it's only a deception. Don't fall for it. Whenever the mind is happy
or sad, don't fall for it. Its all a deception." - Ajahn Chah (http://www.bodhinyanarama.net.nz/acquote.htm )
When I was small... I loved butterflies... so brilliant and colorful... and
wanted to catch them so that I could admire them closely. The more I chased
after them, the more they flew away from me. Eventually I realised that I just
had to stay still, and they would come flitting around me. Then I found that
with this stillness, there was no need to catch them at all, they would
themselves settle on a flower next to me and I could just watch them. As I grew
older, I realised that many things in life are
like that. Of course theres no point in being still just because you are hoping
that they would come and settle down near you... its the stillness of the mind
that matters. Pitcher Plant The mountain sweet pitcher plant is carnivorous. A sweet aroma permeates the
air. Attracted to the alluring source, the insect discovers nectar drops
clinging to the hooded margins of a boldly-patterned plant. The insect lands,
drinks, and walks around and down inside the hood. The nectar meal is rich,
nourishing and filling. The insect turns around to climb up and out but its
path is blocked by a wall of downward-pointing hairs. The insect is now
hopelessly trapped. Unaware of its fate, the insect turns around and walks
farther into the plant, maybe drinking some more nector. Eventually, it
reaches a smooth, waxy area where it can’t maintain a foothold, slips and falls
into the water-filled abyss and drowns. The pitcher plant has snared another
meal. Often external objects act like the pitcher plant, and though we know it isnt
good, we keep allowing our minds to trap us in it! Many times
I experience this inner struggle and sometimes I win, sometimes I
lose. By saying I lose, I mean I do something I dont really want
to do - for eg I overeat something just because it is tasty though I know my
body dosent need it. When I say I win, I dont just mean I stop or
avoid eating, it also means I dont regret about what Im missing. And
I have realised that these victories or defeats dont really matter over time, I
cant say I won 99 times so its ok to lose this one time, the past is
buried in the sands of time and all that matters is the present.
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner.
"Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other
dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time."
When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, "The one I
feed the most" "No action is more fascinating than the action of self- In the movie Beautiful Mind, its fantastic the way he copes up
with the creations of his mind. He says "you feed the past and it becomes your present" Fiinally he ignores the imaginary people no matter how much they convince him to
get him to talk to them... esp that sweet little girl with a cute
smile and her arms open ... or that military guy who shouts at him him to
convince him. I felt that all of us are schezophrenics in some way or the other (of course in
a much milder way)... only thing is the objects are not always people but
something else... for eg in my case its my aversion to fruits... a notion Ive
fed for the past 27 years (atleast) ... and in some other cases, its
a cigarrette.
In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes came up with the
"explanation for it all": "I think, therefore I am".
From http://www.innerself.com/Reflections/i_think.htm : I feel that his statement really is a fill-in-the-blanks statement. "I think
_________, therefore I am _____________." In other words, "I think I am angry,
therefore I am angry." "I think I am tired, therefore I am tired." "I think I
am busy, therefore I am busy."
Buddha said, "All we are is a result of what we have thought"
Pavlovs experiment with a dog: When presented
food (the unconditioned stimulus), the dog salivates (an unconditioned
response). Initially, a loud bell evokes no similar response. However, after
the bell is paired with the food on several trials, the bell alone will
generate salivation. The bell is now a conditioned stimulus, and salivation to
it is a conditioned response. Think about the implications of this. The dog is a simple creature... compared
to us humans. We have built a much more complex system of conditioned responses
*throughout* our lives. Some of this conditioning is part of our DNA, some of
it is from inputs we get from people around us / society, TV, etc and some of
it we are continuosly adding from own experiences. I used to love sweets. Jamoons, rasmalai... esp ice creams used to make my mouth
water. I knew its bad for me since I am overweight... I tried hard to resist
when Im at a party surrounded by sweets, but at one point, I used to give up
and starts gulping them down.
Try an expt... take a sweet and touch it at the center of your tongue. You will
surprised to see that you will not be able to make out that its sweet. Actually
there are only 3 points on your tongue that can actually taste sweet. At the
tip, and at the sides. The taste of sweetness is just a series of biochemical
reactions produced by the neurons on your tongue. The mind creates the illusion
that the *** whole tongue ***, in fact the whole mouth is savouring the
sweetness. Add to this fact, the fact about the way the mind is conditioned, and what do
you get? The pleasure is associated with the sweetness, and I reinforce it
everytime I eat more sweets. Whenever I finish eating a sweet, behind the
scenes, the mind is craving for these biochemical reactions... and it
translates to the reaction that I feel like eating just "one more sweet". Now with this knowledge, I havent stopped eating sweets. I have merely reduced
my attachment, and eat only how much my 'conscience' allows me to. "Q. What is wrong with my life? "A student once asked me, 'I find it hard to believe that I live in "HYPNOSIS AND REALITY "Q. How can we tell when we are unaware of ourselves? "Living in harmony with universal principles can be compared with
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Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. - Martin Fischer |