Everything Is Its Own Cause
“Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause.”
–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Exponent of Jnana Yoga and Advaita Doctrine, 1897-1981)
A Bit of a Puzzle
“If enlightenment is the unquestioned goal of existence, what about the problem of timeless nondual being, with all of eternity to be nondual, yet somehow and for some purpose choosing to manifest intricately and perniciously dual forms?”
–Richard Grossinger (a.k.a. Richard Towers, American Writer, Anthropologist and Publisher of North Atlantic Books, 1944-)
Timeless Awareness
“Organismic awareness is what we, on the Ego Level ordinarily, but clumsily, refer to as seeing, touching, tasting, smelling and hearing. But in its very purest form, this “sensual awareness” is non-symbolic, non-conceptual, momentary consciousness. Organismic awareness is awareness of the Present only you can’t taste the past, smell the past, see the past, touch the past, or hear the past. Neither can you taste, smell, see, touch or hear the future. In other words, organismic consciousness is properly timeless, and being timeless, it is essentially spaceless. Just as organismic awareness knows no past or future, it knows no inside or outside, no self or other. Thus pure organismic consciousness participates fully in the nondual awareness called Absolute Subjectivity.”
–Ken Wilber (American Philosopher, 1949-)
What Remains When Your Ego Dissolves Away?
“Think of a vast ocean filled with water on all sides. A jar is immersed in it. There is water both inside and outside the jar; but the water does not become one unless the jar is broken. What is the jar? It is I-consciousness – the ego. When the I disappears, what is, remains.”
–Sri Ramakrishna (a.k.a. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Indian Hindu Mystic and Promoter of Universal Religion, 1836-1886)
The Sacred World
It’s valuable to see that the insights of the Eastern nondual and mystical traditions have also been talked about in the Western Churches since the early Middle Ages, and probably even before that. Yet many of our current generation of theologians seem to have forgotten!
“God’s power is in every natural thing, since God is in all things by the divine essence, presence, and power.”
–Saint Thomas Aquinas (Italian Dominican Friar, Theologian and Philosopher, 1225-1274)
“Sheer Joy: Conversations With Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality” (Matthew Fox)
Loosening the Hold of Duality
“The method for abandoning the hold which duality has on consciousness is not simple. The more comfort and pleasure available to man, the less his chance for a strong enough push to force him to give up even the temporary happiness of his achievements. And yet he must eventually do this ( internally ) to bring the full focus of consciousness to bear on the experience of the eternally inherent self or soul, with all its blissful freedom of real existence. This is why God loves most the so-called destitute and helpless.
The greater the helplessness, the greater can and should be the dependence upon God for His help, which is ever more ready than are the sincere and earnest wishes for it. The greater the bindings, the greater the chances for quick, permanent relief, through fully conscious experience of man’s own original and everlasting freedom.
The unlimited and everlasting spiritual freedom of the self or soul exists eternally and infinitely in one and all, and is equally available to every man and woman irrespective of class, creed or nationality. Spiritual freedom can and does transcend all the illusory phenomena of duality, because divine Oneness is always divine Oneness, before the beginningless beginning and beyond the endless end. Contrarily, the illusion of all material binding from first to last is always illusion, and even its illusory existence depends upon the play of the eternal spiritual freedom of the soul. It is only in spiritual freedom that one can have enduring happiness and unhampered self-knowledge. It is only in spiritual freedom that one finds the supreme certainty of truth-realization. It is only in spiritual freedom that there is a final end to sorrow and limitation. It is only in spiritual freedom that one can live for all, and yet remain detached in the midst of all activity.”
–Meher Baba (Indian Spiritual Teacher who, from July 1925 maintained Silence, 1894-1969)
Purity and Truth
“Purity is the soul of my strength. Truth is the source of my power. God is my life, and I have no existence apart from Him. His Consciousness is my Light. His all-sustaining and all-creative Beauty constitutes my joy. Prayer is my breath and meditation forms the bread of my Life. All humanity is my family. The Forces of Nature are my Friends. The Godhead in all of you is the object of my adoration.”
—Swami Omkarananda (Indian Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, 1929-)
Matter and Mind Are One
“Matter and mind are not separate, they are aspects of one energy. Look at the mind as a function of matter and you have science; look at matter as the product of the mind and you have religion.”
–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Exponent of Jnana Yoga and Advaita Doctrine, 1897-1981)
Sacred Union
“To man and to atom, to star-cloud and to earth, to sun and to snow crystal, to mountain and to worm, to sage and to fool, to saint and to sinner, God, to whom size and number offer no obstacle, gives eternal and inescapable union with his very Self.”
–Alan W. Watts (English-born American Philosopher, Writer, Speaker and Expert in Comparative Religion, 1915-1973)
Behold the Spirit, A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion
