Awakening to Who You Really Are!

Identifying who you really are, is awakening to great peace and harmony within. There is relief in knowing that you are not the body, or the mind, that you are in fact the consciousness that animates the body/mind. You are that which came before the consciousness animation of the body/mind!

It is rare for Nisargadatta Maharaj to offer exercises to assist us in this awakening to who you are, though in Pointers from Nisargatta Maharaj, he suggests the following;

“a) Make it a habit to think and speak in the passive tense. Instead of saying ‘I see something’ or ‘I hear something’, why not think the passive way; ‘something is seen’ or ‘something is heard’? The perception will then be not on the basis of an event or occurrence. In due course, the pseudo-entity ‘I’ will recede into the background.

b) Before going to sleep at night, spend about ten minutes sitting relaxed both in body and mind, taking your stand that ‘you’ are not the body-mind construct but the animating consciousness, so that this idea will impregnate your being throughout the period of your sleep.” (p 103-104)

An awakening happens, that you are not doing anything. The body is functioning by itself. Hearing happens by itself. Tiredness may appear, though it is simply an appearance, rather than ‘I am tired’, tension may appear though again it is simply appearance instead of associating yourself as ‘being stressed.’

“I am giving you nothing and taking away nothing, only pointing to that which you already are.” Papaji

Blessings In Disguise

With so many people going through incredible change at the moment, such as financial changes, relationships ending, jobs ending, I find myself thinking of a story that Osho shares.

It goes something like this;

There was a man who owned a beautiful horse, many people, including Emperors had offered him large amounts of money to buy this horse, and he always declined.

One morning he awoke to find the horse had been stolen. The town folk came together to console the man saying, “This is terrible. Many people offered you a lot of money and you wouldn’t sell the horse and now it has been stolen and you could have had all that money. You will never see the horse again”.

To which the man replied “Don’t be silly. All we know for now is that the horse is not in the stable. I do not know what the future will bring, lets wait and see what happens”.

Fourteen days later, the horse returned to the man, and had brought along 12 other beautiful horses with it.

Again the town fold gathered, this time to celebrate with the man. “You are very clever, we did not know what would happen. Now the horse has returned and brought you 12 other horses, you will be rich”.

To which the man replied “Let’s not get ahead of the situation. All we know for now is the horse has returned and brought 12 other horses with it”.

The next morning, the man’s son broke his leg whilst breaking in one of the new horses. The town folk came together to console the man. “How terrible. We are so sorry for you. Your son has broken his leg and now he will be a cripple”.

To which the man replied “Don’t jump ahead. Only say this much, my son has broken his leg – that’s all.”

The following day the government came to town and forcibly took all of the healthy young men from their families to fight the war.

The townfolk came together to see the man “You are so very wise. All our sons have been taken to war. The enemy is much stronger and all of our sons will probably be killed. In our old age, we will have nobody to look after us. You still have your son, even though he is crippled, you still have him here.”

But the man said, “Say this much – that your sons have been taken by the government. My son has been left, but there is no conclusion!”

State the fact. The relationship has ended. The job has finished. What comes from that, no one knows… so lets just wait and see what happens.

Don’t see things as a curse or a blessing. Don’t interpret it and suddenly everything is beautiful.

“What seems to us bitter trials is often blessings in disguise” Oscar Wilde

Freedom from Bondage

“Then, the question is what are ‘we’ – all of us? Each one of us, as phenomenon, is merely an appearance in the consciousness of those who perceive us, and, therefore, what we appear to be is a phenomenon – temporal, finite and perceptible to the senses, whereas what we are, what we have always been and what we shall always be, without name and form, is the noumenon – timeless, spaceless, imperceptible being.

However convincingly you may think you have ‘understood’ this basic fact, you will find it almost impossible to dis-associate yourself from the identification with your name and form as an entity. This can happen only when that which you have been thinking of as a separate entity has been totally annihilated. This is the second fundamental, the power of Maya. what is merely a phenomenon, without any independent existence of its own is considered to be ‘real’ and efforts are made by this phantom to ‘become’ something – a shadow chasing its substance. Whereas actually you have all along been the substance and never the shadow in bondage wanting liberation. How very amusing, but then that is Maya!”

Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj by Ramesh Balsekar

Beyond Time and Space

“Think of yourself as momentary, without a past or future, then where is the personality?

Try this and find out for yourself. In memory and anticipation, that is in the past and future, there is a clear feeling that there is a mental state under observation, whereas in the actual the feeling is primarily of being awake and present – here and now.”

Reply from Nisargadatta Maharaj, quoted from Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj by Ramesh Balsekar
What remains when the personality is no longer? As you have gone through life you have experienced many changes in your personality, you may have even worked to change your personality, what has remained the constant regardless of changes in personality?

Maharaj went on to say “… All you can truly say is; “I am” (meaning what is, is). The moment there is a thought of “me” as a separate personality, there is what is termed “bondage”. To realise this is the end of all seeking. When you apperceive that whatever you think yourself to be is only based on memory and anticipation your search ends and you stand aloof in full awareness of the false as false.”