Be Still, Simply Still

A thousand secrets are hidden in simply sitting still. A person who has once learnt to collect himself completely in his sitting will never again let a day pass without practicing for atleast half an hour for it is this which gives complete inner removal, especially when he has learned to concentrate exclusively on the sitting, emptied of all thoughts and images.

- Hara

A drum is empty always, and when the skin is rightly taut it gives right noise, right sound. Attention is like that.

Humility and Pleasure

One can only have humility when there is nothing of the past, and the mind is in a state of constantly learning without accumulating. 

- J. Krishnamurti

It is only the vain person, the man of pride and conceit, who cultivates the cloak of humanity.

Humility can only exist when the past, which is thought with all its structure, comes to an end.

What is necessary is a mind that is capable of listening and not doing anything.

Be aware of your own values, thoughts, life existence, so that you yourself will discover the importance or unimportance of pleasure. We must understand pleasure. It is extremely subtle. The sensory pleasures are obvious, but there are deeper pleasures to which thoguht has given vitality, continuity, a drive. If you  do not understand of this basic thing, entering into a field which is completely denuded of all pleasure, and therefore a field of extraordinary bliss, cannot possibly be understood.

The thought goes back over and over again to a happy incident, a pleasurable sensation, a thing remembered that has given great delight. Thought reverts it and builds a structure of expanding and strengthening pleasure. From that background, conscious and unconscious, thought then operates, judges, evaluates, looks and acts.

THought is the outcome of desire. Our whole life is made up of desire, the pleasure that is derived from putting that desire into action, and the sustaining of pleasure by thinking about the action which has given pleasure. Thought gives vitality and continuity to pleasure.

Confusion and Thought

If I am confused, the things I do, whatever thoughts, whatever feelings I have, are all bound to be confused. The idea taht there are moments when I am very clear is fallacious. I am confused right through, if I observe, if I go into it.

Fragmentary activity is not an indication of seriousness, because it contradicts the other part of existence. A serious person is one who does not function or think in fragments. It is possible to be totally attentive to the whole existence of life, not just fragments, but the totality of it? If one is so serious, then there is contradiction. It is the person who is not serious who lives without contradiction.

Thought produces a way of life which is based on its own pleasure.

The highest form of sensitivity is intelligence.

There is a difference between acceptance and discovery. When we discover something for ourselves, it has validity. 

Time is obviously thought. Thought is the result of time.

Employer Employee Relationship

The relationship between an employer and employee is permeated by the same spirit of indifference. The word 'employer' contains the whole story; the owner of capital employs another human being as he "employs" a machine. They both use each other for the pursuit of their economic interests. Their relationship is one in which both are means to an end, both are instrumental to each other. It is not a relationship of two human beings who have only interest in the other outside of this mutual usefulness.

- Erich Fromm

Freedom of Fear

                                    

                                 

The Artist

( This post is dedicated to my Big Brother - Siddharth Chavda & my Awesome Father - Anil Chavda - Both are Amazingly Creative Artists and Fantastic pair of Architects I've ever known! 

- Lots of love, Saloni Chavda - Mini Artist :) )

An artists power of observation differs from that of other people in that he is able to see things in his environment that escape them. He sees the same things that other people do, but he sees them differently, and by portraying in his art the things that have escaped others, he makes others see and understand them as he does.

- Tolstoy

Being Famous

You want to be famous, because inside yourself you are no body. If you are inwardly rich, then it does not matter to you whether you are known or unknown. To be inwardly rich is much more arduous than to be outwardly rich and famous. To be inwardly rich int he mind has to understand and put away things that are not important, like wanting to be famous.

Inward richness implies standing alone, but the man who wants to be famous is afraid to stand alone because he depends on people's flattery and good opinion.

- Juddu Krishnamurti

Lets Go To Auroville

Auroville - Aurobindo Ashram - Puducherry

Auroville Aerial View

"When you are truly changed, everything around you will also be changed." Said The Mother, in Aurobindo Ashram. Saint Mirabai has also mentioned the same thing. Referring to her spiritual transformation she sang, "Ulat bhayi more nayananki" - Everything now appears altogether different to my eyes."

Aurobindo says: "If the power to think is a remarkable gift, the power not to think is even more so. There is nothing mind can do that cannot be better done in the mind's immobility and thought-free stillness."

When our mind comes out of its phantasies and hankerings by being consciously aware of them, it becomes silent.

Consciousness

Consciousness 

"Know Thyself" - Inscription in the Temple of Delphi - Greece

The inscription "Know Thyself" in the ancient Temple of Delphi of Greece is a precept applicable to all spiritual aspirants to whichever religion they belong. 

See what Kathopanishad says about this :-

          "The openings of the mind viz. the sense organs are directed outwards. Therefore do men's thoughts ever tend outwards. But the few who have true understanding turn their mind inwards and realize the Self within."

Kathopanishad also says :-

          "The Atman cannot be studied in classes or by intellect or by hearing hundreds of lectures."

Here is what a modern spiritual teacher, J.Krishnamurti, says:-

          "The control of the mind is not important. What is important is to find out the interests of the mind."

So, once we turn inwards, what 'interests of the mind' do we usually find?

       

      Beware! Your clinging to ego is

          greater than yourself.

      Pay heed! Your emotions are

          stronger than yourself.

      Your vicious will is far wickeder

           than yourself.

      Your habitual thought is

           more characteristic than yourself.

      Your ceaseless mental activity

           is more frantic than yourself.

                                       - Milarepa

Thus the Tibetan yogi, Milarepa sums up what 'Know Thyself' stands for. However, this self-observation is to be done only as a witness without using will power to suppress unpleasant thoughts. In other words, it is awareness that is important. According to J. Krishnamurti awareness is the critical point of transformation. Such conscious uncritical observation is very important in sadhana. It destroys our self complacency and our picture about ourself.

Besides J. Krishnamurti, both Sri Aurobindo, and Gurdjieff have also emphasized on such awareness as a key point in one's spiritual development. Here is what they say :-

          "Evolution does not lie in becoming more and more saintly or more and more intelligent but more and more conscious. For everything, always is a question of consciousness, for our mental, vital and physical life as for our sleep and our death and our immortality. Consciousness is the means, consciousness is the key, consciousness is the end."

                                       - Sri Aurobindo

              "The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and consciousness cannot evolve unconsciously."
                                       - Gurdjieff

There's More To Life

The fact that my own existence, as I exist at this second, is so marvelous, so miracle-like, strange, and supernatural to me, that I unhesitatingly conclude I am always on the margin of life illimitable, and that there are higher conditions of existence. Everything around is supernatural; everything is so full of unexplained meaning.

Written tradition, systems of culture, modes of thought, have for me no existence. From earth and sea and sun, from night, the stars, from day, the trees, the hills, from my own soul - from these I think. My naked mind confronts the unknown. I see not only the existence of the soul, immortality, but, in addition, I realise a soul-life illimitable.