The Teaching of Shri Atmananda Krishna Menon
Sri-Atmananda-Krishna-Menon books
Notes-on-Spiritual-Discourses-of-Shri-Atmananda
AtmaDarshan-and-AtmaNirvriti-Atmananda
Atmananda Links
HOW TO RECONCILE THE SPIRITUAL AND WORLDLY ASPECTS OF ONE’S LIFE?
Atmananda Krishna Menon
The world is examined and proved to be non-existent, through your own experiences:
1. By comparing impartially the dream and waking state experiences, and finding
them to be exactly similar.
2. By proving that the objective world has no existence, independently of the subject
‘I’ or Consciousness.
You understand this fact, and accept it completely and unreservedly. Think about it
more intensely, until it descends into your heart, becoming experience itself. Then
you become what you mean by ‘jivan-mukta’, and all your problems automatically
cease.
To an ordinary man, life constitutes actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings –
one of these alone being experienced at any given time. In other words, you stand
detached from all activities, excepting the one in which you seem engaged at the
given time.
To this list of four categories (actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings), the
spiritual man adds just one more, which indeed is the most important one: ‘Consciousness’. This last one is doubly important; because, over and above its importance
as a separate entity, it shines in and through the four categories already mentioned.
You are simply asked to direct to the consciousness aspect the attention legitimately
due to it. This is all.
When you are engaged in thought, you are not engaged in action, perception or
feeling. When engaged in action, you are not engaged in thought, feeling or perception. So also, when you are engaged in knowing, you cannot be engaged in any other
kind of activity.
The presence and recognition of subjective Consciousness, your real centre, is the
one thing needed to make your life possible and connected. Make it so, by knowing
that knowing principle to be your real centre. You never go outside it, and you can
never leave it, even if you will. This does not deny or negate your worldly life, as is
ordinarily supposed, but makes it richer, firmer, truer and more successful.
To have deep peace and not to be disturbed from it, even for a moment, is the ardent desire of everyone. For this, you have necessarily to be at a centre which does
not change. That is the real ‘I’-principle or Consciousness. To be it and to establish
oneself there is the end and aim of life. This alone makes real life possible.
30 th December 1950
HOW CAN AN ORDINARY MAN ATTAIN RENUNCIATION? (29)
When you are engaged in any action, thought or other activity, all the world except
for that one activity is dead, so far as you are concerned. This can really be called
vairagya or detachment. Therefore, you are always in perfect dispassion, and that
again in the most natural and effortless manner. Notes_Spiritual_Discourses.pdf
Stages of Realization
The direct path mentions three stages along the path of realization. At each stage, the interest is placed on something more subtle, and what was seen as real and inherent to a lower stage is seen as nothing but the play of a higher stage.
• At Stage 1, everything seems like it exists independently, and consciousness seems as though it comes from the head and flows out through the senses into the objective world.
• At Stage 2, the activities (AKA superimpositions) of Stage 1 are seen to be appearances in impersonal, non-localized consciousness, which reveals them in the light of awareness.
• At Stage 3, even the subtle superimposition of “revealing” or“illuminating” falls away, and consciousness shines in its own glory.
This is a capsule summary of how the direct path examines the world to see that it is nothing other than the self.
From the Witness to Pure Consciousness
When the witness is very stable, it begins to open or dissolve into global,loving lightness of pure consciousness, which is without any gaps orseparation anywhere. This happens through time, or when one looks intothe witness the same way that one looked into objects at the beginning of the investigation.The witness has become stable when:
• Witnessing doesn’t seem like a mental state
• Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it needs practice or vigilanc
• Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it’s reversible or able to be "lost"
• Witnessing no longer seems like it is happening “here” as opposed to"there"
• It no longer feels as though there are objects that exist outside of awareness
• You no longer wonder whether awareness should allows one personto see all of another person’s thoughts
• The witness no longer seems personal
• There no longer seem to be unseen arisings
At this point, there is no presumption of a person. There is no separate“one” that arisings appear to. There is no felt authorship, doership orreceivership. There is no personalization or experience of separation.Experience is sweet, open and loving – the source of the arisings is awareness and love, and the arisings themselves are sweet because their source is sweet. Even pain is open, loving and sweet. Its nature is not pain, but awareness. One can no longer "be" a person (indeed, one never was a person . One has recognized one’s self as awareness.But there is still a very subtle dualistic structure to the witness. Sweet, but dualistic nevertheless. The dualistic structure consists of:
• A subject/object distinction, i.e., a distinction between awareness and the arisings in awareness
• A multiplicity, a distinction between arisings themselves
Both of these distinctions go together; they need each other. And inquiry into the either one of them will dissolve them both.The investigation at this level is very subtle, but the basic insight is the same as it is everywhere. There is no experience of objects outside of awareness. There is no phenomenon that organizes or structures awareness; if there were such a phenomenon, then it would be just the same as any other phenomenon has been discovered to be: just another arising in awareness. This was what was realized with color, sound, the body, seeing and hearing, memory, will, intention and causality
Greg-Goode-Teachings-of-Sri-Atmananda-and-the-Direct-Path
Sri-Atmananda-Krishna-Menon books
Notes-on-Spiritual-Discourses-of-Shri-Atmananda
AtmaDarshan-and-AtmaNirvriti-Atmananda
Atmananda Links
HOW TO RECONCILE THE SPIRITUAL AND WORLDLY ASPECTS OF ONE’S LIFE?
Atmananda Krishna Menon
The world is examined and proved to be non-existent, through your own experiences:
1. By comparing impartially the dream and waking state experiences, and finding
them to be exactly similar.
2. By proving that the objective world has no existence, independently of the subject
‘I’ or Consciousness.
You understand this fact, and accept it completely and unreservedly. Think about it
more intensely, until it descends into your heart, becoming experience itself. Then
you become what you mean by ‘jivan-mukta’, and all your problems automatically
cease.
To an ordinary man, life constitutes actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings –
one of these alone being experienced at any given time. In other words, you stand
detached from all activities, excepting the one in which you seem engaged at the
given time.
To this list of four categories (actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings), the
spiritual man adds just one more, which indeed is the most important one: ‘Consciousness’. This last one is doubly important; because, over and above its importance
as a separate entity, it shines in and through the four categories already mentioned.
You are simply asked to direct to the consciousness aspect the attention legitimately
due to it. This is all.
When you are engaged in thought, you are not engaged in action, perception or
feeling. When engaged in action, you are not engaged in thought, feeling or perception. So also, when you are engaged in knowing, you cannot be engaged in any other
kind of activity.
The presence and recognition of subjective Consciousness, your real centre, is the
one thing needed to make your life possible and connected. Make it so, by knowing
that knowing principle to be your real centre. You never go outside it, and you can
never leave it, even if you will. This does not deny or negate your worldly life, as is
ordinarily supposed, but makes it richer, firmer, truer and more successful.
To have deep peace and not to be disturbed from it, even for a moment, is the ardent desire of everyone. For this, you have necessarily to be at a centre which does
not change. That is the real ‘I’-principle or Consciousness. To be it and to establish
oneself there is the end and aim of life. This alone makes real life possible.
30 th December 1950
HOW CAN AN ORDINARY MAN ATTAIN RENUNCIATION? (29)
When you are engaged in any action, thought or other activity, all the world except
for that one activity is dead, so far as you are concerned. This can really be called
vairagya or detachment. Therefore, you are always in perfect dispassion, and that
again in the most natural and effortless manner. Notes_Spiritual_Discourses.pdf
Stages of Realization
The direct path mentions three stages along the path of realization. At each stage, the interest is placed on something more subtle, and what was seen as real and inherent to a lower stage is seen as nothing but the play of a higher stage.
• At Stage 1, everything seems like it exists independently, and consciousness seems as though it comes from the head and flows out through the senses into the objective world.
• At Stage 2, the activities (AKA superimpositions) of Stage 1 are seen to be appearances in impersonal, non-localized consciousness, which reveals them in the light of awareness.
• At Stage 3, even the subtle superimposition of “revealing” or“illuminating” falls away, and consciousness shines in its own glory.
This is a capsule summary of how the direct path examines the world to see that it is nothing other than the self.
From the Witness to Pure Consciousness
When the witness is very stable, it begins to open or dissolve into global,loving lightness of pure consciousness, which is without any gaps orseparation anywhere. This happens through time, or when one looks intothe witness the same way that one looked into objects at the beginning of the investigation.The witness has become stable when:
• Witnessing doesn’t seem like a mental state
• Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it needs practice or vigilanc
• Witnessing doesn’t seem as though it’s reversible or able to be "lost"
• Witnessing no longer seems like it is happening “here” as opposed to"there"
• It no longer feels as though there are objects that exist outside of awareness
• You no longer wonder whether awareness should allows one personto see all of another person’s thoughts
• The witness no longer seems personal
• There no longer seem to be unseen arisings
At this point, there is no presumption of a person. There is no separate“one” that arisings appear to. There is no felt authorship, doership orreceivership. There is no personalization or experience of separation.Experience is sweet, open and loving – the source of the arisings is awareness and love, and the arisings themselves are sweet because their source is sweet. Even pain is open, loving and sweet. Its nature is not pain, but awareness. One can no longer "be" a person (indeed, one never was a person . One has recognized one’s self as awareness.But there is still a very subtle dualistic structure to the witness. Sweet, but dualistic nevertheless. The dualistic structure consists of:
• A subject/object distinction, i.e., a distinction between awareness and the arisings in awareness
• A multiplicity, a distinction between arisings themselves
Both of these distinctions go together; they need each other. And inquiry into the either one of them will dissolve them both.The investigation at this level is very subtle, but the basic insight is the same as it is everywhere. There is no experience of objects outside of awareness. There is no phenomenon that organizes or structures awareness; if there were such a phenomenon, then it would be just the same as any other phenomenon has been discovered to be: just another arising in awareness. This was what was realized with color, sound, the body, seeing and hearing, memory, will, intention and causality
Greg-Goode-Teachings-of-Sri-Atmananda-and-the-Direct-Path
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