How to start practising atma-vichara?

Ātma-vichāra is not looking at any thought other than our primal thought ‘I’, which thinks all other thoughts.

All other thoughts are anātma (non-self), anya (other than ourself) and jaḍa (non-conscious), and hence we cannot know our real self by looking at them. We are constantly looking at our thoughts throughout our waking and dream states, but we do not thereby know our real self. In fact, our attention to thoughts is the obstacle that obscures our knowledge of ourself, because we can attend to thoughts only when we experience ourself as this thinking mind.

The only thought that we should look at in order to know ourself as we really are is our primal thought ‘I’, because unlike all other thoughts, none of which are conscious, this thinking thought ‘I’ is conscious, both of itself and of the thoughts that it is thinking. That is, this thinking thought ‘I’ is the knowing subject, whereas all other thoughts are just objects known by it.

This thinking thought ‘I’ is conscious because it is chit-jaḍa-granthi, the ‘knot’ that binds consciousness to the non-conscious. That is, it is an entangled mixture of our ever-conscious real self, ‘I am’, and this non-conscious body (which is only a thought or imagination) and other thoughts, which inevitably arise when we imagine ourself to be this body.

In this entangled mixture, ‘I am this body’, the only real element is our fundamental consciousness ‘I am’. The other element, ‘this body’, is merely an imagination, and hence it is created only by our act of thinking. When we do not think anything, as in deep sleep, this body does not exist, just as a dream-body does not exist when we are not dreaming.

Since that which exists in all our three states of consciousness, waking, dream and sleep, is only our fundamental consciousness of being, ‘I am’, it alone is real, and everything else is just a false figment of our imagination. Since we experience our present waking body only in waking and not in dream or sleep, and since we experience a dream-body only in a dream and not in waking or sleep, these bodies are mere transitory appearances, and hence they cannot be real but are just thoughts that arise along with our thinking mind.

Of all the things that we think or imagine, the root is only our thinking thought ‘I’, which is our mind, the ephemeral consciousness that always experiences itself as ‘I am this body, a person called so-and-so’. Thus this false experience ‘I am this body’ is our primal imagination, and because it obscures the real nature of ourself, our pure ‘I am’, it enables us to imagine all other thoughts.

Since the only reality in our thinking thought ‘I’, which is this primal imagination ‘I am this body’, is our essential consciousness of being, ‘I am’, if we look at it carefully we will see the reality that underlies its false appearance, just as if we look carefully at an imaginary snake we will see the rope, which is the reality that underlies its false appearance.

Since no other thought contains this essential element of self-consciousness, ‘I am’, by looking at any other thought we will not be able to recognise it the reality that underlies it, no matter how long and carefully we may look at it. Looking at other thoughts is like looking at the pictures on a cinema screen, whereas looking at our thinking thought ‘I’ is like looking back at the light that projects those pictures.

If we were to look directly at the light shining out of a cinema projector, we would see not only the rapidly moving film in front of the light, but would also see the bright unmoving light behind that moving film. At first the moving film may seem to obscure the unmoving light behind it, but if we continue to stare at it steadily, our eyes will be dazzled by the light and hence we will cease to see anything other than that.

Likewise, when we look directly into the core of our consciousness, ‘I am’, its true clarity may at first seem to be obscured by an unceasing flow of thoughts, but if we continue to keep our attention fixed steadily upon it, it will shine ever more brightly and clearly and will thereby gradually dissolve all the shadowy appearance of thoughts, until it finally shines alone in all its infinite splendour and non-dual glory.

You ask what is to be followed, ‘look at your thoughts’, ‘see from where it occurs’ or ‘see who does all this’. As I have explained above, ātma-vichāra is not looking at any thought other than our primal thought ‘I’, so we should not follow the advice of anyone who says ‘look at your thoughts’, but we can follow either or both of the other two instructions, ‘see from where it occurs’ and ‘see who does all this’, which both mean essentially the same thing.

From where do all thoughts occur? They occur, arise or appear only from ourself, the ‘I’ who think them, and not from anything else. Therefore ‘seeing from where thoughts occur’ means seeing ourself, the thinking ‘I’, in whose imagination and by whose imagination all thoughts are formed.

Likewise, who does all this? Everything — every thought, word and deed — is done only by this same thinking ‘I’. Even though physical actions may appear to be done by our body, and words may appear to be spoken by our voice, our body and voice are both only instruments by which our mind acts. All bodily actions and words originate from our thoughts, and those thoughts are all thought only by ‘I’, the primal thought, which is our thinking mind. Therefore ‘seeing who does all this’ means seeing ourself, the ‘I’ that feels ‘I am thinking’, ‘I am speaking’ and ‘I am doing’.

Since this thinking, speaking and doing ‘I’ appears in waking and dream but disappears in sleep, it is not our real ‘I’, but is only an impostor who poses as ‘I’. However, it could not pose as ‘I’ if it did not contain at least an element of our real consciousness ‘I’, so when we see it very carefully, we will come to see the real ‘I’ that underlies and supports it, enabling it to appear as ‘I’.

That is, when we look carefully at this false thinking ‘I’, concentrating our entire attention upon it, we will see beyond the body and other imaginary adjuncts that we have superimposed upon it and will thereby recognise the pure adjunct-free consciousness ‘I’ that underlies it, just as when we look very carefully at the imaginary snake, we will see beyond its superficial appearance and will recognise that it is actually only a rope.

Our real ‘I’ does not think or do anything, but just is. That is, its essential nature is just being, and it is ever untouched by any thought or action. The ‘I’ that thinks and does action is only a superficial and transitory appearance, an illusion that exists as such only in its own self-deceiving imagination, but that which seems to appear thus as this false thinking and doing ‘I’ is only our real being ‘I’. Therefore when we examine the appearance carefully, we will come to see it as it really is — that is, as the thought-free, action-free, non-dual being ‘I’.

You also asked, ‘doesnt the one sees is also mind?’ (by which I assume you meant, ‘isn’t the one who sees also mind?’). Yes, that which makes effort to see itself, the false thinking ‘I’, is only our mind, which is nothing other than this thinking ‘I’ itself.

Our real being ‘I’ always knows itself perfectly clearly, because its nature is absolutely pure self-consciousness, so it does not need to make any effort to practice ātma-vichāra. That which needs to make effort to know itself as it really is is only our mind, the false thinking ‘I’.

When this mind makes effort to know ‘who am I?’ by looking very carefully at itself, it automatically subsides and merges in its real state of clear thought-free self-conscious being, and thus it experiences itself as the real being ‘I’ that it always truly is. That is, this mind rises and is active only so long as it attends to other thoughts — that is, to anything other than itself — but when it tries instead to attend only to itself, it subsides and ceases to be active, because without the imaginary support of anything other than itself this mind cannot stand or appear to exist.

When the illusion of thinking and doing is superimposed upon our being ‘I’, it appears to be this thinking ‘I’, our mind or ego, so our mind depends upon its constant activity of thinking in order to sustain its seeming existence. Thinking is the activity of attending to something that appears to be other than ourself, so it will cease when we focus our entire attention exclusively upon ourself, and thus our thinking mind will subside in our natural state of clear self-conscious being, in which it will cease to be this thinking ‘I’ and will instead remain as the being ‘I’ that it always really is.

Finally you ask, ‘Even though always the grace of guru is showered, why is that we cannot have atma vichara always?’ Grace is always abundantly available in our heart, where it shines clearly as our real consciousness, ‘I am’, but to benefit from it fully we must surrender ourself to it entirely by making our attention ahamukham (turning it to face selfwards) and thereby subsiding within.

We can keep our attention fixed on ourself only to the extent to which we have genuine love to do so. So long as we still have desire to experience anything other than our real self, our desires will impel us to think of those things and thus we will repeatedly succumb to pramāda or self-negligence, slipping down from our natural state of vigilant self-attentiveness or clear self-consciousness.

Whatever love we now have to turn away from the objects of our desires and to attend only to our real self, ‘I am’, has been enkindled in our heart only by the grace of guru, and having once enkindled the flame of this love, grace will continue to protect it, nurture it and help it to flourish, just as a gardener would protect and nurture a beautiful plant that he has grown from seed.

Grace is certainly doing its part, as it always has and always will, so it is up to us to do our part by surrendering ourself to it, attending to it exclusively and thereby allowing it to swallow us in the perfect clarity of pure self-consciousness, which is its true form. The more we persevere in our effort to attend only to self, the more clearly the light of grace will shine in our heart as ‘I am’, and the more it will thereby enkindle our love to be ever self-attentive.

Our love to be self-attentive is true bhakti — svātma-bhakti or love for our own self — and its intensity is directly proportionate to the intensity of our vairāgya or freedom from desire to attend to anything other than ourself. We desire to attend to other things only because of our lack of true vivēka, discrimination or right judgement — the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal, the eternal and the ephemeral, and to discern that true happiness exists only in our real self and not in any ephemeral appearance such as our mind or the objects of its desires.

True vivēka can arise only from the inner clarity of mind and heart that is enkindled in us by the clear light of grace, which always shines within us as ‘I am’. Therefore when we attend to our essential consciousness of being, ‘I am’, we are opening our heart to the influence of grace, allowing it to shine clearly within us and thereby to enkindle and nourish the clarity of true vivēka in our heart.

When we begin to practice ātma-vichāra — self-investigation or self-attentiveness — we are starting a process that will escalate with ever-increasing momentum, like a snowball rolling down a hill, because the more we attend to ‘I am’, the more clearly we will experience it, and the more clearly we experience it, the more brightly the clarity of true vivēka will shine in our heart, thereby enabling us to free ourself from our desires and to love to be self-attentive ever more intensely, until eventually our mind will be swallowed forever in the absolute clarity of pristinely pure self-consciousness.

Posted by Michael James (www.happinessofbeing.com) 
http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-to-start-practising-atma-vichara.html


http://www.happinessofbeing.com/articles.html


Another group of visitors was asking the method of Realisation. In the course of a reply Sri Bhagavan said: “Holding the mind and investigating it is advised for a beginner. But what is mind after all? It is a projection of the Self. See for whom it appears and from where it rises. The ‘I-thought’ will be found to be the root-cause. Go deeper; the ‘I-thought’ disappears and there is an infinitely expanded ‘I-consciousness’. That is otherwise called Hiranyagarbha. When it puts on limitations it appears as individuals.”


From, 'Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi' Talk 489

You are THAT Meditation

Objectification - Witnessing - Negation Meditation

(Objectification process aka embodiment or manifestation)

Concepts, arise from thoughts, and together form a bundle that is known as mind. 'Thinking' means 'conceptualizing', creating objects in mind, and this is 'bondage'. Words, basically dualistic and conceptual, are an obstruction to enlightenment. They can only serve the temporary purpose of communication, but thereafter they are a bondage. Getting rid of conceptual thinking means enlightenment, awakening, which cannot be otherwise 'attained', or 'obtained' by any one.

Mind is a bundle of mental objects (seeds) like desires, thoughts, feelings and emotions that we accumulate. It is nothing but a collection of Samskaras, desires arising from contact of the sense-organs with different external objects, feeling aroused by worldly botherations, ideas gathered together from various different objects. These desires, feelings and ideas are not steady—they will be constantly changing. Suddenly some will subside and some others will occupy their places like the waves in the seas. Some old ones will depart from the storehouse, the mind and some new ones will replace them at once. It is also a bundle of habits. The bad habits and prejudices, although hidden by one’s own nature will come up and occupy the surface of the mind as and when opportunity occurs. According to the Vedantic school of philosophy mind is of middling size (same size as that of the body), it is atomic (Anu) as per Nyaya school and Patanjali Maharshi says in Raja Yoga that it is Vibhu (all-pervading).

The objectification process is the continuous creation of mental objects and concepts based on existing likes/dislikes that leads to actions/karma for gain/loss and enjoying the resulting pain/pleasure. This is the wheel of birth, bondage, sufferring, death and rebirth. It is this objectification process that we delusively identify as thinking/feeling mind/self and try to gratify and protect.Constant choiceless awareness this objectification/ embodiment/ manifestation process in real time leads to slowing, calm abiding, purification and complete liberation. 

The underlying Peace/Bliss conciousness is covered by continuous conceptualizing, judging, blaming from morning till night conceptualizing, objectivizing, he is doing good, she is doing bad. That is what makes one lose the peace, which is already there. So, it is not a question of achieving peace but it is a question of something leaving that is preventing that peace from being felt.

In meditation, when you try to watch this process and distinguish between the subject and the object in the imaginal space, and become the observer, the following conceptual selfs shows up.

The word I
The Concept I
The Knowledge/Knowing I
The Feeling I 
The Existence/Presence I
Emptiness Concept I
Nondual concept I

All of the above have its own trappings of impermanent joy, bliss, peace, freedom etc. which again leads you in a different kind of bondage .

Also, all the above Is can be seen as an object by itself separate from the SUBJECT.  Anything that can be objectified is not you and will lead to further bondage and dreams. Use NEGATION "Neti-neti. Not this, not this" to discard all these fake mental objects posing as absolute self.

Then there is THAT which stands neutral behind all this phenomenal/manifestation stuff, which observes it all, and whose existence cannot be objectified, CANNOT BE KNOWN in the way everything else is known (BECAUSE THERE IS NO KNOWER) , but can only be known as you being it, which is a different kind of knowing altogether. It can not be an act of volition. At this point languages and mind withdraws and bow down to the Great Silence.

THAT cannot be seen/perceived as an object with name and form or experienced as a process. 
THAT can only ....................
YOU ARE THAT






Sri Ramana Maharshi: Knowing the Self is being the Self, and being means existence, one’s own existence. No one denies one’s own existence any more than one denies one’s eyes, although one cannot see them. The trouble lies with your desire to objectify the Self, in the same way as you objectify your eyes when you place a mirror before them. You have been so accustomed to objectivity that you have lost the knowledge of yourself, simply because the Self cannot be objectified. Who is to know the Self? Can the insentient body know it? All the time you speak and think of your ‘I’, yet when questioned you deny knowledge of it. You are the Self, yet you ask how to know the Self. 

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Nisargadatta Maharaj: To avoid being lost in the bewildering diversity of the play of Maya (Lila), said Nisargadatta Maharaj, it is necessary at this stage not to forget the essential unity between the Absolute, and the relative, between the non-manifest and the manifest. Manifestation comes into existence only with the basic concept, 'I am'. The substratum is the noumenon, which is total potentiality. With the arising of 'Iam- ness' it mirrors itself into the phenomenal universe which only appears to be exterior to the noumenon. In order to see itself, noumenon objectifies itself into phenomenon and for this objectivization to take place, space and time are the necessary concepts (in which the phenomena are extended in volume and duration). Phenomenon, therefore, is not something different from noumenon, but it is noumenon itself when objectivized. It is necessary to understand—and never to forget—this essential identity.

Once the concept 'I am' arises, the fundamental unity gets notionally separated, as subject and object, in duality. When impersonal consciousness manifests itself and identifies itself with each physical form the I-notion arises, and this I-notion, forgetting that it has no independent entity, converts its original subjectivity into an object with intentions, wants and desires, and is, therefore, vulnerable to suffering. This mistaken identity is precisely the 'bondage' from which liberation is to be sought.

And what is 'liberation'? Liberation, Enlightenment, or awakening, is nothing other than understanding profoundly, apperceiving — (a) that the seed of all manifestation is the impersonal consciousness, (b) that what is being sought is the unmanifested aspect of manifestation and (c) that, therefore, the seeker himself is the sought!

Summarizing the discourse Maharaj said: Let us get it all together once again.

1. In the original state prevails I am, without any knowledge or conditioning, without attributes, without form or identity.

2. Then, for no apparent reason (other than that it is its nature to do so), arises the thought or concept I am, the Impersonal Consciousness, on which the world appears as a living-dream.

3. Consciousness, in order to manifest itself, needs a form, a physical body, with which it identifies itself and thus starts the concept of 'bondage', with an imaginary objectivization of 'I'. Whenever one thinks and acts from the standpoint of this self-identification, one could be said to have committed the 'original sin' of turning pure subjectivity (the limitless potential) into an object, a limited actuality.

4. No object has an independent existence of its own, and, therefore, an object cannot awaken itself from the living-dream; yet — and this is the joke — the phantom individual (an object) seeks some other object, as the 'Absolute' or 'Reality' or whatever.

5. If this is clear, one must reverse and go back to find out what one originally was (and always has been) before consciousness arose.

6. At this stage comes the 'awakening' that one is neither the body nor even the consciousness, but the unnameable state of total potentiality, prior to the arrival of consciousness (in consciousness, that state, with whatever name, can only be a concept).

7. And so the circle is complete; the seeker is the sought.

In conclusion, said Maharaj, understand profoundly that, as 'I', one is noumenal. The current condition of phenomenonality (the seed of which is consciousness) is a temporary one, like a disease or an eclipse on one's original changeless condition of noumenality, and all that one can do is to go through one's allotted span of living, at the end of which the eclipse of phenomenality is over and noumenality prevails again in its pure unicity, totally unaware of its awareness. 

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Maharaj often repeats what he has always been saying: All knowledge is conceptual, therefore, untrue. Apperceive directly and give up the search for knowledge. But how many of you will do so? How many of you understand what I am trying to convey to you? What is the purpose of all my talks? asks Maharaj. It is to make you understand, to see, to apperceive your true nature. But first there is a hindrance to be removed; or rather, a hindrance that must disappear before you can see and be the what-is. All 'thinking', 'conceptualizing', 'objectivizing' must cease. Why? Because what-is does not have the slightest touch of objectivity. It is the  subject of all objects, and not being an object it cannot be observed. The eye sees everything else, but cannot see itself.

To the question 'what does one have to do, what efforts must one make to stop conceptualizing', Maharaj's answer is: Nothing; no efforts. Who is to make the effort? What effort did you make to grow from a tiny sperm cell to a full grown baby in your mother's womb? And thereafter, for several months when you grew from the helpless baby to an infant, what efforts did you make to sense your presence? And now you talk of 'efforts', which 'you' must make!

What efforts can an illusory, conceptual 'I' make to know its true nature? What efforts can a shadow make to know its substance?

Realizing one's true nature requires no phenomenal effort. Enlightenment cannot be attained, nor forced. It can only happen, when it is given the opportunity to do so, when obstruction by concepts ceases. It can appear only when it is given a vacant space to appear in. If someone else is to occupy this house, says Maharaj, I must first vacate it. If the conceptual 'I' is already in occupation, how can enlightenment enter? Let the conceptual 'I' vacate and give enlightenment a chance to enter. Even making a positive effort to stop thinking as a method of getting rid of conceptualizing, is an exercise in futility, and so is any other kind of 'effort'! The only effective effort is instant apperceiving of truth. See the false as false and what remains is true. What is absent now will appear when what is now present disappears. It is as simple as that. Negation is the only answer.

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Maharaj began speaking softly. Please, understand. No truth remains as truth the moment it is given expression. It becomes a concept! Add to it the fact that in order to communicate with each other, the words 'I' and 'you', and 'we' and 'they' have necessarily to be used. Thus, the very first thought breaks the unicity and creates duality; indeed it is only in duality that communication can take place. Words themselves further expand the dichotomy. But that is not all. Then the listener, instead of directly and intuitively perceiving what is being communicated, begins the process of relative reasoning with its implicit limitations when applied to the subjective and the noumenal. 

  Are you with me so far, Maharaj enquired, and then continued. What is relative reasoning? It is the process of reasoning whereby a subject creates in his consciousness objects with opposing qualities or characteristics which could be compared. In other words, the process just cannot work except on the basis of a subject-object duality. Such relative reasoning may be effective, and indeed necessary, for describing objects by comparison. But how can it work with the subjective? That which conceives — the subject — obviously cannot conceive itself as an object! The eye can see everything else except itself!

 Is it any wonder therefore, said Maharaj, that you have found yourself bogged down in the mire of ideas and concepts from which you find it impossible to extricate yourself? If you could only see the actual position, you would see what a joke it is! 
 This is the background. Now, to the real problem: Who is this 'you' that is trying to go back the way he came? No matter how far back you go chasing your shadow, the shadow will always precede you. What is meant by going back? It means going back to the position when there was total absence of consciousness. But — and this is the crux of the matter— so long as there is a negator who keeps on negating and negating (chasing the shadow), 'you' will remain un-negated. Try to apperceive what I am saying, not with your intellect, not as 'you' using your intellect, but just apperceiving as such.

 I wonder if I have made myself clear, asked Maharaj. 
 The professor, however, seemed to have come to a mental obstruction, an impenetrable block, and he said so. Maharaj then told him that this 'block' was an imaginary obstruction caused by an imaginary 'you', which had identified itself with the body. He said: I repeat, there must be a final and total negation so that the negator himself disappears! What you are trying to do is to understand what you are by means of a concept of 'existence', whereas in reality 'I' (you) neither am, nor am not, 'I' am beyond the very concept of existence, beyond the concept of both the positive and the negative presence. Unless this is understood very profoundly you will continue to create your own imaginary obstructions, each more powerful than the earlier one. What you are trying to find is what you already are. 

 A professor among listeners then asked: Does it mean then that no one can lead me back to what I am? Maharaj confirmed that that was indeed so. You are — you always have been — where you want to be led. Actually, there really is no 'where' that you can be led to. Awareness of this obvious position is the answer—just the apperception; nothing to be done. And the tragic irony is that such awareness and apperception can not be an act of volition. Does your waking state come about by itself, or do you awaken yourself as an act of volition? Indeed, the least effort on 'your' part will prevent what otherwise might have happened naturally and spontaneously. And the joke within the joke is that your deliberately not doing anything will also prevent it happening! It is simple really; 'doing' something and 'not doing' something are both volitional efforts.

There must be a total absence of the 'do-er, the total absence of both the positive and the negative aspects of 'doing'. Indeed, this is true 'surrender'.
 When, at the end of the session, the professor and his artist friend were leaving, Maharaj smiled at the artist and asked him whether he would be coming again. The artist paid his respects most humbly, smiled and said that he could not possibly avoid it, and I wondered who had had the real benefit of the talk that morning, the actively articulate professor with his learned intellectuality, or the passively receptive artist with his sensitive insight

DISCOVER THE EGO

The Process of Awakening

Of course the process of awakening is multifaceted and unique for everyone. However, there are some commonalities that can be used as a guide home. Let's consider the following three steps; Recognition, Identification, and Surrender.

1. Recognize Your True Nature

If there is a moment of awakening it is when an individual recognizes his or her true nature. In a moment of self inquiry you recognize what is always present throughout life. You recognize what gives rise to the body, the emotions and thoughts. You recognize the source of your life and all of existence. The recognition may be subtle, like the dawn before the day, but the recognition is still the essential experience in awakening.

Once you have recognized this eternal presence, you can now pay attention to it. The more attention that is put on source, the faster it will permeate your life. Your attention on source fans the flames of consciousness which free your life from over-identification of your story and allows you to identify more with the absolute.

2. Identify Yourself as Your True Nature

As more time is spent consciously aware of your source, you identify more and more with the source and less and less with an individual life which has a story and a certain body. There is a loosening of the mind’s hold over a life. There is an opening to life without needing to veil it with a story created by the mind based on past experiences. You begin to identify with the permanent presence emanating from all life as your true nature.

3. Surrender to Your True Nature

In knowing your true nature you learn that it is the vastness of infinite freshness, love, peace, and beauty. You realize that the life you had was guided by the mind’s pushing and pulling based on fear and desire. So you consciously choose to allow the source to be the impetus for your life. This is a surrendering to God on a very intimate level. It is surrendering to the peace and love you have come to know and count on at the core of your being. A life that was driven by the mind’s whims is now offered to the infinite knowledge and wisdom of the divine. Awakening has taken root and now flourishes through another life.

http://silentawareness.org/teachings/index.html

Play this game every day - Robert Adams

Think how many years you’ll be going through life, believing you’re a body, a mind, an ego. The situations you’ve been through. The agonies, the ecstasies, the dualities. You’re beginning to see now that all of those things belong to the I-thought, to the personal self, which is not really you. You are total freedom, having absolutely nothing to do with the personal self. 

You simply have to ask yourself, “Who is this personal self? Where did it come from? How did it arise? How did it get a hold of me, and make me believe I’m human? That makes me feel I was born? And I have to die? What is this personal self? Where did it come from?” 

And as you follow the personal self, the I-thought, you’ll begin to see it never existed. It was never born. It is absolutely nothingness. And you’ll become radiantly happy, full of love, full of peace.

I know there are many of you who like to go hiking, like to climb Mountains, like to become part of nature. That’s OK, but do not believe that these things are external from yourself. These things are yourself. You are That. When you question, “To whom does this come?” you again realize, “It comes to me, I perceive it.” Then you remember that you are not I. “I” perceives it. Yet in reality, you are not the perceiver. You are not the witness. “I” perceives it. “I” is the witness. 

This is a very important point, and I want you to understand it because it can change your whole life. Whatever you see in the world, you are to realize that “I” perceives. But do not look at I as being the self. You have to catch yourself and say, “I” perceives. This does not mean that you perceive it. It is “I” that perceives it. When you separate yourself from the I, all is what? 

Consciousness. It is only when you believe that you are I, that your humanhood comes into play. But as soon as you perceive that I is the universe, you have separated yourself from I. And then Consciousness comes into play, you have awakened. In other words, when you can separate from your I, you will be awakened and liberated.

Play this game every day. Whatever you see, whether it is your body or your mind, or other people. When someone does something to you that you don’t like, the worst thing you can do is react. Can you see why, now? Because when you react you are affirming your humanhood and your ego becomes stronger. But when you no longer react, the ego becomes weaker and weaker and weaker. The I and the ego are the same.

The world appears very strong. People appear very real. Some of us always seem to get involved in all kinds of situations. Yet take a look at your life and see why you get involved. Honestly look at yourself. Do not be afraid to see yourself. See the things you do, the words you say, the thoughts you think. And you’ll see why you’re not making too much progress.

Now, if you really want to make progress, you will drop everything mentally. Remember when I speak of dropping everything, I’m not referring to your quitting your job, moving to India, stopping reading books, or watching TV. I’m not referring to this really, if that’s what you want to do. I’m referring to mentally letting go of your reactions to whatever is going on in your body and the world.

Leave the world alone. Leave people alone. Do not try to change people. Or to make them see your point of view. There is no point of view. Every point of view is wrong. We want to get rid of points of view.

You have to sincerely want to awaken. And I kid you not, to awaken is simple. You just have to give up everything mentally. That’s all. And consider the fact that everything is consciousness. Everything. No thing is as it appears. This includes yourself.

The no-mind state is where you come from practicing to the place in the Silence where there are no thoughts to bother you any longer. You get there through Self-inquiry. That’s the fastest way. But that’s not Self-realization. Self-realization is when the mind is pulled into the spiritual heart. Liberation, moksha, Self-realization, is when the mind that’s left over in the silence is pulled completely into the spiritual heart. At that time the whole mind, the I, dissolves completely, and you are free. So the no-mind state is a very high state. It’s a state of bliss, but there’s still somebody left to experience the bliss. When the bliss is pulled into the heart, there is no one left to experience anything. Therefore, you no longer say, “I’m in the no-mind state.” At that time there is nothing to say.

Robert Adams
http://www.robertadamsinfinityinstitute.org/silence1.pdf

Robert Adams