Tilopa’s Pith Instructions on Mahamudra (The Ganges Mahamudra)

Pith Instructions on Mahamudra (translated by Ken McLeod)

I bow to Vajra Dakini.
1
Mahamudra cannot be taught, Naropa,
But your devotion to your teacher and the hardships you’ve met
Have made you patient in suffering and also wise:
Take this to heart, my worthy student.
2
For instance, consider space: what depends on what?
Likewise, mahamudra: it doesn’t depend on anything.
Don’t control. Let go and rest naturally.
Let what binds you let go and freedom is not in doubt.
3
When you look into space, seeing stops.
Likewise, when mind looks at mind,
The flow of thinking stops and you come to the deepest awakening.
4
Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.
They go nowhere, nor do they stay.
Likewise, though thoughts arise,
Whenever you see your mind, the clouds of thinking clear.
5
Space is beyond color or shape.
It doesn’t take on color, black or white: it doesn’t change.
Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond color or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.
6
The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim
The brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.
Likewise, eons of samsara cannot dim
The sheer clarity that is the essence of your mind.
7
Although you say space is empty,
You can’t say that space is "like this".
Likewise, although mind is said to be sheer clarity,
There is nothing there: you can’t say "it’s like this".
8
Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space:
It includes everything you experience.
9
Stop all physical activity: sit naturally at ease.
Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.
Do not think about anything: look at experience beyond thought.
10
Your body has no core, hollow like bamboo.
Your mind goes beyond thought, open like space.
Let go of control and rest right there.
11
Mind without projection is mahamudra.
Train and develop this and you will come to the deepest awakening.
12
You don’t see mahamudra’s sheer clarity
By means of classical texts or philosophical systems,
Whether of the mantras, paramitas,
Vinaya, sutras or other collections.
13
Ambition clouds sheer clarity and you don’t see it.
Thinking about precepts undermines the point of commitment.
Do not think about anything; let all ambition drop.
Let what arises settle by itself, like patterns in water.
No place, no focus, no missing the point —
Do not break this commitment: it is the light in the dark.
14
When you are free from ambition and don’t hold any position,
You will see all that the scriptures teach.
When you open to this, you are free from samsara’s prison.
When you settle in this, all evil and distortion burn up.
This is called "The Light of the Teaching".
15
The foolish are not interested in this.
The currents of samsara constantly carry them away.
Oh, how pitiable, the foolish — their struggles never end.
Don’t accept these struggles, long for freedom, and rely on a skilled teacher.
When his (her) energy enters your heart, your mind is freed.
16
What joy!
Samsaric ways are senseless: they are the seeds of suffering.
Conventional ways are pointless. Focus on what is sound and true.
Majestic outlook is beyond all fixation.
Majestic practice is no distraction.
Majestic behavior is no action or effort.
The fruition is there when you are free from hope and fear.
17
Beyond any frame of reference mind is naturally clear.
Where there is no path you begin the path of awakening.
Where there is nothing to work on you come to the deepest awakening.
18
Alas! Look carefully at this experience of the world.
Nothing lasts. It’s like a dream, like magic.
The dream, the magic, makes no sense.
Experience this grief and forget the affairs of the world.
19
Cut all ties of involvement with country or kin,
Practice alone in forest or mountain retreats.
Rest, not practicing anything.
When you come to nothing to come to, you come to mahamudra.
20
A tree spreads its branches and leaves.
Cut the root and ten thousand branches wither.
Likewise, cut the root of mind and the leaves of samsara wither.
21
Though darkness gathers for a thousand eons.
A single light dispels it all.
Likewise, one moment of sheer clarity
Dispels the ignorance, evil and confusion of a thousand eons.
22
What joy!
With the ways of the intellect you won’t see beyond intellect.
With the ways of action you won’t know non-action.
If you want to know what is beyond intellect and action,
Cut your mind at its root and rest in naked awareness.
23
Let the cloudy waters of thinking settle and clear.
Let appearances come and go on their own.
With nothing to change, the world you experience becomes mahamudra.
Because the basis of experience has no beginning, patterns and distortions fall away.
Rest in no beginning, with no self-interest or expectation.
Let what appears appear on its own and let conceptual ways subside.
24
The most majestic of outlooks is free of all reference.
The most majestic of practices is vast and deep without limit.
The most majestic of behaviors is open-minded and impartial.
The most majestic of fruitions is natural being, free of concern.
25
At first, practice is a river rushing through a gorge.
In the middle, it’s the river Ganges, smooth and flowing.
In the end, it’s where all rivers meet, mother and child.
26
When your mind is less acute and does not truly rest,
Work the essentials of energy and bring out the vitality of awareness.
Using gazes and techniques to take hold of mind
Train awareness until it does truly rest.
27
When you practice with a sexual partner, empty bliss awareness arises.
The balancing of method and wisdom transforms energy.
Let it descend gently, collect it, draw it back up,
Return it to its place, and let it saturate your body.
When you are free from longing and desire, empty bliss awareness arises.
28
You will have a long life, you will not gray, and you will shine like the moon.
You will radiate health and well-being and be as strong as a lion.
You will quickly attain the ordinary abilities and open to the supreme one.
May these pith instructions, the essentials of mahamudra,
Abide in the hearts of all worthy beings.

These are the great Tilopa’s oral instructions. On the completion of the twelve hardships, Tilopa taught these on the banks of the river Ganges to the Kashmiri pandit, the wise and learned Naropa. Naropa taught The Twenty-Eight Vajra Verses to the great interpreter, the king of translators, Marpa Chökyi Lodrö. Marpa finalized his translation at Pulahari in the north of India. Ken McLeod translated this into English in Los Angeles in the southwest of the United States, working from the efforts of previous translators and various commentaries.

Source: http://www.naturalawareness.net

Ganga-Mahamudra-Upadesa of Sri Tilopa

Homage to the Vajra Dakini!
Mahamudra is beyond description.
But for your sake, O Naropa, my most devoted disciple,
who is diligent in ascetic practice and exertion,
this shall be said:
Space lacks any locality at all.
Likewise, Mahamudra rests on naught.
Thus, without making effort, abide in the pure primordial state,
and the fetters that bind you will simply drop away.
Just as when looking into the open sky,
fixed concepts of centre and circumference dissolve,
So, if with mind one perceives the mind, mental activity ceases; then is it, that Enlightened-mind is realized.
Clouds that arise and take form in the sky,
pass away quite automatically according to natural law.
Likewise, the flow of concepts arising in the mind,
naturally pass away when mind perceives mind.
Space has neither shape nor colour;
it is changeless, and not tinged by either white or black.
Likewise, mind-in-itself has neither form nor colour,
nor can it be stained by virtue or vice.
The burning stellar radiance of the sun
can not be covered by the eternal darkness of space.
Likewise the luminous essence of mind
can not be shrouded by Samsara's endless duration.
Though we say that space is empty,
the actual nature of this vacuity defies description.
Though we say that mind is luminous,
it is actually beyond all words and concepts.
In that mind is like space, it encompasses all.
Therefore cease with bodily movement and sit relaxed;
close your mouth and simply remain in silence;
empty your mind and leap beyond the phenomenal!
Let the body rest at ease, insubstantial like a bamboo tube.
Let the mind rest in itself, spacious and un-preoccupied with thought.
When the mind is not possessed by aims, that is Mahamudra.
When this is realized, that is Great Enlightenment!
Adherents of the Tantra and of the Mahayana,
of the Vinaya and Sutra, and the followers of the World Religions,
with all their various scholastic theologies and devotions,
have no idea whatsoever of this wondrous simultaneously-born Mahamudra.
As to the keeping of covenant-vows (samaya), they are broken
only by the act of trying to adhere to them. The light is hidden only by striving to know it. Cease with rules and ritual, abandon volition, stray not from the Ultimate, and then a true Precept-keeper will you be, a lamp illuminating the darkness.
Not caught up in perceptions, nor caught in desire,
seeking nothing, abiding in the self alone, one simply lets
consciousness be, like a wave in the Great Ocean.
If you slip not into conation, if you hold to neither this nor that,
the real meaning behind all the Scriptures, will make itself clear.
Just abiding, one is released from the prison of Samsara.
Just abiding, all one's karmic impurities are burned away.
It is then that you shall be known as a "Lamp of the Teaching".
Even the ignorant who understand not Mahamudra,
and fools who are lost for a time in Samsara,
can be saved if they but rely on a holy Lord (guru).
Through grace (adhisthana) they may be sure of deliverance.
Know all the phenomena of Samsara as worthless;
just the cause of attachment and aversion.
All created phenomena are without real substance,
therefore seek instead the nature of the Ultimate.
Non-duality is the King of Views.
Resting the mind without flux is the King of Meditations.
Not choosing this or that is the King of Conduct.
When there is neither hope nor fear, that is the King of Results.
Once you let go of all objects-of-perception,
the true nature of the mind shines forth.
Not trying to meditate is the supreme path of the Buddha.
By the meditation of non-meditation Enlightenment is won.
Alas! Impermanent is this world.
It passes like a mirage or a dream.
Even the illusion of its existence
is not something that exists.
Moved by weariness, abandon worldly pre-occupation.
Renounce distinctions of class and race,
and meditate alone in forest, mountains and solitary places.
Abide without seeking; loosely remaining in the natural state.
By attaining non-attainment, quickly shalt thou reach the state of Mahamudra.
If you sever the main root of a living tree,
then all the many branches wither and die at once.
Cut through (kathinaccheda) the very root of consciousness,
and all mental projections will immediately cease.
The darkness of long ages is dispelled
instantly by the lighting of a single lamp.
One moment's experience of the mind of Clear Light
immediately rends the veil of ignorance for ever.
Aha! That which pertains to consciousness is unable to perceive transcendental Gnosis (jnana).
That which pertains to created phenomena is unable to perceive the uncreate Reality.
If you would attain the transcendent, beyond consciousness and creation;
then look directly into one’s own mind, until awareness is revealed in its bare nakedness.
Let the polluted pool of mental activity clear itself.
Merely watch the flow, just as it is.
Do not engage with appearances as they arise,
for Mahamudra is beyond acceptance and rejection.
Since the fundamental ground (alaya) is unborn,
it can neither be obscured nor defiled.
Just rest in the unborn state, neither meditating nor not-meditating, letting appearances resolve back into Ultimate Reality (dharmata).
In being free of the extremes, one attains the King of Views.
Entering the vast and deep, one attains the King of Meditations.
Not making an effort, one attains the King of Conduct.
In non-seeking awareness, one attains the King of Results.
At first the yogi feels his mind to be turbulent,
like the upper course of a rushing mountain torrent.
Then it becomes smooth like the broad river Ganges.
In the end it is like entering the ocean, a child returning to the mother.
One who wishes to attain this level of meditation
should first begin by practicing remembrance of the breath.
Through control of the gaze and such exercises,
the mind will be disciplined until it abides in its own state.
Now concerning the practice of Karmamudra,
the union of Wisdom (prajna) and Means (upaya):
draw down and blend, then raise it up to the source.
Finally cause it to saturate the entire body.
If this is performed free of lust, then Bliss-Emptiness is attained.
Glowing inwardly, blessed with renewed vigour and vitality,
thy life-power shall expand like the waxing moon.
Radiant and healthy, with the composure of a lion,
thou shalt attain Accomplishment (siddhi), both mundane and supreme.

Colophon

By virtue of entering this practice, may all obstacles to the realization of Mahamudra dissolve away.
May the Clear Light of Mahamudra dawn in the minds of the practitioners.
May this Pith Instruction on Mahamudra come to abide in the hearts of those disciples fortunate to connect with it.

Source: http://www.dharmafellowship.org/

Carl Jung on the “Loss of the Ego.”

The fact that deity and devil belong together also plays a great role in alchemy.

There the devil appears in the form of the serpens Mercurii, which, however, is at the same time the serpent of the Nous.

For the Naassenes, too, the nachash, the serpent, is the Nous, or the Logos.

Psychologically speaking, the fact that the Logos at first manifests itself as a poisonous snake means that whenever a powerful content emerges from the unconscious, which we cannot yet grasp with our consciousness, there is a danger that the whole ego-consciousness will be pulled down into the unconscious and dissolved.

This introversion process can eventually lead to mental illness.

Consciousness is completely emptied, because its contents are attracted by the unconscious as by a magnet.

This process leads to a complete loss of the ego, so that the person in question becomes a mere automaton.

Such a person is actually no longer there.

He makes the impression of a piece of wood that lets itself be pushed around.

He has completely lost his initiative and spontaneity, because his consciousness has been dissolved by a content of the unconscious.

In the process of individuation, too, new contents can announce themselves in this devouring form and darken consciousness; this is experienced as a depression, that is to say, as being pulled downward.

As the unconscious has a tendency to project itself into the outer world, there is a danger that one might get dissipated in the environment, instead of staying with oneself.

That’s why the alchemists stress again and again that the alchemical vessel has to remain hermetically closed during the opus.

If the lid springs open, vapor will escape and the process will be disrupted.

Only when we bear our situation and accept our depression will it be possible for us to change internally.

Then the devouring animal will be deprived of its power, and the new content can be grasped by consciousness. ~Carl Jung, Children’s Dreams Seminar, Page 373

http://jungnet.net/

http://monoskop.org/images/9/97/Von_Franz_Luise_Marie_Jung_Gustav_Carl_Man_and_His_Symbols_1988.pdf

Regain your childhood- Osho

1. Regain your childhood, have the eyes of a child:

 I say to you that if you can be a child again you will start growing in a new way. For the first time you will be really alive again. And the moment you have the eyes of a child, the senses of a child -- young, vibrating with life -- the whole of life vibrates with you.

Remember, it is your vibration that needs transformation. The world is already always vibrating in ecstasy; only you are not tuned. The problem is not with the world, it is with you: you are not tuned to it. The world is dancing, always celebrating, every moment it is in a festivity. The festival goes on from eternity to eternity, only you are not tuned to it. You have fallen apart from it, and you are very serious, very knowing, very mature. You are closed. 

Throw this enclosure! Move again into the current of life. When the storm comes, the trees will be dancing, you also dance. When the night comes and everything is dark, you also be dark. And in the morning when the sun rises, let it rise in you also. Be childlike and enjoying, not thinking of the past. 

2. A child never thinks of the past. 

Really, he has no past to think about. A child is not worried about the future; he has no time consciousness. He lives totally unworried. He moves in the moment; he never carries any hangover. If he is angry then he is angry and in his anger he will say to his mother, "I hate you." And this is not just words, this is a reality. Really, in that moment he is in total hate. The next moment he will come out of it and he will be laughing and he will give a kiss to his mother and he will say, "I love you." There is no contradiction. These are two different moments. He was total hate and now he is total love. He moves just like a river goes on moving, zigzag. But wherever he is -- wherever the river is -- he is total, flowing. 

For these days be like a child -- total. If you hate, hate; if you love, love; if you are angry, then be angry; and if you are festive, then be festive and dance. Do not carry anything over from the past. Remain true to the moment; do not hanker for the future. For these eight days drop out of time. Drop out of time!

 A child lives in eternity; there is no time for him. He is not even aware of it. These eight days will be real meditation if you drop out of time. Live the moment and be true to it.

3. Be playful: 

Be playful. It will be difficult, because you are so much structured. You have an armor around you and it is so difficult to loosen it, to relax it. You cannot dance, you cannot sing, you cannot just jump, you cannot just scream and laugh and smile. Even if you want to laugh you first want something there to be laughed at. You cannot simply laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you laugh. There must be some cause: only then can you cry and weep.

Be absolutely playful for eight days. You have nothing to lose. If you do not gain anything, you will not lose anything either. What can you lose in being playful? But I say to you: you will never be the same again.

My insistence on being playful is because of this: I want you to go back to the very point from where you stopped growing. There has been a point in your childhood when you stopped growing and when you started being false. You may have been angry, a small child in a tantrum, angry, and your father or your mother said, "Don't be angry! This is not good!" You were natural but a division was created and a choice was there for you. If you were to remain natural then you would not have got the love of your parents.

I want to throw you back to the point where you started being 'good' as against being natural. Be playful so your childhood is regained. 

4. I say do not be serious: 

Because the more serious you are, the more time conscious you are.
Put aside knowledge, put aside seriousness; It will be difficult because you will have to put aside your masks, your faces; you will have to put aside your personality. But remember, the essence can assert itself only when your personality is not there, because your personality has become an imprisonment. Put it aside. It will be painful, but it is worth it because you are going to be reborn out of it. And no rebirth is possible without pain. If you are really determined to be reborn, then take the risk.

Source: http://oshoworld.com/meditation/meditations.asp?news_id=bornagain

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

It is not good to think too much about your meditation practice. Just do it and keep on doing it until you have the firm conviction that nothing that appears in the mind has anything to do with the real you. If you pay attention to thoughts and feelings while you meditate and try to use them to evaluate how well or how badly you are meditating, you will never reach the ultimate silence. Instead you will just get bogged down in mental concepts.

Some people are distracting their minds in so many different ways: for example, trying to make distinctions between things like turiya [the fourth state] and turiyatita [that which is beyond the fourth].

Reality is very simple: instead of trying to explain it or 
label it, just be it by giving up all identification with the body and the mind. This is the ultimate jnana. If you follow this path you need not get involved in any mental or philosophical complexities.

People are practicing all kinds of sadhanas to reach the Self. 
Some of these methods are hindrances to jnana. Meditation can be another form of bondage if it starts from the assumption that the body and the mind are real. If this idea is not dropped, meditation will merely enhance it.

- Living by the Words of Bhagavan

More

Sri Annamalai Swami Says

Annamalai Swami Quotes on Self Inquiry Meditation

http://realizedone.com/annamalai-swami/