It is not you who suffers

[alan]

Nothing is wrong with you, but the ideas you have of yourself are altogether wrong.
It is not you who desires, fears and suffers, it is the person built on the foundation of your body by circumstances and influences.
You are not that person.
This must be clearly established in your mind and never lost sight of.

-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[alan]

All the quotes on this thread will be Nisargadatta's.

"The greatest guru is your inner self. Truly he is the supreme teacher. He alone can take you to your goal and he alone meets you at the end of the road. Confide in him and you need no outer guru."

  Here's a karma killer:

"Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause."

[Kyman]

"Everything is its own cause"

Nice!

Keep those quotes coming.

[Balance]

"Why not turn away from the experience to the experiencer and realize the full import of the only true statement you can make; 'I am'?"


"Establish yourself in the awareness of 'I am'. This is the beginning and also the end of all endeavour."


-Sri Nisargadatta

[Balance]

Okay, last Sri Nisargadatta quote for now[]


"The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain."

[Balance]

"Inertia and restlessness (tamas and rajas) work together and keep clarity and harmony (sattva) down. Tamas and rajas must be conquered before sattva can appear."


"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. And between these two, my life flows."

~Nisargadatta

[yoginstar]

He also said as far as I remember (from reading one of his books)
All that you should ask yourself is can you remember who you were before you were born.

Which is what I took literally and thus it is in entire paradox with "seeking out causes being a pastime of the mind".
To go mindless is rather stupid is it not?
To go joyless is even worse.
Is it not?

[Balance]

As long as one is conscious, there will be pain and pleasure. You cannot fight pain and pleasure on the level of consciousness. To go beyond them, you must go beyond consciousness, which is possible only when you look at consciousness as something that happens to you, and not in you, as something external, alien, superimposed. Then, suddenly you are free of consciousness, really alone, with nothing to intrude. And that is your true state. Consciousness is an itching rash that makes you scratch. Of course, you cannot step out of consciousness, for the very stepping out is in consciousness. But if you learn to look at your consciousness as a sort of fever, personal and private, in which you are enclosed like a chick in its shell, out of this very attitude will come the crisis which will break the
shell.

~Nisargadatta

[Balance]

"What is seedless and rootless, what does not sprout and grow, flower and fruit, what comes into being suddenly and in full glory, mysteriously and marvelously, you may call that 'god' It is entirely unexpected yet inevitable, infinitely familiar yet most surprising, beyond all hope yet absolutely certain....You can do nothing to bring it about, but you can avoid creating obstacles. Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless, only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and abide there."

~Nisargadatta

[Jim and His Karma]

quote:"The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what is pain."

I love Nisargadatta, but I always feel he's just a bit too far from me in time, place, and language for me to totally resonate. He always taught in the moment and of his time, in vernacular, to specific people. The problem is that such language doesn't always endure or transfer well.

For me (being who and when and where I am), this quote resonates better if I substitute "suffering" for "pain". The human body will always feel pain, but suffering is the reaction ego overlays upon pain. I'm pretty sure that's what he meant. But, sigh, language.....

It's good that, in the past century, people have been writing about this stuff in a more down-to-earth vernacular way. The problem is that we come to need constant replenishment in each time and place. On the other hand, such replenishment is probably for the best anyway.

[Balance]

Although a true master's wisdom is always timeless and boundless I do agree that hearing it here and now is tops. You know Nisargadatta's quotes are mostly from about only 30 years ago and were taken from conversations with westerners mainly. I like reading the whole conversations. He can really stay on it when it comes to pointing to the Truth in a conversation.

[Balance]

 "We grow through investigation, and to investigate we need experience. We tend to repeat what we have not understood. If we are sensitive and intelligent, we need not suffer. Pain is a call for attention and the penalty of carelessness. Intelligent and compassionate action is the only remedy."

~Nisargadatta

[Jim and His Karma]

quote:Originally posted by Balance

 You know Nisargadatta's quotes are mostly from about only 30 years ago and were taken from conversations with westerners mainly.

Yep, I am.

And I'm not saying he reads totally opaque to me. But it doesn't quite ring my bell the way Sailor Bob (Nisargadatta's student) does. And I haven't even the glimmer of feeling that Nisagrgadatta was any less profound. It's just language. Shoot, it may just be that I don't dig whoever was translating for him (or did Nisagradatta teach in English? I'm not sure on that).

[Balance]

Q: When I do not separate, I am happily at peace. But somehow I lose my bearings again and again and begin to seek happiness in outer things. Why is my inner peace not steady, I cannot understand.
M: Peace, after all, is also a condition of the mind.
Q: Beyond the mind is silence. There is nothing to be said about it.
M: Yes, all talk about silence is mere noise.
Q: Why do we seek worldly happiness, even after having tasted one's own natural spontaneous happiness?
M: When the mind is engaged in serving the body, happiness is lost. To regain it, it seeks pleasure. The urge to be happy is right, but the means of securing it are misleading, unreliable and destructive of true happiness.
Q: Is pleasure always wrong?
M: The right state and use of the body and the mind are intensely pleasant. It is the search for pleasure that is wrong. Do not try to make yourself happy, rather question your very search for happiness. It is because you are not happy that you want to be happy. Find out why you are unhappy. Because you are not happy you seek happiness in pleasure; pleasure brings in pain and therefore you call it worldly; you then long for some other pleasure, without pain, which you call divine. In reality, pleasure is but a respite from pain. Happiness is both worldly and unworldly, within and beyond all that happens. Make no distinction, don't separate the inseparable and do not alienate yourself from life.

Nisargadatta and student

[Balance]

quote:Originally posted by Jim and His Karma

quote:Originally posted by Balance

 You know Nisargadatta's quotes are mostly from about only 30 years ago and were taken from conversations with westerners mainly.

Yep, I am.

And I'm not saying he reads totally opaque to me. But it doesn't quite ring my bell the way Sailor Bob (Nisargadatta's student) does. And I haven't even the glimmer of feeling that Nisagrgadatta was any less profound. It's just language. Shoot, it may just be that I don't dig whoever was translating for him (or did Nisagradatta teach in English? I'm not sure on that).

Everything was translated (You'd think such a one could pull up English ) and I have read that some of his translators were, how shall I say, incomplete.