It is not you who suffers

[Jim and His Karma]

Makes sense, Balance, thanks for the info. The pain vs suffering one is particularly a shame. Overcoming pain is a carnival stunt. Overcoming suffering is something else entirely

[Balance]

No problem J.A.H.K.

Who experiences pain? Who suffers? I experience pain and I suffer. Who am I?

[Balance]

Aha! The great master's technique appears to be something quite familiar...hours of 'I Am'. Perhaps the different 'camps' are merely superficial stuff and we find our own unique ways of sadhana by plucking the fruits that suit our individual tastes from the great ones of our liking. I enjoy making my own particular fruit salad, I just remember to savor the fruits that are presently the most luscious for my diet of inner-peace.

 "Go back to that state of pure being, where the 'I am' is still in its purity before it got contaminated with 'this I am' or 'that I am'. Your burden is of false self-identifications -- abandon them all. My Guru told me -- 'Trust me. I tell you; you are divine. Take it as the absolute truth. Your joy is divine, your suffering is divine too. All comes from God. Remember it always. You are God, your will alone is done'. I did believe him and soon realised how wonderfully true and accurate were his words. I did not condition my mind by thinking: 'I am God, I am wonderful, I am beyond'. I simply followed his instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours together, with, nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence."

~Nisargadatta

[Balance]

"Living is Life's only purpose."

~Nisargadatta

[Balance]

"Now, you still think that you are one individual and that the guru is another individual, but it is not so. There can be no individuals separate from one another, no knowledge separable as worldly knowledge and spiritual knowledge. There is no guru and no disciple, there is no God and no devotee, there are no opposites, there is no second, always there is only one. Guru is you, guru is the One, he is the knower of consciousness, he is the witness of that illusion which is only temporary."

~Sri Nisargadatta

[Balance]

"Through the concepts of others you have built up so many things around you that you are lost. You are decorated and embellished by the concepts of others. The purpose of the guru is to tell you what you were like prior to the building up of all those concepts. Your pre­sent spiritual storehouse is filled up with the words of others - demolish those concepts. You must find out for yourself your own truth. Guru means the eternal state which will never change... what you truly are. You are that immutable, eternal, unchangeable Absolute. Guru tells you to get rid of all the walls built around you by the hearsay and con­cepts of others, which have kept you from your true nature."

I got this Nisargadatta qoute from a great little book at:http://www.atmapress.com/Nisargadatta/Contents.htm

[Balance]

The knower comes and goes with the known, and is transient; but that which knows that it does not know, which is free of memory and anticipation, is timeless.

-Nisargadatta

[brushjw]

Balance, thanks so much for the quotes and the link to the book.  Here's a collection of his teachings during his last years:

The Non-Dualistic Teachings of Sri Nisargadatta

aum namaste,
Joe

[Balance]

Punishment is but legalized crime. In a society built on prevention, rather than retaliation, there would be very little crime. The few exceptions will be treated medically, as an unsound mind and body.

-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Balance]

When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected.

~Nisargadatta

[Balance]

If you stand aloof as observer only, you will not suffer. You will see the world as a show, a most entertaining show indeed.

-Nisargadatta

[Balance]

Someone asks:

What can truth or reality gain by all our practice?

He uses truth and love interchangeably. He says:

"Nothing whatsoever, of course. But it is in the nature of truth or love, cosmic consciousness, whatever you want to call it, to express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties. Once you've understood that the world is love in action, consciousness or love in action, you will look at it quite differently. But first your attitude to suffering must change. Suffering is primarily a call for attention, which itself is a movement of love. More than happiness, love wants growth, the widening and deepening of awareness and consciousness and being. Whatever prevents that becomes a cause of pain, and love does not shirk from pain."


Nisargadatta, from a Jack Kornfield article

[emc]

One thing is quite clear to me: all that is lives and moves and has its being in consciousness, and I am in and beyond that consciousness. I am in it as the witness. I am beyond it as Being.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Balance]

Nice one! Thanks emc.

[Balance]

 
  What was never lost can never be found. Your very search for safety and joy keeps you away from them. Stop searching, cease losing. The disease is simple and the remedy equally simple. It is your mind only that makes you insecure and unhappy. Anticipation makes you insecure; memory, unhappy. Stop misusing your mind and all will be well with you. You need not set it right, it will set itself right, as soon as you give up all concern with the past and the future and live entirely in the now.


- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj