Psychological mind separates us from the unmanifested

 What are we? We come to an understanding of what we are by realizing that we are manifestation. The start for everything in the world is energy. That we cannot dispute. We are manifested energy. Where do we come from? We came from the unmanifested. 

A simple little example, take H20. Its energy on the molecular level. When it is water vapor which is there right now in the air and we are breathing it in, we do not appreciate it with our five senses. The moment we extract it from the air as liquid, which is water, or as solid—ice—it becomes manifested to us.

The unmanifested is there all the time and it is constant. It’s there, we cannot dispute it. When it becomes manifested, it automatically undergoes certain rules of the Play of Leela in the manifested world.

The question that comes up is, what separates the manifested world from the unmanifested? That is what all the great masters have been teaching us, and that is what we can experience for ourselves and learn through observation of the psychological mind. Psychological mind is what separates us from each other, and that is what we cling to. For example if someone praises us. We also cling to the unpleasant. Let’s say someone hurts us and it influences how we live our life based on this memory. With psychological mind we get stuck in the manifestation. It becomes hardened. It becomes concrete.

What unites us? That’s when we drop into a state of no-mind. Psychological mind separates us, no-mind unites us, and that’s why the masters all talk about dropping into silence. 

By Vinod Mittal 

Let’s bow to the masters. They spend most of their lives in the unmanifested and let the Play of Leela simply flow through them, but let’s not sell ourselves short either. Everyone has the antenna to connect to what lies beyond the psychological mind. It is just that we tend to get triggered into the manifested more than we like to admit.

What separates modern man from the spiritual traveler is the appreciation for the flow of life. Modern man has his eyes set on accomplishment. The spiritual travelers try to detach from this carrot which is dangling in front of the unconscious donkey.

Manifest by riding the energies of the Play of Consciousness, or be manifested. That’s the choice we have once we manage to look through the limited workings of conditioned mind. Sometimes it’s a powerful external vibration that connects us to what lies beyond, sometimes it’s a special person, a mission, a special place or event that connects us. The spiritual work we can do is to inquire into the psychological mind and once we wrap our arms around the interferences, learn to let go of them.  

The problem with the silent witness

There is something very powerful about Ramana Maharshi’s self inquiry method. The subject is always in question. In being there is no subject and no object. Oneness reigns and higher energies are calling the shots. There is no one around to think and act.

Have you observed that in true listening there is no listener, just listening? Or take sex, have you observed that when both partners really meet there is only love and both parties disappear in the act? In Oneness there is no subject to speak of, just being. 

When spiritual teachers say, “you are the one listening to your thoughts,” they empower the spiritual entity who feels in control to separate the wheat from the chaff as the Old Testament would say. The silent witness may strengthen the individual!

In Ramana Maharshi’s self inquiry we start asking questions when a doer or a thinker appears. The aim of these exercises is not to receive an answer, their aim is to dissolve the questioner until Oneness reigns. 

#ramanamaharshi #selfinquiry #awakening #spirituality 

Spiritual Work

 I am in the process of dropping a few pounds so besides exercising more I also watch my calories and sugar intake. My wife has a (near) zero sugar diet for medical reasons so I always get her the unsweetened almond milk. I thought I had picked up 3 containers from the grocery store but one turned out to be the regular almond milk, so I use it for my coffee instead. Immediately I felt the difference and don’t like it at all, but I also conjecture that if I made this almond milk my daily coffee additive, there would be a day when it feels normal.

Isn’t that how our mind drowns out Original Mind? Like a frog in the water on the stove the conditioning takes over and we cannot perceive its presence. Unless, that is, we remove the triggers and existing pain bodies so carefully that we become sensitive to the interference. Isn’t our spiritual work just like minding a diet conducive to Original Mind? Clean up the interference to the best of “your” ability and mind the self involvement when the stain proves stubbornly persistent. That’s the spiritual work in a nutshell. 

Spiritual diet

 I have tried losing weight for a few years. It was always the same pattern. The first ten pounds happen quickly with the New Year’s Resolution, but the second ten pounds never happen, and then with the good food over Thanksgiving and Christmas, the old weight is right back. This year was different though. I didn’t like it when in a recent check-up the doctor said my blood pressure is too high, and I also have to fit into an old tuxedo for a function, so I decided to stop eating carbs and go to the gym a second time in a day for cardio exercises. Surprise, surprise, the pounds are dropping as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

The root cause of the refusal to lose the pounds was simple enough, a belief that I can carry the weight, a love for carbs and a dislike of running. The visit to the dr office was the incentive to finally do something about the weight, and that’s a no to carbs and yes to running. Let me use this analogy to discuss going on a spiritual diet. Why would we stand up to the ego when deep down inside it is literally the belief that we are that bunch of psychological programs telling us we like pleasure and we hate pain (as defined by the ego). The masters tell us to question this notion of pleasure and pain, but can we actually?

Observe the agenda at work when you do something or meet someone. Notice the attachments you have and question the desire to escape from your responsibilities. This is not a stoic philosophy of sorts not to enjoy life, it’s an ask to check the self-generated vibrations and contrast them with the universal energies that are always at our disposal. Along the Way there is no agenda, only following the flow of life, and there are no attachments and aversions either. The energies of the Way speak for themselves. But why should we question what we like and dislike? What makes us question this bio-robot?

Changing the belief that we are perfect is the hardest step in embarking on a spiritual diet. In the weight loss example the resistance was the belief that I can carry the weight of 230 pounds with a height of 6’1. Likewise, the ego always adjusts its belief system with the changing realities. With Awakening comes the understanding that again we are perfect as is, just like we were perfect when we were running after name, fame, relationships, or whatever else it was that was meaningful to us. That’s why most of us spiritual travelers are halfway there—mastering the higher energies in some areas while being as human as they come in others.

What can change this core belief that we are already perfect as is? What makes us sit through the pain of the past when it presents itself without running away from it? And what makes us question the attachments when they interfere with the flow of life? You tell us. There are no general answers, no religion and no guru that can help us with this one. The answer has to come from the depth of our being. 

The observer is the observed!

 “You are the one who watches your conditioning!” Ah, how can it be that we listen to the masters—Mooji, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, etc.—and nod enthusiastically because their message sounds so simple and straightforward, but a year later we are back to their seminars to get a refresher course. Why?

“The observer is the observed,” is the powerful teaching J. Krishnamurti left us, which is corroborated by quantum mechanics as well. If you hear, “that’s not a loving thought” in your head, the listener—and judge—is part of the same conditioning that caused the thinking process in the first place. What to do?

Who am I? I am the one who sees the impossibility of getting our arms around conditioning. That’s when the Light comes in. Be still for a moment and feel the energy powering through your heart. Sense the inner and outer energies and stay with them until they start aligning. Outer and inner are One.

#jkrishnamurti #spirituality #awakening 

Clean up, everybody everywhere!

 Clean up, clean up,

everybody, everywhere,

Clean up, clean up,

everybody, do your share!

This was a nursery rhyme the boys learnt at pre-school. I was reminded of it when I came across Rachna Thakur’s:

“One should be conscious of external and internal dirt. As one keeps the body clean, so should be the mind. Free from selfish desires and clinging attachments. Pure and sublime thought entering the intellect; a personality spotless from the stain of vasanas (impressions of the mind/conditioning).”

Only one piece of advice here given that humanity has aimed for ethics and spiritual purity for ages without getting very far—the “should” and “could” originating from the mind need to be inquired into. Let the heart-center call the shots. The messiness of the environment we are in, as well as our inner conflicted attitude, have been given to us to discover the Truth of the moment. The cleaning process not only makes the world a little better; the cleaning erases the thinker and doer.

Warm around the heart

 “Thoughts come and go.

The ‘I’ that claims them is the problem.”

Ramana Maharshi

There is a heart-centered energy flow at work. Activating it while looking through the  mind-centered energy flow is what spiritual living is all about. When we are fully present the mind becomes still while the heart-centered energy flow is fully operational and the outer vibrations align with the inner.. The Germans describe the heart-centered energy as “warm uns Herz”—warm around the heart. We are present when  jnana (wisdom) and bhakti (love) yoga meet. S-E-L-F, that is,

S (tillness) of our mind;

E (nergy) reaches crown;

L (ove) prevails, and the

F (low) of life is uninterrupted.

reigns.

It’s allright to be in-between occasionally, but we can seek the people, environments and activities that warm our heart just as we can turn away from those that are mind-centered and not heart-centered. We are humanity so the lower vibration energies will continue to be present to help us learn transcending them. Meanwhile, we can always remind ourselves that the thought-feeling energies, while present, do not own nor define us.