Digest Number 1341

[Guest guest]

Response to Question regarding practice and effort.

 

Question:

 

Message: 10

Mon, 20 Aug 2001 12:21:11 -0400

"Ed" <eea

Question for Self-realizers

 

Self-realization is thought to be possible only by surrendering all effort

to achieve it. Some think that a practice is required to prepare the

body-mind before this effortless surrendering might take place. Both views

seem valid, depending on the conditioning of the individual body-mind.

 

My approach has been to assess the conditioning of my body-mind through

self-inquiry as to what is blocking the ability to surrender all effort. Of

course that would seem to put me in the bind of making an effort to be

effortless. But is that really true?

 

Suppose I was to discover that what was blocking and motivating my effort to

be effortless was a great deal of stress that was heretofore unnoticed.

 

Would the conscious relaxation of that stress be considered an effort?

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Response to Question regarding practice and effort:

 

Dear Ed,

 

Ramana Maharshi has said that until realization comes effort is required,

once realized you cannot make effort even if you tried.

 

Effort is like using a stick to stir a fire, once the fire is stirred, you

toss the stick in with the fire.

 

Yoga and self-enquiry are using Maya like a stick to churn the fire in the

nerves, which results in a purification, balancing and sudden isolation of

the seer, the subject "I"

 

We feel the sensation of "I" along with the sensations of the body and

images, impressions and thoughts in the mind and assume that there is an

identity between the 2. Enquiry (and yoga practiced for spiritual purposes)

is simply meant to "isolate the seer." Once the seer is isolated, there is

a pulling sensation in the Hrdayam, like Steve Hawkins Singularity of a

Black Hole, which sucks in the "I" dissolving the attention to the body

sensations and mind and in the process outshining everything.

 

In the Middle Ages, the stars were often described as being pinpricks in a

shroud that covered the world, behind which was the infinite light and glory

of God. This analogy is not far from the Truth, but with the difference

that the pinprick is the Spiritual Heart, the Hrdayam, which is the

all-pervasive substratum of everything seen and unseen (conscious,

subconscious, unconscious, superconscious).

 

Stilling the mind is an essential in the beginning. Once the sense of "I"

is isolated, which is to say that you have recollected your True Self, you

abide as That and the activities of the body/mind continue automatically,

without attention, without a sense of being the doer. The pulling sensation

in the Hrdayam turns the mind inward and the "whole body is filled with

light"

 

A longing to know the Truth is also essential, but you wouldn't have posted

the question of that wasn't there already.

 

Some amount of yoga practice can also be helpful. In that regard you can

look at the articles and texts at the links to my website. "Pieter's

articles" include those about non-dualism and Kundalini Yoga as a means to

balance and still the mind, that if coupled with the reading of sacred texts

will result in an automatic "hearing" of the Truth, which is to say that the

True Hearer awakens and dissolves the false identity and you remember your

Self. - like coming out of a stupor or amnesia.

 

Some of these sacred texts can also be found as a link in the website.

 

Pieter

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