To Know and Not

[Guest guest]

We often hear and say

"There is only God"

and yet still distinguish

Ramana from the drunk

in the gutter, as if there were

a real difference in God,

as if there being only one

was pleasant cocktail chatter.

 

To know and not to be

is not to know.

 

How often we create an

image of the Guru, and then

worship hopefully at the

church of our choice.

 

An image never woke up anybody.

 

"It is false to speak of realization.

What is there to realize?

The real is as it is always.

We are not creating anything new or

achieving something which

we did not have before." *

 

What Is

is not negotiable –

each surrender is a warm-up exercise

for the next.

 

The very thing that would hold on

to the glimpse of freedom is the jail.

 

There is competition on all levels –

in the spiritual game it might be

for who has the quietest mind or

who awakened in the shortest time.

 

The truly awake don't give a damn.

 

They wear no badges.

They laugh and say

 

"Sure,

you win!"

 

"If we talk of knowing the Self,

there must be two selves, one a

knowing self, another the self

which is known, and the

process of knowing.

The state we call realization is

simply being oneself, not knowing

anything or becoming anything.

If one has realized, one is that which

alone is and which alone has always been.

One cannot describe that state.

One can only be that." *

 

This day is awake to itself as

the overflow of Love, it's excess,

an abundance of nothing.

 

It's a wonderful day!

 

We can die right now,

in fact we do.

 

God can do such things!

 

"Death – ha!

It is just a preconception.

I've realized preconception to be

Dharma Body, free from birth and

free from death.

Wondrous, wondrous Samsaric things

don't exist and yet

appear in Great Wonder!

This birthless clear light of mind itself,

imbued with voidness and compassion,

I now understand to be Samsara

for the unrealized, while, for the realized,

It shines as Dharma Body!" **

 

 

 

 

 

* Ramana Maharshi

** Milarepa