THE MOUNTAIN PATH January 1964

[Guest guest]

Fillers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All religions postulate the three fundamentals, the world, the soul and God, but it is only the one Reality that manifests itself as these three. One can say ' The three are really three ' only as long as the ego lasts. Therefore to inhere in one's own Being, where the 'I' or ego is dead is the perfect state.

 

- Ramana Maharshi-Forty Verses, v. 2.

 

 

 

The entire world is God : This is the core of my teaching. First banish egoism ; then you will come up to this test. Would you like to know the core of Divine Wisdom ? This is my certain answer. Tuka says Rise above the mind to destroy the ego.

 

- Tukaram

 

 

 

The result of Knowledge is identity with all ; the result of ignorance is identity with the limited being of one's body.

 

- Shankara, Commentary on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

 

 

 

The Atman (Self) is never born and never dies. It is beyond time, unborn, permanent and everlasting. It does not die when the body dies.

 

- Kathopanishad.

 

 

 

When the ego-sense of the individual me vanishes there springs up within me an endless current of 'I-I', conferring unique and transcendental bliss which engulfs all my knowledge and ends in Silence. How then can Silence be expressed?

 

- Tayumanavar.

 

 

 

It is only because of ignorance that the Self appears to be finite. When ignorance is destroyed the Self which does not admit of any multiplicity whatsoever, truly reveals Itself by Itself, like the sun when the cloud is removed.

 

- Shankara.

 

 

 

Although the scriptures proclaim 'Thou art That', it is only a sign of weakness of mind to meditate 'I am That, not this', because you are eternally That. What has to be done is to investigate what one really is and remain That.

 

- 'Forty Verses on Reality', v. 32, from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Rider and Sri Ramanasramam.

 

 

 

If it is said that Liberation is of three kinds, with form or without form or with and without form, then let me tell you that the extinction of the three forms of Liberation is. the only true Liberation.

 

- Forty Verses on Reality ", v. 40, from The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Riders and Sri Ramanasramam.

 

 

 

Mind is the Buddha, while the cessation of conceptual thought is the Way. Once you stop arousing concepts and thinking in terms of existence and non-existence, long and short, other and self, active and passive, and suchlike, you will find that your mind is intrinsically the Buddha, that, the Buddha is intrinsically Mind, and that Mind resembles a Void.

 

- From The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, p. 67, translated by John Blofeld, Riders.

 

 

 

Self -Realization does not depend on any kind of consciousness; its very nature is Awareness or Consciousness.

 

- Shankara, Introduction to Commentary on Kena Vakya.

 

 

 

Tinier than the tiniest atom, Tuka is vast as the sky I swallowed and spat out the body - the very image of worldly delusion. I have abandoned the triplets (of knowledge, knower and known). The light is lit within the lamp. Tuka says : I now remain only for the service of all.

 

- Tukaram

 

 

 

Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment. In it is neither delusion nor right understanding. It fills the Void everywhere and is intrinsically of the substance of the One Mind.

 

- From The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, p. 93, translated by John Blofeld, Rider.

 

I gave birth to myself! I was conceived within my own body. Now all vows are fulfilled; all desire is extinguished. I have become well and strong. I died away that time. I look on both sides. Tuka is what he is.

 

- Tukaram.

 

The purpose of Atma Jnana (spiritual knowledge) is to remove the illusory self created by Avidya (ignorance). The attainment of Self by Divine Knowledge means only the removal of the illusory, self created by ignorance through the superimposition of the body as the self.

 

- Shankara, Commentary on the Taittiriya Upanishad.

 

 

 

The Vedantic texts teach that although Brahman is One he is regarded both as possessing attributes and as free from them. In the former sense He is the object of meditation, in the latter of Knowledge.

 

- Shankara, Commentary on the Brahma Sutra, 1-1-12.

 

 

 

My death is dead-and gone! I have been made immortal. All sense of body is wiped out root and branch. The deluge came and went. I clung to life with courage. Tuka says: The foundations have been truly disclosed.

 

- Tukaram.