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I Am That (book) - Printable Version +- Bring4th (https://www.bring4th.org/forums) +-- Forum: Bring4th Community (https://www.bring4th.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=16) +--- Forum: Art, Media, & Entertainment (https://www.bring4th.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=40) +--- Thread: I Am That (book) (/showthread.php?tid=10109) |
I Am That (book) - Plenum - 11-27-2014 thanks to anagogy for mentioning this book in another thread. I definitely like the Q&A format, these are edited transcriptions and translations of questions posed to M. This exchange on the uses and function of Meditation was particularly good and elucidating in its clarity. 6. Meditation Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose of meditation? Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness. Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our character. We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we discover and understand its causes and its workings, we over-come it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet. Q: What is the use of a quiet mind? M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps. Q: As I can make out, I live on many levels and life on each level requires energy. The self by its very nature delights in everything and its energies flow outwards. Is it not the purpose of meditation to dam up the energies on the higher levels, or to push them back and up, so as to enable the higher levels to prosper also? M: It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas (qualities). Meditation is a sattvic activity and aims at complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity). Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and restlessness. Q: How to strengthen and purify the sattva? M: The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It may seem obscured by clouds and dust, but only from the point of view of the perceiver. Deal with the causes of obscuration, not with the sun. Q: What is the use of sattva? M: What is the use of truth, goodness, harmony, beauty? They are their own goal. They manifest spontaneously and effortlessly, when things are left to themselves, are not interfered with, not shunned, or wanted, or conceptualised, but just experienced in full awareness, such awareness itself is sattva. It does not make use of things and people -- it fulfils them. Q: Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and rajas only? How can I deal with them? M: By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of them in operation, watch their expressions in your thoughts, words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and the clear light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult, nor a protracted process; earnestness is the only condition of success. (11-26-2014, 12:41 AM)anagogy Wrote: It's also interesting to me, in light of another response Nisargadatta gave in a particular response a questioner posed to him: I think you've made some interesting observations about the nature of Desire. The only thing that I would add is that sometimes we are not aware of the nature of our desires until we are fully immersed in the experience of them. It is almost as though the experience shows us the Desire itself, by giving it form, clothing, and substance as an Experience. There is also another issue about the state of being Desireless. What is the motivation of it? If it is to somehow flee pain and difficulties, to somehow say - "I give up all Desires, because I know it's going to disappoint me because I can't get everything I want, and even if I get 99% of what I want, I'll still be disappointed, and so I'll just not Desire anything at all", then that is a poor motivation indeed. But I don't think that's what the Answerer is saying, in this case. I think there are souls that incarnate from higher planes, which Ra terms Wanderers, and once they can unprogram all the societal biases that left their stamp on an infant and youthful consciousness, they can, indeed, become aware of what they were aware of prior to coming down and becoming enfleshed. Such souls already have an implicit recognition of the exhaustion of many milions of desires through many lifetimes, and the extracted understandings of such experiences. There is no need to relive those again. RE: I Am That (book) - Plenum - 11-29-2014 another powerful quote: Quote:M: The only help worth giving is freeing from the need for further help. Repeated help is no help at from chapter 34. it's about offering something to someone that leads to wholeness, or points the way towards unity. true help points to the inherent unity and wholeness of the self. RE: I Am That (book) - Plenum - 11-29-2014 On the Second Distortion Quote:M: The objective universe has structure, is orderly and beautiful. Nobody can deny it. But structure and Ra: "I am Ra. It is necessary to consider the enabling function of the focus known as Love. This energy is of an ordering nature. It orders in a cumulative way from greater to lesser so that when Its universe, as you may call it, is complete, the manner of development of each detail is inherent in the living light and thus will develop in such and such a way" and "The term Love then may be seen as the focus, the choice of attack, the type of energy of an extremely, shall we say, high order which causes intelligent energy to be formed from the potential of intelligent infinity in just such and such a way." I should also note that this book (and also it's themes and how they are expounded) come very much from the same frequency as ACIM (A Course in Miracles). it almost reads as a repackaging, in fact, at times. I am thinking that it represents a viewpoint which is being expressed from the highest subdensity of 4d, of which Jesus came from. RE: I Am That (book) - AnthroHeart - 11-29-2014 That reminds me that we are each a sun. For we are all things, so we bring life to billions. RE: I Am That (book) - anagogy - 11-29-2014 (11-29-2014, 03:13 PM)Bring4th_Plenum Wrote: I should also note that this book (and also it's themes and how they are expounded) come very much from the same frequency as ACIM (A Course in Miracles). I noticed that as well, Plenum. It's interesting how well the "Ra material", "ACIM", and "I Am That" seem to fit together. They all seem to be describing the same fundamental precepts of unity. They are currently my personal trifecta of nondual philosophy at the moment. Each rereading presents powerful new insights and truth which dissolves the illusions I hold. |