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Overview
A collection of spontaneous “satsangs,” or truths, spoken from Sri H. W. L. Poonja’s experience of the highest and yet simplest truth: that we are pure love and consciousness, the totality of existence. Reveals thousands of ways to help us inquire into who we really are, to bring our awareness into the infinity of the moment, and surrender to the wisdom of our Truth.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609253837 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Wheel/Weiser |
| Publication date: | 06/23/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 564 |
| Sales rank: | 318,855 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
Read an Excerpt
The Truth Is
By Sri H. W. L. Poonja, Prashanti de Jager
Samuel Weiser, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Prashanti de Jager and YudhushtaraAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60925-383-7
CHAPTER 1
You are Love Dancing as Emptiness
Namaskar,
Before the beginning you are pure Consciousness.
You are the Fullness of Love in Love
and the Emptiness of Awareness.
You are Existence and the Peace beyond peace.
You are that screen on which all is projected.
You are the Light of Knowledge,
the One who gave the concept of creation to the creator.
Forget what can be forgotten and know yourself
to be that which can never be forgotten.
You are the substratum on which everything moves, let it move.
You are Now, you are Nowness:
what "I" is there which can be out of this Now?
You are Truth and only the Truth Is.
You are inactivity.
Activity is your reflection, your play, your world.
The sun is inactivity, the mirrors are activity.
You are this precious Moment, presence itself,
any breeze that touches you will sanctify even demons.
You are the One which is aware
of the awareness of objects and ideas.
You are the One which is even more silent than awareness.
You are the Life which precedes the concept of life.
Your nature is Silence and it is not attainable,
It always Is.
"Space" was your first notion
and you took Sat-chit-ananda as your first form.
The world is your mind
and it all arises from your heart.
Here and Now is your heart. As love
you abide in the cave of this heart
from where all time and space arise.
You are the Inside which is neither inside nor outside.
Mind landing nowhere is Inside, no walls is inside.
You are the existence in all atoms,
know This and you are bliss.
You are Emptiness, the ultimate substance:
removing Emptiness out of Emptiness
leaves only Emptiness because there is nothing beyond It.
All rises from, dances about in, and returns to This.
As ocean rises as a wave to dance,
so you are this dancing Emptiness!
Nothing is out of this Emptiness and so it is the Fullness.
Emptiness is between is and is not.
To be Free, you need the firm conviction
that you are this Substratum, this Peace, this Emptiness.
You are what all happenings happen in.
What happens must happen so remain unaffected as Peace.
Be peaceful and this Peace will spread.
What rises from Peace is Peace and
what rises from confusion is confusion.
So be Peace and give this to the universe,
it is all you should do.
Even thinking "I am Peace" disturbs this Peace,
so just be Quiet, be as you are.
You are Being, you are not "had been,"
and not "would be," but "Being."
You are the Timelessness in which no death can enter
for where there is no time there is no death.
That Timelessness is Now, and That is Being.
Being is always shining, I Am is the Light of Being.
This Diamond cannot hide, and can never be hidden.
When there is no mind the face shines with beauty and innocence.
Just simply be quiet, just be as you are.
You are the Space which never moves and never travels.
Inner and outer space is due only to name and form.
Remove this form from mind by removing attachment
to any object, thought, or action.
You are the garden of joy,
to be happy you need nobody else.
You are in the garden of joy,
but when you think of old things you become sad.
This joy, this Moment, will destroy mind and suffering,
because this Moment is Happiness.
So stop going to the past moments in order to suffer.
Unconditioned Consciousness is Happiness
and Quietness with no when, no where, just Now.
This Happiness conditioned by thought becomes mind.
Even the "I," the first condition, is a disturbance in Happiness.
Due to desires and hopes of the ego no one is happy.
So to come to Happiness do not think, or rise to a desire,
simply keep Quiet, because thinking is the graveyard.
To be happy you should have and hold nothing,
otherwise your pockets will smell like dead fish.
My dear friend, Happiness is not an experience,
It is your nature so you need to do nothing for it.
Only Self knowledge brings Happiness because
Happiness is the nature of Self.
Here, Here is the wine that nobody knows.
Everything is in Here and this is Consciousness.
Consciousness is the substratum of everything in the Universe;
It, you, resides in every atom of every molecule and even
space and time derive their existence from It.
Who is Conscious that you wear a body and mind and that
the movement of birth and death is in this same Consciousness?
You are That: all doing and not doing,
all multiplicity and all unity is in Consciousness.
Bondage is to deny this, Freedom is to know It.
You are That, You are That!
Consciousness.
The senses cannot feel It and the mind cannot understand it.
Consciousness alone is everywhere and rises as "I" within you.
It is the shining of the sun and the motion of the earth.
It is beyond space and time which derive their existence from it.
The mind cannot go to touch it, or to reach it,
and will miss it if it tries to find it.
These attempts are movements hiding the Stillness.
It is found only by itself when mind does not move.
Check all movements of mind for one moment only,
stop all desires and all thought for one second only,
especially the first thought of "I," for one instant only,
and you are beyond the cycle of birth and death forever.
This cycle is samsara, your own imagination.
It has no beginning and only Self Knowledge will end it.
The question "Who am I?" will end it.
So firmly decide, "I have to do it Now."
This human birth is such a blessing, don't waste it!
Postponement is samsara, the cycle of suffering.
Whenever you are in trouble ask, "Am I dreaming?"
This is "Who am I?" and it will wake you up
and make you fall in love with your own Self.
Then you will know all "others,"
and will take this candle wherever you go!
Be quiet, don't think, don't make effort.
To be bound takes effort, to be Free takes no effort.
Peace is beyond thought and effort.
Do not think and do not make effort because
this only obscures That, and will never reveal That.
This is why keeping Quiet is the key
to the storehouse of love and peace.
This Quietness is no-mind, this no-thought is Freedom.
Identify yourself as this Nothingness, as this Quietness,
and be careful not to make it an experience
because this is mind tricking you out of it
with the trap of duality; the trap of witness and witnessed.
Being is Being, there is no witness and no witnessed.
Experiencing it is to say "I am Free,"
which is exactly the same trap as saying "I am bound."
After letting go of object
do not hold onto the subject either.
Let go, Be Quiet.
The purpose of life is to be at Peace,
To love all Beings, and to know who you are.
Know your Self and you know everything.
This immaculate Knowledge alone is, Emptiness alone is.
How can you come out of Emptiness
if there are no limits to it?
The appearance of a manifestation
is but the lila of this Emptiness.
Know who you are, Here and Now,
by simply Being Quiet.
You are this Moment, introduce yourself to This,
do not attach your mind to any direction.
No sadhana, no past, no future,
not even the emptiness of your heart, not even space.
To be free forever introduce yourself to this Moment.
This Moment is always this Moment, It will not change.
It is Freedom, free from mind and concepts,
and is your fundamental birthright.
The best use of this Moment is to drown in It.
Keep Quiet, you are inside of the inside,
do not dwell anywhere and make no effort.
The concept of effort and practice is bondage.
Just keep Quiet, Wherever you are, just keep Quiet.
Name and form hide Reality: This is the Teaching.
Giving name and form is an obstacle to Freedom
because then the substratum, Consciousness, cannot be seen.
Call it a statue of a horse and the granite is hidden,
see a ring and you won't see the gold.
Name and form can never leave Consciousness, as the ring can never leave the gold.
Even space is in this because only Self is.
Before a wave rises it is Ocean,
before desire moves it is Emptiness.
Destroy craving and bondage by identifying as
experiencing, not experience, as Seeing, not the seer.
You are Consciousness, not one who is Conscious.
To be free you must be like Freedom and this is without desire.
All is and is known in desirelessness.
If you don't want to possess remove your pockets: duality!
The past is past so don't carry it in your pocket.
Why go to the graveyard when you know that you are alive?
All that is temporary must be shunned so only
take hold of your absolute Self.
All that you are attached to, all that you love,
all that you know, someday will be gone.
Knowing this, and that the world is your mind
which you create, play in, and suffer from,
is known as discrimination.
Discriminate between the real and the unreal.
The known is unreal and will come and go
so stay with the unknown, the unchanging Truth.
All which appears and disappears is not real,
and no nectar will come from it so don't cling to it,
and once you let go do not turn back to it.
Stay as Eternity in your own Being.
Surrender to Space
or dissolve ego with Knowledge.
With love and adoration
go within your Self with the vehicle of inquiry.
This inquiry is the abandonment of all effort.
It is not finding what was lost in the past,
but simply remembering the present, the Presence.
Proceed within so silently that even thought is too loud.
Keep Quiet
by knowing you are not the ego that has to keep Quiet.
This Quietness, this Silence,
has nothing to do with talking or not talking
because even when you are not talking
your mind is continually racing everywhere.
No thought rising from your mind is this Silence.
Awareness of any object is not it.
The one who is aware of awareness is It!
Surrender is to surrender your concept of separateness, your ego.
Surrender is to submit your stupidness, your wickedness,
to the will of existence. That's all.
You must surrender like a river discharging into the Ocean.
Surrender is to discharge your river of separateness
into the ocean of Being, losing your limitations,
and allowing to happen what happens.
Check your notions and intentions by inquiring
"what is this movement of the mind?"
People confuse inquiry with yoga and meditation.
Yoga is union with the subject within.
Meditation is concentration on an object outside.
Inquiry does not keep any relation with anything within
or without.
You cannot find and kill the mind, it is the ten headed demon.
Chop off a head and another will grow back because
"I am bound" and "I am free" is exactly the same trap.
So only the desire for freedom will help you
because you are what you think.
Think to destroy the mind and mind is a destroyer, not destroyed.
Think only of Freedom and you become Freedom.
As persistent as the pain of a toothache, always think of Self,
because if the desire for Freedom is continuous
then all other habits and distractions will drop away.
* * *
In the pure joy all manifestation is created as lila to play in, to play as. This is all your own creation, your own Self. All Being is one Being. What appears and disappears is not real. Play in the lila and say "I am existence." If you say "I am body," you say a lie and you suffer. "I" itself is just conditioning and vasanas. Individual "I" is a reflection of true "I" in the dirty pool of ego. Abandon the "I" and its vasanas and know that you are that which does not sleep, even when the ego is in a deep sleep.
When the face of Self is seen by the ego, ego becomes That. But when ego sees the senses it becomes the confused individual desiring the objects of senses. Don't get lost and confused in the mind's cycle of rebirths. Whatever the mind can conceive is not It. Get rid of all that can be rejected, including rejection itself. Then the mind will be quiet and this cannot be described: It is Isness, Emptiness, Fullness, and it is the Truth!
The Truth does not move,
there is no coming or going.
The stirring thought "I" creates an entire universe,
But the Truth does not move.
Keep vigilant of where and how this "I" arises.
This is Satsang and it is your own nature.
You are the Truth which does not move.
But if you say from the ego point of view "I am doing," you are taking yourself to be the individual movement, the wave. You reinforce this by creating an object and generating some interest in it, and then having desire for it, and instantly you even want some reward for having it. Therefore, you want to go to that object, then you want to possess it, you want to own it. As soon as you possess it you have fear of losing it because where there are two there is always fear of separation. Where fear arises, anger arises. With anger there is confusion, lack of understanding, and lack of discrimination. When you cannot decide things properly, it is total destruction.
So the short cut to Enlightenment is the purity of mind. This short cut is to cut short your desires. Objects of desires are not what give happiness, they destroy your peace and knot you with suffering.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Truth Is by Sri H. W. L. Poonja, Prashanti de Jager. Copyright © 2000 Prashanti de Jager and Yudhushtara. Excerpted by permission of Samuel Weiser, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction
You are Love Dancing as Emptiness
Self
The Satguru
Grace
Satsang: Association with the Truth
Signs and Symptoms of Immanent Freedom
Vichar: Self Inquiry
Bhakti: Love of the Divine
"I Am With You Wherever You Are"
The World Is Illusion
Thieves in an Empty House
Sadhana: There is no Becoming Being
Living Skillfully
Freedom
Glossary
About this Book
Photographs