The mind has the power to hijack even the most sublime absolute truth.
The truth that you are pure consciousness,
That in the core of your being you are free.
You are peace beyond all ideas of peace,
Love beyond all ideas of love,
Pure conscious awareness.
And the understanding of this absolute truth can lead to the mind hijacking this truth into a concept,
Encapsulating it into a concept,
I am free,
I am enlightened.
And this encapsulation of absolute truth actually keeps you from deeper realizations of that living eternal presence that is alive in your own heart.
It's a trick of the mind.
The mind hijacks what you read and understand with your mind and tricks you into thinking that you've actually realized that.
Because when you read absolute truth or you hear you are love beyond all ideas of love,
Peace beyond all ideas of peace,
It feels wonderful because this is the living truth that you are in the core of your being.
But the mind grabs a hold of that.
It takes it and makes it a thing.
But pure conscious awareness is not a thing and it cannot be encapsulated and it cannot be grabbed or used as a new identity,
As woke,
As enlightened,
As awake,
Right?
Because the me that thinks it's awake is still very much in charge.
So for true deepening,
For true realization,
There is a profound realization that you are not in charge of your life and the circumstances of your life.
It's a great humbling of the mind and ego,
This me that you think you are.
In ancient times before you could receive the highest teachings there were requirements.
There were many years of practice before you were given the confirmation of the scriptural teaching,
Right?
So if you wanted moksha or liberation,
It required a minimum of one year of silent meditation,
A special sattvic diet,
No drugs,
No alcohol,
No relationship with other people,
Pure focus on the teaching for one year before you were ready to receive the most basic teachings.
And the reason for that is because ancient teachers and masters from the beginning of time have recognized this power of mind to hijack spiritual truth and turn it into a superficial realization based on understanding.
But true realization is transcendent of the mind,
Right?
The mind cannot know realization.
It is beyond knowing.
It is beyond the knower.
And the deepest realization is beyond the experience of realization.
It's beyond the idea I realized this.
Well who realized this?
Who is this who?
This is the inquiry of Ramana Maharshi,
The energetic process of discovering the electromagnetic source within you,
The vortex of the void,
The unknowable presence of omniscience,
Right?
So the practices become essential to cut through the very powerful illusion of you so you can directly discover this infinite eternal presence of you that is alive in your own heart.
But as you progress along the path on the path you have to really pay attention and be vigilant because the mind will hijack spiritual truth and trick you with it.
The mind becomes more and more subtle as you deepen in your realization and your practice.
So the vigilance must be acute as pure awareness,
As pure presence,
The clarity of now.
Otherwise the mind will trick and trap you into conceptual ideas of bliss and freedom.
For the majority of people on the planet,
Freedom means doing whatever you want,
Quitting your job,
Running away,
Going to the beach,
Hanging out,
Fighting in a protest march.
This is now seen as freedom but this is hijacking freedom as a concept.
Freedom has nothing to do with you and what you want.
So when we set out on the spiritual path,
We are trying to make our lives better and get things going in the direction that leads to whatever we perceive is freedom.
And for most people it truly is,
I can do what I want.
That is the idea of freedom.
But freedom is not about you and what you want to do.
It is a much deeper inquiry into what is this you that you think you are.
Who are you really?
It's this intimate examination of the ego which is the root cause of any idea of freedom.
This is why the mind is so tricky because you can take ideas that you've read like I am the consciousness of the universe,
I am one with everything which can generate a blissful feeling but that blissful feeling comes and goes,
Right?
You can't maintain that as long as there is egoic identity.
You can't maintain moments of bliss because that is a state of consciousness that comes and goes.
States of consciousness are always fluctuating based on what you are giving your attention to.
And mostly we give our attention to what's going on in our environment,
What people have done and said,
And our thoughts about that.
And the thoughts in your mind are what generate the emotions that you feel,
Your reaction to your circumstances and your actions and reactions.
So to really mature on the spiritual path requires the willingness to look at yourself in the mirror and really intimately examine this me that you think you are and focus on those aspects of yourself that are unwanted,
That you don't want to see.
The suppression of rage or the acting out of rage or endless sadness and despair.
These must be faced fully.
It must be met.
The negative feelings of self-hatred or worthlessness.
You must turn your attention to discover what is this feeling of worthlessness?
What is this self-hatred or the feeling of unlovability?
What does it mean?
What is the essence of it?
Where does it come from?
This is the nature of inquiry is to open to discover and not know.
Not know.
The arrogance of knowing is what keeps you trapped in spiritual concepts that really keep your super,
Your realization superficial.
Your,
Your realizations will remain superficial if they remain in the conceptual realm of knowing.
I know this.
I've experienced this.
I want this.
I want my life to go in this direction.
I want to be in charge.
So the inquiry is to flip that inside out and recognize that you never really were in charge of all the things that have unfolded in your life.
There is a pure omniscient intelligence that's in charge and when you have the maturity to surrender to that intelligence and start trusting that vast intelligence over the limited perspective of your mind and ego,
This is when real spiritual progress begins.
When you're willing to let go of this idea that you're in charge and that freedom is that you can do what you want.
Really freedom has nothing to do with this you,
Right?
And to discover this you have to really recognize that this me that you feel viscerally inside of you that identifies consciousness with the physical form is an illusion of reflective consciousness.
You must realize this directly for yourself so that it's a direct visceral experience and it's the visceral experience of the Toria state in your heart which is pure silent awareness that begins the process of purifying your mind,
Purifying the genetics of your physical form.
This purification process is essential because it's the unconscious tendencies of mind and the conditioned experience of life.
What you've learned as you have progressed in your life becomes a giant cloud over your consciousness and even if you've had moments of bliss this is a taste of the living truth that you are but it can't last as long as the ego is in charge,
As long as you believe your thoughts.
So the Sadhana,
The practices are the support that's essential for letting go of conscious and unconscious tendencies and it's the energetic friction of Sadhana of this process of letting go and this process of purification that enables you to see more and more clearly.
The result of practicing the teaching of Ramana Maharshi is profound presence and clarity,
Clarity and the space to live as now,
Not trying to get to now or stay in now but realizing deeply intimately that you are the infinite now,
The nowness of now beyond all concepts right beyond all ideas,
Beyond all past realizations that you've had or realizations that you want to have.
You have to let go of all of that and have no expectation and deeply intimately turn inward to discover what is in the way of your natural bliss which is the essence of who you are.
The essence of who you are is bliss beyond all ideas of bliss,
Peace beyond all ideas of peace and love beyond all ideas of love,
Emptiness beyond all ideas of emptiness,
Sunyata and beyond and beyond and beyond,
Beyond all comprehension,
All understanding and that it's this intimate discovery that takes you deeper into the living truth into the Toria state which is a constant state it is unchanging bliss.
So moments of bliss,
Moments of realization that generate an expansion of your consciousness and the euphoria of bliss is a state that will change but the Toria state of the heart is unchanging,
It is steady,
It is beyond all ideas of bliss,
It is not the high that you can get,
The extreme euphoria of the bliss high and the bliss high can cause you to keep trying to get back to the bliss high and so bliss becomes the new spiritual drug.
I'm going to this teacher and that teacher and reading about this master and that master to get back to the bliss.
So let go of that experience of bliss because the bliss itself,
The experience has been grabbed by your mind,
It's been hijacked by your mind and now you're trapped in an experience that you had and in many cases that bliss experience might have happened several years ago.
So the challenge is to let go of the bliss experience or the desire for another bliss experience and discover the bliss that never comes and never goes and then transcend that,
Go even deeper into the Toria Tita state which is beyond the experiencer,
There's no doer,
There's no experiencer in that realm beyond description and can be directly realized and experienced with the practice of letting go,
Letting go of ideas,
Letting go of conscious and unconscious tendencies,
Doing the practice essential to burn through the karma that's stored in your genetics.
So there's really no avoiding the work required for moksha.
Moksha is liberation from countless lifetimes,
Countless eons of suffering.
This is no small task and it's no small effort.
Mastery leads to profound clarity but profound clarity requires profound discipline,
Focus,
Training your attention on the source again and again and again until on deeper and deeper perspectives you realize you are that unending presence.
There is no you,
There is no me,
There is no other to push or fight against or resist.
So this discipline is essential and it's the discipline that leads to mastery and clarity and stillness and the ultimate freedom of moksha which is alive in your heart.
It's a living electromagnetic energy and when you give your attention to that as electromagnetic energy which is the nature of consciousness you are absorbed in that but it's not about doing what you want or getting what you want,
It's about letting go,
Being present wherever you are and accepting fully,
Completely and totally what is,
Whatever is,
Not resisting it,
Not fighting it,
Not trying to change it,
Manipulate it,
Trying to get it your way or fix it.
Acceptance of what is,
Fully accepting what is,
Is the discipline necessary for realizing that which cannot be realized with the mind.
It can only be experienced directly as the heart.
Om Shanti,
Shanti,
Shanti Om.
