here and now

May 23

“When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or identity assumed for the convenience of social communication.” Alan Watts, Psychotherapy, East and West (1961)

(via unconditionedconsciousness)

“It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teachings (via jaheira)

(via unconditionedconsciousness)

May 22

“You are not limited to a body or mind shut off from the vastness of space. You are the vastness of space itself, forever embracing the dance of sensation as a mother embraces her newborn baby, radically open to the unstoppable creativity of thought but never contained or defined by it. Your unfindable heart is so huge it contains universes, your endless creativity breathing in and out as time and space and that look in your beloved father’s eyes as he breathes his last. Your nature is vastness, not limitation, and it is only the forgetting of your nature that hurt so much. Let the emptiness in the stomach relax - it was only a dream, so real, so fleeting.” Jeff Foster

“As long as you believe that only the outer world is real, you remain its slave. To become free, your attention must be drawn to the ‘I am’, the witness. Of course, the knower and the known are one not two, but to break the spell of the known the knower must be brought to the forefront. Neither is primary, both are reflections in memory of the ineffable experience, ever new and ever now, untranslatable, quicker than the mind.” Nisargadatta

May 18

“Enlightenment? How lethal it is to attach a label. Then you become somebody. At the moment of labeling, aliveness freezes into a concept. ‘My enlightenment experience!’ To be alive, fully alive, means flowing without hindrance—a vulnerable flow of aliveness with no resistance…It’s such a relief to realize we don’t have to be anything.” Toni Packer

“Dear Friends,
May I suggest a deeper and somewhat unusual perspective on who you are?
You are not just a person, and you are not IN the Universe.
You ARE the Universe, which IN YOU is awakening, experiencing itself, becoming conscious. That consciousness is who you are in essence. We are all fleeting expressions of it. The Universe awakens THROUGH experiencing challenges and limitations. That means YOU awaken and deepen through your challenges, as does humanity as a whole. So welcome or at least accept all that life brings you. Change what can be changed, otherwise surrender to what IS. Feel the Presence within you as the background to every experience. Know that, as Jesus put it, “you are the light of the world.”
With love
Eckhart.” Eckhart Tolle

May 17

“

The Sun rises and sets in the sky that it never calls ‘sky’. What never changes?

The Universe expands and contracts. What never changes?

Organisms are born and pass away into deep rest. What never changes?

The breath goes in and out, in and out. What never changes?

Seasons transform in the blink of an eye. What never changes?

You taste it all: Laughter and tears, bliss and boredom, the slings and arrows of existence. What never changes?

What never changes is the constancy of change. You can always depend on it. Change is absolutely trustworthy.

And in the midst of inevitable change, what never changes? That which knows change as change. That which recognises change. That which sees change doesn’t change with change, otherwise there could be no recognition of change. The recognition, because of the contrast, is an expression of infinite intelligence.

You are present, changeless and unmoving, never changing with change but standing in fascination and awe and wonder at the ever-changing display of life itself. You naturally embrace change but never yourself change. Change is never your enemy but your most loyal ally and partner. It is the reason manifestation can be experienced at all.

Thoughts, sensations, feelings. Galaxies moving in the darkness, planets whirling around their familiar orbits, the birds chirping spontaneous songs of joy in springtime, your grandma’s ashes scattered by the river in which she splashed as a child, never knowing what was to come. All of this spilled out of your ancient heart. You couldn’t withhold all that creativity.

” Jeff Foster

“Life is a vast, unknowable movement of wholeness with no one separate from it and nothing outside of it. ‘Inside’ and ‘outside’ are thought-created divisions.” Toni Packer

May 16

“

Nothing is ever lost. There is one essence, expressing in a million-billion ways. Those ways, those expressions, those experiences come and they go. But the only thing that goes is the expression, not the essence. And the only way we know the essence is due to those transient expressions.

This life story, this individual you take yourself to be, is just one of the expressions, one of the experiences. It has come and it will go. But what you truly are is never lost, never dies, never comes and goes. You rest as that already. Your true nature is that, right now.

So spirituality is really a search, not to get somewhere or gain something, but to realize that the idea you have about yourself, the transient experience, isn’t the reality or the foundation but only the surface, the wave of the ocean. Your true nature is realized to be THAT which IS. And that remains as indefinable yet inescapable.

” Randall Friend

“This world of maya is yours to play with as you wish.
You can take control of it or it can take control of you.
It’s your choice.
If you do not wish this maya world to take control of you, then you have to get out of it as fast as you can.
Again you get out of it by not reacting to conditions to people to places to things and inquiring,
“To whom do these things come?
Who is feeling this?
Who is…to whom does this come?
To me.
Who is me?
Who is ‘I’?
Where did ‘I’ come from?”
You keep doing this without looking to time and space and anything else.
Just keep doing it.
Try and make yourself happy everyday, laugh at yourself.” Robert Adams

here and now

Favorite NonDuality Pointers