گفتگو با #آنامالای سوامی

صبح‌ها وقتی افکار ظاهر می‌شوند این نتیجه‌گیری همیشگی را نکن که:
خب این منم و این‌ها افکار من هستند. به جای اینکار رفت‌وآمد افکار را بدون اینکه به‌هیچ‌وجه با آن‌ها هم هویت بشی فقط نگاه کن.
اگر بتوانی که در برابر این ضربات افکار که هرکدامشان ادعا می‌کنند که مال تو هستند ایستادگی کنی به یک نتیجه‌گیری فوق‌العاده میرسی:
کشف میکنی که تو آن آگاهی‌ای هستی که در آن این افکار پدیدار و ناپدید می‌شوند.
کشف میکنی که این چیزی که ذهن نام دارد فقط زمانی وجود دارد که به افکار اجازه داده شود تا آزادانه عمل کنند؛ مثل طنابی که به‌اشتباه مار پنداشته می‌شود به این نتیجه خواهی رسید که ذهن فقط توهمی است که به‌واسطه جهل و سوءتفاهم ظاهرشده است.
شما به تجربیاتی نیاز دارید تا متقاعدتان کند چیزی که به شما میگویم درست است. زمانی میتوانید این تجربیات را داشته باشید که از این «من» جعلی که تمام عمر ادعا می‌کند که این افکار مال من است دست کشیده باشید.
خودتان را فقط آن آگاهی بدانید. افکاری که می‌آیند و می‌روند را نگاه کنید. باتجربه مستقیم به این نتیجه می‌رسید که شما خودِ آگاهی هستید و نه محتویات زودگذر آن.
ابرها در آسمان می‌آیند و می‌روند اما این ظاهر شدن و از بین رفتنِ ابرها بر آسمان تأثیر نمی‌گذارند.
ماهیت حقیقی تو مانند آسمان است، مانند فضاست. فقط همانند آسمان باقی بمان و اجازه بده تا ابرهای افکار بیایند و بروند. اگر این نگرش بی‌تفاوت بودن نسبت به ذهن را پرورش بدهی، به‌تدریج هم‌هویت‌شدن با آن ها را متوقف خواهی کرد.

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI

When the mind appears every morning don't jump to the usual conclusion, ‘This is me; these thoughts are mine'.
Instead, watch these thoughts come and go without identifying with them in any way.
If you can resist the impulse to claim each and every thought as your own, you will come to a startling conclusion: you will discover that you are the consciousness in which the thoughts appear and disappear. You will discover that this thing called mind only exists when thoughts are allowed to run free. Like the snake which appears in the rope, you will discover that the mind is only an illusion which appears through ignorance or misperception.
You want some experience which will convince you that what I am saying is true. You can have that experience if you give up your life-long habit of inventing an 'I' which claims all thoughts as mine'.
Be conscious of yourself as consciousness alone, watch all the thoughts come and go. Come to the conclusion, by direct experience, that you are really consciousness itself, not its ephemeral contents.
Clouds come and go in the sky but the appearance and disappearance of the clouds don't affect the sky.
Your real nature is like the sky, like space. Just remain like the sky and let thought-clouds come and go. If you cultivate this attitude of indifference towards the mind, gradually you will cease to identify yourself with it.
-LWB, p. 267

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
NO TIME AT ALL
Q: It seems that so much time is needed to realize the Self; many lifetimes in fact. For me, realization always seems to be an event in the distant future.
AS: You don’t need hundreds of lives to realize the Self. In fact, you don’t need any time at all. Your idea of time is one of the things that is holding you in bondage.
Time is one of the properties of the mind. Liberation does not come after a period of time because there is no time in the Self. Liberation comes when you fully understand and experience there is no one who needs liberation.
That understanding and that experience only arise when the mind and its inbuilt ideas of time cease to function. If you think about time and start to worry about how much longer it will be before you realize the Self, your attention will be on the mind and not on the Self. You can only make progress while the mind is on the Self.
Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 288

If you see two strangers quarrelling in the distance you do not give much attention to them because you know that the dispute is none of your business. Treat the contents of your mind in the same way. Instead of filling your mind with thoughts and then organising fights between them, pay no attention to the mind at all. Rest quietly in the feeling of "I am", which is consciousness, and cultivate the attitude that all thoughts, all perceptions are "not me". When you have learned to regard your mind as a distant stranger, you will not pay any attention to all the obstacles it keeps inventing for you.
#Annamalai Swami

CONVERSATION WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
‘GET RID OF THE MENTAL PROCESSES…’

If you see suffering all around you it is just a reflection of your own inner suffering. If you want to alleviate suffering go to the root cause, which is the suffering inside yourself. Immerse yourself in the Self. End the maya dream and wake up to the real world of jnana.
Your ideas about the world are all wrong because you are misperceiving it. Your mind is processing what you see in such a way that it makes you think that there is a suffering world outside and apart from you.
If you want to get rid of that suffering world you must eliminate the mental processes that make you misperceive it. When you reach the state of jnana there will be no misperceptions. Your vision will be completely clear. You will be aware that there is no suffering and no world. You will be aware that the Self alone exists.
LWB, p. 342

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
The ego is just like a ghost, it has no real form or its own.
If you see what the ego really is by enquiring ‘Who am I?' it will simply run away. The mind has no substance and no form. It exists only in the imagination. If you want to get rid of something that is imaginary, all you have to do is cease to imagine it.
Alternatively, if you can be continuously aware that the mind and all its creations only exist in your imagination, they will cease to delude you and you will cease to be troubled by them.
For example, if a magician creates a tiger, you need not be afraid of it because you know that he is only trying to trick you into believing that it is a real and dangerous tiger. If you don't believe that the tiger is real or dangerous, you don't get afraid.
When the cinema was first introduced here some village people
became afraid when they saw things like fire on the screen. They ran away because they believed that the fire would spread and
burn the theatre down.
When you know that everything that is happening is only appearing on the screen of consciousness, and that you yourself are the screen on which it all appears, nothing can touch you, harm you or make you afraid.
People who believe in the reality of the world are really no
better than people who build dams to catch the water that they see in a mirage.

"Feel your reality, In the stillness, In the quietness, When there is no mind, no thoughts, no words. Who are you then? You just are. I AM. I AM.

I am not this. I am not that. I AM. I am That which has always been. I am That which will always be. I AM THAT I AM."

#Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

If you want to go beyond the body and mind, abide in the ‘I am’ only and understand that all that is ‘I am’ plus is false.
Abidance or meditation in the ‘I am’ is a process by which attention is kept focused on the substratum instead of the names and forms that are habitually imposed on it.
When you abide in the ‘I am’ ignorance vanishes. Ignorance is not knowing the ‘I am’ in its absolute purity.
Don’t regard the abidance in the ‘I am’ as a part-time activity. You must have a life-long commitment to get yourself established in it.

#Annamalai Swami, quotes from 'Final Talks'

“Just hold on to the knowledge ‘I am’, your sense of ‘being’ or ‘presence’. This feeling that ‘you are’ is the God in you, let it be you guide or Guru, there is nothing else to be done.”
Sri #Nisargadatta maharaj


Q: What is the easiest way and most effective way to do atma-vichara, self-inquiry?
M: “To always be aware consciously in all situations of the ‘I-am’.
No matter what you’re doing where you are be aware of the ‘I-am’ in your heart.
This is the most effective practice."
Talks with Bhagvan Sri #Ramana Maharishi.

Q: What is the easiest way and most effective way to do atma-vichara, self-inquiry?
M: “To always be aware consciously in all situations of the ‘I-am’.
No matter what you’re doing where you are be aware of the ‘I-am’ in your heart.
This is the most effective practice."
Talks with Bhagvan Sri #Ramana Maharishi

Before the mind, I am. "I am" is not a thought in the mind; the mind happens to me, I do not happen to the mind. And since time and space are in the mind, I am beyond time and space, eternal and omnipresent.
Sri #Nisargadatta Maharaj


“Just hold on to the knowledge ‘I am’, your sense of ‘being’ or ‘presence’. This feeling that ‘you are’ is the God in you, let it be you guide or Guru, there is nothing else to be done.”
Sri #Nisargadatta maharaj

Stabilize in the “I am”, then you are no more an individual.
#Nisargadatta Maharaj

To stabilize in the “I am”, which has no name and form, is itself liberation.
#Nisargadatta Maharaj


If you want to go beyond the body and mind, abide in the ‘I am’ only and understand that all that is ‘I am’ plus is false.
Abidance or meditation in the ‘I am’ is a process by which attention is kept focused on the substratum instead of the names and forms that are habitually imposed on it.
When you abide in the ‘I am’ ignorance vanishes. Ignorance is not knowing the ‘I am’ in its absolute purity.
Don’t regard the abidance in the ‘I am’ as a part-time activity. You must have a life-long commitment to get yourself established in it.

#Annamalai Swami, quotes from 'Final Talks'

The direct experience of ‘I am’ in its absolute purity or the Self is in all of us but the senses make us believe something that is completely untrue. We believe the senses and always ignore our direct experience.

#Annamalai Swami, LWB


“Think of the light of the sun flowing through a stained-glass window. All sunlight is the same, but is perceived as different colors as it is flows through the stained-glass window. Your body-mind is the window which colors how awareness is perceived. But ultimately your “I Am” is the same “I Am” as my “I Am.” That revelation is unity. And it’s already the case.”
#Adyashanti

Everything that appears will one day disappear.
There is no permanence in the world of forms.
But that unchangeable consciousness in which all forms appear can never be diminished,
destroyed or altered in any way.
If you learn to be that consciousness you come to understand that nothing can touch or destroy you. …
Ignorance causes us to worry about the possible destruction of the body.
If you make your well-being dependent on the well-being of the body,
you will always be worrying and suffering.
When you know, from direct experience, that you are the Self,
you realize that there is no birth and death.
You realize that you are deathless and immortal.
Self-realization is sometimes called the immortal state because it never ends and because it is never destroyed or even altered.
If you keep your attention on the Self you can attain this immortality.
If you attain it,
in that ultimate state of being you will find that there is no birth, no death, no desires, no fears, no worries, no mind and no world.

#Annamalai Swami

رهایی هنگامی می‌آید که شما کاملاً درک کرده و تجربه کنید که اصلاً کسی وجود ندارد که نیاز به رهایی داشته باشد.
#آنامالای سوامی

مپندار که هستیِ بی عیب و نقص در پی آن است که ناآگاهان را به بیداری رساند و یا انسان‌های زمینی را به اقلیم الهی سوق دهد. برای او هیچ خود و هیچ دیگری وجود ندارد و از این رو هیچ کس قرار نیست بالا رود. برای او هیچ بهشت و هیچ دوزخی در کار نیست، و از این رو هیچ مقصدی برای رفتن نخواهد بود.

از متن کتاب هوآ هو چینگ (تعالیم نهانی لائوتسه) – ترجمه امید بامداد

Liberation comes when you fully understand and experience there is no one who needs liberation.
#Annamalai Swami

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
'Seeing the Paper'...
Q: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why can't I see the Self clearly? Why is it hidden from me?
AS: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is something that you see or experience. This is not so. The Self is the awareness or the consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan sometimes remarked humorously: ‘People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, "I have seen the paper". But really they haven't seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it. There can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget the paper while they are reading the words.'
Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that appear on the screen of consciousness, ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision, it is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the person who sees them.
If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it, they would realize that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one indivisible consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because it is not something that is separate from you.
- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 272

گفتگو با #آنامالای سوامی

دیدنِ صفحه

پرسش: شما میگویید که همه‌چیز خویش است حتی مایا یا توهم. اگر چنین است پس چرا من نمی‌توانم خویش را به‌وضوح ببینم؟ چرا از من پنهان است؟

آنامالای سوامی: چون شما به سمت اشتباهی نگاه می‌کنید. شما معتقدید که خویش چیزی دیدنی یا تجربه کردنی است. نه چنین نیست. خویش، هشیاری یا آگاهی‌ای است که خودِ این دیدن و تجربه کردن در آن اتفاق میفتد.
حتی اگر شما خویش را نمی‌بینید، خویش همچنان اینجاست. باگوان #رامانا ماهارشی گاهی با طنز اظهار می‌داشتند که: «مردم فقط روزنامه را باز می‌کنند و نگاهی به آن می‌اندازند و بعد میگویند من آن صفحات را نگاه کردم اما در حقیقت آن‌ها آن صفحات را نگاه نکردند بلکه فقط کلمات و عکس‌های روی آن را دیدند. بدون آن "صفحه"، هیچ کلمه و عکسی وجود نمی‌داشت اما مردم هنگام خواندن کلمات همیشه صفحه را فراموش می‌کنند.»
باگوان از این تشبیه استفاده می‌کردند تا نشان دهند که مردم فقط اسم‌ها و فرم‌هایی که روی صفحه‌ی آگاهی پدیدار می‌شوند را می‌بینند و خودِ صفحه را نادیده می‌گیرند. با این نوع دیدِ جزئی به‌راحتی می‌توان به این نتیجه رسید که تمام فرم‌ها، هم از همدیگر و هم از شخصی که آن‌ها را می‌بیند جدا هستند.
اگر مردم به‌جای فرم‌هایی که در آگاهی پدیدار می‌شوند متوجه‌ی خودِ آگاهی می‌شدند آنگاه ادراک می‌کردند که تمامِ این فرم‌ها فقط ظواهری هستند که روی آن آگاهیِ واحدِ یکپارچه ظاهر می‌شوند.
آن آگاهی همان خویشی است که تو در جستجویش هستی. تو می‌توانی آن آگاهی باشی اما هرگز نمی‌توانی آن را ببینی زیرا آن چیزی جدا از تو نیست.


CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
'Seeing the Paper'...
Q: You say that everything is the Self, even maya. If this is so, why can't I see the Self clearly? Why is it hidden from me?
AS: Because you are looking in the wrong direction. You have the idea that the Self is something that you see or experience. This is not so. The Self is the awareness or the consciousness in which the seeing and the experiencing take place.
Even if you don't see the Self, the Self is still there. Bhagavan sometimes remarked humorously: ‘People just open a newspaper and glance through it. Then they say, "I have seen the paper". But really they haven't seen the paper, they have only seen the letters and pictures that are on it. There can be no words or pictures without the paper, but people always forget the paper while they are reading the words.'
Bhagavan would then use this analogy to show that while people see the names and forms that appear on the screen of consciousness, ignore the screen itself. With this kind of partial vision, it is easy to come to the conclusion that all forms are unconnected with each other and separate from the person who sees them.
If people were to be aware of the consciousness instead of the forms that appear in it, they would realize that all forms are just appearances which manifest within the one indivisible consciousness.
That consciousness is the Self that you are looking for. You can be that consciousness but you can never see it because it is not something that is separate from you.
- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 272

Let come what comes, let go what goes. See what remains.
#Ramana Maharshi

Bhagavan #Ramana Maharshi : That which comes and goes, rises and sets, is born and dies is the ego. That which always abides never changes and is devoid of qualities is the Self.
Clouds come and go in the sky but the appearance and disappearance of the clouds don't affect the sky.

Your real nature is like the sky, like space. Just remain like the sky and let thought-clouds come and go. If you cultivate this attitude of indifference towards the mind, gradually you will cease to identify yourself with it.
#ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Whatever comes, do not push away, whatever goes, do not grieve. Everything appears just like clouds floating by; they just come and go. Stay only as the unmoving Awareness. Awareness and Truth are one. Acclimatize yourself to Home.
#Mooji

نفس یا ایگو مانند شبح است، فرمی از خودش ندارد. اگر با تفحص «من کیستم؟» ببینید که ایگو چیست آن به‌سادگی می‌گریزد. ذهن جوهر و فرمی ندارد و تنها در تخیل وجود دارد. اگر می‌خواهی از چیزی که تخیلی است رها شوی تنها کاری که باید انجام دهی: توقف تخیل است.
از سوی دیگر اگر به‌طور مداوم آگاه باشید که ذهن و تمام آثارش فقط در تخیل شما وجود دارند آن‌ها دست از فریب دادن شما برداشته و دیگر شما را به دردسر نمی‌اندازند.
برای مثال اگر یک شعبده‌باز یک ببر را ظاهر کند نیاز نیست از آن بترسید چراکه میدانید شعبده‌باز سعی می‌کند تا شما را گول بزند تا باور کنید که آن یک ببر خطرناک و واقعی است. اگر باور نکنید که آن ببر واقعی یا خطرناک است، نمی‌ترسید.
زمانی که سینما برای اولین بار اینجا معرفی شده بود بعضی از روستاییان وقتی چیزهایی مانند آتش را روی پرده سینما می‌دیدند می‌ترسیدند. آن‌ها فرار می‌کردند زیرا باور داشتند که آتش می‌تواند شعله‌ور شده و تماشاخانه را بسوزاند.
وقتی‌که بدانید تمام آنچه اتفاق میفتد فقط بر روی پرده آگاهی ظاهر می‌شوند و شما، خودِ شما همان پرده‌ای هستید که روی آن تمام آن‌ها ظاهر می‌شوند دیگر چیزی نمی‌تواند شما را متأثر کند یا آسیب برساند یا بترساند.
مردمی که به حقیقی بودن دنیا باور دارند وضعشان بهتر از کسانی که برای به دست آوردن آبی که در سراب می‌بینند روی آن سد می‌سازند، نیستند.
#آنامالای سوامی

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI
The ego is just like a ghost, it has no real form or its own.
If you see what the ego really is by enquiring ‘Who am I?' it will simply run away. The mind has no substance and no form. It exists only in the imagination. If you want to get rid of something that is imaginary, all you have to do is cease to imagine it.
Alternatively, if you can be continuously aware that the mind and all its creations only exist in your imagination, they will cease to delude you and you will cease to be troubled by them.
For example, if a magician creates a tiger, you need not be afraid of it because you know that he is only trying to trick you into believing that it is a real and dangerous tiger. If you don't believe that the tiger is real or dangerous, you don't get afraid.
When the cinema was first introduced here some village people
became afraid when they saw things like fire on the screen. They ran away because they believed that the fire would spread and
burn the theatre down.
When you know that everything that is happening is only appearing on the screen of consciousness, and that you yourself are the screen on which it all appears, nothing can touch you, harm you or make you afraid.
People who believe in the reality of the world are really no
better than people who build dams to catch the water that they see in a mirage.

گفتگو با #آنامالای سوامی
پرسشگر: سوامی حداقل یک سال سکوت (Mauna) را حفظ کردند. در آن روزها اینجا باید جایی بسیار آرام و ساکت می‌بود؛ اما این روزها این منطقه پر از سروصدای بلندگوها، اتوبوس‌ها، کامیون‌ها و رادیو و این چیزهاست. احساس می‌کنم که من هم دوست دارم تمرین سکوت را برای مدتی انجام دهم.
اما آیا واقعاً می‌شود بااین‌همه سروصدا در سکوت ماند؟

آنامالای سوامی: سکوت یا (Mauna) به معنی سکوت درونی است نه سکوت بیرونی. اگر در بیرون سر و صدا و ناآرامی زیادی هست ما باید آن‌ها را به‌عنوان مظاهر خداوند ببینیم. اگر این‌طور برداشت کنیم که آن‌ها مزاحمتی برای ما هستند در حال مقاومت با «آنچه که هست» هستیم و این مقاومت منجر به آشفتگی درونمان خواهد شد اما اگر تمام این چیزها را الهی ببینیم در اینصورت هیچ‌چیز نمی‌تواند ما را آشفته کند.
شما نباید جهان را مورد قضاوت قرار دهید. شما این‌طور فکر می‌کنید که «یک مکانِ آرام، خوب و یک مکانِ شلوغ، بد است» اگر افکاری مانند این دارید ناگزیر گرفتار ذهن خواهید شد.
هیچ‌چیز اشتباهی در خصوص جهان و جایی که زندگی می‌کنید وجود ندارد. نقص تنها در ذهنی است که به جهان می‌نگرد. اگر چشم‌انداز ذهن را تغییر دهید جهان به‌طور خودکار تغیر می‌کند. از طرف دیگر می‌توانید تمام ذهنتان را به خداوند واگذار کنید. قدیس سامباندار می‌گوید: راهی است که از طریق آن می‌توانیم در این دنیای رنج‌آور زندگی کنیم. آن راه واگذاری ذهن به خداوند است
باگوان (رامانا ماهارشی) می‌گویند: ذهنت را به خداوند تسلیم کن و تمام فرم‌ها را به‌عنوان خدا ببین. عشقِ بی‌طرفانه‌ای نسبت به تمام موجودات داشته باش. کسی که این‌گونه زندگی کند می‌تواند خوشحال باشد.

CONVERSATIONS WITH #ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Q: Swami kept mauna [silence] for at least a year in those days it must have been very peaceful and quiet here.
Nowadays the area is filled with the noise of loudspeakers, buses, trucks, radios, etc. I feel that I would also like to keep mauna for some time. But is there any point in keeping silent when there is much noise around?
AS: Mauna means inner silence, not outer silence. If there are a
lot of noises and disturbances outside, we should take them as manifestations of God. If we take the attitude that they are
disturbances, we are resisting what IS. This will only create anxiety within us. If we see all that is as divine, nothing will ever disturb us.
You should not make judgements about the world. You are
thinking, 'A quiet environment is good; a noisy one is bad'. If you have thoughts like these you will inevitably get caught up in the workings of the mind.
There is nothing wrong with the world or with the environment you live in. The only defects are in the mind which is looking at the world. If you change the outlook of the mind, the world automatically changes. Alternatively, you can give your whole mind to God.
The saint Jnana Sambandhar said: 'There is a way that we can
live happily in this miserable world. That way is to give our minds to God.'
Bhagavan said: Surrender your mind to God and see all forms as God. Have impartial love towards all beings. One who lives like this, he alone can be happy.'