Sublime

What was it that Nisargadatta, the Vedanta sage, said? “Wisdom tells me I’m nothing. Love tells me I’m everything. In between, my life flows.”

When the awareness ‘I am’ is mixed with the adjunct (upādhi) ‘I am so-and-so’, it becomes a thought. Of all thoughts, this thought is the first. But the awareness which shines as ‘I am I’ without any adjunct is indeed ātman or brahman.

Among many others, I draw on the ideas of two spiritual teachers I should mention. One is my friend Douglas Harding, whose unique and inimitable approach sheds light on the Self as Consciousness, which is pure Kashmir Shaivism. The other is the enigmatic 20th-century teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. I met his teachings in my earliest days as a spiritual se

That is me, and that is not me – renounce all such distinctions. Decide that your Self is everything! Have no other resolutions and be happy!

The teaching of Sri Bhagavan is the essence of all religions, proclaiming openly that which was hidden. Advaita is the central postulate of Taoism and Buddhism; the doctrine of the Inner Guru is the doctrine of the ‘Christ in you’ restored to the plenitude of its meaning; the vichara penetrates to the ultimate truth of the Islamic creed or shahada,

Then she came to a retreat with the American spiritual teacher Ram Dass, whose books (starting with Be Here Now) and lectures have inspired a generation of meditators. After more than thirty years of teaching and service to the poor, Ram Dass had had a major stroke. He too was in a wheelchair, his speech was impaired, and yet he was bright and joyf

Abiding [or being fixed permanently] as oneself is alone uṇmai [the truth, which is sat-bhāva, our real state of being or ‘am’-ness] (Uḷḷadu Nāṟpadu Anubandham verse 14)