Whatever demand is legitimately made upon us is not made upon us: it is made upon the Christ of us. If some demand is made upon us that is illegitimate, we should take the same attitude, because if it is an illegitimate demand, it will never have to be met. The Christ will find a way to dissolve even that demand. That is important.
We never have to be afraid of an injustice once we have taken our stand as spiritual beings. If some persons seem to demand more of us than they have a right to demand, we realize that if the Christ of us can supply it, we are perfectly willing. If it is not a legitimate demand, the Christ will dissolve that demand made upon us. Otherwise It will meet it, once we have removed that personal sense of “I” that is self-righteous, has a need, or requirement.
Joel S. Goldsmith
Showing Forth The Presence
of God
Chapter 6, Section: “We
Let the Christ of our Being
Fulfill Every Demand”
The life story of the most famous person who has ever lived is, in fact, filled with a mysterious gaping hole. From the age of 13 to 29 there is no Biblical, Western, or Middle Eastern record of Jesus‘s whereabouts or activities in Palestine. Known as “The Lost Years,” this gaping hole remained a mystery until one explorer’s remarkable discovery in1887.
In the late 19th century a Russian doctor named Nicolas Notovitch traveled extensively throughout India, Tibet, and Afghanistan. He chronicled his experiences and discoveries in his 1894 book The Unknown Life of Christ. At one point during his voyage, Notovitch broke his leg in 1887 and recuperated at the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery of Hemis in the city of Leh, at the very top of India. It was here where monks showed Notovitch two large yellowed volumes of a document written in Tibetan, entitled The Life of Saint Issa. During his time at the monastery, Notovitch translated the document which tells the true story of a child named Jesus (i.e. Issa = “son of God”) born in the first century to a poor family in Israel. Jesus was referred to as “the son of God” by the Vedic scholars who tutored him in the sacred Buddhist texts from the age of 13 to 29. Notovitch translated 200 of the 224 verses from the document.
During his time at the monastery in1887, one lama explained to Notovitch the full scope and extreme level of enlightenment that Jesus had reached. “Issa [Jesus] is a great prophet, one of the first after the twenty-two Buddhas,” the lama tells Notovitch. “He is greater than any one of all the Dalai Lamas, for he constitutes part of the spirituality of our Lord. It is he who has enlightened you, who has brought back within the pale of religion the souls of the frivolous, and who has allowed each human being to distinguish between good and evil. His name and his acts are recorded in or sacred writings. And in reading of his wondrous existence, passed in the midst of an erring and wayward people, we weep at the horrible sin of the pagans who, after having tortured him, put him to death.”
The discovery of Jesus’s time in India lines up perfectly with The Lost Years of Jesus, as well as with the degree of significance of his birth in the Middle East. When a great Buddhist, or Holy Man (i.e. Lama), dies, wise men consult the stars and other omens and set off often on extraordinarily long journeys to find the infant who is the reincarnation of the Lama. When the child is old enough he is taken away from his parents and educated in the Buddhist faith. Experts speculate that this is the foundational origin of the story of the Three Wise Men, and it is now believed Jesus was taken to India at 13 and taught as a Buddhist. At the time, Buddhism was already a 500-year-old religion and Christianity, of course, had not even begun.
Hurt and flattery are the same, aren’t they? Both are different forms of hurts. You are flattered, and you like it, and the flatterer becomes your friend. So that also is another form of encouraging the image. The one you want, the other you don’t want. We are now dealing only with what we don’t want, which is not to be hurt; but we want the other, which is pleasurable, which is comforting, pleasing to the images that we have. So both are the same. Now how am I, how is a human being, to be free of hurt? So we have to go into the question of what it is to be attentive.
What does it mean to attend? If you know what it means to attend, it may solve the problem. Have you ever given total attention to anything? Complete attention in which there is no center from which you attend? When there is a center from which you attend then there is a division. Let’s put it differently. You know what it is to be aware. One is aware of the trees under which we are sitting, aware of the branches, the color of the branches and their thickness, of the leaves, the shadows, aware of all the nature, the beauty of it. [The Ojai talks took place in the open in a grove of oaks.] Then you are also aware of sitting on the ground, the color of the carpet, the microphone. And can you be aware of all this, the microphone, the carpet, the earth, the color of the leaves, and so on, the blue shirt, be aware of all that without any choice? To look at it without any choice, judgment, just to look.
Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti
If you can look without any judgment, without any choice, just observe, in that observation there is no observer. The moment the observer comes in prejudice begins, the like and the dislike, “I prefer this, I don’t prefer that,” division takes place. So there is attention only when there is no entity who says, “I am attending.” Please, it is important to understand this. Because if there is attention, when there is an awareness in which there is no choice, no judgment, merely observation, then you will see you will never be hurt again, and the past hurts are wiped away. But the moment the observer comes in then the observer gets hurt.
So, when there is complete attention, there is no hurt. If someone says the speaker is a fool or arrogant; in listening to the word and giving complete attention to it, there is no past hurt or future hurt because there is no entity who is observing. Please, this is very important, because as long as there is a division there must be conflict. It is very important, in dealing with fear, with pleasure, with sorrow, with death, to see that as long as there is a division between the observer, the experiencer, the thinker and the thought, there must inevitably be conflict, division, fragmentation and, therefore, disintegration. So can you observe the tree, yourself, your neighbor, observe life completely attentively? Then can you observe with total attention the picture that you have about yourself? And when you give that complete attention is there a picture at all?
Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti
Question: How can we truly understand ourselves, our infinite riches, without developing a whole complete perception first?otherwise with our comparative perception of thought, we get only a partial understanding of that infinite flow of cause in whose order we move and have our true conscious being.
KRISHNAMURTI: How can you understand the whole when you are worshipping the part! Being petty, partial, limited, how can you understand that which is boundless, infinite? The small cannot grasp the great, but the small can cease to be. In understanding what makes for limitation, for partiality, and transcending it, you will then be able to comprehend the whole, the limitless. From the known the unknown is realized, but to speculate about the unknowable is merely to deny the limited, the trivial; and so all speculation becomes a hindrance for the understanding of reality. Begin to understand yourself and in that there will be discovered immeasurable riches. Begin with the known, with the trivial, the limited, the confused, the small that is bound by fear, by belief, by lust, by ill will. It is petty, partial, because it is the product of ignorance. How can such a mind understand the whole? It cannot. If thought-feeling frees itself from craving and so from ignorance and sorrow, then only is there a possibility of understanding the whole. How can there be understanding of the causeless when our thought-feeling is a result, when it is bound to time? This seems so obvious that it does not require much explanation, but yet so many are caught up in the illusion that we must first have the vision, the perception of the whole, a working hypothesis of it as a beginning, before there is understanding of the part. To have a perception of that completeness, the realization of that infinite reality, the singularistic, the limited mind must break down the barriers that confine it. From a small, narrow opening the wide heavens are not to be perceived. We try to perceive the whole through the small aperture of our thought-feeling, and what we see must inevitably be small, partial, incomplete. We say we want to understand the whole, yet we cling to the petty, to the me and the mine. Through self-awareness, which brings self-knowledge, right thinking is nurtured, which alone will free us from our triviality and sorrow. When the mind ceases to chatter, when it is not playing any part, when it is not grasping or becoming, when it is utterly still, in that creative emptiness is the whole, the uncreated. The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti – Volume III 1936-1944: The Mirror of RelationshipJiddu Krishnamurti
“Anything you have to do in this world to bring you happiness does not last, for the world is a world of constant change. When you look to the world for your happiness, for your peace, for your harmony, you’re making a mistake. Look at this world. Is anything ever the same? Things appear, they stay for a while, and they go.
Consequently, if you identify with the things of this world, you’ll be totally confused and confounded. … You own something, you lose it, it burns, disappears out of your life. You live with a person, they change, they leave. This is the way of this world.”
~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)
THE ancient practitioners always give advice repeatedly to the followers “We have to remove everything in order to reach the emptiness, thereafter we in addition have to pass through the emptiness, then we will get the chance to reach the elevation of spirit of “free of delusion”. The Heart Sutra says: “Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form”, there is no difference between form and emptiness. If this is the case , how can we say that “Absolute emptiness” is “Nihilism”.
IF there is no “Emptiness” then nothing could be created or formed. The flexibility and function side of the emptiness is just like the “Emptiness is form” of the Heart Sutra. Finally we should understand one important thing that “Absolute Emptiness” and “Emptiness of One’s original nature” are not two different things. We think maybe easier for us to describe them separately for a theory of one coin with two sides.
MEANING OF EMPTINESS
Absolute emptiness means surpassing which is neither persisting in “Being” nor persisting in “Non-being”. In the Buddhist doctrine, there are few examples to describe the emptiness.
1) “Emptiness” means “no hindrance”, like space, although space is all over but does not hinder anything (things and events).
2) “Emptiness” means “all around”, like space, is all over, reaches everywhere, touches everywhere.
3) “Emptiness” means “equality”, like space, never has any choice, treat everything equally.
4) “Emptiness” means “vastitude”, like space, is spacious, limitless, infinite, endless, huge.
5) “Emptiness” means “no appearance”, like space, does not have any shape, form, appearance.
6) “Emptiness” means “purity”, like space, is not bothered by material concerns, always pure, does not have any desire.
7) “Emptiness” means “no movement”, like space, enduringly silent, leave all the appearances of birth, death, achievements, and destruction.
8) “Emptiness” means “negative absolutely”, exterminate or remove totally all things and events.
9) “Emptiness” means “empty emptiness”, totally negate all original nature and destroy all “persisting in emptiness”.
10) “Emptiness” means “cannot obtain”, like space, cannot be obtained, cannot be held, cannot be touched.
ALTHOUGH the word “Emptiness” cannot describe the absolute surpassing totally, but we cannot find any words better than “Emptiness” in human’s language to describe the Prajna of “Leaving appearance” (Do not persist in the appearance of things of material world).
THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPTINESS
From the religious standpoint of view, there is nothing more important than emptiness in Buddhist doctrine.
THE fourth paragraph of Heart Sutra says: {….. Because there is nothing obtainable, Bodhisattvas through the reliance on Prajna-paramita have no attachment and hindrance in their minds. Because there is no more attachment and hindrance, there is no more fear, and far away from erroneous views and wishful-thinking, ultimately : The Final Nirvana.}
IN this paragraph, we should understand that the mind of the practitioners (bodhisattvas) will reach the elevation of spirit of non-hindrance by depending on the emptiness of Prajna, all the material worries of greed, hate, ignorance, proud, and the persisting in one’s original nature will be removed, and no more hindrance.
BECAUSE the immediate perception of emptiness, the root of holding to the concept of the ego or self will be removed. And because of the removing of ego or self, all terrors and confusions that are from the erroneous doctrine that the ego or self, will be destroyed. Therefore we can reach the deliverance and attain the utmost nirvana.
NOW we should understand that Prajna Paramita not only is a philosophical conception but also has its religious meaning and function that are more important. Because there is no all-powerful God who can give special kindness to people and save people in Buddhism, we must experientially entry into emptiness in order to reach the eternal deliverance in Buddhism.
THEREFORE Prajna emptiness is not only a kind of metaphysical truth but also is religious soteriological instrument. Prajna Paramita is also called Prajna-Paramita mother or begetter of all Buddhas. All Buddhas of past, present, and future must depend on Prajna in order to attain the buddhahood.
ANOTHER important meaning of emptiness we mentioned that it denies totally one’s original nature (own nature) and the thinking of own nature. When we remove the persisting in own nature, not only help us in philosophical thinking but also benefit us when doing religious practice of mind.
IF we can put our mind in Prajna emptiness always, then our mind will be wide, not hindered, merciful, and active. When removing the clinging to self and own nature as real, then the brightness of spiritual and all things of physical universes will be developed gradually. Therefore the Mahayana Buddhist always say that the Prajna Paramita is the most important doctrine in Buddhism.
BODHISATTVA without Prajna is just like fish without water, although practicing hardly in almsgiving, keeping the commandments, patience, and meditation, still cannot reach the yonder shore. From the Buddhist standpoint of view, almsgiving, keeping the rules, patience, and meditation although are the good behavior that can build merit, but if there is no Prajna wisdom as guidance, bodhisattvas still cannot understand fully the truth and surpass the self in order to reach the elevation of spirit of limitlessness.
FROM the Mahayana’s standpoint of view, the only way to melt all the relative, opposite, or dualistic things is through the fire of Prajna wisdom. The cult of the monistic doctrine (The immediacy of entering into the truth)(No second way) of The Vimalakirti-nirdesa Sutra (Wei Mo Sutra) is to instruct the way of “How to surpass all the dualistic things”. And “To pass through the emptiness” is only way to reach this “Immediacy of entering into the truth”.
IF there is no emptiness, then, it is impossible for “form and emptiness” become one (No difference), it is impossible for “Being and non-being” become one, it is impossible for “Transmigrations and nirvana” become one, it is impossible for “Mutual entering, touching, containing of things of all dimensions” become one.
IN Mahayana’s sutras instruct us again and again that if there is no direct examining and understanding of emptiness, then the great limitless pitying or mercy vows and actions of bodhisattvas to save all beings cannot be come true.
Truth is Your Birth Right. Assert
it and Be Master of Universe. Truth
is “Tattva-Masi” – “That Thou Art” — Rama
I have no scruple of change, nor fear of death,
Nor was I ever born,
Nor had I parents.
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute,
I am That, I am That, I cause no misery, nor am I miserable;
I have no enemy, nor am I enemy.
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute,
I am That, I am That, I am without form, without limit,
Beyond space, beyond time,
I am in everything, everything is in me.
I am the bliss of the universe,
Everywhere am I.
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute,
I am That, I am That, I am without body or change of the body,
I am neither senses, nor object of the senses,
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute,
I am That, I am That, I am neither sin, nor virtue,
Nor temple, nor worship
Nor pilgrimage, nor books.
I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, Bliss Absolute,
I am That, I am That,
https://www.godbrahmanistheoceanofloveandconsciousnessdivinityis.com/2020/04/swami-rama-tirtha-i-am-that.html
Only awareness is aware of being aware. Matter is what consciousness looks like from the standpoint of the human mind. But it’s not there. Physicists are finding this out all the time: THERE IS NO MATTER !
“Never pray to God for release of your problems. Never pray to God to change your life, and to give you something better. This is wrong prayer. If you have to pray to God, pray to God to give you the strength and the wisdom and the courage that you need to be able to handle the situation that you’re in. This is correct prayer.
Do not try to change anything. Be yourself. Work on yourself. Begin to see things in a new light. See your situation differently. There are no bad things, there are no good things, but thinking makes it so. Stop thinking of the extremes, good and bad, right and wrong.
Rather look at yourself in the moment. Stay centered. See yourself as a divine being, an infinite being, totally free and liberated. Do not feel sorry for yourself because you are in a position, in a situation, you don’t like. This just holds you there more. “
~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)
