Prabhaker

How almost everybody here knows about 'enlightenment' ? It is a fiction !

This is traditional knowledge of the east. Many enlightened masters of the past and present (including Osho, Sadhuru, Ram Dass) have approved it. For details you can refer "Tibetan Book of the Dead" revealed by Karma Lingpa (1326–1386). Your consciousness will be dissolved into the universal ocean of consciousness. Buddha before leaving his body he says that what he had attained under the bodhi tree was just nirvana, emptiness or enlightenment and what he is now going to attain will be mahanirvana or supreme emptiness or great enlightenment.

Buddha lived for forty years after his enlightenment, Mahavira also lived for forty years after his enlightenment. It is these forty years which became useful to us.

In the Jaina tradition in India death has also been used to strengthen willpower. Mahavira is the only person in the world who allowed if any seeker wished to use death for this purpose. No one else has given such permission. Only Mahavira has said one can use death as a spiritual discipline -- but not the kind of instantaneous death which occurs by taking poison. One can't build his willpower in one instant; it requires a long span of time. Mahavira says, "Go on a fast, and die of hunger." Mahavira was fully assured that no one dies really. Hence he felt there was no need to worry so much about death, and he found no harm in a seeker pursuing this discipline. Mahavira was also confident that if a man were to seek death unwaveringly for fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, or a hundred days, the very greatness of that event is bound to transform him. In India it is legal right for Jaina tradition.

@Dodoster Conscious death is the door to enlightenment. If you die consciously you will be born consciously the next life, and that life will be your last one in a body on planet earth. There is a Tibetan method "Bardo" for the people who meditated but missed enlightenment in their life. The Bardo is a simple method but with great significance. The Bardo is suggestions to the dying person: “Now be silent. Leave this life consciously. Rather than death taking it away from you, relax your hold; don’t be defeated by death, don’t struggle. Just drop all your attachment. This world is finished for you, and this life is finished for you. There is no point in holding on to it; in holding on to it you will be fighting with death. You cannot win, and a very significant possibility will be missed. It is the end of a dream. That is the fundamental point in bardo, that you have lived a dream that you call life, a seventy-year-long dream. It is coming to an end. You can weep for the spilled milk and miss the opportunity – because within seconds you will be entering into another womb, into another dream. So bardo is reminding you that what is disappearing was a dream. And it is very easy when death is coming to see your life as a dream. The person is just falling into deep silence and death is descending. And he is listening to these words from someone he has loved, he has trusted, from someone whom he cannot imagine would deceive him – only then is it meaningful.

Try to understand the ego. Analyze it, dissect it, watch it, observe it, from as many angles as possible. And don't be in a hurry to sacrifice it, otherwise the greatest egoist is born: the person who thinks he is humble, the person who thinks that he has no ego. That is again the same story played on a more subtle level. That's what the spiritual people have been doing down the ages – pious egoists they have been. They have made their ego even more decorated; it has taken the color of spirituality and holiness. Your ego is better than the ego of a saint; your ego is better, far better – because your ego is very gross, and the gross ego can be understood and dropped more easily than the subtle. The subtle ego goes on playing such games that it is very difficult. One will need absolute awareness to watch it.

Even with closed eyes you will see things -- images of things. Actual things are not there, but images, ideas, collected memories -- they will start flowing. You can close your eyes; that is easy, everyone closes them every moment. In the night you close your eyes, but that will not reveal the inner nature to you. Close your eyes so that nothing remains to be seen -- no outside object, no inside image of any outside object, just a blank darkness as if you have suddenly gone blind. Not blind only to reality, but to the dream reality also. One has to practice it. A long period will be needed; it cannot be done suddenly. You will need a long training. Close your eyes. Anytime you feel that it is easy and you have time, close your eyes and then inwardly stop all movements of the eyes. Do not allow any movement. Feel! Do not allow any movement. Stop all movements of the eyes. Feel as if they have become stones, and then remain in that "stoney" state of the eyes. Do not do anything; just remain there.

@abundance The traditional form and concept of Tratak is indeed that of concentration. And through concentration, energy is generated and siddhis – psychic powers -- are developed; but that ultimate relaxation we are seeking, the meeting with God, does not happen. Concentration is a part and extension of the ego itself; through it you are not dissolved but strengthened. You are not melted but solidified like ice. Your powers increase, but not your bliss. The ability to concentrate is not something to feel blessed about. It is a frozen state of mind, a very narrow state of mind. Useful, of course, useful — for others. Useful in scientific inquiry, useful in business, useful in the market, useful in politics — but absolutely useless for yourself. If you become too attuned with concentration you will become very, very tense. Concentration is a tense state of mind; you will never be relaxed. Concentration is like a torch, focused, and consciousness is like a lamp, unfocused. If you meditate. first concentration will disappear and you will be feeling a little at a loss. But if you go on, by and by you will attain to an unfocused state of light — that’s what meditation is. Once meditation is attained. concentration is child’s play — whenever you need to, you can concentrate. There will be no problem about it and it will be easy and without any tension.

@Kuba Whoever wants to go deep into meditation is bound to feel fear at a certain point. Why? Because there comes a point where you cross the boundary of the ego and enter into the world of egolessness. That point is the point of great fear — because it looks like death. And, in fact, it is a kind of death: the ego disappears. The ego cannot trust that there is anything more than itself And the ego is dying, and the ego starts breathing its last, and you become afraid. Many people turn back from that point, rush back out. This is going to happen to every meditator.

@strwbrycough The Eastern methods can create a meditative space, but they make you so introverted that you start escaping from life. They teach you how to be alone, joyously alone.

@YoungSeeker A single, momentary glimpse is something that can never be known by any other means. No one can explain it; no words, no communication, can even be a hint to it. You have not even known the moment, you have not even become aware of it before it becomes closed to you. Just a click of the camera - a click, and everything is lost. Then a hankering will be created; you will risk everything for that moment. But do not long for it, do not desire it; let it sleep in the memory. Do not make a problem out of it; just forget it. If you can forget it and do not cling to it, these moments will come to you more and more, the glimpses will be coming to you more and more. A demanding mind becomes closed, and the glimpse is shut off. It always comes when you are not aware of it, when you are not looking for it - when you are relaxed, when you are not even thinking about it, when you are not even meditating. Even when you are meditating the glimpse becomes impossible, but when you are not meditating, when you are just in a moment of let-go - not even doing anything, not even waiting for anything - in that relaxed moment, it happens.

@Lior Whatsoever you do can become meditative. Meditation is not something separate; it is a part of life. It is just like breathing: just as you breathe in and out, you meditate also. And it is simply a shift of emphasis; nothing much is to be done. Things that you have been doing carelessly, start doing carefully.You will be doing your work whether you love it or not, so just bringing love to it you will reap many more things which otherwise you would miss.

If you don´t escape, if you allow the suffering to be there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not trying somehow to forget it, then you are different. Suffering is there but just around you; it is not in the center, it is on the periphery. It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it is not in the nature of things. It is always on the periphery and you are the center. So when you allow it to happen, you don´t escape, you don´t run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life, that you are bliss and not suffering.

The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much. That’s why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primitive societies are happier than those in civilized ones. Life was a blessing to them. They are poor starved, almost naked. In every way, they had nothing. But they are not bored with life.

There are millions of people in India who are unemployed or poorly paid. It will be very cruel if one expects from them to become a meditator or "seeker of truth". They need bread.

Money can be beautiful -- if it is not possessed, if you don't become obsessed with it. I am not against money. I am not saying: 'Go and throw it away,' because that is another extreme. That is also the last step of the miserly mind. A man who has suffered too much because of money, who has clung to money and could not love anybody or become open, becomes so frustrated in the end that he throws away the money, renounces and goes to the Himalayas, enters a Tibetan monastery and becomes a lama. This man has not understood. If you understand, money can be used, but people who don't understand are either misers, they can't use the money, or they renounce the money, because in renouncing they are also saving the same mind.

That is greed, they too are seeking contentment, but in wrong direction.

You asked for it,so I explained greed !

People think they will be happy when they have more money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force. Needs can be fulfilled, but desires cannot be. Desire is a need gone mad. The materialist believes that his misery will disappear through the fulfillment of his desires. Remember, needs are always here and now — they are existential. And desires are never here and now — they are non-existential. They are just mental, in the mind. And they cannot be fulfilled because their very nature is to move into the future. The distance between you and your desire always remains the same. How can you fulfill it? If you desire ten thousand rupees, you may get them some day. But by the time you get them, the desire will have gone ten thousand times ahead again. You have one thousand rupees; the desire will ask for ten thousand. Now you have ten thousand; the desire will ask for one hundred thousand. The distance remains the same. You may have one hundred thousand — it makes no difference. Ten times again, the desire will remain the same.

Money should not become the goal, but I am not saying at the same time that you should renounce it and become beggars. A poor man needs food, clothes, house first. He doesn't experience the problems which a rich person experiences, which can't be solved by any amount of money.

@CaptainPineapple Only when a society becomes affluent does religion become meaningful. And now, for the first time, a greater part of the world is not poor. To be religious, or to be interested in the ultimate questions of life, one needs to have really fulfilled all the lower wants and needs. A poor society cannot be religious. India was religious only when it was at a peak of affluence. For example, in Buddha’s time India was just like America is today. In those days India was the richest land. The religion that we have in India today is just a leftover from those days. There is a basic difference between a poor man’s religion and a rich man’s religion. If a poor man becomes interested in religion it will be just as a substitute. Even if he prays to God he will be praying for economic goods; the basic problem of man will not yet have arisen for him. The moment a society becomes rich, new problems arise. These problems are not concerned with physical bodies and physical needs; they are more psychological. If a poor man wants to become meditative, he will need tremendous intelligence – because he will have to see the futility of money which he does not have.

@Ethan Many times the glances of no-mind come but you cannot hold them. But nothing is wrong in it and don't be worried that you could not hold it for longer. Forget all about it. Just remember the situation in which it happened and try to move in that situation again and again. The experience is not important. How you were feeling just a moment before, that is important. If you can create that situation again, the experience will happen again. Experience is not important. The situation is important; how you were feeling -- flowing. Loving... what the situation was.

@Dodoster Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic, they are not mad, they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed. Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to Yoga, but Yoga is not a therapy. Unless a master suggests it to you don't do shirshasana(Headstand Pose), because I have never seen a person who has been doing shirshasana (Headstand Pose)who is not stupid.

Enlightenment is a simple realization that everything is as it should be. That is the definition of enlightenment: everything is as it should be, everything is utterly perfect as it is. That feeling...and you are suddenly at home. Nothing is being missed. You are part, an organic part of this tremendous, beautiful whole. You are relaxed in it, surrendered in it. You don´t exist separately – all separation has disappeared. A great rejoicing happens, because with the ego disappearing there is no worry left, with the ego disappearing there is no anguish left, with the ego disappearing there is no possibility of death any more. This is what enlightenment is. It is the understanding that all is good, that all is beautiful – and it is beautiful as it is. Everything is in tremendous harmony, in accord.

Self-inquiry is mainly known today through the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. It is an ancient method of meditation, but full of dangers. Unless you are alert, the greater possibility is that you will be led astray by the method rather than to the right goal. Raman used to give a technique to his disciples: they were just to enquire, “Who am I?” If you want to go rightly into the method, then the question has not to be verbally asked. “Who am I?” has not to be repeated verbally. Because as long as it remains a verbal question, you will supply a verbal answer from the head. You have to drop the verbal question. It has to remain just a vague idea, just like a thirst. Not that “I am thirsty,”—can you see the difference? When you are thirsty, you feel the thirst. And if you are in a desert, you feel the thirst in every fiber of your body. You don’t say, “I am thirsty, I am thirsty.” It is no longer a linguistic question, it is existential. If “Who am I?” is an existential question, if you are not asking it in language but instead the feeling of the question is settling inside your center, then there is no need for any answer. Then it is none of the mind’s business. Now you are entering an innocent space. You will not get the answer. You will get the feel, you will get the taste, you will get the smell. As you go deeper, you will be filled more with the feeling of being, of immortality, blissfulness, silence… a tremendous benediction.