The transmission of Space...
Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897 - 1981)
Maharaj: “I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I call this capacity of entering other focal points of consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says “I am everything”. Wisdom says “I am nothing”. Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither, and beyond both... Theoretically you always have a chance for self-realization. In practice a situation must arise (satsang), when all the factors necessary for self-realization are present…
There is the body and there is the Self, between them is the mind, in which the Self is reflected as ‘I am’. Because of the imperfections of the mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight, it takes itself to be the body and not the Self. All that is needed is to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self. When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problems. It remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool and the expression of the creative fire within. Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it gets contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am’... The self-styled gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of merits and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these are mere mental formations, projections of an addicted mind. Instead of helping, they obstruct. It is not what you do, but what you stop doing that matters…Teachers there may be many, fearless disciples very few…”
Alexander Smit (1948 - 1998)
Alexander Smit: “In Jnana we say: the best one can do is to attend this kind of meetings (satsang), taking the best of it and become Self-realized as soon as possible. This (satsang) is creating a situation in which Self-realization is possible.”
Alexander Smit: “In India this sort of meeting is called satsang, which means ‘the encounter with the holy ones’. But the correct translation is: ‘the encounter with clarity, the pure’, the encounter with the friction-less. In the Advaita Vedanta tradition no room is given for worship, for the worship of persons, for guru-worship and such... Sat means the purest of the purest. Actually it is shuddhsatsang: encounter with the pure, with Consciousness itself, with yourself. Satsang is not being in a beautiful spiritual conversation, no, satsang is the encounter with the pure and then realizing that you are that. And then you let it go... Thus the ultimate satsang is the ultimate encounter with the essence, silence... You could almost say that the Jnana teachers, i.e. Advaita Vedanta, invite you to evaporate in it, to fall into it, to drown in it, to vanish in it...”
“Its the same Silence...
in the eye of the hurricane,
in the flight of the eagle,
in the blossoming of the flowers and
in the whispering of the wind in de treetops...”