"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Sunday, December 9, 2018

Nothing Can Harm the Self

Sri Annamalai Swami

Q: But is there anything I can do to discover this? Is not all effort pointless if everything that happens to me is predestined?

AS: All these doubts that are troubling you arise simply because you are enmeshed in the 'I am the body' thought and all the confusing consequences that it brings. It is more productive to keep the awareness 'I am the Self' than to be analyzing the usefulness of effort. Sadhana, effort and practice, and any ideas you may have about them, are concepts that can only arise when you believe that you are not the Self, and when you believe that you have to do something to reach the Self.

Even the sequence, "To who has this thought come? To me" is based on ignorance of the truth. Why? Because it is verbalizing a state of ignorance; it is perpetuating an erroneous assumption that there is a person who us having troublesome thoughts. You are the Self, not some make-believe person who is having thoughts.

If you remain in the Self, no harm can come to you. In that state, whatever comes to you will not be a problem. There is no duality when you remain as the Self; no thoughts about what you should or should not do, and no thoughts about what can be done or what can't be done. The main things is not to go out of the Self. When you have switched on the light, darkness cannot come, not even if you desire it.

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सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad