Thiruvannamalai Karthikai Deepam

This film really shows how it is like during Deepam in Tiru. I have been to three festivals but am not ina hurry to go for another . So many people chaos . I almost died after the last Deepam falling of a scooter . always a strong time to be there to walk around Arunachala.

Papaji Ramana Song ; One Day Harilal

This is a song I wrote before a celebration of Ramana Maharshi in Lucknow .I just started to weave words to the music as if telling a story and for a while I only had two verses. Then one day I wrote the third after Papaji left the body . His love of Krishna inspired this and my love of Poonja inspired to write about his meeting with his Master .

Ramana Maharshi's Home - Arunachala

Shiva Shiva
Mahadeva
Mahadeva

A Brilliant Appearance

Flower along the trail

This entry is an extension from the quote I have given from Yoga Vasistha in the post below. I wrote this the following day after I thought I lost that entry .

Kumbh Mela

One of the scriptural texts I re-read, a unique work that is highly respected for it's practical mysticism is said to be like nectar by Siddha's . The Yoga Vasistha is the teaching of sage Vasistha to Lord Rama . It is a clear understanding about the creation of the world , that all is Consciousness, including the material world that we see.That this is nothing but Leela or a play of Consciousness.

Leela

Upon looking carefully at this picture which is spread before us everyday, we can percieve a pure and untainted screen of Awareness pervading all images and movements which appear as the world, Consciousness. In our daily life it is in all the activities we undertake to get things done , the mind battling backwards and forwards (like a doer or karmi does) and especially in believing it to be super real we cannot see it as a super imposition .

Like Indra's Net

Upon investigation we will see that everything is merely a reflection of Awareness!If this has gone over your head, a good analogy is a mirror . When we look into a mirror it reflects back an image , upon wakeing we see an entire creation ,sea,sky,people,children, stars, valleys and mountains reflected .If you get a mirror and smash it into a million pieces , you will see your image a million times reflected from one mirror . This world appearance is the reflection (Consciousness or existence appearing) in the clear mirror of Awareness. Consciousness appearing in Awareness is pointing to our existence or non existence. We see and say , "That's me, that's you , that's a table " and in this is the begining of the investigation, this knowledge is there to inquire. One day the question is bound to arise "what is all this ? why am I here ? for what purpose is this life for?" etc .There is some intelligence reflecting saying

Beyond the cockatoo's

"Look!" and like looking into a mirror or a still lake we will see that BEYOND all the images and BENEATH all the names , is a spacious clarity.Untouched like the mirror unattached to our reflection, a clear ocean of unfound Awareness.This Awareness is even empty, of space and time and it cannot be separated from any image or imagined being -- there is not even a BENEATH to define. Even the beingness that we are, is empty if you just turn your attention towards yourself ,so even this Consciousness is empty of itself! Yet it is appearing in Awareness which has no condition . The conditioned appears within the unconditioned as world appearance and gives way to infinte diversity like many different clouds appearing in the spacious clear sky.


Many Clouds in Space

To the religious it is the same as saying God . But this is not a God that is personal , sitting over our heads in judgement or hiding somewhere seeing everything that we are doing , though that was taught to me in school in some clever way to control and manipulate . This cleverness is a way to make us believe we are really doing good and right and not wrong and bad, we conform to what others are telling us to do .

Presently Unconditioned

Unconditioned and without any quality is Awareness ,single and together , together without being single, with the other yet full of both and no other.This can only be understood if you see for yourself,by yourself , and in seeing for yourself you see that you have no understanding,that you cannot attain understanding whatsoever.Here in lies something that I can never understand at all! HA HA ha hahahaha:D!

Mahasamadhi

Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Swaha !

Gone , Gone , Gone Beyond, Completely Gone Beyond Enlightenment, Hail!

Neither Bondage Nor Liberation

The Yoga Vasistha is a book that I continually return to read . It has been the only book that I have for contemplative reading . It is esentially the record of dialogue between Lord Ram and his Guru Vasistha , who is always telling him what the nature of Self is .

I am what I am

"the mind itself gets involved in this world appearance by entertaining countless notions (like "I am weak, unhappy. foolish, etc).When the understanding arises that all this is the false creation of the mind , I am what I am - then the peace of the supreme arises in ones consciousness.

There are no waves in the ocean

The mind is like the vast ocean with infinite variety of creatures within it,on the surface of which ripples and waves of different sizes rise and fall . The small wave thinks it is small ; the big one that it is big . The one that is broken by the wind thinks it has been destroyed. One thinks it is cold, another that it is warm . But all the waves are but the water of the ocean . It is indeed true to say that there are no waves in the ocean ;the ocean alone exist. Yet , it is also true that there are waves !

Infinite faculties appears as the infinite diversity

Even so the absolute Brahman alone exist. Since it is omnipotent , the natural expression of its infinite faculties appears as the infinte diversity in this universe. Diversity has no real existence except in ones own imagination. "All this is indeed the absolute Brahman"-remain established in this truth. Give up all other notions . Even as the waves , etc . are non different from the ocean, all these things are non different from Brahman. Even as in the seed is hidden the entire tree in potential, in Brahman there exists the entire universe forever .Even as the multicoloured rainbow is produced by sunlight, all this diversity is seen in the one .Even as the inert web emanates from the living spider, this inert world appearance has sprung from the infinite consciousness.

All this diversity is seen in the one

Even as the silk worm weaves its cocoon and thus binds itself , the infinite being fancies this universe and gets caught in it . Even as an elephant effortlessly breaks loose from the post to which it is tied, the self liberates itself from it's bondage. For , the self is what it considers itself to be . In fact , there is neither bondage or liberation for the Lord. I do not know how these notions of bondage and liberation have come into being!There is neither bondage nor liberation , only that infinite being is seen :yet the eternal is veiled by the transient, and this is indeed a great wonder (or a great illusion) .

Outside Vasistha's Cave

Though revolving thus in the wheel of ignorance and delusion , when one steps on to the wisdom concerning the supreme truth he is instantly redeemed . "

Still Place Within

Greeting the Balga spirit .

I decided to try my luck at some photo work , it looked like rain was coming and would love to catch the glint of shining beads resting on the plants out there .So I ventured down a trail that I have just started to get to know more of. I don't think I got a lot of interesting shots so here are some . I got a soaking and met up with a park ranger on the way through , was curious to know where the firebreak was going to . These dark trees are called Balga bush and have medicinal qualities but I can't recall what for . Anyway I love them .It gets very quiet out there and still. Only the flight of silver eye darting from bushes and kookaburra's slicing the air catch my eye. Ants show me their wonderful circular entrance holes and a rabbit hurry's past like he's late . I missed capturing the silver beads resting in the sunlight .The green paths did'nt let me in the rain .

This Balga is very very old and has seen many bushfires.

Looking up on this grass tree I came up with this info :

Xanthorrhoea drummondii shrumbs called grass trees rise above the sand plain. Aborigines named them balga, meaning "black boy," because fires often burn away the bottom leaves, leaving a humanlike silhouette. Usually balgas grow little more than an inch a year; after a fire, they can grow almost five inches in a season. The shrubs are old; they were dominant Australian vegetation when dinosaurs roamed the continents.

I just love them .

Taking a corner .

I lay under this dead tree and watched passing clouds.

Last few days Rainbow came .

A mobile of shells hanging in space .

At home .

The Moon hangs like a Chinese painting .

Here you cannot forget or remember

Useless Guys

“The very idea that you need to be something different that you are, the idea that there is something you can get, all that was placed into you!” ......UG Krishnamurti .

A reflection appearing confused

Morning walk

Sometimes I can wake up in the morning and feel like I have had enough. Enough of the whole thing in the sense that I have to do something to make something of myself. It is like a confused message maybe a mild depression , yet not like the one Lord Ram had (as depicted in the Yoga Vasistha). That you have to show the world that you are doing right and good and on the other hand here is another world, another layer which is secret and in a lot of ways ,unspoken. It is the intimate side of seeing without having all this commentary and expectations from society or the mind. It is the silent and immediate

ordinariness of just being where you are which is contented. The people I meet and friends tell me this story one way or another or they convey some secret life in bits and pieces just enough to hear before I jump in my van and go home. Either they can say 'so what!’, and in so doing, reveal some ordinariness to me . Otherwise they ride the wave of wonder and see in delight .Some great experience which arrives in this silent and never ending self. This experience then disappears to absolve everything including the experience. How this is known I have no idea, but can only see the path and invisible line which runs there or here.

From itself to itself

What am I writing about? You may ask .Well it’s about what happens to us everyday, either you have a good day or you have a bad day or you have some underlying unsatisfactory feeling that lurks just there in the back ground while your having a good day :) or neither . Meanwhile I will get on with the job of being sucessful in this world. So something is missing in that ,and we have to look and see what the missing one is all about. Where is the gap gone that we have to fill? Now when we have a chance and really see.

See Ying Yang

And that means having a really good direct look at yourself, we will see or experience a place where our mouth is shut and our senses will be still and listening will be muted. Then nothing is missing and all is without words or understanding. Instead we are just as we are without any understanding. Passing all understanding as the biblical saying goes ‘the peace that passeth understanding ’.Here you cannot forget or remember anything, and your memory is not needed. So this raises another curious question can an Alzheimer patient forget themselves?

Sunrays

Yet aside from this you may ask how does this happen? How and what are you talking about?.......... “Of course I am happy; I’m not having midlife crisis like you are. I 'm not waiting for the love of my life. I’m just cruising along singing my song and people are very loving all the time, or I am or if I’m not I’m trying to be” ……………. "Consider the lilies of the fields" …………….I hear a voice drop into the quiet pool of my mind. I certainly have to let you know that I am not going to tell you something that you do not know. That you do know the answer is something that most teachers and masters will tell you blatantly. For example one wild and wise friend of mine has said “You are asking questions to which you already have the answers. If you did not have the answer, you could not have the question.” Or just go to any Satsang now a days and you will hear the same message that has been told thousands of years before Christ, any good Vedantin will tell you “You are whole and complete as you are” already.



In the fullness is the fullness.

Why just look at the mantra that begins in the Ishavasyo Upanishad:

Om pUrNamadah pUrNamidam pUrNAt pUrNamudachyate pUrNasya pUrNamAdAyapUrNamevAvashiShyateOm shAntih, shAntih, shAntihi

[Completeness is that, completeness is this,from completeness, completeness comes forth.Completeness from completeness taken away,completeness to completeness added,completeness alone remains.Peace, peace, peace!]

Om
So, you are complete, whole and action less. Yet you can have a house full of books and still try to get something, to acquire; that state of unending perfect happiness. And this can never be a state you can have permanently. Yet you are already the something that you are missing, not only that, you are NOT this some thing (you are NOT separate) and this you have to find out for yourself:) To sit quietly and see is what matters and to see without seeing with a wandering mind that wants to fix and understand. To understand this you have to feel deeper than your thoughts. By feel I do not mean emotionally but to look directly at existence and plunge to where this comes from.

Going to the Roots

Do you see the infinity of yourself? Is it not unending? You cannot take away or add anything to the nature that is you. Does this mean I know more than you or that you know more than me? What am I understanding? Or is it beyond understanding.

You cannot take away or add anything

Looking and not looking happen within this unending nature. Expectation, unsatisfactory feelings arise in this unending vision. The appearance of coming and going can hypnotize us into believing that we are not complete .As one good friend advised me when I told him about a relationship that was not going right , “ Don’t let this ruin your holiday!” Well is this complete? It certainly looks unfinished but I can't continue further than this .

Walks Into The

An early morning walk and I saw this .

I went out after a week of rains and captured these ducks preening themselves on the lake near our home. It was great to get out after the wild seas and winds that lashed the porch .

Some more natural patterns show around the garden and I captured a micro shot of the leaves leaning quietly and at ease.

Water patterns in the crystal clear shimmer .

Above is the winding path of trees I came across when walking in the Denmark forest , I managed to capture a sense of transending into foresty silence .The friends I accompanied disappeard not to be found , alone I wandered after them .





One of the many shells on the porch . Spirals upon spirals leading naturally to the center of it self .

Walking the dog , the sea was welcome .

and contentment reigns!

I lay down on the dune and look up through the reeds to the sky.

And die .

Then I hear the barking of a dog !

And walk home .