Satya Aletheia

…This mirror seemed to fascinate the Swami. He stood before it again and again, gazing at himself intently. In between he walked up and down the room, lost in thought. Miss Waldo’s eyes followed him anxiously. “Now the bubble is going to burst”, she thought. “He is full of personal vanity.” Suddenly he turned to her and said: “Ellen, it is the strangest thing, I cannot remember how I look. I look and look at myself in the glass, but the moment I ‘ turn away I forget completely what I look like.”

Once, a simple Narendranath Dutta; who later grew to be known as one of the greatest saints to have walked the Earth — in the name of Swami Vivekananda. The above excerpt is from a story told to Sister Devamata by Miss Waldo. 

The Swami just reminded us that what is insignificant can be forgotten. 

But, the challenge is to understand and learn what is really insignificant.

“Not”, “Nothing”, “Void”, “Emptiness” is all perceived to be negative and thereby undesirable. The human mind which is always trained to know, to gather, to hold onto, finds these phrases demeaning and obnoxious. In the process, a lot of refuse gets gathered and we simply refuse to let go of them. We are so eager to know what is the truth that, we fail to see what cannot be the truth.

Man is always in the pursuit of what his identity is. 

“Who am I?” is the question we are taught to ask ourselves from time immemorial. 

We are bound by shackles of our opinions and beliefs. 

Our so called notions of who we are and what we are. 

In turn keeping us away from what and who we really are. 

How can we find the truth, if I do not know to let go of what is not the truth. 

There is no room in a full cup, is there?

We are too scared to admit that we are not something. 

It is alright that we are not. 

The first step to see the Atman in us, is that we discover, accept and let go of the anatman. 

Sosan, a Zen scholar rightly said that one cannot see the truth until we get rid of our opinions.

A small excerpt from an interview(a samvaad session with Shri Prashant) that caught my attention — 

“There would be very few amongst us who would say, ‘Well sir, I don’t really know.’ And when you don’t really know, there is a possibility of knowing. When you already know so much, how can you know?”

This is the heart of the Neti Neti culture. 

A term that simply means - not this, not that. 

In other words — Nothingness that can help us transcend to the realms beyond. 

Neti Neti culture encourages us to realize that we are not any of the things we normally identify with. 

Be it our personalities, thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, bodies, sensations, perceptions, will, gender, sexual orientation, or jobs. Not even our roles as parents, children, or siblings. 

Neti Neti shares that the root cause of one’s misery and suffering is primarily because we strongly believe that we attach to and are limited by each of these. We attach to external labels and external conditioning and attach to believing that these are the limits of who we are. We comply, we are obedient, we meekly follow and confusingly digress without focus. We get distracted and conditioned by all these external, limiting attachments and never get to realise, who we really are without them.

Satya. Aletheia. Truth. 

The Truth — as echoed in the Vedas or the ancient Greek philosophy, is much larger than these attached qualities or external labels and roles alone. 

And thus, Neti-Neti shines brightly with an aligned harmonic, an overtone that says,

”Beyond this, beyond this”. 

There is a reflection of The One True Nature in you.

Take courage to embark on an inner journey, 

the bravest pilgrimage within to seek the Liberated Atman (soul) who already resides within all of us. 

All we may eventually realise is, that there is nothing to realise. 

We already are the unwavering, unadulterated True Nature. From love NOT for love. 

Fullfilled to a shared love overflowing, once we create the pure and simple joy within to hold and contain and then share these multitudes. So simple, let go all that we are not. And what remains? 

Only you will realise, whenever you are ready to receive, your own true nature, without any external attachments. 

All ideologies attached to the dis integrated ego are limiting, whether spiritual, religious or political. For it is any divisive attached thinking and conditional conceptual beliefs, which has so unfortunately divided both the individuals mind and a conditionally compliant, unthinking human kind. 

Just because a person has a gorgeous heart and gentle nature doesn't mean they're naive or fragile. You never know what kind of chaos it took for someone to become that calm. Don't mistake kindness for weakness, those people have survived the hardest battles, they observe, they listen and are strong. 

They also realise that the only power anything external or conditional has over you is what you allow. Ignore conversionists, ignore distractions, ignore the followers lost in living a compliant attached life. Instead connect and pay attention to the unwavering reality of this one moment, stay focused in and on this one moment, consciously maintain a spacious inner joy, as a simple ease and grace. Create and hold space firstly for your own true nature, once realised, then share and commune and Lighten up by letting go of each and every moment. Freshen up. Be connected fully in each moment and then Let go of each moment. If you think that peace and happiness are somewhere else and you run after them, you will never arrive.

Enjoy each moment fully. Then move on. Level up, Rise up. Freshen up. Lighten TF up. Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything, anger, anxiety, or possessions, or the past 5 minutes, we cannot be free. You don’t need anything or anyone to make you happy. You already are the happiness, once you realise, there is nothing to realise. There is no journey, no path, no healing, no secret. Once we drop all that we are not. 

There is never a reason attached to a state of your true natured being, you simply are coming from love and not for love, that has always been your state of being as originally conceived. 

"Dive deeper past attached thoughts into silence, 

past silence into the void of stillness. 

Past stillness into the Wide Open Heart. 

Let love consume all that is left of you. 

Get drunk on that tender adoring love. 

That is The Eternal Soul of  Happiness. 

The Infinite Bliss. From Love not for love. 

Love is a State of Being, Simply, 

for NO attached Reason."

Tony Searl