Pirkei Avot on Silent Truth
“Ultimate truth is wordless. The silence within the silence.“
— Pirkei Avot
Dogen Zenji on Serene Reflection Meditation
“Just sitting, neither trying to think nor trying not to think, is the important aspect of Serene Reflection Meditation.“
— Dogen Zenji
Non-dualism: The Art of the Shortcut | Swami Sarvapriyananda
The Direct Path
Swami Sarvapriyananda gives a discourse on the direct path of Advaita Vedanta. Vedanta is one of the world’s most ancient religious philosophies and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the being, and the harmony of religions.
“The objects of knowledge, viz., sound, touch, etc., which are perceived in the waking state, are different from each other because of their peculiarities; but the consciousness of these, does not differ because of its homogeneity.”
Talk was inspired by this verse from the book, Pancadasi by Vidyaranya.
The underlying teaching inspiring and expressed during our gatherings is the remembrance of our reality, true nature of non-duality: Continuing from last week where we watched Anne Breytenbach, animal communicator – the underlying universal truth of shared space being, non-duality is what makes her connection and communication with animals possible. As she expresses and shares, abiding in this space silence and acting from this space of non-duality, separation dissolves, time and space are non-existent.
The same teaching is affirmed by Swami Sarvapriyananda. He is Indian Vedic monk in the Advaita Vedanta – non duality tradition.
Belonging to the Ramakrishna Order. He is the current resident Swami and head of the Vedanta Society of New York, a position he has been serving since January 2017.
Lots of Sanskrit terms in this talk but explained beautifully and clearly.
“If you look for consciousness, you will never find it…because consciousness itself is the one that is looking…Misery is in the mind. You are not happy or miserable, you are not old or young. The changes are in the body or in the mind, not in consciousness-{awareness).”
Swami Sarvapriyananda
Swami Sarvapriyananda on Finding Consciousness
“If you look for consciousness, you will never find it…because consciousness itself is the one that is looking…Misery is in the mind. You are not happy or miserable, you are not old or young. The changes are in the body or in the mind, not in consciousness-{awareness).“
— Swami Sarvapriyananda
Anna Breytenbach on the Spiritual Teaching of Animals
“I have found the animals and the natural world at large to have been my greatest spiritual teacher…even in the context of sitting for over 10 years with a Sangha…If what can be regarded as spiritual qualities across any discipline include states of being like presence and awareness and absolute acceptance of what is, then the nonhuman animals have got it…readily available to them…shining…is a present authenticity.
This is about helping us humans remembering our original wiring, how our brains and how the intelligence of our hearts was once in our conscious awareness, deeply wired to the collective of all the beings in our immediate environment.
Every particle of soil under our feet, the spider and her web, the leaf on every tree, the root under the ground or the deer species in the distance. And as we again remember through communication, through connections, we literally again, become members of a great collective…unified in our shared awareness.
And we experience ourselves less and less as separate from the web of life.“
— Anna Breytenbach
BK Shivani on Creating Your Own Responses
“They were only the stimulus. The stimulus does not create my response. I am the creator of my response…I have a choice always, and with everyone….Every time my mind (blames and) says “they did it to me” I just need to withdraw, take that one moment of silence and remember “I created it”…Meditation means creating a very beautiful relationship, connecting with the source of unconditional love, our original nature of purity, peace and love.“
— BK Shivani
Stephen Jenkinson on Befriending Death
“I was exposed enough not just to my personal death but to the endings of fellow humans by the hundreds. And the consequence of that has been that I “long” after life even though I’m so very much alive…one way to be alive as a practice is to remember your death and to befriend it as an adversary and therefore, as an ally, not as an enemy. The presence of the adversary prompts better and deeper understanding in you.“
— Stephen Jenkinson
Sadhguru on the Importance of Silence
“See if you can articulate the same thing in half the number of words. Suddenly you will become extremely conscious of everything!“
— Sadhguru, The Importance of SILENCE
Dr. Yoko Kawai on Blurring Boundaries
“The blurring of boundaries, moving self, changing space, are Japanese spatial concepts steeped in the framework of this mind-body-space relationship that explain why Japanese gardens, tea rooms, and temples seem to encourage us to feel contemplative.“
— Dr. Yoko Kawai (paraphrased from this complete talk)
Kamo-No Chomei on Indistinct Depth
“When looking at autumn mountains through mist, the view may be indistinct, yet have great. depth.“
— Kamo-No Chomei, 12th century