If we do not live and manifest in our lives what we realize in our deepest moments of revelation, then we are living a split life. (Location 134)
To clarify your aspiration means knowing exactly what it is that your spiritual life aspires to, not as a future goal but in each moment. In other words, what do you value most in your life—not in the sense of moral values, but in the sense of what is most important to you. Contemplate this question. Do not assume that you know what your highest aspiration is, or even what is most important to you. Dig deep within, contemplate, and meditate on what the spiritual quest is about for you; don’t let anyone else define your aspiration for you. Look within until you find, with complete clarity, what you aspire to. (Location 157)
Once you have clarified your aspiration, you now need to follow through on it. Following through has to do with what you are willing to do or let go of doing. (Location 173)
spirituality does not have to do with time or what can be achieved in time; it has to do only and always with the eternal present. (Location 177)
You do not need to be reminded of what you truly love, only of what you do not love. And what you actually love is most truly reflected in your actions, not in what you feel, think, or say. (Location 179)
The third Foundation is never abdicate your authority. This means that you take full responsibility for your life and never forfeit it over to someone else. (Location 185)
While there may be deep respect, love, and even devotion to one’s spiritual teacher, it is important not to abdicate all of your authority over to your spiritual teacher or project all divinity exclusively onto them. Your life belongs in your hands, not someone else’s. Take responsibility for it. (Location 192)
The same can be applied to a spiritual teaching. A spiritual teaching is a finger pointing toward Reality; it is not Reality itself. To be in a true and mature relationship with a spiritual teaching requires you to apply it, not simply believe in it. (Location 198)
A good spiritual teaching is something that you work with and apply. (Location 201)
In order to be sincere you must let go of being judgmental toward yourself. (Location 214)
There is no greater challenge for a human being than to be completely honest with oneself as well as with others, and yet such honesty is absolutely necessary if we are ever to awaken from our dream of separation and live a truly genuine and undivided life. (Location 218)
honestidad espiritualidad cita
Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening. By resisting or not dealing with its challenges, you stay asleep to Reality. Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace. (Location 233)
Chapter Two: THREE ORIENTING IDEAS
Within each of our forms lies the existential mystery of being. Apart from one’s physical appearance, personality, gender, history, occupation, hopes and dreams, comings and goings, there lies an eerie silence, an abyss of stillness charged with an etheric presence. (Location 250)
It is within the dimension of being that Truth reveals itself—not the truth of mathematics or chemistry, philosophy or history, but a Truth that begins to disclose itself in those quiet moments when the ordinary routine of life suddenly becomes transparent to a sublime sense of meaning and significance unknown in common hours. (Location 271)
The false self is the greatest barrier (all barriers are imagined, of course) to the realization of our true identity of universal being. The false self is essentially a psychological process occurring in the mind that organizes, translates, and makes sense (or in many cases nonsense) of all incoming data from the senses. When this psychological process mixes together with the self-reflexive movement of consciousness, it produces a sense of self. This sense of self then pervades consciousness as a sort of perfume that causes the mind to mistake what is actually a psychological process for being an actual separate entity called one’s self. This mistaken conclusion, that you are a distinct separate self, happens very early in life in a more or less automatic and unconscious way. (Location 287)
falso self meditación cita
The false self is essentially an imaginary by-product of the self-reflexive mechanism of consciousness identifying itself with the endless movement of conditioned thinking. (Location 303)
meditación cita favorite reificación ego
The problem is that the self that you became convinced was the real you is a phantom that exists only as an abstraction in your mind—animated by the conflicted emotional energy of separation. It’s about as real as last night’s dream. And when you stop thinking it into existence, it has no existence at all. That’s why it is false—which begs the question, who or what is the real you? (Location 305)
el Yo es algo que se mantiene xontinuamente a través del pensamiento
favorite cita ego meditación subjetividad reificación
The false self is both an obstacle and a doorway through which you must pass on your way to awakening to the dimension of being. As you pass through the void of self, the identification with self dies, either temporarily or permanently, and you are revealed (reborn) to be a presence. Presence is not a self in any conventional sense. It has no shape or form, no age or gender. It is an expression of universal being, the formless substance of existence. Presence is not subject to birth or death; it is not of the world of “things.” It is the light and radiance of consciousness in which entire worlds arise and pass away. (Location 312)
The greatest dream that we can have is to forget that we are dreaming. Lost in our mind’s imagined world of judgments, beliefs, and opinions, we are literally caught in a waking dream. (Location 333)
This tendency to take our thoughts to be real is what keeps the dream state intact and keeps us trapped within its domain of unconsciousness and strife. (Location 341)
Chapter Three: THE CORE PRACTICES
The indispensable element of any spiritual teaching does not lie in the teaching but rather in the sincerity and fearlessness of the person who applies it. (Location 378)
favorite cita práctica espiritualidad
The Core Practices are something that you need to get the feel of, somewhat like getting the feel of balance when learning to ride a bicycle. They need to become a part of you to truly work. The attitude with which you apply them is as important as the practice itself—which is a way of saying that you need to find a way of applying the Core Practices that suits your temperament and personal style. No one can tell you exactly how to do this. You simply discover it by trial and error. (Location 382)
Meditation is neither a means to an end nor something to perfect. Meditation done correctly is an expression of Reality, not a path to it. Meditation done incorrectly is a perfect mirror of how you are resisting the present moment, judging it, or attaching to it. Meditation acts as a perfect mirror, which reflects your relationship with yourself, life, and the present moment. By becoming intimately aware of how you are resisting or attaching to the content of the present moment, and how futile it is to continue to do so, you may discover what it means to truly drop all of your resistance to the present moment. (Location 407)
Meditation is the art of allowing everything to simply be in the deepest possible way. In order to let everything be, we must let go of the effort to control and manipulate our experience—which means letting go of personal will. (Location 413)
The silence and stillness of meditation is the bedrock upon which this teaching rests. It fosters an inward stability, objectivity, non-attachment, and depth of understanding unknown to the conceptual mind. (Location 418)
The attitude conducive to meditation is one of surrender, effortlessness, and openness. (Location 420)
Meditation is more a form of silent prayer than a technique to master. (Location 422)
definición cita favorite meditación
when doing meditation, you are making a commitment to something other than your restless mind. Meditation is not the time to be figuring things out or analyzing your experience. Neither should you be fighting your mind or trying to make it quiet. Just watch thoughts as you would watch clouds passing by in the sky. There is nothing personal about your thoughts. They are just phenomena passing through awareness. Meditation is not a technique to master; it is the highest form of prayer, a naked act of love and effortless surrender into the silent abyss beyond all knowing. Meditation is not something restricted to times of formal seated meditation; it is most fundamentally an attitude of being—a resting in and as being. Once you get the feel of it, you will be able to tune into it more and more often during your daily life. Eventually, in the state of liberation, meditation will simply become your natural condition. (Location 426)
favorite cita meditación disposición efectos
In True Meditation all objects (thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc.) are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to focus on, manipulate, control, or suppress any object of awareness. In True Meditation the emphasis is on being awareness—not on being aware of objects, but on resting as conscious being itself. In meditation you are not trying to change your experience; you are changing your relationship to your experience. (Location 446)
don’t fight against the fear, because this will only increase it. (Location 474)
rest in the imageless, silent source prior to all images, thoughts, and ideas. (Location 486)
The ultimate form of meditation is when the meditator falls completely away. (Location 504)
Although rooted in stillness, inquiry is the dynamic counterpoint to True Meditation. Meditation is soft, allowing surrender, while inquiry demands bold and fearless questioning. (Location 513)
Question your thoughts. Question your stories. Question your assumptions. Question your opinions. Question your conclusions. Question them all into utter emptiness, stillness, and joy. (Location 555)
You are not looking for answers as much as you are revealing and removing prior conditioned thoughts, ideas, and beliefs to make way for a deeper realization. For example, through such observation you can come to see that you are not the thoughts in your mind. By removing the false belief that any thought can tell you what you are, you make space for a deeper understanding to reveal itself. Having revealed and cleared out the false ideas of mind, you are now ready to rest in the stillness of being. (Location 563)
inquiry is also much more than a technique; it is an attitude. Inquiry is an attitude of curiosity that lives within you, and it is a reflection of your desire to know Truth and the nature of Reality. Inquiry also takes a type of courage that is willing to ask big questions that may shake up the very foundations of your life and put you face-to-face with issues you might rather avoid. (Location 577)
Contemplation is the art of holding a word or a phrase patiently in the silence and stillness of awareness until it begins to disclose deeper and deeper meanings and understandings. (Location 596)
Take a short phrase as your object of contemplation and simply hold it in your awareness for some time. Do not analyze or philosophize about it. And do not get lost in your imagination either. Just hold the phrase in awareness. Then be still. Let its meaning germinate within you. Then bring the word or phrase back into awareness again. Hold it there for some time, and then let it go and be still again. With a little practice you will get the hang of it and find your own rhythm. (Location 600)
CONCLUSION
Having an awakening to one’s true nature does not necessarily mean that there will be an ongoing revolution in the way one perceives, acts, and responds to life. The moment of awakening shows us what is ultimately True and real as well as revealing a deeper possibility in the way that life can be lived from an undivided and unconditioned state of being. But the moment of awakening does not guarantee this deeper possibility, as many who have experienced spiritual awakening can attest to. Awakening opens a door inside to a deep inner revolution, but in no way guarantees that it will take place. Whether it takes place or not depends on many factors, but none more important and vital than an earnest and unambiguous intention for Truth above and beyond all else. This earnest intention toward Truth is what all spiritual growth ultimately depends upon, especially when it transcends all personal preferences, agendas, and goals. (Location 711)
Beyond the realm of the mind, beyond the limitations of humanity’s conditioned consciousness, lies that which can be called the sacred. And it is from the sacred that a new and fluid consciousness is born that wipes away the old and brings to life the flowering of a living and undivided expression of being. Such an expression is neither personal nor impersonal, neither spiritual nor worldly, but rather the flow and flowering of existence beyond all notions of self. (Location 722)
we must leave the entire collection of conditioned thought behind and let ourselves be led by the inner thread of silence and intuitive awareness, beyond where all paths end, to that place of sacredness where we go innocently or not at all, not once but continually. (Location 730)
EPILOGUE
Imagine that as you are noticing this strange change taking place within yourself, that something even more unsettling occurs to you: that there is no inside of you; in fact, there is no self to be inside of. (Location 746)
You look out the window and … there is no out there. Everywhere you look is somehow in here, wherever here is. So you look through the window and everything out there, or over there, is inside of you—and not just inside of you, but is you. The ground and trees and fence over there, as well as the sky overhead and the white puffy clouds, everything is you. It doesn’t make sense but it’s about as obvious as breathing. What’s a self that’s the same as everything else? (Location 752)