ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

 

The Enlightened Mind[1]

 

Gregory of Nyssa (331 - 395 C.E.)

The divine nature, as it is in itself, according to its essence, transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and it cannot be approached or attained by speculation. Men have never discovered a faculty to comprehend the incomprehensible; nor have we ever been able to devise an intellectual technique for grasping the inconceivable. For this reason the apostle Paul calls God’s ways “unsearchable,” teaching us by this that the way which leads to the knowledge of the divine nature is inaccessible to our reason; and hence none of those who have lived before us has given us the slightest hint of comprehension suggesting that we might know that which is above all knowledge...

 

The Lord does not say that it is blessed to know something about God, but rather to possess God in oneself: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” By this I do not think he means that the man who purifies the eye of his soul will enjoy am immediate vision of God; rather I think this marvellous saying teaches us the same lesson that the Word expressed more clearly to others when He said: “The kingdom of God is within you.”

 

The dark cloud of matter will be removed from the eye of your soul, and then you will see clearly that blessed vision within the pure brilliance of your own heart.[2]

 

Isaac of Nineveh (c. 580)

Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.[3]

 

Muhammad (570 - 632)

Whoever knows himself knows God.[4]

 

Abu Yazid Al-Bistami (c. 874)

I sloughed off my old self as a snake sloughs off its skin. Then I looked into myself and saw that I am He.[5]

 

Shankara (686 - 718)

I do not require any special condition or proof in order to know my own name. Similarly, for a knower of Brahman, the knowledge that “I am Brahman” does not require any proof...

 

This Atman shines with its own light. Its power is infinite. It is beyond sense knowledge. It is the source of all experience. He who knows the Atman is free from every kind of bondage... The things perceived by the senses cause him neither grief nor pleasure. He is not attached to them. Neither does he shun them. Constantly delighting in Atman, he is always at play within himself...[6]

 

Padmasambhava (c. 780)

This mind of yours is inseparable luminosity and emptiness in the form of a great mass of light; it has no birth or death, therefore it is the Buddha of Immortal Light. To recognize this is all that is necessary. When you recognize this pure nature of your mind as the Buddha, looking into your own mind is resting in the Buddha-mind.[7]

 

Your own mind is originally as pure and empty as the sky. To know whether or not this is true, look inside of your own mind.

 

Without beginning or ending, your original mind has been shinning forever, like the sun. To know whether or not this is true, look inside of your own mind....

 

All phenomena are your own ideas, self conceived in the mind like reflections in a mirror. To know whether or not this is true, look inside of your own mind.[8]

 

Huang Po (c. 849)

All Buddhas and all ordinary beings are nothing but the one mind.

 

When most people hear that the Buddhas transmit the teaching of the one mind, they suppose that there is something to be attained or realized apart from mind, and they use mind to seek the teaching, not realizing that mind and the object of their search are one. Mind cannot be used to seek mind; if it is, even after millions of eons have gone by, the search will still not be over.... When you prevent the rise of conceptual thinking, you will be free men, and this just means you will realize that the Buddha has always existed in your own mind.[9]

 

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)

What is necessary, after all, is only this; solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain.[10]

 

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.

 

A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature.[11]

 

Ramana Maharishi (1879 - 1950)

Nobody doubts that he exists, though he might doubt the existence of God. If he finds out the truth about himself and discovers his own source, this is all that is required.

 

We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term. But how can one real-ize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that.

 

If the mind is happy, not only the body but the whole world will be happy. So one must find out how to become happy oneself. Wanting to reform the world without discovering one’s true self is like trying to cover the whole world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.

 

Every being in the world longs to be always joyful, without any taint of sorrow. At the same time, everyone loves himself best. Love is caused by joy. Therefore, joy must lie inside oneself. In order to realize this inherent and untainted joy, which we indeed experience every night when the mind is subdued in deep dreamless sleep, it essential that one know oneself.

 

He should have a constant and passionate longing to break free from life’s sorrow - not by running away from it, but by growing beyond his mind and thoughts and by experiencing in himself the reality of the Self, which knows neither birth nor death.[12]

 

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951)

If the place I want to arrive at could only be reached by a ladder, I would give up trying to arrive at it. For the place I really have to reach is where I must already be. What is reachable by a ladder doesn’t interest me.

 

The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.[13]

 

I can well imagine a religion in which there are no doctrines, so that nothing is spoken. Clearly, then, the essence of religion can have nothing to do with what is sayable. [What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.[14]]