Knowledge and Religion

Here's to Earth Day

Since it is Earth Day, a day that celebrates taking care of the earth, I thought you would like to know how we are connected to the earth. This will get to the heart of one of the deepest assumptions we make when trying to determine how to care for the earth. It is the assumption that we are separate from the world. If it turns out that the world is not separate from us, when we take care of the world we are taking care of our self. This will put our respect for the earth in a whole new perspective.

But you will rightfully ask, “How can the world be the same as us? It seems different. After all we see the world and what we see we are not, right?”

How can we be the same as the world?
To answer this question, you have to find a way of discovering what you are anyway. After all, bodies are separate from each other and from the world. The same is true of the thoughts in the mind. If we take this meditation through however, we will find that as space is not limited to a room or a pot, we are not limited to our body and mind.
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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In fact when you see a thing that you usually call me like a body or mind, you are just seeing an object, and you don’t feel like an object, do you? Did you ever wonder where you are located so that you can see the mind and body? If you were inexorably connected with them, could you see them? If you can find the place where you really stand, you will know by your identity that you are free of limitation. Like space, you are everywhere; you are also located nowhere in particular. In other words, you are not confined by the limitations that you see like those of the body and the mind.

So how can I find my real identity?
This is not a theory but something you can discover by diving deeply into your identity. If you can eliminate every object that you take to be you, you will end up with what you really are. You will not see yourself like you see a thing. You will know yourself in a more direct way. You will know yourself because that’s what you are. We call this type of knowledge, direct experience.

When you return home and stand in your real center as Consciousness and Bliss, you will see how you are really connected with the world. It is not a separate object that you can throw away at will. The world is not even here for your material gain.

The world is here so you can discover what you really are
Rather the world is here for a much deeper purpose: to help you discover what you really are. And in your identity you will find the source of wisdom, joy, and everlasting life. In fact your identity is so expansive that it includes everything that you perceive. And therefore you will treat the world with the same respect that you treat yourself.  And you will therefore take the meaning of Earth Day to a whole new level.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                        Best Wishes,

                                                                        Michael Gluckman

Recovering from the flu

Since I am now recovering from the flu, it is a good time to reflect on one of the major promises of Self-Knowledge: that you can transcend disease. Well, how can you meditate so that you can remain free, despite the condition of the body? Or maybe a more precise question is where can I meditate from so that I can be free of the condition of the body?

For instance, if your meditation practice depended on breathing exercises, what happens when your nose and lunges get stuffed up? Just when you need it the most, your practice becomes useless. Or if your peace depends on mental practices such as repeating mantras and your mind begins to fuzz out. All of the sudden it is impossible to concentrate on your mantra. And of course most critical, at the time of death the one who practiced mantra is the first to disappear. Then you come face to face with what you really take to be true.

So Find out what is really true and stand there
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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And here is the key to stepping beyond disease: find out what is really true and stand there. This is not merely intellectual knowledge because that’s not deep enough to step free of the pain and discomfort of disease. Rather you know truth because that’s what you are. Indeed you are the ultimate subject unaffected by the objects that you see. You are the Consciousness that lights up the world. It is by this Consciousness that you even know about the body and mind.

When you find your original nature you may appear to go ouch and writhe in pain. But you will still be free. That’s because you will be standing as the unseen light of the world. Standing here you are not affected by the limitations of the body and mind. I struggle here to explain something that is almost impossible to conceive. But once you discover your original identity you will wonder, “How did I ever miss this?”

You missed it because it is so close that you looked right past what you really are. You then took yourself to be limitations that weren't really you at all. They were just attached to your mind, body and your position in the world. To the light of Consciousness, your real identity, these are just things that appear for a tiny moment in time. Although they come and go, you are the thing that remains the same.

Here you will naturally be free from illness
So I encourage you to find out who you really are. Go back the way you came and find your original nature. Here you will experience what every sage promised. You will not only transcend old age, disease and death, you will get to experience life in its full glory. As amazing as it may sound everlasting life does not depend on the coming and going of the mind body and world. It is what you are even now.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                        Best Wishes,

                                                                        Michael Gluckman

Are you something or nothing?

When we talk about your identity as cosmic Consciousness and Bliss it may seem hard to determine what that is. At first it may seem as though you are nothing at all. As one questioner wrote, people want to be something, not nothing. But Consciousness and Bliss doesn’t seem to have the qualities of an individual and a personality, the things that we think make up something.

You shine by your own light
Even thought there is nothing in your identity that your mind can grasp onto, you can still know yourself. That’s because you are yourself. In other words you shine by your own light, without the need for another light. Attempting to comprehend your Awareness with your mind is like turning on a flashlight so that you can see the sun. As you know, a flashlight doesn’t help at all. The sun shines by its own light. In the same way you know Consciousness by standing in your original state where Awareness shines by itself; you do not know it as a separate thing that you see or think about.
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Give the gift of enlightenment to yourself and to others when you get Making Your Wisdom Come Alive. This book points to the wisdom and joy that you find at your center. Here you can find the light that makes life shine in its full glory.

For more information go to: Amazon.com

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The mind is too limited in its scope to know what you are. It is more like a computer that knows by comparison, long with short, good with bad, right with wrong etc. Since there are no opposites in your Self-Nature, the mind has no way of comprehending what you are. In fact it is because of the light of Awareness that you even know that there is a mind. You recognize this light by standing as Awareness, free from the limitations of the mind and body. Then you know directly what Awareness is. You do not know it as a separate object, but as your own being.

It is your own Self-Nature that supports this world
Let’s give some illustrations to help you see what we are talking about here: first one of Ramana Maharshi’s favorite illustrations. When you reach out to touch a movie you only touch the screen. And yet the characters in the movie go through their lives and all of their adventures, unaware that they are nothing but the screen. The thing that makes every individual, and every adventure, seem so solid and real is the screen.

In the same way, the thing that makes the world seem so real is your Awareness. In fact when your Awareness is not shinning on the world, the world is gone. That’s why when you dream, the waking world is gone. From within the dream the dream world seems equally real while the waking world does not even exist.

For example, if you tell the characters in your dream that this is just a dream they would reply, “No it’s not; we are awake.” If you don’t believe them they would pinch you and when you said “Ouch!” they will say, “See we are awake.”

The seeming reality of the dream came from your mind
But when you wake up you notice that the sense of reality that the dream had came from the mind of the waking one. No matter how many changes occurred to your fortune in the dream, the mind of the waking one remained the same. And then when you died and the dream disappeared, you saw that nothing really disappeared. The thing that made the dream seem so vivid and real remained, just as it always was.

And then when everything disappeared in deep dreamless sleep you felt just the same, as though nothing really changed. In fact you enjoy deep sleep and are happy when you have a restful night’s sleep. The reason you enjoy this state were nothing seems to be there, is because you are the thing that makes the world seem so real, and even when the world disappears, you alone are there.

You are the thing that makes the world shine
So when you discover your real nature, you not only find that you are something, you are the thing that makes the world shine. You are more real than the world. That’s because the world depends on you. You do not depend on the world. Indeed the something that you are is much greater than you could ever imagine. But it is so close that once you find it, you can never lose what you are; since there is no separation, your real identity is everlasting.

So give up limited objects like the body and mind. They are just too cramped for you. Without these boundaries you will find the eternal peace that is the reality behind the world. So we wish you the best in your search for your original nature. When you find this place of wisdom and peace, you will not be disappointed.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                        Best Wishes,

                                                                        Michael Gluckman