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  • Steady Wisdom: Day 18

    Steady Wisdom: 108 Days of Changing My Thinking

    DAY 18

    Ever free from name, form and action, I am the self, the supreme brahman, one without a second.
    -Upadesha Sahasri 11:7 (Metrical)

    Meditation

     I am the self, the supreme brahman, one without a second.  Since I alone exist, how could I be anything other than myself?  The body-mind is merely a fleeting form described by an arbitrary name.  But I am the ever-present nameless reality that underlies all names and forms, myself defying all description–I cannot be the body-mind.  Because I am not the body-mind, I perform no actions and reap no results.  I have no karma.  I am the ever-free self. OM. 

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  • Steady Wisdom: Day 17

    Steady Wisdom: 108 Days of Changing My Thinking

    DAY 18

    That which has form is impermanent and unreal. I am formless, permanent and real. Knowing this, I am freed from death and rebirth.
    – Ashtavakra Samhita 1:18
    Meditation

    The definition of real is: permanent and unchanging.  For how could something be real if it is here one moment and gone the next?  How could something be real if it is one thing one moment and something else the next?  By that definition, the body and mind cannot be real.  They are mere forms, continuously changing transient objects that are known to me.  Being unreal, they cannot be me.  Being known to me, they cannot be me.  Only the body and mind are subject to death and rebirth.  Knowing that I cannot be the body and mind, I recognize that I always have and always will be free from death and rebirth.  OM.  

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  • Steady Wisdom: Day 16

    Steady Wisdom: 108 Days of Changing My Thinking

    Day 16

    I have neither mother nor father nor children.  I was never born nor will I ever die.  The mind does not belong to me.  I am the absolute reality, always steady, never agitated.  I am immortal consciousness, ever the same like space. 
    -Avadhuta Gita 3:22
    Meditation

    The illusory body has a mother and a father—this is true.  But to say that I, immortal consciousness, have a mother and father?  That is false. I am existence itself, absolute reality, and whatever truly exists always has and always will exist.  So I cannot come into being—I have always been.  Therefore I was never born. 

    The illusory body begets children—this is also true.  But to say that I, immortal consciousness, beget children?  That is also false.  I am existence itself, absolute reality.  I am one without a second, for what could exist but existence itself?  There is none other than me so nothing can truly arise or descend from me.  And that includes the mind; like the body it is merely illusion.  As such I am never subject to its wavering or agitation.  Like space, I remain steady and ever the same. OM.     

    Read Series Introduction

     

  • Steady Wisdom: Day 15

    Steady Wisdom: 108 Days of Changing My Thinking

    Day 15

    I am not the body, which is a combination of material elements, nor am I a collection of the senses.  I am the self, different from both of these.
    Aparokshanubhuti V.13
    Meditation

    I am the self, as different from the body and senses as light from darkness.  How so? The body is insentient matter—but I am consciousness itself.  The senses know objects—but the senses themselves are objects to me, the conscious subject.  The body and senses come, go and change—but I, the witness of the body and senses, remain unchanged.  When gold assumes the form of a ring, its nature as gold remains unaffected.  Similarly, when I assume the form of the body and senses my nature as consciousness-existence remains unaffected.  I am the limitless self. OM. 

    Read Series Introduction

  • Steady Wisdom: Day 14

    Steady Wisdom: 108 Days of Changing My Thinking

    DAY 14

    This is the absolute truth: I am neither gross nor subtle; I neither come nor go; I have no beginning, middle or end; there is no higher or lower in me. I am immortal consciousness, ever the same like space.
    – Avadhuta Gita 3:6
    Meditation

    I am neither a physical object like the body nor a mental object like a thought. Unlike them, I neither come nor go, I neither begin nor end. Instead, I am ever-present as their immortal witness, consciousness itself. And yet, like space, there are no divisions in me: no higher and lower, real and unreal, subject and object, knower and known. In truth, I am non-dual reality and all appearance of difference in me is falsehood. As such, I take the various states of the body-mind in stride, recognizing them for the illusory objects they are.

    Read Series Introduction