Pure Experiences

Teachings of Ranjit Maharaj : Part-5 : Death

Reading about the teachings of Ranjit Maharaj with commentary. Death is an illusion. Ignorance brings fear of death, and odd, irrational behaviour. Those who know death, know life. How long can you postpone the understanding of who you are? Death is knocking on your door. It is never too late to know, and that is our purpose for assuming a perishable form.

The Sunday Q&A #22 : Part-1 : Witnessing

What is the practice of witnessing? How to do it and who does it? What happens when there is uninterrupted witnessing? How is deep sleep like? Lets see deeper into the mind and its witness. This is part-1 of 2 of the recording.

My Name is Bond, Karmic Bond

Many of our actions produce a residue on the universal memory. These manifest as bonds or debts, wherein we are trapped. A seeker realises this quickly and endeavours to break these bonds, tries to pay them off. What are these bonds? How to break free from them? Let us see.

The Sunday Q&A #11 : The Mental Reality, Ancestors, Jeev, Duties of a Seeker

How is everything mental in nature? What are ancestors? Is there a bigger me? Why are we here? What should a seeker do?

Two years of Pure Experiences Podcast and a Note of Thanks

On the occasion of completion of two years of this podcast I wish to thank all the listener and I also share a bit of history, a bit of my personal life, and a small story about the pitfalls of teaching.

The Sunday Q&A #8 : Guides, Spiritual Evolution, Universal Mind, and the Plot Twist

Where are my spiritual guides? What can I do to make myself worthy of being guided? Does the universal mind help seekers? How can I bypass this whole trouble of spiritual evolution?

Experience or Evidence

What is the sure way to know? Can knowledge be obtained via evidences provided by others? What constitutes an evidence? Who should we believe? Answers to these important questions are very simple but are truly mind blowing.

The Guru Field

A Guru is much more than a person. The Guru field manifests through many things and events. We are all connected to the same one Guru field. It is right here, right now. All you need is a deep longing for knowledge and a strong intention, and you will receive. Lets say thank you to this Guru field.

The Sunday Q&A #01

Is enlightenment instantaneous, or is it gradual? Which practice will lead to enlightenment? How to be the witness and remain as non-doer? Is there a supreme doer? What happens when I let go of doership and ownership? Lets discuss these questions.

Happiness and Freedom (Remastered)

There is often this question that, given our current existence as a human being with a body and a mind, what one should do? In other words how to live this human life? Most of us blindly follow what others are doing, or whatever we were told to do, resulting in a less than optimal experience. We will see that the goal has been already set for you, and it is - Happiness and Freedom. No matter what you do, you end up choosing an action that leads to happiness and freedom. We are incapable of choosing anything else. We will discuss about how to achieve this effortlessly and practically. (This is a remastered and edited version of an earlier podcast).

Parasitic Beliefs

Beliefs are assumptions, ideas not founded on the evidence gained via direct experience or logic. Beliefs lead to suffering, for they are just ignorance. They can be difficult to get rid of, they are parasitic. A gyani must always keep his guard up against blind beliefs. Not knowing is of more value than knowing.

What Is My Essence? : Part-2 : Realizing The Oneness

The essence of I cannot be seen as an object. This puts the mind in a difficult position, which can know only objects. We see limitations of the mind or intellect immediately. We take the next step, and see the experience and the experiencer as two sides of the same coin, inseparable and an appearance in that which is not-two.

What Is My Essence? : Part-1 : Self Realization

Who am I or what is my essence is the most important question one can ask. This is the Self Enquiry. This talk is an introduction to the enquiry and is meant for beginners. We define the essence as that which remains unchanged, and progressively eliminate all that is non-essential, changing and unnecessary. In this way we arrive at the real I.

Renunciation

Renunciation is not about forcing yourself to get rid of everything you own, it is simply a realization that I never owned anything, there is nothing to own, there is no me to possess anything. And the Self is not concerned with owning or disowning, it is forever free, the owner and the owned are illusory ephemeral expressions of the Self.

Dissemination of knowledge

Sharing of knowledge and information is a natural human tendency. Whatever knowledge we have is a gift from someone else, and so it feels the right thing to do, to give it away. However, it is not so easy, there are pitfalls and consequences. What happens when you try to share your knowledge, especially, spiritual knowledge, among people? Who is ready or worthy of receiving spiritual teachings? What are the do's and don'ts in this matter? How to effectively disseminate the knowledge for other's benefit, and your own pleasure?

Link to mentioned article

Advaita Bodh Deepika: Part-2

In this part of the series, we read about the mechanisms of Maya, the force, latent in the existence itself, which wakes up through minds and project an illusory experience. We also see how an illusion of ego arises, and how can one Self/existence appear as many egos. We explore the beginning and cause of the Maya.

Judgment and Evaluation of Minds: Part-1

Evaluation of one's current status of evolution, is essential for rapid progress. It is possible to do so, both for the self and for others. While judging others, it must be kept in the mind that, the resulting action must be such, that it corrects your own behaviour instead of correcting others. In this part we discuss the basics such as, what is judgment, how to evaluate a mind, what criteria to use, is it moral to do so, etc. We also study the animalistic and hedonistic minds in this part of the talk.

Link to the animation.

Attention, Reflection and Intelligence: Part-1

Attention, Reflection and Intelligence are three essential abilities that a seeker on the path of knowledge must sharpen in order to progress rapidly. These abilities when operating optimally can result in enormous success in material life also. How to improve these abilities? What can be done, and what to avoid in order to maximize them? We will share some tips and experiences in this meeting.

Here is the link to animation shown in the meeting.

Balancing the material life and the spiritual life

There is no need to balance anything, because the so called material life does not exist. Until this is realized, one must struggle and make some efforts, by whatever means, and arrive at an effortless path - the direct path, or the nondual path.

Universal Mind: Introspection

Universal Mind is the manifested existence. Continuing from our previous meetings on the topic, we will take a baby step towards establishing the universal mind, via direct experiences. This will be more of an unlearning experience rather than a learning one. All one needs to do is thoroughly question one's everyday waking experience, and arrive at a place of not knowing. As soon as the dirt of beliefs is cleared, the knowledge then shines by itself.

Questions and Answers May 2018 Week 4

The questions discussed in today's meeting are. What is the difference between benevolent indifference and unconditional love? How does an enlightened person behave? Why do excessive conditioning, beliefs and expectations become an obstacle?

Death

A slightly unconventional and introductory view on what death is and what it is not. It seems that the death is largely misunderstood as an event of decay and destruction. Here we find that death is a tiny but important part of the continuous flow of experiences we call life. The opposite of death is birth, life has no opposites.

Spirituality for Beginners #10: Executive Summary

In this concluding part of the series, we summarize what we learnt in the last 9 parts. We discuss the matter of a path, why is it needed, how to choose it, the risks of extreme practices, evaluation criteria of progress, and how much assistance one would need for a specific path. Spirituality is a huge field, but one thing is certain - once you have choosen this lifestyle, you will never want to go back to the old ways.

Spirituality for Beginners #9: Unity of Experience

After analyzing the four kinds, we merge the experiences of the world, body and the mind. We see that there is only one kind of experience - the non-physical kind. The physical kind are a subset of the non-physical and both of them are subsets of metaphysical kind, which is unknowable in essence.

Spirituality for Beginners #8: Destroying the World

We discuss some basic things like what is there to know, who is ready to know or what are the prerequisites. Then a new but old way of knowing is introduced. Finally we destroy the world by simple direct observation.