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CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

WHAT IS REAL HELP?

Q: Isn't it selfish to sit around being blissful when there is so much misery in the world? Shouldn't we help the man who is dying in the road? I mean, obviously, we should help him. You cannot just pretend that the world is not there. In a way it’s very real.

Annamalai Swami: It is not the duty of spiritual aspirants to look at the world and to change the situations in the world. The world is nothing but a big game of maya. If you get entangled in the activities of the world you will find yourself trapped in maya, unable to see yourself and the world as it really is. The world is always changing.

Sometimes conditions for some people are favorable. At other times they are not good. There is so much chaos in the world because it is always in a state of flux. But the witness of this changing world—that is, you yourself—is always at peace, never disturbed. Go to that state of witnessing and be peaceful there. We can really do nothing about this world.

Q: Why is it so necessary to ignore people who so obviously need help of some kind?
AS: If one becomes stabilized in the Self, humanity is automatically benefited. A person who is stabilized in the Self will not be indifferent to the problems of the world. If problems arise, such a person will act spontaneously and provide the correct solution to each problem.

You are holding onto many beliefs: 'I am a separate human being; the world is separate from me; other people are separate from me; I am an aspirant doing meditation to attain the Self; other people in the world are suffering.'

All these concepts are wrong. There is no duality and no separateness. In fact there is no misery or suffering outside your own mind because the whole world is nothing but a projection of your own mind. Your own suffering and the suffering you see around you can be erased easily if you give up all the wrong ideas you have about yourself.

All suffering begins with the notion of duality. As long as this duality-consciousness is strongly fixed in the mind one cannot give any real help to other people. If one realizes one's non-dual nature and becomes peaceful within, one becomes a fit instrument to help others.

When one has stabilized in the Self, the inner peace which one experiences at all times flows out to all people. This natural radiation heals and uplifts humanity far more than any amount of physical activity.

The jnani is just like the sun. The sun radiates light and warmth continuously and indiscriminately. The jnani effortlessly radiates his own nature—his love, his peace, his joy—to the whole universe.

Even though the sun is always present, to receive its rays we have to turn towards it. Similarly, if we want spiritual light, we should turn towards a realized being. If one makes a conscious effort to stay in the light of a jnani, the darkness of spiritual ignorance automatically vanishes.
 
"Some people lie in bed dreaming of success while others wake up and work hard at it"

Anton Krupicka (ultramarathon runner)
 
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone.
Lord, we don't need another mountain,
There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb
There are oceans and rivers enough to cross,
Enough to last till the end of time.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of

Burt Bacharach

:love:

love
 
"Maybe one day we'll find the place
Where dreams and reality collide."-An Anonymous Gainesville Artist


"God is in the mirror. Not Hiding In The Sky."-Anonymous

"You Are Exactly Where You Need To Be <3."-Anonymous
 
“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”
Bertand Russel

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."
William Blake

"Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling."
William Blake
 
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To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Click to expand...
 
"To understand this fully, one must transcend from the duality of 'for' and 'against' into one organic unity which is without distinctions." ~ Bruce Lee
 
All these paper-seeking words Hanging in space, skewered by gravity . Pinned down by what they’re trying to pin down, All these spilling words Leapfrogging over each other in an already-shattered dream. Is it any wonder the Beloved wears every face? even that of the Lord of Deaths Eyes behind our eyes ever gazing into the Forever Wild Homeland of all.​

DSW
 
It is easy to be seduced by contemporary culture’s semi-deification of
autonomy and “I did it my way” individualism, and to forget that not only
are we all in the same boat, but that we’re all waves of the same shoreless Sea.
Life’s art are we, framed by what is beyond all framing. As sages have long
taught, nothing truly exists apart from and independent of everything else,
including us​

DSW
 
There is a wealth of information built into us ... tucked away in the genetic material in every one of our cells ... without some means of access, there is no way even to begin to guess at the extent and quality of what is there. The psychedelic drugs allow exploration of this interior world, and insights into its nature.
-Alexander Shulgin

Reality is an illusion albeit a persistent one
- Einstein

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.
- Hunter S Thompson

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
- Alan Watts

With psychedelics, if you're fortunate and break through, you understand what is truly of value in life. Material, power, dominance, and territory have no value. People wouldn't fight wars, and the whole system we have currently would fall apart. People would become peaceful, loving citizens, not robots marching around in the dark with all their lights off.
- Gary Fisher

I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain in relief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, colored pictures flashed past in a quickly changing kaleidoscope. After a few hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared. What had caused this condition?
- Dr. Albert Hofmann - Laboratory Notes (1943)
 
Get out of the shrieking, howling, confusing, endless download of the mind and into the heart… there are moments where it feels as though I have been living in this mansion or temple or house, which is my body and there is this whole other part of the house. It’s almost as though I have been living on the porch, that’s the way to put it, if you’ve been living in your head it’s like you’ve been living on the porch with the barking dogs. It’s like you’ve been living on the porch in front of a mansion with a bunch of yapping dogs and suddenly you realize that the door is unlocked and you can walk into the spacious, expansive, beautiful place that has a feeling of familiarity to you because when you were a kid that’s where you lived. That’s the place where you hung out all the time, but at some point you decided that you’d rather go sit on the porch with barking dogs that yap and howl and endlessly bark about taxes and money and things you should’ve done and things you didn’t do. It’s a noisy porch up there in the brain, but the heart (another overused term) it’s another place altogether and when you go into that place suddenly you get out of the mind, get out of the endless yapping of the brain and you get into this still place where suddenly there isn’t as much to say because you’re just experiencing what is… Just being here now. Be here now.
-Duncan Trussell.
 
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us 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 delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and ...to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein
 
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