Self-realization. The way of Love and the way of Knowledge ...
The way of Love - said the great sage Ramana Maharshi - is as valid as that of Knowledge.
The imponderable help that comes from the Master is defined as "Grace" and exists ... it is the spiritual drive that allows souls to return to the "Father", who is the Self, ... "Grace is always present but the seeker is sometimes not ready to receive it, due - as mentioned - to the obscuring tendencies - then slowly due to the sufferings resulting from repeatedly committed errors (karma) the seeker's heart "opens" to the truth ... and to Grace and Love and Knowledge ... . the Master, the Father, the Grace, the Knowledge…. they are expressions of the same Truth, which the seeker ultimately realizes as his own intrinsic nature, forms of his own Self.
And also: ... it is true that we live in a world in which existence appears to be made up of countless beings, but in the final analysis we are all One. As far as spiritual growth and Self Realization are concerned, the masters help us, they show the way and provide - on the basis of our evolutionary needs and our karma - to remove the obstacles that stand in the way. But the work of the seeker is necessary, since the realization cannot be given to him but must come within itself. This work is an indispensable condition, even if from the final point of view of the absolute there is never a moment in which the Self is not present ... and Ramana himself, in other contexts, declared that "one day you will laugh at your selves. efforts to get what you already are ... "...
The pure mind, freed from the sense of the separate self, is the Self itself. There are no two selves. The Self being the only reality cannot be obtained with effort, it is always present, the spiritual work is aimed at the purification of the mind, until one realizes that a mind separated from the Self never existed ... It was only a reflection, a game in consciousness. Here I am not speaking of "conjectures" but of real experience ... which goes beyond any religious or worldly or psychological concept ...
But here a clarification is necessary. What is meant by Self? It is the Spirit that penetrates everything, in Advaita he defines himself Atman. Precise: when we talk about the Self we are already in a state of duality. As Lao Tzu says: the Tao that can be said is not the true Tao. From a conceptual point of view, therefore with a description within the dual mind, the Self represents the absolute awareness not aware of itself, that is the Absolute one without a second. The individual self (soul) is the reflection in the mind of that awareness. And here we ask what is the mind? It is that power of reflection that allows the Self to manifest itself in infinite forms (Maya or Shakti. - Time, space, energy). Since the reflection of the manifested images has the Self as its substratum, it can be said - as Shankaracharya said - that the world is unreal when seen as separate from the Self, but becomes real when seen as the Self. The realized is therefore not a person but is the Self. Like any character in the dream at the moment of awakening, it ceases to exist as a "dream individual" and awakens as the dreamer. The simile is imperfect… as mentioned above…. Realization therefore is nothing other than awakening to one's true nature, having always been that Self ...
Paolo D'Arpini
The imponderable help that comes from the Master is defined as "Grace" and exists ... it is the spiritual drive that allows souls to return to the "Father", who is the Self, ... "Grace is always present but the seeker is sometimes not ready to receive it, due - as mentioned - to the obscuring tendencies - then slowly due to the sufferings resulting from repeatedly committed errors (karma) the seeker's heart "opens" to the truth ... and to Grace and Love and Knowledge ... . the Master, the Father, the Grace, the Knowledge…. they are expressions of the same Truth, which the seeker ultimately realizes as his own intrinsic nature, forms of his own Self.
And also: ... it is true that we live in a world in which existence appears to be made up of countless beings, but in the final analysis we are all One. As far as spiritual growth and Self Realization are concerned, the masters help us, they show the way and provide - on the basis of our evolutionary needs and our karma - to remove the obstacles that stand in the way. But the work of the seeker is necessary, since the realization cannot be given to him but must come within itself. This work is an indispensable condition, even if from the final point of view of the absolute there is never a moment in which the Self is not present ... and Ramana himself, in other contexts, declared that "one day you will laugh at your selves. efforts to get what you already are ... "...
The pure mind, freed from the sense of the separate self, is the Self itself. There are no two selves. The Self being the only reality cannot be obtained with effort, it is always present, the spiritual work is aimed at the purification of the mind, until one realizes that a mind separated from the Self never existed ... It was only a reflection, a game in consciousness. Here I am not speaking of "conjectures" but of real experience ... which goes beyond any religious or worldly or psychological concept ...
But here a clarification is necessary. What is meant by Self? It is the Spirit that penetrates everything, in Advaita he defines himself Atman. Precise: when we talk about the Self we are already in a state of duality. As Lao Tzu says: the Tao that can be said is not the true Tao. From a conceptual point of view, therefore with a description within the dual mind, the Self represents the absolute awareness not aware of itself, that is the Absolute one without a second. The individual self (soul) is the reflection in the mind of that awareness. And here we ask what is the mind? It is that power of reflection that allows the Self to manifest itself in infinite forms (Maya or Shakti. - Time, space, energy). Since the reflection of the manifested images has the Self as its substratum, it can be said - as Shankaracharya said - that the world is unreal when seen as separate from the Self, but becomes real when seen as the Self. The realized is therefore not a person but is the Self. Like any character in the dream at the moment of awakening, it ceases to exist as a "dream individual" and awakens as the dreamer. The simile is imperfect… as mentioned above…. Realization therefore is nothing other than awakening to one's true nature, having always been that Self ...
Paolo D'Arpini