At its essence, the message of the loved and revered Spiritual Masters who have passed was: “You were not born–and that which is unborn cannot die.”
Bankei was very direct with this: “you are the Unborn. So be Unborn,” to paraphrase him.
Ramana realized he is not the body, not the mind, not the personality. His self-Realization revealed that he was not that which is born, not the body-mind, and that he was birthless and deathless.
Every…thing… known, is thus temporary phenomena, impermanent, it arises (birth), dwells, and decays (dies), as the Buddha taught. But you cannot be an object in your awareness–nothing you are aware of can actually be you, so you are not of that birth-death nature.
All of this coming and going, all this change and birth and death happens in your unchanging presence.
Nisargadatta Maharaj taught we are not who we think we are. That our real Identity is the birthless-deathless, infinite-eternal Absolute Awareness. And that the only “problem” is a case of mistaken identity–and that is only imagined.
Papaji advocated loving devotion (which ultimately results in surrender) as a path, and held that the Self is already enlightened and free. It is only the false idea we can hold that appears to limit and bind us.
My spiritual search began with the only thing most readily available: religion.
It went a little off-track with some new age spiritual jargon, concepts, and fantasies (though not very far, as I could simply not believe the stories I was told–it was not satisfying, and what I sought had to be directly, obviously true, and concretely real to me–and end the seeking.)
My search opened up with Zen (a practice, not a religion), gathered momentum with a burning desire to know truth, breakthroughs were made with the information and inquiry given by the above Spiritual Masters, and ended by surrender of myself, which led to direct, completely quenching Knowledge of my true Self.
So you see, it is not that we must improve, or become a better version of ourselves (our false self is what we are working with there anyway), but that we must drop the arrogance of the idea of our separate existence itself–our separate self.
It is what veils the splendor of your true undivided, immaculate, eternal Self.
In my private work with people the past year, I began bringing in the timeless truths about our real identity that the Spiritual Masters have given us–and those people, formerly unsatisfied spiritual seekers, are finding relief from the egoic voice in the head, and radical, fundamental change that lasts.
So now I am going to begin bringing these teachings to life for the public as well.
I will do my best to speak the unspeakable, to point to That which cannot be seen as an object, and That which cannot be contained by any word from the mind–but which can absolutely be otherwise known!
I will do this by bringing the stories and timeless wisdom of the Spiritual Masters into all of my work, along with living inquiry, to create as many opportunities as possible for you to discard the false, align with the truth of who you actually are, and to Self-Realize.
Blessings,
Cindy
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