What is the essential difference between the following four ideas?
1. “Be Still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.”
2. “Be still and know I am God.”
3. “All that required to realize the Self is to be still.”
4. “Look within. Be still. Free from fear and attachment, Know the sweet joy of living in the way.”
The first one is attributed to Laozi (Lao Tzu) from the Tao Te Ching.
The second, more familiar quote is of course from the Bible (Old Testament).
The third, is from Ramana Maharshi, enlightened master of our times, which in turn, is the essence of the sacred scriptures of India.
The fourth is from the Buddhist wisdom tradition.
Four different traditions. Same essential idea.
Why then do humans fight and kill over their religions? We can cite a number of reasons, but the heart of the issue is that humans are caught in the web of concepts, dogma and beliefs in this case, a web that is, in reality, nothing more than an illusion.
Caught in the mind’s web, as it were, these pointers to Truth appear as concepts, not as the pointers to Reality itself.
You want to realize the Truth? That cannot be done by your mind and the separate-I that you think you are. Impossible. Simply impossible. The mind cannot know Truth. Truth, Reality, is before mind.
When you still the body and silence the mind, on the other hand, as the apparent grip of mind and body dissolves, Truth shines forth. Why so? Because the mind-body veils the Truth.
The way out of the grip of veiling? Be Still. Be Silent.
Love
Sundar.
~~–
Your sense of “I”, the individual, the separate-person that you think you are, is the sense of otherness. Otherness keeps you separate from life, and apart from the world. Reality is No-otherness. Experience your real nature. Follow the guided Self-Inquiry into the essence of Reality. Get the book, “Awaken: An Experiential Exploration of Enlightenment” and realize who you really are. Experience Enlightenment.