Tribute to Mahaprakasha, the clear light of the Spirit

Compression

May we all know the joy of losing our "compression" into the idea of an individual who feels isolated and separate, and who seeks in others and in "their personal experiences" a joy that will come only through contemplating their fullness and completeness, by "unfolding" into the Being we have never left.
30/01/2015 Denis Billo

Stability without projection

May we find that point within us where everything is stable and everything can simply exist, without attachment, without tearing, without projecting into a future or being rooted in the past. In a sharing of great freedom that leaves only the simple joy of our existence vibrating and lighting up in the present moment, where stillness, centring and silence work in depth.
20/01/2014 Denis Billo

The grace of the heart

Grace is that delicate energy which can only be felt in great silence, and which invites a conscious turning towards the heart.

Nicole Montinéri

On abandoning the study of the sacred texts

Extracts from the Bhagavata Purana Mahatmya 

74. The power of meditation has disappeared because of lack of control of the mind, avarice (that is, the love of money), hypocrisy, the adoption of heresies and the abandonment of the study of the sacred texts.
75. Like bulls (heedless of the restrictions taught by the scriptures), the learned indulge in intercourse with their wives and are most diligent in begetting children, but are indifferent to the means leading to salvation.
76. Nowhere is devotion to Vishnu found as it was once practised in the ancient sects. As a result, the essence and effectiveness of every practice have been completely lost everywhere.

Divine Light

If in your Yoga practice you do not meet the divine light, or if nobody speaks of it in your class, perhaps you are simply going round in circles or wasting your time...
Either, when we see it at the moment of our death, we will not even need to recognise it, because we will already be in it, or it will be fully present in us, because we will have worked with it all our lives, in Yoga.
Or we will be dazzled, and the round of lives will continue.
So we must go towards this light in our lifetime; we must meet it and give ourselves to it. We can run there, hop there on one foot or crawl there, it does not matter: our past no longer matters at all once we have decided to go precisely to that place.
We can go there with what we are!
No need for millions of techniques and teachings either, just a few very personal, very intimate practices, plenty of fervour, will and strength, and the feeling that the path is made day by day.
12/01/2015 Denis Billo

Katha Upanishad

1-II-1. Yama explained: “What is preferable is one thing; another, quite different, is what is pleasant and gives pleasure. These two, the preferable and the pleasant, serve different ends, but both bind human beings. Yet good comes to the one who, of the two, chooses the preferable. The one who chooses the pleasant falls short of the goal and misses the target.
1-II-2. The preferable and the pleasant come to every man. The intelligent one examines them well, weighing them with discrimination. Indeed, the intelligent one chooses the preferable, while the ignorant one at once picks the pleasant, out of the greed that drives us to seize all we do not have, and the avarice that drives us to keep what we already possess.

Christian Meditations

"More people than we think would be capable of mental prayer, but nobody has taught them. Without this inner life, the baptised run out of breath, their action becomes a clanging cymbal, and even their religious practice, where it exists, dries up." John Paul II, 29 September 1982

This is what one of the Fathers said:

"When the Spirit has made its dwelling in a man, he never ceases to pray, for the Spirit prays constantly within him!"

So, "whether he is awake or asleep, prayer never stops in his soul; whether he eats or drinks, lies down or works, and even when he is deep in sleep, the fragrance of prayer breathes spontaneously in his heart."
Isaac the Syrian *

"Mental prayer is not 'making Prayer', but joining someone within us who is already praying." (Jesus praying to his Father).
Father Caffarel

The reflected light of consciousness

The brain "reflects" the light of Consciousness and analyses what the heart perceives. 
The heart is not the organ of emotion but an organ of perception, which is why we say "learn by heart" or speak of living in the intelligence of the heart... 
So a sublime loop can take shape: what the heart perceives is brought to light by consciousness, the brain then acts peacefully in our life, and the mind is illuminated.
Denis Billo

The dazzling light of the Divine Spirit

The Little Philokalia of the prayer of the heart wrote:

"So as he was at prayer one night, his purified spirit united with the first Spirit, he saw a light from above suddenly casting brightness on him from the heights of heaven, an authentic and immense light, illuminating everything and making everything pure as day.
Illuminated by it as well, it seemed to him that the whole house, with the cell where he stood, had vanished and passed into nothingness in the blink of an eye, that he himself was caught up into the air and had completely forgotten his body. In this state, as he told and wrote to his confidants, he was filled with great joy and flooded with warm tears, and what is strange in this marvellous event is that, not yet initiated into such revelations, in his amazement he cried out loud, unwearyingly: "Lord, have mercy on me".
At last, very late, as this light gradually withdrew, he saw himself again in his body and inside his cell, and he found his heart filled with ineffable joy.

MahaPrakasha, universal non-duality... Abhinavagupta

This bliss is not like the intoxication of wine or of riches, nor even like union with the beloved. The appearance of conscious Light is not like a beam of light shed by a lamp, the sun or the moon. When one is freed from accumulated differentiations (cultivated since a very distant past), the state of happiness is a joy like laying down a burden, and the appearance of the Light is the finding of a forgotten treasure: the realm of universal non-duality.

Abhinavagupta

Carmel of Saint John of the Cross

Alone then...
Without form and without image.
Finding neither bottom nor support.
One tastes I know not what
That one happens by chance to find.

Stephen Jourdain: a dissenting awakened one

Priest, plumber, member of parliament, sharp mind, lively, cardboard soul, cultivated mind, fallow man, rigorous man, cheat, all asleep, all unconscious to the same degree, all convinced they are awake, and deprived of consciousness in exactly the same way.
For this metaphysical sleep has no gradation, no nuances; it is a single level to which one belongs entirely or not at all.
How can they be made to understand that they are asleep?
They would readily admit that the degree of consciousness they have of themselves is not ultimate, that this grasp of oneself could, in quantity, be improved.
As one might make a day already dawned clearer and brighter. But how can they be made to believe,
How can they simply be made to consider the hypothesis that precisely here the day has not yet dawned,
That the question really arises whether the glimmer they know belongs to daylight.
How can they be made to know that in this extreme vigilance which is ordinary self-awareness, they are asleep!
That in its essence the phenomenon called the waking state is asleep."

Don Juan / Castaneda, "The Power of Silence"

We never get the chance to go beyond the level of mere concern, because since time immemorial everyday affairs have lulled us like a lullaby.
It is only when our lives are almost over that our inherited concern about destiny begins to take a different turn.
It begins to lead us through the fog of everyday affairs. 
Unfortunately, this awakening always comes hand in hand with the loss of energy due to age, at a time when we no longer have the strength to turn our concern into a pragmatic and positive discovery.
Then all that is left is a shapeless, icy anguish, a longing for something indescribable, and simple anger at not having obtained it.

Ma Anandamayi

"The ascent has ten stages: one begins with an attraction to God.
Then the soul is impatient to draw near to him.
Next comes the wish to realise him easily and quickly, and soon this turns into a desire to find Him through the devices of yoga.
The spirit then thirsts to rise very high in divine contemplation.
This state is soon replaced by an overflowing love, where one sheds tears, and this gradually leads us to swim, as it were, in divine bliss.
At the eighth stage, constant thought of the Beloved reigns supreme within us, and the soul is led to forget the individual Self.
Finally comes the realisation of the Self, which is salvation"

Jalal ad Din Rumi

"Be empty of all worries.
Think of who created thought!
Why stay in prison
When the door is wide open?
Step out of the maze of fears.
Live in silence"
Jalal ad Din Rumi

Yājñavalkya & Gārgī

Whoever in this world, O Gārgī, does not know this Imperishable, yet offers oblations in the fire, performs sacrifices and practises austerities, even for many thousands of years, would gather only perishable results; whoever leaves this world without knowing this Imperishable is wretched. But whoever, O Gārgī, leaves this world having known this Imperishable is a knower of Brahman.
Truly, this Imperishable, O Gārgī, is never seen, but is the seer; never heard, but is the hearer; never thought of, but is the thinker; never known, but is the knower. There is no other who sees but it, no other who hears but it, no other who thinks but it, no other who knows but it. It is by this Imperishable, O Gārgī, that the unmanifest Akasha is pervaded through and through.
Then Gārgī said: "Venerable brahmins, consider yourselves fortunate if you can withdraw after bowing before him. None of you will ever defeat Yājñavalkya in the descriptive science of Brahman!" Upon this, the daughter of Vachaknu fell silent.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (III-viii-10,11,12)
Brahmana VIII: Yājñavalkya & Gārgī.

 

Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Start searching!"
"You must fix your mind and heart, you need interest and must never forget; have fervour, seek a clear mind and a limpid heart. You need only remain quiet and alert while searching within your true nature. To remember what must be remembered is the secret of success."
"To live is to die!"
"All those who attained realisation through a mere touch, look or thought were ripe for it! But they are very few; most people need time to ripen, and Sadhana is an accelerated ripening!"
"Through faith in and obedience to my master, in three years I realised my true being, and I left my human nature behind to take care of itself"

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