Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), Advaita sage

1
Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), Advaita sage

• Of all the thoughts that arise in the mind,
  the 'I' thought is the first. It is only after
  the rise of this that the other thoughts arise.
  It is after the appearance of the first personal
  pronoun that the second and third personal
  pronouns appear without the first personal
  pronoun there will not be the second and third.

2
Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981), student of Sri
Siddharameshwar Maharaj, and Advaita sage

• "The seeker is he who is in search of
  himself. Give up all questions except one Who
  am I? After all, the only fact you are sure of
  is that you are. The I am is certain. The I am
  this is not. Struggle to find out what you are
  in reality. To know what you are, you must first
  investigate and know what you are not. Discover
  all that you are not -- body, feelings, thoughts,
  time, space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or
  abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very
  act of perceiving shows that you are not what you
  perceive. The clearer you understand that on the
  level of mind you can be described in negative
  terms only, the quicker will you come to the end
  of your search and realise that you are the
  limitless being."

3
Papaji (1910-1997), student of Ramana Maharshi,
and Advaita sage

• Again and again we speak of this thing only
  get rid of your impediments, and simply stay
  quiet, thats all. With the very burning desire,
  like somebody who is burning, and will run to a
  well, or a river, or a stream, only for water.
  Someone who is burning must go to the water he
  will not go anywhere else. Like this, if you have
  the burning desire, I want to be free, in this
  life, before the end of this life, this must be
  a longing always in your mind, then you will be
  successful. You will have won the game and you
  will be very happy always because freedom and
  happiness and bliss go together.

4
Wei Wu Wei (Terence Gray, 1895-1986), Irish
aristocrat, student of Ramana Maharshi and of
Chan Buddhism, and Advaita sage

• Why are you unhappy?Because 99.9 per centOf
  everything you think,And of everything you
  do,Is for yourself -And there isn't one.

5
Francis Lucille (1944- ), student of Krishna
Menon, and Advaita sage

• Advaita is a sanskrit word that
  literally means "not two". Synonyms of Advaita
  are non-duality (nonduality, non duality).
  Advaita is not a philosophy or a religion.
  Non-duality is an experience in which there is no
  separation between subject and object a "me" and
  the rest of the universe a "me" and God. It is
  the experience of consciousness, our true nature,
  which reveals itself as absolute happiness, love
  and beauty. Consciousness is defined as that,
  whatever that is, which is aware of these very
  words right here, right now.

6
Greg Goode (1953- )Philosophical counselor and
nonduality teacher

• I experience no edges or borders or limits.
  I cannot experience a difference between "me" and
  "you." Your inquiry will confirm this as "your"
  experience as well. It is not personal, but
  global, unlimited. It is already that.
• That is, inquiry will reveal the lack of
  difference between a "you" and an "other."
  Ironically, the desire to attain this as a
  personal experience is as close to separation as
  you'll ever get - and even then it is not truly
  separate. The desire to experience what another
  experiences is based on unsubstantiated beliefs,
  all of which lead to suffering. Wanting to
  experience what we project "an enlightened
  person" experiences is the very feeling of
  suffering it's not the path to the ending of
  suffering.

7
Rupert Spira (1960- )Ceramicist and nonduality
teacher

• Experience is all we have and Consciousness is
  the primal and most intimate fact of experience.
• Every experience that we ever have, that we ever
  could have, that we ever will have, is
  experienced by this Consciousness.
• Meditation is simply to abide knowingly as that.
  It is very easy. In fact it is the easiest thing
  because we already are that. It would be
  impossible to be anything else.
• We just remain as we are, as we always have been.
  And we allow the mind, the body and world to be
  just as they are.

8
Candice ODenver Great Freedoms teacher

• Rest as flawless awareness, seeing all as
  flawless awareness, until all is flawless
  awareness. In other words, rest as the awareness
  which is the underlying essence of all thoughts
  and emotions, seeing the anger and lust as forms
  of that awareness, and eventually you will find
  that the anger and lust are nothing but pure
  awareness in disguise.

9
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray, 1965- ) Zen student of
Arvis Joen Justi

• Truth is only discovered in the moment.
• There is no truth that can be carried over to the
  next moment, the next day, the next year.
• Memory never contains truth, only what is past,
  dead, gone.

10
Ramesh Balsekar (1917-2009), student of
Nisargadatta, and Advaita sage

• A simple examination of one's personal
  experience will reveal that what usually disrupts
  the peace and harmony in life is a thought about
  something we think we or someone else should
  or shouldn't have done. What mystics have said
  for ages, is viewed from the perspective of
  modern living that actions are 'happenings' and
  not something done by someone. This understanding
  is what actually contributes to and helps us in
  discovering the state of equanimity and peace
  which we most ardently seek.

11
Gangaji (Merle Antoinette ("Toni")
Roberson,1942- ), student of Papaji, and Advaita
sage

• I truly have nothing to teach you. There
  have been many teachers who have taught exquisite
  and useful codes of conduct, methods of
  meditation, ways of living and manifesting in the
  world. I am simply pointing to the stillness that
  is alive in the core of your being and inviting
  you to turn your attention to That, to let That
  live your life.

12
Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, 1931- ), student of
Neem Karoli Baba, and guru of selfless service
and compassion

• Ram Dass changed the world in 1971 with the
  publication of his hugely influential Be Here
  Now - a book that quickly brought spiritual
  practice and meditation to millions of
  Westerners. Not only did its stunning information
  and design impel readers right into a realization
  of the essential present, it introduced Eastern
  spiritual practice to the West in a totally
  accessible way. The book still stands as the
  highly readable centerpiece of Western
  articulation of Eastern philosophy, and how to
  live joyously a hundred per cent of the time in
  the present, luminous or mundane. It is still
  part of the timeless present. Being here now is
  still being here now.

13
Swami Muktananda (1908-1982),disciple of
Nityananda, and controversial guru of siddha yoga

• In this world of desires, a person
  becomes his own enemy and begins to torture
  himself. He himself becomes a sinner and then
  groans. He himself serves the poison of ignorance
  to himself and thus commits suicide. While he is
  hostile to himself, he blames others. Why do you
  commit suicide for lack of knowledge? Give up
  your illusions and see yourself as you really
  are. Uplift yourself by means of knowledge. Serve
  the nectar of wisdom to yourself. Achieve
  greatness. The soul dwells as the perceiving
  Consciousness in every being. Reflect on the
  inner Truth. Explore your own depths. Direct your
  seeking within. Revel in your own being.

14
Satchidananda (1914-2002), founder of Integral
Yoga and of Satchidananda Ashram

• There is only one cause for all mental
  problems, worries and anxieties selfishness.
  Restlessness of mind is caused by
  disappointments. Only selfishness can cause
  unhappiness. To maintain your tranquility you
  must keep your mind away from dualitypleasure,
  pain profit, loss praise, blame. If you can
  keep your mind away from duality, you can still
  have ideas and perform actions, but they won't
  affect you. When you renounce your attachment,
  there is nothing to shake you. It is the feeling
  of possession, of clinging, that disturbs the
  mind.

15
Leslie Temple-Thurston (1950?-), awakened through
TM, and Advaita sage and founder of Corelight

• Using our capacity to be in the witness, we
  must use vigilance to watch ourselves throughout
  the day. We must observe dispassionately what
  sort of state we are in all the time. The
  criteria we would be watching for are tiredness
  or tension in the body a slumping posture
  irritability exhaustion tunnel vision on a
  mental, emotional, or physical level or feelings
  of overwhelm, depression and boredom.

16
Catherine Ingram (1950?- ), Advaita sage

• Love gets twisted sometimes. And it shows up
  in all kinds of sad and tragic ways when it has
  been perverted, suppressed, and denied. Though
  love is everyone's essence, not everyone is aware
  of that at all times. Stay with your own knowing
  of love. It transforms your vision of the
  horrors.

17
Wayne Liquorman (1951- ), student of Ramesh
Balsekar, and Advaita sage

• You have probably spent your
  whole life trying to control and modify the
  events you see are connected to your guilt and
  suffering. You try to be more patient, more
  honest, more loving, more chaste, more generous,
  more open, more tolerant, more productive or more
  effective. Despite your efforts it is likely that
  some, perhaps many of the events connected to
  your suffering and guilt continue to occur.
• Look deeply into the assumption that you
  COULD have acted/reacted differently in the
  moment that you did what you did. Examine the
  claim by the ego that you were the author, the
  independent source of that event for which there
  is now a feeling of guilt.

18
Tenzin Gyatso (1935- ),14 th Dalai Lama of
Tibetan Buddhism

• I believe that the purpose of life is to be
  happy. From the moment of birth, every human
  being wants happiness and does not want
  suffering. Neither social conditioning nor
  education nor ideology affect this. From the very
  core of our being, we simply desire contentment.

19
Sharon Salzberg (1952- ), Buddhist meditation
teacher and cofounder of Insight Meditation
Society

• It is hard to look at our own
  problems, negativities, hatreds, fears, and to
  admit they are there. We tend to cut off these
  parts of ourselves, to push them away. Or we
  succumb to them at times. But there is a way of
  learning how to see these things in ourselves
  without taking them so to heart, so to speak. We
  can learn to say, "This is a habit of the mind or
  this is a conditioning of the mind and it doesnt
  feel good."

20
Joseph Goldstein (1944- ), Buddhist meditation
teacher and cofounder of Insight Meditation
Society

• I don't think there's ever an escape from the
  world as long as we are alive. The goal is
  freedom from attachment. It's being free from the
  thirst of desire. It's not nonexistence.

21
Jack Kornfield (1945- ), Buddhist meditation
teacher, cofounder of Insight Meditation Society,
and founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center

• For almost everyone who practices, cycles of
  awakening and openness are followed by periods of
  fear and contraction. Times of profound peace and
  newfound love are often overtaken by periods of
  loss, by closing up, fear, or the discovery of
  betrayal, only to be followed again by equanimity
  or joy.

22
Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944- ), mindfulness meditation
teacher and founder of the Center for Mindfulness
in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at
University of Massachusetts Medical School

• The two fundamental things that most people
  get out of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
  program, independent of symptom reduction, are
  these. First, the breath is an ally and can be
  used to calm down and see more clearly. The
  other, related discovery, is that you are not the
  content of your thoughts. You don't have to
  believe them or react to them. That's incredibly
  liberating.

23
Master Charles Cannon (1945- )Student of
Muktananda, Founder of Synchronicity Foundation
Faber, VA

• "Life is Divine...You are alive.You are
  Divine...All and everything is Divine.Honor the
  divinity of Life".

24
Next

• some autobiography

25
Poplar Grove Schoolhouse (1904)Plum City, WI (my
dad is in front row, 6th from left)
26
Parents and three oldest of ninechildren in
1933, at house where I was born in 1930
27
In 2003, after remodeling and under different
ownership, the house looked like this
28
Another 2003 view of my birthplace
29
One of two other things Pierce County, WI is
noted for The birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)

• Little house in the big woods, reconstructed
  on original site near Pepin WI.

30
The second other thing is

• In 1984, the Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery was
  proclaimed the "Cheese Curd Capital of Wisconsin
• Our Mantra
• -Cheese Curds in Every Home
• -Cheese Curds in Every Store
• -Cheese Curds in Every Restaurant
• -Cheese Curds in Every Life Style