Awakening and Enlightenment
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“When a human form of God knows its true identity as God, then this human form may be said to be “awakened” or “enlightened.” But it is not any separate human “self” who is awake, but God who is awake in that human form of God …... Thus, in truth, there is no one who, as an individual human self, can be or become enlightened or awakened - there is only God who, in human form, may be either awake or not.” ~ Thomas J. McFarlane And in the end, each of us - the unique, individualized extensions of Spirit - return to our native, immortal bliss-conscious state. No longer are we “a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.” The prisoner, long abiding in the dim shadowy world deep within the cave, has at long last climbed out into the sublime world outside the cave. The human being remembers itself as the one Spirit. The individualized god has recovered its true identity and has returned home. For those who make the effort to attain awakening and enlightenment, the rewards are immortality and indescribable joy. “Is this living Splendor, this beaming Sun of Life, beyond the slightest touch of earthly sorrow, suffering or pain, my real Self? O wonder of wonders, am I this immortal Being, happy beyond measure.” ~ Gopi Krishna “When worldly enticements are at last deemed not worth their toll of suffering and precarious wanderings in maya, and the player cries out from his core for deliverance, then the hidden God by His unseen touch melts the band of unknowing from man’s eyes of wisdom. That soul no longer has to blunder through the stygian darkness … God liberates that soul forever. Then in joy and more joy the Lord appears openly to His devotee. He makes known that man’s sojourn in maya was meant only for entertainment; and that if everyone found Him easily, then His cosmic lila of hide-and-seek would be over in a trice. He explains that His hiding was not meant to cause suffering, but to heighten the enjoyment of man’s ultimate, inevitable discovery of the Eternal Love.” ~ P. Yogananda “I am that Brahman, one without a second … I am infinite. I am absolute bliss.” ~ Shankara “If only you knew what bliss I find.” ~ Rumi “I am supremely blessed. There is no earthly joy to compare with my great bliss … How great my bliss, my infinite bliss!” ~ Swami Vidyaranya “When one’s true nature is known, then there is Being without beginning and end; It is unbroken Awareness-Bliss” ~ Ramana Maharshi “The ego consciousness is transmuted into the inconceivable bliss of the Spirit.” ~ P. Yogananda “The soul of the emancipated yogi can remain merged, if he wishes, in the Absolute, as the Absolute. Or the liberated yogi, owing to the retention of his God-created individuality (which can never be lost), may remain or reappear in the physical body in which he was liberated … or in any desired materialized form (such as one of the deities, or as incarnate in one of the avatars such as Christ or Sri Krishna), or as the All-Pervading Infinite.” ~ P. Yogananda “As a prisoner regaining his liberty after many years is suffused with happiness, so the yogi who emerges from the confinement of numerous incarnations into the freedom of Spiritual Identity is overwhelmed by inexhaustible joy.” ~ P. Yogananda “I am nothing else but that supreme Self which is eternal, pure, liberated, one, unbroken Bliss, undivided Existence, and unlimited Knowledge.” ~ Shankara “Realize that to be the Self, beyond the attainment of which there is no greater attainment, beyond whose bliss there is no greater bliss, and beyond the knowledge of which there is no greater knowledge.” ~ Swami Abhayananda “The radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it … a treasure … infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.” ~ Eckhart Tolle “I went beyond the light into pure radiant consciousness. I became omnipresent. My individuality had merged into pure absolute bliss. I expanded. I became the universe. The feeling is indescribable. It was total bliss, total joy.” ~ Robert Adams “You can have, or rather you will yourself be, the highest imaginable kind of happiness. All other kinds of happiness which you have spoken of as ‘pleasure’, ‘joy’, ‘happiness’, ‘bliss’, are only reflections of the Ananda which, in your true nature, you are. It is impossible to describe samadhi since it transcends the mind. It can only be experienced.” ~ Ramana Maharshi “Then there is an ecstasy, there is that living movement of truth, which is not an end, not a culmination, but an ever-creative living, an ecstasy which cannot be described” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti “Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.” ~ Eckhart Tolle “The treasure I have found cannot be described in words, the mind cannot conceive of it” ~ Shankara “... an indescribable feeling of elevation, elation and joyousness … a sense of immortality, a consciousness of eternal life” ~ Richard Maurice Bucke “To see That which is uncreated and divine, the highest good, the greatest Joy; nay, to speak the truth, That which is greater than the greatest, more beautiful than the greatest beauty, more blessed than the most blessed, more joyful than the joyfulest; aye, more perfect than any words.” ~ Philo Judaeus “Within me there was a steady flow of undiluted bliss.” ~ Ramakrishna “The joy of Eternity ...words cannot describe the joy of the soul … Only those who experience this joy know what it is.” ~ from the Maitri Upanishad “I was universally present, existing in all as all. Not only was I all that existed in this universe, I was the center of all, the divine Mind from which all emanated forth. What I experienced my Self to be is what men have always referred to as “God” ~ Swami Abhayananda “I am beyond everything finite; I now see that the spirit, alone in space with its ever new joy, has expressed itself as a vast body of nature. I am the stars, I am the waves, I am the life of all; I am the laughter within all hearts, I am the smile on the face of flowers and in each soul. I am the wisdom and power that sustain all creation.” ~ P. Yogananda “An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss.” ~ P. Yogananda “You will be conscious of an all-pervading stillness and peace … followed by the crowning experience of an abiding state of ineffable ecstasy.” ~ Papa Ramdas |
