Chapter 2 Verse 25

Chapter 2, Verse 25

“Invisible to mortal eyes,
Beyond thought
And beyond change,
Know that the Self is,
And be free from sorrow."

Sri Ramakrishna:

"The Self remains unaffected by mundane things. Heat and cold, pleasure and pain, dual states such as these do not have any sway on it. But the pairs of opposites do affect the person who is identified with thought and form."

[There is a story about the Tibetan saint Milarepa that goes something like this: One day Milarepa returned to his hut from a firewood-gathering mission only to find his hut crowded with demons making themselves right at home, sweeping the floor, washing the dishes, and mending his clothes. He was determined to get rid of the pests, so he sat down and expounded on the Dharma and the virtues of loving kindness, compassion and equanimity. The demons ignored him. This made him mad, so he picked up one of the sticks of firewood and began swinging it at one demon after another in an effort to shoe them out of his house. The demons continued to ignore him, deftly ducking out of the way of each and every blow, even when they were facing the other direction. Finally, Milarepa, anger spent and physically exhausted, plopped himself down in the middle of his one-room hut, sighed, and said to the demons, who sat down in a circle around him, fully attentive at last: "Well, it's clear that you're not going anywhere, and I'm sure as heck not going anywhere, so I guess we're just gonna have to get along." One by one, the demons got up and left. Suppression doesn't work, but like Father Bede says, we can rest in that quiet place inside which is unaffected by all the mind chatter.]

Ram Dass:

“Our curriculum requires that we get as close as possible to the things that scare us, in order to reveal our attachments and to experience the serenity that comes with letting go of them. We must be willing to open to all that the moment contains, including that which seems most threatening. But how do we do this? By familiarizing ourselves with our demons and cultivating fearlessness.”