CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Bhagavan once told a story about a man who wanted to bury his own shadow in a deep pit. He dug the pit and stood in such a position that his shadow was on the bottom of it. The man then tried to bury it by covering it with earth. Each time he threw some soil in the hole the shadow appeared on top of it. Of course, he never succeeded in burying the shadow. 

Many people behave like this when they meditate. They take the mind to be real, try to fight it and kill it, and always fail. These fights against the mind are all mental activities which strengthen the mind instead of weakening it.

If you want to get rid of the mind, all you have to do is understand that it is 'not me’. Cultivate the awareness 'I am the immanent consciousness’.

When that understanding becomes firm, the non-existent mind will not trouble you.


 Buddhism

If someone asks me what Buddhism is, I tell them that it's seeing the world upside-down.

Although many people around the world harm others in their quest to build a self-centered existence, Buddhism is the opposite:

It's the process of eliminating the concept of a separate self, and living for others. And to conventional society, that's seeing the world upside-down.

Ven.Tong Songchol (1912~1993), one of the great Zen masters of Korea in the last century, was also called the ‘Living Buddha’