Today we celebrate Shivaratri here in India

In the very depth Of Your Own ❤️ Is your intimate proximity to the most concrete expression of Shiva on the planet🙏🕉 presence/emptiness in the form of Shiva the Absolute.

About Arunachala & Shivaratri
”…Arunachala Mahatmyam says,
”….by merely thinking of Arunachala, one will surely attain Liberation.”Another verse in the Arunachala Mahatmyam, translated from Sanskrit into Tamil by Sri Ramana Maharshi says:
”Arunachala is truly the holy place. Of all holy places it is the most sacred! Know that it is the heart of the world. It is truly Siva himself! It is his heart-abode, a secret kshetra. In that place the Lord ever abides the hill of light named Arunachala.”

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”…Maha Shivaratri in honour of Lord Shiva, and in particular, marks the night when Shiva performs the heavenly dance…” ”… remembrance of ”overcoming darkness and ignorance” in life and the world. It is observed by remembering Shiva and chanting prayers, fasting, and meditating on ethics and virtues such as honesty, non-injury to others, charity, forgiveness, and the discovery of Shiva. The ardent devotees keep awake all night. Others visit one of the Shiva temples or go on pilgrimage to Jyotirlingams… Wikipedia

My Friend asked me:I would love to hear any conclusions, if those are possible, that you’ve reached on the exploration of true nature and relating to the world.  It seems Ramana invites a perception of the world as dream.  You seem to have managed to create a nice balance between living in world and pursuing resting in the truth.  If you have a minute, would love to hear your thoughts.    

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Namaste!
You are raising such an important question here, I find it difficult to answer it just in an email. As far as my understanding goes, we live in a dual world, obviously, there is I, you, she, he, they and other. To realize the non dual is to go to (touch into, sink down to) the more fundamental underlying presence that unites all beings and all things. And it is not that you learn to live from there (or maybe you do) but…..you just realize that it is….and the non dual keep being the silent being of True Nature, of Arunachala, of your own deepest inner being before concept and history etc. We keep living in a dual world just like before, but it makes a hell of a different if I may say so, to have realized and tasted the non dual.. Because living without knowing the non dual, without ever having touched the presence that is abiding in everything means there is birth, death, fear and all the stuff an animal experiences but as a Human we also think about it and worry about it, and fight about and all the rest of the mess this world is in.Now Ramana, as far as my humble understanding goes, when he says he sees the world like a dream, he SPEAKS from the non dual. From the non dual, the fundamental oneness, the absence of diversity, the world does look like a dream.  I really like A. H. Almaas take on the non dual-dual:”….Of course the nondual is nondual, and that is what is wonderful about it.” It’s true, that is what is wonderful about it; however, if you investigate nonduality more completely, you can begin to discern some of its implications. A truly nondual teaching will, at some point, divulge that the nondual is not opposed to the dual, that the nondual is not entirely nondual. In the beginning of experiencing the nondual condition, we experience it as simply the absence of the separateness of the duality between subject and object. Subject and object are no longer dual; they are unified. There is no longer a subject experiencing an object; everything is one thing. But that one thing is experienced as one unified thing precisely because it is contrasted to the dual.

Runaway Realization, pg. 220

You find more excellent quotes here: more I believe, I say believe because I have not been to all Sat Sangs that are given today by various teachers, but my feeling is that most of them are in fact highlighting the non dual, as if it is the final liberation, and then you should live from there, well good luck I say. Evan if the non dual is everywhere at all times it is being expressed in the dual. The dance between Shiva & Shakti is eternal.

Kali
PS. And Kali is not the killer of anybody, she is the killer of the delusion that there is permanence in this dual world. 

Warmly
Franciska von Koch 

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Next week we post in English again, welcome back!

Eller som Dr Poi (en av mina välsignade lärare) en gång sade: ”Take one dipp in the Ganga and you will never be the same” ungefär: ”Om du tagit ett enda dopp i Ganges förändrar det dig för alltid”. Jag förstod det som att har du en gång fått smaka på din Sanna Natur, vem du ÄR bakom din identitet och alla lager av inlärda beteenden, åsikter och idéer, kommer du att för alltid vara förändrad i din grund. Även om allting efter ett tag ”återgår till det så kallade normala”, vilket här betyder den konventionella synen vi har på tillvaron.

Han bara satt där och såg genomskinlig och vacker ut. Under ett par vintrar besökte jag hans eftermiddags tebjudningar i en finare förort till Bombay. Vi var kanske fem till åtta personer, ingenting speciellt hände egentligen, utom att vissa fick extatiska hänryckningar och verkade långt borta under perioder. Själv satt han på en soffa i ett vanligt medelklass vardagsrum med sin hustru bredvid sig. Vi bjöds på te och skrattade. Han ville aldrig låta sig fotograferas, jag tror att det beror på att hans jagkänsla, hans självbild inte passade in på kroppen, han var sååå mycket större, oändligt mycket större. Man blev lycklig av att gå dit och sitta där, vet inte varför, man kände kärlek. Villkorslös kärlek både till honom och från honom. De få saker han sade som jag lyckades skriva ner (1983) i min anteckningsbok, kommer att finnas med i min kommande bok i urval. Ett exempel kommer här:

30/1-1983: ”..Your duty that comes before all other duties is to remember God. Remember him means to remember yourself. Remember means whatever helps you to remember God.”

”…Since you don’t know yourself, I have to tell you to first remember yourself, it must be hammered into you. Meditation is one way to hammer it in, until it becomes second nature. But I cannot do the hammering for you. You have to do it for yourself…” ”.. Now that you have thought yourself into it (the world), you must think yourself out of it. Think about what causes your attachements, and how you are attached to the world.” ”… Nobody has the right to criticize the peculiarity of others…” ”… Someone asked ”Who am I”, but Who am I not?”

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Tack för denna gång! / Kali, Franciska von Koch, Sydindien 9/2-20