Excerpts from The Diamond in Your Pocket

Excerpts from The Diamond in Your Pocket

[Papajis advice to Gangaji] Do nothing. Your whole problem is that you continue doing. Stop all your doing. Stop all your beliefs, all your searching, all your excuses, and see for yourself what is already and always here. Dont move. Dont move toward anything, and dont move away from anything. In this instant, be still - p 5

To stop is to stop searching for yourself in thoughts, emotions, circumstances, or bodily images. It is that simple. The search is over when you realize that the true and lasting fulfillment you have been searching for is found to be nowhere other than right where you are. - p 9

It is easily apparent that you are much more than a body. You are actually that which animates the body. - p 40

You are already free, and all that blocks your realization of that freedom is your attachment to some thought of who you are. - p 45

The most important question you can ever ask yourself is Who am I? - p 47

Let all self-definitions die in this moment. Let them all go and see what remains. See what is never born and what does not die. Feel the relief of laying down the burden of defining yourself. - p50

Are the stories true? Yes and no: yes as an account of experience, no as the finality of being... - p 53

Stop telling your story right now. Not later, when the story gets better or worse, but right now. When you stop telling your story right now, you stop postponing the realization of the truth that is beyond any story. - p 56

For most spiritual seekers, the belief that personal identification obstructs self-realization gives rise to the drive to get rid of the personal story. But this is still just another part of the story. It is so important to recognize this. Attempting to get rid of the story is just another tangent of the story, another example of the power of the mind to control. - p 60

The true self is not your self. It is what your mind and body are in, what nothing alive can exist without, but which is limitless and blessedly exists without your effort. I say blessedly, because if it depended on you for its existence, then you would have to make some huge effort to establish it, to maintain it, and to make sure that it didnt die. Generally, once people have tasted the nectar of their true self, this is what they get very busy trying to do. - P 67

Consciousness is not an object. It is hereness itself. Our minds are usually involved with an object that appears and disappears in the hereness, and because of that, we overlook the nature of hereness. Pure consciousness is what these words appear in, what this book appears in, what all bodies appear in. It infuses all words and bodies, and it is conscious of itself, and it is you. In your recognition of yourself as pure consciousness, you awaken to yourself. - P 68

I invite you to stop. Right here. Right now. Stop. Whatever it is you are searching for, stop. Whatever it is you are trying to keep away, stop. Stop and see what is always here. It may appear terrifying, it may appear thrilling, it may appear dead, it may appear blank, but if you stop reaching for it or running from it, you cannot help but finally see what is. - p 71

Fear is often a part of this essential shift away from identification with concepts toward identification with the silent ground of being because the shift threatens the known structure of life. Fear can have many different disguises, including anger, numbness, and despair. This existential terror is like the gargoyle at the gate to the sanctuary. Unless it is met and exposed as just another strategy of mind, it can keep you away from the revelation of the silent, aware peace at the core of your being. - P 74

Mind patterns of defense against nothingness, against emptiness, can be found wrapped around this fear. These pattern are strategic responses to fear. The mind may quickly become very active: Yes, but what does this mean? This cant be so. How will I be able to do my job? Just for this moment, let all those thoughts fall aside. Allow your mind to rest in nothing being nothing, doing nothing, having nothing, getting nothing, keeping nothing. In this moment, if you can actually, willingly, consciously, simply be nothing at all, in a flash you can discover the peace, the expansion, the freedom from boundaries inherent in nothingness. - P 78

The mind is not the enemy; there is nothing wrong with it. The tragedy is that we believe the conclusions of the mind to be reality. - p 84

A very strong habit of the mind is the perceived need to know what will happen if thoughts stop. In the end, you just have to stop and see. You have tried every technique except stopping. If you have not stopped, you are still searching. - p 99

Our minds are inactive for many moments during the day, but we are conditioned to pay attention only to the activity of the mind, and these points of silence are simply overlooked. When I speak of stopping, I am pointing to that silence between thoughts, which is formless consciousness. There is a presence there, and we can recognize that who we are is that presence. We have been taught to believe I think, therefore I am, rather than the truth , which is I am, therefore I think. - P 102

Stopping first occurs by recognizing the activity of the mind and not following. Not following mind activity is different from resisting the mind or repressing thoughts. Not following thought has a relaxing, opening quality. Although it may feel unfamiliar, and the fear of the unfamiliar may, in itself, generate mind activity, to stop following thoughts is effortless. In following thoughts and further spinning our stories, the simple and profound ease of being is overlooked. - P 103

This one instant is elusive for most people, because as they approach the instant of stopping, an enormous welling of fear usually arises: If I stop, if I really stop, I will slide back and lose the ground that I have gained through my efforts and practices. Even though I am still not fully satisfied, I am more satisfied that I was. I have a better life, my mind is calmer, my circumstances are better, and I might lose all of that. - P 111

There is nothing wrong with remembering the past or projecting into the future... However, the danger of this power is that in overlooking permanent presence... God itself is overlooked. - p 119

The perseverance you need here is to give up the hope that the mind can deliver freedom; give up the hope that the mind can deliver enlightenment, which is truth. In that recognition, surrender can naturally follow. - P 126

At the most basic level, spiritual maturity has to do with the realization that you are not in control... The desire to be in control, the illusion of being in control, and the hope of being in control are all based on the megalomaniacal belief that you know when and what the outcome should be. - P 177

For another opportunity of self-inquiry, I invite you to ask yourself this question: What will enlightenment give me? Depending on how willing you are to tell the truth, the possibilities of this kind of inquiry are limitless. Inquiry has nothing to do with the right answer, but it has everything to do with telling the truth. Take a moment to really consider: What if enlightenment gives you nothing, nothing at all? What if you get not one thing physical, mental, emotional, or circumstantial? The trust is that enlightenment will not give you one thing. Are you willing to hear that truth? If you are, you are free. If you are not, your mind will still be bound to some thing you hope will give you freedom. - P 191

You may have heard certain spiritual statements such as Silence is always here, Awareness is always here, or Awareness is who you are. You may have experience at least a glimpse of these truths. But a glimpse of truth will also be lost because it is still an experience. All experience appears, exists for some time, and then disappears. Usually the mind then scrambles to get that experience back, or to attain another, better, bigger experience.Once this mental cycle goes around many hundreds or even thousands of times, a certain disillusionment can set in. This disillusionment is necessary, because it generates the field required for the maturation of the mind. A mature mind has the willingness and fortitude to tell the truth. And the truth is ruthless and relentless. The truth is that you will lose your youth, you will lose your health, you will lose your pleasure, your understanding, your lovers, your mate, your children, and finally your senses and your body. You will lose everything. Although deep inside you know that this is true, there is usually a subconscious, desperate grasping at the hope, Maybe not me. Maybe not! - P 194

The horror is that if what you are protecting is the thought of who you are, it does not, in reality, even exist. It is only a thought, and whenever a thought is honestly investigated, it is found to have no inherent reality. - p 217

Take a moment to consider the strong possibility, even the certainty, that all these stories are lies made up through the imaginative power of the mind. What if nothing is needed for freedom? - p 270