Having been a Catholic growing up

That picture says it all. It is the spirit of Christianity, the kind that doesn't take pleasure in killing animals and/or women. The real kind, the non-fanatical kind. The kind, accepting, kind. The Nature-loving kind. Of Saint Francis.

An excerpt from Michael James book, I really like it when the connection is made
that Christianity is essentially the same thing as Self-Inquiry, Ramana Maharshi's
teachings, Michael James makes it explicit in his book Happiness and the Art of Being, so I'm posting it. It does seem to me also that the true spirit of religion and/or spirituality is the relinquishing of the ego, or the sense of being a seperate individual. Because that individual in my own experiences is only a collection of worries, and desires, and is the source of selfishness. The more I ditch the individual notion, ironically, the better off I am. When I read the New Testement, whether or not, modern denominations agree, I see that same spirit. That is one of many things that attracts me about Ramana Maharshi, is that the inquiry into the Self, into egoless, blissful existence, really seems to be the core of spirituality, and worship, devotion, serves that same end, merger in something far greater. In my interactions with a guru, Nome, a Self-Realized being, I relate strongly to the statement made by Christ in the New testement, (paraphrasing), "Look unto me and be saved". Because it's my own sense of false individuality being drawn into it's own dissolution through association with someone who is not a someone. I post this hestitantly for all the many different and hard feelings for or against related to Christianity. Christianity that I don't see it in conflict with feminism, or anything else that is good and related to tolerance, equality, equanimity, courage, not being trapped in conceptual definitions of self or other. So i think it's possible to be a Christian, and a feminist, queer positive, anarchist. And at the same time, I believe it is possible to be a feminist, queer positive, anarchist, and a Christian. Or listen to Metal, punk and noise music but recognize the beauty in New testement passages. (lol)And in a world, a humanity, that is so arbitrary in it's lines drawn, hatreds, bigotries, wars, conflict, just like in the Ribhu Gita, there is no better proof for me, that the world is not real. But love, courage, truth, kindness, equanimity, tolerance, humility, only those are real, and as according to Ramana, and Hindu texts, those are all one thing, Brahman, the Self, Christ (for some people). Conservative Christians will say that is New Age watered down talk, and others might recall all the horrors perpetrated by monstrously possessed people calling themselves Christians, but you can see by their way of being how hideously evil, and self-righteous they are, that it clearly isn't anything good that they are believing in. I can speak for myself, the ego is something demonic, and never satisfied, always craving, and fearing, hating and cowardly (how did these traits come to represent Christianity, which in the New Testement with utter clarity undermines these ignoble traits), and according to Sages I've been exposed to, are not even real.
My teacher Nome had this to say in response to a question I had on this topic.

Dear Kassy, Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya Namaste. Self-Knowledge and Self-inquiry are of the nature of Reality, which knows no sectarian division. It is like asking if God is a Hindu or Christian. The humor of such is obvious. The same holds true for the natureof Jesus. Vedanta has excellently preserved, in experience and scripture,these essential teachings. Perhaps this is due to the absence of "heresyhunting," with its concomitant book burning, violence, malice etc. carriedout by those who have not a clue as to the real nature of God, worship,wisdom, etc. but who nonetheless masquerade as "religious." Or it may be dueto the abundance of sages who have appeared in this ancient spiritualtradition. Heaven and hell are according to the conceiver or perceiver of them.For those who experience such, such appear to be real. For those who knowall is in the mind, they appear as states or modes of mind. They thus ridthemselves of the errors that form the hell and find the heaven within. Forthose who abide as the Self, there is only That, God, and nothing elsewhatsoever. The value of the ritual or form of worship is according to the onewho practices it. See Saddarshanam and Upadesha Saram (both by the Maharshi)for a profound understanding of the relation of worship with name and formto the practice of what is formless or the worship of the formless. Yes, thefinal worship, puja, oblation, offering, etc. is Self-Realization.Nonetheless, Sri Muruganar performed puja with a Siva-lingam, and SriRamanasramam conducts much worship (puja), holy text recitations (VedaParayana and the Tamil Parayana), etc., and there is at the center of itspremises at Arunachala the Matribhutesvara Temple in traditional style withtraditional worship offered by the priests. So, worship in any form is good if it diminishes the ego. It is bestto know what you worship, for thus your worship is in Truth. Ever yours in Truth, Nome

Happiness and the Art of Being:
The need for us to sacrifice our individuality in order to be born
anew as the spirit is a recurring theme in the teachings of Jesus
Christ. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that
loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world
shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12.24-25). “Whosoever shall
seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life
shall preserve it” (Luke 17.33). “And he that taketh not his cross, and
followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall
lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew
10.38-39). “If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself,
and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his
life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall
find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul?” (Matthew 16.24-26, and also Mark 8.34-37 and Luke 9.23-
25).
That is, in order to rediscover our true and eternal life as the
spirit, we must lose our false and transient life as an individual. If we
seek to preserve our false individuality, we shall in effect be losing
our real spirit. This is the price we have to pay to live as an
individual in this world. Therefore, whatever we may gain or achieve
in this world, we do so at the cost of losing our real self, the state of
perfection and wholeness (which in this context is what Christ means
by the term our ‘own soul’). In exchange for regaining our original
and perfect state of wholeness, we have only to give up our
individuality and all that goes with it. Which is truly profitable, to
lose the whole and gain merely a part, or to give up a mere part in
exchange for the whole?
In order to give up or lose our individuality, as Christ had done,
he says that we must follow him by denying ourself and taking up
our cross. To deny ourself means to refrain from rising as an
individual separate from God, who is the whole – the ‘fullness of
being’ or totality of all that is. To take up our cross means to
embrace the death or destruction of our own individuality, because
in the time of Christ the cross was a powerful symbol of death, being
the usual instrument of execution. Thus, though he used somewhat
oblique language to express it, Christ repeatedly emphasised the
truth that in order to rediscover our real life as the spirit we must
sacrifice our false life as an individual.
This sacrifice of our individuality or identification with the flesh,
and our consequent resurrection or rebirth as the spirit, was
symbolised by Christ through his own crucifixion and subsequent
resurrection. By dying on the cross and rising again from the dead,
Christ gave us a powerful symbolic representation of the truth that in
order to become free from the ‘original sin’ of identification with the
flesh and thereby to enter the ‘kingdom of God’, we must die or
cease to exist as a separate individual, and thereby rise again as the
pure spirit, the infinite consciousness ‘I am’.
The ‘kingdom of God’ which we can see and enter only by being
born again as the spirit is not a place – something that we can find
externally in the material world of time and space, or even in some
celestial world called heaven. When Christ was asked when the
kingdom of God would come, he answered, “The kingdom of God
cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo
there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17.20-
21).
The kingdom of God cannot be found by observation, that is, by
any form of objective attention – by looking externally here or there.
It cannot be found in any place outside us, either here in this world
or there in heaven, nor indeed is it something that will come in the
future. It exists within us even now. To see and enter into it, we must
turn our attention inwards, away from the external world of time and
space that we observe by means of the limited flesh-bound
consciousness that we call our ‘mind’, and towards our true
consciousness ‘I am’, which is the underlying base and reality of the
observing consciousness ‘I am so-and-so’.

The exhortation ‘behold’ that Christ used in the above passage is
very important. He did not merely tell us the fact that the kingdom of
God is within ourself, but exhorted us to look and see that it is within
ourself. That is, he did not merely tell us the truth that he saw, but
told us that we should each see it for ourself. In more modern
English, we would express the passage “… neither shall they say, Lo
here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” as
“… and they should not say, ‘Look here or look there’, because, see,
the kingdom of God is within you”. This exhortation that Christ
makes to us not to look here or there but to see that the kingdom of
God is within ourself, is the essence of the spiritual practice taught
by Sri Ramana and all other true sages. We should give up attending
to anything outside ourself, and should instead turn our attention
inwards to see the reality that exists within us.
The kingdom of God is not a place but a state – our natural state
of pure self-conscious being. When we see it within ourself by
turning our attention towards the innermost core of our being, we
enter into it and become one with it. This is the state of being born
again as the spirit – the state of mystical union with God that all
Christian contemplatives seek to attain. In this state called the
‘kingdom of God’, the pure consciousness ‘I am’, which is the spirit
or true form of God, exists and shines alone in all the splendour and
glory of its undivided oneness and unlimited wholeness.
The teachings of Sri Ramana thus throw a fresh light upon the
spiritual teachings contained in the Bible. In the same manner, they
also throw fresh light upon the spiritual teachings of all other
religions. Though his teachings are easily recognised as a fresh and
clear expression of the ancient teachings of advaita vedanta, they in
fact clarify the inner essence not only of advaita vedanta but also of
all other spiritual traditions. The truth that he taught is not a relative
truth that is limited to any particular religion or human culture, but is
the absolute truth which underlies all human experience, and which
is the source and foundation of the spiritual teachings of all religions.
For certain cultural or other reasons, in some religions this truth is
expressed less openly and clearly than in others, but it is nevertheless

the truth that lies at the heart of every religion.
Though this truth is not recognised by most of the followers of the
various religions, particularly by the followers of those religions in
which it is hidden more obscurely, it is nevertheless expressed in
some form or other in the scriptures and the philosophical and
mystical writings of every religion, and it can be discerned and
recognised by all who have the eyes to see it. The teachings of Sri
Ramana, if understood clearly and correctly, give us the eyes or
insight required to discern and recognise it wherever it is expressed,
no matter how seemingly obscure may be the words that are used to
express it.
All words are open to interpretation – and misinterpretation. This
is particularly true of words that speak about the spirit – the reality
that lies beyond the limitations of physical matter, and that therefore
cannot be perceived by the five senses, or known as an object of
consciousness. All interpretations of such words fall into two distinct
categories – interpretations that are strictly non-dualistic, admitting
no division of the one and only reality, and interpretations that are
either completely dualistic, or that at least concede that within the
one reality there are divisions and distinctions that are real.
Ultimately the interpretation that we each choose to accept depends
not upon the truth itself – because the nature of the truth cannot be
proved objectively – but upon our own personal preferences.
Most people – whether they hold religious beliefs or cherish a
more materialistic outlook on life – prefer to take a dualistic view of
reality, because such a view assures them of the reality of their own
individuality, and of the world they perceive through their senses,
and (if they choose to believe in God) of God as a separately existing
entity. Therefore the only basis for a dualistic view of reality is the
attachment that people have to their own individuality, to the world
that they think gives them happiness, and to their idea of a God who
they believe will give them the things that will make them happy.
There is no way that a dualistic view of reality can be proved to
be correct and valid. All our knowledge of duality is obtained by our
mind and exists only within our mind. If our mind is real, then
duality may be real. But the reality of our mind is open to question
and doubt.
If we are not overly attached to our existence as a separate
individual, we can begin to question and doubt the reality of our
mind. If we do so, we will be led unavoidably to a non-dualistic
view of reality. Of all the knowledge we know, the one knowledge
whose reality we cannot reasonably doubt is our own essential
consciousness ‘I am’. Knowledge can exist only if there is a
consciousness to know it. Since all knowledge depends for its
seeming existence upon consciousness, consciousness is the one
fundamental, irreducible and indubitable truth of our experience.
Because we know, our consciousness is undoubtedly real.
The one essential quality of consciousness is that it is always selfconscious
– it always knows its own existence or being – and that
consciousness of its own existence is what we experience as ‘I am’.
However, in addition to knowing its own existence, our
consciousness sometimes seems to know other things also. When our
consciousness thus appears to know things other than itself, we call
it our ‘mind’.
What exactly is this ‘mind’, this consciousness that knows
otherness and duality? Is it the true form of our consciousness, or
merely a false superimposition upon our real self-consciousness ‘I
am’? Is it real, or is it merely a false appearance?
Whenever our mind rises, it rises in conjunction with a body, with
which it identifies itself, feeling ‘I am this body’. Without
identifying itself with a body, our mind cannot rise. Once it has
risen, identifying itself with a particular body, through the five
senses of that body it perceives the world. Thus our mind’s
identification with a body is fundamental to its ability to know the
world.
But how does this identification with a body arise? Our mind is a
form of consciousness, whereas this body is a physical form
composed of inconscient matter. By identifying itself with this body,
our mind is confusing two different things as one. It is confusing
consciousness, which is not physical matter, with the physical form

of this body, which is not consciousness. Therefore our mind is a
confused and spurious form of consciousness, a phantom which is
neither our real consciousness ‘I am’, nor the physical form of this
body, but which mixes these two different things together, feeling ‘I
am this body’.
Though our mind usurps the properties of both our consciousness
‘I am’ and this physical body, it is in fact neither of these two things.
Since it appears and disappears, and constantly undergoes change, it
is not our real consciousness ‘I am’, which neither appears nor
disappears, but exists and knows its own existence at all times and in
all states without ever undergoing any change. And since our mind is
conscious, it is not this body, which is inconscient matter.
Moreover, our mind does not always identify the same body as
‘I’. In waking it takes one body to be ‘I’, but in each dream it takes
some other body to be ‘I’. Since it can identify itself with different
bodies at different times, it cannot really be any of those bodies.
By identifying itself with a body, our mind deludes itself into
experiencing our consciousness ‘I am’ as being something confined
within the limits of a body, and a body composed of inconscient
matter as being something that is endowed with consciousness. If
our mind did not delude itself in this manner, it would not exist as a
separate entity called ‘mind’, but would remain as pure
consciousness, undefiled by any form of limitation. Because the very
nature of our mind is to delude itself into experiencing that it is what
it is not, Sri Ramana said that our mind itself is maya, the primordial
power of delusion, illusion or self-deception – the power that makes
what is real appear to be unreal, and what is unreal appear to be real.
In dream our mind projects an imaginary body, which it identifies
as ‘I’, and through the five senses of that body it perceives an
imaginary world. So long as our mind continues to be in that state of
dream, it takes the body and world that it experiences in dream to be
real. However absurd some of the things which it experiences may
appear to be, still our mind deludes itself into believing that those
things are real. So long as our mind experiences itself as a body, it
cannot but experience all that it perceives through the senses of that

body as real. But when we wake up from a dream, we cease to
experience the dream body as ‘I’, and we simultaneously cease to
experience the dream world as real.
Thus from our experience in dream, and our contrasting
experience on waking from dream, we can clearly understand that by
the power of its imagination our mind has the ability to create a
world of duality and simultaneously convince itself that that world is
real. When we know that our mind has this power of simultaneous
creation and self-deception, we have to doubt whether all the duality
that it now experiences in the waking state is anything other than a
product of its own self-deceiving power of imagination.
The only thing whose reality we cannot doubt is our
consciousness of our own existence – our non-dual selfconsciousness,
‘I am’. Other than this non-dual and fundamental
consciousness ‘I am’, everything that we experience is open to
doubt. Hence we cannot reasonably avoid doubting the reality of all
duality, and suspecting that in fact the only reality is our non-dual
consciousness of our own being, ‘I am’.
By what standard can we determine whether or not something is
real? A thing can be truly said to be real only if it is absolutely,
unconditionally and independently real, and not if its reality is in any
way relative, conditional or dependent upon something else.
Therefore, according to Sri Ramana, something can be called real
only if it satisfies three essential criteria: it must be eternal,
unchanging and self-shining.
If something is not eternal, though it may appear to be real for a
certain period of time, it was not real before it came into existence,
and it will not be real after it ceases to exist, so in fact it is unreal
even while it appears to be real. Because it is confined within the
limits of time, its seeming reality is relative and conditional. That
which is absolutely and unconditionally real must be real at all times,
and cannot be limited in relation to anything else.
Moreover, if something undergoes change during the course of
time, it is one thing at one time, but becomes another thing at
another time, and hence it does not exist eternally as any one thing.

Being impermanent, that which changes is not real.
However, the most important criteria by which we can determine
something as real is that it must be self-shining. By the term ‘selfshining’,
Sri Ramana means ‘self-knowing’ or ‘self-conscious’, that
is, knowing itself by its own light of consciousness. That which is
absolutely and unconditionally real need not depend upon any
consciousness other than itself to be known. If something depends
upon something else in order to be known as existing or real, then its
reality depends upon the reality of the consciousness that knows it.
Since it does not know itself to be real, it is not real at all, but merely
appears to be real so long as it is known by the consciousness that
knows it.
Measured by this standard, the only existing reality is our
fundamental consciousness ‘I am’, because among all the things that
we experience or know, it is the only thing that is permanent, the
only thing that never undergoes any change, and the only thing that
knows its own existence without the aid of any other thing.
Unlike this consciousness ‘I am’, our mind is impermanent,
because it appears in the states of waking and dream, and disappears
in deep sleep. Even while it does appear to exist, our mind is
constantly undergoing change, thinking of one thing at one moment
and another thing at another moment. And though our mind appears
to know itself by its own power of consciousness, in fact the
consciousness by which it knows itself and all other things is only
our basic consciousness ‘I am’, which it seemingly usurps as its
own, but which is nevertheless independent of it.
Our mind is distinct from our essential consciousness ‘I am’, by
the light of which it seemingly knows the existence of itself and
other things, because our consciousness ‘I am’ can exist in the
absence of our mind, as in sleep. Whereas our consciousness ‘I am’
is permanent, our mind is impermanent. Whereas our consciousness
‘I am’ is ever unchanging being, which always remains as it is, our
mind is a constantly changing flow of thoughts. And whereas our
consciousness ‘I am’ is always conscious of its own being, our mind
is sometimes conscious of itself and other things, and sometimes
conscious neither of itself nor of any other thing. Therefore our
consciousness ‘I am’ is real, whereas our mind is merely an unreal
appearance.
If the essential nature of something is consciousness, it must
always be conscious, because nothing can ever be separated from its
essential nature. Because consciousness is the essential nature of our
consciousness ‘I am’, it is conscious at all times and in all states.
Similarly, because the essential nature of our consciousness ‘I am’ is
also being or existence, it exists at all times and in all states.
In contrast, since our mind is conscious only during the waking
and dream states, and ceases to be conscious in sleep, its essential
nature cannot be consciousness. Similarly, since it exists only in
waking and dream, but ceases to exist in sleep, its essential nature
cannot be being or existence.
In fact, there is nothing that can be pointed out as being the
essential nature of our mind, because it is not constantly any one
thing. The body cannot be its essential nature, because though it
identifies itself with a particular body in the waking state, in dream it
identifies itself with some other body, and in sleep it identifies itself
with no body at all. Similarly, its essential nature cannot be any
thought or even the act of thinking, because throughout the waking
and dream states the thoughts it thinks are constantly changing, and
in sleep it ceases to think any thought. Though our mind in fact has
no essential nature of its own, in the waking and dream states its
essential nature appears to be consciousness. However, since it
ceases to be conscious in sleep, the consciousness that appears to be
its essential nature in waking and dream is in fact borrowed by it
from our real consciousness ‘I am’.
Since our mind therefore has no essential nature of its own, we
can definitely conclude that it has no reality of its own, but borrows
its seeming reality only from our essential consciousness ‘I am’. Our
mind is therefore an unreal phantom, something that is in fact neither
one thing nor another. It is a false appearance, an illusion or
hallucination, a self-deceiving imagination that appears and
disappears in our one real consciousness ‘I am’.
However, though our mind deceives itself by appearing in and as
our real consciousness ‘I am’, it does not deceive our consciousness
‘I am’, which always remains as it is, knowing only its own
existence, and being affected by nothing else whatsoever. Because
our real consciousness ‘I am’ always remains as pure consciousness,
undefiled by the knowledge of anything other than itself, nothing
that appears or disappears can ever affect it even in the least. That is,
whatever else may appear or disappear, we always know ‘I am’.