Short excerpt from an interview with Douglas Harding by Kriben Pillay, editor of The Noumenon Journal. reprinted in Realization.org:
KP: There is a kind of paradox, isn’t there, that one has to practise to be what one is naturally?
DH: Yes—well you practise to really get rid of the illusion—not to achieve the Reality.
KP: Yes, that is a very important point, because in the spiritual supermarket that has mushroomed over the last 20–25 years, there seems to be a constant movement to achieve some extraordinary state, and you’re directly the opposite. Would you not say that we’re really practising only to remove the illusion?
DH: That’s right. All of us are living from this. Ramana [Maharshi] kept saying everyone’s living from this—everyone’s enlightened. Everyone is firmly stationed—where else could they be but in natural nature—and the only difference between himself and others is that he enjoyed it and others ignored it. It’s not any different at all—except in that.
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