A01921 - Jean Klein, French Spiritual Teacher, Author and Philosopher

  Klein, Jean - A00123

"Awakening happens when we are convinced that there is no one who awakens."  (04/18/2024)

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Jean Klein

Jean Klein, a musicologist and doctor, traveled to India where he was influenced by Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, studied Kashmir Shaivism and was sent to the West to teach Advaita Vedanta. He is regarded as one most eloquent communicators of non-duality in the second half of the 20th century.

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Jean Klein
Born	October 19, 1912 Berlin, Germany
Died	February 22, 1998 Santa Barbara, California
Occupation	author, spiritual teacher, philosopher
Subject	Advaita Vedanta, nonduality, philosophy, metaphysics

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Jean Klein (October 19, 1912 – February 22, 1998) was a French author, spiritual teacher and philosopher of Nondualism and Neo-Advaita.^[1] According to Jean Klein, it is only in a "spontaneous state of interior silence that we can open ourselves to our true nature: the 'I Am' of pure consciousness."^[2]

Biography

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Jean Klein was born in Berlin and spent his childhood in Brno and Prague. He studied musicology and medicine in Vienna and Berlin, becoming a physician. Having left Germany in 1933 for France, he secretly worked with the French Resistance in the Second World War. After the war, Klein again left for India to study Yoga and Advaita Vedanta for three years. During those three years he met a spiritual teacher of Advaita, Pandit Veeraraghavachar Rao, a scholar at the Sanskrit College in Bangalore, and returned to the West to become a spiritual teacher himself. He died in 1998 in Santa Barbara, California.^[3]

Books

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• Be Who You Are, 1978, ISBN 0-7224-0167-1; 2006, ISBN 0-9551762-5-5
• The Ease of Being, 1986, ISBN 0-89386-015-8
• Who Am I? The Sacred Quest, 1988, ISBN 1-85230-029-9; 2006, ISBN 0-9551762-6-3
• I Am, 1989, ISBN 1-877769-19-3; 2006, ISBN 0-9551762-7-1
• Transmission of the Flame, 1990, ISBN 1-877769-22-3; ISBN 1-877769-20-7
• Open to the Unknown: Dialogues in Delphi, 1993, ISBN 1-877769-18-5
• Beyond Knowledge, 1994, ISBN 1-877769-23-1; 2006, 0-9551762-8-X
• Living Truth: Where Time and Timelessness Meet, 1995, ISBN 1-877769-24-X; 2007, ISBN 0-9553999-1-2
• The Book of Listening, 2008, ISBN 0-9553999-4-7

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• We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean.

  Jean Klein

  Spiritual, Ocean, Sight

  Jean Klein (2015). “Be Who You Are”, p.16, New Harbinger Publications

  67 Copy quote   

• Nothing that can be known has existence in itself. It depends on a knower. The knower is consciousness.

  Jean Klein

  Consciousness, Awareness, Existence

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• Our surroundings are not contained by name and form. You are neither the body nor the mind, these are limits you identify with through a lack of clear-sightedness. When you are attentive to a tree or flower, the perception, shape, name and concept are not the only things present. There is also the All-presence that you share with them and that you are both part of. The very name and form spring forth from this eternal background, the All-presence. This is instantaneous awareness that cannot be reached by thought.

  Jean Klein

  Spring, Flower, Names

  Jean Klein (1981). “Neither This nor That I Am”

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• It is like being in the desert. At first you listen to the absence of sounds and call it silence. Then suddenly you may be taken by the presence of stillness where you are one with listening itself.

  Jean Klein

  Taken, Silence, Listening

  Jean Klein (2006). “Who Am I?: The Sacred Quest”, p.92, New Harbinger Publications

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• The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace.

  Jean Klein

  Home, Roots, Desire

  Jean Klein (2006). “I Am”, New Harbinger Publications

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• Free yourself from all believes, all norms. See that you live completely with beliefs. Free yourself from second hand information. See in you clearly what is beautiful. All that is beautiful in you is right. Look at the situation with an open mind, free from hearsay. The solution is in the situation. So, see the situation clearly with an open mind. Then the choiceless decision comes.

  Jean Klein

  Beautiful, Believe, Hands

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• You are primal awareness. Life is only primal awareness. Between two thoughts or two perceptions you are. You know moments in your life when a thought completely disappears into silence, but still you are.

  Jean Klein

  Two, Silence, Perception

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• The world exists only when we think about it; creation stories are for children. In reality the world is created every moment.

  Jean Klein

  Children, Reality, Thinking

  Jean Klein (2006). “I Am”, p.13, New Harbinger Publications

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• To identify yourself with your personality is more or less a reflex. You must see, when the reflex comes up, that it is a kind of feeling of insecurity; you are looking for a hold.

  Jean Klein

  Personality, Feelings, Insecurity

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• Liberation does not concern the person, for liberation is freedom from the person. Basically the disciple and teacher are identical. Both are the timeless axis of all action and preception. The only difference is that one 'knows' himself for what he is while the other does not. The idea of being a person, an ego, is nothing other than an image held together by memory.

  Jean Klein

  Teacher, Memories, Differences

  Jean Klein (2006). “I Am”, p.11, New Harbinger Publications

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• The human form is a microcosm of the universe. All that supposedly exists outside us in reality exists in us. The world is in you and can become known in you, as you.

  Jean Klein

  Inspirational, Reality, World

  Jean Klein (2006). “Who Am I?: The Sacred Quest”, p.25, New Harbinger Publications

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• First we must see that we cannot will ourselves to be open because openness is our very nature. Any tiny residue of willing, of wanting to be open takes us away from what we are. Willing never goes beyond willing. So the only way to be free from this circle is to glimpse the truth that openness is the egoless state, that it is here and now

  Jean Klein

  Circles, Glimpse, Way

  Jean Klein (2006). “I Am”, p.109, New Harbinger Publications

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• In listening and stillness there is nobody who is still, and this stillness doesn't refer to any object; it is absolutely objectless; it is our real nature.

  Jean Klein

  Real, Silence, Listening

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• Any love is a home-sickness, a longing for a lost paradise.

  Jean Klein

  Home, Love Is, Paradise

  Jean Klein (2015). “Be Who You Are”, p.27, New Harbinger Publications

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• If the ego is in the slightest way separated from its source, it yearns to find it again. This search comes from the remembrance of unity and plenitude. As every experience emanates from the non-experience which is our real being, the me also bears the scent of its source. This remembering is awakened through those moments of desirelessness and in deep sleep.

  Jean Klein