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#1509 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Sat Aug 2, 2003 1:07 am
Subject: #1509 - Friday, August 1, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
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Issue #1509 - Friday, August 1, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Peter Lynds

The Absence of an Instant in Time

The work of Peter Lynds

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/icc-gwi072703.php

Ground-breaking work in understanding of time
Mechanics, Zeno and Hawking undergo revision

excerpts:

"There's no such thing as an instant in time or present moment in nature. It's something entirely subjective that we project onto the world around us. That is, it's the outcome of brain function and consciousness."

...

Addressing the age old question of the reality of time, Lynds says the absence of an instant in time underlying a dynamical physical process also illustrates that there is no such thing as a physical progression or flow of time, as without a continuous progression through definite instants over an extended interval, there can be no progression. "This may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but it's exactly what's required by nature to enable time (relative interval as indicated by a clock), motion and the continuity of a physical process to be possible." Intuition also seems to suggest that if there were not a physical progression of time, the entire universe would be frozen motionless at an instant, as though stuck on pause on a motion screen. But Lynds points out, "If the universe were frozen static at such an instant, this would be a precise static instant of time - time would be a physical quantity." Consequently Lynds says that it's due to natures very exclusion of a time as a fundamental physical quantity, that time as it is measured in physics, or relative interval, and as such, motion and physical continuity are possible in the first instance.

On the paper's cosmology content, Lynds says that it doesn't appear necessary for time to emerge or congeal out of the quantum foam and highly contorted space-time geometrys present preceding Planck scale just after the big bang, as has sometimes been hypothesized. "Continuity would be present and naturally inherent in practically all initial quantum states and configurations, rather than a specific few, or special one, regardless of how microscopic the scale."

...

Lynds' plans for the near future the publication of a paper on Zeno's paradoxes by themselves in the journal Philosophy of Science, and a paper relating time to consciousness.

The Hidden Life Source Within
Rabbi Nachum Shifren

http://www.surfingrabbi.com/surfandsoul/vol1.article4.htm

"The ocean, according to the Kabbalah, is derived from the highest spiritual source. It represents an absolute unity with the divine. Those individuals who merited supreme spirituality were termed "fish of the sea."

One hot August night nearly twenty years ago, my friend and mentor, Lifeguard Lt. Thomas Zahn, called suggesting we take a predawn paddle to avoid the "heat." At 4:30 in the morning the water at the Santa Monica Pier sparkled under a bright summer moon. I recall a moment before sunrise, smelling the off-shore eucalyptus breeze out of the Santa Monica Canyon and watching Tom readjust his chin on the board. He squinted toward me and in a hushed tone, lest he disturb the water, said, "It's like a life force, isn't it?"

Years later, after much investigation, I managed to find out why Tom perceived this vitality and why the surfer "feels" different. I found some of the answers in the holy Zohar - an esoteric work of the great mystic Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, of blessed memory. The ocean, according to the Kabbalah, is derived from the highest spiritual source. It represents an absolute unity with the Divine. Those individuals who merited supreme spirituality were termed "fish of the sea." Because of the all-pervasive quality of water in enveloping "created beings" therein, these "fish" never know anything other than the secrets of the universe, residing as they do in a "world of unity" as opposed to land beings who dwell in a "world of separation."

Does this sound familiar? This world of separation, being cut off from the life force symbolized by the ocean, seems to plague many of those seemingly "landlocked" individuals, yet they appear to be oblivious to this mystical world the surfer takes for granted.

What's the bottom line? You paddle out and you feel your world change the second your feet leave land. This transformation takes place for many of us on a subliminal level at least, yet regardless of our backgrounds or personal beliefs, we all share this aspect of divine life force as is evidenced by the proverbial "aloha" spirit shared by surfers the world over. The wondrous details of this relationship will be expounded upon at the next opportunity, G-d willing.

Praising God - Mary Borshardt (from RobertsTheology Live Journal)

svcs

I Am list

Question: If `I' also is an illusion, who then casts off the illusion?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The `I' casts off the illusion of `I' and yet
remains as `I'. Such is the paradox of Self-realization. The realized
do not see any contradiction in it. Take the case of Bhakti. I
approach Iswara and pray to be absorbed in Him. I then surrender
myself with faith and concentrate on Him. What remains afterwards? In
place of the original `I'. perfect self-surrender leaves a residuum
of God in which `I' is lost. This is the highest form of devotion
(parabhakti) and surrender and the height of Vairagya (non-
attachment).

You give up this and that of `my' possessions. If you give up `I'
and `mine' instead, all are given up at a stroke. The very seed of
possession is lost. Thus the evil is nipped in the bud or crushed in
the germ itself. Dispassion (Vairagya) must be very strong to do
this. Eagerness to do it must be equal to that of a man kept under
water trying to rise up to the surface for his life.

Hari Aum !!!

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Neat thing was he discovered the laws for that persistancy...
Playing within those laws benevolently is happily illusive,
playing around with them maliciously is tragically delusional.

--Wim

Wim, Interesting thought. Linda

I think that thought (I edited it a bit) might even be good
enough for the NDS hightlights. ;-)))

--Wim

Superfluous matter
�what if�s� - devour...
stifle presence
covet its show -
moments as they are
devoid much cover,
basking calm.

Take me to this
place of rest...
waited invitation of
come as you are -
naked - whole
mindless strength,
liquid beauty.

~ Calla Visage

(Live Journal)

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#1510 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Sun Aug 3, 2003 12:17 am
Subject: Issue #1510 - Friday, August 1, 2003 glee_be
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Issue #1510 - Friday, August 1, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

nr.6
Linked together words... >>>
surprise edition

http://www.ods.nl/am1gos/

from The eye

Eye to 'I'

Language is so funny and so inadequate. What does one take when one 'takes a photo'?
Taking pictures, is inextricably intertwined with 'the moment'. Bresson called it 'The Decisive Moment'. Advaita calls it 'The Now'.

Thinking about what I would write about this process it suddenly came to me that 'Existence' is the real photographer. This little 'I' here puts it's 'eye' to eyepiece.. looks, adjusts, focuses, chooses, sees something... pushes the button.. click .. the pixels sit in the box..
Later, when the photo is 'developed', or looked at on the computer screen there are many elements in the composition, and perhaps the very best, that were not seen by that little 'eye' at first glance.

Accident? That's just a word.
No shutter is fast enough to capture the moment, the instant, of the timeless here and now.
The light shines on 'objects' makes them seemingly visible, photographable, but the light itself can not be photographed.

So, I'd like to say, Existence is a marvelous 'photographer'. The little 'eye' sees only a small portion of the existential 'picture', the All that is there.
Our perceptions are limited by mental filters, we quickly paste words and concepts on everything we see.

The camera has no such limitations, it simply takes in everything in its field of focus without words or judgments. For the camera there is only light revealing objects. The light itself can only be 'seen' thanks to the objects it illuminates. It makes itself visible. [..]

One magic evening, I 'saw' my body as a man in a full length mirror in my bathroom, the identification was broken for an instant. It was there, present, without the thought of me looking at me, and I realized that I loved others but not myself. Suddenly it was as if all the energy I had been putting into the love of others came flooding back to me and with it a sense of my presence and the presence of all things in the manifest world. Everywhere I looked the presence was there. Smoking a cigarette I saw, with love, the presence of the curling smoke. In the kitchen the presence was in the steam arising from the kettle.

Jacob Boehme was a shoemaker in Lutheran Germany, born in 1575. We know almost nothing of his early life, but we do know that when he was twenty four, he caught the reflection of the sun in a polished pewter dish, and was instantly plunged into an ecstatic vision. Boehme later wrote, "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a university." This unlearned man would spend the rest of his life attempting to describe in feeble and limited human language, what he saw in that pewter dish.
Many people have had such transforming 'experiences' of the presence. The book 'The Common Experience' by Cohen and Phipps has many accounts of such experiences collected for the Religious Experience Research Unit of Oxford University.

Our daily world is filled with light, gleaming, and reflecting, and casting shadows on the all too familiar corners of our kitchens.

The presence can not really be photographed, but it calls, it wants to be seen and to reveal. A photograph can only hint at the presence of the light that makes it visible.

There is a meditation given by Osho from the ancient Hindu treatise the Vigyan Bhaurav Tantra in The Book of Secrets:
Shiva says,
Look lovingly on some object,
Do not go on to another object.
Here in the middle of the object - the blessing.

Osho goes on to say:
'Have you ever looked lovingly at any object? You may say yes because you do not know what it means to look lovingly. You may have looked lustfully - that is another totally different thing. So first try to feel the difference.'

I think by 'lustfully' he means much more than the obvious sexual dimension, I think lust here means wanting to make use of something, any use.
The light falls on objects, makes them visible, the eye sees, the heart moves in love, says yes to the image, the instant. There is a recognition, a spoor to follow, leading to the source of light behind both light and object.
Morning and evening seem to be the very best times to take photographs. The light is long and glancing, warm with the rays of sunlight almost saying: 'Here. Look, look at this. See me here.'

This scene met me one morning when I opened my door onto the hall.

A moment in time, caught by the morning light. The next instant the figures move, the scene changes.
In fact 'I' was attracted at first only by the fall of the light. Existence placed the figures where they were, wove that momentary pattern.
Our eyes are needed by existence in order for it to see itself. In a sense that is existence looking at itself. Or to use that much overused word god looking at God and that is worship, existence worshipping itself.

Love is attention. Attention is love.
The maker is visible in its creation. Our eyes are there to see that. And only our eyes can see that.
'You see', invites this stream, 'I hide nothing from you, I reveal my presence by my light.'

And sometimes some bit of presence says like an eager kid: 'Hey Mister. Take my picture'.

[Sam Pasiencier, June 2003]

Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar ~ HarshaSatsangh

Dear Seer Al Larus,

You really capture the glory that is God in his infinite forms!

What a beautiful sunrise you captured in your early photograph!

I am only waiting for your red lotuses extravaganza with a sunrise
similar to the one you captured in your photographic mind.

As I already said,your pictures speak more of ADVAITHA to me than
the dry and boring discussions about what God is!

Brahman is anirvachaneeya 'beyond words' and how lucky you are to
watch HIM in HIS naked splendour.

With Love to you and all Harshasatsanghis,

Yours
Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar

Viorica Weissman ~ Million Paths

My mind keeps running and tripping me. How do you deal with an active mind ?

The are two ways : one way is vichara , or inquiry; the other is devotion.

Inquiry is the question "Who am I?" which takes you discover the answer.

When you ask "Who am I?" you have no other thoughts. You can have one thought

at a time and you hold onto this thought "Who am I?" When the mind is engaged

in this question , you stick to it - absolutely alert. Place full attention on finding the

answer to this. No other thought will come because you are firmly engaged

in this enquiry . You start with ego .. The ego wants to know "Who am I?"

Doesn't it ? Thought is ego.

--------------------------------------------------------------

from WAKE UP AND ROAR
satsangh with H.W.L. Poonja
vol. 2

--------------------------------------------------------------

Daily Dharma

"The path includes all experiences, both serene and chaotic. We
delight in the beauty of the snow falling outside the windows or the
light reflecting off the floor. But when the fire alarm rings and
confusion erupts, we feel irritated and upset... we've done
something wrong, or more usually someone ELSE has done something to
ruin our beautiful meditation. As someone once said about a loud,
bossy woman, 'What is that woman doing in my sacred world?'

How can we help? The way that we can help is by making friends with
our own feelings of hatred, bewilderment, and so forth. Then we can
accept them in others. With this practice you begin to realize that
you're capable of playing all the parts. It's not just them,
it's 'us' AND 'them.'

So lest you find yourself condescendingly doing tonglen for the
other one who's SO confused, you could remember that this is a
practice where compassion begins to arise in you because you
yourself have been there. You've been angry, jealous and lonely. You
know what it's like and you know how sometimes you do strange
things. Because you're lonely, you say cruel words: because you want
someone to love you, you insult them. Exchanging yourself for
others...doesn't happen because you're better than they are but
because human beings share the same stuff. The more you understand
your own, the more you're going to understand others."
~Pema Ch�dr�n

From the book, "Start Where You Are," published by Shambhala.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570628394/Angelinc

Along the Way

        ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

        Each soul runs from poverty and destruction.
        How sad! It is running away from happiness
        and joy. No one can triumph before being
        destroyed. O Beloved! Reconcile me with
        destruction.

                        - Rumi

        ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997

Margaret James ~ Rumi - Hafiz

My favorite Rumi poem:

Zuleikha let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed
to aloes wood. She loved him so much she concealed his name
in many different phrases, the inner meanings
known only to her. When she said, The wax is softening
near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me.
Or if she said, Look, the moon is up or The willow has new leaves
or The branches are trembling of The coriander seeds
have caught fire or The roses are opening
or The king is in a good mood today or Isn't that lucky?
or The furniture needs dusting or
The water carrier is here or It's almost daylight or
These vegetables are perfect or The bread needs more salt
of The clouds seem to be moving against the wind
or My head hurts or My headache is better,
anything she praises, it's Joseph's touch she means,
any complaint, it's his being away.
When she's hungry, it's for him. Thirsty, his name is a sherbet.
Cold, he's a fur. This is what the Friend can do
when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names
often, but they don't work for them.
The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,
Zuleikha felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name of Hu, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion spice of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
This is not the way of Friend and friend.

The Essential Rumi
Translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne
C 1995 Coleman Barks
P.108

Manuel Hernandez ~ A Net of Jewels

"Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life, and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By flowing with life, I mean acceptance - letting come what comes and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not." Subscribe: ANetofJewels-subscribe@yahoogroups.com URL to this page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANetofJewels

Joe Riley ~ Panhala Buddhist Barbie In the 5th century B.C. an Indian philosopher Gautama teaches "All is emptiness" and "There is no self." In the 20th century A.D. Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man with such a belly could pose, smiling, and without a shirt. ~ Denise Duhamel ~ Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Buddhist_Barbie.html Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com music link (left button to play, right button to save) Joyce Short ~ Advaita to Zen A post from Pete that turned up on a Buddhist list. It's from Zen, but could be any Dharma from anywhere. Here it is with Pete's Good Wishes. "The Zen teacher ascended the platform and looked at us. "Why do you stare at me like dogs about to be fed? The Dharmakaya can't be put into words. It can't be transmitted, it can't be received, it's because you want it that you can't have it. To transmit mind with mind both minds need to be empty. "How can I stop thinking?" I asked. "Pay attention to something else." "What"? "Anything. The Dharmakaya is not this or that. It's everything you look at and the mind you see it with." "So the Dharmakaya is the whole universe then?" "No!" "What is it then?" "Nothing in particular." "I don't understand." "Good!" He descended the platform and walked away." GASSHO Joyce Pete ~ Advaita to Zen

After I read my first book on Zen, I phoned the temple to inquire about meditation schedules. To my surprise the Roshi himself answered the phone. Instead of telling me the times meditation was available he asked me, "Why do you want to come? Are you sick?" "No, I'm not sick" "Then, you shouldn't come. I have a very contagious decease." " What's its name?" "I don't know, maybe it has no name." " How is it caught? "If you look at me you're in mortal danger, if you touch me you'll die." I laughed. "When can I come?" When I saw him in person, I reminded him of the conversation. He laughed good naturally." Yes, it's a matter of time now. Nothing can save you." "How long you think I'll last?" I joked. He shook his head. "A long time. You're a thinker, they take a long time to die. Very painful. He shook his head again, "Not good!" Now that my lungs sound like rattle snake's tails, I think of him fondly. Pete Steve Toth ~ Awareness the Way to Love Homecoming Queen Gary was a 35 year old philosopher who was often homeless & unemployed, but always reading & talking. Within two weeks after I first met him, I came to understand from things he said that he was gay & had a crush on me. I figured he would get over the crush & we'd become friends which is what happened. None of these things was spoken of openly or even referred to. He thought of himself as a possible modern day Socrates. One day he was going to teach me basic philosphy, but we got into a laughingly loud debate about the nature of the word "nexus." It wasn't until some people started jumping in that I realized that we had attracted a crowd. That's the way I met Sheila. She was one of the ones who agreed with me. One day some friends of mine said that Gary was coming out of the closet & talking to all his friends. They said that he was especially nervous about telling me as I had let him sleep on my floor one night when he was homeless. This went on for two weeks with friend after friend telling me what was going to happen. It seemed he was avoiding me so I finally had to seek him out. I was trying hard to keep from smiling as he went into his speech as I had known what he was going to say for two weeks. He said that our relationship would be Platonic. We both had to laugh at that. I said, "We'll get along just like we always have." One evening Sheila & I were studying on a coach in the music room in a student center called Wesley House. We heard a group of people talking at the door. Then the door burst open and talking, laughing, smiling people came in. But when they saw us there, they all froze like statues. Then I heard Gary's voice. "It's all right. Come on in. It's just Steve & Sheila." So every one came in & started talking & playing music. Gary told us that they were starting a new group called the Gay Liberation Front & this was their first meeting. "We're calling it a group grope, but don't worry, we're not going to grope each other that way. But please stay. All these people are coming out of the closet to you. It's important to them." So we stayed until 8 pm when we wanted to get something to eat. Even though we had just sat there like silent witnesses Everyone wanted us to stay. After having been frozen like statues a few hours before. Then something strange started happening the rest of the school year, which was just a couple of weeks. We'd be sitting together in the student union when we'd be approached by a very nervous young person. They would ask if we were Steve & Sheila. When we said that we were, the person would introduce themselves & say that they were gay or coming out of the closet. We would say "glad to meet you," & they would float off in bliss without another word. Never have I seen anyone made so happy, so simply. Once this happened three times in a single hour break between classes. We joked that they would have to start forming a line. It wasn't just in the student union, but all over town, the guy behind the desk at the library, a waitress at the Mexican Restaurant, two down stairs neighbors in my building. Personalities changed before my eyes, people that had seemed aloof & even somehow hostile before, now seemed open & even funny. The next fall Gary approached Sheila. He said that the GLF wanted to have a float in the up coming homecoming parade. He said that everyone wanted to be an attendant surrounding the float & throwing candy kisses. But none of them felt good looking or brave enough to be the queen. So he was asking Sheila. She thought it over & said that he was missing the obvious choice. Gary himself. He was shocked. "Oh, No. I'm not that kind of gay man." Sheila told him that she didn't mean to wear a dress, just a crown & then smile & wave & hope they don't rush you. So Gary was the homecoming queen & survived. Then to his horror, he found out that the parade had made the national news, & the the camera had zoomed in on his face on his mother's favorite news show with Walter Cronkite. He hadn't come out to his mother, thinking that she would never speak to him again if she found out, as she had many times expressed a dislike of gays. So he went home. His mother treated him as always. So he grew bold & asked her if she had seen the parade in the town he was living in with the gay homecoming queen. She said that she had seen it & it was sickening & that the camera had zoomed in on his disgusting face. She had seen him close up on her own TV, but had not seen him at all. The August issue of the TAT Forum is now online at www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm This month's contents include: The Simple Truth by Richard Rose | The Circle Where Nothing Grows by Gary Harmon | Relying on the Unknown by Douglas Harding | Poems by Shawn Nevins | Passed Away by Shawn Nevins | Pieces from my Road by David Weimer | On Spiritual Pretense by Bob Cergol | What Shall I Do When I Meet a Zen Master? by Alfred Pulyan | The Trap of Projection by Bob Fergeson | Humor | Reader Commentary Sincerely, The Forum staff

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#1511 From: Mark Otter <markwotter@...>
Date: Mon Aug 4, 2003 3:40 am
Subject: Issue #1511 - Saturday, August 2, 2003 markwotter704
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Nonduality Salon Highlights, #1510 Saturday, August 2, 2003

Highlights Home Page

Nondual Highlights Issue #1510 Saturday, August 2, 2003 Editor: Mark

When you begin to come to rest in the native Blissfulness of God, you realize freedom and you receive Grace. Grace is the humor you enjoy by always already resting in God. Grace is not ultimately a matter of achieving all kinds of successes in life. Success may come also, but that is just part of the game of experience. Grace is the liberation that comes when we rest in God. Then the locks in the heart are loosened, and the seriousness of experience is dispelled. We feel Radiant. Our occupations become Blissful. Our capacity to enter into the spiritual process is clarified and intensified. We have energy for spiritual life. The process of self-transcendence is quickened, and we move into higher stages of the transforming process until Enlightenment is Radical or Perfect, uncaused and unsupported. In that case, there is simply rest in God, or Grace Absolute, and the world and the body-mind are allowed to float in Infinity. There is no tension in the body-mind and no illusion.

The only Happiness is the release of the heart, or the differentiated self, which is not a fixed entity. The self is just like this clenched fist. Relax the fist and there is nothing inside. Relax the heart and there is no one inside. The sense of self is just the tension in the body-mind that gives it the sense of independence. Relax the tension and the body-mind becomes transparent. There is no ego. There is no ego in experience. That is why Enlightenment is not really an event in the universe. It is not associated with experience of special, so-called "Enlightenment phenomena." It would seem, from the ordinary point of view, that Enlightenment is the dissolution of this separate self. But Enlightenment is the Realization that there is no such self and that there never was; that there is no such self in all the other beings that now continue to exist, and that there never was a self when one was struggling to become Enlightened or to transcend oneself.

- excerpt from "The Mood of Enlightenment - A Talk Given by Master Da Free John to His Devotees"from What Is Enlightenment: Exploring the Goal of the Spiritual Path Edited by John White and published by Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.

Nothing outside of yourself can give you an explanation that releases you from this quest. Your Being is the only place to find your freedom and your release. When you find yourself totally innocent and realize your innocence is held deeply inside you, God-Awareness is right behind. You must find that place of total, innocent purity. You are pure, conscious awareness. The first word is no mistake. Purity is an energy, alive inside your consciousness, in your body, now!

To find that energy, we begin by loosening the binds that hold you to ego. One of those is the underlying belief that you are a body. You are not a body. You are pure, conscious awareness manifesting in all things, and connected intimately with the Source that gave rise to your Consciousness. You are as your Creator created you, and your Creator is not a body. Much of your confusion and immersion in guilt comes from the misidentification of what you are. If you are talking about your body, the words that come out of your mouth, and the actions your body performs, then you cannot escape the fact that you have done things with them that have harmed others. Is there anyone who can deny that this is true? If you are a body,if you are these actions, if you are those words, if that is who you are, then you stand guilty. But what if you are not that? If you are innocent of these charges, your liberation will come as you begin to identify with what you really are.

Your mind tries to bring about some kind of karmic payoff because of the damage it believes your body and mind have caused. If you look closely, you will find that every so-called harmful act you have ever committed can be traced back to a place within you that felt that you as a body needed to do certain things in order to be safe. Therein lies your difficulty, because you have misidentified again. You will never be safe as a body. How can you be safe as a body? The body is under attack all the time. You can walk out your door and in five minutes be dead on the street! Where can you find safety in the ever-changing world of bodies? Identify with your body and you will constantly be filled with fear.

What you have done you can undo. Since there really is no such thing as time-space, it can also be done in a moment. Misidentification comes from thinking yourself to be something you are not and then believing it. You feel guilty about the acts you have performed under that misidentification. But in truth, when you are filled with fear, you will do anything you can to protect yourself. The only way to have harmlessness alive on this planet is for the majority of you to stop feeling afraid. When you no longer feel fear, you no longer have the need to attack others in order to assure your safety. But as things are now, you have fear, and that makes your love unreliable. Fear results in attack. Love produces harmony. You are always afraid of harming others and being harmed yourself. That is the reality of the fear-separated consciousness. Until mankind finds a way to break out of fear, you will go on harming and being harmed. There is no blame for that pattern. How can you be blamed when you are motivated out of a sense of terror?

What is needed is to be constant in your love. You will never be a consistently loving consciousness until you are safe, and you will never be safe until you go to the only place where safety lies, which is in the Heart of God. Safety is found there and no place else. You will never talk yourself into loving kindness. You cannot. It is an experience that builds in you, day after day. You have got to make the decision to experience that feeling. Make the decision now, and it will begin to unfold as you return over and over to the Heart of God.

- from Reflections of an Elder Brother - Awakening From the Dream by Bartholemew, published by Hay House, Inc.

One of the big breakthroughs was in this samadhi state of sedated aliveness, which is the only way I could describe it. There was this very deep calm but it was vibrating with awe and wonder. I looked at the body and I thought 'I get it, it's just a body, not my body.' And then at one point the cat walked by and I thought, 'It's a cat, it's not my cat. So the conditioning of ownership was starting to dissolve just through the grace of going to so many satsangs. But it would never last.

I would sit with Francis Lucille, who is so exqusite, and then Gangaji and then I found a beautiful lady called Neelam, who's Polish, from Papaji. About half a month after Robert had left, I was sitting with her and this shakti kept rising up and it made my body nervous. Once I asked her about this and I said that it was really scary and strong. And she started laughing and just said, 'Let it have you!' It was helpful to be around the women teachers because it dissolved a lot of concepts of what I thought freedom would look like. It was reassuring as they were very accessible and you could just be friends. So I spent time with Neelam and we went to Sedona - it was very beatiful and this time I was fully honouring presence. There was this decision that I was not going to be stupid about it.

Then one day during an outdoor satsang, there was a shift and it was just literally a falling into the heart. It was so simple and it was so true. I couldn't deny it and no amount of brain activity saying 'no' could cast a shadow over it - it just was.

- excerpt from Amazing Grace - an interview with Pamela Wilson in The Teachers of One - Living Advaita - Conversations on the Nature of Non-duality conducted and compiled by Paula Marvelly, and published by Watkins Publishing.

Wean Yourself

Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountain passes,
and orchards in bloom.

At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."

You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.

Listen to the answer.

There is no "other world."
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.

- from The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks and published by Quality Paperback Book Club

The Sufi meditation of the heart is a method of lifting the veils of separation and awakening us to what is real. It is a simple but effective way to use the energy of love to still the mind and go beyond the ego. It is best practiced for at least half an hour every morning.

In This Meditation We Imagine Three Things

1) We must suppose that we go deep within ourselves, deeper and deeper into our most hidden self. There in our inmost being, in the very core of ourselves, we will find a place where there is peace, stillness, and above all, love.

2) After having found this place, we must imagine that we are seated there, immersed into, surrounded by, the Love of God. We are in deepest peace. We are loved; we are sheltered; we are secure. All of us is there, physical body and all; nothing is outside, not even a fingertip, not even the tinniest hair. Our whole being is contained within the Love of God.

3) As we sit there, happy, serene in God's presence, thoughts will intrude into our mind- what we did the day before, what we have to do tomorrow. Memories float by, images appear before the mind's eye.

We have to imagine that we are getting hold of every thought, every image and feeling, and drowning it, merging it into the feeling of love.

Every feeling, especially the feeling of love, is much more dynamic than the thinking process, so if one does this practice well, with the utmost concentration, all thoughts will disappear. Nothing will remain, The mind will be empty.

More about Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's Mediation of the Heart here.

The body is a narrow house,
and the soul within is cramped.
God ruined it so that He might make it a royal palace.
I am cramped like the embryo in the womb:
I've become nine months old.
This migration is now urgent,
but unless the throes of childbirth overtake my mother,
what am I to do?
In this prison I am amidst the fire.
My mother, my bodily nature,
with its death throes is birthing spirit,
so that the lamb may be released from the ewe,
and begin to graze in the green fields.
Come, open your womb, for this lamb has grown big.

Mathnawi III: 3555-3559
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996

- from the Yahoo Group Sunlight.

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#1512 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Tue Aug 5, 2003 7:31 pm
Subject: #1512 - Sunday, August 3, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

Issue #1512 - Sunday, August 3, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

photo: Juniper chinensis 'Shimpaku' specimen, approximately 80 years old.

Zen and Bonsai Garden, commercial site, yet worth seeing for some great photos.

http://www.shantibithi.com/

photo: Tsukubai Garden

Lisbeth ~ Monks Mystics

365 Tao

Fog chills heaven to gray,
Nights come earlier.
Everyone knows decline,
But few discern its border.

Although it is summer and there are many warm months to
come, it is possible to sense that the heavens are already
turning downward. Nearly imperceptibly, the fruit is
ripening on the trees and the nights are lengthening once
again. It is too early to talk of autumn, and yet the next
season is on its way.

Why do we never prepare for decline? We all realize that it
is a valid phenomenon -- we know about the fall of empires,
the aging of heroes, the lessening of our own skill -- but
we are not always aware of its approach. We often realize
too late that we are in a period of decline, and so we are
unprepared. It takes a wise person to perceive the moment
when things begin to change.

Summer does not fade away in a day. Our actions must accord
with the times. Just as the decline of summer is gradual,
so too should our actions be commensurate with the pace of
change. Even though decline may be approaching, we must
gauge how quickly or how slowly events are moving. If we
are too hasty -- like someone who notices the first cool
breeze and immediately dons winter clothing -- we will be
overreacting. It is important to think of decline as
something natural and inevitable. Therefore there should be
no emotional values attached to it. It simply happens, and
that is all.

Al Larus ~ NDS

Turning Point

Each seventh wave,

sometimes less

sometimes more

shaking rocks,

the giants are closing the gates

when the Snipe calls

the stones to wake

for each step I take

towards the sea

ants and spiders

bugs and beetles

run and hide,

at the turning point

of low tide.

Shawn Hair ~ Advaita to Zen

repost of Pham D Luan's post

From A Vision of the Sacred
My Personal Journey with Krishnamurti
by Sunanda Patwardhan, p. 49

Insights on the Path:
A Mystical Communication

Even individuals who have devoted their lives
to the quest for the sacred often lose their focus
and need corroboration of their direction.
A strange, esoteric event took place once
during Krishnaji's visit to India. I am speaking
now about a meeting between a Jain sadhu
(holy person) and Krishnaji, with Achyutji
and I as silent and fascinated witnesses.
The sadhu told Krishnaji, "Sir, for fourteen
years now, I have devoted myself to meditation,
yet I am not able to get into samadhi.
I have been practicing meditation, dhyana,
but I have not been able to go to the depths of it.
Can I do this? Will you be able to tell me
what my impediments are?"

Krishnaji asked him to describe the kinds
of meditative practices he had been following.
After listening to him, he said, "Do you realize
that you are still acquiring? Open your fist.
There is nothing to acquire."

For some minutes, the sadhu was silent.
He then got up and prostrated himself
before Krishnaji, who then asked him to
stay on for some more time. After a while,
the sadhu said, "Sir, I want to ask you
one more question. Is it the impact of your
personality that has given me this [experience]?
Is this due to your gurukripa [grace of the guru]?"

Krishnaji replied, "I knew you would ask this
question. That is why I asked you to stay on
for some more time. This is not something
to acquire but to give up. Release your fist.
Leave everything." He paused for a moment
and said, "Is it the [new] mind that is asking
that question? Or is it the mind before you
experienced 'this' that is full of questions?
You have been caught up in it again. I took
you out of it, but you have gone back to it.
If you stand firmly on that and let go everything,
'it' will come. 'It' will come, not because you
want it, but 'it' will come. Have you understood
what I am asking?"

The sadhu prostrated himself again before
Krishnaji, sat down and said, "I don't need
to go anywhere else." Krishnaji then said to him,
"The 'other' is out of time, and we live in time.
And we want to bring timeless into time.
I have told you all this, but it is not mine."

Unknowable are the nonverbal experiences
and mysterious are the ways by which a teacher
communicates them. What I understood from
this conversation is that transformations in
oneself could take place in the presence of
an enlightened person if one was open and
vulnerable to the teaching.

Daily Dharma

FOUR WORDS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE:

You were never born.

~ ~ ~

"By day I praised you

and never knew it.

By night I stayed with you

and never knew it.

I always thought that

I was me - but no,

I was you

and never knew it."

~~Rumi

From the book: "Hush Don't Say Anything to God", published by Jain Publishing

photo of seacoast by Al Larus

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#1513 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Wed Aug 6, 2003 2:13 am
Subject: #1513 - Monday, August 4, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
Send Email

Issue #1513 - Monday, August 4, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Su Gandolf

Cool For You, by Eileen Myles

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/188712859X/104-9065180-3073500?vi=glance

"I went to sit in the park one day. Washington Square Park. The one
in San Francisco. With the big church there. And the hill. I was
thinking Amadeo's apartment is over there. I hope he doesn't come
around. I was just sitting on the grass and I hadn't gotten much
sleep and I was thinking the same big questions I always thought
about: where should I go, what should I go, and slowly I seeped into
this other thing. I was not connected. Something was sitting there
but it was not "I". No I, not at all. I saw church, green grass, no
I. I was not connected. Didn't know what grass was, didn't know what
words were. The thing that had so delicately connected these things
was gone and I was suspended in not being, not knowing, not having a
body, not experiencing myself, no trivial thought, no complaint.
Surrounded but not attached. Not closer or further from the surface,
but simply not "in" at all. Not outside either. It wasn't like a
movie. Losing, simply losing. I got up. In the middle of that. There
was a hill. I took it. No, that didn't bring me closer. I saw an ice
cream shop. Chocolate. I bit into it. Nothing. No mouth. No there.
Chocolate, yes, but so what. Kept walking. Opened apartment door.
Got in shower. Hot, cold. Hot, cold. Slowly something came back and
I returned. I had been empty of me. I didn't want that."

Thomas Merton

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of
conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands,
to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help
everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More
than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the
activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own
inner capacity for peace. It destroys the frutifulness of his
own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which
makes work fruitful."
-- Thomas Merton

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p 73

Jan Sultan

SufiMystic

Understanding can come only at the appropriate time,
and no one can say when.
All that can be said is that the understanding
cannot come so long as there is expectation,
so long as there is a "me" wanting it.

Balsekar

Sri Sankaracharya

Brahman doesn't play ball

Om. Salutations to the Supreme Self.

Sri Sankara :

If the mind
ever so slightly strays from the Ideal
and becomes outgoing

then it goes down and down,
just like a play-ball inadvertently dropped on the staircase bounces down
from one step to another.

The mind that is attached to the sense-objects reflects on their qualities ;
from mature reflection arises desire, and after desiring,
a man sets about having that thing.

Hence,
to the discriminating Knower of Brahman
there is no worse death than inadvertance with regard to concentration.
But the man who is concentrated attains complete success.
Carefully concentrate thy mind.

Bob Rose

Meditation Society of America

Respect

Buddhist concepts state that
everyone you see was once your mother in
another lifetime. Similarly, eventually
everyone will Realize and attain Buddhahood.
Therefore, respect is due to all.

Su Gandolf

NDS

I'm just getting turned on to this music, eclectic

early mixing of jazz and (hindu)-devotional--

There's a "priceless jazz collection" compilation

that I'm listening to now that I'd call... dreamy...

And there's an album that has a good dose of gospel/

spiritual in it, I think that's "Transcendence".

She stopped recording in the late 70s, founded

a Vedanta Center in Cali, was a devotee of

Satchidananda then Sai Baba. Also known as

the Yoko Ono of the 60's jazz set, for the sin of

marrying and influencing a famous genius named

John.

http://members.aol.com/ishorst/love/alice.html

Enjoy,

Su (I was going to say "my real name", then that

reminded me of being in college and finding a

paper written by a male "friend" about a hypothetical

woman who happened to be a lot like me, wherein

he had called her "Sue (not her real name)".

We got a big kick out of that one for a while.)

Cheers,

Joe

Cornelius

NDS

Cyborgs

From "Living Truth"

(This is a long series of posts. --ed.)

Q: I am interested to know what the relationship is between
consciousness and evolution. Did Neanderthal man have sages?
Or is awakened consciousness a recent phenomenon that is tied
in somehow with the evolution of the species?

Klein: This is only consciousness. You cannot apply evolution
to consciousness. Conscious is. But the expression of
consciousness is without end, is a basket without a
bottom...though the form may change. What does it mean,
evolution? I is only a category of the mind. When the
prototype of a thing has changed, it is no longer here. It is
finished.

It is only the mind that "changes" it from one thing to
another thing. Because in reality all appears and disappears
in consciousness and there is no independent phenomental
continuity. But that brings us too far in the problem of
evolution.

Q: Are you saying evolution is a thing of the mind?

Klein: Yes, the mind.

Cornelius comments:

The notion that evolution is of the mind may place Klein
squarely in the camp of anti-evolution theologists. With
Advaita Vedanta, unlike the proponents of "God-Consciousness",
there is no source of our perceptions.

In Christianity, there are the myths of creation. They inform
of how God breathed his spirit into man. How this "spirit"
relates to our perceptions is a topic for discussion. Whatever
the relationship, according to anti-evolutionists these
perceptions did not evolve from those that we find in the
primates.

Of course, one gathers not an inkling of how we come to
perceive what we do from "two-lines" by Klein dismissing
evolution as something of the mind. But like most everyone
else his understanding was based on a time-line of the past.
Instead of looking to the past, what challenges does biotechic
futurism pose to the debate between creationists,
evolutionists and advaitan vedantists, like Klein?

According to Advaita, Consciousness is not the property of
Homo Sapiens. Moreover, the ways in which we perceive
Consciousness is not only unique to us, but that perception
has not evolved from that of other life forms.

Without research and "processing" I'm not in the position to
argue in favor of the theory of Evolution as being the pattern
by which our perceptions have grown/changed over these
millions of years.

The theory of evolution (of perception) is not odds with the
idea that our perception is unique to us, hence, not on an
continuum with that of lower primates.

But what of bio-technic futurism, as presented in the
"Transhumanist" movement?

Such a label may conjure of UFO sightings and whathaveyou, but
of course advancements along the frontiers of Cloning reminds
one that the line between science and fiction is in the "eye
of the beholder".

An article by Erick Baard, (I refer to as) The Cyborg Movement
covered a three conference hosted by Yale's Interdisciplinary
Bioethics Project: Technology and Ethics: The World
Transhumanist Association on the efforts of "Transhumanists".
A central focus in the conference was the protection of the
rights of "cyborgs".

A cyborg is a robot that is physically part human and part
machine.

A fan of Star Trek has his share of examples of cyborg
proto-types. And so sci-fic enterntainment has nicely
simplified a profound issue of bioethics.

Before framing the controversy on how cyborgs may develop, I
wonder about a more fundamental issue: since the manifestation
of cyborgs seems inevitable or beyond our control, will their
"reflection" of Consciousness be a mere reflection of our own?

----------------------------------------------

Mark Hovila on Cyborgs

We have made the mistake of identifying ourselves with objects
(mind, body, etc.) which seem to be surrounded by other
objects. The mistake is immediately seen when we see that all
of the objects are appearance IN consciousness. What changed?
Our understanding changed. The reality did not change. If
there is evolution, it is an evolution, or shift, in our
understanding only.

But the phrase "appearances in consciousness" may trouble some
people. Maybe they don't like the word "consciousness." Fine.
How about this: Simply see the objects AS objects, period. To
whom are they appearing? No need to label it. Just look at any
object and ask that question. What more needs to be said?

Biological evolution is a completely different subject, in my
opinion. The expressions of consciousness, the forms, are all
undergoing change. We can argue about whether the changes have
been or will be made by natural selection, God,
extraterrestrials, genetic engineering, etc. Who knows? I vote
for ETs creating us by genetic engineering. What else can
explain how just plain weird we are? :-)

I don't know what to say about your question of whether the
cyborgs' reflection of consciousness will be a mere reflection
of our own. What do you mean by "our"? If we manufacture a
chair out of a piece of wood, does that chair reflect "our"
consciousness, or is it an appearance in the One
Consciousness? Sorry, no answers here, only questions.

-----------------------------------

Gene Poole on Cyborgs

If this is really of deep interest for you,
you will certainly enjoy reading this
enlightening book:

Franke, Herbert W. "The Orchid Cage" DAW, 1973 (79)
1st printing (1st pb ed)
Earth explorers investigate mechanical alien city. $7.00

Buy it here:

http://www.strangewords.com/weirdbooks/DAW.html

Humans have yet to learn the most elementary
things about 'consciousness'. Advaitin and other
sources tend to fall back into dependence upon
'religious' ideation in an attempt to make palatable
what has been perceived by 'realizers'. This unfortunate
tendency has provided a refuge for 'realizers', but
at the same time, has essentially halted any effective
research into the _capabilities_ of consciousness.

To equate 'consciousness' with 'spirituality' is an
error of the most basic sort. Because this error
takes place deep in the foundational levels of
semantical algebra, those two concepts are overlayed,
thus blurring the nature of each. It is not surprising
that 'our' attempts to make sense of this, lead to
such statements as 'it is and will always be a mystery',
and 'it is inexpressible', etc.

Humans have developed a body of concepts
which pertain to consciousness, but these
are principly applied to instances where something
is assumed to have gone wrong; the mechanics
of how consciousness operates in the human
has become the pervue of psychology and
psychiatry.

The eastern (Hindu, Mahayana and Vajrayana)
viewpoints treat consciousness through a body
of concepts that are brilliantly deployed analogies
and metaphors, but which have unfortunately become
(mis) interpreted as literal by western minds.

You can believe that western science will be using
a 'hacker' approach to the study of consciousness;
in other words, an experimental trial of any hypothesis
will supposedly 'prove' something. The problem
which your posting highlights, is that there is not
even a practical vocabulary with which to explore
and debate 'about' consciousness. Thus, the debate
settles into the familiar territory of ethics and morals,
an arena which is thoroughly occupied by western
media pundits. We can expect the usual 'bad vs good'
debates to go on as long as this condition (lack of
vocabulary) persists.

Start here:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics

I can offer a useful term that applies; "staging".

Before using the word in a thought or sentence,
learn what it can mean, and what I intend it to
mean in this context:

Staging implies both incremental buildup
AND all of what has been built (staged).

The mere fact that we can see evolutionary
layers to be existing in the whole, does not
require that we see any layer (stage) as
separate. In fact, all layers (stages) which
exist, comprise the whole itself. The nature
of the whole, is not necessarily evidenced
by examination of the stages.

Staging (the dynamic function of) is itself
the "stage" or arena in which all functions
come into play. It is important to
recognize that a situation may provoke
re-staging, and the immediate re-staging
(which always occurs, without exception)
can be taken as evidence that staging is itself,
a deployment or 'extension' of the nature
of the fundament of reality itself.

If you read the above a few times, you
might see that what I am saying is that
'consciousness' is a dynamic which
does continually deploy itself in ways
which allow a multidimensional view
of any situation which calls for problem-
solving. Biological bodies are vulnerable
and use consciousness to solve the problems
of survival... of the species of human and of
the individual human. Until this is seen
clearly (staging, extension and deployment)
the 'cyborg' will remain a novelty.

If it is seen clearly, it will become apparent
that the cyborg is already a reality.

The challenge for the cyborg is to realize
its own cyborg nature, and to then move
to maximize the utility of that nature by
allowing staging to occur in the most
advantageous manner.

Again, the archeological interpretation
of staging (which we call evolution ala
Darwin), 'evidenced' by artifacts of what
we imagine to be 'prior eras', serves to
distract us from realization of the actual
real-time deployment of staging as
the basis of the operation of consciousness
itself.

The world does not exist as a place where
consciousness happens; the world happens
as a manifestation of how consciousness
naturally deploys itself. Our assumptions
about 'time' is the foundation upon which
our assumptions about 'evolution' are built;
if time is abolished, all 'eras' exist now.

The Yugas (gold, silver and iron) coexist
always. Where 'we are' in that deployment
of 'Yugas' (eras) is to an extent, determined
by our assumptions concerning time and
evolution.

The Universe springs into existence whole,
complete with evidence of how its deployment
is staged. The Universe is evidence of nothing
other than consciousness; staging (time and
evolution) phases, evidence the operation of
consciousness as a continuous deployment
of layered (staged) functionality. Any and all
circumstances (contexts) are already included
in that deployment, which is able to rearrange
itself so quickly (from the human POV) that
no time seems to pass.

This 'ability' of matter to arrange itself
according to intention of survival, remains
unseen by scientists, who buy into the
'necessity' of time (scalar) phasing. Staging
is simultaneous, not scaled. Seeing it this
way is apparently quite difficult. I am hoping
that this posting will provide a bit of help
to the interested reader.

--------------------------

Hur on Cyborgs

"I am interested to know what the relationship is between
consciousness and evolution. Did Neanderthal man have sages? Or is
awakened consciousness a recent phenomenon that is tied in somehow with the evolution of the
species?"

i thinks that the west's biological definition of consciousness and
the east's understanding of consciousness are on different levels.
the west considers body/mind and consciousness are pretty much the
same things whereas the east seems to suggest that the brain is like
a radio receiver and what is transmitting through the body/mind is
consciousness. then what is consciousness really? you know it and i
know it...but when it comes to defining it, that's the fuel that
fires up the imagination in discussion boards.

since the east is much more advanced in spiritual talk, the nondual
sages long ago figured out that God, the imaginary Other, is for the
seekers at the kindergarden spirituality level. although the sages
have taken away our divine objects, we still need divine concepts to
hang on to that would give us the promise of eternity. since then we
have replaced the belief in Spirit with Consciousness and capitalized
It and raised It to the new subtle divine level. i say take away
Cosciousness as well. without the formulation of nondual Truth in
Consciousness to validate our enlightenment which also promises us
impersonal eternity, would we still be interested in spiritual treats
handed by the sages to comfort our unbearable pain of individual
suffering?

"Before framing the controversy on how cyborgs may develop, I
wonder about a more fundamental issue: since the manifestation of
cyborgs seems inevitable or beyond our control, will their
"reflection" of Consciousness be a mere reflection of our own?"

is nondual Consciousness the last spiritual castle left that's not
destroyed by the advances of the logical scientist in us? then why
raise Consciousness to the divine level and defend it as our last
hope? i say hand over the empty mirror called Consciousness over to
the materialist scientist in us as well.

once the scientists understand the nature of matter, especially at
the quantum level, they'll be able to create self-aware cyborgs or
even develop ourselves partly as cyborgs. so what?

it's not the process as to how consciousness seems to manifest but
what happens in self-awareness that is always a source of fascination
to "me."

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1514 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Thu Aug 7, 2003 12:29 am
Subject: #1514 - Tuesday, August 5, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
Send Email

#1514 - Tuesday, August 5, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Home on NDS: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Home on Yahoo: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights

Highlights/NDS Search: http://nonduality.com/search.htm

Letters to the editors:NDhighlights-owner@yahoogroups.com

Cee

from What to know before you die

what is the most important thing

for you to ever know

a lifetime seems to have been lived

yet the essence has been overlooked

you can know about so many things

yet relative knowledge brings no peace

it's a crying shame to live a life

without knowing who is living it

who can know yourself by you

dare to give yourself the precious gift

of uncovering your real identity

the boundless freedom of self realization

this will blow the mind you think you have

you and god, the same and one

bright vast exactly here

no eyes to see a difference

-----------------------------------

What to Know Before You Die, by Cee - This is a rarity. A hardback hand-bound book of instruction for enlightenment from Cee with wisdom from the Advaita Vedanta tradition, written in a lyrical style. This book is a little bigger than 4" x 5", 60 pages, printed on a high quality paper. It combines original spiritual literature and the artistry of a handmade book.

Question: What are the steps of practical training?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It depends on the qualifications and nature of
the seeker.

Questioner: I worship an idol.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Go on doing so. It leads to concentration of
mind. Get one-pointed. All will come right in the end. People think
that liberation (moksha) is somewhere outside them to be sought for.
They are wrong. It is only knowing the Self in you. Concentrate and
you will realize it. It is your mind that is the cycle of births and
deaths (samsara).

Daily Dharma

"It is nonsense to insist
that we cannot achieve
enlightenment without
learned and pious teachers.
Because wisdom is innate,
we can all enlighten ourselves."

~Hui-neng

From the website, "Daily Zen,"
http://www.dailyzen.com

Dear All,

a new German Ramana-group has been founded - in German language with the name: Bhagavan_Sri_Ramana

So for those who are German speaking more or less (or want to freshen up the rosty German...) this is also a good possiblity.

to join:

http://groups.yahoo.com/Bhagavan_Sri_Ramana via web

or: Bhagavan_Sri_Ramana-subscribe@yahoogroups.com via eMail

Hopefully the German speaking devotees will find together this way a little bit more.

There will be quotes of German translations. Some of a new German translation of Nan Yar (Who am I) will be quoted, but also Lucy Ma (Lucy Cornellson) who wrote the second German Ramana-biography (after Heinrich Zimmer, who wrote the first) and made some translations of Bhagavan's

work from Tamil into German. The "Talks" are also here in German translation, likewise Annamalai Swami's Reminiscences and Osbornes biography and teaching - both out of stock since long, Mouni Sadhu likewise.

So there is some here to share.

The group is meant also for exchange of sadhana, most of all atma-vichara, but also other methods, and may be devotional as well.

So let's see.

The description of the group is as follows:

Diese Gruppe ist f�r alle gedacht, die sich f�r Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi interessieren, und ist vorwiegend, aber nicht ausschlie�lich, seiner Lehre und Person gewidmet. Sie soll im Besonderen ein Austauschforum f�r die deutschsprachigen Devotees sein, die sich in der von Sri Ramana gelehrten Praxis der Selbstergr�ndung �ben und in ihm ihren Sat-Guru gefunden haben.

Informationen zu englischsprachigen Ramana-Gruppen finden sich im Link unter dieser Hauptseite.

M�ge Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi diese Gruppe segnen!

Gabriele

Movie Review. Prayers are answered with Mel Gibson's soul-stirring 'Passion' As one who has seen virtually every modern biblical epic -- from Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" to the two-part "Jesus" miniseries on CBS three years ago -- I can say "The Passion" is the most beautiful, profound, accurate, disturbing, realistic and bloody depiction of this well-known story that has ever been filmed. http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Aug/08062003/commenta/81562.asp

Gutenberg Bible Now Online at University of Texas Ransom Center. The University of Texas Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center web site now features a scanned version of their Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed with movable type, is one of the greatest treasures in the Ransom Center's collections. It was printed at Johann Gutenberg's shop in Mainz, Germany and completed in 1454 or 1455. The Center's Bible was acquired in 1978 and is one of only five complete examples in the United States. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/gutenberg/

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1515 From: Know Mystery <know_mystery@...>
Date: Fri Aug 8, 2003 3:11 am
Subject: #1515 - Wednesday, August 6, 2003 know_mystery
Send Email

Soaring - Photo by Alan Larus

#1515 - Wednesday, August 6, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery)

Manuel Hernandez ~ ANetofJewels

Words can only point at Truth. It is only nonverbal, noumenal understanding
that can deliver it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By usurping the impersonal subjectivity of the one Absolute subject as that
of an individual person, the human being commits the original sin and
therefore comes under bondage. As soon as this mistaken identity is
realized and the true identity as the one formless and eternal subject or
witness is established, the bondage disappears and there is enlightenment.

~ Ramesh S. Balsekar ~

Tara ~ DailyDharma & Alan Larus, TrueVision

Birds II

Photo by Alan Larus

A Great Poem

"This is what you should do: Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not
concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people...
reexamine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem."

~Walt Whitman

From the book, "Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems," edited by Francis
Murphy, published by Viking Press.

Marilyn ~ OmniConscious

Huang Po

Some good websites that have info and excerpts from Huang Po's book
Zen Teaching on the Transmisson of Minds

http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/arHuangpo.htm

http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/zen-writings/huang-po.htm

http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/cmHuangPo.htm

Shawn Hair ~ SufiMystic

Relative Knowledge

M.(Ramana Maharshi): Ego is 'I' thought. In its subtle form it
remains a thought, whereas in its gross aspect it embraces the
mind, the senses, and the body. They disappear in deep
slumber along with the ego. Still the Self is there; similarly it will
be in death.

Ego is not an entity independent of the Self in order that it
must be created or destroyed by itself. It functions as an
instrument of the Self and periodically ceases to function. That is
to say, it appears and disappears ; this might be considered to
be birth and death.

Relative knowledge pertains to the mind and not to the Self. It
is therefore illusory and not permanent. Take a scientist for
instance. He formulates a theory that the earth is round and
goes on to prove it and establish it on an incontrovertible basis.
When he falls asleep the whole idea vanishes ; his mind is left a
blank ; what does it matter if the world remains round or flat
when he is asleep? So you see the futility of all such relative
knowledge.

One should go beyond such relative knowledge and abide in
the Self. Real knowledge is such experience and not
apprehension by the mind.

D : Why does not Sri Bhagavan go about and preach the
Truth to the people at large?

M. : How do you know that I am not doing it? Does
preaching consist of mounting a platform and haranguing to the
people around? Preaching is simple communication of
knowledge. It may be done in Silence too.

What do you think of a man listening to a harangue for an
hour and going away without being impressed by it so as to
change his life? Compare him with another who sits in a holy
presence and leaves after some time with his outlook on life
totally changed. Which is better : To preach loudly without effect
or to sit silently sending forth intuitive forces to play on others?
Again how does speech arise? There is abstract knowledge
(unmanifest). From it there rises the ego which gives rise to
thoughts and words successively. So then :

Abstract Knowledge ----->Ego---->Thoughts---->Words

Words are therefore the great grandson of the original source.
If words can produce an effect, how much more powerful should
the preaching through silence be? Judge for yourself.

from Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi

Freyja ~ NondualitySalon

Murder of Innocence

Who's laughing "at" who anyway? We laugh "in" delight and joy or at the absurdity of
pain, not 'at' misfortune. It's not about laughing and feeling pleasure at another's
misfortune. We're all in this together, and i mean, all.

I do not enjoy seeing someone's joy squashed at every turn, no matter where it is
perceived to another that joy comes from. I believe in the displaying of joy as a gift to
the world, without being resented for it. There are those that like to judge this joy,
search for ulterior motives, etc. and for some reason they have to hurt this expression
of joy...the kind of joy coming from a benevolent sense of life....resting in the
innocence of all....but, what do they know? They cant see it themselves, so that
expression becomes suspect.

It's not like i don't see how this squashing could also facilitate the return to
innocence....by sacrifice. Is that how we want to do things? I don't.

But, you see, ultimately, i and everyone else was born innocent and that is how "I" will
remain forever.

People punish each other, they negate, they degrade, they ridicule, they insult, they
point out--unable to conceive that it is that person's best, their best in that moment.
Perhaps the people who degrade....i suppose this is their best in the moment as well.
People do things because of themselves, it has nothing to do with another. It does no
good to resent them they way they resent others.....it just perpetuates the cycle. But, if
there is an evil, then that is it.

Ayn Rand wrote:

"The evil of a cultural atmosphere is made by all those who share it. Anyone who has
ever felt resentment against the good being the good, and has given voice to it, is the
murderer of innocence."

Joy

Snoopy

Tom Hickcox ~ AwarenessTheWayToLove

Taking Flight: The Self

A woodcarver called Ching had just finished work on a bell
frame. Everyone who saw it marveled, for it seemed to be the
work of spirits. When the Duke of Lu saw it, he asked,
"What sort of genius is yours that you could make such a
thing?"

The woodcarver replied, "Sire, I am only a simple workman.
I am no genius. But there is one thing. When I am
going to make a bell frame, I meditate for three days to calm
my mind. When I have meditated for three days, I think no
more about rewards or emoluments. When I have meditated
for five days, I no longer think of praise or blame, skillfulness
or awkwardness. When I have meditated for seven days, I
suddenly forget my limbs, my body; no, I forget my very self. I
lose consciousness of the court and my surroundings. Only my
skill remains.

In that state I walk into the forest and examine each tree
until I find one in which I see the bell frame in all its perfection.
Then my hands got to the task. Having set my self aside,
nature meets nature in the work that is performed through
me. This, no doubt, is the reason why everyone says that the
finished product is the work of spirits."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Said a world-famous violinist about his success in playing Beethoven's
Violin Concerto: "I have splendid music, a splendid
violin and a splendid bow. All I need to do is bring them
together and get out of the way."

Anthony de Mello, S.J.

� 1988 by the Center for Spiritual Exchange

Hur Guler ~ Nisargadatta

an article about the dangers of Advaita from WIE

godz_will posted this message at the advaita.org board. i'm serving
it for this group as a lightly battered goffer for the amusement of
nondual cats.

An excerpt from an article about Advaita from WIE (Andrew Cohen's
magazine).

"While Advaita's profound inspiration and power to liberate is
undeniable, its worldview has not been without its critics. Even
though "modern" Advaita seems to emphasize the indivisible nature of
the world and Brahman, or the Self Absolute, Advaita philosophy has
traditionally expressed, as noted religious scholar Lance Nelson
points out, a "deep metaphysical bias against the world. . . . In the
end, the Advaita tradition fails to present a true nondualism of
world and Absolute. . . . It is rather an acosmic monism. It achieves
its nonduality not inclusively, but exclusively. Empirical reality is
admitted in a provisional way, but in the end it is cast out of the
Absolute, out of existence. From the highest perspective, the world
is simply not there [emphases ours]." Once again, even though modern
proponents of Advaita do not appear to exclude the world in their
vision of nonduality, in the classical view, the world is clearly
recognized as being either completely unreal, or only partially real.
And this is what Advaita has been historically criticized for.
Precisely because of its emphasis on the ultimate unreality and
illusory nature of the world and embodied existence, any teaching of
how to live in the world is entirely absent. More specifically, the
nondual teaching does not in any way address the ethical or moral
dimension of human life. And even though modern Advaita does not seem
to exclude the world in its nondual view, it still is devoid of any
teaching that addresses the realities of human life.

Interestingly enough, it appears that historically Advaita did not
address ethical or moral questions because, according to Nelson, the
highest nondual teachings were "never intended to be a philosophy for
the general public." In fact, he states that they were "formulated by
and for a narrow spiritual elite of male brahmins [members of the
highest, priestly class], primarily sannyasins [renunciates], who
alone were believed qualified to fully appropriate its import." This
practically would have meant that the individual to whom the absolute
teachings were revealed would have already fulfilled the demanding
moral and ethical qualifications for discipleship. And even more than
that, Shankara himself states that the qualifications for
discipleship also demanded an extraordinary degree of detachment from
and transcendence of worldly desires:

The pupil must be dispassionate toward all things noneternal. . . .
[Having] abandoned the desire for sons, wealth and worlds, endowed
with self-control [and] compassion, he is a brahmin who is internally
and externally pure, whose thought is calm, who has reached
tranquility. . . . [Thus] let him go to a spiritual teacher who is
learned in the scriptures and established in Brahman.

The Upadesasahasri

The unusual phenomenon occurring in the postmodern spiritual
marketplace is that now, as never before in history, what were once
considered the highest esoteric teachings, revealed only to those who
were prepared and had proven themselves worthy of their unimaginable
depth and subtlety, are available to anyone who wanders into a
spiritual bookstore. An important question seems to be: Are most
seekers genuinely prepared for the psychological upheaval and world-
shattering shift of perception that penetration into the Absolute
unleashes? Advaita's emphasis on the illusory nature of embodied
existence has the potential to give license to human weakness and
self-indulgence if the individual is not already firmly grounded in a
fundamentally wholesome relationship to life. The unwholesome
tendencies characterized by narcissistic, neurotic and deeply cynical
convictions so common today create a dangerously weak foundation for
a nondual perspective that transcends all pairs of opposites,
including right and wrong. While Advaita's great strength is its
singular, unwavering emphasis on the Absolute dimension of existence,
its weakness is revealed in the limited scope of its singularity. And
while any truly absolute view must, by definition, transcend all
distinctions, the inherent potential of Advaita or non dualism to
inspire a worldview that is perilously empty of any value whatsoever
is enormous. Indeed, the potential for escape, rather than genuine
transcendence, is great in such an absolute teaching. For to be
embraced, absorbed and utterly consumed by the Absolute is one thing
but to escape from the inherent complexity of life in order to avoid
the overwhelming demand that true surrender requires is another thing
altogether.

.

s_v_c_s ~ iam

All will come right in the end

Question: What are the steps of practical training?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It depends on the qualifications and nature of the seeker.

Questioner: I worship an idol.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Go on doing so. It leads to concentration of
mind. Get one-pointed. All will come right in the end. People think
that liberation (moksha) is somewhere outside them to be sought for.

They are wrong. It is only knowing the Self in you. Concentrate and
you will realize it. It is your mind that is the cycle of births and
deaths (samsara).

Choo Meh Wah ~ BuddhistWellnessGroup

Meditation Corner

One inhalation and the mind wanders, so we bring it back again - and that itself is a moment of mindfulness. We are training the mind like a good mother trains her child. A little child doesn�t know what it is doing, it just wanders off; and if the mother gets angry with it and spanks and beats it, the child becomes terrified and neurotic. A good mother will just leave the child, keeping an eye on it, and if it wanders she will bring it back. Having that kind of patience, we�re not trying to bash away at ourselves, hating ourselves, hating our breath, hating everybody, getting upset because we can�t get tranquil with anapanasati.

~ Ajahn Sumedo~



Water Lily

Photo by Alan Larus

Doug Fireman ~ TrueVision & Alan Larus ~ TrueVision

Field

Photo by Alan Larus

Lost and Found

I tried to be quiet,
but the stones crunched
under my feet,
and just as I approached...
you jumped into a pool
of molten thought
and disappeared...
leaving nothing but
concentric rings
of what might have
been had I remembered...

Upon returning
to the forest,
I saw you wearing
your floral crown,
tending to the flower seeds
you had planted
in the ground.

And when you smiled
at me, I realized...
something
quite profound...
that my grief
for what I lost
transformed to joy
when you were found

Doug Fireman

Eve ~ BuddhistWellnessGroup

It is now or never.
It is never not now.

~ Stonepeace ~

http://asp.thedailyenlightenment.com/

Choo Meh Wah ~ BuddhistWellnessGroup

Quiet Time for the Mind
By Judy Foreman, The Third Age, July 23, 2003

"New York, USA -- During the last decade, there has been a growing body of research showing that regular meditation -- the practice of quieting the mind through deep, continued thought -- can help reverse some of the ill effects of stress...

Many doctors and researchers have speculated about the reasons meditation -- sometimes called the "relaxation response" -- produces these effects. But a credible scientific explanation has been elusive until now. Such an explanation could describe how changes in brain function produced by altering one's mental focus affect people's moods and metabolism...

A new study by U.S. researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Massachusetts is likely to provide a significant first step to answering the question of what goes on in the brain during meditation...

The researchers sought to test a particular theory: that in people who are stressed, anxious or depressed, the right frontal cortex of the brain is often overactive and the left frontal cortex, relatively underactive. Many such people also show heightened activation of the amygdala, a key brain center for processing fear.

By contrast, people who are usually calm and happy typically show greater activity in the left frontal cortex, relative to the right. These folks also pump out less of the stress hormone cortisol, recover faster from negative events and have higher levels of natural killer cells, a type of white blood cell that battles infection and is a measure of immune system function..."

Read the rest: http://www.buddhistnews.tv/current/stress-240703.php

Ben Hassine ~ NDS

The noble art of watching the I AM and Karel Appel

Some thoughts:

There is one art that is above all the other arts. It is the art of watching, attending the I AM. It is surrender and inquiry at the same time and results in understanding and love.

This art awakens one to the profound simplicity and singularity of "what is". Watching the I AM ends the movements of "me" and leads directly to the jewel of true Identity or "I" in the Heart.

note:
Karel Appel, the Dutch Abstract Expressionist painter, said in an interview on Dutch television, he lives in: "...a world without laws...". He said he: "...would sit and wait for the inner light to go on...", before painting a fresh canvas. I felt and knew without a doubt he was describing the state of pure I AM from which all creativity emerges. Pure I AM is in a way at the root of the world and the place before the emergence of laws; it is the place where all laws originate from in other words. So I could understand what he was pointing at when he made the remark about the "world without laws".
I guess Appel was using the word "laws" for restrictions caused by sense of doership or conditioned action. But that's a guess.

Appel also said he is always painting. Even when talking, walking or eating. This could be the same as always attending, watching I AM. Until one abides effortless as pure I AM and thus goes beyond.

I feel like a painter as well. I paint the canvas of "I" with the paint of I AM. The result is the abstract expressionist work called" Le Monde".

Painting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NondualitySalon/message/75081

Gene Poole & Jerry Katz & Benny ~ Listcology

[Gene]

Hey Jer...

While you are at it, can you wrap it
to a table of 550? It is just too hard
to read those dang long sentences
on my 19" LCD display.

[Jerry]

ok, I fixed it: http://nonduality.com/listcology.htm

I still have a measly 15" monitor. But at least it's attached to my
eyeglasses so I can see it while i'm walking around.

J.

Katzundeit

Animation by Benny

Stephen (bodhibliss) ~ josephcampbellmythologygroup & Bill Rishel, Art

The Eyes Have It

According to the Brihad Upanishad: "The Selfhood in the object attracts the Selfhood in the observer of the object. The Self pulls the Self. All love is this much."

Every so often i demonstrate this concept to my junior high school students by asking them to stand up, pair off, and look closely into each other's eyes.

Of course, this is met by a chorus of resistance, but i point out that they're not getting married to each other - heck, only about half the class happens to be boy/girl pairs anyway. All they are doing is looking into the eyes of another living being - could be a dog or cat, happens to be a primate - and observe ... more clinical than romantic.

This calms then down. I ask them to focus - give them a minute - then ask what they see.

Some students may describe the colors they see, or the size of the pupil, or some other detail but sooner or later someone says

"I see ME!"

Eye

Art by Bill Rishel

And that's the point i make. When i gaze into the eyes of another, i see my own reflection - a little me.

"Pupil" comes from the Lating "pupilla", meaning "little doll" - a little doll who looks like me which leads in to the point that when one takes the time to really look at another person, to gaze into another person's eyes (as when we fall in love), what one sees is one's Self in the Other (which is much of the attraction).

But of course, look closely enough - which takes time and commitment to focus - and one can see one's Self in every Other.

A happy little analogy.

(Of course, if i really want to spin their brains, i tell the students that they are my pupils ...the little dolls... )

"The Self pulls the Self. All Love is this much."

any thoughts?
bodhibliss

Lisbeth ~ Monks_Mystics & Alan Larus ~ HarshaSatsangh

Unity

Photo by Alan Larus

HuaHuChing thirty seven

A superior person cares for the well-being of all things.

She does this by accepting responsibility for the energy
she manifests, both actively and in the subtle realm.
Looking at a tree, she sees not an isolated event but
root, leaves, trunk, water, soil and sun: each event
related to the others, and the "tree" arising out of
their relatedness.

Looking at herself or another, she sees the same thing.

Trees and animals, humans and insects, flowers and birds:

These are active images of the subtle energies that flow
from the stars throughout the universe. Meeting
and combining with each other and the elements of
the earth, they give rise to all living things.

The superior person understands this, and understands
that her own energies play a part in it.

Understanding these things, she respects the earth as
her mother, the heavens as her father, and all living
things as her brothers and sisters.

Caring for them, she knows that she cares for herself.
Giving to them, she knows that she gives to herself.
At peace with them, she is always at peace with
herself.

~ translated by Brian Walker ~

Panhala ~ Joe Riley

from One or Two Things

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever

~ Mary Oliver ~

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/One_or_Two_Things.html

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link
(left button to play, right button to save)

Joyce ~

"Physiology has denied the intelligence of the heart-muscle, but subjectivity finds in that quarter an

unmistakeable epic of subtle discriminations:

The heart skips a beat, is troubled, suffers pangs, breaks, is stolen, is given, swells full to bursting

with joy.

The neurons that drive the heart are far older than those in the brain.

They began some hundred million years ago to dwell on many subtle biological problems of kinship,

altruism and sexuality.

That this groundwork would have been supplanted entirely is not nature's way, they must rather have been

built upon, brain serving heart and not vice versa.

We need desperately to remember the functions of our hearts, to reclaim our inwards, our instincts, to

conceive a new Theory of the Heart... "

http://www.robotwisdom.com/solace/99theory.html

It's Not Easy Being Green

Pete, Skogen, Dan, & Joyce ~ AdvaitaToZen

Pete's Nonsense

[Skogen]

Pete, you are right. There is a German proverb which goes roughly
so: "If a donkey feels itself too well, it betakes itself on glazed
frost" (Wenn ein Esel sich zu wohl f�hlt, begibt er sich aufs
Glatteis). Ha!

[Dan]

Pass me one of those cream-filled chocolate
glazed one's, Skoggman -- I feel really well!

And scratch me behind my ears, while you're at it!

[Joyce]

Fresh out of donuts, sorry... Will a pear from Meister Eckart do in a pinch?

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Love_Does_That.html

Jonathan ~ The Other Syntax

Four Quartets

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

~ T.S. Eliot ~

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Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1516 From: Mark Otter <markwotter@...>
Date: Sat Aug 9, 2003 3:06 am
Subject: #1516 - Thursday, August 7,2003 markwotter704
Send Email

Nonduality Salon Highlights, #1516 Thursday, August 7, 2003

Highlights Home Page

Nondual Highlights Issue #1516 Thursday, August 7, 2003 Editor: Mark

We sit in a circle. This has great significance for in a circle, all points are equal.

The circle is the form of nature. In nature, all things move in cycles. There are the seasons, day and night, life and death. Light moves into darkness, returning to light.

The American Indians spoke of the Great Hoop, in which all people were protected. When the hoop was broken, people no longer lived within the cyclical nature of who they were, and they lost their "knowingness," their contact with the flow. The Indian nations were scattered and nearly destroyed.

Energy seems to move in circles: the orbiting of the planets, the cycling of electrons around the nucleus of the atom. When we come against that circle, when we try to think "circle," or think "flow," we make it linear with a beginning and an end, we distort it.

Each moment is a perfect circle. When we penetrate into the totality of the moment, we see that no point on that circle has any better vantage for seeing the rest of the circle than any other point. We see that each moment is the perfect outcome of all that has come before, the perfect predecessor of all that will follow.

Our sitting becomes like entering a perfect circle in which there is room for everything. We never become lost because there's nowhere to go. We are constantly arriving home in the present moment.

Surrender is perfect participation in the circle. Letting go allows us to flow, to become the whole circle. To hold to any point on the circle is to lose our original nature because there is not place we begin and nowhere we end.

- excerpt from A Gradual Awakening by Stephen Levine, published by Doubleday.

Earth and Moon as seen by Galileo Mission

God's plan is simple; never circular and never self defeating. He has no Thoughts except the Self-extending, and in this your will must be included. This, there must be a part of you that knows His Will and shares it. It is not meaningful to ask if what must be is so. But it is meaningful to ask why you are unaware of what is so, for this must have an answer if the plan of God for your salvation is complete. And it must be complete, because its Source knows not of incompletion.

- from A Course in Miracles, published by Foundation For Inner Peace.

The circle symbolizes the eternal cycle of life, the rhythms of nature and the pulse of the body, including the heartbeat and the respiratory cycle. The cross and the circle together represent the equipoise of male and female which I believe is essential for a healthy spirituality, and they also represent my interest in dialogue between Christians, Neopagans, and members of other faiths.

More of this here.

Circle Poem

Waterfall
Descent
Falling
In love
Rose
Pain
Tears
Rain
Water
Fall

More of this here.

Look, it cannot be seen -it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark;
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless.
The image of the imageless.
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient begining is the essence of Tao.
- Lao Tse

Problems of the World

Many people, particularly educated, professional people, are moving out of the big cities, seeking quieter living and simpler livelihood in the small towns and rural areas. This is natural. If you grab a handrul of mud and squeeze it, it will ooze through your fingers. People under pressure likewise seek a way out.

People ask me about the problems of our world, about a coming apocalypse. I ask, what does it mean to be worldly? What is the world? You do not know? This very unknowing, this very darkness, this very place of ignorance, is what is meant by worldly. Caught in the six senses, our knowledge develops as a part of this darkness. To come to an answer to the problems of this world, we must know its nature completely and realize the wisdom that shines above the darkness of the world.

These days, it seems that our culture is deteriorating, lost in greed, hatred, and delusion. But the culture of the Buddha never changes, never diminishes. It says "Do not lie to others or to ourselves. Do not steal from others or from ourselves." Worldly culture has desire as its director and guide. The culture of the Buddha has compassion and Dharma, or truth, as its guide.

- exerpt from A Still Forest Pool The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah, edited by Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter, and published by Quest Books.

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1517 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Sat Aug 9, 2003 7:24 pm
Subject: #1517 ~ Friday, August 8, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

#1517 ~ Friday, August 8, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria Lee

Notice: Yahoo has extended until August 21 the end of archiving image attachments.

Then, list members who read from the web only will no longer be able to see them at all.

You may still, with some delay, view them at: Highlights Home Page please save bookmark.

Viorica Weissman ~ Million Paths

Q: it is said that prarabdha karma is only a small fraction

of the karma accumulated from previous lives . Is this true ?

Maharshi:

A man might have performed many karmas in his previous births.

A few of these alone will be chosen for this birth and he will have to

enjoy their fruits in this birth. It is something like a slide show where

the projectionist picks a few slides to be exhibited at a performance,

the remainig slides being reserved for another performance. All this

karma can be destroyed by acquiring knowledge of the Self. The

different karmas being the result of past experiences, and the mind is

the projector. The projector must be destroyed so that there will be no

further births and no deaths.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BE AS YOU ARE, The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

from The Four Quartets

I said to my soul,

be still,

and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;

wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;

there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought,

for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

--T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

also posted on The Other Syntax list

Photo by Al Larus

Lisbeth ~ Monks and Mystics

Hua Hu Ching

thirty eight

Why scurry about looking for the truth?
It vibrates in every thing and every not-thing, right off
     the tip of your nose.
Can you be still and see it in the mountains? the pine
     tree? yourself?

Don't imagine that you'll discover it by accumulating
     more knowledge.
Knowledge creates doubt, and doubt makes you
     ravenous for more knowledge.
You can't get full eating this way.
The wise person dines on something more subtle;
He eats the understanding that the named was born
     from the unnamed, that all being flows from non-
     being, that the describable world emanates from an
     indescribable source.
He finds this subtle truth inside his own self, and
     becomes completely content.

So who can be still and watch the chess game of the
   world?
The foolish are always making impulsive moves, but
     the wise know that victory and defeat are decided by
     something more subtle.
They see that something perfect exists before any move
     is made.
This subtle perfection deteriorates when artificial
     actions are taken, so be content not to disturb the
     peace.
     Remain quiet.
     Discover the harmony in your own being.
     Embrace it.

If you can do this, you will gain everything, and the
     world will become healthy again.
If you can't, you will be lost in the shadows forever.

     ~ translated by Brian Walker

http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/zen-writings/hua-hu-ching.htm

Along the Way

Dive deep; one does not get to the precious
        gems by merely floating on the surface. God
        is without form, no doubt; but He also has a
        form. By meditating on God with form one
        speedily acquires devotion; then one can
        meditate on the formless God. It is like throwing
        a letter away after learning its contents, then
        setting out to follow its instructions.

                - Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

        ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
by M. (Mahendranath Gupta)
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Society, 1942

Joe Riley ~ Panhala

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills�
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn�t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn�t always understand.

~ Czeslaw Milosz ~

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Love.html

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link

(left button to play, right button to save)

Steve Toth ~ Rumi - Hafiz, with photo by Al Larus

MERCY

We aren't sweet talkers who melt
     at the first drops of rain
We know love is like a storm
     that pours on the inside
Love doesn't mind laughing
     you off the stage
It can fry your imagination
     in its crucible
& have you breathing fire
It can make time stand still
     or fly like lightning that knows
     just where to strike you

Most animals will run from a fire
     Not humans
We look for things to cook
If you've lost your ego
     perhaps a word
of praise or blame will help
     you find it
How many ways are there to say
     you have nothing to say
or to explain why silence is better
     than any explanation?
All language is a form of play acting
We had all eternity to work on nothing
     but we came here anyway
so have mercy when demonstrating
     the divine breath in action

Loneliness is lonely for us
     All our lives have been spent
     setting up this moment
in which we come together
     while sharing this poem
connecting different times & places
    with our love alone
True poetry fears no reading
Love knows us inside out
     & loves us anyway
Love does whatever we lovers do
     Let your heart be light
     Let it shine

No umbrella, getting soaked,
I'll just use the rain as my umbrella.
-- Zen monk Daito quoted in "Zen and the Art of Anything" by Hal W. French

To Practice This Thought: Just deal with whatever happens to you.

* * * * * * *
If you wish to subscribe to this mailing list, send an email:
To: soulboosters-request@...
Subject: subscribe

Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion,

nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment. It is the Nature of the Suchness.

In it is neither delusion nor right understanding.

It fills the Void everywhere and is intrinsically of the substance of the One Mind.

-"The Zen Teachings of Huang Po," translated by John Blofeld

From "Teachings of the Buddha," edited by Jack Kornfield,

http://www.beliefnet.com.

Margaret James ~ Rumi - Hafiz

Yi Ok-Bong (? -1592)

I am anxious to know how you are late.
As moonbeams surge on the windowpanes, my longing deepens.
If footsteps in dreams can leave their traces,
The stony path near your home must be worn to sand.

*****

Having promised to come, why are you so late?
Plum blossoms in the yard are ready to wilt.
A sudden cawing of a magpie* on the branch
Makes me line my eyebrows, looking into an empty mirror.

*The cawing of a magpie, according to Korean folklore,

announces the coming of a long-awaited person.

The Moonlit Pond - Korean Classical Poems in Chinese_
Translated and Introduced by Sung-Il Lee
Copper Canyon Press

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1518 From: "Christiana Duranczyk" <christianad@...>
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 6:55 am
Subject: #1518 Saturday, August 9, 2003 christiana_1
Send Email

NDH

Issue # 1518

Saturday, August 9, 2003

Editor: Christiana

Jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans has defined the discipline of improvisation as �that of allowing".

..o0o..

The largest Buddha statue in the Western Hemisphere.

A window into Buddhism. New York
monastery welcomes visitors for tours,
meditation. To help guests understand the principles and applications of the religion, the Great Buddha Hall has tables piled high with books ranging from "What the Buddha Taught," to "Finding Inner Peace." The books are available for visitors to take home. -more-

http://www.baus.org/baus/about_us/index.html

viorica weissman NamoRamana@yahoogroups.com

LAO TZU

Mother of All Things

The universe had a beginning
Called the Mother of All Things.
Once you have found the Mother
You can know her children ...
Having known the children,
Hold tightly to the Mother.
Your whole life will be preserved from peril.

Open up the openings,
Multiply your affairs,
Your whole life will become a burden.

Those who see the small are called clear-headed;
Those who hold to gentleness are called strong.

Use the light.
Come home to your true nature.
Don't cause yourself injury:
This is known as seizing truth.

Manuel V. Hernandez ANetofJewels@yahoogroups.com

The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Karma is only a store of unspent energies, of
unfulfilled desires, and fears not understood.
The store is being constantly replenished by new
desires and fears. It need not be so for ever.
Understand the root cause of your
fears-estrangement from yourself; and of desires
the longing for the self, and your karma will
dissolve like a dream.

Xan

Forgetfulness of our true nature
does not change our true nature.
We are simply ignorant of it.
Yet it is still there;
we would not exist without it.

- Ethan Walker
The Mystic Christ

tara DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com

Divine Madness

"Everything is clapping today,

Light,
Sound,
Motion,
All movement.

A rabbit I pass pulls a cymbal
From a hidden pocket
Then winks.

This causes a few planets and I
To go nuts
And start grabbing each other.

Someone sees this,
Calls a
Shrink,

Tries to get me
Committed
For
Being too
Happy.

Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real.

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door

My address is somewhere else."

Hafiz

From the book, "The Gift, Poems of Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master,"

photo: Al Larus - Blue View

Found at http://nonduality.com/index.html#1

Bill Viola: The Passions art exhibit

Review: "Viola is most effective when

the pieces are most pared down. My
favorite work in the show is
Catherine's Room, which is based on
the painting of St. Catherine of Siena
Praying done by Andrea di Bartolo in
ca. 1393-94. Mostly because of its
modesty and simplicity. Its small
scale -- five panels, each about the
size of a hardcover book -- is more
intimate. It is a private view into the
room of a woman performing the daily
rituals of life in a single room from
morning until night.

Catherine's Room was a collaboration
with the actress Weba Garrison, who
plays the character of Catherine and
is an actor in many of the pieces. She
portrays a contemporary version of a
saint, a pious woman, living in
solitude, going through her day. Each
panel represents a different time of
day. Each action during the day is
created mindfully, with great
precision. If there is one piece in the
show that truly embodies the spiritual
journey, this is the one.

art: Bill Viola Still from panel four of Catherine's Room

http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/krygier/krygier2-11-03.asp

Nondual activism news:

Amongst the 193 people running for Governor of California is our friend Petros.

PETROS' 2003 Platform for awakening change in California

Petros' platform is modelled upon the ancient
modality of the "Five Elements" -- Earth
(including agriculture and conservation), air
(including pollution and emission control), fire
(energy production), water, and spirit (higher
consciousness, the mind, education, and
awareness of the interdependence of life).
Also part of this idea is the timeless principle
of "As Above, So Below" -- seeing the human
individual as a microcosm of its society, and
the society as a microcosm of the whole
environment. -more-

http://home.earthlink.net/~xristos/petros2003.htm

Art Review. Kathleen King: Soul Tracing. Her spontaneous paintings go beyond depth of color and seemingly random markings of circles, spirals, and lines, to invite the viewer to reflect on this struggle to be complete. -more-

Kathleen King Artist�s Statement March 2003

Emotion Pictures

As individuals in a post-modern world, we find
our deepest beings scarred and twisted by
encounters with society and power, yet at the
same time, experience moments of ecstasy
and freedom that compel and renew. Within
our fragmented psyches full of ambivalence
and contradiction, we instinctively sense and
desire some elusive center of wholeness.
Through the action of painting, I chronicle my
personal struggle as I move between
contemporary dualities searching for an honest
path to wholeness. My latest series,
�Disappearing/Becoming�, is involved with this
synthesis from the particular point of view of
middle age.

art: Kathleen King - New Place to Start

Lester Levenson - Sedona Method

Excerpt from "Happiness is Free," Vol. 3, p. 110.

All joys should be being what you are. We should never enjoy
anything. In order to enjoy something, we have to go into the illusion
of separateness. The joy should be independent of things,
independent of people.

However, when one sees the truth, one can choose to enjoy; and the
closer one gets to truth, the more one is capable of enjoying. One
becomes sensitized, and everything becomes far more intense. But
there's no need to go out and enjoy nature, because your basic
nature is joy. You are the ultimate joy.

http://chetday.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?lester

________________________________________________________________________

Sue and Hur Guler NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com

Sue: Thank you for replying to my post, I
thought it wise to chill out for a few days
before replying to your post.

Hur: please don't chill out. we need your
passion. some of us veterans who are engaged
in the leisure of online spirituality "act as if"
this sort of thing is not necessary for us but
we really need people of your passion to light
our fire...or we'll keep repeating, "there's no
one here doing anything." as nisargadatta
maharaj said, "myself and others, we appear
and disappear in your world. we're all at your
mercy." you gotta love nondual poetry.

Sue: When I look at the physical appearance
of everything around, I have days when I am
in awe of it, in those moments I see the
appearance of nature as a miracle itself.

Hur: it's that calamity of "awe" that got us
here and makes us write these words that
desparetely wants to set itself free from the
bondage of prose and sing the devotional
songs without the imaginary Other.

Al Larus

Today we went past the puffins cliffs,
they have left for the summer and we
sat down to rest here high above the
sea. Then suddenly a white tailed
eagle came from down below and
passed us with a distance of 3 or 4
meters. Now I have had a wish this
summer to get a nice picture of an
eagle.

I have never ever been close to an
eagle always seen them at a
distance, the large white tailed eagle
is easy to spot against the sky above
the mountain top far away, or just
above the waves down below.

So now finally it was here, catching
me by surprise and disappearing
above the mountain again before I
could pick up my camera.

So I felt quite silly, praying dear
eagle, please return.

photo: Al Larus

Sam Pasiencier NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com

Fw: from [Panhala] Eagle Poem -- Joy Harjo

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~

Whimsical aphorisms forwarded to/from Jerry Katz

Zen Juddhaism--- Oymmmmmmmmmmmmm Jewish Buddhism

*Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

*Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip,
joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the
third, Danish.

*The Buddha taught that one should practice
lovingkindness to all sentient beings. Still,
would it kill you to find a nice sentient being
who happens to be Jewish?

*If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

*Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1519 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Mon Aug 11, 2003 3:16 pm
Subject: #1519 ~ Sunday, August 10, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

#1519 ~ Sunday, August 10, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria Lee

Viorica Weissman ~ Million Paths

Annamalai Swami, a lifelong devotee of Sri Ramana Maharshi, was absorbed in his Master on November 9, 1995. He was 89-years-old. The Swami's remarkable story was edited by David Godman and published in 1994 by the Sri Annamalai Swami Ashram Trust.

Annamalai Swami came to the Maharshi in 1928 and, at the Sage's behest, undertook the supervision in the construction of the Goshala (cow shed), Dining Hall, Dispensary and various other projects. In the mid-1940s, Bhagavan instructed him to leave the ashram and engage in intense sadhana. He would then occasionally meet the Maharshi on his walks, but never again in the fifty years that followed did he reenter Sri Ramanasramam, preferring to live a quiet, austere life in Palakottu. His small ashram borders the western boundary of Sri Ramanasramam and he was well known to many devotees and visitors to Tiruvannamalai.

In the passage below, excerpted from Living By the Words Of Bhagavan, Annamalai Swami relates the incidents preceding his departure from Sri Ramanasramam.

* * *

MY days as an ashram worker were coming to a close, although I didn't realize it at the time. In retrospect I can remember only one small incident which indicated that Bhagavan knew that my time in the ashram was coming to an end.

I was doing some digging with a crowbar when Bhagavan came and asked me, "Did you decide to do this work yourself or did Chinnaswami ask you to do it ?"

I told him that Chinnaswami had asked me to do it. Bhagavan was not very pleased.

"So, he has given you work. So, he has given you work. Why is he giving you work like this?"

A little later Yogi Ramiah remarked to Bhagavan, "Annamalai Swami is working very hard. His body has become very weak. You should give him some rest."

Bhagavan agreed with him. "Yes, we have to give him some rest. We have to give freedom to him."

A few days later I went to Bhagavan's bathroom to help him with his morning bath. Madhava Swami and I gave him the usual oil bath and massage.

When the bath was over Madhava Swami asked a question: "Bhagavan, the people who take ganja lehiyam [an ayurvedic preparation whose principal ingredient is cannabis] experience some kind of ananda [bliss]. What is the nature of this ananda ? Is it the same ananda that the scriptures speak of?"

"Eating this ganja is a very bad habit," replied Bhagavan. Then, laughing loudly, he came over to me, hugged me and called out, "Ananda! Ananda! This is how these ganja-taking people behave!"

It was not a brief hug. Madhava Swami told me later that he held me tightly for about two minutes. After the first few seconds I completely lost awareness of my body and the world. Initially, there was a feeling of happiness and bliss, but this soon gave way to a state in which there were no feelings and no experiences. I did not lose consciousness, I just ceased to be aware of anything that was going on around me. I remained in this state for about fifteen minutes. When I recovered my usual world-consciousness I was standing alone in the bathroom. Madhava Swami and Bhagavan had long since departed for breakfast. I had not seen them open the door and leave, nor had I heard the breakfast bell.

This experience completely changed my life. As soon as I recovered normal consciousness I knew that my working life at Sri Ramanasramam had come to an end. I knew that henceforth I would be living outside the ashram and spending most of my time in meditation. There was a rule that only those who worked for the ashram could live there full-time. Those who wanted to spend their time in meditation had to live somewhere else. I thus knew that I would have to leave the ashram and fend for myself, but the thought of losing my regular meals and my room never troubled me.

I made a belated appearance in the dining room to eat my last breakfast. As soon as I had finished eating I went up onto the hill to look for Bhagavan. I found him sitting on a big rock.

"I have decided to leave the ashram," I said. "I want to go to Palakottu to live alone and meditate."

"Ah! Very good! Very good! Very good!" exclaimed Bhagavan.

The decision clearly had his approval. How could it be otherwise since it was Bhagavan himself who gave me the experience which precipitated the decision?

After getting Bhagavan's permission I packed my possessions and locked my room. I also locked all the other places that were in my charge.

I took the bunch of keys to Chinnaswami and told him, "I have decided to go and live in Palakottu. Please take these keys and keep them."

Chinnaswami was, quite naturally, very surprised. "Why are you leaving?" he asked. "You have constructed all these buildings. You have done so much here. How can you go after doing all this work? Where will you sleep? How will you eat? You will have many troubles because you have no way of supporting yourself. Don't go, stay here."

I told him that I would not change my mind. I also tried to give him the keys but he refused to accept them. I didn't want another argument with him so I just handed over the keys to Subramaniam, who was also in the office, and left.

It was an abrupt change in my life. Within a few hours of having the experience I was walking to Palakottu, knowing full well that I had left all of my old working life behind me.

www.ramana-maharshi.org

Lisbeth ~ Monks_ Mystics

     Tao is within us; Tao surrounds us.
     Part of it may be sensed,
     And is called manifestation.
     Part of it is unseen,
     And is called void.
     To be with Tao is harmony.
     To be separate is disaster.
     To act with Tao, observe and follow.
     To know Tao, be still and look within.

Tao is within us; we are Tao. It is also outside of us; it
is all the known universe. All that we can know of
ourselves and our universe cannot account for all that is
Tao. What we know is merely the outer manifestation of Tao.

The ultimate Tao is called absolute. We cannot know it
directly because it has no definition, references, or
names. Our normal minds are incapable of perceiving where
there is no contrast. Yet it is precisely this colorless
infinity that is the underlying reality to this life.

The only way to fathom it is to remove our sense of division
from it. In essence, we must plunge into the mystery
itself. Only then will we know peace.

365 Tao
Be
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations

photo by Al Larus

Daily Dharma

"Without the fourth Immeasurable, Equanimity (upeksha), your love may
become possessive. A summer breeze can be very refreshing, but if we try
to put it in a tin can so we can have it entirely for ourselves the
breeze will die. Our beloved is the same. He is like a cloud, a breeze,
a flower. If you imprison him in a tin can, he will die. Yet many
people do just that. They rob their loved one of his liberty, until he
can no longer be himself. That is not loving; it is destroying. You say
you love her, but if you do not understand her aspirations, her needs,
her difficulties, she is in a prison called love. True love allows you
to preserve your freedom and the freedom of your beloved. That is true
Equanimity."

~Thich Nhat Hanh

From the book, "The Heart of The Buddha's Teaching," published by
Parallax Press.

Blessings to all. May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.

"Puffin" photo by Al Larus

Groundlessness

"....The Buddha says, through Avalokiteshavara, anything that you're
clinging to, anything that you now currently believe to be so, such as
egolessness, or the Four Noble Truths, or the description of no-self -
anything that you currently believe in, it's not that.

"In other words, the Buddhist teachings are progressive stages in
groundlessness.

"Having taught groundlessness, the Buddha teaches even all of that, if
you believe in it as a belief system, will block you from understanding
the truth - if you cling to anything, it will block your understanding
the truth. Even clinging to the words of the Buddha will be a major
obstacle if you hold onto them and make them something solid and use
them as ground under your feet."

~~Pema Chodron

From a very fine verbal teaching (above is edited) on The Heart Sutra,
from the web page,
http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/heartsutra12.html

May all beings be happy. May they be free from suffering. May they be at peace.

Joyce Short~ Advaita to Zen

Jean Klein: In accepting a situation we are completely free. Accepting unfolds in beingness. In accepting a situation we accept the situation in
our completeness. Accepting is not in the mind; I would say it is beyond
the mind, because the mind can never accept. In accepting it is not the
situation we emphasize, we emphasize the accepting itself. This brings us
complete freedom, openness. It is only in accepting a situation that we see
what the situation is, what the facts are. Then action comes out of the
situation, out of the facts. The decision to act doesn't go through the
mind. It is spontaneous. In the accepting position, there is no volition,
because when there is accepting there is no place for an ego, for an "I".
Q: When we are caught up in a situation, how do we make the shift from being
caught up to being in attention? It seems that we need volition to make an
effort to get out of the situation in which we are caught up, and if we make
a effort we get caught up in effort and volition.
Klein: But you must not try to get out of the situation, because your trying
will just replace the situation. You are then bound as before. Accepting
the situation is the nearest you can do. That is the beginning!
Q: But at that moment I don't know what accepting looks like.
Klein: It's not psychological accepting, it is functional accepting. It is
accepting in the way a scientist accepts the facts of the problem to be
resolved. When you accept the facts in this way, you will find yourself out
of the situation. You will be in the accepting feeling, not in what you
accept, the object, the situation. Accepting means accepting every fact,
every perception that comes to you. It means accepting your reactions as
part of the facts. Then see how the accepting acts on you. How do you feel
this accepting? Is there a freedom you experience?
An openness...
Klein: Yes, openness...
Q: And that's what you're looking for, this openness? So do you find that
you were not looking for a solution as such, the solution is almost a side
effect of the welcoming? You discover that it was the accepting, the
welcoming, you were looking for?
Klein: Absolutely.
From: Transmission of the Flame
Jean Klein

Gill Eardley ~ Rumi-Hafiz

Whoever grasps
Rainer Maria Rilke

Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions of his life,
pulls them together into a single image, that man, joyful
and thankful, drives the rioters out of the palace,
becomes celebratory in a different way, and you are the guest
whom he receives on the quiet evenings.

You are the second person in his solitude,
the tranquil hub of his talking with himself;
and every circle he draws around you
lifts him out of time on those compass legs.

Translated by Robert Bly

-----------------
Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration

from Random Thoughts on the Love of God
Simone Weil

.... Creatures speak in sounds. The word of God is silence.
The secret word of God's love can be nothing but silence.
Christ is the silence of God. There is no tree like the cross.
No harmony like the silence of God. The Pythagoreans knew
this harmony in the endless silence that surrounds the stars.
Necessity, here below, is the resonance of God's silence.

Our soul makes constant noise, but it has a silent place we
never hear. When the silence of God enters us, pierces our
soul and joins its silent secret place, then God is our treasure
and our heart. And space opens before us like a fruit that
breaks in two. Then we see the universe from a point beyond
space.

Translated by Carol Cosman

Quoted in 'The Soul is Here for its Own Joy'
Ed. Robert Bly

"Seacoast" photo by Al Larus

Joyce Short & Skogen ~ Advaita to Zen

A dialogue about existence and emptiness

---Everything we see is a concealer-truth, taken by ignorance

to exist the way it appears, but actually appearing in one way
and existing in another...

Joyce,

Hi Ho O Noble One,

S: I have split this out because, it seems to me that, it can be
misunderstood as, if there is differenciation, a distinction existing and
appearing.

J: Well, you know how Buddhadharma goes, yes and no, perhaps, it depends.
Or, whatever it is is the manifestation of intrinsic wisdom.

S: What do you mean exactly with:...but actually appearing in one way and
existing in another? It seems to me, we have different understandings
concerning the concept, the term, "existence".

J: In Buddhism, everything is method, soteriology. If I were to state
something IS something I may get stuck in eternalism. If I were to state
something is NOT, I may get stuck in nihilism. Anything one can say is
relative because of the Law. And then how anyone sees or experiences
appearances is relative to what stage of insight is unfolding relative to
seeing the ultimate nature of mind. So then we would have to take the view
of whatever yana or school; whether it is a method of renunciation,
transformation or Mahamudra/Dzogchen which is neither of these; it isn't a
causal path.

So in terms of terms, you would have to keep on your Buddhist hat (I've read
the masters of Advaita but not having ever met an authentic teacher of this
tradition I can't say I have a clue) and we could explore from whatever view
is of interest. Generally in Buddhadharma one is working with attachment,
the belief in a substantive "I" (me and mine) and there are hundreds
(84,000?) of ways to tackle this. Perhaps one could say that there is no
substantive existence to ever changing impermanent phenomena, these are like
a mirage and neither appear nor disappear. And Vasubhandu sets up one view
and then shoots it down with the next - also fun. What one is left with is
the point and unfortunately words will not do so one is left with
methodology.

Someone mentioned gradual versus sudden awakening, I had just come across
this a few days ago when reading but couldn't find it again. But I didn't
want the Tibetan method of analysis to be dismissed based on a belief. We
tend to feel that direct sense perception is the only valid means to
experience reality with clarity; or as an old Zennie I used to believe this.
But there is also another way of incontrovertably discovering what is true -
one opens oneself up to inferential cognition as a way of realizing the
unseen/Emptiness. One might believe that inference involves discursiveness
but an actual inferential cognition isn't talkative, not like reading a book
and mulling over the words. But it is a specific training like any
liberational strategy. Even within my limited capacity it is fun, quite
playful, doable and beneficial for cutting through solidity but not really
the interest of this list. So, am reluctant to follow (the thread I started)
heh - never can learn to look befoer I leap.

S: My point: everything which exists, can appear or not in the field of our
consciousness. At the moment we create a gestalt, a form, a concept, we
project backwards and create empirical reality. But, we need the
conceptualisation to (re)cognice. If we don't (re)cognice, we can't speak
about existence or non-existence of something. And that's, in my opinion,
the underlying message of the terminus tecnicus "Emptiness" in Buddhism,
i.e. there is no ultimate "reality", we can't speak about what reality IS,
because it neither is nor is not. We can only speak about the empirical form
of reality, we have access to and approximate to "*That*" by negations and
not by affirmations.

J: Yes, I'd agree to a point, is, is not, neither is nor is not. But you
can be a Via Negativa or a Via Positiva and using method correctly arrive at
the same (no) place and comprehend fully and clearly. Hey HO! This long
thin nobbly musclely thing with a hoof on the end isn't a camel after all.

S: The term "existence" belongs to to the empirical reality. The Gestalt,
the apparition of something, can vary but, there is no ultimate,
transcendental "existence" (no God, in the conventional sense). What I would
say is, that there is nothing which appears in some way but exists in
another. There is a (re)cognition or not. We can modify and alter our ways
to (re)cognice, to apprehend, to comprehend, but existence will always be
correlated to apparition...with other words, we can't say if something
exists or not without (re)cognizing an apparition and the way we (as human
beings) (re)cognize...

J: You've been boning up on Dzogchen? LOL! THis method is probably the
most compassionate way of dealing with afflictions. (INMO) And then there
is recognizing recognition...

S: is the result of an phylo-and ontogenetic evolution. How every single
individual apprehends the phenomenical reality is again a not isolated
process, it is too a dependently originated function. We experience our
inhabitation in that empirical reality as in time and space circumscribed,
and that has under evolutionary aspects a big value and meaning.

J: Well, now we have contemporary scientist talking to medieval girlie -
smile. Hell realm beings experience a river as a river of fire; hungry ghost
experience as a river of pus, human beings: "O what a lovely river" -
reality as we know it whatever it is is mind created so one busys oneself
with the question of the nature of mind and talks a lot about Nothing. The
Big Picture of Interdependent Origination is quite evolutionary when
applied. Kind of Macro and Micro.

S: It is just simply perfect in itself, no matter what happens, the show
goes on (with or without humans), the only ones who looks for beginnings and
endings are we and that's ok, too (it's part of the show, I guess:)

J: I'm with you on the perfect part...an unceasing display, everything with
the same taste, and one day the final appeasing of all ta.nhaa or craving.

S: And the whole is a strange dream!

J: Yes indeedy. Speaking of dreams, last night I had one of my once every
ten years dream of space ships arriving on our planet. Quite vivid.
Something is going to happen, (but something is always happening) or I
shouldn't have eaten that bit of cheese before bed. As I ponder the dream I
recall that people were invited to go travelling. One group was afraid to
go along into the unknown and another was packing their bags. And I think:
hey! the kids are finally grown, I've done my bit, I'm gonna go too. LOL!
Reminds me of a bit from a Rilke Poem...something like: "...leave your house
which you know so well, your house is the last before the infinite".

Always delightful to chat!!! Thanks for the free consult.

Namaste...

Joyce

"Lace Curtain Window" photo by Al Larus

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#1520 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Wed Aug 13, 2003 11:59 am
Subject: #1520 - Monday, August 11, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
Send Email

#1520 - Monday, August 11, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Fragility at its most beautiful

Paradoxical charm ... The beggar monk, by Shimomura Kanzan.

Treasures from Japan reveal exquisite reflections on the nature of change, writes Steve Meacham.

Summer is the Australian season, the one which defines us as a nation.

Not so the Japanese. For them, summer is an also-ran. For at least 11 centuries, their poets, philosophers and artists have debated whether spring or autumn is the more exquisite, the most poignant time of year.

Their sensibilities come to the fore most famously at cherry blossom time, those few short weeks when the entire country seems infatuated by the rush to see trees bud and bloom. Every TV news broadcast carries a weather map showing how the "cherry blossom front" is progressing northwards through the Japanese archipelago.

Their national obsession baffles most Westerners. But a new exhibition - Seasons: the Beauty of Transience in Japanese Art - should shed fresh light.

In a remarkable coup, the Art Gallery of NSW is hosting 94 carefully selected paintings, ceramics, lacquerwork and textiles - many of them listed as national Japanese treasures. Together the works explore something which lies at the core of the Japanese psyche, a profound love and appreciation of nature as seen through their sensitivity to ever-changing seasons.

As Australians, we have our summer and winter clothes. But for centuries the Japanese have taken it further. With the approach of each new season, they changed the paintings, hanging scrolls and ceramics in their homes. Their screens, tea utensils, even kimonos, were often decorated with seasonal motifs.

Take that cherry blossom. What a Westerner sees is a spectacle of colour. What a Japanese person sees - according to Jackie Menzies, the gallery's head curator of Asian art - is "the beauty of transience". The appeal lies as much in the fragility of the blooms as their exquisiteness. In less than a fortnight, the cherry blossoms go from bud, to bloom, to fall. At the very moment that they are at their most vivacious, they are days away from death.

"This exhibition is about more than beautiful works of art," says Menzies. "It's about sensitivity to nature. So much of Japanese classical art is about change in the seasons. Even their vocabulary for seasonal change is much bigger than the English vocabulary. We can learn from the cherry blossom cult. We're so used to permanence that we despair about change, whereas there is great beauty in constant change."

It took us many years, she says, but we eventually got the message about "less being more", something the Japanese had discovered centuries earlier.

To illustrate her point, she quotes a story about a shogun who was told about a beautiful field of irises surrounding a teahouse. The shogun announced he would visit the teahouse, but when he arrived the teahouse owner had mown all the irises. Courtiers feared for the life of the teahouse owner. But when the shogun entered the teahouse, he discovered the man had selected his finest iris and placed it in a vase. "And of course, you can see more beauty in that one flower than you are able to appreciate in an entire field," says Menzies. (Fortunately, the shogun saw it that way, too.)

Likewise, she says, in Western art and literature, we generally praise the full moon whereas the Japanese tend to be moved by "the waxing moon, the waning moon, or the moon part hidden by cloud". But the moon in Japanese art also usually signifies the autumn, because autumn in Japan is the driest season, when the atmosphere is at its clearest and the moon is at its most dramatic. "After being in Japan you start to appreciate aspects of our own nature," Menzies says.

Certainly, people who view the exhibition will get used to change. The fragility of the works - particularly the sensitivity of the paintings, silk screens and porcelains to light - means they will be changed halfway through. Until September 21, the displays will focus on spring and summer. From September 26 to October 26, it will be the turn of autumn and winter. A single ticket covers both halves.

Even the simplest scene can be layered with meanings. Chaiki Ajioka, the gallery's curator of Japanese Art, cites one of the later works, a pair of six-fold silk screens called The beggar monk, painted by Shimomura Kanzan in 1915. To the uninitiated it may seem a picturesque but complicated scene, with the right-hand screen showing an impoverished Buddhist gazing at a beautiful sunset (shown on the left hand screen). But Ajioka says a classically educated Japanese would instantly recognise it as a scene from a celebrated noh play, first performed in the 14th and 15th century by actors in masks for the samurai class.

The worshipper is blind and believes, in his state of enlightenment, that the plum blossom petals falling on his hands are a blessing from Buddha. "The delight and happiness on his face makes a strong contrast to his miserable worn clothes," says Ajioka.

Another painting, by Mori Sosen, who spanned the 18th and 19th centuries, features five monkeys playing on a cherry tree. Any Japanese person will immediately grasp the exquisite dilemma, says Ajioka. The ephemeral blossoms are under threat from both the rain and the monkeys. But the monkeys are innocently enjoying themselves, oblivious to the irreparable damage they are causing.

Even kimonos are to be interpreted, often with seasonal themes. Ajioka points to an example from the 18th century which will be displayed in the autumn/winter exhibition. Its long-sleeved design denotes it was to be worn by a young unmarried woman. The bottom half of the kimono tells the story of a 13th-century shogun who disguised himself as a monk to wander undetected across his domain.

Lost in a blizzard he sought refuge in the rude cottage of a poor samurai (indicated on the kimono by his armour outside his hut). The poor man, who did not recognise his visitor, was too poor to afford any fuel. The only thing he possessed were three prize bonsai trees (shown on the kimono by three pots). But rather than let his visitor go cold, he threw them in the hearth and made a fire. Later he was summoned to the shogun's court where he was publicly thanked for his hospitality and his humanity.

Menzies points out that since the kimonos are meant to be read, they suit the flat-chested, thin shape that was typical of young Japanese women. With Japanese women now fuller busted and rounder hipped, the kimonos are more difficult to read. Apparently some traditional Japanese males regret such change.

Seasons: the Beauty of Transience in Japanese Art

�From spring to summer - Saturday until September 21; From autumn to winter - September 26 until October 26. Art Gallery of NSW, The Domain. 10am-5pm daily. Admission $10, $7.

�Various lectures, talks and associated events are planned, including events for school holidays. Inquiries: 92251744, 1800679278, http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Contributed to NDS News by Mary Bianco

Ben Hassine
NDS

klezmer, beer, the fishtank and I AM

Tonight I'm having a party.

I have been working and biking and an old gentleman offered me a cigarette sans filter.

We discussed the weather and the marvel of good bikes.

All the time there was I AM shining and smiling.

I just cleaned the fishtank and listened to some old klezmer tunes.

Hope I will get that Bonsai for my birthday.

I'll have a beer and play some Nick Drake.

August 13th I will be 31.

Today I heard the sad news of a nine year old girl, tumour, now dead.

All the time there is I AM shining and smiling.

I am good for nothing.

That's okay.

Rose for the girl

San Francisco School Will Offer Degree in Activism

http://www.chronwatch.com/editorial/contentDisplay.asp?aid=3831

San Francisco -- San Francisco's New College of California is offering
something for the socially conscious this fall that they'd never get
marching in the streets: a college degree in activism.

For $5,500 to $6,000 a semester, the 32-year-old Mission District
school is offering bachelor's and master's humanities degrees with a
concentration in ''activism and social change.'' While schools from
Vermont to Santa Cruz boast versions of do-gooding curricula, degrees
in activism are hard to come by.

''Students can shape their own (activist) program at other schools,''
said Michael Baer, senior vice president at the American Council on
Education and former provost at Northeastern University. ''But to have
it all together--the theoretical and the practical--under one roof and
labeled as such is somewhat rare.''

...

''We want people to learn how they can be activist and not just someone
who is angry and against the system,'' said Peter Gabel, president
emeritus of New College, who plans to teach in the activist program. He
is now director of the Institute for Spirituality and Politics.

...

''We're not training rabble-rousers,'' said Michael McAvoy, a longtime
activist and New College's academic vice president. ''What we want to
do is give people the skills to build sustained social change
movements.''

...

There are three things people never get formal training in, Benjamin
said: how to raise children, how to handle money and ''how to change
the world.''

New book by Eckart Tolle

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030813.wauth0813/BNStory/Entertainment/

Eckhart Tolle, a spiritual teacher whose fans include Oprah Winfrey and Meg Ryan, has agreed to a one-book deal with Penguin Group USA.

Tolle, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is author of the best seller The Power of Now.

"Two editors within Penguin independently gave me The Power of Now as a gift," Penguin President Susan Kennedy said in a statement Tuesday.

"When two people give you the same book, something is afoot. I read it, admired it, and, in turn, I have given it to many others."

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

A native of Germany, the 55-year-old Tolle became widely known in 2000 after Ryan recommended The Power of Now to Winfrey, who gave the book a plug in her magazine, O, and praised it again in 2002.

More than 700,000 copies have been sold.

The Power of Now first came out in 1997, from the Canadian-based Namaste Publishing, a company established by Tolle's friend Connie Kellough just to release his book.

"His work is inclusive," Kellough, who represented Tolle in his negotiations with Penguin, told The Associated Press Tuesday.

"He does not affiliate himself with any religion or any tradition. He embraces it all."

Kellough says Tolle's new book, not yet titled, should come out next year.

J. Krishnamurti/Krishnamurti's Notebook 4th October

4th The train [to Florence] was going very fast, over ninety miles an hour; the towns on the hills were familiar and the lake [Trasimenus] seemed a friend. It was a familiar country, the olive and the cypress and the road that followed the railway. It was raining and the earth was glad of it, for months had passed without rain and now there were new shoots of green and the rivers were running brown, fast and full. The train was following the valleys, shouting at the crossroads, and the workmen labouring along the metalled way stopped and waved as the train slowed down. It was a pleasant cool morning and autumn was turning many leaves brown and yellow; they were ploughing deep for the winter sowing and the hills seemed so friendly, never too high, gentle and old. The train was again running very fast and the drivers of this electric train welcomed us and asked us to come into their cab for we had met several times in several years; before the train started they said we must come and see them; they were as friendly as the rivers and the hills. From their window the country was open and the hills with their towns and the river that we were following seemed to be waiting for the familiar roar of their train. The sun was touching a few of the hills and there was a smile upon the face of the land. As we raced north, the sky was becoming clear and the cypress and the olive against the blue sky were delicate in their splendour. The earth, as ever, was beautiful.

It was deep in the night when meditation was filling the spaces of the brain and beyond. Meditation is not a conflict, a war between what is and what should be; there was no control and so no distraction. There was no contradiction between the thinker and the thought for neither existed. There was only seeing without the observer; this seeing came out of emptiness and that emptiness had no cause. All causation breeds inaction, which is called action.

How strange love is and how respectable it has become, the love of God, the love of the neighbour, the love of the family. How neatly it has been divided, the profane and the sacred; duty and responsibility; obedience and the willingness to die and to deal out death.

The priests talk of it and so do the generals, planning wars; the politicians and the housewife everlastingly complain about it. Jealousy and envy nourish love, and relationship is held in its prison. They have it on the screen and in the magazine and every radio and television blares it out. When death takes away love there is the photo in the frame or the image which memory keeps on revising or it is tightly held in belief. Generation after generation is bred upon this and sorrow goes on without an end.

Continuity of love is pleasure and with it comes always pain but we try to avoid the one and cling to the other. This continuity is the stability and security in relationship, and in relationship there must be no change for relationship is habit and in habit there is security and sorrow. To this unending machinery of pleasure and pain we cling and this thing is called love. To escape from its weariness, there is religion and romanticism. The word changes and becomes modified with each one but romanticism offers a marvellous escape from the fact of pleasure and sorrow. And, of course, the ultimate refuge and hope is God who has become so very respectable and profitable.

But all this isn't love. Love has no continuity; it cannot be carried over to tomorrow; it has no future. What has is memory, and memories are ashes of everything dead and buried. Love has no tomorrow; it cannot be caught in time and made respectable. It is there when time is not. It has no promise, no hope; hope breeds despair. It belongs to no god and so to no thought and feeling. It is not conjured up by the brain. It lives and dies each minute. Is a terrible thing, for love is destruction. It is destruction without tomorrow. Love is destruction.

Calla Visage
Live Journal

Morning Coffee

A man and his wife are having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning.

The wife says, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee".

The husband says, " You are in charge of the cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee."

Wife replies, "No you should do it, and besides it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."

Husband replies, " I can't believe that, show me."

So she fetches the Bible, and opens the New Testament and shows him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says ...

"HEBREWS"

Photo by Calla Visage

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#1521 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Thu Aug 14, 2003 1:25 am
Subject: #1521 - Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
Send Email

Summer, by David Hodges http://www.livejournal/users/wandertheearth

#1521 - Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Ben Hassine
NDS

After the Absolute, by Dave Gold with Bart Marshall.

In the winter of 1973 I encountered a strange and enigmatic man from West Virginia named Richard Rose and nothing has been the same for me since. I was in my first year of law school at the time, living at home with my mother to save on expenses and keep her company, my father having died suddenly two years before. One night my friend Leigh, who had recently been spending a lot of time with a group called the Pyramid Zen Society, talked me into going with him to hear Rose, whom he called a Zen master. I had refused several previous attempts on Leigh�s part to get me to a meeting, but he persisted, and each time he brought it up his descriptions and stories of Rose became more superlative, until Rose had begun to take on a magical, almost mythic, quality.

Entire book online at http://www.onzen.com/atatitle.htm

Chris Damitio
GonzoBeats

Skald...I can totally relate. I've tried so many
different jobs that seemed so promising and ended up
being nothing but a glorified money chase for some
blood sucking wannabe millionaire. The first time I
went in Barnes and Noble I was in awe...it was the
largest bookstore I'd been in yet. As my trips became
more frequent I noticed more and more the garbage that
lined the shelves...seemed like they sold more
cliffnotes than classics and the yuppies sipping their
espresso didn't seem to be reading so much as looking
for someone to see them reading and get themselves a
feeling of being a part of the aritassholocracy that
seems to thrive there. The whole concept of a
corporaate bookstore started to rub against my
consciousness and soon I couldn't even pass the place
on the freeway without feeling Sartres nausea and
wondering if the self educated man would lose IQ
points if he were to read the chicken soup for the
pathetic soul series...I can't imagine working there.
To start with the ideal of working in a giant
bookstore and instead find that your "superiors" only
seem to read the rulebooks and whatever Oprah may be
suggesting....

svcs
I Am list

Question: What is Guru's grace? How does it lead to Self-realisation?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Guru is the Self. Sometimes in his life a man
becomes dissatisfied and not content with what he has, he seeks the
satisfaction of his desires through prayer to God. His mind is
gradually purified until he longs to know God, more to obtain his
grace than to satisfy his worldly desires. Then, God's grace begins
to manifest. God takes the form of a Guru and appears to the devotee,
teaches him the truth and, moreover, purifies his mind by
association. The devotee's mind gains strength and is then able to
turn inward. By meditation it is further purified and it remains
still without the least ripple. That calm expanse is the Self.

The Guru is both external and internal. From the exterior he gives a
push to the mind to turn it inwards. From the interior he pulls the
mind towards the Self and helps in the quietening of the mind. That
is Guru's grace. There is no difference between God, Guru and the
Self.

Hari Aum !!!

Yosy responds:

so very true... "a thorn is removed by another, then both are discarded..."
the mistaken identity of self with one's form has to be removed by another
form - the guru. when through the grace the contact with the inner self/guru
is well established, both forms are naturally discarded and the formless
self remains as it always was...

jai ramana!
yosy

Thomas Murphy

See What Is

temporality

   I do not negate the world.
   I see it as appearing in consciousness,
   which is the totality of the known
   in the immensity of the unknown.
   What begins and ends is mere appearance.
   The world can be said to appear,
   but not to "be."
   The appearance may last very long on some scale of time,
   and be very short on another,
   but ultimately it comes to the same.
   Whatever is time bound is momentary
   and has no reality.
      --Nisargadatta

What's known as the world
isn't unreal.
It's simply an appearance in consciousness,
for consciousness is the vehicle of knowing.

Duration and extent are relativistic properties
of the objects of consciousness.
They're relativistic because they vary
according to point of view.

For example,
from the point of view of a perceiving human
a lifetime may be regarded as quite lengthy.
Yet that same human may note
that within the genesis of the cosmos
the lifetime of the sun is but a fleeting flash.

What's clear from this
is that consciousness is rooted in imagination
neurally based in an organic host
that is born, perceives and dies
within the context of a host awareness
that transcends all such individual events.

tomas
10aug03
cwutiz

Dennis Waite
Advaitin

Ananda Wood writings

Just a note to say that Ananda Wood has kindly agreed to my hosting his
books and essays at - www.advaita.org.uk/ananda_wood.htm.

There are a number of essays relating to:
* language and Bhartrihari's levels of sound
* states of consciousness
* the classic five elements
* OM and the mANDUkya upaniShad
* a comparison of the objective scientific method and the subjective, inward
approach of philosophical enquiry.

His two books are also available for download - 'From the Upanishads' and
'Interpreting the Upanishads'. These are modern interpretations yet also
compare old translations, going back to specific Sanskrit words to elicit
explanatory comments. Excerpts have been chosen from a number of the
upaniShad-s and these are provided under categorised headings such as 'Death
and the Unconscious', 'Perception', 'Meditation', 'Self and the Absolute',
'The Knowing Self'. The two books are downloadable as linked PDF files so
that they may be easily cross-referenced on-line. The books are out of print
at present so that this is an excellent opportunity to gain access to them.
Very highly recommended.

Ananda writes with tremendous clarity and perception. He has a degree in
Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and a doctorate in Anthropology. He is a
disciple of Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon, whose spiritual Discourses he is
currently editing.

Best wishes,

Dennis

Jeff Belyea's new list:

Natural Enlightenment

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturalenlightenment/

Briefly, Natural Enlightenment and Natural Wellness books and seminars teach that our natural estate is an enlightened one. A return or reawakening to this natural enlightenment brings an experience of pure joy and a clear understanding of our purpose and place in this life.

While this is implicitly a discussion group, the explicit purpose is to offer a teaching about, and methodology for, approaching our natural enlightenment.

While there is a nondual appreciation underlying the teachings, an inclusive theistic language will often be used in presenting the teachings here. To those who now enjoy the grace of this natural enlightenment in their life (by whatever terms and in whatever tradition), and to those are comfortable reading the teachings of a Bakti Yogi, Christian, who has taken a Bodhisattva vow and who's satguru is Jesus, welcome. Questions and discussion points are also welcome.

Jan Sultan

NDS

Shakespeare had got it so right
It is so obvious to me now
I see through every act, every costume
I see your real Self smiling, winking back at me ...

On the surface pretending to suffer,
pretending to seek
deep down, enjoying the whole pretence game

Transparency has removed the urgency in every act
It has removed the sting from suffering
It has made bliss and happiness loose their appeal

Acceptance, surrender or non-acceptance,
What are they to me now?
Just more games, more postures

Attachment, non-attachment, detachment ...
Duality, non-duality, spirituality ...
More of the same.

All your philosophy, all those concepts
all your arguments and debates
mere words, words and more words ...

Sorry to disappoint you but even your favorite
Ramana ... What an actor, what an act
Lying there almost naked ... ha ha ha!

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1522 From: Know Mystery <know_mystery@...>
Date: Fri Aug 15, 2003 10:27 pm
Subject: #1522 - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 know_mystery
Send Email

Freedom - Photo by Alan Larus

Music: Within_You from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Panhala/

#1522 - Wednesday, August 13, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery)

Mouradrashad ~ AdvaitaToZen

Robai-shin "Grandmother-mind"

As told by Taisen Deshimaru RoshiTetsu was taught by Master Dogen. He
was young, intelligent, good zazen, good samu. Later he became the
third Patriarch of Eihei-ji. Tetsu was "perfect" and very capable:
sutra, posture, zazen, comportment, everything was very good. But he
had one weak point: he didn't yet have robai-shin ("grandmother-
mind"), the empathetic mind of a grandmother, and so he could not
truly follow the cosmic order. Dogen, just a little while before his
death, told him this: You understand all of Buddhism, but you cannot
go beyond your abilities and your intelligence. You must have robai-
shin, the mind of great empathy. This empathy helps all of humanity.
You should not think only of yourself. We have in us this mind,
neither rare nor special, of Buddha. We should believe in it,
unconsciously, naturally, automatically. This is true faith. Buddha
and ourselves are not separate. It is necessary to go beyond the
power of Buddha or God. This is to lose ones ego and have the mind of
empathy. But this doesn't come from intelligence, ability or
knowledge.

Joe Riley ~ HolyGeek & Alan Larus, photo

Water

Photo by Alan Larus

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE TRUTH

Dogen (1200-1253)

When all things exist, there are enlightenment and delusion, practice, life and death, Buddhas and ordinary people. When all things are without self, there is no delusion, no enlightenment, no Buddhas, no ordinary people, no life and no death. Buddhism is beyond being and non-being; so there are life and death, delusion and enlightenment, ordinary people and Buddhas. Thus, when flowers fall we are sad, and when weeds grow we are annoyed.

To start from the self and try to understand all things is delusion. To let the self be awakened by all things is enlightenment. To be enlightened about delusion is to be a Buddha. To be deluded in the midst of enlightenment is to be an ordinary person. Then there are those who are enlightened beyond enlightenment, and those who are deluded by delusion. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't need to be aware of themselves as Buddhas. But they are enlightened ones. They advance in enlightenment.

When we see forms or hear sounds with our whole body and mind, we understand them intimately. But it isn't like images in a mirror or the moon reflected in water. When we look at one side, the other is dark.

To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to drop off our own body and mind, and to drop off the bodies and minds of others. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

When we first seek the truth, we think we are far from it. When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original self. If we watch the shore from a boat, it seems that the shore is moving. But when we watch the boat directly, we know it is the boat that is moving. If we look at the world with a deluded body and mind, we will think that our self is permanent. But if we practice correctly and return to our true self, we will realize that nothing is permanent.

Wood burns and there are ashes; the process is never reversed. But we shouldn't think that what is now ashes was once wood. We should understand that wood is at the stage of wood, and that is where we find its before and after. There is a past and a future, but its present is independent of them. Ashes are at the stage of ashes, and that is where we find their before and after. Just as wood doesn't become wood again after it has turned into ashes, a person doesn't return to life after death.

Thus it is taught in Buddhism that life doesn't become death. For this reason, life is called the Unborn. It is also taught that death doesn't become life. So death is called the Undying.

Life is complete in itself; death is complete in itself. They are like the seasons. We don't call spring the future summer, or winter the past of spring.

Gaining enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon doesn't get wet; the water isn't broken. Although its light is broad and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the whole sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

Enlightenment doesn't destroy the person, just as the moon doesn't break the water. The person doesn't hinder enlightenment, just as a dewdrop doesn't hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the dewdrop is the height of the moon. The time of the reflection, long or short, proves the vastness of the dewdrop, and the vastness of the moon in the sky.

When the truth doesn't fill our body and mind, we think we have had enough. When the truth fills our body and mind, we realize that something is missing. For example, when we look at the ocean from a boat, with no land in sight, it seems circular and nothing else. But the ocean is neither round nor square, and its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. Only to our eyes, only for a moment, does it seem circular. All things are like this. Although there are numberless aspects to all things, we see only as far as our vision can reach. And in our vision of all things, we must appreciate that although they may look round or square, the other aspects of oceans or mountains are infinite in variety, and that universes lie all around us. It is like this everywhere, right here, in the tiniest drop of water.

When a fish swims, it swims on and on, and there is no end to the water. When a bird flies, it files on and on, and there is no end to the sky. There was never a fish that swam out of the water, or a bird that flew out of the sky. When they need a little water or sky, they just use a little; when they need a lot, they use a lot. Thus, they use all of it at every moment, and in every place they have perfect freedom.

But if there were a bird that first wanted to examine the size of the sky, or a fish that first wanted to examine the extent of the water, and then try to fly or swim, it would never find its way. When we find where we are at this moment, then our everyday life is itself the manifestation of the truth. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither self nor other. It has never existed before, and it is not coming into existence now. It is simply as it is.

Thus in our practice of Buddhism, when we master one truth, we master all truths; and when we complete one activity, we complete all activities. The place is here; the way leads everywhere. So understanding is not easy, because it is simultaneous with the complete attainment of the Buddha's teaching. Even though we have already attained supreme enlightenment, we may not realize it. Some may, and some may not.

From, The Enlightened Mind, An Anthology of Sacred Prose, edited by Stephen Mitchell.

Robert Cooper ~ DailyDharma

LOVE

"I never look at the masses as my responsilibty; I look at the individual.
I can only love one person at a time--just one, one, one. So you begin. I
began--I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I
wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand. The whole work is only a drop
in the ocean. But if I didn't put that drop in, the ocean would be one drop
less. The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same
thing in your church, your community. Just begin--one, one, one."

~ Mother Theresa ~

From the book, "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry,"
By Jack Kornfield published by Bantam Press.

Xan ~

Sufi Heart

This meditation is by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Every school of meditation offers a way to still the mind, because spiritual experiences take place beyond the level of the mind. The mind is known as "the slayer of the real"; its thoughts keep us isolated in a world of illusion. The mind keeps us identified with the ego, and the mind's continual chatter separates us from the deeper levels of our being.

Watching our thoughts, we can see how often the mind thinks us, and not the other way around. We are prisoners of our mind and ego, but meditation can help set us free.Different spiritual traditions use different techniques to still the mind. Sufism is a path with love. Love is the greatest power in creation and in Sufism's deep prayers and meditations, it takes us beyond the mind and beyond the self: the lover is taken into the presence of the Beloved.

In these states we may experience the intimacies of divine love: a tender caress, words whispered into our heart. We may feel the wonder of being loved, or taste the peace of our soul. But for the mystic, the journey goes even deeper, into the infinite emptiness that lies beyond the mind: "The dark silence in which all lovers lose themselves."

For the Sufi, the mystical journey is from form to formlessness, from the presence of our own self to the presence of the Beloved for whom our heart longs. On this journey, love leads us back to love. God, our Beloved, comes into or heart and calls us, seducing us with the sweetness of touch, with an intoxicating taste of union. The work of the lover is to surrender to this mystery of loving, to allow the heart to be opened. And although most of this work happens secretly within us, in the very core of our being, there are ancient techniques to open us to the beyond, to the wonder that is within our own heart.

The Sufi meditation of the heart is a method of lifting the veils of separation and awakening us to what is real. It is a simple but effective way to use the energy of love to still the mind and go beyond the ego.

It is best practiced for at least half an hour every morning.

In This Meditation We Imagine Three Things

1) We must suppose that we go deep within ourselves, deeper and deeper into our most hidden self. There in our inmost being, in the very core of ourselves, we will find a place where there is peace, stillness, and above all, love.

2) After having found this place, we must imagine that we are seated there, immersed into, surrounded by, the Love of God. We are in deepest peace. We are loved; we are sheltered; we are secure. All of us is there, physical body and all; nothing is outside, not even a fingertip, not even the tinniest hair. Our whole being is contained within the Love of God.

3) As we sit there, happy, serene in God's presence, thoughts will intrude into our mind- what we did the day before, what we have to do tomorrow. Memories float by, images appear before the mind's eye.

We have to imagine that we are getting hold of every thought, every image and feeling, and drowning it, merging it into the feeling of love.

Every feeling, especially the feeling of love, is much more dynamic than the thinking process, so if one does this practice well, with the utmost concentration, all thoughts will disappear. Nothing will remain, The mind will be empty.When we become familiar with this meditation, we no longer use the imagination. We just fill the heart with the feeling of love and then drown any thoughts in the heart.

Emptying the mind, we create an inner space where we can become aware of the presence of our Beloved. God is always with us, but our mind, emotions, and the outer world are veils which separate us. God is silent emptiness, and in order to experience God we need to become silent. In meditation we give ourselves back to God, our Beloved, returning from the world of forms to the formless Truth within the heart.

Freyja ~ AdvaitaToZen

Awaring Sans Awarer

I had the occasion recently to get lost in observation of
a group of children--maybe fifteen in all, playing in
a play area which had tunnels and slides, structures
to climb over, and a little track around the perimeter.
The children ranged in age from about 12 months to
four years old.

Everywhere i looked there was activity and interaction--
children were running, jumping and creating little games
with each other.

One baby, who had just learned to walk kept running
around the perimeter with his hands straight up in the
air waving them, laughing joyfully. As he passed by, i could not
help but laugh right along with him, so contagious was
his un-self concious joy. Watching and knowing....... this baby
is not even aware of itself enjoying itself.

Neither were any of the other children. Not one of them
knew they were being watched, or observed. There was complete
engrossment in the current involvement that was there.

One baby, in a pram stroller, was sitting up, and looking up
with its mouth open, at a slightly older toddler, totally absorbed
in what was being seen as the other child's activity, but not
aware there was watching or seeing or that there was a 'him'
or an other child.

In watching one little girl, about 18 months old, in one moment,
i glimpsed her standing on one of the play structures with a boy
of about four. Everything about her--her facial expressions, her
smile, her posture, the way she held very still for a moment in
anticipation, with her full attention on the boy standing in front of
her in that instant--her very energy....communicated to the little boy,
exactly what was the next step to take, and little interactive game
commenced....all without one word spoken, and without knowing that
it was happening.

Observing the children non-awaring, was to be taken out of time.

Scott Reeves ~ AwarenessTheWayToLove

WONDER

The Haji who lived at the outskirts of the town was said to perform
miracles, so his home was a center of pilgrimage for large crowds of sick
people.

The Master, who was known to be quite uninterested in the miraculous, would
never reply to questions on the Haji.

When asked point-blank why he was opposed to miracles, he replied, "How can
one be opposed to what is taking place before one's eyes each moment of the
day?"

Anthony de Mello, SJ

MORSEL:

Look! Here am I right within you.
Not in temple, nor in mosque,
Not in Kaaba nor Kailas,
But here right within you am I.

~ Kabir ~

Joyce Short ~ AdvaitaToZen

"You'll gather that..."

"You'll gather that I'm NOT one of those spiritual teachers who give their
pupils the option: 'Either see Who you are, or else surrender to me. If you
aren't ready to find the true Guru in yourself, at least find Him
provisionally in me, as a first step. The second step, from me as your
authority to yourself as your real Authority, may then follow.' Those
teachers include some great souls, and I'm not saying they are wrong. It's
not that this roundabout road to enlightenment via devotion to a guru is
closed, but that it's a long a difficult diversion, and few they are that
emerge from it on to the main highway. I still have to meet a devotee who
has come through and will tell you so. Accordingly my message, day in and
day out, to anyone who has half an ear, is: What, for heaven's sake is
wrong with the direct approach to Yourself? It couldn't be better paved and
easier going and safer -and shorter. In fact, all you have to do is face in
the right direction, and, like a shot - you've arrived at the Place you
never left! That 180 degree turn-about of attention is enough to see you
right Home instantly. But you are responsible for making it. Your
attention is not something I can get hold of like a wrong pointing signpost,
and twist it around to point in the right way. It's you who have to do
that."

From: The Trial of The man Who Said He Was God
D.E. Harding

Pete ~ DirectApproach

Identities

Identities give us a false sense of security, of familiarity.
We think we know when we give things names. We
wallpaper the mystery with these name tags and believe
we have explained it away.

To live with the mystery that we are, and that surrounds
us. To rest in it without false explanations. What delightful
insecurity that is!

How language stunts creativity
As the brain dies, new artistry is born

Brad Evenson
National Post

Scientists have viewed distant galaxies, but until recently they knew next to nothing about why people sing, paint and write poetry. Alone among species, we create art as naturally as we breathe and walk. Now, using powerful tools to view the brain, scientists are making surprising discoveries. ..

In general, the left hemisphere of the brain controls language, memory and emotional control, while the right side is dominant in visual and musical ability. Damage to the left hemisphere may liberate the right side to express itself.

Dr. Miller began to think of the left side of healthy brains as a bully, suppressing the creative instincts of the other side.

"I've wondered whether this dominant hemisphere which shapes our linguistic perceptions of the world may in some ways dampen our visual ways of thinking, which is, I think, at the core of great art," he says.

http://tinyurl.com/grr6

Okay Then

Photo by Alan Larus

Joyce ~ SpiritualFriends & Alan Larus ~ TrueVision

Photo by Alan Larus

The Most-Sacred Mountain

Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven,
And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand
steps of climbing!
This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green;
and lower down the flat brown plain, the floor of earth,
stretches away to blue infinity.
Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs cut their slow curves against the sky,
And one black bird circles above the void.

Space, and the twelve clean winds are here;
And with them broods eternity -- a swift, white peace, a presence manifest.
The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.

Here, when Confucius came, a half a thousand years before the Nazarene,
he stepped, with me, thus into timelessness.
The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that says: "On this spot once
Confucius stood and felt the smallness of the world below."
The stone grows old:
Eternity is not for stones.
But I shall go down from this airy place, this swift white peace,
this stinging exultation.
And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm
of the daily round.
Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time
ravel thin about me;
For once I stood
In the white windy presence of eternity.

~ Eunice Tietjens ~

(1884-1944)

Joe Riley ~ NDS

We're Back

An invitation: Submit your antiwar poetry!

The War Goes On (and so does poetsagainstthewar.org)

More than ever, we need to speak out against war, share our poetry, and take action to end this war -- which is not over, despite the words of the Bush Administration. More than ever, we need to demand that the actions of the US be constrained by the legal sanction and moral approval of the international community and the United Nations, that the US refrain from further immoral, unilateral and preemptive wars, and that the US take full responsibility for repairing the enormous damage caused by its military assault on Iraq.

Submit your antiwar poetry! Help us make a powerful statement for peace, joining with thousands of other poets around the world. Go to http://poetsagainstthewar.org/submitpoem.asp.

Join and support Poets Against the War! Your membership donation of $10 or more can help us publish the web site and continue building a broad-based movement against war. With a donation of $100 or more, you'll get a free PAW T-shirt. Go to http://poetsagainstthewar.org/donate.asp.

Organize a poetry reading against the war! Gather with other poets to make a public statement for peace with your poetry. Announce your reading at http://poetsagainstthewar.org/createreading.asp.

More: http://poetsagainstthewar.org/

Lobster ~ insightpractice

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful computer error
messages with Haiku poetry messages. They're used to communicate a
timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight
through extreme brevity. Here are 13 actual error messages from Japan:

1. The web site you seek cannot be located, but countless more exist.

2. Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent and reboot. Order shall return.

3. Program aborting: Close all that you have worked on. You ask far too
much.

4. Windows crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your
screams.

5. Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.

6. Your file was so big. It might be very useful, but now it is gone.

7. Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is
down.

8. A crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone.

9. Three things are certain: Death, taxes and lost data. Guess which has
occurred.

10. You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not
here.

11. Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, but we never will.

12. Having been erased, the document you're seeking must now be retyped.

13. Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen ... mind - both
are blank.

==========
Web Address : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HolyGeek
or send a blank email to: HolyGeek-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
===============

"I really love what you've started over at HolyGeek, Lobster!
It's really useful and lively and has good people participating."
Joyce

"so do i, so do i!
thanks, my ocean friend"
Yosy

Computer advice shared, shorn and shone . . .

http://tooting.webspace.fish.co.uk/holygeek/
=======

Lobster

PS. Attention Attention Attention

In my efforts to serve the web footed
Buddhas of the future and under the
direction of the 'Astral Dolphins'
http://tooting.webspace.fish.co.uk/gold/
I have been learning to program.

My first tentative efforts
can be seen taking shape here :-)

ARTE Development
http://tooting.webspace.fish.co.uk/arte/

One of the inspiration scripts that
will be used will be devoted to
meditation.

What words would you find
useful/inspiring in such a program?

from the evolutionary-psychology home on yahoogroups

'I wanted to show how niceness evolves'

David Sloan Wilson says plankton can tell us a lot about God and human morality.

By Andrew Brown

Thursday July 24, 2003
The Guardian

David Sloan Wilson's career as a biologist started with zooplankton in the depths of the ocean and has ascended to God. He is convinced the same theoretical tools can be used to analyse the patterns of animal behaviour and human belief; and that the kinds of equations that tell you whether fish will be brightly or dully coloured, depending on the part of a river they live in, will also tell you why Calvinism thrived in 16th-century Geneva but the church of England is in decline today.

This ambition may smack of standard sociobiological imperialism - the belief that the other ways of looking at the world should defer to evolutionary biology. But Wilson's version has two twists. First, he does not believe biological understandings could or should replace the methods of the social sciences. He wants a commonwealth of knowledge, not an empire.

Secondly, he believes an essential tool for understanding social life is group selection. Anyone who has read the Selfish Gene will know the canonical history of modern biology starts with the rejection of group selection. Organisms are not selected for the good of their groups, but for the good they can do their genes. That seems to be the insight from which everything else springs; and it looks theoretically rock solid. If organisms appear to be acting altruistically, they must really be acting for the good of their genes

.

The basis on which this argument rests is almost as simple as natural selection itself, says Wilson: "The fundamental problem of social life is that selfishness beats altruism within a group. But altruistic groups trump selfish groups. It's amazing that you can take such a controversial theory and describe it in two sentences."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/interview/story/0,12982,1004403,00.html

From the Archive of News in Brain and Behavioural Sciences
http://human-nature.com/nibbs

Joyce ~ DeepWell

It Is An Elevation

http://www.journals.apa.org/prevention/volume3/pre0030003c.html

ABSTRACT

"The previously unstudied emotion of elevation is described. Elevation appears to be the opposite of social disgust. It is triggered by witnessing acts of human moral beauty or virtue. Elevation involves a warm or glowing feeling in the chest, and it makes people want to become morally better themselves. Because elevation increases one�s desire to affiliate with and help others, it provides a clear illustration of Fredrickson�s (2000) broaden-and-build model of the positive emotions...

"This brief essay applies Fredrickson's model to a new positive emotion that has not been described thus far by academic psychologists: elevation. Elevation is a warm, uplifting feeling that people experience when they see unexpected acts of human goodness, kindness, and compassion (Haidt, Algoe, Meijer, Tam, & Chandler, 2000). It makes a person want to help others and to become a better person himself or herself. Elevation makes sense when viewed through Fredrickson's broaden-and-build model..."

SEEING HOW THE SPIRIT MOVES US

By Gareth Cook The Boston Globe

Show people scenes from the life of Mother Teresa, laboring in the filth of Calcutta, and they will get a feeling often described by prophets and poets, but not recognized by science.

Even a glimpse of human kindness - a hand placed on a leper's forehead, or a newborn, once fragile and abandoned, being lifted from its crib - can be enough to evoke what University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls "elevation." A branch of the vagus nerve is activated, he said, giving the chest a "sensation of expansion," provoking chills, causing the tear ducts to well up, and, in some cases, clenching the throat.

Haidt has embarked on a quest to prove that elevation deserves recognition as a distinct emotion, like anger, with its own constellation of physical symptoms. "People of many cultures imagine a ladder with God above and the devil below. When we see someone move down, we feel disgust," said Haidt. "But what if we see someone move up?"

Modern psychology has been rediscovering emotion, as brain imaging improves dramatically and researchers share a sense of embarrassment that, to date, they have agreed on only six emotions - happiness, sadness, surprise, fear, disgust, and anger - and that most of them are downers. Amusement and relief are now in their sights, but the greatest feeling, love, is still too elusive to be defined by sudden physiological changes.

Haidt's initial research is especially interesting, researchers say, because there are hints that elevation functions as a kind of moral inspiration, motivating people to be more social and more giving. And if scientists can identify the emotional roots of charity, and the conditions that foster them, that would bring closer the dream of religious visionaries like Mother Teresa: a society in which the season of giving lasts all year.

"In the last 30 years, we've come to see emotions as important for survival, for making good decisions. What Haidt is doing is showing that they also have these moral functions," said Dacher Keltner, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley who is studying the feeling of awe. "To the extent that you can find a state that makes people adhere to moral principles, that suggests you can improve things."

From the beginning, the inspiring behavior of some people has posed what evolutionary theorists call "the problem of altruism" - that is, why does charity exist at all? In the Darwinian crucible where only the fittest survive, one would expect that creatures who give away food would quickly go extinct. Any altruistic tendencies should have disappeared, washed away in the acid bath of competition.

Yet, this theory can be difficult to reconcile with the fact that, for example, Americans gave $190 billion to charity last year, according to Giving USA, an annual philanthropy report.

The solution, scientists think, lies in the insight that humans, like chimpanzees or dolphins, are social animals that communicate and cooperate to survive in a hostile environment. Even the simple innovation of having someone keep watch for threats while others sleep would bring huge evolutionary advantages.

Thus, they theorize, a system of "reciprocal altruism," in which members of a group trade favors over time, could take hold.

In a seminal paper nearly three decades ago, Robert Trivers explained how this system would create the foundations of morality, in which creatures commit acts that will bolster the group's survival, and even punish those who break the rules and threaten stability. As animals adapted to function in the complex new social order, they would develop a capacity for sympathy and trust.

"We have built up our morality on a firm foundation that you can see in the animal world," said Frans de Waal, author of "Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals." He has shown that chimpanzees share, mediate, console, and reconcile after conflict. "We have a lot of psychological continuity with chimpanzees," he said. Still, de Waal said, humans are unique in that they will help strangers.

Israeli biologist Amotz Zahavi argues that charity is just a form of "showing off," of gaining social status, or impressing potential mates. Even anonymous donors, he said, could be trying to impress their spouses, or secretly hoping that their identity gets out.

Others theorize that as humans have developed the ability to reason abstractly, they have also broadened their notion of who belongs to their tribe, so that they can feel kinship with, and thus sympathy for, someone they have never met.

The answer has not been settled, but, still, biologists are increasingly convinced that the roots of goodness run deep. Morality, they say, is not solely a human creation, invented by philosophers and religious leaders to tame a sinning beast, but part of our core being, driven by instinct and emotion.

To study elevation, Haidt and University of Virginia student Anita Tam divided subjects into two groups. One was shown a television documentary on Mother Teresa, and, to distinguish elevation from happiness, the other group was shown "America's Funniest Home Videos."

The results, which have not yet been published, showed that viewers reported different physical responses, and that the comedy viewers were more likely to be focused on themselves, while the Teresa viewers were more likely to feel like doing "prosocial" activities such as volunteering.

The next step, which Haidt has begun, will be to describe more precisely what the physical elevation response is, in the laboratory, and then demonstrate that it is distinctive and reproducible.

Also crucial will be showing that the results hold in different cultures, said Paul Ekman, who established the list of six basic emotions that have been widely accepted as benchmarks. Ekman is a professor of psychology at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco.

For a response to qualify as an emotion, researchers will need to show that it is an immediate reaction to a change in the environment - not a broader "sentiment," like love - and that, while activated, it causes a person to think differently.

Ekman and others speculated that elevation might be a kind of awe, which has become a favored topic of research among emotion specialists. Just as the dizzying, rough-hewn walls of the Grand Canyon can inspire a transforming feeling of being in the presence of something greater, so can acts of what Haidt calls "moral beauty."

Haidt said that he became interested in elevation after he studied what he considers its opposite - the kind of "social disgust" one feels at hearing that someone has, for example, sold a child. Just as that feeling is nature's warning of someone to avoid, Haidt reasons, elevation could be a signal that you are near someone that would be good to cooperate with.

And if these feelings are, as Haidt thinks, an essential part of us, then the theory would help explain how moral leaders such as Jesus or Buddha or Mohammed could have such a foundation-shaking influence on so many.

It could also explain why nonviolent protest, of the kind championed by Gandhi or Martin Luther King, can have such power. Righteousness, they argue, would by its example go straight to a person's heart, literally changing it.

http://www.zohshow.com/News/Newsbytes/tidbits1212411.htm

More on Elevation

"November 18, 2002 Positive emotions (78)

"From Jon Haidt's paper on positive emotion, "Elevation and the positive psychology of morality"

"If disgust is the emotional reaction that we feel when we see people move down... then is there a corresponding emotion we feel when we see people move up? ... I have called this emotion elevation"

"To begin, my students and I did a simple recall study, asking college students to recall and write about times when they had been in one of four positive emotion-arousing situations. The prompt for elevation was to "think of a specific time when you saw a manifestation of humanity's 'higher' or 'better' nature." Control conditions included instructions to "think of a specific time when you were making good progress towards a goal," which is the appraisal condition described by Lazarus (1991) as the elicitor of happiness. In a second study we induced elevation in the lab by showing participants 10 minute video clips, one of which was about the life of Mother Teresa. (Control conditions included an emotionally neutral but interesting documentary, and a comedy sequence from the television show "America's Funniest Home Videos"). In both studies we found that participants in the elevation conditions reported different patterns of physical feelings and motivations, when compared to participants in the happiness and other control conditions. Elevated participants were more likely to report physical feelings in their chests, especially warm, pleasant, or "tingling" feelings, and they were more likely to report wanting to help others, to become better people themselves, and to affiliate with others. In both studies happiness energized people to engage in private or self-interested pursuits, while elevation seemed to open people up and turn their attention outwards, towards other people. Elevation therefore fits well with Fredrickson's (1998) "broaden and build" model of the positive emotions, in which positive emotions are said to motivate people to cultivate skills and relationships that will help them in the long run."

The question is, how do we figure out a way of connecting the notion of elevation to the dynamics of the network effect?"

From Tom Munnecke' blog: http://munnecke.com/blog/archives/2002_11.html

More: http://www.psychologytoday.com/htdocs/prod/PTOArticle/PTO-20000501-000015.ASP

Earl ~ josephcampbellmythologygroup

Artificial Intelligence and Other Such Mythologies and Magic

An interesting thread this HAL thing.

Artificial Intelligence (an affliction of the masses also) has this fuzzy logic thing (which happens to be like an aging affliction of mine) where computers learn and respond in accordance with some input sensory consistency process not unlike humans. Even now, chips have simple to complex learning processes in them. We will likely, one day, end up with computers "in our own image" (we have joined the gods) and that will be more of a reproductive ego error than programming. Ego will/has caused us to think we have the ability to do some "ultimate" programming but within the newer "living tissue" computers that will evolve, evolutions could take some interesting turns.

Not being a futurist particularly, but trying to keep up a bit with AI and molecular machines and tissue modeling, the coupling of AI and molecular biology (cloning) presents some interesting possibilities. If one started with stem cells, one might be able to program them with some limitations but if regular run of the mill human tissue is used it is already likely encoded with information that, if awakened could provide some civilization hiccups. (I can feel the military drooling)

Imagine a programmable human tissue clone that could look and respond as you may choose. Talk about a new mythology. There in our creative role as god, we can and will, really create and I can assure you that pieces of these projects

MEART Robot

(See next story)

are well underway all over the "civilized world" as we speak (IMO). From just a few stem cells, we may be able to make not only parts for the body but designer bodies to satisfy our every whim. Evolution is an unstoppable process where once an idea is hatched, it will likely come to pass, in some or another form. HAL was futuristic at the time but exists now in disconnected pieces.

I watched Bill Gates talk about the future and voice active stuff. He is not working on learning programs for nothing, as a top priority. Then, we need only to find the links to begin the process and a tissue supercomputer will do the job nicely. Gates has committed 95% of his wealth to programs of health and "education" and through his and wife's foundation which his father runs in Washington the future will change dramatically in the next few years. .

When we learn to do a "brain dump" into living computer tissue and have many such dumps into one storage model, integrated within a living super computer we will see evolution crank off the lid of a gigantic Pandora's box into the literal world of infinite possibilities, at blinding speed. It is an exciting brave new world and has funding to make it go. I plan to be around for the exciting (momentary) "conclusion"

Any comments?

peace

earl

Researchers Use Lab Cultures to Create Robotic 'Semi-Living Artist'

Atlanta (July 8,2003)'Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, U.S. and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings, 'the semi-living artist' ' a picture-drawing robot in Perth, Australia whose movements are controlled by the brain signals of cultured rat cells in Atlanta.

The robotic drawing arm operates based on the neural activity of a few thousand rat neurons placed in a special petri dish that keeps the cells alive.

Gripping three colored markers positioned above a white canvas, the robotic drawing arm operates based on the neural activity of a few thousand rat neurons placed in a special petri dish that keeps the cells alive. The dish, a Multi-Electrode Array (MEA), is instrumented with 60 two-way electrodes for communication between the neurons and external electronics. The neural signals are recorded and sent to a computer that translates neural activity into robotic movement.

The network of brain cells, located in Professor Steve Potter's lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and the mechanical arm, located in the lab of Guy Ben-Ary at the University of Western Australia in Perth, interact in real-time through a data exchange system via an Internet connection between the robot and the brain cells.

And while the robot's drawings won't put any artists out of business (picture the imaginative scribbling of a three-year-old), the semi-living artist's work has a deeper significance. The team hopes to bridge the gap between biological and artificial systems to produce a machine capable of matching the intelligence of even the simplest organism.

'We're attempting to create an entity that over time will evolve, learn, and express itself through art,' said Potter, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=160

Lisbeth ~ Monks_Mystics & Alan Larus ~ TrueVision

Blue IV

Photo by Alan Larus

Poetry

Anything is subject for a poem:
A catalog of boxing equipment, a collage of
other poems.
Serpentine trail of incense, raised deer fur, old
shoes pointed pigeon-toed.
Glass and steel cityscape, almond eyes of a saint,
weeping of tiny flowers,
Sunlight on whitewashed walls, blue shadows of
stooped women,
A sprung mousetrap, a trickle of blood in the
gutter.
The homing swoop of a gull, chill whitecapped
bay, scent of eucalyptus.
Green lawn of broken blades, clods of fat earth.
Anything is subject for a poem.

Even in sleep, write a poem.
When waking, write a poem.
While loving, write a poem.
Even voting, write a poem.
When angry, write a poem.
While dreaming, write a poem.
The sages say quite seriously seriously that those who wish
to know Tao better should cultivate the poet in themselves.

365 Tao
Poetry
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations

Panhala ~ Joe Riley

Forever Oneness

Forever Oneness,
who sings to us in silence,
who teaches us through each other.
Guide my steps with strength and wisdom.
May I see the lessons as I walk,
honor the Purpose of all things.
Help me touch with respect,
always speak from behind my eyes.
Let me observe, not judge.
May I cause no harm,
and leave music and beauty after my visit.
When I return to forever
may the circle be closed
and the spiral be broader.

~ Bee Lake ~
(an aboriginal woman)

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Forever_Oneness.html

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link
(left button to play, right button to save)

Joe Maurone ~ josephcampbellmythologygroup

Music of Campbell and Jung: Spaceplayer

Hi, my name is Joe. I am a musician heavily influenced by Jung and
Campbell, and have attempted to incorporate their work into my music.

The project is called Spaceplayer. The first CD is called RETURN OF
THE SPACE CADET. It is primarily instrumental, and is basically the
hero cycle as music. I focus on instrumental music as an attempt to
let the listener's mind wander, without lyrics getting in the way,
and allow the unconscious to speak through the music. The way I like
to describe it is "music that speaks to you."

The song listings are as follows:

The Inner Reaches of Outer Space
Terra Fractal
Impulse
Neuromantic
The Outer Reaches of Inner Space
In Search of the Universal
Alchemy
Fearless
Orpheus Remembered

I invite you to listen for free at
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/505/spaceplayer.html

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Photo by Alan Larus

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest brings the ideas of Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Rube Goldberg's "Invention" cartoons to life. Named after, and inspired by the cartoonist Reuben Lucius Goldberg, this Olympics of Complexity is designed to pull students away from conventional problem-solving and push them into the endless chaos of imagination and intuitive thought. To be specific, groups are given an elementary challenge: something as simple as peeling an apple, sharpening a pencil, or putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. But instead of just "solving" the problem, students have to make the solution as complicated and as convoluted as possible..."

More: http://www.rube-goldberg.com/html/contest.htm

Jonathan ~ The Other Syntax

"Freedom requires spontaneous acts. You have no idea what it is to
abandon yourself spontaneously..."
...

"A real spontaneous act is an act in which you abandon yourself
completely but only after profound deliberation," she went on. "An act
where all the pros and cons have been taken into consideration and
duly discarded, for you expect nothing, you regret nothing.

With acts of that nature, sorcerers beckon freedom."

Esperanza to Florinda Donner-Grau:

Being In Dreaming

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Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1523 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Sat Aug 16, 2003 11:27 am
Subject: #1523 - Thursday, August 14, 2003 - Editor: Jerry nondualguy
Send Email

Simplicity (contributed by Ben Hassine, NDS)

#1523 - Thursday, August 14, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Am I real?"
My friend nodded emphatically. "Of course. You are real. I recognize you. I know your name and what you do for a living and who you are married to and the make of the car you drive."
"Perhaps I got divorced and perhaps I sold my car."

-Van de Watering, 'A Glimpse of Nothingness'

The Circle of Bliss:

Buddhist Meditational Art

http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/exhib/cob/hp.htm

Los Angeles County Museum of Art October 5, 2003 to January 4, 2004

Columbus Museum of Art February 6 to May 9, 2004

a post from Alice's Restaurant, the Japanese incense list:

One positive result of the power failure here in Rochester, NY - I was
able to burn and enjoy a lot more incense without the air conditioner
interfering and sucking up most of the aroma. There's nothing quite
like sitting in a pool of your own sweat in the dark watching a
glowing ember of incense advance, advance, and then... black out.

Nonduality.com Personals

Hard tellin' not knowin'

As they say in Maine (for those of you from
away). I'm living in the Shawangunk Mountains in the Hudson Valley, NY
and wanting to develop connections with those struggling to integrate
their experience non-self back into the "marketplace". I've found one
who lives in MD, and she commutes here every two weeks. It has been an
amazing experience to spend time with another submersed in a similar
experience of the world. Between us we've generated a cascade of
insight, however fleeting and meaningless it may be in the long run.
Our discussions have merely reinforced the impossibility of trying to
describe nondual expression in "rational" terms, certainly when we are
so often finishing each other's sentences. Nevertheless, our experience
together highlights the need for those with a similar perspective to
share and laugh about themselves and the world around them. We are
half-jokingly going to create the Stonykill Institute for Intuitive
Organization, based on our own struggles with reintegration. Any
takers?

--------------------------------

egoless awareness, un- wordyone sou

words cannot be confused with love, words are symbols, that is all they are, they are no thing. I know, for I have been also that love, silent, waiting for the one mind to speak, and when the one mind speaks, it says nothing , it simply is love, and it is powerful , revealing, It reveals your true nature to you, not in words that are paradoxial, but simply words that know about the person, and understand their need, their heartbreak, the words are about them, and they recognize themselves, as love also. The ego has to be gone completely, and I doubt that ego will die that death without this dark night I have been in, so there is a purpose, but I am sure it is time to begin the emerging from this metamorphosis, into egoless awarenesss. I doubt that without a dark night after awareness that one will ever be come purely aware. Until then I will suffer, and I will be blinded, it is my hearts desire to serve by being simply a receptacle for love which is all there is, to flow through to others.

Want more info on these ads? Go to

http://pub8.bravenet.com/classified/show.php?usernum=672904912&cpv=2

Hardware, Software, and Transcendence

a talk by Sri Adi Da

November 24, 1982

http://www.dabase.net/hardware.htm

You must realize that you truly are uncomfortable and will never be comfortable as long as you are merely a conditional persona. No matter how grand the program may ultimately become, no matter into what plane you may be born, you will always be looking at this strange apparatus. I have always been sensitive to this fact. Yogic phenomena and mystical phenomena have therefore never bound me. I have had all these experiences�but when I have the experiences, I also see this weirdo machine. I do not just see the images on the TV set. I see all these wheels revolving and resistors, capacitors, strange waves, and all the rest of it�the whole insanity of that projection. I see the machine in its futility. But as an effect or as an appearance I see also the suffering inherent in its continuation.

Thus, for me there is no delight, no great solution involved in going in and up and entering the realms of mind. I see the wheels turning there, I see all the craziness out of which these images develop. I do not just see them congeal into the discrete images on the screen. I see them just before they become that, before the brain makes sense out of them. I see this psychotic wheel of lights, the infinite fractions, its cellular parts just about to show a discrete image.

When you can see that, you feel profoundly uncomfortable and are never comfortable even with the discrete image. Because I was incapable of being consoled by software or hardware, the spell was broken in my case. This Awakening demonstrates the ultimate virtue of discomfort or the inability to be consoled. It is the ultimate means, or that which puts us into intimate association with the ultimate means.

Therefore, the force of this Teaching is not merely to send you to a better world after death or to give you a better circumstance in your next lifetime. It is the understanding that even now you are in an inbetween state, a "bardo," 5 and that you can completely understand your present condition to the point of transcending it. You can drop out of the program. You can Outshine it. God-Realization is not a matter of separating from the program, however. It is a matter of clearly understanding it and Outshining it by Standing Free, Standing in the Position in Which we eternally and therefore presently exist, the Condition that is being flowed in the inert machines and animated in the programs. It is possible to be completely Awake in the Transcendental State even in a moment such as this, even in this bardo.

Ongoing Translation of Sri Bhagawan's Tamil Atma Bodha
Read all verses translated so far, at http://nonduality.com/shankr10.htm

Verse 63:
pirama mulagiR piRidhAgu mandhap
piramath thaNuvil piRidhAy - piramaththR
kanniya mEdhu mavirndhA ladhumiththai
yunnuga kAnanI roththu.

Transliteration

" 1) Brahman is different from the world.
   2) In that subtlety of Brahman 'becoming different',
   3) if anything shines apart from Brahman,
   4) 'that is illusion, akin to mirage'.",
think thus.

Verse 64:
edhuvedhu kANavung kEtkavu mEyu
madhupiramath thanniya mAgA - dhadhuvumE
thaththuvajna naththinAR satchidA nandamA
madhdhuvi dhabbirama mAm

Transliteration

" 1) Whichever (thing) will abide adjoining (us, for us) to see and hear,
   2) that will not be apart from Brahman.
   3) Even that, by the Wisdom of the Principle
        (of Brahman underlying it and the its seer)
        is(!) Satchidananda
        (the continuum embodying the 3 aspects of Brahman,
        namely, Existence, Knowledge and Bliss), and
   4) is(!) the non-dual Brahman."

Verse 65:
saruvaththunj chArndhadhAnch chachchidhA nandhap
piramaththai jnAnakkaN petRAn - dRarisippAn
jnAnakkaN NillAdhA naNNANE kAtchiyoLir
BAnuvaiyan dhanpOlap pAr.    65.

Transliteration

" 1) The one who obtained the Eye of Wisdom,
will behold (the Vision of) Brahman,
   2) the Satchidananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss) adjoining everything.
   3) The one who does not have the Eye of Wisdom,
will not obtain(!) (Brahman, for beholding as the very Self),
   4) see (understand) like the blind man (not obtaining the Vision of)
the Sun of shining appearance right in front."

Translation

Brahman - The substratum of everything seen
Atman      - The substratum of the seeing ego
Advaita Vedanta establishes the identity of both.

Muzafar Ali plans film on Persian poet Rumi
Thursday, 14 August , 2003, 09:08

http://sify.com/movies/bollywood/fullstory.php?id=13225072&vsv=38

Mumbai: Veteran director Muzafar Ali is making a comeback after a break
of more than a decade with a 25 million dollar project on the life of
Rumi, the 13th century Persian saint and poet.

Ali, who directed one of India's biggest film hits, Umraojan, in the
late 1980s, is hoping to cast popular Hollywood stars such as Daniel
Day-Lewis, Roberto De Niro or Al Pacino in the movie.

He said the movie will revolve around Sheikh Jalaluddin Rumi's life and
two of his great literary works -- "Diwan" and the immortal "Mathnav"
-- containing 26,600 couplets written by him over 10 years.

"A lot of help is coming from the Turkish government. They like the
subject because no film has ever been made on this great saint on a
global scale," Ali told AFP.

"The Minister of Culture in the Turkish government, Erkan Muncu, has
shown keen interest in the project and he has promised me all kinds of
help to make this film."

Ali is working on the script after 10 years of research on Rumi's life.
He is keen to cast some top Hollywood stars to make the film truly
global.

"Daniel Day-Lewis is right for the lead role of Rumi, while other key
roles can be acted by Al Pacino or Robert De Niro," Ali said.

He was, he added, also considering some Indian actors. "I have few
people in my mind. I will sit with my casting director and we will soon
finalise. I want to get people in Bollywood who will be committed to
this project."

Ali said his research on Rumi had encouraged him to make a movie on the
saint at this time in history, when the world is battling the onslaught
of terrorism.

"Rumi is important to the world because he united east and the west. I
feel that when terrorism is the problem to the world, this film will
make people realize that it is important to understand each other's
culture," Ali said.

"Rumi does not belong to any religion. His message is that of love.
Through his poetry he talks about one god, the oneness of human race
and goes beyond religion and talks.

"His poems are very well read even in United States. He looks at the
world as one world in his time. So, his thoughts are important to
highlight."

Ali gave up filmmaking after he failed to complete his last project
Zooni, a story of a Kashmiri princess, in the 90s. The project was
planned after the huge success of Umraojan, a film on the life of a
courtesan played by enigmatic actress Rekha.

"I don't want to make Bollywood kind of films anymore. I want to make
macro films which will appeal to global audience," Ali said.

He is also confident that Indian audiences will flock to the movie, as
Rumi is popular in the country.

"Rumis work are well known in India. He has a great influence on the
Indian masses. And, I am sure, people will love this film."

Ali plans to put special emphasis on the music and will be one of the
music composers for the movie.

"The film will have strong music. This is not a usual song and dance
kind of film. It is different. And therefore, I have selected a team of
musicians who will specially play the music," Ali said.

"I have not thought who will lead the musicians, but I will be one of
the persons who will keep an eye on the music of the film."

Green Tea
Alice's Restaurant

J: Where do you get your green tea?

D: The last I picked up at Mitsukoshi in Tokyo, but I have been talking
to Asa at Asakichi and they have a good source, and he says it is very
fresh, so I plan on trying them out.

A: Good suggestion D., I had tea from Asakichi before and the owner was
also kind enough to bring me a tea of my choice from one of his trips
to Japan, years ago.

J., if you live in large enough city or close to one, you may also
check local oriental/japanese store. Anything priced around $6.00 for
100g is going to be quite good. You may also ask the owner for teas
with "golden" in their name, etc. If you have a chance to look at the
leaf, look for darker green crisp "tea needles" with slight sheen to
them and fresh, deep, grassy smell. These will not be the best japanese
teas money could buy, but still better then what most Japanese drink
every day - good solid middle grade sencha. You may also try chinese
green teas - they are much more interesting and varied group then
japanese teas, although japanese teas, at least for me, have this
cultivated purity and simplicity of form you can depend on - similar to
good local wine from, let's say, island of Corsica vs. dazzling variety
and wine choices of continental France...

D: Personally, I've gotten spoiled on the Gyokuro, but then Zen Priest
here showed me the way Roshi Sasaki likes it. It's much different than
the other way. He uses about a tabelspoon of tea, and much hotter
water. Probably aroun 160 degrees, and the steeping time is les than 15
seconds in a medium size tea pot. It has a very light flowery taste
instead of the thicker stronger way.

------------------------------------------

Crystal Balls

D: Say, I know some of you are really into crystals.

I've got a friend that just returned from Thailand with a pure Clear
Quartz Crystal Ball. He wants $1,200.00 for it, and says it's worth
twice that.

Should I buy it?

A: No, I would not buy it.

For that money you can travel to Thailand yourself (for a week on a
budget) and while trying to locate the similar item (how big is it?)
have fun exploring the Bangkok, go to arab or indian markets to look
for incense materials, etc. Opportunities are boundless... You also
have a good chance to find similar ball for much less money - Thailand
is known for its gems and minerals and every concierge from reputable
hotel (not people from the street) will give you several good tips,
where to find it... You will return refreshed and with enough memories
to last a lifetime, even if you come back without the ball. :-)

Calla Visage
Live Journal

A tree hidden moon -
hundreds of crickets in song ...
So clear we see - Mars!

Petros' Canadian Dharma Journey

Petros will be setting off this morning for his first Trans-Canadian Dharma
Tour, travelling through southern parts of Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
Alberta and British Columbia to meet with various spiritual students and
practitioners and to bring the Dharma to any who may express an interest. As
always on such journeys he dedicates the fruit of his movements towards the
enlightenment of all beings.

Students may continue to write us with questions as usual, though they
should expect some delay in response time due to logistical difficulties. It
is expected that Petros will be back in Los Angeles by the end of the month.

-- Administrator

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Petros-Truth *
http://home.earthlink.net/~xristos/index.html *
petros000@...

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1524 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Sun Aug 17, 2003 12:17 am
Subject: #1524 ~ Friday, August 15, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

___________________________________________

#1524 ~ Friday, August 15, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria

___________________________________________

Gill Eardley ~ Rumi-Hafiz

With Us

Even if you're not a seeker,
still, follow us, keep searching with us.
Even if you don't know how
to play and sing,
you'll become like us;
with us you'll start singing and dancing.

Even if you are Qarun, the richest of kings,
when you fall in love,
you'll become a beggar.
Though you are a sultan, like us you'll become a slave.

One candle of this gathering
is worth a hundred candles; its light is as great.
Either you are alive or dead.
You'll come back to life with us.

Unbind your feet.
Show the rose garden -
start laughing with your whole body,
like a rose, like us.

Put on the mantle for a moment
and see the ones whose hearts are alive.
Then, throw out your satin dresses
and cover yourself with a cloak, like us.

When a seed falls into the ground,
it germinates, grows, and becomes a tree:
if you understand these symbols,
you'll follow us, and fall to the ground, with us.

God's Shams of Tabriz says
to the heart's bud,
"If your eyes are opened,
you'll see the things worth seeing."

translated by Nevit Ergin with Camille Helminski
'The Rumi Collection' Ed. Kabir Helminski

-----------------

Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

___________________________________________

Manuel Hernandez ~ A Net of Jewels

"Give up all questions except one: 'Who am I?' After all, the only fact you
are sure of is that you are. The 'I am' is certain. The 'I am this' is not.
Struggle to find out what you are in reality.   To know what you are, you
must first investigate and know what you are not.   Discover all that you
are not--body, feelings, thoughts, time, space, this or that--nothing,
concrete or abstract, which you perceive can be you. The very act of
perceiving shows that you are not what you perceive.   The clearer you
understand that on the level of mind you can be described in negative terms
only, the quicker will you come to the end of your search and realize that
you are the limitless being."

The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
___________________________________________

Daily Zen

Meaning to get away from intellectualization
And avoid word traps,
I sailed across the sea to search for the
Transmission beyond the teachings;
Went on pilgrimages till my sandals broke
And found water in the clear stream,
The moon in the sky.

- Kakua (1143 - ?)

http://dailyzen.com/homey.asp

___________________________________________

photo: a grandfather in Bhutan

Lisbeth ~ Monks_Mystics

Repetition

My prayer beads are strung on my life span.
     I am not allowed to skip a single bead:
Sometimes the bead is a seed. Or a bone.
     Or jade. Or dry blood. Or semen. Or crystal.
     Or rotted wood. Or a sage's relic. Or gold.
     Or glass. Or a prism. Or iron. Or clay. Or an
     eye. Or an egg. Or dung. Or a ball. Or a
     stone. Or a peach. Or a bullet. Or a bubble.
     Or lead. Or pure light.
No matter what the next bead is, I must
        count it.
     Perform my daily austerities.
     Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Until repetition becomes endurance.

~ ~ ~

People seldom understand the power of repetition. What is
repeated over and over again can become enduring; what is
done in a moment is seldom lasting. If farmers do not tend
to their fields every day, they cannot expect a harvest.
The same is true of spiritual practice. It is not the grand
declaration or the colorful imitation that means anything.
It is the ongoing, daily living of a spiritual life that has
meaning. Our progress may range from dull to spectacular,
but we must accept both. Each and every day should be
linked together, strung into a long line of prayer beads.

In life, you don't know how many beads you've counted
already, and you don't know how many are yet to come. All
that matters is fingering the one that comes to you now and
taking the spiritual significance of that moment to heart.

Repetition
365 Tao
Daily Meditations
Deng Ming-Dao

___________________________________________

Awareness in Empty Space

Imagine yourself as a child lying on your back, gazing up into a cloudless sky,

and blowing soap bubbles through a plastic ring. As a bubble drifts up into the sky,

you watch it rise, and this brings your attention to the sky. While you are looking at the bubble,

it pops, and you keep your attention right where the bubble had been.

Your awareness now lies in empty space.

-B. Alan Wallace, "Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up"

Copyright Wisdom Publications 2001. Reprinted from "Daily Wisdom: 365 Buddhist Inspirations," edited by Josh Bartok

___________________________________________

Gene Poole ~ NDS

Space itself is primary, and universal; in this space,
anything that arises, can be known. Nonpersonal
consciousness is itself this space, whose invisibility
compassionately allows everything to exist.

Space is yet another name for silence; yet these are
merely descriptors. The vast unknown births within
itself, all of what 'we' experience; yet we humans tend
to attribute more reality to the objects of memory,
than to the presence of the unknown, itself.

___________________________________________

Mike ~ E-Zendo

"One morning when we were all sitting zazen, Suzuki Roshi gave a brief
impromptu talk in which he said, 'Each of you is perfect the way you
are...and you can use a little improvement.'"

from "To Shine One Corner: Moments with Shunryu Suzuki:

Stories of a Zen Teacher Told by His Students"

___________________________________________

Terry Murphy ~ SufiMystic

from "The Book of Chuang Tzu," trans Palmer & Breuilly, p196:

The swordsmith of the Grand Marshal was eighty years old, but he had
not lost any of his skills. The Grand Marshal said, 'Master, you are so
skillful! Do you have the Tao?'

He said, 'I do have the Tao. From the age of twenty onwards I have
been devoted to making swords. I pay no heed to anything else, I look at
nothing but swords. By being so constant, I am now able to do it without
thinking. Time brings one to such art, so imagine how much more
significant this would be for one who used the same method but never
ignored anything. Everything would depend on him and everything would be
achieved!'

___________________________________________

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Last night

the rain

spoke to me

slowly, saying,

what joy

to come falling

out of the brisk cloud,

to be happy again

in a new way

on the earth!

That�s what it said

as it dropped,

smelling of iron,

and vanished

like a dream of the ocean

into the branches

and the grass below.

Then it was over.

The sky cleared.

I was standing

under a tree.

The tree was a tree

with happy leaves,

and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky

that were also themselves

at the moment

at which moment

my right hand

was holding my left hand

which was holding the tree

which was filled with stars

and the soft rain �

imagine! imagine!

the long and wondrous journeys

still to be ours.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(What Do We Know)

Web version at www.Panhala.net/Archive/Last_Night_the_Rain.html

Web archive of Panhala postings at www.Panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link

(left button to play, right button to save)

___________________________________________

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1525 From: "Christiana Duranczyk" <christianad@...>
Date: Mon Aug 18, 2003 3:16 am
Subject: #1525 Saturday, August 16, 2003 christiana_1
Send Email

NDH

Issue # 1525

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Editor: Christiana

anneli rufus from her book

Party of One: The Loners Manifesto

http://www.annelirufus.com

Nonloners call loners crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Selfish. Sad. Bad. Secretive. But we know being a loner isn't about hating people. It's about essence, about necessity. We need what others dread. We dread what others need.

We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to
learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to
create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, of celebrating the
state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it
comes to being brave � like pioneers, like mountain men,
iconoclasts, rebels and sole survivors. Loners have an
advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists,
crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the Kabbalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at
their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarefied.

Innate advantages when it comes to imagination,

concentration, inner discipline. A knack for invention, originality,

for finding resources in what others would call vacuums.

A knack for visions. A talent for seldom being bored.

Desert islands are fine but not required.

The Internet is, for loners, an absolute and total miracle. It is,
for us, the best invention of the last millennium. It educates. It
entertains. It transforms. It facilitates a kind of dialogue in
which we need not be seen, so it suits us perfectly. It
validates. It makes being alone seem normal. It makes being
alone fun for everyone.

Aspects of the [Buddhist] practice appeal to loners: the inward
sojourn of meditation, the bright one-off flash of satori. From
deep observation flows acceptance and, from this, serenity: the
mindfulness by which each moment, as the Vietnamese
Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say, is a precious
moment.

Loners do some of this anyway. Spending a lot of time alone is
like an accidental meditation. A casual mindfulness. We do not
have to work at this, at observation or serenity. Any loner is
halfway to Buddhism without knowing it. So it should not
surprise loners that Buddhist hermits have produced some of
Asia's most immortal poetry.

One of these hermits was Han Shan, an 8th-century Chinese
monk known in English as Cold Mountain. In his Zhejiang
Province hermitage, on a mountain that is also called Cold
Mountain, Han Shan wrote bold loner-friendly verses studded
with such imprecations as "trust your own true nature ... do it
fast as an order."

"Since I escaped to Cold Mountain," he confides in one poem,
"I've lived on mountain fruit/What worries does life hold?"

Melody offers this from Sandeep to NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com

Moment to moment to moment in your alotted life-span, "you" are relating.
Even a sage is relating, how can it be otherwise, he/she does not exist
outside Life.

The only difference is the altered gestalt.

Whereas in you, there is a "me" relating to an "other" and thus wondering,
agonizing and exhilarating with the relating in the moment, because there is
a stake in that relating............

..........in a sage, the relatings, whatever it be, in whatever shape and
form, in the moment is apperceived to be a functioning of the same through
an apparent dualistic media.

There is no stake in the relating.

Jeff Belyea to NDS

At issue was the loss of value of enlightenment in the midst
of life's ups and downs. My position is that it abides in
residence and never goes away.

With E.A.R. (enlightenment, awakening, realization) the
intensity of concern with the superficial aspect of life
is turned down to a pilot light and never a flaming intensity.

Gene Poole responds to Melody's questions on NDS

Mind and unconsciouness

Melody: It would be great to really look into these questions - not only as they pertain to
Osho, but to all gurus in general. Let's talk about the idea that gurus can be 'had' by unconsciousness.

Gene: Anyone can and will be 'had' by their
_unconscious_ mind. It happens all the
time.

All humans 'have' 'the unconscious mind'.

Depth psychology defines 'the unconsious'
as:

"As opposed to 'ego consciousness', the
unconscious is that aspect of the mind which
we are unconscious of. This is not to say
that the unconscious is itself, unconscious;
rather, we are unconscious of it."

'unconsciousness' is when you are in bed
asleep, or in a coma, or in popular speech,
distracted by one thing and fail to pay attention
to another, and make a mistake, etc.

So there is in fact a major difference between
'unconsciousness' and 'the unconscious (mind)'.

I have been speaking of 'the unconscious (mind)'
during this thread.

http://www.cgjungpage.org/fordhamintro.html

The unconscious (not unconsciousness) will
'get' anyone who persistently and chronically
violates the protocols of human Being.

No matter that a person is in a crowd, or alone,
rich or poor... by committing such violations,
the human organism will try to correct itself,
and also to show to the conscious mind, just
what is going wrong. I am saying, that no
matter what is in a person's conscious mind,
no matter the assumption or hope or fear, that
the unconscious 'knows' what is truly right
and serves as 'error-checker', 24/7. There is
simply no way around this; it is how we are
made. It is intrinsic to our design.

Poor Osho, performed as pitifully as any
human could, in that he simply overshot
his mark. His velocity and momentum carried
him well beyond the point where he was
susceptible to graceful self-correction, and
so, the larger immune-system of humanity
was called into play. Osho the man was
committed to a trajectory of deep and chronic
error, and so, he was simply identified as
being 'out of spec' and neutralized. I am
saying, that this was all and entirely an
automatic action, and had nothing to do
with anyone's 'beliefs', and nothing to do
with 'civil authorities', police, courts, etc.

I am saying, that Osho made himself into a
'foreign body' within the human collective;
and that he was therefore identified, isolated,
and neutralized. We are looking at the action
of 'the unconscious' in all its automatic glory;
we are seeing the human immune system
at work. Osho made himself into a dangerous
toxin... not 'just' to the body-politic (as he
would have us believe) but more importantly,
he became toxic to his own self. His rampant
toxic behaviour did attract 'phagocytes', and
he was 'eliminated', impersonally, as is any
such matter.

Melody:The myth about enlightenment says that once someone is awake to their true
nature, unconsciousness disappears.

Gene: The unconscious cannot disappear; to do
so, if would first need to appear. By definition,
the unconscious is the aspect of mind that we
are unconscious of; we don't see it.

"enlightenment" may reduce the tendency
to split attention, but this has to do with
the conscious mind. Fewer errors may be
made, but this has nothing to do with
the unconscious.

Melody: That since unconsciousness is "of the mind", and the guru lives in a reality 'beyond mind', the guru is immune to matters of of unconsciousness. A guru cannot be blind to something that simply does not exist for them. So how can he be 'had' by it?

Gene: If you cannot see oxygen, but it is taken
away, you will suffocate. If it is taken away,
you may sense that something is wrong,
but you will not know what to ask for,
never having seen oxygen.

Osho was ignorant of or had decided to
ignore the 'issue' of the unconscious, and
to somehow pretend that the conscious
mind is 'all there is'.

This is akin to the plight of a person who
believes that the monitor and keyboard are
the only parts of a computer. If something
seems to go wrong, it therefore must be
in the monitor or keyboard. Never mind
the motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, etc. It is
just the parts we can see, that matter. If
I cannot see it, it does not exist. So don't
hand me any of this stuff about 'the rest
of the computer' and other esoterica. That
is 'all of the mind'. I see before me, a display
of words and pictures. Don't try to tell me
that there is more to this, that is hidden
from me! If I am not aware of it, it does
not exist!

Thus we see the dilemma of poor Osho;
doomed by his own (conditioned) values,
he decides arbitrarily 'what is reality' and
then proceeds to live that way.

In his case, his ignorance of his own
deeper processes (the unconscious)
tripped him up. He did not take it into
account, he thought he could over-ride
it, he fooled himself into assuming that
because he could perform advanced
siddhe-tricks that he was above it.

Melody: Other myths come to mind, for example: since the guru no longer identifies with the body, he no longer suffers with pain. (Stories of guru's bodies being filled with cancer, as they continue to hold satsang displaying no signs of suffering at all, come to mind). Could you speak to that?

Gene: What you speak of is actually quite
common. There are many records
which show that people can function
with major and fatal debilities and be
blissfully unaware, and then die. I
have known one such instance; a man
performed brilliantly every day, had
no pain, etc, and then one day was
injured. An exam showed that his body
was literally filled with tumor material
which emanated from his prostate.
He died the next day. Would he have
died, if he had remained unaware of
his cancer?

There is no doubt of the immense
power of the human. Mind over matter
is a reality, at least insofar as the body
is concerned. Spontaneous remission
of fatal illness is a fact. Do we understand
much of this? What can we then accurately
say about the cancerous Guru?

Then there is the well-documented
case(es) of the 98-pound granny who
effortlessly lifted the car, to save her
trapped grand-child. What is going
on there? Is that 'explainable' by reference
to 'enlightenment' or any other known
thing?

Melody: Could you speak to the difference between being unconscious (of, for example, "family of origin issues" that get played out), and unconsciousness itself?

Gene: The unconscious... the entity of mind
identified by depth psychology... is not
unconsciousness, but ego-consciousness
remains literally unaware of it.

The unconscious is called the unconscious
because we are unconscious of it... not
because it is unconscious. It is in fact
conscious, but it is not the field of ego-
consciousness; it is yet another consciousness,
that we are unconscious of.

The conscious mind it seen as about
10% of 'mind', with the unconscious
being the greater 90%.

Think of a candle and its flame...
the flame is the minor part of the candle,
and yet, without the candle, there is no
flame. Without the flame, the candle is
just a 'thing', until lit and burning.

Conscious awareness is that flame; and
the unconscious is the candle. The
candle supports the flame. In the case
of Osho, the flame did not notice the
candle.

In days gone by, the unconscious and
its behaviour was 'explained' by means
of belief in gods, spirits, etc. We are no
longer burdened by those outdated super-
stitions, but we have invented a whole new
set, called 'psychology', and one of its gods
is the unconscious. It will have to do until
something better comes along.

Jung and latter-day explorers of consciousness
have given us a great gift; we can know some
of the predictable behaviours of the unconscious,
and thus we can avoid taking a major nose-dive
ala Osho. His example serves us all.

Jung said:

All humans are the same human, growing like blades of grass from the same collective unconscious, and each blade seeing the other, at first mistaking each other as separate individuals, then later recognizing that by common roots, our fruits are also in common.

How I know what another means, is by knowing what I mean; but I know another only as well as I know myself. Since my unconscious is my greater part, by knowing my own unconscious (by my own fruits), I am able to know the greater part of the other. In seeing
this greater part, I see it also as my own; and thus need of necessity to love others, as I benefit from loving myself.

==Gene Poole==

Flame notices candle; film at 11

Gill Eardley allspiritinspiration@yahoogroups.com

Every day, immediately on awakening in the morning, I make it
my business to align myself with my highest purpose and recollect
my innermost conviction that I am never alone in this universe.
From this I derive strength for the challenges of the day. Every
night, before going to sleep, I make it my business to surrender
to the infinite plenitude of Life. From this I gain fortitude for the
challenges of the hours in which my body rests but my psyche
experiences a rich world of untold possibilities.

- Georg Feuerstein

Harsha offers

Here are a few poems http://www.harshasatsangh.com/MagazineV2/harsha/poetry.html

anipanchen DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com

THE MYSTERY

"Every once in a while,
stiller than air
an old ponderosa whispers,
'You are the bride of the Beloved.'

The sacred everywhere we turn
and turn again --
an intermingling of our senses
which reveals ourselves in each other
at the far end of perception

where the mind becomes the heart
and form dissolves so generously
it offers entrance to the mystery."

- Stephen Levine

An exerpt from the poem, "Mystical Wedding," from the
book, "Embracing the Beloved - Relationship As A Path of Awakening,"

sshomi AlongTheWay@yahoogroups.com

Man becomes what he believes himself
to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself
and you will find yourself to be the pure
witness, beyond all that can happen to
the body or the mind.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

"I Am That" Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Toby Wilson AdvaitaToZen@yahoogroups.com

Openness

The grace of openness, is love toward illusion.

Robert Cooper DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com

POINTING THE FINGER

The Sufi Bayazid says this about himself:
"I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer to God was:
'Lord give me the energy to change the world.'"
"As I approached middle age and realized that half my life was gone
without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: 'Lord, give
me the grace to change all those who come in contact with me. Just my
family and friends, and I shall be content.'"
"Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, my one prayer is,
'Lord, give me the grace to change myself.'
If I had prayed for this right from the start I should not have wasted
my life."

Anthony De Mello The Song of the Bird

anipanchen DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com

NOTHING

It is amazing how often
we avoid the ocean's reach;
holding our breath when air is free.

Although it is certain that we are
both the curl of the shell
and the soft wave washing in
we refuse to be entertained.

And still, and always, comes the
friend:
stranger than dishonesty
closer than our certainty
inviting our involvement
with what we do not think to see.

He passes through, whispering in our dreams.
What does he say?
'Don't grasp at the form, it cannot grant
you peace.
Praise the emptiness which gives all form
its shape;
the womb from which all creation pours,
cascades,
overflows, ripples, crashes, slumbers,
stagnates.
From the very no-beginning the wheeling
life-force surges into being
then dries up, evaporates, just when
you've got the pipes securely set in
place.

Beloved one, let go.'

The message vibrates the edges of clarity
leaving an imprint of something more powerful
than possessing a reality.

What does he say?
Nothing. Really.

Absolutely no thing.

-Charlene Jones, Linda Stitt and Cecilie Kwiat

An exerpt from the poem, "Tapestry For Friends," found at

www.serve.com/cyberkaya/cyframe.html

Ian Pitchford evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com

A new type of "smart" machine that could fundamentallychange how people

interact with computers is on the not-too-distant horizon atthe Department

of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories.

"Overall, these projects are developing technology to fundamentally change the
nature of human-machine interactions," Forsythe says. "Our approach is to embed
within the machine a highly realistic computer model of the cognitive processes
that underlie human situation awareness and naturalistic decision making.
Systems using this technology are tailored to a specific user, including the
user's unique knowledge and understanding of the task."

The idea borrows from a very successful analogue. When people interact with one
another, they modify what they say and don't say with regard to such things as
what the person knows or doesn't know, shared experiences and known
sensitivities. The goal is to give machines highly realistic models of the same
cognitive processes so that human-machine interactions have essential
characteristics of human-human interactions.

Story available at
http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2003/comp-soft-math/cognitive.html

Sandia National Laboratories' World Wide Web home page is located at
http://www.sandia.gov.

Lisbeth Monks_Mystics@yahoogroups.com

For each of us, it is only depth of character that determines the
profundity with which we face life. We can either add to our character
each day, or we can fritter away our energies in distractions. Those who
learn how to accumulate character each day achieve a depth that cannot be
successfully opposed.

Depth
365 Tao
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations

Hur Guler rumi_info@yahoogroups.com

what you most want
what you travel around
wishing to find
lose yourself
as lovers lose themselves
and you'll be that

-- attar,

excerpt from "looking for your own face"

Alan Jacobs RamanaMaharshi@yahoogroups.com

The separate self is but the mind

Drunk with and reeling under the notion

That it is bound.

This very mind

When it stands steady,

Still,

Desiring nothing

Proud of nothing

Becomes the SELF SUPREME.

383 from The Garland of Gurus Sayings by Muruganar who versified the utterances of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, translated by Dr.T.M.P,Swaminathan

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1526 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Tue Aug 19, 2003 1:57 am
Subject: #1526 ~ August 17, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

Nondual Highlights

#1526 ~ August 17, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria

13 de agosto de 2003, 16h57

The annual ceremony, known as Zhanfo, which means Buddha worship, is held at the Gandan Temple in Dapchi, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2003. Over 10,000 disciples prayed to a Buddha portrait printed on a huge piece of cloth, together with tourists from foreign countries and other parts of China attending this year's Zhanfo ceremony, one of the grandest Buddhist activities in Tibet. (AP Photo / Xinhua, Gesong Dawa)

Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration

You no sooner attain the great void
Than body and mind are lost together.
Heaven and Hell - a straw.
The Buddha-realm, Pandemonium - shambles.
Listen: a nightingale strains her voice, serenading the snow.
Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.
Should you desire the great tranquillity,
Prepare to sweat white beads.

~Hakuin
'The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry'
Edited and Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

------------
Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

Poems of Jimmy Santiago Baca
poet, author, screenwriter, father, ex-con

Who Understands Me But Me

They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,
they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,
they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,
they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,
they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,
they give me pain, so I live with pain,
they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?

I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble,
I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love, my beauty,
I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
I am stubborn and childish,
in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred,
I practice being myself,
and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me,
they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
when the walls were built higher,
when the water was turned off and the windows painted black.
I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?

~ ~

Standing and Breathing

(last 2 of 12 stanza poem)

and the time for explanations
is gone, vapid and sordid self-flattery because we handle language so well,
I don't hear the cactus explaining his-self,
nor the mimosa tree chattering in the front yard why it is
the color it is,
nor the water as it streams down hill
telling me it has to do so,
just is,
just as we are and have been,
once we cut the shit we've been taught to believe
and get on our knees and hands and scrape up what we threw away
a long time ago,
put back together that old egg-shell angel and prop it
on our shoulder,
by the winds and magic of our hearts,
it's start flapping wings and blessing us
again,

and no, no, no,
until there ain't no room for the I'm confused chants,
for the yeah what about me snivels,
for the fear that comes from talking out loud
in places and in front of people
that pay your salary,
fuck them,
fuck their noose around me neck
I chewed right through that piece of limp frayed rope,
I seen through their words and found a nest of fanged lies,
I touched their flesh and it was colder and chilled
than a ice-tray in the frig,
no room for nothing
except my beautiful sister, beautiful woman that you are,
to love yourself and sing your songs
that come from a river way below the stone and the fancy clod feet of the rich,
that black molten fire that is the tongue of all birthing origins,
that song that kept us alive,
that protected us against the predators,
full of fleas and smelling of shit song,
the one that our mothers a thousand years ago
hummed when they carried us
in a time when dinosaurs grumbled the blues....
Jimmy Santiago Baca Standing and Breathing

�CopyrightJimmy Santiago Baca

read entire poem: http://nieveroja.colostate.edu/issue2/stndbrth.htm

author's bio: http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=564

Kheyala ~ Adventures at Rasa Ranch #124

8/16/03    "Tender Leaves"

Yesterday we went to a children's festival at our town's park. There was a huge flurry of activity with people of all ages moving about, costumes, crafts, entertainers and more. I had completely lost myself in the excitement of it all until I became aware that there had been a slow crescendo of complaints coming from the little guy in the baby backpack.

I quickly chose a "quiet" spot beneath a tree to the side, laid his plump body across my lap, and lifted one side of my shirt as the bubbling river of youth-energy rambled right by us. The moment the baby and I were face to face, it was as if all time came to a halt. Somehow his happy eyes were so still! All that existed for me right then was a vast silence in the form of the two of us looking at each other in an instant that seemed to stretch itself to eternity.

He nursed a bit and then paused. His eyes traveled upward, and his face broke into a smile. He reached and pointed one puffy baby finger into the air and sang out a joyful "Aaaaaaa." I tilted my head down and to the side, resting my temple on his forearm and gazing along the line of his finger so that I could see what it was that delighted him so. On first glance, all that was apparent to me was a high umbrella of leaves. But then I started to notice how very green they were, being exquisitely lit up from behind in the late afternoon sun. And I noticed how the breeze was tenderly kissing them, causing them to just barely brush against one another in a gentle dance that I am certain I have never seen before in all of my life! "Aaaaah," I answered back with enthusiasm, and when I glanced back at him he acknowledged our mutual wonder with a big and shiny two-toothed grin.

Verteg ~ E-Zendo

When even dogs believe in ghosts

On the night of the blackout, around about 9:30 I went out with one of
my girlfriends to take a walk through the city, flashlights in tow. It
was incredible, most of the people had moved outside their houses and
were having little candle parties on their front lawns. One group had
even hauled out an old gramaphone record player (the kind you wind up)
and were playing old jazz records from the 1930s. The kind of records
that break into a million pieces when you drop them - remember?

That night, back in my house, I found myself wanting to sit down in
meditation more often. I don't consider a meditation period to be
effective unless it reaches a certain level of QUALITY which I call
'effortless transparency'. This is when stillness no longer requires
any conscious effort, and the body feels very light and transparent -
almost as if it didn't exist. Developing the preconditions for
entering this level are not easy, and it is only during these
perfectly balanced periods that large quantities of time can drift by
and disappear almost unnoticed. During the blackout, in the deepest
darkest stillest hour, when even dogs believe in ghosts, I found
myself able to enter this level far easier than usual - and I wondered
- maybe the ancients were right - to remove themselves from the world
- to retreat to their lofty peaks and hidden valleys. Perhaps its
necessary, at least for a time.

Steve Toth ~ Rumi-Hafiz

photo of mare and foal by Al Larus

FREE TIME

Some of the people I've met lately are ones
     who should have died
     in the past but didn't
So now they're living in a kind of free time
     as are we all but most of us forget
I'm not about to tell survivors like these
     that their lives are nothing
You can say life is a play
     & just be reading your lines
You can say life is a game
     & just be making your move
Life is more than a series of mock executions
It's what you discover
     not what you know
     that shows how alive you are

Everything we eat is a form of dirt
     There's nothing in any plant
or animal body that can't be
     traced back to the earth
Nature doesn't leave humans out
No matter how much we pay
     none of this earth
     will ever really belong to us
If God is where life comes from
     then everyone reading this line
     is living proof that God is alive

We all know one of these breaths
     will be our last
but let's not hold on
     to each one until we choke
Why spend your life giving moving speeches
     to unmoved ignorants like us
when you could be writing love poetry
     to the one you truly adore?
Why bring your own personal war
     with you wherever you go?
Nobody can tell you anything you don't already know
Lovers don't play the victim
     The source of love doesn't care if any of it returns
     It's impossible to discourage a lover

Manuel Hernandez ~ A Net of Jewels

The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy"

"My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look too simple, even crude. My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked! Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears."
Freyja ~ NDS No justified resentments Justified resentments are feeling that we have a right to blame, hold a grudge against, or resent because of something that was supposedly done 'against' us. A Patanjali Sutra says: If you become steadfast in your abstention of your thoughts of harm towards others, ALL living creatures will cease fo feel emnity, fear, anger in your presence. St. Francis of Assisi says the same: No matter what comes my way, i will send love in response to hate So, dump the blame, the resentment and the grudges...and that includes towards yourself. No justified resentments. Tony O'Clery ~ Million Paths Daily Words of the Buddha August 17, 2003 Just as a solid rock is not shaken by the storm, even so the wise are not affected by praise or blame. Dhammapada 81 Cornelius ~ NDS David Hawkins http://www.beyondtheordinary.net/drhawkins.shtml author of Power Vs Force. Archived interviews are 50min long. Just wanna listen? You require a Audio application (Realplayer-free version is easily downloaded) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UniversalMeditations Karta ~ Meditation Society of America "What is this silence you are talking about? The silence operates there in the city market. When I am talking, it is the expression of the silence. You think there is no silence, when I am talking? You think there is silence when you close your eyes, sit in one corner and try to stop the flow of thoughts? You are just choked--that is not silence. Go to the forest--that roar is the silence. Go to a sea- -that is silence. Go right into the center of the desert--that is silence. A volcano erupting--that is silence. Not the silent mind trying to experience "silence." Silence is energy bursting. U.G. continued saying, "What is the `silence' that you are after? Do you hear those trucks passing by on the road and the flushing of the toilet? Do you want to escape from all this and go and sit in the caves? There is noise inside you wherever you go." --U.G. Krishnamurti

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#1527 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Wed Aug 20, 2003 11:54 am
Subject: #1527 - Monday, August 18, 2003 nondualguy
Send Email

Gill Eardley

AllspiritInspiration

great void

You no sooner attain the great void
Than body and mind are lost together.
Heaven and Hell - a straw.
The Buddha-realm, Pandemonium - shambles.
Listen: a nightingale strains her voice, serenading the snow.
Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.
Should you desire the great tranquillity,
Prepare to sweat white beads.

~Hakuin
'The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry'
Edited and Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto

Lorraine

Talking Stick Wisdom

Let Go Of The Rage

We're living our lives with so much rage deep inside,
it's part of us at times, we feel we must hide
So we leave it hidden deep down in our soul
Trying to forget about it not realizing the toll

The toll that it's taken is you've got a hard heart
There's a lot less there than you had at the start
You've let life get to you and it's ripping you apart

Try to let go of some of that rage
Try to let go so you can begin a new stage

A new stage in life that will let you see
The rage that you hide deep in your soul
Is what is driving you, it has your control
Let people know what you think and how you feel
I know at times it can be a bitter pill
Hard to swallow but once its gone down
The relationship you have will be much more profound
The rage that you store will eat you alive
Don't let it become part of your drive

Reach deep in your heart and you'll find that small part
The part that will win out over the rage
Letting you begin on a fresh clean page
Don't keep things bottled up deep in your soul
Let letting go be part of a new goal
Soon you will see your back in control
So try to stay in control each and every day
And the rage will subside finally going away.

written by Lynda Cox

A push to map the mystical.

As researchers study how
spiritual experiences happen inside the brain, theologians question the
point. Sister Constance Fitzgerald of the Carmelite Monastery in Towson
can't describe Unio Mystica, the direct and immediate experience of God
that Christian mystics seek through contemplative prayer. All she can
say is that it's a gift from God -- achieved through a lifetime of
fidelity. But is it also a gift of human brain biology? Mario
Beauregard, a University of Montreal neuroscientist, wants to find out
exactly what's going on during this most intimate of religious
experiences. http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-
te.theology18aug18,0,5789331.story?coll=bal-news-nation (paste the entire URL into the locator bar).

Nina

Also from the above article:

At the Carmelite monastery in Towson, Fitzgerald said she is wary of
science diminishing traditional religious practice.

"I think we have not begun to tap the possibilities inherent in
contemplative prayer for the transformation of people," Fitzgerald
said. "We don't have faith that a life of profound prayer really could
affect the human race."

Beauregard, meanwhile, is seeking Carmelite nuns in Canada who are
willing to participate in his study. Some are interested, he said, but
others worry that he is trying to prove Unio Mystica is merely an
illusion of the brain.

He and other spiritual researchers deny that motive. "The last thing I
would want to do is have our scientists going around in their research
with respect to their subjects and somehow remove their sense of
spirituality," said Solomon Katz, head investigator at the Metanexus
Institute in Philadelphia.

(End of excerpt)

It is interesting to contemplate the difference between spending a
lifetime, if one is so inclined for so long a stretch, in contemplative
prayer vs. going to an outpatient service designed to immediately
connect a person to 'God'. Is it the connection to 'God' or the
lifetime of practice that will 'save the world'? Does it matter if a
person loses their prescribed sense of spirituality if they are able to
instantaneously connect to 'God' and get a 'God recharge' anytime they
want one? Very interesting article and potentialities. --Nina

Freyja

Yes, interesting article, and what you say is interesting, too.

In this seemingly accelerated global information age, with things
happening so fast, practicing on one's feet is pretty much a given.

The days of secluded monastic life are largely over. We are, as
Caroline Myss says, "monks without monasteries".

Instantaneous connection for the masses to 'God' sounds pretty good!

Wonder if it will be marketed like broadband connection? Come to think
of it, maybe in some ways it already is.

Jan Barendrecht

The study of researchers regarding the brain in the process of
"spiritual" experiences is similar to the scientist studying a falling
apple: at best, some properties are discovered, enabling a better
understanding of what happens, in a way that the observed phenomena can
be put to a greater use. Ascribing something as "a gift of God" surely
has to be interesting for Buddhists, equipped too with a similar brain
as the sister from the Carmelite monastery. Such descriptions are in
the "edge of the flat earth" class as such a description suggests it is
final and doesn't tolerate further investigations. The scientist
wanting to know the neurological sequence of events on the other hand
thinks that the sequence of events is the "explanation" whereas it but
is the biochemical story, only the mystic effectively knows.

Yet such experiences can be termed worthless as what matters are the
transients, arising as the secondary effects of the irreversible
changes: the apperception event happens only once and so does the
"nirvana with substratum" event: unpredictable regarding the "when" by
the "enjoyer" hence out of reach for the knowledge hungry scientists.
Once suffering gone, it lasts but the scientists still have to find a
way to measure what for the mystic is factual.

Anyone familiar with the requirements / codes of conduct involved with
the "nirvana with substratum" event will know it's next to impossible
to realize that while at a 21 century full-time job and will see the
old-fashioned Indian style ashram as the blessing of a safe-haven where
even a Buddhist could behave like "God-intoxicated fool" without
getting diagnosed as "mentally ill for life" and subsequently encaged
in funny farm, for life on drugs.

Thomas Murphy

See What Is

Consciousness of Phenomena

Phenomenal manifestation
is an intimacy
between prime matter
and consciousness
conceiving what-is.

Without prime matter
consciousness
lacks content.

Without consciousness
prime matter
lacks manifestation.

So what is prime matter?

It is the unformed substrate
of collective (un)consciousness.
Prime matter underlies
perceiver and perceived.

Consciousness and prime matter
are conjoined in perceiving.

Prime matter is semen;
consciousness is ovum;
perception is offspring.

tomas
17aug03
cwutiz

Gummuluru Murthy

Advaitin

1. Enlightenment is *not* the result of whether we want or do not
   want enlightenment.

2. Studying the texts does not lead to enlightenment. It is the
   result of our wants getting dropped which is the result of
   cittashuddhi and sAdhana catuShTayam that result in spiritual
   maturity.

   The texts point to this fact; yet, it is only the jnAnam
   that is enlightenment.

3. shri madathil asks jan " .... Till, then why don't you let the
   talking game be played? Does that harm anyone? .."

   The game has to be played, but the important part of the game
   is it has to be recognized by the players that it is a game.
   Either writing to the Lists, or living the life itself - as
   long as it is recognized that it is a game and the game is
   played, that is jnAnam itself.

   But sometime, we forget it is a game and get ourselves seriously
   involved and that is saMsAra.

Regards
Gummuluru Murthy

Daily Dharma

"Others will always show you exactly where you are stuck.
They say or do something and you automatically get hooked into a
familiar way of reacting�shutting down, speeding up, or getting all
worked up.

When you react in the habitual way, with anger, greed, and so
forth, it gives you a chance to see your patterns and work with them
honestly and compassionately.

Without others provoking you, you remain ignorant of your painful
habits and cannot train in transforming them into a path of
awakening."
~Pema Chodron

From the article, "Don't Give Up," in the September 2003 Shambala
Sun Magazine.

Burning Man:Imaginations Fired Up in the Desert

There's no shortage of beautiful work to photograph. Oracles, art
installations, dance clubs, foam domes and fluorescent gardens spring
up out of truck beds and erupt from RVs. Incredibly, there is an
organized cohesiveness and a common creed of responsibility expressed
by all participants: Be expressive, be respectful and leave no trace.

Every year, the Burning Man organizing team takes on a new art theme to
shape their new city. This year's challenge to go �Beyond Belief�
encourages pilgrims to explore and reshape the experience of
spirituality.

Leslie Diamond seems eager to push through the mysterious bounds as she
prepares her shipment for the cross-country container. She says she
first made the trip to BRC in 2001 because �it sounded like something
that was missing from my life, something I needed to do.� Leslie looks
like she could be at home in the boardrooms or in the clubs of Boston,
but she is making the trek this year as an opportunity to push herself
and �rejuvenate my soul.�

Complete story: http://www.weeklydig.com/dig/content/4346.aspx

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#1528 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Thu Aug 21, 2003 1:19 am
Subject: #1528 - Tuesday, August 19, 2003 nondualguy
Send Email

#1528 - Tuesday, August 19, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

NIna
NDS

Lately, nothing.

I come home, shedding work, the highway, the car, my purse and bags. I
bring the dogs in and feed them. I wander aimlessly around my house,
looking for something to do, something to fill the space. I pat the dog
that crosses my path. I pick things up sometimes, look at them, perhaps
move them to another spot. To escape this, I sit at my computer and
dredge up some purpose, like researching every possible thing about any
possible something. It fills the evening until I can justify going to
sleep.

Sometimes, sitting at the computer, my eyes stray above the monitor,
through the double windows beyond my desk, out into the side yard onto
the big oak across the way. It is immense and patient.

Outside, the air is humid, and cold. No, it isn't cold, it just seems
that way; the sky is fading to dusk and conditioned air blows across my
bare feet.

There are streetlights, then fireflies. One sits on my screen,
blinking. This goes on for hours. I know this because I compare the
start and finish times on my screen's digital clock.

There were neighbors here before we moved in, but now there are none.

Just that giant oak tree. When was it planted? The house was built in
1929, probably the storm sewer later than that. It is one of the
largest trees in the neighborhood. When did the storm sewer break and
send the collected waters of storms flooding over the roots of a
growing tree? These are questions, but there are no answers. Only
silence, and rough bark and leaves too numerous to count. It is a face
off, me and the tree. I wait for it to blink.

Nanao Sakaki

Just Enough

Soil for legs

Axe for hands

Flower for eyes

Bird for ears

Mushrooms for nose

Smile for mouth

Songs for lungs

Sweat for skin

Wind for mind

You are hunting power and this is your place,
the place where you will store your resources.

--Carlos Castaneda JOURNEY TO IXTLAN

"Awareness is putting away dishes quietly."

Small sign outside the kitchen door at Yasodhara Ashram .

Jerry

1958 November Photograph

kosher turkey golden
olive radish pickle platter
loganberry wine sweet
hoffman soda
on long narrow table
at Aunt Hessie and Uncle Morris
in Passaic
we smile around the table Cousin Carl
Cousin Barbara Cousin Bruce Aunt Yetta
(who's that sitting next to Aunt Yetta?)
Uncle Benny Cousin Minnie Cousin Julie
Aunt Hessie Uncle Morris Cousin Barry Aunt
Dot Uncle Bernie Grandma Markel Grandpa
Markel Cousin Joanie my brothers
Jeffrey David parents Sarah Mel
& I all gathered together
like a ghetto unchained
coursing easy down twilight river

who is that next to Yetta?

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#1529 From: Know Mystery <know_mystery@...>
Date: Fri Aug 22, 2003 3:24 am
Subject: #1529 - Wednesday, August 20, 2003 know_mystery
Send Email


Angel Cradling The Earth Painting by Helena Nelson-Reed "About The Artist Helena Nelson-Reed is an American artist specializing in fine art watercolor painting, pencil drawings, fine art illustration, private/commercial commissions, and portraits. Helena's collections portray a visionary world focused on positive, feminine archetypal imagery. Each painting offers the viewer a portal into their imagination, tapping ancient wellsprings of knowledge and emotion. These collections portray a world filled with light and shadow..." http://www.fine-art-studios.com/ Music: Hope from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Panhala/

#1529 - Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery) Alan Jacobs ~ RamanaMaharshi From "The Garland of Gurus Sayings" 413 Birds in the air and fish in water Dart and leave no track behind. So none can see the path pursued By those that journeyed towards the Self And gained it . ~ Muruganar after Ramana ~ Marilyn ~ OmniConscious & Laurence Ranson, Photo Bodhi Tree Photo by Laurence Ranson
The Zen Teaching of Huang Po On the Transmission of Mind The first part of this selection is taken from John Blofeld�s introduction to his new rendering of this ninth-century Chinese Buddhist classic. [Selections included in Nancy Ross Wilson�s The World of Zen.] "All Buddhists take Gautama Buddha�s Enlightenment as their starting point and endeavor to attain to that transcendental knowledge that will bring them face to face with Reality, thereby delivering them from rebirth into the space-time realm forever. Zen followers go further. They are not content to pursue Enlightenment through aeons of varied existences inevitably bound up with pain and ignorance, approaching with infinite slowness the Supreme Experience which Christian mystics have described as "union with the God-head." They believe in the possibility of attaining Full Enlightenment both here and now through determined efforts to rise beyond conceptual thought and to grasp that Intuitive Knowledge which is the central fact of Enlightenment. Furthermore, they insist that the experience is both sudden and complete. While the striving may require years, the reward manifests itself in a flash. But to attain this reward, the practice of virtue and dispassion is insufficient. It is necessary to rise above such relative concepts as good and evil, sought and found, Enlightenment and unenlightenment, and all the rest. To make this point clearer, let us consider some Christian ideas of God. God is regarded as the First Principle, uncaused and unbegat, which logically implies perfection; such a being cannot be discovered through the relativity of time and space. Then comes the concept of "God is good" which, as Christian mystics have pointed out, detracts from His perfection; for to be good implies not being evil -- a limitation which inevitably destroys the unity and wholeness of these things, for He transcends them all. Again, the idea of God as the creator of the universe suggests a dualism, a distinction between creator and created. This, if valid, places God on a lower level than perfection, for there can be neither unity nor wholeness where A excludes B or B excludes A. Zen followers (who have much in common with mystics of other faiths) do not use the term "God," being wary of its dualistic and anthropomorphic implications. They prefer to talk of "the Absolute" or "the One Mind," for which they employ many synonyms according to the aspect to be emphasized in relation to something finite. Thus, the word "Buddha" is used as a synonym for the Absolute as well as in the sense of Gautama, the Enlightened One, for it is held that the two are identical. A Buddha�s Enlightenment denotes an intuitive realization of his unity with the Absolute from which, after the death of his body, nothing remains to divide him even in appearance. Of the Absolute nothing whatever can be postulated; to say that it exists excludes non-existence; to say that it does not exist excludes existence. Furthermore, Zen followers hold that the Absolute, or union with the Absolute, is not something to be attained; one does not ENTER Nirvana, for entrance to a place one has never left is impossible. The experience commonly called "entering Nirvana" is, in fact, an intuitive realization of that Self-nature which is the true Nature of all things. The Absolute, or Reality, is regarded as having for sentient beings two aspects. The only aspect perceptible to the unenlightened is the one in which individual phenomena have a separate though purely transitory existence within the limits of space-time. The other aspect is spaceless and timeless; moreover all opposites, all distinctions and "entities" of every kind, are here seen to be One. Yet neither is this second aspect, alone, the highest fruit of Enlightenment, as many contemplatives suppose. It is only when both aspects are conceived and reconciled that the beholder may be regarded as truly Enlightened. Yet, from that moment, he ceases to be the beholder, for he is conscious of no division between beholding and beheld. This leads to further paradoxes, unless the use of words is abandoned altogether. It is incorrect to employ such mystical terminology as "I dwell in the Absolute," "The Absolute dwells in me," or "I am penetrated by the Absolute," etc.; for, when space is transcended, the concepts of whole and part are no longer valid; the part is the whole -- I AM the Absolute, except that I am no longer "I." What I behold then is my real Self, which is the true nature of all things; see-er and seen are one and the same, yet there is no seeing, just as the eye cannot behold itself. The single aim of the true Zen follower is so to train his mind that all thought processes based on the dualism inseparable from "ordinary" life are transcended, their place being taken by that Intuitive Knowledge which, for the first time, reveals to a man what he really is. If All is One, then knowledge of a being�s true self-nature -- his original Self -- is equally a knowledge of all-nature, the nature of everything in the universe. Those who have actually achieved this tremendous experience, whether as Christians, Buddhists or members of other faiths, are agreed as to the impossibility of communicating it in words. They may employ words to point the way to others, but, until the latter have achieved the experience for themselves, they can have but the merest glimmer of the truth -- a poor intellectual concept of something lying infinitely beyond the highest point ever reached by the human intellect. It will now be clear that Zen Masters do not employ paradoxes from a love of cheap mystification, though they do occasionally make humorous use of them when humor seems needed. Usually, it is the utter impossibility of describing the Supreme Experience which explains the paradoxical nature of their speech. To affirm or deny is to limit; to limit is to shut out the light of truth; but, as words of some sort must be used in order to set disciples on to the right path, there naturally arises a series of paradoxes -- sometimes of paradox within paradox within paradox. It should perhaps be added that Huang Po�s frequent criticisms of those Buddhists who follow the more conventional path, cultivating knowledge, good works and a compassionate heart through successive stages of existence, are not intended to call into question the value to humanity of such excellent practices. As a Buddhist, Huang Po must certainly have regarded these things as necessary for our proper conduct in daily life; indeed, we are told by P�ei Hsiu [who recorded the teachings] that his way of life was exalted; but he was concerned lest concepts such as virtue should lead people into dualism, and lest they should hold Enlightenment to be a gradual process attainable by other means than intuitive insight..." http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/arHuangpo.htm Choo Meh Wah ~ BuddhistWellnessGroup Start Where You Are This is an interesting point, to be able to see what we do without hating ourselves. This can also be a description of maitri- loving-kindness. We could see what we do with honesty but with gentleness. We could see what we do and experience the big squeeze. It's the realize that that's our first experience of the big squeeze. Its the path of a warrior, seeing what we do without turning it against ourselves. This slogan about liberating yourself by examining and analyzing simply means, as with the slogans "Don't be jealous," "Don't be frivolous," and "Don't wallow in self-pity, " that the first step is to see yourself jealous, see yourself frivolous, see yourself wallowing in self-pity. You think to yourself, "Well, what would Dr. Seuss do in this situation?" Instead of using it as ammunition against yourself, you can lighten up and realize it's the information that you need in order to keep your heart open. If everybody on the planet could experience seeing what they do with gentleness, everything would start to turn around very fast, even if we didn't get to the second difficulty. From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Ch�dr�n, � 1994. Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.

Gary Merrill ~ ConsciousnessIsAll

Consciousness Is All

Consciousness is likened to gold.

Gold may be formed into anything but intrinsically, beyond any form,
gold remains gold.

Further, if all is gold, if all is consciousness, it cannot know
itself as such, because there would be no non-gold, no
non-consciousness by which to compare.

These words, these thoughts, these imaginings, this computer, these
sensations, are all consciousness. This can only be true because there
is no exception.

You are consciousness, you are that. There is no you and
consciousness.

This Consciousness is synonymous with Oneness or Totality.

The illusion is that there are separate objects and subjects, things
and people. Such illusion being compounded by attribution of qualities
and judgements to things as being good or bad. This illusion is also
Consciousness.

It cannot be said to exist objectively as it is all existence.

It is love in that it is unconditionally all and one and knows no
other.

Love
Gary

Pete ~ AdvaitaToZen & Helena Nelson-Reed, http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

Painting by Helena Nelson-Reed

http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

Paradise Recovered

Try pure perception. You know, the way you used to see as a child. You might think you can't do that any more, but yes you can, and do, if only for a few seconds. If you try that when there is nothing better to do, an old new world might be born, a paradise lost might be recovered.

Steve Toth ~ TrueVision

EXCUSE ME

The times are always changing
     but not enough
to make a difference
     in the way I still want you
     How can I keep silent
when at every moment my life
     keeps interrupting me
with new ways to talk about you?
Words give us something to fill in
     the gaps in our realities
while the real conversation is going
     on all around us

Where is there a world for us to move into
     that life hasn't already
     popped like a balloon?
If it isn't a matter of what we believe
     but a matter of what is
then why believe anything at all?
Some words are more like ideas
     others are more like things
but none of them are to be believed
We don't have to understand to experience
     Space is a time machine
     & so we keep moving

When the wind picks up its music
     all the trees in the forest
quicken the tempo of their dancing
Let the wild seeds get carried away
     The future is always racing with the past
but neither quite makes it to the present
We don't have to know where we are
     to be where we are
We can be dreaming
     & not know we're asleep
Are you sure we're awake?
     Excuse me
I thought the sun was shining
     but it's you

Shawn Hair ~ Nisargadatta

Just " I "

I just found this new talk by Cee. I think she is great. I
resonate...what can I say?

)))Shawn

Here is an excerpt:

It is important, therefore, to discriminate between this pure Being
in deep, deep meditation and some little flutter of arising. That
first arising is the arising of an "I." If you can discriminate really
finely, right there, between Being and arising, you will
understand creation, because that is the moment of creation,
right there! And you create it yourself! No one else creates it! It is
the "I." That is why we go deeply into our own sense of "I"
because right beyond -- or behind, we could say -- the "I" is that
pure Existence, where there is no individualized "I." This is the
bottom line. This is really all that ever is.

So it is a matter of looking into "I." Whatever you think "I" is, if it
seems to be a body, inquire, "Who is aware of that body?" If it
seems to be a thought, a movement, or an energy that seems to
hold that sense of identity, inquire, "Who is aware of that identity?
Go deeper and deeper into the Existence, itself. The Existence is
never an object. It is always the subject. So you go deep, deep,
deep into, you could say, the "feeling" of Being. In this way, you
eliminate all the objects that are illusory and binding. It is not that
you have to annihilate or kill the ego. It is simply that the ego is
not really there. You see it as an object and you know it cannot
be true, because who is looking at that ego? The clearer you can
look at the ego -- well, see if you can look at the ego! [Laughter]
Who is looking? Like that.

http://presentnonexistence.com/transcripts/ajata.htm

Scott Reeves ~ AwarenessTheWayToLove

"What is the highest act a person can perform?"

"Sitting in meditation."

"Wouldn't that lead to inaction?"

"It IS inaction.

"Is action, then, inferior?"

"Inaction gives life to actions. Without it they are dead."

Anthony de Mello, SJ

MORSEL: Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of
human life. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) ~

Helena Nelson-Reed

Rhiannon by Helena Nelson-Reed

http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

Rhiannon

Birds were sacred to Rhiannon, a Welsh goddess. For love, she left the realm of Faerie in order to wed a mortal, and in doing so, forfeited immortality and eternal youth. The birds remained her beloved friends and messengers throughout her life in this earthly dimension. Rhiannon is the embodiment of the holy spirit of the land, sending us gifts of healing, grace and balance. We receive them when we choose to walk a healing path upon her, living in a mindful manner..

~ Helena Nelson-Reed ~

yickkenghang ~ Sangha

Seven Elements of Enlightenment

Of the seven elements of enlightenment:

(1) discernment,
(2) joy and
(3) vigor are in seeing,

while (4) ease,
(5) equanimity and
(6) concentration are in stopping;

(7) mindfulness is in both.

~~~ Chih-I ~~~

The Shape of Song

"What does music look like? The Shape of Song is an attempt to answer this seemingly paradoxical question. The custom software in this work draws musical patterns in the form of translucent arches, allowing viewers to see--literally--the shape of any composition available on the Web. The resulting images reflect the full range of musical forms, from the deep structure of Bach to the crystalline beauty of Philip Glass.

Pink Floyd: Time

http://turbulence.org/Works/song/data/92/http___www.tooninn.com_pink_Time2.mid

Bach: Brandenburg

http://turbulence.org/Works/song/data/4/http___www.bachcentral.com_brandenburg_BRAND2.MID

About the artist
Martin Wattenberg is a New York-based digital artist whose work centers on the theme of mapping information. Recent pieces include Apartment, with Marek Walczak, shown at the Whitney's Data Dynamics exhibit and on the Turbulence web site, and WonderWalker, also in collaboration with Walczak. Wattenberg also works in the field of financial data visualization and is known for the SmartMoney.com Map of the Market. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley."

http://turbulence.org/Works/song/

More from Martin Wattenberg: http://www.bewitched.com/

Ben Hassine ~ NDS

Van and Krishnamurti/some lite infotainment ;-)

As one might guess from the a careful listening to some of Van Morrison's lyrics, there is a connection between Van and Krishnamurti. The book Krishnamurti: 100 years by Evelyn Blaugh contains a quote from Van Morrison (page 237):

Although I came across and read Krishnamurti's books in the early 1970s, I only heard him speak once, at Masonic Hall in San Francisco. As far back as I can remember I have been influenced by religious and philosophical works and I had a big change in my state of mind just prior to discovering Krishnamurti's books. His philosophy corresponded to what I myself was going through on an inward level. I feel the meaning of Krishnamurti for our time is that one has to think for oneself and not be swayed by any outside religions or spiritual authorities. Some time ago I wrote "In the Garden" from my album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. Part of the lyrics are:

And then one day you came back home
You were a creature all in rapture
You had the key to your soul
And you did open that day you came back to the garden

The song concludes with:

In the garden, in the garden, wet with rain
No Guru, no method, no teacher
Just you and I and nature
And the Father in the garden

Two Canyons Series

Pinhole camera images made in the Columbia Gorge, in Washington, and the streets of Manhattan, New York City

http://www.halcyon.com/cif/Kingfisher/Photo/Pinhole/blue.html

"Project description:
This project was an effort to identify and expand the boundaries of personal intuition through a narrowly defined set of conditions. The object was not to restrict the imagery, but to provide it with an environment where free operation of the intuition would be not only possible, but necessary.

The elements were established as follows:

The Camera was a pinhole camera. Two versions were used, both of a similar design involving a pinhole optic off-axis. These cameras do not photograph what is directly in front of them as the center of the image; the center will be either considerably higher or lower than the horizon depending upon whether the camera is used right side up or upside down. The camera is also one that sees an extremely wide angle. Thus it is impossible to employ any kind of a "finder" for the photographer to know what is being taken in. This must be learned intuitively, and worked out in notes and drawings. The cameras differed in size; the 8 x 10 inch camera was used in the Vantage Washington images, a 4 x 5 inch camera was used in NewYork City.

Strict orientation to the horizon and to the plumb. Thus, the perspective, despite the extreme eccentricity of the camera, will appear absolutely normal and ordinary. Any appearance of oddity in the perspective will result from our inability to see things from a perspective that the camera can in a particular instance.

Two locations, involving extreme social differences but certain structural similarities, were employed. These were the area in and around the Columbia Gorge near Vantage, Washington, and the urban context of Manhattan, New York City. While apparently very different, both of these locations consist largely of stone and have few trees. Both have canyons. Both have strong vertical structures.

Light drawings were added to each image before development by drawing with a light pencil using a camera mounted matte box. Thus, each image has an area where drawing may take place. There is a strong accidental element here; it is not possible to know for sure what is in the latent image, just where upon the image the drawing area will fall, how the drawing will fit with the subject matter in terms of shapes, line qualities, or brightness. There is a considerable variation in the visibility of the drawing, as well as its specific qualities. Drawing was done through consultation with notes and sketches.

Prints were made from the negatives on hand coated cyanotype paper, using unsized Arches 88 as a support.

The composite image formed through the interaction of the subject image and the drawing. The wide diversity of subject matter and drawing was unified through the intense blue color of the prints, the similarity in formal structure of the images (strong verticals, location of the drawings within the frame, the uniformity of vertical images as opposed to horizontal, deep space, etc.) and certain common subject features (stone, trees, light, etc.).

It was intended that the drawings would admit a certain fracturing of the conventional reality, which itself may be a more or less conventionalized fiction. The suggestion of another element imposed over the top of what we might unconsciously see was deliberate. This could be an analog to the way intuition functions in this world of lists and hierarchies. The result should be the integration of extremely complex collections of material."

http://www.halcyon.com/cif/Kingfisher/Photo/Pinhole/Twocan.html

More Pinhole Photography: http://pinhole.pair.com/

"Who would believe that so small a space could contain the image of all the universe? O mighty process! What talent can avail to penetrate a nature such as these? What tonque will it be that can unfold so great a wonder? Verily, none! This it is that guides the human discource to the considering of divine things. Here the figures, here the colors, here all the images of every part of the universe are contracted to a point. O what a point is so marvelous!"

~ Leonardo da Vinci ~

The Gender Genie

"Inspired by an article in The New York Times Magazine, the Gender Genie uses an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author."

http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html

Joyce ~ Listcology

From http://www.bewitched.com/m/web/atlas.html, a pictorial
representation about what a web community is thinking about.

"Below is a rough sketch of a new type of web atlas. At a basic
level, it is analogous to a world map where the size of each country
reflects population rather than area. The "population" referred to,
however, is not the web itself but rather the people using it. The
result could be considered a map of what the web community is
thinking about.

The altas is based on thousands of real queries which users typed
into a popular search engine. I created a program to categorize these
searches based on the standard taxonomy of web-based information:
Yahoo. The java applet at the bottom of the page transforms the
resulting hierarchy into an interactive 2-D map, where each region's
area is proportional to its popularity as a search target. You can
drill down within a topic region for more detailed information on
what we are all thinking about on that topic.

How to use this map:
White rectangles are subject areas.
Gray rectangles are actual search queries.
Click on rectangles to see more detail.
Hit backspace or click on title bar to zoom out."

Martin Wattenberg

http://www.bewitched.com/m/web/atlas.html

Stephen (Bodhibliss) ~ josephcampbellmythologygroup

Ritual: Who Needs It?

...well, who doesn't?

I taught eighth-grade math three days this week out in Newman, on the
west side of the valley, a forty-five minute drive through the
country - pleasant, but the earlier rising time (i normally wake at
5:30 on weekdays), and the extra hour-plus on the road each day takes
a toll.

Nevertheless, i have been enjoying this time alone, on the road. Our
spring weather - sunny and warm - vanished this week, bringing
chilly, biting temperatures and drama in the sky - hail and thunder
and other phenomena of biblical proportions - but i've been cozy in
the car, listening to tapes of excerpts of hours of Michael Toms,
host of "New Dimensions" radio show, interviewing Joseph Campbell in
the seventies and eighties (available, i believe, through Jonathan
Young - mythicstory, on JCMG - Campbell's assistant, and driving
force behind The Center for Story and Research - i believe the
website is in the group's Links, on the panel to the left of this
message if at the JCMG site - click on the Center's link, and check
out The Mythic Book store).

I've listened to these tapes many times - but one passage in
particular caught my attention - for some reason, i was moved to
rewind and listen again, and again, to Campbell's words in response
to Toms' question, "What is the significance of ritual?"

From memory, Campbell's answer closely followed this vein: "Ritual is
the enactment of a myth - and myth is the projection of the depth
wisdom of the psyche. By participating in a ritual, you participate
in a myth - and by participating in a myth, you partake in the wisdom
of the universe, which after all,is inside you."

I'm sure this paraphrase is a little off, but catches the gist of
Campbell's words. Of course, he's speaking of living rituals. I
notice that many people today disparage ritual - perhaps because the
rituals we're most familiar with don't seem to speak to the soul
anymore - flat, favoring form over substance. Campbell identifies the
Catholic mass in English as one such example, as opposed to the high
mass in Latin, which conveyed majesty and mystery, a rhythm to potent
syllables, poetry lost in the mundane English translation.

Many of us have experience with rituals that were nothing more than
obedience to rote and repetition - nothing animated, inspiring,
ensouled - but a means of enforcing control. Sooner or later all
rituals fade, as they lose their connection to nature and lived
experience, becoming concrete, rigid...

Ritual takes many forms - but the point of ritual seems to be to open
a portal and pitch us past surface realities into an experience of
the depths underlying the world we perceive with our senses. Ritual
allows us an experience transcendent to, yet in harmony with, that of
the physical senses. A living ritual has a numinous, dream-like,
surreal component - "participation mystique," Jung, Zimmer, and
Campbell call it. Ego breaks down, and one's sense of self often both
dissolves and expands beyond individual identity. Like in a play
(drama, come to think of it, having evolved from sacred rituals), we
suspend our disbelief, and participate in the myth

...and then we return to this world, like waking and remembering a
dream, bringing with us a gift, a tiny draught of wisdom...

I participate in many rituals, personal and collective: daily
meditation; writing down and interpreting dreams; drawing a tarot
spread and/or tossing the I Ching on birthdays and at cardinal points
of the year (plus a daily three card spread); years of attending
Grateful Dead concerts (which Campbell likened to the ancient mystery
rites at Eleusis); regularly visiting sites in Nature, known only to
me, yet clearly visited by others with similar intentions; gathering
with others of like mind for a celebration in Nature every summer,
joining a circle 20,000 strong to chant and pray for peace and
healing of the Earth on July Fourth in a remote mountain meadow...

For me, these events evoke those numinous qualities, that encounter
with the unconscious mystery - and ultimately, that is what living
ritual offers - a means to engage the Mystery that underlies Life and
Being and All That Is and All That Isn't.

We each have different doors into this realm... What are your
rituals? What moves and inspires you?

namaste
bodhibliss

Rick Matz ~ Monks_Mystics & Helena Nelson-Reed, http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

How We Live Our Lives Is Our Philosophy

Philosophy Practiced

"Philosophy practiced is the goal of learning."
Thoreau

A useful teaching method used at the School of Cultivation and
Practice is to organize our activities according to Yan Gao Fei's
theoretical hierarchy:

philosophy-> principles->applications-> form

From the philosophy of one's art, comes the principles. The applications in turn are derived from the principles, and subsequently manifest themselves in the form.

I think it might be helpful to say a few things about philosophy.

"How we live our lives is our philosophy."
Rick Matz

We can intellectually be drawn to the ideas of a given philosophy. If we feel strongly in the truthfulness or utility of a philosophy we will order our lives to be in alignment with that philosophy, and actually become a living example of it. It doesn't commonly work that way though.

"Words mean exactly what I want them to mean, neither more nor less."
Lewis Carroll

I know countless people who consider themselves Christians, for example, but don't in any way, outside of attending church rituals (and sometimes not even that!) adhere to the teachings of Christ. In fairness, the same could be said of so many who consider themselves Taoists, Buddhists, pagans, pacifists, liberals, conservatives, or whatever.

We tend to want to adopt a philosophy of life, and then bend it to what "we want." If that's what you're going to do, that's just hijacking the name of someone else's philosophy. If you're not living it, you're not doing it. It's been said elsewhere, with regards to the classics of a given martial art, that people tend to bend the classics to what they are doing; rather than change what they are doing to reflect the classics. I'm saying the same thing in a larger sense.

I submit that it doesn't matter whose books you can quote from memory, or what society collects yours dues; your philosophy is exhibited by how you live your life. Quoting someone doesn't necessarily reflect

Rhiannon II

         Helena Nelson-Reed

                  http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

your own knowledge that is held deep within you. How one lives is worth examining. How else can we derive principles, create applications, etc? In doing this each of us creates our own art after our own image. It becomes uniquely ours, and is a Natural Boxing in the truest sense.

Having said that, if you really understand your own philosophy of life, you can draw on the works of others freely. The work of those who have come before us is a storehouse of tools and knowledge that we can draw upon. We create our lives, but there is no need to recreate the wheel.

Is one's philosophy a fixed and unchanging thing? No. You live and grow. You learn. Life is a process, and so is one's philosophy. The way I conducted my life 20 years ago is so much different that the way I do today. One's art grows and changes. Look at films of the founder of Aikido when he was a young man, and when he was older. You're not just witnessing an increase in his skill, you are seeing his deepening understanding of his philosophy of life.

"We should think for ourselves. Tell us more."
The Life of Brian

A tricky thing about one's philosophy is that it can't be forced. For a philosophy to be authentic, it must well up unhindered from one's inner being. To force one's philosophy into a given shape is just riveting on some armor. This would be a philosophy hijacking the individual; forcing one to behave and think in certain ways.

"One should clean out a room in one's home and place only a tea table and a chair in the room with some boiled water and fragrant tea. Afterwards, sit solitarily and allow one's spirit to become tranquil, light, and natural."

Li Ri Hua, a Ming Dynasty scholar

So what to do? Just as the air that we breathe, and the food that we eat provides us with input that our body puts to use; our reading, or discussions, and our daily activities are our inputs into our individual systems of philosophy. What we do with all these inputs is to ... relax; and like a cup of tea, steep to attain the flavor of our lives. The outcome will be reflected in the way we live our lives.

We do not learn kung fu, we practice it.

Pete ~ AdvaitaToZen

A Spherical Perspective

Imagine an expanding sphere and each point of the interior surface a locus
of awareness. Each point has a unique perspective of the sphere. This unique
perspective, and a selective history of whatever occurred within that cone,
soon becomes the identity of that point. Other points on the opposite wall
becomes the others. I'm sure you get the drift of the simile.

If one of the points realizes it has no separate existence apart from the
sphere, that point may be tempted to consider this discovery as the underlying
reality, and further it might be tempted to deny the existence of all those
other points. It would probably fail to see that his new knowledge is simply
an expanded perspective, rather than the sole reality. No perspective no matter
how comprehensive ever becomes reality. No perspective is true or false. No
perspective ever disappear. It can only be transcended. So the relative never
disappears and the absolute viewpoint never becomes the only viewpoint.

Lisbeth ~ Monks_Mystics & Bill Rishel, http://www.art-nova.com/

Harmonics

Art by Bill Rishel

http://www.art-nova.com/

Labels 365 Tao

Don't call me a follower of Tao.

Following Tao is an intensely personal endeavor in which you spend each
minute of your life with the universal pulse. You follow the fluid and
infinitely shifting Tao and experience its myriad wonders. You will want
nothing more than to be empty before it -- a perfect mirror, open to every
nuance.

If you put labels on who you are, there is separation from Tao. As soon as
you accept the designations of race, gender, name, or fellowship, you
define yourself in contrast to Tao.

That is why those who follow Tao never identify themselves with the name
Tao. They do not care for labels, for status, or for rank. We all have an
equal chance to be with Tao.

Reject labels.
Reject identities.
Reject conformity.
Reject convention.
Reject definitions.
Reject names.

Panhala ~ Joe Riley

Heart of the Heart

The wise and holy visit briefly;
they laugh and they cry and move on.
Poets record the echo,
artists give shape to the shadow.
But here is the one knowable truth,
the heart of the heart of it:
only I can live my life,
only you can live yours.

~ Jose Orez ~

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Heart_of_the_Heart.html

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link
(left button to play, right button to save)

http://www.thechicagoloop.net/lyrics/

This page isn't here.

It's gone off into the wide world to find itself.

It might come back one day.

Toombaru ~ AdvaitaToZen

Walking

Walking through the forest, holding hands,
they came upon a small pond..........

It was beautiful in the moonlight.

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Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1530 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Sat Aug 23, 2003 12:09 pm
Subject: 1530 - Thursday, August 21, 2003 nondualguy
Send Email

#1530 - Thursday, August 21, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Highlights Home Page and Archive: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

This issue is dedicated to the music people listen to.

Ben Hassine

NDS

Hello people,

Music can have a real liberating and refreshing quality. It
can even take you beyond/out of your normal state of
consciousness, at least that is what I sense. Anyway, would
you like to share some of the songs or compositions that
lifted you out of yourself into the Other?

Hope to hear from you,

Ben.

PS One of my contemporary "elevator songs" are: Van Morrison
- Into the Mystic, Abyssinians - Meditation Dub, and Neil
Young - Out on the Weekend

Van Morrison

Freyja

Music, to me, is the quintessential language.
There is nothing like it and its infinite
combinations and the unique way it communicates
and its being
cannot be captured by words.

I like almost everything, but here are a few
that come to mind

Leonard Cohen - Ten New Songs CD

Jean-Pierre Rampal and Claude Bolling - Suite for Flute and Jazz
Piano CD

R. Carlos Nakai - Island of Bows CD

Hemi-Sync Metamusic - Spirit's Journey CD

Clannad - Landmarks CD

John Barry - Dances With Wolves CD

Prem Joshua - "New Kafi"

Chinmaya Dunster & Vidroha Jamie "Wandering Way"

Al Grommer Khan "Agori Dance"

Ustad Usman Khan "Raga Hansadhwani"

Deuter "Sunlight Dancing"

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon CD

so many more...

i'm glad you asked, i'm enjoying
seeing what speaks to everyone else

Freyja

Hur

this is a good point. i've felt that those who have never discovered
the conceptual teachings of nonduality, have always known it when
they listen to music...they just didn't have a word for it.

asking for songs? almost any song on the radio till it's played so
much that i cannot stand to hear it.

hur

ps. though i'd disagree with the concept "into the Other." i'd like
to think of nonduality as the disapperance of the imaginary Other.
no Other to cap from the children of lesser gods, the lower case
letters. i don't type in lower case letters to make any point. i'm
just too lazy to cap anything.

Tarah

In order of preference (although all of these are "tops" for me):

1. B-tribe !Spiritual, Spiritual!
The entire CD is fantastic - totally lifts one. Dramatic flamenco
guitar, moody, wordless vocals...it's music as mood, mood as music.

2. Novus Magnificat - Constance Demby
This one takes you away...floating continuously. You drift, soar,
cry, laugh and become totally emersed....

3. AEterna - Constance Demby
All selections are great...but, #5 - Eternal Return is one never to
be forgotten.

4. Ten New Songs - Leonard Cohen
Many have addressed this one. It is special.

5. Moroccan Spirit
This one starts out very, very "earthy". Starting with the 6th
selection, Midunya, one can barely hold onto their seat, it is that
elating. It moves on into #7, 8 & 9 flowing one into the other...and
then...#10 - impossible to describe. Real, real drums...the beat is
haunting...it takes one away...and leads into a nice finish with #11
& 12. One is just not the "same" at the end of the listening as at
the start. Now I must warn you, it may take several listenings to
become totally emersed into it.

6. Enigma - MCMXC a.D.
There are two versions out, one is the "regular" and the other has 4
extra versions of previous selections. I first purchased
the "regular" because I did not know whether or not I would like
it...I ended up buying the pricey extended version. Another
wonderful CD.

7. Kitaro
I like Kitaro's earlier CD's. My favorite (which appears to not be
available any longer - used are sometimes available - $150) is the
Silkroad Suite played along with the London Symphony Orchestra. The
orchestra adds a sense of depth that is awe inspiring. Other Kitaro
favorites include Oasis, India...and the list goes on.

8. Mystere - Cirque du Soleil
If anyone has had the opportunity to see this performance live, they
know what I am talking about here. This goes beyond the body. A
friend, who died, was adament about having the #9 selection playing
at his death. I made up a special CD that just played this song over
& over...titled Kalimando. He envisioned his death as this song,
especially the ending of the song where he stated it was nothing but
sound and light. He got his wish.

Of course there are many, many more great selections. These are the
ones I keep returning to play over and over.

It is great getting new selections from others. I will have fun
trying them out.

Constance Demby

Greg Goode

--DRIFT, by Arthur Dent and Deeper Than Space.
--TRANCES AND DRONES, by Robert Rich.
--Anything on http://www.globalsoul.net/

Terry S.

...Leonard Cohen; Ten New Songs
Pink Floyd; Dark side of the Moon
Philip Glass; Songs of Liquid days
Miles Davis; In a Silent Way

Gene Poole

- 21st Century Jesus/Messiah (play it LOUD)
- Oxygene/Jarre
- anything by Bach
- Boston/Boston
- All she wants to do is dance/Henley
- Been a long time (since rock 'n roll)/Led Zeppelin
- Take On Me/Ah Ha

Nina

Hi, Ben, in the late 90s, a bunch of us here in Asheville were
neurolinguistically programmed to move out of our wee selves to the
beat of Anugama's Shamanic Dream CD. This has been confirmed by
hysterical (read: funny coincidence) post-hypnosis consensus. No,
this was not a super secure government experiment, it for all of us
the result of attending a particular yoga teacher's class here in A-
ville. She played that CD in every class, so, we all came to
associate it with that relaxed blissed-out nothin'-doin' feeling that
comes with practicing yoga under the tutelage of a smooth-talkin'
buddhist yogini. Anytime I hear that CD, I drop right back into that
room with the resilient blue-grey sports floor, am surrounded by a
bunch of slack-jawed and bright-eyed yogis and the slight smell of
bleach solution combined with Sandalwood.

Let's see, here are some more:

Kronos Quartet's CD Astor Piazzolla: Five Tango Sensations

Flaming Lips' CD Yoshini Battles the Pink Robots

Yo Yo Ma's CD Soul of the Tango

John Adam's CD Shaker Loops (not dependable - sometimes annoying)

Mark Otter

Hi Ben,

Any of the holotropic breathworks sets I've ever breathed to.

R. Carlos Nakai and Nawang Khechog - Winds of Devotion (I breathed for
hours to this CD once, playing it over and over, while asking "Who am
I?" repeatedly, until I was left laughing with great joy at the answer
"I am the question asking itself in infinitely many ways". Yum. The
music is an intersection between Native American and Tibetan Buddhist
traditions and is just amazing.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party - Devotional and Love Songs (or anything
else by him...) Play it loud!!! (and dance - very celebratory)

Byron Metcalf - Helpers, Allies and Guides. Byron's a shaman, and
makes music for journeying. He has some more recent albums as well, in
collaboration with Steve Roach, which I don't know quite as well, but
are also for journeying. There is some darkness in much of this music,
which can be very effective in helping "stuff" arise to be seen and
let go of.

Any of the "Yoga" series by Russill Paul. I like Shabda Yoga best, but
there are several releases, all wonderful.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Ben

Hi Mark,

I also listen to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sabri Brothers and other qawalli
groups. I play it loud as well, the neighbours think I am a muslim
fundamentalist now :-) I tried to explain to the old lady it's not allowed
to listen to music for fundi's -it wouldn't help.
That's why I also play Klezmatics very loud now and then to add to the
confusion...
Did you ever hear of Mercan Dede? It's Turkish sufi music with dance/electro
flavor. Very nice.

I listen to Steve Roach as well. "Structures from Silence" is amazing. My
cat Teddy likes it as well. My girlfriend doesn't....

Nina

Mark wrote: "Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party - Devotional and Love Songs (or anything else by him...) Play it loud!!! (and dance - very celebratory)"

Hehe! Oh, Mark, the images that brings to mind!

Hey, I remembered another one: Deva Premal's CD... uh... the one with
the two versions of the Gayatri Mantra on it. Not only did it take me
into 'the Other', but it granted me the minor siddhi of 'traffic
control' during a long road trip. I had been listening to it nonstop
on repeat and noticed that my invitations to left-lane bandits to
kindly get out of my way were being headed without fail or
hesitation. Then I tried it out on right lane bandits and it worked
on them, too. It was quite a happy experience, as I sped along 10-20
mph above the speed limit on curving mountainous roads that had taxed
the creative minds of armies of engineers. "Blessings on my fellow
travelers!" I beamed at each car as Deva chanted song after song.

Talk about being transported. LOL!

Nina

Melody

Pandit Jasraj's rendition of "Om" is
beyond description.

You can hear it, and others at:

http://www.the-covenant.net/JukeBox.html

To be more specific, Om, is the name of
the collection which includes his rendition
of each of 4 states. What is found at
the URL below, is his rendition of the
4th.

Jerry

I like music to be attached to an emotional experience in my life or to a
performer that creates an emotional experience. Otherwise I can't get into
the experience of simply listening to a piece of music or a song.

A Newfoundland girl named Jenny Gear is creating an intense following with
her artistic sensibilities and emotional impact. I like music that comes
from a source like Jenny: http://www.deathbrand.com/jenny/.

Jenny Gear

Gyan

Renaissance music performed by the group Pomerium,
The Mass in B Minor by J.S. Bach ( and its Agnus Dei section ),
Some devotionals songs by Deva Premal, Miten and Milarepa.
John Lennon's 'Instant Karma'.
'Oor Es Mayr Eem' sung by Isabel Bayarakdarian from the ARARAT Original
Soundtrack.

Sarojini and Nina

Nina: I want to thank you for mentioning the music by
Anugama. I had never heard of him before and so went to the
Site and listened to it. It is wonerful. I use music in the
Yoga classes I teach and some of it would be absolutely
perfect. It's just so mesmerizingly soothing isn't it? Thank
you so very much for this information.!

Peace and Love Always, Sarojini

Hi, Sarojini, you're welcome. I like the heartbeat and breath woven
into many of Anugama's extended songs. For a while, I was looking for
CDs that highlight sounds of nature to use in classes. It's not as
easy to find them as one would think - so many of the 'nature sounds'
CDs incorporate really distracting new age music. However, I did find
one that I can recommend, 'Dolphin Dreams' by Jonathan Goldman. It is
an aural journey from the beach into the ocean over the course of 65
minutes. The instrumentals are not at all distracting, and the sounds
are so perfect that when I play it in the YWCA classroom, I have the
uncanny urge to look for hidden seagulls. LOL!

http://www.banns.freeserve.co.uk/dolphins/music.htm

Sarojini, in which style do you teach? What other music do you use in
your classes?

Nina

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#1531 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Sun Aug 24, 2003 5:20 am
Subject: #1531 - Friday, August 22, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

#1531 - Friday, August 22, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

Highlights Home Page and Archive: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

beach photo by Sam Pasciencier on NDS

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~ Mary Oliver ~

Web version at www.Panhala.net/Archive/The_Summer_Day.html

Web archive of Panhala postings at www.Panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

music link

(left button to play, right button to save)

Alan Larus ~ HarshaSatsangh

re: wish for pictures

Chilukuri wrote:

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for the lovely photographs of swans! I always
see your heart warming photographs with joy.

May I know whether you have any photographs taken of lotuses (red
and white ) with rising sun falling on them. I want to take that
as the coverpage for my series of books on proverb linguistics
with the title
Suryakamalam (surya = sun ; kamalam =red lotus ) which is the name
of my sister.

I should be immensely thankful to you if you could help me in this
regard.

Yours sincerely,
Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar

~ ~ ~

I have a lot of pictures of water lilys ( I think it is called in english).

I read somewhere that the waterlilys are related to the lotus and are considered to be lotuses in Japan.

I found there even exists red wild water lilys here, see the second page on this link.

I will go and look for them when they bloom later in the summer. They are very rare and this is the only one known plant in this country. They tested it to see it was natural and not breeded.

http://www.toyen.uio.no/botanisk/nbf/ofa/nio200001/8-rod_nokkerose..pdf

~ ~ ~

Dear Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar,

I did set off to take the pictures you wished for twice this summer.

The first time we started too late, the second time we were also late because the ferryman wanted to eat his dinner before taking us. I tried to reach the pond called Bigpond, but we got stuck in traffic from a football match and we had to turn as the sun was setting.

I did get a map and a good description of the way from a girl in a petrol station.

So today the sun was shining and as I hate to give up I went back to see if I could find anything.

After some searching I found the pond the girl pointed out on the map, a streetmap with no names on the ponds and lakes, and it was disappointing. Only two white waterlilies and some empty bottles. But this dragonfly was there.

A teacher passing by with his class told me it was the next pond further into the forest, so I went there. This pond was very long, with no flowers at all.

I asked another man and he gave me the direction still further on.

At one point I found a sign telling the way and 2.2 km to go. After a while I got suspicious and luckily I met somebody picking blueberries, they told me I was on the wrong path, the pond was behind the sign : ).

So I found the pond. This is in an area where I have never been before and it is very beautiful. The pond had a lot of dragonflies in all colours and sizes I have not seen anything like this anywhere, and a lot of white lilies too, so it was not a waste of time.

I did walk along the whole pond down past the last bend as it would be silly to leave without searching every inch of this pond. And of course they had to be there, as only a fool would have travelled so far without knowing.

Manuel Hernandez ~ A Net of Jewels

"Be conscious of yourself, watch your mind, give it your full attention. Don't look for quick results, there may be none within your noticing. Unknown to you, your psyche will undergo a change, there will be more clarity in your thinking and feeling, purity in your behaviour. You need not aim at these - you will witness the change all the same."
The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Harsha ~ HarshaSatsangh

Dear Shawn,

That quote from Sri Ramana brings back some fond, wonderful and funny memories of the 1970s. I had had some very difficult years of awakening in the early and mid 1970s but somehow (God only knows how!) managed to finish college and graduate with a philosophy degree and devoted myself to full time practice of meditation and teaching of yoga. I was around 22 and after having read the "Talks with Sri Ramana" became totally convinced that I was perfectly enlightened! I was not hesitant to declare myself such if the conversation called for it, even if I was speaking with monks who had been meditating for years! Of course, they thought I was quite egotistical and so on with a flawed and immature personality, etc!. And I thought that they were nice people but unfortunately ignorant. Too bad! :-).

I was teaching yoga then and had little money but never felt poor. There was not much furniture and I used to sleep on the floor. "The Talks" which I used to sleep with beside me had seeped into me so much. I thought if the Sage of Arunachala says, "You are the Self, you are already enlightened, the Self is already Realized," then how can it be contradicted. What power can contradict the words of Bhagavan Ramana on the this matter. I believed it, sensed it, felt it in my bones and in the fiber of my being! Ramana Maharshi also came in my dreams and blessed me which gave me even more confidence and I did not care what others thought. So it was a fun time with many experiences. Later on, after some time, by Bhagavan's Grace alone when I realized the nature of the Heart, the Self, I saw that in our ordinary consciousness, the light is always there. It is obscured at times by the suffering and fluctuations of the mind. I had been perfectly right to trust Sri Ramana's words.

So the karmas have to be played out. Sri Ramana said that the body (mind) has come into existence and has to go through certain experiences. Joy, sadness, depression, love, relationships, interactions, pleasure, suffering, all are part of the it. And that is OK. So we are all in this boat together. All living beings --- gurus, teachers, students, enlightened, non-enlightened, etc. And I feel great love emanating and great friendship from all directions.

May the suffering and sorrow of all beings cease. May all engage in mutual help and mutual welfare.

Lots of Love
Blessings to the cosmos

May the great compassion of the sages be felt everywhere in in the heart of all beings

Love,
Harsha

Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit

There's nothing ahead

Rumi

Lovers think they are looking for each other,
but there is only one search: wandering
This world is wandering that, both inside one
transparent sky. In here
there is no dogma and no heresy.
The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did
about the future, Forget the future.
I'd worship someone who could do that.
On the way you may want to look back, or not,
but if you can say "There's nothing ahead",
there will be nothing there.
Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both,
you don't belong with us.
When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.
There's no place like that anywhere in the world.

from 'The Essential Rumi" Coleman Barks with John Moyne
Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

~ ~ ~

Birdwings

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you are bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralysed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

'The Essential Rumi'
Translated by Coleman Barks/John Moyne

~ ~ ~

An Irish Blessing

May you have many friends
and may they be as mature
in taste and health and color
and as sought after
as the contents of this glass.

May you have warm words on a cold evening,
a full moon on a dark night,
and the road downhill all the way to your door.

May every hair on your head turn into a candle
to light your way to heaven.
And may God and his Holy Mother
take the harm of the years away from you.

And...may you have no frost on your spuds,
no worms on your cabbage,
May your goat give plenty of milk,
and if you should buy a donkey
please, God, she be pregnant!

from "Against an Infinite Horizon" by Ronald Rolheiser:

Steve Toth ~ SufiMystic

YOU

When I was young & just learning
how to speak
I discovered the word "you"
Such a wonderful word
You could call anybody "you"
& they would answer
Hello you
How are you?
The people would laugh
& ask "which you do you mean?"
You you I would tell them
& they would laugh some more
So that became my nickname
all around town
O look it's You You

I still like the word "you"
I still call everybody "you"
I love you
I adore you
I mean you
I can't get
enough of you

Terry Murphy ~ SufiMystic

from "73 poems," by e e cummings

62

now does our world descend
the path to nothingness
(cruel now cancels kind:
friends turn to enemies)
therefore lament,my dream
and don a doer's doom

create now is contrive;
imagined,merely know
(freedom:what makes a slave)
therefore,my life,lie down
and more by most endure
all that you never were

hide,poor dishonoured mind
who thought yourself so wise;
and much could understand
concerning no and yes:
if they've become the same
it's time you unbecame

where climbing was and bright
is darkness and to fall
(now wrong's the only right
since brave are cowards all)
therefore despair,my heart
and die into the dirt

but from this endless end
of briefer each our bliss -
where seeing eyes go blind
(where lips forget to kiss)
where everything's nothing
- arise,my soul;and sing

e e cummings

red lotus by Alan Larus

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#1532 From: Mark Otter <markwotter@...>
Date: Mon Aug 25, 2003 2:53 am
Subject: #1532 - Saturday, August 23, 2003 markwotter704
Send Email

Nonduality Salon Highlights, #1532 Saturday, August 23, 2003

http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nondual Highlights Issue #1532 Saturday, August 23, 2003 Editor: Mark

The Quiet Awareness of simply tuning in and seeing, feeling, tasting, touching, and hearing the sounds in our immediate environment brings on a stillness of mind that is universally relaxing to all who will take even a few moments to simply be.

Combining this quiet awareness with Breath Awareness, noticing when we are inhaling and when we are exhaling is a natural and easy method of staying in the moment, in the quiet awareness for a longer period of time.

These two steps in the process that is structured to lead us to intuitive consciousness are, in themselves, meditation techniques that quiet the inner dialogue and bring on a comfortable relaxation. For those who's goal is stress reduction and stress management, this is an effective tool. With practice, the gentle relaxation and peace of mind can be entered into almost immediately. And this simple 2-step opens a place within and becomes a haven from the rush and chaos of life.

For those who are responding to an intuitive stirring that there may (or must!) be something more to life than they are experiencing, there is more to be discovered (or rediscovered).

The model for this journey to the more, or what is called an Experience of Pure Intuitive Consciousness, asks us to enter the Quiet Awareness, then the Breath Awareness, and next...

Heart Awareness, or what is called The Mystic Heart. In Christianity, it might be called the sacred heart or the throne room of God, a center in which God, the Absolute abides (of course, this is a model that is necessarily dualistic, that is a ladder to that "place" beyond duality and realization that God "resides" everywhere, within and without -- all is within God or Source or the Absolute. Attachment to any particular model is the genesis for "war" and fundamentalism.)

In Yoga, this is the 4th Chakra, and the opening of this chakra has many wonderful and amazing stories.

Heart Awareness is very, very subtle and can take a long time to attune to for many people. But also for many people, the intuitive stirring has been going on for a long time, the search and journey into the mystic, peace of mind, enlightenment, has taken years and years before their karma or harmony or good fortune has brought them to the place when even the words, "The Mystic Heart" resonate within and "call" to them.

So, for some travelers, the very first visit to the The Mystic Heart Meditation can be a startling, stunning, thunderbolt of awakening.

Once settled in Quiet Awareness, using Breath Awareness, by choice or necessity to remain in the quiet and peaceful place, we begin to "listen" to our heart -- not the physical heart beating, but rather for the quiet wisdom and kindness and compassion that we think of when we speak of someone having a good heart.

Listen for your good heart, let its message travel up to the point between your eyebrows as you inhale, and go back to the well for more, as you exhale.

Try to avoid any concept here. Simply listen from within, maintain your quiet awareness and let the wisdom of The Mystical Heart "inform" your quiet mind. No words, no interpretation. Simply allow the connection to take place. Bring no expectation. Simply be in this meditation.

- Jeff Belyea, naturalenlightenment@yahoogroups.com

The living body of man and the living body of the earth were constructed in the same way. Through each ran an axis, man's axis being the backbone, the vertebral column, which controlled the equilibrium of its movements and his functions. Along this axis were several vibratory centers which echoed the primordial sound of life throughout the universe or sounded a warning if anything went wrong.

The first of these in man lay at the top of the head. Here, when he was born, was the soft spot, the 'open door' through which he received his life and communicated with his Creator. Just below it lay the second center, the organ that man learned to think with by himself, the organ called the brain. The third center lay in the throat, the fourth center was the heart, and the last of man's important centers lay under his navel.

The Hopis believe that man is created perfect in the image of his Creator. Then, after 'closing the door' (at the top of the head) and 'falling from grace' into the uninhibited expression of his own human will, he begins his slow climb back upward. With this turn man rises upward, bringing into predominant function each of the higher centers. The door at the crown of the head then opens, and he merges into the wholeness of all Creation, whence he sprang.

- from Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters.

It is impossible to describe the experience accurately. I felt the point of consciousness that was myself growing wider, surrounded by waves of light. It grew wider and wider, spreading outward while the body, normally the immediate object of its perception, appeared to have receded into the distance until I became entirely unconscious of it. I was now all consciousness, without any outline, without any idea of a corporeal appendage, without any feeling or sensation coming from the senses, immersed in a sea of light simultaneously conscious and aware of every point, spread out, as it were, in all directions, without any barrier or material obstruction.

I was no longer myself, or to be more accurate, no longer as I knew myself to be, a small point of awareness confined in a body, but instead was a vast circle of consciousness in which the body was but a point, bathed in light and in a state of exaltation and happiness inpossible to describe.

- fromLiving With Kundalini by Gopi Krishna, published by Shambala.

You dance, dance, dance. Then n/um lifts you up in your belly and lifts you in your back, and you start to shiver. N/um makes you tremble, it's hot. Your eyes are open, but you don't look around; you hold your eyes still and look straight ahead. But when you get into !kia, you're looking around because you see everything, because you see what's troubling everybody ... N/um enters every part of your body, right to the tip of your feet and even your hair.

N/um is put into the body through the backbone. It boils in my belly and boils up to my head. The thing comes up after a dance; then when I lay my hands of a sick person, the n/um in me will go into him and cure him.

In your backbone you feel a pointed something, and it works its way up. The base of your spine is tingling, tingling, tingling; and then it makes your thoughts nothing in your head.

- from the documentary N/um Tchai: The Ceremonial Dance of the !Kung Bushmen by John Marshall, Harvard University.

More here: http://www.mamiwata.com/kung.html

The ascent of Kundalini as it pierces through the chakras is manifested in certain physical and psychic signs. Yogis have described the trembling of the body which precedes the arousal of Kundalini, and the explosion of heat which passes like a current through the Susumna channel. During Kundalini's ascent, inners sounds resemble a waterfall, the humming of bees, the sound of a bell, a flute, or the tinkling of ornaments. In closed-eye perception the yogi visualizes a variety of forms, such as dots of light, or geometrical shapes that in the final state of illumination dissolve into an inner radiance of intensely bright, pure light. The aspirant may experience creeping sensations in the spinal cord, tingling sensations all over the body, heaviness in the head or sometimes giddiness, automatic and involuntary laughing or crying; or he may see visions of deities or saints. Dream-scenes of all kinds may appear, from the heavenly to the demonic. Physically, the abdomen wall may become flat and be drawn towards the spine; there may be diarrhea or constipation; the anus contracts and is drawn up; the chin may press down against the neck; the eyeballs roll upwards or rotate; the body may bend forward or back, or even roll around on the floor; breathing may be constricted (sometimes is seems to cease altogether, although in fact if does not, but merely becomes extremely slight); the mind becomes empty and there is an experience of being a witness in the body.

There may be a feeling of Prana flowing in the brain or spinal cord. Sometimes there is a spontaneous chanting of mantras or songs, or simply vocal noises. The eyes may not open in spite of one's efforts to open them. The body may revolve or twist in all directions. Sometimes it bounces up and down with crossed legs, or creeps about, snake-like on the floor. Some perform asanas (yogic postures) both known and unknown; sometimes the hands move in classic, formal dance patterns, even though the meditator knows nothing of dance. Some speak in tongues.

Sometimes the body feels as if it is floating upwards, and sometimes as if it is being pressed down into the earth. It may feel as if it has grown enormously large, or extremely small. It may shake and tremble and become limp, or turn as rigid as stone. Some get more appetite, some feel aversion to food. Even when engaged in activities other than meditation, the aspirant who concentrates his mind, experiences movements of Prana-shakti all over the body, or slight tremors. There may be aches in the body, or a rise or drop in temperature. Some people become lethargic and averse to work. Sometimes the meditator hears buzzing sounds as of blowing conches, or bird-song or ringing bells. Questions may arise in the mind and be spontaneously answered during meditation.

Sometimes the tongue sticks to the palate or is drawn back towards the throat, or protrudes from the mouth. The throat may get dry or parched. The jaws may be clenched, but after a time they reopen. One may start yawning when one sits for meditation. There may be a feeling of the head becoming separated from the body, or "headlessness." Sometimes one may be able to see things around one even with the eyes closed. Various types of intuitive knowledge may begin. One may see one's own image. One may even see one's own body lying dead. From some or all of these signs, one may know that Kundalini Shakti has become active. The Kundalini produces whatever experiences are necessary for the aspirant's spiritual progress, according to habit-pattern formed by past action.

- Ajit Mookerjee from "Kundalini - The Awakening of Inner Energy" in Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science edited by Stanislov Grof and published by State University of New York Press.

- Painting entitled Serpent by Skøíteèka. More here: http://habib.mysteria.cz/galerie/photo.html#row3

All Glory unto the current of Divine Bliss which, brimming from the river of Thy Holy stories, flows into the lake of my mind, through the canals of intellect, subduing the dust of sin and cooling the heat of memory - Shankaracharya

There are four ways in which the Guru deliberately awakens the Shakti: by touch, word, look, and thought. The first method is initiation through touch, called sparsha diksha. The touch can also be given by an authorized disciple of the Guru and such a touch carries with it the full power of the Guru who has authorized it. There are three main places that the Guru touches: one is the space between the eyebrows at the ajna chakra, another place is in the heart, and the third place is the muladhara, at the base of the spine. It was through his touch that Sri Ramakrishna gave Vivekananda an instantaneous experience of divinity.

The second method of initiation is through word, or mantra diksha,in which the Guru's Shakti enters the disciple by means of the mantra. The Guru who gives this mantra has repeated it himself for a long time during the course of his sadhana, has realized the power of the mantra, and is able to charge it with a living conscious force. His whole being is saturated with the mantra. When the Guru has made his mantra divine and alive, that mantra is then known as chaitanya, or conscious mantra. This mantra is perfect; it brings liberation, as well as bestowing all types of powers. Through constant repetition of the mantra,the Kundalini is awakened. If the Guru whispers the mantra directly into one's ear, then the Kundalini may be immediately awakened.

When one practices the prana mantra, so'ham, becoming aware of the syllables ham and sa which come in and go out with the breath, the Shakti awakens very quickly.

The third method is called drik diksha, initiation through a look. One who gives this initiation should have an inward look. If you look at the pictures of the great saints, you will see that their eyes are directed inward, at the inner Self. Even though the eyes of such a being are open and appear to be looking outward, actually his attention is fixed within his own being. So, only one who is permanently established in the inward look can give initiation through the eyes.

The fourth way is initiation by thought, called manasa diksha,in which the Guru just thinks about it and the person gets initiated.

When there is an instantaneous experience of the supreme Reality through either the touch, word, look, or thought of the Guru, this initiation is called shambavi diksha. This is the great initiation. However, few people have the strength to bear the force of the impact of such an initiation.

- from Kundalini - The Secret of Life by Swami Muktananda, published by SYDA Foundation.

Painting entitled Chakra Constellations by Joseph Inverso. http://www.visionaryartwork.com/Gallery_3_files/gallery_3.htm

The "petals" of the sahasrar are just a symbol for the feelings that occur when energy overflows. The overflowing is a flowering, just like a flower, itself, is an overflowing. You will feel that something has become a flower. The door is open ad it will go outward.

It will not be felt inwardly, it will be felt outwardly. Something has opened like a flower, like a flower with a thousand petals. It is just a feeling, but the feeling corresponds to the truth. The feeling is a translation and interpretation. The mind cannot conceive of it, but the feeling is just like a flowering. The closest, the nearest thing that we can say is that it is like a bud opening. It is felt like that. That is why we have conceived of the opening of the sahasrar as "a thousand petaled lotus."

So many petals - so many! And they go on opening... they go on opening. The opening is endless. It is a fulfillment; it is a flowering of the human being. Then you become just like a tree, and everything that was in you has flowered.

Then all you can do is to offer this flower to the divine. We have been offering flowers, but they are broken flowers. Only this flower can be a real offering.

- from Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, published by Harper & Row.

Kundalini resource center: http://www.hmt.com/kundalini/

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#1533 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Mon Aug 25, 2003 5:53 am
Subject: #1533 - Sunday, August 24, 2003 glee_be
Send Email

#1533 - Sunday, August 24, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

Highlights Home Page and Archive: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Note: Images no longer available (as attachments are not stored on Yahoo)

may be seen on the Highlights Home Page.

"Hibiscus Sakti" photo by Tony O'Clery ~ HarshaSatangh

Earl ~ TrueVision

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.

Emily Dickinson

~ ~ ~

Doug ~ TrueVision

"When you shine the light, darkness disappears.
We may understand this as a kind of fight between
light and darkness,
But in reality, it is an embrace."

-Thich Nhat Hanh

~ ~ ~

Joyce (know_mystery) ~ TrueVision

" With wise understanding we allow ourselves to contain all things,
both dark and light, and we come to a sense of peace. This is not the
peace of denial or running away, but the peace we find in the heart
that has rejected nothing, that touches all things with compassion."

-Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart

Daily Dharma

"The man of human-heartedness is one who desiring to sustain himself,

sustains others, and desiring to develop himself, develops others; that may

be called the way to practise human heartedness."

-Confucius

~ ~ ~

�In olden days, Dharma meant much more than what we now understand from the term 'religion'. It stood for power to hold things together in perfect harmony�.

- Swami Nihsreyasananda

~ ~ ~

"It is hard to be born as a human being and hard to live the
life of one. It is even harder to hear of the path, and
harder still to awake, to rise, and to follow. "

"Yet the teaching is simple: 'Cease to do evil, learn to do
good, and purify your mind.'"

"'Hurt none by word or deed. Be moderate in your eating. Live
in inner solitude. Seek the deepest consciousness.This is the
teaching.'"

-Buddha
From the Dhammapada, source unknown.

~ ~ ~

"The Dharma is not a lecture.

The Dharma in the Buddhist tradition is a kind of rain. Our
consciousness should behave like the soil, the earth.

We have to allow the Dharma talk to penetrate.

According to the Buddha we have seeds of understanding, of
awakening, of compassion, within ourselves.

We don't need these seeds to be transmitted from the teacher.

We already have all of them in the depth of our consciousness. We
call it store consciousness, sometimes earth consciousness.

Because these seeds are buried deep in the mind, in the soil of our
consciousness, it is very hard for them to grow and manifest.

Above there are many layers of suffering, confusion, prejudices and
so on, and our intellect can never go deep enough.

Our intellect very often contradicts our deepest nature and
therefore to allow the intellect to rest and to open our earth store
in order for the rain of the Dharma to penetrate is very important."

" The spring rain is falling gently
and the earth and the soil of my consciousness
is penetrated by the rain.
And the seed deep within me
now has a chance to be penetrated by the rain
and to smile, sprouting. "

~Thich Nhat Hanh

From the website http://www.plumvillage.org/

Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration

Zen Mastery

The action and repose of those who have mastered Zen are like flowing
clouds, without self-consciousness, like the full moon, reflected
everywhere. People who have mastered Zen are not stopped by anything: though
clearly in the midst of all things, still they are highly aloof; though they
encounter experiences according to circumstances, they are not tainted or
mixed up by them.

From: Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom'
Translated and Edited by Thomas Cleary

~ ~ ~

For a Wedding on Mount Tamalpais
-Jane Hirshfield

July,
and the rich apples
once again falling.

You put them to your lips,
as you were meant to,
enter a sweetness
the earth wants to give.

Everything loves this way,
in gold honey,
in gold mountain grass
that carries lightly the shadow of hawks,
the shadow of clouds passing by.

And the dry grasses,
the live oaks and bays,
taste the apples' deep sweetness
because you taste it, as you were meant to,
tasting the life that is yours,

while below, the foghorns bend to their work,
bringing home what is coming home,
blessing what goes.

'Claiming the Spirit Within - A Sourcebook of Women's Poetry'
Edited by Marilyn Sewell

------------

Jim & Kheyala Rasa, with children Ananda & Zack on their wedding day, July 4, 2003, Boulder, CO

photo by Gloria Lee

Verteg & Lee Love ~ E-zendo

Conversation about Art and Practice

V: Hello! I glad you got your computer back working again after a long
     absence.

L: Thank you Verteg!

V: I've been waiting for you in particular to return because I
    have a question which I've always wanted to ask an artist - who also
    happens to be a Buddhist.

L: Creativity has always been an essential aspect of Buddhism where
     ever it takes root and it is especially evident in China and Japan.     Zen
     is very influential in Japan in regards to creativity and beauty.

V: As I'm sure everyone would agree, all artists strive to create
   something beautiful.

L: Traditionally, this has been so.    It is questionable if all
     "modern art", especially the type whose primary function is to shock and to
     promote politics, or personality , is really art.   I'm afraid that many
     people judge art by what has been foisted upon us as art, by investment
     people.

V: And naturally this requires matter - either two
    or three dimentional in the case of visual arts.

L: Actually, creativity is also dependent upon process/movement/dynamic
    -interchange.    Unchangeable matter would not allow for art.. If matter was
    unchangeable, life would not be possible.

V: Considering your own ceramic art for a moment, there can be no shape
     without matter (the clay), and no clay without shape. Therefore the
     principle of Beauty cannot exist without matter because Beauty
     requires shape, and shape requires matter.

L: First and foremost, beauty depends upon the mind. Matter is not
     art.    Mind patterns temporarily expressed in matter is creativity.

V: A few years ago, I was having a conversation with a guy who said he
    had long experience in the Soto Zen sect. Aside from having read two
    compilations of Dogen's work, I really know very little about the Soto
   sect, so I don't know if what he told me was part of the Soto teaching
    or just his own ideas, but I found them very strange.

L: Always be cautious about any "individuals" conception about reality.
      .. I would say that this individual does not have a proper understanding of
      Shunyata.

V: He basically told me that since matter was regarded by Buddhism as
    something impermanent, transitory, and binding (binding to samsara
    through the miracle of craving), it should therefore be either
    ignored, or perhaps even regarded as an illusion.

L: As Nagarjuna explained (and I won't use the term 'emptiness',
    because it is misunderstood), "Because of Shunyata, all things are
    possible."
    If matter were unchangeable, creation would not be possible.    .   Rather
    than thinking of Shunyata as being a void, having no characteristics of
    matter (this is a materialist's understanding), for us Westerners, it is
    probably better to use the positive explanation of Shunyata:   That
    everything in existence is dependent upon everything else for its existence..
    Nothing exists in of itself. The nature of the physical world is not that
    of matter frozen in place for eternity, but is the dance and interchange of
    processes. Everything is continually changing. Modern physics is
    beginning to come to grips with this reality.

V: And therefore the same must be said for the whole principle of Beauty,

which depends on matter to convey it.

L: Beauty depends upon Shunyata and in Buddhism, this aspect is stressed.

    A flower or child is so beautiful because of their transient nature.

V: As a Buddhist artist, I'm wondering how you would have responded to
   this. I'd really like to hear your cooments on it.

L:  I am just a craftsman, but my wife is an artist, and we both
      worked against this attitude toward art back home in Minnesota.    It has
      nothing to do with Buddhism.    It is more directly based in Calvinism and
      our Puritan roots.

Maitri,

lee In Mashiko, Japan

~ ~ ~

Lee Love ~ E-zendo

Mike wrote:

Buddha taught a completely different path. His attitude toward the
gods was not exactly disbelief, but rather deliberate dismissal of
their purported importance. Buddha taught that we must each work out
our own enlightenment through study and practice. The gods were
irrelevant to this effort.

  Lee:      I wouldn't call his attitude one of dismissal.   One of the problems
with Atheism is that when we discount the reality/existence of others, we
reinforce the reality/existence of ourselves.   The most difficult nut to
crack is the false notions of self.

        If you have ever traveled in any Buddhist country, it is impossible
to deny that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas play a parallel role in Buddhism as
God(s) and Saints in Christianity.

        During our trip to visit my relatives in Sakai, we took a couple day
trips to Kyoto.    We went to Toji, an old temple founded by the Japanese
Buddhist Saint Kobo Daiishi.      There are some magnificent Buddha statues,
the best ones are said to have actually been carved by Kobo Daiishi himself.
We were tickled to see that the wrathful group from the temple were the same
figurines as we have on our altar, that my wife collected from our local
Seven-Eleven.   In every group of Buddha statues, images of India Gods were
included too.    Usually, the Gods looked more like normal human beings,
while the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas look more like celestial beings.

        The Buddha simply taught that everything, including Gods and you and
me, have no permanent existence.    Everything is in constant change.

        Our aversion to devotional practice is a new modern phenomenon.   I
attribute our perceptive on deities in Buddhism to our initial introduction
to Buddhism via intellectuals rather that from a practice perspective.

Statue of Avalokiteshvara (or Kwan Yin in Japan)

Bodhisattva of Compassion,

from Nelson Adkins Museum, Kansas City, MO

Ben Hassine ~ NDS

too tired to struggle

I don't care anymore for health or illness.

I don't care anymore for good or bad.

If I had to die this moment, that's okay.

Should I live for three aeons, that's okay as well.

I don't care anymore for enlightenment, guru's and teachers.

I don't care anymore for books, teachings and temples.

No reasons, no causes, no effects.

I am too tired now for that.

No meditation, no effort, no struggle.

I am too tired and worn out for that.

I gave up everything.

I forgot all that.

I even forgot the struggle that life was.

Just Love for the sake of Love.

For the rest I am like an idiot in the wrong place.

I only know: Love for the sake of Love.

That's what I AM.

Sam Pasiencier ~ NDS

The ultimate growth is to say yes with such joy as a child says no.
That is a second childhood. And the man who can say yes with tremendous freedom and joy, with no hesitation, with no strings attached, with no conditions ?
a pure and simple joy, a pure and simple yes ? that man has become a sage.
That man lives in harmony again. And his harmony is of a totally different dimension than the harmony of trees, animals and birds. They live in harmony because they cannot say no, and the sage lives in harmony because he does not say no. Between the two, the birds and the buddhas, are all human beings ? un-grown-up, immature, childish, stuck somewhere, still trying to say no, to have some feeling of freedom.

"Counting" photo by Sam Pasciencier

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#1534 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Wed Aug 27, 2003 10:29 am
Subject: 1534 - Monday, August 25, 2003 nondualguy
Send Email

Issue #1534 - Monday, August 25, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Steve Tagliere - Shaker chair and candle
http://www.winggallery.com/Steve_Tagliere_4.html

Spare rooms simplify and clear the mind

By Deanna Larson, dlarson@...
August 26, 2003

Less can be so much more when it comes to interiors. Aside from the savings on elaborate window treatments, rooms stuffed with furniture, and hundreds of knickknacks, spare rooms are easier to clean and harder to clutter.

Spare doesn�t mean cold and minimal. Rather, spare interiors have deliberately chosen pieces that are beautiful, functional and have personal meaning, or they�re weeded out. In Room Recipes (Rockport) the ultimate spare interior is described as a 19th century Connecticut or Pennsylvania farmhouse built for a �gentleman farmer.� The house has the bare but functional essentials: bed, sink, dining table. Each room is painted a �beautiful, soft, light, elegant color. The rooms are infused with light from uncovered or veiled windows. The combination of color and light make the walls luminous. The effect is not minimal, it is simple.�

Scandinavian and Shaker interiors embody this aesthetic. The opposite of overdone, Scandinavian interiors let the charm of homespun and the elegance of the well designed speak for themselves. Shaker furniture is imbued with the spiritual principle with which it�s created, one that reflects �the Creator of all things in the beauty of the wood and the simplicity of design,� according to the Sabbath-Day Woods, a Shaker furniture company in North Carolina.

A simple chair set against the wall, with a piece of art or beloved object above, sums up the uncomplicated beauty of the spare look, according to Room Recipes. Working, resting, eating and reading take place on these �platforms� 18 degrees off the ground, but the rest is embellishment. Nowhere is need vs. want more evident than in our interiors, and stripping away the extraneous can be freeing.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=12&screen=news&news_id=25979

Warren Zevon: Lessons in leaving
Rocker's humor, life on display in VH1 documentary

Viewed this documentary last evening...
something that struck me was his simple answer to David Letterman.
Zevon was invited to be on the show, a special
edition, with no other guests. He was interviewed and he performed.
He appeared on the show with only one month
left to live (according to the doctors who had diagnosed him with terminal cancer.)

When Letterman asked him,
"Is there something that you now know about life and death that I don't?"
Zevon paused for a moment, and then answered simply:

"Enjoy every sandwich."

Enjoy every sandwich,
Freyja

Read the article here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/21/zevons.exit.ap/

Nina

NDS

You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you
to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
-Franz Kafka

Daily Dharma

"The Buddha in his travels encountered a Jain, whose practice
consisted of standing still on one leg. The Buddha asked him, `Would
you tell me please why you are doing this? What will this practice
of standing on one leg do for you?'

The Jain replied, `Through this practice, I am working out my karma.
It will free me of all past karma.'

The Buddha asked him, `How much have you worked out so far?' The
Jain replied, `I could not say.' The Buddha then asked, `How much
karma do you still have to work out?' The Jain again replied, `I do
not know.' Lastly, the Buddha asked, `But how will you know when you
have finished working out your karma?' The Jain could only answer
again, `This I do not know.'

At this reply, the Buddha spoke to him saying, `It is time for you
to set aside this practice and to understand the path to the end of
suffering. It lies within the truth of each moment, here and now.'"

~ Jack Kornfield

From the book, "Soul Food," published by Harper San Francisco.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062514423/Angelinc

Michael Read

In the cold Northern wastes
There is a mountain
A thousand miles long
A thousand miles high

Once each thousand years
A small bird
Flies North
A small bird flies North
to sharpen his beak
on the cold hard stone

When the mountain
Is thusly worn down
One second of Eternity
Shall have passed.

-Tibetan poem

http://www.elpruhzlein.com/ForeverLovers/foreverlovers.htm

R. S. Mani
Advaitin

Study of Vedanta

Namaste,

First of all, we must acknowledge that it is God's grace that you feel an urge to study Vedanta.

For a beginner of Vedanta, from my personal experience, I would like to suggest "Gita Home Study" course devised by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. It is in very simple English and in great detail, and can be followed very easily. I do not know where you are located. If you are in the U.S.A. you may get the course from Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Instt. of Vedanta and Sanskrit, P.O. Box 1059, Saylorsburg, PA 18353, http://www.arshavidya.org

And Books Dept. http://books.arshavidya.org

You can also get a list of books and tapes, CD etc. published by the Instt., and select, in consultation with learned people in Vedanta, the ones, which you can start reading. Reading itself may not be helpful. Try to hear the lectures/satsang by the disciples of Chinmaya Mission, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, etc. if they are held in your area.

When you proceed with commitment, and total devotion to the subject, in due course you will be drawn to a Guru. It may not be that some Sanyasies will come personally to you and help you, but opportunities will come themselves for you to be in touch with a Guru. This has happened to many.

Vedanta, to my understanding, is the process of dropping all notions/knowledge we have had all through since birth, about ourselves and others (all other than ourselves i.e. any seen or unseen objects, etc.) including God, as they will not at all help in attaining or getting what we are all really seeking in life; and getting the right knowledge about them. The Phala or result of this will be, we will in due course have inner leisure and peace, as the mind slowly, but definitely, gets freed from all agitations, by start looking at everything including ourselves, and God, afresh, in the light of the ultimate knowledge i.e. Tattwamasi etc.

Hari Om

R.S.Mani

NDS

You really are one lucky fella!

You are obliged by the Terms and Conditions of NDS to share
all lottery winnings with the rest of us.

Your winnings are our winnings.

Trust me.

I hope - we all hope - that you are willing to win real big
or if not - lose it all.

I'm a freelance heretic, so don't worry about the buddhist
name thingy. Call me JP.

You can call me anything you want. Just don't call me a
'dirty slut' because that would insult me and turn me on at
the same time.

You're Turkish. I'm part Greek. I'm supposed to hate and kill
you. I'm also part Armenian, so I'm sorry, but I have no
choice but to really hate your guts for wiping out my
ancestors.

I have learned that in this beautiful microcosmos of NDS,
what we put out boomerangs right back to us.

If we have an intention to direspect others who are trying to
share their wisdom with us, or fry others in hot oil like
old-fashioned English style fish and chips and then eat them
with a creamy tartar sauce and a tangy malt vinegar- we will
end up being forced to float in a vat of our own sizzling
bubbling Crisco and will be forced to chew and swallow our
own battered fish flesh without cutlery or chopsticks.

I have learned that it is unhelpful to underestimate the
intense ferocity of the blazing heat we will experience if we
intend to set others on fire.

May I suggest a size XL crushed blue velvet Armani asbetos
suit for you.

Anything tighter than that will just make you look fat.

And for extra panache and style, you can tuck a
fire-extinguisher under your arm.

Dirty Shishkabob Slut JP

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#1535 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Thu Aug 28, 2003 12:22 pm
Subject: 1535 - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 nondualguy
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#1535 - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

This issue includes excerpts from a few books recently acquired. These are freshly typed and not available elsewhere on the internet.

--Jerry

Unfolding

Alexandra Jouaiet

He had never befoe spent much time alone.

The beach with its long expanses of sand, waves spreading out before curling back into themselves, gulls calling, their cries lost echoing back into open winds, this was a wide landscape, washed by waves of wind blowing across his mind's eye. In this world, moving and vibrant, with the movement of a heart's beating or the movement of breath surging, his awareness turned to the voices he found in his mind. He was surprised at the crowded tangle of words he found intruding on these natural spaces, words with cadences and expressions of people long past. There were long ago voices of authority still repeating admonitions, voices of criticism spawned by lack of love or understanding. There were voices of dreams and voices of fears. As he listened, he saw these tapes went round and round without reason, without end, influencing his perception of himself and the world around him.

Walking in new found spaciousness, the voices seemed all the more out of place, reminders of other times and places perhaps, but lacking any present purpose save familiarity. He began to review the values these voices represented, goals he had taken on as a child, as a young man, noticing whether these goals and values belonged to his heart and soul or someone else's. He began to notice where he truly found pleasure, what led to his own sense of fulfillment and well being. He noticed habits and ways where he slipped into auto-pilot, habits which led him down corridors of deadened spirit, passageways of continuation seemingly without windows or intersections that simply went on and on, demanding endurance, stretching life and spirit thin. This seemingly awake, living sleep-world could capture days, weeks, and months of his life before he came up for a moment's true waking breath, even then often only to duck back in and continue treading the same worn pathways.

Now as he began to open up to the inner landscapes of his being, he began noticing what he at, how he dressed, what he did and why. He began questioning assumptions and conclusions he had inherited, tendencies developed under pressures of childhood, strategies to find love, to get attention, to make a place for himself.

What was innately him, his being, his essence?

What was his purpose? What was unique about him? What fascinated him? What made sense to him? Where had he placed his attention in the past and where did he want to place it now?

Read more about this book at http://www.piaccipress.com/

The Texture of Being

Roy Whenary

When one begins to see from a non-dualistic perspective, one's vision suddenly becomes more expansive. This doesn't mean that one adopts an 'anything goes' attitude. It means that one sees the bigger picture, the bigger story behind what appears to be happening in any given situation. Nothing is taken personally. Nothing is greedily sought. In a way, one just stands back from emotional involvement in situations - which also means that one is actually freer to go deeper into things, because emotional involvement actually narrows one's perspective on a given situation.

Emotional involvement is born out of ego, not out of the clear light of one's true nature. To someone who is still involved with the ego, this kind of talk may be seen as a cop-out, emotional escapism, walking away from responsibility and suchlike, but this is not the case. Escapism and walking away from responsibility are also ego activities. When we step back from getting emotionally involved we are opening up the possibility of seeing the situation with greater clarity, which means that a more informed individual can deal more honestly and effectively with the situation that would otherwise be the case.

Read more and order book at
http://www.lotusharmony.com/index.htm

Svatmanirupanam: The true definition of one's own self

by Adi Sanakara

Translated by Dr. H. Ramamoorthy and Nome

from the Introduction:

Being is. Being alone is. The Self is the Absolute, and That is the only Reality. Such is eternally the Truth. Such is the final conclusion of Advaita Vedanta.

This Svatmanirupanam (Definition of One's Own Self), authored by the great sage of Advaita Vedanta, Adi Sankara, is a concise text of this enlightening teaching. As the title declares, it is the teaching regarding the true definition of the Self. The Self is itself Brahman, the vast, formless Absolute, and any contrariwise conception of it is merely delusion. So, this teaching is an exposition of what is truly the Self. As there are not actually two selves, for the true Self is the ever-existent and a false self is never-existent, and since one being the object of another is impossible, this teaching is of the nature of one's own Self. The teaching is the revelation of the Self for the purpose of Self-Realization for those who earnestly inquire to know within themselves the answer to the question, "Who am I?"

The following are a few verses. The original Sanskrit, its romanized version, and a word-for-word breakdown have not been included.

I bow to the revered guru's pair of feet,

Which destroy the unbearable pair of opposites,

The dust of which is the ash allaying

The (malefic) planet of erroneous perception.

To the excellent guru, the compassionate (one),

I bow,

Who destroys all doubts,

Whose feet instruct one in the nondual experience,

The meaning of the word "That."

Scorched by the forest fire of samsara,

Possessed of all practices,

The disciple is enlightened by the Guru

In perfect, accurate words, as to the definition of one's own (the true) Self.

"Oneself exists" -- in this fact

For whom does a doubt exist?

Even in this, if there be doubt,

He who has the doubt, indeed, you are.

When one knows that "I am not,"

Truly, Brahman, indeed, it is that knows he is not;

Knowing that "I am,"

Brahman, indeed, it is that knows himself thus.

Read more about this book: http://www.satramana.org/html/svatmanirupanam.htm

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#1536 From: Know Mystery <know_mystery@...>
Date: Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:12 pm
Subject: #1536 - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 know_mystery
Send Email

Eagle III - Photo by Alan Larus ~ TrueVision

Music: Central.mid from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Panhala/

#1536 - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery)

[Editor's Note: This issue of the NDHighlights is dedicated to the memory of Liz Moray, whose genuine compassion, empathy, faith,

and friendship touched many in the Buddhist community. Namaste Liz. With love, joyce]

Jack ~ insightpractice

Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song - the joy that makes
the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets
the twin brothers life and death dancing over the wide world, the joy that
sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter,
the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and
the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word.

~ Rabindranath Tagore ~

Joyce ~ Spiritual-Friends & Helena Nelson-Reed, http://www.fine-art-studios.com

Phoenix

Painting by Helena Nelson-Reed

We Never Really Disappear

"A lyrically beautiful story from the Sufi tradition relates the dilemma faced by
river water as it comes to the edge of the desert and is about to be transformed
into vapor and carried away on the wind. The water knows what it is to be water
and what it means to be part of a river. It does not know about this other state,
vapor. But if it resists this change, it will end up brackish in the sands of the
desert. Only if it accepts change will it be carried across the desert to the
mountains, where it will condense and fall, to begin the cycle anew with more
knowledge,"

~ Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D.'s, "Your Own Worst Enemy." ~

About The Artist

"Helena Nelson-Reed is an American artist specializing in fine art watercolor
painting, pencil drawings, fine art illustration, private/commercial commissions,
and portraits. Helena's collections portray a visionary world focused on
positive, feminine archetypal imagery. Each painting offers the viewer a portal
into their imagination, tapping ancient wellsprings of knowledge and emotion.
These collections portray a world filled with light and shadow..."

http://www.fine-art-studios.com/

Liz Moray ~ insightpractice archives

[Editor's Note: To me, this post is vintage Liz, here sharing
her curiousity and joy and struggles with typical candor and
warmth and gentle humor. joyce]

My Retreat

I just got back from my Metta retreat with Marcia
Rose. Among other things, I have her schedule for the
next year, and if anyone has a chance to study with
her, I highly recommend it. She is very experienced,
has taught around the world, and is open to new ideas,
and so her teaching and practice is constantly growing
and deepening. She also has a lot of wonderful
stories, and closes each session with an always
surprisingly relavent poem.

On Friday evening, she gave us quite a long Dharma
talk, going through the phrases of Mettaa (which she
always pronounced with the double t - it sounded
aspirated to me - and the double a at the end, which
gave the word a lovely, exotic sound), which I found
deeply engrossing and also a bit confusing, since I
didn't really know how these phrases were used. The
meditation turned out to be mindfulness meditation,
and as she was guided us with the breath, all of the
things she said were along the lines of "See where the
energy of the breath is." This was a phenomenal way of
looking at it for me. I realized that in fact I've
never watched the breath. I've always watched a
location - the tip of the nose, the lungs the rising
and falling abdomen - and observed what the breath was
doing to it. I've never had a sense of the living,
energetic, dynamic quality of the breath itself. Now,
if I catch myself noticing the breath at odd moments,
it's feels like a connection with life, rather than an
observation of an object.

On Saturday she started with a little history of
Mettaa meditation, which she said is traditionally
known as (something like) the Brahama-virayana
practices (couldn't tell how to spell it from her
pronunciation), and have also been described as the
Beautiful practices, because of the effects it has on
the experience of those who practice them. She said
that traditionally in Theravada these practices were
not taught until the monk had completed a full cycle
of Vipassana teachings (I don't know exactly what that
means either). But as more ane more Asian teachers
have come to this country, they realized that we need
Mettaa practice earlier, to counter the self-hatred
which is built into our culture. I usually bristle
when people start talking like that, but she explained
that we have such a strong emphasis on producing, on
accomplishing, along with an equally strong sense that
we've never done enough, which leads to a strong sense
of inadequacy among us. I can buy that, because the
benefits of the emphasis on accomplishing are apparent
also.

She again went through the phrases we would use. They
are all traditional phrases, although the wording has
been to some extent has changed from teacher to
teacher. They all speak to general issues which matter
to all of us - May I be safe from internal and
external harm, may you love yourself wholeheartedly
just as you are, at this and every moment,
unconditionally. She says that sometimes we are
tempted to be more specific, but she recommends
against that, as anything specific to us would be
included in the general that applies to everyone.

She said that what she called "radical acceptance" is
fundamental to Mettaa meditation. "Radical acceptance"
is the knowing, the accepting, that what is here now,
is here now, *whatever* that may be. I found this
fascinating, because of my readings years ago in which
this fundamental level of acceptance was described as
essential for Mindfulness.

She said there is no Mettaa without Mindfulness. If we
are presented with an insight, which may be
accompanied by a strong emotion, it may be necessary
to stay with that emotion til it's run its course,
which is hard to do without the practice that
mindfulness brings. Or if we find our mind churning,
thinking about this and that, even though it might
feel important, still, we need to let it go and return
to the phrases, just as we leave thoughts behind and
return to the breath in Mindfulness. For this reason,
she says a strong foundation in Mindfulness is crucial
to Mettaa practice.

Then we sat, focusing on ourselves as the subject of
the phrases. I included my basic staples among them:
May I be happy. May I be filled with joy. May I be
safe from internal and external harm. May I be strong.
May I be without fear. May I live with the ease of
inner peace. May I love myself wholeheartedly, just as
I am, at this and every moment, unconditionally,
without judgement. May I accept everything I do. May I
accept whatever gifts I have to offer. These phrases I
repeated over and over, having a rather hard time, at
first, trying to remember them all and get them all
straight. I still don't have the one about living at
ease correctly.

As I practiced I realized what the process was. In
Mettaa meditation we go deeply into the phrases, we
stay with the phrases and their meaning. We are not
thinking "about" someone. We are *being with* our idea
of them, with meaningful intention. It is the staying
with the phrases in this manner that brings
concentration.

I had two goals for this retreat. I've been doing an
uneducated version of Mettaa practice since last June,
feeling my way through the process, and though I've
had some extraordinary experiences, I'd gotten to the
point where I didn't feel comfortable continuing. I
was feeling to some extent manipulative, and also,
that I couldn't keep self out of it. I was hoping that
I would resolve this problem on the retreat. Also,
among my relationships is one of a number of years
which has been both difficult and rewarding for me,
and I felt that I was at a point at which I could
resolve my part of it, and so I intended to focus on
that person for the retreat, in the hope that a
resolution would arise in my mind.

As I practiced the phrases in that first meditation, I
realized that my practice of the past few months had
ceased to feel comfortable because it was unbalanced.
I never practiced Mettaa with myself, the very idea
bored me, I was only interested in resolving
relationships and helping others. So I had a terribly
hard time practicing Mettaa with myself; it was quite
terrifying - which Marcia said is *very* common. My
inability to sit still reached gargantuan proportions
as I wrestled with the fear, and forced myself to send
the Mettaa of the phrases to me. And so it was clear
to me that the reason my practice had begun to feel
manipulative was that I was practicing not at all with
myself, and sending an exaggerated energy to others,
which always implies an expectation that others will
give me the validation I won't give myself. As I saw
this, I was finally able to let the tension go and sit
still.

In the next session we were to focus on another
person. Marcia recommended that we think of someone
who had done something kind for us, someone who has
been a benefactor in some way. But i was determined to
work with a certain person, so, although it felt like,
disobedience, I decided to think of the person I had
chosen in the way they have been kind to me, intending
to work with other aspects of the relationship as the
day went on. Later in the question period she
mentioned that one person can fill many categories, so
I realized my choice was ok. I was all set for the
session to begin, when she said, now we will work with
the phrases, focusing on ourselves.

Ourselves!!!!!!!! Yet again!!!!!!!! Wouldn't we ever
get to the good stuff??????? I was a bit irritated. My
mind went all over the place, and stayed out there for
quite a while, until suddenly I heard Marcia say, Now
we will take the energy of practicing Mettaa with
ourselves and direct it toward the person we have
chosen. So there I was, with no energy to apply, since
I'd been too snooty to do the practice. I had to do
something. I struggled quite intently with this.
Couldn't go back and apply the phrases to myself now,
not without shortchanging the focus of this session,
and I probably wouldn't generate much good quality
energy anyway. Finally, I decided that I had to bring
myself into the meditation as I did it. May you, and
also I, be happy, I said. May you, and also I, be free
from internal and external harm......May you, and also
I, love ourselves completely, just as we are, at this
moment and all others, unconditionally.....

As I repeated the phrases I realized I was solving my
balance problem - I was giving to another the *very
same* thing I was giving myself. It couldn't be
manipulative, not for me, although doubtless another
person might find a way to make it so for themselves,
as they worked through their own path. But for me,
this did the trick. I stayed with the modified phrases
pretty intently for the full meditation and walking
period, and when I sat down at the end, I realized
that I had also resolved the relationship, that in a
fundamental way, the aspect of the relationship which
had concerned me, was history.

This is the major learning I got from the retreat. I
continued to have some intense experiences, but they
tended to be relationship sorts of things - I don't
know how it is that I so often get into intense
interactions without a word being said, with the
entire contact being things like passing each other in
the hall, but I do. However, the interactions all
seemed to resolve on a different level. I could see
that certain things were being thought about me, and I
just simply let them be thought. I can still be me,
here, and not be tied up in other's mistaken ideas.
I've been getting to this way of thinking over the
past few months, but during the retreat it was
manifested with symbolically crucial people.

In the question period at the end Marcia talked about
focusing on difficult people during Mettaa practice.
She recommends that we do *not* start with those most
difficult for us. It can create emotional conditions
within us that we are not ready to handle. So she
recommends that we start with the easier ones, and
work up.

I know this is a pretty long post, but I want to share
what happened to me: I had a wonderful retreat largely
because I was so well prepared, and I was well
prepared because of that wonderful conversation we had
about concentration a week ago. I want to thank
everyone who participated in it, and especially Jack
for introducing the thread and persisting with it.

love, liz

Cornelius ~ UniversalMeditations

THE PRESENT MOMENT....

(Part 1)

"You are always in the present moment. You are not always aware that you are in the present moment. The present moment continues with your awareness or without it. The difference is one of power. When you are aware in the present moment, you have the option of power. When you are not aware in the present moment you have no power.

Not having power means being under the control of external circumstances. Having the option to create power means you are able to decide what you will say next and do next, and the consequences you will create with your words and actions. All possibilities exist in the present moment. When you are aware of the present moment, you have access to all possibilities that the present moment offers.

Most people are not aware of the present moment, and the options available to them are very limited. When they are offended, they get angry and shout or withdraw. When they are tempted by alcohol, they drink it. When they are jealous, they become focused on a narrow part of the vast array of experience that presents itself moment by moment. The vast array is all contained in the present moment. Becoming aware of the present moment gives access to that vast array, and with that vast array of experience comes numerous possibilities.

It is not possible to become aware of the present moment by examing, studying, or thinking about external circumstances. The more absorbed you become in these activities, the less aware of the present moment you are. When you are fixated on your computer, for example, time seems to go by very quickly and you don't have enough of it. Before you are finished with what you want to do, dinner is ready, or it is bedtime, and you stay up late to do even more.

The same is true of homework, business demands, and every other activity that takes you away from the present moment. You put on blinders, and it is not possible to distract you because you are like a train on tracks. All you see are the tracks unfolding before you, and none of the landscape that continually presents itself.

You cannot see all of the outer landscape that surrounds you while you are unaware of your inner landscape. Your inner landscape is the anchor of your experience. It is the ground of your life. When you live your life without seeing it, your life becomes ungrounded. You are tossed about by circumstances like a leaf in the wind. You become a boat without a rudder, and the currents of your life take you where they go, whether you want to go there or not.

Your inner landscape is richer than your outer landscape, no matter how magnificent the sunrise you are seeing might be, or how awesome the night sky above you, or how immense the turbulent ocean rushing toward you."

Gary Zukav

ambient_techno ~ The_Other_Syntax

Feeling

"Feeling is like water. It molds perception like a river cutting its
way through the earth. Formless, it can also be molded. How you feel
about something helps to form your worldview. In turn, your worldview
helps forge how you feel about things.

To begin educating feeling, don't always act on your thoughts. Within
the limits of not bringing harm to another or to yourself, act
according to how you feel. Regularly go out for a walk and follow
your heart faithfully and fearlessly. Don't censor your intuition."

~ A Toltec Path - The Seer ~
Ken Eaglefeather

Karta ~ UniversalMeditations archives

Wider and Deeper consciousness is higher

Nisargadatta: The entire universe is your Guru. You learn from
everything if you are alert and intelligent. Were your mind clear and
your heart clean, you would learn from every passerby. It is because
you are indolent or restless that o=your inner Self manifests as the
outer Guru and makes you trust Him and obey.

Q. Is a Guru inevitable?

Nisargadatta: It is like asking "is a mother inevitable? To rise in
consciousness from one dimension to another, you need help. The help
may not alway being the shape of a human person, it may be a subtle
presence, or a spark of intuition, but help must come. The inner Self
is watching and waiting for the son to return to his father. At the
right time he arranges everything affectionately and effectively.
Where a messenger is needed, or a guide, He sends the Guru to do the
needful.

Q. There is one thing i cannot grasp, You speak of the inner self as
wise and good and beautiful and in every way perfect, and of the
person merely as a reflection without a being of its own. On the
other hand you take so much trouble in helping the person to realize
itself. If the person is so unimportant, why be so concerned with its
welfare? Who cares for a shadow?

Nisargadatta: You have brought duality where there is none. There is
the body and there is the *Self* Between them is the mind, in which
the Self is reflected as "I am". Because of the imperfections of the
mind, its crudity and restlessness, lack of discernment and insight,
it takes itself to be the body, not the Self. All that is needed is
to purify the mind so that it can realize its identity with the Self.
When the mind merges in the Self, the body presents no problem. It
remains what it is, an instrument of cognition and action, the tool
and the expression of the creative fire within. The ultimate value of
the body is that it serves to discover the cosmic body, which is the
universe in its entirety. As you realize yourself in manifestation,
you keeP on discovering that you are ever more than what you have
imagined..

Q. Is there no end to self-discovery?

Nisargadatta: As there is no beginning, there is no end, but what i
have discovered by the grace of my Guru is...I am nothing that can be
pointed at. I am neither a "this" nor a "that" This holds absolutely.

Q. Then, where comes in the never-ending discovery, the endless
transcending oneself into new dimensions?

Nisargadatta: All this belongs to the realm of manifestation. Wider and
deeper consciousness is higher. All that lives, works for protecting,
perpetuating and expanding consciousness, discover of new dimensions,
with their properties, qualities and powers. In that sense the entire
universe becomes a school of Yoga.

Q. Is perfection the destiny of all human beings?

Nisargadatta: Of all living beings - ultimately. The possibility
becomes a certainty when the notion of enlightenment appears in the
mind. Once a living being has heard and understood that deliverance
is within his reach, he will never forget, for it is the first
message from within. It will take roots and grow and in due course
take the blessed shape of the Guru.

Q. So all we are concerned with is the redemption of the mind?

Nisargadatta: What else? The mind goes astray, the mind returns
home. Even the word astray is not proper. The mind must know itself
in every mood. Nothing is a mistake unless repeated.

Earl ~ Mind-Shifting

PPPP - IIII - A-B-C-D

Well, for the few formula nuts left here, here is another that I came up with when writing stuff for another site.

P P P P represents simply

First-- Physiological events have psychological consequences ( The physical CAN and does, cause our personal psychology to change)

The reverse is also true that,

Second-- Psychological events have physiological consequences. (Here the psychology of mind CAN, and does, project a/some "desired" perceived physical outcome)

The first (P-P) is true in that we are surrounded with "things" beginning the day we are born, with, blue and pink blankets, religious idols and icons, models of ethnicity and cultural identifiers and reinforced by language by those "wizards" in our early lives that represent and support those developmental representations. As we grow, those representations become a foundation for our belief system where we develop an "auto-response" to many of the "models" within our lives. We have model maleness and femaleness, families, spiritualisms, social orders, political and governmental models all stemming from early childhood, projected into our futures until death, starting very early in life.

The second (P-P) represents our thinking processes where we create our futures in the sense of well being or not, in either mental models of control dramas and coping scenarios or physical expressions of health and happiness or suffering and discomfort.

The second is well know in healing processes where we know that if we have a positive outlook, our prognosis for a life of well being is more favorably realized than if our attitudes are less than positive. If our outlook is negative we tend to see only despair, depression, tragedy, and the like.

The two expressions then become intertwined as we meander mentally in an ever growing field of beliefs, where we create a psychology of mind that projects our expectations in a concretized outcome of "physical form" and then take what we view as any "concrete form", or "physiological form" and use it to reinforce our psychology of belief to complete the cycle.

These two representations of PPPP equate to our "status quo-ing " our ever developing system of beliefs, NO MATTER AT WHAT AGE WE EXAMINE THEM. This is a dynamic realm where change (contradiction to established beliefs) is seen as the enemy. It is dynamic in the sense that we will do whatever is necessary to support "the system."

Now, we add that to I-I-I-I (It is, if and only if) as a "projection principle". ("It is, if and only if" is our conditional belief system of ego representations where attachments thrive. It focuses conditionality aka "if and only if".)

Then that A- B- C-D becomes---

A---Ask Yourself, what am I feeling right now?

   The simple cycle of "form recognition" (both psychological and physiological)
   within personal emotional identification (discomfort, suffering and terror)

B---Boldly step in.

   Interrupt the process intentionally and refocus my intention from what I do not want, to what I do want, and from the negative to the positive using self talk as THE primary tool within words, emotions and visualization.

C-- Choose again.

    Choice decision (do this, do that, do nothing, supporting my focused intention)

D-- Demonstrate release.

    Demonstrate means to show with actions and words the unconditional release of all that has transpired as past and willingly allow the potentiality of the universe to present what it will, that I willingly accept, because I can do no more.

So starting at birth we have P P P P then I I I I the A-B-C-D---and that my friends, is the entire cycle of physical conscious life unto death, excluding of course, altered states within other non-ego realms.

This is far easier to remember with life starting as PPPP and the becoming of I-I-I-I and then learning of our A-B-Cs and D too.

This is fairly consistent with my book Mind-Shifting but is much simpler to remember with cues. I am fond of cues, markers and triggers. Whatever gets our attention or distracts us, there is a reason. It can be a distraction to keep us from dealing with things or it can be a distraction leading us toward conflict and then reconciliation. I see reconciliation as also dynamic in that it can be anything from complete removal to a minor desensitization all of which are positive, all are miracles.

Does this make sense and if not, what do you see?

Peace

earl

From the NDS Archives (posted by Gracie) & Alan Larus ~ TrueVision

The coming warmth of the morning sun softly caresses the flower's
unopened petals. As the flower expands to engulf the sun's rays, the
prior night's dew slowly dissipates. The sun gives freely, neither
asking for nor expecting a return. Knowing it is neither gift nor
taking, the flower blossoms without fear, gently adding it's own
beauty and sense of being to it's surroundings and to those fortunate
enough to pass within it's presence.

Each is valuable just in being, the universe, minus just one of
these flowers is forever changed.

A Rose

Photo by Alan Larus

Freyja ~ UniversalMeditations

Art and the Challenge of Change

By Stewart Cubley

A student once asked Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, one of the earliest and most widely revered Zen masters to come to the West, "can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?" Suzuki Roshi answered, "Everything changes."

We know this. But then again we don't. Buddhist monks spend their lifetimes understanding this statement. To really know that 'everything changes' is to live in harmony with change, which few of us do.

Most of us don't feel truly at home with ourselves in a world of exponentially increasing change. Our net worth as measured by the stock market fluctuates wildly on a daily basis. Relationships form and fall away with greater rapidity than anytime in history. Job security is the relic of a past in which our livelihood was a stable measure of identity. Instant access to information compresses decision-making into minutes rather than days or weeks. We live pressured by time and accomplishment - postponing our lives until after the next hurdle is overcome, the next problem solved, the next career step achieved. It's easy to experience life more as a burden than as a source of passion and revelation.

The opportunity that the creative arts process offers is to fully inhabit our experience right now just as it is. It's a practice, as valid as any spiritual path, that requires us to drop the insane rush toward the imagined goal and to experience being at home with ourselves. The transformation that occurs when we touch our home base is nothing short of miraculous. There is an expansiveness in which the circumstances of our lives are held differently, and our world appears in its potential rather than it's limitation. For a moment at least, we perceive the incredible mystery of existence, and we know what it means to accept our place in the scheme of things.

"Within us we have a hope
which always walks in front of our present narrow experience;
it is the undying faith in the infinite in us."

~ Tagore ~

For the past twenty years I've been exploring the nature of creative change using the tool of painting. When I mention painting, I often get some response like; "Oh, painting - I have no talent". "My brother could draw, but I'm not really creative". "My mother's the artist, not me. I don't have an artistic bone in my body". "I paint houses - does that count?"

The moment when I first start a class or workshop always has a special poignancy to me. People of all ages and backgrounds and varying degrees of experience have taken the time and energy to commit themselves to an inner exploration that is totally unknown to them. There's an electric mixture of excitement and fear in the air as we gather for the first session. People are wondering what they've gotten themselves into, and whether it's not too late to back out. In one workshop a man laughingly said, "Why do I keep finding myself in groups of such talented and creative people?", meaning of course, that he didn't think of himself that way.

If you can hold a brush you can paint. Once it's removed from the strictures of talent, skill, accomplishment, interpretation, competition and awards, painting becomes a medium for challenge and change. The power inherent in painting is that it can awaken a wild vein of passion in you that will not go back to sleep. Through listening to your intuition - the color you are attracted to, the placement of the brush on the paper, the shape, the form, the image that wants to be born - a fire is ignited that jumps off the paper and into your life. Perceptions arise that are profound yet practical. Decisions become available that were dormant, new courses of action demand to be initiated, and old places of blockage ready themselves to be let go. Your view of yourself and what is possible in your life transform in the reflection you observe in the mirror of your painting.

There is no formula by which the impulse for change will manifest for any individual's life, but its birth requires a clear environment for exploration. First, there needs to be a safe, supportive space of focused acceptance in which we can begin to let down the defenses we have erected around our own deep listening. Then there needs to be the encouragement and stimulation to look at those areas where we are challenged, where we come to the edge. In entering those places courageously and meeting ourselves there, we discover our genuine passion and inspiration. We realize that we have nothing to protect and nothing to lose, and we are then free to ask: "What do I really want to do, given who I am and with the tools I have to use?"

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?"

~ Mary Oliver, The Summer Day ~

Art Making as Spiritual Practice

"Care of the soul appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life. It sees every fall into ignorance and confusion as an opportunity to discover that the beast residing at the center of the labyrinth is also an angel."

~ Care of the Soul, Thomas Moore ~

In the recent movie, "Pollack", the artist is portrayed in the usual stereotypes of a suffering, dysfunctional and ultimately self-destructive egomaniac. What is the right relationship between our wounds and our creativity? We intuit that the process of creating art can be healing on many levels, but is a psychotic personality the prerequisite for membership? Do we have to endure extreme suffering in order to create? A realistic model for the artist as spiritual explorer needs to be found.

It's interesting that the word passion has its roots in the Latin pati 'to suffer'. To take the leap into the truth of our own experience and to give it form in the world requires becoming engaged in a holy struggle of sorts, where we must face the actual rather than the idealized. One of the myths of art is that we have to feel inspired, have endless ideas or feel confident in order to create. But if we truly desire passion in our lives, we must also be willing to experience our emptiness and our lack of inspiration. There may be an encounter with the inevitable sadnesses that have accumulated from a lifetime of experience. We will have to revisit those places where we turned away from our potential out of fear - where we said no instead of yes. And our habitual self-judgment will take on monstrous proportions before it retreats into its cave, rendered ineffectual by our courage to look it squarely in the eye. We'll probably be tested by the terror of chaos and loss of control. Our tendency to defuse the potency of the mysterious and the irrational through explanation and interpretation will seriously try to deflect us. And then there is the continual desire to quit, to abandon our work midstream, to retreat to a point of safety and immunity.

Meaningful change, although our birthright, must be won. It's the fruit of challenge well met. It requires that we take our difficulties seriously, seeing them as important, rather than as bothersome aggravations. What creative longings remain asleep inside that we're hesitant to arouse? Where do we feel our ability to express has been wounded or armored? We should not to be ashamed of these struggles, because they are worthy of our engagement. The places where we once turned back become doors we walk through, and with an earned authority can now say....Yes.

Challenge as Initiation

"Homesick for moderation,
Half the world's artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile, I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?"

~ Mary Oliver, A Dream of Trees ~

Crisis, which has its roots in the ancient Greek, 'to decide' or 'to separate', is an inner state of readiness that precedes creative breakthrough. We must literally be at a critical juncture where a road must be chosen - where there is absolutely no chance to stall or turn back - before we have the urgency and energy to take that plunge that will determine the next direction in our lives.

In retrospect, we see how decisions made at crisis points often lead to new possibilities that wouldn't have existed otherwise. Yet we instinctively view the appearance of crisis with abhorrence and dread - we want anything except to enter into the state of immediacy that creative challenge demands. We will avoid at all costs the experience of stepping across the line without a guarantee, where we will be transformed in ways that we can't predict.

Crisis is a notice from our intuitive self that an initiation is due. We're presented with an opportunity to pass through the fire deeply altered by the experience, or to continue grasping the illusion that we can remain fixed and untouched. The fact is that when we truly meet crisis we don't remain fixed at all - the 'I' that enters the experience is not the 'I' that is spit out the other end. The experience and the experiencer are inseparably entwined in a mysterious and profound relationship that is interdependent and co-evolving. In embracing crisis the way opens up from within it like a flower blooming from the darkest soil.

Crisis Of Emptiness

The crisis of emptiness is one of the first encounters in the journey of painting. This crisis essentially is saying, "So you think you're creative do you? Well, I've got news for you - there's nothing inside you. And even if there is something inside you, it's just bullshit."

You stand in front of your painting frozen in your tracks. Any movement would be a failure, so you don't even attempt it. You look around at the other painters convinced that everyone knows what they're doing except you. A deep well of hopelessness wells up from the core, reminding you of all the places where you've run from this feeling, filling it with food that doesn't sustain.

It's a paradox that in this time of such freedom of choice, we often don't know what we really care about. We are taught to do what's right rather than ask what we truly desire. We react according to the pressures we feel around us to conform and perform rather than acting from what's within us. We even lose track of the question, as though it's irrelevant. Painting requires us to listen inwardly on a moment to moment basis to what we truly feel and want - to act not from what we think we should do, but from what is more mysterious and more irrational and less dominated by the notion of achievement.

"The first painting doesn't count", I often announce when we start. This always gets a few laughs, because we recognize how important the painting has already become - even before we've begun.

The remedy for the crisis of emptiness of course is to step into the creative void. The courage it takes to do this will be returned a million times over - but the task is yours to take the first step. Just remember, even though it may feel like your life is at stake, in the end it's just a painting!

Crisis Of Discontent

Often in the painting workshops I'll approach someone who's been painting for a while and ask how they're doing. With their fist clenched and their jaw set in grim determination, they'll say sweetly, "Oh, I'm just fine." Their body is screaming out with tension and forced effort, yet I know there's nothing I can do until their discontent becomes obvious.

We're trained to be bored, desensitized us to our own discomfort. Something is calling out to be recognized, but we're afraid that it means something is wrong with us, and therefore shame, guilt and denial become distracting factors.

Creative disturbance is an intelligent voice - it's purpose is to point out to us where we're holding on and what we must let go of to proceed. To bury disturbance is the greatest disservice we can give ourselves, and yet it's the accepted norm of our culture. We're surrounded by ways in which to buy our way out, to consume more in order to feel less, to take the quick fix instead of face the underlying reality. A reorientation to discontent must be achieved, where we view trouble as fodder for change rather than proof of failure.

"I want to quit, the painting is feeling too tight and constricted. I've gone too far", are often the comments once the tension becomes unbearable. "Instead of quitting just now, what could you do to make it worse?" I reply.

"But I want to feel more expanded, maybe if I had a new piece of paper....."

"Do you trust what you want or what actually is?" I ask, knowing it's a leading question. "If you trust the integrity of your own experience, then go toward the constriction, express the feeling you're having right now, instead of trying to fix it."

If a ripening has occurred in a person through the act of standing in their creative process, an explosion will occur at this point. A flood of new energy and wild abandon will catapult them into an entirely different arena that breaks wide open the barrier created by their efforts to control. The way out lies in the very heart of the disturbance. The permission to actually go towards what you're feeling is so simple - yet so radical.

"Only those who will risk going too far
Can possibly find out how far one can go."

~ T.S. Eliot ~

Crisis Of Criticism

Once we've had the courage to enter the fray and commit ourselves to form and color, it's not unusual to get a big dose of self-condemnation. This is the crisis of criticism. The magnitude and scope of our self-judgment is immense, and it's there looking over our shoulder at every brush stroke.

Once I was working with a woman who had been struggling for days with her own judgment and doubt, disliking her painting immensely. Finally she took a break for a cup of tea, and she was sitting on the far side of the studio, looking through the central glass atrium at her painting without realizing that it was her own. Enamored, she said to me, "If only I could paint like that. That painting is so beautiful!"

The crisis of criticism on some level always involves a self-referencing factor. The filter of 'me' and 'mine' encumbers creative action. We are unable to detach the painting from our own success/failure quotient. We measure each proposed step by the yardstick of our own image. Will I like what I've done? Did I make the right action? Will I be recognized for my contribution? Will I be humiliated? Will I fail? But I have a better question. What if you were not defined by what you paint?

As long as the painting is entirely about my success/failure, there's no freedom to meet the challenge of creating. The environment needed is one of no measurement, no rewards, no comparisons, no failure or success, no striving or accomplishment - only permission to become a pioneer in your own creative wilderness. Then the painting process can become a deeply satisfying practice, and a profound connection can be made. The 'me' and the effort that maintains it are absent when there is absolute absorption in the process of creating.

Crisis Of Chaos

In the crisis of chaos all bets are off. We've crossed the line, taken the jump, and everything feels up for grabs. It's both frightening and exhilarating. We fluctuate between bouts of self-doubt over what we've left behind and excitement for what lies ahead. The painting may seem wildly out of control, nothing fits together and nothing makes sense in the jumble of interweaving colors, images and forms. This is a 'divine chaos' in which we can feel deluged with new possibilities and find it hard to contain the energy. On the other extreme, we may feel overwhelmed and exhausted, needing to withdraw and allow the gestation that's occurring to have our full attention.

We tend to panic in the face of chaos and feel that our state of 'not-knowing' is a limitation rather than an asset. On the contrary, chaos is the absence of organizing concepts, and therefore an indication that we've loosened our control on the situation enough to let the old structures be shaken up. Chaos is the experience of being awash in the tide of new possibilities and directions that have not yet coalesced. It is an infusion of energy that's generated from the essential risk of leaving behind our familiar points of reference, especially our criticism. No real change is possible without experiencing the divine state of 'not-knowing' that is the crisis of chaos.

As with the other moments of crisis, the intelligent response to chaos is to dive more fully into it. Chaos is an opportunity to radically trust that there's a support for you in the world much larger than you imagine. Generally when someone tells me that their painting has become too chaotic it's a sign that they secretly want to put even more into it!

Crisis of Meaning

"I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called a mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing --
Now!"

~ I Heard God Laughing - renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky ~

Recently in a weeklong training session the quiet concentration of the group was broken by a wild hoot of uncontrollable laughter. Despite her attempts to stifle the eruption, Julia couldn't contain it and she ran out of the studio and into the street. Then we heard the cackling continue, amplified to the point where it became contagious and the whole studio became infected. Soon we were all laughing with her without knowing quite at what, but sure that it was somehow profound. Later, after things had settled down, Julia shared with us the story behind her spontaneous uprising. A respected medical professional, Julia uses the painting process as meditation, a chance to slow down and be with her thoughts and feelings. That afternoon she'd found herself painting something that she judged as trite and unimportant- a cute little poodle. This horrified her sense of the importance of her work, and she just couldn't accept it. But being attuned to doing what the painting demands rather than what she prefers, she continued - this time to paint an equally meaningless monkey next to the dog in pink, her least favorite color. That's when the hooting started, and she broke open with the insight of her own self-importance and her attachment to profundity.

"I couldn't get over how stupid it was! I realized I'm always so afraid of being perceived as stupid, and there it was right in front of me for all to see." It was a tribute to her maturity in the process that she was able to accept such a poignant and relevant teaching, and to laugh it directly into her bones.

There are precious moments that arise in the painting process where we're asked to let go of our concepts of the very meaning of our work itself. No matter how open we deem ourselves to be, our mind begins to wrap around our experience and we subtly form a frame within which we view the painting. Unconsciously we try to explain away the mystery by classifying the elements and images into safe categories where we can deal with them under the veil of familiarity. No matter that the creative vitality of the painting narrows the more we 'know' about it. No matter that our conclusions often cause us upset and conflict - prone as we are to negative interpretations. And no matter that we finally end up bored and blocked because we've explained the painting to death.

What makes the painting precious is that it's undefined. There's a feeling of great intimacy in the forms, shapes and images that we so caringly create. They strike at the heart, yet their meaning remains obscure. They disturb us and mesmerize us at the same time. We are fascinated by what comes out of our brush, yet any attempt to interpret seems self-constructed and too contrived. The power of the painting cannot be captured by knowing. It's magic lies in the undefined. It's meaning lies beyond any label or concept. Its life is in the unknown, palpable and close, yet ever unnamable.

Crisis of Completion

"I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait."

~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass ~

One of the greatest mysteries of the process of change has to do with completion. In painting this can be a moment of astonishing surprise and release. You were convinced you were done, you'd been just adding the finishing touches, ready to take the painting off the wall, when out of left field comes a wild color or an image that demands to be painted. You're sure it won't fit, it will certainly 'ruin' your hard work, but - there it is. And of course, once done, it's obvious it was meant to be there from the beginning.

To be open to the moment of completion means to be willing to drop your investment in the outcome and ask yourself in full honesty - is this journey over? Each painting has a definite destination that is not one of your own making. If you don't follow the journey through to the end, you'll feel incomplete - no matter how much paint is on the paper. Completion is reaching the ground where nothing else is required. It's an inner state of freedom and rest in which there is no running away and no holding onto. Being complete with a painting is being complete with yourself, and that's both and ending and a beginning.

Change is Us

At this time in history we have the freedom and the tools to make choices that were never before possible, yet our systems - cultural, educational, organizational, as well as psychological and spiritual - are not designed to accommodate the radical shifts being asked of us. Fundamentally we are totally unprepared for change. We attempt to neutralize change rather than engage it. Our attitude is adversarial - we see change as a dangerous intruder in our lives rather than a source of passion, revelation and transformation.

What does it mean to recognize that transition is the one constant in our lives, and therefore to participate with the process of change? What does it mean to stop controlling change as we are prone to do, and instead to dive in and be nurtured by the perpetual movement that swirls around us?

As the contemporary poet David Whyte says, we must be willing "to show up on life's radar screen". This means being willing to take the leap and commit the brush to form and color, the pen to ink (or finger to keyboard), the voice to sound, the body to movement. It also means being willing to accept fully what comes from our own expression, whatever form it takes- for this is the doorway to the inner fire. The very part we're avoiding becomes the point of entry to the next destination in our journey. Once this transformational element of the creative process is tasted, creative challenge becomes our delight and our play. Risking becomes our excitement, that leap into the unknown our desire. Our very weapons in this holy battle are our wildness, our outrageous irrationality, our humor and our freedom - and they want to be exercised.

In the end what's important is not whether we call ourselves artists. The real question is whether we have the courage and the audacity to bring our own voice into the world. David Whyte sees that as our sacred responsibility.

"Our voice is unique and one of a kind, and it's been given to us in order to speak out. And if our voice isn't brought forth, then the world isn't complete. Certainly our personal world isn't complete. But the world at large also isn't complete until we speak out our true voice. And the world is waiting....."

Used with permission for one time use. �2001-2003, Stewart Cubley, PO Box 309 Fairfax, CA 94978. For over 20 years The Painting Experience(SM) has provided a supportive and stimulating environment guiding many thousands of people to explore their creative process through expressive painting. It continues to serve people in their quest to discover the essence of the creative experience in their lives. www.processarts.com

Jonathan ~ The_Other_Syntax

Intuition

"The feeling everyone knows as "intuition" is the activation of our
link with intent. And since sorcerers deliberately pursue the
understanding and strengthening of that link, it could be said that
they intuit everything unerringly and accurately. Reading omens is
commonplace for sorcerers-mistakes happen only when personal feelings
intervene and cloud the sorcerers' connecting link with intent.
Otherwise their direct knowledge is totally accurate and functional."

[The Power Of Silence]

Cornelius ~ UniversalMeditations

THE PRESENT MOMENT....

(Part 2)

FUNDAMENTALS

"[The inner landscape] is more diverse and more meaningful. It is your inner landscape that gives meaning to your outer landscape. A golden sunset does not fill you with appreciation. Your inner landscape does. When you mistake the circumstances that you encounter in your outer landscape for the experiences of your inner landscape, you miss the point entirely.

The point is that you are on the Earth in order to grow spiritually and to give gifts that only you are capable of giving. Those gifts do not originate in the outer world but in the deepest parts of yourself. They are your potential waiting to spring into being like seeds in the earth waiting to sprout. Your "earth" is your inner landscape. The more attention you pay to it, the more familiar you become with it, and the more familiar you become with it, the more able you are to see what you want to cultivate and what you want to remove.

Your inner landscape is always changing. You may be content for a few moments, then angry, then jealous, then delighted, and then angry again. Throughout your life, your inner landscape persents itself to you again and again. This presentation continues until you die--until your soul goes home.

Only you can change the contents of that presentation, and only after you become aware of what it is. Then you can observe it as it flows through you. When you are not aware of it, your emotion delight you, disturb you, calm you, and agitate you. They frighten you, please you, and confuse you.

Your emotions are the force field of your soul, not products of hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters. They are the experiences, coming to you in a dramatically intimate way, of parts of your soul. Painful emotions--such as anger, fear, jealousy, and vengefulness--are experiences of the parts of your soul that your soul desires to heal. Emotions that nurture you, such as gratitude, contentment, and appreciateion, are experiences of the parts of your soul that are already healthy.

When you are aware of everything that you are feeling, all the time, you are in continual communication with your soul. Learning how to listen to that communication, and act on it, is the purpose of your being in the Earth school. Becoming aware of your soul does not require that you study or take examinations. It begins with you becoming aware of what you are feeling. It requires recognizing everything that you are feeling moment by moment--how your energy system is processing the energy moving through it.

This communication with your soul can be very difficult to listen to, and sometimes it is extremely painful. In those cases especially, it is easier to run away from the communication than to remain and hear it. When your stomach is hurting, or your chest is aching, or both are in pain,it is difficult to listen to what your soul is saying. That is when most people shout at someone else, or at a pet, or throw a dish, or withdraw in resentment, hit a pillow, decide to get divorced, or go shopping, turn on the television, eat, or in some other way divert their attention.

The more painful the communication is, the more compulsive is the desire to avoid the communication. There are fundamentally two ways to avoid experiencing what you are feeling. The first is to escape into your thoughts.

People judge one another because it is easier to believe that someone else is responsible for their circumstances than it is to face the pain of their circumstances or the reality of the world around them. This flight into thoughts the same as putting a numbing agent on a wound. The wound does not disappear. It must still be treated. Nothing has changed except that, for the moment, you do not feel it. When the numbing agent wears off, the wound is there, and so is the pain.

Whe the pain of communication with your soul becomes intense, you are at a pivotal moment. The choice that confronts you is whether to ease the pain you feel by escaping from it into thoughts or activities, or to keep your attention inward in order to learn where your discomfort is coming from, and heal the source of it. Becoming immersed in circumstances around you is the decision to pursue external power. Remaining with your inner experience is the choice to pursue authentic power."

Gary Zukav

Joyce ~ Spiritual Friends

The Way of Chuang Tzu

"Tao is obscured when men understand only one pair of opposites, or concentrate
only on a partial aspect of being. Then clear expression also becomes muddled
by mere wordplay, affirming this one aspect and denying all the rest.
The pivot of Tao passes through the center where all affirmations and denials
converge. He who grasps the pivot is at the still-point from which all
movements and oppositions can be seen in their right relationship.
Abandoning all thought of imposing a limit or taking sides, he rests in direct
intuition."

~ The Way of Chuang Tzu ~

THE SMALL WORLD PROJECT

"The SMALL WORLD project is an online experiment to test the idea that any two people in the world can be connected via 'six degrees of separation.'

Your objective is to get a message to a *target person*, somewhere in the world, by forwarding the message to a friend of yours -- someone who is *closer* to the target than you are. (If you happen to know the target, you can of course send it to them)"

Columbia University

http://smallworld.columbia.edu/

Rassouli ~ Hafiz, http://www.rassouli.com/index.html & Kuwana Haulsey

The Summons

Painting by F. Rassouli

The Night of Great Rewards

Last night,
midnight became exalted dawn
as they kissed the sorrow from my mouth
and breathed the breath of Life between these lips.
And in that holy darkness
Let me drink from the Waters of Life.

The light of Love poured through me
until I fell down drunk, reeling in ecstasy.
This cup has spilled over!
Now the wine of reflection
shows me only my Beloved�s grace.

What a glorious midnight! What a blessed darkness
when, on that Night of Great Reward,
I finally received the deed
to the fortune of my soul.

From now on, my face is the mirror
which everywhere reflects Love�s perfect beauty.
In the splendor of this place I saw revealed
all the wonders of eternity.

So does it really surprise you
that I dance through the streets
singing out joy for all those privileged enough
to have ears?
I asked, deserving, and so received
the alms of my salvation.

For on that day, the Unseen Messenger
brought me this magnificent news:
Tyranny and sorrow can never prevail
over patience and a steadfast heart.
These, my friend, were the keys to my freedom.

All this sugar that now pours from
my words is patience sweet reward.
For this, they gave me
the whole Cane Stalk!

Rejoice!
The prayers of Hafiz
and the breath of all believers
who rise with the sun and God
have broken the heavy chains of illusion
and set me free.

Translation & Imagery by Rassouli - Poetized by Kuwana Haulsey

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

"Freydoon Rassouli is a mystic artist who has come to the attention of the international art world in recent years. What makes his art so unique is the way he translates spiritual experience from his subconscious onto canvas through meditation. With vibrant hues, Rassouli produces joyful color blends and circular brushwork that create a timeless perspective. These unique features that distinguish Rassouli's painting technique, which he defines as Fusionart is a style created and registered by him. Fusionart's main theme is cosmic unity. The painting style is derived from mysticism, near-eastern spirituality, and a foundation in European painting technology. Rassouli represents this concept through illumination of the Divine Creative Light coupled with its manifestation reflected on his canvas in the form of Feminine Beauty..."

http://www.rassouli.com/artist.htm

From the Panhala Archives

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Web version at
www.Panhala.net/Archive/When_Death_Comes.html

Web archive of Panhala postings at www.Panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to

Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Mace Mealer ~ Illuminata

Present Untense

What grows but that the senses reap?
What moves the eyes to see?
What carries us to gentle sleep
and brings our song to be?
In all that round this world does dance,
in wind and wing and tree.
Our place is now and here my love,
and flies forever free.

Green Finch

Photo by Alan Larus

Benny

MEMBRAIN

Animation by Benny

"Art washes away from the world the dust of everyday life."

~ Picasso ~

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#1537 From: "Jerry Katz" <umbada@...>
Date: Sat Aug 30, 2003 11:39 am
Subject: 1537 - Thursday, August 28, 2003 nondualguy
Send Email

#1537 - Thursday, August 28, 2003 - Editor: Jerry

Mars Sauce. Contributed by Sam to NDS

Movie reviews and comments:

Freyja

Harsha Satsangh

Winged Migration - a film by Jacques Perrin

A tremendous heart-opener,
simply awe-inspiring depiction of innate intelligence
and tremendous variety of genetic combinations
and behaviors among birds and other species.
Cinematography is absolutely heavenly.
This film places you right THERE.

Freyja

http://www.sonyclassics.com/wingedmigration/home.html

(please copy and paste url)

'Winged Migration' a stunning global journey
By Matt Soergel

Winged Migration is as close as we'll ever get to flying with the birds. This French documentary of mind-blowing beauty puts you right there with migratory birds, so close there on the big screen that you can see the close-up ruffling of individual feathers in flight, hear the actual beating of their wings.And down below us, zooming by, is the natural and man-made of the Earth: the desert, the tundra, the Arctic, the sea pounding against the coast of Antarctica, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, the skyline of New York (with the World Trade Center towers still standing).

That vicarious thrill is what separates Winged Migration from the various nature shows you can catch on cable. It's almost impossible to overstate how breathtaking much of it is: Many movies hope to build to a couple of mind-boggling visual moments that make your jaw drop. This film is packed with them, so many that it can just sprinkle them almost willy-nilly throughout. And then, as if that's not enough, the filmmakers just casually slip in, oh, say, a huge avalanche or an iceberg breaking apart -- just because they can.

Winged Migration Credits: Directed by Jacques Perrin.Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.Family guide: G.

Winged Migration is a four-year project for French filmmaker Jacques Perrin and his huge crew, which included pilots in gliders and hot-air balloons who helped him get those rapturous fly-with-the-bird shots.That commitment of time and resources led to all those astounding moments:
Watch for a captured tropical bird trying to escape from a cage on the Amazon. Watch how crabs on the African shoreline attack a doomed, broken-winged bird. Watch how the sky turns black with birds.That's just a start -- almost any scene, any image, could be singled out.

A couple of quibbles: The music might be too New Agey for some (the visuals alone are inspiring enough). And the skimpy narration, by Perrin himself, feels a bit trite; it can't match the power of the visuals. Truth be told, though, what could?

Gloria

This movie review is a forward, but I did see it myself recently,
and I heartily second the recommendation. Seeing it is a unique
opportunity to be one with the birds.

Mark Otter

NDS

Bowling for Columbine

Finally!!! Bowling for Columbine is out on video and DVD. I've been
looking forward to it for some months now, and today I finally had a
chance to rent it.

All I can say is thank you Mr. Moore.

I was a member of a small egroup awhile back, in which there were
about 10 posts in the two months that I was a member, pretty much all
of which were a very slow conversation about "enlightenment movies",
with mentions of the Matrix and a few other obvious choices, but no
real discussion of why they were "enlightenment movies.".

Bowling for Columbine is an enlightenment movie. It starts here. We
are the universe's fools. We are the clowns in the big circus. We
should see this and stop this crap.

I also rented the first two DVDs of the third season of the Simpsons.
I'm not sure which is goofier, or which is more true. I'll watch some
more Simpsons now, and if I have more to say about Hatha yoga after
doing so, I'll be sure to mention it.

If you haven't seen it, go rent Bowling for Columbine. It's important.
But go look at Mars first.

Love, Mark

Viorica

Harsha Satsangh

D. How can I get peace? I do not seem to obtain it through vichara.

Maharshi :
Peace is your natural state. It is the mind that obstructs the natural state. Your vichara has been made only in the mind. Investigate what the mind is and it will disappear. There is no such thing as mind apart from thought. Nevertheless, because of the emergence of thought, you surmise something from which it starts and term that the mind. When you probe to see what it is, you find there is really no such thing as mind. When the mind has thus vanished, you realise eternal peace.

-The Maharshi's Gospel

svcs

I Am

Questioner: In the Theosophical Society they meditate in order to
seek masters to guide them.

Sri Ramana Maharshi: The master is within; meditation is meant to
remove the ignorant idea that he is only outside. If he is a stranger
whom you await, he is bound to disappear also. What is the use of a
transient being like that? But so long as you think you are separate
or that you are the body, an external master is also necessary and he
will appear to have a body. When the wrong identification of oneself
with the body ceases, the master will be found to be none other than
the Self.

Hari aum !!!

Mary Bianco

NDS News Service

http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1186/article11456.asp

Fly Me to the Moon

To a house divided and a marriage that keeps going bump in the night

by Jim Walsh

The best love story I know started in the Irish-Catholic ghetto of south Minneapolis on August 28, 1948, and rounds the bend this weekend at a resort in Deerwood, Minnesota, where its makers will somewhat reluctantly celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

The guests of honor don't want any fuss, but they don't have a choice, because what their friends and family and six kids and their spouses have come to know is that marriage is a song that goes bump in the night, and that all sorts of good people with good dreams die and/or change. So if you get the chance to step back and wonder at something this durable, this thriving, you seize it with champagne and wisecracks and everything you've got. And if you can, you write it down for anyone who might happen upon it, because it's a love story worth telling--about soul mates/opposites attracting and drifting and staying together--and because it pretty much explains why I am the way I am and why I still think love is the answer to most any question you've got.

My parents met at the now-demolished Prom Ballroom on University Avenue in St. Paul. She was 17, he was 19. They were with different dates that night, listening to Gene Krupa's big band, and they hit it off immediately. She liked his blue eyes and easy smile and his love of music and the fact that he didn't drink. He liked her blue eyes and easy smile and her quick wit and the fact that she didn't drink. "We got along famously," he said many years later, but at the time a friend told him, "Hey bubby, she's hot for you but you'll never get to first base with her."

They dated for three years, then he went off to fight for his country in Korea. For two years, they carried pictures of each other and wrote love letters. When he came home, they got married and he got a job and they started a family: Four kids in three-and-a-half years, then two more for good measure. "Those were some really tough times, but as somebody said, I'd go back and do it all over again," she said. "When you have a bunch of little kids, it's intense. But never in our minds was there a question that there was any different way to live or any choice to be made, because we'd made our choice. It wasn't as if you couldn't do anything differently, but it was a commitment. A commitment of love."

They were good Catholics. They went to church every Sunday with the kids in tow, filling up one pew in the big neighborhood church that his parents and all their friends and their kids' schoolmates went to. They did the stations of the cross and the angelus and the rosary and the one that goes "remember man that you are dust and to dust you shall return." But something nagged at him. The answers he was getting were too easy, and his questions were getting more complicated. During his lunch breaks from work, he started going to the bookstore, and began devouring what decades later would be known as alternative spirituality--Buddhism, mysticism, Vernon Howard, J. Krishnamurti, Edgar Cayce. He stopped going to church, and, one by one, their kids followed.

She kept going. By herself. She too soon tired of the stuffy neighborhood church and found another family, in the old and young and black and white community at St. Leonard's of Port Maurice, a tiny church in the heart of Minneapolis. She still goes. Every Sunday. She does readings and sings songs and prays and feels the love of God and humanity. She has been known to walk out of the service if something the pastor says riles her. She is unwavering in her belief that there is a God, a creator of all things beautiful. She is a lioness of faith.

"I don't believe in God," he said. "I go back to the quote, 'A hundred monks, a hundred different ideas of what or who God is.' I don't believe there's a creator. It's very hard to explain, but I believe that we are the creators of ourselves. We are it. It's an ongoing process--never started, and it will never end. We are the creators, and we have to figure out ourselves what that is."

"Dad's a spiritual person," she said. "He's seeking God in his way, and I am in my way. We respect each other."

"We've both come to realize that it's very personal," he said. "Every individual goes on their own search. And when you're lowered in that box into the ground, you're alone, and you'd better have it figured out for yourself."

They live in a modest house in west Bloomington, surrounded by books and baubles of long-term love and pictures of their children and grandchildren. But it is, as they laugh, "a house divided." He is a staunch Republican. She is a bleeding-heart liberal. He is a bullheaded conservative. She is a fierce feminist. He monitors the Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh and Eckhart Tolle and the Belfast Cowboys and margaritas. She monitors public radio and Tommy Mischke and Jeopardy! and the Belfast Cowboys and white wine. Her glass is half full, his is half empty. She loves big groups of people, he loves solitude. She likes to travel, he likes the Travel Channel. She golfs, he runs. They read everything that comes into the house, and argue about it--columnists, news stories, facts, figures, minutiae. Nothing is taboo; nothing gets swept under the carpet.

"It's a very flavorful part of our marriage," he said. "I often think of guys who go home to their wives who go, 'Yes, dear' and they agree on everything. I don't know. It's so strange. We argue. And we argue. Not about religion, mostly about politics. And we swear we're not going to do it, but then the next day's paper comes."

On New Year's Day, I set up a video camera and sat them down at their dining room table to ask them about their lives. She wore a Pioneer Press sweatshirt, he wore a blue sweater. She sat with her hands folded in front of her and laughed at everything he said. He played with a Hershey's Kiss that was sitting on the table and joked that I wanted to get them on tape because I think they're going to die soon.

He's a smart son of a gun. Years from now I will look at that tape, as I did the other night, and I'll cue it up to the part where he tears up talking about his definition of love ("Coming in that driveway and seeing her in the kitchen window"), and I will remember the night a couple of months ago, when I went over to their house to watch Punch Drunk Love with him, and, just as I was going into the kitchen to get something to drink, I saw him kiss her goodnight, turned away because it felt sacred, and it will give me a shot in the arm and something to shoot for.

"I can remember times being very sad that that newness is gone, because it's so precious," she said. "Now there's such a peacefulness. It doesn't compare with the newness. They're both wonderful. The middle times were much harder, because we were so busy and there were so many people to care for. And to have this at the end of the road--to be alone together..."

"...It's fun," he said, twirling the Hershey's Kiss like a top.

Joe Markel
NDS

Hatchalas Hachochmah - The Beginning of Wisdom (Chapter 1)

Many people think only Chassidim and Sfardim study Kabbalah. I have a translation of a book written by a student of the Gra (the Gaon of
Vilna - an opponent of the Chassidim).

There is an introduction in the Hebrew book which is a collection of Divrei
RaZa"L (words of the sages) on the importance of learning Chochmas HaEmes
(the true wisdom - Kabbalah).

The Gra's shita (Methodology) is different than Chabad's but since this is a
Primary it's not much different. However I will probably not answer questions on it.

Here is the first part:

The Beginning of Wisdom
A Compendium of Primary Kabbalistic Principles

The first print of the book was in 1893 but more than that is not known
except that it was written by a student of the GR"A.

You are free to disseminate posts of Hatchalas Hachochmah - The Beginning of Wisdom series by electronic or hard copy as long as they are reproduced in
their entirety and include the copyright

Translated and copyrighted by Rabbi Amiram Markel

General Principles of Kabbalah
Chapter one

    (Which explains the matter of the sefirot, their names and G-d's conduct
toward the worlds.)

    1. Since G-d is not confined to time and space or any other
limitations, Kabbalah refers to Him as Ayn Sof - The Infinite. As he is
infinite and boundless, so is the power of His Will.

    2. The prohibition against the contemplation of G-d's essence is widely
known. Whatever is related about   G-d pertains only to His Will and
providence, which are manifest by His actions. This general rule applies to
all Kabbalah, as stated by Rabbeinu Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in his book Adir
Bamarom, "It is self evident that any expression regarding the Emanator,
Blessed Be He, refers only to His actions rather than his essence."

    3. There are ten sefirot by which G-d, Blessed Be He, creates and
conducts the worlds.
They Are:
        KETER - CROWN,
        CHOCHMAH - WISDOM,
        BINAH - UNDERSTANDING,
        CHESES - KINDNESS,
        GEVURAH - MIGHT,
        TIFERET - BEAUTY,
        NETZACH - VICTORY,
        HOD - MAJESTY,
        YESOD - FOUNDATION,
        MALCHUT - KINGDOM.

    4. The Sefirot are those divine faculties which G-d utilizes to create
and conduct the worlds.

    5. G-d governs the world with three general modes of conduct; Pure
Kindness - Chesed, Pure Judgement - Din, and the median conduct of Mercy -
Rachamim.

    6. Keter influences great and unabounded kindness and mercy without
discerning the merit of the recipient. This is because Keter represents
G-d's ultimate intention in creation, that is to benifit All, as the talmud
states on the verse, "I will be gracious to whomever I will be gracious," -
even to the unworthy.

    7. Chochmah, too, is free of Judgement, influencing the world with great
kindness including the unworthy, but, not to the extent of Keter.
    The quality of Binah is kindness as well, yet to a lesser degree. This
is because judgements begin to arise in Binah, as mentioned in the blessing:
"Who gives the rooster the understanding (Binah) to discern (Judgement)
between day and night," - For sometimes, in order to prevent anarchy, G-d
excercises judgement upon the world, so that evil, though a necessary
component in creation for the purpose of choise, not be left unchecked.
This judgement, in truth, is a kindness to the world. Moreover, kindness
may be the motivating factor of severity, as scripture states, "For whom the
L-rd loves, He corrects," and, "As a man chastens his son so does the L-rd
your G-d chasten you."

    8. Keter, Chochmah, and Binah are called the first or upper three
sefirot. When any of these are revealed, it is a time of great mercy and
goodwill toward the world. They reflect G-d's ultimate intention in the
world, unobstructed by the deeds of man.

    9. Chesed is Pure Kindness, though only to the meritorious, as is the
reward of the righteous in Gan Eden. Gevurah is Pure Judgement and
retribution to the guilty, as is the punishment of the wicked in Genhenom.
Tiferet is the median conduct of Mercy, between Chesed and Gevurah, but
inclines more toward Kindness than Judgement.

    10.   Netzach is Kindness tempered with Judgement, for example,
sometimes the righteous suffer in this world for their few errors, to be
ultimatly rewarded in the world to come - the seemingly negative being
ultimately positive.

    11. Hod is Judgement tempered with Kindness, for example, sometimes the
wicked prosper in this world for their few virtues, to be ultimately
destroyed in the world to come, as scripture states, "He pays his enemy up
front to destroy him," - the seemingly positive being ultimately negative.
Yesod is the median conduct between Netzach and Hod, tempered by both, but
inclining more toward Judgement than Kindness. The world is generally
conducted through this faculty.

    12. The six sefirot (Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod)
are collectively called the System of Justice in that they are responsive to
human deeds, for even Chesed, which is pure kindness, applies only to the
meritorious.

    13. Keter is called Arich Anpin - Patient, because it represents
unqualified mercy, which will only be fully realized in the world to come.
(This gives the righteous the opportunity to acquire greater merit, and the
wicked the chance to repent.) The six sefirot are called Zeir Anpin - Short
Tempered, because they represent the qualified system of justice by which
the world is presently being conducted.

    14. Malchut is the medium for Divine providence through which the
kingdom of G-d and his presence - Shechinah, will be realized and accepted
by All. This sefirah has a dual function; it is a conduit that accepts mans
good deeds and prayers, and responds by transmiting divine influence upon
them.

    15. The term sefirot means Numbers - Mispar. The concept of sefirot
can therefore be applied to many matters. Everything that exists can be
divided into ten sefirot.

    16. Scripture states: "All the hosts of heaven stand by Him to His
right and to His left." The sages asked, "And are there right and left
above? But rather, the right for virtue and the left for guilt."
Therefore, a sefirah which influences Kindness to the worthy is
allegorically considered "right" and one which influences Judgement upon the
guilty is allegorically considered "left".

    17. A diagram of the sefirot conveying this concept would therefore
appear thus: Keter in the top center position, since it is the root of all.
Under it, Chochmah to the right and Binah to the left, since in Binah
descernments begin to arise. Under them Chesed to the Right and Gevurah to
the left, with the median conduct of Tiferet centered below. Below them,
Netzach to the right and Hod to the left, with the median conduct of Yesod
centered below. Under Yesod, in the center, Malchut which recieves from
All.

    18. This diagram is allegorically called the Ten Upright Sefirot -
Esser Sefirot D'Yosher.

    19. There is also a diagram of concentric circles in which Keter
encompasses Chochmah, which in turn encompasses Binah, etc., with Malchut at
its center. This diagram is called the Ten Sefirot of Circles - Esser
Sefirot D'Igulim. It conveys principles in the development of the worlds
one from the other, and indicates that the more essential the conduct, the
more all encompassing it is. But, when the subject is the divine system of
conduct, the quality of its various modes and their interrelationships, the
diagram of the ten upright sefirot is used. (The GR"A states that the
circular sefirot indicate general providence and the upright sefirot,
individual providence.)

    20. Malchut is more severe than the six sefirot of Zeir Anpin, which
represent the system of justice. For since Malchut is called "Righteous
Judgement", it is more exacting. Only at times, through the merit of
mankind does Malchut join Chesed (Kindness) resulting in Rachamim (Mercy).

    21. A general conduct which is an expression of judgement, such as
Malchut, is allegorically considered female. This is one reason that
Malchut is often called Nukve (Female).

    22. Binah is somewhat severe relative to Chochmah, since discernments
begin to arise in it. Therefore, it too, is considered female.
Accordingly, in kabbalistic terminology, when the judgemental aspect of a
particular sefirah is mentioned, the feminine gender is used. For example,
"Arich Anpin and his Female", refers to Keter, which is the quality of
absolute mercy, and the potential judgement dormant in it.
    Gevurah and Hod, though they are expressions of judgement, are not gener
ally considered female. This is because they are integral components in the
reward and punishment of the System of Judgement - Zeir Anpin, and do not
function independently of it.

    23. The sefirot have both revealed and concealed aspects. The revealed
is considered external, and the concealed, internal. An example of the
concealed aspect is a kindness done in secrecy in which the kindness or
goodness is not recognized, as stated in Proverbs: "Good is a revealed
rebuke coming from a hidden love," and as stated in Talmud, "The recipient
of a miracle does not recognize it as such."

    24. Sometimes instead of Keter, Daat is enumerated amongst the sefirot.
The GR"A explained that the inclusion of Keter reflects the inner aspect,
while the inclusion of Daat, reflects the external aspect.

    25. This is because the quality of Keter - Great Mercy is not presently
revealed. It will only be fully realized in the world to come. This is
indicated by the divine name E-H-E-Y-E-H - "I will be," in the future tense,
meaning, "I am destined to be" - after the six thousandth year of creation.
Since the conduct toward the world is preparatory to G-d's ultimate intent
of benefiting all, Keter, though concealed, is its underlying and motivating
force, as stated in the Talmud, "Everything that the Merciful One does is
for the good."
    For this reason, Keter is only counted in respect to the hidden inner
aspect but regarding the external aspect, Daat is counted instead, since it
represents that minute revelation of Keter in this world, on a lesser level.
It is, therefore, centered under Chochmah (which is free of Judgement) and
Binah (in which discernments begin to arise) being a median conduct betwen
them.

    26. All that is revealed and is known to us of Keter is that this world
is preparatory to its revelation in the world to come. Accordingly, Keter
is the root of all present conducts since it was G-d's original intent to
reveal Keter through them - "The last deed being in the first thought."

    27. This explains the above statement that Keter is counted regarding
the inner aspect, but regarding the external aspect, Daat is counted
instead, and Keter is only considered the root. Keter is therefore called
Ayn - Nothingness and Raysha D'Ayn - The Primal Nothingness, because we
comprehend almost nothing of it. Accordingly, the GR"A states that,
"revelation begins with Chochmah." The order of the sefirot would then be:
Chochmah, Binah, Daat, Chesed, etc.

    28. Thus, since the revealed aspect begins with Chochmah and Binah,
they are called Father and Mother - Abba V'Ima, for since discernments begin
to arise in Binah, it is considered female.

    29. The sefirot can therefore be categorized into five general modes of
conduct (Partzufim):
    Arich Anpin - Patient, for Keter,
    Abba - Father, for Chochmah,
    Ima - Mother, for Binah,
    Zeir Anpin - Short Tempered, for the six sefirot Chesed, Gevurah,
Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod (which collectively constitute the System
of Justice,
    and, Nukvah - The Female, for Malchut.

    30. Sometimes the ten sefirot are categorized as the five kindnesses
and the five severities. The five kindnesses are:
    Keter,
    Chochmah,
    Chesed,
    Tiferet, (since it inclines toward kindness),
    and, Netzach.
The five severities are:
    Binah,
    Gevurah,
    Hod,
    Yesod (since it inclines toward judgement),
    and Malchut.

    31. The six sefirot of Zeir Anpin are called Vav Kitzvot (The Six
Corners), corresponding to the six directions in the world:
    Chesed - corresponds to south,
    Gevurah - to the north,
    Tiferet - to the east,
    Netzach - to up,
    Hod - to down,
    and Yesod - to the west.

    32. G-d formed all the limbs and organs of man corresponding to the
supernal conducts. Each of man's limbs hints at a divine conduct. Since
there are ten general sefirot, so too, in man, there are ten general
corresponding parts:
    The Head - corresponds to the first three sefirot,
    The Skull and Membrane - to Keter,
    The Right Hemisphere of the Brain - to Chochmah,
    The Left Hemisphere of the Brain - to Binah,
    (The Cerebellum -Back brain - to Daat)
    The Right Arm and Hand - to Chesed,
    The Left Arm and Hand - to Gevurah,
    The Torso - to Tiferet,
    The Right Leg and Foot, to Netzach,
    The Left Leg and Foot, to Hod,
    The Male Organ (which carries the sign of the Holy Covenant - Brit
Kodesh) - To Yesod
    and the Glans (Ateret Habrit) - to Malchut.

    33. Kabbalah sometimes refers to the sefirot by the names of their
corresponding limbs in man. For example, Keter is called Gulgalta - Skull;
Chochmah and Binah are called Mochin - The Brains; Chesed is called The
Right Arm, etc.. Obviously, these names are allegorical. It should not,
G-d Forbid, enter ones mind that any image or form exists, for this would
certainly be an absolute error, constituting a complete denial of Torah.
----------------------------------------------------------------

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Rabbi Yossi Markel

Moshiach@...

KABBALAH ON LINE http://www.geocities.com/Kabbalahonline

The material in this series is copyrighted by Rabbi Amiram Markel

Mazie
Listcology

The Neutrality of Technology.

This site discusses the question of technology's "neutrality," but
also will introduce you to the thinking of such important figures in
the history of technology as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul,
Marshall McLuhan and others. It also deals briefly with some of the
psychological, philosophic and ethical assumptions about technology.
The following are a few of the topics which we would like to pursue.
This list is not intended to be comprehensive nor is it given in any
particular order of importance. As this section develops new topics
will undoubtedly emerge. Let us know your interests and any
suggestions you may have.

1. How the computer is changing our notion of self and relationships
to other selves.

The shifting sense of self as being multiple and how this is abetted
through the Internet. Current theories of self by Sherry Turkle,
Andrew Samuels, James Hillman, Kenneth Gergen, Robert Jay Lifton, et
al.

2. A "disembodied" culture

Through our technology we are in flight from our bodies, the earth,
and mortality.

3. A cyborgean future?

The breakdown of the boundaries between what is human and what is
artificial

4. Virtual reality versus real life

Our culture is increasingly one of simulation in which the
artificial is taken for real and preferred to the real.

5. Surface versus depth

A characteristic of a technological culture is its superficiality,
its surface quality.

6. Linear versus non-linear

The computer employs hyper-text, that is non-linear, linked
discourse. How does this affect the way we think, articulate our
ideas, express our thoughts? How does it affect our attitude toward
literature? Does it make the narrative obsolete?

7. The triumph of the image

Our culture is dominated by the image. It pervades our psyches by
means of television, film, videos, advertisement and computer. What
does this do to our individual imaginal powers? Are they corrupted
or enlivened by this environment?

8. The dark world of "cyberpunk" fiction and films

"Cyberpunk" portrays a dystopian future controlled by worldwide
computer networks, battling artificial intelligences in a world
dominated by global capitalism. Its protagonists are politically
apathetic, alienated, use hallucinogenic drugs, cyborg implants, and
trance states to carry out their criminal and/or heroic missions
within the realms of virtual reality. A good example of this type
are the films "Blade Runners" and "The Matrix."

9. Women and technology

10. The corporate connection

11. The Internet and children

12. What about those who do not have access to the Internet?

http://www.cgjungpage.org/psychtech/techresources.html

Benny

You know Mazie I am now no longer considering thoughts from important persons

I am now considering thoughts from idiots, fools, plants, animals, and unimportant things. I have had it up to my ears

with thoughts of overintellectuals who are all as unbalanced and lopsidedly developed as any other beings around.

Important thoughts from important folks assist in screwing us up.

No thoughts are helping us to escape, they only encourage more thought.

Hope you are thoughtless--I know you are!

Gene Poole

Listcology

Up to date ironic parody cartoon

If you think you know what is
going on in cyberspace

Your committed involvement
may help you keep pace

Even if you cannot conceive
of a 'reasonable' goal

The wise surfer senses the
power of a wave and rides
it

Not for 'the hell of it' but
because it is intuited to
be nutritious

Yet if the hunger is dead
and replaced by the blah

It all looks the same

http://www.ubergeek.tv/switchlinux/

Who says like prime time tv news
the traditional vs the new

One characterized as tried and true
and good

The other as 'artificial', new and not
only risky but a waste of time

And not only a waste of time but
also symptomatic of the sort of
blind stupidity that cannot tell good
from bad

This methodology of 'reportage'
pervades our information spaces

We think of it as reasonable and
watch passively in amusement as
the establishment brings down
any challenger to the status quo

We know that we possess 'common
sense' and we reward ouselves with
neato congratulations not only for
our prejudice but also for being on
the winning team

Now we can retire our flaccid fatigued
brains to the potato couch of normalcy
as we cheer on the brave conquistadors
who protect us from the odd

Melody
NDS

This page is now being uploaded

to http://www.the-covenant.net:

There was this man.

Even the angels rejoiced at the sight of him, such was the quality of the holiness of the milieu of his beingness.

And he never had a clue about his milieu.

He went about his humdrum tasks, diffusing goodness as a flower unselfconsciously diffuses it's fragrance.

Over the years, people noticed something peculiar about the man.

He would immediately forget each person's past and looked at them as if they were just now manifested, ....innocent and blameless and too ignorant to know what they were doing.

Anybody entering this man's milieu would always feel benedicted, blessed, supported, ....unconditionally loved, for there was no cognition of any conditions in the first place.

One day an angel appeared and said to him " I have been sent to you by God.

Ask for anything you wish and it will be given to you.

Would you wish to have the gift of healing?

"No" replied the man, "I'd rather God did the healing himself."

"Would you want to bring sinners back to the path?"

"No" replied the man, "it is not for me to touch human hearts".

"Would you like to be such a model of virtue that people from all over will revere you as the Messiah?"

"No" replied the man, "for that would make me the centre of attention".

"What then, you have to ask for one boon at least"

"Well" replied the man, "in that case, I ask for this, let good be done without my being aware of it".

So it was decreed that the man's shadow would be endowed with healing properties, wherever it fell, behind him.

So everywhere his shadow fell, so long it was behind him, the sick were healed, the land became fertile, fountains sprang to life, colour returned to the faces of those who were weighed down by life's sorrows.

But the man remained unaware of all this, because the attention of the people were so centered on the shadow, that they forgot all about the man.

So his wish that good be done through him and he be forgotten, was fulfilled.

The man.

Membranes. By Benny.

Hur
NDS

"consciousness: that annoying time between naps."

Victory for marine mammals

Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,

A federal court has just handed down its decision in our case
against the U.S. Navy and I wanted you to be the first to
hear the great news. In a resounding victory for whales and
other marine mammals, the court ruled that it will bar the
Navy from deploying its high-intensity LFA sonar system
across most of the world's oceans.

The LFA (Low Frequency Active) sonar system would have
blasted hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean
habitat with noise so intense it can maim, deafen and even
kill whales. In her historic ruling, Judge LaPorte agreed
with NRDC that the sonar's booming noise could "irreparably
harm" the marine environment and threaten the very survival
of endangered populations of whales, sea turtles and other
marine species.

Judge LaPorte has ordered the Navy to begin negotiations with
NRDC on a plan for safely testing the sonar system in a
limited area.

This is truly a banner day for the Earth's environment. The
court has granted a life-saving reprieve to dozens of species
of magnificent marine mammals. But its ruling also sends a
message loud and clear to the White House that it is not
above our nation's environmental laws. The Bush
administration trampled all over those laws when it gave the
Navy a blank check to operate the deadly LFA sonar system
virtually anywhere in the world.

It's also a banner day for hundreds of thousands of NRDC
members and activists like you. When we began this fight
eight years ago, we were told that our chances of stopping
the military's classified LFA program were slim to none. But
that conventional wisdom seriously underestimated the
collective power of a determined citizenry.

Your financial contributions and online activism fueled an
NRDC legal strategy that prevailed, in the end, over the
world's most powerful military establishment. There is no
finer example of democracy in action.

The fight to protect our oceans against high-intensity sonar
is not over. The Navy could appeal the court's ruling. And
right now the Bush administration is trying to get exemptions
for the Navy from some of the very environmental laws NRDC
used to block deployment of the LFA system. With your help,
NRDC will do everything it can to ensure that these efforts
do not succeed.

But all that lies ahead. For today, at least, we've won a
significant victory, one worth savoring and celebrating. On
behalf of our entire legal team, I want to thank you for
coming to the defense of marine mammals around the world.

Sincerely,

John H. Adams President Natural Resources Defense Council

. . .

BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places A project of the
Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.savebiogems.org

Note: We appreciate the opportunity to communicate with you
and other NRDC BioGems Defenders, but if you would prefer not
to receive BioGems updates or hear from BioGems activists in
the field, you can send an email message to
biogemsdefenders@... with "Please remove my name"
in the subject line.

To update your information, including your email or mailing
address, log in to your Action Visa at
http://www.savebiogems.org/actionvisa/ and click "Update your
info."

Jan Barendrecht

NDS

you get beaten up

but your dachshund runs away

blame the culprit yo!

you get fired at the job

then the spouse leaves you to sob

blame the culprit so

now pay for the holy man

warmed up wisdom from the can

culprit is your ego!

and that also explains why

silent turtles can grow wings

but loud turkeys fry

Some interesting new websites:

Digital Book Index - Largest Search Engine For Digital eBooks
<http://www.urlwire.com/news/082803.html> [Thu August 28,
2003] The Digital Book Index provides access to more than
73,000 title. It is the sole index that gathers both
commercial and non-commercial eBooks from more than 1,800
publishers and private publishing organizations.

New Site Offers Tips, Specs on Under-$300 Computers
<http://www.urlwire.com/news/082503.html> [Mon August 25,
2003] "A new PC doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars.
Many manufacturers are selling desktop computers for $299,
$239, or even less. Buyers are understandably concerned that
these inexpensive PCs won't live up to their needs." says
Kevin Savetz, founder of the site.

MyBestSeller.com Helps First-time Authors Get Published
<http://www.urlwire.com/news/080103.html> [Fri August 1,
2003] Launched today, mybestseller.com is the place to learn
how to write a personal bestseller. The site offers
information, inspiration, and assistance written in plain
English, making it easy to understand and use. "Everyone does
indeed have a story, as evidenced by recent statistics which
show that 81% of Americans believe they have a book inside of
them," said site founder Marvin D. Cloud.

Swami Nirav Kanan http://br.groups.yahoo.com/group/SatsangNirav/
NDS

When the observer and the observed object
Dissolve in pure observation
There is Realization!

Quando o observador e o objeto observado
Se dissolvem na pura observa��o
A� est� a Ilumina��o!

Apel
Live Journal

Monastery Photography
I've posted the pictures I took on my trip to the monastery now. Here is the compilation of links to the pictures.

landscape:

texture:

gardening:

sacredphoto:

Iamkatia

Live Journal

When we get out of the glass bottles of
our ego,

and when we escape like squirrels
turning in the cages of
our personality

and get into the forests again,

we shall shiver with cold and fright

but things will happen to us

so that we don't know ourselves.

Cool, unlying life will rush in,

and passion will make our bodies taut
with power,

we shall stamp our feet with new power

and old things will fall down,

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl
up like burnt paper.

~ D.H. Lawrence.

Reply | Messages in this Topic (1)

#1538 From: "Gloria Lee" <glee@...>
Date: Sat Aug 30, 2003 11:02 pm
Subject: #1538 - Friday, August 29, 2003 - Editor: Gloria glee_be
Send Email

#1538 - Friday, August 29, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

Your Karma
is
your Dharma.

~ Ram Dass

Zen Master Huang-po

Many people are afraid to empty their minds
lest they plunge into the Void.
They do not know that their own Mind is the Void.
The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought;
the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.

It is most urgent that you seek real, true perception,
So you can be free in the world
And not confused by ordinary practitioners.
It is best to have no obsessions.
Just don�t be contrived.
Simply be normal.
You impulsively seek elsewhere,
Looking to others for your own hands and feet.
This is already mistaken.

- Linji (d. 867)

Zen Saying

Heroes become Buddhas with 1 Thought,
but lazy people are given the 3 Collections of Scriptures (The Tripitaka) to
work through.

Zen Proverb

If you have sentiments about Buddhist teaching,
it becomes a worldly thing.
If you have no sentiments about worldly things,
they become Buddhist teaching.

from "Wen-tzu" trans Cleary:

99.

Wen-tzu asked: Can people speak of the subtle?
Lao-tzu said: Why not? But only if you know what words mean. Those
who know what words mean do not speak with words. Those who struggle for
fish get wet, those who chase animals run, it is not that they like
it. Therefore ultimate words depart from words, ultimate action departs
from action. What people of a shallow knowledge compete for is
trivial. Words have a source, events have a leader. It is because
contrivance has no knowledge that I do not claim to know.

If you touch one thing
with deep awareness,
you touch everything.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Chapter: "Bodhisattva Never Despise" from the Lotus Sutra

(Bodhisattva Never Despise said the words to EVERYONE He met)

I deeply revere YOU.
I dare not slight and condemn you.
Wherefore?
Because you all walk in the Bodhisattva-way and are to become Buddhas.

Along the Way

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `

        Without going outside, you may know the whole world.
        Without looking through the window, you may see the
        ways of heaven.
        The further you go, the less you know.

        Thus the sage knows without traveling;
        He sees without looking;
        He works without doing.

                               - Lao-tzu

        ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
Tao Te Ching
Translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
Vintage Books Edition, September 1972

Steve Toth ~ Rumi-Hafiz

THE MESSAGE OF THE TREES

The messages of the trees
     is hard to talk about
because it doesn't come in words
     but in endless variations
     of unfolding action
It's one thing to declare the skies open
     & another to provide
     the wings necessary for flying
Poetry is both fight & flight
Simply unleashing the voice
     of something incomprehensible
     can be the source of its own unfolding

One way to shock people
     is to give them a sense
     of how beautiful they are
Another is to give them something to think about
Only the language of love is strong enough
     to make it through all
the tangles of confusion that make
     our lives so entwining
Let these words grow as the trees do
     into the earth & sky at once
As long as there are trees growing
     there's hope for the human race
     We're wild enough to know that

Melton Lake

more photos by the_summer_wind :http://www.livejournal.com/community/landscape/127414.html

Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration

Chuang Tzu:
If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin
cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you....

Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost
amid the masses of men?
He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no
name and no home.
Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool.
His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no
reputation.

Since he judges no one, no one judges him.
Such is the perfect man:
His boat is empty.

Gill Eardley ~ Rumi-Hafiz

Abandon being loved by people and practice loving God,
you who have such a high opinion of yourself.
You are really more silent than the night;
how long will you seek a buyer for your words?
Your hearers nod their heads in your presence,
but you waste your time in your passion to draw them near.
You say to me, "Don't be so envious,"
but how should I envy one who possesses nothing?
Instruction given to the worthless is like sketching in dust.
Instruct yourself in love of God and spiritual insight-
that endures like a pattern carved on solid stone.
Your own self is the only pupil ever really faithful to you.
All the others perish: where will you seek them, where?
While trying to make others erudite and eminent,
you are ruining yourself and draining what knowledge you have.
But when your heart is one with Reality,
you may speak, and not be afraid of becoming empty.
And so the Divine command, "Recite!" came to the Prophet,
saying, "O righteous one, this will not fail: it is an infinite ocean."

~Rumi, Masnavi V:3189-3198

'Jewels of Remembrance'
Selected and Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski

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Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

Tony O'Clery ~ Million Paths

Daily Words of the Buddha
August 29, 2003

Whose mind is like rock, steady, unmoved,
dispassionate for things that spark passion,
unangered by things that spark anger:
When one's mind is developed like this,
from where can there come suffering & stress?

Udana IV, 4

Viorica Weissman ~ Million Paths

Before leaving South India, Mr. Wright and I made a pilgrimage

to the holy hill of Arunachala near Tiruvannamalai to meet

Sri Ramana Maharshi . At his ashram the sage welcomed us

affectionately and pointed to a nearby stack of East-West

magazines. During the hours that we spent with him

and his disciples, he was mostly silent, his gentle face

radiating divine love and wisdom.

To help suffering humanity regain its forgotten state of perfection,

Sri Ramana teaches that one should constantly ask himself

"Who am I?" - the Great Inquiry indeed. By stern rejection of all

other thoughts the devotee soon finds himself going deeper and

deeper into the true Self, and the sidetracking bewilderments of

other thoughts cease to arise. The illumined rishi of South India

has written :

Dualities and trinities on something do hang,

Supportless they never appear;

That support searched for, they loosen and fall.

There is the Truth. Who sees that never wavers.

taken from

Autobiography of a Yogi

Paramahansa Yogananda

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