Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
Look and See
This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused. The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was laughing.
This afternoon a gull sailing over our house was casually scratching its stomach of white feathers with one pink foot as it flew.
Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look, and see.
Martha Ramsey sent us a book recommendation that includes our own Dan Berkow,well known on various lists for past several years
Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
Seasoned clinicians, Dan Berkow, Stephan Bodian, Dorothy Hunt, Sheila Krystal, Lynn Marie Lumiere, Richard Miller, John Prendergast, John Welwood, Jennifer Welwood and Bryan Wittine, and innovative western spiritual teachers, Adyashanti and Peter Fenner, explore critical issues at the interface of psychology and spirituality from a nondual perspective.
Table of Contents 1. Introduction by John Prendergast 2. Nonduality and Therapy: Awakening the Unconditioned Mind by Peter Fenner 3. Love Returning for Itself by Adyashanti 4. The Sacred Mirror: Being Together by John Prendergast 5. A Nondual Approach To EMDR: Psychotherapy as Satsang by Sheila Krystal 6. Double Vision: Duality and Nonduality in Human Experience by John Welwood 7. Being Intimate with What Is: Healing the Pain of Separation by Dorothy Hunt 8. A Psychology of No-thingness: Seeing Through the Projected Self by Dan Berkow 9. Welcoming All That Is: Nonduality, Yoga Nidra, and the Play of Opposites in Psychotherapy by Richard Miller 10. Deconstructing the Self: The Uses of Inquiry in Psychotherapy and Spiritual Practice by Stephan Bodian 11. Healing Trauma in the Eternal Now by Lynn Marie Lumiere 12. Jungian Analysis and Nondual Wisdom by Bryan Wittine 13. Dancing with Form and Emptiness in Intimate Relationship by Jennifer Welwood
During the past decade, there has been an explosion of films and television programs containing religious and spiritual themes. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was only the tip of the iceberg. As new generations of Americans work out their spiritual and religious questions, they are increasingly turning to fantasy.
We'll explore the deeper appeal of films like Harry Potter and The Matrix, and we'll ask how fantasy in media reflects a changing spiritual imagination, especially in younger Americans.
(21:01) Audio Clip from Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone In the scene excerpted from Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter is standing in front of a magical mirror that allows him to see his family, the one he has never known, when Professor Dumbledore finds him:
Professor Dumbledore: I see that you like so many before have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised. I trust, by now, you realize what it does. Let me give you a clue: the happiest man on earth would look into the mirror and see only himself, exactly as he is.
Harry Potter: So, then, it shows us what we want, whatever we want.
Professor Dumbledore: Yes, and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts. This mirror gives us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away in front of it.
Oracle: We're all here to do what we're all here to do.
Neo: Are there other programs like you?
Oracle: No, not like me, but… Look, see those birds. At some point a program was written to govern them. A program was written to watch over the trees and the wind, sunrise and sunset; there are programs running all over the place. The ones doing their job — doing what they were meant to do — are invisible. You'd never even know they were here. But the other ones, well, you hear about them all the time.
Neo: I've never heard of them.
Orcale: Of course you have. Every time you've heard someone say they saw a ghost or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens, is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing.
Neo: Programs hacking programs. Why?
Oracle: Well, there are reasons. Usually a program chooses exile when it faces deletion.
Neo: And why would a program be deleted?
Oracle: Maybe it breaks down. Maybe a better program is created to replace it. It happens all the time. And when it does, a program can either choose to hide here or return to the source.
Editors note: (Yes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is included.) The idea is also put forth that anyone born after 1985 does not think linerally, but sees facts as hyperlinked in a spider web of resonating influences. In other words, their mind functions like a Google search. Less of a push to conclude, but more to include. Also a review of publishing trends shows not only a trend to the revival of medieval magic, but a resurgence of serious interest in chanting and fasting. This discussion of how the spiritual is portrayed in various media can be superficial at times, but the focus on the views of a younger generation is worth hearing.
Good morning dears! i found this lovely web site of a woman playing the bamboo flute and writing poetry about her experiences. You can hear her flute here (hopefully, if not, it is on her site): http://www.angelsinc.com/dgsangha/MIDIBamboo.ram and below is a sample of her poetry. May the peace of the shakuhachi be with you throughout your day. love, dg
"If you can play a certain kind of music, you can dismantle the violence on our planet." ~Carlos Santana
"Shakuhachi, Teach me about growing in the sun About rain and What to do when there is not enough. Teach me about strength in the face of the wind.
Shakuhachi, Sing to me about the first bamboo Still surging alive in you.
Tell me about the beginning of time And the history of the universe As it still resonates within you.
I have heard you moan and grow And whisper and sigh I have felt you change beneath my fingers Swell and contract. Sing high and low.
Sing to me your being And give voice to me.
Shakuhachi, We sing together, you and I. You, not only bamboo... I, not only I...
Bamboo without my breath: no sound; My body without bamboo: no song.
Bamboo and body: One shakuhachi, One energy-shape, One trembling, warm sound."
By way of introducing Sri-Somanatha Maharshi’s pending visit to Perth in early September of 2004 we would like to ask that you peruse the following document in the light of making this information known to your board of directors, members, friends and family for the purposes of attending a seminar or workshop featuring Sri Somanatha Maharshi.
A visit to the Theosophical Society in North Perth on Friday afternoon of the 3rd of September.
An opening lecture at the Beacon Yoga Center 151 South Street Beaconsfield starting at 7:30pm on Friday the 3rd of September.
Two workshops and lectures at the Kookaburra Creek Yoga Centre 210 Carradine Rd Bedfordale on Saturday the 4th and one in the evening of Sunday the 5th of September at the Same Venue.
Two more workshops will be conducted at the Ethnic Communities Council Hall 20 View Street North Perth on Monday and Tuesday.
Note: All workshops and lectures will be free of charge however there will be a donation box for those who would like to contribute to Sri-Somanatha's on-going work.
(see the Itinerary & Bookings Link at the left for further details)
In today’s fast-paced world, people are finding it more and more difficult to find any real and lasting peace-of mind. Many of us are leading our lives in a state of fear and depression due to our inability to relax, the pressure to perform in our jobs and\or the state of things in the world, both environmentally and in our lives. Sri Somanatha Maharshi teaches a medically and scientifically tested yoga technique which has the power to alleviate to a very great degree much of the suffering described above.
The ingenious inventions of the electronic age are becoming more and more complex and diverse; as are the movies and entertainment options available to us, these are produced in an ever escalating attempt to avoid the reality of our desire for love, and the dependence upon the harmonious functioning of our planet. We are giving more importance to materialistic things and momentary pleasures of life, in such a way that we are not able to realise the Divine potential in ourselves and in each other; nor are we able to apply the necessary policies and philosophies that will ensure our planet is protected for generations to come.
Often we are not able to retain even the ordinary human values. We seem to have forgotten the age-old yogic truth that God can be realised through sincere effort, even in ordinary daily chores. There is a lot of selfishness and hatred afoot in the world today and much discord, anger and disillusionment abounds in our youth.
The techniques taught by Sri-Somanatha are easy to learn and easy to apply, yielding lasting benefits and readily accessible tools for dealing with our troubles in this modern age. Additionally there is a whole plethora of so-called spiritual teachers, guru’s, soothsayers and astrologers making a living off the pain of others. These people do provide some help in the form of commiseration, but there is a definite lack of any real substance to their help because the malady of spiritual destitution from which many of us suffer, cannot be healed by what amounts to a placebo, or band-aid over a gaping wound. These pseudo cures help us continue on our journey however, so they too have a place in the scheme of things.
Many of us do not know about, or do not have access to, information or tools, which would enable us to turn our lives around in a spiritual sense, or if we do, we find it difficult to find the time to attend the various classes or apply techniques (which we may or may not know of) in our lives. The seminars we propose to present to you upon the visit of Sri Somanatha Maharshi will be geared toward providing these tools to all.
Once in a while an authentic rare being comes along to reintroduce us to the truth of the One Consciousness existing as The Self in All Beings. Once in a while we are reminded of the truth of the divinity of The Self dwelling in all beings. Beings such as would remind us of this fact are incredibly rare and precious because without them we as a species would deteriorate into animalism very quickly or at best be dependant upon the cold barren doctrine of the laws we devise to protect us from those who would destroy themselves by destroying others.
Sri Somanatha Maharshi, is such a rare being as can be seen from the work he has so far completed both in India and abroad. Examples are:
1.Conducted Manoyoga sessions to more than 500,000 Children.
2.Conducted camps for diabetes and cardiac patients.
3.Constructing a modern school on 50 acres in Hyderabad
4.Founder of a huge Ashram in Hyderabad, India. Which continues to administer much aid to the poor and needy.
5. Sri-Somanatha Maharshi's Yoga has also been implemented in many prisons and hospitals through-out Andhra Pradesh and he continues his on-going charity work amoung the poor.
Sri Somanatha Maharshi is a great Yoga Guru recognized all over India, The United States and many parts of Asia as a great being who is interested in the upliftment of mankind by way of working to bring about an ongoing transformation of the pain, heart-ache and suffering we each endure during our lives.
Sri Somanatha’s message has been broadcast to millions of families all over Asia via the Sun Network http://www.sunnetwork.org/ and the Gemini Satellite TV network every morning for the last 7 years.
Many, many people start their day with a kind word or wise advice from Swamji, taking thoughts of God with them as they rush off to earn their daily bread. Swamji's message can only enhance our lives and temper our treatment of each other with the love He continues to remind us of, day in day out.
Reference to Sri Somanatha’s ongoing work can be found on the Gemini Network Breakfast Show as Somanatha Sathakam. The Satharkam - ( 100 poems ) are yoga secrets revealed in poetic form.
Sri Somanatha Maharshi having spent 30 years perfecting his Sadhana (spiritual practice) in the forests of Srisailam, Andhra Pradesh which included 14 years of motionless Samadhi (constant meditation) is more than qualified to instruct us in ways that will provide us with the tools to heal ourselves.
Further there is a plaque to commemorate this great achievement set in the shallow cave where he performed this motionless Sadhana.
Sri Somanatha Maharshi a Self-realized Yoga Master and renowned Yogi teaches us to turn inward to rediscover our innate divinity via a new yoga technique which he has called Manoyoga.
From the unique techniques of Manoyoga various physiological and psychological benefits, (which were verified medically), can be learned and also used to supplement modern medicine in mitigating the debilitating effects of a variety of complex physiological and psychological disorders. It also has been proven to benefit young students in improving their academic capabilities and physique.
We would welcome any correspondence in this regard. However we would like to inform you immediately that this visit will only be possible if the necessary numbers indicate that they would like to attend the seminars proposed by Swamiji can be ascertained, due to the fact that the costs incurred by him coming so far are not gotten for profit but will actually go to finance his visit (which as is well known any trip to Perth from the East coast costs quite a sum).. Charges and costs of attendance will be discussed should you decide to take this matter further.
The duration of Sri-Somanantha’s visit will depend upon the interest we as a community have in what he has to share with us. To that end I would like to propose that the media get behind this wonderful opportunity of Sri-Somanatha’s visit in the interests of the wider community.
We recommend that this opportunity of such a great yogi visiting Perth be not overlooked or treated lightly as it is a very rare occurrence.
Finally Sri-Somanatha invites sponsorships and invitations from Research and Medical establishments to teach this practice to different target groups and professional people; and to further record the benefits and to spread this highly beneficial practice far and wide.
Should you wish to receive a synopsis of Sri-Somanantha’s method and scientific findings and documents gathered from medical and scientifically controlled test cases, please do not hesitate to call or Email me in this regard.
The Ananta Yoga Web feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to invite Sri-Somanatha Maharshi to Perth, we pray thatthe numbers of interested parties make his visit viable.
For more information please don’t hesitate to contact The Sri Somanatha Kshetram
It is the mission of the Metta Foundation to foster the convergence of wisdom born of traditional meditative stillness and compassion born of human encounter. In a non-sectarian manner, and with Buddhist thought and practice as our principal background, we offer teachings, conduct research, and develop service programs that enhance clarity, loving presence and mutuality between people and the world around them. Two practices central to this mission are Insight Dialogue and Dharma Contemplation, which are offered at retreats and online.
This web site is not only a place to gather information, but is primarily a place of practice. It is our intention to create opportunities to directly encounter useful teachings and put them into practice within a community setting. This site is monitored by teachers and facilitators. Real time help and instruction is simply an email away.
I am Gandolf, the obscurely known and all but forgotten brother of Gandalf. You may know my brother from The Hobbit*, at least, you may think that you know him.
...The name Gandalf is best interpreted technically in our art as I am that; and Gandolf as that am I. You may recognize the similarity to the Hebrew ineffable name I am that I am or I am. We are, therefore, I am that am I.*
We both recognize that the only reality, the only true substance, and the only sawor[essence] of all is the totally subjective reality that is simply I am. All duality, the life of opposites that we all live in every day, springs from a reduction, a contraction, a separation of this singularity. The I am can separate itself into honen[self], and aral[other]; or into I and that, but it remains always the that just as it remains the I. I am that am I is the experience of the I am recognizing itself in all existence and non-existence...
duality of the world's opposites
There will be two fundamental schools of thought about the nature of the universe and reality: one, that manifestation is essentially one of two opposites, a doctrine of dualism; the other that all is essentially one, a doctrine of monism.
Gandolf will understand duality from the perspective of monism. Gandolf will see that:
if one opposite will exist then the remaining opposite must exist
one opposite is neither better or worse than the other (this, itself, is a value judgment from the dualistic perspective)one will not be able to create just one of the opposites pair; if one is created, the other must also be created one of an opposite pair may not 'triumph' over the other; they must remain in balance and be, of necessity, equala higher and logically prior state that includes both of the opposite pairs, and yet neither, must exist from which the opposite pair may be drawn for, or separated
Gandolf will clearly be a monist and will certainly believe that there is no fundamental separation between any thing in the universe in relation to any other thing, and no separation between any thing and its relation to the context of that thing (space).
Gandolf will believe that all is fundamentally one, not two. From this will follow that we are not separate from any thing, from context, from space, from the universe, or from the infinite.
Gandolf will clearly be able to work in the everyday word of dualism; in fact, he will be a master of it, because he sees it for what it is...
I Am That Am I
This will be a complex subject that requires some background material.
If, as Gandolf experiences, the infinite is one, then it follows that there is nothing separate from the one. The one that is the universe and its context is all pervasive. In contrast will be the idea that God will have a domain of good and the Evil One will have the domain of bad, and that good and evil struggle in an eternal battle. In Gandolf's experience, this is not God. Any being or energy that must be separate from God makes God not-God, by definition.
If there is nothing separate from God, then we are not separate from God, nor are we separate from each other. What we will call objective reality is not separate from us--it is us.
Gandolf will carry this one step further, a step strange to the western mind, and identify the true nature of God as the pure subjective experience of Self. The true nature of all is one, and that one is the subjective experience of I, and not anything objective, That.
In Gandolf's experience, the pure subjective I that is all is omnipotent, has unlimited power, and has the ability to separate its consciousness into I and Other, I and That. Thus, the monistic I is capable of assuming the role of dualistic I and Other Than I.
Gandolf will experience his essential Self in others as I am That. Equally, he will experience that others' Self is identical to his own, there is ultimately only one Self, as That Am I. Gandolf identifies the true understanding of the names Gandalf and Gandolf to be I Am That and That Am I. Their names utter their basic principle.
Gandolf will be familiar with the Hebrew mystical teachings, and the sacred name I am that I am or I am, which expresses the same idea.
From these teachings flow several interesting corollaries:
it is impossible to harm another without harming one's self
it is impossible to harm one's self without harming all others it is impossible to benefit another without benefiting one's self it is impossible to benefit one's self without benefiting all others
These, coupled with the experience that good and evil must remain in balance in the everyday world of duality, and that one may not increase one side at the expense of the other, will lead Gandolf and Gandalf to a very high understanding of their place in the universe.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1878 Tuesday, August 6, 2004 Editor: Mark
if your beloved has the life of a fire step in now and burn along
in a night full of suffering and darkness be a candle spreading light till dawn
stop this useless argument and disharmony show your sweetness and accord
even if you feel torn to pieces sew yourself new clothes
your body and soul will surely feel the joy when you simply go along
learn this lesson from lute tambourine and trumpet learn the harmony of the musicians
if one is playing a wrong note even among twenty others will stray out of tune
don't say what is the use of me alone being peaceful when everyone is fighting
you're not one you're a thousand just light your lantern
since one live flame is better than a thousand dead souls
- Ghazal 1197 Translation by Nader Khalili Rumi, Fountain of Fire Cal-Earth Press, 1994 - posted to Sunlight
- NASA image - moon and Leonid meteor
Rama: Holy sir, you said that Prahlada attained enlightenment by the grace of lord Vishnu. If everything is achieved by self-effort, why was he not able to attain enlightenment without Vishnu's grace?
Vasistha: Surely, whatever Prahlada attained was through self-effort, O Rama, not otherwise. Vishnu is the self and the self is Vishnu: the distinction is verbal. It was the self of Prahlada that generated in itself devotion to Vishnu. Prahlada obtained from Vishnu, who was his own self, the boon of self-enquiry; and through such enquiry attained self-knowledge. At times one attains self-knowledge through self-enquiry undertaken through self-effort; at times this self-effort manifests as devotion to Vishnu who is also the self, and thus one attains enlightenment.
- excerpt from Vasistha's Yoga
You may try thousands of times, but nothing can be achieved without God's grace. One cannot see God without His grace. Is it an easy thing to receive grace? One must altogether renounce egotism; one cannot see God as long as one feels, 'I am the doer.'
God doesn't easily appear in the heart of a man who feels himself to be his own master. But God can be seen the moment His grace descends.
- Ramakrishna
Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.
- excerpt from The Hua Hu Ching
The Self reveals himself to the one who longs for the Self. Those who long for the Self with all their heart are chosen by the Self as his own.
- Mundaka Upanishad
The Heart's Awakening
The spiritual path begins when the heart is awakened to His eternal presence. The Beloved looks into the heart of His lover and in that instant the lover knows the secret of divine union, that the lover and Beloved are one. The glance of the Beloved carries the consciousness of His eternal presence.
The Sufis call this glance the moment of tawba, the turning of the heart. The inner awareness of His presence turns the heart away from the world and back to God. He calls us back to Him with a momentary glimpse of His face. This glimpse is love's most potent poison that begins our dying to the world, our journey back to God, for "How can I look at the world around me, how can I see it, if it hides the face of my Lover?" (Tweedie 1987, p. 87)
The inner awareness of union awakens us to the pain of separation. When the heart knows that in its innermost essence it is united with God, we arc confronted with our own isolation, with the knowledge that we are separate from God. It is only because we have been given a glimpse of union, had a sip of this divine wine, that we are made conscious of separation. Without the knowledge of union, how could we know that we are separate? Without having experienced the bliss of His presence, how could we know the agony of our own isolation? The pain of longing is born from the glance of God.
From the beginning of the path, the opposing states of separation and union are engraved into the heart and psyche of the spiritual wayfarer. The consciousness of union becomes the pain of separation that reminds us of our real Home. The heart's remembrance of its Beloved is kept awake by the fire of longing. We long for Him whom we love, and the greater the love, the greater the pain of longing. Love and sadness become the substance of our inner existence. In the words of 'Attar,
The Polarities of Love
Union and separation, love and longing, sweetness and despair, the polarities of the mystical path leave us bewildered and confused. Why are we left here behind the veils of separation when we know that separation is an illusion? Why are we caught in the prison of duality when our heart knows the deeper truth that 'everything is one'? The more we meditate and pray, the more we remember Him Whom our heart loves, the more alienated we feel in a world that appears to have forgotten Him. Somewhere we know what it is like to be loved beyond measure, and here we are left in a world where love is too often equated with demands and co-dependency. The eternal question of "Why are we here?" has an added poignancy when we have felt the infinite nearness of our real Home.
He Whom we love has abandoned us and only the pain of separation reminds us that somewhere He is 'closer to us than our very neck vein.' We carry the pain of remembrance in honor of our love, yet only too often we feel betrayed. How can such a Beloved desert us? How can such a Beauty veil Her face? Doubts bombard us as the mind tries to convince us of the stupidity of our quest: to look for what you cannot find... to long for an invisible Beloved who has only brought you pain... In many ways consciousness crucifies us on our search. The subtleties of torture with which the mind can torment are known to most travellers on the path of love.
Underlying these difficulties is the fact that while the nature of love is to draw us to union, the nature of the ego is separation. Love comes from the heart, the innermost core of our being which is our connection to the Absolute. Love is "the essence of the divine essence" (Massignon 1982, III, p. 104), and so dynamically pulls us towards oneness. But the ego is born out of separation. The ego's existence is defined by being different: "I am different from you." The path towards union with God takes us away from the ego with its sense of separate existence and individual identity. This is why the Sufi says that the first step towards God is the step away from oneself. Love calls us to come away from ourselves and enter the state of oneness where only the Beloved exists.
The ego and the mind belong to a dimension of separation and duality. The ego exists through its sense of individuality and separation; the mind only functions through duality: through comparison and differentiation. The power of love lifts the veils of duality, threatening the ego and confusing the mind. The ancient path of the mystics takes us back to the source where distinctions and differences dissolve just as "sugar dissolves in water." On this journey the ego and mind rebel as their identity and function are attacked. Love draws us into the gladiatorial arena in which we fight our own liberation and resist the pull towards oneness. But those whose hearts are committed know, like the gladiators of old, that death awaits them. They know that "When Truth has taken hold of a heart, she empties it of all but herself (Massignon 1982, I, p. 285).
We hide from the love which alone can heal us. We run from the Truth which torments us. But like the encroaching tide, the tremendous power of love gradually smooths away the ego's paltry marks in the sand. Slowly we come to recognize the infinite ocean as our real Home, an ocean where, in the words of Rumi, "swimming ends always in drowning" (Liebert 1981, p. 30).
The Axis of Love
Paradoxically, we need the experience of separation to draw us to union. The state of union is the natural state of the soul. The experience of union is the "wine that made us drunk before the creation of the vine." But this secret, hidden within the heart, requires the pain of separation to bring it into consciousness. The pain of love is the effect of the magnetic attraction between the soul and its source. When we feel the heart's pull, we feel the desire of the Beloved to become conscious within the heart of the lover:
Separation and union are woven together to form the very fabric of the journey. While the heart knows the secret of union, the ego is stranded in separation. The inner world haunts us with this promise of oneness and the outer world tempts us with so many reflections. These are the twin poles of our existence, what is hidden and what is manifest, the Creator and His creation. The mystical journey leads us along this axis of love, the path from the creation back to the Creator. On this journey we bring the seed of our own consciousness and lay it at the feet of our Beloved. We bring an awareness of separation into the arena of union.
"I was a hidden treasure and I wanted to be known, so I created the world" (Hadith qudsi, Sacred Tradition). From His solitary aloneness He created the world and brought into play the opposites of day and night, positive and negative, masculine and feminine. In this world He manifested His attributes, His divine Names, the names of majesty (jalal) and the names of beauty (jamal) or the names of severity (qahr) and the names of gentleness (lutf). These pairs of opposites create the dance of life, the unending dance that comes from the unmanifest, inner world, onto the stage of manifestation. A human being, born onto this stage, is a part of the dynamic interplay of opposites, but at the same time we carry the unmanifest oneness as a memory imprinted into the innermost chamber of the heart, the 'heart of hearts.'
Man is My secret and I am his secret. The inner knowledge of the spiritual essence is a secret of My secrets. Only I put this into the heart of My good servant, and none may know his state other than Me (Prophetic tradition, quoted in Jilani 1992, p. 15). In His world of duality we carry the essence of His oneness. The work of the mystic is to make conscious His oneness and offer it back in devotion. Thus we make Himself known to Himself. Without the stage of separation this journey would not be possible. It is the interplay of opposites that reflects His divine Oneness back to Himself. Without the mirror of creation He could not see His own face.
- excerpt from Separation and Union by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Some Western psychologists say that we should not repress our anger but express it - that we should practice anger! However, we must make an important distinction here between mental problems that should be expressed and those that should not.
Sometimes you may be truly wronged and it is right for you to express your grievance instead of letting it fester inside you. But you should not express it with anger. If you foster disturbing negative minds such as anger they will become a part of your personality; each time you express anger it becomes easier to express it again.
Progress in mental development... depends on controlling the mind.
- The Dalai Lama, from His Holiness' Commentary on "The Eight Verses Of Thought Transformation,", translated by Alex Berzin, published by Tushita Mahayana Meditation Centre.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
This issue of The Highlights features selections from a new book: Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy, by Dr. Pradheep Chhalliyil.
Dr. Chhalliyil is a senior scientist at Genetic-ID in Fairfield, Iowa. He also runs the Sakthi Foundation, a non-profit organization that offers free healing to people around the world through a folk medicinal system.
These extracts, exclusive to The Highlights and selected by this issue's editor, are reprinted with the publisher's permission.
Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy by Dr. Pradheep Chhalliyil
~ ~ ~
from the Foreward, by Don Davis, composer for The Matrix Trilogy:
Pradheep Chhalliyil has thoroughly documented the clear and precise analogues between each character in The Matrix and the corresponding Vedic counterparts. ... As Morpheus told Neo, he can only show the door but Neo is the one who has to walk through it. Journey to the Source holds the door open and illuminates our path.
~ ~ ~
from the Introduction
The Upanishads and The Matrix
An actor takes many roles but he remains the same. God is like this. Different are his names and his forms but he is the "one" behind it all.
--Mata Amritanandamayi
The central theme of The Matrix Trilogy questions the reality of this world we live in. This is also the essence of a branch of Vedic literature known as the Upanishads whose purpose is to explain the truth about the universe and our particular role in it as human souls. Although The Matrix Trilogy draws on many different spiritual traditions for its names and mythological symbols, the core of the story seems to be strongly influenced by both the Upanishads and the Puranas, a series of dramatic mythological narratives about battles between good and evil, which explain the principles laid out in the Upanishads.
The Upanishads are a collection of approximately 120 literary works written mostly in the form of dialogues between a spiritual master and his students. Responding to a series of inquiries about the nature of reality, the master leads his students to a state of enlightenment or realization, like Morpheus and Neo. The Upanishads also include Vedanta, the final chapter of Vedic literature, in which the illusory concept of Maya is exposed and instructions are given about how to understand it.
Similarity of the themes indicate that The Matrix Trilogy is strongly influenced by the Upanishads, which is further strengthened when we hear the music behind the credits for Matrix Revolutions. The song "Navras," brilliantly composed by Don Davis and Ben Watkins, is comprised of a series of Upanishadic verses, the chief one being Asatoma sad gamayay, set to music. Similar chants are also used in the background during the fight scenes between Neo and Smith. The following is an extract from an interview with composer Don Davis:
[quote] Larry and Andy told me they wanted the super burly brawl, which is the cataclysmic fight mano-et-mano between Neo and Agent Smith, they wanted the choir to have a significant voice in that scene. And I told them that I thought that was a really good idea but if the choir just sang "ooooohs" and "aaaaaaaahs" it would be significantly not very good. So I asked them if they would look for something in literature that represented some of the ideological themes that had influenced them when they were writing The Matrix that we could give to the choir and have them sing. And I told them that I actually preferred a language that wasn't English and if possible a "dead" language like Latin, so that even around the world there's nobody who is actively speaking the language that the choir is singing. They eventually came up with about six passages from the Vedic scriptures called the Upanishads. And we had them sing it in the original Sanskrit. And these texts are amazingly apropos to the whole ontological concept of The Matrix. It refers to "the one." Let me read one of them: "In him are woven the sky and the earth and all the regions of the air. And in him rests the mind and all the powers of life. Know him as "The One" and leave aside all other words. He is the bridge of immortality." I mean [laughs] that's amazing. And the first text you hear sung in the burly brawl sequence is a prayer which goes "From delusion lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality." I think that adds a whole layer of meaning to the entire trilogy. [end of quote]
Keeping this in mind, the purpose of this book is a scholarly look at The Matrix Trilogy in the light of the Upanishads and particularly from the concept of unity or "Oneness" that is the key teaching of this scripture. The uniqueness of the Upanishads is that the Truth revealed by it does not differ from other spiritual traditions of the World. Like the universality of scientific facts discovered throughout the world, the Truth declared by Upanishads is unanimous for all other cultures. Therefore through this book you can identify the Truth immaterial of your spiritual background.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 1, The Beginning of the Journey
Morpheus asks Neo to jump out of the skyscraper to avoid the three agents. Neo is confused by what is going on and finds Morpheus' commands impossible to follow.
The fact is, we often don't trust our teachers in the beginning and see their advice as strange. It takes some time to fully understand what the teacher is trying to tell us. Neo is not sure of himself. As this is his first encounter, he has little faith in the words of his teacher. He disobeys, and eventually gets caught by the three agents that protect The Matrix. According to the Upanishads, the three "Agents" that guard our Matrix-like world and blind us from the Truth are:
1. Total enquiry into the physical world but failing to recognize the soul (Sattva).
2. Excessive action in the physical world without enquiry about the purpose of action (Rajas).
3. Ignorance, laziness, or too much inertia to inquire (Tamas).
These three "Agents" prevent us from knowing whether we are in the Matrix-like illusory world of Maya.
The symbolism in the Matrix movies is working on two levels, internal and external. Agent Smith, for example, represents the inner workings of the Ego, the false sense of individuality which while working through our thoughts and perceptions, restricts awareness of our true universal Self (soul). Morpheus, on the other hand, externally represents the spiritual teacher who guides us and, internally, represents our own inner wisdom that awakens to direct us on the path.
Agent Smith grabs hold of Neo and calls him by the name "Anderson." Smith tells him he has dual lives: one as a computer programmer and another as a hacker; and he warns him one of the lives is going to end soon.
Here, Neo is the soul and Agent Smith is the ego. The ego is a false reflection of the soul making it seem individual and isolated rather than universal and unbounded in nature. In Matrix Revolutions, the Oracle tells Neo that Smith is the opposite of him.
Internally we are under the control of the ego, ego rules our life. It exercises its power in making decisions and we follow it. Though we are slaves to the ego, we struggle to free ourselves from it. The struggle gains power and momentum once we start to question the nature of our true Self or soul. Our search for soul-recognition makes the ego very uncomfortable so it curbs our struggle for freedom right from the beginning.
Why is the ego scared of us knowing the Truth? Because once we realize the true unbounded nature of our inner Self, we understand that the ego has no value and becomes powerless. In order to survive, it threatens us with fear, its most powerful weapon. It promises us that if we go in the direction of spirituality, our lives will be doomed and there will be no prosperous future.
Hacking into Reality
The ego wants us to believe that the world, as it appears, is real and encourages us to follow the accepted rules of behavior, which limit our perspective of life. Like Agent Smith, the ego requires us to live within boundaries pursuing our normal profession, which, in Neo's case, is a computer software programmer. The ego does not want us to hack into the information about the real world of the soul. Hacking here is symbolic of inquiring into the nature of reality. Neo is hacking into the secrets of this universe, the mystery of his own existence. According to Agent Smith's rules this is illegal and has to be prevented.
Note that Agent Smith uses the name Anderson, not Neo. Anderson is the name for the Matrix world, Neo is the name of the seeker. In many spiritual traditions, it is a common practice that once a spiritual aspirant begins his journey, he is given a new name that more closely reflects his new spiritual identity. Neo means new.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 2, The Matrix World
Morpheus places two pills in Neo's hand, one red and one blue. The bue one allows him to stay in the world of The Matrix, the red one allows him a chance to see Reality.
The Katho Upanishad says that, like Neo, everyone gets a choice in life. Either we take the path of Self-knowledge (Sreyas, the red pill) that leads us to the Truth, or we take the path of pleasure (Preyas, the blue pill) that leads us to ignorance of our true nature. Those who choose the path of Sreyas will find happiness, while those who choose Preyas are destined to be deluded. Unfortunately, the majority usually opt for the blue pill (Preyas).
The red pill is a symbol of scriptural knowledge, such as the Upanishads. It is through the guidance of the scriptures that we can easily get unplugged from our Matrix-like world. These scriptures are not belief programs. They give us direct knoweldge of our own true Self. Neo wisely chooses the red pill and begins his journey of Self-discovery that will eventually lead him to The Source. The red pill is the symbol of that knowledge which removes darkness and spreads light. Hence in the East, saints and monks wear red and saffron-colored robes. Blue is the color of illusion, or Maya. The "blueness" of the sky or ocean is not real but an illusion. In the Puranas, Vishnu, the maintainer of the creation, is known as a magician who casts illusion, and has blue skin. Only his outward appearance is blue, however. Inside, he is the manifestation of Truth (Pure Consciousness). This means that to know the Truth, one has to transcend the veil of illusion of body-awareness in order to know one's inner Self.
Neo chooses the red pill. As he picks up the pill, two Neos are seen in the reflection of Morpheus' sunglasses, representing the two lives that Neo is leading. In the left lens we see the blue pill and Thomas Anderson, and in the right lens we see the red pill and Neo.
Neo is taking the first step of Self-discovery. It is a journey he must ultimately make alone, but he needs a guide to help him. This is why learning scriptures from a teacher, who has many years of experience and reflection, allows us to tap into deeper meanings.
Morpheus explains to Neo that the pill is a trace program to pinpoint his location.
The Upanishads teach that the Truth will only dawn on us when we disrupt the flow of thoughts that we are the body-mind-sense complex. If we think carefully, we don't know how to pinpoint our exact "location." We don't know who we really are. The wisdom of the Upanishads is like a trace program to point each of us towards the real "Me." How many of us are able to pinpoint exactly, Who am I? and Where am I? Am I in my head, or my heart, or my hand? Who exactly is Me? In order to know this, we have to disrupt the input and output of thoughts of the body-mind complex. This is one of the first exercises that the Upanishads ask us to do. The discussion sessions between the master and the disciple are all about answering questions about the true nature of the Self. In the process they break the illusion of who we are that is created by the mind.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 3, The Real World
Neo is angry and frustrated confronting this reality.
The knowledge that one gains on a spiritual path initially shatters the foundations of our lives and all of the concepts we have lived with. Some of you reading this book may feel the same. We are unable to accept reality. This is what Neo is experiencing.
Morpheus asks Neo to breathe deeply and relax.
Breathing techniques, called Pranayama, are common practices given out by spiritual teachers to calm and control the mind and improve concentration.
When Neo asks to go back to The Matrix, Morpheus explains how the mind fears the truth.
The mind does not want us to know the truth. It fears losing control and invents all kinds of reasons for us to back off. As in Alice in Wonderland, Alice stops following the white rabbit and cries to go back home because she sees everything as scary.
There is a saying: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Partial or half-baked spiritual knowledge can be poisonous. A person who only half-learns a scripture and doesn't fully realize the Self not only confuses himself but also any others he may talk to. Confusion arises when knowledge is incomplete. So it is essential to have an enlightened teacher to make sure a student learns the teaching completely.
Morpheus describes how the first person freed himself from The Matrix and tells Neo about The Oracle's prediction that this person would be reborn to rescue all humans.
Enlightened spiritual masters reincarnate from time to time to help mankind see the light and free themselves from bondage. Great prophecies often foretell their coming. Mostly, they are not believed. Morpheus has spent his life searching for The One destined to free mankind as predicted by The Oracle. He believes Neo is The One.
Morpheus allows Neo to rest in preparation for his training.
A spiritual teacher first imparts theoretical teaching to a student and then gives him practical training so that the student can validate the truth himself. The reason why the teachings of the Upanishads have stood the test of time is that they follow this time-honored principle of imparting the Truth.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 4, Neo's Training
Neo meets Mouse, one of the crew members who wrote the computer training program with the distracting woman. Mouse considers that there is no harm in enjoying the beauty of the illusory woman.
The teachings of the Upanishads do not seek to deny natural human impulses. The Upanishads caution about two things: first, one should be aware that these are only sensual excitation, and, second, no sensual enjoyment should harm anyone else. In other words, we should not be controlled by sensory experiences, nor should we allow them go so far that they do damage to any other person or thing.
All the characters in the films are symbols of various aspects of the mind. Both Mouse and Cypher indicate those parts of our minds that get overshadowed by the world of senses. Mouse represents our fantasizing mind. We all weave fantasies in our mind and derive pleasure from them even though we know them to be unreal. Mouse scampers after his fantasies like the animal of the same name. In the Puranas, the elephant god Ganesha, who symbolizes wisdom and is the remover of obstacles, rides on the back of a mouse. The mouse can go everywhere without anyone noticing it as, just like the mind, it is small. The mind has a tendency to dart about everywhere, chasing fickle fantasies and devious desires along the way. Ganesha, representing wisdom, is much bigger and able to rein in the mouse (the errant mind). Mastering one's mind is thus the ultimate sign of wisdom. The Bhagavad Gita ("Song of Life") describes a stable state of mind, which does not jump around chasing ephemeral and base desires, but remains in a state of placidity and eventually attains bliss.
~ ~ ~
Note from Highlights editor:
I've tried to give a good idea about how this book treats The Matrix Trilogy and introduces basic spiritual teachings. If you would like to find out more about Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy, and to order it, please visit http://www.matrixjourney.com/.
If you or someone you know is a Matrix fan, this book will clearly explain its alignment with Hindu texts, especially the Upanishads. By way of demonstrating and perhaps celebrating the universality of the teaching, the author quotes diverse sources, from the Torah to Meister Eckhart to Ray Kurzweil, from Francis Lucille to Cervantes to Kahlil Gibran. This is a useful, informative, and clearly written contribution to Matrix literature. The book is structured in such a way that allows the reader to re-live the movies and to probe certain scenes in order to understand how they bear upon spiritual teachings and upon one's spiritual inquiry. The scene explications can even be understood by a reader who has never seen the Matrix films.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
This issue of The Highlights features selections from a new book: Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy, by Dr. Pradheep Chhalliyil.
Dr. Chhalliyil is a senior scientist at Genetic-ID in Fairfield, Iowa. He also runs the Sakthi Foundation, a non-profit organization that offers free healing to people around the world through a folk medicinal system.
These extracts, exclusive to The Highlights and selected by this issue's editor, are reprinted with the publisher's permission.
Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy by Dr. Pradheep Chhalliyil
~ ~ ~
from the Foreward, by Don Davis, composer for The Matrix Trilogy:
Pradheep Chhalliyil has thoroughly documented the clear and precise analogues between each character in The Matrix and the corresponding Vedic counterparts. ... As Morpheus told Neo, he can only show the door but Neo is the one who has to walk through it. Journey to the Source holds the door open and illuminates our path.
~ ~ ~
from the Introduction
The Upanishads and The Matrix
An actor takes many roles but he remains the same. God is like this. Different are his names and his forms but he is the "one" behind it all.
--Mata Amritanandamayi
The central theme of The Matrix Trilogy questions the reality of this world we live in. This is also the essence of a branch of Vedic literature known as the Upanishads whose purpose is to explain the truth about the universe and our particular role in it as human souls. Although The Matrix Trilogy draws on many different spiritual traditions for its names and mythological symbols, the core of the story seems to be strongly influenced by both the Upanishads and the Puranas, a series of dramatic mythological narratives about battles between good and evil, which explain the principles laid out in the Upanishads.
The Upanishads are a collection of approximately 120 literary works written mostly in the form of dialogues between a spiritual master and his students. Responding to a series of inquiries about the nature of reality, the master leads his students to a state of enlightenment or realization, like Morpheus and Neo. The Upanishads also include Vedanta, the final chapter of Vedic literature, in which the illusory concept of Maya is exposed and instructions are given about how to understand it.
Similarity of the themes indicate that The Matrix Trilogy is strongly influenced by the Upanishads, which is further strengthened when we hear the music behind the credits for Matrix Revolutions. The song "Navras," brilliantly composed by Don Davis and Ben Watkins, is comprised of a series of Upanishadic verses, the chief one being Asatoma sad gamayay, set to music. Similar chants are also used in the background during the fight scenes between Neo and Smith. The following is an extract from an interview with composer Don Davis:
[quote] Larry and Andy told me they wanted the super burly brawl, which is the cataclysmic fight mano-et-mano between Neo and Agent Smith, they wanted the choir to have a significant voice in that scene. And I told them that I thought that was a really good idea but if the choir just sang "ooooohs" and "aaaaaaaahs" it would be significantly not very good. So I asked them if they would look for something in literature that represented some of the ideological themes that had influenced them when they were writing The Matrix that we could give to the choir and have them sing. And I told them that I actually preferred a language that wasn't English and if possible a "dead" language like Latin, so that even around the world there's nobody who is actively speaking the language that the choir is singing. They eventually came up with about six passages from the Vedic scriptures called the Upanishads. And we had them sing it in the original Sanskrit. And these texts are amazingly apropos to the whole ontological concept of The Matrix. It refers to "the one." Let me read one of them: "In him are woven the sky and the earth and all the regions of the air. And in him rests the mind and all the powers of life. Know him as "The One" and leave aside all other words. He is the bridge of immortality." I mean [laughs] that's amazing. And the first text you hear sung in the burly brawl sequence is a prayer which goes "From delusion lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to immortality." I think that adds a whole layer of meaning to the entire trilogy. [end of quote]
Keeping this in mind, the purpose of this book is a scholarly look at The Matrix Trilogy in the light of the Upanishads and particularly from the concept of unity or "Oneness" that is the key teaching of this scripture. The uniqueness of the Upanishads is that the Truth revealed by it does not differ from other spiritual traditions of the World. Like the universality of scientific facts discovered throughout the world, the Truth declared by Upanishads is unanimous for all other cultures. Therefore through this book you can identify the Truth immaterial of your spiritual background.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 1, The Beginning of the Journey
Morpheus asks Neo to jump out of the skyscraper to avoid the three agents. Neo is confused by what is going on and finds Morpheus' commands impossible to follow.
The fact is, we often don't trust our teachers in the beginning and see their advice as strange. It takes some time to fully understand what the teacher is trying to tell us. Neo is not sure of himself. As this is his first encounter, he has little faith in the words of his teacher. He disobeys, and eventually gets caught by the three agents that protect The Matrix. According to the Upanishads, the three "Agents" that guard our Matrix-like world and blind us from the Truth are:
1. Total enquiry into the physical world but failing to recognize the soul (Sattva).
2. Excessive action in the physical world without enquiry about the purpose of action (Rajas).
3. Ignorance, laziness, or too much inertia to inquire (Tamas).
These three "Agents" prevent us from knowing whether we are in the Matrix-like illusory world of Maya.
The symbolism in the Matrix movies is working on two levels, internal and external. Agent Smith, for example, represents the inner workings of the Ego, the false sense of individuality which while working through our thoughts and perceptions, restricts awareness of our true universal Self (soul). Morpheus, on the other hand, externally represents the spiritual teacher who guides us and, internally, represents our own inner wisdom that awakens to direct us on the path.
Agent Smith grabs hold of Neo and calls him by the name "Anderson." Smith tells him he has dual lives: one as a computer programmer and another as a hacker; and he warns him one of the lives is going to end soon.
Here, Neo is the soul and Agent Smith is the ego. The ego is a false reflection of the soul making it seem individual and isolated rather than universal and unbounded in nature. In Matrix Revolutions, the Oracle tells Neo that Smith is the opposite of him.
Internally we are under the control of the ego, ego rules our life. It exercises its power in making decisions and we follow it. Though we are slaves to the ego, we struggle to free ourselves from it. The struggle gains power and momentum once we start to question the nature of our true Self or soul. Our search for soul-recognition makes the ego very uncomfortable so it curbs our struggle for freedom right from the beginning.
Why is the ego scared of us knowing the Truth? Because once we realize the true unbounded nature of our inner Self, we understand that the ego has no value and becomes powerless. In order to survive, it threatens us with fear, its most powerful weapon. It promises us that if we go in the direction of spirituality, our lives will be doomed and there will be no prosperous future.
Hacking into Reality
The ego wants us to believe that the world, as it appears, is real and encourages us to follow the accepted rules of behavior, which limit our perspective of life. Like Agent Smith, the ego requires us to live within boundaries pursuing our normal profession, which, in Neo's case, is a computer software programmer. The ego does not want us to hack into the information about the real world of the soul. Hacking here is symbolic of inquiring into the nature of reality. Neo is hacking into the secrets of this universe, the mystery of his own existence. According to Agent Smith's rules this is illegal and has to be prevented.
Note that Agent Smith uses the name Anderson, not Neo. Anderson is the name for the Matrix world, Neo is the name of the seeker. In many spiritual traditions, it is a common practice that once a spiritual aspirant begins his journey, he is given a new name that more closely reflects his new spiritual identity. Neo means new.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 2, The Matrix World
Morpheus places two pills in Neo's hand, one red and one blue. The bue one allows him to stay in the world of The Matrix, the red one allows him a chance to see Reality.
The Katho Upanishad says that, like Neo, everyone gets a choice in life. Either we take the path of Self-knowledge (Sreyas, the red pill) that leads us to the Truth, or we take the path of pleasure (Preyas, the blue pill) that leads us to ignorance of our true nature. Those who choose the path of Sreyas will find happiness, while those who choose Preyas are destined to be deluded. Unfortunately, the majority usually opt for the blue pill (Preyas).
The red pill is a symbol of scriptural knowledge, such as the Upanishads. It is through the guidance of the scriptures that we can easily get unplugged from our Matrix-like world. These scriptures are not belief programs. They give us direct knoweldge of our own true Self. Neo wisely chooses the red pill and begins his journey of Self-discovery that will eventually lead him to The Source. The red pill is the symbol of that knowledge which removes darkness and spreads light. Hence in the East, saints and monks wear red and saffron-colored robes. Blue is the color of illusion, or Maya. The "blueness" of the sky or ocean is not real but an illusion. In the Puranas, Vishnu, the maintainer of the creation, is known as a magician who casts illusion, and has blue skin. Only his outward appearance is blue, however. Inside, he is the manifestation of Truth (Pure Consciousness). This means that to know the Truth, one has to transcend the veil of illusion of body-awareness in order to know one's inner Self.
Neo chooses the red pill. As he picks up the pill, two Neos are seen in the reflection of Morpheus' sunglasses, representing the two lives that Neo is leading. In the left lens we see the blue pill and Thomas Anderson, and in the right lens we see the red pill and Neo.
Neo is taking the first step of Self-discovery. It is a journey he must ultimately make alone, but he needs a guide to help him. This is why learning scriptures from a teacher, who has many years of experience and reflection, allows us to tap into deeper meanings.
Morpheus explains to Neo that the pill is a trace program to pinpoint his location.
The Upanishads teach that the Truth will only dawn on us when we disrupt the flow of thoughts that we are the body-mind-sense complex. If we think carefully, we don't know how to pinpoint our exact "location." We don't know who we really are. The wisdom of the Upanishads is like a trace program to point each of us towards the real "Me." How many of us are able to pinpoint exactly, Who am I? and Where am I? Am I in my head, or my heart, or my hand? Who exactly is Me? In order to know this, we have to disrupt the input and output of thoughts of the body-mind complex. This is one of the first exercises that the Upanishads ask us to do. The discussion sessions between the master and the disciple are all about answering questions about the true nature of the Self. In the process they break the illusion of who we are that is created by the mind.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 3, The Real World
Neo is angry and frustrated confronting this reality.
The knowledge that one gains on a spiritual path initially shatters the foundations of our lives and all of the concepts we have lived with. Some of you reading this book may feel the same. We are unable to accept reality. This is what Neo is experiencing.
Morpheus asks Neo to breathe deeply and relax.
Breathing techniques, called Pranayama, are common practices given out by spiritual teachers to calm and control the mind and improve concentration.
When Neo asks to go back to The Matrix, Morpheus explains how the mind fears the truth.
The mind does not want us to know the truth. It fears losing control and invents all kinds of reasons for us to back off. As in Alice in Wonderland, Alice stops following the white rabbit and cries to go back home because she sees everything as scary.
There is a saying: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Partial or half-baked spiritual knowledge can be poisonous. A person who only half-learns a scripture and doesn't fully realize the Self not only confuses himself but also any others he may talk to. Confusion arises when knowledge is incomplete. So it is essential to have an enlightened teacher to make sure a student learns the teaching completely.
Morpheus describes how the first person freed himself from The Matrix and tells Neo about The Oracle's prediction that this person would be reborn to rescue all humans.
Enlightened spiritual masters reincarnate from time to time to help mankind see the light and free themselves from bondage. Great prophecies often foretell their coming. Mostly, they are not believed. Morpheus has spent his life searching for The One destined to free mankind as predicted by The Oracle. He believes Neo is The One.
Morpheus allows Neo to rest in preparation for his training.
A spiritual teacher first imparts theoretical teaching to a student and then gives him practical training so that the student can validate the truth himself. The reason why the teachings of the Upanishads have stood the test of time is that they follow this time-honored principle of imparting the Truth.
~ ~ ~
from Chapter 4, Neo's Training
Neo meets Mouse, one of the crew members who wrote the computer training program with the distracting woman. Mouse considers that there is no harm in enjoying the beauty of the illusory woman.
The teachings of the Upanishads do not seek to deny natural human impulses. The Upanishads caution about two things: first, one should be aware that these are only sensual excitation, and, second, no sensual enjoyment should harm anyone else. In other words, we should not be controlled by sensory experiences, nor should we allow them go so far that they do damage to any other person or thing.
All the characters in the films are symbols of various aspects of the mind. Both Mouse and Cypher indicate those parts of our minds that get overshadowed by the world of senses. Mouse represents our fantasizing mind. We all weave fantasies in our mind and derive pleasure from them even though we know them to be unreal. Mouse scampers after his fantasies like the animal of the same name. In the Puranas, the elephant god Ganesha, who symbolizes wisdom and is the remover of obstacles, rides on the back of a mouse. The mouse can go everywhere without anyone noticing it as, just like the mind, it is small. The mind has a tendency to dart about everywhere, chasing fickle fantasies and devious desires along the way. Ganesha, representing wisdom, is much bigger and able to rein in the mouse (the errant mind). Mastering one's mind is thus the ultimate sign of wisdom. The Bhagavad Gita ("Song of Life") describes a stable state of mind, which does not jump around chasing ephemeral and base desires, but remains in a state of placidity and eventually attains bliss.
~ ~ ~
Note from Highlights editor:
I've tried to give a good idea about how this book treats The Matrix Trilogy and introduces basic spiritual teachings. If you would like to find out more about Journey to the Source: Decoding Matrix Trilogy, and to order it, please visit http://www.matrixjourney.com/.
If you or someone you know is a Matrix fan, this book will clearly explain its alignment with Hindu texts, especially the Upanishads. By way of demonstrating and perhaps celebrating the universality of the teaching, the author quotes diverse sources, from the Torah to Meister Eckhart to Ray Kurzweil, from Francis Lucille to Cervantes to Kahlil Gibran. This is a useful, informative, and clearly written contribution to Matrix literature. The book is structured in such a way that allows the reader to re-live the movies and to probe certain scenes in order to understand how they bear on spiritual teachings and on one's spiritual inquiry. The scene explications can even be understood by a reader who has never seen the Matrix films.
The Nonduality Salon list began August 12, 1998. The Highlights began June 3, 1999.
That means no Highlights were done to cover August 12, 1998 to June 3, 1999.
The next several issues of the Highlights that I edit will include coverage of that 9 month period. There are about 7000 messages during that time span, of which about 200 were reviewed for this issue. Therefore there could be 20 Highlights issues covering the early days.
I'll call this series
In Nonduality Salon
It is only by the 'words' of silence that Nothingness becomes revealed. It is with this garland of silent words That I went forth, and thus enjoyed that perfect meeting.
Please understand the meaning of my words, And thereby satisfy your hunger and your thirst. Regard yourself as a shining flame Burning brightly, without name or form.
These words are uttered simply To open the eyes of your inner Self. The perfect meeting with the Infinite Is eternally within ourselves.
The rivers flow surely toward the sea, but when the final Deluge comes, Both rivers and sea are submerged. In the same way, you should devour both 'I' and 'Thou', For, truly, you are the source of both.
--Jnaneshvar (1271-1296) from the Amritanubhav (The Nectar of Mystical Experience)
Contributed by Jerry Katz
A Sufi Prayer
We who know, and do not know that we know: Let us become one, whole. Let us be transformed.
We who have known, but do not know: Let us once more see. The beginning of it all.
We who do not wish to know, But still say that we want to know: Let us be guided To safety and to light.
We who do not know, And know that we do not know: Let us through this knowledge, know.
We who do not know, but think that we know: Set us free From the confusion Of that ignorance.
He who knows, and knows that he is: He is wise. Let him be followed. By his presence alone man may be transformed.
As with our forebears So with our successors So with us We affirm this undertaking So let it be.
(a Sufi prayer-anonymous)
Contributed by David Bozzi
Jan Barendrecht
Intrusions, distractions, disturbances have a negative influence on passive meditation (being the witness, observing thoughts, emotions etc.). Digging out these disturbances might be a more effective approach for some. It is a very deep going reflection on the "why am I getting angry, why am I disturbed while in a traffic jam, why am I such an automaton to always react this way etc." If one "knows" intuitively and experiences a subtle 'desire' to be free from these afflictions, the digging out can be successful. "Longing" to be free from these afflictions isn't a desire, as one's true nature IS free from these afflictions. This "longing" is a form of meditation, the form of "as you meditate, so you become". So one day, while caught in a traffic jam, one could think: "What can I do" - the answer comes "Nothing" and there is only "I AM". Once afflictions are removed, they never 'intrude' again.
Let's assume the distraction is doing the dishes and you don't like it. So if you are the witness, it is the witness of " I don't like it" and IMO this isn't a good meditation. The key is to let go the "being the witness"; pay full attention so there is only "the dishes being done". Now where did the dislike go? The reason why creative work is almost addictive is that there is only "something being created"; there is no witness whatsoever. This is the natural state; when it shines without attention and its object, it is Self. The bliss that remains after having been engaged in creative work, is the 'aftertaste' of the bliss of Self.
Sandeep
When the answer comes "Nothing" to "What can I do in a traffic jam" are you saying Jan that this is not frustrating for you?
I would suppose ordinarily it would be quite on the contrary.
Because if you are all ready at peace with the answer "nothing" not just to a traffic jam but to Life as such then the question as to what can I do would not arise in the first place.
The question what can I do, what should I do, arise because I believe I can do something about the events in Life Frustration is not getting your way for what you believe is your way.
This traffic jam example is very interesting for me as living in city with a population of 18 Million, all "satoris" has to perforce be in the midst of automobiles.
All my frustrations at not being able to do anything with a traffic jam vanished the moment I realised that I do not have to reach anywhere, I do not have to "really go" anywhere, I do not have to "really " reach anywhere. Then sitting still in the traffic jam or darting here and there to get ahead in a break in the traffic jam , both are OK with me.
Jan Barendrecht
"When the answer comes 'Nothing' to 'What can I do in a traffic jam' are you saying Jan that this is not frustrating for you? I would suppose ordinarily it would be quite on the contrary."
There happen to be exceptions from the ordinary. The example of the traffic jam is from more than 30 years ago, when I was an anti-war activist, not even knowing the meaning of the word "meditation". When I came to a conclusion (eventually after reflecting on something deeply), I took the consequences of it immediately. My mind is hard-wired in that fashion. Realizing "nothing can be done" meant "do nothing" for me (unless you call peacefully waiting "doing"). I always thought human beings will take the consequence of their thoughts, if it turns out that the behavior/action, resulting from it is compassionate and intelligent; the "difference" only being that for some, it takes a little longer... Thank you for reminding me of being a reincarnated alien -<[:>)
"Because if you are all ready at peace with the answer 'nothing' not just to a traffic jam but to Life as such then the question as to what can I do would not arise in the first place."
At present, things differ from 30 years ago. To illustrate: Tuesday afternoon I drove to the mountains for a hike. Two policemen halted my car and said the road was closed because of a fire in the woods. Lying was detected and checked. Then I went back, took a road to a place where I knew there would be no police because the hike had to be preceded with a 400 m climb. As part of the hike another 600 m was climbed to the top of a hill where the rangers are on the lookout for fires. There was no fire. To prevent misunderstanding, "I" did not go anywhere; the body had its exercise.
Sharlene
We are always on the path, whether we realize it or not. We were reborn into to every experience for more learning, I spent hours and days looking ofr something I could be apart of......I wanted to be one of group, to say I BELIEVE IN ?....This is my path,,,,,,but..nothing felt right to me.Most were to limiting,to restricting, to much ritual, to many whatevers.....I found no group or organization that just taught awareness and expansion of self, without restriction or a need to believe,,,,,,That just did not leave me anything to belong to,,,,As a result -I felt more alone than ever,,,,Then ,,I bought a computer,,,,this opened up a new world,,,,I joined the Bridge mailing list,,,met all kinds of people. Out of the two hundered or so that were on the list ,,,,there were a handful that I felt drawn too,,,,,mostly because of their sense of freedom, and I could relate to what each of them were saying,,,,,and though they taught or spoke in different ways ,,,,,,each one said the same thing,,,,,,They won my heart so to speak...... When I reached my crash point,,,,they were there ,,,,not to hold my hand but to walk beside me as I crawled through the dark period.. I give thanks every day that I was led to them,,, Out of the two hundred people , EJ, Sandeep, Lobster, Einar, Bruce , all offered their wisdom, and support...I don't idolize them,,,,put them on pedestals,(wouldn't want them to fall off ) but I sure do love them . That is all I can offer them,,,respect and love,,,,and they gave me so much more,, ( emotional moment here guys-shhh) I spent alot of my time on Light Mission reading, learning,,,and trying to get a grasp on what I felt , or was looking for...It taught me that all I wanted was already available to me, by going within, working on myself, and healing, Am I there yet? No,,, still having moments of crawling and throwing tantrums,,, every so often moments of realizations come through and it feels right,,, moments of bliss and moments of connection,,,,,,I learned to let of expectations,,,,I try to live in the moment,,,,and to me , thats the big lesson for me,,,,,staying in the moment and not projecting or regressing, I may be wrong,,,,but I find by staying in the moment as much as possible,,,there is nothing I need, nothing to crave, nothing missing, nothing to fear, nothing to gain,,,,,it just is.....and I just am......Every moment of my life,so far, has led me here,,,,,just to write these words in this moment,,,It may not sound like much,,,,,,but to me,,,its a blessing to have the freedom of speach,the freedom to express,,,,and the freedom to share,,,,, And by staying in the moment -I have a tendancy to talk to much,,,,so will stop on this note,,,,,,
I don't give to much advise,,,,,if any---but as I said, my truths are in the moment,,,,,stop the search,,,,,let go of expectations,,,and live every moment as it happens,,whether you label it good or bad,,,,,its all we have....
Sandeep
Hi all
Seriousness is a disease. Live Life
Quote
"G.R. Chandran" wrote: > Subject: Boston-ISO Spiritual healing for ejaculation control
> I am a male in my mid 30's, Vegetarian, spirtual of asian Indian > origin. I would like to know if anybody can help me with > sexual healing. I am looking for info or help to devlop control > on my ejaculation. I am looking for spiritual healing methods > either Eastern (Such as Tantra), Yoga or any other western techniques > of sex magick (rituals). > > If anybody has tried any techniques or > can offer any help in controling my sexual energies, please let me > know.
alrighty G.R. you asked for it pal. here it ...cums [egad].
step 1: stop touching yourself there bub... how do you want to control your libido's appetites if you keep teasing it.
step 2: Maybe you should treat yourself to a good ol' cheeseburger (ummmmm) now and again... it might sublimate your manifest desires for ... flesh.
step 3: Ever hear of the infamous western method of taking a cold shower? works wonders... also known as the "Shrink-a-dink" technique.
If all else fails, wait another 20 years or so... and I'm sure natural decay will eradicate the problem... (unless of course you are of the uberman stock, in which case why bother trying to repress ejaculation...hell, go sell that stuff buddy.)
As for my personal approach to handling inappropriate "rises" from Mr. Jimmy, I treat 'em as I would a stubborn puppy... scolding: "down boy! down!".
good luck, you lusty dog you.
from 'The Way to Go' -Irving Layton (1984)
---------
"Envy, lust, ... rule men's lives; lust declines for time and use turn the love-muscle flabby but envy takes a man right to the grave... I pray my last days on earth be mad with sexual desire so that virgins scatter at my coming [*winkwinknudgenudge, mr. Chandran] like timorous pigeons and sparrows..."
Ritz Montreal, PQ Canada boiiiiiinnnnggg...!
Unquote
Cheers
Sandeep
Harsha
All forms of expectations hinder Self Recognition. All methods lose usefulness after a certain point. Then how does it happen? How is it that people who have practiced meditation for years and years and wept their hearts out to the Divine for the Truth get even a glimpse of Reality. How do people so attached to enlightenment get it? They do so because of the mysterious force of Grace which is in Reality the Self. The Grace operating in deep meditation allows the dropping of expectations, fears and a total self surrender. This allows for merging of the mind and "Emerging" of the Self.
Driftwood Dave
It's a matter of becoming "aware of your awareness" , really living or BEing that awareness and personally I have found it more fun to play with it in it's various aspects than anything else I've ever run across.
It's sorta like hearing about disneyland and you can intentionally head for disneyland and get there or you can wait until you run across it in the course of doing something else.
Of course when speaking of awareness you are *starting* from within disneyland...
Dear List,
I am Harvey, sometimes referred to as "Dr. H.," sometimes "Doc." Sandeep sent me a message suggesting this list. I know him from the "Bridge." I am a beginner at meditation and T'ai Chi. I practice daily.
My home is at the base of the Organ mountains in southern New Mexico, USA. I am married with three grown children, three horses, three cats, two dogs, one goat, and a goldfish pond. I live a simple life, as lives go. There is little hustle and bustle of people in the desert. I am a practicing psychotherapist and a willing student.
I hope to join your discussion soon. As regards the above, I wonder what the question is... -- Be at Peace...
Inadequate as words may be...yours did remind me to reflect on who is silently present with me, and so near that even thoughts of them seem merely in the way, hardly necessary. It seems I first became really aware of this (consciously) after my father died. Somewhere amidst the grieving, I had a dream where I spotted him with a large crowd of people, walking away from me. He waved and smiled, but went on...silently telling me. "See, its just all these bodies moving on...that's only how you think you recognize me, my real presence is always with you in your heart." He actually made me laugh tho...in my dream. (I know what you THINK you want, but get over it!) I spent the next several days reflecting on how I can never really lose or miss my Dad, how much he just IS a part of me, however many years of being there for me it may have taken to establish his presence - nothing, including death, can remove his presence. And this may be finally realized in an instant of awareness.
Family is not about geography...is it? Presence is not about words, thoughts, feelings, moods..all THAT comes and goes. But "what comes and goes" is grist for the mill..it gets our attention...its a start.. at least its a way to approach and learn to see "I AM."
Since living with this Buddha question...and just noticing when I feel pressured to speak or do...I notice how most of my deepest and tenderest thoughts and feelings remain silent. There is no risk in speaking out with my sarcastic voice...( Tho I do try to include myself in the general mockery of our foibles)...there is a silent scream underneath the laughing, but I exaggerate the 'silliness" in order to minimize the "truthfulness." Who wants to go around with some open, bleeding heart of vulnerability? But it is always present..silent, still present. Who can bear such constant intensity? Of course, seriousness and sincerity of purpose will get you somewhere, but lightheartedness will too. I mean I once had some epiphany of awareness while cleaning up vomit, and it was from from seeing the humor in the situation. What is to be excluded from this IAM presence? Well, nothing...but maybe its more in the way you see it or talk about it...so its the expression here on the list which is really a matter of concern? See, I always somehow "saw" or felt that as long as there was loving concern and true listening at the "IAM list"..it hardly mattered "what" was being discussed..from spanking to losing weight..it was just more grist for the mill. A bit of silliness is always welcome...even attacks and anger seem to have ultimately proved useful, if people were willing to stick around and work with it. So help me to understand here..this sacred space means what to you all??
Kate Bodie
For the last two weeks I have been trying to sort out exactly what this list is talking about. Today I read through some of the literature available.
I realize that the truth here is no different from the truth I encounter everywhere. I have been looking for truth in various presentations and with a headshake saying "almost" but "not exactly" I look now at what is truth and realize the absurdity!
It is the same. It is only my mind that sees differences. What I seek is already here. What I see never is.
A man without charity in his heart-what has he to do with ceremonies? A man without charity in his heart-what has he to do with music?
It is the spirit of charity which makes a locality good to dwell in. He who selects a neighbourhood without regard to this quality cannot be considered wise.
Oh! The dream, the dream! My sturdy gilded wagon Has broken down Its wheels have scattered like gypsies everywhere. One night I dream of spring And when I woke Flowers had covered my pillow. I dreamt once of the sea And in the morning My bed was full of shells and fins of fishes But when I dreamt of freedom Spears were surrounding my neck Like the morning halo. From now on you will not find me In ports or among trains But there … in public libraries Falling asleep over the maps of the world (As the orphan sleeps on the pavement) Where my lips touch more than one river And my tears stream From continent to continent.
zhu men jiu rou chou lu you dong si gu Behind the gates of the wealthy food lies rotting from waste Outside it's the poor who lie frozen to death
The 8th century Chinese poet Du Fu.
Daily Dharma
This is a true story of a woman who was on a retreat where the participants would live on the streets for a week with no money, etc. with Bernie Glassman leading.
"Eve once walked with an empty Styrofoam cup in her hand from coffee shop to coffee shop around Tompkins Square Park, but wherever she went people said no.
She was pretty discouraged when she finally went to a run-down store selling newspapers and candy, with two burners for coffee. She asked for a cup of coffee. He said no. She asked again, and he said no.
Then she heard a man's voice next to her saying, "I'll buy her a cup." She turned to thank him as he put his hand into his pocket for the coins she noticed how he was dressed.
His clothes were shabby and his shoes were torn. He wore no socks. But without another word he took out fifty cents and put the money on the counter.
Later she told me, " A poor man, probably someone from the streets, bought me a cup of coffee. All the people I asked with money said no, but he said yes."
From the book, "Bearing Witness," published by Bell Tower.
The wild woman of the forests Discovered the sweet plums by tasting, And brought them to her Lord – She who was neither cultured nor lovely, She who was filthy in disarrayed clothes, She of the lowest castes. But the Lord, seeing her heart, Took the ruined plums from her hand. She saw no difference between low and high, Wanting only the milk of his presence. Illiterate, she never studied the Teachings – A single turn of the chariot’s wheel Brought her to Knowledge. Now she is bound to the Storm Bodied One. By gold cords of Love, and wanders his woods. Servant Mira says: Whoever can love like this will be saved. My Master lifts all that is fallen, And from the beginning I have been the handmaiden Herding cows by his side
Mirabai, "The Wild Woman of the Forests." from Jane Hirshfield, ed., Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994). Copyright (c) 1994 by Jane Hirshfield
Cry Out in Your Weakness
A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.
A courageous man went and rescued the bear. There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself, they run toward the screaming.
And they can’t be bought off. If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard your helplessness." Where lowland is, that’s where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure. And don’t just ask for one mercy. Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet. Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.
Push the hair out of your eyes. Blow the phlegm from your nose, and from your brain.
Let the wind breeze through. Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever. Take the cure for impotence, that your manhood may shoot forth, and a hundred new beings come of your coming.
Tear the binding from around the foot of your soul, and let it race around the track in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed so tight on your neck. Accept your new good luck.
Give your weakness to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great resources. A nursing mother, all she does is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning-whimper, and she’s there.
God created the child, that is your wanting, so that it might cry out, so that milk might come.
Cry out! Don’t be stolid and silent with your pain. Lament! And let the milk of loving flow into you.
The hard rain and wind are ways the cloud has to take care of us.
Be patient. Respond to every call that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back toward disease and death.
Jelaluddin Rumi, "Cry out in Your Weakness." The Essential Rumi. Trans. Coleman Barks, with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson. Edison, New Jersey: Castle, 1997, pp. 156-157.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1882 Saturday, August 7, 2004 Editor: Mark
Hi,
These two poems leapt out at me in my reading today and seem to fit well with what's been happening in the past week.
Zen
Two Short Poems by Rumi
(Untitled)
Are you jealous of the ocean's generosity? Why would you refuse to give this love to anyone?
Fish don't hold the sacred liquid in cups! They swim the huge fluid freedom.
This Is Enough
Aphrodite singing ghazals. A sky with gold streaks across. A stick
that finds water in stone. Jesus sitting quietly near the animals.
Night so peaceful. This is enough was always true. We just haven't
seen it. The hoopoe already wears a tufted crown. Each ant is given
its elegant belt at birth. This love we feel pours through us like a giveaway
song. The source of now is here.
- contributed to SufiMystic by Zen Oleary
Life In The World
Life in the world is short, Why shoulder an unnecessary load Of worldly relationships? Thy parents gave thee birth in the world, But the Lord ordained thy fate. Life passes in getting and spending, No merit is earned by virtuous deeds. I will sing the praises of Hari In the company of the holy men, Nothing else concerns me. Mira's Lord is the courtly Giridhara, She says: Only by Thy power Have I crossed to the further shore.
- Mirabai
But no sooner is your vessel emptied than it is filled. For nothing can remain empty. If it is not full of something material, it will fill up with air. Just so, the heart is a vessel that cannot remain empty. As soon as you have emptied it of all those transitory things you loved inordinately, it is filled ... with gentle heavenly divine love that brings you to the water of grace, in which I relieve you of this lover's game of going and coming back. I call it a "lover's game" because I go away for love and I come back for love -- no, not really I, for I am your unchanging and unchangeable God; what goes and comes back is the feeling my charity creates in the soul.
To such as those who fully understand this it is granted never to feel my absence. No, I am always at rest in their souls both by grace and by feeling. In other words, they can join their spirits with me in loving affection whenever they will. For through loving affection their desire has reached such union that nothing can separate it from me. Every time and place for them is a time and place of prayer. For their conversation has been lifted up from the earth and has climbed up to heaven.
And so the light runs on, all of you showing it forth, now one way, now another. But the inmost feeling, the ineffable sweetness and perfect union -- you cannot describe it with your tongue, which is a finite thing! Oh how lovely, how lovely beyond all loveliness, is the dwelling place of the soul's perfect union with me! Not even the soul's own will stands between us, because she has become one thing with me.
- Catherine of Sienna, posted to AdyashantiSatsang by Bob O'Hearn
Simply keep Quiet
Let things happen in front of you, and enjoy this universe which is offered to you.
If you are Quiet, there is Peace in your mind and you will find Peace with everybody.
If your mind is agitated you will find agitation everywhere.
So first find Peace Within and you will see this Inner Peace reflected everywhere else. You are This Peace! You are Happiness, find out. Where else will you find Peace if not within you? Just keep quiet, do not stir a thought and you are Free.
Don't entertain any notions. If you do not entertain just one notion in particular you are Free. This notion is "I am the body". This is the notion that really troubles you and you go along and reconfirm it every minute of every day with all your relations with other bodies and objects. When this notion is no longer there you will be Free.
In this Freedom you will see the whole cosmos and all the bodies are you and you are all these bodies. Nothing will change, a mountain will be a mountain and a river will be a river, but your viewpoint will change.
So pick up the notion "I am Free" and both notions will leave you. You are neither bound nor free. You just are what you are. Know this and all the notions will leave you. You are not the body, or the mind, or the intellect, or the world. You are something else. Find out! What is this thing? Just keep Quiet and See. Then it will unfold Itself. It will reveal Itself.
- Papaji from THIS, submitted to MillionPaths by Viorica Weissman
Anacrusis
I can not grasp It. It is too big; I am too small. There is only one answer: To be grasped by It... To dance with It.
Earlier this week, on a morning stop for coffee and a muffin at Wild Oats, a natural food store in Portland (Maine), I experienced a little magic.
As I paid for the coffee and starting walking toward the exit, I noticed a young girl, probably about 3 years old, waving her hand in a sweeping motion each time the automatic door opened to allow people who approached it to exit the store.
She'd wave her hand, the door would open and whoever was approaching the door would walk through. And then she would benevolently smile to herself...silently enjoying her magic powers of door opening.
I stopped a step away from where the door would automatically open and looked at her until she glanced up at me. Then I just did a quick eye motion toward the door. She obligingly waved her hand and I stepped forward as the door opened. I turned and thanked her, expecting kind of a giggly response. Instead, but just as wonderfully, she gave me a regal nod. I humbly acknowledged Her Grace.
As I walked toward the car, it occurred to me that children (and maybe children of any age, up to and including mine) are drawn to and fascinated by the possibility of magical powers of the mind and will.
Of course, there are always sophisticated and mature "adults" who talk us out of any such nonsense.
But, they're wrong. There is such a thing as magic. It may not be the pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat magic or even the power to will a door open with the wave of a hand, but the magic that so many have found in the meditative experience is real; beyond words real, magical.
This magic, found by so many in the meditative experience, forms almost the entire basis of the great volumes of written and oral reports of the mystic path, the mystic heart, found at the core of virtually all spiritual traditions. And even independent of any theism, there is a magic in the language of the heart that can be heard by those who are drawn to listen for it.
Enjoying the magic,
- Jeff Belyea on meditationsocietyofamerica
I cried tears of bittersweet joy when I saw these!
"Rikyu" (1989, Japan). About an elderly tea master who shows the way of tea to an ambitious, aggressive warlord. He lives it too. Beautiful in story and style.
"Life on a String" (China, 1991). About a blind banjo player whose master told him that he would be able to see after he breaks the 1000th string playing the banjo. It takes him 60 years to get that far. The best movie treatment of "enlightenment" I've ever seen.
EarthLight Magazine #48, Spring 2003 -- Vol, 13, No. 3
URL: www.earthlight.org/2003/essay48_gordon.html
Not long ago, I lived in an apartment that over-looked a preschool playground. At 8:00 a.m., as I ate my granola every morning, the doors to the school yard burst open and preschoolers spilled onto the yard. I sat staring out the second floor window, happily buffered from the full volume of their blood curdling screeches, and watched, mesmerized. Children hurled themselves into the day, bumping, tripping, bouncing, building things, smashing them down, hitting, kicking, laughing, hugging. Everything was there–trial, disappointment, grief, success, connection, creativity, celebration, belonging, not belonging–all in one little playground. I had the distinct feeling I was watching the raw business of the universe, the workings of evolution itself.
An angel hovering above the world must feel the same way, gazing down at this one big rumpus with all its scraped knees and first kisses. Myriad life forms emerging out of the primordial seas, gathering together, creating more life forms, making cities, cities falling apart, people fighting, others writing poems, the aurora borealis, jellyfish, fleas that jump into the nostrils of hummingbirds, 2,000 year old Sequoias.
The qualities that are so exuberantly displayed in childhood play are writ large in the evolutionary process on a cosmological scale. The whole Universe is one big playground, and evolution one great big, gorgeous rumpus.
[...]
Exaptation is pure improvisation. It’s like the character in the movie Airplane who, when given a document and asked what he makes of it, answers, "Well, I could make a hat, or a broach, or maybe a little paper airplane." Nature takes what’s there and makes stuff up. Before I got a Master’s degree I used to put the initials M.S.U. after my name. They stood for "Make Stuff Up." I had no idea that making stuff up was wired right into the human brain. Gould says that the human brain is par excellence the chief exemplar of exaptation. This is because, about 150,000 years ago the hominid brain expanded massively. When it did, it acquired neural circuits that are not closely tied to any specific function but can be used in a variety of ways. It is this neural plasticity that enables the blind person to develop acute hearing and sensitive fingers for reading Braille, and the right-handed pianist to have as much coordination in the left hand. Neural plasticity has enabled a frontal lobe designed for hunting and gathering to be repurposed into Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and the Beatle’s Abbey Road. The human is the only species that specializes in being unspecialized.
If the Universe were a collection of fixed objects governed by fixed laws, then it would be wise to stay rigid. But the Universe is a fluid current of living play, so our own improvisational play and flexibility is essential for going with the flow of the cosmos, responding creatively moment to moment to the changing needs, demands, and opportunities we meet. When we play, we enter the creative current of possibilities, the self-organizing force of the whole cosmos, as active participants. Before the human, all animals were specialized for particular niches. We have the flexibility of the cosmos dancing right in our neurons, enabling us to move into any niche and explore the whole world as a playground.
While play is built right into the cosmos, it’s generally agreed that playfulness didn’t come on the animal scene until about 150-200 million years ago, with mammals and birds in the Jurassic period. As I write this, my dog Luna is shaking her rope toy, insisting I stop what I’m doing this instant and play tug-of-war. Meanwhile, my neighbor has a diabolic African Gray Parrot who repeatedly calls the dog, Patrick, over to her cage yelling, "Patrick!!" then spills the water dish over his head and laughs out loud, "Ar ar ar."
Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.
- Joseph Chilton Pearce
It ain't what a man don't know that makes him a fool. It's what he does know that just ain't so. - Josh Billings
We all know people who want water to be wetter. - Idries Shah
Not only does God play dice, but...
he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
- Stephen Hawking
Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
- Miles Davis
You Have Mail
There is a reason to awareness everything in existence is speaking to you in every moment. There is also a reason ignore is in ignorance.
by Mace Mealer on HarshaSatsangh
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
- Mother Teresa
What is Love?
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
"When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4
"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen ." Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)
"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate ." Nikka - age 6
"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore ." Cindy - age 8
"My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6
"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7
"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget ." Jessica - age 8
And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
Of all the living walls of this dim cave, soot and ochre, acts of will, come down to us to say:
This is who we were. We foraged here in an age of ice, and, warmed by the fur of wolves, felt the pride of predators going for game. Here we painted the strength of bulls, the grace of deer, turned life into art, and left this testimony on our walls. Explorers of the future, see how, when our dreams reach forward, your wonder reaches back, and we embrace. When we are long since dust, and false prophets come, then don't forget that we were your creators. So build your days on what you know is real, and remember that nothing will keep your lives alive but art - the black and ochre visions you draw inside your cave will honor your lost tribe, when explorers in some far future marvel at the paintings on your walls.
~ Philip Appleman ~
(for the discovery of the Grotte de Lascaux: Marcel Ravidat, 1923-1995)
Editor's note: Ben has put together short sample clips of his favorite music. With Bach, Jimi Hendrix, and B-tribe with flamenco guitar among these eclectic selections, there's something here for every taste. See the website for many more.
Shradda: Divine Tunes to Invoke Inner Peace A beautiful, spiritual, deeply felt flute-based album, backed by other Indian instruments such as dulcimer, sitar, a reedy sounding wind instrument, tabla drums and some voices at the end. My swami tells me that the first soulful tune was Gandhi's favorite.
B-Tribe A loose group of musicians under a reclusive mastermind allegedly called 'The Brave', who has given us the albums Sensual, Sensual, Spiritual Spiritual, Suave, Suave, Fiesta Fatal!, as well as Sacred Spirit and Moroccan Spirit. Well, this music DOES have pathos! 'Sensual, Sensual' is especially cool, combining soul-stirring Flamenco guitar with spacy synthesizer sounds and reverberating Flamenco vocals. The guitar playing does not have the flash of a Paco de Lucia but is exactly appropriate for this music. Slow and emotional, often powerful, sometimes funky (whatever that means). The first 4 are in the Flamenco vein, 'Sacred Spirit' uses Native American vocals, and 'Moroccan Spirit' uses real Moroccan music samples, in an exotic sounding musical landscape that combines 'traditional' or 'ethnic' music with spacy synthesizers and the frequent appearance of Mr. Brave's trademark cello.
Kazumi Watanabe Albums: Mobo I & II Most Jazz Fusion sounds a bit hectic and dissonant to my ears, but I love this bluesy album, which was well recorded with nice studio reverberation and other spacy effects. Kazumi starts out with a funky rendition of the surf music classic Walk Don't Run and I like following this by the cool-sounding American Short Hair. There are a lot of interesting electronic sounds on this album, like Electric Ladyland, and the two CDs taken together have a similar 'epic' quality to them.
The bell tolls at four in the morning. I stand by the window, barefoot on the cool floor. The garden is still dark. I wait for the mountains and rivers to reclaim their shapes. There is no light in the deepest hours of the night. Yet, I know you are there in the depth of the night, the immeasurable world of the mind. You, the known, have been there ever since the knower has been.
The dawn will come soon, and you will see that you and the rosy horizon are within my two eyes. It is for me that the horizon is rosy and the sky blue. Looking at your image in the clear stream, you answer the question by your very presence. Life is humming the song of the non-dual marvel. I suddenly find myself smiling in the presence of this immaculate night. I know because I am here that you are there, and your being has returned to show itself in the wonder of tonight's smile. In the quiet stream, I swim gently. The murmur of the water lulls my heart. A wave serves as a pillow I look up and see a white cloud against the blue sky, the sound of Autumn leaves, the fragrance of hay- each one a sign of eternity. A bright star helps me find my way back to myself.
I know because you are there that I am here. The stretching arm of cognition in a lightning flash, joining together a million eons of distance, joining together birth and death, joining together the known and the knower.
In the depth of the night, as in the immeasurable realm of consciousness, the garden of life and I remain each other's objects. The flower of being is singing the song of emptiness.
The night is still immaculate, but sounds and images from you have returned and fill the pure night. I feel their presence. By the window, with my bare feet on the cool floor, I know I am here for you to be.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
This issue begins a review/summary of a new book, The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
Also in this issue I'll continue the In Nonduality Salon series, which covers the highlights from emails posted during the first nine months of Nonduality Salon, a span of time during which there were no Highlights.
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
I am going to review this book in an unusual way. In sections. As I read them. Hence this may approach be called more a summarization than a review, yet you will hear the voice of a reviewer -- an opinioned or questioning or judging one -- coming through.
I'd like to begin with a review of the Introduction. The author is John L. Prendergast, Ph.D. Dr. Prendergast is an adjunct assistant professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is an author, teacher, and in private practice. His primary teacher was Jean Klein and he currently studies with Adyashanti.
The introduction gives a good introduction to what nonduality is, then proceeds to the place of nonduality in psychotherapy. The question is asked whether the nondual approach makes for a new school of psychotherapy. The author discusses how nonduality fits into practice. The questions are asked, Is psychotherapy evolving into a vehicle for transmission of truth? Are awakening therapists in the same lineage as Buddha or other great sages of all time? Prendergast speaks of the primary and secondary impacts of awakening. He discusses psychotherapy methods and skills in light of nondual awareness and how awakening impacts the psychotherapist.
Speaking to therapists Prendergast says, "We can touch the core of a client's contraction even as we retain a sense of spacious detachment."
"A sense of spacious detachment" isn't the same as being awake.
As Adyashanti says later in this book when asked how therapists can facilitate awakening in their clients, "Be awakened yourself." Yet the introduction makes it clear that this book is written for therapists who are "awakening." If they may be called states, 'awakening' and 'being awakened' cannot be compared. I hope this difference and its implications are going to be addressed throughout the book.
For now, let's look at Prendergast handling the topics and questions mentioned above. I'll address each one very briefly. Keep in mind that Prendergast is giving his own understanding of nondual psychotherapy and that the eleven other authors of this book may or may not agree with him. He does not speak for all the authors or for the field of nondual psychotherapy.
1. Introduction to nonduality.
The author states that there is an intimate conversation occurring between Western psychotherapists and spirituality teachers from Buddhist, Advaita, Sufi, Taoist and other traditions. This conversation is happening on intellectual, intuitive and experiential levels. It can even be observed happening at the most basic and naked level of a conversation between the conditioned mind and the unconditioned vastness of reality. "Reality seems to be enjoying this conversation with itself, since it is happening with increasing frequency and depth."
This intimate dialogue has given rise to "the flowering of nondual wisdom." About nonduality it is said, "Nonduality is a rather curious and uncommon word that so far has been used by a relatively small number of scholars and teachers. ... Nondual wisdom refers to the understanding and direct experience of a fundamental consciousness that underlies the apparent distinction between perceiver and perceived."
2. A general statement on nonduality and psychotherapy.
The psychotherapist coming from the nondual disposition (again, this includes both the awakening and awakened) serves as a Sacred Mirror reflecting to the client his or her true nature. Contractions that arise or that are felt or intuited, are "honored, accepted and explored." The skills and methods of psychotherapy are also utilized. It is recognized that in this capacity the nondual psychotherapist functions not unlike the spiritual teacher or guru.
3.Is "nondual" a new school of psychotherapy?
Prendergast says such a school could be said to exist, that its principles could be taught, and that it is even nothing other than what Buddha and other sages have been practicing. (Again the 'awakening' versus 'awakened' dichotomy rings a loud bell here. I almost hear the implication that nondual psychotherapy can organize a Buddha. That's a slight variation of the Theosophists' game of bringing down the subtle body of Buddha into the physical body of J. Krishnamurti.) Then Prendergast backs off, admitting that the nondual is nonconceptual and that trying to pack it into a framework will be one step on the way to the psychological models compost heap for nondual psychotherapy.
4. Incorporating nondual wisdom into the general practice of psychotherapy.
While the concept of nondual awareness has been incorporated into the models of transpersonal and integral psychology, the "being" of the nondual one, which is neither about concepts nor not about concepts, is where the buck stops, where the Sacred Mirror is hung. Prendergast makes it clear that the nondual psychotherapist can function within any model of psychotherapy. No matter what the model, the nondual one brings presence and an ability to be with what is.
5. Is psychotherapy evolving into a vehicle for transmission of truth? Are awakening therapists in the same lineage as Buddha or other great sages of all time?
These are very big questions to which Prendergast gives only a brief paragraph in which he ultimately says 'yes' to both questions: "It seems obvious that any awakening or awakened beings will transmit their understanding according to their capacities and limitations in any moment."
6. The primary and secondary impacts of awakening nondual awareness.
Presence is identified as the primary impact of awakening. Presence is "Being aware of Itself," and expressed by such personal qualities as ease of being, unpretentiousness, lucidity, joy.
Secondary effects include freedom from the role as psychotherapist. That role is merely played. Since presence is primary -- "Being aware of Itself" -- it is clear there are no problems and no problem solvers. In the coming together of nondual therapist and client there is the catching of the fire of truth and reality by the client from the therapist.
Another secondary impact is "an enhanced capacity to be with what is." This is greater than acceptance. It is loving acceptance or unconditional love, and since it allows for closeness between client and therapist, it allows the client to come close to Presence. His or her presence. Therefore this capacity to be with what is, facilitates transformation.
Awakening facilitates the depth and power of the therapist's inquiry thereby making him or her a genuine facilitator of the client's inquiry.
7. Psychotherapy methods and skills in light of nondual awareness.
While it is acknowledged that the tools of the psychotherapist will be used, "The critical question is whether the therapist's awareness is centered in the moment and creatively responsive to what is.
8. How awakening impacts the psychotherapist.
This is the primary subject of this book: "Living this way brings a sense of transparency to our lives and our work as psychotherapists." The impact of awakening upon psychotherapy is a secondary consideration.
Prendergast is clear that awakening can't be achieved in the way a degree in psychology can. But it is not clear what awakening is. It's not the same as being awakened. Awakening nondual awareness may mean an intimacy with ground of being, with reality, which is a relationship that one can work at developing through various spiritual means. Being awakened is completely different. They're two different animals. It's caterpillar and butterfly. Larval and post-larval. The introduction doesn't address the difference. I would like to see how the other authors address this compacting of awakening and awakened.
~ ~ ~
If you are interested in nonduality and psychotherapy, there is no other book like it. The authors are at the top of the game. To read more about this book and to order, please visit
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
In Nonduality Salon
~ ~ ~
Sandeep
Quote
Sentient Meat
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Oh my. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearable this galaxy would be if one were all alone with no-one to talk to but meat."
Unquote
~ ~ ~
Biharilal L. Shah
Who am I?
Everybody wants pleasure and no pain, peace and no disturbance, happiness and no unhappiness.
Is it possible in physical and mental world ? This is a very legitimate and logical question for a human mind. And the search starts.
The result is lots of religious, mythological, metaphysical and philosophical theories, rituals and practices developed by different people of different races, at different times in the human evolution history. Even modern science and technology has played a tremendous role in offering tools and resources for achieving more and more of pleasure, peace and happiness to a certain extent. Still human mind craves for a permanent state of pleasure, peace and happiness.
Another line of thinking was evolved by certain thinkers about this permanant state of bliss and they came to a conclusion that this is not possible in mental and physical area but there is a state beyond mind and body where lies this bliss.
Those who realised this truth, realised through three main ways: Gnana Marg....I AM beyond body and mind. Bhakti Marg....Total surrender to God. Karma Marg... Just Act and leave the results in the hands of Allmighty.
I AM is the result of Gnana Marg and if I am not the body and mind , then the core question arises WHO AM I ? The answer is not an explanation in words but a realisation of establishment in that state of beyond body and mind, where BLISS is just IS and nothing else.
~ ~ ~
Jerry Katz
The Good Souls
September 3, 1998 Swiss jet crashes near Peggys Cove 229 aboard, no survivors
I am thinking of the good souls who went down in the waters a few miles from here. Having lived in a village beside Peggy's Cove, I clearly picture fishermen marching dutifully to wharves to let their boats out into the night.
And I see them out there without a story on their windswept lips. Who dare take-on the questions?
Many'll have wives and children at home. More likely than not would've married a girl they grew up with who came from a neighboring village and whose Dad fished and whose Grandad (Pappy).
I hear it was quiet on the water. I mean not too many or too big waves. Nope, I imagine not even a story passed around. Cigarettes, sure. Eventually someone would've made coffee on board. But there were big questions here.
The lights of scores of fishing boats and the lights of their torches.
The sea was very gentle, I heard. It would've been quiet on the boats. No one had a story to tell.
They would've gone home in time. Home to their families. CNN would've been on at home. Reporters would be telling what they know. A few locals would be telling reporters about the thunderous noise they heard and then ... nothing.
The fishermen would be taking this in. No survivors. They may try to get some sleep now. They may. Or they may decide the best place to be is where they live to be. On the ocean. Answers have to be somewhere.
~ ~ ~
These are the words of Abbott John Daido Loori. I came across it when I noticed that the link on my webpage to Dharma-Door of Nonduality was not working. It is part of a commentary on the the Dharma-Door:
Each time you acknowledge a thought, take responsibility for it, let it go, and come back to the breath, you move a step in the direction of the nondual Dharma. Ultimately, when body and mind fall away and there's no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind to even acknowledge, this still doesn't reach it. It's only one side. When, from out of that emptiness the ten thousand things are manifested and you see your face in every form, you still have not yet reached it. When these two things merge and interpenetrate, although its another step, it's still dualistic. You haven't reached it yet.
All of us are powerhouses of unused potential, just as every Buddha is. It's not an easy practice. It's not something we can separate from everything we do. To accomplish the Way is to accomplish our lives. To practice the Way is to practice our lives, moment by precious moment. But you have to take responsibility for your practice. It's not enough to follow instructions and seat yourself on the cushion. It's not going to come to you. You have to practice it. You have to engage it - every aspect of it. Whatever you figure you know, forget it, and keep going. Whatever you accomplish, throw it away and keep going. It's the ultimate human adventure to realize oneself. What else would you want to do with your life?
So, every moment is a single moment, or a thousand kalpas. When you step out of the reference system of time, it's the whole universe and the rest of your life. But it's up to you. You bring yourself here, that's easy. You place yourself in this position, that's easy. But what you have to do once you sit on that cushion takes a lot of effort and dedication This is a no-nonsense practice. You can kid yourself, but it's not going to get you anywhere, and sooner or later you realize that, and while you kid yourself you should also realize that it's a hundred thousand times easier to do the work.
You have everything you'll ever need to accomplish the Way. You have even more than the Buddha ever had. He had to start with no one to guide him. He had to oppose everything that was going on at the time. Here we are, 2,500 years later, with this incredible Dharma, constantly verified from generation to generation by ordinary beings like you and me. It should be a snap for us, compared to what it was for the ancestors. You simply have to put aside being comfortable. You have to put aside the easy way and really challenge yourself. You know where the edge of your practice is. It's the place you've been avoiding. Practice it! Put yourself there; challenge yourself, and don't waste a single moment.
~ ~ ~
Didier and Harsha
> The non-dual path focuses on awareness, which that perceives, not on what is > perceived. The body sensations, thoughts, the world, manifestations of > kundalini, are perceived objects. They come and they go, they are > transitory. What you are really you are always. So you are not transitory > objects, but you are that in which all these objects appear. Whatever > appears, let it appear, let it go. Then what you are will reveal its > presence as eternal beauty, pure joy and intelligence. > > Friendly. > > Didier
Harsha: Yes. Beautiful. Focus on the Perceiver and not perception. Mind itself is external to the Self. Even in higher celestial realms experienced in some superconscious states the triad of knower, the process of knowing, and that which is known, continues. When the knower, the process of knowing and that which is known merge or are absorbed into Reality, that which You Truly Are Emerges to be Recognized in all its Fullness. And That is the Eternal and Complete Beauty which has no Name and which no words can capture.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1886 Tuesday, August 10, 2004 Editor: Mark
As evening comes
With a hundred swans above at least, and geese not knowing where to sleep
When everyone with wings emerges from the ground
Mosquitoes and the ants, small flies and everyone with long legs
Come hovering in pairs until the sun goes down
Then suddenly they're gone leaving an empty space
Where passing my right ear this is a bumble bee on his night flight home
And he says; Hey! Sleepwalking one I'm leaving you alone
A few steps further down between the lambs and sheep
You will rise the question who is talking in the stream
Who's resting in the moors, the mountains and the sea,
Who keeps the mighty light in darkness of the night
If it's not to late reach for the pebble beach
If it's not to soon it is told by the moon
My love, because there is no token come listen carefully
My love is silently, inside this symphony
My Love, how can it be broken when it is only me.
- Poem and images by Al Larus on AdyashantiSatsang
Sickness, in and of itself, is not a problem. It's our attachment to it - or to health - that gives us pain. And, given the definitions I found for the word 'nonattachment,' it's no wonder we have misguided notions about it. According to Webster, the term means: 'Indifference, separation, aloofness, isolation and quiet.' But, according to the Buddhist point of view, nonattachment is exactly the opposite of separation. You need two things in order to have attachment: the thing you're attaching to, and the person who's attaching. In nonattachment, on the other hand, there's unity. There's unity because there's nothing to attach to. If you have unified with the whole universe, there's nothing outside of you, so the notion of attachment becomes absurd. Who will attach to what?
- John Daido Loori, Roshi, posted to Daily Dharma
Where there is pain, the cure will come; where the land is low, water will run. If you want the water of mercy, go, become low! Then drink mercy's wine and become drunk
- Rumi from Mathnavi II 1939-40), translation by William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, State Univ. of New York Press, Albany, 1983, posted to Sunlight
SPEND THE NIGHT
Open me like a book & read what your heart desires We're moving the spirit in the dark homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist You make me forget the name I call myself We aren't wooden soldiers but we can still catch fire When I see how you do a dance I want you to do me too
If you want your eyes opened you'll first have to close them So many lonely people trying to hide their fires from the wind & rain We put our candles in the window where everyone can see When our candles burn down we become the flames together so the light won't die People say you're using me I hope it's true
There's so much love that needs making everywhere we turn When I'm feeling no pain what else can't I feel? Our colors bleed together We spend the night trying to buy a dream we won't forget before we can write it down Is it safe reading poetry this closely? No it's not That's why we do it
- Steve Toth on SufiMystic
Question Contains the Answer by N. Balarama Reddiar
The answer is contained in the question itself, for the answer is always the ever-existing Self and the question is only a modulation of it." This remarkable saying of Sri Bhagavan finds an apt illustration in the following instance.
One of our old devotees, the late Sri. A. Bose, lost his only son, a bright boy of twenty. Upset very much by this loss he had a private interview with Bhagavan, which was arranged during His resting time between twelve and two in the afternoon. At one stage in the interview he asked Bhagavan in what appeared a challenging mood, "What is God?". For such a long-standing devotee, the question seemed incongruous!
Bhagavan kept silent for a while and then gently said, "Your question itself contains the answer: What is, (is) God." This illuminating answer was amazingly the question itself! One should note here that it is not merely a clever or well thought-out answer. That may be so in the case of ordinary men. A Jnani’s utterances are free from the intermediary action of the mind, which colors and often distorts the truth. In the case of the seers, it is said ‘sense follows speech.’ Also, Bhagavan’s silence before answering the question was evidently meant to prepare the questioner to receive the full impact of the answer.
- Contributed by Viorica Weissman to MillionPaths
What is so special about this time and this this place in human history? Look not to the tragedies only, but to where all seems to be well. The human eye is taught to see the darkness and to make extraordinary honoring of 'what is wrong'. Yes, most certainly. But let it also be known what is so very right.
"Very well," you say, "but how does one do that? Where does one look to find all right?" Begin with yourselves. Take inventory, but not as you have done in your lives, not to find where more is needed or less has seemed to become essential. But look to where, at this moment, all is well. Dare to do that. And when your eyes have become accustomed the the Light, then allow your gaze to wander to further places and different circumstances.
This is not a call to New Age Pollyannaism. It is a call to balance.
- Emmanuel
Let it be known that restoring your world to its perfection and safety will require much more than mountains of weapons or the buttressing of ramparts. The remedy is much more forceful than these and belongs to each and every one of you.
You must hold the enormous courage to live with an open and loving heart. Until that comes to pass, you will walk in a density unknown up to now. Live the truth of who You are.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
This is Part 2 of the review/summary of The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
Also in this issue I'll continue the In Nonduality Salon series, which covers the highlights from emails posted during the first nine months of Nonduality Salon, a span of time during which there were no Highlights.
The Sacred Mirror
Chapter 2: Nonduality and Therapy: Awakening the Unconditioned Mind
by Peter Fenner
Peter Fenner, Ph.D., was an ordained monk who now offers courses, workshops, contemplative dialogues, retreats, and counseling. Information may be accessed through his website, http://wisdom.org. He has written several books and articles.
Fenner is very clear about the nothingness of nondual therapy: "...we know that there is no such thing as 'nondual therapy.' What makes nondual therapy unique is that it doesn't exist!" At the same time he devotes the bulk of the chapter on a structure for the nature and ways of therapy. Here is the outline of that structure:
THE HALLMARKS OF NONDUAL THERAPIES
-- The unconditioned mind is introduced and discussed in the context of therapy
-- The unconditioned mind as the "ultimate medicine"
-- Resting in the unconditioned mind is a state beyond suffering
-- A homing instinct toward the unconditioned mind
-- The unconditioned mind reconditions thought patterns and emotions
-- Living in the here and now
-- "The experience of the unconditioned mind is cultivated in the midst of our everyday existence."
-- The union of love and wisdom ("The capacity to identify is love. The capacity to disidentify is wisdom. Both arise simultaneously and without any conflict.")
OBSTACLES TO EXPERIENCING THE UNCONDITIONED MIND
-- Our attachment to suffering
-- The habitual need to be doing something
-- Needing to know
-- The need to create meaning
-- Fearful projections about the unconditioned mind
PRACTICES THAT PREPARE AND SUPPORT THE CULTIVATING OF NONDUAL AWARENESS
-- Observing and acknowledging the presence of fixations
-- Discovery of a place free of strong desire
-- Tuning into the present so that there is "completion in the moment"
-- Opening "to the full force and richness of our conditioned existence."
-- Developing serenity
-- Resting in healing-bliss
DISTINCTIVE GUIDELINES FOR NONDUAL THERAPY
-- Holding a space of pure listening and speaking
-- Facilitating "the natural release of fixed beliefs and frozen emotions by creating a space that is free of all pressures to change or be the same."
-- Deconstructing fixations through the Madhyamika system
-- "Naturally arising koans ... as tools for deconstructing our habitual ways of thinking."
-- Using "checking questions" to assess the quality and purity of the unconditioned experience
-- Dancing in the paradoxes of nondual logic
Nondual therapists spin this talk about the nothingness of nondual therapy while formulating approaches and guidelines to nondual therapy. According to Fenner, the nondual therapist "uses the teachings and embodied presence of nondual masters as a model for how to manage our own evolution and thus make a powerful healing contribution to others. The model is based upon the healing capacity of the unconditioned mind. The common element in nondual approaches to therapy is a focus on awakening an experience of the unconditioned mind for the therapist and client, and the ongoing cultivation of this experience."
What is key is that the therapist is not merely applying a set of guidelines for nondual therapy in the course of carrying out a profession, but that the therapist acually lives from the nondual disposition or the unconditioned mind. Living that way, it's no problem doing what Fenner has done: pointing out the nothingness of nondual therapy while listing explicit guidelines and suggested practices. First and last, nondual therapy is a "psychology of nothingness," as Dan Berkow says later in the book. Therefore, while strategies and guidelines for nondual therapy are given, what is known to the nondual therapist living in the neither existent nor non-existent now is all that can be known or done: nothing.
~ ~ ~
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
The Krishnamurphy poems were first published in Irish (Gaelic) and appear here for the first time in English translations by their creator, Gabriel Rosenstock.
Riddle
It's in the water but it doesn't get wet. Answer: an egg in a duck. I didn't think that one up, says Krishnamurphy. I don't do riddles: everything's a riddle if you ask me, the egg, the water, the duck, myself. This wee poem. (The one before and the next one).
Answers
As previously noted Krishnamurphy does not compose riddles But he's the smartest of all When it comes to the answers: Turf A snail A heron standing on one leg A hedgehog A bodhrán - Irish hand-drum to you - The sea anemone
Jein, says Krishnamurphy
There's a word in German not taught in schools and that word is Jein. It is a type of composite - Ja and Nein. Yes and No (Nes and yo). To answer the question, 'Is this a poem?' Say Jein!
Do you like me? Jein!
The Heart of the Universe
Get to the heart of the universe, says Krishnamurphy. How? ask the disciples.
Understand, says Krishnamurphy, Understand that you are not the heart of the universe And the heart of the universe will reveal itself to you
Open!
'Open! Open!' said the dentist to Krishnamurphy. 'I could not be more open!' whispered Krishnamurphy.
The dentist experienced samadhi. The Pleasantries of Krishnamurphy
Krishnamurphy discourses on Advaita
Not two That is what is meant by Advaita. The hen? The egg? Not two. No. The egg is an extension of the hen. Everything is an extension of God, of the One, Ourselves included. Myself and Saddam Hussein We are closer than brothers There is not a whit of difference between us - Couldn't possibly be. Ever. Arabac is Gaelic In disguise Gaelic is Arabic. Every vowel and consonant Every sibilant is God's breath. No language ever died Or ever will No person or wren ever perished When you understand Advaita You will understand the nature of all things Every colour Every form Every poem ...
Cock a doodle doo! Hey! Did you hear? I'm calling you!
Krishnamurphy is Pregnant
'I am heavy with a poem,' says Krishnamurphy to the faithful. 'You will all have to act as midwife and bring it into the world.' 'But - ' The faithful were astounded: 'Where is your womb, in the name of God!?'
'In all of you,' says K.
Krishnamurphy in Love
I'm in love! I'm in love! I'm in love, says K.
Who is she? the disciples ask. Over there in the corner! A cat? exclaim the startled disciples. And the other one - look! The cat was staring at a mouse. What bird just went by? asked K. A tit. I'm in love with her. Is there no one whom you do not love? None at all. What about the devil? He most of all - if he exists - Is is need of love. The disciples did a little dance of joy And were joined by the cat, the mouse, the tit And Old Nick himself).
In Nonduality Salon:
selected posts from the between August, 1998, and May, 1999
Gene Poole writes:
Letter of appreciation
Jerry,
Thank you for creating the website for my writings.
It has occured to me that your efforts are unique; that it may be that what you are doing is unprecedented. To make the effort to grow from a seed, that which would be the body of evidence of the reality of the "I Am" experience, including not only the past masters and their famous words, but also the realizations of any person.
To include the evidence of the struggles and the grace which supports them, to gather not only the ripe apples which fall from the tree, but also the leaves, branches, and trunk, and finally, the ground in which the tree grows, all stated variously, from every angle of experience.
To tolerate what is not traditional, to search for words which accurately describe yet are common, to acknowledge the need of the ordinary person, to gently pick the lock which makes exclusive that which is always included, to collect and collate every voice which speaks...this shows real love.
Thank you kindly, Gene, for your most graciously spoken and generous expression.
I just enjoy hearing all the different ways people describe their understanding of Truth when it comes from one of the nondual perspectives.
As a kid I always felt that inwardly I was no different than any of the spiritual giants. I don't mean in terms of genius, might or leadership, but in understanding, in plain awareness of God. And so I could never buy into any religion. I always knew the essence of religion was within and nowhere else. The geniuses of religion could be my teachers and guides, smarter, wiser, stronger, infinitely more charismatic. But on grounds of awareness we could be equal, and that is all that matters.
In the spiritual realm, people can understand awareness, Truth. They may not be masters of it, able to impart it with a glance or to awaken Kundalini energies and all that. But they can understand. And they can communicate it. That communication, to me, is worth hearing. There are many struggling to know it.
I do not see the people listed at my website as different than me. Their voice is mine. When I recognize that voice, I acknowledge it.
With love, Jerry
~ ~ ~
Phenomenal Woman
by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them They think I'm telling lies. I say It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips The stride of my steps The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally Phenomenal woman That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please And to a man The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees Then they swarm around me A hive of honey bees. I say It's the fire in my eyes And the flash of my teeth The swing of my waist And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally Phenomenal woman That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say It's in the arch of my back The sun of my smile The ride of my breasts The grace of my style. I'm a woman Phenomenally Phenomenal woman That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say It's in the click of my heels The bend of my hair The palm of my hand The need for my care. 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally Phenomenal woman That's me.
~ ~ ~
Jerry
Ladies and Gentleman, I bring to you our very own Niren:
I think our difficulties arise in that gap between "knowing about truth" and "being truth". Someone said " There are nowadays professors of philosophy, because there were once philosphers. It is admirable to profess, because it was once admirable to live." I like to ask "what if" I did have an answer..then so what?
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Imagine you could discover "why"..does that change the "what" of any experience? So whatcha gonna do? For starters, you cannot go wrong, by looking deeply into what you ARE experiencing..
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Your good questions are what keeps the list going. This is a good place to ask them. I doubt you wandered in here by mistake. Just look at all the great posts you have already inspired. Still your one good question is worth more than all our so called answers.
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What calls and speaks to you? What signs along your road seem useful directions? What do you already know? The bells of truth that ring and the lights that beckon are useful aspirations.
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What's it gonna take to wake you up ..if you are immune to an urn of coffee already?
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It may be useful to remember there is unconscious resistance at work or even to wonder what it may be about to some extent. Too much delving into why and seeking psychological reasons for every little thought is also a good way to make yourself more crazy. If it feels like too much of a struggle..it is.
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Why let some spiritual busybodies nosy in to disturb your sanctuary with their silly advice? Even via email. I mean you can listen to music and read books for diversion..who needs Walmart??
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If we turn the very spirituality which COULD save us from ourselves into yet another competitive striving...the spiritual olympics..we may as well all sit around and watch those late night infomercials on how to get rich in real estate or get rid of wrinkles. What IS the difference?
~ ~ ~
Five Great Vows (Maha-vratas) of Jainism:
Compiled by - Pravin K. Shah, Jain Study Center of North Carolina
Right knowledge, right faith, and right conduct are the three most essentials for attaining liberation in Jainism.
In order to acquire these, one must observe the five great vows:
1. Non-violence - Ahimsa
2. Truth - Satya
3. Non-stealing - Achaurya or Asteya
4. Celibacy/Chastity - Brahmacharya
5. Non-attachment/Non-possession - Aparigraha
Non-violence (Ahimsa):
Among these five vows, non-violence (Ahimsa) is the cardinal principle of Jainism and hence it is known as the cornerstone of Jainism.
Non-violence is the supreme religion (Ahimsa parmo dharma). It is repeatedly said in Jain literature,
"Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment,
torture, or kill any creature or living being."
According to Jainism all living beings, irrespective of their size, shape, or different spiritual developments are equal. No living being has a right to harm, injure, or kill any other living being, including animals, insects, and plants. Every living being has a right to exist and it is necessary to live with every other living being in perfect harmony and peace.
Nonviolence in Jainism is not a negative virtue. It is based upon the positive quality of universal love and compassion. One who is actuated by this ideal cannot be indifferent to the suffering of others.
Violence of every type should be completely forbidden. Mental tortures by way of harsh words, actions, and any type of bodily injuries should also be avoided. Even thinking evil of some one is considered violence in Jainism.
Practically, it is impossible to survive without killing or injuring some of the smallest living beings. Some lives are killed even when we breathe, drink water, or eat food.
Therefore, Jainism says that minimum killing of the lowest form of life should be our ideal for survival.
In the universe, there are different forms of life, such as, human beings, animals, insects, plants, bacteria, and even smaller lives which cannot be seen even through the most powerful microscopes. Jainism has classified all the living beings according to their senses.
There are five senses; touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.
five senses - human, animals, birds, heavenly, hellish beings
four senses - flies, bees, etc.
three senses - ants, lice, etc.
two senses - worms, leaches, etc.
one sense - vegetables, water, air, earth, fire etc.
It is more painful if a life of the higher forms (more than one sense) are killed. All non-vegetarian food is made by killing a living being with two or more senses. Therefore, Jainism preaches strict vegetarianism, and prohibits non-vegetarian foods.
Jainism explains that violence is not defined by actual harm, for this may be unintentional. It is the intention to harm, the absence of compassion, and the ignorance that makes an action violent. Without violent thought there can be no violent actions.
Non-violence is to be observed in action, speech, and thought. One should not be violent, ask others to do so, or approve of such an activity.
Truth (Satya):
Anger, greed, fear, jokes, etc. are the breeding grounds of untruth. To speak the truth requires moral courage. Only those who have conquered greed, fear, anger, jealousy, ego, frivolity, etc., can speak the truth.
Jainism insists that one should not only refrain from falsehood, but should always speak the truth which should be wholesome and pleasant.
One should remain silent if the truth causes pain, hurt, anger, or death of any living being.
Truth is to be observed in speech, mind, and deed. One should not utter an untruth, ask others to do so, or approve of such activities.
Non-stealing (Achaurya or Asteya):
Stealing consists of taking another's property without his consent, or by unjust or immoral methods. Further, one should not take anything which does not belong to him. It does not entitle one to take away a thing which may be lying unattended or unclaimed. One should observe this vow very strictly, and should not touch even a worthless thing which does not belong to him.
When accepting alms, help, or aid one should not take more then what is minimum needed. To take more than one's need is also considered theft in Jainism.
The vow of non-stealing insists that one should be totally honest in action, thought, and speech. One should not steal, ask others to do so, or approve of such activities.
Celibacy / Chastity (Brahmacharya):
Total abstinence from sensual pleasure is called celibacy. Sensual pleasure is an infatuating force which sets aside all virtues and reason at the time of indulgence. This vow of controlling sensuality is very difficult to observe in its subtle form. One may refrain from physical indulgence but may still think of the pleasures of sensualism, which is prohibited in Jainism.
Monks are required to observe this vow strictly and completely. They should not enjoy sensual pleasures, ask others to do the same, nor approve of it. There are several rules laid down for observing this vow for householders.
Non-attachment / Non-possession (Aparigraha):
Jainism believes that the more worldly wealth a person possesses, the more he is likely to commit sin to acquire the possession, and in a long run he may be more unhappy. The worldly wealth creates attachments which will continuously result in greed, jealousy, selfishness, ego, hatred, violence, etc. Lord Mahavir has said that wants and desires have no end, and only the sky is the limit for them.
Attachments to worldly objects results in the bondage to the cycle of birth and death. Therefore, one who desires of spiritual liberation should withdraw from all attachments to pleasing objects of all the five senses.
Monks observe this vow by giving up attachments to all things such as:
Material things:
Wealth, property, grains, house, books, clothes, etc.
Relationships:
Father, mother, spouse, sons, daughters, friends, enemies, other monks, disciples, etc.
Pleasure of Five Senses:
The five senses are touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.
Feelings:
Pleasure and painful feelings towards touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing objects.
They have the equanimity towards music and noise, good and bad smells, soft and hard objects for touch, beautiful and dirty sights, etc. They do not eat food for taste but for survival with the intention to continue to progress spiritually and ultimately to attain liberation.
Non-possession and non-attachment are to be observed in speech, mind, and deed. One should not possess, ask others to do so, or approve of such activities.
Jainism has laid down and described in much detail these five great vows for the path of liberation. These are to be observed strictly and entirely by the monks and nuns. Partial observance is laid down for the householders with an additional seven vows.
Sailor Bob (Adamson) - Satsangs
A most respected advaita teacher from Australia will be in our area and many of us are looking forward to this rare opportunity to be with him. He is a student of Nisargadatta and spent time with him in his 'home' in Bombay.
Sunday afternoon August 29, 4 PM till 5:30 – 6 PM
Monday evening August 30, 7 PM till 8:30 – 9 PM
John Kilbourne is taking the lead in organizing this program for us.
Suggested donation:
$15 each evening, or $25 for both evenings
Location:
The home of John Kilbourne and Kyra Walsh
1907 Lincoln #3B (please notice the correction of address)
The illumination of consciousness goes beyond simply having subjective knowing and doing nothing about it. It is necessary to objectify the subjective knowing, by allowing that illumination to shine of its own accord by becoming a beacon and preventing others from losing themselves within the seduction of their own physicality. It is this form of objective activity where consciousness initiates its own pathway to eternalize itself. And that is the purpose and direction of your existence, which you either do or do not. The choice is always yours. And no one interferes with that choice.
If the agnostics altered their attention from mind function production to the purity of consciousness they would discover what lies beyond the physical, and there discover a first cause. If atheists focused upon the substance of their own consciousness they would discover what they now deny exists. The separation of mind and consciousness is a gift, allowing each to establish directional integrity and alignment of their freewill without coercion of any kind. Experiencing that separation as unity establishes a personal confirmation that no one anywhere can remove. It is the essence of Zen, the bedrock of all mystical experiences - the personal discovery of your creator source. It is an illuminating-connective experience of pure consciousness as who you are, with no mind functions moving. That subjective knowing creates direction. Embedded within that direction the purpose of your existence visually unfolds. It is all self-contained from the very beginning. It simply is a matter of removing your self-created veils to expose it.
Consciousness is formless, but you give it form with your mind functions. Consciousness is ageless, but you create the circumstances to make that agelessness eternally yours. Consciousness is genderless, as you now see the canvas of each and not the picture upon it. Consciousness is colorless, but you expose the canvas as pure color by creating a resonate picture upon it. This emerging picture is then recognizable as the Substance of Absolute Consciousness, which is the substance of your canvas. The canvas of consciousness contains your new emerging Identity, created by your own effort. And that new Identity is who you are, and will always be. It is your exposed personality picture-Identity that is now recognizable in a pure spirit environment. Your purpose and direction has always been impersonally embedded within consciousness, it is simply a matter of making it personal.
My research notes on non-referential compassion are in this issue.
Also in this issue I'll continue the In Nonduality Salon series, which covers the highlights from emails posted during the first nine months of Nonduality Salon, a span of time during which there were no Highlights.
The Sacred Mirror
Chapter 3: Love Returning for Itself. An interview with Adyashanti
Interview by John Prendergast and Sheila Krystal
Adyashanti on right
Adyashanti is a significant character in this book since he is an outsider to the profession of psychotherapy yet works one on one with people who are awakening. His perspectives on nondual therapy would seem to be important. The interviewers ask over two dozen excellent questions, not including follow-up questions and comments. This chapter/interview is about 30 pages long. I'll select a few questions and extract what I believe to be the kernel of Adyashanti's response to each question:
"Is the avoidance of this emptiness the root of human suffering?"
"I like to call it the dirty little secret of humanity. It's the emptiness, the abyss, that's right in the middle of every human being ... just waiting for some recognition of it. We tend to do everything in our power to dance around it."
"Do you have any advice for therapists?"
"Endeavor to be as honest yourself and with yourself as you would ask whoever you're with to be. To me, this is the true field of transformation."
"A woman recently asked you at a public meeting whether you thought therapy would help her awaken, and you answered, 'No." Why is that?"
"In a traditional sense, therapy is trying to put a nicer looking tutu or lipstick on the pig, which is great. It makes the story better and enables one to dream better, which means to function as an ego better."
"What can we do as therapists, if anything, to help people awaken?"
"Well, be awakened yourself. If one isn't to some extent awake, there's nothing you can do, and you're better off leaving the whole subject alone, because you'll probably do more damage than good."
"What is our role as spiritual therapists in bringing people to the threshold (of awakening) and maybe even facilitating that arrival? "
"That's a hard one for me, to be quite honest. My only job is to be myself. That's what I do. My job isn't to wake people up. I don't even feel that people need to be awake. It's none of my damn business whether they're awake or whether they want to be awake. ... I don't think there is a spiritual psychotherapy, because as soon as it becomes that, it's not spiritual anymore, it's just more models. I think there can be a spiritual psychotherapist, which is a transformed, awakened psychotherapist."
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Not all questons in this chapter bear directly on therapy. Most are of the nature of spiritual psychology and nondual existence. Topics discussed include Ground of Being, grace, embodiment, "watching-experiencing," "love returning for itself," dreaming well, authentic feeling, ego and awakening, thought and Reality, the core story, readiness to awaken, awakening and the subtle body.
~ ~ ~
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
Nonreferential compassion is compassion that goes beyond the distinction between self and other, where you no longer hold the other person as separate from you, or their suffering (or joy) as different from your own. Beyond the limited realm of the 'three spheres', which are:
self
other
the actions or relationships that connect (i.e. divide) self and other.
The kind of compassion we have described so far is called "compassion with reference to sentient beings." A dualism lingers here, however, because we are still caught by the threefold idea of (1) ourselves experiencing the compassion, (2) other beings as the objects of compassion, and (3) the actual act of feeling compassion through understanding or perceiving the suffering of others.
This framework prepares our path in the Mahayana. Once this kind of compassion has been established, we arrive at a second understanding: The realization begins to grow that the self which is feeling the compassion, the objects of the compassion, and the compassion itself are all in a certain sense illusory. We see that these three aspects belong to a conventional, not ultimate, reality. They are nothing in themselves, but simply illusions that create the appearance of a dualistic framework. Perceiving these illusions and thereby understanding the true emptiness of all phenomena and experience is what we call "compassion with reference to all phenomena." This is the main path of Mahayana practice.
From this second kind of compassion a third develops, "non-referential compassion." Here we entirely transcend any concern with subject/object reference. It is the ultimate experience that results in Buddhahood. All these three levels of compassion are connected, so if we begin with the basic level by developing loving-kindness and compassion towards all 1iving beings, we lay a foundation which guarantees that our path will lead directly to Enlightenment.
First, at the beginning of every period of meditation, imagine your root guru sitting on a lotus-and-moon seat above your head. His body is radiant and his face happy and smiling as he regards all beings with nonreferential compassion. In him, all the root and lineage gurus are present.
With intense respect and devotion, repeat the lineage prayer if you wish and, in particular, the following prayer a hundred or a thousand times.
I pray for your blessing, my guru, great and completely worthy spiritual friend. I pray that you will cause love, compassion and bodhicitta to arise in my mind.
Then, imagine that your guru descends through the aperture of Brahma and sits in your heart in a pavilion of light, like an open shell. This exercise in intense respect and devotion is known as guru yoga. It is important to begin every period of meditation this way.
Altuism with reference to individuals, or even groups of beings, is laudable, and certainly is associated with compassion in its normal sense.
But the compassion we should all be trying to generate, and the only real "compassion" which serves our purposes (liberating all beings from Samsara), is nonreferential compassion, the compassion without reference point. The best approximation to this compassion, for those of us not passed beyond dualistic distinctions between self and other, is the compassion which arises when we realize that all beings, including ourselves, suffer entirely due to their mistaken clinging to such dualistic view. Due to our ignorance, we continue to think in terms of self vs. other, USA vs. China, Tibet Vs. China, or what-have-you. We should certainly do what we can to allay our own and other's temporary suffering, but I would suggest that our focus should be on developing our accumulations of merit and wisdom, through our practice of meditation and the other paramitas. It may take a bit longer (!), but only through perfecting our accumulations can we experience the truly liberating compassion, the compassion beyond words, beyond reference point, and beyond dualism.
Compassionate action which focuses on a dualistic reference point may be part of perfecting our accumulations, but it is hard to say for certain whether the results of such actions are meritorious in the first place. Boycotts and political action are temporary, and their effects are uncertain, as others have already discussed. On the other hand, practice according to one's teacher's instructions has "permanent" benefit, and the effects of such practice are certain.
Sentient beings are like water moons not only from the perspective of their impermanence, but also from the perspective that even the moon that appears to be moving there is not really a moon at all. It is a mere appearance that is empty of inherent nature. Similarly, not only are sentient beings impermanent, they aren't real. They are just like the sentient beings that appear in dreams.
This is an expression of the third type of compassion: non-referential compassion. It is called this because its focus is the emptiness of sentient beings. The nature of sentient beings is that they have no nature. They have no inherent essence but they don't know that, and as a result of believing in their own true existence they suffer. And for this reason we feel compassion for them.
Act from emptiness knowing the effects of your actions. When you understand not doing, observe the three vows. With non-referential compassion work to help beings Keep the two ways of growing inseparable - that's my sincere advice.
~ ~ ~
from A teaching by Lama Karma Rinchen
On Placing The Body, Speech, And Mind In Seclusion
Q: Could you talk a little bit about the ultimate nature of compassion?
A: The ultimate kind of compassion that the Buddha taught is called non-referential compassion. Non-referential compassion is non-dual. It realizes that the object of compassion has no nature of its own, that the one who is meditating on compassion has no nature of their own, and that compassion itself has no nature either. That is the type of compassion that the Buddha has: compassion that is without reference.
Along these lines, the Buddha taught three kinds of compassion, or three stages. Compassion, in general, means that when you look at some one, that you want them to be free of suffering. The first type of compassion is called compassion that focuses on sentient beings. This identifies that the cause of suffering that you want sentient beings to be free from is the clinging to the true existence of self. When someone believes in the true existence of self, they will just suffer. The only reason that sentient beings suffer is because they think there is a “me” that has difficulties and problems. We look at sentient beings that cling to a true existence of self, where there is no self, and we feel compassion for them as a result because they suffer due to this mistaken belief that there is a truly existent self.
The second kind of compassion is called compassion that focuses on the quality of sentient beings. That quality is impermanence. For sentient beings, every aspect of their experience is impermanent. The experience of sentient beings changes from moment to moment, and the same is true of their suffering. But most sentient beings do not know that, and they cling to things as being permanent, and as a result they suffer. So, we feel compassion for them because they suffer from this type of ignorance of the nature of genuine reality.
The third type of compassion is non-referential compassion that is based on the understanding that the true and genuine nature of reality is emptiness beyond conceptual fabrication. Sentient beings suffer because they do not realize that. They take things to be truly existent. The ultimate perfection of this third type of compassion is total non-referential compassion.
Q: Are the only ones that practice this true compassion, the non-referential compassion, the enlightened Bodhisattvas that are Lamas, or great masters?
A: No, it is not like that, because in the Mahayana there are teachings that describe lots of different Bodhisattvas. There are Bodhisattvas that are rulers, Bodhisattvas who are ministers, Bodhisattvas who are wealthy business people, and there are Bodhisattvas who are children. There can be a Bodhisattva in any activity of life. The main characteristic of a Bodhisattva is their motivation. The motivation of a Bodhisattva is compassion and love for all, not biased toward one group, and anger or displeasure toward another group, but compassion for everybody, equally.
With this great motivation of all-encompassing love and compassion, people of power can accomplish great things. For example, if a military general is a Bodhisattva, and has great compassion, their outward conduct could appear to be combative, but what they are actually accomplishing, if they are skilful, and what they can do, is to prevent harm. There are lots of stories told in the Mahayana teachings about people who did things like that, but we do not have much time to go into that tonight.
In the general teachings of the Mahayana there are three types of Compassion each more profound then the previous type.
1. Outer Compassion: This kind of compassion is the kind we feel when we see someone suffering. When we look at the world and see the many negative, destructive acts human do to each other. We can't help but feel Compassion for the victims and of course some indignation particularly if we think some group of humans are quite purposely creating suffering for others groups. Also fear that we might be the next victim or that someone is going to become so negative and powerful that the whole situation will get beyond any control. The correct thing to do is to seperate our compassion from our reaction of anger and fear, anger and fear are the reasons for this kind of thing in the first place only Compassion will lead us out of the valley of the shadow.
2. Inner Compassion: This kind of Compassion takes into account the situation of Samsara as a whole. It results from looking at the world and seeing the interconnectedness of suffering and confusion, desire, and hatred. The interconnectedness of all confused beings with each other. We gain a little perspective on those negative actions we can see them in the context of all the suffering that has ever occurred and we see the suffering that is Karmically in store for all of us as Samsaric beings. This should ingender in us the desire to end this cycle of confusion-- suffering , suffering-- confusion. If we think we can do some outward thing that will fundamentaly change this situation we are being naive, most of the negative actions are attempts to change things based on, perceived injustice, self righteous indignation, and self cherishing paranoia. Instead we should use our ability to have the first kind of Compassion to soften our self-clinging which is the inner form of confusion. We can combine these two Compassions to inspire us to strive toward the cessation of confusion in all beings. We see the fruition suffering and the cause of suffering and the whole situation of suffering. Enlightenment is the solution to suffering but for suffering to really cease all beings must become Enlightened, by our own Enlightenment we will be able to use the Wisdom of Enlightenment to help others to become Enlightened. So by our striving to become Enlightened we are doing one of the best things we can possibly do to heal the situation. It is a matter of focusing on method.
3. Non-referential Compassion: This highest type of Compassion is the Compassion of Enlightened beings. Their Compassion is totally integrated into their experience it doesn't require a view of anything to occur it needs no reference points it is spontaneous. So it is said "Avalokiteshvara doesn't have Compassion he is Compassion." The Compassion of Enlightened beings uses the Wisdom of Enlightenment to do whatever can be done just spontaneously. So the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas appear in this world when we are at a point that they can benefit us. And of course we in turn resolve to become Enlightened beings and so on..... only thus will suffering really cease.
I congratulate you on your honesty and directness it is often very difficult to take a position you know will "draw fire" from others. This means your quite sincere and genuine in your Compassion and desire to help others. You will do well at this stuff with that kind of inner fearlessness. That is the stuff Bodhisattvas are made of.
Rikpa
Jerry Katz
The Shusher
Every orthodox Synagogue has a man -- always an older man very devoted to prayer, never mean, and somewhat affable in nature -- whose job it is to restore absolute silence in the midst of the religious service by half-turning in his seat in the direction of the noisy congregants, putting his index finger vertically in front of his lips, and aspirating a firm and clearly audible, "Shhhhhhhhh."
The purpose of the shusher is to remind people they are in the presence of great teachings and to show respect.
But if people come together and there is no focus upon a great teaching, why bother? Then it's called a par-ty. Why then even the shusher gets shickered.
In Nonduality Salon
Selected posts from the early days of Nonduality Salon
Gene Poole
Dear all NonDualisters...
Once again my "unique perspecive" is offered...
The 'NonDual' reality is infintely inclusive.
This means that all questions and experiences are 'subsumed' or consumed into it.
This 'nondual' perspective is also _exclusive_...of that which would distort the nondual.
Of course, that which would distort the nondual, does not have a chance, because the nondual _includes_ and subsumes that which would distort the nondual.
In this way, the nondual continually 'purifies' itself of what is not nondual, yet as 'everything', the nondual is the arena in which all questioning and seeking takes place.
Seeing this, understanding that consciousness may be said to be like a 'stage' upon which many dramas are enacted, a stage whose settings may change unpredictably, but which stage itself _never_ changes, is possible. It can be arranged by deliberate teachings, it can be intuited, it is possible.
The questions of suffering and pain are all occuring within the nondual, which itself (the nnodual) is usually unseen. The stage-settings include this list, and the times of our lives which are dedicated to reading, contemplating, and responding. The nondual is easily forgotten, due to the intensity of the dramas which are enacted within it.
The perspective that all of life, the universe, and everything, are one 'gigantic' integrated whole, available to consciousness, is the perspective which opens the door to the realization of the nondual. The realization itself, as has been said, is unspeakable (although I try).
It is not enough to refer to or to rearrange the various many 'teachings' and 'beliefs' available to us. Instead, one may see their (the teachings) insufficiency and inadequacies, and move beyond them, into a acceptance of one's actual nature, which is both 'dual' and nondual.
The acceptance of both the dual and the nondual is a necessary step, in my educated opinion. Perhaps you have seen the futility of attempting to disqualify pieces of reality on the basis that they are not 'real'...pain is an excellent axample, and that may be exactly what pain is for...
I ask your indulgence; bear with me as I say the above many times.
I have not found any magical cures, drugs, or incantations. I have never found a sure-fire formula to end suffering. And I have never experienced any but the demented, charlatans, or utter fools, to advocate or believe that such things exist.
The offering of the nondual perspective is not designed to end suffering, to answer all duality-originated questions, or for any other 'practical' purpose. There is no prescription offered, no cure held forth, no relief in sight. There is NO REMEDY.
One may have ideas about the nondual, and the nondual consumes all such ideas. One may live in the utmost of dire distress and drama, in pain and distraction, and still have the nondual perspective, or not. There are those who 'have' the nondual perspective and there are those who do not, but all are contained in the gigantic set of ONE which is all that is; it is all interlinked in such a way that nothing is meaningless, and also so that nothing has any meaning in and by itself. That is nonduality. And that is the core of the Buddhist doctrine of interdependent originations, which is the very core of Buddhist teachings (Dharma).
Buddha did NOT say that 'All is suffering'; instead, he said that "The cause of suffering is _dukka_", or loss of integrity/wholeness. Integrity, or lack of it, is what determines our status as sufferers. The Pali-language word 'dukka' means exactly "loss of or lack of integrity". (Split 'ka' or 'dual-'ka')
To regain integrity is to end suffering.
To regain integrity, one may adopt the nondual perspective, which is to invite reality to replace opinion.
If one chants opinions continually, if one is not open to raw, unprocessed reality, if one has an axe to grind, a grudge to bear, blame to place, an agenda to enact, unfulfilled desires, supressed fears, shame, or 'karmic momentum' , one may have a difficult time seeing the value of regaining integrity by simply being unbiased and open for say, five minutes every day, as an experiment.
If one grasps and clings to 'reasons' and 'causes', one will not feel and really know the interlinked interdependent nature of the whole of what is. If one feels that one must alter what is before it can be accepted, one is indeed attempting the impossible. And if one stakes anything upon making reality over into what is desired, one is seriously deluded. Yet, that is the state of humanity, is it not?
Root out and let go of resentment. Break the chain of pain. Open the link which you are, to expand and contain all of what is, chainless.
Resentment (the re: sending of pain) is the root of pain. Think about it.
Disabusement is my amusement...
==Gene Poole==
"If one doth relish the role of fool, good sir, one need only transmit wisdom via the common network of news; for one may be a clown wearing the mask of genius, or genius masked as clown, and none is the wiser for the effort." [act 17.01, _A Midsummer Night's Fungi_/Wm Shakespore]
"Borne of the effort of comprehension, inspiration cavorts in lands unseen by the blind." A. Textfile
~ ~ ~
Jan Barendrecht
All "personal" dealings ended some 29 years ago and before that there was quite some action "for a better world". Surrender is a state that, once adopted, leads to a swift annihilation of the "I" and surrender works without a subject to surrender to - I was left to no choice but total (inner) passivity. Unfamiliar with spiritual life here, I considered living in a nondual state natural. As there was perfect peace of mind there was no reason to undertake anything (lifestyle: "hermit with a job"). When the job ended 20 years too early there was a kind of early retirement - on an archipelago nicknamed "islas afortunadas (happy islands)". With bad eyesight, there is hardly watching TV so only "happy" locals and tourists are observed. Before subscription to the K. list there was no notion that spiritual life could pose difficulties.
Harsha
Jan. Have been reading your posts with a feeling of great warmth. Hard to add anything. Very grateful for your company. Your emphasis on Ahimsa reminds me very much of Chitrabhanu Ji whom I met in late 1970s and had the opportunity to be with him for several years. As a young disciple, I often used to walk him home after his lectures. My questions on the way were typically about meditation, pranayama, upa yoga (yoga of awareness) and various samadhis. He was always delighted to answer and enjoyed the discussions as much as I did. He ended virtually every conversation with the reminder that the highest state is a state of perfect nonviolence. Now he is about 76. Our less frequent conversations still end the same way. Fortunate are those who seek peace and perfect balance. Fortunate are those that find the path of non-violence and love. Fortunate are those who find the company of such seekers and teachers. May the light of love lead everyone to their fulfillment. Again thanks Jan. God bless everyone with everything that is best in life.
~ ~ ~
Jerry Katz
What do Ma Pater Willow, An Toron Joseph Howe, Gi Vilke Tobin, He Halif Livingstone, Du Calga Tower, St. Montre Quinpool have in common?
Are they great spiritual Masters? Welll.... They are people that wanted a name suitable for a Spiritual Master and found one thusly:
They took the first two letters of their middle name, the first five letters of the city they were born in, and the name of the street they live on. There you have it. What famous Masters have we on this List?
Yours, Ma Pater Willow
~ ~ ~
David Hodges
Greetings:
As I was performing my running sadhana this morning, which involves meditation while running by the ocean, I passed a woman who was out for a walk and who was holding and fiddling with a Walkman, and who had headphones over her ears. While the waves rolled on the shore, while the clouds scudded in the sky, while the sounds of the wind blowing and the surf pounding and the crickets in the bushes chirping were there for the taking, she was preoccupied with the entertainment she had brought for herself.
Is this not what we all do? We ignore What Is because we think the drama we brought for ourselves is more interesting? How much better to turn off the Walkman, and tune into the sounds and sights of Everything. How much better to let our consciousness widen to the width of the vast ocean sky and encompass everything that moves or makes a sound or has a color or a smell or a texture?
Then our own personal drama becomes a part of something much larger and becomes much less urgent. It just happens along with everything else, along with crickets and waves and joggers and clouds.
PLACES OF PEACE AND POWER The Sacred Site Pilgrimage of Martin Gray
Martin Gray is an anthropologist and photographer specializing in the study of sacred sites and pilgrimage traditions around the world. Traveling as a pilgrim, Martin spent twenty years, visiting and photographing over 1000 sacred sites in eighty countries.
...anyone wishing to understand societies of the past must make a determined effort to liberate himself from the pressures of his own mental attitudes.
Georges Duby
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
Albert Einstein
Since prehistoric times, certain places have exerted a mysterious attraction on billions of people around the world. Many cultures of antiquity recognized the existence of these sites, called power places or sacred sites, and marked their geographic locations in a variety of ways. The names of such places are familiar to us all; they include Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the Pyramids, Jerusalem, Banaras and Mecca. Power places are found all across the planet in the form of sacred mountains, healing springs, oracular caverns, enchanted forest glens and places of divine revelation.
Ancient legends and modern-day reports tell of extraordinary experiences that people have had while visiting these holy and magical places. Different sacred sites have the power to heal the body, enlighten the mind, increase creativity, develop psychic abilities, and awaken the soul to a knowing of its true purpose in life. While contemporary science cannot explain - and therefore disregards - the seemingly miraculous phenomena which occur at the holy places, these sites continue to be the most venerated and visited locations on planet Earth.
This book chronicles my own search for answers to these questions. Over an eighteen-year period I went upon a rambling yet purposeful pilgrimage to more than 1000 sacred sites in eighty countries around the world. I was able to determine the locations of these sites by researching the anthropology, archaeology, mythology and religious traditions of the world's past and present cultures.
SACRED JOURNEYS My journeys to these places have been pilgrimages in the real sense of the word. The term pilgrimage means so much more than mere travel. In its original and pure meaning, pilgrimage describes a religious journey to a site or set of sites that have been invested with sanctity by tradition. Pilgrimage may also be defined as exterior mysticism, while mysticism is internal pilgrimage. Such has been the nature of my travels. Wandering extensively around the world, my journeys have fundamentally been an inner exploration of my heart and mind and soul. While I have been concerned with the scholarly study and photography of the sacred places, my primary intention has always been to interact with the sacred sites as a pilgrim.
The deep feeling-experience of pilgrimage to the sacred places is enriched by a parallel journey through their mythology and history. To do this, I have read more than 1500 sources of information, mostly books but also a large number of academic journals articles and Ph.D. dissertations. This material has ranged widely over mythology, earth sciences, astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology and folk lore studies, trance, magic and shamanism, comparative religion, geomancy and sacred geometry, hagiography, parapsychology and mysticism. Combining scholarly study with long-term pilgrimage experience, I have been able to make conceptual leaps of understanding which I will share in these pages with you.
EARTH MESSAGES The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was fascinated by this idea of humans communing with the natural world. Following a lifetime of research on the subject he wrote:
As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos because he is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional unconscious identity with natural phenomena...no voices now speak to man from stones, plants and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it the profound emotional energy that this connection supplied...primitive man was much more governed by his instincts than are his "rational" modern descendants, who have learned to "control" themselves. In this civilizing process, we have increasingly divided our consciousness from the deeper instinctive strata of the human psyche, and even ultimately from the somatic (bodily felt and known) basis of psychic phenomenon. Fortunately we have not lost these basic instinctive strata; they remain part of the unconscious, even though they may express themselves only in the form of dream images. (2) [...]
PHOTOGRAPHS AND WORDS This book has two textual chapters followed by several photographic ones (this web site includes both these textual chapters and a selection of photographs from the visual chapters). Chapter One gives an autobiographical account of my long pilgrimage to sacred sites around the world, and includes some of the visionary experiences, spiritual teachings and prophetic revelations I was given at various holy places. Chapter Two is concerned with the actual nature of sacred places and answers a number of questions about their legendary power. For example, what is this mysterious "power of place"? What factors cause it to be so highly concentrated at particular sacred sites? Why have humans been so strongly drawn to these places? How are we to explain the extraordinary, often miraculous things that happen at the sites? [...]
WAYS OF USING THIS BOOK
This book can also be used for guided contemplationof beauty and sacred art. The geographic places illustrated are among the most beautiful in the entire world. To gaze upon these lovely sites is to awaken the soul and fill it with awe. The architectural structures built at these places represent the greatest art creations of human civilization. For example, while artists such as the painter Eduard Monet or the composer Ludwig von Beethoven created many stunning works of art, those works are the creation of single individuals, often made in a matter or weeks or months. The great pilgrimage shrines, on the other hand, took hundreds or thousands of craftsmen many hundreds of years to create (often with unlimited financial patronage from royalty and religious institutions). The magnificent temples, mosques, cathedrals and stone rings at the sacred sites are the quintessential examples of humanity's artistic genius. [...]
When I was eight years old I began to have visions and dreams of things I might do when I grew to be an adult. Being a young child, I had not yet learned sufficient vocabulary to speak clearly with other people about the things I had seen in my visions and dreams. But I could pray. And my childhood prayers were that I might one day serve as a paintbrush in the hand of god, showering beauty and goodness upon the world. Such has been my prayer for many years, and it has also been the fundamental yearning guiding the creation of this book. I have held a conscious intention throughout the many years of traveling, photographing and writing. I wanted the photographs to somehow function as magical picture beams that would connect my readers with some place half the world away. More than carrying the homeopathic essence of the sites, this book, according to the power of your intention and imagination, may actually become the sites. Peter Lamborn Wilson, writing of pilgrimage in the Sufi tradition, explains:
In ordinary pilgrimage, the traveler receives baraka [spiritual energy] from a place, but the dervish reverses the flow and brings barakato a place. The Sufi may think of himself or herself as a permanent pilgrim - but to the ordinary stay-at-home people of the mundane world, the Sufi is a kind of perambulatory shrine. (3)
Places of Peace and Power, is my bringing of baraka from the sacred sites to you. The book is itself a shrine. My purpose in creating this shrine has been to share the teachings I received as a wandering pilgrim passionately in love with the Earth. Perhaps these teachings will touch you. Perhaps they and the photographs that follow will compel you to travel, understand and listen to the Earth as only a pilgrim can. Perhaps they will inspire you to love and serve this wonderful Earth more than you have before. That is my hope and prayer.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1890 Saturday, August 14, 2004 Editor: Mark
How can there be two selves in one body? The "I am" is one. There is no "higher I-am" and "lower I-am". All kinds of states of consciousness are presented to awareness and there is self- identification with them. The objects of observation are not what they appear to be, and the attitudes they are met with are not what they need to be. If you think that Buddha, Christ, or Krishnamurti speak to the person, you are mistaken. They know well that the vyakti , the outer self, is but a shadow of the vyakta , the inner self, and they address and admonish the vyakta only. They tell him to give attention to the outer self, to guide it and help it, to feel responsible for it; in short, to be fully aware of it. Awareness comes from the Supreme and pervades the inner self; the so-called outer self is only that part of one's being of which one is not aware. One may be conscious, for every being is conscious, but one is not aware. What is included in awareness becomes the inner and partakes of the inner.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to NondualPhil by Adi Shakthi
January 23,1936
Maj. Chadwick: I do not know if the Self is different from the ego.
Maharshi: How were you in your deep sleep?
D. I do not know.
M. Who does not know? Is it not the waking Self? Do you deny your existence in your deep sleep?
D. I was and I am; but I do not know who existed in deep sleep.
M. Exactly. The man awake says that he did not know anything in the state of sleep. Now he sees the objects and knows that he is there; whereas in deep sleep there were no objects, no spectator, etc. The same one who is now speaking existed in deep sleep also. What is the difference between these two states? There are objects and the play of senses now which were not there in sleep. A new entity, the ego, has risen up in the meantime; it plays through the senses, sees the objects, confounds itself with the body, and says that the Self is the ego. In reality, what was in deep sleep continues to exist even now. The Self is changeless; it is the ego that has intervened. That which rises and sets is the ego; that which remains changeless is the Self.
- Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Ramana Maharshi - posted by Viorica Weissman on MillionPaths.
7:30 am - you asked about compassion/dispassion Compassion is natural in relations with others. But before spending too much time on it, and if you are ready, why not inspect the whole matter in a much deeper way.
When you have compassion for another, a big assumption has already been made. You are assuming that there is someone else that is (different from) not you. You have assumed you are somebody or something or you wouldn’t be cognizing someone or something "else". Before you go about trying to correct or help the apparent others, it is wise to see if there really are any others and who it is that is assuming such a thing. In order to know if there are any others you should first see who it is that cognizes them.
Who sees the others? This seems like such a remedial question, yet to honestly and sincerely ask it could change your whole outlook to the point of radical joy. Understanding the truth of your own existence will clear up the question of how to treat others.
If you inspect the conceiving of those others, who perhaps need your compassion, you may come to the understanding that there are no others unless you imagine them.
Consider your dream state. You may have deep compassion for the others in your dreams, and go about all kinds of maneuvering to help them out, yet upon waking you see the whole thing was a bunch of mind fluff. Not only were the others unreal, but yourself as a dream character was unreal. Is it ultimately important to spend time nursing phantoms? Is dispassion called for?
Teachings about dispassion toward the world and others are meant to turn your attention inward toward the source of all arising phenomena. The whole notion of others depends on who you are taking yourself to be. If you are an ant, the others will appear to be ants. If you are a dream character of some kind, the others will appear accordingly. Instead of looking outward towards the others, try looking at yourself. If it is obvious you are not an ant or a dream character, what makes you think you are a human being? Is a human body your real identity? When attention is turned inward toward the essence of your own existence it is possible to discover the wonderful truth of who you really are. Dispassion towards what seems to be outside of you is simply a tool to quiet the mind and thus wake up to what is real about yourself and others.
Dispassion gets interesting when it is directed at your own assumed identity. The real dispassion should be toward your own persona because all the "others" stem from that initial assumption. Instead of assuming an identity as a human being and then trying to be compassionate toward the apparently human others, it is more wise to question your own identity.
When you deeply and thoroughly look at your self, where do you find your self? If you find yourself objectively, can it really be you? To be dispassionate toward what you have wrongly taken to be yourself will allow you great clarity and freedom. When there are no notions about yourself and others, what remains? To find this out for yourself is liberation.
Once found, it is so enjoyable that no dispassion is needed! When you know who you really are, it is clear that there is only one Self with no others. If there appear to be others they are yourself. From this point of view where is the need for compassion?
- image of sleeping frog by Zen O'Leary, posted on SufiMystic
Dear friends, today is the 10th of May, 1998. We are in the Upper Hamlet, and we are in the Spring Retreat. Today is Vesak, the day of the nativity of the Buddha. The life of the Buddha was supported by a kind of aspiration, a kind of desire, a kind of energy, that is to help, to help reduce the amount of suffering in the world, to bring about transformation and healing, to bring joy. That energy is important, that aspiration is important. The vitality of the life of the Buddha is the energy of compassion, the energy of understanding that can make the Buddha alive, that can help him to continue the teaching so that many people will be able to liberate themselves. To be born means to begin anew, and all of us want to begin anew.
When we know how to begin anew we get a lot more energy, joy and aspiration that can help us transform what is negative in us, and help us have more joy, more capacity to transform the situation around us. To be born is a form of beginning anew. And that is why we should be able to be born as a new being at every moment of our lives. There are people who may say, "I am too old to begin again." That is because they have not seen the true nature of life, of the practice of Beginning Anew. We can practice Beginning Anew at any moment of our lives. To be born is to begin anew. When you are three years old you can begin anew, and when you are sixty years old you can still begin anew, and when you are about to die, that is still time to begin anew. We need to practice looking a little bit more deeply in order to see that Beginning Anew is possible at any time of our daily lives, at any age.
Suppose a cloud is floating in the sky, and is about to die, to become rain. The cloud could be caught in anger, in fear: "Why does this happen to me? Why do I have to die? Why can’t I continue to be a cloud floating in the sky? So anger and fear may come to the cloud and make the cloud very unhappy; but if the cloud is intelligent enough, if the cloud knows how to look deeply into its true nature, then it can practice Beginning Anew. Tonight is also an opportunity to be reborn, and that is a preparation. We should not be caught in any form, because to be a cloud floating in the sky is wonderful, but to be the rain falling on the mountain or the river, on the trees and on the grass is also a wonderful thing. Even excitement is possible, hope is possible, joy is possible when dying. We know that there are people who are capable of dying in a very peaceful and happy way. I have seen people who die with contentment, with happiness, with a sense of fulfillment, and who do not regard their dying as the end of something, of their life. They have been able to look deeply into the nature of life, and they are emancipated from the notions of being and non-being. There are people who sit on the threshold of their house, and look at the children playing in the morning sunshine in the front yard, and watch their grandchildren playing happily. And when they look like that, they suddenly become their grandchildren. They see themselves as playing in the morning sunshine in the grass. They see their continuation in their grandchildren. They know that they have done everything that they could do in order for these children to be happy, to be well-prepared in order to enter life. They are ready to begin anew. They have already begun anew, and they can see themselves in new forms of life.
Of course, during their lifetimes they have made some mistakes. Because we are human beings, we cannot avoid making mistakes. We might have caused someone else to suffer, we might have offended our beloved ones, and we feel regret. But it is always possible for us to begin anew, and to transform all these kinds of mistakes. Without making mistakes there is no way to learn, in order to be a better person, to learn how to be tolerant, to be compassionate, to be loving, to be accepting. That is why mistakes play a role in our training, in our learning, and we should not get caught in the prison of culpability just because we have made some mistakes in our life.
If you can learn from your mistakes, then you have already transformed the garbage into a flower, for your own joy, for the joy of your ancestors, for the joy of the future generations, and also for the joy of the person who was the victim of your ignorance and your lack of skillfulness. Very often we have done that out of our unskillfulness, not because we wanted to harm that person, or we wanted to destroy the person, or because we wanted him or her to suffer. We were unskillful, that is all. I always like to think of our behavior in terms of it being more or less skillful, rather than in terms of good and evil. If you are skillful, you can avoid making yourself suffer, and making the other person suffer. If there is something you want to tell the other person, then yes, you have to tell it, but there is a way to tell it and make the other person suffer, and make you suffer. But there are other ways to say it that would not make the other person suffer, and yourself suffer also. So the problem is not whether to tell or not to tell what you have in your heart, the problem is how to tell it so that suffering will not be there. That is why this is a matter of art, and of our practice also.
- Thich Nhat Hanh from a dharma talk given May 10, 1998 in Plum Village
Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive. Jump into experience while you are alive! Think...and think... while you are alive. If you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?
The ida that the soul will join with the ecstatic just because the body is rotten -- that is all fantasy. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City
of Death. If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.
So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!
Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work. Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.
- Kabir
It is not that you must be free from fear. The moment you try to free yourself from fear, you create a resistance against fear. Resistance in any form doesn’t end fear. What is needed rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance is understanding fear; that means watch it; learn about it; come directly into contact with it.
- J Krishnamurti, posted to DailyDharma
Entering the Shell
Love is alive, and someone borne along by it is more alive than lions
roaring or men in their fierce courage. Bandits ambush others on the road.
They get wealth but they stay in one place. Lovers keep moving, never
the same, not for a second! What makes others grieve, they enjoy!
When they look angry, don't believe their faces. It's spring lightning,
a joke before the rain. They chew thorns thoughtfully along with pasture
grass. Gazelle and lioness, having dinner. Love is invisible except
here, in us. Sometimes I praise love; sometimes love praises me. Love,
a little shell somewhere on the ocean floor, opens its mouth. You and I
and we, those imaginary beings, enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.
- Rumi Ghazal (Ode) 843 Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin The Glance, Viking-Penguin, 1999, posted on Sunlight
- Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Joe Riley ~ Panhala
Czeslaw Milosz died Saturday.
He fought against political tyranny but never lost sight that full freedom
includes liberating the human spirit.
We are all workers in the field....
LATE RIPENESS
Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing, Like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas assigned to my brush came closer, ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people, grief and pity joined us. We forget -- I kept saying -- that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division Into Yes and No, into is, was, and it will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -- a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us, waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard, as are all men and women living at the same time, whether they are aware of it or not.
~ Czeslaw Milosz ~
(Czeslaw Milosz: New and Collected Poems (1931-2001))
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury,pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
Saint François d'Assise en pričre (1587-97) El Greco Huile sur toile , 103 x 87 cm.
To study the Way 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 remove the barriers between one's self and others. Then there is no trace of enlightenment, though enlightenment itself continues into one's daily life endlessly.
- Dogen
Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.
- Dogen
Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray.
- Sen Ming, quoted by Ram Dass
There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Becoming aware, awakening, enlightenment, is possible right here and now, for everyone. From moment to moment, and yet only here and now, never sometimes, somewhere. Reality, God, is present here and now. The kingdom of heaven, blessedness, moksha, nirvana waits here and now. Outwardly nothing may happen, and yet a purely inner process can open up a new world, a new life, a new reality. - New? - Yes, really new, and yet as all those who have ever experienced it assert, at that moment we know that we have always been at home in that world, although we only now become aware of it. - Yrjö Kallinen, Finnish politician, pacifist
The Power of Awareness
Awareness of every reaction is your final freedom. - Vernon Howard
Vernon Howard is a bare-bones spiritual teacher for the ages. In his books and tapes he puts forth the abc's of awareness in an amazing way. If you think he is too simple for you, think again. It is simplicity that sets us free. Those teachers who can transcend the mind are forever sending their messages to us if we would only listen.
They speak about awareness as the key to finding peace. Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta are the classic advaita vedanta teachers, but Vernon Howard is an American genius when it comes to teaching the same thing. I studied him before I did the other two. When I got around to reading them, I found that Vernon Howard had already taught me about being the Self, for truth is ever-present.
The nice thing about Vernon Howard was that I could sit and listen to him in real time. As far as I know, he did nothing but speak the truth in every class he ever taught. The approach that he took was faultless; it weeded out the less serious students right away. Those who stayed got the good stuff. Ouspensky worked in the same way. He would pretend to be boring until the goof-offs left the building. Then he would scatter pearls to the remaining few. That is exactly how it should be. Those who work hard at understanding always get their reward.
I write about my path through suffering as it unfolds. Being an intuitive writer, I recognize that what Vernon Howard taught me shows through; that he is behind me as a guiding principle. You might say that he keeps me honest. His idea of enlightenment was hard-hitting; there was no one there to become enlightened. Indeed.
RESURRECTION OR NIRVANA William Johnston on deeper healing
"Healing in Christianity is a process of death and resurrection in which man, anguished in his existential separation from Christ and from other men and from the cosmos, is once more united with the one he loves and for whom he longs. In Buddhism there is a similar pattern. It is precisely because the self cuts man off from the whole that it must die; and it is by death and the loss of self that man enters into nirvana or union with the cosmos. A friend of mine, a Catholic priest, who practised some Zen told me that the Zen master once said to him with some severity, 'God sent his only Son into the world to die. And you must die too. So die!' This is one more example of Buddhist ability to see the relevance of Christian dogma for daily living. How well he saw that as Christ died, his followers must die too if they are to enter into resurrection.
Buddhism, then, sees the necessity of death and of radical detachment as the gateway to nirvana. While I would not equate nirvana and resurrection (that would be an unpardonable oversimplification), I do believe that both concepts are striving to answer man's most terrible and most basic question - how to be healed from the anguish of separation and loneliness and isolation and death. In both religions death is conquered because it is the gateway to something else. Perhaps resurrection is a clearer affirmation of something hinted at by nirvana."
- William Johnston, in Silent Music, The Science of Meditation, 1974 (The deeper healing, p. 130)
Sayings of Jesus #86--Gospel of Thomas
posted by Tony on HarshaSatsangh
86) Jesus said, "[The foxes have their holes] and the birds have [their] nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head and rest."
Yosy writes: ps. "son of man" ("ben-adam") is hebrew for "human".
Zenbob writes: Yes, indeed, but Jesus often invoked this image to describe himself as the symbolic proto-human...not superior, not above, not better than...but purely equally human...which is funny when one sees how many modern Christian Fundamentalists have distorted the very notion of Jesus into some sort of God-on-earth-SuperHero.
I like the purely human aspect...it make the acts, the sacrifices and the humility that much more worthy and moving. I care little about the "play act suffering" of a superhuman God-on-earth-in-human-clothing...that sort of suffering is like masochism...and it begins and ends whenever the Godly-human chooses. We mortals, well, we very rarely have much if any control over our afflictions and sufferings. I know this will create a wonderful response from so many of you who have discovered that we are all one and pain is illusion and how you have all conquered pain, suffering, dualism, and premature balding, but really folks, I am just being honest here, OK?
Peace,
Zenbob
~Meister Eckhart~
Desire is wide, immeasurably so. But nothing that knowledge can grasp or desire can want, is God. Where knowledge and desire end, there is darkness, and there God shines.
Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish to be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God. If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance...
Listen to Eckhart Tolle, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, with free sound file downloads.
"Join some of the best meditation instructors from the Sounds True spoken word audio library as they guide you through their favorite meditation practices. Click on the icons below to download each meditation."
There is also part of an interview with Adyashanti from the new Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
Also in this issue I continue the In Nonduality Salon series, which covers the highlights from emails posted during the first nine months of Nonduality Salon, a span of time during which there were no Highlights.
The Sacred Mirror
Chapter 4: The Sacred Mirror: Being Together, by John J. Prendergast
"When we look into an ordinary mirror, we see how we appear. When we look into a sacred mirror, we see who we are."
The role of "sacred mirror" has traditionally belonged to the guru or spiritual teacher. This chapter describes how the role is being played by the therapist and explores ways of including this function into transpersonal psychology.
Prendergast engages a nonintentional eye gazing which brings presence into the foreground for both therapist and client. In this process defences, reactivities, and personal difficulties are released or opened up to a large shared space in which they could more easily dissolve. He calls this experience 'being together'.
The role of therapeutic mirroring in modern psychotherapy is briefly reviewed with emphasis upon Freud, who prohibited visual mirroring, and upon the contribution by Carl Rogers, who introduced the transpersonal or spiritual dimension of mirroring.
The author discovered sacred mirroring or 'being together' in 1988 while working with a client with whom he shared an intimate rapport. "There were several moments in our work together when there was a natural stop to our conventional thinking and feeling and we simultaneously dropped into a shared space of Being. There was a spontaneous feeling and understanding of common ground beyond and before the roles we were playing as therapist and client and whatever individual indentities we were attached to at the time. It felt like a holy meeting and a truly sacred space."
Prendergast had occasionally experienced that state with Jean Klein, his spiritual mentor, yet it wasn't clear to him how to incorporate this sacred mirroring into his practice. It would arise with different clients. In 1996, he began to invite clients "to settle into a soft gaze with me while we are both silent."
The author writes about functioning as a sacred mirror. He says that as the therapist "deepens into Being," the function spontaneously arises. Being and the mirror are not separate. The mirror will be distorted to the degree that the therapist has egoic needs, which include identification with sacred mirroring as a tool or skill. Regarding the becoming of a sacred mirror, Prendergast makes clear that any effort to attain will bring one further from it. Instead of effort, what must be present is wordless understanding of already always being the sacred mirror.
With this background, the author spends the bulk of the chapter describing 'being together' in detail. Half the 26 page chapter is devoted to client experiences with sacred mirror or 'being together.' There is the presentation of a single case with one called Armand in which the levels or phases of breakthrough achieved over 82 sessions are described. These include conventional psychotherapy at the beginning. Ultimately, Armand could write, "Experiences of opening give me a glimpse of what seems to be the truth of being. Against the experience, the activities of daily life lose their significance. My life is being slowly reset with this new compass."
The reader who understands ground of Being will find Prendergast's offering as nothing more or less than making sense and being natural. It could be called Natural Mirroring.
~ ~ ~
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
One of the most popular Buddhist teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area these days is not a Tibetan lama or a traditional Zen master but an unconventional, American-born lay teacher named Adyashanti. His public talks and dialogues (which he calls satsangs a term borrowed from India’s Advaita, or "nondual," tradition) attract hundreds of seekers, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.
Although Adyashanti rarely talks about Zen or Buddhism these days, he did train closely with a Buddhist teacher, spending more than a dozen years practicing meditation under the guidance of Arvis Justi, a lay teacher in the lineage of Zen master Taizan Maezumi, the founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. At age twenty-five, while sitting alone on his cushion, Gray had a classic kensho, or awakening experience, in which—as he describes it now—he "penetrated to the emptiness of all things and realized that the Buddha I had been chasing was what I was." As powerful as this experience had been, however, Gray knew immediately that he had seen just the tip of the iceberg. "I had discovered that I am what I’ve been seeking," he explains. "Then the next koan arose spontaneously: What is this that I am?"
Although Gray continued to meditate, absorbed by this new question, he reports that all sense of effort and anxiety disappeared. During this period, he married and went to work in his father’s machine shop. "I was happy," he recalls, "but I knew it wasn’t enough." As his inquiry deepened, his practice diverged from the traditional format, and he lost interest in doing retreats or relying on his teachers for guidance. Instead, his energies turned inward and became, in his words, "exclusively focused on realizing the truth of my own being." In addition to meditating, he spent many hours sitting in coffee shops writing out answers to the questions, or life koans, that spontaneously came to him.
Finally, at thirty-one, Gray had an experience of awakening that immediately put to rest all his questions and doubts. Two years later Arvis Justi asked him to teach, and he changed his name to Adyashanti, Sanskrit for "primordial peace."
I interviewed Adyashanti—a teacher of mine for several years—at his home in San Jose on a warm Indian-summer afternoon. He’s a small man, slight of build, with blond hair cropped close like a monk’s. Our conversation was grounded in our familiarity, as friends and as teacher and student, and we laughed frequently as we talked.
—Stephan Bodian
What’s the relationship, do you suppose, between all those years of sitting zazen and this kensho experience? Did they prime the pump of awakening? Were they steps leading to awakening? You now seem to be dismissing the concept of "stages of the path," yet there appears to be some causal relationship between your Zen meditation practice and your awakening.
I’m deeply grateful for my Zen practice. It ultimately led me to fail well. I failed at being a Buddhist, I failed at being a perfect exemplar of the ten precepts, and certainly I failed at meditation, failed at all my efforts to bust down the "gateless gate" to awakening that Zen speaks of. And the fact that I actually got to the point where I failed—and I failed completely—was useful. Zen provided a place for me to fail, and I needed that. In fact, I’d say my process wasn’t so much a letting go as an utter failure. Zen did a good job of letting me fall on my face.
What would have been a success—awakening?
Well, failure was the success—awakening happened through failure. In that sense I have a great respect for the lineage. What was transmitted was bigger than all the carriers, it was even bigger than the lineage, much bigger than Zen, much bigger than Buddhism.
What was that?
I’d say a certain spark, an aliveness.
How has your own enlightenment changed the way you function in the world: your relationships, your family life, your everyday behavior? Does being enlightened mean that you never get angry or reactive or make big mistakes?
There’s no such thing as never getting angry. Enlightenment can and does use all the available emotions. Otherwise, we would have to discount Jesus for getting pissed off in the temple and kicking over the table. The idea that enlightenment means sitting around with a beatific smile on our faces is just an illusion.
At a human level, enlightenment means that you are no longer divided within yourself, and that you no longer experience a division between yourself and others. Without any inner division, you stop experiencing most of the usual forms of reactivity.
Could you say a little more what you mean by no "inner division"?
Most human beings spend their lives battling with opposing inner forces: what they think they should do versus what they are doing; how they feel about themselves versus how they are; whether they think they’re right and worthy or wrong and unworthy. The separate self is just the conglomeration of these opposing forces. When the self drops away, inner division drops away with it.
Now, I can’t say that I never make a mistake, because in this human world being enlightened doesn’t mean we become experts at everything. What does happen, though, is that personal motivations disappear. Only when enlightenment occurs do we realize that virtually everything we did, from getting out of bed to going to work to being in a relationship to pursuing our pleasures and interests, was motivated by personal concern. In the absence of a separate self, there’s no personal motivation to do anything. Life just moves us.
When personal motivation no longer drives us, then what’s left is our true nature, which naturally expresses itself on the human dimension as love or compassion. Not a compassion that we cultivate or practice because we’re supposed to, but a compassion that arises spontaneously from our undivided state. If we undertake being a good, compassionate person as a personal identity, it just gets in the way of awakening.
In traditional Buddhism, at least as I practiced it, there’s a taboo against talking openly about enlightenment, as we’re doing now. It seems to be based on the fear that the ego will co-opt the experience and become inflated. In your dharma talks you speak in great detail about awakening, including your own, and in your public dialogues you encourage others to do the same. Why is that?
When I was sitting with my teacher, Arvis, we’d all go into the kitchen after the meditation and dharma talk and have some fruit and tea, and we’d talk openly about our lives. For the most part we didn’t focus on our spiritual experiences, but they were a part of the mix. Then these same people would do retreats at the Zen Center of Los Angeles and have big awakenings, and the folks in L.A. began to wonder what was happening in this little old lady’s living room up north. Arvis’s view was simple: The only thing I’m doing that they’re not, she said, is that we sit around casually and talk, and what’s happening on the inside for people isn’t kept secret or hidden. This way, people get beyond the sense that they’re the only ones who are having this or that experience. They come out of their shell, which actually makes them more available to a deeper spiritual process.
The tradition of talking about certain experiences only in private with your teacher keeps enlightenment a secret activity reserved for special people. I can understand the drawbacks of being more open, of course. Some people may blab on about how enlightened they are, and become more egotistical. But when everything remains open to inquiry, then even the ego’s tendency to claim enlightenment for itself becomes obvious in the penetrating light of public discourse. In the long run, both ways have their strengths and weaknesses, but I’ve found that having students ask their questions in public breaks down the isolation that many spiritual people feel—the sense that nobody else could possibly understand what they’re going through, or that they’re so rotten at their practice, or that nobody could be struggling like they are. And when people have breakthroughs and talk about them in public, awakening loses its mystique. Everyone else can see that it’s not just special people who have deep awakenings, it’s their neighbor or their best friend.
Would you claim that you are enlightened?
Well, no, not with a straight face. I would say enlightenment is enlightened and awakeness is awake. It’s not an experience; it’s a fact.
To read more of this interview, please see the Fall 2004 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
In Nonduality Salon
Selected posts from the early days of Nonduality Salon
~ ~ ~
Crimson flames tied through my ears Rolling high with mighty traps Pounced with fire on flaming roads Using ideas as my maps My pathway led by confusion boats Mutiny from stern to bow But I was so much older then I'm younger than that now...
B. Dylan
~ ~ ~
Harsha
My Dear, Beautiful and Wonderful Friends,
To be able to see things as they are is the gift of Satsangha (Spiritual Fellowship). When we are not in Satsangha but perceive ourselves to be in hostile circumstances, the fundamental and ancient need for self-preservation comes into play. Then fear, anger and greed dominate. That is all right. That is our pain. But this pain is obscured, hidden, and beneath the surface when we are busy attacking and defending. In the company of good, gentle and wise people who have the spiritual insight and Self-Knowledge, a deep calmness and security is experienced. That is the time that our pain becomes apparent to us in order to be released. That is why many people even cry in Satsangha without any apparent reason. Sometimes it is difficult to give up our pain as we believe it constitutes our identity. But it does not because it can indeed be released. Giving up and surrendering everything to the Divine, even offering their own self, has been the way of Devotees of God and Jnanis. Then Divinity Shines by its Own Light. God bless everyone with everything that is best in life and with peace and joy.
~ ~ ~
samuel
Formal teachings... build 'sugar cubes' in our mind. Little boxes... that define, confine and *bind*.
A nondual 'realization'... is like a drop of rain, that washes the 'sugar cubes' down the drain.
~ ~ ~
Devy
an exerpt from "THIS", a book with poetry and prose of Dancing Emptiness from Papaji.
Hello all beautiful friends...
Hereunder an exerpt from "THIS", a book with poetry and prose of Dancing Emptiness from Papaji. Hope you enjoy it..
Love Devy ICQ: 16893103
All that you are attached to, all that you Love, all that you know, someday will be gone. Knowing this, and that the world is your mind which you create, play in, and suffer from, is known as discrimination.
Discriminate between the Real and the unreal. The known is unreal and will come and go so stay with the Unknown, the Unchanging, the Truth.
~ ~ ~
Niren
judy walden wrote:
> > "i dont feel particularly good about taking up so much time from everyone"
Dear Judy,
Its ok..its your turn. I have been following all these sugar cubes, while still chewing on my last message from Gene Poole. Maybe you have been sampling the smorgasboard long enough to start identifying what food you want? That's what your lovely confession allows you to do...ask for what you are particularly hungry for.
I also hear my story in your story. Would it make you feel better if I admitted to having watched soap operas and reading stupid tabloids during a year that I had to take my 3 sons to live with my mother because my entire life went down in flames? And I just was too angry to give a damn at that point. (And this was AFTER doing the good Christian wife and mother trip complete with Bible study classes and regular church attendance for 10 years.) Then I got back on my feet somewhat and a few years later my son was stricken with some rare mysterious loss of vision at age 14..so I spent a year taking him to doctors and feeling so helpless that I just would burst into tears uncontrollably. If I could have ripped the eyes out of anyone else to give them to my son, I would have. Getting to acceptance of THAT was a challenge. Somehow we got thru that and then my husband of 22 years simply fell apart, left and abandoned us all with no money. SO when I hear a bit of guilt and wishful thinking in your life summary, its because I too have looked back at my life with self-condemnation. Hey, even when I thought I WAS on some super spiritual quest trip, it was still just another attachment to ego/personality needs..as you said. So when you DO look back with hindsight, try to remember that its precisely because you had those experiences that you learned what you needed to learn to understand yourself better. All those "if onlys" and wishing you had come down some other path or comparing your life to how you imagine other people somehow did it better...or had a better easier life..or are now doing it better? I'm even now still hiding behind the excuse that no one really wants to hear the details of my life story anyway..but I know I'm just avoiding self-disclosure for my own self-protection more often. So I admire your courage here, Judy.
Self acceptance is a toughie...all this better than and worse than thinking...the issue of pride and humility never seems to go away, it just happens on different levels about different questions, so learn to be gentle with yourself wherever you are. Whenever you read some wise sounding post that leads you to believe this person really has it together and understands life better, you may rest assured there is likely a great many experiences of pain and failure and suffering as the price of that wisdom. Oh sure, its just life's ups and downs, so many stories and external dramas, the usual experiences. I've had my share of joyous happy ones, too, of course. But I hear you kinda giving yourself a low score on your self-examination. Now that's a familiar tune to my ears. :):) Try to remember we are writing these exams on water...that's how Jerry means the sugar cube dissolves (sorta what I think he means anyway).
But I also hear in your posts that you are already seeing the more fundamental questions of being...so whatever path got you to here kinda becomes irrelevant. ..Tho your life remains very precious simply because you live it, Judy, and you are looking with your eyes and your heart and your mind. It really really matters and in another way it doesn't matter at all how or why you went down some one path instead of another. What is all this longing you now feel for God and your hunger for real truth and real love...if not your original innocence of Being simply remembering who you are? Among all the other things that I AM says...I AM says "I am THAT_ I_ am (Judy)..and I am THAT_I_am too - (also Niren, Jerry, Harsha.. insert anyone and everyone) I don't have any kind of final answer here. Sometimes I find it helpful to step outside my life and look from the perspective of infinite manifestation of Being is happening here. Other times I find it helpful to look thru a microscope to my own self awareness.
Its good to hear more from you...your sharing here means a lot to me. Whether we are looking within or looking without...its good to be looking together...you are good company to cross paths with.
Love, Niren
~ ~ ~
Jerry
New Members Coming?
I just want to tell list members that I have -- for the first time, I believe -- mentioned our list on a couple of well-visited Newsgroups: alt.meditation and alt.zen.
I've also invited people on the I Am list to subscribe here. I don't think I've explicitly done that in the past.
Our current list membership is 42. Thank you, and, uh, Harsha, we're expecting guests, can you wipe that spaghetti mustache off?
Love to all, Jerry
~ ~ ~
Tim Mulligan
Well, I've spent the last four months reading about nondualism (Advaita Vedanta). I had determined that this was my last stop in a spiritual journey that really started when I was only nine years old and reading about the "occult" in the public library in Springfield, New Jersey. Since then, I've gone from Roman Catholicism, to Schopenhauer, to Buddhism, to Taoism, to Krishnamurti, to scientistic atheism, to the Baha'i Faith, to the Gurdjieff work, to Jung, and then, finally, to nondualism.
I've spent hours at nondual Web sites. I've read _Consciousness Speaks_ by Ramesh Balsekar, _No Way: for the Spiritually Advanced_ by Ram Tzu (Wayne Liquorman), _Relaxing into Clear Seeing_ by Arjuna Nick Ardagh, _Awareness_ by Fr. Anthony de Mello, _The Perennial Philosophy_ by Aldous Huxley, _The Life and Teachings of Joe Miller_, a bunch of Krishnamurti stuff (again), some Meister Eckhart, _Collision with the Infinite_ by Suzanne Segal (see my scathing review at Amazon.com). I've come to the following, tentative conclusions.
The "Source" is the supposedly the source of all manifestation. This "Source" is the source of the torture/mutilation murders of children. This "Source" is the source of spinal bifida. This "Source" is the source of migraine headaches. This "Source" was the source of Hitler and his holocaust, as well as every other episode of genocide through history.
In short, this "Source" is supremely indifferent to what is harmful to us and what is not-and yes, that's from our point of view. Petty, aren't we?
I no longer pine to "realize I am the Source," or however you might characterize it: enlightenment, divine union, etc. I've decided to be as profoundly indifferent to this "Source" as it is to us. I am totally apathetic about this "Source". To me, it is as practically consequential, although perhaps as necessary, as quarks or hydrogen. Maybe it's there. Who cares. "It" certainly doesn't. ] So I've come to rest as a non-scientistic, apathetic agnostic. And if anyone tells me this means I'm ripe for enlightenment, I'll scream.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1882 Saturday, August 7, 2004 Editor: Mark
Before the beginning you are pure Consciousness. You are the Fullness of Love in Love and the Emptiness of Awareness.
You are Existence and the Peace beyond peace. You are that screen on which all is projected.
You are the Light of Knowledge, the One who gave the concept of creation to the creator. Forget what can be forgotten and know yourself to be that which can never be forgotten.
You are the substratum on which everything Moves -- let it move.
You are Now, you are Nowness: what "I" is there which can be out of this Now? You are Truth and only Truth Is.
- Papaji, contributed to AdyashantiSatsang by Bob O'Hearn
Dream
Lean on this false self To wander in this dreamlike world When the dream is over Laugh in veracity Mark a few words To advice the dream wanderers Knowing it's a dream You're awakened!
The True Emptiness
The true emptiness is unchangeable The false existence is often changed Clouds, as same as bubbles Are separated and united endlessly On the ocean, shines the moon Deep green mountains are dormant Immense, is the open sea Far deep, is the blue sky Crowded, vehicles on the streets Boats keep moving in the sea All factors in life are changing On the stone seat, the Buddhist practitioner sits calmly
Destroy The Self
One's life depends on the breath On every beat of the heart What is a life? A continuous borrowing
- Poetry by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Thanh Tu, translated by Tu Tam Hoang
Till the cloud weeps, how should the garden smile? Till the baby cries, how should the milk come forth? The weeping of the cloud and the burning of the sun are the pillars of this world: twist these two strands together. Since the searing heat of the sun and the moisture of the clouds keep the world fresh and sweet, keep the sun of your intelligence burning bright and your eye glistening with tears.
-- Mathnawi V:134; 138; 141-142, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance Threshold Books, 1996, posted to Sunlight
The visiting historian was disposed to be argumentative.
"Do not our efforts change the course of human history?" he demanded.
"Oh yes, they do," said the Master.
"And have not our human labors changed the earth?"
"They certainly have," said the Master.
"Then why do you teach that human effort is of little consequence?"
Said the Master, "Because when the wind subsides, the leaves still fall."
Yesterday when I was talking with Byron V, a fellow RN, and whose beautiful photographic art will be featured in the next issue of The Inner Traveler, he mentioned that Guru Bawa used to say that there are 70,000 veils of illusion. And I said that that's like saying that someone is just a little pregnant, and that once THE Veil of Illusion is really torn assunder, That's THAT! But I now witness myself seeing how the great Sufi master's pointing is quite applicable and appropriate. When a seeker sees that his whole identity has been just a fabrication, and that there's much more than just one way to perceive Reality, and that his senses, mind, and emotions are transient and flaw-filled tools to accurately perceive even the world of duality and totally incapable of perception of Unity, and other similar and wildly different experiences, that these demonstrate that there are many many veils of belief/illusion that are ripped away, and more and more the vision and understanding of the infinite eternal Real Self identity of Truth/Consciousness/Bliss become clearer.
- Post to meditationsocietyofamerica by Bob Rose
Bob, there are degrees in the perception of Reality.
There are no degrees of Reality.
Your last night-sleep dream, its ethos, pathos, that entire drama, may have been the thousand veil dance of dusky houries.
Erotically discarding one veil after another.
It may have thousand meanings, ..............there might be thousand ways of perceiving it.
But you, ........
.......you are that you are.
- Response by Sandeep
Solitude is not found so much by looking outside the boundaries of your dwelling, as by staying within. Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.
- Thomas Merton from The Sign of Jonas, Harcourt Brace and Company, posted to DailyDharma
That which you are, your true self, you love it, and whatever you do, you do for your own happiness. To find it, to know it, to cherish it is your basic urge. Since time immemorial you loved yourself, but not wisely. Use your body and mind wisely in the service of the self, that is all. Be true to your own self, love your self absolutely. Do not pretend that you love others as youself. Unless you have realised them as one with yourself, you cannot love them. Don't pretend to be what you are not, don't refuse to be what you are. Your love of others is the result of self-knowledge, not it's cause. Without self- realisation, no virtue is genuine. When you know beyond all doubting that the same life flows through all that is, and you are that life, you will love all naturally and spontaneously. When you realise the depht and fullness of your love for yourself, you know that every living being and the entire universe are included in your affection. But when you look at any thing as separate from you, you cannot love it for you are afraid of it. Alienation causes fear and fear deepens alienation. It is a vicious circle. Only self-realisation can break it. Go for it resolutely.
There is also a press release for a new book and an introduction to a Guru with whom I hadn't been familiar.
The In Nonduality Salon series will resume in the next issue.
The Sacred Mirror
Chapter 5. A Nondual Approach to EMDR: Psychotherapy as Satsang, by Sheila Krystal
Introduction: Psychotherapy as Satsang
This section lays out the nondual approach to therapy. These are the main points from this section. They could be elaborated with material from preceding and following chapters to form a more complete listing of foundational points, and the reviewer will do that at a later time:
-- Nondual therapy has roots in traditional spiritual discipline: Dzogchen, Advaita, Taoism, Kabbalism, mystical Christianity
-- Nondual psychotherapy is a coming together of therapist and client in a way that is like satsang (association with truth).
-- Nondual psychotherapy begins dualistically or conventionally with identification and description of the client's problems and the development of a personal history.
-- In the nondual approach to therapy there is the absence of promotion of method, theory and mind. "The Self meets itself in the sacred mirror of satsang."
-- Though no method is promoted, methods that are part of the therapist's repertoire are used. Their use arises spontaneously within the moment. They are not held to any more than a sip of tea at an appropriate time is held to as method. It arises. The therapist's focus is on that which exists prior to thought and emotion. It is naturally on Presence.
-- The practice of nondual psychotherapy can be a sadhana or spiritual practice for the therapist.
-- Over a period of time the client comes to rest in Presence and the idea of the problem becomes deconstructed in that space.
EMDR and Nondual Wisdom
EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. For the reader who has some familiarity with EMDR, this chapter gives an excellent, sometimes sizzling, introduction. Having no knowledge at all of EMDR or the associated terminology, I had to search online for background information, which helped me more fully appreciate what Krystal has compiled. There is a good article at http://netpsych.com/health/emd.htm:
"(Francine) Shapiro, an unknown clinical psychology graduate student, discovered EMDR (in 1987) while walking through a park in California, preoccupied with old memories and disturbing thoughts. She discovered that as her eyes moved rapidly back and forth, her memories seemed to dissolve spontaneously. Amazed, she experimented with 70 volunteers, obtained similar results, and then organized a formal research study one year later."
EMDR today is far more intricate and comprehensive than when it was first developed. It consists of eight phases, described in the article at the above link:
"The first phase involves taking a client history to evaluate the suitability for treatment. The client’s ability to deal with high levels of disturbance, the amount of external stress in his or her life, and medical conditions are all considered. The treatment plan is then designed.
"Phase two is the preparation phase, in which the clinician introduces the client to EMDR procedures, explains EMDR theory, establishes expectations about treatment effects, and prepares the client for possible between-session disturbance. At this point, clinicians often give the client an audiotape of relaxation exercises so that he or she can use it before beginning the EMDR sessions and between sessions. Guided imagery and relaxation are occasionally used during the sessions to facilitate the client’s ability to deal with the recalled memories.
"Phase three is assessment, which includes identifying the memory and an image that best represents that memory. Then the client chooses a negative cognition that he or she has in relation to the event, such as 'I am useless/bad/unlovable'. The client then identifies a positive cognition to replace the negative one, such as 'I am worthwhile/a good person/lovable' and rates how much he or she believes this positive statement using the 7-point Validity of Positive Cognition (VOC) scale. Then, the image and the negative cognition are combined, and the client rates his or her level of disturbance on the 10-point Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale (SUDS).
"The fourth phase involves desensitization. The client focuses on the negative affect and follows the clinician’s rapidly moving fingers, sweeping back and forth approximately 12 to 14 inches. The procedure is repeated in sets ranging from 10 seconds to longer than a minute, until the SUDS level is reduced to 0 or 1. Recently, it has been noted that eye movement is not necessarily needed, because similar results have been found by tapping alternate hands on a chair rest or broadcasting alternating tones in a client’s ear. Any of these strategies can be implemented at this point. It is also emphasized that these initial sets are often not sufficient for complete processing and that other strategies and advanced EMDR procedures may be needed to restimulate processing.
"Phase five is the installation phase, which focuses on cognitive restructuring. Here, the positive cognition is strengthened in order to replace the negative belief. The client holds the positive belief with the image in his or her mind and the eye movement sets are continued until the client rates the positive cognition at a 6 or 7 on the VOC scale. After linking the positive cognition with the target memory, an associative bond is created. Thus, the client believes the positive cognition when remembering the previously disturbing image.
"In phase six, the client holds the image and the positive cognition in his or her mind and scans the body in order to identify any tension. These body sensations are then targeted during the following sets of eye movements or alternative desensitization techniques.
"Phase seven is closure, which includes a debriefing reminding the client that he or she may experience disturbing images, thoughts, or emotions between sessions. The client is told that this is a positive sign and is often asked to keep a log or journal about negative thoughts, situations, dreams, and memories that may occur. If the client is not debriefed, there is a danger of decompensation or, in an extreme case, suicide.
"Phase eight is reevaluation, which is implemented at the beginning of each new session. Previously accessed targets are brought back and the client’s responses are reviewed to assess if the treatment effects have been maintained. New images or memories are then targeted following the eight-step procedure."
EMDR is a controversial technique that produces long-lasting positive effects in some patients.
There are many other articles about EMDR available online, as well as books by Dr. Shapiro that one could obtain.
Since the author of the chapter under review, Sheila Krystal, reports on her own newly developed form of EMDR -- Transpersonal EMDR -- and describes its protocol step by step, it would have been of value for the reader unfamiliar with EMDR to be made aware of the step by step protocol of classic EMDR, as has been listed above.
EMDR was originally used to treat trauma but is now used to treat all clinical compaints. I've strung together some quotations from this section by Krystal on nondual wisdom and EMDR:
"EMDR is useful in dissolving fixated attachments and in bringing to the surface unconscious distractions, often associated with trauma, from present awareness of Self. As clients' mindfulness develops, they begin to discern more clearly and quickly when awareness has become distracted from itself. Clients learn to come back from suffering and dysfuntion to the eternal present, underlying peace. They learn that life takes care of itself effortlessly in the moment. ... In EMDR therapy, behavior modification and symptom removal are often the results of treatment. The mind is directly influenced, filtering out reactivity and intense emotions so that the client is more peaceful... . ... From the nondual perspective, EMDR reprocessing can invite entrainment via the interconnectedness of the therapist and client and can naturally recondition the client around the universal themes of impermanence, trust in Self, nonabidance in the mind, loving kindness, forgiveness, compassion, freedom, creativity, well-being, detachment, and the renunciation of habitual preoccupations of mind. ... EMDR gives clients the direct experience of emotions arising out of nothing, growing, peaking, subsiding, and disappearing into emptiness. ... (Clients) learn to disidentify from the personality's vicissitudes of thought and emotion and to identify with a deeper stratum of Being. Although formless, it goes by all names and shows up as all forms, so call it awareness, openness, or Presence; it is eternal and provides the only true security."
It is clear from the above quotations that EMDR supports the arising of nondual awareness.
A Transpersonal EMDR Protocol
Realizing the nondual effectiveness of EMDR in her practice, Krystal redefined the acronym to "eye movement disidentification (from the self and its apparent problems) and recognition (of the one Self)."
Krystal likens EMDR to an alchemical container which structures the therapy session so that the "great work" can simmer and the spontaneous arise. The protocol does not impose form but flexes and evolves as the client deepens in nondual awareness. Even with that intimacy between method and nondual perception, Krystal asserts that EMDR is not to be limited to transpersonal psychotherapy, nor is it to become established as method of "nondual EMDR." She says, "It is a suggested form to help discover and dissolve distractions from the formless." Since both client and therapist mingle in the alembic of the EMDR protocol, satsang is promoted. That is, both client and therepist benefit from the protocol.
In this section of the chapter the protocol for Transpersonal EMDR is described. Enough detail is given, along with a bibliographical reference to the complete protocol, so that a potential client or practitioner can decide whether or not to pursue their interest in the nondual approach to EMDR. In any case, the reader becomes informed and will probably find resonance with the author's approach and her commitment to Transpersonal EMDR as a vessel for transformation.
Case Study
Both classic and Transpersonal EMDR were used to treat phobias and traumas experienced by a 55 year old professional, successful woman who had had "plenty of therapy" over the years. The results were beneficial and long-lasting. Details of the client's problems and verbatim transcripts from the sessions are given. The client reported:
"I have had a radical alteration of consciousness which is not a small leap. My normal fear state is not what it used to be. I've lost it. I can't find anything to be afraid about. Fear just comes from images in my mind. There is a bigger opening."
Krystal concludes, "I hope that this chapter shows that nondual wisdom enhances and transforms any form of psychotherapy." Krystal has clearly demonstrated that.
In simple and clear language, JanKersschot explains in This is It, the essence of non-duality: everything you need to know, you know already; your true nature is what you are already, and so it cannot be found and need not be sought.
In the midst of juggling our overly scheduled lives, we are often so busy and distracted that we overlook our need to find inner contentment and calm. JanKersschot offers the tools and confidence to rediscover these lost skills and learn once again to ‘simply be’.
The philosophy of ‘Nonduality’ comes from the East, where it is called ‘Advaita Vedanta’. Advaita or Nonduality, is the fastest growing spiritual movement in the West with many high-profile followers. It has been the nature of the world’s traditional faiths to suggest that we are separate from one another and from the spirit and can only find enlightenment from a higher being.Advaita encourages us to believe that everything and everyone is an integral part of divine consciousness.
In simple and clear language, JanKersschot explains how to go beyond the need for concepts and belief systems. Your true nature is what you are already have within you. The directness of this vision became increasingly clear in the conversations Jan had with the spiritual teachers he met including EckhartTolle - author of the bestselling Power of Now. When you recognize the core of this vision while reading these dialogues, it becomes obvious that you do not have to look elsewhere.
This Is It will be the movement's core reader, featuring conversations with its most illustrious teachers including: bestselling authors EckhartTolle and TonyParsons, WayneLiquorman, DouglasHarding, FrancisLucille, NathanGill, and U.G.Krishnamurti, Mira Pagal, ChuckHillig, VijaiShankar, MarkMcCloskey and KeesSchreuders.
JanKersschot studied medicine, and has practised natural medicine for many years.His lifelong quest for the ultimate truth has led him to look for the core of Eastern wisdom and to blend it with a Western life style. He is the author of the acclaimed book, Coming Home, and more recently, Nobody Home.He lives in Aartsellaar, Belgium.
An essential companion to all those who found value in Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.
$14.95, Paperback1842930931September 2004
5 Ľ x 8 ˝
192 pages
V. V. Brahmam
Spiritual Journey
Sri Brahmam was born in 1944. Since childhood he always questioned the purpose of life, knowing that everybody will eventually die. When he was about six years old, the mantra "Om Nama Sivaya" arose naturally in him and kept repeating inside spontaneously at all times.
At the age of 25 he saw a photograph of Ramana Maharishi at a friend's house. He was strongly attracted and immediately travelled to Tiruvannamalai to the Ramana Ashram at the foot of the Arunachala Hill. So far he hadn't read any books about spirituality and hadn't met any spiritual teacher or guru. He was a very pure young man - he hadn't been influenced by duality of the world, since the mantra was always repeating inside. Once he arrived at the Meditation Hall of the Ramana Ashram, he sat in front of Ramana Maharishi's photo. In his heart he fully surrendered to Ramana and gave up all his desires. A strong force pulled him inwards, his breath and thoughts stopped and silence and peace filled him completely. After he got up, thoughts gradually came back, but inside there was no attachment to them. This state was new to the young school teacher. He went to Sauris, whom many people regarded as an enlightened being and was told that his Self-Realization was completed. His life was transformed. Within the following period of his life the remaining tendencies, desires and attachments were destroyed by the grace of the Self for ever. Only the Self remains.
People who are lucky enough to come in front of Sri Brahmam experience deep inner silence, peace and bliss. There are no words which can express this Peace - Self - God or Love.
~ ~ ~
Advice for being in self-abidance
Be quiet. See the mind as it is. Grace action starts. Then Peace occupies your Heart. Then be still. The Grace of Self burns all your tendencies. No question or any practice is needed. You already reached the destination. That is the Source of thought. If you lose your Awareness, immediately sleep, deep sleep or thought will come. Stop just for a few seconds, see the covering, and immediately Awareness will come. Then if you question, 'To Whom?', and wait, the question and thought will vanish. Again we will get Peace. Then be quiet and still.
While you are in Peace, see the experiencer of that Peace or question, 'Who is that experiencer?'. The experiencer will disappear. But it rises again and again. As and when it rises, see it with Peace and Awareness or question, 'Who Am I?', until it burns. When the seer or the experiencer or the questioner burns permanently - that is Jeevanmukti (Self Realization).
There is also a letter from the Being One list featuring Jan Barendrecht and someone identified as P.
Finally I continue the In Nonduality Salon series, which features posts from the early days of the Nonduality Salon list, which were never before Highlighted.
Chapter 6
Double Vision: Duality and Nonduality in Human Experience
by John Welwood
John Welwood, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist in San Francisco. He is the editor of The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and has written several books published by Shambhala and HarperCollins.
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The theme of this chapter is stated in the following passage: "Being fully human means honoring both these truths -- immanence, or fully engaging with our humanness, and transcendence, or liberation -- equally. If we try to deny our vulnerability, we lose touch with our heart; if we fail to realize our indestructibility, we lose access to enlightened mind. To be fully human means standing willingly and consciously in both dimensions."
I'm going to offer my summary of this chapter as a series of quotations, rather than try to transform them into my own words. I have the feeling this chapter could be pivotal to the entire book and putting it into my own words will have to wait until the book as a whole is reviewed. To remind the reader, I'm writing summary/reviews of each chapter from this book as I read them. I haven't read the whole book yet!
~ ~ ~
"On the human plane, our lives evolve and unfold through the relative play of duality -- otherwise known as relationship. Indeed the central, defining feature of the human realm is relationship -- the network of interactions with others that suports our life from the cradle to the grave."
"The human realm serves as a bridge linking samsara -- the experience of separateness -- and nirvana -- non-separateness. That is why being human is a living paradox, and also a field in which a vast range of feeling -- from unbearable sorrow to unthinkable joy -- is possible."
"Nondual teachings that mainly emphasize the illusory quality of human experience can, unfortunately, serve as just another dehumanizing force in a world where our basic humanity is already under siege at every turn. What is needed in these difficult times instead is a liberation spirituality that helps people recognize nondual presence as a basis for fully inhabiting their humanity, rather than as a rationale for disengaging from it. We need a spiritual vision that values and includes the central playing-field where our humanity expressis itself -- relationship."
"To fully inhabit the human realm ... is to live in dialogue, in (Martin) Buber's view." "It's essential characteristic is meeting and honoring the otherness of the other -- as sacred other -- which allows a mutual alchemy to take place."
"To be yourself in Buber's sense means to find the deepest laws of your being, to let your life find and carve out its true path, and to bring forth your innate gifts and qualities in time, through your interchange with life in all its aspects."
"The conditioned ego, identified with roles and identities formed in the past, is incapable of true relationship. Similarly, in timeless, nondual awareness, there is also no relationship; there is only direct knowing, silent presence without involvement in the polarity of self and other. So to be fully engaged in relationship, we have to step into and inhabit our human form -- the person."
"How fully the suchness of you shines through -- in your face, your speech, your actions, your particular quality of presence, your expressions of love -- is partly grace, but also partly a result of how much you have worked on polishing your vessel so that it becomes transparent to the pure being that is its ground."
"Individuation is the forging of a transparent vessel -- the authentic person who brings through what is beyond the person in a uniquely personal way. We can thus distinguish absolute true nature -- universal beingness, which is the same in everyone -- from individuated true nature -- how each person expresses absolute true nature through a unique path and a unique offering. Individuation is the process of bringing the absolute into human form -- the "form" of our person, animated by our capacity for personal, interrelational presence, embodied in the world."
"A purely immanent approach, such as Buber's, does not recognize the important role that transcendence -- the capacity to step beyond the personal, dialogical realm into the nondual, suprapersonal presence -- can play in human development. We need a more comprehensive view that recognizes the nonduality of the transcendent and immanent, absolute and relative, emptiness and form."
"Swami Prajnanpad ... provides an interesting example of what such a balanced nondual view might sound like in modern times. He builds a liberation teaching based not on transcending duality, but on attending more closely to the difference between self and other."
Swami Prajnanpad quotations:
"The feeling of being not separate emerges in the heart only by accepting what is different."
"All things are different from one another. This one is simply this, nothing but itself, complete in itself, established in its own glory, unique. This is brahman, the Absolute."
"To judge is to compare; but everything being distinct an singular, there is never anything to compare. Everything is incomparable, unique, and absolute."
Back to Weller quotations:
"Letting the relative be as it is ... reveals the absolute."
"...the absolute -- in the form of you and your experience -- is naturally revealing and actualizing itself in and through where you are at each moment. This understanding also provides a nondual framework for working with emotions and psychological blockages... . The heart of this approach ... is what I call 'unconditional presence' -- learning to be present with your experience just as it is. ... This fosters a natural unfolding in the direction of truth, compassion, and liberation."
Spiritual bypassing: "When people try to bypass, or prematurely transcend, their current psychological condition by trying to live up to some noble spiritual ideal (such as nondual perspectivie) this does violence to where they are. And it strengthens the spiritual superego, the inner voice that tells them they should be something other than they are, thereby reinforcing their disconnection from themselves."
"To avoid spiritual bypassing, transcendent truth needs to be grounded in a willingness to wade in and immerse ourselves in the stormy waves of immanence. We need to broaden the terms of the equation that offers only a choice between samsaric, dualistic mind and enlightened, nondual awareness. We need to include a third, intermediate term in the equation -- the relational play of human experience, where evolution takes place as heaven manifests on earth, infinity infuses finitude, and eterneity embodies itself in time."
"Opening to the full play of human experience allows for the possibility of a sudden dawning of wakefulness... . This is a sudden dropping away of dualistic fixation, allowing a direct and often abrupt entry into nondual presence."
"Our alienation and neurosis itself, then, when fully met, are the seeds of wisdom. ... Only entering into (our human shortcomings and imperfections) and suffering them consciously allows us to exhaust their momentum, move through them, and be done with them."
"This experience (of alienation, neurosis, imperfection) is not solid, fixed, or definite in the way it first appeared to be. As it starts to flow, unfold, ripen, or release, it reveals its true nature as the play of orginal wakefulness, embodied in human form."
Relationship as evolutionary task:
"The hard truth is that spiritual realizations often do not heal our deep wounding in the area of love, or translate readily into skillful communication or interpersonal understanding. ... Most modern spiritual practitioners ... continue to act out unconscious relational patterns developed in chilhood."
"(Swami Prajnanpad) saw marriage as a particularly powerful litmus test of one's development, because in it one is 'fully exposed...All one's peculiarities, all of one's so-called weaknesses are there in their naked form. This is why it is the testing ground.'"
Swami Prajnanpad: "Unless you are tested on the ground where you are fully exposed, all those outward achievements are false. This is the point, and you have to grasp it completely."
"(Human relationship) is a great wilderness in which humanity has hardly begun to find its way. Developing more conscious relationships is an important next frontier in human evolution. And this will require a capacity to marry nondual realization -- which dissolves fixation on the separate self -- with careful attention to personal relational patterns that block or distort the free flow of loving presence."
>after reading some books on advaita i am left with a ceasless >irritation that does not seem to go away, advaita states that there >is nothing to do and nothing to get rid of and nothing to improve >since everything is included in the vastness!!! although all this >rings true i am still left with the questionon how to live life?
Jan: That there is nothing to do merely indicates there isn't an entity relating to events that could be labeled "doer". Humans didn't think that way always, events like thunderstorms, earthquakes etc. have been attributed to invisible gods, spirits (of the deceased) etc. and there's no way to show one view is correct and the other incorrect with the same ease as showing that boiling water produces bubbles.
P:
>everything is as it should be. but if i take this priciple to heart >then everything is okay. if i and everyone else were to live this >way we would all live in ashrams just being. there would be no >technology, there would be no self improvement, there would continue >to be murder, anger, hatred, starvation, disease, etc... since this >is all part of the vastness. and if this is all true then why should >people believe in a work ethic to improve their standard of living, >why should the well off try to help the poor, why is there war, why >are there new medicines developed to help the sick etc...? since it >is all part of the vastness.
Jan: Observing how the root of human greed is present in a squirrel, in autumn collecting and storing (too much) food for winter, is quite insightful. Linked with the observation of playfulness and curiosity present in most animals, no questions regarding human behavior remain.
P:
>even in terms of the personal self why should one ever investigate >oneself? being left in the dark is also part of the vastness! why >then should there be psychotherapy? we should let all people suffer >in their ignorance and fear since these emotions are also part of >the vastness? and of course there is no "I" anyways, so why be >concerned?
Jan: Darkness only shows, after an impression of light. Regarding suffering, there's quite enough already and much more than the world's therapists can ever hope to lessen. Do i have to mention the climate that's running away, the ongoing pollution like the spread of DU enriched dust or mercury from coal burning power plants? Seen from a satellite, hurricanes look like works of art - the same spiral forms showing in galaxies. An event like a supernova can destroy an entire galaxy but seen from a great distance, a work of art as well. But for the life forms subjected to the event, it might be life threatening in more than one way - the sense of "I" implies a frame of mind interpreting events as "happening to ME" and responding accordingly.
P:
>but then i ask myself isn´t this searching and living life in order >to improve things also part of the vastness? isn´t trying to improve >oneself and one´s environment also part of the vastness? aren´t the >desires for self satisfaction and altruism and self cultivation also >part of the vastness? if everything is accepted as part of the >vastness which includes all the dasdardly acts that humans inflict >on one another and themselves, then why not this desire to improve >things and oneself?
Jan: Vastness too is a concept that instantly shrinks to zero upon entering deep dreamless sleep. Regarding habitat, man succeeded to destroy most of the planet already and the damage is likely to be severe enough to terminate life - as presently known on the planet.
P:
>i feel i am falling into a depression! i admit that my life and my >ideas steer my life and that alot of these ideas are based on fear. >for instance i do not have to work as hard as i do, i do not have to >educate myself, i do not have the possessions that i do, i do not >have to try to undersand myself, etc... for according to advaita >this is all self deception. there is no "I"! there is no doer! there >is nothing to be done and nowhere to go! even the spiritual search >is a deception because there is no one to search.
J:
It has been said, man's present condition rarely allows understanding the frame of mind of the authors of works like the Upanishads: the cultural difference between the culture birthing the Upanishads and the present one is unbridgeable.
The issue is the frame of mind where possession, sense of "I", doership etc. is conceptual in the same sense that calling a hurricane "Nikita" won't change its course nor its force.
P:
>the question is >then where to go and what to do? if all my ideas are taken away from >me what should i do? i cannot wait for this realization to come >before starting to live my life. it may never happen. the only >answer is for me to continue to live in my self deception!
Jan: The phrase "there is nothing to realize"decoded for the present culture should read, "without the conditioning of culture (upbringing and education included) the notion there is something to realize cannot take hold of the mind".
P:
>but this >seems unbearable! in a way i wish i never came into contact with >this. i am left helpless! and yet now i am at this point! what >should i do if there is no one to do? and would anything i do be an >addition to the deception?
Jan: The deception has been in upbringing, education, alienation from nature. Most wild animals know rather well, in case of an accident, the game is over. Wild animals are relaxed yet alert - stress lowers awareness which can be lethal. Modern man is stressed to the limit and has no other enemy (predator) than himself.
P:
>even though i am emotionally distraught because of this and know >that listening to this is the deception of listening to the mind, i >still feel this, and this feeling is unbearable! i feel i need help >and a spiritual friend to help me in this dilemna! i am sending this >letter of to people who i hope can help and posting this as a >general question to any who think that they can possibly help me >even though i know the question itself and the possible help i might >get is also part of the illusion of separateness.
Jan: The Buddha once remarked "be a lamp onto yourself" which in the present culture is interpreted, everyone his/her "own" website, spiritual forum, and whatever more that makes a difference. The ancient way yogis were living (alone, mostly meditating in a cave) isn't a solitary life but repairs the alienation from nature - eventually resulting in a frame of mind infertile to notions like separation, doership, "I", self and no-self. A disease of (false) notions, still running when there should be quietude, can't be cured by pouring in more notions, the stilled mind is free from notions unless a situation requires some for communication. Calling a hurricane "Mao" only adds more noise to the already loud event and the hurricane won't listen anyway.
In Nonduality Salon
The Highlights of posts from the early days of the Nonduality Salon list, before the Highlights began.
Rick Katz
"Where's Jerry been for the last 40 years?"
looking at micro-biological reactions thru microscopes of third eye incarnations floating wistfully along carefully balanced and hanging tightly and letting go above cosmic precipices smoking cigars and cigarettes and chewing the essence of eternal questions asked in dark corridors few choose to walk down and fewer would understand the answers asked by avatars for their own amusement between roller coaster joyrides and laughing laughing laughing at (other) souls and laughing at himself Jerry copies down the sayings of the wise and finds the wise asking him for his answers and then says I don't know.
Rick
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Gene Poole
Hi Rick. I like this. It sounds quite familiar.
Years ago, I was an attendee at a conference of educators. I actually won an award for saying, "I don't know" at an appropriate time during the proceedings.
"Not knowing" does not alter Being Not-knowing is the doorway to seeing
Knowing can be the comforting breast Upon which we suckle, ignoring the rest
Of the Universe Being as Big Set of One Universal OneBeing... our Being is fun
Not-knowing is ticket to gate of Unknown Not-knowing is asking that all shall be shown
Filling a void that cannot be filled, Upon overflowing is the grace-bucket spilled
Emptiness-hunger is the state of not-knowing Fullfillment is perfect hunger ongoing ---
==Gene Poole==
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Jerry Katz
I wasn't trying to get a reaction when I said, "I don't know," in response to the rhetorical question, "Where have you been these last 40 years, Jerry?". I was just saying that I don't adhere to any knowledge. Well, I don't. I'm pretty good at taking a few books off my shelf and finding what's relevant, and putting it down on paper. But there's nothing ultimate about any of it. I don't remember any of it after it's been written. It would only serve to nudge another toward greater understanding. There was never anything more than that intended, and I don't know if any of us wish to do anything more than that. Perhaps it's the most and least we can do.
Truth is beyond books and words. It already exists. That is to be known.
~ ~ ~
Name change
I would like to change the name of this list to Nonduality Salon. I feel it will help to identify us as a real presence, as a gathering. It confers a sense of location, purpose, and quality of communication, and a sense of being an alternative to religion and traditional Guru/Ashram activities, even while absolutely embracing them.
Over the next 20 years, I feel, self-realization will be guided mainly by such nonduality salons. I -- timeless and empty -- humorously proclaim this the first Nonduality Salon, and welcome the courageous ones who are this Nonduality Salon. For as the Nondualism List, we are quite harmless. As a Nonduality Salon, we may be perceived as a threat.
If I hear to no objection to the newly proposed name, I will make the change in the next 2 or 3 days.
Best to all,
Jerry
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Quoting
The gift of quoting, I have seen, is this: It requires you turn to yourself, not the problems or situation of another. It is isolating and even a little cold, to be handed a quote, no matter how warm and comforting it may be. But it throws you to yourself. It keeps you alone. In my opinion, that's not always easy, but it's the only way to see what's what. Solitude is necessary. There is both solitude and socializing on these lists, so there is some balance.
--Jerry
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mic
Gday friends,
The other night I drove down from my mountain home over to the coast at Byron, Australia's most easterly point, to join some friends for a satsangh gathering. Its a journey to get there, so I dont go very often.
Just sitting there, soaking into this communal being, dissolving into the everpresence, was at once a very powerful and effortless experience. I felt the falling away of all story and sorrow, and found myself drowning in this peace. I left with this primordial stillness in my heart, this jewel, and the world ... this great shakti-business... lay at my feet, naked and beautiful.
I feel very thankful and humbled to share in this nonduality salon. For I understood that this gathering similarly offers a jewel, the resplendence of Self, the simple radience of Truth. And however much we stumble towards expressing This, the very attempt at doing so brings much light into the world, reflecting this "endlessly turning and burning diamond".
Rumi captures this with these delicious words...
"I lost my world, my fame, my mind. The Sun appeared and all the shadows ran I ran after them but vanished as I ran Light ran after me and hunted me down."
So I am a happy man in the world to be dropping in to the nonduality salon, this great cyber cathedral of silence and laughter. And I for one will be swinging from the chandeliers like a madman singing ....the joy ..the joy ...the joy !
with love, mic
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Jerry
Hey, Samuel, there's a project for you! It's a real project, I think, to name -- using poetic structure of some sort -- literally scores or hundreds of religions! It would make a point, and you don't have to do it all at once. It's there if you want to do it! It becomes pretty overwhelming, though, when you consider the same approach can be taken to races, skin tones, nationalities, etc. Suddenly you're Walt "Samuel" Whitman, singing the joys of our varied backgrounds, natures, bodies,and all of it followed by one long, eternal, anonymous, ever-mingling confession of what is True and True and True and True.
Dirk Haueter
Have you ever thought that this is how the who thing got started. The absolute unchanging undifferentiated intelligence (True) reflecting on itself (True) and in that apparent gap between True and True the whole enchilada.
There is a story my teacher use to tell from one of the Upanishads. Its about a disciple sitting with his master and the master to illustrate a point says, "Get a fruit from that bunyan tree." A bunyan is a big huge tree and the fruit is of a size (here I am holding my hands apart for you to see the size). So the disciple gets the fruit. The master says, "Break it. Now what do you see?" Disciple: "Many Seeds." Master: "Fine, pick up a seed and break it. What do you see?" Disciple: "Hollowness." Master: "It is from that hollowness that the whole tree has come up."
Here we are enjoying the gap in True and True and True and True. Looking, trying hard to find myself I find no thing. Whenever I look closely at something I find it has that same substance. All the world is held in that embrace of True.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
An excerpt:
Question.
Since coming to you I realize that I am not really this individual and am pure Being. How can this illusion of individuality arise?
Answer:
The Ocean cannot stay alone and so the notion of wave is created. When waves rise Ocean loses nothing and when waves fall Ocean gains nothing. Samsara, the illusion, Maya, the play, is the wave on the Ocean of Nirvana.
Waves are not separate from the Ocean, rays are not separate from the Sun, You are not separate from Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. This is a reflection of That.
I am sitting in the Cemetery, beneath the Mountain, San Bruno Mountain.
All things have changed, and go on changing......in my life......everyone's life.......except this mountain. ...........When I gaze at this mountain.....I can be a child again. What does that mean to me......it doesn't mean 'carefree' or 'funloving' in any ordinary sense, like the phrase 'like a child again' conjures up to the popular mind. To me, it means the memory of gazing up at the mountain when I was a child and the feelings it evoked in me then, are evoked in me now.
As a child, what I felt gazing at this mountain was a sense of Eternity, a Constant, a Changelessness that became so Obvious - and more and more clear as moments passed.........it was as if the mountain were calling my name, silently.............I would wake up for a few seconds. The juxtaposition of busy-ness, other people's voices, sounds of cars driving by and the Still Majesty of the Mountain became a Teaching. My first Transcendental Teaching and Teacher.......
The Mountain was a silent, always constant Pure Presence. It felt Conscious to me. Therefore I have had a relationship with the Mountain - unlike any other relationship. We silently acknowledge one another and the fact that we both KNOW. We know that the Fact of Existence is Eternal;................... an Always Event.
The Mountain has been more than a symbol to me.........people might say...(.or more precisely the psychiatric, psychological, analytical trend in Mind might say) the mountain 'represents' security, serenity, immovability'. No, it is not that. I do not relate to this Mountain as a Symbol. This mountain 'symbolizes' nothing......It Communicates. It is a Witness. It is always in perfect Observation of the Eternal Fact of Existence and that Fact is what it always Communicates to me. This Mountain is transparent to GOD. This Mountain pulled aside the veil of this dream of busy, busy life, and showed me as plain and obvious as could be, the Reality of Eternal Consciousness...........prior to any objects. As a child I gazed upon this mountain and it communicated thus. Now at this moment in does so.
This Mountain, alive as Transcendental Consciousness is constantly Present, rising above headstones and the softly rolling green hills.........always there for any grievers, mourners, or momentary sojourners in this yard of bones. I wonder how many have been drawn to look up? How many have felt the Presence and looked upon this Great Communication in the midst of their 'doingness' here. I wonder.
Sometimes, I think I am the only one. I hope not. I don't mean the only one to look at the mountain, of course, but perhaps the only one who can 'see' and 'hear' the Mountain to the point of Ecstasy........to the point of Relationship....to the point Beyond Relationship.....
When I feel this Mountain, I am moved by it. I am moved all the way to stillness. The knowingness of how it is , really Is, is a pleasurable Blissfulness that I feel in my chest and in my whole body. This is the Bliss of Conscious Reality. Nothing needs to be added..........
My Beloved Mountain, you have always been my Constant. My One Changeless...sitting at the foot of You is my true home on Earth.....no matter where I am geographically...I come home when I gaze at You.
To talk about this with others? What could be gained by sharing this with anyone, who does not already know it themselves? This mountain is self-evident....It is ACTUALLY, 'Self' Evident. People who are called will hear it I guess and see it and KNOW. Otherwise it will go unnoticed, by those who only notice a landscape. How to speak about the Sublime Communication of Eternal Consciousness-Bliss to people who only see a huge mound of dirt; who only feel themselves......
After I have been with this Mountain awhile I feel a familiar sense of detachment. I feel detached in a way from the seriousness with which everyone takes their lives - their life stories, their little dramas. It is all sandcastles...........all sandcastles.....Everyone gets so into their particular version of reality, their specific patterns of work and play and relating and so on. When I sit here, it is all a funny Play! No more real or serious or meaningful than an afternoon's puppetshow entertainment, or a children's theatre act. Everyone seems absurd in their real attachment to their role and others' supposed roles. It IS the Divine Comedy.
Sometimes.............I feel like saying Wake up! Wake up you stupids!!! Can't you feel the complete Mystery of Existence ITSELF,................. with none of your saying, or doing or thinking added to it at all?!! Doesn't the Fact of Conscious Existence, blow your mind?
Wouldn't you like to Contemplate the Mystery of Existence to the point where we all become Ecstatic?
Maalok: Ramana Maharshi was a prime example of living detachment. However, it is said, if there was one thing that he had slight attachment to, it was Arunachala. Perhaps you could explain why the Maharshi never moved from Arunachala after reaching there as a teenager.
David: Arunachala has been a spiritual magnet for as long as records have been kept. Various saints, yogis and spiritual seekers have felt its call for at least 1,500 years, probably much longer. Some inexplicable power draws people to this place and keeps them here. Seen in this context, Ramana Maharshi is just the latest and most famous saint to feel the pull of this place. When he was very young, he had an intuitive knowledge that the word Arunachala denoted God or a heavenly realm, but at the time he didn't realize it was a place he could actually visit. He didn't find this out until he was in his early teens. A few weeks after he realized the Self at the age of sixteen, he left home, traveled to Arunachala and spent the rest of his life there.
Why this place? For him it was his father, his Guru and his God, Siva. It may sound strange to say that a mountain can be all these things, but Sri Ramana was not alone in seeing Arunachala in this light. This is what a famous local saint, Guru Namasivaya, wrote a few hundred years ago:
Mountain who drives out the night of spiritual ignorance.
Mountain who is the lamp of true knowledge to devotees.
Mountain in the form of abundant knowledge.
Mountain who came to me, a mere dog,
As father, mother and Sadguru:
Annamalai.
Annamalai is the local Tamil name of the mountain. This is what the Tamil purana of Arunachala, also written centuries ago, has to say about the holiness of this place:
Beginning with these first ones and continuing up to the present day, many are those who have attained the deathless state of liberation through dwelling on Aruna[chala] in their thoughts, through lovingly speaking its praises, through hearing of it, and then coming to gaze upon it, through performing pradakshina of it on foot, through dwelling there in a state of righteousness, through walking in the path of truth there, through bathing in its broad tanks, and through carrying out good works, performing holy service in the temple and worshipping there at the feet of that Effulgent Light.
That is the tradition of this place. Throughout its history Arunachala has attracted ardent seekers and liberated them. Yet, surprisingly, it remains relatively unknown even within India.
Arunachala has always been regarded as a manifestation of Siva, not just a symbolic representation of Him, or a place where He lives. The mountain itself is a lingam that has the full power and authority of Siva Himself. This is what millions of South Indian believe, and their belief is backed up, authenticated by many great saints who have gone on record as saying that it was the power of this mountain that brought about their own spiritual liberation. Ramana Maharshi was one of them. He was quite categorical that Arunachala was his Guru, and that Arunachala had been the agent that brought about his own realization. Seen in this context, why should he not spend the rest of his physical life in its vicinity?
Sri Ramana loved this mountain passionately. He wrote devotional poetry about it that at times verged on the ecstatic, and in all the fifty-four years he lived here, he could never be persuaded to go more than a mile from the base of the mountain.
“The true significance of the act of going round Arunachala is said to be as effective as circuit round the world. That means that the whole world is condensed into this Hill.” Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk 212.
A book jacket from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi is propped by my computer just so I can look at it. Right now some file boxes are blocking the lower part of his face but I can see his eyes. The peace of Arunachala is everywhere, never mind our present confusion.
He always said that the hill was a holy place and he would circumnambulate it as often as he could. Web-surfing is not quite the same, although we may be connecting with the Self from Ojai to Alabama. Where is this peace but within? I tend to lose it with regularity, so obviously it is not emanating from me on a personal level. However, that is not to say that all of us are not carriers of peace, for we are.
It takes discernment to find a kindred spirit, of which Ramana Maharshi was one. His gift was that he could bestow grace on so many different people at the same time. Now that he is just a picture on a dust jacket he is even more powerful. At times I sit with the Talks in my lap while I am watching TV. Neither lost in the program or lost in a page of the book, I am resting in the Self.
Peace washes over us when we have but a small desire for it. Like lightning, which begins with a ground charge, peace must begin with a small intention to reconnect with it, to pick up the thread of it. Ramana says that geographical places are within the Self and that only the body travels while we remain still. Who hasn’t desired to traverse the holy hill of the Self? It can be done. We can likewise commune with kindred spirits just by having a sincere wish to do so. They may be in or out of the body, in or out of the phone book; it doesn’t matter. Resonance is what counts. The Maharshi showed us that.
"To experience this noble birth, you must depart from all crowds and go back to the starting point, the core out of which you came. The crowds are the agents of the soul and their activities; memory, understanding, and will, in all their diversifications. You must leave them all; sense perception, imagination, and all that you discover in self or intend to do. After that, you may experience this birth."
If I ask you what is the taste of your mouth, all you can do is to say: it is neither sweet nor bitter nor sour nor astringent; it is what remains when all these tastes are not.
Similarly, when all distinctions and reactions are no more, what remains is reality, simple and solid.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
~
If you are eager to be nothing before you know who you are, you rob yourself of your true being. Until you understand nothingness you will never know true Faith.
- Rumi
~
Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff. Your life is real.
- Eckhart Tolle
posted on Along the Way
KEEP ON DIGGIN'
Sue called me today - said she was wonderin' what was the use of practicing - she is not gonna get enlightened in this life anyway. Reminded me of story someone sent awhile ago....
Two young brothers once decided to dig a deep hole behind their house. As they were working, a couple of other boys stopped by to watch.
"What are you doing?" asked one of the visitors.
"We're going to dig a hole all the way through the earth!" one of the brothers volunteered excitedly.
The other boys began to laugh, telling the brothers that digging a hole all the way through the earth was impossible.
After a long silence, one of the young diggers picked up a jar full of spiders and worms and insects and interesting stones. He removed the lid and showed the wonderful contents to the scoffing visitors. Then he said confidently, "Even if we don't dig all the way through the earth, look what we found along the way!"
Their goal was far too ambitious, but it did cause them to dig. And that is what a goal is for - to cause us to move in the direction we have chosen, in other words, to set us to digging!
But not every goal will be fully achieved. Not every job will end successfully. Not every relationship will endure. Not every hope will come to pass. Not every love will last. Not every endeavor will be completed. Not every dream will be realized. But when you fall short of your aim, perhaps you can say, "Yes, but look at what I found along the way! Look at the wonderful things which have come into my life because I began the journey!"
Nondual Highlights Issue #1897 Saturday, August 21, 2004 Editor: Mark
On SELF
Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this and that, there is another self more really us than I. And the more you become aware of the unknown self -- if you become aware of it -- the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is. You are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies. You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. You look and look, and one day you are going to wake upand say, "Why, that's me!" And in knowing that, you know that you never die. You are the eternal thing that comes and goes, that appears -- now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown -- and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.
- Alan Watts
The inner stillness of a person who truly 'is peace' brings peace to the interconnected web of life, both inner and outer. To stop the war, we need to begin with ourselves.
'Do you know what astonished me most in the world? The inability of force to create anything. In the long run; the sword is always beaten by the spirit.' (Napoleon Bonaparte)
This is the purpose of a spiritual discipline and of choosing a path with heart - to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us.
- Jack Kornfield from the book, A Path WIth Heart, published by Bantam, posted to DailyDharma
What is spiritual silence? It is not just the absence of talk. Silence has substance. It is the presence of something.
Thomas Merton claims that silence is our admission that we have broken communication with God and are now willing to listen. We can be reduced to silence in times of doubt, uncertainty, nothingness, and awe. When we have exhausted all our human efforts, experience the limitations of human justice, or the finitude of human relationships, we are left with silence. Those who have experienced the sacrament of failure are more likely to know the emptying power of silence.
There is a relationship between outward silence and interior silence. Merton notes that even the overuse of sign language within the material silence of the monastery promotes the busy mind. The more silence becomes part of our lives, the less impulsive we become. We are slowed down. Silence can reconcile the contradictions within us holding them in a healthy tension. Often we can internally watch our first response to a situation. The awareness that comes from a grounding in silence allows us to respond more authentically.
- excerpt from the essay Some Thoughts on Silence by Kathryn Damiano
Your New Age Is neither new Nor will it last an age.
You ride a pendulum On a clock wound To run for eternity.
Your despair has Today turned to hope. Tomorrow it will Turn back again.
The walls of oppression You tear down here Will be rebuilt There.
The meek shall Inherit the earth Then the clever ones Will take it back from them.
The torture chamber Will empty And refill.
A disease will Be conquered And a new one will Appear to take its place.
This strikes you As a bleak vision But Ram Tzu knows this...
It is your hope for a better future That keeps you in chains today.
- Ram Tzu
TIME ENOUGH
There will be time when winter comes to sit beside sweet fancy's fire with books, or weave with penciled words the fabric of one's life and loves; to pick among the knotted threads of dreams for colors that may still be bright, and so, with backward ranging thoughts to while away the nights.
But now, when all the flames burn bright, let loving be the warp, the woof of life, the binding arms, the thirsting lips, the final fulfilled sigh... There will be time enough when winter comes for sleeping through the night.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times. Come, yet again, come, come.
~ Rumi
Entrance
(After Rilke)
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight, Out of the room that lets you feel secure. Infinity is open to your sight. Whoever you are. With eyes that have forgotten how to see From viewing things already too well-known, Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree And put it in the heavens: tall, alone. And you have made the world and all you see. It ripens like the words still in your mouth. And when at last you comprehend its truth, Then close your eyes and gently set it free.
"If you dare to give your heart, your soul, your mind, your body, and your life, unconditionally, to what you discover to be true, you will know an infinitely deep and abiding peace that has never been even a breath away. This bliss, this tranquility depends on nothing, and It is not capable of ending. Furthermore, it doesn't make a bit of difference what you've ever done... or not done. You can put an end to the battle. Yes, that's correct, just walk right out of the war, right now. All you have to do is surrender, absolutely and completely, not to me, not to some authority figure, or some organization or institution, but surrender only to your own deepest Purity."
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin built there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
When Hannah had first decided to do the pilgrimage, she became single-mindedly focused on successfully completing it, despite the barrage of well-meaning opposition she encountered from those all around her. The only close friend who hadn't tried to dissuade her from attempting the pilgrimage had been her sensei. He had become Hannah's close friend during the two years she taught in his rural village. One day she had admired this stranger's flower garden while passing by his house, and the next morning he and his wife had shown up on her doorstep with an offering of a freshly cut bouquet. That had been the beginning of a very simple and special friendship. Over the two years, she had spent increasingly more time visiting her sensei and his wife in their simple wooden home. Her sensei seemed a Japanese Merlin. A mentor of martial arts and traditional Asian medicine, he patiently guided Hannah through his mystical world. Some nights she would go over to his house in the evening, and they would simply sit around the low living room table, their legs tucked under their behinds, sipping tea. After long silent pauses, one of them would break the personal reverie with a comment such as, "The weather is getting warm, isn't it?" Silence.
"Hmmm. Yes. It makes me happy." More silence. Sip. Sip. At first this reticence was very foreign to Hannah, who had always felt the need to fill any wide-open conversational spaces with a steady stream of pertinent words. Freed from this obligation, it seemed that one could more readily greet the wisdom that enters only through silent gates.
Her sensei had employed this same sparseness in his response to Hannah when she announced that she had made up her mind to walk the pilgrimage. Although he felt more concern than anyone for the safety of she who had become like a daughter, "I see," was all he had eventually responded. "I guess we had better find you a good, strong stick."
And now here she was, 61 days into sweaty retreat with her sturdy stick, her will to forge ahead wearing as thin as the cartilage in her knees. Her body had become overexerted from the daily walking from sun-up to sundown, from toting a heavy backpack, and from miserable nights outside on her flimsy foam roll-up. Lately, every morning she woke up shivering, so stiff that it took a good half-hour of yoga just to convince her joints they weren't made of rust. She had started this journey as a nimble 26-year-old, yet had metamorphosed into a creature with the gait of an arthritic in monsoon season. Despite the breathtaking beauty of the mountain streams and bamboo forests through which the trail wove, Hannah felt so uninspired. Sore from morning to night, new foot blisters sprouting upon old ones, she was finding it increasingly difficult to muster the will to continue. -more-
The most pleasant times to do the pilgrimage are spring and fall. June is the rainy season in Japan, it often rains on more than twenty days in June. July and August are very hot and humid. September is often nice, but it is also the month when typhoons are most common. Winter, as you know from this book, can be cold and some inns and temple shukubo are closed. On the other hand, the inns are almost never full in the winter.
Foreigners who want to walk should speak some Japanese, should be able to read signs and maps, and should be prepared to occasionally meet people who do not want to welcome you to their inn because they are afraid you will be unhappy, rude, or both.
...
It was January 7th. I was in Ryozenji, Spirit Mountain Temple. It is also known as Temple One of the Pilgrimage to the Eighty-Eight Sacred Places of Shikoku. In the following six-and-a-half weeks I walked 1,100 kilometers on the backroads of the island of Shikoku, visiting the temples, reciting the Heart Sutra, photographing the mountains, buildings and people, and searching, searching my mind.
...
Eyes to see the temples and statues, pilgrims and priests, rivers and mountains. Ears to hear the prayers and sutras in the temples, and the birds singing sweetly in the trees. Nose to smell the incense and the spiciness of the cedars, the great forests of the mountains of Shikoku. Tongue to taste the food at the pilgrimage inns and the fruit and chocolate that I ate as I walked along the roads. Body to feel the heat and cold, the hard roads and muddy trails, the pilgrimage clothes I wore, the walking stick in my hand. Mind. My mind. Always at the center, to absorb all this, and be absorbed in it.
...
In front of the Hon-do is a wonderful garden. Trees, bushes and rocks are shaped into low, rounded forms like spreading sand dunes. The artists who created the garden used these things to make a living poem. The eye and mind go from rock to bush to path, becoming a part of the poem. Sometimes the rocks, not the bushes, seem to be growing. Sometimes, in different light, the rocks, bushes and walkways are all just there.
If you are religious, I salute you, my souls delight. Yet know that the bottle you would drink from can never hold the content of this life. Please cultivate a deep irreverence for everything but love.
Remember that dead saints and dead poets can have no life in you, until you remember the words they could not say. Then all the lovers of the world that have ever been, will jump from the grave you have made of belief, and hug you to their own befriending.
You have a child in your arms, that you will not give back to the Mother, who birthed you from this same love. Be the one who stays at home, when the world goes seeking itself. Everyone knows how to go somewhere, but only the seasoned traveler can be a crossroads. Every real pilgrimage begins in rest. The divine wind will only play in this moment. When you move on to this path, the path will move within you, a spiral unwinding, to open your Way.
Just be the one who stays at home no matter where you go. You do not read this book of your love, you write it. This poem is carried by invisible saints that live in the same pocket of the heart that God preaches from. Be generous with these words.
Following that is a piece on Bob Dylan with photos.
Also included is another installment of In Nonduality Salon, featuring the posts from the Nonduality Salon list before the Highlights was born.
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
Chapter 7
Being Intimate with What is: Healing the Pain of Separation
by Dorothy Hunt
Adyashanti and Dorothy Hunt
Dorothy Hunt is founder of the San Francisco Center for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has practiced psychotherapy since 1967, led workshops, presented at conferences, and edited and published various works. Her significant teachers include Mother Theresa, Ramana Maharshi, Ramesh Balsekar, and Adyashanti.
~ ~ ~
Unlike previous chapters, client experiences are interwoven thoughout the entire chapter rather than given their own section. There are several points to highlight:
-- "When what is awake directly touches its own experience of anything, there is deep intimacy with what is.... In this intimacy we find ourselves undivided."
--"(This realization of our undivided being) is unfailingly healing because it experiences itself as a whole."
-- This intimacy is not conceptual, not another idea or identification to be harboured. It is not separate from this or what is. It is direct experience. Any conceptualization is movement away from the experience of this. "Healing happens when we are not separating ourselves from the authentic truth of the moment."
-- We no longer suffer when we are intimate with what is; not separate from our essential being; not avoiding experiencing the reality of the moment. "We are not trying to transcend the moment, or change our thoughts about the moment; we are simply being intimate with the moment exactly as it is. ... Such living experience of the truth of our being and the authentic truth of the moment is always healing. Conversely, it is our separation from the moment and our separation from the truth of our being that create suffering."
-- Only the undivided therapist can invite the client to taste the undivided. "If we have not experienced the truth of our own being, or known what it is to experience the touch of this intimate awakeness of our own experience, we will not be able to invite our clients to do the same."
-- Nondual psychotherapy cannot be taught. There is not "nondual psychotherapy" any more than there is "nondual dreaming" or "nondual war." "There is no something else," including a separate 'I' to learn "nondual psychotherapy." "This is Totality functioning exactly in this way." The mind rests in unknowing.
-- Healing manifests by being together, "without an agenda, without a place to arrive, without needing to refuse, get rid of, or change anything." Silence is the quality of being and silence invites silence to silence. Being together or sitting in silence together is not a technique used by the author. It happens fairly frequently in her work and always spontaneously, without explicit invitation. The author gives a series of brief comments from clients showing their responses to such silent meeting. They are of the nature of healing and opening.
-- Healing manifests by "continual invitation to the direct experience of the moment as it is." The direct and full of experiencing of anything, from joy to fear, beauty to horror, or the mundane, is an opening to the taste of nonseparate being. Client dialogue is given as an example of this invitation to direct experience
-- Truth returns for itself. Awakening occurs out of form, eventually becoming embodied so that not only the mind awakens, but the heart, the emotional body, the overall pattern of our life energy, and our physical body down to the cellular level. It is truth returning for itself. The embodiment of truth may take years, is ever-deepening, and is a fully felt intimacy with what is. It is surrender to God, if one wishes, or wisdom-love, clarity, and non-referential compassion.
-- Psychotherapeutic technique could occur in the unfolding of the moment, and is applied without intent to effect change. The invitation to inquiry could be extremely helpful, with questions on the order of, "Is the story true?" "Can you know it's true?", and other questions that arise spontaneously and intuitively and bear on the ultimate inquiry of "Who am I?"
A concluding paragraph:
"To experience this very moment directly, authentically, intimately, is to experience our being, our awakeness, our love, our truth. To do so heals the pain of separation. To allow things, moments, people, feelings, to be is felt as deeply loving. Grief, anger, boredom, fear, deeply appreciate being able to just be what they are. Sadness is very happy when it can just be sad. We do not have to create stories to sustain, or stories to deny our experience. Neither do we or our clients have to 'try' to be compassionate, or 'learn' to be loving. Compassion arises naturally in the presence of direct, authentic experience and the silence of our true being."
Bob Dylan has been massive influence on 20th Century music
As he prepares to publish his memoirs, BBC News Online examines the timeless appeal of musical legend Bob Dylan.
Bob Dylan's unique fusion of rock, country, folk and blues have had an immeasurable influence on contemporary popular music.
His political lyrical content has influenced everyone from The Beatles to U2, to Bruce Springsteen and Badly Drawn Boy.
Joe Strummer said Dylan "laid down the template" for lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality and depth of rock music.
And at the age of 63, the man born Robert Alan Zimmerman on 24 May 1941 in Hibbing, Minnesota, is still on the road, still with his own, enduring career.
Globalisation
To his younger fans, for whom records are a quaint reminder of another era, Dylan has as much to say about the environment and globalisation as he had to their parents about racial tolerance and war.
Of the Holy Trinity of Rock, the Beatles self-destructed more than 30 years ago, Elvis turned up his blue suede shoes in 1977, but Dylan continues to surprise and challenge.
Dylan has spent more than 40 years at the top of the music scene
He is currently on tour with Willie Nelson, travelling to Minor League baseball parks across the country US.
In the last few years, two live albums of him performing in 1964 and 1975 have been released.
And in 2002, his album Love and Theft won him a Grammy Award in the contemporary folk album category.
In the fickle and transient world of popular music, Dylan has spent 40 years at the top, constantly re-inventing himself along the way, allowing his fans the opportunity to grow up and grow old with their idol and his music.
For the most part, his songs are easy to play - 100,000 buskers in 100,000 railway stations are testament to that.
He experimented with different sounds
He does not have a conventionally good singing voice. Yet, as a wordsmith, Dylan is unsurpassed. Transcending pop and poetry, his lyrics have provided a soundtrack to his age.
"The answer is blowin' in the wind", "he not busy being born is busy dying" and "there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all" are almost as much a part of the currency of literature as Shakespeare and Keats.
Earlier this year, Dylan admitted that one of his most famous songs - The Times They Are A-Changin' - was originally a Scottish folk tune.
Songs
Scotland did not seem to mind - he was awarded an honorary degree from St Andrews University in June where he was described as an "iconic figure for the 20th Century".
Even though Dylan has often been dismissive about how much his work reveals about its writer, he admitted in 1990: "People can learn everything about me through my songs, if they know where to look."
To the thousands of amateur Dylanologists, their hero's every concert and out-take is to be recorded, collected and pored over as if it were Holy Writ.
The young Dylan mesmerised a generation
Superfans, like the celebrated Larry Lambchop, about whom Dylan once said "this man has seen me play more times than me", constantly follow him around the world.
He once said that his 1966 album Blonde On Blonde came closest to capturing the "wild mercury sound" inside his head and the image of mercury, an element which is constantly in flux and difficult to contain, is an apt one for Bob Dylan.
His chaotic private life includes a 1965 marriage to a former Playboy bunny girl Sara Lowndes, which produced four children before ending in divorce in 1977.
Beside affairs with numerous other women, he had a second secret wife, his backing singer Carol Dennis, with whom he had a daughter.
Alimony, as well as a continuing burning desire to perform, means that Dylan remains constantly on tour.
Though his glory days at the leading edge of popular culture might be behind him, the timelessness of Bob Dylan's work means that his relevance will never be diminished.
In Nonduality Salon
Highlights of early posts to Nonduality Salon
Niren
Posted November, 1998
Wherever you go..
As you know I am wandering down some Buddhist paths. In the spirit of wherever you go, there you are.... the nondual keeps appearing before my eyes wherever I look. They may be read more easily on the website site, for those who may be interested. Also the article on "the flow" is quite interesting.
Regarding Alaya ("the basic or ground conciousness from which all experiance arises"), there is a very interesting point made by H.H. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and you can find it in the webpages of "shambhala sun" magazine, at: http://www.shambhalasun.com
The Alaya
THE ground of Samsara (1) [see footnotes below] and Nirvana (2), the beginning and end of both confusion and realization, the nature of universal Sunyata (3) and of all apparent phenomena, more fundamental even than the Trikaya (4 ) because it is free from bias toward enlightenment, is the alaya (5), sometimes called the pure or original mind.
Although prajna (6) sees in it no basis for such concepts as different aspects, yet three fundamental aspects of complete openness, natural perfection and absolute spontaneity are distinguished by upaya (7) as useful devices.
Footnotes:
1 The cycle of birth, death and rebirth
2 The state of liberation from cyclic existence
3 lit. "emptiness," "void"; the truth that all conditioned existence is impermanent and empty of permanent identity
4 lit. "three bodies"; the bodies through which a buddha is both one with the absolute and manifests in the relative world
5 lit. "storehouse consciousness"; the basic or ground consciousness from which all experience arises
6 Wisdom, founded in the realization of sunyata
7 Skillful means
Also, a Koan from another article there:
Ordinary Mind is the Way
A Zen discourse by Joshu Sasaki-roshi,
given at Mount Baldy Zen Center, February, 1998
translated by Katsuki Sekida
Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?"
"Ordinary mind is the Way," Nansen replied.
"Shall I try to seek after it?" Joshu asked.
"If you try for it, you will become separated from it," responded Nansen.
"How can I know the Way unless I try for it?" persisted Joshu.
Nansen said, "The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion. When you have really reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?"
With these words, Joshu came to a sudden realization.
This koan called "Ordinary Mind is the Way" is a beginner's koan, a koan made for beginners to study. For the old students just reading it once, immediately you should know exactly what's going on.
~ ~ ~
Carlos Dwa
Posted November, 1998
I'll tell you a secret -since I'm up late and irradiated. I don't think "God" has any characteristics. -but if he did -I think he would be like a small piece of protoplasm lost on a rogue asteroid that is hurtling uncontrolably through the void. And it's clinging tenatiously to life -because it is all it has. And your lives are the claws that it grasps with.
It is the Least powerful of things. Almost nonexistant -totally ignored and overlooked -worshipped by no one.
I think maybe he is a barefoot old aborigine -an old man wandering through the desert -and he really has no power over anything.
But when the universe comes to an end and all has ceased to exist -somehow -inexplicably -he is able to look off into the missing sky and ...with an innocent smile and a lilting voice he can say a word and the whole creation thing starts up again.
Actually quite a charming old bugger -been known to sit around mumbling semi coherently to himself for eons at a time.
It's been rumored that those who are particulialy critical of him are at some point forced to take his place.
In fact some say (and I really shouldn't tell you this), some say, that's how he got the position in the first place.
So bone up bucky -'cause I hear that at times omnisience is quite claustrophobic. Like living in a very small cell with a very bright bare lightbulb.
(c)1998 Carlos Dwa
~ ~ ~
David Hodges Posted November, 1998
Doing Nothing
Let's see. Got nothing to do tonight, got no one to be with. So I went to the video store and didn't find any video I wanted to see tonight. So I went to the cafe and wrote in my journal and drank a latte. Then I figured I'd go to the LARGE video store. Then I thought, nah. Then I came home. Then I meditated. Then I noticed that SHE had been trying to get my attention all along. SHE was physically located in my chest. In consciousness she was just - inside. When my attention would wander she would pull me back. My impulse was to praise her or worship her but she wanted me to be quiet. Then my impulse was to figure her out, relate her to theories and ideas and myths but she wanted me to be quiet. SO - I just stayed there with HER for a while. I continued to do nothing. But I wasn't alone.
Now I'm writing this to you Salon folks. Now I'm not.
David
~ ~ ~
Jerry Katz
Posted November, 1998
Cafe Confessions?
Well, it wasn't a bad idea, going to a cafe and sitting and writing something confessional regarding our personal realization. I had every intention of going to a particular cafe, ordering a chai, and writing in my notebook. But when the time came to do it, it all felt kind of contrived, so I just stayed home.
But there was a time when I did almost all my writing in coffee shops. In those days I was experimenting with fiction in the fantasy genre, inspired by readings on the occult.
This would be the 70's in Los Angeles. So I wrote at Ships, which is now nothing more than a splashy neon photo in coffee table books. And at Muktananda's temporary ashram in Santa Monica, overlooking the ocean, everyday for a few weeks. I wrote at the littles dives on Santa Monica pier, or while sitting on benches on the pier, fishermen to the right and left of me. I wrote a lot while sitting on the benches atop Griffith park, alongside the observatory, the famous observatory in Rebel Without a Cause. Also the benches at Inspiration Point, right near the totem pole at the north end of the park that parallels Ocean Ave. and overlooks the broad and wide Santa Monica beach, Venice pier to the south, Malibu to the north, and sunset a success every day in Santa Monica.
But breakthrough to recognition of the nondual came when I wrote my first Book of Umba, in my front yard on Pearl Street in Santa Monica, in 1980-81...
Nothing is gained or lost But infinity is re-arranged. All things happen to all entities and souls And keep on happening until infinity Itself is lost And the ease of nothingness reigns.
--- from The Book of Umba, November 8, 1980
I am a castle speaking. There's a man inside me. His name is Umba. He wants wood, And my table is wood. He wants iron. So iron vats. He wants missionaries in black robes And the sadness of being alone. So missionaries. He wants fields in the beyond And food growing in them. And he wants levitation. Stars, moons, red planets And esthetic objects flying past my windows. So flight. He wants simple walks. He wants paths with pebbles solid to touch. So smooth. And he wants an earthly body. And earth and sky And air and space and light and water and fire. And he wants it all from me. So he gets it all from me.
My castle is the center of my kingdom And every part of my kingdom is part of my castle. My castle has many rooms and secret passages. My rooms have no corners, no walls, no floors, no ceilings. Under my rooms are secret passages. My castle has the anatomy of desire And is cherished by monks; The anatomy of responsibility And is unavoidable. The physiology of evolution And is love in solution.
My castle has many rooms And only the room I am in is important. The room I am in, is indistiguishable from all the other rooms. The room I am in is a room only because I call it a room. There is only one room And that room is everything. It is the layer of light Between Umba and the Core of Umba.
---from The Book of Umba, November 19 and 20, 1980.
~ ~ ~
Harsha
Posted November, 1998
Jerry you reminded me of a beautiful and a sad time. By 1980, I had completed several years of training under my teacher and was bent on becoming a Jain monk. But in 1980 Chitrabhanu Ji told me that I should respect the wishes of my parents who were completely against that life style. He advised me to go back to graduate school. I was dejected and in great sorrow as I had no other aim in life. I did not have any skills in making a living other than teaching yoga and meditation which I was doing at the time. So I went to California. I was in Santa Monica for about a week or so back in 1980. I had a chance to visit La Jolla as well and meet that very famous love psychologist who had an institute there. (Carl somebody I think). He was in his 70s at the time and had two girl friends. Then I went to the Hippocrates Institute and experimented with the raw vegetarian diet there. After three weeks, the owner of a resort asked me to come see his place. He wanted to set up a business arrangement where I would be the Guru at the resort and we would split 50-50. I stayed there for two days and told him I would think it over. I felt very sad there. I called my teacher on the phone one day. I said a few words but could not talk much as tears completely overwhelmed me. Chitrabhanu Ji asked, "What is the matter Harshadeva? You have to be strong." I tried to explain but what could I explain. My pain was too deep. After a few days I left California and spent some time with my parents. Then I spent a few months with my teacher. As fate would have it, I ended up going back to graduate school.
~ ~ ~
Bruce Morgen
Posted November, 1998
Confessional remembrance of childhood
I will tell you that my first "spiritual" experience occurred in 1953 when I was a six year old attending Hebrew School in the thriving New York suburb of Levittown, Long Island. The Bible stories I was taught caused great dissonance in my childish consciousness, I somehow "knew" that the jealous, whimsical, downright murderous "God" depicted in the Old Testament was a concoction of thought, used by those in power to enforce social conformity. My teachers were, of course, relentless with their tales of the vengeance and wrath of "God." Finally, one summer evening, I stood in my driveway, looked up at the stars, and asked the "God" I was taught to fear and obey to strike me down, as I could not coexist in the same universe with such a ruler/creator. The answer was utter silence, there was only the profound, deeply quiet beauty of the night sky -- and so the journey, my "path" to the actual, living "God" began with the stars in a little boy's eyes.
Nondual Highlights Issue #1990 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Editor: Mark
There's a reality beyond the material world Which is uncreated. No words can describe it No example can point to it Samsara does not make it worse Nirvana does not make it better It has never been born It has never ceased It has never been liberated It has never been deluded It has never existed It has never been nonexistent It has no limits at all It does not fall into any kind of category
Studying the dharma can be compared to learning how to drive. There is a driving manual that explains what things are, how they work, the rules of the road and so on. Similarly, the sutras and shastras contain the basic knowledge you need in order to practice the dharma. When you actually learn how to drive, you receive personalized instructions based on your individual skills, your driving teacher’s style and the various practical situations you encounter. These are not necessarily presented in the same order as the information in the manual. Instructions can come in most unexpected ways.
Let’s suppose you have devotion, trust and the merit of having met a qualified master. For you, a mere instruction from your master can potentially lead you somewhere, even without elaborate explanations on the theoretical aspects of the tantras. Your practice could be as ridiculous as being told to have a cup of tea every hour, but it could still untie your knot of delusion and take you to a state where you are released from all kinds of grasping and fixation.
The whole purpose of dharma practice, whether ngöndro or the main practice, is to understand the great purity and equality. This is the great vastness, longchen - the vast space where everything fits. The different schools of Buddhism variously call it nonduality, the realization of emptiness, the union of samsara and nirvana, and so on. The fact that everything is nondual is not a recent invention nor a Buddhist one; it is the actual nature of phenomena from the beginning.
What does this mean in practical terms? Devotion is integral to being a Vajrayana practitioner. Wanting to be free of delusion implies accepting that we are deluded. Within our deluded state, we have to learn and believe that we need to create a pure reality. So, when taking refuge you must not think that the setting is ordinary, but rather that it is a pure realm. Then visualize the object of refuge in front of you. It is crucial in Vajrayana to understand that the object of refuge - the guru - is the embodiment of all the buddhas as well as of the dharma, the sangha, and the devas, dakinis and dharmapalas. Basically, all objects of refuge are embodied in the guru.
If you have a high aim such as enlightenment, you have to change your attitude. Believing your guru to be a shravaka or an arhat is much better than thinking that he or she is just an ordinary, decent human being. If you think of your guru as an arhat, then you will receive the blessing of individual liberation. If you think your guru is a mahabodhisattva on the tenth bhumi, you will receive an equivalent blessing. If you think your guru is the Buddha himself - that is, you don’t imagine it but actually see him as the Buddha in person - then definitely you will receive the Buddha’s blessings. And in Dzogchen and Mahamudra, if you realize that it is actually your own buddhanature that is manifest in the form of the Buddha or the guru, you will receive the blessing of seeing everything as the Buddha, everything as the guru.
- excerpt from "The Guru and the Great Vastness," by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, Fall 2004.
Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.
When your truth forsakes its shyness, When your fears surrender to your strengths, You will begin to experience
That all existence Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
In a handful of ocean water You could not count all the finely tuned Musicians
Who are acting stoned For very intelligent and sane reasons
And of course are becoming extremely sweet And wild.
In a handful of the sky and earth, In a handful of God,
We cannot count All the ecstatic lovers who are dancing there Behind the mysterious veil.
True art reveals there is no void Or darkness.
There is no loneliness to the clear-eyed mystic In this luminous, brimming Playful world.
- Hafiz The Subject Tonight Is Love Daniel Ladinsky, submitted to SufiMysic by Patricia
If the world is only a dream, how should it be harmonized with the Eternal Reality?
Maharshi: the harmony consists in the realization of its inseparateness from the Self.
D. But a dream is fleeting and unreal. It is also contradicted by the waking state.
M. The waking experiences are similar.
D. One lives fifty years and finds a continuity in the waking experience, which is absent in dreams.
M. You go to sleep and dream a dream in which the experiences of fifty years are condensed within the duration of the dream, say five minutes. There is also a continuity in the dream. Which is real now? Is the period covering fifty years of your waking state real, or the short duration of five minutes of your dream? The standards of time differ in the two states. That is all. That is no other difference between the experiences.
D. The spirit remains unaffected by the passing phenomena and by the successive bodies of repeated births. How does each body get the life to set it acting?
M. The spirit is differentiated from matter and is full of life. The body is animated by it.
D. The realized being is then the spirit and unaware of the world.
M. He sees the world but not as separate from the Self.
D. If the world is full of pain, why should he continue the world idea?
M. Does the realized being tell you that the world is full of pain? It is the other one who feels the pain and seeks the help of the wise saying that the world is painful. Then the wise one explains from his experience that if one withdraws within the Self, there is an end of pain. The pain is felt as long as the object is different from oneself. But when the Self is found to be an undivided whole, who and what is there to feel? The realized mind is the Holy Spirit and the other mind is the home of the devil. For the realized being this is the Kingdom of Heaven: " The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." That kingdom is here and now.
excerpt from Talks with Ramana Maharshi On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness, posted to MillionPaths by Viorica Weissman
Short Dozen 8/24/04
i.
the new day
a baby bird all eyes waiting
ii.
frogs sink into corners
to dream of love & insects
iii.
I rest in the
silent open uncluttered moment
iv.
a great egret flies white against purple clouds
a brushstroke across the sky
v.
the morning pond spills light while waiting for water birds
vi.
the blind grub cannot imagine the heron's beak
vii.
is not the poet like the heron patiently eating the day?
viii.
the newspaper arrives & reading
we imagine the world
ix.
we drink the blood of bush berries ripened & ground
Columbian gold
x.
each day promises more than our minds believe possible
We’ve been so conditioned to think that the point of questions is to get answers, that we overlook that the point of answers is that they get us to more questions. The questions are as valid and rich as any answer because every answer is full of questions. You can even begin to enjoy the questions, even trust the questions, as much as any answer that comes. When you value the questions themselves, you just naturally hold the answers more lightly because they aren’t the goal. If the question is just as rich as the answer, then it’s fine if the answer comes and goes. Have you ever noticed that you’ve forgotten everything you once understood? Every insight you’ve ever had has faded, and that’s great because then you’re back in the question. You’re back in this really alive place where you’re getting to find out what you know now, what’s happening now, what’s moving, what’s changing, what it’s like now. What is it like now? You’ll never be done with that question. What’s happening now? You could say that answers are just a temporary side effect of having questions.
This is a gentler, more respectful way of being with your experience. It’s a more intimate way of being with your experience every moment to ask what it’s like instead of How can I fix it? How can I get more? How can I get less? How can I improve it? How can I change it? How can I avoid it? How can I hang onto it? Do you see how all of these questions have an effort to them? They have a sense of violence to them - a sense of being in battle with or in opposition to your life. It’s hard to be intimate with someone when you’re pushing them out the door or trying to keep them from leaving. There’s no intimacy in that kind of interaction. How much possibility is there for real, deep contact? The same thing is true for other dimensions of our Being. The opportunity is to intimately experience the expansions and contractions, the openings and the closings, the freedom and the stuckness, the wonder and the confusion, the understanding and the lack of understanding.
Next are selections from The Other Syntax list, which is about the teachings of Carlos Casteneda.
Also included is another installment of In Nonduality Salon, featuring the posts from the Nonduality Salon list before the Highlights was born.
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
Chapter 8
A Psychology of No-thingness: Seeing Through the Projected Self
by Dan Berkow
This is a richly referenced paper. A single sentence can find attribution to two sources. For example: "Pleasure is neither sought nor rejected." (Loy, 1999; Norbu and Clemente, 1999). The citation of references confers academic solidity and suggests those with whom the author finds resonation.
The chapter opens starkly, with reference to the "human being," as the paper's foundational statement is given. Later the more familiar terms "person" and "client" appear, and finally Marsha, Mark, Paul, Joan, which are pseudonyms for the case examples. The terminology is appropriate to the points being made.
This chapter will be presented as earlier ones have been, with a listing of the main points (often in the form of quotations) within each chapter section.
A Psychology of No-thingness
-- "A psychology of no-thingness studies the human being as that which is not-a-thing, not an object of perception." "That which is neither subject nor object is the actual and present nature of the human being."
-- A psychology of no-thingness provides the framework to understand that psychological problems are the mistaking of a self-conceptualization for true being. The result is that one has become an image projected within a world of image projectors. Images are in relationship, therefore relationship is not known and psychological problems arise.
-- A psychology of no-thingness implies that a person's well-being requires the breaking or relinquishing of the constructed self-image and "the imagined sense of relationship of one object with another."
-- A psychology of no-thingness is aligned with Zen Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. This represents a shift in psychology: "Psychology will move toward release of suffering as its orientation rather than continuing its current directions of viewing indivinduals as carrying disorders, carrying strengths, and wanting to solidify an adjusted and efficient self through positive self-esteem."
-- A psychology of no-thingness refreshes the relationship between the human and non-human environments. "Relationship is now a field of being." The environment is not a separate entity to be manipulated to satisfy needs.
-- A psychology of no-thingness establishes the nonconditional being of client and therapist as the basis for an opening to the revelation of authentic being.
-- A psychology of no-thingness is respectful and loving. It involves the understanding and resolution of anxieties arising in the client. "The client is invited into a process of respectful inquiry and loving challenge."
-- A psychology of no-thingness engages a therapy of relinquishment of attachments and illusions and is not a promotion of positive self-images.
The Unreality of Split Being
-- "Awareness becomes seemingly split from itself when it conceptualizes a position in here looking out there and remembers experiences in terms of my pain that I was unable to avoid and my pleasure that I tried to keep."
-- "The psychological split is healed when pain is neither retained nor defended against psychologically."
-- "A psychology of no-thingness involves being as is, without imposing views or expectations to change or stay the same. It involves neither fixing anything or witholding assistance. ... This present moment is the freedom that clients erroneously perceive themselves as lacking."
-- "It is this a priori nature of being that is healing for human beings, and this healing merely is the presentation of what is the case, without the introduction of unreal splits."
Contact, Timing, and Pacing in Therapy
-- "The full challenge of therapy involves release of the sense of self that depended on identification with constructed personal history and the resulting projections. Enhanced self-integration may be a temporary aspect of personal process, leading to sufficient trust in the process of being to relinquish the self at center."
--"Therapeutic process proceeds according to the timing and pacing of the individual who construes a therapy-seeking self"
Brief Case Examples
-- During the therapy of each case example there were moments of similar tone characterized by "presentness of awareness." During those times attentional energy was undistracted by thoughts and feelings directed toward the assessment, anticipation and control of undesired and future events. This left a "perceived quietness" and a feeling of involvement.
Nature of Projection
-- "The entity placed in the body is a projection designed as the carrier of projections. It inhabits the body-construct as a mind-entity that can know and do. It brings with it constructions of threats that would attack or negate its knowing and doing. The goal of projection is to protect an imagined entity taken as self by forming protections to ensure imagined continuity.
-- "The therapy of no-thingness can have no aim that involves a new state for a separable being called the client. ... Such a therapy is nothing other than the opening that is the present as is, which is an opening to and of potential, and the discovery that one's being is this ever-new potentiality as actuality. Problems drop here simply because there is no place for an assumption of a problem-carrying entity."
Releasing the Apparent Split in Being
-- There is an internal and external aspect to splitting awareness.
-- "Internally, projection is associated with the maintained self-image and its associated introjects, that is with rules and expectations assumed to maintain security."
-- "Outwardly, projection is associated with concern about the reactions of others to one's self. Thus, a desire to be seen as strong, impressive, and in control masks hidden feelings of self-doubt, weakness, and being out of control."
-- The moment of healing does not arise out of a new strategy, is not created through manipulation, nor does it manifest through education or urgent warnings, advice, or appeals. It is the moment of the dropping or falling away of strategies, manipulations, information and insistences; the moment that simply being present is revealed as always what is.
Relationship and Therapy
-- Relationship may be understood thusly: "rather than two separated individuals attempting to join together to do therapy, we have a whole situation spontaneously arising. This relationship isn't fused, nor is it split into divided subjects and objects. The therapist's being is present not only with the client, but as the client."
-- Therapist and client are distinct while being nonseparate. That is, sensation, feeling and boundaries are not denied.
-- There is neither the coming in nor the going out of the healing energy of being, though it may be cognized and identified as evolving and developing.
-- "When there is clarity of and as this energy, there is spontaneously the release of perceived needs for security requiring self-division as survival."
-- "What is key to change is not new constructs for thought, but release of the thought constructs that determined reactions, feelings, and requirements for a separated self-sense."
--"Therapy therefore facilitates exploration, gives feedback, and promotes inquiry. The effects of self-imposed friction are addressed honestly and without either minimizing or exaggerating. The psychosomatic and relational repercussions of self-protection are clarified with self-examination. The dropping of the projection of a separated self is the choiceless awareness of moment-to-moment being."
Dissolving Self-referencing, Splitting, and Suffering
--Therapy addresses "the split that occurs when the introjective/projective mechanism defines a universe in terms of what is good for me in here and what should be kept away from me, out there. The splitting between self and environment is mirrored by an internal split between what is desired and feared. The relatedness that is always now, without divisions of a past, present, and future, or of an internal and an external."
~ ~ ~
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
THE POWER OF SILENCE is an intellectual review of the thoughts of the shamans of ancient Mexico. In their most abstract guise. As I worked alone on the book, I was contaminated by the mood of those men, by their desire to know more in a quasi-rational way. Florinda explained that in the end, those shamans had become extremely cold and detached. Nothing warm existed for them anymore. They were set in their quest; their coldness as men was an effort to match the coldness of infinity. They had succeeded in changing their human eyes to match the cold eyes of the unknown.
Commentary on The Power of Silence (Inner Silence) THE WHEEL OF TIME Carlos Castaneda
~ ~ ~
When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.
Carlos Castaneda THE WHEEL OF TIME Quotations from Journey to Ixtlan
~ ~ ~
Commentary from CC: My Life is a Merciless Quest
I sensed this in myself, and tried desperately to turn the tide. I haven't succeeded yet. My thoughts have become more and more like the thoughts of those men at the end of their quest. It is not that I don't laugh. Quite the contrary, my life is an endless joy. But at the same time, it is an endless, merciless quest. Infinity will swallow me, and I want to be prepared for it.
Commentary on The Power of Silence (Inner Silence) THE WHEEL OF TIME Carlos Castaneda
~ ~ ~
...freedom cannot be an investment. Freedom is an adventure with no end, in which we risk our lives and much more for a few moments of something beyond words, beyond thoughts or feelings.
The Art of Dreaming Carlos Castaneda
~ ~ ~
Commentary from CC: I'm Cold; DJ and Cohorts Warm
I don't want infinity to dissolve me into nothing because I hold human desires, warm affection, attachments, no matter how vague. More than anything else in this world, I want to be like those men. I never knew them. The only shamans I knew were don Juan and his cohorts, and what they expressed was the furthest thing from the coldness that I intuit in those unknown men.
Commentary on The Power of Silence (Inner Silence) THE WHEEL OF TIME Carlos Castaneda
~ ~ ~
"Once you decide to come to Mexico you should have put all your petty fears away," he said very sternly. "Your decision to come should have vanquished them. You came because you wanted to come. That's the warrior's way. I have told you time and time again, the most effective way to live is as a warrior. Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting you. That's the warrior's way."
"I believe I do that, don Juan, at least some of the time. It's very hard to keep on reminding myself, though."
"A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear."
"That's even harder, don Juan. For most people death is very vague and remote. We never think of it."
"Why not?"
"Why should we?"
"Very simple," he said. "Because the idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit"
The Preliminaries of "Seeing" A Separate Reality
In Nonduality Salon
The Highlights of posts from early Nonduality Salon
The following posts are from November and December of 1998
Truth
Solitude is in the mind of man. One man may be in the thick of the world and yet maintain perfect serenity of mind. Such a person is always in solitude. Another may live in the forest but still be unable to control his mind. He cannot be said to be in solitude. Solitude is an attitude of the mind. A man attached to the things of life cannot get solitude, wherever he may be, whereas a detached man is always in solitude. ---Ramana
A quiet mind is all you need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet. As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does self-awareness affect changes in he mind. In the light of calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and work miracles without any effort on your part. ---Nisargadatta
The nature of the Self is absolute, immutable, taintless. It is not distant, nor is it subject to attainment (being ever attained). This is Truth. ---Ashtavakra Gita
DJB: How do you experience and describe the stages of the creative process?
CAROLYN: To begin with, creative expression requires an overflow of energy. It requires me to be a canvas or open page. I offer myself as the film for being photographed by the sublime. It is always out of a random spontaneity. That is why I have paints in different areas outside as well as in my living room. I carry a pen and paper on my hikes. I draw some of my best work while in a car. As to the length of time of the stages, it varies from very quickly to a few months, or longer. Sometimes there is a fermentation or incubation; other times, the flame seems to be ignited in the darkest night.
DJB: How do you see consciousness evolving in the next century?
CAROLYN: Progress is painfully slow. We are still existing on a biological survival level. Nature will use us as its tools to continue its galactic body. For us to survive, we will have to refine ourselves as one with this endless expanding universe. Notice that the word "universe" means united verses. When in harmony, life is a symphony of united verses; when discordant, there is cacophony.
~ ~ ~
Anthony de Mello, SJ
The Master's expansive mood emboldened his disciples to say, "Tell us what you got from Enlightenment. Did you become divine?"
"No."
"Did you become a saint?"
"No."
"Then what did you become?"
"Awake."
~ ~ ~
Jesus, from The Gospel of Thomas
His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."
~ ~ ~
samuel
Some recent threads have inspired these muses:
When 'Divine'... manifests in Human form, to behave... as a 'human'... is the norm'.
'We' live 'our lives'... in duality... because... this is a 'dual' world... in which we be.
But... when 'we' become *aware* of 'our' reality, (a tiny shift in perspective... is all this be) *there is no longer such thing as... 'you' or 'me'.*
Whether 'we' *consider* this a blessing... or a curse, makes not one bit of difference... to the 'Universe'.
......................
There is only One thinker of thought... with six billion facets through which it is wrought.
Whether 'Divine'... uses the alias Krishnamurti or Little Bo Peep, 'tis still the same 'Mind' expessing... awake... or asleep.
We are all... but scribes of the One thinker, much as our fingers... are but 'our' mind's tinker.
.......................
Gene Poole, your use of words is truely 'Divine', they inspire contemplation... and are sublime. This in not written to stroke an ego, but merely to thank... a 'nondual' amigo.
It is followed by responses to a post sent to Guru Ratings entitled, "I NEED your help...!"
This Highlights concludes with another installment of In Nonduality Salon.
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy
Chapter 9
Welcoming All That Is: Nonduality, Yoga Nidra, and the Play of Opposites in Psychotherapy
by Richard C. Miller
"Yoga Nidra is an ancient tantric Yoga practice that reflects the perspective of Awareness both as the inherent ground of our essential beingness and the container, agent, agency of our healing into the understanding that this is so."
After discussing the origin of Yoga Nidra and his first experiences with it beginning in 1970, Miller discusses Yoga Nidra and psychotherapy:
"Through its straighforward process of attending to naturally occurring experiences of opposites of sensation, emotion, thought, belief, imagery, and identity, it awakens the discriminating insight that every experinece, when fully allowed, is both an expression of as well as a pointer to our underlying nondual Nature. Further, Yoga Nidra affirms that when we abide as That, integration and healing unfold spontaneously, conflict and suffering cease naturally, and freedom is recognized to be our innate disposition."
There are two phases in Yoga Nidra when applied to psychotherapy. There is a constructive phase in which the client becomes a psychological whole capable of processing a life of experiences. It is an integrative phase. The second phase is deconstructive and Yoga Nidra is most useful in this phase, where "the accent is on transcending separative ego-identity and realizing one's inherent spiritual identity as impersonal unitive Awareness."
Yoga Nidra is a 12-step process (variously adapted to suit the needs of the client or student) that deconstructs identification at seven levels: physical body, feeling, senses, emotion, mind, joy and bliss, and the body of the ego-I identity.
"When clients recognize their underlying nature as spacious nonjudging, compassionate, and loving Presence, causeless equanimity emerges. The perfume that arises from this profound insight lingers even as residues of separation remain. With repeated insight, these residues become transparently permeable to the underlying fragrance of Awareness."
This chapter is richly supplemented with descriptions of client experiences that illustrate the principles set forth. Here is a fragment:
"Nicky is lying on the floor with eyes closed encountering sensations of shame and a lack of energy that she experiences daily in her body. I support her in experiencing her feelings without trying to think about or understand them. After a few minutes, I ask her to find sensations that represent their opposites. She remembers a time when she is five years old. She is playing outside, her body full of radiant energy and sparkling vitality. I suggest that she embody these feelings without trying to think about or understand them. After a few minutes I invite Nicky to rotate her attention back and forth between feeling these opposing experiences."
Miller concludes with a statement that, except for the mention of Yoga Nidra, could be a concluding statement for the entire book:
"Self-inquiry deconstructs ego-identity and its miragelike reality, opening the ground for latent nondual Presence to spontaneously flood into the foreground. In this moment clients reclaim their real freedom as unchanging, nondual Presence that is both immanent and transcendent in every moment of life. This is the fulfillment of Yoga Nidra and the completion of psychotherapy."
~ ~ ~
The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by John. L. Prendergast, Peter Fenner, and Sheila Krystal.
I have mostly become ...a leaf in the wind ...! , a ship ...without rudder, ...a soul, ...without guide, ...with NO one in ...Command!
I have been mostly living in ...NOW, which has meant ...living with no plan, no goal, ...and no responsibility!
...lot of things have changed, few things have been ...Lost! I have simply watched them pass by ...! ...without making much effort!
My pain, suffering, noise, ...have mostly ceased!
...but, it has not been ...Free! ...and, I haven't `permanently' lost my Mind, ...I can still Think!
...and, when I think then I realize that I DO have a `real' family to feed, ...one that loves me dearly and one that depends heavily one me.
...the family includes two members of ...less than 6 years of Age!
and, ...I do realize that living without plan, goal, agenda, responsibility, ...living without bother, ...mostly `not thinking' is NOT a proven method to `ensure' worldly success or ...prosperity.
My question is, ...WHAT do I Do ...?
What would you, ...Do?
For past 8 months, I have performed my job mainly because of being `pushed' and `pulled' by this and that rather than by personal `drive', `motivation', `agenda', `plan' and `responsibility'.
It is somewhat of a miracle that I still have my job. But, from a super start, award winning, highest rated employee, I have reached to a point where people have started raising doubts on ...why I was rated so High, why did I get this big role and `responsibility' and ...why did I win those awards?
...so, my question is ...what Do I Do ...?
and, yes, I think, ...I still have a ...Choice!
But, the real question is to `find a good balance'.
How do I do that ...?
Any idea ...?
Thanks for letting me talk something ...grossly 'practical' and grossly 'Real'.
Your help, understanding, openness, ...and compassion is greatly appreciated.
Thanking you, ac.
~ ~ ~
Ron Ingram
It matters not what you do. But do it 1000%, lose yourself in it. Whatever you resist will persist.
...
putting my exec. hat on for a minute:
Follow your passion dudes, if you need to make a change go for it, confidence equals competence and both are simply the result of fears overcome.
I was a banker when I got into heavily into metaphysics. One day I tossed my speech aside and told staff about self observation and told them to forget about selling and start listening. I got called into the VPs office, instead of getting fired I received accolades. Six months later I started my first dotcomm a year after that I became head of consiousness project in LA that paid triple the salary. Then I retired to write and study at the age of 35, then I shaved my head and returned to the corporate world to be my weird self and get human again.
Be weird man, be yourself, let you light shine, dream the dream dreamer, the passion is in there somewhere. Not that I don't have struggles, the biggest is boredom. Use your mind too though, don't quit until you've found something else - something BETTER! Or you may need to resolve some issues you are resisting where you are and then the movement will happen effortlessly.
Re: goal setting - forget about it, the people that run this planet did long ago. The key imagining is simply to get in touch with your deepest darkest desires and don't lie about it. I've got a brother in law and he keeps complaining about rich people and saying how stupid and evil they are and how he isn't willing to sacrifice his more blah, blah, blah... In fact he is simply afraid of his power, afraid of his weakness, afraid of failure and it is actually easier and more egotistical to say "I could but I won't".
Actually this is just one small part of my brother-in-law he is actually a pretty cool dude and has a good life. I just like to rant.
...and why do I spend so much time online? hmmm - i guess it is part of my becoming human project, so thanks again for your sharing. I'ld forgotten how much pain and suffering there is among humans.
One last thing - we need the pain too! It is the only way our Higher Self can get our attention. First SHe whispers in our ear, but we can't hear, then SHe rings a bell, but still we doze, then SHe gives us a nudge, eventually SHe might have to resort to hitting us with a car. SHe doesn't care about the car it is no more real to SHe than a fly so why not.... seems nasty to us but no big deal from another i.e. immortal POV.
~ ~ ~
Sarlo
>But, the real question is to `find a good balance'. > >How do I do that ...? > >Any idea ...?
By continuing to be open to those "forces" around, like your wife and daughter and Aditya. Only your intelligence is required to balance needs harmoniously. Tolle on the park bench is not the only model. Kabir continued to support himself by weaving and then hanging out in the market to sell his weavings, long after his disciples asked him to stop, that they would take care of him and he should be doing more important things, etc.
>Thanks for letting me talk something ...grossly 'practical' and >grossly 'Real'.
Nothing wrong with practical. It makes an interesting contrast with your poetic offerings.
Do you really need the advice you are seeking or are you just seeing what we can come up with?
I *have* noticed that your offerings are now more than they used to be, ie not just on the morning commute any more. So this side of life is taking more precedence. So, there may be a problem. Or . . . You can cut down on work, still have some job that is sufficient to do the support thing, just less high-powered. The guru trade is a tough one, not much room to make a lot of money, except if you get lucky or sell out in some way. Keeping the day job is not necessarily selling out.
~ ~ ~
Pete
I tell you what I do, what works for me: I make whatever is in front of my nose my meditation, to that I give my full attention. Whether it is work, talking to my wife, or cutting my toenails it gets my best shot at being attentive, and doing the job right.
~ ~ ~
Eric Paroissien
we learn commonness and invisibility, recognize when there is no stake, no reason to prove anything, that i am apart, ... one has to live anyway, there are hours (many of them) in the days, one might work or stare at the ceiling, all activities are the same, i don't blame my mind earning some money, maybe earning added value to buy unnecessary things brings heavy stress, but the mind must do something anyway, let it be stressed to, like here me communicate, life fills itself with itself, who can say he stops or decides anything in the course of his destiny, let it be ... a destiny. Arvind you life will always be filled anyway with something.
~ ~ ~
Jan Barendrecht
>I have mostly become ...a leaf in the wind ...! , a ship ...without rudder, ...a soul, >...without guide, ...with NO one in ...Command!
The notion that there was something in command has vanished, that's all. The intestines will continue to function, as will the senses.
>I have been mostly living in ...NOW, which has meant ...living with no plan, no goal, >...and no responsibility!
The interesting bit would be where / how to live outside a "now" no?
>...lot of things have changed, few things have been ...Lost! I have simply watched them >pass by ...! ...without making much effort!
Breathing as a rule is effortless too, so that's quite OK. When it is costing effort, that's a sign something isn't well.
When injured (little accidents do happen once a while) disinfect the wound by pouring tea tree oil into it. No pain? Cool no? 8-)
>...but, it has not been ...Free! ...and, I haven't `permanently' lost my Mind, ...I can >still Think!
Thinking is required to solve math and related puzzles. Defining the mind with the mind isn't a good idea unless to start a career in philosophy ;-)
>...and, when I think then I realize that I DO have a `real' family to feed, ...one that >loves me dearly and one that depends heavily one me. ...the family includes two members >of ...less than 6 years of Age!
Just keep working, effortlessly, without suffering. The kids are lucky with such a dad no? :-)
>and, ...I do realize that living without plan, goal, agenda, responsibility, ...living >without bother, ...mostly `not thinking' is NOT a proven method to `ensure' worldly >success or ...prosperity. My question is, ...WHAT do I Do ...?
As nothing really changed, continue "business as usual".
>What would you, ...Do?
>Business as usual :-)
>For past 8 months, I have performed my job mainly because of being `pushed' and `pulled' >by this and that rather than by personal `drive', `motivation', `agenda', `plan' and >`responsibility'.
Combined with good job performance, that means "no worries!" aka a happy life.
>It is somewhat of a miracle that I still have my job. But, from a super start, award >winning, highest rated employee, I have reached to a point where people have started >raising doubts on ...why I was rated so High, why did I get this big role and >`responsibility' and ...why did I win those awards? ...so, my question is ...what Do I Do >...?
An empty mind enables good job performance too so how come this question is raised?
>and, yes, I think, ...I still have a ...Choice! But, the real question is to `find a good >balance'. How do I do that ...? Any idea ...?
Unless equipped with the body-multiplication siddhi, one issue at a time.
>Thanks for letting me talk something ...grossly 'practical' and grossly 'Real'.
When the Buddha was roaming in India, many householders practiced his advice and didn't change career nor broke with family after attainment of nirvana. The notion that such a change could be required is incorrect.
It is quite likely ppl living with someone undergoing k. awakening are put under stress by that. When the smoke of the k. fires disappears and clear vision arises, could be wise to repair some of the damage.
In Nonduality Salon
The Highlights of posts from the early days of the Nonduality Salon, before The Highlights came about.
~ ~ ~
" Spiritual life is a crisis... Everything I am doing is a means to bring about this crisis. I desire this crisis in you. I don't want it not to happen. I don't want to console you. I don't want you to be happy in your unconsciousness.
I want you to become sensitive to your actual state. I want you to know very well what you are always up to. I want you to become capable of seeing yourself under all kinds of conditions. I want you to see the machine of your ordinary activity. And I want it all to collapse. "
--Franklin "Adi Da" Jones
Driftwood Dave and Starwomyn
Keep stripping away that which appears to be until there is no appeanrance and nothing there to be as all has merged in to ONE.
Look for the constants. The transitive breaks down and away under stress or duress of many kinds. Let it go. If it's going then you probably don't need it anyway. If I can name it or perceive it with the senses then it ain't me so I can let it go without attachment. Stress factor reduced dramatically. Nervous breakthroughs achieved regularly if necessary until the dross flys with wind and finally the rest of me with it.
~ ~ ~
"That which makes you think you are human is not human. It is but a dimensionless point of consciousness, a conscious nothing; all you can say about yourself is: 'I am'. You are pure being, awareness, bliss. To realize that is the end of all seeking. You come to it when you see all you think yourself to be as mere imagination and stand aloof in pure awareness of the transient as transient, imaginary as imaginary, unreal as unreal." ---Nisargadatta
~ ~ ~
Gloria Lee
From The Sonnets to Orpheus: II, 29 Rainer Maria Rilke
Silent friend of many distances, feel how your breath enlarges all of space. Let your presence ring out like a bell into the night. What feeds upon your face
grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered. Move through transformation, out and in. What is the deepest loss that you have suffered? If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.
In this immeasurable darkness, be the power that rounds your senses in their magic ring, the sense of their mysterious encounter.
And if the earthly no longer knows your name, whisper to the silent earth: I'm flowing. To the flashing water say: I am.
Letter to the Editors: Click 'Reply' on your email program, compose your message, and 'Send'. All the editors will see your letter.
If you want with a few words to benefit one who
is eager to learn, speak with him about prayer,
right faith, and the patient acceptance of what comes.
For all else that is good is found through these.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from Philokalia, I
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
posted by Gabriele Ebert on Million Paths
The Buddhist tantras teach: "The thunderbolt cuts through hatred; the great symbol blazes bright. A drop appears in the midst of space; it appears as the door of life, and should be meditated upon in the center of the heart."
from Symeon the new Theologian On Hesychastic* Heart meditation....
"...the love of God, like a kind of heavenly dew which is joined with an ineffable light, falls immaterially on the heart in the guise of lightening and takes the form of a shining pearl...This pearl grows daily in the heart of him who prefers it to everything else, becomes in him a miracle of miracles, both inexpressible in every way and in all respects indescribable, neither grasped by the mind nor uttered in words. Ecstatic at the inexpressibility and incomprehensibility of the thing, and fixing his intellect in meditation upon it, the man goes wholly outside the world - not in his body, but - in all his perceptions, for the latter also withdraw together with the intellect to what is contemplated within him." ("on the Mystical Life" - Vol.2, pg 106
Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives -- tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides with perfect courtesy, to let you in! Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass! Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint that something is missing from your life!
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch? Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself continually? Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
Well, there is time left -- fields everywhere invite you into them.
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is the mystery, which is death as well as life, and not be afraid!
To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome with amazement!
To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw, nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the present hour, to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth, to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened
in the night
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult than the wakening from a little sleep.
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said to the wild roses: deny me not, but suffer my devotion. Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe
I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red, hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters, caution and prudence? Fall in! Fall in!
A woman standing in the weeds. A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next is coming with its own heave and grace.
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things, upon the immutable. What more could one ask?
And I would touch the faces of the daises, and I would bow down to think about it.
That was then, which hasn't ended yet.
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light, I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.
I climb, I backtrack. I float. I ramble my way home.
The modern era is steeped in restlessness as man is tossed between conflicting ideals. Like mounds in a sandy desert, intellectual knowledge is mounting up without provision for the expression of the heart, which is so vitally necessary to quench the need of the spirit. It is lack of this that has checkmated man's achievements, in spite of himself and his enormous advancements in the fields of science. Unhappiness and insecurity, emotional or otherwise, are the dominant notes of the age, and mankind is engulfed in the darkness of wars, hate and fear. Yet I say, "Have hope." Selfishness and lust for power tend to drag man towards brutality, which he has inherited from his evolutionary ancestry or acquired during erroneous searching through his incarnations. But there is within man the inextinguishable light of Truth, because he is essentially divine in origin and being. Those who cleanse their hearts of the embittering poison of selfishness, hate and greed shall find God as their own true Self. When you find and realize God, the problem of selfishness and its numerous expressions melts away like mist before the sun. In God and as God, all life reveals itself as being really one and indivisible, and all separateness created by identification with human or subhuman forms is seen to be illusory. The Truth of divine life is not a hope but a reality. It is the only reality, and all else is illusion. Have faith and you will be redeemed. Have love and you will conquer the lower and limited self of cravings that veil your own true being as God. Not through desperate self-seeking, but through constant self-giving is it possible to find the Self of all selves.
With hindsight, my decision to study theoretical physics along with experimental psychology was definitely the right one. They provided two complementary directions to my personal search for truth. Theoretical physics was taking me closer toward the ultimate truths of the physical world, while my pursuit of experimental psychology was a first step toward truth in the inner world of consciousness. Moreover, the deeper I went in these two directions, the closer the truths of the inner and outer worlds became. And the bridge between them was light.
Both relativity and quantum physics, the two great paradigm shifts of modern physics, started from anomalies in the behavior of light, and both led to radical new understandings of the nature of light. For example, in relativity theory, at the speed of light time comes to a stop–in effect, that means for light there is no time whatsoever. Furthermore, a photon can traverse the entire universe without using up any energy–in effect, that means for light there is no space. In quantum theory, we find that light has zero mass and charge, which in effect means that it is immaterial. Light, therefore, seems to occupy a very special place in the cosmic scheme; it is in some ways more fundamental than time, space, or matter. The same, I later discovered, was true of the inner light of consciousness.
Although all we ever see is light, paradoxically, we never know light directly. The light that strikes the eye is known only through the energy it releases. This energy is translated into a visual image in the mind, and that image seems to be composed of light–but that light is a quality of mind. We never know the light itself.
Physics, like Genesis, suggests that in the beginning there was light, or, rather, in the beginning there is light, for light underlies every process in the present moment. Any exchange of energy between any two atoms in the universe involves the exchange of photons. Every interaction in the material world is mediated by light. In this way, light penetrates and interconnects the entire cosmos.
An oft-quoted phrase comes to mind: God is Light. God is said to be absolute–and in physics, so is light. God lies beyond the manifest world of matter, shape, and form, beyond both space and time–so does light. God cannot be known directly–nor can light.
The Light of Consciousness
My studies in experimental psychology taught me much about the basic functioning of the human brain. Yet, despite all I was learning about neurophysiology, biochemistry, memory, behavior, and perception, I found myself no closer to understanding the nature of consciousness itself. The East, however, seemed to have a lot to say about consciousness, and so had many mystics, from around the world. For thousands of years they had focused on the realm of the mind, exploring its subtleties through direct personal experience. I realized that such approaches might offer insights unavailable to the objective approach of Western science, and began delving into ancient texts such as the Upanishads, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, The Cloud of Unknowing, and works of contemporary writers such as Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, Carl Jung, and Christopher Isherwood.
I was fascinated to find that here, as in modern physics, light is a recurring theme. Consciousness is often spoken of as the inner light. St John refers to "the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation speaks of "the self-originated Clear Light, eternally unborn . . . shining forth within one's own mind."
Those who have awakened to the truth about reality–whom we often call illumined, or enlightened–frequently describe their experiences in terms of light. The sufi Abu'l-Hosian al-Nuri experienced a light "gleaming in the Unseen. . . . I gazed at it continually, until the time came when I had wholly become that light."
The more I read about this inner light, the more I saw close parallels with the light of physics. Physical light has no mass, and is not part of the material world; the same is true of consciousness. Light seems in some way fundamental to the universe, its values are absolute, universal constants. The light of consciousness is likewise fundamental; without it there would be no experience.
This led me to wonder whether there was some deeper significance to these similarities. Were they pointing to a more fundamental connection between the light of the physical world and the light of consciousness? Do physical reality and the reality of the mind share the same common ground–a ground whose essence is light?
Mr. G.V. Subbaramiah, a devotee, has written some short poems, which are interesting. Some of them refer to a child. Sri Bhagavan said God becomes a child, and vice versa. That means that the samskaras are yet latent in the child and thus its innocence is complete. When they are eradicated even a grown up man becomes a child again, and thus remains God.
The author said: The child creates the 'home' atmosphere.
Sri Bhagavan: Yes. The children are always in the 'home'. We too are there but are dreaming and imagining that we are outside the home.
Sri Bhagavan added: I have rendered the word 'youth' (yuva) in Dakshinamurti Stotra as 'child' (bala). This seems more appropriate. To be reborn is to become a child over again. One must be reborn before gaining jnana, i.e., recovering the natural state.
Q: I am having difficulty expressing what I want to say.
Papaji:
When you cannot express it, it means that you are That Itself. You can only express something that is other than you. That which you are gives power to all your expressions, but That Itself cannot be expressed.
The Katha Upanishad says that the Self reveals Itself to him whom the Self chooses. It is not revealed by the intellect. If the Self chooses you, then Self alone remains. The Grace of the Self reveals Itself to Itself.
When you have denuded yourself of all concepts, what happens? The revelation of the Self. You have ideas such as 'my knowledge', 'my experience'. Can't you throw them away for just one second?
from NOTHING EVER HAPPENED, vol 2, p. 321 by David Godman
posted by Viorica Weissman on Million Paths
NO BIRTH, NO BASE AND UNION
"The true nature of appearances is that they've never been born If birth seems to happen it's just clinging, nothing more The spinning wheel of existence has neither a base nor a root If things seem to be stable, that's only a thought The true nature of the mind is union, inseparability If you separate its aspects, you're hooked on some view
The sign of the true lamas is that they hold a lineage The ones who make stuff up are just being dumb The mind's basic reality is like the clear and open sky But the dark clouds of thoughts just cover it all up So let the lama's pith advice Be the wind that blows those clouds away
Even confused thoughts themselves are clear light that shines so brilliantly Experiences so bright like sun and moonlight Without any direction, clarity shines timelessly You cannot hold it, you can't say what it is So many kinds of certainty shine like the stars in the sky
Whatever arises is the greatest bliss Its nature is simplicity, the dharmakaya expanse The six dependent appearances are empty naturally This natural flow is effortless, there's not a klesha in sight Within this basic state, completely relaxed Wisdom without fixation abides continuously The three kayas inseparable—the greatest miracle"
Nondual Highlights Issue #1904 Saturday, August 28, 2004 Editor: Mark
Be still and stay relaxed in genuine ease, Be quiet and let sound reverberate as an echo, Keep your mind silent and watch the ending of all worlds.
The body is essentially empty like the stem of a reed, And the mind, like pure space, utterly transcends the world of thought: Relax into your intrinsic nature with neither abandon nor control - Mind with no objective is Mahamudra - And, with practice perfected, supreme enlightenment is gained.
This age is called the age of Kali Yuga, which means the age of lawlessness, confusion, misunderstanding, irresponsibility, anxiety and anguish, and so forth. Anyhow, there is no need to believe in the Hindus' view of Kali Yuga, because we have seen with our own eyes the universal lawlessness, confusion, misunderstanding, anxiety andanguish, high-jacking and low-jacking, misappropriation of others' property and homes. We have domesticlawlessness, disintegration of family life as well as social life, national life and international life, religious corruption and various types of misery, from physical to spiritual. We see the destruction of our planet earth by various types of physical pollution, mental pollution, spiritual pollution, nuclear pollution and acid rain. We have ruined our soil, our waters, lakes and rivers and our food crops. In such a condition, we do not see any man or woman who is happy in any way. What to do in this predicament?
Be sure, you cannot make peace, happiness or bliss. They have to be experienced. In fact, true peace, happiness, bliss, unity and peaceful coexistence are the way of nature. They have to be experienced within one's "I-Am" by going beyond the body and relative mind.
No doubt, with one voice, all governments, all religious leaders unanimously claim that peace on earth and peaceful coexistence are their main aim. But nobody has any knowledge of peace or peaceful coexistence. He who does not know himself cannot have any peace, and he who does not have any peace cannot have any peaceful coexistence with others. That is a law of nature.
You cannot understand anything without going beyond the body and mind. When you go beyond your body andthinking mind, then you will understand what is going on in your unconscious, subconscious, conscious and superconscious mind, because then you are their witness. The witness is always beyond time and space, while the doer is always within time and space.
Everybody has his or her own universe. All want peace and peaceful coexistence on the level of the thinking mind, but that mind is the cause of all multiplicity, division and disunity. The witness is always beyond the body and mind. Be the witness. Feel: "I have a body and mind, but I am not the body and mind. I am not the emotions. I am That 'IAm'. No doubt, I am experiencing from morning until evening more than a thousand individual 'I-ams' (personal thoughts and identities), but I am the witness of them, because I am always beyond time and space while they are movements within time and space."
You cannot know what peace and peaceful coexistence are without meditating on Absolute Godhood in the form of "I-Am" beyond the body and mind. You are bliss. When you feel blissful and peaceful, then you have peaceful coexistence with all of nature, not only with this planet, but also with the sun, moon, planets and galaxies, with all of existence. The whole house of nature becomes your own home.
Nobody can meditate on another person's God. But when you come into "I-Am" beyond the body and mind, beyond imagination, you cross the ocean of sansara, ignorance, and you feel your own Being. When you are operating beyond time and space as the witness, then you feel that the whole universe is interwoven within your mind, and you are always beyond the mind.
Om Shantih
Excerpted from the essay "The Universal Search for Peace," written in 1987 by Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati and published as part of the book by the same title by the Baba Bhagavandas Publication Trust.
Life is a movement, an endless movement, and to inquire into this extraordinary thing called life, with all its inumerable aspects, one must ask fundamental questions and never be satisfied with answers, however satisfactory they may be, because the moment you have an answer, the mind has concluded, and conclusion is not life- it is merely a static state.
Jiddu Krishnamurti - submitted to SufiMystic by Patricia
The mind's original nature is like space; It pervades and embraces all things under the sun.
Be still and stay relaxed in genuine ease, Be quiet and let sound reverberate as an echo, Keep your mind silent and watch the ending of all worlds.
The body is essentially empty like the stem of a reed, And the mind, like pure space, utterly transcends the world of thought: Relax into your intrinsic nature with neither abandon nor control - Mind with no objective is Mahamudra - And, with practice perfected, supreme enlightenment is gained.
The clear light of Mahamudra cannot be revealed By the canonical scriptures or metaphysical treatises Of the Mantravada, the Paramitas or the Tripitaka; The clear light is veiled by concepts and ideals.
- another excerpt from Tilopa's Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in Twenty Eight Verses
Bodhicitta
Yana is not the carrier or what is carried - it is the carrying. Thus Hinayana means "carrying the smaller load," and Mahayana, "carrying the great load."
Hinayana practitioners are those who find samsara unbearable and want to escape from it into the state of nirvana. They help others enormously by renouncing the world and striving to obtain freedom, but their main thought is personal liberation from samsara. An arhat - one who has completed this path of personal liberation - has many spiritual powers, and can give spiritual teaching and aid to many beings, but still has to remove jneyavarana. The attainment of nirvana will prove not to be sufficient and the arhat will then have to enter the bodhisattva path and progress through the ten levels to the final, complete buddhahood.
Those who practise Mahayana also renounce samsara and want to escape from it. But because they identify with all other beings in samsara, Mahayanists do not want merely personal liberation. Through their great concern for others, Mahayanists' all-motivating wish is to give complete happiness to all beings. They understand first that all beings in samsara - insects, devas and the rest - are equal in that they all want happiness and do not want suffering. They also perceive that none of these beings has the satisfaction of complete happiness. For this reason, they develop the great wish to take all beings out of suffering. This wish, which is also a kind of caitta, is called mahakarunika, "the great compassionate one." Mahayana practitioners realize that all beings in samsara, though they may have transitory happiness, do not have true, lasting, happiness.
The next wish, that of giving all beings the ultimate happiness of buddhahood is called mahamaitreya, "the great wish of active love." These wishes are stronger than the dissatisfaction of the Hinayana follower. Before this stage of aspiration is reached, there are many other practices that have to be developed so that Mahayanists can fully realize the suffering of beings.
At first they want to bring all beings to enlightenment without any help. This is called adicinta, "the first thought." Then, when they examine themselves to see if they have enough power to do so alone, they find that the same defilements that other beings have exist within themselves as well. Thus they try to find who does have the power to help others in this way. Through this they find that only a buddha can do so, and develop the wish to reach the buddha stage quickly. This is bodhicitta, "the mind dedicated to enlightenment."
When one has practised this a great deal, mahakarunika, mahamaitreya, adicinta and bodhicitta become part of the person's very nature. At this point the practitioner becomes a bodhisattva, though not yet an arya-bodhisattva - a very advanced bodhisattva, who has seen emptiness clearly. When the practitioner reaches the high state of a bodhisattva, all the devas pay respect. Once bodhicitta has arisen, the seed of Dharma will continue to grow whether the person is awake or asleep, and even very harmful karma can be prevented from ripening.
Usually, people can remove mental defilements only by meditation on emptiness. Bodhicitta makes meditation on emptiness much more powerful. When a soldier is fighting an enemy he needs to use his weapon, but he also needs to have good food; bodhicitta is like this food.
To reach the final goal we need two instruments: prajna (wisdom), and upaya (right means), which contains both compassion and compassionate activity. 13 Mahakarunika, mahamaitreya, adicinta and bodhicitta are all included in upaya. Prajna is seeing things as they really are. A bodhisattva must have both of these. Arhats, who have completed the Hinayana path, are out of samsara and have attained the lowest level of nirvana, are strong in prajna - in the realization of emptiness - but weak in upaya. They have compassion (karuna), but not the great compassion of mahakarunika. They have active love (maitri), but not mahamaitreya. The main difference between their path and that of the Mahayana is on the side of upaya. Eventually, arhats will have to develop it.
Pandit Shantideva, in his Bodhicaryavatara, mentioned all the different virtues of bodhicitta, for those interested in knowing more about the mind dedicated to enlightenment.
The Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on Death and Rebirth by Lama Ole Nydhal, Vajrayana Buddhist Lama
The Tibetan Buddhist teachings on death and rebirth are unique and very complete. They usually interest everybody who gets them. In order to understand about death and rebirth, it's important to begin by observing the nature of our mind. Looking at the mind we often think that there are two things. There is something seeing and there is something being seen. There is a mirror there, the picture is in the mirror. There is that which observes and that which is being observed.
But if we look for true duality this cannot be found. Where does every thought and feeling and experience come from? It comes from the open clear space of the mind. Who knows it? The open clear space of the mind. Where does it change? It changes inside that open clear space and it also returns to it again. So, if we look for the mind we see that it's not two things, the seer and the things seen, the experiencer and the experienced. They are not two, but one totality manifesting in two ways. There is the timeless aspect which is like the ocean and there is the changing aspect inside time which is like the waves coming and going in the ocean. And we cannot say that the things either are or are not the thoughts and feelings, either are or are not the mind.
They appear there they are known by it. They disappear there again. Of course they are felt to be different and they are experienced as different. We see them as something apart. If we look at these two different aspects of mind we see that that which is aware, that which is looking through our eyes, listening through our ears, that which is hearing and feeling and experiencing now, is timeless. It is open like space. It is radiantly clear. It has no limit or end anywhere. Something which is like open clear limitless space of course is not bound inside time. It is not limited by time and place. But if we look for the true nature of that which is aware, which is experiencing the world right now this must be seen to be timeless and limitless. Our own clear space and mind is without birth or death.
It is however very rarely that we experience our timeless nature. It is very rarely that the mirror is aware of itself and the mind sees its own nature.
Usually we are caught in the things coming and going in the mind. We are not seeing the ocean. We are seeing the waves which come and go there. The few times when the mind experiences itself are the moments of greatest intensity and joy that we can imagine. The way that the radiance of the mirror is actually more than the images coming and going in the mirror when the mind experiences its own nature are very powerful, very exciting and unforgettable.
People may tell you about the clear light. They may tell you about the peak experiences before the parachute opens in free fall or something like that. You may actually also have had moments where you forgot to expect anything or fear anything or live in the past or live in the future, where there was time when nothing else was in the mind. Suddenly you became exceedingly joyful, totally secure. You found yourself to be very powerful, very kind. You saw suddenly that the experiencer itself, that which is aware, really had some lasting qualities that we usually don't see. Sometimes we know who is calling before we lift up the receiver and that means that the nature of the space of our mind is information. When we get happy on the inside for no outer reason because we forget to hope or fear or think of anything, it shows that the space of our mind is joy.
When we are kind and compassionate without thinking that we are doing something to somebody else but simply because they are not separate from us and there is nothing else to do, it shows that the space in our mind is kindness and unlimited love. Even though we may have experiences like that for a few moments in this life most of the time we are constantly caught in the things which come and go. We are in the pictures in the mirror not in the mirror. We see what changes all the time.
Seeing this then, different kinds of feelings will appear, attachment and aversion, likes and dislikes. Hope and fear will follow most beings during their lives. Instead of being here and now in the truth and the intensity and the meaning of what happens in every moment, recognizing it to be true just because conditions come together like that, we are thinking of the past of the future, we are somewhere else. Doing that we experience the human life. The Buddha tells us that there is no one thing which stays the same during this life, not one single thing. The open clear limitless space is the same in everybody. It never changes, is not born and doesn't die. But the pictures in the mirror, the stream of experiences, even though they seem to be similar, are more like a stream of water that flows all the time and new water is there in every moment. If we really look we see that in the boy of seven and the man of seventy there is no-one who has stayed the same. There is not one single personal thing which stays the same from one moment to the next. All things appear, change, disappear again, are born and die and come and go.
On the other hand there is relative continuation because if there was no child at seven there will not be a man at seventy. So we see that even though no experience of the body or mind, no molecule, no atom stays the same from one moment to the next, still there is this continuation. One thing brings about the next and becomes the cause of the next thing again. Things move in a stream like that. We are aware of this stream. We are aware of three so called Bardos or intermediary states while we are living here. The Tibetan word Bardo which is quite well known, actually means something which is between something and something else. For instance, if I haven't bored you too much now you are all in the waking Bardo, the Bardo of being awake. After some hours you will fall asleep and you will be in the Bardo of sleep.
While you are in this Bardo of sleep you will have certain dreams. Each of these things are intermediary states. They are states that follow one another all the time. After a waking state come s a state of consciousness and inside this again is another state: the dreaming state. And this is what we are used to now. Every twenty four hours, if our lifestyle is not too extreme, this is what we experience, these three Bardos.
But there are three further ones, which we only experience every time we die. There is the process of death itself, there is the thing that happens after death, the continuation of the experiences of our last life and then there are the new experiences as our subconscious starts to go into the shape, go into a certain structure which then leads into our next birth, our reincarnation. And, before I tell you the whole process as it happens I should tell you my credentials for telling you this, why I can sit here and actually tell you this. You probably know that in Tibetan Buddhism we have many incarnate Lamas. We have many teachers who are recognized when they come back. They are clearly the continuation of a stream of consciousness of a former teacher.
Nearly everybody knows the Dalai lama. Actually the first Dalai Lama was a student of a student of the fourth of the Karmapas, who were the first incarnate Lamas in Tibet around 1110. And among all the incarnate Lamas in Tibet and there are about 110 special ones, he is the first one to actually start. His first one was in 1110 in Eastern Tibet and he is also the only one who, before dying, writes down every detail of his new rebirth, so other Lamas don't have to find him, they can actually read the letter he has left and then they can go out and find the child. That child then has unbroken consciousness and memory from his last life that he has brought over. So that's one reason, being a student of this Lama and having his teaching is one of the reasons that I can talk about this with confidence.
Another reason is teachings by other great teachers like Guru Rinpoche who gave these explanations. He was the Lama who brought who brought Buddhism to Tibet around 1250 years ago. And the third reason is that I myself am a Powa Lama. Powa means conscious dying. I teach conscious dying. So far I have taught 3000 westerners how to die consciously. Its not an academic study, its not something I'm telling you about that is abstract. People accept that when they have the physical hole in their head. When through meditation they have actually knocked a physical opening in the top of their skulls without even touching their heads.
Many have actually also experienced leaving their bodies during this process and entering realms of great bliss and great joy. Some people really lose their fear of death in the process. The biggest courses are always in Poland, Russia, Germany and Central and Eastern Europe, but I've taught it here once.
Its a process that takes about three to four days with the instructions and everything else and the result is that you actually come out of your body. You sent your mind out of your body. I mean you get a real physical sign and you also of course have many mental transformations. It's a teaching which as far as I know is practiced in a few places such as Burma but among the Tibetans in the old schools in Tibetan Buddhism it is quite widely known. The word Powa means 'a bird flying out of a skylight in a roof, this is actually the meaning of it. I have also had the experience of beings who were dead coming to me. They were there as real as you are here today. For all these reasons I am telling you now with confidence, I am not just repeating what I have read in a book or giving a summary of some other teaching. I am totally convinced of what I am saying here myself.
So, what happens in the process of dying is always the same. If we look at the death process from the outside it may look very different. Death in people who step on a mine or get hit by a fast car looks very different from death in someone who dies from Aids or Cancer in a hospital somewhere. It doesn't look the same at all. But actually what is happening is the same process. What happens is that the energy which used to be spread all over the whole body begins to draw into a central energy channel in side the body.
There are different kinds of energy and maybe I should say a little bit about that also. We are all Western educated so we know about nerves, those yellow strands going through the body, sometimes thick then thinning out more and more, contracting muscles and bringing information. They work with electricity and a hormone called serotonin.
Then some of you who are Asian probably know about acupuncture and acupressure, where for example, you put a needle in a finger and it brings a flow of energy and some more awareness to your kidneys or heart or liver or something else.
There is this outer flow of energy which follows different meridians to the inner organs. Then you have probably also heard the Hindu word kundalini where they talk about the nervous energy which is in the spine.
In Buddhism we work with the central channel which starts four fingers below the navel in the centre of the body and it rises to a place eight fingers behind the original hair line on the top of the head. It is said that this original energy line or energy channel appeared when the egg and sperm met in the womb of our mother. At that time the egg had an energy which in meditation is experienced as red and the sperm had an energy which is experienced as being white.
The information in these two cells created the billions of cells which form our bodies today. The red energy moved down to four fingers below the navel and the white energy moved up to about eight fingers behind our original hairline on the top of our head. Between these two then is the central axis. It activates itself at five places. At the head thirty two channels move out and activate the brain centre. They have to do with the body, everything physical, everything sensual. With speech there are six teen channels which fill the throat. With the heart there are eight channels which became many channels and cover the upper body and have to do with intuition and feeling and so on. At the navel there are sixty-four which spread out and go into the legs and cover the lower body and which have to do with qualities such as artistic abilities, creativity and so on. Four fingers below the navel there is our power center which the Chinese call Chi which can be sexual power or ordinary physical power.
What happens in the process of dying is that these very spread out networks of energy begin to draw into the central energy channel. The different wheels collapse. The experience we have on the outer level is that our sensory experiences become less and less. We see but we are not quite sure who, we hear sounds but its more like mumbling. Its not distinct. We feel something but we are not sure what it is we are feeling and actually our whole contact with the outer world begins to disappear. While this is happening we are also having some inner experiences. We begin to get confused and begin to drift in and out of consciousness. Its difficult to focus and be aware. At the same time we also have some physical experiences. First, is the feeling of pressure. That is the solid element moving into the water element. Then there is the feeling of flowing. That is when the water element is moving into the fire element. Then there is the feeling of dryness. Step by step as the mind begins to withdraw from its physical bases which are the elements of solid and fluid and heat giving and airy moving and finally space itself and consciousness.
When we float and start getting cold and our consciousness begins to disappear. During these different processes which are really the process of death, all the energy comes into the central channel. And here at a given time we breathe out three times and the third time we forget to breathe in again.
Here people say now this is death but actually we say as a joke sometimes that if people can afford a few days more in a hospital people will come and put electrodes on their hearts and give them a shock and then they will go on for a while longer. Any way even if we do hook people up to the local electricity works, after a while they do die.
Everybody dies. So at the time when one dies, after the taking in of oxygen and the exchange of energy with the world outside has stopped, there is a twenty to thirty minute period where the inner energies stop moving.
What then happens first is that the white energy from the top of our head gradually begins to move down through our body to the heart centre which is in the middle of the body not to the right or the left. On the way down there thirty three kinds of feelings which come from anger, which are usually based in anger, disappear. We see a very clear light like a very clear moonlight. Then after that about ten or fifteen minutes the energy begins to move up from the lower centre, the centre below the navel. As this begins to move up we actually experience red light like a setting sun moving up and forty kinds of feelings which were caused by attachment and greed disappear. And when twenty to thirty minutes have elapsed after we stopped breathing, these two energies come together in the heart. First everything becomes dark. This darkness is where seven kinds of feeling base in stupidity disappear.
Then after that we experience an intense clear light. This is all the awareness all the energy, everything that used to fill our whole body. This is now in the heart centre. Everything has met there. This moment is actually our best moment for enlightenment.
If we can hold this state, if we can be aware twenty to thirty minutes after death that this clear light is our true essence, that this is our awareness then we can do what many great saints have done during this last time over the last two thousand five hundred years.
Here I would like to give an example from my own direct experience. It was when the sixteenth Karmapa died in 1981. A year and a half before that in 1980 he had told me on which day he was going to die. I met him on the solstice in Colorado in America. He told us to come to him on the first day of the eleventh month next year. He said that we could also bring our friends. So we came out to seek him in the Himalayas. He wanted to die in the West where scientists could examine his death processes. Five days after his death his body was still warm and supple. He was then put into the meditation position surrounded by a lot of butter lamps. He stayed there for forty five days until the 19 of December when he was taken from his meditation seat. He had made his body very small. They put him in a box with a window that you could look in. Most people didn't want to look but I did because I knew that I would have to tell the story. I knew it would be my job. His head was smaller but not much smaller but his whole body was like that of a child. This man had been bigger than me. He was a massive big boned Tibetan from a warrior tribe, a big strong man. When he was burnt the next day there were outer signs, a double rainbow around the sun, which is very unusual in Sikkim. There was also an enormous eagle that kept turning high up around the burning place. When his heart came out of the oven it rolled down to the students. There were many other things that happened that were very unusual.
This is a case of what you call Thukdam. Thuk is the Tibetan word for heart or deep mind and dam is bond. It is where one is able to bind the consciousness in the heart. If one is capable of doing that and holding that state then one can do all those things.
Other things also happen when teachers and Yogis and Lamas die. They sometimes change the whole vibration of their bodies from solid to energy and they only leave their hair and their teeth and their nails which have no nerves and which cannot be transformed. These things are still happening. But if one transforms everything like that it's more difficult to be reborn because there is nothing physical to pull one back again. It is always difficult for high incarnates to come back because there are so many things pulling them in other directions and only other people's problems to bring them down here again. So this was an example of somebody really capable of staying in the clear light of the mind in the state called Thukdam.
If you use meditations where you concentrate on Buddha forms disappearing and you concentrate on being aware without being aware of anything, concentrating on just naked awareness, totally conscious without having to be conscious of anything, just having awareness in its own state resting like that, then that is the kind of meditation which will develop into the power of staying aware as you are dying. It is a period where awareness and energy and space inside and outside are no longer separate, where one's mind, where awareness, clear light is the same inside and outside, where there is no difference between enlightenment here and there. It's just like space and awareness, inseparable.
If one is not capable of holding that state and the normal taxpayer does have difficulty holding that state, then one becomes unconscious. Here the text usually says that one is unconscious for three and a half to four days. My own experience is that every time people who died came back to me it was exactly sixty eight hours. It happened with my mother and a few other times also. I don't know what meaning it has but I know that when they are there as close as you are its very clear that they are there. Every time checking afterwards it was 68 hours. So it may be that modern big city people, very intellectually trained people and so on go through some processes more quickly than less neurotic farmers or people like that. Anyway this has been my own experience.
Then when one wakes up from this state of unconsciousness then usually one does not know that one is dead. If one's death process has been very long, if one has been dying for a long time one has some idea but if one has just been hit by something and has had no time to prepare then one really has no idea. One is also confused because one has no solid body and that means that whatever we think then that's where we are. If we think England or India or Thailand or Burma or Cambodia or Denmark, whatever we think, the moment we think it our awareness is there because like space and awareness, there is not anything to move. It's also a difficult situation because nobody can see us. So we try to make contact with people. We try to find out why all our friends are unhappy and our enemies are happy. We can't really understand these things. Any time we try to talk to them they walk away and when we sit in a chair they come and sit on us and so on. It feels very strange. After about a week in this state and that means about ten days after we died, then mind really faces the fact that we are dead.
Then we really understand 'Oh I must be dead.' Here again if you meditate on the process where after a meditation everything arises as a pure realm, everybody is a Buddha, you are a Buddha, every thing is a pure realm, that aims for the second phase, the phase of waking up again. An ordinary person who is used to seeing the world in an ordinary way will in that situation see ordinary things everywhere, while somebody who is trained in this process of having the whole world appear as a pure land and seeing Buddha nature everywhere will at that time when one wakes from the shock of dying, again see Buddhas and pure states of mind and one will run there and do what the Tibetans say, change bodies with the different Buddhas. It is like a child seeing her mother and running there. When we see these different Buddha forms that we are used to meditating on, we run there and we mix into them and we enter their mental level. This is not the state of Dharmakaya or the state of highest truth. It is a state of Sambhogakaya. It's a state of blissful joy and richness of the mind. But this state is also without any kind of falling down or suffering again. If we don't make it to that state then as I said mind will discover that it is actually dead and this is such a big shock that we become unconscious once more. When you wake up from that unconsciousness then the stream of experiences from the last life has been broken, the stream of experiences from the last life is over and now our subconscious begins to come up. The things that were planted inside, the pleasant, the unpleasant, the friendly and unfriendly thoughts and feelings now come up because no new impressions are coming to the mind from the outside. There is no new sensory input. All the subconscious things start coming up and depending on what is the strongest tendency inside us then one out of six worlds begins to predominate.
For instance it's possible that we've done a lot of good things but we were also aware that we were doing them. In that case of course we fill the mind with good impressions but always thinking I do this for you. We don't remove the separation between us. We don't remove the things that block us. Though the things are positive and give good dreams, they don't make us wake up into the experience that everything that the open clear space is the same. So, if we've done that. If we've filled the mind with good impressions but still think that I do something for you then the result is what we call God's world. Buddha tells us that there are six levels where we experience spontaneous joy, all desires are spontaneously fulfilled. There are seventeen levels where we experience aesthetic joy, like beautiful sunsets and fine art and so on, and there are four levels where we experience abstraction. Buddha called them the formless, the formed and the desire worlds. These three are the psychological states that we enter if a lot of positive Karma is there but we still believe that there is a "me" doing it for "you".
Then there is also another stage which is much less pleasant. That is if jealousy is the strongest feeling in us. Then in that case we reach what is called the half-god realms. Half-gods are not having such a good time. They are always jealous, they are always fighting to get what others have, they are always experiencing looking for weapons and so on and they are not experiencing joy. They also get hurt more easily than the gods. The gods minds function in such a way that that they only think that they die if their heads are cut off. But the half-gods also think that they die if they are shot through with an arrow. So their minds work differently. Also in these half- god states beings are usually very angry and in those states when they die they really fall down because their minds are charged with negative impressions, anger and hate.
Then there is also the possibility that the mind has really clouded its potential. This can bring about a situation where one is so confused when one dies that one tries to hide between rocks or in bushes and here one can actually appear the next time with four legs and a nice fur coat. It's possible for mind to unite with the animal body at least for one life. I know at least three cases in my own experience, for some reason always with big yellow dogs, where they have come right up to me put their paws on my chest, looked into my eyes and mentally said "What happened?" Suddenly the light went out and now I'm in this state. One dog in Malta was actually following me all the time. It was so embarrassed about having that body. It was really a contact. I won't say that it happens often. If we look at the world there are so many miserable and poor and suppressed and suffering human lives that one doesn't even need to become an animal to suffer today. Look at Africa and South America and so many poor parts of the world where people have nothing. In my own experience I have made contact across that barrier and it does exist.
Its possible that greed and avarice have been the strongest feelings. At that time the desires, wishes which were always tormenting us, concentrate on food and drink. There again, beings may have very strange experiences. They may have the experience of having a very small mouth. Whatever one tries to eat is very difficult to get down. In this dream state one is in a body as big as a town and it's impossible to get what one needs.
There are other states where one experiences outer hindrances, where when ever one reaches for something then some demon or disturbing influence always takes it away. Or, things become fire and burn us and so on.
Finally, if we have mainly charged the mind with anger and hate then the result is paranoia. When the subconscious impressions come up from the mind the mind cannot stand them and the main feelings then are cold and heat. Buddha tells us that there are eight levels of feeling extreme cold and eight levels of feeling extreme heat. Then there are also stages which come from time to time like when people suddenly start drinking like mad and destroy their lives once or twice or four times a year, make a shambles of their lives and then gradually they have to get together again.
Actually we can see it all if we look in a mental institution or at human beings living in extreme situations. All these things can happen while there are physical bodies. We see human beings experiencing all these things in different places. All this can happen even more strongly when there is no physical body. Right now if one is depressed or unhappy one can eat pills, but when we die there is no body to distract the mind. The experiences are very strong. So for that reason Buddha really advises us to do, think and say useful things. Otherwise we create problems for ourselves.
These other realms, even though they may be experienced for a very long time, are realms where one gets rid of karma, where one works out karma. If one is in the god realms one is spending the money, the good energy one created. If one is in the paranoia or suffering states one is working off one's debt. But the place where one comes back to the really important place is this human life. If we return to a human life then seven weeks after dying we find some parents making love and we go down from the top of the father's head and follow his sperm into the mother. We wait until the sperm and egg meet and then a new life starts. Or, we go from this life into one of the other pleasant or unpleasant states. But after some time again we reunite with a human life like this and this human life is where the most things can really be done. Here we have a physical body. We can understand that things are positive and negative. We have very strong feelings, desires and attachments and expectations. If we look at the continuation of our last life or this one then the first thing to consider is what happens after we die. What structures come up, where we go. And then when we are reborn human again there are three more results.
First there are many kinds of human birth. Australia, North Europe are some of the most pleasant places one can be today. So, there is the place one is born. One can be born in a place where there is collective good karma, where the poor are taken care of, where there are transparent political processes and where one can be free have a useful life to develop oneself and think of others. Or one is born in a place with a lot of suffering, oppression and hunger, which is actually the majority of the world.
Then there is also what kind of body we get. We may get a body that is healthy and long lived, brings joy and is popular, or we may get one that is sick and not functional is short lived and has many problems. And the third thing is the tendencies we have, that is if we naturally like to share, if we like to be good with others, if we like to benefit others, or if we like to put others down and stand on them and suppress them.
What after that next life when we die the whole inner roulette starts again. The outer impressions disappear then once again we get into new states. Buddha tells us is that there is no beginning to all this. He says that mind is like space and space ha s no beginning. Mind has been timelessly playing with itself, expressing its qualities, experiencing, producing situations inside and outside. And there are many more births in states of pain and suffering than in states of joy and bliss. Even when we are born here as human beings as we are now in a nice country, healthy and so on, still when we were born we didn't smile when we came out of our mothers, we screamed because it hurt.
Some day we will get old, sick and die.
While we are here in our best years like we are today, we are always trying to get things we like and avoid things we don't like. We try to hold onto what we have and arrange ourselves with things we can't avoid. In all conditioned states no matter where we are there is either the suffering of everything collapsing and landing on our heads or there the suffering of things being impermanent and changing and being unable to hold them, or there is the suffering of being ignorant, of simply not knowing, of hardly remembering yesterday and having no idea about tomorrow.
That is why Buddha is always advising us to shift our values from the bank that gives less and less interest because our life is getting shorter and we cannot take things along, to the bank that gives more and more. To shift our values from things that change and disappear, that are born and die, that come and go and shift them into something which is timeless and cannot disappear, something which is more joyful, more happy, more powerful, more compassionate. And that basically means shifting our values from the thoughts and feelings and projections of the mind into the open feeling of the space of the mind itself. It means to try to rest in our awareness and doing that, see the one who sees and not just do the things that are seen, trying to be aware of the one who is aware.
We will see three things that will make us very joyful. First we will see that that which is aware is not a thing. That is, it has no colour weight smell or size, it really like space. And recognising that it is like space we do become fearless, I mean really fearless. Nothing can disturb us. Nothing can hurt us again. Being fearless we can see that everything is interesting because it happens, because it shows the qualities and the abilities and the richness of the mind.
Finally we can see that other beings are like us. They want happiness, want to avoid suffering, and that their mind is like clear space. And then we become loving and kind. So actually all these different qualities, all these different mental tendencies are really important. These tendencies exist everywhere in everybody and everybody can bring them out. There is something seeing and there is something being seen. There is a mirror there.
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Consciousness is the totality of the known
in the immensity of the unknown. - Nisargadatta Maharaj
~
Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.
The original Tamil work comprises 3,059 two-line verses that either praise Ramana Maharshi, record his teachings, or express Muruganar’s gratitude to him. This collection contains representative samples from all these categories, while concentrating on the teachings. Of the book's 1,750 verses approximately three-quarters of them contain direct statements by Ramana Maharshi on all aspects of his teachings.
Padamalai is available from the following distributors:
"Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new lives, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash." ~ Howard Thurman
Attachment: The Biggest Problem on Earth by Lama Thubten Yeshe
You are so fortunate being able to put much effort of body, speech and mind into seeking inner reality, your true nature. When you check how you have spent most of your life, you can see how fortunate you are having the chance to make this search even once. So fortunate!
I'm not just making it up, "Oh, you're so good," trying to make you feel proud. It's true. However, to really discover that all human problems, physical and mental, come from attachment, is not an easy job. It takes much time. [...]
This is not just some philosophical theory, either. It is really true, based on living experience. In fact, not only Buddhism, but all religions recognize the shortcomings of attachment. Even worldly people talk about its drawbacks. But, you know, even though we say the words, "Attachment this, attachment that," we don't really recognize it as the biggest problem on earth.
Therefore, what I'm saying is, it would be wonderful if you could recognize that your own attachment is the cause of every single problem that you experience. Problems with your husband, wife, children, society, authorities, everybody; having a bad reputation; your friends not liking you; people talking badly about you; your hating your teacher, your lama or your priest; all this truly comes from your own attachment. You really check up.
We Westerners always have to blame something external when things go wrong. "I'm not happy, so I'd better change this." We're always trying to change the world around us instead of recognizing that it's our own attachment that we have to change.
Just take a simple example. When someone hurts you by telling you that you're greedy, although you blame the person for how you feel, the hurt actually comes from your attachment. First of all, people, perhaps even your parents or your spouse, don't like your attachment-driven behavior, so they complain, "Oh, you're so greedy," hurting your ego. And then, instead of accepting their pointing out your selfish behavior, your attachment to always being right, perfect, causes you angrily to reject what they say. The fact that your ego, your wrong-conception mind, cannot accept criticism is itself a big problem: your ego wants you to be right all the time, and your attachment creates its own philosophy of never listening to advice, no matter who gives it, closing off your mind. It is very important that you learn to deal with these problems in the best possible way.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. ---Matthew 6:25-34
Lilies
I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.
They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,
and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful
as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face
of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself
even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
preached to the poor
of course he wanted to save someone--
most of all himself.
He wasn't a lily,
and wandering through the bright fields
only gave him more ideas
it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river--
where the vanishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues--
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away.
- Mary Oliver
Ten Years Later
Today's poem is by David Whyte. He was in a large part responsible for reawakening my love of poetry in recent years.David's poetry is rich and infused with a meditative sense of reality but I find particularly compelling when I've listened to one of his readings. If you get a chance, track down some of his recorded talks and listen. I think you'll be moved.
[Editors note:]
David Whyte, under "Poetry & Prose" tab has an audio interview on website:
Following are excerpts from a thought-provoking interview with David on Irish Radio,
appropriately titled "The Power and Place of Poetry."
If you would like to listen to the complete interview in RealAudio™ please click here!
Ivan PS -- If you haven't discovered it yet, there has been a hidden "Easter egg" on the Poetry Chaikhana web site. Go to the home page and let your mouse pointer roll over the seated figure. When you do that, the banner changes to a brief quote about spirituality. The quote changes daily... ============
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Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi
