JAN BARENDRECHT

In poor countries, the wish is not to be happy, the wish is
to live life "Western style" and the perceived limitation
is "money". But the most obvious reason is the love for
change as life forms are optimized to perceive change in
one way or another. The want for a change into "changeless
bliss" still is the old groove of wanting change. So what
doesn't change isn't perceived although it is THE most
obvious; no change is for many the equivalent of boredom.
The "bliss part" is hidden very well and unconditional
happiness not just means "it shines for no reason at all"
but it also means "physical or mental events can no longer
veil it".

__________________________________________________________________

SHANKAR AND LYNNE ON THE I AM LIST:

SHANKAR: (The ignorant) were born to delude (themselves),
in the drunkenness of (involution into) the
enjoyable-external-object, and die ! - O, Parrot ! -(and,
they) forgot the 'Existence' (Sat).

Translation of verse 8 of the 'Parrot-Eye-Vision of the
Life of Sri Ramana' by Sri Sadhu Om Swamigal.

LYNNE HELWIG I'll admit to an amount of ignorance
necessarily being a factor of human "existence" - if we
both agree it means that we don't (and can't) know
everything. However, enjoyment of a dark river bank, with a
friend, under the stars, sitting on long, strong, slender
treeroots that extend into the water, smelling the warming
earth and the cooling air, listening to the gentle brooking
of the river can be such a transcendent experience.
Existence surely resides here - I think/feel/know.

So, also in the heartrending struggle to understand
"ourselves and others". That is our reality. What about
relationship?

_____________________________________________________________________

JAN: When using "projection" for what is perceived, that
has to be unlimited - in physics for instance, exceptions
often denote faulty theory. As all perceptions have to be
projections and equally unreal there is no way that a
collection of projections can know what is real because
non-perception, like deep dreamless sleep, is just the
suspension of projection, which can be a projection itself,
instead of a supposed unprojected and there is no way to
verify one or the other.

DAN: Yes. The challenge is to notice that a collection of
interacting projections is masquerading as oneself. The
verification of this can't occur via usual knowledge, which
is the reverberation of endless projections in a "private
mental space" -- itself constructed via projection. So, how
does "verification" then occur? A related question is, "how
can no-thing possibly be deluded into self-defining as
something via projections based no-where?" The answer to
the first question, "Reality" is the converse to the answer
to the second, "the persuasiveness of Unreality". This
leaves a dissatisfying state of affairs in which Reality
somehow can be persuaded (presumably by Itself, as it is
All) to perceive itself as being less than it is. In
Qabala, this is viewed as a contraction of Infinity for the
sake of constructing a universe, which might be viewed as
self-presentation of That which can't possibly present
itself. Such "answers" being constructs themselves (as of
course would be answers derived from physics) can only
suggest what might be meant by "dissolution" of
self-boundaries, when "dissolution" is equivalent to "being
with no other" "as is".

JAN: I prefer modern physics, in the infancy of denying the
existence of time. In terms of physics, the error of
perception has to be extremely large as the senses have
limitations. As the mind is processing these perceptions,
the result of processing could give an insight, intuitively
correct and yet wrong.

DAN: Yes. Thus, interpretation substitutes for reality,
until there is a shift to reality, and interpretation can
be understood as mediated (divided) perception rather than
"reality as such".

JAN: It is just as easy to state there is no incentive
whatsoever because when "God is everything", that will in
the course of events become self-evident. And then there is
the nice dictum "as above, so below", indicating that
perceiving a self, by itself will lead to perceiving a
Self. From that perspective, "i" to "I" could be called
just a matter of expansion, or the general insight that
whenever perceiving a limitation, that already denotes its
transcendence.

DAN: Yes. The difficulty seems to be "noticing" This. Why
so difficult? (A view of human history shows very
deep-seated difficulties and myriad ways to "get stuck".)
One answer is: The "feeling of being" is captured by a
persuasive "picture of reality" in which there is a
situated perceiver who needs to "do something" to survive,
and to assist the survival of loved ones, and species. This
"capture" by the sense of "one who must survive and enhance
the likelihood of survival" is linked to pain/pleasure
responses, identification of loved ones, memory and the
sense of time, genetically-encoded perception/response
involving threat. These are seen as played out on the stage
of history, the unfolding of individual personality, group
culture, and dramas of acquisition, control, protection
from acquisition and control, attainments, religions,
sciences, etc.

DAN: Or one could say "remain where one is, before
beginning" and all will be well.

JAN: That could be interpreted as suggestive of choice,
requiring the memory of beginning and it is obvious that
hardly anyone knows. But it could also be interpreted as
"keep dead" :) From another perspective still, it can be
argued there is nowhere to go nor is there anyone to go so
there is no remaining to begin with.

DAN: Yes, remain dead and suicide won't be necessary, thus
eliminating the need for the arms race and war in general
;-) Remain undisturbed and survival won't be required. When
there is 'no remaining to begin with', one is 'prior to
beginning' with no beginning to remember or possible, and
Silence reigns. According to this view, it is the
belief/perception that "beginning" is possible that leads
to time, and the possibility of suffering "within" time. It
is interesting to note that the first word of the first
chapter of the Book is entitled, literally, "with
Beginning," mistranslated as "Genesis". If that one word is
understood, there is no need to "go on" to the second -
similar to the Qabalic story about Jesus learning the first
letter of the alphabet, which Melody recently posted here.

__________________________________________________________________

REMAIN UNDISTURBED AND SURVIVAL WON'T BE REQUIRED Dan
Berkow and Christiana Duranczyk

CHRISTIANA writes: Hello Dan...

Your dialogues with Tim, Jan and others are striking as
many resonant chords as perplexing ones. The discussions on
these topics have been so rich, that I hesitate to
interject. Yet the taste of this is so close that it's
flavor moves me to speak.

These dialogues of projection, memory and the 'gap' seem to
be invoking within me a deep turning .. consequent of which
appears also to be a deep churning. This sense of the 'gap'
which you refer to, appears to hold the multidimentionality
you also refer to. I sense that you speak from the
spaciousness of the gap which contains, but is certainly
not bounded by the apparently multidimensional gap I have
heretofore known (projected?).

DAN writes: The projection is multifacetted and
multidimensional, with one level seemingly discrete from,
yet ultimately interactive with other levels, such that
each event is resonant with events on "all levels" - the
"butterfly principle" of the projected reality, perhaps.
What we are calling "levels" could also be called
"boundaries", "spheres" or "realms".

CHRISTIANA: For many years I have worked with, observed and
surrendered to this 'gap'. I have even used this as a
benchmark for 'integrity'.. as in.. when all such 'levels'
are integrated or aligned (much as the imagery of the
hollow flute) then self surrenders itself as chalice... as
vehicle Being lived. What arises as interference seems
endless, yet years of practice, study, observation,
devotion have yielded to an almost kinetic or magnetic
sense of "True North".

Yet, I see now that there has always remained some residual
memory-identity construct which you identify as...
"mediated (divided) perception rather than "reality as
such". You write:

DAN: Yes. The challenge is to notice that a collection of
interacting projections is masquerading as oneself. The
verification of this can't occur via usual knowledge, which
is the reverberation of endless projections in a "private
mental space" -- itself constructed via projection. So, how
does "verification" then occur? A related question is, "how
can no-thing possibly be deluded into self-defining as
something via projections based no-where?" The answer to
the first question, "Reality" is the converse to the answer
to the second, "the persuasiveness of Unreality". This
leaves a dissatisfying state of affairs in which Reality
somehow can be persuaded (presumably by Itself, as it is
All) to perceive itself as being less than it is. In
Qabala, this is viewed as a contraction of Infinity for the
sake of constructing a universe, which might be viewed as
self-presentation of That which can't possibly present
itself. Such "answers" being constructs themselves (as of
course would be answers derived from physics) can only
suggest what might be meant by "dissolution" of
self-boundaries, when "dissolution" is equivalent to "being
with no other" "as is".

DAN: "Intelligence" is evident in the organization of
thought, but even moreseo in the ability of Awareness to
use thought to transcend the limitations of thought, to
dissolve the boundaries "projected" by thought. Once these
boundaries are apparent as "unreal" as grounding for truth,
Truth as boundless Reality *is*, the "what is" that
Krishnamurti referred to when he brilliantly discussed
differentiating the operation of memory which separates
observer and observed from perception in which perceiver
and perceived are not-two."

CHRISTIANA: I've been observing my mind 'contract' around a
series of questions and dissonant noise. . The process I
refer to above has been a useful barometer for clearer
operation within the mundane world. One by one, however, I
seem to be perceiving the limitations of the boundaries you
speak of. This appears to be a different aspect of
perception for me. Previously, I seemed to need to perceive
their levels in order to function with more integrity. They
served their purpose. This newer perception seems to allow
their dissolution... or perhaps, better stated.. a
perception is appearing withinwhich there are no objects. I
must admit, it is also accompanied by some echoes of
restlessness. That there may be no "True North" is shocking
to the core. Somewhere, something knows it is dying. As Jan
said... this could be interpreted as 'keep dead'.

DAN: Remain undisturbed and survival won't be required.
When there is 'no remaining to begin with', one is 'prior
to beginning' with no beginning to remember or possible,
and Silence reigns."

CHRISTIANA: From these words tears of recognition arise.

with deep gratitude for All appearing as you,

Christiana

__________________________________________________________________

D.T. SUZUKI from "Zen and Japanese Culture" (contributed by
Gloria Lee)

The Buddhist stanza generally found affixed at the end of a
Mahayana sutra reads:

All composite things are impermament, They belong in the
realm of birth and death; When birth and death is
transcended, Absolute tranquility is realized and blessed
are we.

Tranquility, therefore, in the art of tea is a spiritual
quality transcending birth and death, and not a mere
physical or psychological one. This must carefully be kept
in mind when the tea is spoken of as a step toward devoting
one's life to a higher level from which one is to view our
ordinary world and to live in it as if not in it. The
following is the view on the tea held by Seisetsu
(1746-1820), a Japanese Zen master of the late Tokugawa
era:

"My Tea is No-tea, which not No-tea in opposition to Tea.
What then is this No-tea? When a man enters into the
exquisite realm of No-tea he will realize that No-tea is no
other than the Great Way (ta-tao) itself. In this Way there
are no fortifications built against birth and death,
ignorance and enlightenment, right and wrong, assertion and
negation. To attain a state of no-fortification is the way
is the way of No-tea. So with things of beauty, nothing can
be more beautiful than the virtue of No-tea. Here is a
story: A monk came to Joshu, who asked, 'Have you ever been
here?' 'No, Master,' was the answer. Joshu said, 'Have a
cup of tea.' Another monk called, and the master again
asked, 'Have you ever been here?' 'Yes, Master' was the
answer. The master said, 'Have a cup of tea.' The same 'cup
of tea' is offered to either monk regardless of his former
visit to Joshu. How is this? When the meaning of such a
story as this is understood to its depths, one enters into
the inner sanctuary of Joshu and will appreciate the
bitterness of tea tempered with the salt of sweetness,
Well, I hear a bell ringing somewhere."

As long as there is an event designated as 'Tea' this will
obscure our vision and hinder it from penetrating into
'Tea' as it in itself. When a man is all the time conscious
of of performing the art called tea serving, the very fact
of being conscious constrains every movement of his, ending
in his artificially constructing a 'fortification.' He
always feels himself standing against this formidable thing
which starts up a world of opposites, right and wrong,
birth and death, Tea and No-tea, ad infinitum. When the
teaman is caught in these dualistic meshes, he deviates
from the Great way, and tranquility is forever lost. For
the art of tea is of the Great way; it is the Great Way
itself.

____________________________________________________________________________

LARRY: Can anyone describe the nature of a deaf person's
discursive thoughts? Is it visual, or in what way
linguistic? I would think the deaf would have an advantage
in meditation but I've never heard of a deaf yogin. Who
knows about this stuff???

DAVE: If you'll bear with me for a minute, a little
prelude. It seems to me, IMO, that an objective is to get
to a point where sleeping dreams are more lucid, becoming
closer to waking life, while waking life becomes more like
lucid dreaming. Things finally reduce to two states: very
lucid dreaming and "deep sleep". From there it can be
considered, being that there is no time, all is now; the
two states become one.

Well in that end, I have been playing on the edges of
consciousness, between sleep and awake, noticing the
boundaries and expanding them. That lead to what I have
sensed about parts of the thinking process.

Thought originates from the process of communication
between the sub- conscious and the conscious. As the
conscious becomes aware of a sub- conscious component,
thought is sensed. "Vocalization" of that thought
highlights the concept for memorization, becoming the
conscious organization and acceptance of the sub-conscious
foolishness. If one can't "hear", that "vocalization" must
take some other form (something that can acknowledge and
mark the events...). The process itself forms concept
packages, that are stored associatively relative to the
sensual (vocal) reminders.

Funny, this weekend I was watching bees looking for nectar
in a large patch of flowers in the garden. I was imagining
them as deaf, not sure if they actually are, but it made me
think (there I go again). I felt this world as normal,
feeling the vibration of my wings, responding to direction
changes wind shifts, flooded with color and sweet aroma of
nectar, entering one flower picking up the goodies and
moving to another. All in a totally silent world, moving,
wisking yet gliding silently, effortlessly, how different
it was. Strangely enough, there were no thoughts as I know
them, just sensual packages of color, smell and movement.

______________________________________________________________

GREG GOODE

What is memory? Not in the courtroom, but when one is
investigating, looking to end suffering, to see what lies
beneath *all* this stuff. In the stream of thoughts, a
memory is a thought that seems to point to another,
previous thought. But oddly enough, these things are
mutually negating. If that previous thought even arose, the
memory-thought was not there at that time to record it. And
now, when the memory arises, that supposed previous thought
is not here now to lend present substantiation. The
situation is that memory requires the previous thought for
its verification, and the previous thought requires memory
for the very claim that it ever existed. Since each one
depends on the other, neither one ought to be believed or
taken seriously. Another angle: since a thought that isn't
there just simply ISN'T, then how can any thought really
represent or point to another thought? Two thoughts cannot
co-exist simultaneouly (or else they'd be one thought). So
when one thought is present, there simply ARE no other
thoughts. So how can any thought indicate or represent
another thought??? Not only that, but ponder - can the same
one thought ever arise twice??? What would prove it??

Does the brain cause memory? It's OK for science to
investigate like this and give us chemicals and enzymes to
improve memory. But what are memory and the brain REALLY??
If the body arises as nothing other than sensations and
thoughts, then that includes the brain. The brain doesn't
experience or generate experiences. Instead it itself is
experienced as, e.g., visual images of x-rays and gruesome
TV shows. These are sensations and thoughts. A thought
might precede or follow another thought. But how can a
thought *cause* another thought?? But even if we drop back
into the scientific view a moment. If the brain causes
memory, then what causes the brain? What causes the brain's
cause? Etc. This leads to an endless regress, and can allow
endless suffering. No end in sight! OK for science,
pharmaceuticals and the education industry, which all
assume without question a world external to awareness. But
to investigate into the ultimate nature of things, can this
line of inquiry ever close the loop of suffering?

_______________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

This edition of Highlights is mainly dedicated to the
responses to two independently posed questions, one by Leon
and the other by Kriben Pillay of Noumenon Newsletter. I
hope you enjoy them. --Jerry

LEON ASKS FOR ADVICE

New to this list, I would like to ask for some help.
Nisargadatta, Jean Klein, Krishna Menon and other (in my
view) bona-fide Vedantins advise to hold on to the Witness,
the Awareness, the Background etc. Watch the mind,
register, don't judge. Watch the mind as if watching
traffic in the street. Works quite well in
"lab-conditions"for me, but the cool awareness gives way to
"the committee in the head" in no time flat when I enter an
argument, feel insulted, etc. No witnessing awareness
there, just "I think....", "I'm hurt deeply by....", etc.
When I want to wake up from sleep to catch a train, I use
my alarm-clock. Anyone found the perfect "alarm-clock" to
buzz when calm Awareness seems forgotten? Tricks to feed
"the persistence to return to myself?". And please, keep it
down to earth. I know Awareness is constant all the time,
and through an ilusion seems "dimmed" by the "thinker and
doer". But stil... Just need a few simple tricks......
Advise, anyone? Thanks, Leon.

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE:

ANTHONY: Try changing small habits to remind you: eg wear a
watch or jewellery on the other hand. There are a hundred
small habits like this you can change to remind yourself -
be creative.

DAVE: 1) Focusing on the perceiving center, to me sounds
like an excersize for someone who has not yet arrived at
your level. It's an excersize to draw attention to the fact
that there is more to all this than meets the eye. You know
that already.

If this excersize is continued, it will amplify the
attention to your ego, which is the source of the problem.
What is needed now is to turn the focus to the source of
the illusion.

2) Maintaining awareness is complicated for "everybody",
but it seems like the strongest tool for maintaining it in
"non-lab conditions" is something nobody can tell you. It's
something that grace gives you. The focus in "you" as a
perceiving center doesn't help now, that gets forgotten,
when a stronger focus distracts you.

What's stronger than the distracting focus? The knowledge
that what is happening is nothing, against the marvel of
the fact that anything IS at all.

Anything in this picture, this existence, is a piece of the
marvel. I can tell you that pain, embarrasement, disgrace
are all pieces of this marvel that pale against IT's
existence, but until you really see that, you won't
remember it when you are challanged.

MARCIA: The trick is to not judge the mind judging. The
mind is going to judge. It is possible to witness the mind
judging without judging it judging. Impartiality. Inherent
in your question is a hidden belief that feeling insulted,
argumentative, and so forth is who you really are. All that
is is believing what the mind is telling you. You will feel
insulted and argumentative. That is how your machine is
programed to feel itself. Pure awareness feels like
nothing. It feels empty. As long as you are feeling a
strong personal emotion, no matter what it is, you have to
just trust that you are asleep and act on it. Allow
yourself to feel it to the max but don't display it
outwardly. The tension between the yes of feeling it and
the no of displaying it will begin to really wake you up.

My father just died. I was beating myself up about how I
didn't do this and I did that until I realized that I was
still making it all about "me." Before he died it was all
about "me" and how much I had to do and after he died it
was all about "me" and what I didn't do. What a racket. :-)

HARSHA: First of all, we need to be aware of what the
problem is. Is it that emotions seem to cloud awareness and
this is considered undesirable? Or is the problem that at
times we feel anger, hurt, pain, and even hatred, and that
we are not comfortable with those emotions being part of
our persona, our projected image of a spiritually aware
person or a person practicing awareness, witnessing and so
forth? Perhaps the level of our discomfort with negative
emotions indicates our spiritual growth in some way; or
perhaps it just shows the nature and level of conflicting
tendencies and thought processes going on in the mind. We
want techniques, methods, tricks to help us gain calm
awareness. And there are many techniques available in this
free market. And yet what is the nature of any technique?
In a gross or subtle form, every technique of meditation,
every spiritual method, every mental trick to "gain
something" is an avoidance of what we have and where we
are. This avoidance reveals the nature of our pain and
struggle. And that is OK. It is part of nature. Is where we
are OK? Perhaps we can peace with our suffering. That is
the window of opportunity always.

MELODY: Welcome to the list, Leon,

I appreciated very much the heart from which you introduced
yourself.

I not so long ago asked a similar question, and this is the
essence of what I was shown,

1) Practice, practice, practice.

I am still unconscious (meaning 'habitual' )more hours a
day than I am conscious, and yet those conscious hours are
increasing more and more day by day.

The 'practice' itself is highly individual I suspect....
whatever facilitates the dropping away of past/future/I
thoughts.

(I'll repost for you something I shared a couple of months
ago about a practice which can be really quite effective.)

The key for me is: once I realize I was sleeping, I don't
spend time in guilt or admonishing myself or wishing I
hadn't fallen back asleep.

Which is essentially my #2) - already stated beautifully by
Marcia below:

The trick is to not judge the mind judging.

That really does seem to say it all.

Because the moment I begin judging the mind judging, I
instantly fall back asleep.

JAN KOEHOORN: practice thinking in the third person.

So: I am mad <--> there is madness; I am thinking <-->
there are thoughts etc

TIM GERCHMEZ: Here's a suggestion from Jean Klein (not his
exact words):

"View your body as if it belonged to another, as if it were
just another object in the environment. This will give you
a degree of psychological freedom."

I would assume this could also apply to "view thoughts and
emotions as if they belonged to someone else."

Dispassion is not a difficult thing to 'achieve,' but if
not combined with clear seeing, it can result simply in a
bored, dry and disinterested outlook, or even a "rebound
effect," where dispassion gives way to a psychological
rebellion.

MATTHEW FILES: there are no tricks, no short cuts, but
there is sadhana. Awareness seems forgotten? Watch the
mind, register, don't judge. You forget less and less as
time goes on, that's all. A consitent meditation practice
never hurt anything either.

JERRY: Someone once suggested standing back when 'calm
awareness' is lost, and commenting inwardly, 'Hmmm, isn't
this interesting?' without trying to return to that calm
awareness.

Something I've done is to inquire, at random times during
the day, "Is this I Am?" It may serve to put you more
permananently where you want to be.

We were speaking earlier of Osho's meditation techniques.
They can help you get through blocks.

There are all kinds of things to do. How do you feel about
Grace of the Guru?

You might also be interested in Practical Hints for
Self-Inquiry; it is freshly translated material, i.e., in
the English language for the first time.

http://www.nonduality.com/shankar1.htm

JUDI: They'll try every trick in the book looking for the
ever elusive happiness. What can we say? Lotsa ruck! :-)

In fact when they run out of tricks in all the books, they
make some up. :-) That gets really interesting of course.
:-) And that's the way people spend their lives. Oh joy!
It's the American way!! :-) And it says right there in the
rule book, 'the pursuit of happiness'. Sheesh. Well, no
wonder!!! :-) Excuse me while I laugh!

Oh my goodness.... goodnight everybody... sweet dreams,
don't let the bed bug ya. :-)

___________________________________________________________________

Hello Saloners,

Kriben Pillay, editor of the Noumenon: A Newsletter for the
Nondual Perspective,

http://users.iafrica.com/n/no/noumenon/contents.htm

has invited members of Nonduality Salon to consider the
following question and to submit a response for possible
inclusion in a future edition of Noumenon.

You may submit your response to the list as a regular post
and, if there are any submissions at all, I'll package them
and forward the package to Kriben on behalf of NDS.

Jerry

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

(Kriben Pillay): There appears to be two schools of thought
relative to the issue of free will. One is like J.
Krishnamurti's, which implies we have a kind of free will
which we can use to break through delusion, and the other
is like Balsekar's, which says there is no free will and
that all is pre-determined, even the desire to break
through. Somehow, my gut instinct tells me that Life is a
like an improvisation rather than being a fixed script, and
while I once had a powerful experience of being lived by
Life, it still felt like an improvisation, a potential
rather than a fixed plan. This also accords with quantum
physics. What is your view of this issue?

AGAIN, ASK AND YE... WELL, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES... (the
rest of the responses will probably be in tomorrow's
highlights)

MARCIA: To ask a question based on an either/or framework
is a dual question. The nondual position is not either/or
but both. We both have the possibility of free will and are
predetermined.

In a performance on a stage there are actors, a director,
and an audience. The actors follow a script, the director
has more freedom but is still bound by both what the actors
are capable of doing and what the audience wants as well as
the constraints of money, time and so forth, but the
audience is free to sit back and enjoy it all.

HANS: More important than the answer seems to be the
question if either possibilities can ever be proven. If i
have done something, how can i ever know if this action
arose from free will or if it was predetermined ? Why do i
want to know this ? To get a result out of it ? That would
make this question look like all other questions. But this
depends of course on the individual person that asks the
question.

It seems almost impossible that everything is
predetermined, the possibilities of life being so
incredibly vast and innumerable and so interdependent. Life
is also or perhaps mainly about survival and the element of
*potential* seems somehow more suitable, more flexibel, an
adjustable factor. But the mind is only a tiny fragment of
the whole. How can this tiny instrument ever know ? It is
so limited, it seems almost arrogant to think that the mind
can comprehend such complexity.

JAN BARENDRECHT: There is a perspective that could be
satisfactory for both the proponents of free will and its
adversaries. There have been several experiments with
identical twins who were raised under very different
circumstances and surprisingly, their development was
remarkably similar. To arrive at such a similar position
when relative conditions are almost opposites, could be
explained as exercising a free will, whereas the fact that
despite these sometimes opposite conditions they
nevertheless "achieved" a similar position, could be
explained as destiny.

But the "governing principle" has to be seen in the
germination of tendencies (vasanas) that cannot be
suppressed in any way; whatever the societal resistance,
these "seeds" will germinate and flower by themselves,
whenever the "soil" is fertile. It is easy to see that the
feeling of hunger with the subsequent "desire" to eat is
such a tendency that is rooted very deeply and although it
can be made to shut up during a fast, in the course of
events it will return in a way that cannot possibly be
ignored (unless one stops drinking as well, which is a more
or less painless way of euthanasia for Jain monks).
Therefore, it is safe to call the mind a wishing tree: any
sincere wish, once done, will in the course of events
automatically be executed and there is no escape from it.
What is called "free will" is but the "work" to fulfill
this wish. An idealist, not knowing "how (s)he ticks" can
be quite convinced of having an "iron" will to achieve the
goal, as probably will the onlookers.

Of course the above goes for ajnanis, for whom separation
is "real" and their sincere wishes are always fulfilled, be
it one never knows "when" - it is the origin of prayer...

editor's note:Jan wearing Nonduality Salon tshirt:
http://www.egroups.com/files/NondualitySalon/Sunny.jpg

DAN: Trying to find the best conclusion arrived at by one
or another supposed school of thought is like trying to
choose the best color to dye your hair. It leaves out the
option of naturally being without trying to conclude
anything.

Life is moving, moving, moving and who is trying to catch
the right view?

Life is still, still, still and who is it who is thinking
to make the right move?

MICHAEL READ: Who Dares to Ask?

I created space and all dimensions, realities and beings. I
animated them with Myself. Nothing else would do. There was
nothing else but Me.

The Mystery of You and I! Do enjoy it! Make choices if that
is your will. Follow your destiny if you can find it.

Live as if there is no tomorrow! The only goal is to be
alive. Open your heart to the treasure that is Me that is
You. We are One.

Do you believe this? Too bad. Do you deny this? Too bad.
Poor Baby wants it all! Oh, what will you do?

There is nothing else but Me. Understand?

__________________________________________________________________

DAN: Yes. The challenge is to notice that a collection of
interacting projections is masquerading as oneself. The
verification of this can't occur via usual knowledge, which
is the reverberation of endless projections in a "private
mental space" -- itself constructed via projection. So, how
does "verification" then occur? A related question is, "how
can no-thing possibly be deluded into self-defining as
something via projections based no-where?" The answer to
the first question, "Reality" is the converse to the answer
to the second, "the persuasiveness of Unreality". This
leaves a dissatisfying state of affairs in which Reality
somehow can be persuaded (presumably by Itself, as it is
All) to perceive itself as being less than it is. In
Qabala, this is viewed as a contraction of Infinity for the
sake of constructing a universe, which might be viewed as
self-presentation of That which can't possibly present
itself.

GLORIA: I have construed my projection of understanding
this "contraction of infinity" you mention along the lines
of a continuum of Being-Becoming, which is the whole "what
is." As Being supports and is inseparable from Becoming,
Being appears "dynamic" rather than static, the contaction
even may appear to be an expansive process, splitting the
whole into apparently diminished individual parts. (And
parts lends itself to the role in the play of this illusion
as well.) Either way it is moving and dynamic, not being at
eternal rest when and AS it appears in time. I can work
with this space/time aspect of existence defined as
illusion or Unreality vs Reality as you say above, but it
doesn't seem necessary to me to consider them as in any way
opposed or separate, simply "perceivably distinguishable"
is enough distinction for purposes of discussion. Why
constuct or perceive a duality of this? Why there is
Something rather than Nothing seems a moot rhetorical
question..why ask it? Indeed why ask why?

(I don't present my view here as in any way in opposition
to yours, but to provide some context for how my questions
arose, another way of looking at some of the same things
you say. I admit to having still some difficulties with
finding death imagery appealing or even useful to me. So
perhaps you can help me with this. How can I not exist, if
I am Being?)

I long ago understood all this simply as how Immanence and
Transcendence are both simultaneously (Now) occuring
aspects of God. Perhaps expressed by the light projection
metaphor in popular use here, Source projecting out towards
the screen (which is actually a mirror), reflecting that
same light back unto itself, still all is God including the
mirror, what else is there? So if our awareness is like the
mirror, we can appear to be going mainly in one direction
or another, out or back...but only in thought, depending on
if we are aware of becoming filled with and by God, seeing
God in all the creations surrounding us..or if we are going
neti-neti and transcending back into the Source, the All ,
the Nothingness of the Emptiness of God. As experienced
tho, this is seldom any clearcut, linear process of first
going out and then returning. (Are we all just addicted to
Becoming? Bunch of hyper, attention deficit kids on a
joyride spree?..what is so difficult about Being Still?)
God as Source is sharing his Being..within space/time we
may be viewed as like a time-share condo..this space for
rent.

_______________________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

________________________________________________________________________________\
________________________________________________________________________________\
____________


...Nonduality Salon is a Guru, a
Holo-Guru, if you wish. Like a holistic image, if any part
of it is removed, the whole remains; and in this holistic
entity parts are coming and going all the time. The whole
remains, and it becomes clear that the whole is everyone
within and beyond any list.

When I see lists of Gurus and givers of Satsang, I wish
they'd include Nonduality Salon, or at least consider it.

Jerry
________________________________________________________________________________\
______

LARRY BIDDINGER:


Analysis has proven itself incapable of finding anything; so it has
therefore disqualified itself as a viable means of determining truth or
determining anything at all.

Larry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RAMESH BALSEKAR:

Once it is seen that volition is not only unnecessary but illusory, it
becomes obvious that in
order to see something which is already there, no effort is valid.
Effort to realize Truth is futile because Truth is all there is.
Everything IS Truth.
One must abandon the cleverness of reason for bewilderment,
which is intuition or reliance on the innate principle of BEING



________________________________________________________________________________\
______


MICHAEL READ:

Free will. What is your view of this issue?
------------------------
Who Dares to Ask?

I created space and all dimensions, realities and beings.
I animated them with Myself.
Nothing else would do.
There was nothing else but Me.

The Mystery of You and I!
Do enjoy it!
Make choices if that is your will.
Follow your destiny if you can find it.

Live as if there is no tomorrow!
The only goal is to be alive.
Open your heart to the treasure that is Me that is You.
We are One.

Do you believe this? Too bad.
Do you deny this? Too bad.
Poor Baby wants it all!
Oh, what will you do?

There is nothing else but Me.
Understand?


HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Mu made me write this - Michael

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


...you could try this.

Read a ton of spiritual books and consider yourself 'spiritually'
well rounded. Have a ton of beliefs that you know the answers. Go to
a ton of satsangs. Talk and write as if you know what the answer is.

This is called the path of being full of shit. Tons of it.

Then one day get a severe case of diahrea and lose everything. Become
empty and awaken! :-))

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Love IT and Live IT - Michael

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

PHIL BURTON:

Free Will

"Will" is usually spoken of in the sense of a
force which determines a supposed future.  In
other words, I *will* continue thinking and typing
until the e-mail is complete and sent.  It implies
the personal subject as the agent of something to
be done.  It is an interpretation.  But I cannot
find anything in this moment which corresponds to
that meaning.  In clear perception, things appear
and disappear -- there is no evidence of any will
which determines things, just the appearing and
disappearing.

In another take, concepts and interpretations of
"will" are results of mechanical causation, and
therefore invalidate themselves.  A need arises to
"make sense" of things, and the concept comes to
be.  Thought itself is a force of nature, and is
unwilled.

Phil.
________________________________________________________________________________\
______

JAN KOEHOORN:

BTW: do you know http://www.satsang.nl ? It lists all satsangs in Holland
(well, they try to). So everybody here who wants to attend, ..... :-)))))

love DUTCH

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

DAN BERKOW and GREG GOODE:


>  Thought, of course tries endlessly
>     and futily to verify its own existence as real,
>     its constructs as true, its perceptions as valid,
>     and its memory as correct.  But if this self-enclosed
>     loop is seen to be based on nothing except its
>     own ceaseless self-referencing, then what is
>     outside the loop?  What *is* reality?  Once "seen",
>     the entire deck of cards collapses, body and mind
>     drop.

When the loop is seen to be nothing but circular and self-enclosing, then
everything pops and drops, body, mind, thoughts, all appearances.
Actually, one of the first things to go (an early casualty), is that ol'
question about external reality!

Love,

--Greg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Dan: Indeed.

The external reality is constructed
   by the internal observer, and
   the internal observer couldn't
   self-perceive or construct "its"
   perception except in contrast/relation
   to external reality.  As each
   is needed to assume the other,
   any inherent reality to them
   dissolves when the "middle
   way" is attended to.  Thought-memory
   and emotional-sensory processes
   construed as reactions to external beings
   and forces or internal states and needs are
   dependent on the inner-outer
   scheme of reality, so they have
   no place to stand.

   *Truly* there is no
    external or internal,
    yet there is the appearance of
    external and internal through
    mutual arising and co-construction.
    Hence, language, culture, families,
     lives being lived, deaths being
     died, places to go,
     things to do.

The intriguing question here is:
   "how can this appearance of co-constructed
    'interbeing' appear?"
There is no "where" for it to appear, and
    any "how" is simply a construction
    arising within and from the appearance
    itself.

So, the answer is:  poof!  like this!

Yet it's this very "poof" in which "they"
   seem to appear, in which "they" aren't!

So, as you say, "pop" and "drop" -
   (that has a much better ring to it
   than, say, "poop" and "droop" ;-)

   Splash,
    a frog jumps in the old pond.
            (haiku)

   Plop, plop
   fizz, fizz

   oh, what a relief
   it izz.

   (old alkaseltzer commercial).

   Love,
   Dan



________________________________________________________________________________\
______

JUDI

Ramesh Balsekar:
>
> One must abandon the cleverness of reason for bewilderment,
>
*********
You tell 'em Ramesh. Will they listen to me, nooooooooo. :-)


Tell me how am I suppose to live without you
Now that I've been lovin' you so long
How am I suppose to live without you
How am I suppose to carry on
When all that I've been livin' for is gone

I didn't come here for cryin'
Didn't come here to break down
It's just a dream of mine is coming to an end
And how can I blame you
When I build my world around
The hope that one day we'd be so much
more than friends
And I don't wanna know the price I'm
gonna pay for dreaming.

              ****** Michael Bolton
_______________________________________________________

DUTCH (Jan K.)

Supertramp:
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
oh, joyfully, oh, playfully, watching me.

But then they sent me away to teach me how to be
sensible, logical, oh, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so
dependable, oh, clinical, oh, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned?
I know it sounds absurd
please tell me who I am.
_________________________________________________

JERRY answers the Noumenon free will vs. determinism question:


I can't comment on the specific views of J. Krishanmurti or
Balsekar, because I don't know what they said or the context
in which their statements were made. Living in the moment,
what is said is said for the moment and then it is gone. It
is gone as soon as it is said. Any utterance is so fleeting,
it may be said that it was never said at all!

Seeing that fleetingness, the question that arises out of
the question of free will is, What was the question? Was
there a question uttered? I thought I heard a question
posed. For an instant I saw a whisp of vapor in the blue sky
and now all is blue again.

But wait: Is there free will in Life or is all
pre-determined? Assuming that there is Life and that there
are occurrences, I then ask whether there is an entity Jerry
Katz who is capable of acting freely. I then ask what it
means to act freely, to do one thing with free will. At this
point I look at the other side of the coin and ask what it
means for one event to be pre-determined.

And it is at this point that, frankly, I am stuck, because
whatever arises in thought or perception in not the case; it
is not going to be the answer. So why continue?

I am left re-reading Kriben's question and looking for
resonance. I find resonance in hearing that life is like
improvisation, meaning, to me, that life is being made up
moment to moment. It means that life arises moment to
moment.

If life arises moment to moment, nothing can be pre-destined
and there is nothing but free will. That free will is so
pure, so fleeting, that to capture it, to 'see' it, is to be
struck down. To remember it is to have the impression that
there is free will. But to see it from moment to moment is
to be struck down, which means that the freedom is so great
that there is only the freedom arising and shining. Because
that is what is, it is our destiny; it is as though
pre-determined, because what other choice is there? There
are no choices possible. Yet what IS, is unspeakable
freedom. Intuiting that, life feels improvisational. And it
is why the Guru -- and there is only one Guru -- can utter
through one side of the mouth that there is free will, and
through the other that all is pre-determined.
__________________________________________________________

DAN"s version:

D:  The observer constructs the observed
      as the observed constructs the observer.
     The observer freely constructs the observed,
      as the observer is determined by the observed.
     Freedom and determinism mutually imply
      and define each other.
     As observer is the observed, neither observer nor
      observed exist as entities.
     Reality is, ultimately
      nondeterministic, as it would require an
      ultimate entity of some kind
      to determine an outcome.
     And whatever determined that entity would be another
      entity, ad infinitum.
     Thus: nondetermined universe.

     The Present 'originates' and
      *is* past, present, and future.
__________________________________________________

>Greg wrote:  Upon analysis however, a free action and a free chooser
>cannot be found.
>-------------------------
>
Larry:
>Analysis has proven itself incapable of finding anything; so it has
>therefore disqualified itself as a viable means of determining truth or
>determining anything at all.

That's right  Larry-ji!!!  And with the end of viable means of determining
objective truth and other stuff,  objective truth itself and all other
stuff comes to an end.  Truth and stuff, in order to be determined, depends
on analysis.  And analysis, in the need of raw material and true
statements, depends on truth and stuff.

--Greg
____________________________________________________________

MARCIA & PHIL

& And are we now saluting time honored and
& conventional methods? Last time I looked, time
& honored and conventional were not big on
& anybody's list around here.
&
& Marcia

This was just to point out the difference between,
on the one hand looking for evidence of free will,
and on the other hand believing it exists because
somebody says it does.  Evidence is convincing, or
at least more convincing than belief.  Wouldn't
you agree?

This moment is all that is.  This moment is all
that it is.  In this moment is neither will nor
the lack of will.  There is nothing lacking and
nothing to be gained ... here and now.  That is
freedom.  Love it or analyze it.

Freely and willfully,
Phil
_______________________________________________

MELODY

It depends on which 'I'/eye I'm looking through.

Looking thru the eye of ego, freewill is a given.
If not for freewill, the ego would atrophy for
lack of use!

Looking thru the eye of Self, the idea
of freewill is rather amusing.

Free of what?
As Self, what IS there to be free of?

______________________________________________

TIM

Since the projection (everything perceivable and conceivable) is itself
something that can be both perceived and conceived, it appears as something
similar to an endless hall of mirrors.

The projection is perceived within the projection, which is perceived
within the projection, which is perceived within the projection...
seemingly endlessly, but with no beginning, no cause.  The projection
itself appears within the projection!

Thus, in the end, there is a return to reality for those who see the
projection clearly and deeply, see through it.  In clear seeing, there is a
transcendence, and thus no more projection.  The seeing, however, must be
complete.  There must be a real knowing of the projection as only
projection.  Then, and only then, this knowing spontaneously goes, to be
replaced with nothing.  "Realization," if it consists of anything, consists
of only LOSS - loss of concepts (whether dearly held onto or despised),
loss of endless, uncontrollable mind-monkey thought, loss of everything.
Nothing (and Everything) is the "replacement."

Within the projection, it's as if we're seeing reality in a set of carnival
mirrors.  One gives the appearance of being short, another of being tall,
another of a giant torso but tiny head and legs, another of stretched head
but a miniaturized torso and legs....  None of these reflections are true.

Knowing the projection as projection, "remembering" it regularly in daily
life, is bound to result in the dissolution of the projection.  Any clear
seeing of an *object* results in the dissolution of that object.  The
Projection is an object - everything perceivable and conceivable taken
together as a single object.  Remove that object, see through its apparent
reality, and there is only Eternal Subject.

The Buddhists have a saying:  First, there are mountains and rivers.  Then
there are no mountains and rivers.  Later, there are mountains and rivers
again.

Thus ends this series of "teachings."  There is nobody here 'qualified' to
be a teacher, but there is always the chance these posts may have stirred
the reality "within you," the "Inner Guru" or "Satguru."


[If anyone is interested in receiving the full "projection" series, all
four parts posted to NDS, please Email me at core@... and I will
send all parts together.  These will eventually be posted on 'The Core"
website].
____________________________________________________________


MARCIA sends:

At the risk of offending the non-Gurdjieff people, I would
like to quote something from Views from the Real World.

"Question: Has free will a place in your teaching?

Answer: Free will is the function of the rea I, of him whom
we call the Master. He who has a Master has will. He who has
not has no will. What is ordinarily called will is an adjust-
ment between willingness and unwillingness. For instance, the
mind wants something and the feeling does not want it; if the
mind proves to be stronger than the feeling, a man obeys his
mind. In the opposite case, he will obey his feelings. This is
what is called "free will" in an ordinary man. An ordinary man
is ruled now by the mind, now by the feeling, now by the
body. Very often he obeys orders coming from the automatic
apparatus; a thousand times more often he is ordered about by
the sex center.

Real free will can only be when one I always directs, when
man has a Master for his team. An ordinary man has no mas-
ter; the carriage constantly changes passengers and each pas-
senger calls himself I.

Nevertheless, free will is a reality, it does exist. But we, as
we are, cannot have it. A real man can have it.

Question: Are there no people who have free will?

Answer: I am speaking of the majority of men. Those who
have will-have will. Anyway, free will is not an ordinary phe-
nomenon. It cannot be had for the asking, cannot be bought in
a shop."
_____________________________________________________________________

TIM

"To whom does this question of free will and predestination arise,
and why does it concern the questioner?"
~~~~~~~
JODY

Isn't the whole question rendered moot when we ask ourselves,
"Who is the one who exercises free will?"
____________________________________________________

MANCHINE (Dave)


When the questions drop, it's because there's just one big
answer.

Be a tree today. Why not? It's possible, I've done it.
At least the questions are different.

Be a couple of other things, and then feel the common thread.
Then you'll see what illusion is. Then you'll see what you've
been. Then you'll see Reality. Glorious Reality.
________________________________________________________

LARRY

No need for trepidations. Ignorance is my greater glory, error a long
time friend. Ignorance is Brahman, Atman is knowledge. Knowledge is a
wave, but ignorance is ocean. What could be easier! Free and easy; isn't
that a poem or something?
~~~
GREG

Yeah! I love this list. All questions answered. All answers questioned.
There's some big waves of knowledge in your ocean Larry. Surf's up.
____________________________________________________________
>
> >--------------I don't see it as an either / or situation. Both
happen
> >for me  at the same time. Acquiring beliefs is not a problem as
long
> >as we don't believe them.
-----------------------------------------------------
> Spoken like the great Yogi Berra himself!
>
> --Greg
---------------------------------------------------------
It is actually a quote from him. What he was trying to say  is that
belief systems develop. It is something the mind does, along with
drawing conclusions about things. The point is not to stop beliefs or
conclusions but to recognize them for what they are. That is clear
seeing.......shri shri yogi berra ki jai!!!
................matthew
________________________________________________

MICHAEL

Enjoy - or not - as you will.
----------------------------------
CASE 30. BASO'S VERY MIND

Daibai asked Baso, What is the Buddha?"
Baso answered, "The mind is the Buddha."

Mumon's Comments:
If you fully understand Baso's meaning, you are wearing Buddha's
clothes, eating Buddha's food, speaking Buddha's words, doing
Buddha's
deeds, that is to say, you are Buddha himself. But Baso misled not a
few people into erroring the principles of Zen. He does not realize
that if we explain the word "Buddha" we must rinse our mouths for
three days afterwards. If he is a man of understanding, he would
cover
his ears and run away hearing Baso say, "The mind is the Buddha!"

Under blue sky, in bright sunlight,
One need not search around,
Asking around what Buddha is,
is liking the stolen goods in one's pocket and declaring oneself
innocent.
--------------------------------------
HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Koan You Understand - Michael
___________________________________________________________

Manuel offers:

daily meditations for seekers of Truth
RAMESH S. BALSEKAR:


"For the egoic being the outer world is seen as the face of an enemy.
The disruptive dualism from which all conflict arises is not in the outer
world but with the false perception
of the pseudo-entity who fails to see the world as his own reflection."

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

MELODY:

A rhetorical question.....

What if Life is served by my unconsciousness
in ways we cannot begin to imagine or understand?

Is this not the question that underlies faith?   Faith that, in our
unconsciousness (or 'not knowing') that there is a greater
Unfolding at play....that there is a Movement in Life which
...when surrendered to.....when enfolded into.....ends both
suffering and doubt.

Yet faith can be replaced with knowing ..... in retrospect -
in looking back over the events of a day, or a month, or a
lifetime....

looking  with a wide enough lens.....one can see that
one has always been carried by the Flow of Life.

We just may not have recognized it at the time.

The question is, for me, what is it that inspires us
to awaken to this Flow....to be conscious of it
*this* moment....right here, right now, rather
than waiting for that acceptance...and melting
... in 'retrospect'?

The first answer that comes to mind is that
suffering ends.    Yes.  I have found this to
be so.  But surprisingly this is not my motivation.

Some mention service, and though that
may be true as well, it doesn't strike a bell with
me either.

Looking closely I see that this draw to be Conscious, for
me, is more about Breath.  It's about Living fully.

When I am Conscious, all the smells and colors and sounds
and touches are so much keener.

When I am Conscious, there are no restrictions, no inhibitions,
no fears or doubts.

When I am Conscious, my body moves delightfully, insightfully,
even rightlyfully.

When I am Conscious,  there is no 'me',  no 'you', no resistance... no
  'work' to do!

This desire to be Conscious,
when I get deep down honest....

is my most self-ish desire of all.

Funny, isn't it..... that such a selfish
desire could lead to

it's own demise?

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

MARCIA:

.............There are internal consequences to external
behavior. In fact, to internally accept the feelings engendered
by external events and not manifest them, creates a friction
which can fuel awakening. Acceptance of feelings is feeling
them. Anything else is dissociation.


HANS:

This looks very tricky ( at least to me). Accepting a feeling means that in
fact you are not accepting the feeling, otherwise the feeling to accept
would not arise. I wonder what really happens with a feeling that comes into
being without being obstructed at all. My guess is that it would fly away
into the air.
The only thing one can do is to see that ones does not accept a certain
feeling. Nothing more can be done.

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

JUDI quotes Adi Da:


..... After a time, I got up from the floor.  I walked around and beamed
joyfully at the room.  The love-blissful, unthreatened current of the
"Bright" emanated freely and unqualifiedly from my heart, and not a
pulse of It was limited by my otherwise conditional existence or the
existence of the world.  I had acquired a totally new understanding.  I
understood Narcissus and the entire cycle of suffering and search.  I
saw the meaning of my entire striving life to that moment.  Suffering,
seeking, self indulgence, the seeker's spirituality, and all the rest
were founded in the same primary motivation and error.  It was the
"avoidance of relationship".  That was it! That was the chronic and
continuous source and characteristic of all egoic activity.  Indeed, the
ego was revealed to be "only" an "activity", not an "entity".  The
"entity", the separate "person" (or ego-"I"), was revealed to be only an
illusion, a mere presumption in mind and feeling, resulting from the
self-contraction, the egoic reaction, the single egoic act of the total
body-mind.  The ego, the separate and sepatative "I", is the chronic and
total psycho-physical avoidance of relationship.  Thus, human beings are
forever suffering, seeking, indulging themselves, and manipulating their
lives for the sake of some unknown goal in eternity.


ANDREW responds:

There is no separation, how can there be relationship? Ego is the activity of
separation OK but saying this is avoidance of relationship is speaking from
ego's
perspective. Without the ego activity there is no relationship, there is no one
to
relate to, no one to relate. One does not relate to oneself unless one is split,
one
only relates to other. Da wants it both ways, either he doesn't understand where
what
he's saying leads, or he's being dishonest.


DAN:

Relationship is total,
   hence cannot be lacking.
'Your' appearance in time, and 'my' appearance in
   time, is only time itself.
Relationship is Synchronicity,
   without any gap or distance.
Timelessly, there is only
   time as synchronicity, beginninglessly
   undivided.


ANDREW:

With no gap or distance, with no separate entities, how can there be
relationship?
Relationship is connection. If there is no separation there is no connection.
Response, resonance, not relationship. In unity, here, now, there is no
relationship.
Relationship is not possible without the separate 'I'.


GLO:

Yes, I have similar questions with all this. Without a boundary of me/you..the
place
where we are separate is what allows us to meet. This talk of I am you and you
are
me..makes a nice Beatles song..but what is the point of at least phenomenally
having
separate "I's" and eyes..if not to communicate with other "I's"..how do I relate
to a
you who is actually me if we are identical? (And why all this trouble people
have
gettting along?)
I get how you are God and I am God, but in practice, you sit somewhere else
typing
letters to a bunch of other "eyes"... Please try once more, Dan to explain this?


DAN:

One *is* two,
         and two *is* One.
         It's not One against two,
         nor two against One.

         It seems that it's easy
           to get One, but difficult
           to get two *is* One.

         When two or more are gathered
           in my Name - I am there ---


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

MARCIA:

The difficulty with rational, logical discourses is that they are all in
the head. Round, and round, and round and......... one
dimensional.

Where is the heart? And the life situations? We all eat, we brush
our teeth, we feel lonely sometimes, and joyful at others. We get
scared at funny noises. We have questions about what is right and
how to do something.

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

MIGUEL-ANGEL:

From Krishnamurti, I have only one quote regarding
freedom:

"In observation one begins to discover the lack of
freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness
of our daily existence and activity."

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

MIGUEL-ANGEL:

For a nondualist, who sustains that everything
appears in Consciousness, and that there is only
that One Consciousness, there is no such thing as
free will, because all individual body-minds are not
real entities, but mere appearances without
substance. Where there is no real doer, there cannot
be a free will.

DAN:

Nor can there be any entity anywhere, hence
what can be said to be determined by what?
Determinism implies causation, and with no
entities, what causes what?


MIGUEL-ANGEL:

Free will does indeed require an independent entity.
I'm not so sure about determinism. As you say,
determinism implies causation, but I don't quite see
why causation implies an entity. Why can't a part of
the projection be determined by the whole of it or by
the source of the projection?

<snip>

......... it seems clear that Nisargadatta saw
the Absolute as the causeless cause of everything, and,
within the world of phenomena, that each change is
produced by the whole and affects the whole.

On the other hand, if phenomena are not caused what
makes them appear? Pure chance? I've never seen
anything else grow on peartrees but pears. Why the
invariable constancy?

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

DAN:

Isn't it Something?
     One Being as all beings,
     One Awareness as all variations of awareness,
     One (No-)Thing as all apparent things?

     There's no distance,
       and what appears as distance
       is just an agreement to
       an idea of distance.

     Sometimes I'm asked why I started
       all this space-time stuff.
     I answer, why not, it never created
       any *real* distance...

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

LARRY:

What I mean by truth is phenomena. I sort of insinuated a distinction
between truth and knowledge; truth being what is, and knowledge being
what we know about it. A phenomenon is you or me or Hillary or apples or
oceans. All these things truely exist right now. That we can't find them
through analysis tells me there is something wrong with the anaysis.
What can we find? You say nothing and that makes you happy. I say hmmm.

DAN:

I find myself.
Then there is nothing more to find.

Analysis can occur, but where it occurs
   is never known, is itself the unsplit Unknown.

Thus, it's not that analysis can't occur, or shouldn't
   occur - it's that the entire context has "changed".
There can no longer be the assumption that analysis
   reveals "truth" - only further material to be
   analyzed.

Wholeness, Allness, Totality, Being -
   "This" can only be "revealed" now -

Analysis takes time,
    nowness is timeless...

Draw your own conclusions!

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

DAVE:

Destiny exists ultimately in the NOW. Any past event is written firmly,
any future event is also written. We just don't know what it will be.
We can say that it turned out to be distinct from what we guessed it
would be. We can change what it will be "at will", but we are actually
only changing what it was predicted to be. It finally is what it is.

What does that say about free will however? What a beautiful balance
these two things have. Sort of like a conscious structure ever in balance.

I cannot change what "will be", but what "will be" is what I make it.
How far can this go? What are my limitations in will?

Could it be, that the strongest will wins? Some higher will, may determine
that my "time" is up for instance. There's not much I can do about that!
Something more down to earth; I could decide to make a million bucks!
You just have to go and do it! I've tried to do it a couple of times.
It's not easy, I came upon some life`s decisions that I wasn't willing to
compromise, so I chose those over the million bucks.

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

DAVE:

I have done a lot of work, looking at the edges of consciousness, looking at
where consciousness disappears. Each new discovery moves the boundry. Dreams
become more lucid, life becomes more like a lucid dream. In the end there is
one big lucid dream or nothing at all. In a timeless world, the two become
one.

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

GLO:

I was in that twilight of almost waking up where you become aware of your dream.
My
subconscious mind and conscious mind were discussing "emptiness is form; form is
emptiness" and I was simply observing this discussion between them with interest
to
see who had what sort of insights or information to impart to the other. We were
all
enjoying this very much, all three of us giggling at one another. When I woke up
I
felt such a tenderness towards my subconscious for wanting to join in, perhaps
because I seldom have experienced such a direct perception of it.

Lately, many of my dreams seem to resemble a kind of discussion forum in which
conscious ideas are being "worked on" or deeper questions asked about such
topics as
I think about consciously during the day. I am really enjoying dreaming because
I
feel like I am learning or absorbing understandings into a deeper level of my
being.

OTOH, sometimes I still have 'nightmares' about my previous job.

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

ED:

  The "world of time" is beginningless and endless, since
there never was a beginning or end of time. What appears
to be a beginning or end is just a convenience of the
mind to "explain" the duration of things. Continuity is
forever in time and in timeless time.

Time marches on.


DAN:

     Time is beginningless,
       hence it never began.
     Never having begun,
       it takes no time.
     The timelessness of time
       is the nondurational
       nature of everything.
     Wake up!
     The march of time is
       over before it began.
     Don't try to hear this tune,
       you don't have time.
     Instead, of waking up as soon
       as you can, wake up timelessly.
     Now, without duration or choice.

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

JUDI:

It's a whole new shift in perception. Da has described it as a balloon
being burst so that the air inside merges with all the air around it. So
instead of living as a
balloon getting bigger and bigger and better and better, it bursts the
hell out of that whole balloon idea altogether. God is Love Itself. God
is Relationship. None other! :-) And it's pretty darn good! :-) But
seriously, it's just the natural state of affairs.


ANDREW:
When the balloon breaks there's no longer any relationship between the air that
was in
the balloon and the air outside, it's all homogeneous air. Relationship is
always to
or with some other. We have to make ourselves separate for there to be
relationship.
There is no 'I' to be alone in non-separateness. When we are each other, there
is no
relationship between us. Relationship is experience, it only exists if we
interact as
separate individuals.

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

GLO:
Yesterday afternoon, we were driving over this two lane country rode to a nearby
town, when we stopped behind some cars for a schoolbus. (Yes, it looked real to
me.)
This retarded boy stepped off to be met by a white-haired old man. As I watched
their
backs, walking towards the house hand in hand, I spontaneously burst into tears.
To
be witnessing such tender love....ahhh... this happiness lingered and then
wafted
away, still the visual image as memory lingers on and re-appears, like now and
it is
a form of happiness.

The other side of this admittedly sometimes over-sensitivity, or over-reactivity
is
seeing harm or negativity where often others do not. It's a curse I live with.
It
also makes me difficult to live with and more difficult for me to function "out
there" in normal life.

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

JODY:

It makes sense to associate personality with the mind, which
also remains after realization.  But personality is more than
mind.  There is something "personal" about it.  Even after
realization, it remains "us" too, especially to others.

[]

Personality learns that its true role is being the navigational
system, that it serves the Self.  However, there is concern in
the context of personality *for* personality.  The "I" appears
to get dragged along into it.  That is, no matter how much
access there is to Self, you come right back to that pain,
which doesn't go anywhere until it is felt.


JODY (earlier)
  > The fact that we *are* the Self, realized or not, demonstrates
  > just how close our sense of self *is* to the Self.  That is, when
  > we think to ourselves, "Who are we really", we can be assured that
  > something in the response--something that we perceive in that
  > moment--*is* who we really are.  Maybe some folk have yet to
  > discern it, but it certainly is there, in everyone, no matter
  > how much "ego" they have.


MICHAEL:

  When I saw IT in 'me' I also saw IT in 'others'! Compassion! :-))


JODY:

Well then, you got one on me.  I'm not seeing It in others on
a regular basis, even while I know It is there.  No. . .I take
that back.  On occasion I *do* see It in others, in the form of
a smile or some other insignificant gesture.  However, I don't
see It in everyone all the time.  I suppose it's something I
can look forward to.

[snip]

Let go, let go, let go.  It's a burden at times for me.  I'm
losing my interest in my world.  All I think about is the Self,
but very, very few of my friends do.  Lately I feel like the
world is spitting me out, and it's sad to that part of me.
Poor, poor me.  Kvetch, kvetch.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

MICHAEL:

Ouch!

I just started crying.
I am crying now!

It hurts!
So much!

I am crying for my life and the pain of my life.
I am crying for all the children that are treated so cruelly.
I am crying for the anguished mothers.
I am crying like I have never cried before!

It hurts!

I am crying because I need to feel the pain!
I am crying for the lonely fathers.
I am crying for the inconsolable.
I am crying for the innocents caught up in cruel wars.

I am crying to know the answer.
I am crying because there may not be an answer.

I am crying for all of the reasons and unreasoning of being a human.
I am crying and crying and crying.

God, it hurts so much!

The tears!

The gut-wracking sobs!
The endless heartache!

The snot!
Oops, a smile.

I do not know what is happening to me.
Why the extremis emotionalis?
This feels like a purging.
All of those cruelties and injustices
in my life....in life, ah ah ow ouch hurty hurty.

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

MANUEL:

A NET of JEWELS
daily meditations for seekers of Truth
RAMESH S. BALSEKAR


"Spontaneous, true action happens naturally when there is no "you"
checking whether the action conforms to your own idea of what's best for
you."

(and)

"Human beings have no independent or autonomous existence whether they accept
the fact
or not.  And whether they like it or not,  they are being helplessly lived
within the vast totality
of an imponderably intricate creation over which the have absolutely no
control. "

Denial
Does not remove
The burden of memory

But denial
Stifles
And that is pain

Is pain of denial
Better than the pain
Of what is denied?

Pain is unpleasant
We turn away from pain
What then, do we face?

Can we face our denial
Without pain
If facing denial removes pain?

What is denied
Compressed in memory
Becomes stimulating pressure

Pressure imparts movement
Movement away from pain
Away from painful others

Cheer is denial's companion
Outer face smiles
Inner face weeps

Other's weeping reminds
And threatens the lid of denial
Thus forced cheer in compensation

"If you don't bring it up
I can keep it down
Let's cooperate!"

Thus stuffed,
We march on
Cheerfully pressured

Looking for Big Answers
Prescribed by Big Guys
For Big Problems

Losing ourselves
In maps of meaning
The blurring is deadening comfort

Let not clarity dawn
Let not denial be seen
Let not pain be released

Let the games continue
For fear of the True Answer
Which dependably arrives at last.

==GENE POOLE==
____________________________________________________________


Trading doubt for wonder.
It is time.
Time that I eat like breakfast,
that sustains me,
that my body is made of,
my blood.

He that I am forgives him that I was.
I live where my word has been before me.
Lay that word on my tongue.
Let me keep yes and no unsplit.
Don't let me talk my eyes into blindness.
Blue sky of which heaven?
This world AND the other.

Blameless
the slouching happy body
rambles around,
enjoying the smell
of its own dung.

in love,

andrew

______________________________________________________________________


I was a bee,
In every way
You think I'm crazy?

Then I was a tree,
Slow, quiet, roots so cool,
Whacko!

Once my whole Universe
was nothing more than a corner
where spiders weren't.
My whole fucken Universe!

What's the differnce
between that and life.
NOTHING!

Do you know what I mean?

--Manchine

__________________________________________________________________________

MANUEL HERNANDEZ CONTRIBUTED:

Human beings have no independent or autonomous existence
whether they accept the fact or not. And whether they like
it or not, they are being helplessly lived within the vast
totality of an imponderably intricate creation over which
the have absolutely no control. --Balsekar

JUDI: ******* Oh fine, NOW you tell us!! :-)

-- Happy Days, Judi

GLO: LOL, yeah, like if I had only known to say this when I
was 16 and wrecked my Dad's car.

See what I meant about these really GREAT excuses??

Love, Glo

DAN:

Yes, and my dad said, "You're right, just like I'm
helplessly being lived to ground you for a month. You'll be
staying in your room after dinner, in this vast totality of
imponderably intricate creation over which you have no
control."

Actually, he didn't really say that, and it wasn't actually
about wrecking the car, but close enough!
_____________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE

What follows is dedicated to my 80 year old mother who
often refers to herself in the third person as "the old
lady" (also the name she fondly calls her aged dog). Love
may often seem fragile and fleeting and we wonder how it
can survive in this crazy world, but I know it is stronger
than all the difficulties and obstacles that can ever be
put in its way, because I have known my mother. This is a
part of D.T. Suzuki's introduction to the Japanese No play,
"Yama-uba," in his words:

Yama-uba, literally "the old woman of the mountains,"
represents the principle of love secretly moving in every
one of us. Usually we are not conscious of it and are
abusing it all the time. Most of us imagine that love is
something beautiful to look at, young, delicate and
charming. But in fact she is not, for she works hard,
unnoticed by us and yet ungrudgingly; what we notice is the
superficial result of her labor, and we think it beautiful
- which is natural, for the work of love ought to be
beautiful. But love herself, like a hard-working peasant
woman, looks rather worn out; from worrying about others
her face is full of wrinkles, her hair is white. She has so
many knotty problems presented for her solution. Her life
is a series of pains, which, however, she glady suffers.
She travels from one end of the world to another, knowing
no rest, no respite, no interruption. Love in this phase,
that is, from the point of view of her untiring labor, is
fitly represented as Yama-uba, the old lady of the
mountains.

We ordinarily like to talk about such an agency in our
philosophy, theology, and literature, but we do not go
beyond mere talk, we hesitate to come before its actual
presence. We are like the painter who used to paint the
dragon, but who lost consciousness, as he was frightened in
the extreme, when the dragon itself appeared to him in
order to let him paint the mythical creature more
faithfully to the reality. We sing of Yama-uba, but when
she makes her personal appearance, and lets us see the
inner side of her life, we are at a loss and know not what
to with ourselves. If we want, therefore, to dig deeply
into into the remotest recesses of our consciousness as Zen
would advise, we ought not to shrink from taking hold of
actualities with our own hands.

___________________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

The Question:

"There appears to be two schools of thought relative to the
issue of free will. One is like J. Krishnamurti's, which
implies we have a kind of free will which we can use to
break through delusion, and the other is like Balsekar's,
which says there is no free will and that all is
pre-determined, even the desire to break through. Somehow,
my gut instinct tells me that Life is a like an
improvisation rather than being a fixed script, and while I
once had a powerful experience of being lived by Life, it
still felt like an improvisation, a potential rather than a
fixed plan. This also accords with quantum physics. What is
your view of this issue? "

My reply:

If I move beyond the question being about 'feelings',
'Instincts' and move into the realm of 'pure reason' (and
don't say I Kant... ), this is what remains:

Our exercise of "will" seems to be consistently geared
toward self-limitation. It is within this constantly
enforced field of self-limitation that the question of
'free will' occurs. Without exercising our "will" in the
service of self-limitation, the uses of "will" are quite
apparent.

The exercise of "Will" in the service of self-limitation
can be seen clearly, in the human talent of the deferral of
pain. From a Darwinian point of view, humans who could
fight, run, or otherwise act to survive while _in pain_,
are those survivors from whom we have inherited our genes.

As masters of deferral of pain, we are by extension, also
masters of deferral of embarrassment; we are able to
confabulate 'alternative realities' for the purpose of
remaining in the comfort of our own delusions. Our various
cultures conspire within themselves, and with each-other,
to maintain this allowance for extraordinary confabulation.

It is ironic that what is a powerful talent for survival,
can also be used to deny reality. On the other hand, the
denial of mortality, the very delusion of it, can serve to
lead cultural heros into battles of tribal and cultural
preservation; it is hard to argue (logically) against
conquest as a means of survival.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), each culture has
evolved a unique 'religion', each of which has become the
touchstone of the reality of the respective culture. The
clashes, conflicts, and wars which have arisen around
religion, indicate the sacrifice which humans are willing
to make, in order to maintain what is certainly and purely
confabulation.

If the "script" is "fixed", it is 'fixed' in the same way
that professional wrestling is 'fixed'. Human interactions
are either manifested through self-limitation, or not. It
takes only one human who acts in the non-self-limited way,
to send shockwaves through all cultures, both present and
future. The 'fixing of the script' calls for naming any of
non-self-limited human to be 'abnormal and dangerous to the
status-quo', thus to preserve the privilege (cultural
tradition) to indulge in group-confabulations of 'reality
as revealed by messengers of the divine'.

Currently, most humans subscribe to what amounts to a
'religion of self-limitation'. It is those who have seen a
glimmer of what could happen if self-limitation were an
option, rather than a 'divinely enforced duty', who dare
question the reality or uses of "will". Proper and ethical
uses of 'will' do not transcend humanity, rather, such uses
are manifestations of what can eventually become a
'choiceless compassion'.

Those humans who have, or are, advocating the correct uses
of 'will', are by no mere coincidence, also known as
compassionate humans. Empathic knowing of our human
commonality can lead to a mass-migration of humans away
from the mandatory religion of self-limitation; this
involves the withdrawal of our projections of 'divinity'
from a mythical 'other', and the acceptance of personal
responsibility for the correct use of 'will'. No longer
would humans be burdened with the 'will' of a capricious
'god'; instead, human activities would be considered
carefully before execution.

Leaving behind the culturally-enforced mandate of
self-limitation, allows the sudden and spontaneous
perfection of the human. In that brilliant perfection, all
self-limiting ideas and traditions are clearly seen,
including the entire category of self-limiting assumptions
of 'ego' and 'ignorance', both of which are now being used
as sly excuses for self-limitation. Any individual who
dares allow the spontaneous perfection of the human to
occur, moves beyond the fears which mandate hiding within
apparently eternal conundrums such as the 'question of free
will'. Bereft of any such camouflage, the perfected human
is free to choose.

_________________________________________________________________

Dear NDS,

I will be off-line for the upcoming week. Taking my leave
for a while, crossing moon-river in style ;-)

Thank you Salon members for being you. Appreciation for the
Self that is shared here. Many vibrations resounding as the
Great Drum. "This" has taught and been taught well; I leave
peacefully and happily, knowing that wherever I go, "This"
is.

Blessings, Dan

_______________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

Yeah well personally I'll take the combo platter, a heaping
helping of crispy fried determinism so I'm not to blame
along with a big pile of fresh steaming free will so I can
be forgiven. Then I'll have a big slice of nihilist black
cherry tart for dessert with a double existentialist
espresso and a meaningless cognac.

__________________________________________________________________________

BRUCE MORGEN

"What if God was one of us... just a slob like one of us,
just a stranger on a bus, tryin' to make his way home?"

"One Of Us," from "relish" by Joan Osborne

Words & music by Eric Bazilian

________________________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL READ

Yes, we feel pain and we poop. And it is all real. I do not
care what anybody says about it being an illusion. I know
also that it is an illusion. The impossible we do before
breakfast. The improbable just takes a little longer.

I am so grateful for this little lifestream called Michael.
He's fairly cool. After all the shit he's been through, he
turned out alright. So, who created him, who animates him,
who gives him a part to play in the illusion? Well - you
know - THAT did. :-))

This is the situation of all of us: we have a part to play.
We can be whiners (no inference to you) or we can be
fearless doers. Or, we 'perform' at some combination.

The maya is not evil nor is it good. It just appears, THAT
made it. This is a form of enlightenment. Acceptance.

Ah, I gotta go now. I am 'caught up' in the illusion that I
have even the foggiest idea of what I am typeing about!
;-))

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Love IT and Live IT - Michael

*****

I have been browsing around the nds site. This gem was more
than worth the trip:

http://www.bitcave.com/nondual.htm

________________________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL D. JOHNSON

Free will, if it is willed at all, can only be exercised in
the eternal now. This one moment in time is all I have free
will over -- or do I? Am I typing this now as a result of my
free will to do so, or is it just happening, now?

*****

Suggested link featured selection from Eckhart Tolle's new
book:
http://www.innerself.com/Magazine/Behavior_Modification/anxiously_seeking.htm.

______________________________________________________________________________

SARLO

Friends come and go, the sangam remains, even with new
faces it is the same.

*****

Sangam is my rendering of a word that appears in many
forms, depending on -- i guess -- which language/dialect it
is taken from (Sanskrit, Pali, Hindi etc) and which system
of transliteration is used. Other forms are sangha and
sanga, and the root in satsang. It means -- again depending
blah blah -- fellowship, community, etc and refers, as i
understand it, to the group of fellow-travellers around an
enlightened master, extended to include such gatherings as
NDS. It doesn't mean you have to love and be friendly with
every one of your fellow-travellers, it means to recognise
our common interest in waking up and some other generally
commonly held group self-definition -- for NDS perhaps best
left undefined, but in the usual scenario, a kind of
acceptance of the master. The point of the group
self-definition is not an us-vs-them state but a kind of
trust, even though individuals may be distrusted, and
openness to insightful feedback. There has been lots of
discussion of NDS as guru, sangam is perhaps a more
accurate description. Or not. Your call.

______________________________________________________________________________

MARCIA PAUL

The difficulty with rational, logical discourses is that
they are all in the head. Round, and round, and round
and......... one dimensional.

Where is the heart? And the life situations? We all eat, we
brush our teeth, we feel lonely sometimes, and joyful at
others. We get scared at funny noises. We have questions
about what is right and how to do something.

MATTHEW FILES

In other words we are human. Non-duality is true of all
existence, of all manifest and unmanifest worlds. And then
here we are, flesh and blood. Feeling, emoting, thinking,
moving, sensing. All this talk of illusion, and impersonal
reality is a mystery to me.(the way it is talked about, not
the reality itself). Everything is very real, very tangible
to me. I would never for an instant think that all the
misery and suffering that i see just walking down the
street is an illusion. Or that the beauty of nature is just
a projection of mind. Ego is a very tangible "force" that
needs to be worked with.Physical pain is quite real to me,
as is eating, taking a crap, waking up in the morning and
going to sleep at night. Non-dual reality / enlightenment,
is all there is, that is undeniable. Yet here we are,
incarnated as human beings having to make peace with the
also undeniable fact of duality. We all have "life
situations" and need to deal with them and the dealing with
them just so happens to be in the realm of duality. A life
of suffering and ignorance is rooted in the assumption of
separation. Piercing this assumption could be called
awakening to already present enlightenment. However this
awakening does not change, one iota, the fact that we exist
in a dualistic world and must attend to it. What it does
change is the way in which we relate, on all levels, to
this world. Whether we have awakened to already present
enlightenment or not, what we do does matter.

__________________________________________________________________________


__________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

Monday was a pretty quiet day...
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____



I have been thinking alot about my mother. I promised my
mother on her death bed that I would take care of my father
for her. I realize now she may not have cared about that at
that particular moment but I felt that it was something I could
reassure her about anyway.

I was also realizing that I had the honor of being present at
both my parent's death. I was holding my mother's hand
and I was a few feet away from my father. My father actually
died in my husband's arms. It was fitting somehow.

Marcia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi Marcia. I also thought that you were fortunate to be present during your
father's passing away. I am glad it did not happen at the day care center
but instead at home. Sometimes, even when there is physical distance, there
can be a presence.

We visited the U.S. for about two years when I was in grade school and my
father was a professor. One day my brothers and I and my mother and father
were coming out of a park in the evening where we had been walking around.
As my parents approached their car, a bright ball of light came out of
nowhere and circled the car several times and then sped away. My parents
looked at each other. My mother said, "Did you see that light?." My father
said "Yes. what was it?" It was a highly unusual occurrence and we were
silent and wondering. Later, we received a telegram that my father's mother
had passed away in India.

Harsha

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


from http://www.dzogchen.org;


           WEEKLY WORDS OF WISDOM
           on the World Wide Web

           from Lama Surya Das


*       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *


The Very Short Sutra on the Meeting of the Buddha and the Goddess

Thus have I made up:
     Once the Buddha was walking
     along the forest path in the Oak Grove at Ojai,
     walking without arriving anywhere or having any
     thought of arriving or not arriving.
And lotuses, shining with the morning dew
     miraculously appeared under every step
     Soft as silk beneath the toes of the Buddha.
When suddenly, out of the turquoise sky,
     dancing in front of his half-shut inward-looking
     eyes, shimmering like a rainbow
     or a spider's web
     transparent as the dew on a lotus flower
     -- the Goddess appeared quivering
     like a hummingbird in the air before him.
She, for she was surely a she
     as the Buddha could clearly see
     with his eye of discriminating awareness wisdom,
was mostly red in color
     though when the light shifted
     she flashed like a rainbow.
She was naked except
     for the usual flower ornaments
     goddesses wear.
     Her long hair
     was deep blue, her eyes fathomless pits
     of space, and her third eye a bloodshot
     song of fire.
The Buddha folded his hands together
     and greeted the Goddess thus:
"O goddess, why are you blocking my path?
     Before I saw you I was happily going nowhere.
     Now I'm not so sure where I go."
"You can go around me,"
     said the Goddess, twirling on her heel like a bird
     darting away,
     but just a little way away,
     "or you can come after me
     but you can't pretend I'm not here,
     This is my forest, too."
With that the Buddha sat
     supple as a snake
     solid as a rock
     beneath a Bo tree
     that sprang full-leaved
     to shade him.
"Perhaps we should have a chat,"
     he said.
     "After years of arduous practice
     at the time of the morning star
     I penetrated reality and…"
"Not so fast, Buddha," the Goddess said,
     "I am reality."

     The earth stood still,
     the oceans paused,
     the wind itself listened
     -- a thousand arhats, bodhisattvas and dakinis
     magically appeared to hear
     what would happen in the conversation.
"I know I take my life in my hands,"
     said the Buddha,
     "But I am known as the Fearless One
-- so here goes."
And he and the Goddess
     without further words
     exchanged glances.
Light rays like sun beams
     shot forth
     so brightly that even
     Sariputra, the All-Seeing One,
     had to turn away.
And then they exchanged thoughts
And the illumination was as bright as a diamond candle
And then they exchanged minds
And there was a great silence as vast as the universe that
     contains everything
And then they exchanged bodies
And then clothes
And the Buddha arose
     as the Goddess
     and the Goddess arose as the Buddha.
And so on back and forth
     for a hundred thousand hundred thousand kalpas.
If you meet the Buddha
     you meet the Goddess.
     If you meet the Goddess,
     you meet the Buddha.
Not only that. This:
     The Buddha is emptiness,
     The Goddess is bliss.
     The Goddess is emptiness,
     The Buddha is bliss.
     And that is what
     And what-not you are
     It's true.
So here comes the mantra of the Goddess and the Buddha,
the unsurpassed non-dual mantra. Just to say this mantra,
just to hear this mantra once, just to hear one word of this
mantra once makes everything the way it truly is: OK.
So here it is:
     Earth-walker/sky-walker
     Hey silent one, Hey great talker
     Not two/ not one
     Not separate/ not apart
     This is the heart
     Bliss is emptiness
     Emptiness is bliss
     Be your breath, Ah
     Smile, Hey, And relax, Ho
     Remember: You can't miss.


By Rick Fields. May, 1987.

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


It seems to me that Ramana said that there are three theories of
creation.

1.) It didn't happen at all.
2.) It is perceived as it arises.
3.) It was created by a 'Creator'.

So I guess it depends on what theory one favours. Number 2 Is
probably where our experience lies, for most of those into non-
dualism.

So free will would be something that happened before immediate
causality, and we just live through the motions, thinking that we are
the doer. When it has already been done, or not done if you take
number 1!

So freewill is only the freedom to attach oneself to the action,
rather than doing the action. For it is done spontaneously.

Hence comes the karma incurred from doing something that one has no
power over.

Om Namah Sivaya, Tony.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hi Tony,

This is the 3-part division of causal theories in advaita vedanta.

1. known as ajAti vAda (non-creation)
2. known as dRshTi-sRshTi vAda (perception is simultaneous with creation)
3. known as sRshTi-dRshTi vAda (what has been created is perceived)

Traditionally, advaita students are taught various theories as they make
sense to the student.  As the student starts seeing that the theory doesn't
make sense, the next one is taught with a new scripture, such as the
Mandukya Upanishad for the ajati vada.

If even #2 is one's experience, the question of free will wouldn't really
arise for that one.

Namaste and OM!

--Greg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Namaste All, Greg,

Sure if it didn't happen free will is redundant. If it happens as one
perceives it, surely we are perceiving the result of previous karmas
playing out. Seeing the results of previous incarnations so to speak.
In that case what we do is predetermined and only our ego has the
illusion of causing/choosing the action.

Creation is also like this! However even if we admit some validity to
the world, however illusory, all things happen at once. There being
no
time,so freewill is an illuison, the decision you make is the one you
were going to make anyway. Lives being like spokes on a wheel and we
concentrate on one particular one at a time, but the others are
existing and sometimes 'bleed through'.

So ultimately there is only Nirguna Brahman and no creation instant
or
otherwise.

That is how I perceive it, and even scientifically it is arising all
the time.

There is a question about time in number 2 though, arising as we
perceive it. If we give any validity to time at all.

Om Namah Sivaya, Tony.

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


The spontaneity is the causeless arising of appearances from silence.  Free
will, like you say, carries the notion of causality, like "I caused this."
It's related to the desire to control things for one's self and in the
world.  The person wants to be the cause.  But this is never so.  If we had
to describe these things in the language of cause and effect, the person is
never the cause, but always the effect!

Love,

--Greg

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


Greg:
> Miguel,
> Forgive my butting in here...

You're most welcome. I really apreciate your effort to
clarify this point.

> The idea of the whole causing the part is just a
> tautology given to satisfy the mind.  It's like
> saying a thing causes itself. The whole causing the
> part removes time from the picture, and time is
> usually part of a causal explanation.

I don't see why that (the whole causing the part)
should be a tautology. I'm not speaking of self-cause,
but of the possibility that each phenomenon is
determined (that is, brought about, conditioned or
affected) by all the other phenomena. Whether such
phenomena are or not entities, is here immaterial: also
mere aspects or accidents like colour, weight or speed
are said to be caused by this or that, even if they are
not entities themselves.

>On the other hand, the idea of the source causing part
>of the projection ... If the source is featureless,
>free of phenomenal characteristics, then this hasn't
>answered the causal question that arises
> for most people -- why does the part in question look
>like XXX rather than YYY?

Yes, the idea of the source causing part of the
projection smells of continous intervertion of the
ultimate cause (a sort of ceaseless series of
miracles). I don't see Brahman determining each and
every aspect of whatever happens. There's an obvious
autonomy in the evolution of the world of phenomena,
free from divine interference.
But what about the source bringing about the whole of
projection at the beginning of time and setting it in
motion in an autonomous, selfdetermined evolution?

>Why require the idea of a cause in the first place?
>When you have the idea of a cause and
> an effect, then you have a THING that is the cause
>and an THING that is the effect.  If you say the cause
>is the source, then this has made a THING out
>of the source, which is THINGLESS.

The mind produces thoughts. And this does not make the
mind or the thoughts THINGS, if by that you mean
independent, separate objects. Neither of them is. And
yet what is wrong in asserting that the mind produces
thoughts? Or that consciousness produces mental
objects? From the fact that something is caused you
can't conclude that both the caused and the cause are
independent things. Both may still be mere appearances,
sheer empty forms without substance.

> Not only is a cause never truly observed, but neither
>is constancy. Constancy is nothing more than a thought
>arising Now. A thought comes that says "This pear is
>growing on a pear tree just like the other 1000 cases
> I've seen - and no other fruit has ever grown on a
>pear tree."  During this thought that spontaneously
>appears in the Now, the other pears are not
> present.  There's no proof that any pear, any tree,
>or any thought ever preceded it.  This thought is not
>evidence that anything in the past ever
> happened -- it's self-contained.  So why seek after
>an external cause? It's perpetual reaching....

Constancy doesn't require the passing of time to be
observed.
Even if there existed only this present moment, you
could see a constant relation between some aspects of
the projection and others. For example, if you stand in
front of 1000 peartrees to the right and 1000
orangetrees to the left, you instantly perceive a rule:
only pears on peartrees, only oranges on orangetrees.
Not one exception. No past or future are implied in the
observation. All in the now. How do you then account
for the regularity, the constancy, if everything
happens spontaneously, by chance, without any cause?

Indeed causation, being not an object but a relation
between objects, is never directly observed. In the
same way you can never directly observe other relations
like family relationship, dependence, or motion, but
that does not prevent you from saying that So-and-so is
your mother, or that the crop will depend on the
weather, or that the moon moves aroung the earth. And
that stands even if you come to the conclusion that
your mother, the crop and the moon are mere
appearances, not entities. Appearances yes, but
determined by the rest of the projection.

Not that I give so much importance to causation. But I
feel that without it you lose all possibility of
understanding anything or of saying anything
meaningful. For example, you wouldn't be able to say
"What Ramana says in this book has clarified my doubts"
(because you'd be then assuming a causality) or
"ajata-vada is taught to the more advanced students"
(you'd be assuming time and progress to exist), or even
"I liked your last post" (how do you know that it was
the post that produced that feeling?). In fact, without
causality you'd have to sink in the most absolute
silence, or to consider all speach mere nonsensical
mumbling and babbling.

Don't answer this post, because if you do, that will
prove that, whatever you may say, in fact you do
believe in causality.

Miguel-Angel

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

Judi Rhodes

if people don't have sense enough to be bewildered already,
we're here to help!

____________________________________________________________________

Michael Johnson asked:

I have heard the saying, You are pure as the driven snow.
And just wondered if anyone has ever seen driven snow?

David Hodges:

Yes...I grew up in New Hampshire, where the wind-driven
snow would produce huge snowdrifts. Snowdrifts were great
places for we kids to tunnel in and make play houses.

I don't know if there is any other kind of driven snow
besides wind-driven. And I don't know why driven snow would
be any purer than new-fallen snow, which, to my mind, is
the purest snow there is.

Michael: I agree that new-fallen snow does seem to be the
purest. I grew up in the South, Tennessee, and as such,
have not experienced much snow at all.

Jerry: A few years ago I was working the graveyard shift
and got off work at 7am. A foot of snow had come down and
it was early Sunday morning. I trudged home several blocks
through the residential, tree lined streets. The roads were
hardly driven over. The trees, sidewalks, and front steps
were thick with the year's first snow. There was no wind
and stillness all around.

Larry: I remember being in NYC once when it snowed so much
the whole city stopped. I walked down the middle of 5th
avenue from Central Park to Greenwich Village.

Ed: I drove home through the mountains after a skiing trip.
It was early morning and a driving snowstorm had blanketed
everything pure white. It was intensely bright so I wore my
rose colored ski glasses. What a way to see the world!!

Judi: an old Mae West line - "I used to be Snow White, but
I drifted."
___________________________________________________________________________

Continuing the discussion on Free Will:

Mark Otter

The discussion of free will can become a distraction, a
non-helpful spinning of philosophical wheels, if one
doesn't attend to the work of attention and clear seeing.
Of course, that distraction may be an activity of free
will, or simply a predestined working out of kharma.
Hmmm.... From here, actively choosing love seems the
sensible thing to do regardless of the mechanics of its
arising.

*****

Trainer

my view on free will We are born into this world with the
god given right of free will. We value the right of making
our own choices. And as long as we can't see the outcome of
those choices we will continue to have free will. But if we
increase our mental awareness, we will be able to see the
outcome of the choices we make. So understand that our
willingness to give up our freewill must come first, before
we can really be free.

*****

Tony O'Clery

In my honest opinion free will doesn't exist. Whether one
believes it is previous karma or not. The illusion of
choice exists, so we may gain the fruits of actions, that's
all. It is all in the dream anyway.The decision that we
make was always the one we had already made.

So whether one believes that the action is due to previous
karma or to the non existent idea of time. The result is
the same. It can only be that way for really nothing
happened.

*****

Greg Goode

Or, as Michael Roach the Tibetan teacher once told me
"Those who believe in free will are determined by their
karma to do so."

*****

Greg Gooded responds to Gloria Lee

GLORIA: How would you explain the view that "nothing" ever
happened.. since I gather you do not mean to deny existence
or physical world quite so literally? How does advaita mean
this?

GREG: Actually, the physical world is the first to go!!
Some day I'll tell you about a class I had long ago where
if you wrote paper in support of the physical world, you
could never get above a B!

The view that nothing ever happened. What does advaita say
about it?

I'll go at it advaita-like in 2 ways. One from the great
advaita philosopher Krishna Menon, and one from scriptural
advaita, esp. Mandukya Upanishad. The first is simpler.
Sorry if I'm making it too complex or heady.

You ask,

"If we cannot cause or change anything..how can we change
this karma which you say our previous actions caused in the
first place?"

Both teachings below are direct-path advaita, whose
non-progressive approach is very similar to the Southern or
"Sudden Enlightenment" school of Ch'an, a la Hui Neng and
Ta Hui. That is, in both these traditions, there is no
"mirror polishing" or changing of karma that need (or can)
take place. By the way Gloria, Gaudapada was familiar with
the Madhyamika Buddhist tradition, and with Nagarjuna's
great Treatise on the Middle Way. He's often accused of
being a crypto-Buddhist!!

Back to nothing ever happened --

1. Krishna Menon explains it in terms of objects collapsing
into Consciousness/Knowledge. The mind, body and world are
made up of (and can't be indendent of) sense objects,
feelings and thoughts. These sensations, feelings and
thoughts are all objects of knowledge, and thus are not
independent of knowledge. The knowledge aspect cannot be
denied. But if the objects are never independent of
knowledge, then knowledge is not knowledge *of* the
objects. Knowledge doesn't go out and reach or contact the
objects. The objects then aren't objects at all, but pure
knowledge itself. So there is nothing that ever could have
happened.

2. The statement that nothing ever happened -- it is a
statement that Papaji made well known. The statement is a
compression of the famous Ramana quote (I don't have it at
hand, sorry) about there being no enlightenment, no seeker,
no sought, etc. Ramana's famous phrase is actually a
paraphrase from the sloka from the Madukya Upanishad with
Gaudapada's karika:

II:32 There is no dissolution, no birth, none in bondage,
none aspiring for wisdom, no seeker of liberation and none
liberated. This is the absolute truth.

The explanation goes along these lines. The external
physical objects are not independent of the mind. They are
basically mind-stuff, and never appear unless the mind is
appearing. This is familiar, as there are lots of spiritual
views consistent with this.

But what does Gaudapada say about mind-stuff? By showing
how the mind is never a cause or an effect of any arising.
If nothing causes an arising or manifestation, there's no
manifestation.

There is a prolonged argument in the karika about there not
being any causal relations. Basically, causality makes no
sense because the cause is just as dependent on the effect
as the effect is on the cause, and they both appear (in the
cause/effect relation) simultaneously. Those who believe in
the reality of any part of the manifestation believe that
things get reality because they are caused. It is thought
that the cause confers reality on the effect. But the cause
is not a cause until the effect appears. Therefore the
effect is the cause of the cause (IV:14). If the cause is
not real until the effect makes it into a cause, then how
can a cause, which is not real, confer reality on the
effect?? If the cause is not real, then how can it bring
about the effect?

If there is no cause and effect, then the mind never enters
into causal relations (IV:27)

Here are some various quotes about the mind and
cause/effect from Gaudapada:

III:15 (The scriptural statements regarding) creation as
illustrated by examples of earth, iron, sparks, etc., or
otherwise, (only) serve the purpose of (ultimately)
explaining the unity (of Jiva and Brahman). (Really
speaking) multiplicity does not exist in any manner.

III:43 If it be remembered that everything is the unborn
(Brahman), the born (duality) will not be seen.

III:48 No Jiva is ever born. There does not exist any cause
which can produce it. This is the highest Truth that
nothing is ever born.

IV:22 Nothing, whatsoever, is born either of its self or of
another. Nothing is ever produced whether it be being or
non-being or both being and non-being.

IV:26 The mind is not related to the (external) objects.
Nor are the ideas which appear as external objects,
reflections upon the mind. It is so because the objects are
non-existent and the ideas (which appear as external
objects) are not separate from the mind.

IV:27 The mind does not enter into causal relation in any
of the three periods of time. How can the mind be ever
subject to delusion, as there is no cause for any such
delusion?

IV:28 Therefore neither the mind nor the objects percived
by the mind are ever born. Those who perceive such birth
may as well discover foot-prints (of the birds) in the sky.

IV:56 As long as there is faith in causality, the (endless)
chain of birth and death will be there. When that faith is
destroyed (by knowledge) birth and death become
non-existent.

IV:76 When the mind does not find any cause superior,
inferior or middling, it becomes free from birth. How can
there be an effect without a cause?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Gene Poole

Denial is taught by example; the ways of the parent/culture
become the ways of the child. By paying attention to inner
disturbances, such as those brought about by the behaviour
of denial, we have an opportunity to go beyond the criteria
of culture.

It is well to observe just how the behaviour of denial,
which is so 'close to home' as to be overlooked for its
very closeness, ramifies into the major conflicts which we
assume are 'outside of ourselves'. We define what we
perceive in that way, as 'the condition of the world'. Our
cultural dramas (the World Dream) demand that we act as
though such perceptions are accurate, when in fact, they
are 'merely' our own compounded projections. Our
culturally-enforced participation in this synthetic
'virtual reality' guarantees that we will always have
access to 'circumstances' which serve to enforce our
overlayed identities; by means of 'going along with the
crowd', we become one of the crowd.

It is the product of our unknowing misgoverning of our
personal 'energy ecology' which seems to be evidence that
the world is indeed 'out to get us'; the 'slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune' are much more impactfull, when our
immunity has been sapped by the behaviour of denial.

______________________________________________________________________

Matthew Files

The perfection of the human being is perfection in human
terms. This is not a limitation of form but the perfect
form of form. The traditions tend to suggest or imply that
the transcendence of all forms is the ultimate existence or
state of being. But the Truth of existence itself, is
nondual Reality. There is only God, only this Great Process
of Divine Evolution. This is a given fact of all existence,
regardless of form, or not-form. There is no distinction
between a human being, a frog, a platypus, a lump of iron
ore and a Gryswilviz in terms of the essential fact that
there is only God. Non- dual Realization, or the Awakening
to the truth of already present and eternally True
Enlightenment (retroactive of course to the Begining,
whenever the heck that was) or the complete assumption by
the Will of God is perfect in Essence, but not in form!
This realization, this Awakening, is the Male aspect of the
polarity of all things. It is the realization and ultimate
fulfillment of the Yang or masculine nature of the being.
But it is not the ultimate fulfillment of the Yin, or
feminine aspect, which is indicated by all form, all
manifestation, all turning to, as differentiated from
radiating out as.

_________________________________________________________________________

Gloria Lee

If I am not "being presence"- however and whatever is the
most true way I know to be this - then I am reduced to
calculating effects, imagining to control outcomes,
becoming nothing other than a manipulator of either others
or myself. Yet when I am true to my being, whatever
consequences that brings are still better than being false.

*****

Dear Dave,

Your descriptions of the way you experienced this Beeing
and Treeing and the way your senses transformed when you
pretended to be deaf.. it evoked a memory in me of having
read something like it, tho it was quite sometime ago. I
finally found the passage, it was written by Helen Keller.
If only all could see and hear as well as she.....

~~~~ I have often thought it would be a blessing if each
human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at
some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make
him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the
joys of sound.

Now and then I have tested my seeing friends to discover
what they see. Recently I was visited by a very good friend
who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I
asked her what she had observed. 'Nothing in particular,'
she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been
accustomed to such responses, for long ago I became
convinced that the seeing see little.

How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour
through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who
cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through
mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass
my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch,
or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring I touch the
branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first
sign of awakening Nature after her winter's sleep. I feel
the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover
its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle
of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very
fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel
the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to
have the cool waters of a brook rush through my open
fingers. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy
grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
To me the pageant of seasons is a thrilling and unending
drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

My hands evoke sight and sound out of feeling,
Intershifting the senses endlessly,
Linking motion with sight, odor with sound.
They give color to the honeyed breeze,
The measure and passion of a symphony
To the beat and quiver of unseen wings.
In the secrets of earth and sun and air
My fingers are wise;
They snatch light out of darkness,
They thrill to harmonies breathed in silence.

                         Helen Keller
________________________________________________________________________

Melody Anderson

When I am open.....undefended....my chest area feels like a
screen door. I can feel the movement of energy thru it. And
not only a 'movement' of energy, but it's like a filling
up, and a lifting up of ....[there is not other way to
describe it, other than]... Love.

Very often though that area gets closed up, and I never
notice it when it closes. I only notice.... looking
backwards...I generally don't notice until I have just
cleared a blockage (denial) and I notice [undeniably!] the
rush of energy moving thru it....and then (until it closes
again) it's like a screen door with a spring breeze moving
thru it.

So when that area is closed I have to look to other areas
of my body for cues ....which are cues of denial....such as
a repulsive feeling in the stomach, or muscle tension
generally....or even more subtle cues of facial expression
and body posture.

If not for watching these body disturbances, I would not
know I was denying. No way.

I'm curious, Gene, if you are familiar with the EFT
technology?

I was introduced to it yesterday and from what I've read so
far, it seems very promising.

I have been opening to the idea of ending my 'hibernation',
and opening a hypnotherapy practice once again, and in this
'considering', I began to explore the web for what is new
in the field since I left it. It was in that search that I
discovered EFT, short for Emotional Freedom Technologies.

The technology is based on: "The cause of all negative
emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system."

And the 'work' involves simply tapping the end points of
the major energy meridians (as in accupuncture) when one's
attention is fixed on the 'inner disturbances'.

It takes only a minute to 'run the routine'.

If this works as well as the independent testimonies I have
read suggest, the marriage of this system to the work of
'ending denial' promises to be an exceptional one.

If you're familiar with it, I'd love to hear your take on
it.

I downloaded the manual from a rather extensive website
http://www.emofree.com/

and will try 'running some routines' on myself and see how
it goes.

____________________________________________________________________

Judi Rhodes

Speaking of love, you should have been here this evening.
Meriann is graduating 8th grade next week and her school is
having their spring concert tomorrow nite. She was
practicing her piano solo that she will be playing tomorrow
nite as a surprise gift to her music teacher at the concert
- "I Will Remember You", by Sara McLaughlin. It's gonna
bring the house down.



-------------------------------------------------------------
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

Michael Johnson

Pantomime: The telling of a story without words, by means of
bodily
movements, gestures, and facial expressions.

Sounds nondual to me.

____________________________________________________________________________

David Pawlak

Funny how I was just thinking today, what would a nondual
"society" be like, no working to make money, no
repsonsibilities because somebody says so, all contributing
for the common good.... one of the first words that came up
was "communist", but then I thought of Star Trek !!?? they
are all equal, and serve for the common good.

Well, I'd bet a future society will become more
"nondualist" will work more towards the common "good".

May all be happy. - What is happiness? May all be without
disease. - What is disease? May all share in well-being.
What is well-being? What is misery? Peace is working
towards understanding that these things are what we make
them.

I have misery at work, because I just can't let go of the
happiness that my TV gives me?

I have misery because I might have hunger if I leave the
misery of my work.

I have disease because I have misery.

What do I have if I have nothing? It just seems that things
work out. When you have life you have everything that IS.

When life goes... it's only a matter of time.

Don't sweat the small stuff!

*****

Sometimes, going beyond the veil, getting to reality
requires first seeing deep and varied perpectives. The
"constance of reality" seems to glare out more strongly
through marked variation in perspective and heavy activity.
I don't mean like heavy physical activity, but more like
heavy emotional / concptual activity.

The "constance of reality" is such a solid grounding point,
even when pain really hurts when things are just going too
well. It's like it helps one to know what's "really going
on".

On another list, they are answering the question: "Is life
a dream?"

This was one of the answers:

I don't believe there are any types of dreams in our life
awake. To me, dreams are just those things that we think
are happening, but are not really happening, while we
sleep.

Paraphrasing Helen Keller:

"How is it possible, one should ask, to walk around "in
life" and not see that "I" cannot be?"

_____________________________________________________________________________

Mark Otter

You have misery because you don't know that you are not
hungry now. (or that you are, but lunch is in a few
minutes, or that you are but you feel afraid to ask for
lunch, or because you are full, but won't feed your
neighbor, or....) Ram Dass asked (repeatedly) his guru how
to become enlightened, and Nareem (sweet Nareem) replied
"feed people." It's not that complex. If people starve, it
is because other people failed to find enlightenment and
act. (no play, just "Act I On" or "I act on" for those who
use modern syntax...)

You have misery because you took your eye off the ease, and
thought you might have misplaced it. Close your eyes and
remember it, and the severed ease will join up again, and
if your body dies during this process, laugh and laugh and
laugh, from your deep and eternal knowing that you cannot
be severed, you cannot be in disease, you cannot be
anything but what you are, which is here. (now). Shit,
people, this is NOT SO HARD. It is fine as it is, and you
are IT. I know nothing you don't know, so quit this
bullshit and BE. These word are thoughts, but they point to
you, so be you, and don't worry about thinking any more. It
doesn't end, it just starts making sense...

________________________________________________________________________________

Greg:If you can, choose an unbroken stream of only the
happiest, most blissful, most liberating thoughts and
beliefs every time. Be happy always! Try it!!

Gloria: Yes, now we are getting somewhere! It isn't so much
*what* your beliefs are, as a matter of *what* you do with
them. I can use a belief in karma and determinism to become
peaceful and happy or to justify my passivity and never
helping anyone.

__________________________________________________________________________

Harsha contributes:

The author of this article, Sri C. R. Rajamani, presented
the following talk at the April 25th Aradhana program at
Arunachla Ashrama in New York City. He and his wife are
visiting their son, Dr. C. R. Ramakrishna, of Stony Brook,
NY.

I HAVE been a devotee of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharishi for
over 55 years. I was in my early twenties when I first had
His darshan. The event is still fresh in my memory not
because I was at that age so mature, which I was not, but
because of a very remarkable incident I saw on that
occasion.

I went to the Ashrama in the early forties when the Second
World War was at its peak and our own independence movement
was also at its maximum intensity. I am not certain about
the date or the month of my visit; it may have been
December or January. I remember the season was quite cool.
The summit of the Holy Arunachala was shrouded in dense
mist and clouds. The morning air was crisp and pleasant.

It was in the original small hall, that is remembered by
the early devotees with justifiable fondness, that I first
saw Sri Bhagavan seated on a raised platform. A cast-iron
charcoal brazier was radiating a comfortable warmth, and a
pleasing aroma of the incense thrown into it at regular
intervals was pervading the entire hall. About thirty
people, comprised of men, women and a few young boys were
seated on the floor facing Sri Bhagavan. None spoke or even
whispered between themselves. What struck me was, no one
showed even an inclination to talk. Some were meditating
with closed eyes. The silence was definitely not an imposed
one.

Sri Bhagavan, his body luminous like burnished gold, was
sparsely clad in his usual kaupinam and a small towel
across his chest. He appeared to be occasionally dozing off
and had to steady his head often. He frequently stretched
his palms over the fire and massaged his long fingers. In
spite of his apparent dozing, his eyes did not look drowsy.
On the contrary, they were extraordinarily bright and
alert. He was not looking at anybody in particular, nor
were his eyes roaming about the hall in idle curiosity.
Although my first impression was not a very uplifting one,
I felt I was in the presence of an extremely affable person
with a lot of natural grace, at perfect ease and without
any pretension whatsoever. I was, however, aware of an
effortless peace in the hall.

I saw a white-skinned boy, a foreigner, of about ten years
sitting a couple of feet to my left. Next to him was a
white man, presumably his father. Further to my left,
beyond the central aisle, was a white woman, whom I thought
was the boy's mother. I then saw Sri Bhagavan's eyes alight
on the boy for a brief minute. I thought it was just a
casual look. The boy was all the time looking at Sri
Bhagavan with a sort of fixation, as if on the verge of
asking a question. But, no! He broke into tears. A cascade
of tears came gushing out of his eyes. They were not tears
of pain, for his face was radiant with joy. In temples, I
have seen adults shedding tears in ecstasy, and had myself
experienced that type of joyous outpouring on hearing a
beautiful hymn or a moving melody, but I had never seen a
ten-year-old boy from a far-off land exhibiting this type
of beautiful expression in an extremely quiet and serene
atmosphere. I could see that Sri Bhagavan's glance, though
only resting on him for a brief moment, had opened in the
boy's heart a veritable reservoir of pure joy.

I did not feel a remorse for my lack of receptivity that I
ought to have felt. But I felt most fortunate to see a boy
not even half my age showing such an alert sensitivity. The
flat feeling I had experienced earlier was washed away by
the joyous tears of another; I really felt blessed in an
indirect way. Direct or indirect, blessing is blessing.
Whenever I recall this incident, it creates a feeling of
being very near to something truly Divine. Of course, I
have had my own share of Sri Bhagavan's grace in my later
years. I have also had some ever-fresh visions which I dare
not devalue as creations of a fevered imagination for they
have strengthened my faith in Sri Bhagavan. Some of them
occurred decades after Sri Bhagavan's Mahanirvana. They
have been firm confirmations of his continued Presence and
reassurances of his immortal words, "They say I am going!
Where can I go? I am always here!"

Now, returning to that first day at the Ashrama, I learned
that the boy had come along with his parents, both of them
Theosophists. The Theosophical Society's world convention
is usually held at their international headquarters at
Adyar, Madras in December-January. Some of the people from
foreign countries choose to visit Sri Ramanasramam at that
time. The boy's parents arranged a trip to Tiruvannamalai,
but he stoutly refused to go with them, as he was not in
tune with conditions in India which can never be adequate
when compared with the posh amenities of his native
Australia. However, he changed his mind at the last moment
and did make the trip. Within an hour of his face-to-face
meeting with Sri Bhagavan, his mental barriers were reduced
to nothingness. He shed tears for quite some time and later
said to his mother, "I am so happy. I don't want to leave
his presence. I want to be always with him!" His mother was
most upset. She pleaded with Sri Bhagavan, "Swami, please
release my son! He is our only child. We will be miserable
without him." Sri Bhagavan smiled at her and said, "Release
him? I am not keeping him tied up. He is a mature soul. A
mere spark has ignited his spiritual fire." So, that casual
look was a spark of tremendous power. Turning to the boy,
He said, "Go with your parents. I will always be with you."
He spoke in Tamil throughout, but the boy understood him
fully. He bowed to Sri Bhagavan and reluctantly left with
his parents, immensely rich with the newly-found spiritual
treasure.

_____________________________________________________________________

Melody Anderson

I came upon this website unintentionally.

http://www.espresearch.com/heart/

Besides the artwork for the book cover...which is
beautiful....I celebrate this book's offering a subtle and
alluring introduction to nonduality.

I liked this in particular:

"Prayer is a state in which we are receptive to Truth
without conscious thought."

_______________________________________________________________________

Andrew Macnab contributes:

This is an excerpt from the speech Freeman Dyson made
accepting the Templeton prize for progress in religion
earlier this year, it fits in with recent discussions;

"The universe shows evidence of the operations of mind on
three levels. The first level is elementary physical
processes, as we see them when we study atoms in the
laboratory. The second level is our direct human experience
of our own consciousness. The third level is the universe
as a whole. Atoms in the laboratory are weird stuff,
behaving like active agents rather than inert substances.
They make unpredictable choices between alternative
possibilities according to laws of quantum mechanics. It
appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make
choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The
universe as a whole is also weird, with laws of nature that
make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any
clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind
becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our
comprehension. God may be either a world-soul or a
collection of world-souls. So I am thinking that atoms and
humans and God may have minds that differ in degree but not
in kind. We stand, in a manner of speaking, midway between
the unpredictability of atoms and the unpredictability of
God. Atoms are small pieces of our mental apparatus, and we
are small pieces of God's mental apparatus. Our minds may
receive inputs equally from atoms and from God. This view
of our place in the cosmos may not be true, but it is
compatible with the active nature of atoms as revealed in
the experiments of modern physics. I don't say that this
personal theology is supported or proved by scientific
evidence. I only say that it is consistent with scientific
evidence."

The whole speech is here-
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dyson_progress/dyson_progress_p1.html

Macrocosm and microcosm, within and without, all the same.

__________________________________________________________________________

Greg: The spontaneity is the causeless arising of
appearances from silence. Free will, like you say, carries
the notion of causality, like "I caused this." It's related
to the desire to control things for one's self and in the
world. The person wants to be the cause. But this is never
so. If we had to describe these things in the language of
cause and effect, the person is never the cause, but always
the effect!

Xan contributes: "If anything other than God appears to
you, it's the effect of His illusion; and if all other than
God vanished from sight, it's the effect of His awakening
you to what is real."

- Rumi





--
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

JUDI posted:

"Of what use is your learning and your devotions?  Does a donkey become
  wise through living in a library or a mouse acquire holiness from
living in
  a church?"

  "What is it, then, we need?"

  "A heart."

  "How does one get that?"

  The Master would not say.  What could he say that they wouldn't turn
into a
  subject to be learned or an object of devotion?

  Anthony de Mello, SJ
________________________________________________________________________________\
______

XAN posted:


So you have to make up your mind, you see.
So you have to make a firm decision. Nothing can
trouble you.  If you are weak, then everything will
trouble you.  Simply decide to sit quiet.  Simply!
This will be a fire.  Nothing can touch you.
Only your decision is weak.

-Papaji
________________________________________________________________________________\
______

LARRY BIDDINGER:

Time is actually place, location. So what time it is is here; and here
is moving at a pretty good clip. So the question is where is here in
relation to somewhere else. But the somewhere else is also moving. Maybe
it would be easier to just look at a clock. I once had the idea of
making now the reference point and all other times "Ago" or "Till Then";
that way your watch would always say "zero" but your calendar of past
and future would be constantly changing. I abandoned the idea.

Larry
________________________________________________________________________________\
______


GENE POOLE about denial (snipped from a longer conversation between Gene and
Melody):

Denial is taught by example; the ways of the parent/culture become
the ways of the child. By paying attention to inner disturbances,
such as those brought about by the behaviour of denial, we have an
opportunity to go beyond the criteria of culture.

<snip>

  I think the continuing effort is to change the 'default setting
of reaction' from denial to 'standing in the light of one's own
awareness'. And your points about how the body gives sensory feedback
are well stated. If one ignores this kind of biofeedback, eventually
the energies which are emanations of inner distress, become accepted
as 'normal'. To allow this to happen is to become desensitized to
oneself, which is not the same thing as 'nonattachment'. If we ignore
our feelings, we become deadened to the feelings of others; that is
how empathy is lost.

As (wounded) adults, we are faced with the task of 'changing canoes
in mid-stream'. This is less of a challenge if we are not in the
'white-water of emotion'. To allow calm to prevail, to become placid,
without denying, can be a challenge. It seems that 'there are those
who' deny the necessity of this kind of inner adjustment; skipping
the steps of confronting our denial, while counting on the arrival of
a type of overall fix, brought about by a higher-level 'adjustment'.
Spiritual aspirations which ignore the 'detail work' are in
themselves, subtle denials.

An individual who is plagued by fear and anxiety may pray for relief;
but it is the withheld reactions to what is fearful, that forms the
basic contraction that underlies fear and anxiety. That one 'should
not' be fearful, this ideal as hammered into us by our culture, puts
one into an untenable position; in order to be 'well', one must act
as though nothing is wrong. But this charade is itself, a re-burying
of the first order of reaction, and a compounding of denial. One can
keep shoveling 'hope' over the still-breathing corpse, but its
twitches persist, bring it back into view. Eventually, one will face
the music; it will all come to the surface, eventually. On that day,
desired/habitual 'identity' may be severely challenged.


It is well to observe just how the behaviour of denial, which is so
'close to home' as to be overlooked for its very closeness, ramifies
into the major conflicts which we assume are 'outside of ourselves'.
We define what we perceive in that way, as 'the condition of the
world'. Our cultural dramas (the World Dream) demand that we act as
though such perceptions are accurate, when in fact, they are 'merely'
our own compounded projections. Our culturally-enforced participation
in this synthetic 'virtual reality' guarantees that we will always
have access to 'circumstances' which serve to enforce our overlayed
identities; by means of 'going along with the crowd', we become one
of the crowd.

<snip>

..... It is the product of our unknowing misgoverning of
our personal 'energy ecology' which seems to be evidence that the
world is indeed 'out to get us'; the 'slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune' are much more impactfull, when our immunity has been sapped
by the behaviour of denial.

<snip>

In my view (which I admit is radical), denial is violence committed
against oneself. The automatic use of force against oneself brews an
inner hurricane of contrary reactions; "A house divided against
itself cannot stand". Nonduality is, in my view, the logical point of
arrival, after all such aggressions against oneself have been halted.
Self-domination is suicidal bullying, while the opposite, having
compassion for oneself, is how power is conserved and used for
healing and expansion.

==Gene Poole==

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

MELODY ANDERSON:


Osho wrote:

"And once you have started listening, you will be able to listen to the sound of
running water, to the wind passing through the
pine
trees. You will be able to listen to the music of silence in the dark night, to
the
music of the birds in the early morning. You
will start listening to so many things that you will be in a state of immense
amazement that this world was available to you --and
so close--but you were not available to this world...."


The 'art' of listening has arisen for me in a number of ways
these past few days.

I refer to it now as an 'art' form because I have come to see
that it in order to do it well, one needs to be in a similar
state of consciousness as the great artists working in
any of a number of forms of expression.

For example, a great painter becomes so single-mindedly
focused on his work.....focused on the 'object' he is painting
...that after a while, the 'subject' of his painting and the 'canvas'
itself.... becomes One.

A dancer begins focusing so completely on the music,
letting the music sing through her, that as  she moves
across the floor, the distinction between 'dancer' and
'dance' fall away.

This seems to me to be what is required of a good
listener.   More importantly, it is the *opportunity*
given to me a hundred times or more during the course
of any given day..... the opportunity to melt into the
words shared by an other -  until no sense of 'other'
even exists.

If one were to give a list of choices to a group of young kids,
stressed-out moms, and solitary grandparents.

to list in order, " which 'act of love' would you appreciate
the most?"

My guess is...

that "to be listened to"...with complete and undivided
attention....was what the majority would want.

I have certainly heard it said time and time again

from coworkers at the job, students complaining
about their teachers, my son Joseph complaining
to me even,

"I wish you would just LISTEN to me!"

I see that the art of listening is an act that 'gives'
both ways.....as Osho says above,

"....that you will be in a state of immense amazement..."

It's a pretty great state to be in.

What an opportunity.

And what a challenge

to be free of all 'self' referential thoughts
and desires long enough to truly 'start listening'
to the world around us.

I see that in order for one to listen to....and
really 'hear'  an other, one needs to be clear of
their own hidden and silenced voices.

That's why I'm appreciating my dialogue
with Gene so well.

Until one is free to genuinely listen,
the 'echoes' of denial resound so
deeply around us that we wind up wanting
only to hear the sound of our own voices.


Melody

________________________________________________________________________________\
______


TONY O'CLEARY:


Namaste All,

This is how I look at it, for what it is worth.

The transcendental Nirguna Brahman, somehow projects a dream, but it
is only a dream of a dream, for it didn't happen. No dreams!

However at the imminent level of Saguna Brahman or 'God'. The dream
has a certain validity to its constituent members. God being the sum
total of all the consciousnesses as a forest is made of trees.

As there is no time, all lives are lived at once in the greater
dream,
there can be no freewill.

As Brahman separated himself from himself, this being the illusion of
separation. The separated jiva is to realise this and wake up, to
unity.

So in the awakening process there are of course various levels of
awareness.

To become aware, or lift the veil of illusion, one has to experience.
So the experience of action occurrs but because it all happens at
once, it is only an illusion of freewill. For the action or even the
thought that one grabs hold of, is already predestined. Only the jiva
or individual thinks that it is happening because of his action, not
realising it would all happen anyway. Kind of like an arm thinking it
moves itself.

So depending on the feeling of doing karma is incurred, and it is
rising above these karmas that awareness is all about. The problem
being that we think we are doing actions in a creation, whereas there
is only one being, and all happens at once in the dream. We are in it
but cannot see the wood for the trees,(jivas).

You can see this in sensitivity, or lack of, or rationalisation of
etc. I don't want to get into a food fight or eco war, but how many
connect the meat or whatever on their plate with the agony of the
beast that provided it. See there is a veil, Avarana.

So everything is about raising one's awarness to the point where one
realises nothing ever was dreamed or happened at all.

This is what ahimsa is about, not hurting anything, for anything is
oneself and that strengthens illusion, a turning away of the mind.

So to conclude my ramblings, freewill is only the illusion of action
and determination so one may gain or lose awareness, with the karmas.

If you don't understand this ramble or don't like my grammar, don't
blame me, the jiva ,for it was already written, or not written!!hahaha

Om Namah Sivaya, Tony.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GLORIA LEE:

Dear Tony,

Thanks to Greg's patient explanation and now your comments here, I begin to
understand. Maybe it's just thru more exposure to these new ideas or that once
you
used words I can relate to like transcendental and immanent it becomes
comprehensible
to me now. I finally get what you have been talking about lo these many months.
Hooray! Actually, very similar reasoning was used to explain predestination in
the
Presbyterian church I went to for 20 years. Nothing surprises God. Nothing can
happen
"outside" his will, etc.. Waking up would compare to realizing the Grace of God
is
the source of everything, seeing this is the 'revelation' of God as experienced
in
time in the outward manifestation of immanence ( your term is in "illusory
maya"),
tho it is pre-ordained eternally as known from the beginning. I think all the
pre-
and fore- stuff is just the Western mind has seldom been able to get outside the
box
of linear time thinking models of reality. Eternity is not before or after..it
just
is.
...Again here, that one comes to 'believe' is not one's own doing, it is only
thru the Grace of God, so there is no credit or blame to anyone. You see, this
is my
background..and I am not saying it is identical.. I realize there appear to be
some
differences..but the basic concept is there. --------
...While it is good to speak of "how it really is"...UNTIL one can be aware
of the non-separation, their experience is illusorily one OF separation...so
within
that model of how it is being experienced there is much struggle with making
choices
and feeling suffering from the effects of actions... or karmas. This is why I
say
that just telling someone that their individual identity and their suffering is
only
an illusion goes over like a lead balloon. It's putting the cart before the
horse to
simply deny the reality of what they experience..what they need is to first see
or
understand the non-separation...even a glimmer of insight to begin seeing how it
really is.

Love, Gloria

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

>"He who knows others is clever;
>he who knows himself is enlightened.
>
>-- Lao-Tzu --
>
>************************************************

And I ask, who is that "he" who knows himself?
-The jiva (the person, the body-mind)?
Hardly. A non-entity can't possibly know itself.
-Brahman (the Absolute, the Self)? Impossible.
What is unknowable can't be known.
So, who is the real subject of self-knowledge?

Miguel-Angel
~~~~~~~~~~~
Without an object there is no subject,
and so it goes.

Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~
  "The reason we have a lot of trouble
   is that we have selves.
   If we had no selves,
   what troubles would we have?"

   Lao-Tzu   (via Andrew)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The "he" is the jiva. He is a magical manifestation of Brahman and can
do anything. He can know.

Larry
  ----------------------------------

wonderful friends,

even though "i" am obliterated
to know myself
how fun it is to "come back" and
radiate the joy of it!

who is the real subject of self knowledge?
  mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
know that one!


god, i love you
cee
____________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL JOHNSON

Apperception

Conscious perception with full awareness.


The process of understanding by which newly observed  qualities of an object are
related to past experience.


Conscious


Having an awareness of one's environment and one's own existence, sensations,
and
thoughts.  Mentally perceptive or alert; awake.  Capable of thought, will, or
perception.  Intentionally conceived or done; deliberate.  Inwardly attentive or
sensible; mindful. Especially aware of or preoccupied with.  In psychoanalysis,
the
component of waking awareness perceptible by a person at any given instant;
consciousness.
________________________________________________________

On TIME

> >    The fertile eyes.
> >    The river under the tongue.
> >    In the dream, dreaming dreams
> >    that I sleep,
> >    that I dream.
> >    I see the enormous sky
> >    for a moment, eternity.
> >
> >    andrew
> >
> > Taking a picture of the night sky with a flash on the camera,
> > the film being developped on paper
> > wonders
> > why the sky did not turn out white instead of black.
> >
> > For the butterfly flying around
> > The night was full of colors.
> >
> > Antoine
>
> If superstring theorists are right,
> The expansion of space will mean
> (in some untold billion years)
> That the night sky will shine with the milky way,
> But that everywhere else will be dark.
>
> My butterfly fears have me looking up
> To see this moment.
> The stars are busy winking.
>
> love, mark
>

The night-flying butterfly always approaches but can never reach the moon in
time, is
never separate from the moon in eternity.

andrew
_______________________________________________________

ANTHONY posts:

What does it mean to learn the knowledge of God's
Unity?
To consume yourself in the presence of the One.
If you wish to shine like day,
burn up the night of self-existence.
Dissolve in the Being who is everything.
you grabbed hold of "I" and "we,"
and this dualism is your ruin.

Rumi, Mathnawi I:3009-3012, tr. Helminski
__________________________________________________________


Hi Mark,
Great. Sounds like you had a good trip. You're the second person to mention the
Arthur Ganson machines, I will definitely go see them next time. Hope to meet
you and
Mary in person at the gathering in Rhode Island next month. By the way, anyone
planning to go should get in touch with Gloria, she needs to know.

love, andrew
~~~~~~


Yeah. Come on down. Or up. Hitch if you have to. Pour in from all ends of the
continent. I see people in Oregon climbing into trucks. 'Where you heading?'
'The
HS/NDS thing in Rhode Island, man, you goin'?' 'Well, yeah, I can take an extra
day
or two.' And so on.


J.
~~~~~~
YES!! All of you highlighters are invited, and the time to decide is now.
Harsha,
Jerry, Andrew, and Greg are just a few of the dozen people already going. It's
weekend of July 14, 15, 16 at the Providence Zen Center in Rhode Island. Contact
me
for details. glee@...

Gloria

**********************************************************************

NDS Highlights from Saturday, June 10....

There were many good posts today....too many
to include them all here...  This would be a good
time to visit the eGroups site and read the posts
of some of your favorite writers at:

http://www.egroups.com/message/NondualitySalon/

Here's a taste of what was discussed Saturday....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from GENE POOLE:

NDS

Power

A signal of 'go' or 'stop' occurs; if 'go' gates to destruction,
those genes terminate.

If 'go' gates to success, those genes continue.

This learning is our method. We are the genes of success. We 'know'
when to go or stop. For this great talent, we can thank not only the
survivors who are our progenitors, but also, those who died in order
to save us from their regressive tendencies.

This learning is our method; freedom is the 'ultimate go', with the
proviso of wise stopping thrown in. Autonomy is thus built upon
billions of bones of both survivors and failures; our independence is
dependent upon this method.

Power is the reward for success; getting into the clear is the result
of going and stopping intelligently. The flavor of power, and the
result of increased power, stimulate more precise conformance with
the learning of stopping and going. Incrementally graduated rewards
of potency, condition towards more power; power enables more
effective learning.

Power is for those who have learned our commonality; that is why
'compassion is the highest power'. Finding oneself on the plateau of
power, defense is dropped, also leaving behind aggression. This is
the favored position for those who 'learn as the way of Being'.

Superior operators cooperate with the desire of our genes; power is
the floodlight which illuminates what is always here. Optimal
functionality configures to invisible overparent role; gifting
becomes possible, when wealth is unlimited. Still, as obedient to
genes, gifts go to those whose learning trends towards this same
plateau. This diverging bifurcation, biased as it is toward rewarding
intelligence, speaks not to aggression. We see in this, the
compassionate allowance of death for what is against life.

How does power behave? Higher sees lower, but lower does not see
higher. Having seen anew, the graduate sees that there is more to
see, and sees that seeing is dependent on conservation and garnering
of power. Understanding that force is expenditure of power, force is
conserved, and thus power grows. Growing power shows more to the
seer; this strategy is for the growth of power, and for seeing ever
more.

Expedient here-and-now conservation of force is called 'abiding'.
Abiding, conserving power, allows seeing of abiding; this seeing
leads to a geometric increase in power and thus seeing. At a certain
point in this progression of abiding and seeing more, 'state of
unity' is attained; this state is related more to physics than
spirituality. State of unity allows simultaneous interoperability of
source and product. Another way of saying the same thing, is to state
that unity is the becoming one of the former (assumed) two. The power
of the source is thus manifested through, and as, the product.
Created becomes the vehicle of the creator!

Unity is the wedding of the physical world with the (assumed)
spiritual; what was assumed to be asunder, is shown to have been
non-separate all along. In this experience, substance (form) is shown
to be insubstantial (empty), and emptiness (ignorance) is shown to be
fullness.

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form".

Unity shows a graduated non-progression; this graduation is time
itself. Time separates spaces of knowing; personal history, assumed
to be linear, telescopes to a flat plane of space, which is the
simultaneous realization of all of my ancestors. I am the living
experience of all genes; through my eyes they see the universe which
they love, and through my communications, they alert those who still
sleep, of the delights of waking awareness.

This goad, lovingly applied, is the subliminal trumpet of dawning. It
reverberates against the walls of diversion, eventually cracking and
rending them into the particles from which they were formed. Breath
effortlessly subsumes nourishment.

Stretching up from our roots, we naturally reach toward 'heaven'.
Embracing the emptiness of space, we know it as our fullness. We may
exploit it in any manner we choose. But our choosing is calibrated by
evolution into unity; lessons learned are never forgotten. That is
why the freedom of space is reserved for those who have accepted the
highest power, which is compassion.

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

Gene's post prompted much discussion on the question
of POWER, some of which is included here:


from MARCIA:

Power is interesting. It is possible to become a man of
power and not be a force for the 'good.' In fact, this is
a real trap. A certain level is reached and it can get taken
for (I was going to say ego but it seems more than mere
ego).......

Gurdjieff had the ability to hypnotize people but he put this
outside himself. It is written about how certain powers come
one's way along the path but can end up being a distraction
or much worse. Hitler was no ordinary man.

I can see that as I learn about forces on the 'inner plane' of
existence it becomes possible to learn to manipulate them
but to what end? That is why, I believe, G. concerned himself
with objective conscience.

                                          00oo00

from DAVE:

What becomes more obvious as one progresses, is that the power
has always been there, as we learn to conserve it, we are
directed more towards unity, which shows us how to conserve
further.

It acts somewhat like a tuned filter of extremely high "Q". Outside
the band, all the energy is spent maintaining "the status quo".
The bandwidth of resonance is very narrow, so that the majority
of the "frequency components" are outside the band. If the resonance
is found, consumption begins to drop radically, permitting an
almost autocentering of the frequency in the resonance.

The ease with which "an entity" enters resonance, depends on it's
original frequency characteristics, and how much energy must be
consumed to re-tune its components.

For that reason, it's like you say, the path of least resistance
is compassion.

The highest power, "compassion", becomes, as I think you have said,
"compassion for ones-self" that self being the pool of all. Compassion
for "ones-self" is intent. It is the characteristic of the singularity.
The impulse function: an infinite pulse of zero width, breaks down to
an infinite number of zero amplitude frequency components... in this case
resonating in Love/Compassion.

If "an entity", does not "re-tune" before the plug is pulled, the
"entity's" configuration will consume existing power until it dies
out. The pool learns. If on the other hand, an "entity" manages to
"re-tune", it is free to proceed to "alert those who still
sleep, of the delights of waking awareness."

                                             00oo00

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


MICHAEL offers a poem found at
this website -

http://www.parama.com/i%20am.htm


                             "I Am" neither here nor there,
                                      Neither this nor that.


                                      Make ME your search
                                     And find only yourself
                                            Seeking.


                                      Make ME your prayer
                                   And hear only your voice,
                                             Praying.


                                          ME your goal
                                     And all you achieve is
                                             Aiming.


                                BE as you Are, without desires,
                                        And here "I Am"
                                             BEING


                                     Lose sight of yourself!
                                  Between seeker and sought
                                           Is SEEING.


                                  For an instant be mindless.
                                       Forget ME and you.
                                  The Heart holds the Secret -
                                      NOT TWO, NOT TWO.


                                                                               
Esther Veltheim
                                                                              
August 1999

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
more from GENE:


NDS

Space

Space, invisible, is more than what it contains; everything in space
is in the emptiness of raw awareness. Awareness embraces what is in
it; space, universal, contains everything. Things abide in space;
awareness abides things.

Reflected by divisions between things, space is perceived, but is
invisible. Space is extrapolated rather than known. It is the
invisible, all-embracing nature of space, which reflects our reality;
all things are in awareness, and there is no conflict between things.
No thing is independent of space; no thing is outside of space. All
things dwell in space; all things are available for examination by
awareness.

Awareness-space-knowing is consciousness; allowing particles to abide
in space, we walk the halls of self-awareness, delighting in the
gallery of display. We appreciate the vastness which is awareness.
Knowing our momentum, we respect the conditions which exist, allowing
our existence. Seeing the ever-present abidance of things in space,
we relax into our nature; knowing of the unresolvable paradox, we
abide beside it and in it; It is all in us, and we are in it.

Reasonable, we may command the mechanisms which are display. The
product we desire is wholly our nature. Letting go of acquired
conditions, we are fed. We are the masters of changing conditions;
seeing that we bias manifestation, we accept what occurs, but what is
'really happening' is simply living Being in an environment which is
instantly responsive to the slightest, subtlest quiver of Being. In
this maternal womb, we are nourished by invisible placenta, which is
space.

The depths of our conditioning is revealed by the surrounding nature
of display; we live in a field of intimate and instantaneous
feedback. By wholly embracing what comes, we embrace ourselves.
Abiding the apparent universe, is acceptance of ourselves; nothing
happens outside of these conditions. Breath is unabated, the income
and outgo are a flow of self-determined patterns, an intelligence to
be seen. Discovering that we live in ourselves, we accept the
offered, offering acceptance to ourselves, unknown sacrificial giving.

The power of space is invisible, things are its products. Arising
from emptiness, displaying in fountaining  transient form, returning
to emptiness; all of this is in awareness, invisible source,
unrequested gift, grace. This apparent miracle is the norm of Being.

Embraced by space, we learn to embrace what is invisible and unknown;
this giving of embrace, instantly warms and nourishes. It is an
embrace of ourselves. Space, unconditioned, universal, embraces all.
In our embrace of awareness, we embrace the awareness which knows us;
and that awareness is the space in which we are embraced.

Realizing that we make our own evaluations, we stop making judgements
of ourselves. Forgiving ourselves for desiring, desire becomes
neutral. In this field of neutrality, abiding, we know that what
comes, is what we are delivering to ourselves. Accepting what comes,
is acceptance of ourselves. Space is the field in which all of this
occurs; awareness is this space.

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

from UARELOVE:


At the Spiritual Diary group I am posting

the Teachings of the Sages Russ and Nome.

If you would like to read these Teachings click on:

http://www.onelist.com/group/SpiritualDiary

then look upper left and click subscribe.

The Sages Russ and Nome Realized the Self

(removed the notion of a separate individuality)

by applying the Teachings of Ramana Maharshi.

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

[ This digest has been cut short tonight due to technical
problems.....so this turns out to be a VERY good time
to read from the NDS list archives ....from the web.

Until next time,
Melody.]

being nothing,
nobody
is
exactly
the same as
being something,
somebody

__________________________________________________________________________

Dave (Manchine):

In the last 8 months, I have experienced a wonderful
transition. Let me explain.

My original experience of "I AM" was at age 12. That was
about 10 years or so before I had tried any drugs. It was
basically a very similar sensation to that which I later
experienced with LSD. In both cases, it was a very strong
and challanging experience. The natural "I AM", I could
turn off... I was usually only able to take a few seconds
at a time.

It was an overwhelming experience of incredibility, a
sensation of an impossible reality. That's why I've called
my web page Impossible Reality. (Not a shameless plug). I
had sensed a being that was not consistent with what I knew
to be possible. I couldn't mold "time" or space to allow
this reality to be consistent with what I was really
seeing.

Somewhere along the line, several things happened in the
following order: it was made clear to me that I must tear
down whatever I had to, to get to the answer, I saw a model
that did not include "me", and I understood that the terror
that I felt, should be able to be "tempered" by Love.

I could "call up" my experiences of "I AM" almost at will.
There were several levels of consciousness; regular every
day, heightened and "I AM". Gradually I shifted from being
more in regular to being more in heightened. I began to
call up more regularly "I AM", to come to terms with it,
but in the end, what happened was that "going there too
much" blocked my capacity to call it up, it was just too
de-stablizing. Right about when I was calling up "I AM" a
lot, Oct. 99, is when I arrived at the stage where I
decided I must tear down whatever I had to, to get to the
answer.

Shortly after, I lost the capacity to "call up" I AM, but
my heightened level of consciousness was predominant. There
I saw "the separation" and the real truth of unity! Me and
the car into oblivion.

That lead me to NDS, through some excellent people here.

Recently, in coming to terms with "I AM not", or more
precisely " " AM, and understanding unity and compassion,
it has become exquisitely clear. I was able to call up "" "
AM", and it was powerful but soft, I didn't have to turn it
away. It brings tears to my eyes now, writing about it, but
being it, was sooo calm yet sooo powerful.

And it's just begining!

*****

Gene Poole:

Thanks for this, Dave.

Since you bring up 'personal history', I remember now, my
first conscious experience of what you seem to speak of. I
had the experience of being a 'snowball in hell', or
perhaps like that of a meteor entering the atmosphere of
Urth. I saw that as I went, that nothing would be left of
me. This was the ultimate terror, at about age 5. My
screams brought back my desired environment, and my
startled parents attention.

Interestingly, I remember also, that I 'personalized' the
'opponent', somehow vowing never to have that experience
again. Interesting, that now I am that. Was it me,
contacting myself? It is possible that all children could
be inhabited by their 'future selves', if parents, having
had the same experience, could make way for that to occur?
It took all these years for me to come to what I had
feared, and to see it harmless. Perhaps, my 'invisible
playmates' were also this, though a gentler blessing.
Refinement does seem to lead to compassion; perhaps I have
somehow matured?

Transtemporally,

____________________________________________________________________________

Marcia Paul:

Power is interesting. It is possible to become a man of
power and not be a force for the 'good.' In fact, this is a
real trap. A certain level is reached and it can get taken
for (I was going to say ego but it seems more than mere
ego).......

Gurdjieff had the ability to hypnotize people but he put
this outside himself. It is written about how certain
powers come one's way along the path but can end up being a
distraction or much worse. Hitler was no ordinary man.

I can see that as I learn about forces on the 'inner plane'
of existence it becomes possible to learn to manipulate
them but to what end? That is why, I believe, G. concerned
himself with objective conscience.

*****

Gene Poole:

In his books, (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) Tolkein
outlined the dangers of power. Gollum was totally corrupted
by the ring of power, being reduced to an idiot of the
lowest ranking.

This is not the kind of power I am speaking of in my
postings. I am referring to a power akin more to sunlight,
or cosmic radiation, or 'Zero-Point Energy', rather than
'power over' persons.

I speak of compassion as being the highest power; Hitler
and his sociopathic kin self-immolate, for the very reason
that they 'have no power'. You can read about Hitler's
obsession with power in 'The Spear of Destiny'. His total
lack of compassion (btw, revealed by his sentimentality, as
shown by Eric Fromm in 'The Anatomy of Human
Destructiveness') created an unquenchable hunger for power,
but his understanding of power was based on resentment,
revenge, and control. This may seem paradoxical, but it is
entirely logical. 'Verify'.

I advocate that each see that they are the only one; this
is to see that social context is fictional, and proceeds
from each as the only one. Many only-ones should be seen;
this view removes the temptations which are bred by
resentment and fear.

The issue of "objective conscience" may be resolved by
understanding that Being is unconditional, while existence
is conditional. "Objective conscience", if I am
understanding your term, is concrete as understood through
existence, but not-concrete if understood through Being.
The actual non-concrete nature of 'objective conscience'
was seemingly what Mr G was pointing out, for our benefit.
We have to 'make it real' to realize it; that is why he
objectified it 'for us'.

The steps of harmonic progression are built upon 'nothing'
and return to nothing; any reality noticed in this, is an
emanation of the one doing the energetics, the 'doer'.
Seeing automatic doing is to notice Being; it is at that
point that actual (non-automatic) choice is possible. One
who chooses compassion for self, terminates striving over
others; self and other are seen in the light of the only
one.

___________________________________________________________________________

Larry Biddenger:

(The jiva) is a magical manifestation of Brahman and can do
anything. He can know.

Miguel-Angel Carrasco:

But if the jiva knows, then he is a real subject of
knowledge. If he can do anything, then he is a real agent.
Both attributes would imply that he is an entity, because a
non-entity neither can do anything nor can know anything.
Is the jiva really an entity?

If he were a real entity, then we would have dualism:
Brahman + jiva-entities. But nondualism asserts that
Brahman is the only reality. So there is nothing else. So
jivas are not real entities, so they can neither do
anything nor know anything. They just appear to do so.

In that case, what is the knower and what is the known in
self-knowledge?

_________________________________________________________________________

John Metzger contributes this:

You take the body, the emotions, the mind, and the
subconscious, and you screw up your present reality, which
is perfectly existing right now.

Even your screwing up everything is perfect in its
existence of being screwed up right now. That's the paradox
of the whole thing, and that's why nothing is happening.

Your depression, your illness is perfectly manifesting
right now. Then you say you need to do something. Why do
anything with it? Because it's there? No, it's here. Being
here, it's already being taken care of, but if it's there,
you can never take care of it, so forget it.

Right now is the time to partake of everything.

- John-Roger (From: The Tao of Spirit)

_________________________________________________________________________

A while back Cee's website was mentioned. I've
re-discovered it. An Internet treat:
http://www.presentnonexistence.com --Jerry

______________________________________________________________________________

Where there is Awe, Laughter, or Bliss, there is no
chattering mind. --Kir Li Molari

Laughter can be like unto a holy earthquake, shaking "mind"
and its edifice of conditioning down past their foundations
-- and when it's not quite *that* big a deal, at least it's
aerobic as all get out.... --Bruce Morgen

______________________________________________________________________________

Xan contributes this:

Q: If 'I' also be an illusion, who then casts off the
illusion?

Ramana Maharshi: The 'I' casts off the illusion of 'I' and
yet remains as 'I'. Such is the paradox of
Self-Realization. The realised do not see any contradiction
in it.

___________________________________________________________________________

Rabbi Yossi Markel:

Section 1 - Hisbonenus - Part 2

Kabbalah Series

Hisbonenus

Understanding the Unity of G-d

The realization of the essence of the beauty is the level
of CHACHMA.

But the understanding of the reason for its beauty ,why it
is beautiful is not the essence of the beauty only [the
explanation] which is drawn down from how the essence of
the beauty spreads out.This '' why'' of the beauty becomes
a garment for the essence of the beauty,and is called BINA.

And all this is CHACHMA and BINA - the realm of Sechel- in
the world of ASYA) ACTION.

And through that we will understand these two
levels-CHACHMA and BINA-in the realm of MIDDOS,like a
directive in a thing [do it, don't do it, right-wrong,
yes-no etc.]

Like we see in Vol.Beya of the Talmud (Pg.6-side B) In the
case where Rav Kahana and Rav Ashi differed with Rav [I
think why is an egg more muksa than an calf that is born
from a traif mother. anyway] even though Rav didn't answer
their logical objection he stuck to his opinion in applying
the law.

The reason he didn't answer them was because the
realization of the correct application of the law came to
him in a way of seeing its truth (Chachma) higher than the
level of letters, therefore he couldn't answer them.

Not so Rabba bar Nachmaini who understood Rav's reason with
his power of Bina therefore he was able to give the reason
and explanation for Rav's decision,

And this thing of a reason in a logical thought -
explanation is how the Sechel is dressed into letters of
thought and speech and is called Bina.

Enjoy

Rabbi Yossi Markel

Moshiach@...

MOSHIACH <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5246/>
KABBALAH ON LINE
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5245/>

The material in this series is authored and copyrighted by
Rabbi Yossi Markel

__________________________________________________________________________

I guess I don't care much about gurus and original knots,
or whether some thought is real ofr knot. I just know I
love. It's fine. --Mark Otter

_________________________________________________________________________

I make an expresso with vanilla beans and then I steam
vanilla soy milk. It is wonderful. Nutty and vanilla
flavored.

Marcia

I tried it. YUM. :-)

Melody


__________________________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

" Man's search is basically to be one with
existence.  Separation hurts."

                                       ~Osho


First one works to become one
with family, one with peers, one
with community.

When that fails, one's attention
begins to shift inward, as one
works to become one with self.

Melody
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

when that fails, as it must, then it could be said
that we are at the begining.
..............matthew

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

When one works to become one
and accomplishes that,
is there two or still one?

Michael

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


One has many opportunities to realize

...if one is willing to be deep down honest....

....even well before one has neutralized
their inner conflicts and fears...

that there is, and has always been, only one.

Admitting that is a kick in the ass.

Melody

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


******* Don't be silly. There is no one.  There *is* only. Get it? It's all in
the
wrist. :-)

--
Happy Days,
Judi
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

Ed Aarons:


In thinking about the perceived separation of self and other,
consider how the use of one's name focuses energy into that
perception.

throughout life the sense of separation is conditioned in the
use of one's name by parents, teachers, peers, bosses, etc.,
by disiciplining,  judging, denigrating, praising, applauding,
dominating, spoiling, cajoling, competing, etc.; the effect gets
hidden in the cells of the body ready to spring forth to play
the separate "me" in the duality show.

I am reminded that "Ed" is not the real "me".

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

This all points to concepts and masks of behavior  which  build up
into a personal identity.  This personal identification incorporates
the body along with a set of concepts, belief systems,  rules of
behavior, anxieties, and attitudes, given to us by the people and
culture that surrounds us through our formative years. Concepts of
self identification are reinforced when the people around  us label
us with those characteristics.

Michael
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

David Hodges:

...synchronicity is not a law but an observation, by the great
psychiatrict thinker C.G. Jung. He coined the word synchronicity to
describe the phenomena of seemingly unrelated, coincidental events that are
meaningful. The example he used was that of a patient of his who was
describing a dream in which there was a colorful scarab beetle. Jung heard
a scratching at the window, opened it, and in popped a scarab beetle!

All of us have had these occurrences. They are meaningful in that they
demonstrate ... that all of manifestation is interconnected
absolutely...
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

Michael Johnston sent:


"Your perception of bondage and limitation stops you from living every moment in
your
natural state of absolute peace. This perception exists only as long as the
concepts
of personal will, and the ability to change things persist. As you can never be
absolutely sure what the next moment will bring you are always faced with the
unknown.
By definition the unknown is something you cannot make judgments about. Of
course, you
do – you fear it, you try to avoid it, you worry about it. This keeps you
conscious of
a deep inner knowing - that you really don’t have control. When you have hit the
wall
and ‘lost’ control often enough, it is this knowing that propels you into the
quest
for a spiritual meaning to life and your existence.

Why do you assume that there has to be a meaning or purpose? Without meaning or
purpose you are totally free to savor every moment of your life. You are free of
the
responsibility of fulfilling a purpose. This means, total spontaneous peace!

Your true nature is beyond concepts. Life as you are playing it is just a
monopoly
game of concepts—illusions—faulty perceptions. You know that matter is made of
‘atoms’, which are made of—what? Electrons, protons, quarks? What are they made
of?
There is no ‘thing’ there—nothing. Life is a spontaneous dance, with no dancers
and no
presiding choreographer who dictates the steps. There is no higher Intelligence
behind
all this. It is just Spontaneity, pure and simple. Nothing has been created out
of
no-thing. Therefore no ‘one’ has been born and no ‘one’ dies. The soul is a
concept,
along with all the others you hold, that appeared despite you. They create the
illusion that life has a meaning and purpose.

Your accumulation of concepts is the burden limiting you from experiencing the
non-conceptual, unlimited You. Liberation from that burden lies in the eventual
falling away of all concepts until all that remains is the true Self. The Self
is then
‘realized’ and the absolute is infinitely present – as has always been the case.

What is the meaning of life? I can’t tell you. Neither can I tell you who you
are.
What I can do is write articles like this that tell you who you are not, and
what is
not the meaning of life. I can only point out that any understanding you have of
life
is just a concept—and therefore a faulty perception.

Ultimately, that is the role of the Jnani. He is the dispeller of ignorance.
This
means that he does not try to explain what is, and give wonderful answers that
placate
and inflate the ego.

All I can really do is help to dispel the ignorance of concepts with the process
of
logical deduction. If enough ignorance (concepts) falls away, you will start
having
glimpses of your essential nature - spontaneity. If all the concepts fall away,
You
will Experience that the total Absence of concepts is all there is, and You are
That.
All desires, including the desire to know the meaning of life, will be absent. A
Jnani
knows at the deepest level that there are no absolute answers. At the same time,
he
enjoys the absolute peace of having no questions, no desires, no sense of
limitation
and, therefore, no need for validation."



--John Veltheim

http://www.parama.com/meaning_of_life1.htm

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


Something must surf on the limit of time and eternity, in integration. It's
VITRIOL
this perfume only one may know.

Antoine

http://pages.infinit.net/carrea/tree/osho/zen015.htm
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

James Bean sent:


FROM THE SUKHMANI OF THE ADI GRANTH, THE SIKH SCRIPTURES OF INDIA:
( online via sikhs.org:   http://www.sikhs.org    )


*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*``¥´°*`ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø
*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*``¥´°*`ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø

In the forests, fields and mountains, He is the Supreme Lord God. As He
orders, so do His creatures act. He permeates the winds and the waters. He
is pervading in the four corners and in the ten directions. Without Him,
there is no place at all. By Guru's Grace, O Nanak, peace is obtained. || 2
|| See Him in the Vedas, the Puraanas and the Simritees. In the moon, the
sun and the stars, He is the One. The Bani of God's Word is spoken by
everyone. He Himself is unwavering - He never wavers. With absolute power,
He plays His play. His value cannot be estimated; His virtues are
invaluable. In all light, is His Light. The Lord and Master supports the
weave of the fabric of the universe. By Guru's Grace, doubt is dispelled. O
Nanak, this faith is firmly implanted within. || 3 || In the eye of the
Saint, everything is God. In the heart of the Saint, everything is Dharma.
The Saint hears words of goodness. He is absorbed in the All-pervading Lord.
This is the way of life of one who knows God. True are all the words spoken
by the Holy. Whatever happens, he peacefully accepts. He knows God as the
Doer, the Cause of causes. He dwells inside, and outside as well. O Nanak,
beholding the Blessed Vision of His Darshan, all are fascinated. || 4 || He
Himself is True, and all that He has made is True. The entire creation came
from God. As it pleases Him, He creates the expanse. As it pleases Him, He
becomes the One and Only again. His powers are so numerous, they cannot be
known. As it pleases Him, He merges us into Himself again. Who is near, and
who is far away? He Himself is Himself pervading everywhere. One whom God
causes to know that He is within the heart - O Nanak, He causes that person
to understand Him. || 5 || In all forms, He Himself is pervading. Through
all eyes, He Himself is watching. All the creation is His Body. He Himself
listens to His Own Praise. The One has created the drama of coming and
going. He made Maya subservient to His Will. In the midst of all, He remains
unattached. Whatever is said, He Himself says. By His Will we come, and by
His Will we go. O Nanak, when it pleases Him, then He absorbs us into
Himself. || 6 || If it comes from Him, it cannot be bad. Other than Him, who
can do anything? He Himself is good; His actions are the very best. He
Himself knows His Own Being. He Himself is True, and all that He has
established is True. Through and through, He is blended with His creation.
His state and extent cannot be described. If there were another like Him,
then only he could understand Him. His actions are all approved and
accepted. By Guru's Grace, O Nanak, this is known. || 7 || One who knows
Him, obtains everlasting peace. God blends that one into Himself. He is
wealth and prosperous, and of noble birth. He is Jivan Mukta - liberated
while yet alive; the Lord God abides in his heart.

*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*``¥´°*`ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,
*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø*``¥´°*`ø,¸¸,ø*°`¥´°*ø,¸¸,ø

if we love to be loved
and we love to love

jump in!
wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!
dive deep, straight

to the source
of this       vast

love

deep
deeper

still!

luxuriate and     wallow (my favorite word)

the glory of existence!

you know,
cee
_____________________________________________________________________

" Man's search is basically to be one with existence.
Separation hurts." --Osho

First one works to become one with family, one with peers,
one with community. When that fails, one's attention begins
to shift inward, as one works to become one with self.
--Melody

when that fails, as it must, then it could be said that we
are at the begining. --matthew

This is the divine comedy ... working to be what one
already is. --Xan

When all work and all trying stops,
we are what we are and what we have
always been and will always be...like it not...:)

Some like it hot,
some not...
And so it goes,
and so it is
in the isness
which we call life
when we are living it
instead of disecting it.
--Michael D. Johnson

____________________________________________________________________

The Divine is the love of being. First you must Know the
Divine – the love of Self.

This can only happen when the mind ceases censoring the
heart.

To realize the Divine within your own heart is to See its
reflection everywhere, in everything.

This reflection and the Seeing of it is dependant on the
Eternal principle in which they appear, and

You are That.

--Esther Veltheim (contributed by Michael D. Johnson)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Mark Paul Petrick and David Hodges

Your use of the term "dreary thought that everything is
predetermined" catches my attention. It was just that
thought that I found utterly conceptually liberating when I
first came upon advaita a couple of years ago. I'd been
regularly involved in meditation since the early 1970's,
taught it, lived the cult of self-improvement, growing to
higher states of consciousness, doing all of the prescribed
sadhanas to rid myself of stress, etc. etc. Unity was
something "out there" that could be achieved by "me" as an
individual, the enlightenment prize. But, what kind of
unity, or god, or source, or absolute, or nature is it
really if it isn't truly all-comprehensive and
encompassing, the "all there is, is consciousness". I
prefer my concept of unity to be total, and my notions of
self, me, growth, evolution, pleasure and pain to be
predetermined waves on a single ocean of Being. It's just a
concept. --Mark Paul Petrick

*****

Hi Mark, I utterly concur with you that "all there is, is
consciousness", and that there can be no unity or oneness
outside of this. So the idea of the separate "me" achieving
unity is impossible as if "me" could be outside of unity to
begin with.

No, to me the dreariness in the thought of predetermination
comes from the generational baggage I have from my
Calvinist forbears with their doctrine of predestination.
This brings to MY mind an image of some external sky-God
running a puppet show in which all of we sinners merely are
moved through our paces. I remember being taught in some
Sunday School or Bible Study years ago that God even knows
in advance whether or not we will be "saved".

Contrast this to other models. You describe a single ocean
of being with predetermined waves. I would describe a kind
of cosmic "Zero Point" from which issues in a constant
eternal Now a bubbling froth of continuous creativity. It
is senseless to think that my separate self or ego could
set itself aside from that froth and try to affect its
course. But it is equally senseless to think that there is
a separate masterplan or blueprint in some higher cosmic
awareness that knows what is going to bubble forth in the
froth at any particular time, isn't it? I would much rather
like to think that a liberated being might become some kind
of Heisenbergian surfer of the cosmic froth, skipping from
here to there and from time-point to time-point like a
boogie-boarder, perhaps by a kind of at-one-navigation of
what arises in consciousness as he/she goes along. Call it
predetermination if you will but its within an infinitely
vast menu of choices. But as you say, it's just a concept.

--David Hodges

P.S. Actually, if I read Aurobindo right, rather than a
constant Creativity, the great Process is more like a cycle
of Creation - Sustaining - Destruction, or cycles within
cycles within cycles of that creation - sustaining -
destruction. Perhaps those are the waves you describe in
the ocean of being.

*****

I do like the idea of chaos as it is described by modern
mathematicians, wherein there are phenomena which are
deterministic, but unpredictable. They tend to move near a
"strange attractor", but can never be pinned down in
advance. (free will, pre-destination; does it matter?) But
liking an idea and having an experience are not quite the
same thing. It feels to me that here I am and I am doing
what I am doing. However that works out will be however it
works out. There is no need to break it down further,
because it's fine as it is. As Jim Morrison said,
"Everything is broken up and dances". If the dance is a
whole, that whole is made of bits that interact. Both the
description of things as a whole and the description of the
whole as parts interacting are valid descriptions. Who is
describing? A bit that is dancing the dance of description.
That's fine too. I really don't know what the future will
bring. I really don't care much about the past. If typing
these words is what is happening, then so be it. There may
be bars, or there may not. If the bars are a problem, then
I am free to experience the problem of bars. It IS all
happening at the zoo, whether I believe it or not.

It's like you wrestle with it so hard that it hurts, and
then you admit that you can't get it, and a bubble pops,
and it's all just fine. bursting at the seems...
--Mark Otter

__________________________________________________________________________

Einstein, contribute by Andrew Macnab

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his
creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in
ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an
individual that survives his physical death; let feeble
souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I
am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and
with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure
of the existing world, together with the devoted striving
to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason
that manifests itself in nature." [Albert Einstein,_The
World as I See It_]

_____________________________________________________________________________


David Hodges on Journal Keeping, a new NDS activity:

Hi everyone, I recently got interested in a new online form
of self-expression. It is called "OnLine Journalling". It
is very simple. Using one of several free services, you
write entries to your own personal journal. You can write
as often or as seldom as you want. You can be anonymous via
use of a handle, or you can use your own name. And people
can visit your journal and read, and even leave comments.
It is a different form of self-expression than contributing
to a mailing list like the Salon. It is more personal, and
you don't worry about having to please anyone but yourself.
The site I am using (more on that in a minute) gives you a
little pop-up program so that you can make entries to your
journal whenever you want without having to go through your
web browser (although you can do that too.)

So I was mentioning this to Jerry yesterday and he
(synchronistically) had been thinking about journalling
too. We thought that if a number of Saloners starting
keeping journals, he could put links to them on
www.nonduality.com, and maybe have a daily "NonDual Journal
Entry" link.

We settled on http://www.livejournal.com, although there
are others (DiaryLand at http://www.diaryland.com and
Blogger at http://www.blogger.com are a couple of other
free services).

We have each started a journal which you are welcome to
peruse.

Jerry's: http://www.livejournal.com/users/umbada

Mine: http://www.livejournal.com/users/wandertheearth

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

highlights editor has added these additions: Melody
Anderson, http://www.livejournal.com/users/melody

Andrew Macnab, http://www.livejournal.com/users/rubiolio/

Christiana Duranczyk,
http://www.livejournal.com/users/starseed

Jody, http://www.livejournal.com/users/jodyr

Gloria Lee, http://www.livejournal.com/users/nirvana

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

So if you are interested, go to http://www.livejournal.com
and check it out, and then let me or Jerry or the whole NDS
list know if you start a journal that you want to share.

I am excited about the possibilities of this!

_____________________________________________________________________

I visited your journal and saw this on your page Melody :-)

"Melody Anderson has no friends defined. If you are Melody
Anderson, you can edit your LiveJournal friends so they
show up here."

Couldn't help smiling :-))))

LOVE Dutch

_________________________________________________________________________

"Who loves not wine, woman, and song remains a fool his
whole life long."

Martin Luther (via Andrew Macnab)

__________________________________________________________________________


Notes on the Nature of Vedanta Society

by Jody Radzik, with Greg Goode

Greg Goode:You mentioned going to the Vedanta Society
temple, enjoying the company of seekers more, despite the
socio-cultural differences. What differences are those?

Jody Radzik: Most of the members of the Vedanta Society are
of the mind that one must eliminate desire (as if this is
in "our" power) in order to be blessed with realization. In
fact, many have stated outright that celibacy is absolutely
necessary before realiztion can occur. Many of the
Ramakrishna Math swamis hold the same incorrect view.

They believe this because Ramakrishna constantly preached
of the dangers of "women and gold." What the VS devotees
don't realize is that Ramakrishna directed this teaching to
his younger male devotees and not to the householder
devotees, and that he did this for reasons Vedanta Society
members aren't prepared to deal with.

As a result, most members of the Vedanta Society hold
celibacy and asceticism in high esteem, setting the bar for
their lives much higher than they need to. The only thing
this gets them is pride in their renunciation, and the
expectation that only when they are as they imagine
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were, will they be blessed with
realization. It also gets them a sh*tload of guilt when
they "backslide".

The difference between them and myself is that I've always
lived in and enjoyed the world, and that Mother has made it
exceedingly clear to me that She will bestow realization on
whomever She wants, despite their disposition as ascetic
wannabes.

Unfortunately, no one believes I know what I'm talking
about, except my guru. In the interest of maintaining the
status quo, he doesn't enter the debate, even though he
confirms my assertions as I'm making them.

This isn't to say that I don't get along with them. I do
for the most part. However, I've found myself in raging
debates, the whole bunch of them vs. me. I find this
situation quite enjoyable, but it seems to shatter their
quaint ideas about what the center exists for, and so in
deference to my guru I usually keep a lid on it.

Greg Goode: I used to go to the two centers here in
Manhattan, years ago. One thing I never asked, maybe you
know the answer. With their view of realization, is there
anyone in the organization (swami or householder) for whom
realization occurred? Swami Nikhilananda? Swami
Brahmananda? Also, is your guru there at the Vedanta
center?

Jody Radzik: I just got back from an evening with Swami
Bhaskarananda, who is visiting from the center in Seattle.
During his talk he spoke about a pure mind, and how such
was necessary for realization to occur. Afterwards I
mentioned that such an assertion makes realization
dependent on a condition, which refutes Sankara. I asked
what he meant by pure mind. He used the analogy of states
of matter. Water has forms as a solid, liquid, and gas. He
said the pure mind was like the gaseous form, it could
travel through the glass and become the Self. That didn't
really answer my question.

A little later someone posed the question of self-effort
vs. grace. The swami feel hard on the side of self-effort.
He maintained that it was by self-effort that grace comes.
Otherwise, we would all be realized just by wishing for it.
I decided not to mention that this makes grace dependent on
a condition as well.

I took the opportunity to trot out a metaphor of my own. A
baby comes into the world with awareness of the Self. Let's
imagine this takes the form of red contact lenses, right
out of the womb. The idea is that all our development
happens in the context of awareness of the Self, that is,
we are always seeing through red lenses. Therefore, we
*don't* see the red at all, because it has *always* been a
condition of our seeing.

Now as we develop, these lenses acquire faceting in the
form of learning and experience. When we decide to turn
inward, we apply self-effort in order to remove the
faceting. This would be the swami's pure mind.

Now, we've been totally successful in clearing away all the
faceting. What we're left with is red that we can't see.
Here is where grace comes in. It requires an act of grace
to remove the lenses, and until we see the lenses, we
cannot see the red. Furthermore, grace can occur to the
person whose lenses are still quite faceted, so that
realization can occur in the context of a less than pure
mind.

Swamiji brushed me off by saying that he could not accept
the analogy, as the lenses signified a defect in seeing. I
explained that this wasn't the thrust of my metaphor, but
left it at that.

A while later I asked Swami if he believed nirvakalpa
samadhi to be necessary for realization. He said yes. I
asked if he knew anyone personally who had experienced this
samadhi. He said he thought so, but that they didn't talk
about it. He said some of the senior monks show signs of
it, but that it is inappropriate to speak of it.

He also related that Brahmananda said that spirituality
doesn't even really begin until one has been blessed with
nirvakalpa samadhi.

I've been blessed to have taken initiation from a monk of
the Ramakrishna Order, and I'm quite convinced he's a
bona-fide, yet successfully hidden saint.

However, the implied ideology of the Vedanta Society needs
a lot of work. The concept of pure mind creates too many
expectations about what that would be, and what is required
to achieve it. A better term would be an "innocent" mind,
which is pure in a way, but not necessarily totally
unadulterated. Being the opinioned bastard that I am, I try
to make my critique known to the swamis I meet, all out of
respect and love for the Truth. They aren't used to hearing
critiques from the members, so it's nice to report that
they all handle it very sweetly, which says a lot about
them as people.

So, to get back to the question, the swamis do believe
most, if not all the original disciples of Ramakrishna were
realized, and they believe there are realized members in
their midst, although it is their custom never to speak of
it to anyone.

_______________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

Here Comes the Flood

When the night shows
the signals grow on radios
All the strange things
they come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot even choose a side.

I took the old track
the hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
and as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain was warm and
soaked the
crowd.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

When the flood calls,
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll use up what we used
to be.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again, the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

--Mark Otter
____________________________________________________________________

What could be more ludicrous
Or boring
Than a discussion about the truth?
--Michael Johnson


  1.

  Ram Tzu has some questions for you...
  Just who do you think you are?
  Are you other than God?
  Are you separate from Me?

  If so...
  What are you made of?
  Where did it come from?

  Don't look to science to help you.
  The physicists have all become mystics.
  They're of no more use to you than is Ram Tzu.

  If you're really clever you'll turn around
  And walk away
  Fast!
  Hang around here and you're liable to lose
  Everything you hold dear.

  Go back to your church, your temple,
  Your therapist, your drug dealer, your ashram.
  There you may find a moments peace.
  You found it there once.
  Here is only emptiness for you.
  You'll find no food for your ego here.

  What if your precious sense of self
  Were to shrivel up and die?
  Where would you be then?
  What would happen?

  Best not to risk it.

-- RAM TZU

http://www.advaita.org/

_________________________________________________________________________

Dave (Manchine):

Here in central Chile, there was a 20 year record
rainstorm, closed down everything, practically. Man we
humans don't like to get wet... almost worse than cats.

I was driving to work, (more like rowing, the streets turn
into rivers here) when I looked over and saw a dog picking
away happily at his regular smorgasbord of garbage, as if
nothing was happening.

Man it's a dog's life, no?

*****

Melody:

That reminded me of a scene in the movie 'Instinct' I
talked about last week.

The character played by Anthony Hopkins was sitting in the
forest.... in the midst of a rain storm. He was huddled
under a giant leaf, miserable, trying to stay dry.

He looked up and noticed that the apes were all going about
their day....with no show of resistance ....no show of
aggrevation or discomfort....no hiding from the elements.

So he dropped his leaf, and within moments, he was
celebrating the experience of rain.... arms
outstretched....eyes turned upwards... welcoming every
drop.

Melody


  \   /
    \O/
     |      \    ^ ^
     |      | __/OvO\
    / \     /\  /\U
  _/   \_  /  \/  \

--Dave

________________________________________________________________________

A great place to buy and sell used books: half.com

--Michael Johnson

_________________________________________________________________________

Everything simply *is*. Call it perfect if you want? :-) Go
right ahead, I dare you! :-)

--Judi Rhodes

*****

Found this little ditty by my very dear friend Steven
Lightfoot over in the zen newsgroup....

Someone said: The heart is a lonely hunter.

Steven Lightfoot: An empty heart is a lonely hunter, a full
one overflows and finds others.

--Judi Rhodes

____________________________________________________________________________

Gloria Lee gives in and starts an online journal:

Okay, okay..you talked me into it. For better or worse,
here is my first one. I hadn't quite realized where this
was taking me until I did write it down, so it does take
one deeper simply to start writing about the day.

Gloria

http://www.livejournal.com/users/nirvana/

_____________________________________________________________________________

David Hodges discusses journal keeping. There was a second
letter in this series by David, but it is not included. It
will be posted to a web page along with other material on
the subject.

One of the best - and oldest - workshops available on
journalling teaches Ira Progoff's "Intensive Journal"
method. I went to one of their workshops about 10 years
ago, and I got a lot out of it. But I found the loose leaf
notebook approach, with lots of tabbed sections in it, got
unwieldy, and I lapsed back to my more sequential method
which I had been using since I was in high school. Of
course the Internet then was unknown by the general public
and the thought of doing my journalling online would never
have occurred to me.

There is a website at http://www.intensivejournal.org with
information about Intensive Journalling. And an excellent,
book, "At a Journal Workshop: Writing to Access the Power
of the Unconscious and Evoke Creative Ability" at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0874776384/qid=961027457/sr=1-1/104-39699\
09-5374348
Here is a lengthy quote from Ira Progoff about his method.

The Intensive Journal workbook contains both "log" sections
and "feedback" sections. In the log sections, we record the
factual data of our lives. The feedback sections are used
to carry out the active exercises that generate the energy
and momentum to propel us forward to develop our lives
further. The workbook also is divided into four main parts
or dimensions that each have their own realm of human
experience, content, and characteristic ways of expression.
These are: "Life/ Time," "Dialogue," "Depth," and
"Meaning." Each of these dimensions in turn, is divided
into subsections or "miniprocesses."

In the Life/Time Dimension, we deal with the other level of
experiences, our personal life history. This dimension
includes the major periods or phases (Steppingstones) of
our lives, important choices made (Roads Taken and Not
Taken) and provides a vehicle for reviewing these periods
to gain a perspective on the continuity of our lives.
Through these exercises, we explore in detail new
possibilities and interests that were not developed yet as
a way to broaden our range of opportunities in life.

Working in the Dialogue Dimension, we enter into a dialogue
relationship with each of the major facets of our lives:
personal relationships, work and special projects, body and
health, events and society. By "walking in the shoes" of
the other person or object, individuals deepen their
relationship with that aspect of our lives, avoid blockages
and preconceived notions and gain insights that otherwise
would not be possible. In the course of these dialogues, we
often find that we write things that we do not know that we
knew.

In the Depth Dimension, we explore our symbolic messages in
the form of dreams and imagery. The exercises provide a way
for individuals to bring these elusive images up from their
depths to the surface to be developed further through
various non-analytical techniques. By developing our
sensitivity to these messages, our intuitive capacities are
strengthened that provide new energy and leads for our work
in other dimensions of the workbook.

The fourth dimension, the Meaning Dimension, focuses on the
fundamentals of life: values, priorities, and ultimate
concerns that motivate people. We focus extensively on
connecting to larger than personal aspects of society
whether through symbols or experiences. When people become
connected they are strengthened inside. Individuals also
utilize the dialogue techniques to learn from a person,
whether from the past or present, who can teach us
something about life.

This dimension also includes Entrance Meditation techniques
that are used throughout our Journal work, that provide a
neutral way for entering into our depths to tap into these
symbolic feelings. The Meaning Dimension is helpful to
people because they can only be fulfilled when they have
meaning in life. Meaning also produces a great energy that
can have very positive effects on their lives.

Interviewer: Initially, the amount of sections seems
overwhelming. A person could spend hours on their journal
daily. Is that what typically happens?

Ira: The Intensive Journal workbook is not overwhelming.
Rather, the Method helps individuals get a handle on the
many elusive and challenging aspects of life. Because the
workbook mirrors the contents of our lives, the Method's
structure and organization helps people to write down their
journal entries in a systematic way and to develop them
further.

___________________________________________________________________

"All your efforts to become enlightened are ridiculous if
you don't accept this basic fact, that you are buddhas.
This has to become a tacit understanding, that you are it!
This is the right beginning, otherwise you go astray. This
is the right beginning! Start with this vision, and don't
be worried that this may create some kind of ego--that "I
am a Buddha," because the whole process will make it clear
to you that the ego is the only thing that doesn't
exist--the only thing that doesn't exist! Everything else
is real. Once the buddhahood becomes revealed the 'I'
disappears, just like darkness disappears when you bring a
light in."

~ Osho (contributed by Melody)


________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

JERRY KATZ:


This book looks very good:

Stanley Sobottka wrote:

  My book, A Course in Consciousness, is now on the Web at
  http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness.  It is a serious, noncommercial
  site.  Please consider placing a link to it on your site.  Thank you.

  Stanley Sobottka
  University of Virginia

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

MELODY:

  "All your efforts to become enlightened are ridiculous if you don't accept this
basic
fact, that you are buddhas. This has to become a tacit understanding, that you
are it!
This is the right beginning, otherwise you go astray. This is the right
beginning!
Start with this vision, and don't be worried that this may create some kind of
ego--that "I am a Buddha," because the whole process
will make it clear to you that the ego is the only thing that doesn't exist--the
only
thing that doesn't exist! Everything else is real. Once the buddhahood becomes
revealed the 'I' disappears, just like darkness disappears when you bring a
light in."

                                                              ~ Osho

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


I've been considering this idea about web journaling
and Christiana's hesitation that it may be a practice
in self-indulgence or narcissism.

I can see where, for some, this could be so.

What occurs to me in this context is that we live in
a 'shame-based' culture.  A sense of shame is what
keeps our many masks of 'public identity' in place.

Certainly someone with my background understands
what it is to hide behind a strong sense of shame....
to such an extent that  'shame' became my master...
interwoven with this intense desire to be accepted
by my family and community.

So, for me, this sharing for any and all to see is an
exercise in dropping those shackles of shame....those
shackles of conditionings....and self image,

and letting an authentic, spontaneous Self emerge...unclothed,
undefended, and unashamed.

It is an exercise that sings to me.

What might be helpful for each of us to determine
for ourselves is.....what is the appeal....of this
particular form of expression?

love,
Melody
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

JUDI:

Found this little ditty by my very dear friend Steven Lightfoot
over in the zen newsgroup....

Someone said:
The heart is a lonely hunter.


Steven Lightfoot:
An empty heart is a lonely hunter, a full one overflows and finds
others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


********
Ram Tzu knows this...

You respond to flattery.
You adore being
Told that you are:

Pure Love
Ultimate Goodness
Perfection
God
Everything Wonderful and Worthwhile

You flock to Masters
That reassure you
You're not the debased
Little asshole
You secretly know yourself to be.

Guess what?

The You they are talking about
Isn't you.

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____


DAVE PAWLAK:

The child is waiting,
in the moon's face.
That child that knows,
that watches us watch,
that's been there longer
than we.

Looking at it as we always have
it is me and you the laughing man.
Head to the south and our
knowing look,
it becomes the child
that was born before time.

There it is, see it?
It knows, as do we.
heh heh, our secret.

I AM THAT.

See you tonight!
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

MARK OTTER:

_Poem_by_Saint_John_of_the_Cross_

The Dark Night

In the night that was dark,
Made fiery by the furies of love
- Oh Blessed Moment! -
I left without being noticed,
All the doors of my house were closed for the night.

Secure and in the dark,
On the secret staircase, stealth
- Oh Blessed Moment! -
And darkness protected me,
All the doors of my house closed for the night.

In the delicious night,
In privacy, where no one saw me,
Nor did I see one thing,
I had no light or guide
But the fire that burned inside my chest.

That fire showed me
The way more clearly than the blaze of noon
To where, waiting for me,
Was the One I knew so well,
In that place where no one ever is.

Oh night, sweet guider,
Oh night more marvelous than dawn!
Oh night which joins
The lover and the beloved
So that the lover and beloved change bodies!

In my chest full of flowers,
Flowering wholly and only for Him,
There He remained sleeping;
I cared for Him there,
And the fan of the high cedars cooled Him.

The wind played with
His hair, and that wind from the high
Towers struck me on the neck
With its sober hand;
Sight, taste, touch, hearing stopped.

I stood still, I forgot who I was,
My face leaning against Him,
Everything stopped, abandoned me,
My worldliness was gone, forgotten
Among the white lilies.


Love, Mark
________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

MICHAEL JOHNSTON:


Pieces from "The wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj", by Robert Powell:
[retranslation from German: "Wo Wuensche und Aengste nicht sind ..."]

Spiritual maturity is being ready to let go everything. Giving up is
a first step, but real giving-up is the insight that there's nothing
to be given up, since nothing is your property.

When you know thoughts and their wonderful powers, and liberate them
from what has poisoned them - the idea of an own, separate person -,
you just let them alone, such that they can perform their appropriate
work. Letting the thoughts do their own work at their own place is
freedom.

When you don't require anything from the world and nothing from God,
when you don't desire anything, when you don't strive for anything,
don't expect anything, the divine will enter you, unasked and unex-
pected.

The wish for truth is the best of all wishes, but it's still a wish.
All wishes must be given up, that the truth can enter your life.

When you encounter sorrow and suffering, remain with it and don't
try to escape from it. Don't throw yourself into blind activity.
Neither learning nor acting can really help. Be with the presence
of sorrow and uncover their roots - help with insight is real help.

Understanding confusion means becoming free of it.

The world and the thinking are states of being. The divine is not
a state, it penetrates all states, but is no state of anything else.

Nothing extraordinary can happen to a consciousness knowing exactly
what it wants.

Delayed reaction is wrong reaction. Thinking, feeling and action
must be a unity and happen together with the situation requiring
them.

What is the worth of a hapiness for which you must strive and work?
Real happiness is spontaneous and effortless.

In my view, everything happens by itself, quite spontaneously.
But humans think they would work for a win, towards a purpose.

There's nothing from which the world could profit more than from
giving up profit. A man who's no longer thinking in terms of winning
and loosing is truly non-violent man, since he's above all conflicts.

It's the nature of thinking to differentiate things and specialize
itself. There's no harm to that, but it isn't true when one thinks
of oneself as separate from things. Things and humans are different,
but not separate. Nature is one, reality is one. There are opposites,
but no contradictions.

You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what
you do not need.

There's no state in which one is seeing reality. WHO is seeing WHAT?
You can only BE real. (And that you are always.) The problem exists
only in thinking. Let all false ideas go, that's all. There's no
need for true ideas. (Since there are none.)

Suffering is exclusively the result of attachment or resistance,
it is a sign of lacking readiness to go on, to flow with life.

http://www.flp.cs.tu-berlin.de:1895/related/POWELL-1.txt

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

TIM GERCHMEZ:


Just realize deeply that you are not a body, nor are you a mind, nor any
concepts, whether abstract or concrete.

"The rest" tends to come of its own accord.  Do nothing but understand.

Love,

Tim

________________________________________________________________________________\
_____

XAN:


The Divine Mother revealed to me in the Kali Temple
that it was She who had become everything.
She showed me that everything was full of Consciousness.
The image was Consciousness;
the altar was Consciousness,
the water vessels were Consciousness,
the door sill was Consciousness.
That was why I fed a cat with the food
that was to be offered to the Divine Mother.
I clearly perceived that All this was the Divine Mother
- even the cat.

Ramakrishna

Rare books site:

http://www.chapterandverseindia.com/cvrare.htm


On REALIZATION

Jody:
>I just got back from an evening with Swami
>Bhaskarananda, who is visiting from the center in
>Seattle.  During his talk he spoke about a pure mind,
>and how such was necessary for realization to
>occur. Afterwards I mentioned that such an assertion
>makes realization dependent on a condition, which
>refutes Sankara.

Miguel-Angel:
I don't think that it refutes Sankara. For him,
realization _is_ dependent on the removal of false
beliefs (which he calls ignorance). And we could equate
a pure mind with one without ignorance. Sankara:

Through repeated practice, knowledge purifies the
embodied soul stained by ignorance and then itself
disappears.  (Atmabodha 5)

As the sun appears after the destruction of darkness by
dawn, so Atman appears after the destruction of
ignorance by knowledge.  (Atmabodha 43)

Though Atman is an ever-present reality, yet because of
ignorance it is unrealized. On the destruction of
ignorance, Atman is realized.  (Atmabodha 44)

The question I would have asked is Does the mind get
purified by itself, by experience, by chance, or by
what? In other words, who is it that purifies the mind,
the jiva or Atman?
Another question I would have asked is How is it that
the mind, which according to Sankara is an imaginary
superimposition on the Brahman substratum, yet can have
the power to veil the reality of Atman-Brahman?
~~~
>M. A. [snip] :
>I don't think that it refutes Sankara. For him,
>realization _is_ dependent on the removal of false
>beliefs (which he calls ignorance). And we could equate
>a pure mind with one without ignorance. Sankara:
>
>Through repeated practice, knowledge purifies the
>embodied soul stained by ignorance and then itself
>disappears.  (Atmabodha 5)
~~~~~
jody answers:
The Self certainly does not become pure through the
     practice of six-limbed yoga.  It certainly is not
     purified by the destruction of the mind.  It certainly
     is not made pure by the instructions of the teacher.
     It is Itself the Truth, It is Itself the illumined One.

> The question I would have asked is Does the mind get
> purified by itself, by experience, by chance, or by
> what? In other words, who is it that purifies the mind,
> the jiva or Atman?

I believe he would have replied that the jiva makes the
effort, but Mother does the work.

> Another question I would have asked is How is it that
> the mind, which according to Sankara is an imaginary
> superimposition on the Brahman substratum, yet can have
> the power to veil the reality of Atman-Brahman?
>
> Miguel-Angel

I'd say that it is Maya that veils. The mind is more like
a filter, although the Self is present in all minds without
restraint.

--jody.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan:
D:  Once it is believed that there is "had" an authority
      on reality, there is a belief to be maintained.
      There is also that authority's description of reality
      that is treated as if it were reality.  Without
      taking a description for reality, no authority
      is necessary, and the duality of statement
      about reality (concept), and reality as is (nonconcept),
      can be released.

>As the sun appears after the destruction of darkness by
>dawn, so Atman appears after the destruction of
>ignorance by knowledge.  (Atmabodha 43)
>
>Though Atman is an ever-present reality, yet because of
>ignorance it is unrealized. On the destruction of
>ignorance, Atman is realized.  (Atmabodha 44)
>
>M.A.: The question I would have asked is Does the mind get
>purified by itself, by experience, by chance, or by
>what? In other words, who is it that purifies the mind,
>the jiva or Atman?

D:  Here is an assumption that
      there is something called the mind that needs
      to be purified.  Here is constructed the duality
      of mind and that which purifies mind, and the
      contrary states of ignorance and realization.
      Who is it that will move from ignorance to
      realization?  Who is constructing these dualities
      and then trying to rectify them?
      If awareness is direct, there
      will be an ending of the dualistic assumptions
      that bring continuing perplexity and contradiction.

>M.A.
>Another question I would have asked is How is it that
>the mind, which according to Sankara is an imaginary
>superimposition on the Brahman substratum, yet can have
>the power to veil the reality of Atman-Brahman?

D:  Brahman is simply a word denoting
     what is beyond a word:  unsplit "here, now, this".
     Prior to a thought to get from here to there,
     where is the veil?  Prior to a belief in
     an obstructing entity, where is the obstruction?
     Noticing carefully, the inference of an entity
     who can move from here to there, of an obstruction
     confronting a separable being - that inference
     is the only veil.
________________________________________

on PROJECTING

Michael:

If there is a mind
and if the mind is projecting images on a screen,
where does the mind project from
and to whom does it project to?

Is there one mind or two minds, or many minds
or am I just going out of my mind?

Yeah, yeah, probably, most likely, the latter.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste,
so the TV ad says...who's mind are they referring to?

Be still my mind and know and be and just experience the isness of what is,

~~~~

Whose mind?  Well, the "who" depends on the assumption of a mind, and the
"mind" depends on the assumption of a who.  Since neither one of these
assumptions can stand on its own without the other, neither one is real.

--Greg
______________________________________________

Michael:

>
>How does one get to direct awareness?

D: Without moving from here.

>
>How does one stop the nagging questions?

D:  By realizing there is no place
      for them to occur.  They
      seem to attempt to exist,
      but never can.  They seem
      to refer to something, but
      never do.

>
>Welcome Back,

I never left you ;-)

Blessed be,
Dan

______________________________________________

Melody posts from Osho's "In Search of the Miraculous"


"If I stand on the top of the mountain and see the sea,
I will definitely see the sea, but from a distance.  I
will not have stood at the shore; I will not have touched
or tasted of its waters; I will not have dived into it or
bathed in it.  I have seen the sea from the top of the
mountain.  Would you call this experience partial?

No.  And in spite of the fact that I did not touch
even a drop of the ocean, you cannot call my
experience inauthentic.  I have seen the ocean from
the top of a mountain even though I have not become
one with it.  In the same way you can see the soul
from the topmost peak of your body.

The body too has its peak- its peak experiences.
If you have a very deep experience of the body
you can get a glimpse of the soul in it....."

"......Many times such a man makes the mistake of
thinking that this experience is enough.  This experience
can be had from music, from poetry, from natural
beauty and from other such things.  But all these are
faraway peaks."

"....All the same, it is not unauthentic; it is elementary.
The elementary experience can take place either in
the body or the mind.  And it is not partial; it is complete,
but it is confined to the realm of the mind.  It is not the
soul, because in the experience of the soul there is no
coming back."

"So Vivekananda's experience [of samadhi through
contact with Ramakrishna] was an authentic
experience, but its authenticity is psychic and
not spiritual.  This too, however, is not a small happening;
it does not happen to all.  It requires a very powerful
and matured mind."


Melody:   I finally 'get' it.   :-)

____________________________________________________________

Larry offers:

A new edition of "All Else Is Bondage" by Wei Wu Wei is available at
your local book store, special order, or Amazon. Here's a piece.

Nowhere, where I am an object, am I; nor where any part of "me" is an
object is it part of me or is mine. Only here where I can see nothing
(but the objective universe) am I--and I am only an absence objectively.

When I realize that, I cease also to be an individual "I",
_for_anything_individual_ is thereby an object.

My objective absence is the presence of pure non-objectivity, which is
just that.

My only existence is non objective, as non-objectivity itself.

I cannot be portrayed in any way, drawn, photographed or described. That
which impersonally I am has no qualities or resemblance to an individual
subject-object, which is purely conceptual.

footnote: A "self", an "ego", any kind of separated personality or
being, is an object. That is why nothing of the kind is--as the Diamond
Sutra so repeatedly insists.

My objective self only has a conceptual existence.

Non-objectively I am the apparent universe.

Identifying myself with my conceptual object is what constitutes
bondage. Realizing that my conceptual object only exists in so far as it
and its subject are this phenomenal absence here and now--constitutes
liberation.

I am my phenomenal absence.
-------------------
____________________________________________________________

Tim:


Initially, a deep understanding of that nature would be on the level
of thought... deep enough to affect both the "conscious" and
the "unconscious" levels of thought.

But it seems here that such an understanding can act as a bridge to
something entirely beyond thought.  An understanding of that nature
would encourage thought to "see itself" as futile, and *poof*.

That's what I meant when saying "the rest" comes of its own accord.
No endless loop - simply come to the deep understanding or
realization, and then drop it.

__________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL JOHNSON:


When you get here
it is now there and
you are here and then
it is now there....

And so it goes....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MICHAEL JOHNSON  quotes Byron Katie:


                 "The world doesn't exist and we just come to
                  see that clearly. It's all an illusion. It never did
                  exist. There is no way it can exist-it's all the
                  reflection of a concept attached to inside.
                  There is No One and Nothing. It's literal. Are
                  you ready to live without a world? Is that what
                  you really want? Are you willing to lose the
                  moon?

                  -Byron Katie, Losing the Moon


MARCIA:

I relate to Castanada's bubble. What I normally see as the world
is a reflection back of the inside of my own bubble of perception.
This does not mean that there is not a real world out there. It is just
that I am not real so I cannot see it.

Life is Real Only Then, When "I Am"

(title of the Third Series of All and Everything by Gurdjieff)

Life as I KNEW IT never existed.

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

ANDREW:
Is here where the body is? Is here where awareness is? Is here in the body, is
the
body in here? When the body dies does here die too? Does here appear and
disappear?
When I stub my toe, here seems to be in my toe. I wonder just exactly where here
is.
How big is here? How do I recognize it? So many questions, no answers here.

DUTCH:
Here neither Andrew :-)
And the same goes for 'now'.

GLO:
Fortunately, none of these answers are required, they are merely knowledge.

LARRY:

Maybe the answer isn't where here is but whether here is apparent. If
not, there is just absorption in thinking or some other obnubilation.

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

JERRY offers:

Wei Wu Wei's Open Secret is available through Hong Kong
University Press at
http://www.hkupress.org/asp/bookinfo.asp?PD_NUM=9622090303

His book Posthumous Pieces is available in photocopy form
from
UMI Books on Demand 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann
Arbor, MI 48106-1346 800-521-0600

Where did I get this information from? Stanley Sobottka's
A Course in Consciousness at
http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/


ANDREW:

In the forword he divides it into two courses, one group of chapters with the
physics,
one group without. I've looked through the non-physics chapters, they're very
good,
and pretty strait forward easy going, mostly familiar stuff but well presented.
I
especially like the chapter on inquiry, Chapter 22. The physics chapters are
much
tougher at least to me.

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

MICHAEL offers a website for a discussion of free will:

http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/499s98/jumetsu/jac.htm

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

DAVE:

I was reading the stuff about the Vedanta Center, and had a couple
of thoughts.

First I must start by saying that I don't know most of the terms
like samadhi let alone nirvakalpa samadhi, but I think I followed
what you were saying.

Anyways, in my experience, it appears that there are two basic
"ways". 1) That one prepares to be receptive to grace, so that when it comes
one recognizes its message, or 2) that grace comes and leaves a couple of
big ones, which leads to figuring out what the heck's going on.

Anyways, whichever way, I'm not sure that it really matters. Whatever
happens for each "individual" is the prescribed medicine.

With respect to realization, well, I think that's a hard one. We've seen
here that there is quite a bit of contraversy over what it actually is
and whether there is even anyone here that has attained such a state.
I think that this is because there are various levels of "realization". I
have
come to realize a few fairly major things: That which we see in front of us
is not what it seems to be, there is some incredible reality of being behind
all of this, that the "I" that I thought was me, seems to be separate from
this being and that the reason for that is because "I" am not, and there IS
no separation.

Each of these realizations happened one at a time. At each turn, each one
of them was profound and I felt "realized". Well, I did get to "realize"
each of these things, and they were no "ordinary things" to realize. So
where does "grace" come in and where does "self effort" play?

I had long periods between some of these realizations. I think fortunately
for me, my first experience came (seemingly) involuntarily. I just out of
the blue saw something. What followed was inquirey. Was that inquirey fired
by grace or self effort? I could have just as well dumped what I saw and
forgotten all about it, I think that happens a lot. For me actually, a long
time
passed. Not much self effort. Grace was strong, because the first experience
was strong enough to leave serious doubts. Grace again opened the door to
prod me into inquiring a little. A series of events dropped key material and
information into my lap.

A long time passed, I got into it, I fell out, blah, blah, but advanced
little
by little. Finally I got to where something told me (grace again) that NOW
it was MY turn to make the effort. Finally after way too long, I had to
consciously
and with effort, take up the task of completing the journey.

We keep getting to points, where we think we have the picture clear. We feel
this and we feel that, and there comes a fairly dangerous point, I feel,
where
we feel that there's nothing more to do! Just bask in the glory of
nothingness!
That's where a "pure mind" comes in. To get beyond that point starts
requiring
purity.

So what does "pure mind" mean. Not thinking about sex? Not using bad
language?
How about not being tied up with routine problems? How about any thing that
places your focus in the illusion? The illusion is beautiful, but more for
it's
connection to the source than for it's "beauty".

Lack of purity leaves one open to moving away from the source. A single
crack makes separation visible. Visible separation makes one feel that
it is OK to be separate.

So we can come a long way. I mean "I" am in heaven over my realizations, and
I
have by no means a pure mind. But I'm beginning to see the depths of what
lay
ahead, for want of more purity. That's the other side of the coin. Once
you've
seen to a certain level, can you maintain a stable balance?

Where is your balance? (rhetorical question, not directed at you jody :-)

Can you feel the things that pull you away?

Is thoughtless awareness of the things that pull you away part of your
everyday activity?

I guess it's less important exactly what you do (sex, agression, marriage),
than it is just being aware of what's real, as much as possible.

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

ED ARRONS:

Strolling on St. George St.,
4 levels of awareness are noticed:

1)  when 'individuals' and self are perceived and experienced as
separate.  Conversations occur but the feeling of separateness
persist; there are moments of alienation, moments of horniness,
and moments wanting to rise above it all.

2) when the self and other become a whole; this is Pure Awareness;
there is no inner or outer;  no self; the 'other' appears unreal or
dream-like; the Now seems absolute and unchanging...until it is
suddenly dissolved by some compelling necessity or suppressed
desire.

3) when self and other seem connected by words and thoughts yet
'knowing' that the words and thoughts are ultimately meaningless;
it is all very intellectual;  ideas come and go disguised as non-ideas
or dream-states;  the "I" doesn't really exist;  a persistent voice
keeps saying "nothing really exists" as if to convince itself it is
Pure Awareness. (This sometimes happens when writing to NDS :-))

4) when self and other seem  real and connected by feelings of
resonance; everything seems alive with beauty and joy; mergings
take place and dissolve;  there is a Now that flows from event to
event; there is no beginning, no end, yet somehow it gets lost,
almost imperceptibly, in separation.

These states come and go without choice, though it often seems as
if will activates them.  There is always a compelling motive for
any 'choice'...which is seen upon reflection to be of prior existence.

Which state of awareness will prevail is anybody's guess.


Take a stroll on St. George St. sometime and...
Be kind to yourself .

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

from JAMES BEAN:

A POEM OF SANT KABIR
Translated from Hindi by Vijay Munshi

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

Says Kabir: the clouds of love have gathered
raining over me
my soul soaked within
green woods around.

Says Kabir: do not be proud
seeing your mansion
tomorrow you will lie beneath the earth
tufts of grass over you.

Says Kabir: those who do not love God
know no joy
like a guest in an empty house
they come and depart.

Your God dwells within you
like fragrance in the flower
musk lies within the deer
yet seeks it afar.

Worlds pass away reading scriptures
none the wiser
he who understands the word `Love'
is the wise one.

The Hindu says Ram is supreme
the Muslim, Rahim
both die fighting each other
neither knowing the Truth.

Remembering You ever
egoless, I have merged with You
no more the cycle of births and deaths
wherever the eye goes I see You.

Brimming with devotion to God I am
this world tires me no more
a pitcher once baked, says Kabir
needs no potter's wheel again.

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

WHAT IT IS

JODY, JERRY, more St. George & GENE

Dave:
I don't know most of the terms like samadhi let alone
nirvakalpa samadhi, but I think I followed what
you were saying.

Jody:
Nirvakalpa Samadhi is the state where *all* activity
of the mind ceases.  It is the "deepest" state of
consciousness a living body experiences.  According
to the swamis, very few people come back from it.
That is, for most who get blessed with Nirvakalpa
Samadhi, there is no coming back.  The body drops
off and the person has their Maha-samadhi, which is
the literal death of the body.

D:
Anyways, in my experience, it appears that there
are two basic "ways". 1) That one prepares to be
receptive to grace, so that when it comes one
recognizes its message, or 2) that grace comes and
leaves a couple of big ones, which leads to
figuring out what the heck's going on.

J:
Grace is ongoing in my view.  Whether big ones or
little ones, good ones or bad ones, it is always active
in our lives, imo.

D:
Anyways, whichever way, I'm not sure that it
really matters. Whatever happens for each
"individual" is the prescribed medicine.

J:
Which is part of my case to the swamis.  Realization
happens to each individual in an individual way.
Some may get it after a period of celibacy, others
make no effort to regulate their sex lives, but end
up getting it too.

D:
With respect to realization, well, I think that's
a hard one. We've seen here that there is quite a
bit of contraversy over what it actually is and
whether there is even anyone here that has
attained such a state. I think that this is
because there are various levels of "realization".

J:
Hmmm.  Realization is clearly defined in my view.
Simply, when a jiva (individual life) comes to the
direct, experiential and ongoing revelation that
they are the Self, Sat-chit-ananda, that jiva can be
said to be realized.  While there may be many states
which appear to lead somewhere and many realizations
of wisdom and experience, Self realization is an
entirely difference case, imo.

D:
So where does "grace" come in and where does "self effort" play?

J:
Who knows?  There appears to be a correllation between
self-effort and realization, but it's not absolute.
That is, we can find many examples of spontaneous
Self realization which don't correllate with long
periods of intense sadhana.

D:
I had long periods between some of these
realizations. I think fortunately for me, my first
experience came (seemingly) involuntarily. I just
out of the blue saw something. What followed was
inquirey. Was that inquirey fired by grace or self
effort? I could have just as well dumped what I
saw and forgotten all about it, I think that
happens a lot. For me actually, a long time
passed. Not much self effort. Grace was strong,
because the first experience was strong enough to
leave serious doubts. Grace again opened the door
to prod me into inquiring a little. A series of
events dropped key material and information into
my lap.

J:
Grace is with us each step of the way imo, even
when the going gets really rough.

D:
A long time passed, I got into it, I fell out,
blah, blah, but advanced little by little. Finally
I got to where something told me (grace again)
that NOW it was MY turn to make the effort.
Finally after way too long, I had to consciously
and with effort, take up the task of completing
the journey.

J:
More grace in the form of motivation.

D:
We keep getting to points, where we think we have
the picture clear. We feel this and we feel that,
and there comes a fairly dangerous point, I feel,
where we feel that there's nothing more to do!
Just bask in the glory of nothingness! That's
where a "pure mind" comes in. To get beyond that
point starts requiring purity.

J:
Clarity accures in the mind that exists in the context
of Self realization.  When the individual knows they
are nothing, the mind realizes a whole new platform
from which to develop from.  Realization comes,
enlightenment follows.

D:
So what does "pure mind" mean. Not thinking about
sex? Not using bad language? How about not being
tied up with routine problems? How about any thing
that places your focus in the illusion? The
illusion is beautiful, but more for it's
connection to the source than for it's "beauty".

J:
I believe for the swamis "pure mind" denotes a
quiet mind, a controlled mind.  While such a mind
is truly a blessing to have--and it a worthy goal of
any spiritual practice--it is not a precondition to
realization.  Realization can happen in the context
of minds that aren't perfectly controlled, minds
that contain a "normal" amount of chatter.

D:
Lack of purity leaves one open to moving away from
the source. A single crack makes separation
visible. Visible separation makes one feel that it
is OK to be separate.

J:
We are all the Self right now.  Self realization
doesn't make us any *more* the Self, It just introduces
a direct awareness of Self to the mind.  Claiming that
a pure mind is necessary for one to be realized negates
this fact.  There is no where to go. It is not a journey
from scattered to quiet mind, its a simple uncovering,
like moving leaves aside to find a gem.

D:
So we can come a long way. I mean "I" am in heaven
over my realizations, and I have by no means a
pure mind. But I'm beginning to see the depths of
what lay ahead, for want of more purity. That's
the other side of the coin. Once you've seen to a
certain level, can you maintain a stable balance?

J:
Ramakrishna used to say "Dive deep into the Ocean of
Satchitananda."  It's a matter of making time in one's
life for one's dips.  The more one swims, the longer
one can stay "underwater".

D:
Where is your balance? (rhetorical question, not
directed at you jody :-)

J:
I find it in the woods, sitting in this chair, petting
my cat, at the Vedanta Center.

D:
Can you feel the things that pull you away?

J:
Emotional pain.  It is unavoidable sometimes.  While
we may have recourse to Pure Being, our bodies and minds
still have to go through it.


D:
I guess it's less important exactly what you do
(sex, agression, marriage), than it is just being
aware of what's real, as much as possible.



JERRY:

"being aware of what's real, as much as possible." you say.
Everything's being spun, spiralled, whirlpooled, at once
into and out of the Source. They are Source. Attention can
lie anywhere while it too spirals and whirls and is always
coming out of Source, and it is Source; even as the Sun
throws flares and prominences that are pure Sun.

The sun is pure consciousness. A person is pure
consciousness. Everything is pure consciousness. A rock is
pure consciousness. Here's an inquiry: Pure consciousness?
It can be uttered when walking along Ed Arrons' St. George
Street.


GENE, recapitulating Ed's St George Street of Saturday:

NDS

Excellent!

Ed, you wrote:

Strolling on St. George St.,
4 levels of awareness are noticed:

1)  when 'individuals' and self are perceived and experienced as
separate.  Conversations occur but the feeling of separateness
persist; there are moments of alienation, moments of horniness,
and moments wanting to rise above it all.

G: I would add, that interspersed, are moments of longing for #2, below.

2) when the self and other become a whole; this is Pure Awareness;
there is no inner or outer;  no self; the 'other' appears unreal or
dream-like; the Now seems absolute and unchanging...until it is
suddenly dissolved by some compelling necessity or suppressed
desire.

G: Well-described!

  My experiences on this 'level' show 'self' and 'other' to be 'tonal
  harmonics' of a vast, eternal continuum; each has no choice but to
  participate, conscious or not. If conscious, there is 'empathy beyond
  empathy'.

3) when self and other seem connected by words and thoughts yet
'knowing' that the words and thoughts are ultimately meaningless;
it is all very intellectual;  ideas come and go disguised as non-ideas
or dream-states;  the "I" doesn't really exist;  a persistent voice
keeps saying "nothing really exists" as if to convince itself it is
Pure Awareness. (This sometimes happens when writing to NDS :-))

G: Similar to borrowing your friend's set of keys, to open your own
  door, and then lending yours; this is strange, but in the moment,
  normal. It is 'proof' that "things are not as they seem, nor are they
  otherwise".

4) when self and other seem  real and connected by feelings of
resonance; everything seems alive with beauty and joy; mergings
take place and dissolve;  there is a Now that flows from event to
event; there is no beginning, no end, yet somehow it gets lost,
almost imperceptibly, in separation.

G: A child's reality.

E:
These states come and go without choice, though it often seems as
if will activates them.  There is always a compelling motive for
any 'choice'...which is seen upon reflection to be of prior existence.

Which state of awareness will prevail is anybody's guess.


Take a stroll on St. George St. sometime and...
Be kind to yourself .


G: Once one has consciously been there, one may return.

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

MICHAEL READ:

From the vastness of being
Condensed to the apparent

Easy to see
Hidden from view

Exactly the same everywhere
Completely diverse

Perpetual mystery
Infinite understanding

Dining on joy
Imbibing of misery

This is my play
I never tire of it.


HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Walking in Wonder - Michael


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

MARY and ANDREW

ANDREW:
Here and now is existence, if it isn't here now it doesn't exist.
If it exists it's here now.
Here is where I am.

MARY:
I have this awarenss.

A:
I am everywhere.

M:
I understand this.  I understand intellectually that Mind is
everywhere and nowhere; it is non-local.  And I understand that
wherever  I , as Mary, go, there I am.  What I haven't had, was the "
experience" of being everywhere at the same time, that experience of
being one with all.


MARCIA adds:
It has been my experience that the self that wants the experience
is the self that can never have it. That self, trying to have the
experience, is like "trying to pick up the board you are standing on."

A:
Mary, I think you're more realized than you realize.
Experience is experience, whether it is understood as
universal or not is just a matter of mental habits. Many
traditions regard extraordinary states and experiences
as worthless distractions. There's a Chan story of this
monk who's hiking along one day and he meets this guy,
and they walk along together, having a great time
discussing stuff until they get to a deep river, and the
guy walks across the river on the water and stands on the
other shore saying "come on why don't you" and the monk
looks at him and says "I thought you had some real
understanding but you're just a plain old worker of miracles"
and heads off upstream to find a shallow place to wade
across.

PAPAJI (contributed by xan)

Is it really so simple? Yes.
When you know it then only you will laugh.

Everybody who is making efforts to get it for
millions of years will have a laugh that this is
done through no effort: 'I got it. I was already
all right.'  So one laughs at it.

So only then you say: 'Was it so simple?' Yes,
it is very simple. And it is difficult because it so
simple. What is so simple cannot be understood.
What is so near cannot be seen. As the eye sees
everything, it cannot see itself. Was the difficulty
too much nearness? I cannot see eyes themselves
because they are too near to themselves. And it
doesn't need seeing at all. Therefore, you don't
need to see something.  Only need is to be and
not to see.

Therefore, being is very simple. And you cannot
have it with any kind of effort.  Being is being.

So it is so simple that people who have to go
to mountain caves and for years perform tapas,
they will achieve some powers for many years,
practices, but still they cannot know being. It's
just being here and now this very instant. Who
believes?  He will know it.  He will laugh.
He will call it, 'It's so easy!'

--Papaji


CEE not seeing things:

who sees the moon anyway?

if i am seeing it
i am so much more (and less)
than i think i am.

stop seeing things!
let your vision be non objective
divisions, lines, and circles are imaginary playthings
relax your brilliant attention

let it rest at the source

so vast, so complete
nothing to see!


seeing
kisses
the blessed feet of

BEING



love and kisses,
cee

DAVE:

Until ya' stop listening to the other voices.
It's all so much calmer when you realize that
Source is all "there is".

Anything can happen within THAT... like this screen
in the middle of the entire Universe!!

Like a Universe!

I AM everything. Just don't think about it. Don't
understand it. Close your eyes and BE IT.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I wrote this because at one point I really did start
to have paranoic / schizophrenic feelings. The sensations
of BEING were so strong, they threatened me. They were
forcing me into an uncompromising position.

Now I can see why, but I didn't fully understand then. But
my mind knew that the jig was just about up. Finally it
prevented me from looking at BEING, I AM. Before, I was
always able to "call it up", although it was so powerful
and scary. But I got to the edge. My mind, the ego, knew
that it was not safe for it to let me keep "going there".

Strangely, it was just what I needed. I relaxed. I knew
there was something wonderful about the world, but I just
sat back a bit and let it flow, then out of the blue... poof
I just saw IT.

IT is "something", that contradicts everything that we know.
Like in ACIM, there are separations, but separation never
happened. Like I don't exist, but I AM, or better yet " " AM.

I think where you are is similar to what happened to me. Deep
down your mind (thinks it) knows what could happen if you see
this.

Just know, that it is only the ego that is afraid. When you
see it finally one day, you will see that it is the most perfect
thing there is.

What there is here, now, is all that there is, and it isn't you.

Trust THAT, and just stop looking. Love THAT, and just go about your
everyday life.

BE THAT, and don't do ANYTHING more.

Love Dave


Mary:
If there was only AM,  who was aware of the AM?  Or is it  just a
memory that you as Dave recall for some reason?  Maybe it's not a
memory but an opening in Dave's individuality (split) that happened.
Maybe it had nothing to do with Dave at all.  How is it that Dave
knows this when there was no I , no subject when there was only AM?

I ask because I, too, had an experience (I always discredit it) that
I call Awareness not aware of Itself.  But I couldn't understand how
is it that I, Mary, can recall it.  Very confusing.

D:
Yes, very confusing but awareness not aware of itself IS IT in it's
purest form, just BEING.

Awareness of Self is THAT reflected in the crude vestiges
of our individual selves. That you remember it, happens in the constant
transitions passing in and out.

It seems that much that was said yesterday points to the fact that
it is practically inevitable that we cannot be completely pure here.

I feel as though our separation is a gift, if there can be such, to
Self, of pure Compassion, it's very escence. Love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Woke up this morning, and was playing on the edges.

Some memory flashed back of some stupid thing I had done
when younger, could have got myself killed... the first
instinct was to think "man, how stupid I was.. ugh, throw
that thought out"...

Then a couple of other things flashed by. "Could have got myself
killed... but didn't", and, "that was a bad thought then", now it's
different. For sure I'm not going to step out in front of a bus,
but if I go, that's the scheme. Even where I am now, the mechanism
is so geared to use memories as guides. That "was" a bad memory.
Now it's not. How wonderful, how magnificently glorious.

Ahhh.
Another dreary rainy day,
Isn't it wonderful?

Dave
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I have been sort of toying with the idea of firing up
a get together down here, depending on the type of interest.

I know it's rather far away, but Chile, and Peru have some
interesting possibilities.

I'd have to investigate more, but the visit could be fascinating.
There's everything from beaches, to ancient Aztec ruins. World
class telescopes too! I will be looking into a couple of possibilities
for "shaman" type mountain sessions that I have recently heard about.

There's a transformation center in consciousness here as well,
professional physcologists that dedicate strictly to consciousness.

Chile has a phenominal "outdoors", so I think I would tend to direct
activities around that.

Summer starts in October and goes till end of March.

The trip return cost is probably about $900. Travel when here is cheap
if you go by bus, and the buses are good quality and comfortable.

Daily cost would probably be around $50 for a well equipped beach cabin
that sleeps 6. Food, typical costs, but yum! Hotels when traveling would
be abot the same ($50 or so), but would only sleep two, would cost more
for more people. There are pensions that are cheaper and good quality
if previously pre-selected. One week would be short, two weeks better.

I could take care of all local stuff, I know which food is "safe" and
which isn't, and the ins and outs of local activity.

Well, just testing the waters. If there's interest, I could start seeing
what I can dig up.

My scanner's not working, but maybe I can fire up the scanner at work.
I've got some pictures I could send.

Dave
________________________________________________________________________

MATTHEW:

I was sitting down to a bridge game once and there were
three other people at the table. I said, " who is the fourth"?. They looked at
me
funny so i counted out loud 1-2-3, as i counted them and said " there are only
three".
Someone said, " you are the fourth". Boy did i feel silly...............matthew


MICHAEL JOHNSON:

Being is easy, problem is sometimes I don't
like being...I want something more...something
better...so I project to the future or I fret about the
past...and even doing that is being...just not being
in the now...which creates turmoil between body
and mind...anxiety...pain, yuck.........

Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stop....stopping.

Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MICHAEL:
...Or, just let the voices be...they have nothing to do with me.

MARCIA:
Au contraire. :-)

The voices, the undifferentiated noise, is the fuel, the fire,
the energy, the vibration, THAT continually fuels
your awakening. It is not a matter of waking up and then
that is it. It is not a static state but one continually occurring
in the NOW moment.  Forget yourself for one moment and
you are fast asleep dreaming that you are awake.

Marcia
________________________________________________________________________

XAN:


  Experience is not bound by any step or by no-step,
   by any state or by no-state!
  The mind must be still without carrying any person
   or object.
  Be careful!  Don't let the mind run to concepts
   which will trick and disturb you, so be very
   careful!
  Look to where the mind runs.
  Do this without taking any steps.
  Just watch the mind's activity: where it goes,
   what it wants.
  Be careful, day and night, whether you are
   meditating
   or in the marketplace.

- Papaji

Space is nonbeing.
Nonbeing appears where there is no space.
Formless and inexhaustable.
Being appears in nonbeing.
Emptiness is filled.
Creativity appears in stillness.

--Andrew Macnab

________________________________________________________________________

A LETTER TO JUDI RHODES

Judi, I remember living with you for a few days in Felton
when my kids and I are were moving about trying to find a
safe spot in the John P. group. I think I went up to Mt.
Shasta while I was with you. It was probably the summer of
1978. Anyway,I love you. I read your web site and my mind
opened up and some tiny barely perceptable shift occurred
and now I am sitting, reading, existing, breathing,
shitting, eating, sleeping, talking in what I have always
been. Nothing to lose or gain or MAINTAIN. This past hour
is the first hour of this existence in which it is as plain
as the nose on my face that there is nothing to search for.
Happy day, eternal day. Beyond mood, sensation, desire. I
have always been here. Beyond and most simple awareness.
All the 'spiritual work' is unnecessary. Nothing to lose or
gain. My name is Katie Bell, sometimes I go by Grace.
Gordon was my ex-husband. My children are named Chris and
Omen and Lotus. Do you remember us? What a website!
KatieGrace

______________________________________________________________________________

DAVE (MANCHINE)

Gene, always thrilling to hear from you.

I feel a great deal of empathy with this model, but then my
original background is electronics, though as you know it
is a widely used model in many fields. I particularly
appreciate the wonderful bridge it makes between the
physical and the non-physical.

My most major insights in the realization process for me
came from this model.

I must add, that the model is fading... it too being a
construct of the interactions, but....

You wrote: _3 Our 'physical universe' is composed of
'standing wave patterns' (interference patterns) which are
the product of our continual energetic emanations, as they
are bounced off of the 'form' of samskara. This insight
leads to certain conclusions:

_a The physical universe 'exists' as a product of force and
reflection of force;

_b If the transmission of force halts, the universe
disappears; and/or

_c If the 'samskara' are allowed to dissolve (no
reflection), emanated force moves outward from the center,
in an infinite que.

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

A matter of interest to me has been the source energy. I
originally saw it as actual energy, the common everyday
invisible non-physical motive kind. Infinite of course.

Also, originally, I could not imagine there not being this
source energy.

Since then, I have experienced _a, _b and _c above.

Well, I experienced _b in that I saw that the Universe was
created purely by this interference pattern of energy, not
so much that the transmission source halted. The pattern
has always (in the now) been here, but it is not at all the
Physical Universe that I knew. It is a non-physical
Universe.

And _c is experienced off and on, when possible, which
further amplifies the effect of a non-existant Universe.

With respect to the source energy, I have seen it over the
last while, as an energy of compassion or Love, similar to
that mentioned in our more recent conversations of power or
power dissipation through identity. Actually more like an
escence. IT's escence, IT's only characteristic.

Previously I had not seen this energy as Love energy, and
it was one of the keys for me. Love to me has always been
very physical; not like sex physical, so much as "physical
Universe model" physical.

This subtle change in the energy source has not changed the
model, but changes the nature of the reflections. It's
almost as if they were created intentionally... as I found
myself saying in an earlier post.. "Imagine creating ego
and purposly throwing yourself into it to show its
futility." A genuine "act of compassion" especially at such
a level.

The reflections present a SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) of 1:1
when perfectly balanced. The reflections exactly equal the
source, the creation reflects in entirety the perfect
Compassion that was transmitted. Infinite expenditure,
infinite reflection, zero loss.

This perfect balance refelcts an infinite variety of
harmonics of zero amplitude.... yep, that's us folks. Zero
amplitude, but brightly illuminated by the light of the
Source.

So if I resist, identifying and claiming a stake in this
marvel as an individual apart, I cause a discontinuity
absorb energy and heat and create a reflection.

If I resonate, I absorb very little energy, cause little
reflection, yet empathize with the source, become one with
it.

An interesting aspect is an "answer to the question", "what
happens if everybody resonates?" and there is no
relfection. There's a transform function (Laplace) that
convers time based phenomena to frequency based phenomena.
There's a theoretical element called the impulse funtion.
It is represented by the number "1". It is an infinite
pulse of zero duration.

What is "IS" baby. This is ALL now. Resonate or reflect. Do
with the energy as you will. Either way it's perfect.

__________________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

More on 'tonal harmonics':

In physics, it is said that 'given a perturbable medium'
(such as water) and a 'periodic perturbation to that
medium', that an observer will note 'standing waves'.
Imagine this as tossing pebbles into a pond on a regular
basis, say every 20 seconds. If the pebbles are about the
same size, and are tossed into the center of the pond, one
at at time, an interesting thing is observed.

We can note that as a pebble hits the water, it produces
outgoing waves. As the next pebble is tossed, the outgoing
waves it produces, collide with the returning waves
produced by the first pebble.

If this process is continued, 'interference patterns' are
seen to be predictably displayed on the surface of the
pond. This is of course, if the pond is small, so that the
energy of the outgoing waves bounces from the boundaries of
the pond, to return to the center.

A 'standing wave' is possible only if there is continued
input of energy into the system in question; a standing
wave is what is seen in 'cross section' of the pond, above.
Imagine two kids holding the ends of a long jump-rope, each
'waving' the rope. A nice 'sine' wave can be produced this
way, and it will maintain, as long as the kids move the
rope. If they stop putting energy into the rope, it just
droops and falls to the ground. In short, without
energy-input, there is no wave-pattern. A standing wave,
stands only when energized.

The issue of 'tonal harmonics' is a vast one, which I will
not try to cover in a single posting. Here are some
highlights:

_1 In an infinitely large 'pond', there is no (shore)
boundary to send the force back to the center, if there was
a center to infinity. Any energy expended in this vast
infinite 'pond' simply goes outward forever, in a que of
waves.

_2 In this vast infinite pond, our energetic emanations
find reflection, not on a far shore, but against our own
limitations. It is this force of reflected emission which
we know as 'Karma'; our 'limitations' are known as
'Samskara'. By this process of sending and resending and
resending, always sending back the resendings (reflected
from samskara), our 'physical universe' is formed. Our
universe is a vast pattern of resonance and dissonance, or
'tonal harmonics'.

(Please note Etemoids: send, sent, resending, resentment;
samskara="resentment")

_3 Our 'physical universe' is composed of 'standing wave
patterns' (interference patterns) which are the product of
our continual energetic emanations, as they are bounced off
of the 'form' of samskara. This insight leads to certain
conclusions:

_a The physical universe 'exists' as a product of force and
reflection of force;

_b If the transmission of force halts, the universe
disappears; and/or

_c If the 'samskara' are allowed to dissolve (no
reflection), emanated force moves outward from the center,
in an infinite que.

In either case above, the 'physical universe' no longer
exists. In (b), force is halted, but samskara remain;
subjectively, this is a 'state of Being' in which there is
'no reaction'. This is what I call 'abiding'. In this
abiding, samskara (the personalized forms which we desire
and/or avoid) are clearly seen for what they are; in this
way is Karma visualized. In this state, there is nothing
but 'alive stuff', and it is 'all you'. People who have
this experience, have been known to say, 'I have created my
universe'.

In (c) above, with no reflection, emanated force fills the
entire of infinity. In this 'version', if there is a moment
of self-reflection (IE, identification), the whole process
of reflection begins again. This is akin to the 'big bang'
event, or as I prefer to call it, the "Play It Again, Sam"
syndrome of self-creation via self-interruption.

(One might ask of the above, "why does samskara reflect?"
Samskara reflects, because we have 'stabilized' it into a
virtual solid, by the (unconscious) act of repression.
"What we resist, persists".)

In our shared reality, it is possible to learn to take
advantage of the above 'inevitable events', much in the
same way that a surfer rides waves. It is the deliberate
study of this and the practical exploitation of this, that
is called 'Yoga'.

For more information on this kind of thing, please read:

"The Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects" by
Alexandra David-Neel (City Lights Books, SF, Ca)

Now, pass me that electron-wrench...

____________________________________________________________________________

ED ARRONS

Last night, or rather about 4:30 AM this morning, "I"
awakened with the awareness that an "other", in female
form, had become an integral part of "me". "She" and "I"
were simply loving each other as "myself". This act of
loving felt *whole* and extremely peaceful.

The "Observer-self" noted, that though this event was
previously considered inconceivable, all 'that talk' about
"we are all really one" now seemed astonishingly real.

Loving the Self

*****

MARCIA PAUL

I could say I know what you mean and it would be true.

There is a doorway or an opening which is direct. I
experienced this with my father after he died. I communed
with him and we reconciled.

I guess my only caveat is that I wouldn't say it was
"myself." And I feel it as all being connected and not all
one. This could be semantics. And peaceful was not the
response I experienced although I feel that depends on the
circumstances.

There is a place that we can look from and through our eyes
which is the same place. We can find each other there and
all is whole and connected. It all breathes together.

I have found a way to heal. I am not "good" at it yet. It
has to do with holding. Holding things together and in
place. The doorway is inward and direct. It does not matter
what is happening "out there." This place is strong and
firm and very kind but it is not emotional as I normally
experience emotions.

______________________________________________________________________________

TIM HARRIS (from the I AM list)

Image is false.

Sound is absolute.

Sound is void of image.

Image needs sound.

The experience of 'here/now' is 'mind'.

No-mind does not move 'forward'.

Mind does not move 'back'.

Time does not exist between these points.

OM.

Each unit of 'time' (day, week, month, year, moment,
whatever) are proportionate and thus no distinction can be
made.

Existence works from 'beginning' to 'end'... it 'is' this
easy.

Thus, what you 'are' (a single sound of 'all' sounds
altered by experience/perception/judgement) exists as the
'being element' of an absolute understanding 'here/now'
which is eternally 'divisible', as is mind, to the edge of
'first cause/effect' but 'can not' be made larger than the
whole of the/this experience.

To see 'beyond' is to 'know no-mind'(all mind or the
merging into the Buddha-mind or God-self as mind) yet can
not be 'grasped' as 'it's (other) knowing' for, 'becoming'
does not exist in this moment.

Relax.

There is no where to 'go'. Only in silence 'within' can one
see the 'first' manifestation of this single moment.

At the first 'awakened realization'... 'panic' then 'rest'.

Thus, what you and others 'think' you are (a projected
image of judgement/perception leveraged against the silence
of 'being' defined by its label and agreed on as it's
definition) does not exist.

Do not move on this image.

This is your image.

Silence is your sound.

Light does not exist but for a string of frequencies giving
form. No-form is 'still' light.

Sound is a string of connected cause/effect events that
change the projected image (or end point) in the becoming
of the I AM.

Image is a destination that moves (changes) with each
'turn' thus to focus on this end is to never know and be
lost in the 'spin' of the cycles of life, death, and
re-birth.

To know one's own sound, is to understand that at this
moment, here/now, one is at the pinicle of 'all' experience
and thus 'perfect to this point' yet striving at 'becoming
excellence' which, as we know, does not exist. :o)

Stop.

See.

Be.

Adjust.

Become.

Stop.

Again.

...LOL... I think.

I do not.

Is 'plain to see' there?

Regards,

Jesus Christ

*****

SHANKAR (from I AM list)

Dear Tim

This is wonderful! Thanks!

But, I think mind does move back, which is Self-Enquiry.
And, even the primeval sound source of creation, Aum,
arises after the rise of the 'body-consciousness'.
Therefore, even sound is not absolute.

All exist in the Self alone. Self alone is absolute.

Kind regards.

________________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

WHAT TO DO...

When you know what you are not, you will only be what you
are. You are what you are already, but thick clouds of
ideas and concepts confuse and confound us. The most
pervasive concept is "I am a body." Surprisingly, this is
also the easiest concept to drop.

To know what you are not, no meditation is required or
recommended. No mantras are necessary to be chanted. No
particular diet is important. All these things will only
add to the cloud of concepts, making it ever thicker.

Once a day, when going to bed at night, drop all concepts.
Drop the past, the present and the future. Drop the idea
that you are a body, drop ALL ideas. Let everything
perceivable and conceivable fall away immediately upon
turning out the light. This becomes habitual after a while,
and upon lying down to sleep everything falls away by
itself. No effort is required. Surrender is automatic and
absolutely effortless when there is nothing to counteract
it.

When "I am the body" is no more, there will come times
where you will be unable to locate yourself in space,
especially when the body's eyes are closed. You will not
really know where you are. This is normal, because you are
truly everywhere and nowhere. Let that sense of being
located somewhere fall away, and do not fear the sensation
of being nowhere in particular. When those times begin to
appear, "I am the body" is no more.

Along with the body-identity goes identity with the mind,
as the two are a unit. There will be difficulty in placing
a "me" anywhere, because there is nowhere for the "me"
concept to rest but on the body. When the mistaken and
fallacious notion "I am a body" is gone, the "me" goes
along with it. There may be the illusion that this takes
some time; let that alone and go along with whatever comes
to pass, fearlessly.

The concept of time is intimately connected with thought.
In fact, time is thought, and thought is time. When thought
becomes still, the perception of time immediately ceases.
There is no way to quiet thought by will, since willpower
is itself thought. Simply realize this. If thoughts occur,
they will occur... it is certainly not "you" generating
this! Let the forces that govern these things act as they
will; it is under the control of nobody.

The Hindu idea of the three gunas is remarkably similar to
the Western scientific view of protons, neutrons and
electrons, which (in the form of atoms) make up
*everything*. Everything is a play of three forces.
Electrons may be viewed as "rajas," the motive force,
protons as "tamas" (the obscuring force), and neutrons as
"sattva" (the spiritual force).

Since everything that occurs is simply a play of these
forces, there is no room for a "me" or any other concepts,
is there? The forces interact and produce matter and
energy, and that is all there is -- matter and energy.

Thought is a combination of electrons (the motive force)
and chemical interaction (these chemicals are all made up
of protons, neutrons and electrons). The body is also made
up of protons, neutrons and electrons, as is everything
else. There is no central controller, no "me" involved. See
this clearly. The forces will interact precisely as they
will, and all else is illusion.

Do not take these words too literally; they are pointers
and no more. They are not subject to argumentation. If they
are not useful, drop them now and delete this posting.

You may immediately begin once per day, upon retiring to
bed, to drop everything. At first it may seem like it takes
some effort to do this. Let it become habitual, and very
rapidly it will be seen that you were fighting against this
surrender, and then it will be seen that the "you" fighting
the surrender is no more than yet another concept among all
others, and then that the surrender itself is also a
concept. Let things occur as they will and stop moving away
from what occurs naturally.

_____________________________________________________________________

JERRY

Is the sun consciousness? At one time in the 70's I was
into my own brand of sun worship. I would stare into the
sun at its height for two or three seconds at a time.
Probably not a smart thing to do. I saw the sun as
consciousness and meditated upon it. I carried this on for
several years. It seemed to be a purifying act. A healing
act. Any image could be visualized and then transplanted
onto the sun for 'healing'.

Anyone else ever get into the metaphysics of the sun?

*****

MANCHINE

We know that the further away a star, the older the image.
Looking out there, I couldn't get my mind around the fact
that in an expanding universe then, all the things on the
perimeter of our vision would be the oldest, yet closer to
the center, presuming a big bang of course. Yet "I" was
closer to "now" than anything else I saw.... farther from
the center.... yet in the center.

It left me perplexed. How could I not have "understood"
then? Space has the answer, if we were not so stubbornly
blind.

Perhaps that's the purpose. Imagine, creating ego and
throwing yourself into it, just to show it's futility.

My goodness, what more is there in store?

*****

ED ARRONS

I have seen how "I am", "we are", "all is" an outgrowth of
the sun's energy. In a sense, we are the sun.

The sun seems like a good metaphor of Pure Awareness
Manifesting as ALL, making us an aspect of Itself.

*****

SUSAN CARLSON

I have found the Sun has it's own consciousness just like
the earth does, although we call her Gaia.

As Nuit declared in the first section of the (Egyptian)
Book of the Law: "Every man and every women is a star."

For further reading: http://www.sangraal.com/bardorion.htm

Here you will find an introduction and explanation of how
great souls become stars from the ancient Egyptian view
point.

Some day Jerry, you must come and jump into the Sun with
me.

Love, Susan

____________________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

SUSAN CARLSON

Hello fellow sun worshipper,

About 8 years ago I participated in a Sun Meditation in
Sedona Arizona. It is done in just the last 10 minutes or
so before sunset.

Gaze into the sun with soft focus, letting yourself fall
into the light.

After the sun set I turned and looked over the desert
canyon landscape. I was rewarded with seeing wave like
rainbow curtains of the Aurora Borealis radiating from the
floors of the canyon. I was totally mystified and stunned
to see so much beauty moving gracefully across the ground
reaching up into the skies.

I had seen such displays in the Hudson Bay area of Canada
at night but never southwest america.

The Aurora Borealis is the result of Sun's radiation
hitting the magnetosphere of our planet. Only in intense
solar flares are we able to see it that far south and only
at night in the northren sky and usually just a lime green
color. This was the full rainbow spectrum in twilight along
the ground!

Sigh...such beauty among us.

Much love, Susan

'Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a
thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth' ***Rumi

_________________________________________________________________________

GARY FALK

Jerry's question (on whether the sun is consciousness)
reminds me of the famous Zen story of the two monks arguing
beneath a flag pole as to which was moving, the flag or the
wind. A third monk comes along and says, "Neither the flag
nor the wind is moving. It's your mind that's moving." As
Nisargadatta (and countless others) have said: "All there
is is Consciousness." It's just the mind that's moving (or
conscious). There are no objects as such.

__________________________________________________________________________

KKT QUOTES RAMESH BALSEKAR FOR GARY

GARY: Amazing. When I first read Ramesh, I had the distinct
impression that he had been highly influenced by Wei Wu Wei
by the way he (Ramesh) wrote and the phraseology he used.
And yet he never mentions Wei Wu Wei in any of his
writings. No big deal, of course, but I have always
wondered why Ramesh never acknowledged Wei Wu Wei's obvious
influence.

KKT: In "Consciousness Speaks", p.308:

RB: [...] Aside from Lao Tzu, another person who interested
me in my early reading a great deal was Wei Wu Wei . He's
abstruse, not easily understood. In one of his prefaces he
says he's deliberately trying to be abstruse, that anyone
who needs a deeper explanation is not ready for the book.
Someone presented me with a copy of one of his books in
1965. I went through it cursorily and I knew then that it
was a real treasure, but I couldn't appreciate it at the
time . So again, like the astrological reading, I just kept
it aside .

When I started going to Maharaj, I suddenly remembered the
book and it was astonishing. Maharaj would give talks in
the morning. What I would read in the book in the evening,
next morning Maharaj would talk about. It was fantastic!
Wei Wu Wei was not Chinese, you know. He was an Irish
aristocrat, a millionaire . He had a chateau in the south
of France . He was an authority on wines, a huge man, six
foot three inches, and very heavy .

Q: Was Wei Wu Wei fully realized?

RB: I don't really know.

________________________________________________________________________

MIGUEL-ANGEL ADDRESSES DAN

If the contrary states of ignorance and realization are a
dualistic assumption, then why is it that Sankara, the
father of Advaita, makes constant use of them? Does this
mean that Sankara was a cripto-dualist?

Dan, could you please answer the question you place: "Who
is constructing these dualities and then trying to rectify
them?"

If there is no duality ignorance/realization, then how is
it that it is assumed to exist? Isn't this very assumption
a case of ignorance? And isn't your post (and the statement
that there is no duality) a case of knowledge? If your
position is correct, and a different one isn't, don't we
have a case of duality knowledge/ignorance? If such a
distinction did not exist, then why did you take the
trouble of answering my previous post?

______________________________________________________________________________

TIM HARRIS, WITH SHANKAR, FROM THE I AM LIST

SHANKAR: I think mind does move back, which is
Self-Enquiry. And, even the primeval sound source of
creation, Aum, arises after the rise of the
'body-consciousness'. Therefore, even sound is not
absolute.

All exist in the Self alone. Self alone is absolute.

*****

TIM: If it 'looks' like 'bait'... it is. Thus, I gladly
step into this trap Shiva.

I humbly 'disagree'.

'Absolute' means 'void of change' or 'incapable of change'.
It is 'easier' to 'change' one's 'self' than it is to
'change the world'.

Thus, the 'self is changable' and is 'not absolute' and the
only conspiracy is that of 'man against man' in terms of
'insulating the truth' from the people by using 'fear and
anger' to fuel the fire and 'banning the works' of those
the 'choose' to serve man rather than the 'man-made God'.

Thus, if the self is not absolute neither then is the world
and the 'system or process' or whatever it is you call it
is as flawed as the mind that created it. Destruction,
oppression, and slavery are not the road to forging a true
tomorrow.

A 'true God', by any definition, 'serves his people' and
rebukes 'his followers' which are motivated only by
learning the 'how' of his truth then modifying it to their
own 'self-indulgent' ends. These will 'not' be forgotten.

There are no more chances here. What is, is and 'this
world' and its 'man-made' PROCESS is eternally flawed.

Take the change or be on your way beggar. I offer 'food for
your bowl' as you say you are hungry. Why then do you throw
it back at me and ask for money?

I am not here for the pathetic souls of those that 'wait'
for the change that can only come from within. I am not
here for those that distort the truth and oppress those
that place their trust in them.

I am here to re-kindle the 'spirit' of Jesus Christ and
those that come with him. By your own 'works and words'
will you be judged, as I was judged, by a higher authority
than man.

Amen.

____________________________________________________________________

ED ARRONS AND XAN

ED: Last night, or rather about 4:30 AM this morning, "I"
awakened with the awareness that an "other", in female
form, had become an integral part of "me". "She" and "I"
were simply loving each other as "myself". This act of
loving felt *whole* and extremely peaceful.

The "Observer-self" noted, that though this event was
previously considered inconceivable, all 'that talk' about
"we are all really one" now seemed astonishingly real.

Loving the Self

XAN: This happened to me the other day. I was hanging out
with my son's cats while he is traveling. One of them is a
sweet young thing who is quite affectionate. I was lounging
on the sofa so that he could lounge on my body, and, dozing
off I felt his tap on my chest to bring me back. A little
petting for him and then I began to read a story ...
another tap. I looked at him, into his clear blue eyes, and
saw there what he wanted. Open hearted we swam in love as
love.

_______________________________________________________________________

LARRY BIDDINGER

Jerry asked: What else in nature is it impossible to stare
at?

I find it almost impossible to look someone else, friend or
stranger, in the eye without an undesirable interactive
responsiveness arising. On rare occasions, eyes meet and
it's like mirror to mirror without any kind of signal being
sent. Is nondual eye contact like looking in a mirror? or
maybe like being a mirror. What's the view?

Larry

____________________________________________________________________________

MORE LARRY

Has anyone read "Zen Driving"? What's the gist? When I
drive, my body drives and my mind talks to itself, or else
I drive like I want to be somewhere in front of myself; and
there have been occasions when I drive like I want to
escape from myself. I imagine zen driving is driving as the
noone poised in the dot of now, which is really nothing,
but potentially everything. What is nondual driving,
gridlock? I think Ramana mentioned something about
sleepwalking once. Is it sleepdriving? Does the journey
just arise spontaneously? What about the other guy; does he
exist? Is there no possibility of a destination?

___________________________________________________________________________

JUDI AND GLO

Summertime and the livin' is easy, fish are jumpin' and the
cotton is high...

Happy Days, Judi

*****

One of these mornin's you're gonna rise up singin' Then
you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky --Glo

*****

So beautiful, and sure enough! Like Peter Pan - I gotta
crow! --Judi

___________________________________________________________________________
We are the Nonduality Generation.
http://www.nonduality.com

MARK

Hi KKT,

Does it really matter?  If you do what you do, and it doesn't work for
you, can you identify ways in which it is your "doing" that the
"not-working" happened?  For me this is a pretty useful question.  I
find ways in which it is my "doing" that makes it "not-work" all the
time, and it appears that with gentle practice I can work on this.
Seeing the mechanism by which I prevent my acceptance of and delight
with things as they are helps me to relax a bit and take it less
seriously, less personally.  That seems so often to be at the heart of
the constriction that I feel I subconsciously maintain (I can relax it
when I notice it, so it is my doing...)  That constriction clearly stops
my complete enjoyment of THIS.  The capital lettes are to bring your
attention to this, not to suggest that this is special...  It is, but
only in that it isn't.

I'll bet this is getting silly sounding.  Let me try again.  I do try to
relax and just feel a sense of continuity between the edges of my body
and the rest of things.  This often seems to soften the boundary and
when it does, I tend to grin and feel really good.  I can do this, when
I remember.  That feels like free will to me.  Recently,  I am seeing
that that viewing that as free will itself is one of the ways in which
"not-working" is my doing.  When the feeling is there and I am
delighting in the very nature of things, thinking about it and getting
pleased that I "have it again" pushes it away.  Thinking in the
periphery only pushes it a little, but tends to lead to thinking about
other things and then sometime later, I once again notice the
opportunity to relax and feel it again (often days later, mind you...)
Getting on that train of thought with no attention to where I am going
is a doing, which makes the not working happen.  Does this make sense?
If it does, then I think you will see the paradox.  There is free will
in choosing to end the illusion that I have anything to say about how
things are.  Choosing to let go of that control seems all by itself to
make some wonderful presence happen, which is just fine the way it is,
and I hope that the silly game of wanting free will goes soon so that I
can just be that presence.  But, the choosing and the hoping also
reinforces the idea that I choose things, and that there is something to
hope for, and those both take me away from the experience.   So I guess
for me it doesn't matter if there is free will.  (But I use my free will
to maintain this stance, which causes me to remain asleep.)  whew!  I
hope this helps in some way.  It may help most if you just let it
confuse you and let go of the need for anything to make sense.  It's
like a water slide.  Does the water slide have to make sense before it
can be fun?  Why should life be any different?

__________________________________________________________

DAVE

For me, the paradox of free will within destiny is
a living example of the harmony and intent of "BEING".

Destiny IS this moment, which indeed is nothing more nor
nothing less than pure compassion.

We are free to see it as we will.
We are not free to possess it.

_______________________________________________________

DAVE and DAN

>Dave:
>They are aware how in dreams, once it is noticed that there
>is an "inconsistency" that we immediatly manufacture a
>"solution".

D:  A fascinating observation.  To "solve" inconsistency,
     I must have a belief that "I" exist in a stable,
     predictable, and consistent way.  Otherwise, how could
     "I" construct a consistent "solution"?  If this belief
     in a consistent existence turns out to be "self-serving"
     rather than real, my own observations and conclusions
     are subject to, indeed essentially *are*, the same
     fluctuating inconsistency observed "out there".
     If I remove the bias in favor of my consistent
     self-existence, I see that "I" bring order to nothing,
     I am nothing other than inconsistency
     given a temporary and fluctating form.

>Dave:
>The charm of the paradox is infinite.
>To understand, that the ultimate consistency rests in
>nothing, one must come to terms with the fact that there
>are an infinite number of inconsistencies in things.

D:  Yes, thank you, this rings quite true.
     Inconsistency is infinite.  The inconsistencies
     noted in "things" show "things" for what they
     are:  fabrications that hide infinity.
     Our bias in favor of structure and predictability
      (arising simply from the survival program of
      the body-mind) can be dropped as we open
      to the truly awesome beauty and paradox
      of this 'nothing'.  This 'nothing' really is full
      of surprises...

>Dave:
>As you said to Carlos, it really is fortunate that the
>laughter is non-hostile :-)

D:  And as I say to you, my laughter this morning
     is my enjoyment of the rich "seeing" you have
     shared here.

Shalom,
Dan
_______________________________________________________

     Jerry asked:  What else in nature is it impossible to stare at?
> -------------
> I find it almost impossible to look someone else, friend or stranger, in
> the eye without an undesirable interactive responsiveness arising. On
> rare occasions, eyes meet and it's like mirror to mirror without any
> kind of signal being sent. Is nondual eye contact like looking in a
> mirror? or maybe like being a mirror. What's the view?
>
> Larry

I know what you're saying. Why is that? I think it's because
one person is not willing to be open. Nondual eye contact is
like looking into one's own eyes in the mirror. If a person
can't look him- or herself in the eye without a motive, how
can it be done with another?

Jerry
~~~~~
The eyes are a gift.  They are a finely tuned, exquisitely
   sensitive extension of the brain to the surface of
   the body.  The eyes are capable of sending a very subtle
   energy.  When there is eye-to-eye contact in which
   clear energy is simultaneously given and received,
   an attunement of awareness is possible.  This attunement
   allows for the nonverbal transmission of the "present
   state of awareness".  The results can be significant.

Dan
~~~~~~

Isn't this a fascinating exercise?  I can find almost no one willing to
try it for more than a second or two, but a few times, here and there, I
have had the opportunity to gaze directly into the eyes of a friend or
lover for an extended period. Wow!  First the intimacy of even trying is
sooooo amazing and the eyes get so big and clear.  Then, I find that the
face I'm looking into gets indistinct, often moving as though melting,
my peripheral vision gets filled with fog, and I am dissolving into the
space between us.  This seems mutual to me and I have been assured by
the person who did this with me that it was.  But then I seem to hit a
wall.  I've done this only twice for any length of time.  The first
time, we broke the gaze and each of us reported that we saw the other
feel fear and draw back, but we both insisted it was the other.  The
second time (6 months later, perhaps?) I seemed to again go to the fog
state, and then oscillate back and forth until we mutually broke it off
and wandered off with silly grins.   Fun!  I hope to do it again soon.

Love, Mark
___________________________________________________________

JAN K.

Love

Love is what we are
But what does that mean?
Let's take a look at what's happening right now, at this moment

Whatever is there, appears in this wholeness
whatever is there, it can't be denied, it can't be accepted.
Because accepting requires someone who accepts,
and denial requires someone who denies.

And that 'someone' simply is not real
but comes and goes.
And that 'someone' appears too,
in what you are: Love.

_______________________________________________________

Lalla was way more than just a nice poet, she was considered to be a
fully realized saint. The fullest story of her life that I found is here. ~~Glo

http://jammu-kashmir.org/KOA/Saints/LalDed/article2.html

___________________________________________________________

XAN

Everyone does this in different ways.
Knowing that conscious decisions
and personal memory
are much too small a place to live,
every human being streams at night
into the loving nowhere, or during the day,
in some absorbing work.


-- Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks,
________________________________________________

NDS

Carlos... you wrote (and I thank you for dropping in!) much, I
respond to this part now:

>>==Gene Poole==
>>
>>Survivor, crash of Karnak

      >Perhaps this remains to be seen -- Gene.


      >Carlos Dwa

>Survivor of surviving



"Remains to be seen; Film at eleven"

Carlos Dwa: Enigma, or mystery?

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********************************************************************************\
*****
***********

CARLOS DWA:

As a former invertebrate gamboller myself
(oh those Elysian ejaculae days)
I can attest to this and would add that
I personally would never trust a guru
who was more interested in my awakening than
in getting into my pants.  And I mean that
from the bottom of my chakras.  I leave it
to you to discriminate one thing from another
-- as for me I say, "If it feels good -- eat it.
Or at least buy the cassette course."

C Dwa
Outer Fishboink, Republic of Datahaven

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

MARK:

and the orgasm ripples out and settles down and now I understand that
the sounds of birds and cars are not separate from the silence they are
within the silence.  no number of hearing these words will make this
clear. only the experience will.  it's quite nice

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

DAVE:
I am here in front of this screen. And if I raise
my eyes, I can see that the only place that
we are is here. Although clouded by the poor and
limited sense of our past.

Enlightenment is a personal quest. It is for those
of you there.

You find us here, and look up and you know now it is for
THAT.

May your enlightenment be for THAT.

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

HARSHA quotes from the Avadhuta Gita:

"Know the Self always to be everywhere, one and unintercepted.
    I am the meditator and the highest object of meditation.
    Why do you divide the Indivisible?"

                      00oo00

  "Some seek nonduality, others duality.
    They do not know the Truth, which is the same at all times and
everywhere,
    which is devoid of both duality and nonduality."

                       00oo00

"The Self certainly does not become pure through the practice
    of six-limbed yoga.
    It certainly is not purified by the destruction of the mind.
    It certainly is not made pure by the instructions of the teacher.
    It is Itself the Truth.
    It is Itself the illumined One"

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

DAN:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
   in the forests of the night...

Reach out your hand while
  I watch you catch time,
  or be lit on fire.

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

DAN:

What is remembered will never give What is present.
Another's words are another's words.
A rented tuxedo may look fine to some -
   but to me, nothing is better than
   your own birthday suit.
Naked we are born, and reborn we are twice-naked.

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

JUDI:

I got our net buddy Wayne Liquorman's
new book today called "Acceptance of What Is, A Book
About Nothing". And in it he tells the story of his
crash and his subsequent Understanding. His story is
very similar to mine as it came upon quite suddenly
with a broken love affair acting as the catalyst throwing
us intensely to our depths, burning alive and rising
out thru the ashes.

Questioner: (to Wayne)
Ramesh was asked in one of his books if he had received
complete Grace. Not in that language, but basically
he was asked "Are you enlightened?"  And for the purposes
of who or what asked the question he said "Yes".  I
would ask you the same question.  Your body-mind mechanism,
has it received that Grace?

Wayne:  There is Understanding here.

Q: Well, I have understanding here.

W: That's not the Understanding I'm talking about.
:-)

Q: That's what I'm asking.

W: And that is what I'm answering. That is my story
and I'm sticking to it. :-)

Q: Where was this body-mind mechanism when this even
or whatever happened?

W:  When the 'nonevent' happened? :-)

Q:  just curious, just curious.

W:  Well, here's the story...:-)  I was in love with
two women, and when I returned from India after seeing
Ramesh...this was in 1989...both women came to me in
the same week and each told me she loved me very much
but she was clearing the field for the other.  And
when the second one came to tell me that, I was enormously
saddened.

Q:  There was some cause...?

W: No, this is the story. Pay close attention.  You
may have to do this. :-)  So, when she came and tole
me that she was going to have to leave me, even though
she loved me very much, I started to feel a real heaviness,
a profound sadness come up in me.  And I started to
cry.  And this sadness started to grow.  And it kept
growing. I found myself starting to cry harder, and
this deep, deep sadness kept coming over me, like waves
were crashing on me.  And finally I found myself falling.
  It literally felt like I was falling into a pit, a
horrible dark abyss of pain.  And my body was racked
with sobs.  And it had ceased to have anything to do
with anything finite.  I was just free falling into
this pit of immense suffering...and it was growing
blacker, and more painful and more horrendous by the
second.  I felt that I was falling into this pit of
suffering that was all of the suffering that has ever
existed.  And then there was a letting go, a dissolution,
a sense of merging, if you will, with this suffering.
  And there was the certainty that nothing could hurt
me, because there was no 'me' to hurt...there was no
separation any more.  And the experience ebbed, and
I stopped crying, and I thought, somebody's going to
ask me about this, I better write this down. :-) And
yet, part of that knowing is exactly what I've been
saying all along...'literally nothing happened'.  This
Understanding was there all along.  What fell away
was an illusory veil, not something substantial.  There
was nothing that was changed at all.  All was exactly
as it always had been and ever would be.  It was all
perfect.  It all just Was.

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

CARLOS

(c) Carlos Dwa 2000:

Honey bees are able to communicate the location of food by means of a dance
known as the mapping dance.  After a bee locates food and returns to the
hive he will dance in almost total darkness in the hive for other bees that
are virtually blind (bees having a visual acuity of about 6000/20), after
which the others will unfailingly make a bee line to the new food.

It is also interesting to note that the mapping dances are done in dialect
and most likely change over time.  A bee from Europe will react to the
mapping dance of a bee from China but it will not be able to find the food
because the Chinese bee encodes information in their dance differently.

This explains a lot, especially metaphorically, regarding the pursuit of
awakening by means of conceptual mappings derived from exotic places or
times.  For the stuff of Consciousness is not informational or conceptual.
It is not derived by means of rearrangement of neural connections or
information.  Though it is true that when this physical transformation
occurs, when this enhanced processing of an enriched foodstuff begins, it
will inevitably result in the generation of new information and in the
augmentation of new neural connections but these are the products of this
process, and it could almost he said "the waste products".

It is understandable that people believe that the activities and insights
that precede the realization of this other order of functioning leads to it,
that "this is the way" or "that is the way", that "there are many ways but
one goal" or that "there is only one way."  While in fact there are no ways,
and nothing leads to it -- quite simply because nothing is outside of it.
All practices and techniques and methods of meditation or spirituality or
prayer is all just busy work to keep one properly oriented until the
physical reality of this enhanced functioning becomes apparent.


What separates bees from men is the fact that bees can tell when they
haven't found food.  This is not necessarily true for men, especially
regarding food of a higher nature.  Men are entirely capable of believing
that they have found food when they haven't.  In fact men can believe that
the mapping dance itself is the food.

Humans are strange creatures.
Their greatest strength is also
their greatest weakness.


Sig Wacca Jix, On Things Human

as recapitulated by Carlos Dwa
(c) Carlos Dwa 2000

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

MANUEL quotes
RAMESH S. BALSEKAR


"Silence doesn't mean not talking.  Silence is silence of the mind.  Silence
is absence of questions, absence of thinking, true meditation."

   ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

"When the inquiring mind, intellectually creating problems, gradually comes
to the understanding that the more problems it creates the more veils it
creates between the Self and the understanding, then there is silence."

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

CARLOS DWA
(c) Carlos Dwa 2000:


    Seeing it all before
    keeps you from seeing.

    If you've seen it all before
    you don't see anything.

    What you don't know
    is more important
    than what you do know.

    What you don't know
    is the greater part of
    what you know.

    What you don't know
    that you know
    is known
    by the greater you

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

More from CARLOS:

Once a most sincere, which is to say totally deluded,
seeker of enlightenment approached his master and said,
"We have been beating around the bush for decades now.
What you please just this once just come right out and tell me,
what is the nature of human consciousness?"

Now the master had the previous evening, through no fault of his own,
been up late drinking and dancing and fucking far too much for a man of his
age and above and beyond all this had eaten too much pizza with various
toppings that are only put on top of pizza in regions which really have no
understanding of pizza.  Because of all this, or perhaps not, he turned to
the no longer young aspirant and said,

"It's like water with a 9 on it
and it longs for the future."

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

IS IT A COP OUT?
---------------

KKT:
With Bannanje Govindacharya and
Andrew Cohen


AC:  In the West at this time, there's literally an explosion of
interest in Advaita philosophy, mainly due to the influence of
Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, H.W.L. Poonja
and Ramesh Balsekar.  And there are also now a number of
Western teachers propagating the advaita or nondual teachings.
In Advaita, what is emphasized is the unreality of the world--
the unreality of manifest existence . And in that, what's being
stressed by many teachers is also the unreality of the ego .
Therefore, it is said that the sadhaka need not make any effort
to struggle against the negative ego in their pursuit of inner
freedom because the very object that they're trying to free
themselves from--the ego--is merely an illusion.  The teaching
goes:  Simply realize that the ego never existed and then live
happily in the knowledge of one's own inherent freedom.

Now my view on this is that it's only the rarest of rare realized
persons who could get away with saying such a thing--that the
ego is an illusion--and that therefore one need not make any
effort to liberate onself from its corrupting influence . Indeed, only
the rarest of rare individuals, someone like Ramana Maharshi or
Ajja, could say something that absolute, that outrageous, and
it actually be true . Why ? Because those rarest of rare beings
are already finished--their ego has been utterly destroyed, burnt
in the fire of spiritual experience until there was nothing left.  But
to encourage a seeker who is very, very far away from that kind of
extraordinary attainment to presume that their ego is an illusion
appears to be a dubious form of instruction.  In fact, it could be
dangerous in some cases because it opens the door for self-deception
and/or self-indulgence . The seeker could easily, under the guise
of enlightened understanding, abandon all effort to censor or control
impure motivations or tendencies that actually do exist within them.
In other words, "Well, the ego doesn't exist; everything is unreal,
so nothing really matters anyway ."

BG:  Just to deny ego is of no consequence at all.  If somebody
merely says that they have no ego, THAT is ego--that is the
greatest ego . "I don't have ego so I need not reject it" is a foolish
statement.  Somebody who says, "I don't have ego," is at the
same time EXPRESSING his ego . This is against our experience .
It's just escapism through philosophy . These people say the ego
is false and not existent and that therefore they don't have to reject
it.  But what is existent then?  Does that mean everything is
nonexistent?  Then why practice?  Practice is nonexistent!  If the
whole thing is false, if it doesn't exist, and if only the real essence
exists, then why practice?  A REALIZED person can say that
they don't have ego because it is a self-ASSESSMENT; it is not
self-assertion.  THEY can say it.  But not ALL people can say
it.  It is not a common, general statement.

You see, the problem is that in Advaita there is no acknowledgment
of individuality . Advaita says that all is only one ATMAN [Self].
But Advaita is just a certain sect in India; it's not the whole of Indian
philosophy . In fact, Shankara, who lived in the seventh century, was
the only major Indian philosopher who preached Advaita . Later
philosophers--Ramanuja, Bhaskara, Nimbarka, Madhva--everybody
condemns Shankara . Nobody accepts him.  But nowadays, Advaita
has become a fashion.

Any comment?

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

HARSHA:

Dearest and most wonderful brother KKT,

Your posts always bring a smile as you seem to have such breadth in
everything. Advaita, Krishnamurti, U.G., Ramesh, Osho, in fact, anyone who
can be named.

Dear KKT, your reflections are profound as they often address the immediate
questions of creating a bridge between "what to do?" and "how to be?" in the
spiritual context. Perhaps such a bridge is made of tears only from the life
struggles, but I love the spirit of your company and the attitude of honest
inquiry. Of course, Advaita is just one school of thought. It does not
matter
if it is in fashion today. Fashions indeed come and go and following any
fashion can exact a price.

How can we be concerned with fashions without having an investment in it.
People such as BG are concerned that some aspirants are "falsely" denying
the
ego while the "TRULY REALIZED" "authentically" denied the ego as it had been
destroyed in them. BG may be a wise person and that concern might be very
genuine. But after all, it is BG's concern and not ours. It is for BG to
work
out his concerns and un-entangle himself from his involvement about fashions
and non fashions, etc., if such exist in him.

My beautiful friend, all the wise sayings and fashions and non fashions and
opinions and views of great people, and poetry and commentaries of subtle
and
profound nature are left behind and fall away into nothingness.

Now and then, once in a while, in some life, we hear the words of a friend,
"You are the light, the Truth, and the Way, and you will come to your Self
through your Self."  That friend is the Guru and only a reflection of the
Self. Those words work in a flash when the time is ripe and then dissolve
into the Self.

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

DAN:

Ego/not an ego
Illusion/real
Me/not me
Expert/not an expert

Who is constructing
  these dichotomies?

For every side that can
  be taken, there is
  an opposing side.
Every opinion is met
  my another opinion.

Peace/No Peace,
Dan/not Dan

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

Andrew Cohen always seems to hit the nail on the
head...........matthew

...

And once Harsha and Dan have spoken, I may as well
go back and lay in the hammock. :)
~~Glo

...

Can I join you there, Glo?
I want to hear about Lalla...

Love,
Dan

...

GLO adds:

Sure, Dan, anything for you. So glad you are back, have
some lemonade and listen to Lalla.

Siva is with a fine net spread out
He permeath the mortal coils
If thou whilst living canst not see
Him, how canst thou when dead
Take out Self from Self after pondering over it


I saw and found I am in everything
I saw God effulgent in everything.
After hearing and pausing see Siva
The House is His alone; Who am I, Lalla.


Siva pervades every place and thing;
Do not differentiate between Hindu and Musalman.
you art intelligent recognise thine own self;
That is the true acquaintance with God.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ooOOoo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


DAN, MARK, JUDI Everyday Stuff:


DAN:

Mark, you're right.
The birds and the car
   are heard within the silence.
And where are you while you're
   listening?

MARK:

Sorry Dan,

I don't hear any birds or cars.  The stereo (TransEuro Express by
Kraftwerk) is here, oh what's this?... cars...Metal on Metal...
(transition)
I'm in the toolbox, awaiting the next need for me.
Breakfast is swimming nicely inside. Coffee sitting next to the computer.
This is a new album to me, and I like this song.  My body is relaxed, a
little warm.  There is a clarity flowing through.  Through what? no need
to answer this one, it's just flowing nicely through...  Yours is a useful
question without a useful answer.  the question can remind me of the habit
of continuity and help me let go.  The ego thoughts continue to rise, the
only
difference is that I disagree with them now.  Looking, I also see that
the silence is there, not forced or willed. That's VERY nice.  So I am
here within the silence just as the birds and cars are. Yum.  Shabda
yoga on the stereo now.  Have a lovely day Dan.


D:
Hi, Mark.

Now, what the heck is an "ego thought"
  and why is it worth disagreeing with it?

I'm not having a day, the day is having
  me.  I hope I'm tasty.

As we're here in Silence, let
  me just say this about that:
  hmmmmmmmmmmm.....


JUDI:
One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.
> >
> >Many nations pretending to be one, dominated by fundamentalist
> zealots,
> >seriously fractured along racial, gender and class lines, with
> liberty and
> >justice only for the rich.
> >
> >Love, Sarlo
>

DAN:
Amen, brother.
But at least
   we can reassure each
   other that it's
   all "under God"
   right?


MARK:
So is this some puritanical insistence on the missionary position?

JUDI:
************
hehheh

Like Wayne says, seeking is like having sex with a
600lb gorilla. You're not done till he is!  :-)

...

All of this is nonsense!

...

YES!!!!  Come on in! the nonsense is fine...

Love, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ooOOoo~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

JUDY / DAN, tale of WAYNE
(continuation from yesterday's story of Wayne's crash )

This is a rich tale.
    If one listens closely,
    he never actually says
    the body-mind mechanism
    received Grace.

****** Yeah, that's what he says! :-)


First, when asked if "your body-mind
    mechanism received Grace,"
    he says, "there is
    Understanding here"
    (and just where is that,
    Wayne? ;-)

****hehe

The questioner seems distracted
    by the idea that Wayne has
    a body-mind mechanism that
    received something, and
    the questioner has one, too,
    and thus he or she says
    "I have understanding here, too" ...
    and Wayne's response indicates
    it's not about that kind
    of understanding, that the
    body-mind mechanism thinks
    it has here.

***** Yes, exactly. It's 'understanding' of a different
ilk.


If the questioner had listened
    carefully, he or she would have
    noted there was no body-mind
    mechanism affirmed or negated
    in Wayne's original answer,
    and wouldn't have gone on to
    the next question.  A more useful
    question would have been "where
    is 'here'?", but it's far more
    comfortable to sit back and
    listen to a recounting of
    "where the body-mind was
    when 'this event' happened".
    But no event happened to a body-mind,
    and Wayne *says* it's a "non-event".
    The questioner is too comfortable
    to really get this,
    and it's very comfortable to be "just
    curious, just curious," yet
    Wayne's story isn't about being curious,
    it's about really "burning" desperately,
    it's *urgent*, and there's no way out...

******* Exactly. When there are no alternatives and
you see that you are simply suffering and nothing but.
That sort of gets your attention. :-) It did me. :-)


And maybe that's why Wayne said,
     "pay close attention, you may
     have to do this, too"... like,
     okay, you may think you can
     get comfortable and listen
     to my story, but it's not
     really about comfort, and it's
     not about getting someone's
     story.

****** Yes again. It's a walk that must be made alone.
Which is the story and culmination of your own life.
And it's not something that one would choose if you
had a choice. :-)



So the questioner persisted, because
    it's really important to know these
    details about where was the body-mind
    mechanism, because then maybe I'll get
    a clue how mine can "get it", too,
    someday, right?  Something to
    shoot for... Wayne does go
    on to say that there was nothing that
    was gotten, but is the questioner
    in a place to really hear that?

******* I didn't hear the questioner say "oh shit",
so I'm assuming not. :-)



And when asked again where was
    the body-mind mechanism,
    Wayne says, "here's the story."
    So he tells a story.
    And, of course, he has his story,
    which is to say, he knows how
    to describe himself as "Wayne,"
    the body-mind with a location
    in time and space, going
    through events.  But, if
    it was heard that this is
    a "nonevent", then it would
    be known that this story
    about events isn't the "nonevent".

****** Yes, exactly. That's because it's a 'nonevent'.
:-)


So the body-mind, fictional, structures
    a fictional response, compassionately,
    for the sake of another fictional
    being taking itself as "really real".
    But there's nothing to get that will
    affirm the questioner's existence the way
    that is being sought.  It's reassuring
    to walk away from this thinking, "he's
    got his story and I've got mine," but
    the fact is he doesn't and I don't either.
    It doesn't matter that he's a good story-teller,
    he still doesn't get to have his story.
    This is a story about the loss of his
    story.

****** Yes. And it was such a nice story too. :-)


It's a matter of readiness.
    My story won't make you ready.
    But maybe in listening, if you're
    really listening, you'll learn
    that your own demise is inevitable,
    and when you're ready to hear that,
    you can see who you really are.

******** Yes. It's not about gaining, it's about losing.
And not really even that. It's much worse. :-)



Once someone asks "where was the body-mind
    mechanism?" a story is sought, and one
    is constructed in response,
    and then that someone can add that to
    that someone's story,
    "I was with Wayne, and Wayne told me
    this story about his enlightenment..."

    And without these stories,
    there'd be nothing to do,
    nothing to have, nothing
    to get...

***** Makes for good conversation at dinner parties.
:-)


He says, "pay close attention,
    you may have to do this,"
    and whom is being invited
    to do this, and what is to be
    gained by close attention to
    this story?  There is literally
    nothing to be gained, at
    least, that's how I hear it:

    "You can't avoid this, because
    the you believed to be here
    isn't what's here"...

    And then he uses a story-teller's trick,
    "give me your full attention" ...

******** right here baby! :-)


    it's the art of story-telling.
    Mesmerized we are, by our
    need to have things described
    so we can believe, so we can
    describe to ourselves what
    happened, what is going on,
    so we can believe there's
    somewhere we can go
    with this.

One might say, "you've given
    your attention too well to
    words and ideas. You've hypnotized
    yourself into a false sense of
    control and comfort.  Forget
    paying attention, forget
    these words, forget what
    you think you know about this."

This is what the
    body-mind mechanism
    is - a story construction,
    always inventing a past
    and future, keeping
    itself at the center
    of the story...
    a story of its survival
    and enhancement...
    a story
    of itself as a thing
    with a past and future.
    The story of "me," "my
    people," "my country,"
    "all the things I've been through,"
    "my happy future".

It just functions according
    to its program.  It receives
    Grace when it realizes
    it's nothing special, it's
    just another story-constructing
    mechanism...
    It's when it breaks apart, when
    it can't hold its story,
    can't hold itself in place,
    that Grace *is* (if
    there's "readiness").

Its Grace that receives
    Grace without any movement,
    without anything given.
    So, yes, it's a "nonevent".

    And he's right, there's
    no "me" to be gotten
    rid of.
    There's so much talk about getting
    rid of this "me" that isn't ...
    as if someone could do that ;-)

******* It's sort of like roaches scurring in the dark
and when you shine a light on them, they disappear.
It's in the realization, in the 'seeing', the understanding
of what that 'me' really is. Just an activity.


Hey, you can steal my parking
     space or I can fight you for
     taking my lunch money ...
     that still doesn't give
     either of us a "me" ...
     Just lots of storm and fury
     signifying nothing.
     And that's all it ever
     signifies... ;-)

I'd tell you my story
     about how everything fell
     apart (and it did),
     and how it all came back, but
     didn't either ...
     And that would be
     another story, it would
     be "mine", wouldn't
     it?

******** You'll have to tell me sometime.


So, really - there's only "This"...
    it didn't come from anyplace
    and it's got nowhere to go...
    Like Steve Martin once said,
    "What the heck is that?"

And there's always only
    one story - it's about
    birth, death, and rebirth.
    Who dies and who's reborn? -
    well, according to Bullwinkle,
    it isn't Boris nor Natasha.

    Hey Wayne and Judi --
    thanks for sharing,
    now it's time to step
    back in the fire ;-)


Submitted by MATTHEW:

Andrew Cohen from "Halfway up the Mountain, Premature claims to
enlightenment" by Mariana Caplan.

Many mistakenly feel relieved from the burden of responsibility for
their own behavior because of erroneous conclusions drawn from their
spiritual experiences of no-separation. Realizing that "everything is
the Self", they concluded that therefore there was nothing and nobody
to be responsible for. In this way of thinking, responsibility
implies duality, and any notion of responsiblity is therefore seen to
be an expression of ignorance. In this view almost any mode of
conduct becomes acceptable- when one proponent was asked why he
habitually acted rudely and with dishonesty, he said "oh that is not
real, that's just my personality."
  Another student said, "Nothing matters because it is all the Self".
Others have answered with incredulity when asked about responsibility
for behavior, "How can there be responsibility for Freedom? Who's
responsible?".....Many people do have profound experiences when
exposed to such teachings, but the teachings usually have the effect
of enslaving a person to a deluded view that they ae completely free
simply because they had a glimpse of the fact that there never could
have been a separate entity who could be bound in the first place. It
is at this point that the Advaita view, as it is frequently
proclaimed these days, becomes completely ridiculous. Such a view can
make  a person extremely confident, because any difficulty can
be "Advaited" by saying that it is all unreal or all the Self anyway.


DUTCH:
I think this is usually called the 'Advaita Shuffle'. Timothy Schoorel
speaks of
in-responsable versus ir-responsable in his book, if I recall correct. My
teacher
Alexander Smit had a nice term for this: "spiritual autism".


DAVE:
One thing that comes up for me is, "how can we draw the line?".

We are on this journey. We're on the path, then we're off, then on again.
Along the way we arrive at so many points that are either satisfactory,
or seem like "home". Each individual takes a different journey.

So where are we in this journey? Perhaps I have come to some fabulous
realization that helps me feel O.K. Why shouldn't I stop there? Perhaps
I am better off than when I first started. I can stop now. Am I "me"
focused? If I am "me" focused, my "high" isn't going to last long. I
am too separate. This separation IS the cause of grief. If there is
grief, it is because I am "me" focused. If there's no grief because
I've wiped out compassion, that is "me" focus.

"If" one becomes truly Self realized, and looses the "me" focus, a
different urgency is seen. There exists the possibility of complete
and utter liberation in this lifetime. 100% dedication to Self
Realization. That has nothing to do with me.


XAN submits Papaji:

First of all, most important, is burning desire for freedom.
Burning desire for freedom alone is enough, you see.
Then if you have burning desire for freedom,
  it will come to you to still your mind ...
  wherever the mind goes bring it back to the center.


MICHAEL:
There is no separation.

Don't believe it
Not even for a nanosecond.

All is one.
Believe it or not.

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - no exceptions to prove the rule - Michael


MARCIA:
I realized that I needed to separate from being separate
to be whole.

MARK:

Mmmmmmmarcia,

Yum!!! (but is this true?)  It looks from here that there are infinite
separations (layer upon layer), but only one "together"... Can you
become completely joined with the separation you mention?   Fear is love
if you look hard enough... (I think...)  The thought of separation is
VERY clever!!!! (You have to just love it, like a rascally child...)
100% (so much more than Ivory...)

MARCIA
I was thinking about the enneagram. There are two shock
points. The first has to do with attention and the second has
to do with the transformation of negative emotions. I have
been thinking about the first shock as active and the second
as passive. As I keep my attention and not display negativity
the emotion can at times turn or transform. It is not something
that I actively "do" but that seems to be done through me.
Anyway it was during those ponderings that the thought occurred
to me that separating from being separate was a connecting or
a making whole again. When "done" consciously by means of
transformation of negativity, it is a separation from being separate.
Make sense?

MARK:
yes it does..  People do not always think in the same directions.  I
think I tend to think of the transformation of negative emotions as an
active process, that I can "do".    Energy is what one does with it. (I
think...) In fact, I think this may be the same as what I said earlier
today about disagreeing with ego thoughts.  Dan asked what they were,
which helped point me to the realizazation that thougts are thoughts,
and the label "ego" may not have meaning.  ("Now, what the heck is an
"ego thought" and why is it worth disagreeing with it?")

What I meant by "ego thoughts" was the concept that I am limited in some
way, and that there is searching for a solution to that problem.  When I
get "close" to "realization of LOVE", thoughts arrise that I am not
ready, or that it can't happen to mortals, or that it will happen
sometime in the future, when I am "ready".  I've seen through these (at
least temporarily...).  The fun thing is that I see the extrreme
cleverness that these thoughts have created to survive!!! (such fun!!!)
It swas such a problem Friday, and it is such a source of joy today!!!
Who knows about tomorrow? I don't (and that''s fine!))  Intent is so
helpful!!!!


MICHAEL:

Oh, lookit me! I'm so separate from myself :=))))))

Oh, lookit me! I'm so connected to myself. :"))))

GAHD! I'm laughing so hard I can harldy type!

You know, the I AM is having a ball with us! Ain't we a hoot!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Surrender Dorothy! - Michael

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


The truth will set you free, but first it will piss
you off.

Judi :-)


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


Oh, lookit me! I'm so separate from myself :=))))))

Oh, lookit me! I'm so connected to myself. :"))))

GAHD! I'm laughing so hard I can harldy type!

You know, the I AM is having a ball with us! Ain't we a hoot!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Surrender Dorothy! - Michael

------------------------------------
and there is duality
don't believe there isn't
not even for a nanosecond.
All is one
and one is inclusive of two
Believe it or not.

harharhar and chuckle chuckle snort snort guffaw guffaw!
........matthew

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


Once upon a time a magician took a young lion from the wild.
A lion that, had it been left in its natural habitat, would
eventually have dominated the other lions of the savanna.
The magician turned this beast into a man and
trained him in the arts of war.
As you can imagine the lion became a magnificent
warrior; stoic, heroic, and fierce.
Then just as the magician was about to send
his creation forth into the world, he was taken by
a peculiar notion and decided to train the lion/man
in the way of Being and Consciousness and see
what this warrior would make of such subtle
instruction.  And as one would expect he made
a weapon of sorts of enlightenment itself
with which he slayed the minds of learned men.
Then after some years of this futile endeavor
the magician came to him again and said
"Enough of this.  You have spent all your time
cutting things in two either with swords or words.
Now become a weaver.
And the Lion/man said I have no interest in weaving.
"All the better, " said the Magician.  "Do something
that is not in your nature."
And the Lion said, "Very well, teach me weaving."
The magician responded, "I can't.  It's not something
that magicians know.  So you must teach yourself."
And the lion did teach himself and eventually learned
to weave wondrous fabrics, so fine that they where
much sought after.  But strangely, some of the householders who
bought his work found certain threads in them insulting
and threatening, and were troubled by them.
One day a shepherd (who was unaware
of the former relationship between the village weaver
and the magician) brought a shawl he had purchased to
the magician because he believed it had an evil spell on it.
The magician was proud of the lion/man when he saw
the cloth he had woven.  But the householder said
look here, look at this thread, it is mocking, it is threatening me.
The magician said, "Don't be afraid there is no curse here
it is just that the weaver has spun this thread of his own essence
and mixed it in with the rest and the essence never changes
throuhout life.  It is your essence that recognizes the fierce and fiery
nature of this thread and shies from it.  But the weaver has
given you a great gift in this thread.  The wolves who with their
duplicitous cunning are
always bleeding your flocks of the most precious lambs will not come
near if you wear this shawl.
And it was true.  In time the shepherd was able to utilize the shawl
and he lost no more lambs.


(c)  1999  Carlos Dwa



If it were not for the higher possibilities in humans --  seeing what is going
on
would be intolerably obvious.

   (c) Carlos Dwa 2000



As one gets older
life gets less real
and more meaningful.

unless

    (c) Carlos Dwa 2000


Surrender is an act of egoism.

        Carlos Dwa


After listening to another one of his teacher's
seemingly obscure yet enticing utterances one
seeker showing uncharacteristic backbone said,
"Ok, just give me one example of what you're
talking about.  Give me one example of something
that is meaningful but useless."

Without hesitating the randy old goat said,
"Past realizations -- or worse -- other peoples
realizations that you either agree or disagree
with."

The seeker said, "Well I really don't know
if I agree with that.  I find both my own
past realizations and those I read about
very useful."

The old guy just smiled as if to say,
"Guess I could be wrong then."
You see, he knew strawmen shouldn't get
all heated up 'cause they could combust.


(c) Carlos Dwa 2000




May the cosmic revelations of your youth
become the mundane wisdom of your old age.
May realization be your thirst
and your fulfillment.

    Carlos


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


I'm putting a note on my door at work "The obvious is ALWAYS worth a
second look."

Love, Mark

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%%%%%



     I reached a real impasse when I was about
     21.  Couldn't go forward or backward.
     Nothing worked to get me what I wanted to
     get, which I suppose was actually to be
     grounded in Reality.  I had glimpses of This,
     but was frustrated that they passed.  And
     nothing seemed useful, including spiritual pursuits,
     sex/romance, academic-career stuff.  The future was drained
     of color, nothing appealed, support was lacking,
     the truth turned out in major ways to be lies,
     my frantic antics reached a roadblock, and death
     was an inescapable and very present reality.
     "Me" was clearly grounded in nothing but anxiety,
     and my being was defined by a future that had
     no reality.  Then, everything fell away.
     Reality crumbled.
     Gradually, it reintegrated, just putting one foot
     in front of the other.  And that's how it is now,
     one foot in front of the other, nothing to understand,
     and the pointless emptiness is now a boundless vista.

     Love,
     Dan

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


Hi Mary,

this one is by mark:

You say it's now or never
I say it's now forever
If it's never never, then tell me how
Can it ever not be now?

Love, Mark

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


>Andrew Cohen from "Halfway up the Mountain, Premature claims to
>enlightenment" by Mariana Caplan.

D: Thanks for sharing this, Matthew.


>Many mistakenly feel relieved from the burden of responsibility for
>their own behavior because of erroneous conclusions drawn from their
>spiritual experiences of no-separation. Realizing that "everything is
>the Self", they concluded that therefore there was nothing and nobody
>to be responsible for.

D:  What does it mean to say they realized "everything
     is the Self" and then concluded something?
     This is bogus.  There is no conclusion from it.
     There is just *being* it.  What does he mean
     about being mistakenly relieved of their burden
     of responsibility for their actions?  Does he
     mean that people who feel burdened by the
     responsibility of their actions will behave more
     responsibly than those who don't?  Baloney.


>In this way of thinking, responsibility
>implies duality, and any notion of responsiblity is therefore seen to
>be an expression of ignorance. In this view almost any mode of
>conduct becomes acceptable- when one proponent was asked why he
>habitually acted rudely and with dishonesty, he said "oh that is not
>real, that's just my personality."

D:  It's a valid point.  It reminds me of Hassan al-Hussein,
     master of assassins, saying "Nothing is true,
     everything is permitted."  The catch here, though,
     is that in true emptiness, there simply isn't a motivation
     to hurt another.  Why would there be?

     I remember what Lao Tzu said about civility and
     good manners.  Beware what is really going on
     when people harp on the importance of behaving
     civilly.  The truly civil ones don't make
     speeches about how others need to behave more
     civilly.  There's a hidden agenda here somewhere ;-)
     To equate enlightenment with the ability to
     follow society's ideas about morality, civility,
     and responsibility is equally as erroneous as
     saying "I can do whatever I want because nothing is
     real, it's just the personality, etc."

> Another student said, "Nothing matters because it is all the Self".

D:  Yes, shut that student up.  What does he mean
     taking my place in telling people what is really
     true?

>Others have answered with incredulity when asked about responsibility
>for behavior, "How can there be responsibility for Freedom? Who's
>responsible?".....

D:  It's an unanswerable question.
     The thing is to go beyond opposites,
       beyond believing there's a right
       or wrong answer.
     Andrew reminds me of a military instructor,
       "There's the right way, the wrong way,
        and there's Andrew's way."

Many people do have profound experiences when
>exposed to such teachings, but the teachings usually have the effect
>of enslaving a person to a deluded view that they ae completely free
>simply because they had a glimpse of the fact that there never could
>have been a separate entity who could be bound in the first place.

D:  Does the view enslave the person who has had
     just a glimpse, or does the person enslave him
     or herself??  If I take a glimpse as Totality,
     and believe that my belief is the truth, who
     is "responsible"??  This blaming of the view
     for enslaving the person seems ironic,
     considering the earlier statement
     about responsibility.  Why doesn't he just say,
     "this view doesn't appeal to me?"

     You know, he almost comes off sounding like this:
     "As an enlightened person, let me say that enlightened
     persons need to have the right view of enlightenment,
     which is to say, "my" view, and if they don't have this
     view they are deluded, which I can say because my
     view is that I'm not deluded and I know who is deluded."

>It
>is at this point that the Advaita view, as it is frequently
>proclaimed these days, becomes completely ridiculous. Such a view can
>make  a person extremely confident, because any difficulty can
>be "Advaited" by saying that it is all unreal or all the Self anyway.

D:  Well, obviously, saying "all is unreal," or
     "all is the Self" is meaningless.
     You might as well say "all is the color gubbly",
     or "everything is mud".
     However, the point is to go beyond views.
     It's not a matter of having *any* right view.
     But I don't hear him saying that.
     Although there certainly is something
       to be said in speaking to genuine responsibility,
       not taking simplistic solutions,
       he just doesn't hit the point that
       taking any belief as reality is erroneous.
     Thus, he implies that there is a right belief
       that can be taken as reality.
     He's consistently implying that there is
      a right view, and it's his.
     Has a hollow ring as heard here,
      the hollow ring of the "authority's" position.
     Bob Dylan had it right:
      "Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters."

Love,
Dan

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


>I realized that I needed to separate from being separate
>to be whole.
>
>Marcia

Hee hee.
If being whole is to be separate
   from being separate, then
   being separate must be to
   be healed from being whole.

Nondually speaking, being separate
   must be included in
   nonseparation, not separate
   from nonseparation.
To be separate is to be nonseparate,
   to be nonseparate includes
   separation.

So, without any separation
   between us, let us individually
   separate from separation.

It's because Reality
   isn't here, that we can be.
It's because it separated from us
   that we are us.
So It's separation is *truly*
   nonseparation and Love.

Ah, if they could only *see*
   this, they wouldn't waste
   their time and energy
   trying to see Oneness,
   trying to make
   everything One!

Blessed be,
Dan

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%

...Real surrender
is extracted. A moment of objective conscience.
The split second when you see what a total idiot
you have been thinking you can do this thing
called surrender. Surrender of one's concept
that one can surrender. A moment when true
surrender becomes possible.

Marcia

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%



NDS

Hello ALL...

Here is a brief report on my weekend retreat to the 21st annual
Gathering of Healers, (also called 'the healing gathering') near
Tonasket, Washington.

Tonasket is a tiny town far north of Spokane, several hours of
driving, much of that through the extensive Spokane Indian
Reservation, much green and rocks, creeks and deer.

I am driving north in my Chevy van, which I have outfitted with a
nifty removable camping arrangement, a tiny mobile home, quiet and
powerful. I am conscious of gasoline prices, my V8 engine, I drive
evenly, listening to an audiobook, cassette tapes of a story by Dean
Koontz, "Dark Rivers of the Heart". Night has fallen, I am wary of
deer entering the roadway. I sip coffee enriched by an exotic Chines
herb extract called 'Lo Han Quo'.

Up the final hill, to the communally owned land, dodging rocks and
ruts, tired but pleased for a trouble-free trip. The gatekeepers
greet me; they are young and do not recognize me. I drive across the
mowed field, park parallel to the edge, and retire to my cozy bed. I
fall asleep to the lulling sounds of wind and midnight congas.

Awakened by rocking... good heavens, it is dawn, and storming, high
winds and rain pummel my metallic cocoon, I look out the window to
see sodden hippies running after their tumbling tents, tarps
flapping, rain drums in sheets and rolls on my steel roof. Well, at
least the rain will keep the dust down, but will this storm blow
over? By ten, all is well... wind continues, but rain has stopped.
Sun shines.

I make coffee, breakfast, wash up, head to the 'nirv center' of the
gathering to read the announcements, many hugs and greetings on the
way. Old friends, seen yearly, this is some kind of commitment that
we all have, informal, tribal I guess. I make the rounds, check the
kitchen sanitation (excellent!) and the first-aid teepee (well
stocked with both modern and traditional remedies) and ask my usual
questions, beginning to collect any epidemiological data. I dread
contagion of dysentery, knowing the high probablility of asymptomatic
carriers being in attendance. So far so good, no reports of diarrhea.

The wind continues, tarps demolished, this is unusual, people are
saying that it means something spiritual, like some cleansing force.
Hypothermic hippies huddle around the main fire, unable to play moist
drumheads, taking the morning toke, cadging rides to the upcoming
Montana Rainbow Gathering, practicing their slurred 'egoless' speech
patterns.

I sit beneath a lodgepole pine, in the lee of a natural rock wall,
talking with a friend, and soon a small crowd has gathered to share.
It is all about the latest updates and upgrades to the human
operating system, about what has become obsolete, what is new, and
what endures. I moderate by disabling idealists, giving space to the
sincere upcoming, wary of the hypomanic survivors of last night's XTC
trips. Being old and set in my ways, few bother to argue with me,
which is a major benefit of being an elder. After a few hours, we
disperse, in search of food. I return to my van, set up my kitchen,
cook grits and coffee, eat a few hardboiled eggs, finishing with Feta
cheese and crackers and a nice sip of Merlot. Evening is spent is
pleasant socialization, a very mellow sharing time, fine friends.

Sunday morning is clear hard sun, baking mud to dust. The morning
routine, then to relationship. I attend several sharings (called
'workshops'), finally one by Digital Deb, she is a Mac user, the
local webmistress [link] <http://www.planettonasket.com/index.html>.

She sings a song; she is an accomplished guitarist, has a very nice voice...

Linguistic Relativity

                              by :Digital:Deb


                                Linguistic relativity
                          What you hear and what you see
                             May not be the same to me
                                Linguistic relativity.

                       We store information into slots we define
                    By learning a language, programming our minds
                         Linguistic relativity, linguistic relativity
                      Connotative, denotative, function and formal
                      Cultures create meaning, its perfectly normal

                                Linguistic relativity
                          What you hear and what you see
                             May not be the same to me
                                Linguistic relativity.

                          But we can talk and communicate,
                     There may be a fence but there's always a gate
                         Linguistic relativity, linguistic relativity
                    Language influences the mind and its perceptions
              We make up new words to describe new conceptions, uh huh...

                                Linguistic relativity
                          What you hear and what you see
                             May not be the same to me
                                Linguistic relativity.


                      Language is changing, adapting, rearranging
                           Language is coming from mind.
                           Language is coming from mind
                           Language is coming from mind
                          Language connects all our minds.

                                copyright Deborah Vester 1993

                          Linguistic Relativity - Spokane - Peaceful Valley 1993

I tell her that I will post her song to NDS. She may join our list.

On my way to the closing circle, a man on a bike skids to a halt,
tells me to go to the sweat lodge; a young girl is having a seizure
of some kind. I hurry down the hill to the shaded glade, she is
laying, covered, naked, shaking. I diagnose and prescribe crackers,
lacking an IV of glucose. Her blood sugar had plummeted due to
skipping meals, smoking herb for the first time, and then taking an
extreme sweat. Upon deeper interview, I learn that she is epileptic,
on meds, and rebellious; her ideas of spiritual purity lead her to
skip her meds. I advise regular meals and taking her
Dilantin/Phenobarb as prescribed. She is soon sitting up, eating and
drinking water and joking. I think she has learned something valuable
about how to manage her special vulnerabilities.

I pack my things, hugs, tears, goodbyes, until the fall Barter Fair.
Promises to stay in touch. I am encouraged by the acceptance of
Internet; I pointed out that 'Luddites do not have websites'.

I return via the Keller ferry, a free crossing of the Columbia river,
and am home by 10:30 PM. I check my email and go to bed.


==Gene Poole==


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%


Planning continues for a mystic tour of Peru and Chile:



I'm waiting for information that should come this week,
so that I can start to form a clearer program.

I'm going to aim for about 10 people, if it gets bigger
than that, most probably it would be better to manage
activities in smaller groups of up to 10.

Of course, this is non-profit, as it is, the cost will be
steep enough, just to get here.

This won't be some stuffy event. The idea will be to
let a strange mystic land and mother nature, open a
passageway to the spirit of Grace.

I'll keep filling you in as information comes in.

Dave

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%\
%%%%%

MANCHINE (Dave)

I went through a 6 month investigation of other dimensions,
looking for stuff that wasn't physical, through lucid dreaming.
In one dream, I separated from myself and began talking to myself.
Then I moved out of myself and into my other self. I was still talking
to me, but I was somewhere completely different. I was so mystified
by this new place that I forgot about my "other me". Looking out
the window, it was another world. I looked at my hands, and they were
still there, as solid and as firm as anything. I heard a voice, like it
was far in the background, telling me "don't go". I wasn't really listening,
it said "you don't know this world, don't go, there's no way back".

I looked around and saw my other me. "This is, my world" it said. "If you
stay you we lose everything, there's no way out", this will be your new
world.

I thought about it, it seemed nice here, calm, I could hardly remember
my "real" world. I almost didn't go back, but the other me started to fade,
without thinking I jumped into him and woke up.

Well, all that reminds me a little of "this reality", here on Earth.

Self created all this, all the details all the hardship and pain
ego itself, and just chucked Himself into it until He found his way back.
A journey of a lifetime, that never happened. It's essence IS compassion,
as goodness and peace in pure "being" is the only way out.
~~~~~~~~~
The beauty of all of this is not so much that nothing
is real, because that "not so real stuff" is apt to break
your nose if you walk into it; it's that its creation was
a very compassionate "act" a very intense puzzle that creates
knowledge as experience (for Self, right to an infinity of
individual levels, one of them yours!). The rules are very strict,
haven't you noticed that it is not intended to be passed along
by word of mouth alone.

You are awakening, to Self. Like awakening from a deep sleep
there's a period of transition as you come to the greater
realization.

Keep on truckin' man. The ego burns to a cinder, in the fire
of compassion, cleansed of all things.
__________________________________________________

Everyone I meet is a manifestation of the I AM.
Darnit I used to have it all figured out....

Hoo-boy!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Compassion - Michael

____________________________________________________________

ANDREW

The experiencer is a function. A way of feeling things. It isn't an identity. It
isn't
me.
~~~~

I get what you're saying Judi, and I agree, experience is experience,
there is no distinction possible between sacred and profane
You are talking of the experiencer as an entity,
I'm speaking of it as a faculty like speech or the senses
  It is the sixth sense, the experiencer is the thinking faculty.
There are the five external senses, then there is the one internal sense,
which coordinates and interprets the five as well as projecting its
own images. This is the experiencer. It is erroneously taken to be the self.
Awakening is coming to realize that the experiencer is not the self,
It is a gift like your beautiful eyes or mouth.

*********
Well there's no separation you see, between experience
and experiencer. It's all rolled into one. Pretty convenient!
:-) There is no 'self'.
Cuts down the mess.  :-)

Love,
Judi
~~~~~~~~~

There sure is a lot of fussing going on
about something that doesn't exist.

andrew
~~~~~

That's because although it can't
   truthfully be said to exist,
it most definitely can't be said to
  "not exist".

Love,
Dan
_______________________________________________________

MICHAEL & DAN

M: So tell me...what is "experience"


D: Experience is what's left
   after the wishing, hoping,
    and fearing are gone...

M: You mean wishing, hoping,
and fearing is "not" part of
the experience?

D: Well, Michael, they're ideas and
   what is an idea?

Allow me to explain
   (not that anything is
     explainable):

An idea is a reference to
   experience that really
   "has" no experience
   of its own.
It's a construction based
   on memory and association.
It's a composite structure
   that *seems* to have an
   experience to it.
So intriguing to look into this:
   there is no such thing as
   conceptual experience,
   only the belief that there could
   be conceptual experience,
   and assorted reactions by which
   we convince ourselves
   that hopes, wishes, and fears
   *are* experiences.

Don't you love it?
We're convincing ourselves
   by our own reactions
   that there must be reality
   to the idea to which we're
   reacting...
We react *as if* there's
   experience there.

So, watch wishes, hopes, and
   anxieties vanish ... they're
   based nowhere on nothing...

But, even when you're left with
   "nonconceptual experience" as is,
    the "experience that is presence"
    is that *reality itself*?  Or
    is this the last remaining unreal
    distinction, a contrast
    between experience and nonexperience
    that has no basis?

And when you no longer have
    a possible distinction between
    "experience as is" and
    "nonexperience that isn't"

Experience and nonexperience
     vanish ...
(No, you can't take my "experience",
    I depend on it, that's reality
     isn't it? "this experience"...!?)

And as it vanishes...
     what's left? ....

     ...   ???   ...
~~~~~~
M:
What's left is no thing.

What's left is being.

What's left is presence.

What's left is memory.

What's left is emotion.

What's left is feeling.

What's left is nothing but a memory,
a concept, an idea of what was experienced,
and the desire to do it again or avoid it like the
plague...

Consciousness...presence...can dissolve the
illusion created by past experiences which appear
real and feel real...yet they are just concepts that
my mind has placed on the present experience
based on the attitude taken in a previous experience.

Thanks for the light Dan,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reality is what is before, during and after experience vanishes.

Reality is the isness of life.

Experience is the life situation we are in.

Experience is the drama of life.

Reality is the witness.

Experience is the movie.

Reality is the seer.

Experience is an illusion.

Reality is real.

--Michael
______________________________________________

GLO

Hold on a sec... Judi already did away with the experiencer, but left the
experience.
Now Dan does away with that.. so aren't we left with "all there is, is
consciousness
happening" (this must make Greg happy)  ...seems the seer or witness is just a
way of
dressing up the experiencer in different clothes. Don't look now, but the entire
world just went poof!

Ok, Dan...experience is vanishing...so what is "reality"??? Tell me straight
out.

I'm the sort who walks out of the movie and explains how it couldn't really have
happened that way, even to be consistent with the wacky premise of the movie,
which I
allow for...

~~~~~~~~~~~
DAN  "beyond experience"


Glo, because I love you,
   I will explain what has
    no explanation, I
    will describe what
     has no description.

What I say won't be correct,
   but as said out of
    love, will be acceptable ;-)

The line between experience
   and non-experience isn't.
Therefore, there is no
   basis to "be experiencing".

Experience vanishes ...

There is neither distinction
    nor oneness.
There is neither now nor then.

What is this like?

It is not like anything.
It is not here nor there.

Ah, but for love I will say this
   untruth:

It is your very being before you were,
It is your very truth before you could be true,
It is your newness before there was time.

And of course, it isn't yours and it
    isn't you.
So, try this:

Without "I" nor "it", without existing
   or not existing:

A river ran through here.
The trees by the river grew tall.
The clouds in the sky were so bright,
   and the sky such a deep blue,
   that when the sun shone, it was
    bright beyond bright.

Night came, and the air was cooler.
And with the night, the birds became
   still, the blue turned so dark
   it was black.
The moon shone and seemed to reflect
   a calmness that had never been.
The sounds of crickets chirping
   came from time to time,
   as if through a stillness
   that had no beginning or end.

Love,
Dan

***********************************************************************

MATTHEW and DAN more shuffle:


Andrew Cohen from "Halfway up the Mountain, Premature claims to
enlightenment" by Mariana Caplan.


Many mistakenly feel relieved from the burden of responsibility
For their own behavior because of erroneous conclusions drawn from
their  spiritual experiences of no-separation. Realizing that "everything
is the Self", they concluded that therefore there was nothing and
nobody to be responsible for.

Dan:
   What does it mean to say they realized "everything
   is the Self" and then concluded something?
   This is bogus.  There is no conclusion from it.
   There is just *being* it.  What does he mean
   about being mistakenly relieved of their burden
   of responsibility for their actions?  Does he
   mean that people who feel burdened by the
   responsibility of their actions will behave more
   responsibly than those who don't?  Baloney.

Matthew:
I take Andrews statement as tongue in cheek Dan. We do have
experiences of the nondual reality and draw conclusions based on
these powerful experiences.

Dan:
   Okay, Matthew, I won't get too serious about this ;-).
   Now - drawing a conclusion from a powerful experience
    places a boundary between now, the moment
    I'm reflecting about it, and then, the moment
    when I had the "powerful experience".  So,
    that boundary between "now" and "then", that
    very attempt to draw and have a conclusion,
    is itself limitation and separation...

M:
The "realizing that everything is the
Self" is what Andrew is saying (imo) that people often believe upon
having such experiences, when all that has happened is a little
glimpse.

D:
  Okay, got it.
  Here's what I'm saying:
  Once someone takes a belief about
    an experience as something to be retained
    and used, a belief has been substituted for
    present Reality.  In other words, present
    Reality doesn't operate dependent on beliefs
    about itself.

M:
I don't think he is addressing "the real thing".

D:
  Okay. We might look at this as a discussion of how people
    draw conclusions and employ beliefs as explanations,
    and how these explanations serve as limitations
    to awareness.

M:
As for the
burden part i believe he is addressing the tendency in us to want to
escape from the resposibilities of ordinary life, and those
responsibilities are often percieved as burdens, especially when
contrasted to the naive concepts of "freedom".

D:
  Hmmmm, good point.  I like your way of explaining it.
  At the same time, I am aware that the "common sense"
   idea of responsibility is a self-contradictory
   position that creates a great deal of tension.
  There is an isolated "me" that is supposed to
   function causally, which inevitably leads to
   blame of self or others.  So, it's not surprising
   that this is felt as a burden, and in fact,
   the tension and not wanting the tension
   might serve as useful motivation
   to look into the situation.  And you're right,
   using a belief that "there is no self" is a
   conclusion and belief, not openness.
  A more useful teaching might be, "what 'is'
    when a self is neither affirmed nor denied?"
  One might
    interpret A.C.'s perspective as saying that people rebel
    against this "me" by claiming there is
    no "me," while they still function according to a
    "me" that they don't acknowledge, and they want
    freedom for that "me".  So what I see here is
    that it's a belief, a conclusion, not Reality as such.
    Responsibility, though, isn't from what someone
    tells me I should be like, society's image for
    me, it's my authentic responsiveness as "what is",
    and my response-ability and my being aren't two.


.....................................................................

AC:
In this way of thinking, responsibility
implies duality, and any notion of responsiblity is therefore seen
to be an expression of ignorance. In this view almost any mode of
conduct becomes acceptable- when one proponent was asked why he
habitually acted rudely and with dishonesty, he said "oh that is
not real, that's just my personality."

D:
  It's a valid point.  It reminds me of Hassan al-Hussein,
    master of assassins, saying "Nothing is true,
    everything is permitted."  The catch here, though,
    is that in true emptiness, there simply isn't a motivation
    to hurt another.  Why would there be?

  I remember what Lao Tzu said about civility and
    good manners.  Beware what is really going on
    when people harp on the importance of behaving
    civilly.  The truly civil ones don't make
    speeches about how others need to behave more
    civilly.  There's a hidden agenda here somewhere ;-)
    To equate enlightenment with the ability to
    follow society's ideas about morality, civility,
    and responsibility is equally as erroneous as
    saying "I can do whatever I want because nothing is
    real, it's just the personality, etc."

M:
As you say "in true emptiness there simply isn't a motivation
to hurt another". And this is exactly Andrews point.

D:
  Okay.  If he agrees with me, then he must
    be speaking the truth ;-)

M:
He is saying, so
you say you are realized, you are empty, well look good and hard at
your life, at how you show up in all of your relationships. Are you
hurting others, are you creating  suffering for others, if the answer
is yes, think again about believing your self to be empty, free,
rrealized.

D:
  The question I have here is this:
    when I look at "my" life, I'm looking
    at constructed images.  Is there really
    a "me" here, having "my" life?  In other
    words, awareness is functioning in a split
    way, with "I" reviewing "my life".  What is
    it like if there is no split in awareness?
    Are the conclusions of a split "I" reviewing
    "my life" ever going to end the split?  Or
    does the ending of the split come only
    from an instant when awareness doesn't separate,
    doesn't review, doesn't draw a conclusion,
    and doesn't carry a belief about a situation?

  In most situations, yes, Hippocrates' principle
    of "do no harm" is generally a good idea.  But I
    don't see liberation as being formularizable.
    It's not equated with "niceness" and the happy
    feeling that no one is being hurt.  Sometimes,
    a person feels hurt but later feels useful learning
    has occurred, or sometimes hurt can't be avoided.
    What you and A.C. are talking about
    here, as I see it, are beliefs.  There is the belief
    "I'm realized," then there is the assessment of
    one's life and what one believes after this honest
    assessment (e.g., "I'm really not realized after all").
  Yet, both of these are belief-based realities.
    I'm making a case for Reality as non-belief-based.
    That means one can't draw conclusions from It or
    about It, and one can't formulate the "proper belief
    system" by which to approach it or teach it.
-----------------------
----------------------

M:
Come on Dan don't take it so blatantly out of context. The
statement was used as an example of how the nondual rhetoric is used
to ignore the motivation to hurt others. And the rhetoric is used
because of having had a "partial view experience" of the truth of
nonduality.

D:
  Okay, Matthew, I see your point, and agree.
    The use of beliefs to avoid full awareness
    isn't fruitful.
  I'm questioning though, whether *any*
    authority's beliefs can't easily be used
    that way, including A.C.'s.

M:
"The thing is to go beyond opposites..." Well, it might be your
thing but I am not so sure it is "the" thing. Is it your idea of the
right way. If you don't understand the immense responsibility that
comes with realiztion, well.....you just don't.

D:
  Agreed, it's "a" thing.
  All it is is another perspective.
  I have mine and you have yours.
  You have your beliefs about responsibility
    and I have mine.
  These are simply perspectives and beliefs,
    not reality.
  Tell me, Matthew, what is the responsibility
    of the Universe for harming millions
    of living creatures when there are floods,
    earthquakes, viruses, forest fires, comets hitting
    planets, and suns going nova???
  Our human-centered values about responsibility
    and not hurting others, do they really get to
  Reality as is?
  As I said, I think "no harm" is generally a very good
    idea, but not as a formula, and not in every
    situation with no exception.  None of us can
    live without other life dying.  All of us die
    and will be used as fertilizer.  Life includes
    pain/pleasure, loss/gain, sorrow/happiness.
    I am Life, you are Life, all this is Life.
    Our respons-ability is the responsiveness of
    Life, it's not an imposed morality, a belief
    system, nor a formula to impose judgments on others.

  Maybe I don't understand Reality the same as you,
    but maybe Reality has nothing to do with
    either of our separable understandings of it;
    as *is*, it's beyond either of our understandings
    of it.  Call it the boundless Unknowable.
--------------------------------

M:
You are right Dan, the person enslaves himself. I think that
the reason he doesnt say "this view doesn't appeal to me" is because
he is addressing the great disservice these types of teachings do for
the vast majority of people. Nondual concepts are just way to easy
for the mind to grasp hold of and twist around for it's own use (like
it does with most everything)

D:
  Well, what you're saying about the grasping mind
    seems on-target to me, Matthew.  But let's
    not condemn the grasping mind, let's look
    carefully into it.  Because in the
    very act of judging it, labelling it, we're
    already grasping (i.e., our adherence to beliefs
    and labels are our grasping).

  Let's really see how the mind struggles
    to grasp and hold things, to formularize
    things, to operate by opinions rather
    than "what is as is".
  We're looking at the ending of our taking
     beliefs and images about reality *as*
     reality.  The "mind" is just this activity,
     isn't it, the attempt to formulate what can't be
     formulated?

...................................................................
D:
  You know, he almost comes off sounding like this:
  "As an enlightened person, let me say that enlightened
     persons need to have the right view of enlightenment,
     which is to say, "my" view, and if they don't have this
     view they are deluded, which I can say because my
     view is that I'm not deluded and I know who is deluded."


M:
Not almost,he actually does come off sounding like this and i
personally have no problem with that. I'm not sure why you or anyone
would.

D:
  My problem with it is that it's discussing beliefs about
    reality as if these are to be taken as reality,
    it's taking judgments and opinions as truth.

M:
His position is that he does know who is deluded, your
position is that you don't know, is one position better than the
other?

D:
  As positions, they can both be transcended.
  Why would I want to identify with a position,
    when by releasing it, I open to wordless
    being beyond thought?  Then, "I don't know,"
    isn't a position, it's the living Universe
    itself.
---------------
M:
So if for me the point is something other than "going beyond
views", does that mean i have the wrong view? This taking, of
geniuine responsibility is what he is talking about. There is not a
right belief but there is "right action". If it has a hollow ring, is
it because of the ringing, or the hearing?

D:
  Going beyond views isn't something that's
    done to be right.  It's undoing.
  And it's happening now.  You are being
    undone, as am I.  Do we see it, do we
    acknowledge it?  I do acknowledge it.
  Yes, there is a very hollow ring to any
    authority setting up a formula to judge
    "right" and "wrong", the standard by
    which to evaluate others, the "real" definition
    of responsibility which others "should" adhere
    to.  Have you noticed
    how often this happens, how many authorities
    constantly appoint themselves or are appointed,
    how they conflict, how different versions
    of right and wrong depend on culture,
    belief system, personality?  Have you noticed
    how the results are never equilibrium and
    equanimity, but tension, discord, and separation?
   Anyway, this is how I've noticed it.

   Thanks for the dialogue.

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

MARK:

Hi Gang,

  i have a metaphor for you about the earth experience.  we are seeds.
seeds are ingenious devices to defend the life of a new plant from a
harsh dry environment.  seeds are coatings surrounding a spark of life.
what happens when we put a seed into water?  the water soaks in and the
coating expands.  it expands and softens.  it expands, softens and
becomes more porous. it expands, softens, becomes more porous, and water
gets into the spark in the middle and it expands until the coat pops,
freeing the spark to grow.  the water of our seed is love and we are
already immersed in it.  we are NOT in a dry dangerous environment, but
we believe strongly that we are.  all of us. (all of us who cannot yet
say with knowingness that the seed has sprouted)  the coat is the
bargain we made with fear way back in the past, who knows when...  when
the water of love starts to soak in (when we loosen the fear enough to
let it), the fear expands.  we draw back and fear remains in control.
if we (no, when we...) let the water in and stand the fear expansion, we
can see the softening as well and when we let go completely and abandon
ourselves to this, the water makes our heart swell and the coat bursts.
it's nice.  in some it's fast and in others it's slow. it doesn't
matter. just let it go.


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


JUDI and the Pendulum:

Questioner to Wayne:
Are there ever glimpses of the merging and then coming
back?  I've heard other enlightened teachers, or supposed
enlightened teachers say that you can come back out
of it.  You can become enlightened but then you can
come back out of it.

Wayne:  No. What you can come back out of is that state
you described.  That is the state where all these people
go and set up shop.

Q:  You mean they're up there permanently?

W:  They're up there at the top of the pendulum shaft
saying, "This is my experience."  And they';; say,
"Yes, and we can fall out of that, back into identification,
and then go back into that experience again." But that
is not Awakening that the sages talk about.  And the
transient experience is not uncommon.

You hear this within certain, what I like to think
of as, multi-level marketing schemes for spirituality.
:-)  You have someone who's had an experience of Oneness,
who says "Look, this is available to you!  You can
awaken!  You can have this experience!  Do what I did
and you'll get this result."  So, these people do what
he did, they get this result, they have this sense
of bliss, of
not being involved with their thoughts, and they, (slap),
"Okay, I'm awakened! NOw I'm going to teach you." And
then he gets eight people under him, and then they
'awaken'. Now you have this tremendous wave of 'awakening'
that's going on.  And the great guru up here that has
helped all these people awaken is seen as a very wonderful,
very fine, very profound, strong guru.  And all of
his sub-gurus, down through the pyramid and....:-)
You can see them in action. It's a new spiritual movement.
You don't have to look very far! :-)

Nearly every seeker has had the experience of being
at the top of the pendulum shaft - I'm sure you have,
if you've been a seeker for a while.  You feel that
you are one with everything and no longer affected
by everything. Everything is simply happening, and
you are simply the witness of it.  You're not involved
in it, it's just going on, and it doesn't matter. There
are a number of names for this mystical union, which
is an impersonal connection with the very nature
of existence.  It is the absense of
anyone to be involved with anything.  It is your relative
absense as the doer.

So if this happens to you, you're very likely to think
"I have done something to get here. Let's see, what
was the last thing I did?  Well, I went to that seminar,
I practiced that meditation.." And so you double you
efforts to either get back to the top of the pendulum
shaft or to stay there!  If you are lucky enough to
be at the top for a period of time, you might start
to think,  "I've got this deal. This is what all the
sages have been talking about, right?  I'm witnessing!
I've read Maharaj, you've
got to be the witness! And I'm doing that! I am there.
I Am That!  What could be better?  I can do my own
seminars!  People will come to hear me! This'll be
great!"

So you set up your shingle and begin giving satsang.
The problem is that this point at the top of the pendulum
is still a point in phenomenality, it is still a point
of experience, albeit impersonal experience, and as
such it is subject to change.
Everything in phenomenality changes.   Therefore, at
some point when something happens such as being diagnosed
with cancer or someone close to you dying - there is
the realization that the pendulum shfat is 'greased',
and you're sliding back down again for the big swing.
:-)  At this point the intensity
of your feelings of dejction are 'double' what they
were previously, because you feel as if you've lost
something 'terribly' important, that you've lost
your union with God or the Infinite,
that you fallen from Grace.  NOw you're back to being
involved and swining with all the other plebes, when
before, you and God were like this! (Holds up two fingers
crossed, laughter)

Now if you've put your shingle out and you've told
everybody "It happened to me! I'm the guy!" :-)  then
you're triply screwed because you either have to come
clean and say "Um...I 'thoguht' I was enlightened,
but it was sort of a false alarm. Sorry about that."
:-)  Or you have to begin living a lie, which is not
a fun thing to have to do.  And actually there is a
third option that is gaining in popularity :-)...you
can redefine Enlightenment to include the 'flip-flop'.
You say "I am Enlightneed, but I am 'stabilizing'
into the experience." But when Enlightenment actually
happens there is no longer anyone to stabilize or be
delivered into anything!

What is important to understand is that what the sages
are talking about  is not a movement from identification
to disidentifcation within phenomenality.  It is a
total quantum movement fro identification with the
entire pendulum shaft of phenomenality
to identifcation with the fulcrum upon which the pendulum
depends.

The state in which there is identification at the fulcrum,
is utter, complete quantum eradication of the sense
of personal doership, of tha which gets involved with
the movement.  Then there is simply pure Beingness,
which is not a change in anything.  That is What Is,
That is already here, That is the state that eternally
exists. In That there can be no flip flop.

Another important thing to remember about the fulcrum
is that nothing happens there.  All movement, all action,
happens around the fulcrum, yet the fulcrum is completely
unmoved by anything.  Therefore, it is not that the
sage is witnessing something, rather, in the most profound
sense, the sage 'is' everything.  As such, there is
no experience associated with that.  All experience
is within a subject-object relationship within phenomenality.
The movement to Ultimate Understanding, or that identification
with the Totality that is called Enlightenment, is
a movement in whcih nothing happens.

A friend of mine called me a number of years ago from
Hawaii. He had been going to a teacher who was describing
this experience of oneness as being Enlightenment,
and one day he got it!  And he called me to tell me
he had woken up.  And he was describing this to me
and how, "It hasn't gone away, andit's been a couple
of days, and everything has a new light, and it looks
different", and how h'es "One with
all of this"  And I'm listening to him and my heart
sinks and I'm thinking, "Oh man...(laughter) not you!"
And it was probably a year or year and a half after
that he tried to kill himself.

Q:  So he experienced so much freedom and then to go
back into the garbage again was too devastating to
him?

W:  Mmhm.

Q:  How long did it last for him?

W:  I don't know. I never talked to him about the details.
It wasn't important really. Nor did I, at the time,
have the heart to tell him that this wasn't IT either.
That what he was describing was a wonderful fabulous
life experience, but an experience within phenomenality
which 'will' eventually end.
I can assure you, people do not appreciate being told
this.



ANDREW:
This bit is right on Judi. I call that top of the pendulum
state being in a bubble, or frozen in ice, the world is seen
as unreal somehow, with you a detached witness. At some point
the bubble has to burst, or the ice shatter, and that's when Grace
may do its thing if you're lucky. That's when you dissolve into
the cosmic ocean.
    Using Wayne's analogy, when you lose your grip at the top of the
pendulum shaft, there are two things that can happen, either you try
to hold on in fear, and slide down the shaft back into the tick tock,
or you let go because anything even annihilation is better than that,
and you plunge free of the clockwork mechanism, and endless plunge
into no thing while yourself ablates away cell by cell from outside to
core, burns away like a meteorite until there is only no thing.
    So this experience that Wayne speaks of is not all the way there
he's right but it is the crucial point where the plunge into true
enlightenment can happen.
    The sense of insulation and isolation must vanish at some point,
it's a metamorphosis, the bubble is a cocoon.



JUDI:
For me what happened Andrew, was after having so many
'enlightenment' experiences that I got to a point,
and I'll never forget it, where I knew somehow the
jig was up.  Now keep in mind, I 'lived' for these
experiences. And Stephen and I were together this one
evening and I started into one of these blissful oneness
experiences. And Stephen said something, something
totally unrelated, and quickly, without thinking, I
said to him -"Would you shut the fuck up, can't you
see I'm having a spiritual experience here?" :-) And
I laughed.  And it wasn't too long after that, I don't
remember how long, maybe a couple months or so, that
the whole business crashed and I saw experience for
what it was, subtle or mundane, high or low, made no
diff.  And it's that 'experiencer' that goes 'bye-byes'.
:-)


MATTHEW
Nice piece judi, very inspiring. It warms the cockles of my heart.
....................matthew


MARK:
Thanks Judi,

this is helpful. (not pleasant, but helpful.) wah.

Love, mark

********
That's the breaks kid. :-)



MARK:
Andrew,
your words seem true to me. (well, I know they are)
thank you,

DAN:
Your words seem false to me,
   and so do mine.
Truly, I know nothing.

Thanks and no thanks,


MARK:
AAAAUUUGHHHHH!!!/not-AAAAUUUGHHHHH!!!


JUDI:
**** Fire in the cockpit! Fire in the cockpit!!

ANDREW:
2 alternatives, jump without a parachute or go down with the plane,
hi ho away we go.


ANDREW:
You are lost in the forest.
You run this way and that but you can find no way out,
You keep circling back and finding your own footprints.
All you can do is stay where you are.
Try and find something to eat and drink and a dry place to sleep.
You may be here a while.
Be still and something may happen.

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

What, what, wound is this,
how dare they shatter my dream.
I mean it was perfect.
So free to love every thing.

But I'm bleeding, I mean
well, it hurts.
Just yanked away,
I mean right here, see...

Wait, where... there's
nothing missing.
They were just words.
Theirs, and mine.

Words, thoughts,
that I posessed.
That were posessed.
About what?

Love, can that be taken from me?
Only when I posess it.
Love, can that be taken from me?
Only when it is seen to be mine.

What does IT want from me?
To really know Love?
How can "I" know it,
without letting it go?
.
.
.
.


Oh...... Ohhhhhhhh



MARK:
it's all so easy, and it's all so hard,
the still holding on mark

JUDI:
I love you very much.

MARK:
Good! I need a break!

hee, hee,


GREG:

Hey ! I wuv youse guys too !



XAN with Papaji:

Papaji: It's your nature, you see. You can't help it.
You can do anything you like. You can do anything in this silence.
You can play tennis. Once you know what silence is. You can do whatever
you want. You speak. It doesn't make any difference. You can speak.
You can do whatever you want.

Anything has to rise from silence. Nobody knows. If it rises from silence,
activity has to rise from silence. If you know, 'I am the substratum'.
Then you are free. If you lost in activity, then you are lost because
the activity rises from ego, not from silence. Silence is your nature,
mother, supreme.

But then this, somehow this diamond rises and you identify yourself with
the diamond, you see. And that brings in suffering, untold suffering, they
say. They say, untold suffering, never ending. The cycle starts. This
cycle is called the cycle of reincarnations. The world cycle starts.
And this is only from the ego. Otherwise, never ever exist. And this is a
fact.

When you know it, you know it. Having known it, you have known everything.
Having known this, you know everything. There is nothing else to be known.
And if you have known everything and miss it, you have nothing known.
Nothing that you have learned, nothing you have known. If you miss knowledge
of your own Self, you have not known anything, you see. So first, know you
own Self.

Therefore, you will be able to know everything, past, present, future,
you see. And return instantly present in this moment, and you are that
itself.
And it is ever available also, ever available to you. And it doesn't take
time.
Instantly, it is available. Instantly, this very moment. You have not to
spend hours, minute, seconds even. Only you have to abandon all kind of
notions
that you have been entertaining so far. Notion, ideations, intentions,
that's all
you have got to do.

That's why I'm very happy, I need not speak too much for you have already
crossed the ocean. Thank you for that. I am asking you how was your trip to
this emptiness, can you define?


A NET of JEWELS

One cannot but carry on with that which is false until it drops off by
itself.
~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

To live naturally is to live as a mere witness, without control and
therefore without mentation, want or volition, uninvolved in the dream-play
of life and living.


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

DAN with Miguel-Angel

D:
<skip>
The separation of ignorance from truth is simply this:
As truth is, ignorance isn't. Being true, I don't need
to worry myself  about the nature of ignorance.

M.A.:
Quite so. But only insofar as you are true. What about
people who are in error? Would you say  A) that in any
case their ignorance is always imaginary, a mere
projection, and therefore of no relevance; or  B) that
their ignorance, though real, will eventually succumb
to truth?

D:
  There is no one else's ignorance for me to
    be concerned about correcting.  First-hand,
    I say this:  if I am true, the universe is true.
    Others' errors don't need to be corrected by
    me.  If I point to something and it isn't
    seen the way I want it to be seen, that's not
    *their* error - it's *my* attachment.  I point
    as I point, what is received is received.
  As for whether error will succumb to truth,
    it's the same question as
    whether unreality or reality will prevail.
  Truth is unopposed, reality has no opposite.
  Error doesn't oppose truth, the error is in
    believing truth is opposed by something.
  Unreality doesn't oppose reality, the unreality
    is in believing reality is obstructed by something.

MA:
If it's A), then nothing needs to be done. Only truth
exists, and it is non-conceptual, unknowable,
unspeakable. What we take to be error is of no more or
less value than "right knowledge", both being just
conceptual constructions, equally groundless. Here
there's no place for progress, as everything is as it
must, perfect. All we have to do is sit back and enjoy
it all.

D:
  Well, when you say, "sitting back and enjoying it" isn't
   that also conceptual?  Saying "it is perfect,"
   "nothing needs to be done," likewise?
  When it is nonconceptual, unspeakable, and unknowable,
   "it is" doesn't even apply ...
  We get to where "the mind stops" (obviously, that's
   conceptual, too, but words will always be that way).
  So the mind stops, and in stopping, ceases to exist
   as an entity; the mind-entity
   *was* this very effort to label,
   figure out, decide what to do.
  When the mind ceases, there can be no credence
   given to assertions such
   as "it is perfect," or "let me just enjoy this,"
   or "I'll do nothing."  As far as doing goes, one
   might say there isn't something to be done,
   there isn't doing nothing, there isn't the category
   of doing vs. doing nothing.  This might be described
   as "nondoing", but only to help dissolve biases
   toward conceptual "doings".

If it's B), then there's some place for progress, for
improvement. Whether it's through effort or grace is
another matter. But at least there is ground for
expectation, for hope in the dissolution of one's
errors and miseries.

D:
  I see it this way:  the intention to improve
    splits the present and future, depends on
    an entity who wants to improve a perceived
    condition, and so distorts the unconditioned
    reality into something it isn't.

MA:
Which of the two is it, Dan? Knowing you, I expect you
to choose A).  But isn't that because you feel so sure
and happy in your position? What about those who feel
disoriented and miserable? Can they also be advised to
say "It doesn't matter, it's all just imaginary, a
mental construction" ? How can they be made to forget
all their problems, their frustrations?

D:
  Let's follow the mind, Migel-Angel,
    as it constructs all these
    things:  achieving, improving, and the entity
    who wants to get out of feeling miserable.
  Can we notice so closely that we see it is
    the mind itself, in its striving, that *is* the
    impression of the entity, the fragmenting of
    being, the formation of an image taken as reality?
    If we don't follow this closely, we'll be mesmerized
    by the stream of talk and images, the constant
    material provided by thought, memory, and feeling.
  If we do notice closely, we aren't able to continue
    with the effort because we see its internal
    contradiction.  The effort to escape the misery
    *is* the misery, the attempt to improve *is* the
    fragmentation, is the perception of a separate
    mind-entity that wants escape.

  When the effort collapses, the
    mind stops.  Then there is silence.  Then there is
    nonmovement, nondoing as discussed above.  This
    has nothing to do with giving advice or telling people
    to forget anything.  It only comes about when there is
    sincere inquiry, a willingness to notice carefully
    exactly how this construction occurs.  It involves
    honesty, not forgetting something, and it comes from
    who I am, this awareness here, not someone's advice.
  It is urgent because the self-contradiction occurs
    here and is friction-generating.  It's not someone
    else's problem, and someone else's advice can
    only be useful to a limited extent.

Again, if it is A), which implies that everything is
perfect, how is it that so very few are the lucky ones,
the ones who are installed in Reality, beyond the
projection; while the vast majority suffer taking the
projection for Reality? Why the injustice of it all?

D:
  Miguel-Angel - it's urgent.  It involves all of
    who I am right now.  If I fragment my energy
    into the conceptual endeavors of trying to
    figure out the justice of it all, or answer
    the "why" of everyone else's suffering, how will
    I attend directly to "this, here"?  And it is
    "this, here" that demands energy and awareness.
  It is "this, here" that generates friction and
    contention through self-contradiction.

  Putting this off until I have solved the problems
     of the justice of the universe and the reasons
     why each person suffers is to defer awareness.
  To put it off even until one minute from now
     is to split awareness.
  Ultimately, the questions about "why" and "how
     can it be like this" drop away - as discussed
     above, the mind stops.  This stopping
     shows that the "entity" tries to perpetuate
     itself by constructing questions that need
     to be answered in the future, gives itself
     a sense of continuity, and so avoids dealing
     immediately with the reality that *it isn't
     there* when the mind isn't preoccupying itself
     with various forms of effort.  In fact, the
     sense the mind has of "itself" *is* the preoccupation
     with images, words, feelings, and sensations.
  When mind stops, there is profound silence, nothing
      "outside" or "inside" is: only the indescribable,
      which is indivisible.  This indivisible is
      who I am, the true "in-divide-u-all".

  Thank you very much for sharing this dialogue
      with me, M.A.




GENE / JERRY:

JERRY:
Hi Larry and Glo,

I think that's a huge question, Larry. Another huge question
is, What is esthetic experience?

It has something to do with unity, transcendence and
realization, so it has to do with 'love' and 'truth', as I
see it. Art experience is an alternative to religion. I
think Hinduism even accepts that.

GENE:
When our own pattern-buffers synchronize with apparent outside
patterns, there occurs a deep moment of recognition of self. It is
even more wondrous that we for a moment, identify what is outside, as
separate from what we are. This is for me, a sweet kiss, a conveyance
of love.

I am surrounded by such gifting. When I am by myself, I do not bother
to play the game of befuddlement; I have no-one to impress, no-one to
avoid offending or scaring. When I am by myself, I accept raw, the
offerings which shower upon me.

It is apparent that statistically, the population is in the grips of
a traditional, memetically-contagioned paranoia; and that popularity
and acceptance is gained mainly through slavish obeisance to that
shadowed harbinger of personal extinction. It is heartening to
observe many individuals breaking through those gossamer figments of
imposed imagination, even in the face of reactive assault by the
covert standard-bearers of the world-dream.

I convey my congratulations to those whose perseverance has brought
them to this moment. Having tested your phantom shackles, you have
found them mere ephemera. You have moved beyond seeking, or needing,
the approval of putative authorities.

Now, it may occur that you are subjected to more refined,
higher-level testings. Remember what you have learned, that has aided
you thus far. You have become your own authority. If you are
subjected to 'field-intrusion testing', you may stabilize yourself
into any configuration which pleases you, no matter what the apparent
consequences. Remember that you need no justification for Being, only
skill for existing.

Eventually, each is subject to an onslaught of entirely novel
circumstances. The challenge is to abide, as in your most perfect
moments. It is in those moments of challenge, that we can discover
that surrender is indeed, a two-way street.

At the console,

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Being is one...not two.
Being is perfect...not imperfect.
By being myself...I am being perfect.
By trying to improve myself, I strengthen
the duality between I and Myself, which
are not two.  Not two = One.

It's letting life come as it will
and doing the best I can with it,
without beating myself up for not
doing it better, which I have done
for 50 years.  It's saying yes to life,
instead of always trying to figure it out.

Hope this helps,

Michael

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Thanks, Dave.
I woke up this instant.
What woke me up was this instant,
   because this instant is all that is.
Give me a nanosecond so I can
   make a dream about me waking up.
Give me another nanosecond so
   I can make an experience out
   of this.

Love,
Dan-not and Dave-not

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>Dan Berkow wrote:
>
>> Experience is what's left
>>   after the wishing, hoping,
>>    and fearing are gone...
>
>Hi Dan,
>
>Is not my experience of anger, fear, wish
>legitimate?
>
>Marcia

Marcia,
  it's a good question.
  let's go into it carefully.

  By the way,
    I didn't say
    "anger", I said "wishing,
     hoping, fearing (really,
     'anxieting' would be more
     precise).  If anger or
     fear is the result of an
     image I construct, "real
     experience" has been
     distorted into the unreality
     of projected construction.
     If anger or fear is simply
     an immediate event that isn't
     categorized and made into
     a story, then it's not unreal
     in the way I'm discussing.

  the immediate experience as is,
   isn't labelable.
  to categorize, we need to take a
   "mental (i.e., unreal) step back"
   from experience,
   construct a separation from experience,
   to associate and label.
  now, we have an "understanding" of
   what's going on: "I'm angry about
   being disrespected like this," or
   "I'm afraid that so-and-so is going
     to happen."
  then our experience is no longer
   immediate and actual, it's become
   translated into something else,
   a modification according to our
   memory-images, associations,
   and "personal story".
  it's not "pure experience", it's
   the mind getting the known
   back from itself and reacting
   as if that is experience.

  when one reacts to one's constructed
   ideas, labels, images,
  these reactions seem to be "real experience"
   but they're not, they're constructions
   based on memories and associations,
   with reactions that generate
   a sensation that "this is real".
  without our construction and projection,
   the supposed experience vanishes, so
   how real is it?  It's a production,
   an assembly, a composite construction,
   not the "real deal".

  we can make our constructions seem
    awefully real to ourselves, until
    we notice that *we're* manufacturing
    this.  Then, the construction fades,
    and it's unreality is suddenly
    apparent.  It never actually *was*
    real experience after all.
    Real experience is what's left
    when that unreality is gone.
    Now I experience directly, without
    the interposed image, wish, anxiety.

  can one notice that one's anger is
    over a self-produced image,
    that one's wishful feelings
    the result of images, that one's
    anxieties are reactions to self-produced
    images?

  what happens when one notices this
    really clearly?
  what happens to what had seemed like
    "a real experience"?

  if one simply accepts anxieties, wishes,
    and hopes as "real experience",
    one will never discriminate
    between reactive patterns based
    on constructed representation,
    and authentic experience as *is*,
    which is not based on an image from the
    past.

Love,
Dan

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%%%55

See the false as false, and what remains is true.  What is absent now will
appear when what is now present disappears.  Negation is the only answer to
finding the ultimate truth - it is as simple as that.

--RAMESH S. BALSEKAR

Anyone care to comment on this.

How do you see the false as false when it appears so true.

Is negation the only answer to finding the ultimate truth?

Thanks,

Michael

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The mind can't handle reality.
   Reality can't be categorized,
     described, continued by
     the mind.

Negation gives the mind nothing
   to grasp.  Nothing is really
   being negated, only the mind's
   attempt to affirm unreality.

When we affirm, we assist the mind
   to think it can have reality,
   that a conception can be made.
   This is not the case.

Love,
Dan

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Getting at the truth requires undoing, undoing to the very
core, and beyond.

We are "born" into a physical world...
In that instant the deceptions started.

We must undo those.

Many teachings use techniques of undoing, but they are not the
only ones.

Once one "arrives"; is undone, everythig is thrown away
including the teachings.

Words from nowhere,
Dave


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%%%%%


     what is true is always always present
     it's the only thing that can't be seen
     that's why i said "stop seeing" (negating)
     you're left with your naked boundless self
     and the notion of seeing or negating
     never occurs

     deepest regards,
     cee

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Yes, it's clear now.  You guys HAVE lost your minds.

Love, Mark

Dan Berkow wrote:

> At 07:44 PM 6/28/00 -0300, you wrote:
> >Dan Berkow wrote:
> >>
> >> At 06:53 PM 6/28/00 -0300, you wrote:
> >> >Dan Berkow wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >jarhodes wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> >> *********
> >> >> >> Well there's no separation you see, between experience
> >> >> >> and experiencer. It's all rolled into one. Pretty convenient!
>
> >> >> >> :-) There is no 'self'.
> >> >> >> Cuts down the mess.  :-)
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >> Love,
> >> >> >> Judi
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >
> >> >> >
> >> >> >There sure is a lot of fussing going on
> >> >> >about something that doesn't exist.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >andrew
> >> >>
> >> >> That's because although it can't
> >> >>   truthfully be said to exist,
> >> >> it most definitely can't be said to
> >> >>  "not exist".
> >> >>
> >> >> Love,
> >> >> Dan
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >Hmmm
> >> >not not
> >> >not not not
> >> >not not not not
> >> >not not not not not
> >> >not not not not not not
> >> >not not not not not not not
> >> >dot
> >> >dot
> >> >dot
> >>
> >> Ummm
> >> hot hot
> >> hot hot hot
> >> hot hot hot hot
> >> hot hot hot hot hot
> >> hot hot hot hot hot hot
> >> dash
> >> dash
> >> dash
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Not Not.
> >Who's there?
> >Not not who?
> >That's who.
>
> Hot hot.
> Who's here?
> Hot hot Who!
> That's who.
>
> Love,
> Not not who
> Hot hot who
>
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Have I told you lately
   that I love you?
Have I told you there's
   no one above you?

Sparkle on, all you being
   dreamed from infinity's loom!
Sparkle on, these dreams are
   infinity's shining...

     Love,
     Dan



Dear Dan,

Somehow through so many tears, I want to find words to thank you. But how can I
tell
you what you already know? Your words reached into the deepest of my heart of
hearts.
>From the beginning of "a river ran through it" till now the tears keep flowing,
now
joyously. You were so right about "that last distinction" being this subtle
grasping
onto "experience"... let me have at least the sound of the crickets in the dark,
that
is even the very edge at which I often float among the stars, hearing one last
sound
from earth...something known and familiar. How did you know that is my last
sound?
Somehow tho...the holding on and the letting go..both were seen as love, both
become
"only love"...a love beyond the immensity of this universe to contain, yes we
are
galaxies passing in the night.

Thank you for the light of the love you bring here. Indeed, emptiness is not
empty.

Love,
Gloria

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