Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4529, Saturday, March 3, 2011
The scriptures even proclaim aloud: "There is in truth no creation and no destruction; no one is bound, no one is seeking Liberation, no one is on the way to Deliverance. There are none liberated. This is the absolute truth." My dear disciple, this, the sum and substance of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets, is my instruction to you.
- Shankaracharya, from Teachings of the Hindu Mystics, edited by Andrew Harvey, posted to AlongTheWay
The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hangups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhicitta. The openness and warmth of bodhicitta is in fact our true nature and condition.
- Pema Chödrön, posted to DailyDharma
A man who moves with the earth will necessarily experience days and nights. He who stays with the sun will know no darkness. My world is not yours. As I see it, you all are on a stage performing. There is no reality about your comings and goings. And your problems are so unreal!
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Sometimes I feel like a king, sometimes I moan in my own prison. Swaying between these states I can't be proud of myself. This "I" is a figment of my imagination.
- Rumi posted to The_Now2
Dying, Laughing
A lover was telling his beloved how much he loved her, how faithful he had been, how self-sacrificing, getting wealth and strength and fame, all for her.
There was a fire in him. He didn't know where it came from, but it made him weep and melt like a candle.
"You've done well," she said, " but listen to me. All this is the décor of love, the branches and leaves and blossoms. You must live at the root to be a true lover."
"Where is that! Tell me!" "You've done the outward acts, but you haven't died. You must die."
When he heard that, he lay back on the ground laughing, and died. He opened like a rose that drops to the ground and died laughing.
That laughter was his freedom and his gift to the eternal.
As moonlight shines back at the sun, he heard the call to come home, and went.
When light returns to its source it takes nothing of what is has illuminated.
It may have shone on a garbage dump, or a garden, or in the center of a human eye. No matter.
It goes, and when it does the open plain becomes passionately desolate, wanting it back.
- Rumi, Mathnawi V: 1242-64, version by Coleman Barks from The Essential Rumi, posted to Sunlight
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4530, Sunday, March 4, 2012
Life is the same for the saint and for Satan; and, if they are different, it is because of their outlook on life. The one turns the same life into Heaven and the other into Hell.
- Hazrat Inayat Khan, from Mastery Through Accomplishment, posted to AlongTheWay
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
- Plato, from The Republic, posted to AlongTheWay
A sick body with a good heart is more beneficial to future lives than a fit, healthy body that is used for self-cherishing.
- Lama Zopa Rinpoche, posted to DailyDharma
Time, the fear of the unknown, and thought which projects what it wants for tomorrow are all bound together in one package that spells conflict, separation and misery.
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
God has given us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two worlds.
God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.
God has made sleep so that it erases every thought.
God made Majnun love Layla so much that just her dog would cause confusion in him.
There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds.
Don't think all ecstasies are the same!
Jesus was lost in his love for God. His donkey was drunk with barley.
Drink from the presence of saints, not from those other jars.
Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight.
Be a connoisseur, and taste with caution.
Any wine will get you high. Judge like a king, and choose the purest,
the ones unadulterated with fear, or some urgency about "what's needed."
Drink the wine that moves you as a camel moves when it's been untied, and is just ambling about.
- Rumi, Mathnawi IV, 2683-96, version by Coleman Barks from The Essential Rumi, posted to Sunlight
"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
— Neil Armstrong
'Where? Where can I enter the way? How? How can I study? '
Kyosei asked: 'What is the noise outside?'
'That’s the voice of the raindrops, that’s the rain.' the student said.
'Enter from there.' Kyosei replied.
.
.
.
.
.
As he listened,
Mindlessly,
The eavesdrops entered him.
.
.
Waka on Kyosei's raindrop sound
Revival by Luci Shaw
March. I am beginning to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost where the moles have nosed up their cold castings, and the ground cover in shadow under the cedars hasn't softened for months, fogs layering their slow, complicated ice around foliage and stem night by night,
but as the light lengthens, preacher of good news, evangelizing leaves and branches, his large gestures beckon green out of gray. Pinpricks of coral bursting from the cotoneasters. A single bee finding the white heather. Eager lemon-yellow aconites glowing, low to the ground like little uplifted faces. A crocus shooting up a purple hand here, there, as I stand on my doorstep, my own face drinking in heat and light like a bud welcoming resurrection, and my hand up, too, ready to sign on for conversion.
The wonder is that colour came from the colourless: how is it that colour came to fight the colourless?
Since the rose is born from the thorn, and the thorn From the rose, why are they quarreling? Or is it not really war but divine purpose and artifice, like the quarrels of merchants? Or is it neither this nor that? Is it the perplexity?
The treasure must be sought; this perplexity is the ruin where it is hidden.
- Rumi
Beautys Way
Is it me, close to home? Is it me by blooming blossom blown?
Am I dreaming called to surface now? The seed of day is sown
Everyday from start, every day a darkness hides the Heart Say this flowing stream is beautys way Exactly like the first, every drop is thirst and darkness hides the Heart
So born to no avail, mind will never fail life goes like a breeze While beauty true is waiting, just to seize
Close to home, and loosing me By knowing bluebells, dandelions and the honey bee This garden came afloat on a mighty sea
The planets and the stars The mountains and the slopes, all inside the boat, mankind and its hopes
Take to the wings of being, like golden gull above Seer in seeing, singer of love I am the way, I am the call, I am
Go to link for original presentation with more photos
and music.
"And suddenly, I looked at the bull. He had this innocence that all animals have in their eyes, and he looked at me with this pleading. It was like a cry for justice, deep down inside of me. I describe it as being like a prayer - because if one confesses, it is hoped, that one is forgiven. I felt like the worst shit on earth."
This photo shows the collapse of Torrero Alvaro Munera, as he realized in the middle of the his last fight... the injustice to the animal. From that day forward he became an opponent of bullfights.
Ed Note: This story checked out, most references in Spanish, and he does now
work with campaign to stop bullfighting. Story via Facebook.
Dustin LindenSmith here, guest editor for today's Nonduality Highlights. It's an honour and a pleasure to be with you today. In this issue, I'm presenting highlights and my observations from a book review I've just discovered related to brain science and consciousness. The name of the book is Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain, and the author is Michael Gazzaniga (amazon.com • amazon.ca).
University of Victoria philosophy professor Jeffrey Foss, himself author of a book called Science and the Riddle of Consciousness: A Solution, reviewed this recent book by scientific researcher Michael Gazzaniga in Saturday's national Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail. Gazzaniga's book looks at the ancient question of whether or not humans have free will from an interesting angle of interest to us "nondualists": namely, by asking who's actually in charge of synthesizing the data in our brains which ultimately result in decisions being made.
More specifically, Gazzaniga transforms this question through his profound scientific understanding of the brain. To begin the discussion, Professor Foss explains: "[The human brain] is at least the surface at which our consciousness (or soul) contacts our body, even if it is not, as Gazzaniga believes, the very engine of our consciousness (though he admits we currently do not understand how consciousness emerges from the brain)."
Gazzaniga examines this question by reviewing the fascinating research that he and others have conducted on split-brain patients whose left and right brain hemispheres can no longer communicate with each other due to a separation (often surgical, employed to treat extreme epilepsy) of the corpus collosum, which is the body that transmits data from one side of the brain to the other.
(Technical sidebar: The Wikipedia article on split-brain provides a useful overview of how the right and left hemispheres of the brain work together, wherein the left hemisphere (typically considered analytic or logical) and the right hemisphere (typically considered holistic or intuitive) each controls and receives sensory inputs from the opposite side of the body. In split-brain patients, there's a sort of cognitive breakdown in the way that objects are perceived or understood by one side of the body when picked up or perceived by the opposite hemisphere of the brain; studying this breakdown has allowed Gazzaniga to develop insights into the way the two hemispheres interact.)
From Jeffrey Foss's review of the book come these interesting insights:
Gazzaniga (with his teacher, Nobel laureate Roger Sperry) discovered the split in human consciousness that results from splitting the human brain into right and left hemispheres, a split that consciousness itself doesn't even notice. We have accepted our internal divisions long, long ago, and have, over the millennia, used them to explain our capacity for good and for evil. But whereas we can actually feel ourselves being influenced by Mars or Satan or our combative instinct, no amount of soul-searching can reveal to split-brain patients the resulting rent in their very selves.
The explanation for this is quite simple. The left brain, where language processing occurs, is the mechanism of the soul searching itself, and cannot, in split brains, access or report the activity of the right brain and its input into the brain-as-a-whole.
The brain, split or unsplit, has no centre of control, no centre of consciousness, no centre period: no self. Gazzaniga marshals countless scientific studies of the brain that reveal it to be a rag-bag collection of specialized modules for everything from facial recognition and counting through to distinguishing self from other.
It's quite amazing how these modules make us identify the thoughts and actions of our brain as our own, even when the cause is known to be external control of our brain via transcranial magnetic stimulation. It's quite amazing, that is, to think that our sense of self is achieved by some dozens of such modules working in loose formation with one another -- in the absence of any real self at all.
So, as Gazzaniga and the many scientists of his sort see it, they, you and I are but the imaginary focuses created by our nervous systems in order to better serve the evolutionary demand of our trillions of component cells to survive and reproduce.
I find myself deeply drawn towards scientific research which reveals what I find to be essential truths about the nature of consciousness and self: namely, that we possess no particular, identifiable self as such, and that the myriad thoughts and insights that we attribute to a seemingly separate entity called "our self" are simply a collection of evolution-serving, neurochemical, electrical and biological processes that are in place solely to continue the species, and not for any particularly meaningful purpose higher than that.
I find these insights to be enormously liberating. It gives me the license to stop worrying about what's happening; to loosen up my expectations over the way I think things should be; and to allow myself to just let go and let things unfold as they will, because "I" have no control to exert over the system. The universe is taking care of itself without any express input from "me," so why don't I just stop worrying about it?
Dennis Waite writes: After a two-year break, I welcome you to the re-launch of advaita.org.uk. As ‘Advaita Vision’, we will be bringing you the best of Advaita, from strict Traditional to cutting-edge Neo-Advaita. In recognition of the eclectic nature of the material, the site is being renamed ‘Advaita Vision’ and the alternative URL of advaita-vision.org will also bring you here. Peter Bonnici will be helping to renovate the site and we are also joined by Dhanya and Sitara, well-known writers who previously blogged for Advaita Academy.
Stop searching for love. It wants nothing to do with you.
Love is where you are not.
It would bomb as a pick up line, but it’s a concept of love worth pondering. They are the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a spiritual teacher who traveled the world in the twentieth century extolling the merits of self-inquiry.
At first the statement comes across like one of those if-a-tree-falls-in-the-woods Zen mind-benders. But spend a few moments with it and it may dissolve into a valuable insight.
Tug on the word ‘you’ and the statement begins to unravel. You, as in ego. Krishnamurti was saying that love can only exist when the ego is not around to muck things up.
Drummer Drumming only Silence is the drumstick, only Nothing is the skin of the drum, only Emptiness is the infinite Song
~Jan Barendrecht
Hark to the unstruck bells and drums! It is the music of the meeting of soul with soul; It is the music of the forgetting of sorrows; It is the music that transcends all coming in and all going forth.
~Kabi-r
This consciousness I am is beating a drum; everyone is carried away by the noise of the drum. Who looks for the drummer?
All that I serve will die, all my delights, the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field, the silent lilies standing in the woods, the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all will burn in man's evil, or dwindle in its own age. Let the world bring on me the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know my little light taken from me into the seed of the beginning and the end, so I may bow to mystery, and take my stand on the earth like a tree in a field, passing without haste or regret toward what will be, my life a patient willing descent into the grass.
Our vision is to establish pure, natural awareness. Media are word, sound, picture and design. The Media evolve into art and express the origin. Another aspect is the evolution of Complete Psychotherapy which roots in the source consciousness.
We use and explore different possibilities to clear the stream of consciousness. The focus is to realize the nature of self in human form.
The nature of our self referes to what is called pure, unconditioned or nondual awareness. Nondual means not-two and refers to the fruit of human consciousness, which is free of reference points – our original nature. Pure awareness, now, has no content, center or limit. Nondual is that. It differs from the I-perception, where the self is regarded as an object set in relation to other objects. That is dual. The ultimate reality, the fundamental dimension of our human nature, is free of references that we take to be ourselves. This means that at the present moment, now, all is complete.
The Institute was founded by Antal Szalay in December 2010 and since then is led by him. He works among other things as Medical Doctor in the field of Psychosomatic Medicine, in the Hochgrat Clinic Wolfsried in Germany. He is a pioneer in the evolution of Nondual Psychotherapy and Coaching. And is expressing Nonduality in art for transmission.
TaKiTa & ArtKin - Antal Szalay Progress In Absence - Beyond Freedom
Exerpt of a dialogue
Question: How do you take someone to the nondual? Antal: To show that nothing needs to be different. That there is presence and that all is fulfilled and complete.
Question: How you do that ? Antal: By showing that there is nothing to do.
Question: How do you show it ? Antal: I’m relating in a way that you can see that in the current moment nothing else is needed.
Question: How do you see that the communication or transmission is successful?
Antal: It is difficult because I’m resting in my origin. It is the result. And there is nothing to transmit. And nothing to understand either. And I cannot tell that anything is happening.
Question: What is the Zero Point ?
Antal: The Zero point is the place where the universe collapses into itself, where no time is happening. At the same time it is a standing wave, this Zero Point. Point Zero stands and at the same time it is collapsing. The effect is tremendous joy and bliss and there is no need of anything happening. This endless zeroness is happening all the time. Point Zero is where nothing is happening. The point is collapsing in itself. It is like a wave that is standing and moving at the same time, at the same spot. It is totally empty and full at the same time. I cannot get closer to or further away from it by talking about it.
Apologies for the long delay since I last communicated about the status of Advaita Academy. It has taken until now for there to be anything definite to tell you.
Without going into any of the finer detail, the resolution of the situation is as follows:
Advaita Academy: We are pleased to report that the website will continue, with a focus on material directly related to traditional Advaita. Content will be vetted by an Editorial Board nominated by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, who has also advised that there should no longer be payment for submissions. Peter Bonnici and myself have resigned as trustees, being replaced for now by two members of Kiran Vadlamani’s family together with Karanam Aravinda Rao, who will be the point of contact for submissions.
Advaita.org.uk: My old website (www.advaita.org.uk) is being renovated and will serve as the ‘eclectic’ site for all ‘varieties’ of Advaita, from pre-Shankara through to neo-Advaita. The site is expanding and will, for example, host a multiple blogger facility (at www.advaita-vision.org). The site itself is renamed ‘Advaita Vision’ and aims to present the vision of non-duality for the 21st Century. (Needless to say, without any funding whatsoever, we too will not be able to pay contributors and, instead, we invite support across the board: from financial to technical, articles to advice).
Those recipients who wish to continue to contribute traditional advaita articles to the Advaita Academy Editorial Board should contact Kiran (kiran.vadlamani@...) or Aravinda Rao (karavind09@...) directly. If you wish to contribute to Advaita Vision, please contact me!
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4536, Saturday, March 10, 2011
Bliss is Eternal, even though it appears to arise when the mind dies. Bliss is not an experience, it is your nature. This is the Heart of the Wise. This Gift is always calling to everyone, "You are seated in the Heart of all Beings." This is the Truth: Your face shines.
- Papaji, from The Truth Is, posted to AlongTheWay
There is no imperfection anywhere: perfect in one, perfect in two, perfect in all, life is blissfully easy.
..... Abiding here, doing nothing, embodied as man or god, our dynamic is buddha-reality; here sentient beings are cared for, and without any exertion we live in ease.
- Longchenpa, translated by Ketih Dowman
That here, darlin's is here - now, you!
so stop all that doing, eh? and know all is perfect just as it is.. just keep your medlin' mind off it.
There is nothing to do.. nothing.. let it all go..
cut the load on your donkey back..
ker-plop! all your cares, your worries, your gotta do's, fall..
and you do not, you do not.. have to pick them up again..
this is the message of Dzogchen.. of Longchenpa, of the 16th Karmapa, of all the great masters..
do nothing, cause nothing happens..
but if you "have" to do something, ok dance.
- dg, posted to DailyDharma
GONE SO FAR
Overlooking the ocean we do our best to take it in You can't just make this stuff up Pictures don't do it justice How sweet it is to do nothing
Unlike soothing reassuring beauty the sublime strikes us with an awe that borders on terror Nature never betrays the heart that loves it exactly as it comes
Every moment is its own eternity because there's no indication of any of this not lasting forever Our reality here is an instant wide beyond that it's bits & pieces
Some people say the whole blooming planet is wild with life & I believe it's true Wherever we've gone so far we've been in the midst of other lives
I've yet to determine if this view is more beautiful than sublime: This rocky coast with all its crashes No matter how hard I look I'm still only looking
- Steve Toth, posted to allspirit
Bliss
Bliss is recognizing the absolute completeness and perfection of the universe, as it is, within the Infinite Present.
- Metta Zetty
God is all Bliss.
God wants me to think Of only one thing: Bliss, abundant bliss, Infinite bliss - And forget the rest
A life of aspiration Is a life of bliss.
To make oneself Every day An object of total dedication And surrender Is the highest form Of bliss.
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4537, Sunday, March 11, 2012
What Calls the Eye to See
What you are now stands before me immortal and true. I see it in the ground underfoot, and in the clouds in the sky, and in the mist gathering among the canyons, and in the face of the old man walking his grandchild down the sidewalk. In the robes of monks I see it, and in the rags worn by the women begging for change outside the supermarket. I see it in the sympathetic eyes of the mother greeting her young son as he returns home from the war, and in the father trying to comfort his baby daughter as he stands in line at the grocery store. I see it in the curve of my face in the mirror, and in the multitudes of stars in the sky.
I not only see it but I hear it as well. I hear it in the cries of the newborn baby hungry for its mother's breast, and in the laughter of the old men sitting in the donut store together, and in the quiet sobs of the man placing flowers at his wife's grave. I hear it in the ancient chants echoing through the open window of the old church, and in the ladies sitting on benches in the garden laughing with delight, and in the man working at the butcher shop asking his customers "Who's next?"
What calls the ear to listen or the eye to see more than the surface façade that shrouds the essential spirit? Parting the strata and dross, what is essential picks its way through the manicured narrative of endless lives. In each moment of every day, Truth is not lacking or held in abeyance for some later date; it is given in full measure, and abundantly so. Do not be afraid of what appears to be chaos or dissolution - embrace the full measure of your life at any cost. Bare your heart to the Unknown and never look back. What you are stands content, invisible, and everlasting. All means have been provided for our endless folly to split open into eternal delight.
- Adyashanti
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, from The Little Prince
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
- Carl Gustav Jung
The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard... But must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller
If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.
Chart your course among the ruins carefully lest you make the same mistake again. You know, the one where you look out for your own safety when there is no such thing, only fear.
No fair zigzagging or second-guessing or even sitting down for a good pout. Just stick it out while running madly in circles chasing your tale. One day you will be a whirling dervish. All is well.
~Vicki Woodyard
Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my Sacred Space* and love beyond my fear, and thus Walk in Balance with the passing of each glorious Sun.
~Lakota Prayer
*According to the Native People, the Sacred Space is the space between exhalation and inhalation. To Walk in Balance is to have Heaven (spirituality) and Earth (physicality) in Harmony.
Via Wisdom of the Sacred Feminine on Facebook
"I have come across a number of very well read Buddhists who have read and memorized great quantities of Buddhist texts who also seemed to lack basic concern for others- who would snap at those with lesser learning, and even refuse to offer support for those around them who were struggling. As if hypnotized by the wonderful image of the inner cartography that they were studying, they had become separated from the awareness that in order to start a journey we must put the map down so that we can actually begin. If we try to read a map and walk simultaneously we easily lose our orientation.
I’ve also seen many folks shun basic bodhicitta practice for practices that deal in a more head-on way with emptiness; more secret practices, higher ones, implying that loving kindness is basic. Actually, it can be excruciating to try to be there for others. Kindness in the face of adversity, or aversion for that matter, is not as easy as reading a book about it. It can be much more convenient to rest in the thought that “my self-centeredness doesn’t exist, it’s empty of any self-nature”- therefore it’s unnecessary to really look at it in the face to see where it’s coming from."
A reader's contribution by Christopher Chase, Japan.
"Look outward at the appearing objects, And like the water in a mirage, They are more delusive than delusion. Unreal like dreams and illusions, They resemble a reflected moon and rainbows.
Look inward at your own mind! It seems quite exciting, when not examined. But when examined, there is nothing to it. Appearing without being, it is nothing but empty. It cannot be identified saying, "That's it!" But is evanescent and elusive like mist."
Swami Dayananda Saraswati is a contemporary teacher of Vedanta and a scholar in Sanskrit in the tradition of Śankara. Swamiji has been teaching Vedanta in India for more than five decades and around the world since 1976. His deep scholarship and assimilation of Vedanta combined with a subtle appreciation of contemporary problems make him that rare teacher who can reach both traditional and modern students.
A teacher of teachers, Swami Dayananda taught six resident in-depth Vedanta courses, each spanning 30 to 36 months. Four of them were conducted in India and two in the United States. Each course graduated about 60 qualified teachers, who are now teaching throughout India and abroad. Under his guidance, various centers for teaching of Vedanta have been founded around the world; among these, there are three primary centers in India at Rishikesh, Coimbatore, Nagpur and one in the U.S. at Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. There are more than one hundred centers in India and abroad that carry on the same tradition of Vedantic teaching.
NDM: There are many modern advaita teachers out there today. Some of them communicate by silence or by looking into others’ eyes. Is it possible to communicate Vedanta by silence?
Swamiji: If Vedanta by silence, Kena Upanisad will be one page, empty. Brihadaranyaka Upanisad will be 50 pages total, empty – empty pages – by silence.
If you ask a question, and I am silent and look into your eyes, what will you do? You have to look into my eyes. If I don’t blink, you have to close your eyes. Because you get embarrassed, you close your eyes.
And then you have to think. Whatever question you asked disappears, or you try to find some answer, some something. That’s not an answer to the question. You get whatever answer you can get from your own interpretation. Each one gets his own answer.
Somebody asks me, “What is God?” I sit there. (Then Swamiji sits still staring straight ahead for a long time and everyone begins to laugh.)
I have practiced this for a long time (laughter) without blinking. So what answer you will get? Each one will get his own answer, that’s all. If silence is the answer, we won’t have Upanisad.
With all the teaching, if people don’t understand, where is the question of silence? (Laughter)
NDM: Does a Vedanta teacher have to be enlightened?
Swamiji: You know there are two types of teachers, those who are in the process of knowing and sharing the knowledge, and those who know. Therefore no Vedanta teacher worth the name will teach without knowing the text. So they will teach the text.
So why should we judge whether he knows or not? If he knows, you will also know. If he is capable of teaching you – making you see – then he must be knowing. Otherwise he can’t make you see. So why judge? If he is ready to teach a text, you give the benefit of doubt to that person.
If somebody says, “I’m running classes in Oracle,” you join, assuming that the fellow knows. And therefore if somebody says, “I’m going to teach Vedanta,” you join, assuming that he knows. And if he knows, he will make you know. If he doesn’t know, then he will pull you into the whirlpool. (Laughter)
NDM: Modern advaita teachers today charge money for sitting with the teacher. Like to sit with a teacher like this it would cost maybe $35 for an hour. So maybe they get 100 or 150 people together in a group. Then each person gives the teacher money. Traditionally, how do you do that?
Swamiji: (Laughs). You know, they have to survive, and this is India’s contribution to that fellow’s life. And so, for his livelihood, India has contributed something – some words, which are useful for him to earn his livelihood. And he earns his livelihood, and there are always blokes to subscribe to all that. And therefore, that’s fine. There is nothing wrong in it. He has to live his life. He has to pay his bills, and therefore he charges what he needs to take care. So teaching becomes his profession. He is an advaita professional. (Laughter).
What I say is that there is nothing wrong in it as long as he teaches properly. If the teaching is alright, what he does is fine, it’s okay. But if the teaching is not alright, then I don’t know what people pay money for.
But generally teachers don’t deny people – teachers in India, they don’t deny people who want to know. They don’t bring money in-between. Money is required perhaps, but money is never brought in between a true student and a teacher, no.
NDM: Why not?
Swamiji: “You give me this much money and I will give you…” Then you are trading ātmā – and you are not giving anything to that fellow. What you are giving is himself – for a price – and it’s not quantifiable. What is involved here is infinite. For infinite, you have to charge infinite. Therefore the value of this knowledge is not understood. If the value of this knowledge is understood, you will not trade. You will not make it a commodity – a tradable commodity.
When you teach a discipline of knowledge like astrology or yoga or something, you can charge. There is something you are giving, and so you can charge.
But everything will pass if the teaching is proper.
The truth is – if the teaching is proper, you won’t charge. Now you can figure out what’s going on. (Laughter)
There is a space beyond this need for wings, or the wings inside wings. Stop arriving. Just know you have always been there. Through a broken fence, the plum branch has been reaching all Winter for the blossom it always held. Once known, the fragrance does not need the petal. Majnoon went mad in the forest imagining that the daughter of the king was someone else, and not his own soul. This poem was painted with moonlight on the bone ceiling of my emptiness. If you know who drove Majnoon crazy, you are truly my Friend!
~Fred LaMotte
Why all this need to "get out of your comfort zone"? It's impossible. The whole cosmos is a comfort zone. Stars and planets never veer from their changeless orbits and spheres. The daffodil returns to seed, only to flower again. Humans are the only creatures who complain about "routine." To the other creatures, its all a perfect ceremony.
Galaxies and flowers are always in the zone, and so are you. Don't expand your comfort zone: expand your awareness. Your comfort zone is already amazing - full of miracles.
Be comfortable in the grace of your life, just as it is. Let the Comforter enfold you.
~Fred LaMotte
I don't want to be invincible. I want to be astonished by loss. I want to be stunned and defeated by wonder. What wounds emptiness? I want to fall down again and again before you until my forehead shatters on your toes and I am the sky.
~Fred LaMotte
Why waste your life believing that the stars are above, and the earth below,
Only to discover too late, too late, that starlight gushes from every part of your body where dancing begins?
Why travel from here to there? All journeys are over but the deepening of now.
Your heart beat is the shaman's drum. Don't move: be moved.
One treasure is left to find: the light you were before you started the search.
Spring is an intuition crinkled in cocoons: your laughter can do something about that.
Ferns make fists all Winter, waiting for you to breathe a little deeper.
Now fall among the bulbs in black soil, on the one world that is really yours, and touch the heavens with your knees.
~Fred LaMotte
Have the courage to be ordinary.
It's Zen-trendy to embrace the ordinary in objects. But we are desperately afraid to be ordinary in ourselves. We must wear an invisible designer dress to keep up with everybody else on the red carpet of enlightenment. We must be 'amazing,' 'perfect,' in 'higher consciousness.' Higher than who? When you get there, are you higher than you are?
The ordinary sparkles with uniqueness. Why dress it up? Let your naked ordinary ripen from within. Just as you are, be sweet and full of juice.
Fred LaMotte is employed at Common Bread, an Interfaith Ministry at The Evergreen State College, WA. Web sites: Google 'Common Bread', 'Uradiance', 'Nama Christe'
JUST AS A DIAMOND is carefully cut and faceted to bring out the full luster and beauty of the gem, so I hope to do here with this review. For let us make no mistake about it, this book is a rare gem, and I suspect that it's just like an heirloom engagement ring: its light gathering powers will far outlast its owner, or in this case, its apparent creator.
THE DIRECT PATH: A USER GUIDE, Greg tells us, could be thought of as "the missing manual" for his other book, Standing as Awareness. We could think of these books as two pillars framing the gate to freedom that is the Direct Path. If you do your part, I assure you these teachings can and will do theirs.
SRI ATMANANDA KRISHNA MENON, the founder of the Direct Path, has told us very clearly: "Time is the generic form of thoughts; space is the generic form of objects." The sooner we come to truly understanding what he's saying there, be it through a passing glimpse, or abiding within it, the happier and freer we'll be. Awakening is by no means a personal event, but don't let that fool you into thinking the hosting body-mind doesn't benefit; it certainly does. Suffering is reduced in all who ever see their true nature, even if that seeing is apparently brief. Suffering is completely eliminated, I hear tell, in a smaller number of others. PERSONAL suffering, I can reliably state, will begin to fade as we close the gap between "what we see and what we be."
"THAT'S GREAT!" YOU MAY SAY. "But just how do I get there?" That's precisely what this book addresses. However, it's not so much moving the "I" over there, so to speak, as it is getting the "I" out of here! That, I would say, is the Direct Path's specialty, but some instruction and experimentation is in order. Buddha's holding up a single flower in what's known as his "Flower Sermon" may have been enough to free Mahakasyapa and kick off the field of Zen, but the rest of us are going to require a bit more detail! The Direct Path: A User Guide provides a great deal of detail, both instructional and experimental.
...
THE DIRECT PATH: A USER'S GUIDE is for all those people who want to wake up badly enough that they're actually willing to do something about it themselves. Teachers are great, and they'll get you to the riverside, but if you don't jump in yourself you'll never actually get wet.
THE BOOK HAS 40 experiments in it to help you move down the path regardless of where you're starting from. Call them koans; call A User Guide itself a whole book of contemporary koans, not totally dissimilar to the Blue Cliff Record, or the Mumonkan. This is deep inquiry offered up for practice in easy, bite-size bits you can nibble at your own speed. Start at the beginning or start where it interests you and go from there. Approach them openly, do the work, and just like koans, allow the questions themselves to crack your shell. You can't do it. The experiments can, and you can do the experiments.
THE WHOLE THRUST of A User Guide is to get you to take action. When a thing is seen experientially, and not just theoretically, it affects the mind in a different way, and the myth of separation will begin to fade of its own accord, whether slowly or radically. You really cannot directly challenge your mind's view of I-you-world and expect change. The mind cannot transcend the mind. But you can use the mind as a tool to transcend the mind. That's exactly what this book does. It's hands-on, it's practical, and most importantly, it works!
FINALLY, let me mention that this would be a GREAT book for group study.
~ ~ ~
Fred wrote a lengthy review. Read the rest of it here:
This book is astoundingly comprehensive in its reach, a deep and endless resource on nondual awareness. I've read nothing like it in my life, and I have a huge bookcase of books about nonduality ranging from teachings from the great masters of the past to the newest, modern approaches on the subject.
Much has been written about awareness, yet often the practical and very subtle points are conspicuously missing from other texts. Although it is written from the perspective of a particular path ("Direct Path Advaita")
Greg Goode's book is so comprehensive that, after reading it, my mind could not even think of something that was missing. It covers the various dualities we believe we experience such as inside/outside, subjectivity/objectivity, life/death, existence/non-existence and enlightened/unenlightened, to name a few. It also covers the world, the body, the mind, the witness, physical objects, senses, emotions, thoughts, states, positionality, location, identity, containment, choice and doership, time, cause and effect, language, and many other things. It's so thorough that it is helpful to any awareness-styled path. It covers every nook and cranny, every trap, and every angle that I've encountered (and many more that I have not encountered) while meeting with people over the years in the course of my own work in nonduality.
While reading it, I kept feeling a strong sense that this book needed to be written, that it arose because of a real need to address very common, but often overlooked, nuances that pop up when people are exploring the nature of this sweet, experiential knowing of non-separation. If you have a question, chances are this book addresses it. Reading this book as a seeker must be like being a kid in a candy store that contains every taste, texture, color, shape and smell imaginable.
The sections on the opaque witness, levels of awareness as a pedagogical tool, space and containment, freedom from truth-effects, dissolution into pure consciousness, and attributing human characteristics to awareness are especially fresh and innovative! Those sections systematically and thoroughly break down many stubborn dogmatic and essentialistic traps that a seeker can get hooked into while investigating the subject of nondual awareness.
The book is not really about Greg Goode, the person. But let me give you some insight, if you've never met him. I've been fortunate to call Greg a friend and "my teacher" for years now. I know firsthand that he has a deep love of this subject. When he talks about falling in love with awareness, it's genuine! Being in contact with him on a daily basis has been an enriching experience, to say the least. When working with Greg, I never felt as though he was treating me like a disciple or somehow below him. He doesn't "guru" people. His approach is non-dogmatic in every way, from the words he uses to the way in which he meets the questioner where he is and honors the question completely. His humility comes from the way he energetically experiences life with a kind of curiosity and openness to look at experience from many angles without landing on solid, fixed positions no matter what angle is examined.
Greg is continuously refining the subtle points of his approach, accomplishing this refinement by listening to the questions and exploring different angles rather than giving rehearsed speeches and memorized conclusions. The pages of the book reveal this same energetic lightness, humility and love of exploration. The book is the written version of Greg's energy as a teacher. It is helpful, but never preachy, thorough but not superfluous, scholarly but sweet, simple, and experiential in every way.
The Direct Path: A User Guide is a wonderful resource for those who approach the subject from a scholarly standpoint or from an interest in the direct experience of nondual awareness (or both). In nondual circles, one often hears phrases such as "nondual realization is beyond the mind." Although that insight can arise and it may appear accurate from the direct realization of awareness, the mind can be a useful tool in the path. Most people I've met have many, many questions that are philosophical and intellectual in nature. These are important questions that sometimes get overlooked in the teachings, leaving a sort of confusion, doubt, or "hole" in the path itself.
This book leaves no stone unturned, addressing the mind's questions, the heart's longing, and the direct experience itself. It often addresses an intellectual puzzle or problem and then seamlessly invites you into an experiment that shows you directly how experience itself answers the question. In that way, you are not left with yet another mental question. Yet if you find another question, there is likely another experiment waiting for you.
The book accomplishes something very unique. While addressing the many questions the mind throws up, it also takes you beyond these intellectual issues into the pure sweetness of not-knowing and the direct seeing of reality as your very Self.
What is the final conclusion of the book? - that nothing stands apart from awareness. All is awareness! Yet the last sections of the book on freedom from the path, language, and joyful irony take you deeper than that. These are powerful invitations to go beyond even the most compelling insights that arise from nondual realization, leaving one to enjoy life in an openhearted way, and experience each moment with a natural openness that does not endeavor to turn the various insights into truth claims that close the mind to other perspectives.
I envision myself pointing people to this book quite often because of its depth and breadth. Quite literally, it has to be read to be fully appreciated. It's nice knowing that this book is out there for people!
Many reasons to read this
By Jerry Katz
Greg Goode goes to unheard of lengths to show you that your experience is awareness, whether it is the experience of a chair, your hand or brain, a thought or subtle impression, or the witnessing awareness.
He carves new paths through the wildernesses of experience to the ancient pond of awareness. These paths are called experiments in this book and there are about 40 of them.
There are many reasons for reading this book.
If you are drawn to the direct path teachings of modern teachers Francis Lucille and Rupert Spira, this work is in that tradition, yet very different.
If you are drawn to a stepwise teaching beginning with investigation of the world, then the body, then the mind, then the witnessing awareness, and culminating in the dissolution of witnessing awareness, this book parallels advaitin traditional teachings, though it is not intended to be a substitute for them.
If you prefer to read nonduality books freely, without any particular structure or order, Greg encourages that too. Perhaps all you need to do is go through a few experiments and read the amazing section on deep sleep, for example.
If you want to see how your inquiry is doing, check yourself by going through this book. Is your inquiry perhaps stuck at the realization that there is only awareness? Greg might nudge you into freedom.
If you like Greg Goode as a person or want to get to know him, this is a great way to "feel" him. The book is rounded out with personal experiences in inquiry and self-realization, including some old school stories.
If you want to see how crazy love manifests, this book is a model for that. Reading this book may help you see how crazy love is distinguished from crazy wisdom, the latter being more immediate and splash-like. Upon collapse of witnessing awareness, it may be seen how crazy wisdom arises.
This book is well structured. The Table of Contents is seven pages long. There is a separate listing of the experiments. There is a good index. The publisher is to be commended for printing all that. And the book is divided into main sections: World, Body, Mind,Witnessing Awareness, Nondual Realization. Through its structure, you get a clear overview of what this book is about and what it covers.
Greg Goode goes crazy leading you lovingly down paths leading to the ancient pond of awareness. Whether or not you leap in like a frog, may not be up to anyone at all, but you will be led to the pond.
The Direct Path to the Heart
By Chuck Hillig
Greg Goode's latest book, The Direct Path, delves deeply into the great mystery of awareness. Avoiding the impractical nonsense that sometimes creeps into nondual writings, the author invites his readers to simply go and look for themselves. Through a series of sensory-based exercises and experiments, the readers are given practical ways to better experience the ordinary, common and everyday minutia of what's present. So, instead of ignoring what's arising, Greg's book focuses on using those very appearances to greatly enhance a deeper and more directed self-inquiry. By really looking at...and behind...what arises in awareness, the reader discovers that awareness, itself, is all that there really is. Practical, readable, accessible and highly recommended.
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4543, Saturday, March 17, 2011
It is important to ponder on what you hear, and infinitely more important to ponder on who hears it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Consciousness must first be there before anything else can BE. All inquiry of the seeker of truth must therefore relate to this consciousness, this sense of conscious presence which as such has no personal reference to any individual.
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
Just One Look - An experiment in the power of human consciousness to free itself from the fear of life.
Step 1: Learn to Move the Beam of Your Attention at Will
To begin, just relax for a moment, and notice the obvious fact that you have the power to move your attention at will.
As you read this, move your attention away from the text for a moment, and direct it instead to the feel of your breathing.
Notice the feel of your chest and belly expanding and contracting, and then bring it back here to this page.
Do that a couple of times so that you become familiar with what I mean by "moving the beam of your attention at will."
That action of moving attention at will, as you just did, is all that's needed to accomplish what I am asking you to do. The more you practice this simple act, the more you'll become familiar with how it feels to do it. And the more familiar you become with the feel of it, the more skillful and direct you will be in the effort to move the beam of attention where it must go.
Step 2: Turn the Beam of Your Attention Inward
Now, use that skill to actually turn the beam of attention inward. Try to make a direct, unmediated contact with what it actually feels like to be you, just plain and simple you.
When I say you, I don't mean the thoughts that pass through you, nor the emotions that play in you, nor the sensations that rise and fall within you, I mean just you. You are that which is always here, try to look at that. Everything else comes and goes in you. You already know what you are, and what it feels like to be you, so you will surely recognize yourself when you see yourself in this way.
There is no need to try and stay there, resting in your self or any such thing. All it takes is the length of a heartbeat, so brief that you will hardly notice it. It really is that simple.
Repeat this as often as it occurs to you to do so.
There is no step three.
I call this action looking at yourself. If you will do just that, the day will come soon when all your disaffection with life will begin to depart, and with it the perception of your life as a problem to be solved, a threat to be destroyed, or the hiding place of some secret treasure that might bring you fulfillment and satisfaction at some future time.
- John Sherman, RiverGanga Foundation
Your sense of who you are determines what you perceive as your needs and what matters to you in life - and whatever matters to you will have the power to upset and disturb you. You can use this as a criterion to find out how deeply you know yourself. What matters to you is not necessarily what you say or believe, but what your actions and reactions reveal as important and serious to you. So you may want to ask yourself the question: what are the things that upset and disturb me? If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small. That will be your unconscious belief. What are small things? Ultimately all things are small because all things are transient.
You might say, "I know I am an immortal spirit, "or "I am tired of this mad world, and peace is all I want"- until the phone rings. Bad news: The stock market has collapsed; the deal may fall through; the car has been stolen; your mother-in-law has arrived; the trip is cancelled, the contract is broken; your partner has left you; they demand more money; they say it`s your fault. Suddenly there is a surge of anxiety. A harshness comes into your voice; "I can`t take any more of this." You accuse and blame, attack, defend, or justify yourself, and it`s all happened on autopilot. Something is obviously much more important to you now than the inner peace that a moment ago you said was all you wanted, and you`re not an immortal spirit anymore either. The deal, the money, the contract and the threat of loss are more important .To whom? To the immortal spirit you said you are? No, to me. The small me that seeks security and fulfilment in things that are transient and gets anxious and angry because it fails to find it. Well at least you now know who you really think you are.
If peace is really what you want, then you will choose peace. If peace mattered to you more than anything else and you truly knew yourself to be spirit rather than little me, you would remain non-reactive and absolutely alert when confronted with challenging people or situations. You would immediately accept the situation and thus become one with it rather than separate yourself from it. Then, out of your alertness would come a response. Who you are (consciousness), not who you think you are (a small me), would be responding. It would be powerful and effective and would make no person or situation an enemy.
...Very unconscious people experience their own ego through its reflection in others. When you realize that what you react to in others is also in you (and sometimes only in you), you begin to become aware of your own ego. At that stage you realize that you were doing to others what you thought others were doing to you. You cease to see yourself as a victim.
...Nobody can tell you who you are.. It would just be another concept, so it would not change you. Who you are requires no belief. In fact, every belief is an obstacle. It does not even require your realization, since you already are who you are. But without realization, who you are does not shine forth in this world. It remains in the unmanifested which is, of course, your true home. You are then of course like an apparently poor person who does not know he has a bank of account with $100 million in it so his wealth remains an unexpressed potential.
- Eckhart Tolle, from A New Earth, posted to The_Now2
Is there no one with a pure worthy vision with which to gaze upward? If there no one purified of his water and clay so that he may gaze upon the Ocean? So that he may place his foot upon Mount Qaf and look upon the wing of the Phoenix? So that the Sun may make his vision drunk and headless and footless? Is there no one who receives replenishment from Love's light so that his vision may fall totally Yonder? Water becomes purified with water -- the man who can see gains vision from Vision. Become nothing but vision, for in God's Court, nothing finds access but vision!
- Rumi, Ghazal 1169, translation by William C. Chittick, from The Sufi Path of Love, posted to Sunlight
There is no such thing as silence. The void is a sea of infinitesimal bells. the deepest emptiness is a song pressed from nothing by a gaze within. Descend into the chorus of your heart. Listen: the sound of bliss creates the world.
There is a zen saying that the birds have no desire to be reflected in the lake, the lake has no desire to reflect the birds, but it still happens. The birds are reflected, the lake reflects, although the desire exists neither on the part of the birds nor on the part of the lake. In this desirelessness everything happens, nothing is done.
The Bright Field
By R. S. Thomas (1913 - 2000)
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
from Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds, Edited by Neil Astley / Edited by Pamela Robertson-Pearce
Once the cow Lakshmi came into the hall. She was pregnant at that time. It was after lunch time and Bhagavan was reading the newspapers. Lakshmi came near and started licking the papers. Bhagavan looked up and said, "Wait a little Lakshmi", but Lakshmi went on licking. Bhagavan laid his paper aside, put his hands behind Lakshmi's horns and put his head against hers. They stayed thus for quite a long time. All of us watched the wonderful scene. After some time Bhagavan turned to me and said, "Do you know what Lakshmi is doing? She is in samadhi". Tears were flowing from Lakshmi's eyes. Her eyes were fixed on Bhagavan. After some time Bhagavan asked her, "Lakshmi, how do you feel now"? Lakshmi moved backward, reluctant to turn her tail towards Bhagavan, and went out of the hall.
~ Source: "Ramana Smrti", chapter: 'Eternal Bhagwan' by Shantamma ?
Joseph Campbell said, "You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning…a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be." In an era when much of what passes for "the news" is cartoonish or sheer lunacy, Campbell raises a question worth asking: Where can I get news that is true and worth attending to? When I ask that question, here are some of the answers I get: from nature, from children, from friends and neighbors, from people who know what it means to love, from poetry, and from within. Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama are two of the people who remind me how much wisdom can come when we turn to "alternative sources" for the real news of our lives...
~Parker J. Palmer
Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun, like struggle.
To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.
~ Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers
We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it
love.
~ Dr. Seuss
"A young woman stepped forward from the throng and asked 'Oh great Prophet, tell us how we might find love that is unconditional, unending and unwavering'.
The Prophet did not answer right away. He looked off into the distance, gathering his thoughts. Silence descended upon the crowd. Then he turned his gaze upon the young woman and said 'Get a dog!'."
~ Chuck Lorre, Writer, Big Bang Theory.
"Lots of people talk to animals," said Pooh. "Not that many listen though. That's the problem." ~The Tao of Pooh
A journey into women’s spirituality-review of documentary Meetings with Remarkable Women
By Corina Bardasuc
The documentary Meetings with Remarkable Women is an inspiring film by up and coming director/producer Shawn Nevins, who previously directed the spiritually-themed documentary Closer than Close.
Filmed in 2010 and 2011, Meetings with Remarkable Women explores the spiritual paths of five women from varied backgrounds:
Linda — an Australian spiritual teacher whose discipline of meditation led to a profound spiritual realization.
Anima — whose childhood in India steeped her in spiritual traditions, but it took a journey to America before she realized her true desire was to find enlightenment.
Jem — who lived the roles of wife, mother, engineer, musician, and writer before discovering Reiki and A Course in Miracles; paths that eventually led her to a spiritual awakening.
Heather — from Christian to Atheist, Buddhist to free-form seeker of self-knowledge wrestling with meditation, self-inquiry, and prayer.
Deborah — who, after the tragic loss of her husband, launched a years-long spiritual path through ancient Buddhist texts and the practice of Yoga that culminated in the discovery of a deep and lasting inner peace.
Each of these women tells of her life and how she came to be on a spiritual path, and what experiences brought her closer to the truth of her existence. What is truly ‘remarkable’ about these women is their willingness to practically experiment with different spiritual systems in order to find something that works for them. From meditation to poetry and writing, from yoga and music to self-inquiry, their methods are as varied as their personalities, and they inspire the viewer with their thirst for truth.
The most engaging aspect of the documentary is the women’s honesty in their personal search, and their sense of experimenting with different techniques in order to approach an abstract concept such as ‘enlightenment.’ How does one ‘search’ for an abstract concept with one’s feelings? How does one send one’s tentacles through the darkness, searching as if blind for something that is unseen? These questions are hard if not impossible for anyone to answer, yet the women in this documentary have managed to answer them for themselves.
The flow of the documentary takes on a meditative feel as the stories of each protagonist are connected by clips of a young woman reading poetry that reflects her spiritual longings and existential frustration. The feeling of honesty and sharing is pervasive through the entire film, and is an invaluable tool to anyone sincerely interested in a spiritual path, whether male or female. Women viewers will find inspiration and strength they never encountered before, and energy to continue on a path that other women treaded before them. The men who watch this film will find an emotional honesty and gentleness of spirit that may be sorely needed on their own spiritual path.
Meetings with Remarkable Women touched me as a viewer on several emotional levels: I found myself swinging from compassion and sadness to awe and fearlessness, as the women exposed their souls to the camera. The texture and depth of the documentary is woven by the women’s recounting of their lives and trials illustrated by snapshots from their past and clips of the places they came from. Director Shawn Nevins interlaces the women’s stories with clips of poetry and meditative musical scores, and he does so with the gentle grace of a Celtic monk illustrating an illuminating manuscript. In his effort to convey the women’s determination, vulnerability and openness on their path, he offers the viewer more than a revealing encounter, but a genuine work of art.
At the end of the documentary I was left feeling not only emotionally inspired, but also feeling calm and renewed, as if I had just participated in a meditation session myself. The quality of silence, which is evoked by ‘blank screen breaks’ in-between the different story chapters, reflects a seeker’s moments of silence upon the spiritual path, as well as giving us as viewers a break to contemplate what we have just seen.
This documentary is especially relevant to me, as young woman about to turn 30, still searching for the meaning of my life; embittered and hardened yet made vulnerable and broken open by personal trials and sorrows, I am more determined than ever to find ‘the truth’ on my spiritual path. At times I waiver, at times I give up. At times I shut down and never want to deal with the world again. But always, always I return, and persist on my path to find whatever it is that will make me ‘complete.’ Some of the remarkable women in this documentary have found it, and as such, they are invaluable resources and teachers to me. They are, like the stars in the sky, distant and yet ever giving in their inspiration to those who follow them with anxious hopefulness from the darkness of the earth.
Meetings with Remarkable Woman is available at www.poetryinmotionfilms.com or visit Poetry in Motion Films on Facebook.
A philosophy teacher I studied with many years ago quoted some famous philosopher (forgotten by me; Berkeley?) as remarking that "nothing is what the rocks dream of."
"As I watched the planets hurl from the heart of the God Titan I realized that each planet had its own unique frequency. And every frequency together created a symphony that became one sound. That sound was the only sound that God makes… The sound of everything all at once. The sound of existence."
~ Aubrey Marcus
Spring and all its flowers now joyously break their vow of silence. ~ Hafiz (Persia, 14th century)
Magnolia by Peter Shefler
"Such Singing in the Wild Branches"
when I seemed to float, to be, myself, a wing or a tree— and I began to understand what the bird was saying,
and the sands in the glass stopped for a pure white moment while gravity sprinkled upward
like rain, rising, and in fact it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing— it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers, and also the trees around them, as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them
were singing. And, of course, yes, so it seemed, so was I. Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last
for more than a few moments. It's one of those magical places wise people like to talk about. One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you've been there, you're there forever. Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song may already be drifting away.
Meetings in Doorn (The Netherlands), London (U.K.), and Halifax (Canada) are described, with videos and readings.
Attend Euro SAND 2012 in Doorn, The Netherlands
May 29 - June 3
I will be moderating a panel on The Business of Nonduality. Have you ever wanted to talk about the topic of money and nonduality? This will be the first time for such an open discussion, with as many audience questions as time will allow.
Until I was about 25 years old, I had no interest in spiritual matters and all I knew about them was what I had learned in religious education lessons at school.
Around 1985 I joined a fraternal order which sent me regular monthly lessons in mysticism and ‘universal law’.
After a couple of years I found it a bit stodgy and became interested in the teachings of a deceased Indian teacher offered, again, in monthly lessons, and also a guru-disciple relationship – even though he was already dead! A couple of years and several spiritual techniques later, I was bored with it and happened upon a book by a western guru. This book told me that I was already awake and needed no liberation. The truth of what he was saying was obvious. However, he then went on, (in the next few years and over the course of quite a few books), to proclaim himself the world teacher and offered a guru-disciple relationship with those who were interested.
Well, I was having none of it, although over the following five years I read a few more of his books and just about every other spiritual book I could get my hands on. But, nothing really cut it for me like this western guru’s book had done. Somewhere in me I knew it was true; that I was already awake and free but, I was still confused because I seemed to be just an ordinary bloke with all the usual sorts of problems that ordinary people have.
Anyway, I got sick of this guy’s stuff and everyone else’s and then I hit the Advaita scene. I read everything by and about Ramana Maharshi, Jean Klein and Nisargadatta Maharaj and everything by Ramesh Balseker.
A lot of the confusion that I had felt before went. I understood that all there is is Consciousness, but why did I still feel like a separate me? What was the missing link? If I was already awake and free then why did my life seem like a pile of dung?
In 1997 I read Tony Parson’s first book called “The Open Secret”. I contacted him and he invited me to join a discussion at a private house in London. I went along and sat in the crowded room and it became clear to me how much mystique I had built around the whole ‘enlightenment’ drama.
Tony looked like an ordinary man. He spoke with humour and patience. I listened to what he said in response to people’s questions and I was struck by the simplicity and clarity of his answers. I went to more discussions over the next year and spoke to Tony on the phone whenever I could.
I wanted to make him into my ‘teacher’ but he explained that he had nothing to teach, that there was nothing to learn. He pointed out that there is only Consciousness and that I am already that. Although I had accepted this already, it really began to sink in. Tony pointed out that there need not be any kind of ‘event’ associated with the recognition of your nature as Consciousness.
Well, as it happened, in September 1998 an event did occur. I was gardening and it was drizzling with rain. I looked up and there was a subtle sense of ‘me’ not being there. I got on my bike and cycled around the lanes and it seemed like there was a movie going on without any effort needed on my behalf to be taking part in it.
Even though Tony had pointed out that no event is necessarily associated with the recognition of your nature as Consciousness, I had obviously still been subtly waiting for one because now that this event, or experience, was occurring I gave myself ‘permission’ to be awake. I had been waiting for confirmation.
I rang Tony and excitedly explained what was going on and, having given myself ‘permission’ to be awake, I allowed myself to speak from the clarity of understanding that had already unfolded during the process of my seeking before the event took place. I no longer related as a seeker to Tony and he recognised that I now spoke from my nature as Consciousness. Now, having associated this experience with being awake, I started to get a bit precious about it.
I woke the next day. Was it still there? Yes! Then, after a few days, I noticed that the experience was wearing off a bit, but a couple of days later it was full on again. After a couple of weeks of the experience coming and going and of trying to hold on to it, I went to one of Tony’s discussions and the experience seemed to be re-charged by being there but then a few days later the experience disappeared altogether. I didn’t say anything to Tony about it and I didn’t go to the meetings for a while. I felt confused again.
Then I happened to read a book called “Collision with the Infinite” by a woman called Suzanne Segal who, over many years, had an experience going on constantly. After several years it was confirmed by certain ‘teachers’ that it was ‘enlightenment’. Then she got ill and died, and, in the afterword to Suzanne’s book which was written by a therapist friend of hers, I read that near the end she had become confused and frustrated because the experience had left her.
That was it! Suddenly it was absolutely clear to me that these experiences – I call them transcendental events or experiences – actually have nothing to do with clarity. A transcendental experience can last a few seconds or ten years or maybe even the rest of your life, but a transcendental experience is just that. An experience. Many people have had these experiences and then the experience is gone and often the person is left with a desire for more of it. They think they have been given a taste of ‘enlightenment’, when all that has happened is that they have had a transcendental experience. Walking down the street is an experience, but it’s an ordinary one so you don’t go looking for more of it.
The confusion was gone. I knew what I am without any doubt and it was obvious that I already had been that all my life. I no longer required any transcendental experience to prove it to me.
The whole of my ‘spiritual’ search had been added on to what I already am and I also understood why people are confused around this whole issue. Why they confuse ‘spirituality’ with clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any transcendental event or experience. It was clear that a transcendental experience of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs before you recognise with clarity your nature as Consciousness.
It is obvious that the transcendental event that was experienced had nothing to do with clarity of recognition. The occurrence of the event brought my confusion to a head and allowed me to see clearly how I had been subtly waiting for an event as permission to be what I already am.
I see now that no transcendental event has any significance in the light of the plain, ordinary, everyday clarity of what you really are.
"Realization is simply being oneself." -Ramana Maharshi. What does that mean?
We will consider the following brief reading from Ramana Maharshi:
"Self - Realization
"The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state. He can only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.
"That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it." -Ramana Maharshi
There is no charge for this event, however if your budget allows, a $5 donation is invited, which goes toward the rental of the space. More importantly, if you are serious about what takes place here, we would like to meet you.
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4549, Saturday, March 24, 2011
Psychological inquiry is about content, and it's directed towards solving some problem.
Spiritual inquiry, however, is about context, and it's more directed towards discovering who has the problem.
- Chuck Hillig, posted to AlongTheWay
The Buddhas words from his teaching, the Anatta Lakkhana Sutta just a few weeks after his enlightenment:
"What do you think of this, O monks? Is form permanent or impermanent?"
"Impermanent, O Lord."
"Now, that which is impermanent, is it unsatisfactory or satisfactory?"
"Unsatisfactory, O Lord."
"Now, that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory, subject to change, is it proper to regard that as: 'This is mine, this I am, this is my self'?"
"Indeed, not that, O Lord."
"Therefore, surely, O monks, whatever form, past, future or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or lofty, far or near, all that form must be regarded with proper wisdom, according to reality, thus: 'This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.'"
DG, posted to DailyDharma
When you stop searching and let the impersonal consciousness take over, then it lets you in on the mystery of its own source, and you will know that things have no substance.
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
The Novel of Life
When you read a novel, and you read about various characters, you may like some and not like others. Or when you watch a movie, think about your relationship with the characters. You might like them; you might not like them - but you're not finding your sense of self in them. You're not referencing your self-worth by the characters in a novel or when you turn on the TV. You just have your thoughts about them.
But imagine if you turned on your TV or you read a novel and you actually completely derived your sense of being and your sense of self from one of the characters. Immediately your perspective is very different, isn't it? Now your perspective has gone from something that's very vast to something that's very limited, seen only through the eyes of the character. Sadly, that's how most human beings spend their lives. They have this little character in their mind called "me," and they're actually viewing that "me" as personal when it's not.
The "me" is very impersonal, not meaning cold or distant, but just meaning without inherent self nature, in the same way that when you read a book, the characters are without self nature. They actually don't exist outside of your imagination. They don't even exist in the book, because the book is just words. And without someone reading the words and bringing it all alive within imagination, nothing even exists on the printed page. It's all within the reader, all the life.
When the Buddha talked about the realization of no-self, he was talking about the self that's an image in the mind being completely seen through. And when there is no image of self, experience has nothing to bounce off of. Everything just is as it is, because there's no secondary interpretation. The one that's interpreting is the one that's in pain. And that's the one who suffers. That's the one who causes others to suffer.
The false self, the self that's an image in the mind, uses every experience to measure itself: "How am I in relationship to what's happening? Am I wise? Am I stupid? Am I clumsy? Am I courageous? Am I enlightened about this?" That's the movement of consciousness reflecting on an image of itself that doesn't actually exist. It's always measuring each and every experience, and then believing in the interpretation of the experience rather than seeing "Everything just is."
Everything actually just is. From the perspective of consciousness, even resistance just is. And if you resist resistance, that's just what is. You can't get away from it. You start to see that the only thing that goes into resistance, a story, or an interpretation of what is - whatever it is - is this mind-created persona. It's like a character in a novel. When you read a novel, every character has a point of view. It has beliefs. It has opinions. There's something that makes it distinct from other characters. Our persona is literally this mind-created character that's always making itself distinct. So it always needs to evaluate everything against its preconceived idea.
There's another vantage point. The other vantage point is not only outside the character, it's also inside the character. It's the ultimate vantage point that's outside, and it's also playing all the parts from the inside.
That's basically what it means to really wake up: we're waking up from the character. You don't have to destroy the character called "me" to wake up from it. In fact, trying to destroy the character makes it very hard to wake up. Because what's trying to destroy the character? The character. What's judging the character? The character.
So you leave the character alone. The character called you, just leave it alone. Then it's much easier for the awakening out of that perspective to happen.
You don't lose the character; you just gain the whole novel of life. It's not like you lose anything. You just gain the whole book. You gain the whole universe. As Buddha would say, "Lose yourself, gain the universe." It's not a bad deal. Or Dogen: "To know yourself is to forget yourself, and to forget yourself is to be enlightened by the 10,000 things," which means to see yourself everywhere. Wake up from your character, and then you see your self nature in all characters - not just one, but all of them.
So we don't lose anything. We gain all characters. We just lose the fixation, that's all.
- Adyashanti
Awakening to the truth of perfect Unity, means to awaken from the dream of a personal self and personal others to the realization that there is no other. Many spiritual seekers have had glimpses of the absolute unity of all existence, but few are capable of or willing to live up to the many challenging implications inherent in that revelation. The revelation of perfect unity, that there is no other, is a realization of the ultimate impersonality of all that seems to be so very personal. Applying this realization to the arena of personal relationships is something that most seekers find extremely challenging, and is the number one reason why so many seekers never come completely to rest in the freedom of the Self Absolute.
Inherent in the revelation of perfect unity is the realization that there is no personal me, no personal other, and therefore no personal relationships. Coming to terms with the challenging implications of this stunning realization is something that few people are willing to do. Because realizing the true impersonality of all that seems so personal, challenges every aspect of the illusion of a separate, personal self. It challenges the entire structure of personal relationships which are born of needs, wants, and expectations. It is in the arena of personal relationships that the illusion of a separate self clings most tenaciously and insidiously. Indeed, there is nothing that derails more spiritual seekers than the grasping at and attaching to personal relationships.
The revelation of perfect unity reveals the true impersonality of all relationships. The ego always interprets "impersonal" as meaning cold, distant, and aloof. However, "impersonal" simply means not personal, or void of a separate me and a separate you. The mind cannot comprehend of a relationship without separate entities. Much as a character in a dream cannot comprehend that all other dream characters are simply manifestations of the same dreamer. Yet when the dreamer awakens, he instantly comprehends that the entire dream, and all the characters in it, were none other than projections of his own self. In the dream there is the appearance of separate, personal entities in relationship, but upon awakening one comprehends the impersonal (non-separate) Self that is the source of all appearances.
To deeply inquire into the question "Who is another?" can lead to the direct experience that the other is one's own Self - that in fact there is no other. However, I have seen that for most seekers, even this direct experiential revelation is not enough to transform the painfully personal ways they relate. To come to this profound transformation requires a very deep investigation into the implications inherent within the experiential revelation that there is no other. It is in the daily living of these implications that most seekers fail. Why? Because, fundamentally, most people want to remain separate and in control. Simply put, most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate, more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room from any separation from the whole.
There is a powerful tendency in most spiritual seekers to avoid probing deeply into the implications inherent within profound spiritual experience and revelation, because these implications are always threatening to the sense of a separate self, or ego. It is the implications inherent within profound spiritual revelation that demand the transformation of the apparent individual.
Inherent within the revelation of perfect unity is the realization that there is no other. The implications of this realization reveal that in order to manifest that unity in the relative world, one must renounce the dream of being a separate self seeking to obtain anything through relationship with another. Indeed, personal relationship appears to happen in the relative world, but in reality, all appearances simply arise as temporary manifestations of a unified whole. In the relative world these appearances are in relationship, but not as separate entities. Rather, they are the play of the one Self projecting itself as apparent entities in relationship to one another.
As long as you identify yourself with the projection of separateness, you will continue to deny that you are the Source of all projections. When you truly and absolutely awaken to this fact, and comprehend the overwhelming implications inherent within this awakening, you will continually experience that all apparently personal relationships are in truth nothing other than the play of your Self. To realize that the personal me is an illusion born of false identification with the body, thoughts, and emotions, brings a profound sense of freedom. This is fundamentally the realization of emptiness, of what you are not. But contained within the realization of emptiness (formlessness) is also the realization of what you ARE. In the most absolute sense you ARE this conscious emptiness which is the source of all appearances (existence). But you are the appearance as well. Not just one part of the appearance called "me", but all of it, the entire whole. This is the challenge, to let your view get this vast. To let your view get so vast that your identity disappears. Then you realize that there is no other, and there is nothing personal going on.
Contrary to the way the ego will view such a realization, it is in reality the birth of true love. A love which is free of all boundaries and fear. To the ego such uncontaminated love is unbearable in its intimacy. When there is no clear separating boundaries and nothing to gain the ego becomes disinterested, angry, or frightened. In a love where there is no other there is nowhere to hide, no one to control, and nothing to gain. It is the coming together of appearances in the beautiful dance of the SELF called Love.
To the seeker who is sincere, an experiential glimpse of this possibility is not enough. If you are sincere you will find it within yourself to go far beyond any glimpse. You will find within your Self the courage to let go of the known and dive deeply into the Unknown heart of a mystery that calls you only to itself.
- Adyashanti, The Heart of Relationship, posted to The_Now2
"Allow nature to teach you stillness." ~Eckhart Tolle
When the mind is at peace, the world too is at peace. Nothing real, nothing absent. Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
~Layman P'ang (c. 740-808)
[48] In the sandalwood forest, there is no other tree (from The Shodoka)
By Hsuan Chueh of Yung Chia / Yoka Genkaku (665 - 713)
English version by Robert Aitken
In the sandalwood forest, there is no other tree. Only the lion lives in such deep luxuriant woods, Wandering freely in a state of peace. Other animals and birds stay far away.
Hsuan Chueh is perhaps best known for composing the Cheng Tao Ko, a collection of Zen teaching poems. This work has been popularized in the West through the influence of Japanese Zen schools, where it is known as The Shodoka and he is referred to as Yoka Genkaku.
"Every animal knows more than you do." —Native American Proverb
"What is a man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man." —Chief Seattle
"Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world." ~Ramana Maharshi
We must learn to trust that what needs to open within us will do so, in just the right fashion. In fact, our body, heart, and spirit know how to give birth, to open naturally, like the petals of a flower. We need not tear at the petals nor force the flower. We must simply stay planted and present. ~Jack Kornfeld
via Daily Dharma
Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower. I've been circling for thousands of years and I still don't know: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?
Science and Nonduality Conference and Neti Neti Films (with Maurizio and Zaya) present a project we can all be a part of. Looks like they'll make a film out of all the contributions. I would like to invite and encourage everybody to submit something -- a selection of your writing, your art, your favorite quote, whatever.
If you wish to promote this project, please re-post this notice in your blog, facebook, etc., or just this link:
If you have to express the new spirituality with a video, an image, symbol or one sentence what would that be?
Please send us your ideas in a visual format, a photo, a short clip so that we can insert them in a short collective video. Your contribution can be in any of the formats below:
one image one video one word one symbol one song one sentence one quote
If it is a word it can be you saying it, putting it on a card and taking a photo, writing on the sand… it’s your idea, go with it. Your offers can be in ALL languages, if not in English please help us by providing a translation of your presentation! Looking forward to play with all of you. Click here to upload your contribution no later then May 1st!
Send us your vision and spread this post and url so more people can contribute to it. Think out of the box, be creative, be bold, be irreverent, but most of all... BE! :-)
One of the things the seeker does not want to hear especially when it has invested a lot of time, money and intensity into the search: hours of meditation, buying and reading spiritual books, going for satsangs and retreats etc., that the search can be dropped right here and right now, as there is no golden pot at the end of the rainbow. There will be no enlightenment in the future. Never.
Whatever Is is only ever Now.
Always perceived at this moment,
To be seen only Now
Only ever Now
Did you notice its always Now?
The ruthless truth is that the person you believe yourself to be will never get it.
The pristine awareness that you are already does not need any improvement, does not need any process to be able to comprehend itself.
Enlightenment, freedom is not for the person its freedom from the person.
and...
What you are looking for is what you are looking from.
Already the case.
You are That
(But then who knows... : maybe even though the seeker does not want to hear this, it might be that awareness, trying to recognize Itself through you, drops this information in your lap, so you, after investigating this belief of being a person and seeing the fallacy of it, might finally relax, sit back and enjoy the show ;-) )
Nathan Gill wrote:
> > I see now that no transcendental event has any significance in the light of the > > plain, ordinary, everyday clarity of what you really are.
snip
> This type of experience can happen when the mind becomes very quiet
> and still, and in that very still almost > thought free mind, one's true nature gets reflected, and > one feels extremely happy and peaceful.
Dhanya writes:
In an effort to demystify this type of event I offer here the Sanskrit term for this type of experience, whether one calls it transcendental, blissful, fool's gold, or whatever the technical term for it is 'ati sukshma vritti.'
Ati (very) sukshma (subtle) vritti (thought form)
So the reflection of the 'light of consciousness' (again if one wants to use those term) in a mind which is very calm and peaceful is called an ati sukshma vritti. It can be mistaken for the recognition of the truth, but it isn't the recognition of truth because for one thing it goes away, and for another it is not a direct cognition of one's true nature. In other words, the sense that my identity is as the body mind individual is still firmly in place.
Yosy writes:
demystifying the mystical
the mystics use similes to express the divine love.
but me - for me love of god elevates every experience to the mystic heights!
my lover's body is the perfect divine temple. no doubt. and lovingly tenderly caressing her skin - a prayer most sublime.
and a kiss - oh, the kiss! kissing your lips my beloved one is a most rewarding rapture of unity!
the secret book of books lies hidden shyly between her thighs. beautiful divine landscape.
we are what is. yahuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!! always and forever.
what the devout call divine love is but a simile for this intoxicating god given experience. life! ****************************
_()_ yosy
Jot down Scott Kiloby's upcoming dates in Massachusetts and Rhode Island:
Thursday Evening, Apr. 26, 7-9 PM:
Nina Carmel's Country Barn
43 Old Sudbury Road
Lincoln, MA 01773
Fri-Sun, Apr. 27-29:
The Providence Institute 18 Imperial Place -6A, Providence, RI 02903
Times & Ticket Prices: Apr. 27-29, 2012
Thursday: 7:00-9:00 pm - $20-25 (sliding scale- pay as you can afford)
Friday: 7:00-9:00 pm - $20-25 (sliding scale- pay as you can afford)
Saturday: 10:00am-5:00pm - $70 (in Advance) / $80 (at-the-door)
Sunday: 10:00am-1:00pm - $30 (in Advance) / $40 (at-the-door)
What is the "new spirituality"? Contribute your creative video response to this film project that I gladly endorse:
Very seldom can one recommend a book before reading it, but this is the one! I was already an avid reader back when Swami Z stories first appeared some years ago on Vicki's website. While many profound truths are wryly or sarcastically uttered as humor, Swami Z just happens to be the most lovable curmudgeon of a guru you'll ever meet. When baking cookies for his kitchen table satsangs with mostly complaining and questioning disciples, a group that includes a grown man with his stick pony, hilarious conversations take place that somehow magically convey to you all the comfort and delight of a warm cookie fresh from the oven. Treat yourself!
Authored by Vicki Woodyard
Vicki Woodyard wrote A GURU IN THE GUEST ROOM as a blend of fantasy and wisdom about awakening. In this book, she introduces the reader to Swami Z and his disciples; a motley crew of characters that spring up around him to learn that they are the Self. If you want to have an awakened wink, this book is for you!
I love talking about nothing. It's the only thing that I know anything about.
~Oscar Wilde
My Life
My whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me, for it is infinite. The ripple of water, the shade of the sky are mine; it is still the same, my life.
No desire opens me: I am full, I never close myself with refusal- in the rhythm of my daily soul I do not desire-I am moved;
by being moved I exert my empire, making the dreams of night real: into my body at the bottom of the water I attract the beyonds of mirrors...
~Rainer Maria Rilke
via Christopher Hebard on FB
Our task is to take this earth so deeply and wholly into ourselves that it will resurrect within our being.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, letter to Witold Hulewicz, November 13, 1925
via Ivan M. Granger
by Rashani Rea
Most people think excitement is happiness - but when you are excited you are not peaceful - true happiness is based on peace. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
One of the dysfunctional patterns of the mind is the assumption that the Now needs to be filled with something all the time. Of course you have to do things, but see if you can also experience the spaciousness of this moment, the inherent goodness of this moment, regardless of what it contains. ~Eckhart Tolle
If you want to know who someone is, what is flowing through or not flowing, stay in a listening posture. Close your eyes inside your companion's shadow. But always remember, you have your own source. Never leave that. Explore the inner foundation stone by stone. ~ Rumi
One by one they vacate the memory cells move out – we know not where – faces of the disappeared
Wraiths drifting home from a club mist strolling a heath shadows witnessed by crows footsteps stalked by a one-eyed alley cat
Before leaving, unceremoniously, this walking, wondering, wishful world of men to become tattered leaflets notices in train stations, post offices, strangers who enter our lives because of their absence touching us because they are of our time, our place
What is the sum total of the vanished? Have they gone back to school learning again how to say ‘Good night, see you in the morning!’
Do they assemble like fixed stars on frosty nights disappearing over and over again?
A voice mumbles ‘They are spread out all over the earth and under the earth …’
A second voice: ‘Dust, they are dust …’
A third declares ‘They live and laugh and cry like us tenacious, insubstantial as gossamer …’
First the names appear and to that known record is added more and more names ribboning back in time in more directions than I know a parchment the colour of a wintry sky before dawn’s childish daubings
I gaze into that stippled void look! it was there all along sheet music for bird song.
~ ~ ~
Stag
The boy’s eyes are full of wonder. What is it you have seen, his father asks. The boy has no words to describe the great stag. What can he do? Sing? He dances for his father the first steps of the Highland Fling.
~ ~ ~
Recurring Nightmare
The people’s spirit cracked like dry bone. In time they answered to other names in another language computer-compatible that fitted them like tight jeans
They quickly mastered new-fangled things sending text messages to illiterate aunts back in Source of White River territory where the intestines of a black pig are still used for divination
They exercised their vote. A certain delightful paleness entered their cheeks and they walk now to a new, bold rhythm pausing only to look in shop windows combing back their sleek hair
Their diet today is more varied. Babies come into the world and are baptised without that lost look in their eyes. They speak volubly - Rapid fire - time is now more precious than before
One of them publishes a poem abroad to much acclaim another is paid what you’d spend in a year for modelling underwear
On hot summer nights when the air conditioning fails they dream the sacred waterfall …
In olden days a seer would sit on a threadbare bullock hide and in a recess behind the bright roar plunge into ancestral silence invoking the restless spirit of the falls emerging from a corona of spume to scatter his pearl-strung litanies: all who listened were rooted to the ground and were healed.
~ ~ ~
His Grace
Nobody quite knows who you are or why you’re there taking up such valuable space almost enough for a wine bar. Your name suggests a Church of Ireland bishop as does your poise. Let me guess, you once did the Grand Tour your daughter sketched the Coliseum you instructed your secretary to pay the sum of five pounds to the Gaelic League. You preached sermons about vanity the illusion of grandeur and fame you cared for horses.
Who are these people passing by? Not the type who seem to know much about old English roses. Why don’t they look up? Some do but your gaze is elsewhere towards heaven or, further still, the troubled Empire.
~ ~ ~
Comfort Lady: a soldier remembers
It was plain she had lost her reason as I had lost my soul
Sleeping with a dead animal? Yes … You could say that
She had lice in her hair
For years afterwards my mouth sagged as though I’d had a stroke
Old pleasures yield nothing. Gardening …? There seems to be as much death as life in the soil
The pageantry of seasons? Crumbling stage scenery
After the war she leaped to her death, I am told, emitting a sound like an eagle’s whistling cry
I write this down so that my children and my grandchildren will know of my shame
A leaf has just landed on the veranda I pick it up, examine its veins and half choke: time passes, a running sore.
I went to die for the Emperor and lived - this is my sorrow.
~ ~ ~
Sweeney in Gleann na nGealt – the Valley of Lunatics
They give me donkey’s urine to drink Watercress to chew For mental aberrations Delusions I am not mad If I am mad So is the wind Auroras streaming down the slopes of Gleann na nGealt You cannot see them? I will show them to you I have them here In the glowing palm of my hand
~ ~ ~
Féileacán
Féileacán ar fhuinneog. Bhíos in ann féachaint trína sciatháin.
Ar feadh uair an chloig ina dhiaidh sin bhíos in ann féachaint trí gach aon ní is tríom féinig.
~ ~ ~
Butterfly
Butterfly/on a window./ I could see through its wings./ For an hour afterwards/I could see through everything/ see through myself.
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4556, Saturday, March 31, 2011
Desperately seeking simplicity
this time i must confess i feel a total hate for myself while crowded and swarmed my heart wishes to be a single self
seeking that single pearl i crave to dive deep into this sea but fear of murderous waves makes me beg for your help my friends
scattered with so much going on inside i long for nothing but an inner unity duality must be abandoned if you seek to drink the soul of unity
you must bet and lose everything you've ever owned if you truly desire to become one with your beloved
listen to the secret sound of the revelation now when your quest aspires the skies fly away from this lowly earth
my heavenly soul who only nests in the heights is tired of its house on earth it wants to abandon the body it wants to take the final flight
- Rumi, Ghazal 3210, translation by Nader Khalili from Rumi, Fountain of Fire, posted to Sunlight
Here's a message for the faithful what is it that you cherish to find the Way to see your nature your nature is naturally so what Heaven bestows is perfect looking for proof leads you astray leaving the trunk to search among the twigs all you get is stupid
- Hanshan, from The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, translation by Red Pine
Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost. That which is there before the beginning and after the ending of everything; that to which there is no birth, nor death. That immovable state, which is not affected by the birth and death of a body or a mind, that state you must perceive.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, posted to AlongTheWay
Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.
- Thich Nhat Hahn
When the mind is at peace, the world too is at peace. Nothing real, nothing absent. Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
- Layman P'ang (c. 740-808), from The Enlightened Heart - An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, edited by Stephen Mitchell, posted to AlongTheWay
Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4557, Sunday, April 1, 2012
Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot seek the path that demands your whole being. Leave that which is not, but appears to be seek that which is, but is not apparent.
- Rumi, from Rumi: Hidden Music, translated by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi, posted to AlongTheWay
The hidden awareness of Natural Perfection is everywhere, its parameters beyond indication, its actuality incommunicable; the sovereign view of Natural Perfection is the here-and-now, naturally present without speech or books, irrespective of conceptual clarity or dullness. As spontaneous joyful creativity its reality is nothing at all.
- Longchenpa, posted to DailyDharma
All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source has been found. There is no use removing doubts one by one. If we clear one doubt, another doubt will arise and there will be no end of doubts. But if, by seeking the source of the doubter, the doubter is found to be really non-existent, then all doubts will cease.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi, farom Be As You Are - The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, , edited by David Godman, posted to AlongTheWay
Once the spontaneity of the whole process of manifestation in its totality is apprehended and the hollowness of the distinction between "self" and "other" is realized there cannot possibly be any more question of a separate individual who can either be "born" or "die".
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
If you are born of Adam, sit like him and behold all his progeny within yourself. What is in the jar that is not also in the river? What is in the house that is not also in the city? This world is a jar, and the heart-spirit is like the river; this world is the chamber, and the spirit is the wondrous city.
- Rumi, Mathnawi IV: 809-811, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, from Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance, posted to Sunlight
... and finally for today, April 1, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DailyDharma/attachments/folder/1436533128/item/1471242962/view
Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot seek the path that demands your whole being. Leave that which is not, but appears to be seek that which is, but is not apparent.
- Rumi, from Rumi: Hidden Music, translated by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi, posted to AlongTheWay
The hidden awareness of Natural Perfection is everywhere, its parameters beyond indication, its actuality incommunicable; the sovereign view of Natural Perfection is the here-and-now, naturally present without speech or books, irrespective of conceptual clarity or dullness. As spontaneous joyful creativity its reality is nothing at all.
- Longchenpa, posted to DailyDharma
All doubts will cease only when the doubter and his source has been found. There is no use removing doubts one by one. If we clear one doubt, another doubt will arise and there will be no end of doubts. But if, by seeking the source of the doubter, the doubter is found to be really non-existent, then all doubts will cease.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi, farom Be As You Are - The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, , edited by David Godman, posted to AlongTheWay
Once the spontaneity of the whole process of manifestation in its totality is apprehended and the hollowness of the distinction between "self" and "other" is realized there cannot possibly be any more question of a separate individual who can either be "born" or "die".
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
If you are born of Adam, sit like him and behold all his progeny within yourself. What is in the jar that is not also in the river? What is in the house that is not also in the city? This world is a jar, and the heart-spirit is like the river; this world is the chamber, and the spirit is the wondrous city.
- Rumi, Mathnawi IV: 809-811, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, from Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance, posted to Sunlight
"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous." — Aristotle
Everything that is in the heavens, on the earth and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness, is penetrated with relatedness."
~Hildegard of Bingen
via Tom McFerran
photo via Susan Lucey
Teaching Dharma
The sparrow feeding among tall grasses, Is in no way inferior to old Shakiamuni: Its unexcelled grasp of perfect Dharma Evident in every chirp, and every peck.
~Pete Sierra
The Decisive Experience
With your conduct unpredictable, you make the final leap into awareness without the slightest basis for determining what is spiritual or not - this bare state with no reference point is beyond the cage of philosophy. Whether eating, moving around, lying down or sitting, day and night you rest in infinite evenness - you experience the true nature of phenomena as their equalness. There are no gods to worship, no demons to exorcise, nothing to cultivate in meditation - this is the completely "ordinary" state. With this single state of evenness, there is openness, a relaxed and unstructured openness. How delightful - things are timelessly ensured without having to be done, and being free of effort and achievement, you are content.
~Longchenpa
via Daily Dharma by Amrita Nadi
photo by Mazie Lane
April
A whole new freshman class of leaves has arrived
on the dark twisted branches we call our woods, turning
green now—color of anticipation. In my 76th year,
I know what time and weather will do to every leaf.
The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. To be here, all you have to do is let go of who you think you are. That’s all! And then you realize, "I’m here." Here is where thoughts aren’t believed. Every time you come here, you are nothing. Radiantly nothing. Absolutely and eternally zero. Emptiness that is awake. Emptiness that is full. Emptiness that is everything.....'
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