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#1140 - Friday, July 19, 2002 - Editor: Gloria Lee


9

Reaching the Source

Too many steps have been taken
returning to the root and the source.
Better to have been blind and deaf
from the beginning!
Dwelling in one's true abode,
unconcerned with and without -
The river flows tranquilly on
and the flowers are red.

http://www.zen-mtn.org/zmm/gallery3.htm

see above link for all 10 Ox Herding Pictures

a treat! contributed by Michael Read


JOHN LOGANIS on HarshaSatsangh

As I remember it, I also had a sense of being larger than my ordinary
body/mind self. Huge doesn't begin to describe; ALL is closer. There
was a sense of complete loss of my identity and being a part of it
all. In my case the details faded and there was just energy for a
while - in earth time it was probably only 30 seconds to maybe 2
minutes - but it could have been centuries in "forever time".

I don't know why, except that I believe that it was to prepare me for
the "trial" of cancer to come, and my 18 days in ICU. I was never
afraid after that, I just knew that I had/have to walk through what
was to come -- I'm still walking on!!!

I will share another strange experience. I woke up in ICU fairly
groggy from the anesthetic and then went back to sleep. When I woke
up the second time, some nurses came probably four, three of them
were dressed in white and the fourth was dressed in black with black
hair and a black nurse's cap. They were all checking me over and
checking the equipment. At one point all four bent over the rail and
looked at me. The one in black, nodded and said, "He's OK, I'm not
needed." Then she smiled, turned and left.

I didn't get it until I told the story recently to an old friend who
understands these things -- and she said, "Oh my God, you were
visited by an Angel of Death!"

It could be so.

Well, here I am. That was January of 2000, surgery on the first day
of Aquarius, my birth sign and now it is July of 2002. My doctors are
saying I am doing well and I can live as long as I want to the way
things are going with my health. Ain't that a kick in the head!?!

Thank you for your sharing. It is nice to know that at least one
other person has had a similar experience.

What I have learned is that every day is a gift and I am trying to
make the most of them.

When life comes, I live;
when death comes, I die.
What next?
Whatever!


DAN BERKOW on NDS

Re:"No God but God"

Yes.

Or ... there is no other ... only "this one" ...

We notice as well --
an affirmation gets used
as a statement of faith, as saying the way it is --

Becomes something to die for, something to live for,
something around which to orient a life or a group
of lives.

Having no affirmation to provide, isn't necessarily
to be bereft of "knowing."

Knowing what happens when an affirmation
is propounded, as if the truth has been said,
as if language or thought could fix truth in
some form --

Nondeclaratively,
Dan


HARSHA

Self Being Consciousness Alone, requires no other
instrument of perception, no subtle states from which
to experience ItSelf. Self ItSelf Experiences ItSelf
Through ItSelf By ItSelf as that is the Self-Nature.
The ancient sages state that the Self is Independent
and without support. Self is One without a second.
Coming from Self-Knowledge, these words have deep
meaning.

Meditators and yogis experience divine visions,
celestial experiences, and related psychic and mental
phenomena. Sages say that all such experiences require
the agency of the mind at some level. We can call it
SuperMind, Divine Intelligence, manifestations of
Kundalini Shakti, etc. While such experiences may
indicate strength of meditation, these do not reveal
the Self.

From the relative perspective, Self is Recognized when
all phenomena that manifests from the Self (SuperMind,
Shakti) is absorbed back into the Self, into the
Heart, and the Absolute Silence which swallows up time
and space makes It Self Known to ItSelf with Fullness
as Sat-Chit-Ananda.

Sri Ramana once said something like --- I paraphrase
--True and Final Realization is knowing the complete
non-arising of phenomena. It appears to me that this
makes sense in light of the Advaitic teaching, 1. Self
is Real; 2. World is Unreal; 3. Self Is the World. Sri
Ramana said that the the third statement unifies the
other two and gives them full meaning.

Love to all
Harsha


JAN SULTAN on Unitive Conscious Awakening List

David Bozzi's new list may be found at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unitive_conscious_awakening/?yguid=81878586

Excerpts from a very beautiful awakening experience here:
http://www.integralscience.org/css/andrea.html

In terms of the meditation practice, itself, one of the first deepenings of concentration was
based on what Joel was saying and also the kind of meditation that I was doing. Anything that
arose in consciousness--be it a visual object, a sound, a tactile sensation, a thought, a feeling,
whatever arose--you kind of just didn't grab it in, and you didn't push it away. There was a
commitment to being just there in this field of spacious awareness, to just be in that field. So there
was neither grasping nor aversion with things. There was a deepening of concentration and a kind
of equilibrium being established.

As the days went on, that's what was happening. There was a growing intensity that
continued to radiate and with it a sense of calm and contentment. Nothing to do, nowhere to go.
Occasionally I would feel a wave-like movement through the body and I would place attention
there for a moment and watch the movement wind down from--this is the only way I can describe
it--a broad horizontal figure eight to an increasingly narrow one until it became a point of stillness,
and then attention was back in that space where everything arises and falls of its own accord, even
thoughts. So there wasn't all this motion going on in the mind--just a building equilibrium. This is
what's so valuable about a retreat. There's a momentum that's getting built up, which is not what
happens in our everyday existence. It's a unique, precious opportunity.

So this momentum was building. There were things that Joel was saying at various points,
keeping it right in tow--it was like steady on, was the feeling. Then he gave us the image of ice
with water flowing underneath it. At a certain point in meditation the mind becomes solid and
transparent, like ice. And even though things continue to appear, they don't affect that--like water
running under the ice doesn't affect the ice. So, there's the ice--the solid stillness of the ice--and
there's just the water. That happens. It's very possible, and you begin to feel the freedom and the
joy of that--that there's a stillness and a presence of mind that is so solid and transparent. All these
other little things are going on underneath--sensations, thoughts, reactions, desires, aversion. But
there's this growing sense of presence of mind, presence of awareness. It started feeling like there
was a highway. I'm looking out the window and things are passing real quick, but it didn't matter. It
was like it was all collapsing in on itself. Things were just dissolving and what was real seemed to
be emerging. Nothing exists or subsists or endures in that reality. Everything just dissolves. It
arises and dissolves, but that equilibrium just gets stronger and stronger.

It might have been the 3rd or 4th day--the sense of equilibrium was really growing until it was
just there all the time. Then it seemed like that it kind of locked into an equilibrium that was
already present in everything. It's almost like the equilibrium in the meditation merged into this
Grand Equilibrium that was everywhere. That was somewhat shocking! We work so hard in
meditation trying to find this equilibrium and, "Oh my God, the equilibrium is already there!" What
a joke. [laughs] So many of us, we're trying so hard. Sometimes we have to just tiptoe--like the
baby's asleep. Don't make any noise....

It was the next day, in the afternoon, that the break-through occurred. Todd and I were in the
room, sitting together. I was very aware of him. There was a deepening of the stillness, the
concentrated equipoise. That morning Joel had asked, "Is anybody having problems with excitation
or laxity?" Until he asked that question--which was perfect--I wouldn't even have known I was
having a problem. But when he said it, I realized, yes, I was aware of the experience of kind of
being on the forward edge of everything and like trying to pounce on it. So, there was a little bit of
grasping, there was a little bit of desire. The concentration here is so subtle and awareness so
present, you become aware of these subtle little things.

[...]

This was the most important part of the practice--not grasping nor pushing away. In a sense,
that's analogous to remaining in the present, because in the present everything collapses, and you
really can't hold onto to anything. The moment you grasp onto something, or you push something
away, in a sense you're not in the present, because you're attached or identified with something
that's passing away. So not doing that--not grasping or pushing anything away--really brings you
into the present, and that's what was happening in this meditation. It was very obvious--this
receding landscape in which everything was dissolving into this ever-present eternal moment,
unencumbered by any kind of willing, or grasping, or pushing away. It felt like I could start to taste
the eternal.

Up until that point, there were slight little adjustments being made, but if you move too much
it all breaks. It gets really, really subtle. In a sense, you disappear, because you don't need to be
there anymore. So I got to that point, and then my body moved, just a little to the right--I think it
was my neck. I had a cervical neck injury, and when I moved a particular way, the body just got
comfortable. Then there was this moment of--it seemed as though, there was nobody left anymore,
no one doing anything--a realization that when you see there is only the seeing, when you hear
there is only the hearing, when you feel there is only the feeling. And nobody is doing it! The do-er
had disappeared! And when the doer disappeared, there was a moment where I remember going,
"OH! OH!" [laughs] I had no idea what happened, because then there was this break. But I knew I
had found the Beloved. There was a discontinuity, a blacking out of consciousness in which I was
extinguished, and then it was like the gates of heaven opened and all I can say is [gasp] the
Beloved--that's what it was. You think you are, and you're not. You think God is, and God isn't.
And all of a sudden you're just God. There's only God.

Dr. Wolff called it, "Knowledge through Identity." What that says is, "How do you know you
are? Because you are!" There's no subject. There's no object. There's just Being, and the Being is
infinite space. The Being is in every thing. Every thing is arising from this infinite space. The space
is birthing everything and dissolving everything simultaneously. And everything is just this empty
infinite space. This emptiness knows everything, because it's empty--just like the eye sees every
color because it has no color of its own. So this "knowing" knows every thing because it's nothing.

So there was nothing, and out of nothing, out of complete emptiness, there was a big bang. It's
like my head exploded. There was no more head. There was the universe. And the universe was
the head. The head was the universe. Everything is everything. What happened was, there was this
sense of infinite space. The infinite space was not the space outside. It was the space that ran
through things. Like this explosion of the big bang could have happened in a grain of sand. It could
have all been in a grain of sand, in fact. Or it could have been every grain of sand in the universe of
a bazillion kalpas. It was infinitely small and infinitely large. It was the space of all being. It was the
space that makes everything appear. And that's what was so interesting--the grandness of the
universe that goes out, is the same grandness of the universe that comes in. Space is space.

Then, from the spaciousness, there was this luminosity. Everything was light, and everything
was made manifest. And there was energy. So much energy. That's actually when I remembered
that I had a body. Then I said, "Oh my God!" It felt like my body was just going to burn into a puff
of smoke. If I kept expanding--that's just an image--but it felt like if I kept expanding, I was just
going to become the infinite universe and then there would be no more body. That was the sense
of it. So, I remembered the body, and then I came back into the room. And Todd was there, and
there was all this energy. So I started doing tong-lin, the Tibetan practice of taking and sending. It
felt like there was so much energy, so the first thing--being an opportunist--I said, "WOW! Do it
now! Do it now, Andrea!"

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