Nonduality Salon Highlights, #1508

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#1508 - Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - Editor: Joyce (Know_Mystery)

August Alonzo ~ Monks_Mystics Two Unities
"That which the scientist calls the Infinite, the artist calls Love, and
the religious person calls God, are all One in the same." ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi Master ~

Sherab_mia ~ DailyDharma & Alan Larus, TrueVision

Lotuses

Photo by Alan Larus

MEDITATION

"Meditation has one object only, namely to prepare the mind
to get out of all suffering, to prepare it for liberation.
It is a means to this end and not for pleasant experiences.
Those do happen, and why not? Let us be grateful for them,
very grateful that they do happen and that they give us the
impetus to continue. But when they don't happen, that
doesn't matter either. The mind has to have meditation
training in order to become liberated."

~ Ayya Khema ~

From the book, "Being Nobody Going Nowhere," published by
Wisdom Publications.

Jerry Katz ~ NondualitySalon

a question

Someone sent me the following question. I've included my reply and invite others. I'll send the responses to him. By the way, whenever I do this type of thing, and send a bunch of replies to the questioner, I rarely, ifever, hear back from the them, in case anyone's wondering. But they're fun.

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

I have a question that has been puzzling me for quite a while- I was wondering whether you might be able to answer it or maybe you know someone who can- The question is- What happens when the experiencer, the process of experiencing and the experience become one- To have an experience is dual in nature so I wonder if there is no possible way of experiencing the highest Supreme state-which is beyond pure consciousness (consciousness knowing? and experiencing itself without any "external" object . Even consciousness is dual too- Isn't it? Conscious of what?

Here is what really confuses me-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj- I have the book " I am That- The question was: Is the Supreme conscious? He answers "neither conscious nor unconscious, I am telling you from EXPERIENCE"- How can this be- How can you experience the Supreme if there is no experiencer to experience this state of oneness?-

I hope my question is coming through- Its hard to articulate. Thanks

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

Response from Jerry:

Nisargadatta is telling about reality: it is neither conscious nor unconscious. Yet he says he is speaking from experience. Therefore, it is assumed that reality is an experience you can have. Contemplate this and see where it takes you. If it thoroughly puzzles you and knots up your mind, that's good.

Then shift your attention from this one statement of his about experience to that which he repeats over and over and over again. It's possible that this shift could unknot the mind. Then with the unknotted mind, re-address your questions.

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

Response from Tim Gerchmez:

From here, this focus on N's exact wording is nitpicking with words.
It simply sounds to me like an impactful sort of statement trying to
get across the idea of "direct experience" (which simply means 'the
Supreme' isn't in the realm of thought and concept, but transcendent
of that).

Nitpicking words isn't inquiry -- taking words literally (which were
originally a dialogue between N. and some questioner and in context
with the rest of the discussion) and forming one's own interpretation
based on what seems important or meaningful about some particular
word isn't the way to read a book like "I Am That."

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

Response from James:

In one way or another every sage says, "Know Thyself".

Yet who or what is going to step outside oneself to know oneself?

So - the process reveals the limitations of 'localized'
consciousness and its activity subsides (it implodes through lack of
support because energy in no longer given to localized consciousness
when it is seen that it is limited).

This process is a 'Seeing' that sees the limitations of
'localized' consciousness - when it is no longer supported it implodes
- what remains is what was there all along - the Seeing itself.

Thus 'Seeing is Doing' - Consciousness is its own knowing.

In this light (Seeing) Nisargadatta's comment, "neither conscious
nor unconscious, I am telling you from experience", can be understood
as 'Consciousness speaks' - in this case it is speaking through and as
the form called Nisargadatta.

~~~

I like the way that Atmananda Krishna Menon says this
"Form is Seeing and Seeing is Being".

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

Response from Jan Barendrecht:

Perhaps memory allows to go back to childhood, when hearing words like "experience" and "experiencer"
would have resulted in a question like: "what is an experience and what is an experiencer?"
"If nothing happens, is that an experience too?"
When memory doesn't allow that, it's most likely to get caught up for the remainder of life
reading books on spiritual (non)experiences and subsequently trying to have them too. In that
case, good luck!

That's what i mean: reading a book, trying to find the proper interpretation and finding
others (according to Ramana, there are no others), able to help/support/comment on a
book from a rather different culture.
Why not meditate on "who am i?" for 30 years or so, solitarily in a dwelling like cave?
That will "answer" quite a few other questions as well, or far better than that, evaporate
the source whence questions arise as well as the need for answers.

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

Response from Hur Guler:

most neo-advaita gurus tend to say "all there is...is consciosness."
sometimes this consciousness is explained by the neo-advaita teachers
as the "potential energy" from which all this manifests.

to my knowledge, maharaj sometimes says the same thing but at other
times for maharaj there was another state beyond consciousness which
is simply the existence itself. that's why i believe he liked the
term "i am" since "i am" suggests that the essence of "i am" is
existence itself.

all we have is consciousness and this is our only link to existence.
the body/mind reconstructs existence in the mirror of consciousness.
i don't think this is a mysterious state that only the masters can
realize. i believe that anyone who's conscious experiences this
state since existence manifests itself through consciousness.

Brian Cowan ~ Monks_Mystics

Re: Two Unities

Hello everyone,

As humanphoenix wrote, in part,
in a message dated July 29th:

>Science, which can be easily seen enough in medical
>science, has a tendency of abandoning understanding
>of the whole to search for understanding of the
>constituents. In doing so they [i. e. scientists]
>unfortunately stop seeing them as constituents,
>they are now cells, atoms, electrons, and so forth. ...

In my view, this is a good point. Many (but not all)
scientists and scientifically inclined persons, by
concentrating on the constituents, lose sight of the
of the whole.

A spiritual outlook, as I see it, can serve as a valuable
corrective to the tendency, on the part of some of those
engaged in scientific pursuits, to get lost in detail and
so forget all about wholeness. Spirituality, I believe,
can help us to experience a holistic sense the cosmos,
to have an intuition into a unitary, animating and
directional Presence permeating all things and binding
them together into a single whole. In various traditions
this Presence is given differing names, for example:
Brahmin, the Buddha Nature, the Tao, the Logos,
the Absolute, etc., etc.

So, for sure, from my perspective, spirituality helps
and complements science.

But, for its part, science is useful to spirituality too.
Thus scientists like Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin
helped to wean the Christian spiritual outlook away
from being an outlook which, somewhat narrowly, in
my estimation, regarded scripture as inerrant, as
standing beyond error.

Galileo provided valid evidence (e. g. from a mathematical
standpoint) in favour of the earth orbiting the sun,
evidence which, in time, contributed to showing that
scripture is in error when (for example, at Joshua 10:
12-14) it implies that the sun orbits the earth.

Darwin provided valid evidence (e. g. via fossils, the
record of the rocks) in favour of an earth that was
millions of years old, evidence which, in time, led
not a few Christians to abandon the notion, generally
accepted in his day, of a roughly 6,000 year old world.
In the 17th century a learned Irish Archbishop, named
James Ussher (1580-1655), had estimated the age of
our planet at about 6,000 years on the basis of biblical
chronology, and his estimate was, by and large,
accepted for more than two centuries. Now, there was
nothing wrong with Archbishop Ussher's scholarship.
No one seriously disagrees that, if you assign
reasonable time spans to all of the generations of
people mentioned in scripture, and if you establish
reasonable historical dates for certain events recorded
in the Bible, you end up with a creation date of roughly
4,000 BCE. The problem, as we now know, is that the
scriptural chronology lacks accuracy, is in error.

So, it does seem to me that spirituality helps and
complements science and that science helps and
complements spirituality. Thus, on the basis of the
foregoing considerations and examples, we may agree
that spirituality can render science more holistic and
that science can render a spiritual tradition less narrow.

Speaking just for myself here, I tend to think of the
spiritual and the scientific as a little like the two sides
of one coin.

Scott Reeves ~ AwarenessTheWayToLove & Richard Burnett, Art

Fantasy

"What is the greatest enemy of Enlightenment?"

"Fear."

"And where does fear come from?"

"Delusion."

"And what is delusion?"

"To think that the flowers around you are poisonous snakes."

"How shall I attain Enlightenment?"

"Open your eyes and see."

"What?"

"That there isn't a single snake around."

Anthony de Mello, SJ

MORSEL: The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you
can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the
potter's oven? --Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Flower, Doi Suthep, Northern Thailand

Photo by Richard Burnett

Scott Reeves ~ AwarenessTheWayToLove

More Words

"Mark Twain put it very nicely when he said, "It was so cold that if the
thermometer had been an inch longer, we would have frozen to death."

We do
freeze to death on words. It's not the cold outside that matters, but the
thermometer. It's not reality that matters, but what you're saying to
yourself about it. I was told a lovely story about a farmer in
Finland.

When they were drawing up the Russian-Finnish border, the farmer
had to decide whether he wanted to be in Russia or Finland. After a long
time he said he wanted to be in Finland, but he didn't want to offend the
Russian officials..

These came to him and wanted to know why he wanted to
be in Finland. The farmer replied, "It has always been my desire to live
in Mother Russia, but at my age I wouldn't be able to survive another
Russian winter."

Russia and Finland are only words, concepts, but not for human beings, not
for crazy human beings. We're almost never looking at reality. A guru was
once attempting to explain to a crowd how human beings react to words, feed
on words, live on words, rather than on reality. One of the men stood up
and protested; he said, "I don't agree that words have all that much effect
on us." The guru said, "Sit down, you son of a bitch." The man went livid
with rage and said, "You call yourself an enlightened person, a guru, a
master, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself." The guru then said,
"Pardon me, sir, I was carried away. I really beg your pardon; that was a
lapse; I'm sorry." The man finally calmed down. Then the guru said, "It
took just a few words to get a whole tempest going within you; and it took
just a few words to calm you down, didn't it?" Words, words, words, words,
how imprisoning they are if they're not used properly."

~ Anthony de Mello, SJ ~

Joe & Gary Merrill ~ ConsciousnessIsAll

Re: Pop goes the balloon / Knowing myself

[Joe]

What is occurring when I start observing my patterns of behavior,
ideas, beliefs, concerns, etc -- in short, when I observe all of the
phenomena that comprise "Joe"? I

s this seeing, the witnessing and understanding yet more images?
Or is there a witness which understands the habit patterns of this Joe?

Because surely there is some understanding of Joe's patterns and ego-
maneuverings.

So, maybe this 'understanding' is an image, because when it (the
understanding of Joe image) arises, it is based on my past behaviors
and thoughts -- and therefore I can say, Joe does this and that and
thinks this and that... but this is thinking based on the past and an
image is formed... there's not necessarily anyone behind the behavior
and thought of Joe, but rather just arisings, and over time, one can
pick out certain patterns, thumbprints of phenomenal arising that
signify "Joe"... which may be useful in dealing with day to day life.

Hmm, so maybe there is no real way of getting to know oneself better
other than to form new images based on past 'performance'...

Any thoughts comments? This is an interesting topic, as so many
people assume that they can get to know themselves.

[Gary]

Yes, its this self assumption that is generally questioned on this
list. Of course if I say it is being questioned by 'me' then there is
an immediate contradiction. Which is where it gets a bit funny.

The 'I'ing the image making isn't done by an image, by an I, but happens
as a function of Totality. It opens the can of worms regarding free
will, but if there is no 'I' then freedom or bondage ceases to be a
question.

What you say about witnessing seems fairly accurate. The witnessing
implying time to look back and catch oneself witnessing, so its a
story of witnessing never anything in itself. A bit like feed back, the body/mind feeds back on itself in order to understand. The notion of an independent observer or self or object would not be real but part of this feedback process, part of Totality.

Manuel Hernandez ~ ANetOfJewels

The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can
the sense of unity be frustrated? What can be frustrated is the desire for
expression. Such desire is of the mind. As with all things mental,
frustration is inevitable."

Shawn ~ Nisargadatta & Zen OLeary, Art

Craving experience

.....These four facts of life are meant to be known, understood,
and realized, seen as they are. Knowing the bare fact that things
are dissatisfying won't free us from dissatisfaction. The crucial
part is knowing the Second Noble Truth, which is the cause of
that dissatisfaction - not the things themselves, since the
things themselves don't suffer; it is we who suffer. The cause of
that suffering is clinging, attachment, greed, desire, resistance,
fixation - whatever you want to call it. It is often called craving.
The word literally is tanha in Pali (samudaya in Sanskrit), which
suggests thirst. Because we crave, continually desire and thirst
for various experiences and things, and because created things
are never ultimately satisfying, we suffer. That's where the chain
of suffering can be addressed: whether or not we cling to things
and crave for experience. It's not that we have to get rid of the
things themselves. Things are not the problem. It is the
attachment, the identification with things that causes suffering.
Tilopa wrote, "It is not outer objects which entangle us. It is inner
clinging which entangles us."

http://www.Dzogchen.org/teachings/talks/ndt06.htm

Phunts Temple, Thailand

Art by Zen OLeary

Gary Merrill ~ ConsciousnessIsAll & Bill Rishel, Art

Sage

Drawing by Bill Rishel

Totality is...

Totality is... Writing to itself
speaking to itself
listening to itself
hiding itself
finding itself
losing itself
acting
refraining from acting
worrying
finding peace

Totality is... hating itself
loving itself
looking at itself
knowing itself
thinking
feeling
touching
suffering
being happy
you
me

Totality is... fighting pointless wars
campaigning for peace
starting the first day at school
collecting an old age pension
hanging out in bars
going into a monastery
on the road to ruin
treading the path to truth
ignorant
enlightened

Love
Gary

Viorica Weissman ~ MillionPaths H.W.L. Poonja - The Desire for Freedom

If you accidentally catch fire due to an accident, and you are rushing
to jump into the river , and a friend comes by and says ,
"Let's go to a restaurant and get some ice cream , " what will you do ?
This desire for freedom must be like this.
You do not stop along the way to pick another desire.

          Wake Up and Roar
         satsangh with H.W.L. Poonja
         vol. 2

Found on the Web

"Just Say OM"

"...Scientists study it. Doctors recommend it. Millions of Americans -many of whom don't even own crystals -practice it every day. Why? Because meditation works
By JOEL STEIN...

Sunday, Jul. 27, 2003
The one thought I cannot purge, the one that keeps coming back and getting between me and my bliss, is this: What a waste of time. I am sitting cross-legged on a purple cushion with my eyes closed in a yoga studio with 40 people, most of them attractive women in workout outfits, and it is accomplishment enough that I am not thinking about them. Or giggling. I have concentrated on the sounds outside and then on my breath and then, supposedly, just on the present reality of my physical state—a physical state concerned increasingly with the lack of blood in my right foot. But I let that pass, and then I let my thoughts of the hot women go, and then the future and the past, and then my worries about how best to write this article and, for just a few moments, I hit it. It looks like infinite blackness, feels like a separation from my body and seems like the moment right before you fall asleep, only I'm completely awake. It is kind of nice. And then, immediately, I have this epiphany: I could be watching television. "

http://tinyurl.com/ii0h

What's A Wiki?

"A Wiki is a collaborative web site which visitors can edit directly in their browsers. Seed Wiki is a wiki farm where anyone can start a wiki..."
http://www.seedwiki.com/

bokindstrand ~ ParanormalBuffalo

"...A leading creator of "sociable robots," Cynthia Breazeal of M.I.T., says a chief worry is that we might try to extend rights to beings who aren't prepared for them. Breazeal assiduously avoids calling her robots by gendered pronouns. That even she occasionally slips when faced with the large, beseeching eyes of one of her creations means nothing, she says. But it must mean something. No one accidentally calls a toaster "he" or "she." ..."
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0331/baard.php

Henry ~ Buddhist_Healing

Vipassana changes the spirit of business
Asia Times, 30 July 2003

"Mumbai, India - After a 10-day Vipassana retreat southeast of Dallas,
Texas, Thomas L Freese, vice president of Freese & Nichols, changed his
approach to business management. Motivated by an ancient Indian
self-observation technique called Vipassana, he began to think about
blending such values as compassion and ethics with bottom lines and
profits in his daily work.

Are formerly hard-headed Western businessmen falling for yet another
handful of magic dust flung from the hands of the gurus of ancient
India? Freese was relieved. He says: "Vipassana leads to clearer
thinking and clear thinking is good for business."

A lengthening list of US, European and Asian corporate executives agree.
Senior staff of companies including Microsoft, Citibank, IBM, Merrill
Lynch and Zee TV experience Vipassana as a powerful human-resources
tool. Special Vipassana courses are being organized worldwide for
business executives and government administrators. Freese was part of
one such course this May in "Dhamma Siri", near Dallas, one of six
Vipassana centers in the United States.

Vipassana means "to see things as they really are" in the ancient Indian
Pali language. A practical, universal tool to purify the mind, some call
Vipassana a technology for inner peace. Others describe it is a deep
surgical operation of the mind. An objective study of mind-matter
interaction, Vipassana has nothing to do with any religion, cult, dogma
or blind belief. Vipassana enhances the overall quality of life, as I
have discovered from practicing it for more than 10 years.

Vipassana is taught in residential courses - from the beginners' 10-day
regimen to 45-day and 60-day courses for advanced students. Completing a
course demands discipline, will power and following such rules as not
communicating with fellow students and the outside world for the
duration of the course. The rule of silence until the penultimate day of
the course is to calm and quiet the chattering mind and turn attention
inward.

Happily, continuing a millennium-old tradition, no fee is charged for
Vipassana courses, not even for board and lodging. Expenses are met
solely through voluntary donations and services of previous students.
Vegetarian buffets and simple, comfortable accommodation are provided in
centers that are usually green, eco-friendly expanses.

The technique was practiced back in the mists of time before being
rediscovered by Gautama Buddha, who practiced it to reach enlightenment.
Vipassana then disappeared again, and was lost to India 500 years after
his passing. But a chain of teachers in Burma preserved the technique in
its purity for 2,500 years.

This volition to share merit earned helps to reduce the ego, the
apparent "I" that the Vipassana student experiences as merely a mass of
constantly changing mind-matter phenomena. Experiencing that impermanent
nature of reality within changes one's outlook to life and fellow
beings. Wisdom and compassion rise to the surface..."

[Read the rest:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Buddhist_Healing/message/6042 ]

Bill Rishel ~ AdvaitaToZen

All that Matters
It doesn't matter what Consciousness (or consciousness) means.
It doesn't matter what subject/object or duality means.
It doesn't matter what non-duality means.
First must come Freedom.
Understanding will follow.

All that matters is following your own heart.

That is the only way to be free.

And being free is all that matters.

No one can stop you from following your heart.
So no one can stop you from being free.

That is the only *real* choice...to follow one's own heart.

To follow your heart your must know your heart.

So first is Inquiry into one's heart.
Inquiry means to go *into* one's heart,
and to go deeper, and deeper, and deeper...

And Inquiry means to *abide* in one's heart.
When speaking, let the speaking be from the heart.
When looking, let the looking be from the heart.
Even when thinking, let your heart be in the thinking.

And in the end one is living the heart in everything,
one is following the heart in everything,
one becomes Heart.

And there is nothing outside of Heart.
Heart is all.

It is who you are.

Stephen (bodhibliss) ~ josephcampbellmythologygroup & Hilary Collins ~ TrueVision

Dreams (I Lied)

Much as i try to ignore the lure of this subject, i am captured by dream... We all dream - each night, every night, four to seven dream cycles a night. We spend so much time dreaming yet remember so very few dreams. Why? Jung believes dreams are expressions of the unconscious psyche (of course, it's called "the unconscious" because it's unconscious to me, to ego, the waking me - not because the unconscious psyche itself is blind and deaf and dumb), where "we find the mythological motifs or mythologems I have designated as archetypal." Some of these archetypal figures met in dream include the Ego, the Shadow, the Persona, the anima/Animus, the Self, the Mother, the Father, the Puer/Divine Child, the Kore/Maiden, the Hero, the Wise Old Man, the Trickster, the Hermaphrodite and the Coniunctio - those they be clad in forms more familiar to us - Friends and Lovers, Mom & Dad, and such. Of course, dreams are quicksilver - rarely does one follow us across the threshold of sleep into consciousness. Even when we wake with traces of dream in our head, those traces trickle away at the slightest distraction - the sound of the alarm, insistent bladder pressure, a cat crying for its breakfast - and the dream dissolves. In fact, the dreams we most often remember are those whose images carry a high enough emotional charge to break through the threshold separating the unconscious from consciousness, with enough intensity to remain etched in memory. This would have to be a dream that packs quite a wallop - most often a nightmare, though occasionally erotically charged dreams carry enough energy to break through into consciousness (particularly in adolescence - as I seem to recall...). I've recorded well over a thousand dreams in my journal over the last decade - some years writing down dreams four to five mornings out of seven (and I notice that my dreams average roughly five hundred words - sometimes far more, sometimes far less - and takes about forty-five minutes to write down each dream - definitely a commitment of time and discipline, not counting time spent working with the dream later). Took a little practice learning to retain an image, then tease details out of memory, but soon enough became second nature. Of course, when we practice dream work, the usual question is "What does the dream mean?" Interpretation is thought to aim at meaning - but no dream dictionary will capture that quicksilver flow... Dreams are beyond meaning, which can be too literal. Dreams have a holographic texture, each image enfolding a multitude of meaning, like all symbols in art, literature, poetry, music...what's the meaning of those first four notes of Beethoven's fifth? Or that F sharp buried in the middle of a Tchaikovsky suite? The notes in a symphony are significant not just in themselves, but also in relation to each other and to the composition as a whole. Each note presents a series of relationships focused into THIS moment, THIS sound, and represents the relationship between creator, creation, and hearer. Meaning arises in subjective consciousness: it's a story told by the perceiver. Hence, multiple perceivers means multiple meanings - even within one person, different meanings arise, a response to the multiple layers of images presented to consciousness. To stick to just Freud, or just Jung, or just Hillman, is to approach the polytheistic psyche with monotheistic blinders on. Multiple interpretations, offered by a variety of individuals, present a fuller, more complete picture. Read together, they build up layered images, flesh out the phantasm of dream. A three dimensional portrait of the psyche often emerges. At the same time, Hillman provides an important caveat: dream interpretation, as commonly practice, often places dream energies in service of the herculean ego. Like Hercules, I go down at night into the Underworld, where I plunder the realm, take from the dream treasures that help ME (muscular ego) cope and succeed, upon my return to the Waking World. Even Jung's psychology is ego-centered. Hillman's archetypal (imaginal) psychology relativizes the ego, takes ME off center stage. The dream has its own dynamic: rather than try to uncover artifacts that can be brought to the surface and prove useful in daily life, to the Dream, "the play's the thing." We are asked to engage the dream, participate in the passion play - and we best do this, by immersing ourselves in the Image... Some dreams do have literal components - dream your mother-in-law has died, and the next day she keels over - but these are relatively rare, like the Thirteenth Card of the Major Arcana actually indicating a real live death (hmm...).

CowMoon

Art by Hilary Collins

Dreams that do echo surface events also resonate at deeper octaves: my friend Crystal, crying in my dream, may be a clue that the waking Crystal is sad and unhappy - something I had not noticed - but my psyche's choice of her image could at the same time point to emotions repressed, or depression yet unrealized, buried within me. I do agree with the insight that subtle nuances speak volumes in dream. Pun imagery, in particular, runs wild. Does Psyche have a sense of humor? No doubt - dream images, like all components of psyche, are fluid, quicksilver - and quicksilver - mercury - is ruled by Hermes, the trickster, god of communication - and miscommunication. Wherever one thing is also another, whether symbolic ritual, or trivial pun, Hermes hides in the ambiguity, cloaked in paradox. (Hermes - Mercury - puts an alchemical flavor into dream work) Carl Jung - in the first section of Symbols of Transformation, fifth volume in his Collected Works, published by Bollingen - the volume that catalyzed the rupture with Freud in 1912 - writes about "Two Kinds of Thinking". One is the focused concentration we most often think of when we hear the term "thinking" - directed thinking, linear, with a specific end, a goal - solve the math problem, build the bridge - what today we call task-oriented thinking. Jung believes this to be a relatively recent development for our species (it could be even more recent than Jung thinks: Julian Jaynes, in The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, posits the appearance of the ego roughly 3000 years ago... and he makes a cogent, if controversial, argument). But Jung believes there is a deeper layer, far older, on the evolutionary scale. Associational thinking - drifting, daydreaming, letting the mind wander, gathering wool - this is where we spend most of our time. We can ponder a difficult problem at length - but the solution often comes when we're singing in the shower, thinking about any and everything but... In this mode, one image flows into another - like in a day dream, or when a mind just wanders - which aren't just random thoughts, but words, ideas, images related to one another one way or another. The pun, verbal or visual, humorous or obscure, is the link here. Dreams, even more so - no mediating ego. In dream, we are immersed in the stuff of poetry - images wet, electric, self-luminous, and fluid - a nighttime sensurround toon town theater in 3-D, in which we are sometimes audience, sometimes extra, sometimes star (at times, all three)...we dance in elysian fields, bathe in the wellsprings of Creativity and Pure Imagination. Is it any wonder patterns we find there point to energies manifesting in waking realities? Dream helps us relate to these patterns, can bring us into conscious harmony with the natural rhythm of life. To quote Campbell, from the Hero's Journey (p.8) "The unconscious sends all sorts of vapors, odd beings, terrors, and deluding images up into the mind - whether n dreams, borad daylight, or insanity; for the human kingdom, beneath the floor of the comparatively neat little dwelling that we call our consciousness, goes down into unsuspected Aladdin caves. There not only jewels but dangerous jinn abide: the inconvenient or resisted psychological powers that we have not thought or dared to integrate into our lives. And they may remain unsuspected, or on the other hand, some chance word, the smell of a landscape, the taste of a cup of tea, or the glance of an eye may touch a magic spring, and then dangerous messengers begin to appear in the brain. These are dangerous because they threaten the fabric of the security into which we have built ourselves and our family. But they are fiendishly fascinating, too, for they carry keys that open the whole realm of the desired and feared adventure of the discovery of the self. Destruction of the world that we have built and in which we live, and of ourselves within it; but then a wonderful reconstruction, of the bolder, cleaner, more spacious, and fully human life - that is the lure, the promise and terror, of these disturbing night visitations from the mythological realm we carry within." "...the very dreams that blister sleep..."
- J.C.
(p.3) sweet dreams
bodhibliss

John Duff ~ StillPoint & Alan Larus ~ HarshaSatsangh

Strand 2

Photo by Alan Larus

On Beginning to Live More Consciously

"Each one of you is under the Law of the Pendulum.

Each one of you feels good and then bad, feels happy and then feels dejected.

Each one of you feels affection and liking and then feels the opposite -
disliking -and that curious opposite to affection for which there is no word.

This is all mechanical life. This is all living mechanically.

This is all living in the swing of the Pendulum of life, and as long as you do
this what you gain you will lose and so you will always remain at the same
level of Being.

At one moment you love, at the next moment you hate; at one moment you
feel enthusiasm, the next moment you feel dejected; at one moment you
think you are a fine person and the next moment you feel you are not.

This is the Law of the Pendulum which swings to and fro.

Somehow or other we have to be no longer so much under this inevitable
Law of the Pendulum which causes the tides to advance and retire, which
causes the winter to be followed by the summer, the summer by the winter,
and which in the case of your own heart causes it to expand and contract.

The Law of the Pendulum is very well illustrated by the action of the heart.

The heart has two phases called diastole and systole. The diastole of the
heart is when it is receiving blood, the systole of the heart is when it is
contracting and driving the blood through the body.

You can see perhaps how interesting this idea of the Pendulum is as
illustrated by the heart because when the heart is passive and is receiving
blood it is on one side of the Pendulum, it accepts what is coming in to it,
and then at a certain moment it changes its rhythm and becomes active and
drives out what it has received, and this nourishes the whole body.

Diastole is connected with a Greek verb meaning to put in order, to arrange,
to make ready. This means that when the heart is not doing anything but
receiving blood it is, as it were, arranging, putting in order, making
ready for this next phase called contraction or systole.

Systole means, in the Greek, drawing together of what has been received
and driving it forth, as in the contraction of the heart that drives into the
body the blood that it has received.

I have often thought that this is a very good way of thinking about the
Pendulum in a practical sense.

We have sometimes moments of expansion and sometimes moments of
contraction. We have moments in which things go right and moments
in which things go wrong.

The Pendulum of our psychology, of our emotions, of our general feelings,
swings to and fro. But when the Pendulum swings back this should be surely
a phase in which things are put in order, in which one consults oneself, in
which one gets things arranged rightly and made ready before one goes
forward again.

You cannot expect always to be just the same.

Yet how many people are disappointed when, having felt something, they
find that for the time being they no longer feel it. Then of course they
quarrel, feel bored and so on.

In other words, the negative swing of the Pendulum for most people is
simply a blank.

But it should not be a blank.

It should be a phase inhabited by consciousness and by a sense of the
Work in which one collects oneself together again and reflects, and does
not necessarily think that everything is over, at an end.

Now if one can inhabit with consciousness both sides of the Pendulum
swing in every centre, in every part of a centre, one's life no longer
becomes discontented, a mere function of the Pendulum swinging.

One learns to see things from two points of view. One learns to take
oneself from two points of view and especially one learns to take other
people in the same way.

Instead of being very disgusted or disappointed or bored, one begins
to inhabit this uncivilized country in oneself, this barbarism, with more
conscious thoughts, with memory, and then one returns on the swing
having prepared something, and once more re-enters into life without
being depressed and without feeling hopeless.

All this that I am speaking about to-night has to do with seeing both
sides, the dark and the bright side, together, through conscious memory,
through work, and it is only through work that you can remember
both sides of the Pendulum and so gradually pass psychologically into
the middle part of the Pendulum where everything that we seek in this
Work lies.

This corresponds to making full circle, to being able to go round the
circle of life so that it is no longer a Pendulum but a circular motion
which is no longer governed by opposites. (I have already told you that
the motion of a Pendulum is really a circular motion seen in two dimensions.
Try to illustrate this for yourself practically.)

Now when you go round the circle of all experience you will begin to
include the dark side of yourself in your consciousness and you no longer
see any contradictions such as the Pendulum view of life gives. This means
an increase of consciousness.

This means seeing that summer and winter are not opposites but lie on a
circle, a rhythm that is necessary.

People who live very much in opposites, people who are always arguing
whether this is right or that is right -as we see very obviously to-day
-are in the illusion of the Pendulum.

I will quote you a very ancient saying about this.

As long as you stand on a basis of rigid right and wrong you cannot make
this psychological circle in yourself, as, for example, in the Enneagram
about which we have not spoken much recently.

The quotation is from the writings of Kwang-ze. He says:

"All subjects may be looked at from two points of view -from that and
from this . . . But that view involves both a right and a wrong; and this
view involves also a right and a wrong: -are there indeed, or are there not,
the two views, that and this? They have not found their point of
correspondency which is called the pivot of the Tao. As soon as one finds
this pivot, he stands in the centre of the ring (of thought) where he can
respond without end to the changing views; -without end to those affirming,
and without end to those denying. Therefore I said, 'There is nothing like
the proper light (of the mind).' "

This thing called the Tao is really the Work.

It is a reconciliation of opposites in yourself and the reaching of a new
place in which the opposites do not control you.

It is called the Tao in ancient Chinese esotericism. It is a Way. Tao means
a Way or a harmonizing Way..."

[Post continues at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StillPoint/message/15288 ]

[Excerpted from Maurice Nicoll
Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
Pages 731 - 736]

Panhala ~ Joe Riley Eagle Poem

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

Benny ~

THINKING ALLOWED
Conversations On The Leading Edge
Of Knowledge and Discovery
With Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove

IN THE PROVINCE OF THE MIND
with JOHN C. LILLY, M.D.

"JEFFREY MISHLOVE, Ph.D.:

Hello and welcome. Today we are going to explore the province of the mind. With me is Dr. John C. Lilly, a noted pioneer of mystical states, of states of consciousness, and also interspecies communication. Dr. Lilly is a former researcher with the National Institutes of Health and the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. He is the author of some five books on human-dolphin communication, including Lilly on Dolphins, Man and Dolphin, The Mind of the Dolphin, Communication between Man and Dolphin. He has written many books on deep inner exploration, including The Deep Self, The Center of the Cyclone, The Dyadic Cyclone, and The Scientist, and he is particularly known for Programming and Metaprogramming the Human Biocomputer. In fact he introduced that term, the biocomputer, into our language. Welcome, John..."

http://www.intuition.org/txt/lilly.htm

Pete, Skogen, Dan, & Joyce ~ AdvaitaToZen

Pete's Nonsense

[Skogen]

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

[Dan]

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

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

[Joyce]

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

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

sshomi ~ AlongTheWay

All blessings flow from attention

Do not undervalue attention. It means interest
and also love. To know, to do, to discover, or
to create you must give your heart to it - which
means attention. All the blessings flow from it.

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Acorn Press, 1973

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