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Nondual Highlights Issue #2001 Sunday, December 12, 2004 Editor: Mark






 






Matter itself is void. Voidness does not result from the destruction of matter, but the very nature of matter is itself voidness. Therefore, to speak of voidness on the one hand, and of motion, dimension, form, concept, feeling and sensation, perception or form-of-consciousness on the other is entirely dualistic. Consciousness itself is voidness. Voidness does not result from the destruction of consciousness, but the nature of consciousness is itself voidness. Such understanding of the previous components of consciousness and the direct knowledge of them as such by means of gnosis is the entrance into nonduality.

To say that the four main elements, earth or feeling and sensation, water or form, fire or perception, and air or concept, are one thing and the etheric space-element or dimension another is dualistic. The four main elements are themselves the nature of space. The past itself is the nature of space. The future itself is the nature of space. The present itself is also the nature of space. Likewise with the components of motion or motility and the form-of- consciousness. All the components are of the nature of voidness. The gnosis that penetrates the elements in such a way is the entrance into nonduality.

- excerpt from
The Vimalakirti Nirdesa

More here: http://www.simurgh.net/nada/etnada/door.htm








How can I perceive in a sensorial fashion that I am not the body?

We all experience moments of happiness which are accompanied by a perception of expansion and relaxation. Before this body perception, we were in a state of timelessness, an unadulterated, causeless joy of which the physical sensation is simply the ultimate consequence. This joy perceives itself. At that moment, we were not a limited body in space, not a person. We knew ourselves in the immediacy of the moment. We all know this felicity without cause. When we explore deeply what we call our body, we discover that its very substance is this joy. So we no longer have the need or the taste or even the possibility of finding happiness in external objects.

How is this deep exploration accomplished?

Do not reject the body sensations and emotions that present themselves to you. Let them blossom fully in your awareness without any goal or any interference from the will. Progressively, the potential energy imprisoned in muscular tensions liberates itself, the dynamism of the psychosomatic structure exhausts itself, and the return toward fundamental stability takes place. This purification of body sensation is a great art. It requires patience, determination and courage. It finds its expression at the level of sensation through a gradual expansion of the body into the surrounding space and a simultaneous penetration of the somatic structure by that space. That space is not experienced as a simple absence of objects. When the attention frees itself from perceptions that hold it in thrall, it discovers itself as that self-luminous space which is the true substance of the body. At this moment, the duality between body and space is abolished. The body is expanded to the size of the universe and contains all things tangible and intangible in its heart. Nothing is external to it. We all have this body of joy, this awakened body, this body of universal welcoming. We are all complete, with no missing parts. Only explore your kingdom and take possession of it knowingly. Do not live any longer in that wretched shack of a limited body.

I have brief glimpses of this realm in moments of stillness, then I go to work and find myself in an environment which is neither royal nor peaceful and my serenity immediately disappears. How can I keep my equanimity permanently?

Everything that appears in awareness is nothing other than awareness, your co-workers, clients, superiors, absolutely everything, including the premises, the furniture and the equipment. First understand this intellectually, then verify that this is so. There comes a moment where this feeling of intimacy, this benevolent space around you no longer goes away; you find yourself at home everywhere, even in the packed waiting room of a train station. You only go out of it when you go into the past or the future. Do not stay in that hovel. This immensity awaits you right here, at this very moment. Already being acquainted with its presence and once having tasted the harmony underlying appearances, let the perceptions of the external world and your body sensations unfold freely in your welcoming awareness until the moment that the background of plenitude reveals itself spontaneously.

This reversal of perspective is analogous to that which allows the sudden recognition of an angelic face in a tree in one of those early twentieth century prints that so delight children. At first we only see the tree, then informed by a caption under the picture that an angel is hiding there, we begin a meticulous examination of the foliage until we finally see the angel which had always been right there before our eyes. What is important is to know that there is an angel, where it is hiding and to have once experienced the process by which the tree progressively loses its form to the point where the lines of which appearance is composed begin to appear as such and then recompose to confide the secret of the image to us. Once the way is paved, subsequent reversals of perspective are easier and easier until we see the angel and the tree simultaneously, so to speak. In the same way, once our true nature has been recognized, the remaining distinctions between ignorance and awakening become progressively blurred and yield to the fundamental suchness of being.

- excerpt from
Eternity Now by Francis Lucille

More here: http://www.francislucille.com/excerpt.html








If you want to know who you really are, it is easy to get a glimpse. Just observe your thoughts... really observe them, do not get caught up in their content... just let them slide on by. When you are in a place of doing this, next try to observe the observer. Some people mistake the watcher for the inner critic, but it is not that. Keep trying to watch the watcher until you cannot go any further back, like you have stepped back until your back is against the wall and you cannot observe the observer. That, is Goddess. You are Not the thoughts, but the empty space they happen in. The space, is unified. The space between the stars and the atoms of your body are all the same space... the power of the Nothing.

- Mystress Angelique Serpent

More here: http://www.domin8rex.com/serpent/spirit/nondual.htm






That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman--that thou are.

- Shankara




13.13. The pot and the space in which it exists

The space (Awareness) in which a pot (the fictitious "I"-entity or the world) exists is unaffected by the pot. The same space exists outside, inside, and within (is immanent in) the walls of the pot. When the pot is broken (when awakening occurs), the space inside and within is seen to be the same as the space outside. A slight variation of this metaphor makes the inner space the mind, the outer space Awareness, with the mind merging with Awareness at awakening.

- excerpt from
A Course in Consciousness by Stanley Sobottka




 




The mind indeed is of the form of space.
The mind indeed is omnifaced.
The mind is the past.
The mind is all.
But in reality there is no mind.

- excerpt from The Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya


More here: http://www.upnaway.com/~bindu/anantayogaweb/avadhuta/chap01.htm.htm






MEANING
When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.

And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day
Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?

Even if that is so, there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out, protests, screams.

- Czeslaw Milosz, posted to AlphaWorld





Night


A solitary moment
Plucked from the night.

Draped in black,
Dotted in white elegance.

A fragile offering,
A voiceless emotion,
Releasing a feast

To those who partake
Of diamond desserts.

- Judith A. Lindberg





 

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