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#2120 - Thursday, April 21, 2005 - Guest Editor: Julian Noyce
Julian Noyce, the founder of Non-Duality Press -- http://www.non-dualitybooks.com/ -- is the guest editor of today's Highlights. He has made selections from a new soon-to-be-published book by a new guy on the scene, Guy Smith, a 24 year old nondual whiz. I think you'll like this fresh voice.
"Non-duality Press publishes books on the contemporary expression of Advaita by mostly western authors and speakers. Clear and free from the arcane language of the past, these books represent a 'quiet revolution' in the understanding of Liberation." Julian is dedicated to the task of bringing you books and audios that express radical nonduality.
Selections from, ‘This is Unimaginable and Unavoidable’ by Guy Smith. 284p. ISBN 0-9547792-5-8
Non-Duality
Press (http://www.non-dualitybooks.com)
release date May 10th.
Foreword
I love this book! It is passionate, uncompromising, irreverent, intimately openhanded and wonderfully without any sense of order or progression.
Throughout the whole work there is very little that the cunning guru mind can get hold of and turn into a belief system. There is a powerful invitation within these outpourings which seems to harbour and generate a feeling of the sensuous, the impersonal, the unbounded mystery that lies beyond the words.
This is not a book to wade through steadily, but rather a deep pool in which to dip one’s foot . . . and maybe fall in.
There is a
proliferation of so-called Advaita/Non-dual literature available
today, and virtually all of it is borne out of a fundamental
misconception about the nature of being. However, during the last
decade some rare, clear voices have emerged out of the mist, and
Guy’s work is surely an inspiring and unique confirmation of
this wonderful message.
Tony Parsons
April 2005
Nondual expression is contradictory
Nondual expression
is very often contradictory. One says ‘When awakening
happens...’ one moment, and the next moment one says ‘there
is no awakening; all there is is awakeness’. One says ‘there
is no time’ and then, ‘Four months ago, when it first
became apparent that there was no time’!! One says, “There
is no space, no such thing as space” and then one says
‘And that is seen ‘over here’, while that same
seeing is overlaid by beliefs “over there”. One says,
‘There is the appearance of colours and forms’ and one
says, ‘There is no colour, no form, nothing’. One
says, ‘There is no one here’, and then one says, ‘Today
when I was going to the shops to buy some eggs...’ This
contradiction happens only because words describe the limited.
Words describe something located somewhere. Even if the
word is ‘everything’ there is a tendency for the mind
to make an abstraction of this, cognising a symbol or a structure
or a movement or an image that is supposed to represent ‘everything’.
So attempting to talk about nonduality is a bit like dancing on
hot coals. Everywhere you tread, each word you choose, each
phrase, each subject, is dangerous, is misleading, is conducive
to perpetuating the idea of separative selfhood and all its
difficulties and hurtfulness. One dances on coals; one
dances to keep moving away from words, to keep eluding thought,
while at the same time, leaping right onto fresh problems, fresh
structures.
Having said all this, there are ways in which words are wonderfully expressive of nonduality.
ญญญญญญญญญญญ
I am ‘the hardest button to button’
There is a song by The White Stripes called The Hardest Button To Button. This is one of the best metaphors for selfhood I have ever come across. I am the hardest button to button because however much there is bragging and asserting, defending and justifying, however much effort is put in, there is still no one here, this is still purely the activity of impersonal, characterless consciousness. One tries over and over again to make that button appear through the buttonhole, to make self a real, stable, forceful reality, this effort to be a someone, a free will; but it just won’t happen, because it is a lie. There is only consciousness, trying to believe it is a person, but deep down knowing there is no one.
108.
Biography
No
biography is written here.
Biography
is the fullest delusion there is.
Delusion
is fine
But
it is counteractive to the pointing out of how things really are
(Going
on here).
Biography
describes a distinguishable, singular something it calls ‘a
someone’.
It
talks in terms of ‘a body’, ‘a mind’ and
‘a life’
As
well as ‘birthplace’, ‘family’ and so on.
This
narrative has no interest in perpetuating such myths.
In
fact, its singular concern is the extinction of all such
fictions.
There
is no ‘body’ or ‘mind’, let alone any ‘life’
or ‘person’.
Look:
where is this thing that has been labelled ‘you’ or
‘me’?
Right
now, this very moment - where is it?
There
are colours and shapes,
A
sense of perspective,
Sounds
and feelings
And
so on.
But
where in any of this is ‘a person’?
There
is no such thing.
The
fact is: there is no such thing as ‘things’.
There
are no objects,
There
is just supple, fluid impression
Appearing
and disappearing.
To
talk about an object called ‘Guy Smith’
Who
one day got or became
Another
object called ‘enlightenment’
Is
nonsensical,
Mistaken.
There is no ‘choice’ whatsoever
Do you think that
you are choosing to read this?
If anything,
It is these words
that are grabbing your attention.
You don’t
know what words are here
And what they have
to say
Until you read
them,
So how can you
make any choice
About whether to
read them or not?
Even if you agree
with this
You may believe
you have the power to choose whether or not to continue reading.
‘The first
bit is boring, so the chances are – so is the rest of it.’
Actually,
You cannot even
choose this: there is no such thing as ‘choice’.
Notice that
continued reading either happens
Or it doesn’t.
Continued reading
may have followed the thought ‘I think I will continue
reading’
But that is just
something else that happened,
Another
uncontrollable event.
This is just
happening.
There is no choice
and no responsibility.
When this is seen
Guilt and blame
dissolve as misconceptions.
Then there is
freedom,
Redemption,
Eternal salvation.
And there is
absolute forgiveness of everything and everyone.
This is love.
An account of experience one week after awakening
Clarity glows like a radiant mist that in fact demystifies and brightens, sometimes almost unbearably so. It is a luminous presence; it is a sheen and a shimmering. It is a collapsing into light. One walks the streets energised…seeing all the appearances of life thinner and more fragile than painted eggshell or coloured foil. Yesterday, as I returned from work looking geeky in shirt and shoes, glasses and wafty hair, I glimpsed a group of young men heckling me and sticking their middle figures up at me from an upstairs flat. And where was the fear? Nowhere to be seen! It was just immaculateness demanding my attention: ‘Here I am – I love you,’ it shouted! This sense was so intensely felt that even a mischievous subsequent wish that I could have stared more lengthily and lovingly into those flashing eyes and erect fingers happened and repeated several times.
Still I awake to that frazzled, jaded, separate feeling, and find the mind occupied with combating the implicit doubt that ‘it hasn’t happened’ with affirmations that desire a future emergence of oneness. And then it is realised or rather remembered (for the umpteen billonth time!) that this frazzled, jaded, separate feeling is it, is enlightenment, is oneness – and then funnily enough (and so I guess strengthening the false belief a little) the lush, fresh, lightness tends to seep immediately from everywhere!
Sometimes this lush, fresh feeling, the taste of oneness, actually feels undesirable… well almost! This is a refreshing revelation – as it counteracts a little the compulsive, needy leaning towards this blissful experience; a leaning that marked ‘pre-enlightenment’, and lingers as a sort of mechanical, habitual residue still. This is it, whether it be luscious relaxation and light, or fear, uptightness, defensiveness and egotism, or the striving for a particular experience… it is all and only oneness.
‘Planet
Earth’ is myth; there is only Heaven
The
propaganda
Is
that this is somewhere called ‘Planet Earth’
And
someone called ‘you’ lives there.
But
have you ever actually encountered this ‘Planet Earth’?
You
read ‘Planet Earth’
And
perhaps a sense of a very large or small blue-green orb springs
to mind,
Or
perhaps a mass of different races and species lumped together as
‘a group’.
But
this is just a belief, an image appearing.
Look
around.
What
actually is the case?
First
and foremost,
There
is the sense of existence;
There
is knowing that something is here, something is going on.
And
what is going on,
One
sees,
Is
the appearance of colours and shapes,
Sounds
and smells,
Touches
and tastes.
It
is from this only
That
the secondary senses
Of
‘The World’,
‘History’,
And
‘Me and My Life’
Arise.
See
that ‘space’ and ‘time’
Are
purely concepts arising in a sense of existence that is
always present,
Always
there,
And
changelessly so –
And
you will know that there is only eternity,
Only
infinity,
Only Heaven.
~ ~ ~
Non-Duality Press (http://www.non-dualitybooks.com) release date May 10th.