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#2684 - Friday, December 29, 2006 - Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nondual Highlights

 

 

 

 

Three interesting and different pieces. Three generations are represented.

 

The first is a selection from the TwoMystics blog. It's kitchen table nonduality at its best.

 

Second, Asherton's myspace blog is introduced. Glad to see the young people are being corrupted ... er ... I mean ... benefitted ... by the teaching of nonduality.

 

Finally, we get to meet the often reclusive author of a great nonduality book, Jnaneshvar: Swami Abhayananda. I've always loved that book and now the Swami has a website in which he tells about his life and offers his books. He was writing and self-publishing classics before most of us could say Nis-ar-ga-dat-ta.

 

 

 

 

A couple blog entries between Night Sky and Aware, from http://twomystics.blogspot.com/

 

Aware,

Merry Christmas to you and to our readers who celebrate Christmas! And welcome back! Your post was great – you always get to the heart of the matter.

(1) Silent Attention

You wrote, “Question: Can we say that the awareness we speak of is simply what we call our attention, or perhaps silent attention?”


I do like the term, “silent attention”. Plain “attention” makes me think of paying attention to a lecture or a math problem. But “silent attention” makes me think of that relaxed, open state, where everything is . . . suspended.

****


QUESTION: Shall we talk about silent attention going broadly to everything at once? Or to a single object?


****

(2) Christmas Recipe


I’d like to share today’s main dish recipe.

Prime Rib Roast (by committee)

Preheat oven to 550 degrees F. Season roast with fresh garlic and herbs as desired. Sear roast at 550 for (supposedly) 10 minutes while all adults stand around in kitchen talking.

When flames are spotted in oven, remove roast. Turn off oven, close kitchen door leading to smoke alarm, open windows. Wait for flames coming from grease under roast to subside.

Turn oven temperature down to 325 degrees but forget to actually turn oven on. Put roast back into oven. Take roast out again and insert forgotten meat thermometer. Replace roast.

Let roast sit in turned-off oven for 45 minutes while all adults stand around in kitchen continuing to talk.

Notice that oven is off, turn oven on, to 350. Cook until meat thermometer says 145.

Light candles, turn on Handel’s Messiah, and eat. Delicious! Hallelujah!

night sky

 

~ ~ ~

 

night sky,

Thank you for the post and the "Merry Christmas;” and a Merry Christmas to you!

Yes, "silent attention" is......"It!" It is in the direction of the pure awareness, or pure consciousness, that many talk about. It so happens that it is that simple. The "silence" sets in when the background chatter quiets down also. It is like the "bootstrap," principle thingy. Somehow the mind can see itself chattering, and somehow the chatter slows, and eventually stops. The mind seeing itself chattering, is part of the process.

Your question: "Shall we talk about silent attention going broadly to everything at once? Or to a single object?"


I think it depends upon which one a person likes. It's a personal preference thing. If I start with a single object, my mind floats towards "everything," because my preference is "everything," but we probably should talk about both views.

Question: Is paying attention and concentrating the same thing?

It seems that the "Silent Awareness" concept came along just at the right time! We're getting close to the root now. I know, we've been there before, but this time we might get a lot closer to the "heart;" if the "muse" cooperates!

Toasting the roast sounds interesting! (smile) Real nice! (grin)

Aware

 

~ ~ ~

 

Read more from these guys at http://twomystics.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

From Asherton's MySpace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=11824133

 

 "Whats with all the changes since the time i was aware its like the apple eating people that we once were arent there"

Female
23 years old
heaven, WASHINGTON
United States

 

asherton's Blurbs


About me:
Those who regard non-essence as essence and see essence as non-, don't get to the essence, ranging about in wrong resolves. But those who know essence as essence, and non-essence as non-, get to the essence, ranging about in right resolves.


Who I'd like to meet:
never put limits on experience.

 

Thursday, December 28, 2006

  duality

Subhuti asked: "How does a person practice all the perfections?"

The Buddha replied: "By not perceiving any duality. Through understanding this nonduality he teaches reality to all beings. With physical energy, he travels widely to teach. With mental energy, he guards against the arising of such ideas as "permanence or impermanence," "good or evil," and so on. With the perfection of wisdom, he does not consider anything ultimately real but serves all beings with loving attention so that energy, patience, and meditation will be aroused in them. but even though he attends to the minutest detail of whatever must be done, he never grasps it or tries to make ultimate sense of it, because he knows it has no enduring substance of its own."

 

 

Swami Abhayananda has written a few remarkable books. One of them is available only in India: Jnaneshvar: The Life and Works of the Celebrated Thirteenth Century Indian Mystic-Poet. For some years I have featured a generous excerpt, which I edited, from the book at http://nonduality.com/jnan.htm. It has been quoted often and a Google search of "Jnaneshvar" lists that web page first. The Swami recently wrote to say he approves of the web page and gives his blessings.  

The book is available only from Inda at Vedams Books from India: https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no21432.htm. 

There are other books by the Swami that you might be interested in. You can read about them and about the Swami's life at his website: http://www.swami-abhayananda.com/index.html

I have not read any of his other books myself, so I cannot speak about them. I am filling my Amazon.ca shopping cart and have included at least one of his books for now. Abhayananda has great love for that which he writes about and many endorsements to go along with his books.

So if you'll visit the above websites you'll have a very good exposure to Swami Abhayananda. And here's something from the Jnaneshaver book:

The eastern sea and the western sea
Are different
Only so long as they do not mingle.
But once they have intermingled
There is only water.

Every moment, new triads
Of perceiver, perception and perceived,
Are emerging.
Does each one need to be analyzed?

Every moment,
A particular quality is swallowed up
And its opposite emerges.
This is the opening and closing
Of the eye of Reality.

How amazing it is
That when the eyelids are open,
The Self becomes a perceiver
Who vanishes when the eyelids are closed.

The natural state of the Self
Lies between the destruction
Of the perceiver and the perceived
And a new revival of them.

It is like the natural state of water
When the wave that has arisen subsides
And a new one has not yet arisen;

Or like the state
In which our sleep has ended,
But we are not yet fully awake.

It is like the state of the sky
When the day has ended,
But night has not yet come,

Or like the state of the prana
When one breath is finished
And a new one is not yet taken in;

Or the state of one whose senses
Are all enjoying their objects simultaneously.

This is what the ultimate nature of the Self is like;
So, how can there be
Either seeing or non-seeing?

Vedams Books from India: https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no21432.htm 

http://www.swami-abhayananda.com/index.html

http://nonduality.com/jnan.htm

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