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#2909 - Friday, August 24, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
One: Essential
Writings on Nonduality. Amazon site: http://nonduality.com/one.htm
Check availability at your local Borders Store: http://www.bordersstores.com/locator/locator.jsp?tt=gn
This issue features selections from Randall Friend's blog You Are Dreaming, located at http://avastu0.blogspot.com/. Randall teachers include the line of Siddharameshwar, Nisargadatta, Bob Adamson, Gilbert Schultz.
You Are Dreaming You are not a person, contained in a body-mind. You
are the Awareness in which the body-mind and the world arise in.
The world is a dream of your own
creation.
We are faced with a troublesome situation,
an uncertain time. Something is wrong, somebody is sick, we may
lose something.
Our first thought is to pray. We kneel down or just close our
eyes, we may place our hands together and bow our head. We ask
God to help us, to show us the way, to protect us or our loved
ones. We have a feeling of helplessness - not sure our prayer
will be answered.
Look deeper within - don't just try to talk to God, FEEL God.
Feel your connectedness to God... Feel that within you that
animates the body, causes the blood to flow and heart to beat.
Feel that which you may call intuition - when the mind is
withdrawn. Touch that within you.
God is the emptiness between the atoms, the space between
thoughts. God is the silent background upon which all thoughts
arise. God is the knowingness within you - the beingness which is
your true nature.
Why look outside yourself for help when God is in every cell,
every nerve, every particle. Your peace and happiness does not
depend on anything - you are essentially peace and happiness.
Only beliefs and concepts seem to obscure this. But what you are
is shining brightly, illuminating all the apparent problems and
suffering you are experiencing.
Why continue to rely on Faith in something you can't possibly
know, when God is closer than your own face.
What is the this search we speak of? We
talk about Advaita, but how many know of this non-dual path? Many
more have heard of Zen, maybe Taoism, Dzogchen...
Many in the West follow beliefs such as Christianity, Judaism,
Catholicism, and others. They look to a God to protect them, to
answer their prayers, to fairly judge them after death comes, to
allow them entry into a place called "Heaven."
But where is this God? Is He somewhere in the sky? Somewhere in
another dimension? In an alternate Universe? Is he invisible? Am
I a creature and He a Supreme Being?
We accept the concept of God because we're taught to. We really
have no evidence that God is - we are taught to have Faith. But
if we have Faith, why are we searching?
The good news of the non-dual teachings is that there is a way
out of suffering. The essence of the teachings is that God is not
separate from you. God IS the world, including the body and mind
you know so well.
This intelligence has formed the world, moves the world, creates
it in every instant. If you look closely, you'll notice that most
of what you observe goes on by itself, with no controller. If you
look even closer, you'll realize that even that body and thoughts
go on without anyone manipulating it.
God is what you are, is what everything is. There is no
"person" in the body, no owner of the mind. The world
is the body of God. You don't need to look to God, pray to God,
hope God judges you fairly, for you ARE God.
So WHO suffers? If all is God, where is the suffering? There may
be an appearance of a circumstance which, according to a relative
belief, may not be as expected or wanted... but how can anything
be wrong if all is God? How can a non-existent "person"
ever suffer?
Go deep within and find what is looking out of your eyes right
now. You may find that the only thing you can find is the entire
world. And that entire world is just THIS PRESENCE, God, or
whatever label you want to use.
You want to be happy. You want to find
peace. That's why you are searching on the spiritual path. That's
why you read all this, practice meditation, and so on.
Your life is bound with responsibilities, with uncertainties,
with fears and desires. You hear all this talk about
Enlightenment as a "way" to be rid of all this, to
somehow deal with life in a better way.
The teaching of Advaita, in fact the essence of any
"spiritual" teaching, is not a way of better dealing
with life, of finding peace or happiness.
The teaching is simply to point you to the fact that you are
ALREADY at peace, already full of happiness, already FREE. The
suffering you know is only an apparent veil over this
already-present peace, happiness and freedom.
Anytime you are uncertain, fearful or full of desire, you are
referring that to a central character in your life story - ME. I
am afraid, I am uncertain or doubtful, I want this or that...
The teaching points out that there is no ME - this reference
point is false and just a mistaken assumption. Who is afraid?
There is no ME to be afraid. Fear arises, but to WHO? Uncertainty
arises, doubts and desires arise, but WHO is having these
experiences?
There is no doubt that something is going on - a feeling or
sensation is there and we've labeled it FEAR or DOUBT or
whatever. But what if you don't label it when it arises? Isn't it
just a thought, a tightness in the chest or a sensation? Isn't
this sensation just an "object" or appearance in
awareness?
In fact, isn't the very sense or feeling of I-AM-NESS just an
object that arises in thought? When you say "I am
afraid", doesn't this sense of "I am" arise with
the knowing of the sensation you've labeled fear?
Have a look at this closely. Stop all conceptual identification
for a moment, stop assuming that "I" is real for a
moment, and watch the mind. Notice how this "I AM"
asserts itself.
In all this mechanism of appearance, the reality is seemingly
obscured. The reality is - you are ALREADY FREE, you ARE
happiness, you ARE peace. You will NEVER stop the sensations from
arising, but you can know that the "I" that it's all
based on is false, a fiction, a shadow. What can these objects
stick to if you're not there? What is really obscuring the
inherent peace, freedom and happiness?