Click here to go to the next issue.

For me, the goal is to
have a free and open
heart.

I find that it just so happens
that when my heart is free
and open [non reactive], that.
my awareness shifts from
a dual to a nondual perspective.

Melody




Jesus said:
If those who teach you say to you,
'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,'
then the birds of the sky will get there before you do.
If they say to you,
'It is in the sea,'
then the fish will go before you.
Rather, the Kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you.

Recognize what is in front of you, and what is hidden from you
will be
revealed to you, for there is nothing hidden that will not be
made manifest.

Jesus said: I am the Light that is above them all. I am the all;
the all
came forth from me, and the all returned to me. Cleave a piece of
wood: I am
there. Raise up a stone, and you will find me there.

James Bean




We have forgotten how to wait; it is almost an abandoned space.
And it is our greatest treasure to be able to wait for the right
moment.
The whole existence waits for the right moment. Even trees know
it--when it is time to bring the flowers and when it is time to
let go of all the leaves and stand naked against the sky. They
are still beautiful in that nakedness, waiting for the new
foliage with a great trust that the old has gone, and the new
will soon be coming, and the new leaves will start growing.
We have forgotten to wait, we want everything in a hurry. It is a
great loss to humanity....
In silence and waiting something inside you goes on growing--your
authentic being. And one day it jumps and becomes a flame, and
your whole personality is shattered; you are a new man. And this
new man knows what ceremony is, this new man knows life's eternal
juices.

Osho, Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt Chapter 10


Commentary:

There are times when the only thing to do is to wait. The seed
has been planted, the child is growing in the womb, the oyster is
coating the grain of sand and making it into a pearl.
This card reminds us that now is a time when all that is required
is to be simply alert, patient, waiting. The woman pictured here
is in just such an attitude. Contented, with no trace of anxiety,
she is simply waiting. Through all the phases of the moon passing
overhead she remains patient, so in tune with the rhythms of the
moon that she has almost become one with it. She knows it is a
time to be passive, letting nature take its course. But she is
neither sleepy nor indifferent; she knows it is time to be ready
for something momentous. It is a time full of mystery, like the
hours just before the dawn. It is a time when the only thing to
do is to
wait.

Amen Melody!


----------hmmmmmmmm, i'm not so sure that intellect can restore
love and unity, but an intellect educated in the dharma, and
tempered
in the heat of suffering could help you from going insane, when
Love
comes to town and shatters everything you hold sacred.
Matthew


"this too shall pass" Matthew


To me love is sharp as a sword. It cuts to the quick.
It is that moment when you see things as they really
are and you fall on your knees and beg forgiveness
for being so imperfect. In that moment you are stripped
of all the phoniness, all the "bathing in the resonance of"
kind of stuff. Life is hard. Marcia


Yes, and indescribably
beautiful.

Then you realize there's
nobody from whom to beg
forgiveness -- there's
just you and the mirror
showing you your pretense,
your elaborate self-image. Bruce


RUMI:

My heart is burning with love.
All can see this flame.
My heart is pulsing with passion
like waves on an ocean.

My friends have become strangers
and I'm surrounded by enemies.
But I'm free as the wind
no longer hurt by those who reproach me.

I'm at home wherever I am
and in the room of lovers
i can see with closed eyes
the beauty that dances.

Behind the veils
intoxicated with love
I too dance the rhythm
of this moving world.

I have lost my senses
in my world of lovers. Thanks Melody



In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do, and that
sight becomes this art.
~Rumi
~~~~

Melody:

How easy it would be to believe
one is crazy or deluded when one
begins to open to this 'resonance of love'.

So many people willing to tell you

"you're a fool!"
"you're crazy!"

And there is nothing
to 'anchor' to....nothing to trust in -
other that what is arising with you,
moving thru you, enveloping you.

To discover voices such as Rumi's,
Meera Bai's....even Osho's...
can be a real blessing
at such a pivotal time.





From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it.

Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did.

I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you with a hundred eyes.

My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine

Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden.
You have breathed new life into me.
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow.

My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fiber of my being
is in love with you

Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
and you have made radiant
for me
the earth and sky

My arrow of love
has arrived at the target.
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer.

~Rumi




> This is however something that has been growing over
> years. It started with the growth in awareness. It has now taken on
> something in addition, the growth of love. It comes from within, or
> perhaps without, or perhaps everywhere, maybe nowhere, perhaps it is
> what I am. It waxes and wanes. At its peak I cannot contain it, or
> bear it yet.
>

Beautifully stated, neo.

I remember saying something very similar once.
A very wise man responded privately (saying essentially):

"Don't try to contain it....or to bear it.
Lose yourself in it......melt *into* it."

Melody



I am not lonely either. I believe loneliness is a fear of being
alone.

Love as coming from some "object out there" is nonsense.

Love that comes from within may be nonsense but I do not think
so. I
believe it is our true nature. It seems that love has come
looking for
me.

Sometimes I think we assume that we know more than we do.

Yes, consciousness itself is that one. I am beginning to wonder
or
believe that the realization of the unity of consciousness is
only the
beginning, only just the start. As Gangaji is fond of saying: Go
deeper.
Neo


It is easy to discuss issues of boundaries, separation,
difference
and distinction, but apparently it is difficult to perceive all
of
this, everything, as a single conversation.

It is difficult to portray this ongoing single conversation; if I
speak of it, I am by convention, obligated to frame it in terms
understandable to the casual reader. If I ignore convention, and
fail
to illustrate exactly how this is 'so', the casual reader will
reject
what I say; thus, what I say will be 'falling on deaf ears'. The
casual reader uses conventional filters, as protection against
what
would threaten their access to 'where they get their identity',
which
is the 'world-dream'.

So, ignoring convention once again, I speak not to the casual
reader,
but to those who can 'already hear'.

A word is no more meaningful than a pebble on a beach. The
difference
is, that words stand as a class of objects which have long been
defined as being components of language, while a pebble on the
beach
has long been defined as an object in a class which is (by
definition) NOT a component of language. The truth of this is,
however, that the pebble is indeed language, as is everything;
and
everything, speaking together, is what we refer to as 'reality'.
The
hidden joke, is that the 'casual listener' cannot hear this
powerful
language, and thus cannot hear their own voice and how it
participates in the single conversation; the casual listener is
conditioned to listen only to predefined 'word-objects', and to
ignore the meanings stated by everything else. It is the
aggregate
voice of everything, speaking all at once, which is the vast song
of
harmony which sings 'us'. We are in the literal womb of our
creator,
continually nurtured, and given every opportunity to 'get with
it',
and yet, the casual observer persists in missing this thundering
reality.

Yes, cee, I agree that 'we do not hear a single thing'. 'We' are
so
protected from that 'single thing' that we have had to invent
'religions' to substitute for ongoing communion with 'a single
thing'.

The 'world-dream' has nothing to say about this 'one thing';
those
who derive identity from world-dream identifications, cannot
'afford'
to 'hear a single thing', for at the moment the 'single thing' is
actually heard, the world-dream pops like a soap-bubble.

Gene Poole



Sandeep says that the path of the
Heart requires the heart of a lion. :-) Melody



Language is a set of filters (properly called grammars) which are
used exclusively to create distinction; it is difficult to use
language in a way that makes distinction work to illustrate
similarity.

"Things are not as they seem; nor are they different".

Discussions of similarity use distinction-creating words to
'prove'
similarity by a process of eliminating difference, to the point
of
revealing similarity. In reality, only words create this
distinction,
but few speakers have mastered the art of using words in a manner
that does not inherently lead to separation. If we could 'learn
to
talk' in a manner that could transcend the usual inherent effect
of
words, we could speak without creating illusory boundaries
between
ourselves.

Many speakers (and I include Jerry, Dan, Xan, and Greg in this
category) speak from a deep assumption of similarity or even
identicalness. Words can be used fearlessly, when speaking from
this
place. Speaking from this place, words are tools, not masters.

Rumi and others succeed in implying 'unity' 'oneness'
'nondistinction' 'equality' and thus communicate acceptance,
which is
the essence of love. Speaking in such a manner is an art, which
defies conventional language usages, and opens the possibility of
living the reality known by the artist.

Living in love, is so delicious, that one will not threaten their
own
allowance to do so; that is why, the patterns of speech of those
who
actually live in love, succeed in persistently communicating the
essence of love, to those who read such words. The artist is
making a
subtle plea to the reader, to give up the life of separation in
favor
of the life of love, and to husband this conversion, by
disciplining
the speech of self, to remain within the constraints of
liberation.
The artist is pleading with the reader, to learn to speak in a
similar manner, thus to reform the deepest inner thoughts and
assumptions. So reformed, language is naturally used as a force
to
open, rather than close, the mind and heart of those who are
listening.

Thank you,

==Gene Poole==




Timeless, singular, at the nadir
existence spills into the now
in infinite variety,
like a billion trees with one root,
each vying with the other
for the light of life,
unknowing that they are
of one root,
of one beginning,
of one being.


Mace (from Gloria Lee)


From: bshanti@webtv.net
Subject: "secretary to mountains"

hi!
this is a poem from Ngodup Paljor (1947-1988.) "His poems were
written
while drinking tea near noisy streams."
(from "What Book?" Gary Gach, editor)

"Robert Frost and I
Have one thing in common
He loves woods
And so do I
But, there seems to be
A big difference
In the way we set forth
In life's journey
He is a goer,
And I am a sitter
He has miles and miles to go
Before he sleeps
Whilte I have years and years to sit
To reach the same destination"

as a robert frost fan, myself, i'll just note that i've always
seen
robert frost asserting all of his going and choosing in order to
negate
it. his "i took the road less traveled by , and that has made
all the
difference" is, IMHO, an example of an ironic assertion.

miles to go? go where? :-)
Robert Frost knew this! to surrender, or to melt into what is
and to
likewise find and express the beauty there resonates with this
heart. .
.
"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." -- robert
frost

i think frost would concur with another of Paljor's
poems:

"exhausted by jogging
I stopped near a creek
and took a flowing lesson
from the water
and a sitting lesson
from the
rock."

no time for a walk, no time for school--
but lotsa rocks. . .here now. . . Gen



Life Is Free

Have a good laugh for free!
Think, but not too deeply!
You're life's expression
Avoiding depression
Life's light looks out of you!
Got nothing better to do!

Just help yourself to the beans and rice.
Be the bestest person you know how.

Laugh when happy
Cry when sad
Eat when hungry
Be good when being bad (if you know what I mean)
Don't take yourself too serious
And you won't go too mad!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHOHO!
Peace and Love Abiding - St. Michael the Demented

ps Enlightened beings cat fighting - turns me on! Michael Read



I only ask you to consider what I have to say. I went to several
Holotropic Breathing workshops with Stan. I went "whole hog
including the postage" as far as Holotropic Breathing is
concerned.

The setting is that you totally oxygenate your body and while
lying
on your back and listening to incredibly emotionally evocative
music. You can't help but enter into an altered state much like
taking
LSD. But you must consider that, as Charles Tart says over and
over
again, altered states are not necessarily higher states. They may
serve a purpose somehow or another but in the long run just
become addictive in my opinion.

The road is long and the path narrow and you certainly can't
get through the eye of a needle with your camel. Consider
that all the imagination surrounding altered states is really
a camel. Marcia


We are free to point out what we see as important, and we are
also free to release ourselves from such evaluations.

If there is no "I", there is (also) no "thou". To have a "we",
needs and you and a me.

It is that simple; that, in a nutshell, condenses all of the vast
wisdom of 'nonduality' into a veritable electron of conceptual,
duality-busting verbiage, to be launched at the aggregate
molecule of
the world-dream. "Shields on full!"

Desire and aversion are indeed the great, cosmic ping-pong
paddles of 'duality'. And 'we' are the long-suffering ping-pong
ball, which is getting paddled, back and forth.

Whose hands hold those paddles?

Be careful to NOT mix levels:

_ 1 Relative does NOT cancel absolute

_ 2 Absolute does NOT cancel relative

Ego is the _teacher_ of the immature, and the invisible companion
of
the mature. It is possible to 'Be' any-where in this
glorious construct, as an act of will, deliberately.

I am deliberately Being where I am Being.

Gene

top of page