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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3456, Saturday, February 28, 2009, Editor: Mark
When you have understood that all existence, in separation and
limitation, is painful, and when you are willing and able to live
integrally, in oneness with all life, as pure being, you have
gone beyond all need of help. You can help another by precept and
example and, above all, by your being. You cannot give what you
do not have and you don't have what you are not. You can only
give what you are - and of that you can give limitlessly.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
Live in Joy
Live in Joy, In love,
Even among those who hate.
Live in joy, In health,
Even among the afflicted.
Live in joy, In peace,
Even among the troubled.
Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.
There is no fire like greed,
No crime like hatred,
No sorrow like separation,
No sickness like hunger of heart,
And no joy like the joy of freedom.
Health, contentment and trust
Are your greatest possessions,
And freedom your greatest joy.
Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of living in the way.
- Dhammapada, Words of the Buddha, posted to DailyDharma
Facing Fear
Fear is often the biggest challenge because it is what most
people habitually attempt to keep away. Of course as they try to
keep it away, it grows even larger, hovers even closer.
What I am suggesting is that you can actually open to fear; you
can experience being afraid without any need to say you are
afraid, and without following any thought of being afraid. You
can just simply experience fear itself.
When I speak of directly experiencing fear, I am not speaking
about physiologically appropriate fear. The response to physical
danger, fight or flight, is natural and appropriate to the human
organism. It is hardwired into the body for its survival. For
instance, it is appropriate to get out of the way of an
approaching bus.
But the fears that I suggest be directly met, all the way
through, are the psychological fears, the fears that keep our
energy and attention bound unnecessarily in protection and
defense, such as the fear of emotional pain or the fears of
lossor death. When a psychological fear is met rather than
resisted and run from, it often reveals an even deeper emotion.
A deep sadness or hurt may be revealed under fear. This, too, can
be directly and completely experienced with no need of a
storyline. If you are willing to experience these emotional
layers all the way through, you will finally approach what
appears to be a deep abyss. This abyss is what the mind perceives
as nothingness, emptiness, no-body-ness.
This is an important moment, because the willingness to be
absolutely nothing, to be nobody, is the willingness to be free.
All of these other emotional states are layers of defense against
this experience of nothingness -- the death of who you think you
are.
Once the defenses are down, once the door is open, then this
nothingness that has been feared can be met fully.
This meeting is the revelation of true self-inquiry, revealing
the secret gem of truth that has been hidden in the core of your
own heart all along. The damond discovered 'is you'.
You have the power to simply stop and say, "Fear, anger,
grief, despair - okay, come." When you say, "Okay,
come", and you really mean it, and you are truly open, the
emotion cannot come because in that moment you are not telling a
story about it. I invite you to check this out for yourself.
Fear, anger, grief, or despair only exists when linked to a
story! Yes, this is an amazing, simple, yet profound discovery.
It is huge! You can actually recognize that what you are running
away from does not, in truth, finally exist, and what you are
running toward is already always here.
When Columbus and other explorers discovered the "New
World", they all came back and said, "There is more out
there than we know about, the earth is not flat." But many
people responded, "Oh no, I am not going there. The sea
demons will get me. I will fall off the earth."
It is with this same primitivism that we view our emotions. If
you are willing to fall off the edge of the eart, you will see
that you yourself hold the earth, and you cannot "fall
off" from yourself; you can only go deeper into yourself.
- Gangaji, from The Diamond In Your Pocket, posted to
The_Now2
seek only the knowledge
that un-ties the problems
of your life
seek it soon
before
your number is up
leave alone
what seems to be
but is not
seek what
seems not to be
yet it might
- Rumi, Quatrain 106, translation by Nader Khalili, posted to
Sunlight