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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3500, Sunday, April 12, 2009, Editor: Mark
Pause all thought and look in direct experience. What is here and
now, and what are you? How far are you from non-conceptual
presence-awareness, and where is the presumed person, with his or
her need for paths, practices and purifications? Before granting
the need for such things, one must first establish the presence
of the defective person. If there is no person, then who are we
speaking about? The problem with teachings, however grand they
may be, is that in the end they are collections of concepts. The
recorded teachings of the greatest teachers, such as Shankara,
Buddha or whomever it may be, are nothing but words and concepts.
What I am talking about is your natural state, which is here and
now and not even touched by the mind. This is the beauty of the
direct, non-conceptual truth of things. All the questions and
problems are constructions in thought, for and about an imaginary
entity whom we cannot even establish as present. That is the
hitch with approaches that are dualistic and unfold in time or
through a process of becoming. These approaches reaffirm the
primacy of the individual, time, processes, attainments, teachers
and students and so on (all of which are purely conceptual), as
opposed to the ever-present, non-conceptual reality that you are.
- John Wheeler
To put it differently: Awakening is a paradox as it reveals that
there is no one to awaken and 'no-thing' that could be called
awakening. Awakening -like a self consuming fire- cancels itself
out in the realization that there is no awakening and no one to
awaken while, at the same time, it may be seen that 'Awakeness'
is already and always fully present. There is only This-Oneness
and this Omnipresent One cannot reach 'awakening' as it IS
already everywhere. It cannot really lose or find anything
either, as it is everything. When there is only This-One,
appearing as apparent diversity, then who or what could exist
apart from this, get closer to this, or avoid THIS?
- Leo Hartong
Seeking "Wholeness, Completion, Happiness, Love or
"Liberation" from "Another," whether that
"revered other" be a "Guru, Guide, Lover, or
Friend", is a perfect way to avoid Paradise Paradise is
THIS. Just as it Is and just as it Isn't. All seeking "out
there" is a dream of a "me," foolishly knocking on
the door to Paradise, from inside Paradise Paradise is only lost
in seeking it. This Loving Oneness Cannot Be Known. To
"know" Oneness there would have to be a sense of
separation FROM Oneness. Who cannot see the fault in that logic?
- Charlie Hayes
Each new moment arrives empty, fresh, totally free of content.
- Annette Nibley
what else is there?
oh yes, there is the Wave
that keeps turning those
oddities into its depth
but the glint
the sparkle
the lustrous shining
full of those myriads
in its tumbling
again and again
Bill Rishel, posted to NondualitySalon
Play for peace:
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741