Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3692 -
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
If anything, "enlightenment" is pointing to the absence of reaching towards anything called "enlightenment." Or stated another way, it is the realization that you were only ever reaching for your own thoughts, which were arising now. Insane, isn't it? You realize that "enlightenment" is just an idea arising now, as is the notion of "you." So the word "enlightenment" is pointing to the complete stepping out of the self-centered dream that there is a "you" on a "path" to "enlightenment." When the dream goes, you see the whole. You see 'This.' You realize you are not separate from 'This' despite all your efforts to separate yourself through thought. You see all thoughts about 'This' are simply arising in 'This.' The seeking and finding arise and fall in 'This.' 'This' does not answer every question that gave rise to the illusion of the path. It merely makes them not matter. You realize that 'This' is what you were seeking on the illusory path.
Scott Kiloby
Love's Quiet Revolution, p.78
posted to Wisdom-l by Mark Scorelle
Only Presence Recognises Itself
Yes, everything, everything,
everything, is only made of Consciousness. That
is easy to check in your own experience. Just ask yourself if you
have ever
experienced or could ever experience anything outside of
Consciousness or
made out of anything other than Consciousness.
Once this 'seamless Oneness' of Consciousness has seemed to be
divided by
thought, into separate entities, objects, others and the world,
then
desires, fears, motives, causes, effects, intentions, progress,
achievement,
failure etc....the whole personal endeavour...becomes very real.
But Consciousness is already everything it could ever be.
It is one seamless
homogenous substance that can never be depleted, added to,
changed or
moved.....it gains or loses nothing from the entire human
adventure.
From the point of view of the person there is bondage and
liberation,
veiling and revealing, knowing and not-knowing, etc. But from the
point of
view of Consciousness there is only 'knowingbeing' itself.
Imagine going to sleep at night. We lie down, fall asleep, dream
that we
leave home, undertake a great adventure that lasts several years
and then
return. Then we wake up, only to find that we have been lying
peacefully on
our bed all along. It was a long strange circular journey for the
one who
seemed to be travelling. But for the one lying on the bed,
nothing ever
happened.
*****
Ian: So much of life in general would seem to be
Consciousness involved not
so knowingly perhaps in doing lots of other things, but
here we have
Consciousness seemingly getting very close to exposing its own
unknowingness
through these exchanges. Indeed it would appear to be desire of
some
apparent entities (as Consciousness unknowingly) to achieve that
very
exposure to become fully knowing.
Rupert: Yes. Consciousness takes the shape of a thought with
seems to divide
its own Oneness into a limited entity and an outside world. It is
this
entity, made only of thought, of mind, that goes on the great
adventure of
seeking. The whole adventure of being a person, the whole human
adventure....it all takes place in the mind. It is just made out
of mind.
And what is mind made of? Thin air!
It is the mind, in the shape of the apparent entity, that sets
off 'into a
far country' outside of its own kingdom, away from home. It
wanders around,
as this entity, in this apparent world looking for love and
happiness in
relationships and objects. The whole adventure is created and
enacted within
mind.
And while the mind is off doing its thing, searching, achieving,
failing,
hoping, fearing, doing, thinking, choosing etc. etc.,
Consciousness is just
lying peacefully in bed. It is true that the mind is ultimately
made of
Consciousness, but it is the mind that takes the adventure, not
Consciousness.
How does the apparent entity know what to look for? It knows what
to look
for because love and happiness are inherent in its own nature -
it never
forgets their taste - but they have been veiled by the apparent
entity.
Sometimes we look back with nostalgia and longing for the
happiness and
freedom of childhood. But that is just an image. This happiness
we long for
is not far away in time. It is deep down at the heart of this and
every
experience. It is the presence of happiness itself in this very
moment that
shines in our experience as the longing for a happiness that
seems to have
been lost. Right there in the longing for happiness is the
experience of
happiness itself shining through the veil of the separate entity.
Peace, love and happiness are inherent within
Consciousness. They ARE
Consciousness, and because the separate entity is ultimately made
out of
Consciousness, this Peace, Love and Happiness shine even in the
apparent
person. Presence is never truly eclipsed.
This search for Peace, Love and Happiness is not
initiated by the person. It
is Consciousness shining in and through the apparent person. It
is the seat
of God in us. Sooner or later, in some cases, Consciousness
withdraws the
projection of the mind (that is, the projection of the person and
the world)
back into itself and, at that moment, it tastes its own nature of
Peace,
Love and Happiness.
Exchanges such as these are the means by which Consciousness, as
it were,
withdraws its projection, and comes to taste itself again. These
exchanges
are made out of mind and that is why they can be tailored to meet
the
separate entity who is also made of mind.
But their true substance is not made of mind, and that is
why they sometimes
touch the heart of the apparent entity whose true nature is also
not made of
mind.
Their source is Presence and it is this Presence behind, between
and within
the words that is recognised. And who recognises Presence? Only
Presence can
recognise itself. Not Presence 'there' recognising Presence
'here.' Just
Presence, the one Presence, recognising itself in itself, by
itself, as
itself.
With love,
Rupert posted to
OAStudyGroup
When the Shoe Fits
Ch'ui the draftsman
Could draw more perfect circles freehand
Than with a compass.
His fingers brought forth
Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
Was meanwhile free and without concern
With what he was doing.
No application was needed
His mind was perfectly simple
And knew no obstacle.
So, when the shoe fits
The foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
"For" and "against" are forgotten.
No drives no compulsions,
No needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs
Are under control.
You are a free man.
Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.
~ Chuang Tzu ~
(In the Dark Before
Dawn, trans. Thomas Merton)
Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/When_the_Shoe_Fits.html