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#3726 -
Thursday, November 26, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Happy Thanks Giving wishes to all. Jerry and Mark were so kind to take on all the days for a month. Thanks, guys.
This world of ours,
To what shall I compare it?
To the white wake of a boat
That rows away in the early dawn.
SHAMI MANSEI
more photos byAlan Larus (and poems)
http://ferryfee.com/Bluesky/Out_of_the_darkness.htm
A Shade of Darkness
There is a shade of darkness just
beyond
the lip of gladness.
It is waiting like a faithful dog expecting
quite a bone.
Greet it, pet it and you will know that
nothing is as bad as it seems to be
right before you welcome it wholeheartedly.
I once entertained a clown with
sorrow in all his pockets.
He turned them inside out
and stars fell inside my head
and I swept them up and
sat down tidily by my bed.
He came again when I least expected
to see what he had brought for me this time.
When the pockets were emptied, I reached
for his hand and knew the secret behind
my life.
Vicki Woodyard
Apparent Person
Ronna: You say "That is,
for Consciousness there is no purpose or plan. For
the apparent person there is a purpose or a plan. In fact the
apparent
person doesn't have a plan; it IS a plan. The apparent person IS
the search
for happiness. Presence is the happiness it is searching
for."
What do you suggest would help the back and forth sense of
reality and
imagination? I seem to understand and there is peace etc. then it
somehow
slips away and I am again wondering?
I suppose I am asking is there anything I can do that would
actually stop
this apparent self from arising or be aware of it more, see it
for what it
is while it is occurring and not be swept along with it?
Rupert: The one that wants the apparent self to stop arising is
the apparent
self itself. In other words, the desire to get rid of the
apparent self
perpetuates the apparent self.
The apparent self could be described as 'the resistance to what
is.' This
resistance takes two forms: 1) I want or need such and such to
take place in
order to be happy or 2) I don't want what is present and need it
to
disappear in order to be happy. These two, desire and fear, are
in fact two
sides of the same coin. The coin is the apparent self.
See clearly that in order to resist what is, there has to be a
stance, a
point of view, a located entity, an apparent self. This
resistance depends
upon the apparent self. If we then resist the apparent self and
try to get
rid of it, we are resisting our resistance. We fear our fear. We
simply
compound the problem.
So, first of all see that we have an agenda with the apparent
self and as
long as this agenda is present it is more of the same. Just look
clearly
until your looking naturally becomes disinterested, just as you
would look
at a passing car....no agenda for or against.
See clearly that the apparent self, which is simply a current
thought and
feeling, arises effortlessly within us but does not in any way
touch, harm,
move, change or implicate us, Consciousness, in any way. We do
not need to
make this the case. It is already the case.
It is from this position or rather from this open, welcoming,
allowing space
that we are able to contemplate the apparent self.
This apparent self has two main residences, one in the mind as a
belief and
one in the body as a feeling. Once the belief in separation has
been
investigated and we have come to the understanding that there is
no evidence
that whatever we are, that is, whatever it is that is seeing
these words, is
limited or located for instance, behind the eyes, we are open to
the much
deeper exploration of the sense of separation at the level of the
body.
At the level of the mind we may, as you say, come again and again
to the
understanding that what we are is not limited and located only to
lose this
understanding again. The mind arises again with an objection and
this
objection seems to invalidate our previous understanding and, as
a result,
peace is lost.
For instance the mind may say (and often does!) 'Well, if
Consciousness is
unlocated how come I cannot see what you are seeing?' In this and
numerous
other ways the mind will present apparently valid reasons for the
belief
that Consciousness is limited.
For those of us with enquiring and tenacious minds each of these
objections
has to be fully explored until we come, from our own experience,
to see that
all our beliefs about Consciousness are invalid.
It is, in many cases, the depth of this understanding at an
intellectual
level that precipitates the deeper enquiry at the level of
feelings. I say
'in most cases' because some people are very open to the
exploration at the
level of the body without coming to this intellectual clarity and
that is
just as legitimate. In this case, it just means that their minds
do not
present the same obstacles as those of us who are more sceptical!
Sooner or later, for many of us, the intellectual understanding
is seen to
be insufficient and the willingness and openness to explore our
experience
at the deeper level of feelings arises. In this case we just
follow our love
and interest and start to explore the sense of 'me-ness' in the
body and its
corollary, the sense of 'not me-ness' in the world.
I have written about this already in detail on this forum so
won't elaborate
here. Suffice to say that for many, the stabilisation in peace
that you
refer to is a natural, effortless and spontaneous outcome of this
exploration, just as this exploration itself is a natural,
effortless and
spontaneous and enjoyable outcome of our love of and
interest in the nature
of experience.
With love,
Rupert
from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OAStudyGroup/
Rupert Spira will end this month and Greg Goode will lead in December.