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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3778, Saturday, January 16, 2010, Editor: Mark
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works.
You do more of what works.
Thomas J. Peters, posted to Distillation
When you truly realize that this life and living is an absurdity,
then you join in the dance. You take part in this absurdity. The
body-mind organism continues to live in the world, but without
any sense of personal doership.
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
everywhere
the aroma of God
begins to arrive
look at these people
not knowing their feet from head
as they begin to arrive
every soul is seeking His soul
every soul parched with thirst
they've all heard the voice
of the quencher of thirst
everyone tastes the love
everyone tastes the milk
anxious to know
from where the real mother
begins to arrive
waiting in fever
wondering ceaselessly
when will that final union
begin to arrive
Moslems and Christians and Jews
raising their hands to the sky
their chanting voice in unison
begin to arrive
how happy is the one
whose heart's ear
hears that special voice
as it begins to arrive
clear your ears my friend
from all impurity
a polluted ear
can never hear the sound
as it begins to arrive
if your eyes are marred
with petty visions
wash them with tears
your teardrops are healers
as they begin to arrive
keep silence
don't rush to finish your poem
the finisher of the poem
the creator of the word
will begin to arrive
- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 837, translation by Nader Khalili,
from Rumi, Fountain of Fire, posted to Sunlight
Once you know your mind and its miraculous powers, and remove
what poisoned it - the idea of a separate and isolated person -
you just leave it alone to do its work among things for which it
is well suited. To keep the mind in its own place and on its own
work is the liberation of the mind.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels
From Dede:
I find myself in this state that I can only describe as
"waiting" Waiting for the moment when this belief in
"me" evaporates and I am gone. I really want to be
gone, to escape the suffering that being a body/mind entails. I
notice the desire to be free, and that is a form of grasping....
so there I am... grasping for freedom...knowing full well that it
is the very grasping that prevents the freedom form being
realised! Feels like such a trap. I know there really is no
prison Blah blah blah, but that is like telling a thirsty man
that he is made of 98% water! WHo cares, if suffering feels real,
then for all practical purposes it is! What am I missing here?
What will finally trigger a "seeing"?
From Scott:
This "waiting" is the story of me. It is the story of
time, of always placing freedom out beyond ourselves, in some
future moment, in avoidance of the fact that presence is already
free. You realize this, as you've stated in your question.
What will finally trigger a "seeing?" When that
question is no longer really prominent for you. The question is
still placing it out in time, like an event. It can look like an
event. Everything looks like an event from the point of view of
the story. Although spiritual experiences can happen, the seeing
itself is not an experience or an event. It is a seeing that all
experiences, questions, answers, pointers, emotions, thoughts,
and event come and go within a space that never leaves. That
space is what you are.
Be only interested in your present experience. As the thought
appears, "I'll like to have this seeing," just notice
that thought. Look at it and watch it gently fall away. If
emotions appear with the story, just notice them also. Be only
interested in present space, in the space that sees both the
story and the emotions. Rest there and see, if only for one
moment, that this awareness is already free. It is free because
it is not involved in the game of time. Only thought is involved
in that game. Awareness is just here, always, as the present
space in which these thoughts about future awakening come and go.
As you are looking from and as this awareness, it is like that
another thought will appear that says, "This awareness
doesn't feel enlightened. It doesn't feel free." Just see
that thought and notice that what sees it is awareness. Just
stick with this basic fact. You know already that going back time
and again into these appearances has not brought the freedom you
are looking for.
In no longer adding to these thoughts, no longer trying to
manipulate them, analyze, or get rid of them, they are allowed to
gently come to rest. And every time they come to rest, they rest
back into the very awareness that you are seeking. Be only
interested, at least for a while, in what this space is right
here and now that never changes. It is so intimately here. It is
the only thing you can never escape because it is you. Everything
else comes and goes. Thoughts, emotions, questions, answers,
spiritual pointers, all of it comes and goes. But the space
remains. The space doesn't even leave while things are appearing
within it. Space can't leave. But in continuously looking to
appearances like, "When will this happen for me?" which
is a thought, we miss the stable space that is what we are.
As you read even these pointers on this page, watch them all go.
They just leave like everything else. And yet you remain, the
space in which everything comes and goes. The tendency when these
pointers go away is to look for more pointers, more thoughts,
more appearances. And yet, if you are really paying attention,
you will see that those appearances also come and go. As soon as
something appears it is already on its way out. The death of each
appearance is revealing to you your real identity as that which
remains as the appearances leave.
Scott Kiloby, posted to OAStudygroup
True understanding, which is enlightenment, can happen only when
there is total effortlessness - in other words, in the utter
absence of any comprehender. Then there is only the witnessing of
the dream of life without the least desire to change anything.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, posted to Distillation