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#3794 - Monday, February 01,
2010 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." - C.S. Lewis
posted to Facebook by Alan Larus the new spiritual art of the world
Finding Silence
I am busy from early in the morning until late at night. I am
rarely alone. Where can I find a time and place to contemplate in
silence?
Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from
outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing
things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you’re
truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in
you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you’re
silent and all around is silent, but talking is going on all the
time inside your head. That’s not silence. The practice is
how to find silence in all the activities you do.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, from "The Heart of the Matter"
The Man of Zen
"His manners are not studiedly courteous, nor is he brusque, but he is simply at ease. He gives you his whole attention, so long as you give him your whole attention. If your attention starts wandering, though, he has work to do and promptly leaves. But so long as you are wanting to talk to him, he is there for you and for nobody else. He sits down, and he really sits, unworried about whether he ought to be somewhere else. He is able to sit in one place with complete serenity. If you have half an idea that you ought to be worrying about something out in the garden, or that you ought to be cooking dinner, or that you ought to be down in your office, you cannot sit where you are. You are not really there." - Alan Watts
posted to Facebook by Richard Young Community for Conscious Living
111) Wisdom And Love
Dear Rupert,
A couple of nights ago, I had a dream; I was a Chinese man frying
fish for my grandson. When I woke up, I felt weird to be a
Chinese grandfather! But then, I asked myself who was that
looking at me (at the Chinese grandfather)!?
Well, it was nothing, no-thing, neither an object nor any subject! But looking forever and untouched by the I (the Chinese)! Looking at happy or unhappy Afshin, Looking at the successful or poor, or joyful Afshin, looking at Afshin's world!
Am I that was looking at Afshin, am I that is looking now and will be looking at Afshin and Afshins! This Afshin (I) changes but what is looking at I and the world can not be changed.
Is that It?! What a feeling, so flat,
so ordinary and so simple. It made me laugh; laugh to all
the bothers and worries about the Path towards
the Truth.
With all Respects,
Love
Afshin
Dear Afshin,
That is true.....what you are is looking at what you seem to be.
That is, 'I,' Awareness is seeing or knowing the body and mind
called 'Afshin.'
Yes, we laugh when we see that we have mixed up our identity with
a cluster of passing thoughts, images and sensations. It is such
a simple mistake with such enormous ramifications!
However, there is more to it than that:
The discovery that we are Awareness still leaves the question as
to what the Chinese grandfather, the happy and unhappy Afshins,
the successful and the poor, in fact the whole world of objects
and others, really is.
If we make a deep exploration of all these
apparent objects of Awareness, we discover that they don't just
appear to Awareness, they appear in Awareness.
And in turn, if we go deeper we find that Awareness is not just
their witness but also their substance. They don't just appear in
Awareness, they appear as Awareness.
Then we can go deeper still into our experience and see that
there is in fact nothing other than Awareness, taking the
apparent shapes of the mind, body and world but always simply
being itself.
The discovery you have made is called wisdom. The further
discovery that I attempt to describe, in which the witnessing 'I'
is also discovered to be intimately and utterly one with all
appearances, is called love.
In other words the simple, flat and ordinary discovery of what we
are, this colourless, open, empty Presence, is later discovered
to be a fullness which is the substance of all things, and is
known as love, peace, happiness, understanding, freedom and
beauty.
In the first discovery we laugh. In the second we cry.
With love,
Rupert
http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/page.aspx?c=d9d8bc91-4aaf-4557-8282-6eece63071a1