Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#3805 -
The Nonduality
Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
The following are
quotations from Franny & Zooey, by J.D. Salinger,
written about 50 years ago. Salinger wrote about young people,
his most famous work being The Catcher in the
"It's everybody, I
mean. Everything everybody does it so--I don't know--not wrong,
or even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and
meaningless--and sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go
bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as
much as everybody else, only in a different way."
"I feel so funny. I
think I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm already crazy."
"You take a look
around your college campus, and the world, and politics, and one
season of summer stock, and you listen to the conversation of a
bunch of nitwit college students, and you decide that
everything's ego, ego, ego, and the only intelligent thing for a
girl to do is to lie around and shave her head and say the Jesus
prayer and beg God for little mystical experience that will make
her nice and happy."
"An artist's only
concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own
terms, not anyone else's."
"The only thing you
can do now, the only religious thing you can do, is act. Act for
God, if you want to - be God's actress, if you want to. What
could be prettier? You can at least try to, if you want
to--there's nothing wrong in trying."
from http://eidolonamorata.livejournal.com/236755.html
3rd Annual
Non-Dualism Conference set for Feb. 25-28
The theme is “Transcending
Fear, the Greatest Obstacle to NonDual Realization.”
Enjoy the camaraderie of
people who share this perspective.
Better understand the
nature of nondualism.
Gain practical insight
about nondual meditation and practices.
Learn how to live
nondualism in a cultural of dualism.
See the nondual roots of
yoga, religions, and philosophy.
There will be about 18
presentations or practical training sessions related to nondual
yoga, meditation, and contemplation.
Four hatha yoga
(postures) classes will be on each of the mornings, as well as
brief hatha yoga sessions during the afternoons.
Fifteen or more guided
meditations of various durations will be offered.
Saturday night
entertainment will include drumming Circle with Mike Beck, Harp
concert by Lisa (Leela) Patterson, accompanied by George Shumway
on bass fiddle. Singing by Kathleen Gibson, Robin Holzer, and
Rukmini Eggelte.
For registration and more
information, visit http://centerfornondualism.org. Call 800-874-8962.
The Center for
Non-Dualism is a community for people who share the non-dual
perspective of religion, yoga, and philosophy. The purpose of the
center is to maintain a fellowship and to provide a nurturing
environment that is conducive to learning and experiencing the
oneness of non-dualism.
from http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articles/feb-25743-3rd-fort.html
Who Is God?
by Mitesh Dabhi
The worshipper in a
temple or mosque or church holds within his mind a picture of
what he believes God to be. That picture is purely a metal image
and he is worshipping that image, not Reality. This image has
come down to him by tradition through hundreds of years, perhaps,
and backed by the force of the great organised religions though
it may be, still it is only an idea passing though his mind, a
picture which he has held because other people have suggested it
to him.
Because he is worshipping
an idea, something which by its very nature is not eternal, but
comes and must eventually go , as all ideas must, he has not
found Reality, and from the standpoint of deep enquiry he
is even worshipping an illusion, if by the word “illusion”
we mean that “which is not real”, and if by “reality”
we mean “that which is true and eternal and abiding.”
It may seem like an
appalling statement to say that millions of people have been
worshipping their own idea, which they take to be God. Surely,
you will point out that, in religious buildings we often feel a
holy presence. How is that we are awed in such a place, and that
these religions have, during their best days cast a spell over
the people?
It is because the power
which man has found in religion, the power to help him and lift
him up, has come from within himself. He himself has given
himself the guidance, help, exaltation, and spiritual consolation
which he believed he found in his church or in his faith or in
his idea of God. When man has learnt to build a quiet church
inside his own heart and to be a ministering priest to his own
self, religion will have done its true work.
Man has unconsciously
deceived himself into thinking that an external power, something
outside of himself has come to his help or guidance. This
was his only belief, man himself through his own inner resources
and concentration drew out from within himself, from his own
spirit, that which he thought came from God whom he believed to
be outside of himself.
So if man wishes to
awaken, if he wants to understand himself, he must face the the
fact that the real avenue to contact with God is not outside
himself, but within, directly inside. He must find his own way to
God through and within himself. That is, if he seeks God, there
is no other way, but if he is looking for ideas, concepts or
mental images, then he can take what orthodox religions and cults
offer him. And because most people have been content to let
others do their thinking and their questioning for them, they
have been satisfied with these answers.
from http://miteshdabhi.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-is-god.html