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Andrew on the diversity of One as known through NDS

The list has felt pretty comfy recently its true. What is talking about
It and what is not, I see no distinction. Null One you speak of crapping
on it, neglecting it, making its attainment more difficult for
others. I see the interplay consciousness through all the personalities
here as a continuous self-presenting teaching. There is a commonality
amongst most everyone here which is that we all see consciousness as
universal and boundaries within this ubiquity as shifting evanescent and
permeable. Some approach this intellectually, some more intuitively,
every one would express it differently. Some express it as experience
some as understanding. Some play in abstruse systems of sounds and
symbols.
Some explore it through dreams and visions. Some find it flowing through
their daily life. In scripture and study. In nature. In imagining spirit
simultaneously within and around you until the whole universe
spiritualizes. In sex. In eating. In the point of going to sleep where
bodily wakefulness has gone but slepp has not yet come. In seeing a
beautiful person for the first time. In seeing a beautiful person AS IF
for the
first time. In gratitude even for pain. In all languages and in the
words of the languages and the letters of the words and the sounds of
the letters. In the wondrousness which appears in steadily regarding
things. The black lightning in the spaces between.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Larry and Gloria... reflections on Wei Wu Wei

"Subject must always be the absence of phenomenal presence: object
(presence) must always be the presence of noumenal absence."
from "All Else Is Bondage" by Wei Wu Wei
-----------------
Larry: No wonder I couldn't find it. There isn't any. It's not here. Ha
) It is here (double Ha

Gloria: As someone we all know would say..who is looking? A couple years
ago I ended a poem about that looker like this.

The watcher of this pageantry,
Wonders if soul may be the absent me;
Who pardons my presence with a kiss,
And simply returns to bliss.

Since then I've learned that absent me..isn't really a "me" ..at least
as we usually understand this word to be some sort of fixed identity.
There is one "easy" way to "make contact" with this "absent presence" -
it is to find and hear the inner silence.. I don't know if this will
work for you and there are certainly many more ways, but I'm passing it
along. It is something from an Osho book on various tantra meditations.
Our senses usually take us out to make contact with the world. Like
vision goes out in a linear way..but sounds come to us, we are the
receiving center,.
at least how we experience it.. don't get hung up on the logic here and
start arguing about what is a center..just keep this simple.. ok? What I
like about this is you can do it anywhere anytime.. you do not need to
go to a quiet place to meditate in silence, do it in a noisy office or
sitting on a park bench listening to traffic Most of the time your
hearing is not actually taking in all the sounds around you, it it
filtering them out, so you may be surprised if you put all your
attention into listening how much you will hear at first.

Listen to the sounds arriving.. listen for where they are being
received, look for the soundless center that can hear because it is
itself silent. You may be surprised where that is in you, do not expect
it should be a certain place between your ears. Do not dwell on thoughts
about the sounds, that is beautiful or ugly, just look for where they go
inside you, where they are received. Suddenly, your awareness will shift
to that silent center.

Larry: why contact nothing when it's staring you in the face. nothing
sounds kind of negative emotionally, but it's not. it's just simply not
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dave's reflections on NDS

This community appears much like everyday common "life", and so you
could say what is it's use? But where else should one put advaita
into practice. Sometimes, others who practice advaita, practice it
beautifully once a week, and forget all about it the rest of the
week.

I personally ran screaming from that kind of practice. Here, nobody's
trying to stuff any one pre-defined and rigid ideology into packages
that don't fit.

Since I've been here, Grace has acted through me in some pretty
beautiful ways, and I'd hazard that if I hadn't been here, I'd have
missed the opportunity. Of course destiny dictated that I would
be here.... and that's where I was.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Melody shares from the writings ofKhwajah 'Abdallah
al-Ansari, an 11th century Sufi author and saint

"Know that people are a headache, the cure for which is being alone.
Neither do we associate with people, nor do people have [a
sense of ] separateness from us. The self is the idol and [people's]
approval is the sign of duality (lit. zunnar). I have all at once
uttered the whole of the depths of the truth, whether you accept or deny
it."

"How can the critics' criticism matter to one, when clear water is in
the stream?!"

"As long as there is duality, [one's] relationship is with Adam and Eve.
But when duality departs, the one [reality] is God. When the path of
Lordship (rububiyat) appears, the dust of humanness departs."

"He is not veiled; but He is not apparent to every eye. To this extent,
conceal with dignity, since time clarifies. In the scroll of
the Sufi, speech does not arise from the heart, but from the soul. [In
fact,] it is also not from the soul; speech is the pretense. If you can
stand drinking, drink. Otherwise, get to work and shut up!"

[This one's my favorite: ]
"For some time I would seek Him yet would find my self. Now I seek my
self and find Him."
~~~~~~~~~~~

Gloria shares from an Osho Zen Tarot reading

13. Dropping Knowledge

-------------------------------------

Naropa's haunting vision

Truth is your own experience, your own vision. Even if
I have seen the truth and I tell you, the moment I
tell you it will become a lie for you, not a truth.
For me it was truth, for me it came through the eyes.
It was my vision. For you, it will not be your vision,
it will be a borrowed thing. It will be a belief, it
will be knowledge--not knowing. And if you start
believing in it, you will be believing a lie.

Now remember it. Even a truth becomes a lie if it
enters your being through the wrong door. The truth
has to enter through the front door, through the eyes.
Truth is a vision. One has to see it.

Naropa was a great scholar, a great pundit, with ten
thousand disciples of his own. One day he was sitting
surrounded by thousands of scriptures--ancient, very
ancient, rare. Suddenly he fell asleep, must have been
tired, and he saw a vision.

He saw a very, very old, ugly, horrible woman--a hag.
Her ugliness was such that he started trembling in his
sleep. It was so nauseating he wanted to escape--but
where to escape, where to go?

He was caught, as if hypnotized by the old hag. Her
eyes were like magnets.

"What are you studying?" asked the old woman.

He said, "Philosophy, religion, epistemology,
language, grammar, logic."

The old woman asked again, "Do you understand them?"

Naropa said, "Of course... Yes, I understand them."

The woman asked again, "Do you understand the word, or
the sense?"

Thousands of questions had been asked to Naropa in his
life--thousands of students always asking,
inquiring--but nobody had asked this: whether he
understands the word, or the sense. And the woman's
eyes were so penetrating--those eyes were going to the
very depth of his being, and it was impossible to lie.
To anybody else he would have said, "Of course I
under-stand the sense," but to this woman, this
horrible-looking woman, he had to say the truth. He
said, "I understand the words."

The woman was very happy. She started dancing and
laughing, and her ugliness was transformed; a subtle
beauty started coming out of her being. Thinking, "I
have made her so happy. Why not make her a little more
happy?" Naropa then said, "And yes, I understand the
sense also."

The woman stopped laughing, stopped dancing. She
started crying and weeping and all her ugliness was
back--a thousandfold more. Naropa said, "Why are you
weeping and crying? And why were you laughing and
dancing before?"

The woman said, "I was happy because a great scholar
like you didn't lie. But now I am crying and weeping
because you have lied to me. I know--and you
know--that you don't understand the sense."

The vision disappeared and Naropa was transformed. He
escaped from the university, he never again touched a
scripture in his life. He became completely ignorant,
he understood--the woman was nobody outside, it was
just a projection. It was Naropa's own being, through
knowledge, that had became ugly. Just this much
understanding, that "I don't understand the sense,"
and the ugliness was transformed immediately into a
beautiful phenomenon.

This vision of Naropa is very significant. Unless you
feel that knowledge is useless you will never be in
search of wisdom. You will carry the false coin
thinking that this is the real treasure. You have to
become aware that knowledge is a false coin--it is not
knowing, it is not understanding. At the most it is
intellectual--the word has been understood but the
sense lost.
~~~~~~~~.o00o.~~~~~~~~~

If you keep a flowering branch in your heart, surely the singing bird
will come.
~Chinese Saying

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