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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4680 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-15
Subject: #4680 - Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4680 - Wednesday, August 15, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
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Featured is the beginning of a story by Paresh Chandra Mangaraj.
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Mangaraj writes about himself, "I accept life wholly both in its dual and nondual aspects. Whatever rough edges I still have, I hope, will not survive the polishing at the hands of life, so that I may render a better account of myself at the time of being handed back to my maker. Just have to remember always that everything is as it should be. This book of life needs no editing from me, it is there to be read correctly. I express my gratitude for having been born to this unique arrangement called life. May the show go on and may the glory of it be sung on."
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Shankar: The Best Of Rural India
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by Paresh Chandra Mangaraj

Of all the people in my village Shankar seemed to stand out as someone different from the rest. He was the only one among the lower caste people of my village who had never worked in my fatherÂ’s farm or anybody elseÂ’s farm as laborer. His elder brother as well as the younger brother worked in our farm but he never did. Instead he worked for the Public Works dept of the government as a laborer in their road projects. This fact alone proved his uniqueness. Subsequently by dint of his intelligence, personality and sincerity at work he became the head coolie -cum-watchman-cum-caretaker of the fair weather wooden bridge constructed on the river Sona that flew beside our village.
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This bridge connected two towns situated almost fifty kilometers apart on either side of the river and also the innumerable villages with thick populations situated on either side of the road for six months in a year from December to June. At the beginning of the winter season each year towards the end of November when the rainy season had already gone and with it the swollen river had begun to shrink down to its sober and humble size and self the construction of the wooden bridge started. That was why the bridge was called a fair weather bridge. Shankar oversaw the construction of the bridge, arranged laborers to work for its construction and looked after the comforts of the townsfolk who came to our village only during this time of the year as engineers or overseers to supervise the construction. After the bridge had been constructed everyone engaged in its construction dispersed except Shankar who remained as its caretaker day and night for the whole period of its existence. On 15th of June each year, at the start of the rainy season, the wooden bridge got dismantled and woods used in the bridge were stacked in a neat pile on the river bank on which Shankar constructed a makeshift tent house in which he stayed in the nights to guard over these woods for six months till these were again used for the construction next season. Otherwise he mostly stayed in a very small hut he had constructed on the river bank on government land just a few feet away from the makeshift tent.
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He was very rarely employed for any other duty. So virtually he led a very laidback, leisurely life unlike his brothers who had to work arduously on otherÂ’s farms. Most often I found him sitting in a nearby chai-shop sipping chai and chatting with others. He was of my fatherÂ’s age and for a long time it seemed to me that he had a stern countenance which was sufficient to dissuade me from making any conversation with him. I was comfortably mixing with his brothers as I used to do with all other laborers who worked on my fatherÂ’s farm. But Shankar seemed to me a different kind of person altogether. He intrigued me. He was an enigma for me. He never feared anyone in the village. Though he didnÂ’t own even a decimal of land except the small cottage in which his family lived yet he was completely without fear of even the biggest landowners. Though he belonged to a low caste yet he was never a great respecter of higher caste Brahmins. But he also didnÂ’t pick unnecessary quarrels with anyone. He just kept to himself. He had a royal, leonine manner which made him a mystery before my eyes.
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I can vividly recall an incident from my childhood which made him a hero in my eyes.
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Read the rest of this wonderfulВ portrait of Shankar here:
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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4681 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-08-17
Subject: #4682 - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
#4682 -В Thursday, August 16, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/В 
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Love is the experience of the inside self and the outside other dissolving.
Beauty is the experience of the inside self and the outside object or world dissolving...
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В В В В В В В В В  - Rupert Spira
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photo by Alan Larus
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.What most civilized people mean by "I" is a hallucination, a false sense
of personal identity that is at a complete variance with the facts of nature...
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Our environment is not something other then ourselves, in assuming that it is,
we have made a great mistake and we are now paying the price for it...
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- Alan Watts
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via Roxanne Chapeldaine on Facebook
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"Do not just look for what you want to see,
that would be futile.
Do not look for anything,
but allow the insight to have a chance to come by itself.
That insight will help liberate you."

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В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В  - Thich Nhat Hanh


From the website http://www.plumvillage.org/letters-from-thay.html

via Daily Dharma
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photo by Alan Larus

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Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.
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Therefore wise men embrace the one
and set an example to all.
Not putting on a display,
They shine forth.
Not justifying themselves,
They are distinguished.
Not boasting,
They receive recogntion.
Not bragging,
They never falter.
They do not quarrel,
So no one quarrels with them.
Therefore the ancients say, "Yield and overcome."
Is that an empty saying?
Be really whole,
And all things will come to you.
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В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В  - Lao-tzu
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via Along The Way
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In reality only the Ultimate is.В  The rest
is a matter of name and form.В  And as long
as you cling to the idea that only what has
name and shape exists, the Supreme will
appear to you non-existing.В  When you
understand that names and shapes are
hollow shells without any content whatsoever,
and what is real is nameless and formless,
pure energy of life and light of consciousness,
you will be at peace - immersed in the deep
silence of reality.
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В В В В В В В В В В В В В В  - Nisargadatta Maharaj
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via Along The Way
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Grains of Sand Under Microscope
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When you realize your integral connection with
the Absolute, you will realize in every sand
particle, in every dust particle, everywhere is God
himself.В  That is meditation.В  You need not close
your eyes and sit in the meditation hall.В  The
moment you are aware of this, you are in a
state of meditation.В  That is the way to be happy.
Otherwise you are happy inside the meditation
hall and unhappy outside.

- Swami Krishnananda

via Along The Way
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You can't escape love. Once you touch it you get lost. Nothing ever
exists that can come out again. Everything is discharged and becomes
That itself. When the river enters the ocean it does not return.
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- Papaji
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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4682 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-17
Subject: #4682 - Friday, August 17, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
В #4682 - Friday, August 17, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
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Nonduality defined. An excerpt from

Four Songs of Non Duality: The Ashtavakra, Avadhut, Ribhu and Bhagavad Gitas


By Roy Melvyn

http://www.lulu.com/shop/roy-melvyn/four-songs-of-non-duality-the-ashtavakra-avadhut-ribhu-and-bhagavad-gitas/ebook/product-20334455.html

Manifestation is duality; the world is duality. Consciousness and the objects of consciousness constitute duality. However, there is something that serves to support all this. Whether it is called God, Awareness, the Absolute or any other name, it is the inherent Oneness from which every thing emerges and returns. it is Non-Dual.

Nonduality is a hard concept to grasp at first because the mind is trained to make distinctions in the world and nonduality is the rejection of distinction. Not to say that all differences are eliminated, merely transformed into relationships. Exploration is like a journey toward the understanding of truth and the desire for nonduality. Conclusions and explanations are drawn from every walk of life. There is something for everyone in the journey including beliefs from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Native American tradition, Hinduism and Buddhism.

The most fundamental proposition is that ”I" exist, and all else in the universe is ”not I". While making practical distinctions, such as day and night, hot and cold, north and south, etc., our conditioned awareness also expresses itself as a judgmental spectrum with negative at one pole and positive at the other. And it ingrains a habitual mindset, a thought pattern, based inevitably on this kind of division, and the desire, fear, and actions that arise from it. In other words, our dualistic viewpoint -- which we take for granted -- is at the root of our divisiveness, dissatisfaction, and conflicting values; in short, of our unhappiness.

For millennia, teachers of nonduality, in traditions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Gnostic Christianity, and Advaita Vedanta, have assured us that it is possible to transcend the limitation of dualistic awareness, and thereby live in an awareness of dualities absence, which turns out to be: harmony, contentment and equanimity. Non-dual, of course, means ”not two"; so, nonduality is the condition of Oneness as a living experience; the transcendence of our dualistically perceived unhappiness.

Non Dual awareness represents a shift in perspective. It is what results by the dissolution of the separative image of a self, an ”I", the concepts used to describe who we think we are. At this juncture, I believe it is more appropriate to allow others to define the non-dual than for me to continue the endeavor myself:

When the Ten Thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to Origin and remain where we have always been. [Sen TÂ’sen]

As long as this ordinary ”I” was present . . . everything I perceived was confused and hidden by that personality. Now that the everyday ”I” had been put to one side I could see the world as it really was. And there was nothing trivial about its appearance: instead it was full of beauty and joy. [Rabindranath Tagore]

All is everywhere. Each is there All, and All is each. Man as he now is has ceased to be the All. But when he ceases to be an individual he raises himself again and penetrates the whole world. [Plotinus]

The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without. [Meister Eckhart]

The Atman is that by which the universe is pervaded, but which nothing pervades. [Shankara]

[The Principle] is in all things, but is not identical with beings, for it is neither differentiated nor limited. [Chuang Tzu]

The Beloved is all in all; the lover merely veils Him. [Jalal-uddin Rumi]

Strictly speaking, there is no path to unity consciousness. Unity consciousness is not a particular experience among other experiences, not a big experience opposed to small experiences. . . . Rather, it is every wave of present experience just as it is. And how can you contact present experience? There is nothing but present experience, and there is definitely no path to that which already is. . . . It is for all these reasons that the true sages proclaim there is no path to the Absolute, no way to gain unity consciousness. . . . We wonÂ’t hold still long enough to understand our present condition. And in always looking elsewhere, we are actually moving away from the answer, in the sense that if we are always looking beyond, the essential understanding of the present condition will not unfold. . . .We are not really searching for the answer—we are fleeing it. ........................ You donÂ’t look at the sky, you are the sky. Awareness is no longer split into a seeing subject in here and a seen object out there. There is just pure seeing. Consciousness and its display are not-twoÂ…The pure Emptiness of the Witness turns out to be one with every form that is witnessed, and that is one of the basic meanings of ”nonduality. [Ken Wilber]

Your very existence has been delivered from all limitations; you have become open, light, and transparent. You gain an illuminating insight into the very nature of things which now appear to you as so many fairy-like flowers having no graspable realities. Here is manifested the unsophisticated self which is the original face of your being; here is shown all bare the most beautiful landscape of your birthplace. There is but one straight passage open and unobstructed through and through. This is so when you surrender all—your body, your life, and all that belongs to your inmost self. This is where you gain peace, ease, non-doing, and inexpressible delight. All the sutras and sastras are no more than communications of this fact; all the sages, ancient as well as modern, have exhausted their ingenuity and imagination to no other purpose than to point the way to this. [D.T. Suzuki]

To sum up, in nondual consciousness, consciousness has experientially accessed its”ground” nature, and is aware of itself as pure sentience, transcendent of subject-object distinctions, and present in all apparent subjects and objects. As a consequence of stably experiencing its ground nature, consciousness has shed the sheath of egoic identity, becoming free of motivations, fears, and anxieties related to the bodybased, conceptual construct of a separate and bounded self. Knowing itself as the unchanging substratum of the phenomenal world, consciousness imbues living with a profound equanimity amidst diverse events.

Free of the perplexing influence of dualistic mentality, the consciousness of the mystic engages the flow of life with intuitive spontaneity and cognitive clarity. In the absence of emotional negativity, the intrinsically loving and joyful qualities of consciousness form an affective base that informs life with an abiding sense of blessedness and identity with all that exists.

~ ~ ~

from ...

Four Songs of Non Duality: The Ashtavakra, Avadhut, Ribhu and Bhagavad Gitas
By Roy Melvyn

http://www.lulu.com/shop/roy-melvyn/four-songs-of-non-duality-the-ashtavakra-avadhut-ribhu-and-bhagavad-gitas/ebook/product-20334455.html

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4683 From: Mark Date: 2012-08-19
Subject: #4683 - Saturday, August 18, 2012

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4683, Saturday, August 18, 2012




All the peace and happiness of the whole globe,
the peace and happiness of societies,
the peace and happiness of family,
the peace and happiness in the individual persons' life,
and the peace and happiness of even the animals and so forth,
all depends on having loving kindness toward each other.

Live with compassion
Work with compassion
Die with compassion
Meditate with compassion
Enjoy with compassion
When problems come,
Experience them with compassion.

- Lama Zopa Rinpoche, posted to The_Now2



Everything other than love
for the most beautiful God
is agony of the spirit, though it be
sugar- eating.

What is agony of the spirit?
To advance toward death
without seizing hold of
the Water of Life.

- Rumi, from: Teachings of Rumi E.M. Whinfield, posted to AlongTheWay



In reality only the Ultimate is. The rest
is a matter of name and form. And as long
as you cling to the idea that only what has
name and shape exists, the Supreme will
appear to you non-existing. When you
understand that names and shapes are
hollow shells without any content whatsoever,
and what is real is nameless and formless,
pure energy of life and light of consciousness,
you will be at peace - immersed in the deep
silence of reality.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That - Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to AlongTheWay



Nothing stands in the way of your liberation and it can happen here and now but for your being more interested in other things. And you cannot fight with your interests. You must go with them, see through them and watch them reveal themselves as mere errors of judgment and appreciation.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels



Surrender ... accept this moment as it is.
Most of your suffering is self-created.
Suffering is most people's only spiritual teacher.

Your thoughts make you suffer more than anything else.

- Eckhart Tolle, posted to The_Now2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G31YW1ecX0&feature=related


Ten Bulls (a bit of Zen...): http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/10bulls/tenbulls.htm

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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4684 From: Mark Date: 2012-08-20
Subject: #4683 - Sunday, August 19, 2012
Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4683, Sunday, August 19, 2012




When you realize your integral connection with the Absolute, you will realize in every sand particle, in every dust particle, everywhere is God himself. That is meditation. You need not close your eyes and sit in the meditation hall. The moment you are aware of this, you are in a state of meditation. That is the way to be happy. Otherwise you are happy inside the meditation hall and unhappy outside.

- Swami Krishnananda from Facets of Spirituality, compiled by S. Bhagyalakshmi, posted to AlongTheWay



One night, the moths gathered together, tormented by their longing to unite themselves with the candle. They all said, "We must find someone to give us news of that for which we long so earnestly." One of the moths then went to a castle and saw the light of a candle within. He returned and told the others what he had seen. But the wise moth, the chief of their assembly, said, "He has no real information to give us about the candle."

Another moth then visited the candle and passed close to the light, drawing near to it and touching the flame with his wings. He, too, came back and explained something of what union with the candle meant, but the wise moth said to him, "Your explanation is really worth no more than your comrade's."

A third moth rose up, and threw himself forward and stretched out his antennae toward the fire. As he entered completely into its embrace, his members became glowing red like the flame itself. The wise moth saw from afar that the candle had identified the moth with itself and had given the moth its own light. He said, "This moth alone understands that to which he has attained. None other knows it, and this is all."

In truth, it is the one who has lost all knowledge and trace of his own existence who has, at the same time, found knowledge of the Beloved. So long as you will not ignore your own body and soul, how will you ever know the Object you love?

- Fariduddin Attar as collected by James Fadiman & Robert Frager, posted to The_Now2



I am perfect Love, and I am you. You have all been taught that you are born, that you live a certain length of time, and you die. No one is ever lost, physical bodies come and go, but the consciousness that created them is still the same. It is only that one of you now ceases to wear the costume of limitation.

I no longer wear this costume and offer you a faithful mirror in which you can see the truth of who you are. Which is far more than your intellects can possibly stretch to imagine. You are here on a journey of transformation to bring yourselves back into Oneness even as you remain in human form. You have spent your lives seeking to find what you have never lost, which is the essence of your being, the nobility of your purpose, the perfection of who you are.

You all hold within you the answers to every question, every confusion, without exception, but you have been taught to bury that awareness. There is nothing you do not know. You hold divine remembering, the eternal spark of perfect Love.

So look within yourself for a moment of silence... take a breath... quiet your mind and open your soul... and with your remembering, you will find your way back to the truth of who you are, and your divine presence will be your gift to the planet.

It is time to begin to stretch yourselves beyond the wildest considerations of who you are and what is possible to do. You come with infinite capacity to create the entire wondrous panorama of the lives you are living.

- Emmanuel via Pat Rodegast
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4685 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-08-21
Subject: #4685 - Monday, August 20, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
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#4685 -В Monday, August 20, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
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Our yearning for truth actually comes from truth.
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~Adyashanti
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Louis Armstrong said, "If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out."

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Q: How is mouna (silence) possible when we are engaged in worldly
transactions?
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M: When women walk with water pots on their heads, they are able to
talk with their companions while all the time remaining intent on the
water above. Similarly, when a sage engages in activities, they do not
disturb him because his mind abides in Brahman.
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The difficulty is that people think they are the doer; it is a mistake. It
is the higher power which does everything and people are only a tool. If
they accept that position, they will be free from troubles; otherwise
they court them. Do your work without anticipating its fruits. That is
all that you should do.
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via The Wizard (John Troy) on Facebook
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"When we look for the source of all the problems that confront human
life we usually blame everything but the root cause: our lack of
spiritual discipline and realization.В 
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Particularly in this degenerate age, the world atmosphere is so very
negative and the conditions around us conducive to little but evil karma
and meaningless distractions, that not to have the protection of spiritual
knowledge is to leave ourselves totally defenseless against the negative
mind."
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~H.H. the Dalai Lama
via Daily Dharma
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To any conceptual problem there cannot
be any valid answer except to see the
problem in perspective as an empty
thought.В  There is no such thing as a
"problem" which is other than merely
conceptual.
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В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В В  - Ramesh S. Balsekar
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via Along The Way
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True intelligence does not derive from thought.
True intelligence uses thought.
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~Adyashanti
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A reminder...
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The great religions are the ships, Poets the life boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped overboard.
~ Hafiz
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In the final stage of the enlightenment process duality and diversity are
also completely embraced. During the process it may be viable -and
helpful- to say 'there is no duality'. At such a stage believing this might
be necessary for you to transcend the world and its suffering. But
finally you end up saying 'duality also exists' and you'll embrace 'the
other' as both being different from you as well as the same as your
deepest Self. There is so much joy and love in seeing and embracing the
manifold diversity of existence.
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~Jan Brouwer
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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4686 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-21
Subject: #4686 - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
В #4686 - Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
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Hi. The links in this issue look weird but they are tracking links from Julian Noyce's newsletter for Non-Duality Press. They're all okay to click on, I promise. I clicked on most of them myself.
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Thanks, Julian, for all you do. What would they do without you and me? Okay ... without you.
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News for Non-Duality Press
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Greetings!
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Welcome!
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We have three new books scheduled for publication at the end of August, yes.... three!
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Every week until the end of the month we'll be sending out a newsletter featuring a sample of the next book accompanied by an article or news that's caught our attention.
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This week we feature Nothing to Grasp by Joan Tollifson.
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Our endpiece this week is about the vexed question of charging money for 'spiritual' teachings.
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With warm good wishes,
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Julian Noyce
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*PS. There will be a meeting with Nathan Gill in London in next month on Wednesday, 12th September. Venue: Philadelphia Association, Hampstead. 7pm start - £10 at the door. Visit Nathan's new website for full details:
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"The discovery that liberates us is not a philosophy or a belief. It is the dissolution of the imaginary problem in the openness of Here / Now."
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В In response to a challenge from a friend to 'distill her essential message into a concise format' Joan has written the elegant and succinct, Nothing to Grasp:
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You can download a pdf sample of the first two chapters by clicking here.
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Additionally, on the website you can download a sample in epub or mobi format for Kindle:
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Although it doesn't officially go on sale until the 31st of August you can pre-order a paperback copy now. The ebook editions will go on sale on the 31st.
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This a great little book from one of the most skilful writers that we work with.
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See below for details of meetings with Darryl Bailey and Joan Tollifson.
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Events
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East Bay Open Circle in Berkeley, California are hosting individual and joint meetings with Darryl Bailey and Joan Tollifson in September. A great opportunity to meet these two respected teachers:
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Darryl Bailey events:
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Joan Tollifson events:
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http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001xCczj8-t9Iq1dRSO-PJVjXsZLJ8dGFdh5AphfgJDRJZem8ax0aYJqEWJm1ZD7CTsgJm3HyPHu5P20vfAoM0GgsvqL7Uy5DhwR_xgbsg7LOt3fH3P4WGvyYjxsKN4KHDelEsmVzTP4vI=
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Joan will also be visiting the U.K. in November - here is a brief run-down of her schedule:
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London, UK - November 2012
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Friday Nov 9th - Evening talk at Cheshire Cheese - information and registration here:
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Sat/Sun Nov 17-18th - Weekend Events at Philadelphia Association, 11 AM to 5 PM both days - details and registration here:
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Talk and book-signing at Watkins Books Nov.19th: 5.30 pm-6.30 pm.
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Money & Spiritual Teachers
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A chap of the non-dual persuasion
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Would espouse it at every occasion
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He'd say "There's no doer"
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And "No-self is much truer"
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Then calmly request a donation
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To be serious, though, Jeff Foster has written a praiseworthy article addressing the subject of money and spiritual teachers. I thought this paragraph was one of the more insightful takes on not taking money:
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"Of course, if a teacher does not charge money, deep down they can still desire to collect as many donations as possible, or collect as many students as possible, or collect as much admiration or publicity or popularity or respect as possible - and the image of 'the selfless, desireless, ego-free teacher who never asks for money' can be a very profitable image indeed!"В 
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On the subject of money, our web designer, Marcus Fellowes, of Zendao confirms my belief in simple generosity. I can phone him for advice and not get a large invoice the next day - he's not an avaricious entrepreneur and he is very much in tune with our ethos. Zendao link:
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Generosity can feel dangerous sometimes, but so far I have never regretted taking the risk in giving time or money and expecting nothing in return.
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You can read the full article on Jeff's Facebook page or download a copy here:
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Links and News
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Satsang Finder, an excellent app for locating gatherings and events, is now free. More info and download link here:
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Harry Liantziris from Melbourne, Australia contacted us about his new blog, Wholeness: the ground of Being, which contains some valuable pointers. Visit his blog by clicking here:
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Gary from Liverpool (U.K.) would be interested in meeting others from the North West of England (Liverpool, Southport, Manchester) with a view to setting up a MeetUp group. Take the plunge and contact him by email (thecoreself@... - subject line: non-duality) if you live in this part of the world and would like to get some events or groups established.В 
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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4687 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-22
Subject: #4687 - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
В #4687 - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
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In today's feature, Piers Moore-Ede writes,
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"Yoga is not a process which will help an individual reach somewhere, become better, stronger, leaner, more peaceful. Initially, it might appear this way, and yet its true purpose is to chip away, slowly and persistently, at the entire structure which appears to be doing yoga in the first place."
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That speaks to a nondual Yoga and to the theme of our upcoming conference on Nonduality and Yoga being held October 12-14 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, featuring local yoga teachers and others.
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Here in Halifax, nondual Yoga is available,В to one degree or another,В from a few teachers including Lynn Fraser (who facilitates Scott Kiloby's Unfindable Inquiry method), James Traverse (who studied with Jean Klein), and Mandee Labelle (who studies with Adyashanti and Francis Lucille).
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You can learn more about these people and the conference at http://nonduality.net. Something we're emphasizing in this gathering is interactivity andВ the opportunity for discussion among attendees.В Ideally, the presentersВ and audience would dissolve intoВ each other.В Music and movement achieve that as do other experiential activities and these will all be a big part of this conference.
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Moore-Ede's article appears in the current Elephant Journal.
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How Many Yoga Teachers Do You Know Who Ask the Big Questions?
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by Piers Moore-Ede
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Why do we practice yoga anyway?
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Perfect bodies. Or just better bodies.
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To be supple and limber, light on our feet.
В 
To get that relaxed post yoga buzz which lifts up the day, making everything better.
В 
We love the vibe: the shalas, incense, music.
В 
Because we feel like weÂ’re human beings on a journey to some eventual place that feels like home and that yoga is the best method weÂ’ve discovered for taking us there.
В 
Some of those may be true for you, or you may have your own particular answer, unique from any of these.
В 
I think itÂ’s worth asking the question though, because, with all the millions of us trekking in and out of yoga centres daily, itÂ’s kind of important. Yoga was originally conceived of as a remedy for the human condition, and a profound method for surmounting suffering. These days, it has fallen a great distance from the tree.
В 
In my case, I went to yoga because I wanted a way out of depression.
I met a teacher who had a light in her eye that spoke of inner strength. It touched me and I went for a class. After that, I was hooked. That feeling was indescribable. I wanted more of it.
В 
Fifteen years passed. A lot of asana. Three years in India. Many books on mudras, kriyas andpranayama techniques. Vipassana meditation. Panchakarma retreats. Sweatlodges. Ayahuasca.
В 
The problem of surmounting suffering increased to the point where it took over my life.
В 
I became the quintessential seeker: restless, very hungry, hoping for the one thing which would end the search for good.
I didnÂ’t find it.
В 
Then, one day in my mid thirties, with a marriage on the rocks and all the problems of my youth still with me, I heard the name of a teacher called Mooji. Having tried everything, meditated and sweated my way through endless practices designed to get me "home" I wasnÂ’t there yet. I was tired, desperate and internally cracking up I was at the end of the road.
В 
This teacher seemed very kind. I Googled him, and liked his face immediately. He had an extraordinary peace about him and one of the best laughs IÂ’d ever heard.
В 
Ah well, IÂ’d met gurus before. That wasnÂ’t enough to impress me.
В 
But he asked this question, "Who are you really?" It made me stop in my tracks. IÂ’d read a lot of Ramana Maharshi before and heard the whole "Who am I?" koan, but it had never struck me seriously before.В  It always seemed like a question that could never be properly answered by mere mortals.
В 
"Who are you really?"
В 
Mooji phrased it differently. The video I watched first was Laughing Buddha and it displayed Mooji and an Irish devotee laughing hysterically for approximately 20 minutes, as the Irish man recounted his discovery of"not existing." I sat there with absolute bewilderment, and then a series of chills and shivers rippled down my spine. Tears came.
В 
This was the most absurd thing imaginable. Of course we exist! What an absurd idea! Of course there is someone here! And yet, these two claimed not.
В 
The question was so absurd, I thought there might, perhaps, be something in it.
On that day a fuse was lit. Mooji calls this question, "the master key, because when one begins to grapple with it, everything else becomes irrelevant."
В 
This question took over my life.
As I pursued it, I discovered that, for all these years, through all the practices, pursuits, courses and rituals, there had never once arisen the question of, "Who is the one seeking?"
В 
Piers was the hero of this story, the pilgrim on the road home, and whose problems were at the centre of everything. But who was he anyway? What was he? As what, did he exist? It had never once been examined.
В 
Mooji showed me: I am not my body (If you lose an arm or a leg are you any less you?).
В 
He showed me: I am not my mind because thoughts are witnessed. They come and go like clouds, but they are not the essential me.
В 
So if we are not a body or a mind, then what are we? Is there anything tangible, in fact, at all, that we can definitely say we are?
You are not, as Mooji puts it, "anything perceivable or conceivable."
В 
Sit with that for a second.
В 
Really sit with it.
В 
Because if thatÂ’s true, then who is this person that you think you are? What color is their skin? What gender are they? Is there are any one word which can describe you?
В 
Brought to this place before all identity, before all conceptual thought,conditioning, history, memory or hope I saw a glimmer of true freedom for the first time. Someone once called it, "the peace that passeth all understanding."
В 
And this peace is not something Piers can get to. This peace is freedom from Piers. Realizing that, I saw at last what the big joke was. The joke was on me.
В 
There never was a me.
So I ask you yogis, meditators, seekers after truth to inject this, if you havenÂ’t already, into your practice and your classes.
В 
Yoga is not a process which will help an individual reach somewhere, become better, stronger, leaner, more peaceful. Initially, it might appear this way, and yet its true purpose is to chip away, slowly and persistently, at the entire structure which appears to be doing yoga in the first place.
В 
As M. Eliade characterised it, "Yoga is a progressive dismantling of human personality ending in complete abolition."
В 
This one question has the power to make my eyes stream with tears.
В 
It was the key in a lock, which was covered in axe wounds.
В 
ItÂ’s the whisper in your ear, during your happiest moments. The shivers down your spine. The primal memory of a happiness you cannot name, but which you know intimately.
В 
ItÂ’s the longing to come home.
В 
Piers Moore-Ede is the author of two books: Honey and Dust and All Kinds of Magic.В  HeÂ’s also a travel writer, gardener, yogi and currently living in Totnes, Devon.
В 
Editor: Sara McKeown
В 
~ ~ ~
В 
Check out Elephant Journal. It's an excellent source of nondually inclined attitudes toward yoga, current events, popular culture, and lifestyles:
В 
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4688 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-08-24
Subject: #4688 - Thursday, August 23, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4688 -В Thursday, August 23, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/В 
В 
В 
An ancient name for God is "surprise."
В 
В 
The parched know –
real thirst
draws rainwater
from an empty sky.
В 
~ Real Thirst, Poetry of the Spiritual Journey
Poems & Translations by Ivan M. Granger
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Publications/Real_Thirst/
В 
В 
via Kia Pierce
В 
В 
"We tend to associate love or loving-kindness with a feeling or emotion, but I
don't think it's that. I think it's something deeper, it's really about being
able to connect rather than exclude."
В 
~ Sharon Salzberg
В 
В 
by Alan Larus
В 
В 
"Spiritual people can be some of the most violent people you will ever meet.В 
Mostly, they are violent to themselves. They violently try to control theirВ 
minds, their emotions, and their bodies. They become upset with themselvesВ 
and beat themselves up for not rising up to the conditioned mind's idea ofВ 
what it believes enlightenment to be. No one ever became free throughВ  such
violence.В 
В 
Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they tryВ  to conform to
ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try toВ  concentrate their way
to heaven. But freedom is about the natural state, theВ  spontaneous and
un-self-conscious expression of beingness. If you want toВ  find it, see that the
very idea of "a someone who is in control" is a conceptВ  created by the mind.
Take one step backward into the unknown."В 
В 
— AdyashantiВ 
В 
В 
"It is a myth that [when IÂ’m truly enlightened] I can rest in some assuredness
that I will never again feel insecure, or feel fear, or feel doubt, or feel those
emotions that we don't want to feel.
Forget it.
That's the pipe dream.
That's the opium thatÂ’s sold to the masses.
And they eat it up and they never get there, and they end up disillusioned.
В 
That's not how it works. Freedom is never freedom "from."
If it's freedom "from" anything, it's not freedom at all.
It's freedom "to."
Are you free enough to be afraid?
Are you free enough to feel insecure?
Are you free enough not to know?
Are you free enough to know that you canÂ’t know?
Are you free enough to be totally comfortable, to know that you can't know
what's around the next corner?
How you will feel about it?
How you will respond to it?
That you literally can't know?
Are you free enough to be totally at ease and comfort with the way things actually are?
That's freedom."
В 
— Adyashanti
В 
В 
В 
Nis. Maharaj: How did you get this "I Amness"? Did it come spontaneously, or
did you try for it? As the Absolute, you were free from all concepts,
including the primary concept "I Am"; suddenly you were caught up in this "I
Amness". Who did it? Has it not happened spontaneously?
В 
Questioner: Yes, that is true.
В 
M: You did not have this concept "I Am" in the course of the nine months in
the womb. Understand this state of affairs; the concept "I Am" comes
spontaneously and goes spontaneously. Amazingly, when it appears, it is
accepted as real. All subsequent misconceptions arise from that feeling of
reality in the "I Amness." Try to stabilize in that primary concept "I Am", in
order to lose that and with it all other concepts. Why am I totally free?
Because I have understood the unreality of that "I Am". I offer my
salutations to all the prophets, creeds, religions, etc. I know they are not real,
they are only the play of this consciousness. The Truth, the Eternal, cannot be
witnessed. It ever prevails. In your true state there are no words, but you
think yourself important and you embrace many words. Poor human beings are
caught between worldly life and spiritual life. One in a million understands all
this play of consciousness, transcends it.
В 
В 
by Alan Larus
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4689 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-24
Subject: #4689 - Friday, August 24, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4689 - Friday, August 24, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
В 
В 
В 
В 
В 
In this issue an article by nonduality blogger Goran Backlund and notice of appearances in Denver by Scott Kiloby.
В 
В 
В 
В 
The veil of perception
В 
by Goran Backlund
В 
This post is the first in a four-part series of articles refuting the external world:
В 
If I close my eyes the world disappears.

В В В В В Not the actual world of course, but my visual image of it. And I can make the image pop in and out of existence simply by opening and closing my eyes. The visual image, along with the other perceptions that make up my experience, is how I perceive the world.

Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting is what the world is made of to me. They are my senses, and it is through them that I experience anything at all. If I could somehow stop them, the world would cease to exist for me – but the actual world, the world independent of me, would remain. Thus, we must conclude that the world and my awareness of it are not the same. The world is one thing, and my experience of it is something radically different – forВ if the existence of the visual image depends on whether or not my eyes are open, while the existence of the world does not, then they cannot be the same.

So, on the one hand we have the world, and on the other we have our experience of it. However, the experience of the world does not comprise the entirety of our awareness – our body and mind is included as well. The total perceptual snapshot at a given moment contains all the perceptions that make up the world, the sensations that make up the body, and our thoughts, all contained within one experience. The world, body and mind are all part of the view – and together they constitute the content of our consciousness.

Our consciousness is not only that in which this content is appearing, but it is also that which is experiencing it. There is no separation between the content and the experiencing of it – the presence of content is what experiencing is.You can think of it as a self-aware TV-screen that is both playing a movie and at the same time watching it. But unlike a simple TV, this screen provides a full-fledged three-dimensional experience with surround sound.

In fact, no thinking is required, just look. Consciousness is right there. Just as the substance of the movie images is the screen, the substance of all experience is consciousness. It is what experienceВ is.

Intuitively, experienceВ seems to give us a direct access to the real world –but what weВ areВ reallyВ experiencing is the content of our consciousness. Thus, the world as it appears to us is not the actual world – it is an experientialВ representationВ of the world. AndВ this representation, this constantly refreshed virtual depiction of ourselves and the world around us, is all that we canВ everВ encounter.В There is nothing you can do to ever make yourself experience anything other than the content of your own consciousness.В For this reason, the actual world, the world independent of experience, can never be known.В The world in itself isВ always beyond reach, for when it is observed, it becomes an experience and thus, a representation.

Questioner: But I feel that I have a direct awareness of the real world.

If we are inВ directВ contact with things themselves, how is it that a straight stick appears bent when halfway under water?В Does the stickВ actuallyВ bend?В Illusions are evident in everyday experience.В Rainbows only appear to exist, but on closer inspection they are nowhere to be found. A dinner plate may look circular from one angle, but oval-shaped from another. Blue doors appear green in certain light and a snake on the road might turn out to be a rope. But the actual stick does not bend when submerged in water. What you are experiencing is a mental representation, an internal copy, composed of perceptual imagery in your consciousness. If your friend is watching the stick from another angle, he will have a completely different experience of it, one that will be radically different from yours even though you are both looking at the same object. The stick in itself does not change depending on who views it, so what differs must be your mental representation.

While the idea of a representational view of the rest of the world might be true, one might still think that we are in direct contact with the body. The body is a private experience, nobody else can know how you experience it, and that is what gives this impression. But the experience of the body is subject to similar perceptual illusions as those that occur in the world. Phantom limb pain is one example. Having a fever or being intoxicated another. These conditions cause a shift in the experience of the body, without actually changing it.В Like the world, the body can only ever be accessed through the representation appearing in our consciousness.

Questioner:В I still donÂ’t see how the objects are in here. The objects of my experience seem to be outside me.

It may seem as physical objects are out there, external to us. But the experience of them, our representation of them, existВ inВ us. Why physical objects seem external is because we are always ordering them spatially in relation to ourselves.В This is a faculty of the mind.В IÂ’m judging the distance to physical objects as I am experiencing them, but the experience itself is right here in my consciousness.В Ask yourself while looking at the moon: “What is the distance between me and the experience of the moon?” YouÂ’ll find that there is no distance at all. The moon may be far away, but that is our judgment about the content of experience, not the experience itself. The experience and its content are right here.

the veil of perception

Our representation is a veil that covers the world. It is a veil of sense perceptions, and they are what constitute the totality of our experience.В But if all that we can ever encounter are these perceptions,В how can we know that our apprehension of the world corresponds to what is actually out there?В In fact, what warrant do weВ have for believing anything exists at all?В What if my own body, coffee shops and other people are simply what is playing on the veil of perception tonight?

В  В  В All scientific theories that attempts to explain the world, such as how external objects impinge on our senses and how our brain process this information into experiential content; or how subatomic particles are the substance of all things, are theories that are inferred from observingВ the world.В But the only world the scientist can ever observe is the one inferred from perceptions.В And thus, all empirical data is derived, not from the actual world, but from our representation of it.

В В  В  В When we observe a falling apple and construct a theory describing its motion,В our theory can only tell us something about how things appear to be. It is only valid in relation to our representation and not to the world in itself. If our representations are inaccurate, then so are our theories.В A very drunk scientist may come up with a theory about how the world sways. The theory will be scientifically sound in the sense that all his empirical data, which were derived from appearances, conform to his theory. However, once he sobers up he will realize that it was not the world that swayed, but his representation of it.

A common belief among those scientifically inclined is that our consciousness is something that emerges from a physical process in the brain inside our head. But the head that weÂ’ve come to know as our own is not our true head – it is merely a representational replica positioned within our representation of the world. And thus what we believe to be the container of our consciousness is itself made of sense perceptions.

But all of this, the entire representation of the world and ourselves, must then be contained inside our true head – the head in itself.В Or at least that is what we believe – for if the head in itself is outside the veil of perception, how can we know that it actually exists? What if the mechanics behind our consciousness have some otherВ explanation? We may all be living our lives in some kind of computer simulation. Maybe your life is a nothing but a dream? What if consciousness is simply an inherent function of reality?

В  В  В The existential implications can make you dizzy. “Who am I? I thought I was this body – but the body I know is made up of nothing but perceptions – and I usually donÂ’t consider myself as being an experience. What am I then? Am I my thoughts? They are experiences too. Am I something that is beyond experience? How can I know my true self if it is beyond experience?” These questions have troubled not only philosophers, but the man in the street for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

В  В  В Our understanding of the nature of reality relies on this one belief that our perceptions and experiences correspond to the actual world out there.В And the experience of ourselves seems like a true account of what we are. But to find the essence of our being and discover the truth about the world, we need to pierceВ throughВ the veil of perception, for it is on the other side that the key to this mystery lies.

This is the first article of a four part series, please continue to readВ here.
http://www.uncoveringlife.com/concepts/
В 
В 
В 
В 
В 

SCOTT KILOBY

Denver, CO - Sept. 14-16, 2012

Rocky Mountain Miracle Center, 1939 S. Monroe St., Denver, CO В  80210

Friday:В В 7:00-9:00 PMВ (FREE- come meet Scott!)
Saturday:В В 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM В (1.5 hr. Lunch Break)
Sunday:В В 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Registration:В www.scottkilobytalks.com

Registration, scholarship, or other questions, please e-mail Bart atВ scottkilobytalks@...

Ticket pricesВ BEFORE THE EVENT:Friday (Guest Event): В No Charge - please join us to experience Scott!

REGISTER:В Friday (NO CHARGE)** В [Pre-register, or just come anyway!!]
BUY:В Saturday & Sunday (BOTH) for $150
BUY:В Saturday (ONLY) for $95
BUY:В Sunday (ONLY) for $75
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4690 From: Mark Date: 2012-08-26
Subject: #4690 - Saturday, August 25, 2012

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4690, Saturday, August 25, 2012




Nothing arises without Self.
All existence is one in one's own Self.

The wave plays on the chest of the ocean,
feeling separation, she moves through time.
Eventually, she falls back into ocean.
As she rises from the Ocean,
and she falls back into Ocean,
the Oneness is not disturbed.
The movement of the wave
makes no difference to the Ocean.

- Papaji from The Truth Is, posted to AlongTheWay



The Opportunity Of Change

The most inevitable material fact of our universe is the one we have the stormiest relationship with. Either we fight it as it is appearing, or we mourn for it as it passes us by, but we are hardly ever at peace with change.

At every instant of our lives, change is guaranteed. We fight to keep it away, or work to get it here sooner because we think we know what should happen. We are certain (sometimes rightly!) that the change coming toward us will ruin or kill us. We think and hope that the right change will fix us (or them or it) once and for all.

There's the rub. Other than death, there is no "once and for all" regarding anything that is subject to change. If you take a moment now, you can ask yourself the question, "What changes?" Is there anything that does not change? Anybody, any situation, any location, any thought, any feeling, any opinion?

We may work for change in our political, social, or personal lives, and even rejoice when change appears, but all too soon we become fearful that it won't be enough or that it will disappear.

It won't be enough (nothing that is subject to change can ever be enough to truly fulfill us), and it will disappear. That's simply and starkly the nature of change.

Change is inevitable and yet even the worst is often ultimately not bad news, though it can be when it arrives. There are certainly deeply destructive changes that threaten us now as individuals, as societies and as a planet. We are right to work to bring about positive change and try to defeat negative change. We just have to finally face the fact of change. Facing the facts allows for adaptation, or as recently said in politics, "being on the right side of history." We are in the midst of huge change in our country right now, and if we keep in touch through the media, we know the upheaval and hysteria that is accompanying it.

We can recognize and empathize with the anger, driven by fear of loss, in those who are desperately trying to keep what has already happened from happening. However they may be identified by both supporters and opponents, the essence of their argument is to bring back what has already changed. We have all tried that futile strategy in one way or another. Historically, we know that those resisting essential changes can even be successful for a while. Revolutions can revert to what they were revolting against, we know we all personally regress in our emotional behavior at times, and dark ages can follow ages of expansion.

Resistance to change can succeed, but only for a while, because change is a force that will not be denied. Fighting it can lead to some counter-change, but you cannot get back what has been lost. You may even get a semblance of "restoration" for a while, but change will finally have its way.

I've recently been watching an excellent BBC series, called "Mammals." It beautifully demonstrates the inevitability of change from the perspective of evolutionary time. It shows the emergence of mammals after the utterly disastrous change for dinosaurs. Over time, the documentary shows small night-scurrying animals evolving into planet-dominating creatures of power - the primates, elephants, humans, etc.

When I compare the magnitude of a multi-ton whale beside the cow-like, land-based earlier version, the force of change and the intelligence of adaption are obvious. When I hear that most of the species that have ever existed are already extinct, I recognize the fragility of us all.

If we are willing to admit to ourselves both that change is here and change is a force that is always coming, we can - paradoxically - take a moment to be still. At least for a moment we can stop fighting what we don't like and stop clinging to what we do like, We can let ourselves be humbled by forces beyond our control.

Here is the opportunity: in a moment of stillness we can recognize that through age and experience, through trauma and healing, through successes and failures there remains within us the same wonder that was revealed in our initial recognition of being. The initial I am sense is still here, unchanged. Life itself is still here, regardless of the uncountable changes in all life forms.

When our attention returns here we are fulfilled in ourselves, and then whenever changes occur, they occur around that fulfillment.

We may still fight for what we love, and resist what we think to be destructive, but we are no longer owned by those things that come and go. We are free in the midst of all that has changed and all that will change. What an adventure!

- Gangaji from The Diamond in Your Pocket, posted to The_Now2



Seashell Toys

Go into God's qualities
and God's face.

Empty into those and be there,
and not there, as when letters elide
and disappear into each other
to make a smooth connection.

in the uniting
they are silent.

The words, You did not throw when you threw,
were spoken without Muhammed's speaking them.

The words, God said,
spring from silence.

A medicine on the shelf is medicinal
only when it dissolves into a diseased body.

Even if every tree were cut and split
and every limb and splinter made into pens,
and even if the ocean were ink and every human being
joined in the work, there would still be no hope
for finishing this Mathnawi!

But as long as the brickmaker's mould stays filled
with clay, this poetry will keep building.

When there's no more clay, use water!
When there's no more land-forests,
use ocean-forests!

Muhammed said,"Talk about the ocean for a while.
Then turn toward land, pick up a toy,
and talk about toys."

Children love their seashell toys,
and with them they learn about the ocean,
because a little piece of ocean
inside the child, and inside the toy,
knows the whole ocean.

- Rumi, Mathnawi VI: 2239-2256 version by Coleman Barks from Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion, posted to Sunlight



The moon came to me last night
With a sweet question.
She said,

"The sun has been my faithful lover
For millions of years.
Whenever I offer my body to him
Brilliant light pours from his heart.

Thousands then notice my happiness
And delight in pointing
Toward my beauty.

Hafiz,
Is it true that our destiny
Is to turn into Light
Itself?"

And I replied,

Dear moon,
Now that your love is maturing,
We need to sit together
Close like this more often
So I might instruct you
How to become
Who you
Are!"

- Hafiz, posted to DailyDharma
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4691 From: Mark Date: 2012-08-27
Subject: #4691 - Sunday, August 26, 2012

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4691, Sunday, August 26, 2012




To obtain real peace and happiness in this world one has simply to follow the path of ahimsa - nonviolence - which naturally is common to all the religions of the world. If we do not like to experience any pain or suffering of any kind, how can we expect any other creature - whether big or small - to feel otherwise? There is no better prayer or worship we can offer to Lord Buddha than being thoughtful, kind, compassionate and abstaining from taking the life of any fellow human being, animal, bird, fish or insect.

- Chatral Rinpoche (100 year old yogi-hermit on retreat in Nepal), posted to DailyDharma



When thoughts of revenge and hatred arise in the mind, try to control the physical body and speech first. Do not utter evil and harsh words. Do not censure. Do not try to injure others. If you succeed in this by practice for some months, the negative thoughts of revenge, having no scope for manifesting outside, will die by themselves. It is extremely difficult to control such thoughts from the very beginning without having recourse to control of the body and speech first.

First control your physical body. When a man beats you, keep quiet. Suppress your feelings. Follow the instructions of Jesus Christ in his Sermon On The Mount: "If a man beats you on one cheek, turn to him the other cheek also. If a man takes away your coat, give him your shirt also." This is very difficult in the beginning. The old Samskaras (impressions) of revenge, of "a tooth for a tooth", "tit for tat", "an eye for an eye", and "paying in the same coin" will all force you to retaliate. But you will have to wait cooly. Reflect and meditate. Do Vichara or right enquiry. The mind will become calm. The opponent who was very furious will also become calm, because he does not get any opposition from your side. He gets astonished and terrified also, because you stand like a sage. By and by, you will gain immense strength. Keep the ideal before you. Try to get at it, though with faltering steps at first. Have a clear-cut mental image of Ahimsa and its immeasurable advantages.

After controlling the body, control your speech. Make a strong determination, "I will not speak any harsh word to anybody from today". You may fail a hundred times. What does it matter ? You will slowly gain strength. Check the impulse of speech. Observe Mouna (silence). Practice Kshama or forgiveness. Say within yourself: "He is a baby-soul. He is ignorant, that is why he has done it. Let me excuse him this time. What do I gain by abusing him in return ?" Slowly give up Abhimana (ego-centred attachment). Abhimana is the root-cause of human sufferings.

Finally go to the thoughts and check the thought of injuring. Never even think of injuring anyone. One Self dwells in all. All are manifestations of One God. By injuring another, you injure your own Self. By serving another, you serve your own Self. Love all. Serve all. Hate none. Insult none. Injure none in thought, word and deed. Try to behold your own Self in all beings. This will promote Ahimsa.

- Sri Swami Sivananda from Bliss Divine



Why is nonviolence vital, not merely as an action, but as a philosophy? Because it respects the capacity of human beings to grow - to grow their souls - and we owe that to each other.

- Grace Lee Boggs, civil rights activist, 97 years old, March 2, 2012



We are often exposed,if not first hand, then through films, reading material, and conversations, to violence, fear, hatred, meaningless infatuations.Society is full of violence and hatred, which accumulates in the collective consciousness. If in our daily lives we do not know now to abstain from damaging materials and attitudes, the seeds of violence, hatred and suffering in us will continue to be watered. We need to be aware of what we hear,see, and read every dayÂ… Do our associations and consumptions poison us?

- Thick Nhat Hanh



Since the situation in which we live is much changed but the attitude of people who are in that situation is at variance with the times, this is one of the causes of unnecessary pain, unnecessary problems. Therefore, education is needed to communicate that the concept of violence is counterproductive, that it is not a realistic way to solve problems, and that compromise is the only realistic way to solve problems. Right from the beginning, we have to make this reality clear to a child's mind - the new generation. In this way, the whole attitude towards oneself, towards the world, towards others, can become more healthy. I usually call this "inner disarmament." Without inner disarmament, it is very difficult to achieve genuine, lasting world peace.

...Through inner disarmament we can develop a healthy mental attitude, which also is very beneficial for physical health. With peace of mind, a calm mind, your body elements become more balanced. Constant worry, constant fear, agitation of mind, are very bad for health. Therefore, peace of mind not only brings tranquility in our mind but also has good effects on our body.

With inner disarmament, now we need external disarmament. As I mentioned earlier, according to today's reality, there no longer is room for war, for destruction. From a compassionate viewpoint, destruction, killing others, and discriminating even against one's enemy are counterproductive. Today's enemy, if you treat them well, may become a good friend even the next day.

- HH the Dalai Lama, from The Art of Peace: Nobel Peace Laureates Discuss Human Rights, Conflict and Reconciliation



The practice of mindfulness unveils and reveals your essential Good Heart, because it dissolves and removes the unkindness or the harm in you. Only when you have removed the harm in yourself do you become truly useful to others. Through the practice, by slowly removing the unkindness and harm from yourself, you allow your true Good Heart, the fundamental goodness and kindness that are your real nature, to shine out and become the warm climate in which your true being flowers.

This is why I call meditation the true practice of peace, the true practice of nonaggression and nonviolence, and the real and greatest disarmament.

- Sogyal Rinpoche, from Glimpse of the Day
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4692 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-08-28
Subject: #4692 - Monday, August 27, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
#4692 -В Monday, August 27, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
It's a funny thing about the mind. There is a way in which the mind, no matter
how hard it works, never gets there. The minute you realize that and
surrender into being, rather than knowing, you've just moved to the next level.
В 
~ Ram DassВ 
В 
by Alan Larus
В 
В 
В 
В 
"We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left
for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they
do or what they have - for their usefulness."
В 
"Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that
your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if
not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea,
you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value,
the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less
for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality
of personal relationship that saves everything."
В 
"We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to
recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are."
В 
"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the
interdependence of all living beings, which are all part of one another, and all
involved in one another"
В 
~Thomas Merton
В 
В 
via Tao & Zen on Facebook
В 
В 
В 
В 
What Calls the Eye to See
by Adyashanti
В 
It isnÂ’t that appearance is spread before and the seer watches remaining
behind. ItÂ’s his Г‚вЂ˜pulsationÂ’ when he sees himself. ~ Jnanadeva
В 
What you are now stands before me immortal and true. I see it in the ground
underfoot, and in the clouds in the sky, and in the mist gathering among the
canyons, and in the face of the old man walking his grandchild down the
sidewalk.
В 
In the robes of monks I see it, and in the rags worn by the women begging for
change outside the supermarket. I see it in the sympathetic eyes of the mother
greeting her young son as he returns home from the war, and in the father
trying to comfort his baby daughter as he stands in line at the grocery store.
I see it in the curve of my face in the mirror, and in the multitudes of stars in
the sky.
В 
I not only see it but I hear it as well. I hear it in the cries of the newborn
baby hungry for its motherÂ’s breast, and in the laughter of the old men sitting
in the donut store together, and in the quiet sobs of the man placing flowers at
his wifeÂ’s grave. I hear it in the ancient chants echoing through the open
window of the old church, and in the ladies sitting on benches in the garden
laughing with delight, and in the man working at the butcher shop asking his
customers “WhoÂ’s next?”
В 
What calls the ear to listen or the eye to see more than the surface faГѓВ§ade
that shrouds the essential spirit? Parting the strata and dross, what is
essential picks its way through the manicured narrative of endless lives. In
each moment of every day, Truth is not lacking or held in abeyance for some
later date; it is given in full measure, and abundantly so.
В 
Don't be afraid of what appears to be chaos or dissolution -- embrace the full
measure of your life at any cost. Bare your heart to the Unknown and never
look back. What you are stands content, invisible, and everlasting. All means
have been provided for our endless folly to split open into eternal delight.
В 
Awakening is all about perspective. From a narrow focus on personal identity,
we awaken into an infinitely vast yet intimate view, where we see everything
as it really is: eternal and sacred.В 
~~~
The August issue of the TAT Forum is now online at...
www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm
В 
В 
В 
photo by Alan Larus
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4693 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-28
Subject: #4693 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4693 - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/

В 



Einstein, Albert in Living Philosophies, Simon and Schuster, New York 1931
В 
Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose.
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellowmen, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too heavily from the work of other men.

I do not believe we can have any freedom at all in the philosophical sense, for we act not only under external compulsion but also by inner necessity. SchopenhauerÂ’s saying— “A man can surely do what he wills to do, but he cannot determine what he wills”—impressed itself upon me in youth and has always consoled me when I have witnessed or suffered lifeÂ’s hardships. This conviction is a perpetual breeder of tolerance, for it does not allow us to take ourselves or others too seriously; it makes rather for a sense of humor.

To ponder interminably over the reason for oneÂ’s own existence or the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point of view, to be sheer folly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by which he guides his aspiration and his judgment. The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.

Without the sense of collaborating with like-minded beings in the pursuit of the ever unattainable in art and scientific research, my life would have been empty. Ever since childhood I have scorned the commonplace limits so often set upon human ambition. Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.
Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.

My political ideal is democracy. Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized. It is an irony of fate that I should have been showered with so much uncalled for and unmerited admiration and esteem. Perhaps this adulation springs from the unfulfilled wish of the multitude to comprehend the few ideas which I, with my weak powers, have advanced.

Full well do I know that in order to attain any definite goal it is imperative that one person should do the thinking and commanding and carry most of the responsibility. But those who are led should not be driven, and they should be allowed to choose their leader.

It seems to me that the distinctions separating the social classes are false; in the last analysis they rest on force. I am convinced that degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors. Time has proved that illustrious tyrants are succeeded by scoundrels.

For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to such regimes as exist in Russia and Italy today. The thing which has discredited the European forms of democracy is not the basic theory of democracy itself, which some say is at fault, but the instability of our political leadership, as well as the impersonal character of party alignments.

I believe that those in the United States have hit upon the right idea. A President is chosen for a reasonable length of time and enough power is given him to acquit himself properly of his responsibilities. In the German Government, on the other hand, I like the stateÂ’s more extensive care of the individual when he is ill or unemployed. What is truly valuable in our bustle of life is not the nation, I should say, but the creative and impressionable individuality, the personality —he who produces the noble and sublime while the common herd remains dull in thought and insensible in feeling.

This subject brings me to that vilest offspring of the herd mind—the odious militia. The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt; he received his great brain by mistake—the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient. This heroism at command, this senseless violence, this accursed bombast of patriotism—how intensely I despise them! War is low and despicable, and I had rather be smitten to shreds than participate in such doings.

Such a stain on humanity should be erased without delay. I think well enough of human nature to believe that it would have been wiped out long ago had not the common sense of nations been systematically corrupted through school and press for business and political reasons.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own—a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.

It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4694 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-08-30
Subject: #4694 - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4694 - Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/
В 
В 
В 
В 
A few announcements & writing from people we know and love!
В 
В 
В 
В 
Vicki Woodyard
В 
Website address is now http://www.vickiwoodyard.com.
В 
tumbler link:


A В Guru in the Guest Room link is:В 
В 


Most of my Notes are a calling in to the sacred space created by the intention of the writer and reader both.


We breathe together, let go, hold on, let go as one wrestling the coarser energies until they become light.


No darkness without light. No blackness without white space to put it on.


O come all ye faithful to the inner freedom of the heart.


Jangle bells. Wiggle your fingers. Dance the hora.


Fall down, go boom.


Rise up.


Is that the calling to be more than human or the calling to be human when it is appropriate to be?


Fall is calling and we will follow the next seasonal admonition to gather food, to gain weight, to plan for dark short days.


As we begin to go within, may we gather what is important and nurturing and let go of the rest.


Return it to the earth.


Amen.


В 
В 
В 

SCOTT KILOBY

Dallas, TX - Sept. 28-30, 2012

Unity of Dallas, 6525 Forest Lane, Dallas, TX В  75230

Friday:В В 7:00-9:00 PM (FREE- come meet Scott!)
Saturday:В В 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM В (1.5 hr. Lunch Break)
Sunday:В В 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Registration: www.scottkilobytalks.com

Registration, scholarship, or other questions, please e-mail Bart at scottkilobytalks@...

Ticket pricesВ BEFORE THE EVENT:

Friday (Guest Event): В No Charge* - please join us to experience Scott!

REGISTER:В Friday (NO CHARGE)** В В [Pre-register, or just come anyway!!]

BUY:В Saturday & Sunday (BOTH) for $150*

BUY:В Saturday (ONLY) for $95*

BUY:В Sunday (ONLY) for $75*

These ticket prices will be available until after the Friday night Guest Event.


В 

ELLEN EMMET has a new, original post on Awakening Clarity.В 

http://awakeningclarity.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-true-nature-of-body-guest-teaching_18.html

Here's an excerpt from that article:

WE ALL KNOW HAPPINESS.


All of us who come to Awakening Clarity share a great love and interest in our true nature.В  Our heart and our mind deeply resonate with the understanding that we are unlimited, open, universal, infinite, divine and ever-present Awareness.

Furthermore, we all know or remember moments of happiness and peace, during which our body is transparent, joyful and highly sensitive, harmonizing with the invisible substance of peace and happiness itself.

In these moments the conceptual belief in separation is absent along with the felt experience of a physical, solid, limited and located body. The body resonates and vibrates naturally and effortlessly with its source. It is experienced in line with its natural state of transparency, weightlessness, flow and expansion. Its music is pure openness, spaciousness and love.


The conditioned body

However, for many of us most of the time, this understanding is not established at the level of feeling and sensation.

The felt experience of our self has been distorted by decades ofВ  “I,”  “you,” ”mine” and ”yours,” endlessly projected onto our body-mind by parents, teachers, peers and culture in a self-perpetuating, collective and subconscious conspiracy of ignorance.

Consequently, our body is conditioned to mirror the belief that we are a limited and individual awareness, separate from the whole. It becomes the physical anchor and expression for this deep-rooted illusion that “I” am a physical body apart from all other bodies and the world.



To read the whole article, go here:
http://awakeningclarity.blogspot.ca/2012/08/the-true-nature-of-body-guest-teaching_18.htmlВ 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4695 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-08-31
Subject: #4695 - Thursday, August 30, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4695 -В Thursday, August 30, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/В 
В 
В 
В 
"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more "successful" people. But it
does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and
lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It
needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world
habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our
culture has defined it."
~В David Orr
В 
В 
Ed. Note: The quote above, wrongly attributed to HH Dalai Lama, led me to find
the essay byВ David Orr from which it was taken.В EnoughВ mistakes like thatВ will
turnВ anyone into a fact-checker. What impressed me the most was how very nondual
his perpective was, without once actually using the word. Because he looks at how
anВ education thatВ splits, divides, and separates subjects inevitably does the same to
the person studying it. When wealth and status become the sole indicators of "success"
in a culture, so much else is ignored and lost. The same might be said about pursuing
Enlightenment. Okay, so you're enlightened, what is it for? How does that affect the
way you live?
В 
В 
What Is Education For?
В 
Six myths about the foundations of modern education, and six new
principles to replace them
By David Orr
If today is a typical day on planet Earth, we will lose 116 square miles of
rainforest, or about an acre a second. We will lose another 72 square miles to
encroaching deserts, as a result of human mismanagement and overpopulation. We
will lose 40 to 100 species, and no one knows whether the number is 40 or 100.
Today the human population will increase by 250,000. And today we will add
2,700 tons of chlorofluorocarbons to the atmosphere and 15 million tons of
carbon. Tonight the Earth will be a little hotter, its waters more acidic, and the
fabric of life more threadbare.
В 
The truth is that many things on which your future health and prosperity depend
are in dire jeopardy: climate stability, the resilience and productivity of natural
systems, the beauty of the natural world, and biological diversity.
------
В 
Historically, Francis BaconÂ’s proposed union between knowledge and power
foreshadows the contemporary alliance between government, business, and
knowledge that has wrought so much mischief. GalileoÂ’s separation of the
intellect foreshadows the dominance of the analytical mind over that part given
to creativity, humor, and wholeness. And in DescartesÂ’ epistemology, one finds
the roots of the radical separation of self and object. Together these three laid
the foundations for modern education, foundations now enshrined in myths we
have come to accept without question.В 
------
В 
In the modern curriculum we have fragmented the world into bits and pieces
called disciplines and subdisciplines. As a result, after 12 or 16 or 20 years of
education, most students graduate without any broad integrated sense of the
unity of things. The consequences for their personhood and for the planet are
large. For example, we routinely produce economists who lack the most
rudimentary knowledge of ecology. This explains why our national accounting
systems do not subtract the costs of biotic impoverishment, soil erosion, poisons
in the air or water, and resource depletion from gross national product. We add
the price of the sale of a bushel of wheat to GNP while forgetting to subtract
the three bushels of topsoil lost in its production. As a result of incomplete
education, weÂ’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that we are much richer than we
are.
В 
------
В 
This is not the happy world that any number of feckless advertisers and
politicians describe. We have built a world of sybaritic wealth for a few and
Calcuttan poverty for a growing underclass. At its worst it is a world of crack
on the streets, insensate violence, anomie, and the most desperate kind of
poverty. The fact is that we live in a disintegrating culture. In the words of Ron
Miller, editor of Holistic Review:
В 
"Our culture does not nourish that which is best or noblest in the human spirit.
It does not cultivate vision, imagination, or aesthetic or spiritual sensitivity. It
does not encourage gentleness, generosity, caring, or compassion. Increasingly in
the late 20th Century, the economic-technocratic-statist worldview has become
a monstrous destroyer of what is loving and life-affirming in the human soul."
В 
В 
WHAT EDUCATION MUST BE FOR
В (Only topic headers are given here.)
В 
Measured against the agenda of human survival, how might we rethink education?
Let me suggest six principles.
В 
First, all education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded
we teach students that they are part of or apart from the natural world.
A second principle comes from the Greek concept of paideia. The goal of
education is not mastery of subject matter, but of oneÂ’s person. Subject matter
is simply the tool.В 
В 
Third, I would like to propose that knowledge carries with it the responsibility
to see that it is well used in the world.
В 
Fourth, we cannot say that we know something until we understand the effects of
this knowledge on real people and their communities.В 
В 
My fifth principle follows and is drawn from William Blake. It has to do with
the importance of "minute particulars" and the power of examples over words
The lessons being taught are those of hypocrisy and ultimately despair. Students
learn, without anyone ever saying it, that they are helpless to overcome the
frightening gap between ideals and reality.В 
.В 
В 
Finally, I would like to propose that the way learning occurs is as important as
the content of particular courses. Process is important for learning. Courses
taught as lecture courses tend to induce passivity.В 


В 
В 

One of the articles in The Learning Revolution (IC#27)
Originally published in Winter 1991 on page 52
Copyright (c)1991, 1996 by Context Institute
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4696 From: Mark Date: 2012-09-02
Subject: #4696 - Saturday, September 1, 2012

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4696, Saturday, September 1, 2012




Sharing the Heart is the practice that when we encounter pain in our life we breathe into our heart with the recognition that others also feel this. It's a way of acknowledging when we are closing down and of training to open up. When we encounter any pleasure or tenderness in our life, we cherish that and rejoice. Then we make the wish that others could also experience this delight or this relief.

In a nutshell, when life is pleasant, think of others. When life is a burden, think of others. If this is the only training we ever remember to do, it will benefit us tremendously and everyone else as well. It's a way of bringing whatever we encounter onto the path of awakening bodhichitta.

- Pema Chodron, posted to DailyDharma



We slay a thousand dragons by catching this one dragon called 'I'. You have the power to bring the attention inwardly again and again, then you'll see that all appearances are only coming and going, nothing is fixed. Keep on confirming this and the inner noise of identity and conditioning will get washed out. What remains is that pure space of Being.

- Mooji, posted to AlongTheWay



The sage lives in complete apprehension of the fact that there is no individual doing anything, whether it be writing, walking, talking or anything else. Thus, he may be said to walk a thousand miles without setting a foot outside of his house or speak for forty years without saying a word.

- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels



Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

- Elizsabeth Kubler Ross, posted to The_Now2



Live, so you do not have to look back and say: 'God, how I have wasted my life.'

- Elizsabeth Kubler Ross, posted to The_Now2



The surface of thought's stream
carries sticks and straws -
some pleasant, some unsightly.
Seed-husks floating in the water
have fallen from the fruits of the invisible garden.
Look for the kernels back in the garden,
for the water comes from the garden into the riverbed.
If you don't see the flow of the water of Life,
look at this movement of weeds in thought's stream.
When the water flows more fully,
the husks, our ideas, pass along more quickly.
When this stream has become a torrent,
no care lingers in the mind of gnostics:
since the water has become so swift and full,
there is no longer room in it for anything but water.

- Rumi, Mathnawi II:3296-3302, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski from Rumi: Daylight, posted to Sunlight
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4697 From: Mark Date: 2012-09-02
Subject: #4697 - Sunday, Septermber 2, 2012

Archived issues of the NDHighlights are available online: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm

Nonduality Highlights Issue #4697, Sunday, Septermber 2, 2012




Central to Buddha's teaching is seeing the equality among humanity and the importance of equality of all sentient beings. Whether you are a Buddhist or not, this is something important to know and to understand.

Then you must also see the potential for developing a loving kind of patience, a tolerance founded on the basis of courage, not on the basis of pessimism. Tolerance and patience with courage are not signs of failure, but signs of victory. In your daily life, as you learn more patience, more tolerance with wisdom and courage, you will see it is the true source of success. Actually, if you are too impatient, that's a real failure.

All different religions carry the essence of these ideas or teachings, but I feel the Buddhist practices are especially profound and detailed, so maybe they can contribute to the West and even to Christianity. You can remain a Christian, meantime taking some Buddhist techniques.

Q. What can we do to help end suffering in the world? What can one individual do?

A. We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens, we will have no regrets.

All want happiness and not suffering. Even from insects onwards, each being wants happiness. We are only one, whereas others are infinite in number. This, it can be clearly decided that others gaining happiness is more important than just yourself alone. From beginningless time until now, we have brought ourselves into great difficulties through selfishness. We should turn this around and consider others to be more important. Beings such as animals of all kinds have no choice to understand this fact, whereas we are humans who have gained this fine human life where such [things] can be understood. We have some intelligence and with that can understand the value of cherishing others and the faults of cherishing ourselves. We now need to implement this, to put it into actual practice, not just to leave it at understanding. We should think, "If I don't achieve this now, when could I possibly achieve it?"

- H.H the 14th Dalai Lama, from The Spirit of Tibet: Universal Heritage, posted to DailyDharma



When you eat too much,
you forget your truth,

and fasting makes you conceited,
so eat with some discipline,
and consciously. Be
an ordinary human being.

Then the door will open,
and you'll recognize the way.
Lalla, be moderate!

- Lalla from Naked Song -Versions by Coleman Barks, posted to AlongTheWay



There's nothing from which the world could profit more than from giving up profit. A man who's no longer thinking in terms of winning and losing is truly a non-violent man, since he's above all conflicts.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels



The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.

- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:An Inquiry Into Values, posted to The_Now2





Nothing shows up false without the true:
the fool took false coin
hoping it might be gold.
If there were no genuine coin in the world,
how would it be possible to pass fakes?
Unless there is truth,
how could there be lies?
Falsity gets its value from the existence of truth.
Some want the wrong in hope that it will be right.

- Rumi Mathnawi II:2928-2931, version by Camille and Kabir Helminski from Rumi: Daylight, posted to Sunlight



Self-pity is the cause of all life's grievances.

Bowl of Saki, September 2, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

If one studies one's surroundings one finds that those who are happy are so because they have less thought of self. If they are unhappy it is because they think of themselves too much. A person is more bearable when he thinks less of himself. And a person is unbearable when he is always thinking of himself. There are many miseries in life, but the greatest misery is self-pity.

Self-pity is the worst poverty. When a person says, 'I am...' with pity, before he has said anything more he has diminished himself to half of what he is; and what is said further, diminishes him totally; nothing more of him is left afterwards. There is so much in the world that we can pity and which it would be right for us to take pity upon, but if we have no time free from our own self we cannot give our mind to others in the world. Life is one long journey, and the further behind we have left our self, the further we have progressed toward the goal. Verily when the false self is lost the true self is discovered.

The heart becomes wide by forgetting self, but narrow by thinking of the self and pitying one's self. To gain a wide and broad heart you must have something before you to look upon, and to rest your intelligence upon - and that something is the God-ideal.

- posted to SufiMystic
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4698 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2012-09-04
Subject: #4698 - Monday, September 3, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4698 -В Monday, September 3, 2012 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
An Extraordinary Absence: Guest Teaching by Jeff FosterВ 
В 
В 
JEFF FOSTER is a personal favorite of mine for three reasons. Reason number
one is that he's English, and Betsy and I are both hopeless anglophiles. Reason
number two is because he's funny as hell, and almost always laughing--his laugh is
totally alive and infectious. I find myself grinning at YouTube, and sometimes
laughing out loud. The third reason I like Jeff so much is that he's incredibly
clear. Sometime back, when I first finished reading The Wonder of Being, I
thought, "Well, okay, this guy has nailed it. Do I really want to continue reading
and writing on this subject, or shall I just go read comic books and eat ice cream
from now on?"
~ Fred DavisВ 

В 
JULIAN AND CATHERINE (NOYCE) WRITE, "THE FIRST TIME we heard
of JeffВ  Foster was in 2006, when he sent us the manuscript of his first book,
LifeВ  Without A Centre. Our friend and author, Nathan Gill, saw immediately
thatВ  here was a fresh, clear approach; uncluttered by the influence of any other
В teacher and completely authentic. We went on to publish Beyond Awakening and
В Revelation of Oneness. Earlier titles were eventually re-worked into a singleВ 
book called The Wonder of Being.В 
В 
"WHAT WE PARTICULARLY LIKE about JeffÂ’s expression is that, despite hisВ 
intelligence and his knowledge, there are no esoteric complications, no wordsВ 
with Г‚вЂ˜specialÂ’ meanings. At the same time he doesnÂ’t talk down to readers and hisВ 
writing can be understood by anyone who has the experience of being human – 
which is probably most of us who are reading this!"В 
В 
AND NOW, HERE ARE EDITED EXTRACTS from An Extraordinary Absence,В 
published by Non-Duality Press.В 
В 
В 
В 
В 
The Heart of Nonduality
В 
So often nonduality can seem so heady, so conceptual, so intellectual. All those
concepts of nothingness and absence and presence! Actually this is all about love.
Love is the union of heart and mind.
В 
Nonduality isnÂ’t about being detached from the world, being the witness of
everything and taking part in nothing. ItÂ’s not about sitting on your mountaintop
and looking down at the world, pitying those poor mortals who arenÂ’t as awakened
as you are, those poor souls who still have egos! No, love cannot stand back from
the world, because it is the world.
В 
In liberation, heart and mind are not experienced as being separate. The heart
of presence radiates love.

В 
В 
Contraction falls awayВ 
В 
But in the falling away of the self-contraction and alongВ  with it, the contracted
world space in which all teachers and teachings operate,В  the grace is revealed,
and it has nothing to do with any sort of future event, orВ  spiritual experience,
or shift in perception, or transformation of consciousness,В  or anything else that
was promised by the dream teachers. And itÂ’s shockinglyВ  ordinary. ItÂ’s drinking
a cup of tea. ItÂ’s eating fish and chips. Except now,В  nobody drinks the tea, and
nobody eats the fish and chips. Drinking tea justВ  happens. Eating fish and chips
just happens. Tea drinks itself. Fish and chips eatВ  themselves. ThatÂ’s about as
close as we can get in language.В 
В 
The paradox of being a person – or notВ 
В 
What weÂ’re talking about here is totallyВ  beyond all of that. It cannot be
captured by any thought-created formula. InВ  fact, “There is no person” and
“There is a person” both miss the point. “There isВ  choice” and “There is no
choice” both miss the point. Within the dream world,В  these pairs of opposites
arise together and fall away together. But they cannotВ take you to where you
really want to go: your own absence.В 
В 
Spiritual practice
В 
IÂ’m not telling you to give up your spiritual practices; giving up happens or it
doesnÂ’t. Spiritual practices happen or they donÂ’t.
В 
And remember: Giving up on spiritual practices just becomes another spiritual
practice. The anti-spiritual practice ideology is just another ideology.
В 

В 
В 
Watch out!
В 
Watch out, the mind will turn everything in this book into just another goal.
There is no person? I want that! The end of seeking? I want that!
В 
And if youÂ’re not careful youÂ’ll start actually believing me when I say things like
“IÂ’m not here.” ItÂ’s not a concept to be believed. ItÂ’s a string of words that are
attempting to point to something that is totally beyond words. Once it turns into
a belief, a concept, in a sense itÂ’s no longer true.
В 
The person who really believes that they are Г‚вЂ˜not thereÂ’ – and uses that belief to
separate themselves from you – is living with a picture, a very personal image of
themselves not being there. Think about it.
В 
YesterdayÂ’s Г‚вЂ˜awakening experienceÂ’ so easily becomes todayÂ’s ego-trip.
В 

©2006-2009 Jeff Foster/Non-Duality Press
All rights reserved.В  Used by permission.
В 
For complete article, with video and extra links, please see:
В 
В 

В 
В 
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4699 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2012-09-05
Subject: #4699 - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4699 - Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - Editor: Jerry Katz
В 
В 
В 
В 
Hi everybody. In my previous issue some links weren't working and here they are:
В 
Vicki Woodyard
В 
Website address is now http://www.vickiwoodyard.com.
В 
tumbler link:
В 
В 
AВ  Guru in the Guest Room link is:В 
В 
http://www.amazon.com/Guru-Guest-Room-Vicki-Woodyard/dp/1936539578/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333224537&sr=1-1
В 
Scott Kiloby's talks:
В 
В 
В 
В 
For each of us, I would say, there are two sides toВ our nonduality story. There's the side ofВ pain and sufferingВ and the side of freedom along with the reactions of people around us when they see we are no longer known by our complaints and pain. These two poems by Elizabeth, aВ poet from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, depict both sides. A third poem by Elizabeth makes for an effective triad.
В 
Endsville
В 
i dig at my skin Г‚вЂ˜til my arms are raw i wait by the phone but you never call these are the things i canÂ’t forgive they call it endsville where we live
В 
if you look at the sky you can see the moon the newspapers say that she died too soon there are cracks in the mirrors and holes in the streets there are lies in your eyes, there is blood on my sheets
В 
nothing was said that was ever done in endsville you canÂ’t see the sun the playgrounds all are poison cracked where houses stood, there now stand shacks
В 
these are the things i canÂ’t forgive they call it endsville where we live the air is wasted, no birds sing they fly aways on broken wings
В 
thereÂ’s nothing lost that canÂ’t be found these days i stand on sacred ground with arms stretched wide, i scream to pray that someday iÂ’ll forget your name
В 
where trees once stood are gnarled roots i fold myself in solitude these are the things i canÂ’t forgive they call it endsville where we live
В 
В 
----------------
В 
В 
The Lost Years (a ghazal)
В 
We tracked her to a point, then she was lost.
With years that passed, all trace of her was lost.
В 
We thought that we had pinned down where she was.
It did not last. All trace of her was lost.
В 
Someone saw her standing on a bridge.
It happened fast. All trace of her was lost.
В 
They said that was the way that it should be.
The stone was cast. All trace of her was lost.
В 
Isabel, what have you done? How could you?
We stood aghast. All trace of her was lost.
В 
В 
-----------------
В 
В 
seashells drift

seashells gently drift
beneath these white-foam waves,
this endless, rolling sea.

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