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Group: NDhighlights Message: 4980 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-07-24
Subject: #4980 - Wednesday, July 2, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4980 - Wednesday, July 2, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


_________________________________________________


Mandee and Jerry appeared on the radio today. You may listen to the show here. The link will be active for only a week.

http://ckdu.dal.ca/logger/audio_logs/temp/CKDU_Jul2417303-23-0.mp3

We'll be publicizing our show in advance for next week. We hope a few of you will call.


_________________________________________________


Amrita Nadi

WHAT IS LOVE?

"Love is not a act!
It is not something that you "do."
If you do it,
It is not love."

~Osho

~So, if we are doing love, just like any act, we get tired and bored, and someday, oops! we fall into its opposite: hate. So on we go, mixing our love with hate - one minute we hate him, the next minute we love him.. . all 'cause we are "doing" love.

But what if we stop seeing love as having an object? Stop the duality connected with loving an object and just love. Be love. Immerse into love.

Osho says don't focus our love on one person, one thing - unfocus our love "on the Whole. When it is focused on one person, it is known as love - when it is unfocused, it becomes Prayer. "

When Love is unfocused, it is Ultimate Compassion - no object, all objects, no particular being, all beings. It is an ineffable, unbelievable, ecstatic hoot! And it's contagious too. . .

~dharma grandmother


_________________________________________________


Scott Kiloby events:

http://www.kiloby.com/meetings.ph

"Living the Inquiries"

September 13 - 15
New York, NY

October 11-13
Chicago, IL

October 18-20
Nova Scotia, Canada

Nov. 1-3
Victoria, BC, Canada


"Freedom from Compulsion" Intensives

August 30- September 1
Chicago, IL


"Living Inquiries" Intensives

September 20-22, 2013
Providence, RI

http://www.kiloby.com/meetings.ph



_________________________________________________


Galen Sharp

The reason for "Awakening" is not to become a guru or a teacher, but simply to live normally. "Unawakened" a sentient being's worldview is warped by the self concept.


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Markandeya Gita

102. What is the difference between concentration, attention, contemplation, and Awareness?

The most gross of these three is concentration. Concentration is mental; it is active. When we are working on a math problem, for instance, we are concentrating. We may be working the problem with pen and paper or perhaps only mentally, but concentration is the same. When we are actively thinking through the words of our Master, that too is concentration. For, concentration is linear; it is a process wherein we have a starting point and an end point. The end point may turn out to be a solution, or it may lead us to yet another problem that we are compelled to work through. Therein is the reason that concentration has its predominance in manas.

Whereas concentration is an active process, attention is the passive side of the coin. When we listen to someone speak we are full of attention as to what that person is saying. When we watch a movie, too, we are providing our undivided attention to the show, and so on.

Where there is concentration there is always attention. To concentrate on anything is to first have that thing as our object of attention. Once the thing in question has our attention, we then concentrate on it.

Attention, on the other hand, can exist without concentration. One can watch a movie or listen to a speaker without ever concentrating in an active way on what is being seen or heard. Gazing at clouds on a breezy, sunny day is a fine example of attention without concentration. However, if we begin to studiously look for familiar shapes in those same clouds, we have just moved from merely being attentive to them to actively concentrating on them.

Then there is contemplation. Whereas concentration is predominantly the action of manas, contemplation is predominantly the action of buddhi. A fine example of the distiction between concentration and contemplation is when we are focused on the murti of Bhagavan Ganesha: If we are thinking, for instance, about the meaning of the goad, the noose, or the large ears of Ganapati then we are concentrating on the meaning of the individual gestures and features contained within the murti.

However, if we stop concentrating on the individual meanings of the gestures and features of the murti and settle into a deep, unblinking, focused state of undivided attention we can experience the darshan of Bhagavan Ganesha in a much more real and permanent way; all of the individual gestures and features of the murti come together and are fully present within us in a way that is wholly present. This is contemplation.

Contemplation is grasping and holding onto the whole picture. It is much subtler than active thinking, being non-linear, and thusly resides predominantly in the intuitive faculty of buddhi.

Attention is the bandha, the madhya, the knot that is at the center of, and the tying together of, subtle contemplation and gross concentration.

Awareness is the Mother of all of these, and all else as well. In Her downward path called prana kundalini She "forgets" and "looks out" through the eyes of jiva, the result of which is the above named mental processes; in Her upward path called para kundalini She is dynamiic Reality Itself.

Shri Ramana Maharishi once said this elequently during a question and answer session:

Q: Does the Absolute know itself?

M: The ever-conscious is beyond both knowledge and ignorance; your question presupposes subject and object, but the Absolute is beyond both. It is knowledge itself.
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4981 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-07-26
Subject: #4981 - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
#4981 - Thursday,В July 25, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
"The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no
parachute. The good news is there's no ground.”
В 
~Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
В 
via Daily Dharma by Amrita Nadi
В 

В 
Instead of saying, 'I am uncertain,'
why not say, 'I am an ocean of possibility'?
Instead of saying, 'I am confused,'
why not say, 'I am open and I welcome it all'?
В 
~Fred LaMotte
В 

В 
Silence is the true upadesa (teaching).
It is the perfect upadesa.В  It is suited
only for the most advanced seeker.В  The
others are unable to draw full inspiration
from it.В  Therefore they require words to
explain the truth.В  But truth is beyond
words.В  It does not admit of explanation.
All that is possible to do is to indicate it.
В 
~Sri Ramana Maharshi
В 
"Be As You Are"
The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi
edited by David Godman
via Along The Way
В 

В 
When we speak of giving complete, nonjudgmental attention to the present
moment, accepting what is and allowing it to be as it is, or when we say
everything is perfect as it, this is sometimes misunderstood. No one is
saying we shouldnÂ’t identify problems (a flat tire, global warming, alcohol
addiction, a broken bone), or that we shouldnÂ’t imagine, seek out, or work to
bring about constructive solutions—if we are so moved. ALL of that is part
of this seamless and all-inclusive happening. The acceptance that is being
pointed to is absolutely immediate—right here, right now, not a second or a
minute from now—and the perfection of what is INCLUDES not only the
problems but also the noticing of problems, the impulse to fix and heal
things, and the actions that emerge from those impulses.
В 
~Joan Tollifson on Facebook
В 

В 
"We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging
an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not
fight to save what we do not love."
В 
— Stephen Jay Gould

В 
It is so wonderful to watch an animal, because an animal has no opinion
about itself.
В 
~ Eckhart Tolle
В 

В 
Let your mantra be the thankyou you would utter
if your life was saved.
В 
Just let that be your mantra.
Today,
feel that throughout your day and night...
your life has been saved.
В 
It has.
В 
~Belle Heywood on Facebook
В 

В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4982 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-07-26
Subject: #4982 - Friday, July 26, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4982 - Friday, July 26, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


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Waking

Waking from this gentle dream
A dream that never came to be
Of far off lands and distant seas
That only live inside of me.

A seamless shift a changing scene
Where two worlds blend in harmony
An Ocean turns to cotton sheets
A storm becomes a morning breeze

A nation falls without a word
As playing children turn to birds
Before a thought can lay it’s claim
Before the mind It’s all the same

With recognition creeping back
Galaxies of stars collapse
A single thought looks for a home
The mountains turn to flesh and bone

As thought and body fortify
So does the world ,So does the “I”
So does a God with karmic plan
The laws nature, laws of man.

This vast existence made so small
Believing you are vulnerable
A World of suffering and of strain
You long to feel at home again

Awaken from this mortal dream
This dream that never came to be
Of far off lands and distant seas
Where stillness was apart from me.

Scott MacInnis
Presented at Nonduality Satsang: http://nonduality.ca

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From the Nonduality Highlights group https://www.facebook.com/groups/NondualityHighlights/

Christine Onga Kubisiak Dehlinger

I Am every firefly that is rising off the lawn and lighting up. I Am every Robin bird that is chirping at dusk and finding its bed for the night. I Am the energy that simply lingers in the evening air. I Am the waning Full Moon with cords to my heart. I Am the boy who is eating the popsicle who has invited the new friend over to eat a popsicle with him: I Am the grandma who helps that happen. I Am the one who has tears in her eyes because of the realization of the I-Am-ness. I Am finding a new way to be with pain. I do not know what samadhi is, or what turiya is, or what enlightenment is, nor consciousness, nor non-duality – by whoever’s definition -- there are no words. I-Am is just what is. I Am all of this and more, and none of this. I Am totally empty but full of Love. I Am going to make coffee for the morning on timer for husband, and then I Am going to sleep because the I Am-ness often wakes me during the night and I Am tired.


Kathleen Bodi

I saw you today at dinner time. You were seated around tables eating a spaghetti dinner. You were also there serving meals to a few dozen people whose eyes lit up as you smiled at them in that magical way you have. You walked up to me and asked if I had seen your husband because he had been missing for quite some time and you were scared. In that moment you hugged me and I felt the distance between us melt. Sleep well.

Christine Onga Kubisiak Dehlinger

Thank you, Kathleen, for including "me." I have not been to that spaghetti dinner yet. Hopefully I cooked the spaghetti sauce, my this-life's mother's recipe, so delicious. I will always hug you, in every moment.


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Who am I?

by James Traverse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S7YAFsDF0w
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4983 From: Dustin LindenSmith Date: 2013-07-28
Subject: #4983 - Sat/Sun July 27/28, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith
#4983 - Sat/Sun July 27/28, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith

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

This issue, from a fairly recent issue by Mark Otter from Oct 2011, is filled with passages that read to me like my favourite kind of nondual poetry. None of it is actually poetry per se, but it reads so clearly and illustratively that it feels like poetry to me. 

Nisargadatta tells us that awareness dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness of the mind through a change to the very substance of the mind itself; he says that this change needn't be spectacular (it may be hardly noticeable), but it's a change from inadvertence to awareness. He also tells us that realized people are very quiet (which must in turn mean that I am not yet realized, lol).

Dogen tells us to be aware of persistent thoughts during meditation with awareness, which does not think.

Metta Zetty tells us to pay attention and trust life; that will be enough.

That last bit is the shortest bit here, but perhaps the most "helpful." I take it to mean that we don't need to "do" anything, we just need to pay attention and be in harmony with what is. Indeed. :)

Dustin


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mark markwotter704@...>
Date: Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 9:38 PM
Subject: [NDhighlights] #4411 - Saturday, October 29, 2011
To: NDhighlights@yahoogroups.com


 

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

Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4411, Saturday, October 29, 2011





Questioner: When asked about the means for self-realisation, you invariably stress the importance of the mind dwelling on the sense 'I am'. Where is the causal factor? Why should this particular thought result in self-realisation? How does the contemplation of 'I am' affect me?

Maharaj: The very fact of observation alters the observer and the observed. After all, what prevents the insight into one's true nature is the weakness and obtuseness of the mind and its tendency to skip the subtle and focus on the gross only. When you follow my advice and try to keep your mind on the notion of 'I am' only, you become fully aware of your mind and its vagaries. Awareness, being lucid harmony (sattva) in action, dissolves dullness and quietens the restlessness of the mind and gently, but steadily changes its very substance. This change need not be spectacular; it may be hardly noticeable; yet it is a deep and fundamental shift from darkness to light, from inadvertence to awareness.

- Nisardagatta Maharaj, from I Am That, posted to The_Now2




In order to rediscover nowness, you have to look back, back to where you came from, back to the original state. In this case, looking back is not looking back in time, going back several thousand years. It is looking back into your own mind, to before history began, before thinking began, before thought ever occurred. When you are in contact with this original ground, then you are never confused by the illusions of past and future. You are able to rest continuously in nowness.

- Chogyam Trungpa, from The Sacred Path of the Warrior, posted to DailyDharma




Before you begin meditation take several slow, deep breaths. Hold your body erect, allowing your breathing to become normal again. Many thoughts will crowd into your mind, ignore them, letting them go. If they persist be aware of them with the awareness, which does not think.

Zen Master Dogen, posted to Distillation




Learn to watch both your experience and your reactions to your experience. This process of observant attention and witnessing will enable you to see that your fundamental and essential sense of identity exists as an unchanging point of Awareness within the heart of all changing conditions and circumstance.

This Awareness is grounded in the present moment and never exists outside of Now. It is always accessible and never exists somewhere other than Here. It is the immediate and undeniable Center of who you imagine yourself to be.

Reside in this Center, and realize that the essence of this Awareness is not separate from That which manifests before, around and within you.

- Metta Zetty




Do your work in the world, but inwardly keep quiet. Then all will come to you. Do not rely on your work for realization. It may profit others, but not you. Your hope lies in keeping silent in your mind and quiet in your heart. Realized people are very quiet.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to ANetofJewels




Pay attention.
Trust Life.
That will be enough.

- Metta Zetty





Group: NDhighlights Message: 4984 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-07-29
Subject: #4984 - Monday, July 29, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4984 - Monday,В July 29, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
Everything is new now for me.
My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
The whole world looks rinsed with water,
washed in the rain of I am That.
В 
Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy
that creates and sustains the universe.
В 
- Lalla
В  14th Century North Indian mystic
via Along The Way
В 
В 

В 
В 
Q: "How are you able to smile always?"
Amma: "I do not depend on anything for my happiness."
В 
via We Love Amma on Facebook

В 

"Love and compassion are like the weak spots in the walls of ego. They are
like a naturally occurring opening. And they are the opening we take.
В 
If we connect with even one moment of good heart or compassion and
cherish it, our ability to open will gradually expand. Beginning to tune into
even the minutest feelings of compassion or appreciation or gratitude
softens us. It allows us to touch in with the noble heart of bodhicitta on the
spot."
В 
~Pema Chodron
В 
via Daily Dharma by anipachen
В 

В 
В 
"It must be immense, this silence, in which words, sounds and movements
have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the
distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric
harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently
letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude, this presence
which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in
store for you to experience and to do, will act an anonymous influence,
continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors
incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique,
unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life."
В 
Excerpt from Letters to a Young Poet by RM.Rilke
В 
Alan Larus Photography

В 

В 
What will happen in your life if you accept the invitation to stillness cannot
be known ... what can be known is you will have a larger capacity to truly
meet whatever appears.
~ Gangaji
В 

В 
В 
Shinrin Yoku is a Japanese term that means "Forest Bathing." It is a
health-enhancing practice that is introduced in this brief video, courtesy of
Shinrin-yoku.org. Visit our website and join the coalition to promote this
wonderful practice and connect more people to nature. It's not just for
health, it's for our relationships with nature, the type of relationships that
support sustainable living.
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4985 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-07-30
Subject: #4985 - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4985 - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


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

'I am' quotes from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj about self enquiry

(interspersed with photographs of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi)

http://song-of-i-am.blogspot.ca/


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


http://www.guhasabyasachi.com/about.php

Sabyasachi Guha, known as ‘Guha’ by his English-speaking friends, was born on 1st May, 1953 in Kolkata, India. Shortly after, his family moved to Hindmotor, West Bengal, a small town situated on the western bank of the Ganges, where he spent much of his early and teenage years. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, with a Ph.D. in physics and began his career as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization. In 1988 he moved to the United States and took up a post as Research Scientist at Rutgers University. He retired in 2007 and now spends his time travelling to India, Europe and throughout the United States meeting with friends and acquaintances responding to people's questions.

Guha’s childhood is probably typical of most Indian boys of a middle-class family. He enjoyed hanging out with his friends and showed a keen interest in playing soccer. Although, he initially refused to take his studies seriously, he was a bright student and had a natural inclination towards the sciences. He taught himself calculus to understand the works of Albert Einstein, which fascinated him deeply. Physics came easily to him and he enjoyed the subject, which is the main reason he decided to make it his profession later in life.

At the age of 17, Guha attended the prestigious Presidency College in Kolkata. However, he was soon faced with an inner dilemma: “How can one aggressively pursue one’s career and at the same time be sensitive and kind to the suffering people?” He became involved with a political party that addressed the freedom of the poor and oppressed. At the age of 21, after leaving home and studies, he ended up in Varanasi as a fugitive. It was here that his passion “to find out the meaning and purpose of life” was ignited. He studied Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the library of Benares Hindu University. Later, in Bangalore, he became acquainted with the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti. He felt that J. Krishnamurti best addressed his inner struggle and this sparked an interest in him to inquire even deeper into his own nature.

He was intent to find out what his role was in the scheme of life as a member of the human species and what the justification was that could take place in his own mind to free him from conflict. He would later say that this was an exercise in total futility. “I spent so much of my energy in wanting to know and discovered that the deeper I delved, the more difficult and complex it became, needing more and more of my attention—there was no end to that knowing, no foundation, or any such thing as fundamental truth. I became constantly miserable and dissatisfied. Something inside me was resisting all this.”

In his pursuit, Guha became well acquainted with all aspects of spiritual practice, to no avail. He observed in himself, that even though he had many tremendous meditative experiences, nothing had changed in him—he was still struggling, still in conflict.

His search culminated in the meeting of U.G. Krishnamurti in 1995. This was the beginning of a close and pivotal association that lasted until U.G.’s death in 2007. During this time, his intense inquiry in wanting to know, to understand, came to an end for good. He came to realize that in life most things operate outside the field of knowledge and will, and that somewhat paradoxically, it is the greatest mercy of the body that it is allowing us to continue doing what we are doing, not the other way round—“the body does not give two hoots for the nobility of our thoughts.”

On first meeting Guha, one is immediately struck by his transparency and his tremendous sense of justification and respect for each individual life. He has a direct and clear way of expressing his point of view, often with a lot of humor. He talks about everything and anything, mostly addressing our main concerns of everyday living, the complexity of human individuals and of our striving to free ourselves from the burden and stranglehold imposed on us by society’s demands. He never fails to add though, that there is no such thing as god or “so-called enlightenment,” that there is nothing to get from him or from anyone; that what operates in him also exists in every individual. This conviction is firm, and Guha states it eloquently in his Bengali book ‘Fourteen Days in Palm Springs with U.G.’—

“Each one of us is a unique creation of nature and an extraordinary movement. If somehow a complete trust—in Bengali we say ‘paripurno astha’—develops in the supreme intelligence responsible for maintaining its equilibrium with the rest of the world and sustaining the living movement, the naturally-induced order pre-programmed at birth will reincarnate in our life and reorient our living. Life then begins to function in a very different way. The internal power of that order is far beyond our imagination, its exhibition and extension are truly incomprehensible. Everything that you need to move in the field of life is very naturally supplied by that power.”

Guha says emphatically that he is not defending anything. He does not want to promote anything or anybody or any idea. This website was created solely because of a genuine expression of interest in wanting to hear what Guha has to say and to make it readily available for anyone wishing to explore further.

http://www.guhasabyasachi.com/about.php

- Golda Markovic
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4986 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-01
Subject: #4986 - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4986 - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


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Nonduality culture -- recognizing, identifying, and sharing the nondualistic nature of whatever we look at -- takes us everywhere. This is a brief dialogue from the Nonduality Highlights group on Facebook.


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Hiphop has a vast audience. Nonduality has a small audience. In the work of Justin Miles, Ascience Gnown, the two merge. He writes, "Hiphop manifests to allow its practitioners to experience their nature. All of existence is a path to enlightenment in this way. Hiphoppers can reach their natures through diligent practice. Becoming a true emcee is possible, not through egocentered exploits such as wittiness, hyperconceptuality, material appeal, cadence, or anything that comes and goes, but through practicing resting their minds in the nature of Hiphop through meditation on the emcee and abandoning all illusions about how I exist." Lots more at the blog:

Hiphop Alive: Institute of Education, Consciousness and Integral Art: Hiphop and Non Duality

http://hiphopaliveandwell.blogspot.com

Howard Peck responds:

oh well…here goes. A quasi-intellectual explanation about the virtues of hip-hop may seem like such a nice thing to all the hippy, spiritual non-dual, liberal all around nice white people (including me) that keep up with non-dual events, teachers, and teachings, etc. But please don't be fooled. Being from Philadelphia, and now living 90 minutes north, one step beyond the lily white suburbs, I have kept a close interest on race relation and the challenges that the black population face. hip-hop culture and it's close cousins rap and gangsta rap ( is there really a difference?) have clearly not been positive force. Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think a nice white family can take a nice stroll through the neighborhood where hip-hop was born and where it flourishes?...not in Philly! Would all my nice white spiritual friends like to go to hip-hop rap concert with me? Do you think we would be safe? Do you think we would be comfortable? let's go visit some public schools where hip-hop and rap flourish. The high school graduation rates among black kids in Philadelphia is 50% which means that dropout rate is 50%. In city and county jails black young men makes up the majority of the inmate population. Young black men who were brought up in hip-hop rap culture. The culture where hip-hop rap flourishes is experiencing 75% out of wedlock births which has devastating long lasting effects generation after generation. Before we get all intellectual and warm and fuzzy about hip-hop, let's take a look at where it flourishes, and then we can see it for what it is without the hypnotic illusion of political correctness. Non-Duality means dropping the hypnosis and seeing things as they are. Only when we are willing to see things as they are, no matter how painful, can we approach truth and growth. If we stay in our comfortable hypnosis, change will never take place. can we take an honest look at the hip hop culture?

Ascience Gnown replies:

Howard, thank you for your comments. Rap is a behavior done at varying degrees of self, cultural, behavioral and social development. Hiphop is the experience of emceeing, djing, breakdancing and Graffitti from a non dual perspective. What we hear on the radio and see on mainstream tv are mainly egocentric manifestations of Hiphop. Yogananda gave an example of fundamental reality as the ocean and the waves as varying degrees of distance from reality. No matter how far away you appear to be you are never disconnected. The Hiphop you speak of and have access to aren't concerned with their nature but there are many practitioners who practice being close to and creating from that source. As a practitioner and fan of Hiphop for 30 years, i can tell you that it has ego, ethno and worldcentric manifestations and has the ability to wake people up to higher levels of self, other, world and non dual awareness. I understand your concern though. I am a Black male, 37 who lives in one of the worst neighborhoods in Baltimore City. I've also been a therapist for 14 of those years, primarily for Black males and know the pain and suffering they face. I can tell you firsthand about how Hiphop influences the youth in a negative way. However, they didn't receive the teachings of Afrika Bambaataa or KRS-ONE. Hiphop isn't taught in schools or in the streets as a way to find peace, love, unity and understanding in ones life, even though since 1973 the Zulu Nation has been doing so as have other institutions like HEAL, Stop the Violence, The RBG Fit Club and the Temple of Hiphop. My work is about redefining and reintegrating the fragmented views of Hiphop so that those that are involved in it can use it to their benefit as many have done for almost four decades. Hiphop needs to be retaught to the masses, including the non dual community who like many of us probably did with different religions, judge them from the outside instead of directly knowing through practice and study. You don't know what you can't see. And if you don't look at both the enlightened and neurotic aspects of the various levels of internal and external, individual and collective emceeing, djing, breaking and Graffitti then you'll only see what the media gets paid for you to see; young Black males acting foolishly. If non duality means dropping the illusion and seeing things as they are then that means we must also seek to find out what illusions we hold about the things that we think we know but aren't directly experiencing. Counting cows. I encourage you to listen and experience all that Hiphop has to offer. It is one of the most whole, embracing and beautiful ways of experiencing reality that I've encountered.


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


In a separate posting unrelated to the dialogue above, Ascience Gnown gives this link:

Watch Cord Jefferson Discuss the White Culture of Violence on MSNBC

Gawker's West Coast Editor Cord Jefferson appeared on last night's episode of All In With Chris Hayes to discuss his controversial essay on the damaging lawlessness and savagery of white culture. Cord and host Chris Hayes also spoke about the roots of white violence and Cord's deep ties to the white community.

http://gawker.com/watch-cord-jefferson-discuss-the-white-culture-of-viole-975400723?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_facebook&utm_source=gawker_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

"You probably haven't heard much of the white riot in Huntington Beach. That's because the story, white criminal culture, is not a story the mainstream will tell you. But once you scratch the surface, the stories are everywhere you look."
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4987 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-08-02
Subject: #4987 - Thursday, August 1, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4987 - Thursday,В August 1, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
В 
В 

Cash (in) and CarryВ (on)

Someone asked me about people charging money for the natural state.В  It was refreshing to have the question put so directly. “Do you think that people who have attained the natural state do not sell their “spiritual” power in order to have an income? Actually I have strong indication that many of them do it. They sell books and they give seminars. So, what is the difference they have with U.G, considering that they also live in the natural state?“

I donÂ’t know that anyone is in a state natural or otherwise. I certainly wonÂ’t be inclined to believe them if they tell me they are. The question was a refresher. I forget things about UG which I take for granted. Of course, firstly there was the way he kept the audience around him so small by simply refusing to engage in self-promotion of any kind. Who does that? Especially in the spiritual community where so many people have a genuine spiritual awakening and the first thing they do is to rush out to Г‚вЂ˜share it with the worldÂ’.В  Of course this sharing usually starts with them charging money for the privilege. So what is the difference between a spiritual awakening and a job change? So what was wrong with UG?

There was a quiet Italian couple who offered the use of their apartment to him when he visited Italy. He started to visit them, staying in their place for the next few years. The couple sincerely wanted to spend time with him and that seemed to be the only prerequisite. On the other hand there was one wealthy person who wanted him to visit, but they were always changing their mind, so he would go, have a coffee, then make excuses and leave after about 10 minutes. This happened over and over.В  When once the Italian man asked UG why he moved around the globe so much, UG gave his standard answer about migrating birds, then at the end of the visit the man invited UG to his home. “I will come for her sake and not yours!” he said, smiling and indicating the manÂ’s wife, who was too shy to talk to him. “I knew then the reason for his moving around the globe.”

There was Major, who UG would stay with in a remote hill station Farmhouse. UG rented it on the spot when Major showed it to him, paying the deposit on a four year rental himself. Then the Major was directed to stay there and keep his own satsang. Was UG driven to this place, with this person for personal gain? There was a young woman in Palm Springs with who UG stayed with for several years while she got her professional life together after years of living on the edge as a seeker. He saw to it that she started small but gradually she developed her own business and was soon enough on her own too feet. The only prerequisite for UGÂ’s company was total devotion. In each instance there are details of the personÂ’s story that indicate that UG simply could not refuse a person if they sincerely wanted to spend time with him.

Then there is the story of the original appearance of “The Mystique of Enlightenment”. Two years after ten thousand rupees had been given to a publisher to print the book, UG was asking what ever happened to it. The fellow responsible said, “I am going to publish it immediately!” Indeed, he soon held a press conference and there sat the brand new copies ofВ  “The Mysitque of Enlightenment” with a nicely decorated cover. The press was in full attendance and the book was released and discussed.В I wish I could get my hands on that first edition of “Mysitque” where his real teachings were present in all their pristine purity! Nevermind the fact that there were no words printed on the pages!

UG loved these sorts of people, the ones who took him for granted, or dismissed him as a charlatan. Often they would be celebrated in his company while the rest of us squirmed. A good friend told me the story of a holy man who was supposed to come for lunch one day. UG prepared a nice lunch and the fellow never showed up. He and his friend waited and waited all afternoon for the man to come. Alas, the following day he called with some lame excuse and rescheduled his visit. UG gracefully complied and again a lunch was preparded. This time the fellow showed up, but a few hours late. His friend was incensed after the man left but UG comforted him. “You donÂ’t understand sir, he is not an ordinary person like you and I. He is a holy man!” and there ended the story.

If any of this seems baffling and contradictary, it should. UG was not the usual sort of fellow in any field. He bashed all the rules but never broke the law. He assured people they would get nothing from him, while spending the bulk of his time talking freely to whomever would come to his doorstep. In his own words UG was a Г‚вЂ˜complete and total failureÂ’, since, “My words have failed to hit you” Â… but the result was not his concern. That was left up to those who were attracted to him, but mostly to life itself, (if there is a difference).


A brief interview with author Louis Brawley about his new book,

"Goner; The Final Travels of UG Krishnamurti" in New York during the Summer of 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MKig_acAdE


http://www.amazon.com/Goner-Final-Travels-UG-Krishnamurti/dp/0956643272

В 

Goner will teach you the meaning of the phrase 'paradoxical truth'. UG
Krishnamurti gave up everything for truth, but delighted in ridiculous
fabrications; he was a teacher who refused to teach, a man who mocked
do-gooders but was deeply kind; he was chaste but foul mouthed, he was a
man who decried the supernatural ... yet there were strange coincidences
around him. Louis Brawley tells an often unflattering story of his own
struggles and shortcomings and the dynamic uncertainties of life at close
quarters with a man who "tore apart everything human beings have built up
inside and out for centuries." About the author: Louis Brawley was born in
Ohio and lived and worked in New York, where he met UG Krishnamurti in
2002. Louis traveled in the USA, India and Europe with UG for the
following five years, acting as an informal caregiver as UG's health
deteriorated. Louis works as an artist, photographer and freelance art
handler worldwide - occupations which fund his travels around the world
writing and recording accounts and impressions from friends of the "Raging
Sage"

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4988 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-03
Subject: #4988 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

#4988 - Friday, August 2, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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




A Woman Called Vicki

by Vicki Woodyard

“Anyway, Roshi and I were drinking a very good, very powerful Chinese liquor. Roshi was dozing off, and I didn't think he was terribly interested in the recording process. But the next morning over breakfast, I asked him what he thought. He said, ‘Leonard, you should sing more sad.’ He meant for me to surrender to the emotions. To accept it.” ~Leonard Cohen

And so that is one thing I have deeply in common with Leonard. I, too, should write “more sad.” I have been pilloried for doing that, especially by the nondual community. Apparently, it is not the thing to do. But lest we forget, our emotions are God-given and channeled in the right direction, lead us directly into the light. But first we surrender to the darkness. Cohen is the master of that. He takes us, drives us, chauffeurs us, to a place of surrender so deep that the darkness is transmuted into light.

How else can I write about my life but honestly and scrupulously? Can one bury a child consciously? No, one is in a state of shock. To see a tiny body breathe no more, well, I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. To have to take the belongings of that small body home from the hospital would wreck the most sincere intention to be above it all. An unfinished bottle of root beer, a few flowers and the effluvia of the last days of a seven year old’s life. I am scarred and healed when I write of moments like this.

I blast out the words onto the blank screen, screaming at you to have some common sense about awakening, enlightenment and wisdom. Do not think these thirty-somethings can speak to your age-old experience of simply being with who and what you are in the moment. Take your courage in your hand and remain true to what is going on in your life. I dare you.

The light cannot be parcelled out in required doses called “satsang.” It offends the cosmos to think this would be remotely possible. Everything is happening to everybody at all times. Birth and death and everything in between are owned by us all. When I tell you that emotionally I have been reborn from death into life, you have no reason to believe me. We all lie.

Sometimes I sit and weep but at other times I am strong and untouched. And sometimes it doesn’t take much for me to just sit on the couch, turn on the TV and forget what a burden we human beings are asked to carry. The skeletal forms with their botoxed lips and grotesquely high heels become something to divert my attention from who I am and who I could be. A being of light, an immortal encased in the persona of a woman called Vicki.

~ ~ ~

Vicki's book can be ordered at the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/LIFE-WITH-HOLE-IN-IT/dp/1609102770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348800893&sr=8-1&keywords=life+with+a+hole+in+it

В 


В 


http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/philosophy/christ-is-not-physical-christ-means-ultimate-truth

Christ is not physical. Christ means ultimate Truth.

By: Santthoshkumaar Kumaar


Many biblical insights lead to non dual Self-awareness. Since people are stuck with the physicalized meaning of the insights it is becomes difficult to grasp the real essence of the Bible.


Christ is not physical. Christ means ultimate Truth. To know the truth one has to accept the soul, the innermost self as Christ . The soul or Christ has no religion, thus the religion is for those who think Christ is outside of their soul. The insights in the Bible, which is in the form of parables, leads to Self -awareness or Christ consciousness.


Brahman –means ultimate truth. Sri, Sankara said- Atman is Brahman-, which means soul, is the ultimate reality. Thus, he said world is illusion Brahman alone is real, and everything is Brahman. –spiritually it means the whole experience of diversity[waking] is created out of the soul, and sustained by soul and finally dissolves as soul. Therefore, there is no second thing other than soul/ Brahman, which is non dual.


Emptiness means-- Buddha’s nature- that is the nature of the soul or consciousness, the innermost self. that is empty of duality (waking). The naked mind is the soul or Christ or Buddha.


Thus, every religion is indicating the ultimate truth is the formless soul, the innermost self. The seeker of truth follows Christ, not Christianity, because Jesus never followed religion to become one with the Christ( ultimate truth).


The soul or consciousness is the cause of the universe, and it itself is un-caused. Thus creation and creator are one in essence. That essence is consciousness. Thus consciousness is ultimate truth and ultimate truth is Brahman or God. On the stand point of formless soul or consciousness there is neither creator nor creation.


Every religionists, yogis and theorist (ignorant) are saying their own accepted truth, over and over again. They are merely propagating their truth, but none of them are able to establish it with certainty, which can be verified here and now, not in the next life or next world.


That is why Sri Sankara, indicated in Bhaja Govindam says: - [JnanaViheena Sarva Mathena Bajathi na Muktim janma Shatena] - one without knowledge does not obtain liberation even in a hundred births, no matter which religious faith he follows.


Simply repeating or reading or hearing what scriptures say or whatever god men or guru says does not make one a Gnani. Seeker should not accept anything as truth without verification.


Buddhism says: all things are illusory and noting exists. However, Advaita avers that it is not so. It says that the universe of course is illusory, but there is Brahman, that exists forming the very substratum of all things.


Luke 17:В 20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, 'Lo here! or, lo there!' for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."


This means that the "kingdom of God" (heaven) is within - it is not a place to be reached, rather the truth of one’s true existence, which is beyond form, time and space.


The formless soul or consciousness is the innermost self and it is the cause of the form, time and space and it itself is un-caused. Thus soul or spirit is the ultimate truth or Brahman or Christ or Buddha’s nature.


Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.


According to the New Testament, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand’ (Luke, 8:10).While speaking to the multitude in a veiled manner, ‘privately to his own disciples he explained everything’ (Mark, 4:34), and advised them not to ‘throw your pearls before swine’ (Matthew, 7:6).


Therefore, Self-Knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana is necessary to realize the ultimate truth. Self –Knowledge or Brahma Gnana it is only for those who has intense urge to know the ultimate truth or Brahman or Inner Buddha or Christ.


That is why Jesus said: - not to ‘throw your pearls before swine’ (Matthew, 7:6). (Swine here means is ignorant).


Seeker of truth will follow path of truth not Hinduism to become one with ultimate truth or Brahman. Seeker of truth will follow Buddha not Buddhism to get Nirvana.

В 


В 

Live your life like a child in the house of good parents.
Rest in the pathless land of your innocence.

-jk

В 

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4989 From: Dustin LindenSmith Date: 2013-08-04
Subject: #4989 - Sat/Sun, August 3/4, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith
#4989 - Sat/Sun, August 3/4, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith

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

On Wednesday of this week, the day before a surprise birthday party I set up for my wife and 90 of our closest friends, I stumbled into a wasp's nest in my backyard and was rewarded with 4 bites that each became hot, painful and inflamed. I made it through the party Thu night on pure adrenaline and excitement, but when I woke up Fri morning the pain was so bad in my right ankle that I couldn't bear any weight on it. I crawled on my hands and knees to use the bathroom that morning.

This persisted more or less the same way all day yesterday. I was prescribed bed rest and told to keep my leg elevated above my heart, but every time I lowered my legs to the floor to stand up, the blood would flood the swollen areas around the bites and my pain receptors would light up like a 100-foot Christmas tree. It was impossible for me to avoid grimacing and crying out in pain every time I stood up; it felt like I was plunging my foot calf-deep into a pool of boiling water.

But partway through the afternoon Friday, I realized something. After a few minutes of standing and walking around, the pain would drain almost completely away. I realized that the pain was acute and sudden-onset, and that it went away pretty quickly after the ankle was profused with blood again. And then I thought to myself, "Why don't I just NOT make a face or any noise at all when I stand up? How about I just stand up, take some deep breaths, and let the pain run its course without me making a fuss or calling attention to it or making any sound at all?"

After 3-4 times of doing this, I was able to just stand up, relax for 5-6 seconds through the initial burst of pain, and then just start walking away from where I had been lying down. The pain was still there, of course (in the moment, it's a truly searing experience) but my suffering from the pain had almost completely disappeared. As soon as the actual physiological process that caused such acute pain had subsided, I felt totally fine and realized that I hadn't needed to make any sort of fuss at all about what was going on.

I tell this story because it was a personal experience of the difference between pain and suffering. It made me realize that my suffering of that pain actually prolonged the sensation and length of the pain long after the physical cause of the pain had completely disappeared. Today's Highlights of the Highlights from January, 2007, contains a review by Shirley Bell of Eckhart Tolle's new (at the time) book, A New Earth, and in this review she talks about how Eckhart asks us to look at wherever we're holding onto ego, or the idea that we're a separate, individual entity. 

This week I learned that suffering reinforces my sense of ego, my sense of other. As soon as I drop the suffering, I stay authentically in the moment, experiencing what's actually happening right NOW, and not reliving what has happened in the past -- even if, in my case with the wasp bites, that past was only 5 minutes earlier.

Now I'm kind of happy that I got stung by those wasps. I actually learned a really important life lesson from them this week.

Dustin


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jerry Katz umbada@...>
Date: Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 1:05 PM
Subject: [NDhighlights] #2715 - Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
To: NDH ndhighlights@yahoogroups.com>, NDS nondualitysalon@yahoogroups.com>, iam iam@yahoogroups.com>, NDSN ndsn@yahoogroups.com>


#2715 - Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
 
Nondual Highlights
 
Noumenon Journal: Nondual Perspectives on Transformation, edited by Kriben Pillay, is coming out soon. The Tenth Anniversary issue will be available by the end of February on lulu.com. I'll give ordering information when the time comes. For now, here is an excerpt. Here is a very well written book review by Shirley Bell.
 

PROFOUND INSIGHTS

A New Earth

: Awakening to your life’s purpose
by Eckhart Tolle (Softcover, 336 pp., Vancouver: Namaste Publishing, 2005, $14.00)

First of all, this book is about transformation of consciousness. Secondly, so are many books, so that statement tells us just about nothing.Thirdly, this book is decidedly different in its approach and in the direction it gives. Although it refers illustratively to many sources, I suspect that it’s unique.

The author has no intention of collecting converts. He says quite unequivocally that if what he is saying resonates for you, even peripherally, then you are his audience. If it doesn’t, then it’s unlikely that it will persuade you to change just yet, even though all of us are (rather than have within us) the essential consciousness that will bring about the transformation.

We do not become good by endeavouring to be so, he tells us, but by discovering the goodness that is already in each one of us and allowing this to emerge. And it can emerge only if ‘something fundamental’ changes in our state of consciousness.

Whenever we read about the ego, we need to establish how the author perceives this. Tolle regards our ‘normal’ state of mind as ‘marred by a fundamental defect’: ‘a strong element of what we might call dysfunction and madness’.

He sees this condition as intensifying and accelerating after the unspeakable horrors of the 20th century: the Holocaust and the many mass exterminations and genocides that followed in many parts of the world.This dysfunctional behaviour is further reflected in the "unprecedented violence that humans are inflicting on other life-forms and the planet itself". (p. 11)

In a single human being, behaviour like this, he says, would be regarded as criminally insane.

He sees the crowning human achievement as being our recognition of this egoistic dysfunction and being able to listen to our thoughts, view our mind-pictures and be aware of our emotions in the arising of a new consciousness (new to us, but recognised as Being over the millennia by many great minds). This consciousness enables us to recognise that we are neither our thoughts nor our feelings, but that we are the observing ‘I’ that is part of the Universal Source that some call God.

Religion

More and more people are becoming aware of the difference between religion and spirituality. Having a belief system does not make one spiritual. The very thoughts that bind one to fixed religious concepts cut one off from one’s spiritual centre, because thoughts are always concerned with form; and form and Being are irreconcilable.

The new spirituality that is becoming increasingly evident throughout the world is not being generated through formal religion, but rather by those who realise that the spirituality they seek has nothing to do with creeds, dogmas or religious beliefs but with

their own state of consciousness.

A Broad Canvas

I like the way Tolle takes his examples from sources that range from the ancient philosophers to Buddha and Jesus and also more modern philosophers like Emerson, Jung, Einstein, and even Sartre and Nietzsche. I like the way he (sparingly) recounts incidents he has shared with ordinary people he has met and counselled.

I also like the way he slips ‘ways of being’ into the text – those that bring us profound new insights, as well as those that separate us from them.

The great merit of

The New Earth is that Tolle deals with the most profound revelations about the nature of consciousness in clear, simple, engaging prose which leaves the reader no place to hide. We either grasp the challenge of discovering a new consciousness within ourselves or we fall back into the ‘old egoic mind patterns’ that continue to drive our societies, as well as the lives of most of us. The challenge is enormous.

What is arising now is not a new belief system, a new religion, spirituality ideology, or mythology. We are coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and belief systems. The change goes deeper than the content of your mind, deeper than your thoughts. In fact, at the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of rising above thought, of realising a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought. (p. 22)

Ego, as Tolle perceives it, is no more than identification with form, ‘which primarily means thought forms’: thought forms, physical forms, emotional forms. In this state, we lose all apprehension of our connectedness with the Whole, our ‘intrinsic oneness’, not only with every other living soul, but with the Source. Underneath the forms that we perceive via our senses, everything is connected with everything else and also with the Source of all life from which nothing can ever be separated.

If there is Original Sin, it is our unnecessary suffering, our delusion of our separateness, our feeling of aloneness. Because we continually perceive the same world, the world of the ego, we always end up creating the same dysfunctions that prevent us from knowing who we are.

Since human life and human consciousness are intrinsically one with the life of the planet, as the old consciousness dissolves, there are bound to be synchronistic upheavals in many parts of the planet, some of which we are already witnessing now. (p. 23)

The egoic mind consists of content and structure and is completely conditioned by the past. Instead of living in the Now, it lives enmeshed in the past and in contemplation of the future. It finds its identity in ‘things’ to which it can relate and which give it its sense of relevance and importance. Possessions and achievements are ‘identity enhancers’ that have psychological value. The focus is on endless acquisition, in itself a dysfunction.

There is an obsessive preoccupation with things. This attachment falls away only when we no longer try to find our identity in them. Egos live on identification with objects and with the notion of separation.

One of the manifestations of ‘the unconscious egoic pattern’ is the habit of faultfinding and being judgemental about others. Tolle reminds us that Jesus asks why we see the mote in our brother’s eye, but not the beam in our own. Those who judge others or constantly criticise harshly do so because it makes them feel superior, little realising that it makes them smaller as human beings. ‘Very unconscious people,’ says Tolle, ‘experience their own egos through its reflection in others. When you realise that what you react to in others is also in you (and sometimes only in you), you begin to become aware of your own ego.’ (p. 189)

Gossiping all too often includes an element of malice and judgement and also boosts the ego by implication because, whether realising it or not, the gossiper

is asserting an inauthentic moral superiority. Yet the sober underlying truth is that what we do to others, we do to ourselves as well.

War is a mindset

It is a salutary thought that most of the violence that human beings have inflicted on one another ‘is not the work of criminals or the mentally deranged, but of normal, respectable citizens in the service of the collective ego’. (p. 73)

Forgiveness

We hear much about forgiveness these days. ‘

Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work,’ says Tolle. ‘Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place … A grievance that one holds on to is no more than the "baggage of old thought and emotion"’.

Complaining

Complaining, says Tolle, is one of the ego’s favourite strategies for strengthening itself. ‘Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up …’ Sometimes the faults we see in others aren’t even there, but are ‘a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior’. (p. 62) Even if the fault is truly there, we amplify it by focusing on it, he says, not realising that what we react to in another we strengthen in ourselves. Being conscious of our thoughts is our greatest protection. Awareness and ego simply cannot co-exist.

He points out that it might be necessary sometimes to protect oneself or someone else from being harmed by another – but that we must be careful not to take up a mission to fight and to ‘eradicate evil’, because we would be in danger of turning into the very thing we are fighting against. We are seeing this danger now in, for instance, the violent aftermath of the Iraqi war.

Awareness is

only in the Now

‘Be aware,’ Tolle says, ‘that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel.’ (p. 96)

Awareness teaches us that we do not need to give value to every thought we think. It’s merely a thought. No more; no less. We need to be aware of our thoughts and emotions

as they occur, bearing in mind that an emotion is the body’s reaction to the mind: ‘The voice in the head tells a story that the body believes in and reacts to … The emotions, in turn, feed energy back to the thoughts that created the situation in the first place.’ When we do not examine our thoughts and feelings, we indulge in emotional thinking and emotional story-making. (p. 135) We keep our negative thoughts alive by continual story-making. We have to let go of our stories and begin to live in the present moment. The ego feeds on drama.

Yet it is not emotion itself that brings unhappiness; what brings unhappiness is emotion plus an unhappy or inauthentic story. Our feelings

are not who we are.

No great Damascus experience is needed to become free of the ego. All that is required of us is

to be aware of it: ‘Awareness is the power that is concealed in the present moment’, and the present moment is the only moment in which we can exert this awareness. The present moment – and nowhere else - is where life happens

This is why to become free of the ego cannot be made into a goal: ‘You can only be present Now, not yesterday or tomorrow.’ (p. 78)

Spiritual realisation, says Tolle, is seeing clearly that what we perceive, experience, think and feel is not who we are. These are all ephemeral things. When we become aware of the impermanence of all outward forms, we are awakened to the formless within us: that which is inseparable from the Source … that which

is the Source.

Finding inner space

It is from inner space, the unconditioned consciousness itself, that true happiness, the joy of Being, emanates. To be aware of little, quiet things, however, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Listen. Be present.

… Here is another way of finding inner space: Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think ‘I Am’ and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the I Am. Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form. (p. 236) 

 

All creativity, Tolle says, comes out of this inner space. When any creation of ours becomes manifested as form, we have to be careful that the notion of "me" and "mine" do not arise. If we let the ego take credit for what has been accomplished, then the ego is back in charge. The inner spaciousness has be-come blurred, and we are not operating as part of the Whole.

There is no substitute for finding true purpose

Tolle warns us that finding ‘the true or primary purpose’ of our lives does not depend on what we do

but on what we are. We have an inner purpose and an outer one, and it is the inner one that concerns Being and is primary. The outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary… but we need to blend our outer and inner purpose so seamlessly that ‘it is almost impossible to speak of one with-out referring to the other’. (p. 258)

Our inner purpose is to awaken to consciousness, and this is also the purpose of humanity.

Our inner purpose is part of the purpose of the Whole, of the evolving intelligence of the universe.

‘Awareness,’ says Tolle, ‘is conscious connection with universal intelligence.’ Consciousness without thought. (p. 259) In order to be true to life, we have to be true to our inner purpose. (p. 269)

When you become aligned with the whole, you become a conscious part of the interconnectedness of the whole and its purpose: the emer-gence of consciousness into this world. (p. 277)

One of the consequences of this deeper connectedness is a greater frequency of helpful synchronistic events.

—Shirley Bell


Group: NDhighlights Message: 4990 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-08-06
Subject: #4990 - Monday, August 5, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4990 - Monday,В August 5, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
В 
"Clinging is to insist on being someone.
Not to cling is to be free to be no one.
В 
~Nagarjuna
via Daily Dharma by Anipachen

В 

В 
"In truth, every single moment of our lives presents us with a choice: either
awaken to the reality of the present moment, or stay sleepy and push
aspects of that reality away."
В 
~Will Johnson, "Full Body, Empty Mind," Tricycle Magazine
via Daily Dharma by Amrita NadiВ 
В 
В 

В 
В 
В 
Peeling the onion of the self, layer after layer.
В 
The Eesha Upanishad says:
В 
“Of a certainty, the man who can see all creatures in himself,
himself in all creatures,
knows no sorrowÂ…
pin your faith to the seed of nature,
stumble through the darkness of the blind,
stumble though a darkness deeper still.”
В 
Treading surely through uncertainty, present and grounded in the visionary,
weeping for joy, united in parting – there is no single self but each as it
manifests becomes an invisible companion. The room is very crowded
tonight. And still the question, “but who is this?”
В 
В 
В 

В 
В 
I have seen Him.
He was passing by like a drunk.
"O One," I said, ''Whose face
Is like a moon, where are You going?"
"Don't talk," He answered, "follow me."
В 
I followed Him.
He started taking fast steps.
He accelerated so much that
The wind couldn't reach Him;
Lightning couldn't catch Him.
В 
I have been annihilated since I have seen Him,
Undressed from my existence.
There remained "I," right in the middle without "me,"
Like a light in the glass lamp
That illuminates the earth and sky.
В 
His grace fills and shines on the heart.
Heart is purified, becomes the chosen one.
Anything which shines from His light
Shines like Him, illuminates everything.
В 
~ Rumi
Divan-i Kebir
В 
В 

В 
Bright but hidden, the Self dwells in the heart.
Everything that moves, breathes, opens, and closes
Lives in the Self. It is the source of love
And may be known through love but not through thought.
It is the goal of life. Attain this goal!
В 
~ Mundaka Upanishad
В 

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4991 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-06
Subject: #4991 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4991 - Tuesday, August 6, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


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


On Wednesday, August 7, from 12:30PM to 1:30PM EST, listen to Nonduality Network Talk Radio at http://ckdu.ca.

Mandee Labelle and Jerry Katz host.

The number is 902-494-2487. Or call us through Skype. Our Skype id is nondualitynetwork.


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

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/05/advice-to-a-young-writer-from-j-d-salinger/

Quotes from J.D. Salinger’s small but well-loved body of work:

“I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.” ~Franny and Zooey

“This is God’s universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what’s ego and what isn’t.” ~Franny and Zooey

“The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.” ~Nine Stories

“If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good any more.” ~The Catcher in the Rye

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” ~The Catcher in the Rye

“I felt like praying or something, when I was in bed, but I couldn’t do it. I can’t always pray when I feel like it. In the first place, I’m sort of an atheist. I like Jesus and all, but I don’t care too much for most of the other stuff in the Bible. Take the Disciples, for instance. They annoy the hell out of me, if you want to know the truth. They were all right after Jesus was dead and all, but while He was alive, they were about as much use to Him as a hole in the head. All they did was keep letting Him down.” ~The Catcher in the Rye

“I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of the writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.” ~Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4992 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-08
Subject: #4992 - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

#4992 - Wednesday, August 7, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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


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


Mandee and I want to thank the listeners and callers to our Nonduality Network Talk Radio show yesterday. Not all callers could get through, some for technical reasons, and for those people we hope to facilitate a better connection next week. Calls came from Panama, Croatia, San Diego, Virginia, and even our home base in Nova Scotia. Thanks for all your support. Watch for another show next Wednesday at 12:30PM EST.В 


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"Myth is related to dream as the deeper zones of the sea to the shallows. In myth, as in dream, it is the secret of the inner world that comes to us, but the deepest secret, and from profundities too dreadful to be lightly known. Out of our own depths arise the forms; but out of regions where man is still terrible in wisdom, beauty, and bliss. This Atlantis of the interior realities is as strange to us as a foreign continent. Its secrets must be learned. And the way of learning is not that of the laboratory and lecture hall, but of controlled introspection."

Joseph Campbell, "The Art of Reading Myths" (unpublished manuscript that morphed over time into "The Hero with a Thousand Faces")

(contributed by Greg Allen Morgoglione in the Nonduality Highlights group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NondualityHighlights/)


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http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/artblogs/read_artblog_entry.cgi?login=lookwhos&blog_id=969938758751121

Painting as a visual investigation of non-duality

by Adrian Setterfield

Date Published: 2013-08-05 - Time: 17:05:45

My work is a visual investigation into how objects appear in space.

The basic shapes that make up all forms visible to the eye, are formed by what appear to be lines. Relatively speaking, these lines do not have distinct borders as such, but do have distinct directions. These directions are labelled(conditioned) with words such as ‘curved’, ‘angular’, ‘geometrical’ or abstract without any definite shape/direction etc.

By exploring the natural and spontaneous way that the body makes marks on a surface it can be seen how random lines can suggest shapes (as in abstract surrealism). Through an exploration of abstraction over a period of time, I attempted to define line as a raw gestural expression. This gradually evolved quiet naturally into a geometrical line, a line that has a definite direction to it. A line that appears spontaneously and yet contains a condition (a direction), the condition being angular.

Further observation of my environment has revealed that these basic geometrical lines, are actually the shape of forms visible to the eye as the basic forms of any object appearing in space. But seeing that this basic form is naturally inherent as the natural and spontaneous expression of the body, no differentiation can be derived between the body and any object. This points to the illusion that objects in space are thought to be separate from one another. The work(panting) is therefore a visual pointer to the fact of non-duality.

~ ~ ~

see Adrian's art prints here:

http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/pod/your-pod-art.cgi?login=lookwhos&id=34192


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Stray Bullets

by Pete Sierra

I don't question whether I'm right, or wrong,
such considerations are for the insecure.

Knowledge is the cane of the blind, or
the necktie of the proper, he who wears it
wants to impress. Use what I say as you like.
Practice your aim. Use it as a target, it's not
my shield.

Ideas are bullets bouncing off my head.
They don't belong to me. If one strikes you,
if you die, count your blessings. It was stray
bullet ... just a lucky shot!

Pete
http://cerosoul.wordpress.com/
http://awakefiction.wordpress.com

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4993 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-08-09
Subject: #4993 - Thursday, August 8, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
#4993 - Thursday,В August 8, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
Nonduality and the Opportunity of Language
by Greg Allen Morgoglione
В 
В 
I learned about the Nonduality Highlights forum a few years ago when Gloria
Lee informed me that IÂ’d been quoted in them. A few months later Jerry Katz
invited me on his radio show to talk about my book “The Now Exspirientuality:
The Way of Unity – Conversations with Dog, Book I”, my cd “ItÂ’s Time That
Time Was Overthrown”, and the practical fashion in which I bring spiritual and
philosophical ideas uniquely to life.
В 
Based on my radio chat with Jerry I found a Nonduality meetup group not far
from home and attended a meeting. The topic was “What do you do with bad
feelings?”, and it quickly became clear that their “pursuit” of Nonduality had
to do with finding “the good thing”; with moving from a “bad” life state to a
“good” one. The group looked up to the leader as “having it”, and they longed to
“attain it”, this “good thing”.
В 
I felt like a country boy in the city, for it seemed odd to me that a Nonduality
group would utilize this basic illusory duality as a departure point for an
exploration into an illusory dualistic life quest: how to get from “this here
place of bad feelings now” to “that there place of good feelings later”, and so
“what can I DO with my bad feelings so I can eventually get there?”
В 
Stories were shared about bad feelings and things that trigger them, and some
went way back to suggest who or what was still to blame for these inescapable
bad feelings.
В 
And then I said “Well, itÂ’s sort of funny but I donÂ’t really have bad feelings.”
В 
Now, the astute Nondualist may recognize this as a simple meditative
perspective wherein one does not afford a certain “reality” to a perception by
means of affixing a label and possibly a judgment. One just sits with the
perception, mentally quiet. ItÂ’s the peace that passes understanding.
Considering the company I was in I felt as though this was at least a
considerable approach to dealing with any perceived duality as one moves about
oneÂ’s day to day.
В 
But it was not considerable. The theme of the groupÂ’s not-too-friendly reply
was “How ridiculous. Of course you have bad feelings. Everyone does.” And I
almost tried to explain but it is like jazz – if you have to ask then you donÂ’t
know. And the group leader put the cherry on top of their derision by saying
“Greg, I am trying to figure out if youÂ’re for real or a total fraud!” I asked him
to let me know what he came up with.
В 
To me the “elephant in the room opportunity” for 21st century Nondualists is to
begin to talk the talk. Stop speaking to (breathing life into) the 10,000 things.
Speak to the Nondual thing; breathe life into its glaring mystery.
В 
Believe me, I understand the historic pretendency (a tendency to pretend)
about language and things metaphysical – that language is a hindrance because
itÂ’s inherently dualistic; language cannot speak to the true Nondual nature of
things. But that is nonsense. ItÂ’s a central theme of my book, and itÂ’s why I
believe Jerry Katz called The Now Exspirientuality “an important Nonduality
work” – because I demonstrated practical Nondual speak in action. I
demonstrated how to meditate in real-time on the streets of your life, by
changing the way you view and talk to yourself about your world.
В 
The meditative notion that I no longer label my feelings is not just for the
quiet room with the candle – itÂ’s a perfectly valid moment to moment life
strategy. When I crashed a motorcycle on the racetrack and broke my foot and
knee, it hurt extraordinarily. The crash was caused by a rookie mistake,
although I am a very experienced racer, and perhaps you are familiar with the
“feeling” that comes with that sort of personal knowledge, especially when
youÂ’ve just cost yourself thousands of dollars and weeks of rehab. Warm,
flushed, perspiring, chills. Second-guessing. Embarrassed. Nauseous.
В 
Now some people would say that a broken foot and knee hurts, and things that
hurt “feel bad”. And some people would “feel bad” having made a rookie mistake
of this magnitude. They might say “I feel stupid. I know better.” They might
put themselves “on a hook” and not let themselves off for years.
В 
I would agree that the broken knee and foot hurt. Terribly so. But “hurt” of
this nature can be seen as “coming with the territory”. WeÂ’re talking 165 miles
an hour on paved racetracks with curves and hills. Yet IÂ’ve raced over a dozen
years and only crashed twice. My big picture perspective says “Cha-ching!!”
ItÂ’s all good. Really! Oh yeah, this knee and foot hurt like hell, but thatÂ’s what
humans came up with meds for; and thatÂ’s what sleep is for. Racing, not
crashing, crashing, healing – itÂ’s the roller-coaster; the trough that comes with
the crest. ItÂ’s what time is for. ItÂ’s all good. Row row row my boatÂ…
The point is simple: if itÂ’s Nonduality then itÂ’s Nonduality. If weÂ’re going to
label the grand illusion that appears to be “the ten thousand things” then letÂ’s
give it Nondual labels. LetÂ’s speak Nondual speak. LetÂ’s show some respect.
В 
If we are all one, letÂ’s speak this way. If itÂ’s all good, letÂ’s speak this way. If
thereÂ’s right view, letÂ’s speak to it. ItÂ’s easy. ThereÂ’s no need to say “WeÂ’re all
one, but not really…” Stop claiming “wrong view” and using it as a pedestal of
separation. Stop speaking to dualities. ItÂ’s not necessary. ItÂ’s a choice – to
create and validate an “outside, not-in-the-know” group to your “inside,
in-the-know” group.
В 
Which reminds me of the time I approached a Unity church in person to offer a
presentation from my book. And the lady was nice, and she took my book and cd
from me as she listened, and when I finished my introduction she handed them
back and whispered “This looks really good, but donÂ’t waste them. They donÂ’t
let anyone from outside of Unity speak here.”
В 
I giggled and said “ThatÂ’s sort of funny. IÂ’m having trouble imagining anything
outside of Unity”, and she agreed.
В 
HereÂ’s the funny analogy – the one that will send most Nondualists runningÂ…
В 
The opportunity for Nondualists is to put down the mythological fruit.
Remember that story about the garden, and how you are gifted a life of time
(lifetime) to do and be as you please? Here, in the garden. And you are free
free free butÂ… “Oh, by the way. One thing. See that tree? Just a word to the
wise – donÂ’t eat the fruit. It makes you hallucinate. You begin to believe in
dualities, like good and bad; good and evil; right and wrong. You see an in-side
and out-side to Unity. ThatÂ’s the only caution. Beyond that, have fun! Create
whatever you want…”
В 
We created language. ItÂ’s a human opportunity, not a hindrance. And the
opportunity to Look Again and engage language as an ally is rather the elephant
– the herd really – in the metaphysical room.
В 
WeÂ’ve honed language for eons and can continue. It does not manipulate us, nor
do we serve its purposes. Language serves our purposes, and we manipulate it as
we choose to that end. It can be used to divide things up and further the
illusion of separation, or it can be used as it is in meditation – to help us more
clearly focus on one thing; to foster and sustain unifying vision, wherein one
always sees one thing.
В 
One glorious, mysterious, infinitely diverse thing. Non-thing, I meanÂ…
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4994 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-09
Subject: #4994 - Friday, August 9, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4994 - Friday, August 9, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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

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

Let's all celebrate our upcoming 5000th issue!

Tell us very briefly what the Highlights mean to you or how it's impacted your life. We'll publish everything, including your name. Then we won't bother you again for another 5000 issues.

Thanks!

-Jerry


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

Some original music for you while writing your email for issue 5000:

Alto flute improvisation & photography by John Devitt

Photo's taken in the Stevenskerk in Nijmegen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qzxb72R_8Bs


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


This looks interesting:


Welcome to the website of the Study Society:

http://www.studysociety.org/index.html

We provide practical ways of finding rest, stillness and meaning in the midst of our varied lives, benefiting both the individual and society. These include meditation, sacred dance and chanting. We study non-dual philosophy: a simple system of knowledge that lies behind the world’s major philosophies and religions.

A brief history of the Study Society

The Study Society* was registered in 1951 by the late Dr. F.C. Roles and his friends who had been associates of the Russian philosopher and author P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947). Ouspensky was particularly interested in the inner life of civilisations and in the convergence of science, philosophy, art and religion in the service of truth. He was also very much concerned with the inner transformation of humanity as a matter of practical experience.

The Society was founded to carry on his aims and researches. He had also asked Dr Roles to look for a simple method of finding inner stillness that was suitable for people living ordinary active lives. Dr Roles fulfilled this aim in the early 1960s when he discovered a method of meditation and the knowledge associated with it, which is part of the Advaita or non-dualist school of philosophy, as taught by His Holiness, the late Shantanand Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Northern India.

The meditation and the knowledge associated with it are intended for people from all backgrounds religions and races. Membership of the Society, and of societies related to it abroad, ranges over all kinds of professions and ages, from those of student years upwards.

http://www.studysociety.org/index.html

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


Isabel, a listener and caller to our radio show, Nonduality Network Talk Radio, sends the following:

This is about my thoughts on nonduality, and thoughts inspired by your radio show.

i hope you like it.

the space outside a broken jar

There are some things that can't be taught.
There's some thing that can't be forgot.
All you can do is move ahead
and think a different way instead.

Under the sky and under the sun
makes it easier to be one.
There is no reason. All we are
is space outside a broken jar.

There's things which can be thought upon
to focus on the inner calm.
It's not that hard to be reborn,
to find the eye within the storm.

It's hard to put it into words.
It's hard to talk and to be heard.
The silence stays, it grows and grows.
There's things I know and things I don't.

It's the quiet of the night
that breaks the walls and kills the fight.
There's so much space for thoughts to grow.
The rest is just like coming home.


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

http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/workshop-charles-eisenstein-2013.shtml

Are you going to the Science and Nonduality Conference this year? It's getting better and better. Here's a description of a pre-conference workshop:

CHARLES EISENSTEIN

THE MIND OF SEPARATION -- A DEPROGRAMMING SESSION

We live today within the legacy of a story of separation that is rapidly becoming obsolete. It says that humanity is separate from nature, and that we are separate individuals in an impersonal universe of force and mass. Upon that story, our civilization is built: our technology, our medicine, our money, our politics, our wars, our prisons.

Though we may reject it intellectually, that story still bears tremendous power. The habits of separation live inside us, and the institutions of separation surround us. How do we take the next step into a new story of reunion, of interbeing?

We know in our hearts that separation is a myth. We know that what happens to any being happens to oneself; that the smallest choices have untold significance; that purpose, intelligence, and consciousness pervade the whole universe. But do any of us believe it fully? How often do we act from that place? For a long time, it has been a lonely knowledge, ridiculed and denied by a million voices both external and internal. Our heart's knowledge needs allies if we are to act from it consistently.

The purpose of this gathering is to provide such allies: to align heart and mind in a story of interbeing. Using concepts, experiences, but most importantly the power of story, we will inhabit this new and ancient way of being a little more fully. The result will be expanded clarity and power, because acting from nonseparation, we are capable of things that once seemed impossible.


Charles Eisenstein is a teacher, speaker, and writer focusing on themes of civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. His books (The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics) as well as his other essays and blog posts on web magazines have generated a vast online following; he speaks frequently at conferences and other events, and gives numerous interviews on radio and podcasts. Writing in Ode magazine’s “25 Intelligent Optimists” issue, David Korten (author of When Corporations Rule the World) called Eisenstein “one of the up-and-coming great minds of our time.” Eisenstein graduated from Yale University in 1989 with a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy, and spent the next ten years as a Chinese-English translator. He currently lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with his wife and three sons.

http://charleseisenstein.net
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4995 From: Dustin LindenSmith Date: 2013-08-12
Subject: #4995 - Sat/Sun, August 10/11, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith
#4995 - Sat/Sun, August 10/11, 2013 - Editor: Dustin LindenSmith

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

As we approach the 5000th issue of the Highlights, I find myself drawn back to primary sources, as it were, which made me think of this well-written book review by Jerry from early 2011 about a book on Sailor Bob Adamson's life and teachings. Sadly, the link to his full review at Advaita Academy no longer appears to be active.

I first really got into Sailor Bob's teachings through Cameron Reilly's The Advaita Podcast in and around 2007, and I found that listening to Bob speak about nonduality hit me more directly than reading his own writing on the topic did. He has a terribly direct way of speaking about this, and the short 1-2-minute preamble he gives at the outset of his satsangs provides the most excellent, tidy synopsis of nonduality that I've ever heard.

The other thing that has always struck me about Sailor Bob was his personal background with alcoholism. He and Cam spoke about it quite openly in one of their first podcasts together. For years, I've been fascinated with how nondual awakening might facilitate a breakthrough with addiction, and more recently, I've been reflecting on how working the 12 steps might lead people towards nondual awakening, if done in a certain way.

From what I've read and understand of the teachings of folks like Paul Hedderman, Scott Kiloby, Fred Davis and the like, the "nondual awakening" part of recovery from addiction (if it occurs) can be a kind of "second phase" after successfully becoming and remaining sober. But I wonder if the two things can go hand-in-hand together. What I do know from the addicts whom I know personally is that they would each deeply benefit from a dose of nondual awakening; I believe it could help them transcend the painful stories about themselves that they're trying to avoid every day by drinking or taking drugs.

Dustin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jerry Katz umbada@...>
Date: Sat, Jan 22, 2011 at 8:35 AM
Subject: [NDhighlights] #4140 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
To: NDH ndhighlights@yahoogroups.com>, NDS nondualitysalon@yahoogroups.com>, iam iam@yahoogroups.com>, AdvaitaToZen@yahoogroups.com


 
#4140- Friday, January 21, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
 
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
 
 

Only That

The Life and Teaching of Sailor Bob Adamson

by Kalyani Lawry
 
 
Reviewed by Jerry Katz
 
Author Kalyani Lawry’s association with Bob Adamson has a long history. She first met ‘Sailor’ Bob in the 1970s when they were both devotees of Swami Muktananda. At one point Bob shifted his devotion from Muktananda to Nisargadatta Maharaj. Kalyani did not make that shift, however decades later Kalyani would find herself sitting with Bob at his home and, now, presenting us with a book of Bob’s life and a selection of his teachings.
 
Only That includes 16 glossy pages with 23 black and white photos of Bob from childhood through various stages of his life, including a few photos of Nisargadatta Maharaj, his teacher. The photos and the first half of the book, which is about Bob’s life, are new contributions to the printed Adamson works.
 
The Table of Contents for Part 2, The Teaching, is cleverly designed, with each chapter a teaching unto itself, for example, 'The Ego is Fiction,' 'Can You Get Out of the Now?' and 'Everything is That.' There is no index, which would be helpful for easily finding uses of the term 'full stop', or where Bob referred to Buddhism, for example.
 
Nisargadatta Maharaj was Bob’s primary teacher. To such a degree of success has Bob communicated the essence of Nisargadatta, that he is informally known as perhaps the best living representative of the Nisargadatta teaching. I make it clear that Nisargadatta never authorized Bob (or anyone else) to teach and Bob has his own style of communication.
 
This informality of lineage is important to point out because it informs potential students of Bob that they are not being invited into a formal lineage or a tradition. While there are benefits to aligning with a tradition, any association with Bob is that of two people getting down to what is true.
 
The author’s purpose is to introduce and further contribute to Adamson’s published works by presenting his teachings alongside his biography. The author has succeeded and also contributed something new, since there is no other printed work providing so many details of Bob’s past. I’m not aware of all the podcasts with Bob which may contain further biographical material. I know that Bob has discussed his past with people other than Kalyani, but I believe this is the first time Bob’s history has been published in print.
 
The biography is the bones of the book’s theme and thesis: a life of alcoholic suffering gives way to nondual spiritual enlightenment. The thesis is that it is possible to overcome suffering and alcoholism and to understand one’s true nature if one gets a foothold in sanity, values it deeply, and follows the path that opens up as far as possible.
 
While Bob Adamson’s teachings are available in other published writings, in podcasts, and in person, what I like about this book is the packaging of biography with teachings and the noting of the turning points in Bob’s life that opened up to the realization expressed in the section of the book on teachings.
 
The turning points were the final quitting of drinking and a question that arose out of that, a question I’d never heard, a question Bob posed about his life. I won’t say what the question was, leaving it to the reader to stumble upon.
 
What makes Only That relevant and significant is the biographical material in conjunction with the teaching. The phase of ‘Sailor’ Bob’s life in the Navy and his great psychological suffering and alcoholism are the most intense parts of the biography. They form the most important part of the book because they are new revelations in print regarding Adamson and they show the profound suffering, alcoholism, addiction, and despair.
 
~ ~ ~
 
This is only half the review. Please click below to read the rest at Advaita Academy:
 

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4996 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-08-13
Subject: #4996 - Monday, August 12, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4996 - Monday,В August 12, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
В 
В 
В 
"By all means do feel lost.
В 
As long as you feel competent and confident, reality is beyond you."
В 
~Nisargadatta
В 
In this spirit, I am offering a somewhat lengthy examination of the rise and fall
of Andrew Cohen, as a person and an organisation. There was a time when I
subscribed to his magazine, Enlightenment Now, mostly for the excellent
articles written by other people. Much that is said is instructive and applicable
to the guru as a spiritual instituition, and for the most part is not personally vindictive
but thoughtfully written. There is a link to Part 2, if interested to continue. -Gloria
В 
В 
В 
"The problem begins with the fact that just as the term “Crazy Wisdom”, the
guru institution has also been taken out of context. Spiritual teachers who
gather pupils around them have existed in the Oriental religions for thousands
of years, and for a thousand or more in Judaism and Islam. What's different
these days is that while in the past those teachers functioned within a constant,
well-known context – that is to say, within a certain spiritual tradition – today
there is often no normative framework in which gurus and their acolytes
operate. The guru institution has been removed from its traditional context
(“traditional” here in more than one meaning) and implanted into conditions
foreign to its nature."
В 
В 
В 
В 
Andrew Cohen and
the Decline of
the Guru Institution
В 
Part I: Andrew Cohen Steps Down as a Guru
by Tomer Persico
A stranger would not understand the magnitude of the affair, a stranger might
even mock it, but last month an earthquake took place in the world of New Age.
A tectonic shift the likes of which the elders of Rishikesh cannot recall. It was
revealed that Andrew Cohen, one of the most famous spiritual teachers in the
world, and until a few years ago one of the most powerful and influential
figures in contemporary Western spirituality, is about to step down as guru
and resign the leadership of the movement he founded, EnlightenNext, against a
backdrop of repeated allegations of tyrannical conduct and financial and
mental (but not sexual) abuse of his followers. In an official message, he
announced that he would soon be stepping down, and apologized to his students
for the wrongs he had done them in the past. In short: he admitted that despite
hopes to the contrary, he does have an ego after all.
Cohen's rise and fall stretches across a good chunk of the annals of
contemporary New-Age spirituality. He began his journey in the late 1980's, at
first as a follower and torch-bearer of the famous Papaji, an Indian guru who
left many disciples. After a few years Cohen severed ties with his master, and
embarked on an independent road. His spiritual teachings have undergone
several transformations. At first he insisted that there's nothing to be done
for spiritual enlightenment and release, and all that is left is to want it above
all else. When he saw that this path leads to spiritual experiences but not
fundamental changes in his pupils he turned sharply to the other way, and
tasked them with exhausting spiritual exercises, including sexual abstinence,
withstanding severe physical challenges, various humiliations and repeated
demands for financial donations—all supposedly designed to "break the ego."
continued at the link:
В 
В 
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4997 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-14
Subject: #4997 - Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

#4997 - Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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

В 


В 

Enjoy the spirit of nonduality with Mandee and Jerry...


Nonduality Network Talk Radio with Mandee Labelle and Jerry Katz is on the air today at 12:30-1:30PM EST

Listen at http://ckdu.ca

Call-in from anywhere in the world at 1-902-494-2487

Or call via Skype. Our Skype ID is nondualitynewtwork

Everybody is welcome to be part of the show.В 

Our archive of the past three shows is at http://nonduality.net

В 


В 

Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo deliver the best vision for nonduality not only regarding the Science and Nonduality Conference, but a vision of nonduality for the world. They communicate with the energy, love, and free spirit that fuels their conferences and that is spilling into the niches of neighbourhouds everywhere all over the world.

Science And Nonduality (SAND) Conferences: A Fertile Dialogue with Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo

listen to the interview here:

http://www.newdimensions.org/science-and-nonduality-conferences-sand-a-fertile-dialogue-with-maurizio-zaya-benazzo/

Topics explored in this dialogue include:

Who was Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
What is nonduality
How the Science and Nonduality Conference came about (SAND)
What is the purpose of bringing scientists and teachers of nonduality together in a conference
Why scientists are reluctant to speak in public when they detect an agenda
How spiritual leaders are evolving into spiritual facilitators rather than being gurus
Why the spirit of celebration has been added into the conference agenda

To find out more about the Science and Nonduality Conference go to www.scienceandnonduality.com. And attend if you possibly can.В 

В 


В 

A new book by Greg Goode and Tomas Sander!

В 

В 

The e-book version of "Emptiness and Joyful Freedom" by Greg Goode and Tomas Sander is now available at a discounted introductory price from the publisher. Here is the link:

http://non-dualitypress.org/products/emptiness-and-joyful-freedom-e-book-edition

About the book:

The pinnacle of Buddhism's understanding of reality is the emptiness of all things. Exploring reality towards the realization of emptiness is shockingly radical. It uncovers an exhilarating freedom with nowhere to stand, while engendering a loving joy that engages the world.

This path-breaking book employs the emptiness teachings in a fresh, innovative way. Goode and Sander don’t rely solely on historical models and meditations. Instead, they have created over eighty original meditations on the emptiness of the self, issues in everyday life, and spiritual paths. These meditations are guided both by Buddhist insights and cutting-edge Western tools of inquiry, such as positive psychology, neuroscience, linguistic philosophy, deconstruction, and skepticism.

The result is a set of liberating and usable tools for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.

Read an excerpt and a review by Scott Kiloby here:

http://non-dualitypress.org/products/emptiness-and-joyful-freedom-e-book-edition

Group: NDhighlights Message: 4998 From: Jerry Katz Date: 2013-08-15
Subject: #4998 - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz
#4998 - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - Editor: Jerry Katz

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

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NOTICE: If anyone has recently (in the last week or so) been getting strange headers, symbols, lengthy nonsense strings of words, at the top of your emails from Nonduality Highlights, would you please write Jerry at jerry@... and let me know? Please paste the entire contents of one of the emails in your response. Please let us know which one of us editors sent the emails to you. (And if you or anyone else can advise of any solutions to the problem of unwanted headers in emails, that would be appreciated too.) I'm not receiving any such emails, but at least one reader is. Thanks very much.


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Nonduality Network Talk Radio from August 14, 2013 may be heard at http://nonduality.net/14august2013.mp3

Callers: Philip Evan Cowlishaw from Croatia, Fred Davis from South Carolina, and Pete Sierra from San Diego. We apologize to those who could not get through. Thanks for trying. Thanks to all listeners.

Put it on your calendar to listen to our show on Wednesday from 12:30 to 1:30PM EST.


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http://onethemagazine.com

When we share our experience of awakening, when we speak about what it
is to live an ordinary human life consciously aware of our essence as
One Being, it transmits the possibility of that same grace opening
within the heart of another.

The current issue of ONE, the Magazine features intimate accounts from
Adyashanti, Unmani, Fred Davis, Zubin Mathai, and more.

From Zubin's article, "The Mystery of Our Unfolding

"I have seen the most precious sunrise emblazoning Grace over everything, so why, when that sunrise is always right here, would I choose to ignore it too long for the story? And why would I ever deny that even the story is shining forth that same light?

"I am nothing special or different. Truth feels too ordinary to be something only for the special. When the mind is quiet I see this beautiful depth in everyone. I see the same stillness I saw in the Himalayas and mountain pines in every face, behind every pair of eyes. Everything is made up of the same beautifully alive laughing stillness. That same peace is in every longing, every ounce of sadness. What a cruel world it would be if the answer to longing wasn’t contained in everything, in every clap during a chant, in every tree, in every chair or bookshelf, in the longing itself . . ."

www.onethemagazine.com

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Tim Gerchmez

Clarity and peace are scarce from the outside-in "me" position. What helps is to take the position of the witness, "inside oneself, looking out". From this position, the original view of all beings, the I Am, "inside oneself, looking out", it is possible to realize the truth and transcend the tendency to fall back into the outside-in (incoming) position of the "me". Just remember the "inside oneself, looking out" and abide as the witness alone, regaining the position of inner strength -- the I Am.

Nisargadatta

"When you pursue the spiritual path, the path of self-knowing, all your desires, all your attachments, will just drop away, provided you investigate and hold on to that with which you are trying to understand the self. Then what happens? Your 'I-am-ness' is the state 'to be'. You are 'to be' and attached to that state. You love to be. Now, as I said, ... your desires drop off. And what is the primary desire? To be. When you stay put in that beingness for some time, that desire also will drop off. This is very important. When this is dropped off, you are in the Absolute -- a most essential state."
Group: NDhighlights Message: 4999 From: Gloria Lee Date: 2013-08-16
Subject: #4999 - Thursday, August 15, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee

#4999 - Thursday,В August 15, 2013 - Editor: Gloria Lee
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I asked from the almond tree to talk about God and the almond tree just bloomed.
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~ Nikos Kazantzakis
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The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to
twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of
ourselves we find in them.
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~Thomas Merton
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Alan Larus Photography
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"In order to avoid confusion and frustration, it is absolutely necessary to
understand that there is really no psychological 'time' at all. The religious, the
evolutionary books have told us that we need time to improve, to change from
What-is to What-should-be. The distance is time, and we have unfortunately
been following this pattern blindly, without questioning. Hence the confusion,
the frustration, the pain in life. The understanding, the Self-realization, can
never come tomorrow. It can only be now or never. In fact, there is no 'never',
only 'now'. "
В 
~Ramesh Balsekar (from his book, "Confusion No More")
http://www.advaita.org/

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Alan Larus Photography
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For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views
about them.
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~Thich Nhat Hanh
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The whole idea is to be silent. Not to add affirmations or words to your
garbage pail. It is already filled with garbage. By garbage I mean,
preconceived ideas, dogmas, opinions, samskaras from previous lives, you're
filled with these things and you are a reacting machine, you react, that is what
you do all day is react, react, react. Therefore when you try to learn more
knowledge and you read more books all you're doing is adding on to the garbage
pail. Of course most of you realize, the highest truth is to delete, not to add.
To get rid of the things you believe in now. So empty yourself out totally and
completely. All of your ideas, your feelings, all have to be emptied out of you.
When you become totally and completely empty there is nothing you have to do
to fill it up again. Emptiness is realization. Emptiness is Brahman. Emptiness is
the Self. Emptiness is your real nature.
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~ Robert Adams
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Everything is new now for me.
My mind is new, the moon, the sun.
The whole world looks rinsed with water,
washed in the rain of I am That.
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Lalla leaps and dances inside the energy
that creates and sustains the universe.
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~В Lalla
В  14th Century North Indian mystic

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