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Saturday, February 9, 2002

I'll be gone for two weeks. Thanks to Gloria
for covering for me. Anyone want to help her?
--Jerry
___________________________________________________________________

JERRY KATZ

Dear NDS List Members,

I'm going to California for two weeks, Monday. I'll
have
limited access to a computer. Just want to express
some
gratitude. Thanks to Gene for his cool, sharp and
informative moderation, as well his contributions to
the
list. Gene is the right moderator for the times.

Thanks to all contributors and silent readers. I want to
acknowledge all those posting since the first of the year.
I hope the new people will continue to post and hang in
there. Don't worry if your posts aren't acknowledged as you
feel they should be. There's lots of silent appreciation.

Naming the people who have contributed in 2002, deep
appreciation to the new people, Kheyala, Alden, Gray, Ulli,
Paul Howard, Peter Sweeney, Krishnan, Penn, Highdee,
Praybob, Sam, Texas BG., Martha Ramsey, Nitin ('Namaste')
G, BeingLight. Good to see Mary Bianco and Manchine
contributing. Mary's grace is well known to those who
attended the retreat in Rhode Island. Manchine's fire and
passion reaches around the globe.

The array of geniuses/helpers that totally make up this
community: Gloria, Greg, Jody, Michael, Dan, Matthew, John
(the human nondual search engine) Metzger, Bruce Morgen,
Jan Sultan, Su (Sugar) Gandolf, Jan (The Anagram)
Barendrecht, Ron (Carolina Kid) Whitaker, Ron (park bench?)
Perrymore, Ed Arrons, Nina behind the Prag Castle, New JB,
Eric, Eric B., smart young guys S.H. and Robert
Hunton whose combined age is younger than most of us,
donut-rater Sarlo, Andrew (the Gandhi of Nova Scotia)
Macnab, nondual Yoga master who knows everyone in halifax
James Traverse, Chuck (Ojai Guy) Hillig, Haiku Dave Hodges,
Laura Johnston Randolph, Collette, Diana Miss Cream Cheese,
Cousin Bob (Meditation Society of America) Rose, Sebastian,
Heart Master Christiana, Guru Cee, Ashe, Valerie (What
happened to Richard?), Roger Isaacs, Melody (Look Who's
Coming to Dinner) Anderson, Gary (left to start his own
list) Merrill, Louis Majors, Larry (the sound bite)
Biddenger, and of course the man we all view with the great
suspicion that he's going to force us to give up donuts, be
nice and write lots of letters like this: Harsha, gracious
fall guy and true partner in crime.

Wow, that's over 50 contributors. It doesn't seem like it.
Thank you all very much.

I'll be online today and tomorrow, then won't be online
much at all until Feb. 26. Special thanks to Gloria Lee for
doing the Highlights while I'm away. Gloria's plain
old-fashioned hard work, wisdom and humor, enables this
list and Harsha's to function at the highest levels. Let's
all get down on our knees for Gloria. I'm on my knees
because I dropped a donut and it rolled under the bed.

You may join the Highlights list at
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights/>. It consists
of the 'best' posts of the day sent to NDS list, and from
other lists too.

Thanks also to all those who are running their own lists
because we can't all get crammed into NDS. Not that we
haven't tried: Harsha, Michael Read, Ed
Arrons, Gary Merrill, John Duff, Moller, Gill Eardley,
Thomas Murphy, Sarlo, Chinmayo, Manchine, Hur Guler, Dave
Oshana, Mark Hovila, Petros, Sandeep,
Manuel Hernandez, Ganga Karmokar, Germaine, Zoran, Miles
Wright, NetSufi. Sorry if i left anyone out.

Always here,

Jerry Katz http://nonduality.com

________________________________________________________

MOLLER

M) The word `apperception' seems to relate to some sense of
`perception', "voluntary consciousness, accompanied with
self- consciousness, the mind's perception of itself as a
conscious agent" - Chambers English Dictionary. Please do
not get the impression I am trying to play around with
words in order to build some silly argument on the logic of
such words. However, very often words do in fact display to
a great degree exactly what we are trying to relate and
describe.

To my understanding any form of perception, inward or
outward, rests on the false notion of a perceiver in
relation to an object. So any inward `apperception' that
there is no `I' can only be the subtle mental recognition
that this is the case. And all mental recognition is still
within the domain of thought, experience, logic and
duality. What appears to be the direct `perception' or
`apperception' that there is no `I', is in fact a
conclusion reached on the presumption that when the `I' is
searched for, and cannot be found, that therefore there is
no `I'. Yet this very conclusion is just another play
within the divisive nature of mind/thought. It is like
coming to the conclusion that if you were to search for
something you have mislaid, and cannot find it, that
THEREFORE the object of your search does not exist. If this
conclusion is then taken as real, it is clear that the
conclusion is just another fragment within thought,
`perceived' or `apperceived' as the truth of the matter by
the eternal separate one - the perceiver.

Not-'I', cannot be perceived. If perceived the process is
still within the dualistic mode. The perceiver can never
perceive its own destruction or non-being. The moment the
not-"i" is recognised, perceived or `apperceived', at that
very instant the `I' is there as the perceiver. Back in the
trap.

DAN BERKOW

But of course, the moment that someone expresses how people
put themselves back in the trap of perceiving, that someone
is making claims based on his perception of what people do,
and so, is back in the very trap he is critiquing ...

ANDREW MACNAB

Absence of the notion of I isn't the same as presence of
the notion of no I.



____________________________________________________________

GREG AND DAN

GREG: The overemphasis on being nice is the road to
neuroses of all sorts.

That's why they call it an *over*emphasis...

DAN: Yes, exactly. In Ecclesiastes it says, "don't try to
be too good or too bad." Of course in the Revelation it
says, "don't be lukewarm, or I'll spit you out of my
mouth." What's a poor boy to do? Be neither good nor bad
nor lukewarm? :-)

DAN: You seem to imply that it is worthwhile to assume that
understanding is had -- and that nice people have
understanding of some sort associated with niceness,
implying not-nice people don't or won't?

GREG: Not at all, it's a reductio based on something Eric
said in a previous post, viz.

DAN: O.K. Thanks for clarifying. So -- can we say straight
out: making niceness a criterion of Understanding places a
limitation on Understanding, and places Understanding in a
limited, dependent position within the realm of human
values of good vs. bad?

DAN: Haven't you noticed that, allowing for personal
variables and cultural differences, all saints and sages
share certain benign characteristics?

GREG: If someone believes in (a) having Understanding, and
(b) niceness as a cause or consequence of Understanding,
then it might be worthwhile to consider whether
Understanding and niceness can independently of each other.
And if one sincerely encounters such an independence, then
what does that do to one's belief in (b)?

DAN: O.K. And I guess the key here is "if one sincerely
encounters such an independence" ...

Eric can say whether this is so for him, or not.

For me, both the beliefs you mention can be questioned. So,
even if b) is discarded, there is still the dependence
involved in a), that Understanding depends on the one being
there, who has it, or doesn't have it.

Thus, there's still someone existing independently from
Understanding, in assumption a), who can have it or not.

So, it seems to me that underlying the questions you've
raised, and the explanations you provided above, is this
question: is there anyone who has an independent existence,
to have or not have Understanding, let alone to exhibit
niceness as a result of having Understanding.

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