Highlights #998
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Today's Highlights Edited by Christiana
Today's highlights include an invitation, a shared
revelation, a
quirky query, quotes, and graceful direction and
affirmation of
*What Is* which arose through the fellowship of dialogue.
Enjoy
the variety of facets! ø¤º°+°º¤ø
NDHighlights: a need, an invitation, an
opportunity to listen in
service
Dear friends of this Salon,
Jerry's website and his lists have been a gift to many of
us for
3 1/2 years. Here we've learned, been challenged, made
deep
friendships, and mostly have been allowed the opportunity
to
witness and discern the movement of mind and the
emptiness of
being.
For several years a very few loyal people (mostly Jerry,
Gloria
and Andrew Macnab) have selected the daily highlights and
posted
them to a parallel list NDhighlights. There are 100 or so
people
who read the highlights. Some depend upon it like a daily
newspaper, others use it to catch up, for most it is just
a pause
with intelligence and clarity. Now it is only Jerry and
Gloria
doing this work for all seven days. I think it may be
time for a
call to support them by giving back a little of your time
and
heart.
On occasion, Jerry has opened the door for volunteers,
few have
come forward. Most of us live busy lives and the thought
of a
steady commitment might be daunting, so I have proposed
that we
explore the idea of working in partnership or teams.
Maybe you
could commit to one or two days a month and be paired
with two or
three others. We are writing basic guidelines, but
essentially
this is not hard work, and we'll hand hold you through
the
basics. In fact, it can be an interesting exercise in
self
observation to note what moves you as a
"highlight".. a line
here, a phrase there.. creates a different order of truth
revealed.
If you have a few hours a month to offer, if you are
curious
about what this might involve, if you'd like to try it
for a
limited time, or if you have organizational ideas about
how this
might be accomplished, please write to one or all of us.
Our email addresses are posted below.
I will be doing the Sunday highlights (of Saturday's
posts) and
would like to work with one or two others. Any hearty
souls out
there?
Thanks for your time and consideration, Christiana
umbada@ns.sympatico.ca glee@citlink.net
christianad@earthlink.net
Affirmation of What Is
James Traverse and Jan Barendrecht
James: There is no way *to* Love. Love is The
Way. To say that it
should be nasty or nice is to define 'the way'. The
action of
Love is autonomous - it is always appropriate to the
moment.
Jan: 1. There is only Love so how could there be a way to
it? How
could it be a way? 2. Hence sentient life in its entirety
is but
Love. 3. Remember, Love neither requires nor needs lovers
but a
true lover is ready to die for Love. 4. When forgetting
that,
ample are the reminders: Love gives by seemingly taking
until
nothing is left. 5. When ignoring that, also blessed are
the
hardest stones as even they can't resist the soft, gentle
touch
of flowing air or water. 6. Don't count blessings - there
is only
1 which "repeats until..." 7. Love doesn't act:
that is what
lovers are for! What are you? 8. Remember 1...7,
especially when
pain seems to get unbearable..... 9. Hence, love the
smelly swamp
called collective unconscious too - no way 'around' it:
Emptying
it is called "the Work".
A way connects one place to another whereas there is no
place to
go. Hence there is NO way. Whatever the name, any
imagined way
but leads astray!
James: Yes! a way connects one place to another and there
is no
place to go. Hence the place to be is HERE-NOW - that is
Love and
it is the only 'WAY' to be connected with HERE-NOW. And,
Yes! Any
imagined 'way' is just that imagination - it is a
movement away
from HERE-NOW.
Jerry Katz on NoDoer@yahoogroups.com
Mark Hovila asked: Jean Klein said that our establishment
in our
true nature is reached by a complete elimination of the
world of
objects. I would be very interested in hearing anyone's
views on
this statement. What does it mean to eliminate the world
of
objects? How is it done?
Jerry responds:
I 'll give my dollar fifty. But if it's a garage sale,
will you
take a dollar? Alright, a dollar twenty-five.
'true nature' is awareness. The world of objects means
not
knowing true nature. To eliminate the world of objects,
know
one's true nature. There's no act that eliminates the
world of
objects, though perception can be modified through
meditation so
that the world takes on a flimsy, dream-like, subtle
appearance.
But what's that?
"Complete elimination", as you say, has to be
complete. I think
it requires a constant return to inquiring, 'who am i?'.
Or 'who
is having this experience, THIS experience?' If the
moment is
caught rising NOW and in that moment one asks Who am I?,
it's
like two subatomic particles coming together and pure
awareness
results. That's the experience of enlightenment: the NOW
moment
colliding with I Am, yielding awareness. It's a partless
dynamic
known as awareness itself. That's what it means to
eliminate the
world of objects. Clearly. Because it is the elimination
of
what's already less than objects: the now moment and the
I Am.
And it's done through enquiry.
That's the process.
~ Along those same lines Jerry, as Aweboss, wrote
this to a
friend in LiveJournal's Nonduality community
http://www.livejournal.com/users/nonduality/
It's possible to have the experiences you're having
without
knowing who is having them.
The one having them has a real nature known as 'I Am'.
The
experiences you uniquely describe could happen as the
knowing of
'I Am' develops. But they could happen independently of
that.
At the point of stability with I AM, a handshake occurs.
It seems
like the meeting of I Am with I Am. After that point,
everything
appears to happen on its own. It's another realm of
'doing'.
This 'I Am' is 'the answer' to the inquiry: Who am I? Of
course
it's useless to simply give the answer. It has to be
known as the
only knowledge or occurrence. As one's real nature. I Am
may not
be known explicitly as I Am. It may be a feeling, a
wordless
knowing of one's real nature, a living or envisioned
Guru, a
mountain in India, etc. When it is known, it is known as
the
source, the only real knowledge, the only thing that ever
happened.
When that's known, then there's some stability, the
handshake has
taken place.
To 'want' knowledge or stability isn't a right approach.
Desire
will push it further away. To be fascinated with the
experiences
of changing consciousness isn't a right approach either.
There
always has to be turning toward who is having the
experiences.
By staying where one is, taking off the shoes and feeling
just
one pebble on the path. That pebble is I Am! Just stay
with that
pebble.
Don't move. Stay exactly here. There is attention
happening.
Attention to the most minute apparently insignificant
thing. It
is no different than attention to some exquisite
dreamlike fabric
of all of reality. Attention is attention is attention.
Attention
to attention is like touching the wrapper of I Am, of
your true
nature. Spontaneously the wrapper falls away. And there
you are.
Then the handshake.
The main message is to constantly turn to the source and
not to
the experience. Aweboss: How do you turn to the 'source'
and not
the experience, when the experience is stressful?
There has to be a relationship with the source that comes
from
somewhere. Whether it is from practice during times that
are
quiet and sane. This could be some meditation or
mindfulness
method. It doesn't have to be sitting still in a room. It
could
be walking, jogging, or anything that is conducive to
looking at
your real nature.
It really could be anything. It could be refusing to
search
anymore and just being. But something has to happen that
initiates a genuine relationship with source or real
nature.
It has to be check and mate with your real nature.
A nice meditation method that relaxes you, isn't enough.
Or
something that someone says intended for someone else,
may or may
not help.
As the relationship with source or real nature develops,
it can
be carried to times when there's a mildly stressful thing
going
on.
Then the relationship can be maintained when a child is
throwing
things and screaming. It can be maintained.
It's another relationship that takes work! But at least
you're in
control. And it gives perspective to all other
relationships, and
to existence.
Gary Merrill and Dan Berkowitz from
ConsciousnessIsAll@yahoogroups.com
G: We could say that any 'thing' would have to be true
now, or
false now. Those categories would be meaningless outside
of time.
Perhaps we can still say that true and false continues to
apply
within a limited framework, a context, but not as a
whole.
D: It's a concept that presupposes a picture of reality
that can
define events in terms of other events, by measuring the
proximity of one event to another in terms of a spatial
metaphor
(near and far to me, who is here) combined with a
movement
metaphor (events move past me, who is here).
G:Yes, time implies some kind of relationship. 'To look',
there
would be a 'looker' to whom this would be relevant. The
'looker'
would have to be present, seeing time change, come and
go, seeing
events. A much simpler explanation or understanding
wouldn't need
this 'looker', wouldn't need this separation of 'self'
from
events.
D: Another way to say this is that memory is
insubstantial, time
has no ground, and volition and control depend on a
developing
being existing in time.
What's developing turns out to be a complex of
self-replicating
memory associations, not a really existing being.
There isn't anything brought forward, and countless
beings
protesting by screaming and killing, or by attaining and
getting
things, doesn't change this at all.
Insight shows these beings for what they are,
memory-complexes
activated under certain conditions, which conditions
involve
other memory complexes.
The self-replication of memory-complexes ad infinitum
ends up in
the same place it begins: nowhen ...
G: Like the reflection on the water it doesn't mean
anything.
Putting 'oneself' in time is the attempt to give the
'self'
meaning e.g. 'I am doing this'. Whilst it makes a good
story, and
makes the central character real, a good chase, 'I' will
never
catch myself, as 'my' movement is not mine. I never
started
moving, never acted, despite stories to the contrary.
D: There is no really existing space in which memory
could exist,
nor an external reality for memory to encapsulate, let
alone a
user of memory to attain a purpose.
Memory "manufactures" space and time, which are
the assumptions
that "carry" memory forward, in its ad
infinitum self-replication
feat/quest.
G: Yes, I am not separate from my memory. I am memory. If
I think
I'm separate I can believe anything, because I think my
knowledge is objective, real. But it's only real to me.
So memory
functions, but 'I' don't. 'Truth' then is not subjective
or
objective, but it is whole, if not defined and
objectively
certain.
This replication, from the whole view, has no meaning.
Obviously
from a partial view it has tremendous meaning being a
source of
security. People being ready to kill for their imagined
rights.
So programs, behaviour, based on self continuance, must
continue
as long as 'self' has this independent meaning. So its
something
of a vicious circle i.e. 'I must act because I must go on
and
because I go on I must act'.
We are suggesting that 'You can't act because you don't
go on and
you can't go on because you don't act' :-)
D: "I" am not a real unity. "I" am a
conglomerate: an association
of memory-images whose only coherence turns out to be an
imagined
shared center of reference.
Like the demon said in "The Exorcist": "We
are many in here."
And, "I am no one."
Also, as the demon said to Jesus, "My name is
legion."
I am only a conglomeration of images, attempting to use
imaginary
belief as a means to continue a fragmentary existence.
Hell is dissolved by the ending of any separable
"me."
Memory no longer constructs a hell for me, when there is
no
attempt to refer to a center conceived as having
independent
significance.
Revelation
Linda NoDoer@yahoogroups.com
I have had the experience of all objects dropping way.
If one's life is lived in service, and the mind is made
pure and
subtle. Then the heart shines brighter and brighter, and
the
world and objects become more and more beautiful, more
transparent, as though backlit from behind. The mind
stops dead
in its tracks at the beauty, and is not creating
distinctions and
differences. The spiritual eye has opened and you feel as
though
you're spirit or the space in which everything happens.
The body
and all else is in your heart. The tiny bit of residual
mind gets
sucked into the heart and the light of the heart is so
bright
that everything disappears in pure radiance.
Every night, in deep dreamless sleep, you are back in the
Source,
and the mind isn't moving outward, creating sleeping
dreams or
world dreams. As you awaken, there is pure radiance, then
the "I
am the body" idea, then the world. You may also look
at it as a
number of sheaths appear as layers constructed over the
heart of
pure light. If the seer is focussed on and kept in the
heart,
then you are looking from the Source, the heart. Without
the
seer, there is nothing to be seen.
The substratum of everything is the Self, the heart.
Creation
flashes out from there each second. Then the mind splits
it up
into over here and over there, me and not-me.
When you sink below and behind the mind, into your heart,
in
silence, then you are at one with everything.
I don't think that the mind can be used as the tool to
get there.
Everything that the mind thinks is ignorance. It doesn't
know of
its Source in the heart. It is only after the mind has
become
silent and humble that the heart is felt and heard. The
mind,
turned outward IS the world, the mind, turned inward IS
the Self.
Quotes
TRANSCENDENCE: The Birth of Homo novus. by MT Taylor
http://www.radicalconsciousness.net/
Once you Know the Source, the dim consciousness of
present level
belief systems, currently ruling and determining
experience, will
seem like products of the Dark Ages. While the
limitations or
problems of these old beliefs may persist, the individual
who has
Known the Source can more consciously choose or not
choose to
operate those beliefs. The wholeness, peace and certainty
you
have sought all your life in substitute programs and
beliefs lies
right at the center of yourself. Find out who you are.
Discover
the fundamental Ground of all existence.
from SriRamana@yahoogroups.com
When you go deeper you lose yourself, as it were, in the
abysmal
depths, then the Reality which is the Atman that was
behind you
all the while takes hold of you. It is an incessant flash
of
I-consciousness, you can be aware of it, feel it, hear
it, sense
it, so to say; this is what 'I call' Aham sphoorti.
Sat-Darshana Bhashy and Talks with Maharshi, p. XXI
Zoran from Mahamudra@yahoogroups.com
Verses from the Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya, conveying
the
message of nonduality with a Vedantic flavor.
* * * I do not know God; how shall I speak of Him?
I do not know God; how shall I worship Him?
If I am the Supreme One, who is the highest Truth,
homogenous
Being like space, how shall I speak of Him and worship
Him?
* * * The Self transcends all, is indivisible and
all-pervading.
It is free from attachment, immovable and all-pervading.
It is
without day and night, and all-pervading. Why do you, who
are the
identity in all, grieve in your heart?
* * * As the self is filled with Self So is all filled
continuously by you. There is no meditator or meditation.
Why
does your mind meditate shamelessly?
* * * As the space within a pot dissolves in the
universal space
when the pot is broken, so a yogi, in the absence of the
body,
dissolves into the supreme Self, which is his true being.
Query Bobby Graham
People are a peculiar group. Individually we always act
like we
know what we are doing. Each person is the final judge on
their
own activities. But when we see someone else do something
we are
quick to say they don't know what they are doing. It
should be
reasonable to assume that since we have the same
equipment as
they that we don't know either, but that idea just won't
stick.
When someone gets drunk on alcohol they are given license
to do
things not ordinarily acceptable. These impulses point to
another
"side" of people. So we put a name on it,
subconscious, and go on
thinking we know what we are doing. This seems to me a
double
standard. How can we know what we are doing at the same
time we
acknowledge a subconscious that we do not know about?
Accepting
this premise as food for thought is another indication of
how
peculiar we are.
Another thing, we watch as people "go crazy".
Someone drops out
of the regular crowd and loses the ability to function
within the
given structure. There are reasons given why this
happens:
childhood trauma, abuse, chemical imbalance, heredity.
But of
course we can't ADMIT it could happen to us for fear it
would
happen, while accepting the double standard of KNOWING it
could
happen.
We acknowledge our imperfectness (accepting a double
standard)
with aplomb. How dare anyone challenge my right to be
imperfect.
If there are reasons for imperfectness then it is not
imperfect.
It is perfectly natural to be this way, imperfect.
Perfect! But
no one can let it go at that. No matter how many time we
say
everything is perfect we still strive to be better, while
pretending to others to be better than we know we are.
Isn't this
a peculiar way to be?
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Greg
Goode •
Philosophical Counseling • Caring
dialogue that heals and empowers 
