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#1488 - Thursday, July 10, 2003 - Editor: Jerry
Sam
NDS
There's where all the fingers point, the way it looked then when I was carried home.
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One early evening, when I was still little enough to be carried in my mother's arms she stopped to talk with a friend. There was a big moon in the sky and the friend remarked that the moon was god's eye. Little me said, it is one of the first things I remember, 'and the sun is his other eye'. That is the moon I wanted to catch in this little haiku. Then I did not know even what the word home means, and I had not yet developed the concept of a home that I had yet to search. Was I at home then? I have heard Osho say: 'Don't search for a home because there isn't one. Search for yourself because there is one.'
Jan Sultan
NDS
Dozing Meditation Revisited
After I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in February, the
doctor had asked me if there was any stress in my life. I shook
my head but wondered if my body/mind was stressed without
me knowing it. Being a 'spiritual' being how could I be stressed?
I knew that the world and its happenings were of no consequence
to me. Yet would the body be stressed without me knowing about
it?
Luckily [I don't know if the medications and the supplements,
specially, Melatonin had anything to do with it] I started dozing
at work. Being the boss nobody could question me about that. This
dozing totally relaxed me. Even a commotion in the workshop would
not have elicited any response from me. I suspect this played a
major part in my remission.
You might ask isn't such total relaxation dangerous in case an
emergency situation arose? From my experiences in life [prior to
my 'spiritual' days] I have realized that in dangerous situations
I have mostly stayed very calm, totally out-of it [as if it was
happening to someone else] and the dangerous situation [even
possible death] had bypassed me, missing me by a whisker! So why
should I worry now!
And strangely this dozing is not your ordinary dozing, which is
due to lack of sleep and leaves you in a dull drowsy state. This
is almost like meditation as any situation that needs my
attention is at once attended to without any disorientation. I
know I had posted this before [on my lists: AdvaitaToZen and
SufiMystic] however I had at that time meant it to be humorous.
Having observed it further, I can state that this really works.
Not only does it totally relax you but it also gets you into a
state akin to Samadhi! Do try it ... specially if you are over 50
like me! Doze away your stress!
Benjamin
NDS
Greetings!
I have started a new nondual discussion group called Clear Void
at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/clearvoid/
Please take a look. It is moderated and perhaps a bit more
serious
than this high-spirited crowd. I am aiming for a small
group of
dedicated seekers. Non-technical philosophy is combined
with
inspiration, intuition and insight. It is not dull and
academic. It
might be right for some of you. A few messages are already
up to
give you an idea. Please be sure to read the Introduction
and
Guidelines (first two messages in the archives) before joining.
Thank you
Benjamin
Roger Hendrick
NDS
Sri Nisargadatta
Just keep in mind the feeling 'I AM"merge
with it, Till Your mind and feelings become one. By repeated
attempts you will stumble on the right balance of attention
and affection and your mind will be firmly established in the
thought-feeling 'I AM'.
Helena Vidrascu
NDS
O MY FRIENDS,
What can you tell me of love,
Whose pathways are filled with strangeness?
when you offer the Great One your love,
At the first step your body is crushed.
Next be ready to offer your head as his seat.
Be ready to orbit his lamp
like a moth giving in to the light,
To live in the deer as she runs
towards the hunters call,
In the partridge that swallows hot coals
for the love of the moon,
In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies.
Like a bee trapped for life
in the closing of the sweet flower,
Mira has offered herself to her Lord.
She says: the single Lotus will swallow you whole.
--MIRABAI
Mark Otter
NDS
Hi Helena,
Oh YUM!!!
I can tell you this of love:
That I have been crushed like the spring pepper
in the mill of forgiveness.
That I have been saved like the Sunday papers
Only to be used to collect the urine of puppies
Who may not know yet the ways of the outside.
That I have been the butt of jokes that no one laughs at.
That I am thou.
I knowest this of love:
That I am no thing
and no thing is who I am.
I'm so glad you asked...
and who are you?
Love, Mark
Christ is mystical, not magical
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/editorials/2003/editorial071403.shtml
In the fictional world of Harry Potter, all humanity is
divided into wizards and muggles. Wizards are those who, by
birth or happenstance, have been gifted with a love of and an
ability to engage in magic. Muggles are everyone else. But
"muggle" is not a neutral term; it is a disparaging
one.
Muggles are angry, obtuse to the world of magic, dull-witted
and generally insensitive.
Out of this rises a question for the Christian: Are we
muggles? For we are surely not wizards. Wizardry is a
violation of the first commandment, a dabbling with spirits
and the occult, an entertaining of forces that are not of God
and over which we have, at most, illusionary control.
Christians ought to strive to steer clear of wizardry.
So, does that relegate us to the bland world of muggledom?
Hardly. True Christianity is a rebellion against the bland
conformism of muggledom as much as it is a rebellion against
the world of wizardry.
The great 20th century Trappist, Thomas Merton, saw his faith
as a rebellion against the muggledom of his time: "For my
own
part, I am by my whole life committed to a certain protest and
non-acquiescence and that is why I am a monk."
There is no superiority of the true Christian over the muggle.
When he entered the monastery, Merton left behind "certain
standards of value which to me were idiotic and repugnant and
still are. The image of a society that is happy because it
drinks Coca-Cola or Seagrams or both and is protected by the
bomb. The society that is imaged in the mass media and in
advertising, in the movies, in TV, in best sellers, in current
fads, in all the pompous and trifling masks with which it
hides callousness, sensuality, hypocrisy, cruelty and fear"
(Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander).
Merton was certainly not alone in his critique of modern
culture as in contradiction with the fullness of life offered
by Christianity. A hundred years before him, John Henry Newman
spoke of "the beginnings of religion" as "To put
off the idle
hopes of earthly good, to be sick of flattery and the world's
praise, to see the emptiness of temporal greatness and to be
watchful against self-indulgence."
Newman urged people "to break with the world and make
religion
our first concern." He saw religious obedience not as a
muggle
sort of life, but as identical with faith: "Viewed as
sitting
at Jesus' feet, it is called faith; viewed as running to do
his will, it is called obedience."
It is, of course, possible to be religious and to be a muggle
too. The religious muggle is one for whom religion is a
formality, an abstract way of looking at things that does not
touch one's daily life.
Muggles are those who do not see the gross inhumanity in the
coexistence of their own relative comfort and pleasures with
the terrors of abortion, war, mass starvation and
institutionalized greed.
There is one more thing, however. There is no superiority of
the true Christian over the muggle. We do not exist in a
special world of supposed holiness while "they" live in
the
world of the unclean.
Merton writes that on one of his rare trips away from the
monastery and into the city, he found himself at a busy street
corner. The revelation given to him was almost mystical: "I
was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all
those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could
not be alien to one another even though we were total
strangers."
The challenge to the Christian is to rise out of the muggledom
of mass society. We rise through prayer, adoration of the one
God and service to other men and women. Yet, despite our
efforts to rise, aided by God's grace, we do not see ourselves
as a spiritual elite. We are one - one with each other and one
with all of humanity. Faith gives us the responsibility to
serve.
Photo's of Merigar, Dzogchen retreat in Italy
http://www.livejournal.com/users/moonangelbaby/
Iamkatia
http://www.livejournal.com/users/iamkatia/
The Last Morning...
This is what I saw when I crawled out of my tent at dawn on
the last morning.
It was perfect.