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Nondual Highlights Issue #1935 Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Editor: Mark

Lying in the dreamboat bed one evening,
Dying quietly into twilight dreaming,
I saw a vast blackness, a darkness
That was me, rising as an idea in Consciousness.

Every word heard or ever spoken,
Every verse, every stanza, every praise, every face,
Was a flash of light in the blinding night of my mind,
Undefined, unconfined, but my me, by my idea of "being."

Seeing the fire-burst birth of worlds, of whirling, swirling
Planetary, cosmosetic energy systems, belief-systems,
What Love is or isn't isms, seeing them flare
And die in the moment they're born, die
Before time can contain them or space refrain them,

What remains is This...

All the blips on the memory screen,
All the trips in the screened in dreamed in being a who
Or a thing devising means of surviving the dream's darkhole
Sinkhole, unsurvivable, unignitable, lightless, depthless death
In the night of the darkest night
Of the darkest night of the Soul,

Ends.

It ends in clarity.
It ends in seeing, in recognition that we simply,
Entirely, perfectly, are this moment.

This moment? Flash! SparkLight Mind,
In sparkling darkness...

A dream
Within a dream,

Seen.

- Mazie Lane on AdyashantiSatsang

Under the bridge you search for your twin friends truth and love,
Really stone broke now,
Last money spend on satsang fees and cheap red wine,
You should have known better.


Maybe some leftover Big Mac in that bin next to the tram stop,
Not so vegetarian when you’re starving in the first cool autumn night.


There is an old chapel they close at night,
Leaning against the door,
Mentally you light a candle,
Your hands and feet swollen,
Black spots dance before your eyes.


You recite a rented mantra given by the local TM club,
Hoping God will accept it as this beggar’s soul entrance fee.


You know the world is on fire,
Still you are cold to the bone.


There you have that vision,
Of the life you could have lived,
You see a beautiful woman,
She is carrying a child.


If only they could open the chapel’s doors,
You could have cried your eyes out,
before the candle lit image of the abandoned Christ the Savior,
Lamb of God.


Maybe you will find some leftover Kebab,
In the bin,
Lamb of God,
Lamp of Nondual Knowledge.


Advaita Bodha Deepika.


- Ben on awakenedawareness

Grief settles thick in the throat
and lungs: thousands of sorrows

being suffered, clouds of cruelty,
all somehow from love. Wail and be

thirsty for your own blood. Climb
to the execution place. It is time.

The Nile flows red: the Nile flows
pure. Dry thorns and aloe wood are

the same until fire touches. A
warrior and a mean coward stand here

similar until arrows rain. Warriors
love battle. A subtle lion with

strategy gets the prey to run toward
him, saying Kill me again. Dead

eyes look into living eyes. Don't
try to figure this out. Love's work

looks absurd, but trying to find a
meaning will hide it more. Silence.

- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 1138 Version by Coleman Barks The Soul of Rumi, Harper SanFrancisco, 2001, posted to Sunlight

Q: I have no desire to control my karma, only to understand it and act upon it in a manner that teaches me what I am suppose to be taught. My question has to do more with getting a grasp on what happens in the in-between-life as well as what is perhaps our active participation in understanding, accepting, and involvement in the future life scenarios that will help our growth.

A: Without intending to be a smart-ass and in all sincerity, the Zen answer to the "in-between life" question would be "ask me when I am dead."

In zen, "reincarnation" is really the wrong word for the concept. There is no everlasting self (soul) that incarnates-again or animates-again. "Rebirth" is probably a better term.

An oak tree grows, an acorn is dropped, another oak tree grows and the first oak tree dies. Where does the essence of the oak tree go? Back to ground where it nourishes other plants. The original tree never retuutns, per se, but the nutrients give the tree "rebirth" as part of every plant that is fed.

Some approach rebirth along the lines of particle physics or energy transfer. We die, our atoms and energy scatter, they regather into another form and that is rebirth.

Karma is a force -- like wind or water. It is a "law" similar to "ther law of cause and effect." Karma is not a great cosmic accounting that gives "us" a "better" or "worse" return trip. Consider throwing a pebble into a still pond as any given "karma producing act." The ripples in the pond are the karma in action. From the single pebble, the ripples spread and effect an entire pond, a stream, the river and then the ocean. The ripples do not wait til the pebble hits the bottom of the floor to decide what to do with the pebble.

We control our karma every day. By deciding whether to be argumentative or passive. By deciding whether to be kind and interactive or aloof. By deciding whether to park our car in a parking lot or drive it through the side of a building. -- and we don't have to wait until we aredead to reap the karmic consequences of those decisions.

Buddhists don't literally "come back" as greater or lesser critters -- Hindus do that.

-zd from the Ozark Mountain Zen Center

Instruction (Upadesa)

1. What are the marks of a real teacher (Sadguru)?

Steady abidance in the Self, looking at all with an equal eye, unshakeable courage at all times, in all places and circumstances, etc.

2. What are the marks of an earnest disciple (sadsisya)?

An intense longing for the removal of sorrow and attainment of joy and an intense aversion for all kinds of mundane pleasure.

3. What are the characteristics of instruction (upadesa)?

The word 'upadesa' means : 'near the place or seat' (upa - near, desa - place or seat). The Guru who is the embodiment of that which is indicated by the terms sat, chit, and ananda (existence, consciousness and bliss), prevents the disciple who, on account of his acceptance of the forms of the objects of the senses, has swerved from his true state and is consequently distressed and buffeted by joys and sorrows, from continuing so and establishes him in his own real nature without differentiation. Upadesa also means showing a distant object quite near. It is brought home to the disciple that the Brahman which he believes to be distant and different from himself is near and not different from himself.

4. If it be true that the Guru is one's own Self (atman), what is the principle underlying the doctrine which says that, however learned a disciple may be or whatever occult powers he may possess, he cannot attain self-realization (atma-siddhi) without the grace of the Guru?

Although in absolute truth the state of the Guru is that of oneself it is very hard for the Self which has become the individual soul (jiva) through ignorance to realize its true state or nature without the grace of the Guru. All mental concepts are controlled by the mere presence of the real Guru. If he were to say to one who arrogantly claims that he has seen the further shore of the ocean of learning or one who claims arrogantly that he can perform deeds which are well-nigh impossible, "Yes, you learnt all that is to be learnt, but have you learnt (to know) yourself? And you who are capable of performing deeds which are almost impossible, have you seen yourself?", they will bow their heads (in shame) and remain silent. Thus it is evident that only by the grace of the Guru and by no other accomplishment is it possible to know oneself.

5. What are the marks of the Guru's grace?

It is beyond words or thoughts.

6. If that is so, how is it that it is said that the disciple realizes his true state by the Guru's grace?

It is like the elephant which wakes up on seeing a lion in its dream. Even as the elephant wakes up at the mere sight of the lion, so too is it certain that the disciple wakes up from the sleep of ignorance into the wakefulness of true knowledge through the Guru's benevolent look of grace.

7. What is the significance of the saying that the nature of the real Guru is that of the Supreme Lord (Sarvesvara)?

In the case of the individual soul which desires to attain the state of true knowledge or the state of Godhood (Isvara) and with that object always practises devotion, when the individual's devotion has reached a mature stage, the Lord who is the witness of that individual soul and identical with it, comes forth in human form with the help of sat-chit-ananda, His three natural features, and form and name which he also graciously assumes, and in the guise of blessing the disciple, absorbs him in Himself. According to this doctrine the Guru can truly be called the Lord.

8. How then did some great persons attain knowledge without a Guru?

To a few mature persons the Lord shines as the light of knowledge and imparts awareness of the truth

- Ramana Maharshi, posted to MillionPaths by Viorica Weissman

When the heart becomes whole,
it will know the flavors of falsehood and truth.
When Adam's greed for the forbidden fruit increased,
it robbed his heart of health.
Discernment flies
from one who is drunken with desire.
He who puts down that cup
lightens the inner eye,
and the secret is revealed.


- Rumi, Mathnawi II: 2738-2743 Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski Rumi: Daylight, Threshold Books, 1994, posted to Sunlight

Q: But I do not remember deep sleep - it is a complete unknown.

A: Why is this a problem? It's only a problem if one insists on knowing through memory, or in other words through mind. This is a characteristic problem of the idealist position. To insist on staying in the realm of ideas, on standing in the mind, while looking for a truth beyond.

The whole point of considering deep sleep is that it points to an immediate experience that cannot be remembered from the past. That immediate experience is one's own identity -- just what one truly is, beneath all seeming mind -- in the present. It most certainly is 'unknown' to mind, and so the mind makes a 'big' deal of it, and gives it grand names like 'everything' or 'all' or 'brahman'. But that 'bigness' too is a mental superimposition that gives a false impression. Hence the corrective of deep sleep, where 'small' and 'big' and such qualities are utterly dissolved.

- Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

For the so-called "realized" or "enlightened," meditation has become an ongoing reality - no longer a rare event, it is the predominant or default perceptual state. That once-in-a-lifetime first glimpse of the Taj Mahal is no longer required to jar thought into silence, and neither is an intentional meditation practice - as a matter of fact, it generally takes some sort of sensory trigger to engage intellect, language, imagination, ego, or any other child of thought. Instead of acting as an habitual perceptual filter, thought has been relegated to the role of a situationally deployed tool, a servant. Thus is the appearance of a causal relationship between anything procedural and the meditative state forever sundered, and existence in its entirety is eternally a great meditation, world without end, amen.

- Bruce Morgen on Realization.org

More here: http://www.realization.org/page/doc0/doc0089.htm