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Nondual Highlights Issue #1938 Saturday, October 2, 2004 Editor: Mark

 

- image thanka (religious painting on cotton) representing Avalokiteshvara (Bodhisattva of compassion)

If you hear music... dance!
If you don't hear music... sing!

If you walk barefoot
along the path of the heart,
your singing will not awaken
the sleepers nor will your
dancing disturb the self-righteous

But the birds will follow you
and take from your hand
some crumbs and
sing to you their truth.

- John Squadra from Ecstasy, posted on HeronDance.

Dear All,

Sometimes the thought comes "Advaita" is Sanity. Seeing , Recognizing the ALL ONE that I AM and movements arising from that perspective is Sanity, if there could be a definition of Sanity. Then I think that the separative "mind" that acts and moves as if it is a separate one IS insanity. The further we move from the Recognition that I AM All there is....the more "insane" our actions become.

Now I know Wuji (Hi Carolyn!) would remind me that even THIS is all perfect as it IS....and it is. I am just noticing the movements that occur, the acts that perhaps would be termed "flowing with the Tao" and those that seem out of touch with the Tao or Advaita Knowing.

Right now I am thinking of the Mindset of the Politicians who run the "world" at present. On the one hand, they say they detest the Centralist, Dictatorships of Communist China, the defunct USSR, the current Putan Government in Russia. Yet they allow JUST this type of governance from the Corporations who take over areas of the Earth. A corporation (like the one in my town who has bought up our public water works and wants to sell it back to us at triple the price per household) which takes over an area of formerly locally controlled resources and then privatizes, and then dictates from a centralized corporate headquarters, what will be, what will not be, who will be sold what, what prices will be charged etc. is no different than the old Communist dictatorships that we were taught to hate. They simply do it all for profit rather than from Ideology. The results for the people are the same.

And this mindset of ownership and that others are now "customers" rather than fellow citizens sharing a human resource.....is a step AWAY From the Truth that we are ONE THING....

I think people basically want to express the Peace that they are. Wuji told me of a tribe in Samoa? Samoa is it, Caro? Where the people did not believe in themselves as individuals. They saw themselves as contiguous with everything and everyone. There was no separation in their view. (Hopefully she will tell us all about it again; it is fascinating).

I see the Governments, politicians, the Organizations that "we" create, being the expressive Pinnacle of the belief in separation. Where else does war spring from? AND the idea that war is "normal"???? Part of the human condition?

And I think then of Historians, who study wars. World War II historians who know all of the particulars of this battle, that battle, this strategy, this General etc. They study and study. Many people study wars and War. Yet, I don't see the Historians or Academics looking at the Prime Directive itself. Does anyone study the root mindset of War itself and does anyone inquire into the presumption that non-cooperation is part of Nature that cannot be questioned? Has anyone followed back and back and back to the core presumption that we are separate and need to act as if we are separate to the extent that we exterminate one another? People bemoan the Genocides and atrocities, but do the "leaders" of nations and education inquire into the psychological POV that would even imagine or dream up such a notion as genocide? It seems to me, that once an inquiry such as that began, that it would, if sincere, HAVE to go back and back and back to the personal "I". The presumption that "I' exist as a separate "entity" , residing "in" a body. That core presumption would, at some point be examined, would it not? In rigorous study?

Am I talking about Jnana? Wow, maybe i am. That just occured to me that perhaps that is what was meant in Hinduism as the Jnana path (like Yukteshwar, in contrast to the Bhakti path like Yogananda). Hmmmm.

Guys, I am just musing this stuff, as I woke up early....and all of these thoughts began appearing.

Welcome to the hamster wheel and hamster that sometimes runs in my head. ; - ))

Does anyone have similar queries? Or more Clarity than I do....certainly THAT can be had around here! : -)))))))))))))))))

- Trudy on AdyashantiSatsang

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.

- Carl G. Jung, posted to AlphaWorld

The work of waking up will never be a popular thing to do. There are too many things working against it, not the least of which is our mechanical behavior. To shock oneself by throwing cold awareness into one's own face is necessary. Yes, it is a shock to see that we are not who we think we are...not at all. For we think that we are a unity, that since there is one body, there must be one person inhabiting it. No, the multiplicity of the masses is inside of us. We are no different than our neighbors whom we judge and criticize for rubbing us the wrong way.

All the saints and sages attest to a state of unity, but where will we find it? Not inside our thunderous thoughts or our murderous emotions. Nor in a Hallmark card or a box of popcorn, hard as we may look. Then where is unity and who is looking for it?

That question alone can lead one into greater self-understanding. The question momentarily stops the mind. It has no answer to such a question. If you stay with the mind while it is trying to think of an answer, you just may learn something that cannot be put into words or framed in a logical way. Apparently, Christ, Nisargadatta, and Ramana Maharshi were onto something when they alluded to the " I am." Bare attention without a mantle of misperception or a scintilla of self-interest. The mind can invent answers to questions that don't deserve to be answered. They beg to be lived.

- Vicki Woodyard on a new list nondualnow

Available here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nondualnow/