Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
Nondual
Highlights: Issue #2859, Saturday, June 30, 2007, Editor: Mark
Words are words, meanings are meanings. The word is the guide -
post along the highway that tells you how to get somewhere; the
post is not the destination. I start with that, because I want
you to listen to the talk this morning in a new way. I want you
to understand that while words are needful for communication,
they are, compared to higher truths, very, very shallow.
Your awareness that words are indeed shallow, your awareness of
that must be elevated, because if it is not, then you'll think
that because you understand the word, know how to spell it, can
find it in the dictionary, can use it in a conversation, you will
think that that indicates insight within yourself when it merely
means you have taken a first good and necessary step in learning
what is beyond verbalization.
I'm telling you that there are heights within a spiritual man or
woman, heights that are without words at all, that cannot be
spoken.
Vernon Howard, from a talk given 1/28/1990, posted to
adyashantigroup
The only way someone can be of help to you is in challenging your
ideas. If you're ready to listen and if you're ready to be
challenged, there's one thing that you can do, but NO ONE CAN
HELP YOU. What is this most important thing of all? It's called
self- observation. No one can help you there. No one can give you
a method. No one can show you a technique. The moment you pick up
a technique, you're programmed again. But self-observation --
watching yourself -- is important. It is not the same as
self-absorption. Self-absorption is self-preoccupation, where
you're concerned about yourself, worried about yourself. I'm
talking about self- OBSERVATION. What's that? It means to watch
everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it
as if it were happening to someone else. What does that last
sentence mean? It means that you do not personalize what is
happening to you. It means that you look at things as if you have
no connection with them whatsoever.
The reason you suffer from your depression and your anxieties is
that you identify with them. You say, "I'm depressed."
But that is false. You are not depressed. If you want to be
accurate, you might say, "I am experiencing a depression
right now." But you can hardly say, "I am
depressed." You are not your depression. That is but a
strange kind of tuck of the mind, a strange kind of illusion. You
have deluded yourself into thinking -- though you are not aware
of it -- that you ARE your depression, that you ARE your anxiety,
that you ARE your joy or the thrills that you have. "I am
delighted!" You certainly are not delighted. Delight may be
IN you right now, but wait around, it will change. It won't last:
it never lasts; it keeps changing; it's always changing. Clouds
come and go: some of them are black and some white, some of them
are large, others small. If we want to follow the analogy, you
would be the sky, observing the clouds. You are a passive,
detached observer. That's shocking, particularly to someone in
the Western culture. You're not interfering. Don't interfere.
Don't ''fix'' anything. Watch! Observe!
The trouble with people is that they're busy fixing things they
don't even understand. We're always fixing things, aren't we? It
never strikes us that things don't need to be fixed. They really
don't. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood.
If you understood them, they'd change.
- Anthony De Mello, SJ, posted to The_ Now2
i looked for the seeker
within and without.
searched for him everywhere.
and found no trace
of "me"...
only echoes of the friend's laughter
rippling through
empty
space.
all is s/he!
:)
BOOM!
yosy flug, posted to NondualitySalon
The sense of presence is closer to what you really are than any
image could ever be. And the sense of presence is
"alive". Static images are not you. Never have been.
Instead, be with the aliveness.
Notice that fear always functions in terms of static images. When
you stay with the aliveness, which is always in the moment, in
the now, fear can never find you, for you are then dwelling where
fear cannot enter.
Bill Rishell, posted to The_Now2
Dear Bill, Thank you for sharing. This seems similar to my
experience also. If i find a fearful story running about
"what if...?" etc., simply bringing myself back to the
reality of the present moment, ends it. There appears to be
nowhere for the fear to sit down and make itself at home.
love and light,
jani, posted to The_Now2
Do not simply seek to transcend life,
but realize that you are all of Life.
You are Life itself.
- Adyashanti, posted to The_Now2
Could it be that this being is enough? Could it be that life
knows how to live you and you don't have to bother working hard
at figuring it out? This personality was never meant to run the
life, to plan the life. Something else has always been living
you. You thought these were your successes and failures. This is
simply how the little car you were riding in moved, left, right.
And you thought it was all you. So this is also good news,
because you're entirely off the hook for everything, forever,
starting now. Forever.
- Jeannie Zandi
It's not about getting way from our imperfect selves toward some
perfect selves; this is about just simply allowing all to be as
it is until all battles fall away and we're just left shining, no
more perfect than we ever were in this me, and yet this
perfection shines through us. All these improvement projects to
perfect this tacked-together piece of doo-doo we call the
personality that we think we need. If we get that a little bit
better looking then we'll attract bliss. No, it's about it just
crumbling down out of disrepair. And then what's left is just
this emptiness, and out of the emptiness shines the Beloved.
- Jeannie Zandi