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Mary, xan, Mark, Love


Dear every one of me:


When I saw that anything you wrote was me writing to me (and I saw
myself in every post,) and when I stopped telling any stories about the
posts or about their writers, I found that what was left was
affection.


Mary

P.S. I appreciated all the posts on love that you sent me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



>Mary asked:
>So I ask all of you who care to answer. What is your definition of
love? How does it manifest in your life? I know what it feels like to
be angry, to be fearful, to be peaceful (sometimes). I can say I love
my husband, my children, my friends. and God. (can I really say I love
God?) But is that the kind of love you all mean when you sign with
"love" at the end of your posts?

~ When I sign "love" at the end of my posts it is because the center
of my chest has heated up and an indescribable flood of energy
fills my body.
Or because I have a feeling of connection and tenderness with
another person. This happens for me more often when I am
giving than when I am getting.
(If this sounds just too "spiritually correct," forgive me.
I can't help it if it happens to be the truth. :-) )

> I've heard the expression "be love". Is that the same as unconditional
love? My guess is that it is. When you have no conditions on anyone,
is that when love just expresses itself? If that is the case, then I guess
I have not experienced Love.

~ Beingness is unconditional, all-inclusive.
This eternal Love may be expressed in and through the body or not,

I am aware of this Love that loves the trees
even when they are falling or burning.
It excludes nothing, judges nothing, never rejects or objectifies
but knows each "thing" as expression of itself.
It is the small, personal self that has conditions and imagines
states of loving and not loving. Your present, silent Self
has no conditions. Trying to get the personal self to love
unconditionally is futile. Why not just discover where Love,
perfect and pure, has always been and waits for your return
in awareness now.

with love
xan
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


HI Gang,

Xan said "When I sign "love" at the end of my posts it is because the
center
of my chest has heated up and an indescribable flood of energy
fills my body.
Or because I have a feeling of connection and tenderness with
another person. This happens for me more often when I am
giving than when I am getting"

Mark replies YES, YES, YES!!!!!! (hee, hee, hee!).

Xan: (If this sounds just too "spiritually correct," forgive me.
I can't help it if it happens to be the truth. :-) )

Mark: I think we (as humans) need to stop apologizing for love. It is
and that's just fine and dandy! (better'n candy) Liquor may be quicker
but nothing makes me sicker... Love is the drug that I'm speaking
of... Giving is the BEST!!!!!

Enjoy the rush. It's real. And it's fine. (but it is catching, so
beware...)

LOVE, Mark (not narc)
P.S. I'm watching the PBS special about George Wallace. I've always
though he was evil, but he's just human. Went for power and fell.
OUCH! Doesn't your heart just go out to him? When you see the game for
what it is, there's no need for conditions. Selfishness causes
suffering and giving causes joy. Recognizing that and accepting it is
love. But don't feel bad if you are needing love right now. Needing is
love because it gives the opportunity to give, and giving giving is an
act of love. So GIMME a HUG! (Can I be a Baptist? Can I have a
witness?) Gimme LIFE!!! It's all love, and there ain't NOTHIN else...
Hmmmmmm. someone oughta arrest me. Test me, test me, why don't you
arrest me? I need a rest. I need the rest. Gosh, babbling like this
is fun. I'm tigger, I'm tigger, why don't you pull the trigger? Ooops
I'd better be careful here... (bigger, folks, bigger...) Whew, I'd
better go sleep this love off...

It climbs up, and it climbs down
There ain't no need to wear a frown.
We are ALL heaven bound.
If you're lost then please be found,
If you're deaf, then hear the sound
If you tire, then be awake
If you won't do it for yourself, then do it for my sake.

MMMMmmmmm, ask me about love again. (and again - don't let me forget)

George was just looking for love. (so what IS love?)

If the tree falls, don't worry about the house, let your heart go out to
the tree.





________________________________________________________________________________\
______



Jerry, what is love?

...
I don't know what love is either. Romantic love that
eventually becomes a contract to stay together, is based on
something very much like a chemical bond, it seems, two
people who need to be together for some reason they really
can't explain. Personally, it drives me crazy, because I
like being alone.
...
It's a touch, a recognition of what's plain and perfect, a
sheet hanging in a crisp breeze.
...
Love is deeper than mathematics. It's beyond order and
manifestation.
Love in relationship is best shown by letting another be who
they are and making room for their gifts to develop freely.

Romantic love is based on an indescribable chemistry.
There's almost a danger to it at first. It is sexual, fresh,
new and a kind of threat to those living staidly. Then that
relationship becomes contractual and a safe haven which
itself becomes threatened by hot new romantic love.

Real love allows all things to be while being in all places
at all times.

Love to all,
Jerry
--

________________________________________________________________________________\
______


I had mentioned I was going to submit a selection from the
naive nondualism of Richard Oddo. It is featured in today's
Nondual Daily Nugget:

http://www.nonduality.com/nugget.htm

The home page is updated 7 days a week.

Jerry

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

Mark, accident

...
Like many, I suppose, I have had
moments of clarity due to some powerful stimulus (for example, a car
accident, in which no one got hurt, but during which time slowed to an
amazing degree so that there seemed to be hours to discuss strategies
for who would exit the van first, and where they would stand on the
highway and how we would move away from the van in case it exploded, all
in the 10 or 20 seconds that it took the van to slide along the dividing
rail and come to a stop. Then the space in which crossing the highway
calmly occurred, and then the speeding back up as the situation
collapsed back into normality, and the adrenaline high came crashing
down.) There was a certainty of a different way to see things. Was
that the same as experiencing death and knowing it was safe? No, I
don't think so, but it was a cutting through of the position that there
is only this "normal" routine way to perceive. I think I've taken
normal wakefulness, deep sleep and dreaming sleep for granted, and
alternative (nonordinary) states of mind open up the possibilities, and
return me to beginner's mind. So, I agree that there is only experience
and belief, but I think that not-knowing is a good thing. I find great
enjoyment from relaxing into it and wondering what will happen next? I
think that is love, relaxing into it and deciding to ride it even if it
isn't safe. (haven't been hurt yet...and I don't think that death will
hurt me either.) As for confirmation, I recall a firm knowingness that
occurred during a variety of states that was stronger and more certain
than my current state, but right now, that is just memory, so I enjoy
hearing other's stories of similar states, as that makes me more
confident that mine were real. But from here, it is belief... or
faith...

Love, Mark

________________________________________________________________________________\
______

Marcia, The Moving Center (Dancing)


I thought this was an interesting discussion for two reasons.
The first is that it is between two friends of mine who are in
the Work (Gurdjieff) and the second is that the friend who
takes Latin dancing was with Rajneesh also and has something
to say about the difference between G. and Rajneesh.

Marcia

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

> The ability of the moving center to imitate can be very
> useful; sometimes it imitates *with* thinking, and with
> feeling, as well. "Conscious acting" requires this.

>>>>

This is interesting. As I have mentioned once or twice, I do Latin dancing -
sambas, rumbas, paso dobles. I realised recently that the conscious or
intentional use of moving centre is an entirely different way to approach
dancing. When you learn dancing, the idea is to perfect the steps, and to
get to dance them like the champions. So, here I am wanting to learn some
steps, the teacher says "Show me", and I do them. The teacher then stops me,
and comments: "Don't bounce up in the chass'e", "Don't sit back when you do
the lock step", "Turn your foot out", whatever. If it's left at an
intellectual instruction like this, then, when I come to do the steps again,
I'll be trying to correct the mistake, but it will be my idea of what she
means. The words cause me to do some movement or other. So, a better way is
for the teacher to show me, to do the steps in front of me, and for me to
watch. Now, I can watch in two ways, with or without the participation of
moving centre. Mostly, it seems, we watch without, or with little,
participation of moving centre - in personality. I see the movement, but I
do no more than recognise - "mind observation". I don't really see, or
follow, the movement. And when I do the steps again, I will again be doing
something that may only grossly resemble what she does. If, on the other
hand, I watch her with moving centre, what happens? This is an entirely
different way of seeing movement. I put my attention on myself, relax and,
as it were, come down into the body - self-remembering. From this state I
watch her. Her movements have become more pronounced (vivid, perhaps), and
also, I am aware of her movements in my own body, including the tensions,
the subtleties, etc.. "Sympathetic micro-movements", I think K. once called
them. If I continue to stay in touch with moving centre and do the steps,
moving centre may do the steps exactly the way she does them.

There is another way of learning to dance and that is for the teacher to do
the steps continuously for a while and for me to do them with him. The other
day a dance teacher did just that, he danced and I imitated. I danced, aware
of my body, watching him, alert. Moving centre was learning the movements in
the separate parts of his body, the changes of direction, delays and
restarts, tensing and relaxing, etc. This was new. When he wanted to stop I
said: "Continue. I'm learning by doing what you do." Soon it seemed to me I
did the steps the way he did them. Dance teachers don't do this often
enough, dance with students imitating them. Possibly because it takes a lot
more effort on their part (they have to dance themselves, and dance well),
and also, they are too quick to want to see how the student does the steps.
And of course they do not think, and cannot instruct, in terms of moving
centre (or moving-instinctive centre), imitation, attention and
self-remembering, allowing and not interfering, etc.

Then there is the whole area of staying aware of the woman as you dance.
Ideally you are aware of her movements all the time. (You _present_ the
woman at all times in Latin ballroom dancing.)

I wanted to verify all the above at dancing the other night. When I was
remembering myself and was aware of moving centre, there was movement
everywhere; everything was alive with movement. I was struck by the little
effort that, in the state I was in, was required to continue to perceive all
this movement.

In order to do conscious acting, it seems, I need a store of memories of
conscious moving centre observation of people and their movements.

I dare say that one big difference between Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and
Gurdjieff was that Rajneesh knew little about moving centre.

Who said moving centre was the easiest centre to observe?

(You know who does a terrific samba? Donald Duck. He dances along those
coloured swirls on the pavements of Rio - like a Carioca! He's got the
little arse for it. I wish I could follow him when he does the samba. :-))

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