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#3686 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
James Traverse talks
with Mandee Moon about the Yoga
Sutras of Patanjali on CKDU radio,
Opening song by local
songwriter/singer Allie Kane. Discussion plus
more music. Recorded from live radio.
http://nonduality.com/20091014.13.30-15.30.mp3 (the first minute is from the previous show.)
Jerry
Audio recordings of Clara
Llum's Satsangs of the last 12 months, some 50
sessions, available for anyone to listen or download, no fees.
Being Water, Ocean and Waves
Marian Dhara
http://seryestar-nonduality.blogspot.com/2009/10/being-water-ocean-and-waves.html
A slightly different
version of the metaphor of the ocean and the waves.
Imagine water was aware.
Imagine the ocean. The ocean is aware water being an ocean of
water. An ocean, being an ocean, does what an ocean does. At the
bottom, it is very still, unmoving water; at the surface it is
constantly moving, shaping itself in the form of different waves.
At the bottom, the ocean,
in its absolute stillness, is water aware of being water. It is
not busy with or worried about its being an ocean. It rests in
and as that which it is; “here” there is nothing to
distract it.
On its surface, the ocean’s
movement produces waves, which is what an ocean can do because it
is that: an ocean. “Here” (still nowhere else but the
ocean) its movement, its rising and crashing, the foam and the
roaring (all “things” which the water is aware of
“now”) appear so central that they seem to obscure the
water’s awareness that waves are what an ocean does, while
uninterruptedly being water. Although and because water is that
which is aware, the water “here” seems to become many
different “entities”, each with an individual, special
shape: this particular moving wave here, now vs. that particular
one there or then. It seems that every wave is aware of itself as
a wave -the knowing that they are nothing but the ocean, or that
it is only water moving… oh well, they are too busy “being”
waves. “Here” it seems as if one wave, its particular
speed, volume, or height had an impact on other waves. Each wave,
in the limited awareness of what is going on “from” the
perspective of its apparent form, assumes it is in charge of its
own movement. It has to run away from larger, dangerous waves if
it doesn’t want to be crashed upon, or it has to move faster
in order engulf the one ahead to it.
Because water is aware, waves have this “feeling”, this
“knowing” that they are “something else”,
that they “somehow belong together into something larger,
more powerful, and more pure”. No wave has ever returned
after crashing. And constantly, new waves appear out of nowhere,
or out of the already existing waves. There are waves with
intuition that tell about something called Ocean. They say it is
vast, eternal, omnipresent and omnipotent. They recommend to look
within, to go deeper and find this force. Other waves talk about
Water, still, peaceful and omniscient Water. Look for the knowing
of that which is your essence, they say, be like Water. No wave
has ever found either Ocean or Water, but they are told how to
be-have in order to have (be) such qualities. They are given
instructions to be a better wave, or a purer wave, or a stronger
wave, a more peaceful wave…
Waves develop a sense of purpose and effort in order to follow
the advice. They struggle to rise high and endure. They feel for
those weaker than them that “don’t make it”. Some
seem to succeed and are admired. Others strive to keep up, to be
like the taller waves. Some fail and never produce but a tiny
ripple. Others resign and do not even bother… They all
suffer, because as waves, “sooner or later” they will
“one way or another” disappear and will seem to be
replaced.
Is there a cause that
makes water in the ocean be the ocean? Is there any purpose to
the ocean’s movement and apparent creation of waves? Is
there any meaning inherent in the waves’ shapes and forms?
Will a wave ever succeed in being anything other than the ocean’s
movement? Will any effort by a wave change the nature of the
ocean, its being, its movement? Do the same waves that disappear
ever return in a new form? Do the waves go anywhere after
disappearing?
Do any of these questions
make any sense?
There is only water. At
no point does water coexist with an ocean or with many waves.
There never is an “ocean thing” and there never are
many “wave things”. From the perspective of water,
there is no ocean, there are no waves. Ocean is what water is
being. Waves are what water, in its being an ocean, does. And
yet, in an ocean of water, waves appear, rise and dissolve always
anew, each wave just once, all of them together at once just
once.