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#4056 -
Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
I spent four days at the Science and Nonduality
Conference (SAND). You have no idea how good that feels
when three people in one day tell you -- in person -- how much
they love the Highlights. It's surreal because all our nonduality
work in online. Thank you to those who took the time to express
appreciation for the Highlights and to those who stopped to talk
about other things. I value the presence of everyone. Please look
me up at next year's conference and stop to talk.
Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo pulled it together again. There was a
great diversity of speakers and topics: Jeff Foster (a nice guy
whose hair and wife I hope to steal some day), Scott Kiloby (so
generous with his time), Rupert Spira (a man whose charm and
talent are surpassed by only two people: his wife Ellen and
mother Meriel, who were both present), Francis Lucille,
Adyashanti, Robert Lanza, Larry Dossey, Drew Dellinger, Nassim
Haramein.
Jay Michaelson (named by Forward as one of the 50 most
influential Jews in America; I was named number 51, having just
missed the cut. In any case, between the two us we couldn't get
the guy at the raw food concession to give us extra salsa, so to
heck with being influential), Stanley Sobottka (who revealed for
the first time in public his spiritual "story"), Peter
Fenner (another guy with a beautiful wife; what's that all about?
I asked his wife if Peter uses his tremendous deconstructive
skills to get out of doing the dishes. She said no.)
Zoran Josipovic, Peter Russell, Peter Baumann, A.H. Almaas,
Puppetji (who is a youngish, good looking, funny guy), Jerry Katz
(who is old, blah looking, and not funny), Jonathan Bricklin (the
William James expert who has a cousin who once built a car in New
Brunswick, Canada), Sheikha Ayshegul Ashki (who gave a stunning
talk on Sufism seen by only a handful. What a woman. Look her
up.)
Florian Schlosser, Prema Akasha (a cool woman, a fine performer,
and creative director for Adyashanti. I hung around with her in
hopes that I could get Adya to like me; at the end of the
conference I asked Prema if Adya likes me now. She said no.),
Natalie Geld (see, I remembered you!), Ravi Ravindra (a world
teacher who lives here in Halifax, Nova Scotia), Stephen LaBerge
(the lucid dreaming guy; he was good), Chuck Hillig (long time
partner in nondual crime and brilliant explicator of the nondual;
fun sitting with Chuck and chatting; Chuck's one of my peep).
Kenneth D. Johnson (a former bank robber and pimp sentenced to
forty years in jail and awakened by Gangaji following initial
contact with a supportive prison guard; Kenny received a standing
ovation; great speaker.), Loibon Le Baaba (a man who has been
initiated into 16 Shamanic traditions and who wears gigantic
piercings, traditional clothing and goes barefoot; a man whose
love fills the conference venue).
I also want to mention James Hebert whose film Awakening Itself
was shown as the last event of the conference. It was very well
received. After I send this email, I'll think of other people,
like Jon Bernie, who drives a hell of a Porsche, Peter Dziuban,
Pamela Wilson, who is so entrancing I just wanted to sit there
and watch her all day; primarily though she's one heck of a smart
nondualist. And Tami Simon who owns a small publishing company
called Sounds True. What a gang! Add several hundred attendees
who are just as interesting, and you have a rare gathering in
which anything could happen. Oh yeah, Mark Scorelle who we're
always ripping off for Highlights material. It was great meeting
you, Mark. And here I thought you were just a name in Gloria's
Highlights. Also Kurt Schmidt, David Kindschi, Sam Saddigh, John
Troy and Trip. I can't remember everyone. And of course Patrick
Manigault.
Many attendees were very, very pleased with their experience.
Some wanted a better organized experience. What is needed, it has
become clear, is better organization, along with an orientation
to the conference. The buzz is that the organization of next
year's SAND will be different. Details are being worked on right
now.
Oh, I didn't mention the experiential rooms, the music, the
entertainment, the films, the raw food concession, the tea nooks
where anyone could sit and enjoy free tea from a local tea shop.
Those were teas rich, thick, and hearty. Or Prema Akasha's
mandala to which anyone could add a line, a squiggle, a circle,
etc., until a beautiful mandala emerged, little by little. What
did I forget?
There were many others. I haven't mentioned everyone I met and
spoke to, so I'm sorry if I missed you. Be assured that you made
my day, every day. Again, thanks to Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo for
putting together the conference. They are all about the love.
Go to http://scienceandnonduality.com for more info.
--Jerry Katz
Here are excerpts from Rupert Spira's talk at
the SAND 2010:
All we know is experience. Check that that is true for you. Have
you ever known, do you know, or could you know anything other
than experience? And whatever it is that knows experience
intimately, utterly, pervades all experience equally. No part of
experience is further from or closer to myself, whatever my self
is, than any other part. In fact we don't really know experience,
we just know experiencing. And if we stay close to experiencing,
we never find a separate self, object, other, or entity. We just
find the pure intimacy of experiencing. There is no inside of
experiencing, there is no outside of experiencing. ... All
experience takes place now. Check that for yourself. Can you move
just a second away from now? ... The past and the future are
never experiences, they are concepts. That is, time is never an
experience. Now is not a moment in time but is truly timeless or
eternal. Experience takes place here. ... Try to move just one
millimeter away from here. ... All experience is here. We never
experience distance or space. ... This locationless dimension
which has no finite qualities (is) called here. ... It is known
by all of us. It is what we refer to when we speak of love. Love
is absolute intimacy, immediacy, innocense of experience. It is
not just the condition of our relationship with one or two
special friends. It is the name we give to the fundamental
condition of all experience. ... The moon is only ever the sight
of the moon. The sight of the moon is made only of seeing, as
seeing takes place here, not there. The American poet e.e.
cummings tried to describe this in this poem:
love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places
yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds
So how is it that this absolute intimacy of experience, the lack
of any distance, otherness, separation, or objectness of
experience, which is the fundamental quality of all experience,
how is it that it sometimes seems to be missing? ... How does
thought veil love? ...
...
The separate entity never finds love; it dissolves, or dies, in
love. This is in fact the only thing the separate entity ever
truly seeks: it's own death or disappearance. When the mind
re-emerges again after this timeless experience of love about
which it knows nothing, it recreates again the separate self in
here and the separate other out there. And as we all know, before
long the experience of love seems to be lost again, so again we
go out in search of an object or an other that will deliver the
experience of love.