Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#4186 -
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swap Your Spiritual Books. It's Free!
Sign up now and start swapping your spiritual books for free!
Here you will find books on non-duality, meditation, self-help,
yoga, Buddhism and much more. Try reading different books, it
won't cost you anything, you can either post it back on Spiritual
Seeker Book Swap, or keep it. It's simple to use, type in the
books you would like to give away and receive points, other
members request your books, you mail them, then you request books
from other members using your points. Join now and start swapping
today!
http://www.spiritualseekerbookswap.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tricks of the Nonduality Trade
by Jerry Katz
Creating a crisis atmosphere is probably used by teachers to
effect a feeling of closeness and presence. Teachers who throw
people out of their meetings, who tell you to fasten your
seatbelts because some great truth is about to be told, create a
space of crisis that forces people together, as crises do. Most
teachers somehow show you that you are in crisis or in pain or
need to awaken or that something is wrong with you.
That atmosphere of presence also seems to arise out of release or
relief of a stress or crisis, as in celebrations of different
kinds. Woodstock is probably a huge example of that. The
Nonduality Salon 2000 retreat in Rhode Island was a small example
of that.
Sometimes a teacher walks on stage and their presence alone
exudes bliss or charisma. Gangaji's good at that.
You can see where, if a teacher can create crisis, provide
celebration, and radiate bliss/charisma, that he or she can be
quite powerful. Of course they have to have something to teach.
Hare Krishnas are a good example. They're big on celebration with
their chanting and dancing. In big cities they're on the streets
singing, playing tambourines, dancing. They exude bliss through
they're dress, smiles, chanting, food. They create crisis by
handing you the mysterious Bhagavad Gita which makes you feel
you're missing some mysterious teaching.
The guy in Arizona who watched people die and nearly die in his
sauna was big on crisis creation and charisma. Not so big on
celebration I don't think.
Wayne Liquorman comes to mind as someone who instills fear and is
charismatic. You add lineage, fame, reputation, and it all goes
toward making the attendee feel inadequate and awe-inspired,
which are forms of crisis mode or at least altered states of
being. And crisis mode inspires closeness and the feeling of
spiritual presence.
We get sucked into the nonduality game through these doors of
crisis, fear, charisma, bliss, and celebration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Waking Up Is Hard To Do
I am the root of reality and the flower of illusion. No wonder
awakening is so hard, for paradox is the point of power. I am
both truth and illusion, fed by streams of pure water and hocus
pocus in abundance. Some call this world maya; I call it a
testing ground. For I have been led to drink pure water while
under illusion’s veil. It is terribly confusing.
Bliss and suffering flow together along the banks of the River
Life. Commingled is human love and hate, the pure awareness and
the low-down, dirty lie. Jazz, blues and cosmic symphonies make
their way to our ear. Is anyone to blame for this barfed-up bag
of tricks?
Some come to hate God and others to love him. Some awaken and
others deepen their sleep. Is there any rhyme or reason to this
ongoing Scrabble game? I like to think there is, but as often as
not, I walk in the rain and am soaked with sorrow. I sit in the
sun and dry out in bliss. I break down and rise up. I shout and I
whisper. I walk between the lines and color outside of them. I am
a divine freak show.
I love the truth of my being and I fall into disarray at least
once a day. My petals bruised and falling, I return to my root.
There I sit soaking in the silence. I remember who I am. I give
thanks for light. I vow to do better by being better. For I have
learned that doing is my downfall. I was born to be. Doing is
just a distraction.
Some of you think I am crazy. I think some of you are, so
that’s a Mexican standoff. Who will win in the war against
reality? Who will sit down and be counted as a servant of the
real? Anyone can do it if they remember that the mixing of the
truth and the lie do not go on forever. Somewhere out there we
live as One. And somewhere in here we know it.
Vicki Woodyard
http://www.amazon.com/LIFE-HOLE-Thats-Wisdom-Awakened/dp/1609102770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299249048&sr=8-1