The Nondual Highlights
The Best of the Internet's Nonduality Email Lists, Forums, Web sites, and More

Editors: Jerry Katz, Gloria Lee, Christiana Duranczyk, Michael Read, John Metzger

Highlights Issue # 1033

Saturday, April 6, 2002

Today's Highlights Compiled, Edited, and Designed
by John Metzger

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Nonduality Salon

diana:
Heidi, just two thoughts: i often quote, in the
few places i post,

because of the beauty or the clarity of the material.

Heidi:
That's what everybody says. Afterall, other people
said they

were GREAT teachers or spiritual masters or whatever,

so whatEVER they said must be worthy of repeating. But,

that's the "reasonable reason", and it makes sense.

"Sense-making" is the opposite of "New thinking" or

"Original thinking". Well, it's not really opposite,
it's perpendicular,

it's non-polarized, it HAS no yes and no. It stands on
it's own. No one,

even you, can "argue" with it, because it's TOO NEW -
you've never

HEARD that before, how could you possibly argue, you
don't really

even understand it; yet, there it is! Well, more
precisely, you DO under

stand it, as in stand under it. You're only seeing the
bottom flooring of

a level of awareness that you've heretofore
onlysuspected (by virtue of

all that reading and quoting and reading and

quoting), but perhaps never experienced in yourself for
yourself.

diana:
What you write below is very timely for me. There
is a plethora

of POV's, obviously, available. It is perhaps time to
stop and smell

the coffee within.

Heidi:
Well, of all the places I've commented upon
plagiarizing (quoting others,

with or without attribution), you're one of VERY FEW
who've

apparently agreed to some extent. But plagiarizing (and
let's not be coy,

that's what it is - I don't care whether you sign THEIR
name to

it, or forget to, you didn't write it - right? So, it's
a form of plagiarizing.)

is simply the first level of a multiple-level
cloud-layer which obscures

vision.

People speak with others' voices. They think they're
speaking with their

own - will fight to the death believing such - but if
they

COULD observe the movement of energy through their own
brain,

they'd quickly realize they're speaking with others'
voices. ESPECIALLY

when quoting others.

Why do people do it? Because, when their "hero's" words
are circulating

through their own intellect, for that short time, they
experience a

momentary "contact-high". They feel AS SMART as their
hero, if

only for that moment - though a little buzz often
remains for a minute

or so. Plus, if they're sharing the quote with others,
they feel GOOD for having done this "good service to
others."

It's a sham and a waste of energy and you lose much more
than you

hope to gain. Either you instantly SEE that, or you
instantly ARGUE.

Observe. You'll see what I mean.

The only mental effort which returns MORE than it
expends,

is "thinking beyond limits". Ordinary thinking (reading,
watching

tv,talking, muttering, figuring, planning, daydreaming,
imagination,

composing emails, etc.) wastes energy and returns
nothing fresh.

Thinking beyond your own limitations (taking a subject
you're

interested in, and considering it fully, NOT from what
someone

else has said, but from your own experience and
understanding,

for no particular purpose other than to exercise the
muscle in a

new way), has the possibility of catapulting you above
the noise

of your own inner chattering, and conjecturing, and
commenting,

and criticizing,

so that you can SEE the subject in a new way - learn
something new.

The only purpose of having a brain and consciousness,
beyond keeping

you alive (sex, shelter, sustenance) is to investigate
the world in

which you live. Not to read what other people think
what's going on -

rather, to tell the world what YOU THINK!

Most, if not everyone, will disagree with all of this.

Do I care. Hell no. Let them eat non-duality.

Harvey Schneider

Hello Heidi, Enjoyed reading thru your post

explaining your preference for fresh food which you
yourself have

prepared. Fresh fruit .....dried fruit. Its ok to be a
fussy eater, but

why make a metaphysics out of it?

Heidi

As one who's lambasted others for sinking to the lowest
form of energy known to mind - quoting others...

Xan

Having lurked here again for a little while, I can't
help but respond in this dialogue.

If anyone thinks quoting is 'the lowest form of energy
known to mind', he/she must not get out much. If you are
saying this is one of your pet peeves, well ok.

My question is, what makes you think words from you are
any fresher than words from another? Once said,
everything said is from the past. Moreover, there truly
is only One Self, expressing in a mad variety of ways.

The point is not who said which, but what effect it has
in This Moment to open where ego/mind has closed, to
dissolve the false identity, to deepen and expand pure
aware beingness in this apparent individual.

Gene

While I do not strive to conceal passion when I feel it,
Neither do I use it as a flail with which to flog the
feckless, fomenting a frothing yet fetid fervor of
fashionably feverish forthrightness, if not fanaticism.

And hopefully, not fascism.

No, HighDee is not my 'sock puppet'; I do not have a
hand in Hir doings.

Ensconced as I am in the Ultra High-Tech NDS Moderation
Headquarters, my attention is drawn to examine the
Emoto-Meter, installed to sample the packets which
eventually splatter all over your screen as the creation
of the Sacred NDS Muto-Scriptures.

Ever mutating, the Holy Precepts of NDS must of
necessity, include both ritual and LITERAL episodes of
De-Divinitizing, as well as Gut-Wrenchings and
Cerebrum-Poppings. These events, which both never and
always occur, form the Sacred Seed Of NDS, from which
spring forth a most ineffable (and plain Ef-able) shower
of Witless Whizdumb , to astound and confound the masses
of shuffling, somnambulistic "Zombies for Jerry".

Nonetheless, is wrought from this writhing and sometimes
withering wilderness of writings, a compendium of
compelling if not cunning conundrums, cagily crafted to
compassionately cudgel, if not coax, the throbbing
cerebellum of the reader-cum- contributor.

Onward and Upward, and devil take the hindmost!

Lisa

I thought it had all been said before anyway...wish I
could remember who said that?! Do you really think there
are any original ideas out there? Maybe just one thought
that has not been "thunk"? Who cares, what a wonderful
dream...think a thought that has yet to be
conceived...it could happen---not?

Gary Merrill

Could well be the one that is being quoted, was in fact
quoting someone else, who was quoting someone else....

Where is that 'original man' does he exist? Call him
Adam or God maybe? Sorry Goddess :-)

Lots of original repeats are now showing :-)

Technically...... Quoting is Shakespearean from 'coat'.
I am coated by quotes. Also meaning to give evidence,
one might see for instance that legally one could quote
the bible as a guide to what was right or wrong. There
being lots of bibles of course (non-dual ones maybe).
Its called going by the book. Quotation mark, is to mark
the place in the book, chapter and verse.

"I rest my case"

Harvey

I believe I understand your idea that the subtle realms
are unreal just as the physical realms are unreal. One
can agree that "Its all the dream of Maya," while
keeping an open mind as to whether certain mayic
experiences may allow us to see more clearly through the
illusion than we otherwise could. An example from music
may be relevant: someone with a trained ear may be able
to hear more sensitively after his training than before.

jody

But what we're striving to hear is a sound that has
never left us. It's ringing in our ears right now. It's
not about training ourselves to hear it as much as
waiting for Maya to get out of the way of us noticing
it.

What you are calling "certain Mayic experiences" can
perhaps help some to see more clearly. However, it
depends on how the experiences are employed. The same
experiences can also lead to more mystification under
different circumstances with different people.

I guess my point is that which reveals and that which
obscures is different for us all. Advaita says throw it
all away, because in the end you don't need any of it,
as that which you seek is what you already are. There's
nowhere to go and nothing to do except stop and notice.
If at first you don't notice, keep trying. It's right
there in our own front pocket, from which it never
moves. You can be assured that you are always in the
presence of your own pure being as yourself, despite the
fact that you haven't quite seen yourself that way yet.

Christiana Duranczyk

now.. sitting amidst the felt-observation of grief patterns,
heart listening to reverberations - contractions and clear intervals,
sudden death of a second partner in six months.
half a year witnessing the empty-full half-whole of partnership.

~ The first partner offered the dharmic grace of transmission and disappearance,
the potential of two faces turned as one,
also the human patterning which circumvents this turning,
the duality of grace and sobriety of relationship.

his death left a pall of greyness
occluding direction and the heart for living.
a stripping of ideas and ideals
- standing nowhere

no bliss in this flatlanded absence of duality,
no false high mountains either...
just showing up in open emptiness.

~~ The second partner, manager and dear friend,
a year of co-leading a huge venture,
jointly inheriting two disparate departments in chaos,
charged to make them seamlessly one.

our styles, the departments, a manifestation in opposites.
yet the miracle of meeting in synergetic pulse,
shared vision of wholeness always arising.
The heart of the mind. The mind of the heart.

his death calls and empowers,
lifting a bit the pall of greyness,
tuning the ear to the pulsating heart,
allowing the interval to direct the mind,

The dharma of just showing up,
in empty openness with new understanding,
the heart of living,
the silent ground of one.

A tear, a smile,
recognized manifestation...
so many apparent levels
of this duality/nonduality motif.