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Editors: Jerry Katz, Gloria Lee, Christiana Duranczyk, Michael Read, John Metzger
Highlights Issue # 1034
Sunday, April 7, 2002
Today's
Highlights Compiled, Edited, and Designed
by Gloria Lee
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VIORICA WEISSMAN from MillionPaths
Eckhart Tolle- learn to disidentify from your mind
***
So the single most vital step on your journey toward
enlightenment is this : learn to disidentify from your
mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind
, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.
One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in
your head , as you would smile at the antics of a child.
This means that you no longer take the content of your
mind all that seriously , as your sense of self does not
depend on it.
***
taken from
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Eckhart Tolle , The Power of Now
MAZIE LANE from HarshaSatsangh
wild bird weeping
thinking this would be another message,
a regular post, i just started to write,
and then, i realized how personal,
how deeply full of grace and prayer
and love this story was.
so i stopped and sat here,
sat and couldn't say the thing,
could not speak another single word.
sat and asked myself why,
why i felt the need to tell you everything about this.
asked myself what could be the benefit
or detriment to telling this, this
entirely, so commonplace tale.
it's been long enough now, a right time
now for me to talk about the turkeys.
it all seems so really nothing now.
i'm glad i waited to rant on about this thing,
waited to pry my head out the sky's lion mouth.
bloody good thing, good and somewhat bloody thing,
this changing our hearts for each other's everyday.
two hearts getting caught in one place, one space,
they seem to see things so much filled with awe,
everything brings a blinding reverence,
for everyone, for everything,
for every moment now
i see who you are.
there were two wild turkeys walking across the meadow,
right out in the bright wide-open daylight,
an unbelievable, a real remarkable sight to see.
so i watched as these creatures, these soulful,
so full of some kind of beautiful god walking grace,
these copper and beige kind of golden, creamy cream,
and a silver hue, a sort of rust, a hint of blue,
god my good friends, they were so many colors,
their feathers were so sleek, so like lacquered light,
it looked like one seamless god-garment on a god-being,
and it was dancing like a strange and wonderful loveheart,
my heart was the love and the thing of seeing these birds,
i became so confused as to who was the bird and who the beauty
and who the one ruffling the dust up under the feathers,
and who did the sun-strutting thing, and the bits of grass,
and the simple nodding and the such splendid most exquiste,
the marvelous one who made manifest this delightful breast
of breathing beauty to be these two turkeys of wild ways to be
here.
But the thing is this,
they were very pretty,
it was real nice,
it was something to see,
something not seen everyday,
not by everyone.
But even this is not such a big deal,
its really a so-what, hohum,
so what, but, the thing that changed this for me,
made it something worth saying,
was that as i watched these birds
just being beautiful wild birds,
suddenly, just like happened yesterday to me,
i started to cry,
i started to weep and cry
and i could not stop,
i could not get a grip,
and i still sit here like a crazy crying fool,
lost in a sea of weeping
weeping for every single thing in the world
forever. weeping for you
weeping for me
weeping for god
and the neighbors
and the deer-goats,
and the rocks
and the sky
and the eyes that bore a hole in my heart.
i just think that if i ever start crying
like this again,
with such love again,
i wont be able to stop.
love,
mazie
VIORICA WEISSMAN from HarshaSatsangh
taken from:
http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/publish/marapr02.htm
My Life and Quest
By Arthur Osborne
The following are extracts from the new publication, My
Life and Quest, the autobiography of Arthur Osborne. The
manuscript for this book was long buried among other
writings and recently made available to Sri Ramanasramam
for publication by his daughter, Katya Douglas. Copies
are now available at Arunachala Ashrama (see page 7).
[...]
The mind is like a mill grinding the thoughts that we
constantly feed into it in an unbroken though
ever-changing flow. It doesn't care whether grave or
trivial so long as it is kept constantly supplied. And
at night, in dreams, it chews over the cud of what was
supplied to it by day. Nearly all this activity is
wasted energy. It prevents concentration and does not
really clarify one's mind. And all of it is based on the
very assumption one is trying to destroy, of an
individual being who decides and acts. So I began
instead to suspend thought, refusing to feed anything
into the mill, retaining only pure consciousness - and,
of course, observation of things happening. The mind was
allowed to deal with anything requiring thought as and
when it arose, but not prefigure it before it arose or
re-enact it after it was finished. I was surprised how
simple and what a relief this was and wondered why I had
not started doing it systematically long before; and
then it occurred to me that without a good deal of
previous meditation it would not have been feasible.
Until it has been brought well under control the mind
abhors a vacuum.
Therefore what has to be done is to submit, take life as
it comes, let things happen, while at the same time
striving to wake up from it all. As long as it is taken
to be real, the dream cannot be recognised as one and
therefore there is no awakening.
LISA on NondualitySalon,
continuing "quoting" discussion
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?
Just thinking, -Lisa
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"
Love,
Gary
DIANA
...cloaked in gay raiment...
dancing form
weaving the Emperor's clothes,
shaping an outline of nothingness
with words.
dreams within Dream.
JOSEPH RILEY on Hafiz list
We are the guardians of His Beauty.
We are the protectors
Of the Sun.
There is only one reason
We have followed God into this world:
To encourage laughter, freedom, dance
And love.
Let a noble cry inside of you speak to me
Saying,
"Hafiz,
Don't just sit there on the moon tonight
Doing nothing -
Help unfurl my heart into the Friend's Mind,
Help, Old Man, to heal my wounded wings!"
We are the companions of His Beauty
We are the guardians
Of Truth.
Every man, plant and creature in Existence,
Every woman, child, vein and note
Is a servant of our Beloved -
A harbinger of joy,
The harbinger of
Light.
http://www.educ.sfu.ca/people/faculty/kegan/Japangardenhome.html
Building my Zen Garden KIERAN EGAN
Below are the draft chapters of the book, with
photographs of each stage of the construction. I will
indicate below each chapter the most recent update. The
text has been published as a book by Houghton Mifflin in
the U.S.A. and is now available from booksellers across
the galaxy.
I also imagined a strip of about three feet in front of
the fence where I would put a few patches of bamboo,
growing through a covering of small stones. Why does one
develop enthusiasms about things one knows nothing much
about? Descriptions of black bamboo's ebony stems and
rich green leaves made it sound romantically ideal. I
should have attended a little more to what the books
might have meant in calling it an "aggressive running
variety". I faced two problems; first, finding some, and
second, constraining it from taking over the city.
Black bamboo was a problem to find--at stupendously
varying prices. [more?]
One has to contain its roots, or it will "run" rapidly
and everywhere over the planet. Containment requires
digging down about two feet or so, and then putting in a
"water barrier"--a tough, flexible, impermeable
plastic.
I tried various nurseries in vain. I was directed to the
one place in town that dealt in trees and everything to
do with them.
I phoned and got directions, across town in an area of
industrial roads and factories. It had been raining, and
stopped just before I arrived. I stepped carefully
through the mud-riddled yard, avoiding pools and
streamlets, and ducked past massive machinery. The place
was macho and surly beyond the muscled fantasies of the
lumberyards. I passed tattooed and hairy guys, who
chewed trees for breakfast, pulling huge chains off
spools, and slinging cables in the back of pick-ups.
They disdained to look at anyone not dripping oil and
mud. I entered the shop through a side door from a huge
covered storage and service area, where some long-haired
and even more muscled mechanics were clanging on some
huge-wheeled tractor.
The shop did little to change the ultra-macho impression
of the tree fixing business. Most of what I could see
piled on the floor and hanging randomly from walls
seemed mainly designed for murdering trees rather than
doing them good, with what seemed like a side-line in
Hell's Angels' armaments. The floor was of broad dusty
boards, that could have graced Dawson City in the gold
rush days.
"I'll be down in a moment!" A woman's muffled voice
from
above, German accented. It seemed unlikely she would
have heard me over the cacophony from the service area
outside. Perhaps she could see me through the cracks
between the planks that formed the floor above. I
anticipated a Teutonic wrestler, sporting as much facial
hair as some of the guys outside.
Down the wooden stairs came the unmistakable click of
high-heels, and smiling a welcome was a young blond
woman right out of one of those luxuriant fashion
magazines. A light purple sweater--cashmere it looked
like--with a neat skirt, and, I swear, a string of
pearls.
What could she help me with? I described my desire to
have three patches of black bamboo, and my desire not to
have them take off at a gallop across the neighborhood.
Water barrier! She seemed disproportionately delighted,
as though I was a valued ally in the battle against
uncontrolled bamboo. It came 4' in width, of any length
I wished.
"I want to have three sets, each about three-feet long
and maybe a foot and a half wide."
"So, three-feet and six-feet is nine-feet each one. By
three. You should buy fifty-feet. You always need more."
She walked behind the plywood facing that blocked off
the stairs, and came back a moment later wrestling with
a mighty roll of deeply gleaming black plastic. Another
woman came into the shop behind me.
"Can I help?" I asked.
"No, no. I can manage." I thought I shouldn't push the
macho stuff in this setting, though the roll did seem
not only awkward, slippery, and heavy, but to have a
will of its own.
"Jane come and help." Presumably the Jane who had just
entered was not a customer. As I looked around, she took
off her coat and dropped it on the handle of what I was
later to learn was that miraculous tool, a Come-Along.
Jane seemed to be a school-girl, or perhaps a student,
wearing jeans, a sweater quite unlike the German's, and
had the lank and unkempt hair of the guys outside.
Jane held one end of the strong black plastic while the
cashmere and pearls began to unroll it. It was very
stiff, and unwilling to come off its roll without a
struggle. As the German pulled the bulky roll, Jane
found herself dragged sideways by the coiled force of
the plastic. They had little room to work in, and each
of them was bracing against the counter or the plywood
wall to move it apart. Within minutes it seemed clear
they were in a battle they weren't going to win easily.
With about three feet unrolled, Jane was pulled forward
and just stopped herself from falling, but her force
toppled the precariously balanced roll till it thudded
against the counter, the German woman hugging it and
trying to pull it back.
They started with a few shouts of surprise and outrage,
which became splutters of giggling. Jane tried to help
by pushing against her end, but went over into it,
falling and pushing the plastic over with her. This
helped spring the roll away from the counter in the
German embrace, and she went down sprawled not entirely
gracefully legs astride it. Both women tried to haul
themselves up, hindered by the uncooperative plastic.
They absolutely refused to accept any help, and were by
this point in tears of laughter at their ungainly
struggle.
After some brutal minutes, in which the battle could
have gone either way, they managed to work out a
technique whereby Jane backed towards the Come-Along,
pulling and dragging from side to side, while the German
wobbled the roll while turning it, her pearls all the
while clicking against the plastic. Once Jane had
retreated to near the rear wall, the German began
measuring, and put a piece of tape at the twenty-foot
mark. Things became a bit nasty again, as Jane had now
to roll up her end, while they simultaneously were
trying to unwind it from the other end. By this time,
laughter was seriously handicapping both women. But with
heroic efforts, they managed somehow to get fifty-feet
from the tight bail and roll it up in a carryable
bundle. The German took up a utility cutter and sliced
the roll from top to bottom with a deft wrist and the
practiced ease of an Argentinean knife-fighter.
I paid, thanked them heartily, and strode out into the
yard with the water barrier under my arm. As I tiptoed
my way back across the muddy yard's pools and streams,
various of the tattooed and oiled workers nodded and
smiled, a few "Good afternoons", and one wished me luck
with the water barrier. Perhaps I had been the surly one
going in, and the happier man who came out elicited a
happier response.
(from http://www.educ.sfu.ca/people/faculty/kegan/JapangardenFence2.html