The Highlights
Issue #1068

Friday, May 10, 2002

Edited by Gloria Lee Highlights Home Page: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm  

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M J Gilbert on Along the Way 
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        Someone who goes with half a loaf of bread
        to a small place that fits like a nest around him,
        someone who wants no more, who's not himself longed for by anyone else,

        He's a letter to everyone.  You open it.
        It says, Live.

                                    - Rumi

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JERRY KATZ on NDS 

PBS shows available on the net:
http://www.closertotruth.com/videoarchive/index.html

I watched the following one on quantum physics:

http://www.closertotruth.com/topics/universemeaning/207/index.html

Only slight gestures toward the nondual, as below:

"we say that an electron is like a particle--a stick or a
stone--and it's also like a wave, which in fact means
that it's neither of these. It's something for which we
don't have a good category. It's as if quantum mechanics
is saying to us, you humans may be great chimpanzees,
but you're not ready for prime time as far as our
metaphors go."

I'm watching the video on 'Consciousness' now.

NINA  on NDS

ATTRIBUTES 

Thanks to all who have attributed nice things to me, such as Su's
undersea link (in the NDHighlights) and that healthy architecture
link. However, to be fair to whatever author may have originated
these things, I kindly decline to accept the attributions.

Please note, I also kindly decline the attribution of anything anyone
may have attributed to me at any time. Good and bad and inbetween,
down to the finest detail. If you don't mind, please remove any
picture you may have of me from your memory banks. Your compliance
will be appreciated.

By the way, all my stories are made up. Completely, utterly. Just big
fat lies. Modifications, reinterpretations, slanderizations of the
truth. The people discussed therein, should they bear any resemblance
to anyone living or dead, particularly should you recognize yourself
in them, are purely fictional. This fictionalization applies equally
to places, things, relationships, feelings, etc. Please keep this in
mind the next time I tell a story.

Ah, feels so good to come clean.

:)
Nina 

SU GANDOLF  on NDS

"Spiritual progress and nondual realization"

Ramesh Balsekar quote, lifted from Jan Sultan's posting on SufiMystic list: "The surest sign of spiritual progress is a total lack of concern about progress. There is an utter absence of anxiety about anything like liberation and a sort of hollowness in one's being, a kind of looseness and involuntary surrender to whatever might happen." Without critiquing this kind of statement in the obvious way (it's paradox), I'm interested in what it brings up. This "looseness" (that is a nice term for it) occurs in moments, or over periods of time, but then the tension (anxiety) returns, and screws with the concept of progress altogether. So, how can the looseness be defined as progress? It seems to me it either *is* or isn't, it isn't progressive. When there's tension, it's useful to believe in progress, yet you cannot, because you remember the looseness, which occurred in the past. When there's looseness, you do not care. Then perhaps you reflect on the looseness and believe in progress again, this time remembering the tension. Over time, duality's dance and song. There *seems to be* some change that is constant, I might call it faith, a new belief based on experience, but the body-mind requires the alternation of looseness and tension--duality. So... Is there such a thing as spiritual progress? What is nondual realization? Is it real outside of knowledge, experience and belief? Obviously not Nina,
And Not Really Su

GENE POOLE on NDSRE: "Spiritual progress and nondual realization" I see that you assume there to be a paradox in the
quote. I do not see a paradox there.

Therein lies the problem... the assumptions contained
in the concept of progress.

Think about this; to whom is there a seeming
of gradual? Awareness is complete, but there
are objects (assumptions) in place, which obscure
the Big Picture (what is).

Concepts such as progress comprise these objects;
and you know how attached we are to our useful
concepts, especially ones which we use to alleviate
our guilty feelings.

Concepts in themselves are harmless; trouble comes
when the concepts are used a a barrier between
what is and what we prefer. It is that very barrier
which is the identified tension you refer to.
 

SU: It seems to me it either *is* or isn't, it isn't
progressive.

How did you get from progress to progressive?

You could search the Highlights archives for keywords
"sudden" and "gradual"

SU: Is there such a thing as spiritual progress?

What could be said to be spiritual progress can be
recognized as an apparent expansion of awareness,
occurring over time; what is really going on is the
gradual diminishing of what obscures or limits
perception of what is always there.

Chief among the 'causes' of removal of the
obscurations which contract (narrow) awareness
is the admission that 'if I know that I once assumed
that what I saw was all there is, and I was mistaken,
I now know that I may be seeing only some of what is'.

Knowing that you do not know, can be liberating; and if
accepted as a way of Being, can lead to looseness.

Further, if you can accept that what you see is actually
yourself displaying itself to you, you will have not only
looseness, but will be able to accept tension, without
judging yourself. That is called abiding.

SU: What is nondual realization? Is it real outside of
knowledge, experience and belief?

Nondual realization is unqualified; it has no
relative reality.

For the unrealized, it does not exist; and for the
realized, it is not an issue.

The only way to talk _about_ nondual realization is
by alluding to what stands in its place.Name and form, and not sequestered...

==Gene Poole==
 

GENE POOLE answers Rashmi on NDS "bhakti or yogamarga"

Rashmi: I don't know if it's an absurd question but how do people
on the bhaktimarga or the path of yoga attain realisation.

Not absurd at all, Rashmi.

Realization is not attained; what is attained is the
loss of ignorance.

Ignorance obscures what is always there (what is).

Seeking realization is symptomatic of ignorance;
understanding of ignorance includes knowledge of why
a person clings to what obscures awareness.

A person is attached (prefers) to have things to
be a certain way; it is that attachment which is the
binder of ignorance. That is why the 'masters' state
that we should eradicate our attachment (as a trend,
rather than particular attachments).

Nevertheless, is it possible to see that ignorance
and attachment act as a dynamic of blindness to
what is?

"Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding
all you see" (Beatles song). What closes the eyes
initially (in childhood) is common pain, physical and
emotional; what keeps them closed in adulthood, is
reluctance or refusal to drop the historical identity
known as 'me', which lives by the theme of victim.

Of necessity, the victim must suffer.

Rashmi: Is it that just in one leap from being a doer and
worshipping God or meditating they lose their sense of
personal doership? and what is true meditation?Obscured by ignorance, one may leap about like
a virtual kangaroo, never finding the right place
to come to ground; as you may know, there is
great social virtue conveyed by never-ending,
energetic leaping, called 'seeking' or 'trying'.

One may seek to lead the impersonal life; that is
what is behind the life of 'renunciation'. And this
may be done successfully. Eventually, as one
leads the impersonal life, the actual person
may show up; that is God.

True meditation is like this: First, you learn to
withstand being shot, without flinching. Then,
you expand your learning to an ability to withstand
being shot continually, by a machine-gun.

Most people reverberate and react at the first shock;
how can a person remain nonreactive to continual
shocks?

Only by accepting shock as a category of experience,
and thus disregarding the particulars of the events
which seem to 'cause' the shocks.

It is God who is holding the machine-gun; can you
take continuous fire?
 

==Gene Poole==
 

SU GANDOLF on NDS Spiritual progress and water towers The sun is shining and there are five water towers, no, seven, I can
see out my window without turning my head. Do people know what water
towers are if they've never seen NY or another city that has them?
Maybe there's a website somewhere devoted to these funny, perfect
things.

I used to dream of swimming in the water tower on top of the building
I lived in growing up. I'd climb halfway up the ladder on the outside
of the water tower, having been dared, before my fear of heights
would kick in. It must have been an illusion that it was possible to
swim in one--they seem to me now to be totally enclosed--but I was
certain that it was  possible, that one day I would dare to make it
to the top and plunge in to the freezing water inside. I would swim
around for a while in the cold, deep cylindrical space, in the dark,
secret, and unfathomably happy. Of course, I did not imagine that
there would be a similar ladder on the inside of the water tower, so
that once I jumped in, I imagined there'd be no way out, like falling
into a well in the sky.

So here they all are, these seven things, abiding and abiding, and
although they seem permanent, one day they will be gone. And although
the sun is shining, it is raining a freezing, smiling rain. A secret
and happy and freezing, ancient rain. I am swallowing bucketsfull of
clear, cold water, and I am in love with my co-conspirators. I am in
love with you. Love, SKG 

Mazie Lane on Harsha Satsangh

SNAKE EYES  

Snake eyes! Hypnotized!

Mesmeric glaze, Marrakesh at high noon,

Flute tune, languidity of lazy passion rising

Drone enchantment’s irresistible siren song,

Longing, wanting, wanting the end of wanting,

Can’t take these eyes from the thought that

"I am real", in spite of all you’ve read, heard,

Said and stuttered you still so fervently, poignantly,

Believe that you can know, that you can somehow

Be This and know It too, take the Cake and not be

Eaten too, pay the Price and throw the dice and not

Come up with those Snake Eyes!

Choices are a fiction of the charm, the

"I put a spell on you!" Moroccan Screamin’

Jay Hawkins, because this drug of me is

So pleasant, the quintessential opiate, and who

Really wants to awaken from such

Drifting oblivion sighs and soft

Enveloping stupor of the snakebite poison’s

"Come-on, let me take you there –

To poppy fields forever!"  

Mazie Lane on Harsha Satsangh  Rumi  
The Center of the Fire  
No more wine for me!
I'm past delighting in the thick red
and the clear white.

I'm thirsty for my own blood
as it moves into a field of action.

Draw the keenest blade you have
and strike, until the head circles
about the body.

Make a mountain of skulls like that.
Split me apart.

Don't stop at the mouth!
Don't listen to anything i say.
I must enter the center of the fire.

Fire is my child
but i must be consumed
and become fire.

Why is there crackling and smoke?
Because the firewood and the flames
are still talking:
                  "You are too dense. Go away!"
"You are too wavering. I have solid form."

In the blackness those two friends keep arguing.
Like a wanderer with no face.
Like the most powerful bird in existence
sitting on its perch, refusing to move.

What can I say to someone so curled up with wanting,
so constricted in his love?

Break your pitcher against a rock.
We don't need any longer
to haul pieces of the ocean around.

We must drown, away from heroism,
and descriptions of heroism.

Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling
its body over it, like a bride her husband
for a cover to keep her warm.  

MICHAEL READ 

expectations and beliefs and concepts these are the treasures of the spiritual the religious the seekers after truth   three huge millstones to weigh one down drowning in the sea of karma screaming - aieeeeeeeee! hanging onto these rocks like they were your only treasure when they are your doom!   oh well everybody goes through this why shouldn't you?   someday those things will drop away and you won't even miss them  

hahahah and hohoho - mu

VIORICA WEISSMAN 

Enlightenment absorbs this universe of qualities.
When that merging occurs, there is nothing
but God. This is the only doctrine.

There is no word for it, no mind
to understand it with, no categories
of transcendence or non-transcendence,
no vow of silence, no mystical attitude.

There is no Shiva and no Shakti
in enlightenment, and if there is something
that remains, that whatever-it-is
is the only teaching.

-------------------------

Lalla
Naked Song
-------------------------   

HARSHA on Harsha Satsangh Commentary on the "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot

--------------- ------------------

 We shall not cease from exploration

                Commentary: The nature of the mind is to be active, to explore, to go where (apparently) no one has gone before.
 
 

  And the end of all our exploring

                Commentary: The exploring will come to an end (when the mind sees its limit and surrenders).
 
 

  Will be to arrive where we started

                Commentary: It will be clear that we have not gone anywhere other than where we already always have been.
 
 

  And know the place for the first time.

                Commentary: Self is always fresh, perpetually new, drinking itself, consuming itself, Knowing It Self always as if for the first time.