The
Highlights
Issue #1070
Sunday, May 12, 2002
Edited by Gloria Lee Highlights
Home Page:
http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm
Click here to go to the next issue
Joseph Riley on Hafiz
Zero
Zero
Is where the
Real Fun starts.
There's too
much counting
Everywhere
else!
("I Heard God Laughing -- Renderings of Hafiz" by Daniel Ladinsky)
In honor of Sunday being "Mother's Day" a non-coercive approach to parenting is presented, a movement called Taking Children Seriously. At most, such a totally radical equality might be called nondual parenting. At the least, looking closely at the "control meme" is worthwhile even for non parents. from the FAQ
What is TCS?TCS is a philosophy of non-coercive education and child-rearing. Discussions centre on a paper journal, Taking Children Seriously, an internet List (the TCS List) and a web site (this site), all of which are run by me, Sarah Lawrence, with a lot of help from friends and colleagues.
We believe that it is possible and desirable to bring up children entirely without coercion (i.e. without doing things to them against their will, or making them do things against their will), and that children are entitled to the same rights, respect and control over their lives as adults.
We are critical rationalists, fallibilists and libertarians.
I own the TCS list and the journal. But there can be no official definition of what it means to take children seriously, just as there can be no official definition of what it means to be a Conservative, a Liberal or a Socialist. No one “owns” such labels. Various thinkers and writers, who want to apply such labels to themselves, simply have to enter the fray in the field of ideas and try to persuade others that their version is true.
So to answer the question directly, “who is to decide whether an evolved version is still TCS or not?”, the answer is no one. Or anyone who wants to.
-----------
sample topics from various journal articles:
http://www.tcs.ac/Journal/index.html
In Praise of Ignorance, by David Deutsch “Innocence, properly conceived, is a positive attribute. It is the ignorance that comes from a voluntary decision not to engage (or not to engage yet) with a particular area of complex knowledge. Innocence in that sense is essential for all genuine learning. Compulsory teaching is the destruction of innocence, forcing the victims to waste the opportunity, which comes only once in each lifetime, to encounter that knowledge for the first time. It is no wonder, then, that pumping information prematurely into people's minds simply triggers emergency procedures that do everything in their power to shield the recipient from engaging with that information, and that the usual result is the permanent destruction of the recipient's ability to engage with information of that type. How many people have a feeling that there is something rich and wonderful in science, or in mathematics, or in Shakespeare, but that it is somehow inaccessible to them? Is that not a tragedy? If they could have acted on that same impulse innocently, at the moment when they were ready, what then could possibly have spoiled those rich and wonderful areas of knowledge for them?” Reader's comment: “This is quite simply one of the most important articles ever published.” (TCS 31)-----
CIA Brainwashing Memorandum Versus Parenting Books: In this fascinating article, Maria Droujkova points out the parallels between a recently-declassified CIA memo on how to brainwash people on the one hand... and the advice given to parents in parenting books on the other. Chilling! (TCS 30)
-----
Coercion is Not Love: An article about the importance of facing the harm we have done, and the importance of separating the idea of good intentions from the question of whether something is harmful. “I am not saying that parents do not truly love their children – I think that most do... I am just saying that hurting our children in any way, shape, or form – no matter how obvious or how subtle – can never be an expression of parental love. ... The fact that coercion and love become so linked in so many ways is itself part of the harm caused by coercion. It is the irrational legacy left to the child, who upon becoming a parent passes that legacy on to his or her own child.” (TCS 22)
------
What Will People Think?: Are you passing the paralysing WWPT hangup on to your children? (TCS 26)
-----
The Taking Children Seriously List is a forum for the discussion of TCS child-rearing/education theory and practice, and for the support of parents trying to make their interactions with their children non-coercive.
http://www.tcs.ac/List/tcslist.html
"I've recently noticed how the idea of non-coercion has percolated thru many aspects of my life .... eg, my relationships with other adult friends are “melting” as I change the way I react to those who were coerced as children, continue to expect be coerced, and are thus stiffened against it."
“Geesh, I feel like I am visiting another planet being on this list.”
words, words, words on NDS
______________________________________
Kir Li Molari
There are different ways to think about nonduality.
Harlen Whitling
There is actually no way to think about nonduality.
_____________________________________________
What can you say about nonduality that hasn't already been said?
Absolutely nothing has been or can be said about nonduality.
________________________________________________________________
He says this about nonduality and she says that about nonduality.
There are no "he" and "she."
_________________________________________________________________
There's a lot of ambivalence about nonduality.
The concept of nonduality is not.
_____________________________________________
Nonduality is experienced differently.
Nonduality is beyond experience.
______________________________________
Jan Barendrecht on NDS
re: words, words, words
Has the following
about nonduality been said before?
--------------------
When society finally
will reflect the (proven) knowledge
that there isn't a
'me', what now is labeled 'nondual issues'
then will be similar
to what now is the phlogiston theory when
talking of oxidation.
What remains unchanged will be the
"no
nonsense" approach regarding the illusion of a 'me' which
so easily installs in
the mind...
It has been said
before:
º no, because time
doesn't exist
º yes, because the
amount of events is infinite so it must be a repetition
º neither yes nor no
because all events, irrespective the labels attached,
are like a fata
morgana, fleeting appearances, essentially void of any
'substance'.
--------------------
Laughingly,
Jan
Al Larus on NDS
expectations
Slowly
slowly O mind, everything in own pace happens
Gardner may
water a hundred buckets, fruit arrives only in its seasonKabir
RichieTo NDS Members, Methinks what is meant; at any point of what we call "TIME", at any place, anywhere and anytime,what is happening NOW, has always been happening, and will be happening forever and ever, andwill happen again and again.There is not anything at anywhere, and at anytime, that can stop any natural event from happening. Scrap all of your plans to build a time machine, it is futile.
Jan Barendrecht on NDS
It's always useful to be reminded of definitions. Regarding time, that's based on therotations regarding the solar system: a matter of observation, then defining. In that respect, terms like "always" and "now" implicitly are paying homage to the notion of timepassing by which is a conclusion, not an observation. Without observation, a statement like "nothing is happening" would be impossibleand when observing takes place, that is what is happening. Philosophies based onexperiences like nirvikalpa samadhi are like trying to describe empty space from theobservation of the walls, inside an empty container. In the same sense that a boiled egg can't return to its previous raw state, returningin time is a fiction, not just because of the laugh to be 'present' before the big bangwent off. Which doesn't mean, that the potential to observe cannot move in any dimension:there are quite a few indications it can as it isn't "fixed" to the location called "body".
Al Larus on NDS We have all arrived safely at the other shore,now we are just watching the replay. ?
Debra Orf on Harsha Satsangh
somewhere
near here...
not far from
there
overyonder for
three fortnights.
(You know, i don't have time for this...)
green-blazed
forest fires
in a riot of
spring rain
and sunshine.
(ok, give me
a break, this is sappy!)
(my turn---)
(130 miles an
hour, turning the
(curves of the
speedway
(zoom zoom zoom
(adrenaline
pounding
(action-driving...
Cars! You're
talking about
*car racing!*
(yeah, beats
your sap about the misty)
(green trees)
***grumble***
together
now....
the still
mirrorglass
of the water
is shattered
by the
mechanical
thunder
in a cloud of
burning rubber
(better...but you didn't even mention PIT STOPS)
--dao
Stan Sambey on NDSWanna chat, or do you wanna act?
Cannot You Find Me?
I am more than any description or combination thereof.
Take my money
I am
Take my Home
I am
Take my Family
I am
Take my Race
I am
Take my Colour
I am
Take my Speech
I am
Take my Clothes
I am
Take my Hearing
I am
Take my Taste
I am
Take my Sight
I am
Take my Touch
I am
Take my Smell
I am
When Happy
I am
When Sad
I am
When Angry
I am
When Thinking
I am
When Sleeping
I am
I (om)
AM (ma)
YOU (ni)
WE (pad)
ARE (me)
ALL (hum)
www3.sympatico.ca/stambo2001
Sundeep on Nisargadatta list
J.
Krishnamurti:"There
is no freedom in choice. You choose according to the
background you have
been brought up in, according to to your social,
economic, religious
conditioning. Choice invariably strengthens this
conditioning; there is
no escape from this conditioning, it only
breeds more suffering.
[...] Choice is always breeding misery. Watch
it and you will see
it, lurking, demanding, insisting and begging,
and before you know
where you are you are caught in its net of
inescapable duties,
responsibilities and despairs. Watch it and you
will be aware of the
fact. Be aware of the fact; you cannot change
the fact; you may
cover it up, run away from it, but you cannot
change it. It is
there. If you will let it alone, not interfering
with it with your
opinions and hopes, fears and despairs, with your
calculated and cunning
judgements, it will flower and show all its
intricacies, its
subtle ways and there are many, its seeming
importance and ethics,
its hidden motives and fancies. If you will
leave the fact alone,
it will show you all these and more. But you
must be choicelessly
aware of it, walking softly. Then you will see
that choice, having
flowered, dies and there is freedom, not that you
are free but there is
freedom. You are the maker of choice; you have
ceased to make choice.
There is nothing to choose. Out of this
choiceless state there
flowers aloneness. Its death is never ending.
It is always flowering
and it is always new. Dying to the known is to
be alone. All choice
is in the field of the known; action in this
field always breeds
sorrow. There is the ending of sorrow in
aloneness"
"Freedom can
only come about naturally, not through wishing, wanting,
longing. Nor will you
find it by creating an image of what you think
it is. To come upon it
the mind has to learn to look at life, which
is a vast movement,
without the bondage of time, for freedom lies
beyond the field of
consciousness."
"Freedom is
not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's
pretense that because
he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure
observation without
direction, without fear of punishment and reward."
"To seek is to
deny the truth that is right in front of you.Your eyes
must see that which is
the nearest; and the seeing of that is a
movement without
end....Not to seek is to find; and the finding is
not in the future - it
is there, where you do not look.The looking is
ever present, from
which all life and action takes place. Meditation
is the blessing of
this action...Seeking is a personal drive from the
centre - to attain, to
belong, to hold. In inquiry there is freedom
from the very
beginning; looking is the freedom from the weight of
yesterday"
"When you live
with facts as they are, not with data produced by the
computer, but
observing them, watching your own activity, your own
egotistic pursuits,
then out of that grows marvellous freedom with
all its great beauty
and strength"
"Every
decision to control only breeds resistance, even the
determination to be
aware. Meditation is the understanding of the
division brought about
by decision. Freedom is not the act of
decision but the act
of perception. The seeing is the doing"
-------------------------------------------------------
Ramana Maharshi:
The only freedom man has is to strive for and
acquire the jnana,
(Self-Knowledge) which will enable him not to
identify himself with
the body. The body will go through the actions
rendered inevitable by
"prarabdha," (karma that must be worked out in
the present life) and
a man is free either to identify himself with
the body and be
attached to the fruits of its actions or to be
detached from it and
be a mere witness of its activities.
Elizabeth Wells on Nisargadatta list
The void.
I walked down the
road about 100 feet to the mailbox on the
main highway
yesterday.
There was no one or
nothing around.
Perfectly quiet.
The split second I
stepped out the door and started
going down the road,
at least 20 dogs of
every shape and color emerged
from nowhere started
running circles around me,
playing with
eachother, barking and yipping,
rubbing up against
me....
blue jays appeared out of nowhere buzzing us ...
little kids
suddenly filled the street, yelling "hi, tie my shoe",
sticking their feet
out......
just before I
stepped back into the house door from
my trip to the
mailbox, I looking down the road,
and it was perfectly
quiet, no one or nothing around.....
exactly how it was
before I started my treck to and from the mail
box.
El---------------------------
FW from somebody:
Did you tie their
shoes?
Ans: Yep.
Never can tie too many
little shoes.
Or pull too many
little trucks out of mud puddles or ditches.
Dust them off and set
them on their way.