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Marcia:

The hardest thing for me to remember is that I did not
cause that gloomy look on his face. He learned that
one a long time before he met me. He even used it
on a woman or two before me. My idiocy is to
think that somehow I can cause everything in the
world. That is pretty self centered really. Once I
remember that I am free. And more often than not
it frees him up also. But even if it doesn't I no longer
have to bear the burden of his gloom.
_____________________________________________________________________

Xan:

I keep running into my own idiotic solitary dance
and noticing all that seems to hold it in repetition
is the familiarity.
It's not doing anything for me but that.
Except, of course, shielding me from absolute freedom.

___________________________________________________________________

Tim Gerchmez:

There's only one reason why nonduality effects everything and everyone.
That is because nonduality is all there is.

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Jan:

The dilemma that arises is difficult to solve with language. The "i" as
the identification with mind/body has a "you" as its opposite. One's
real nature doesn't have opposites so calling it "I" or "Self" or
"consciousness" is name-giving because any name automatically refers to
the absence of its opposite. Yet the experience of "no-self" is a fact
in a sense there isn't a "controller" or a "center of will" or a
"decider" or a "doer", unless the entire habit mind is emptied. The
illusion of being the controller is what makes up for the seeming
presence of "self" and witness. Without a "self", the witness is no more
too.

_______________________________________________________________________

Jerry:

Yes, I too feel younger now. I find the older I get in years, the better
I feel overall. One taps into a kind of youth, spiritual youth, to use
your words, that is always untouched and unscarred, even when one is old
and ill. I think many people who simply enjoy being alive and active
know that 'spiritual youth' whether they are spiritual people or not.

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Andrew Macnab:

...nothing is dropped, discarded, reviled;
it is consumed, sacrament, sustainance. All is holy. Temporal life is
food for true life. Relative is relative to itself and it is relative to
absolute, but all including relative is absolute. The scene becomes the
scene only through the viewer, and the viewer is made the viewer by the
scene. I am Alpha and Omega (and the sound of Alpha and Omega is "AUM").
Loving care for the new born, the one clinging soft winged to the pupal
case.
No come-alongs, but sound the alarm, the walls of the cave are
collapsing..
If one is free all are free; if one is bound all are bound. The
Judgement day is always right now, and the judge is the unicorn.

________________________________________________________________________

Gloria Lee:

Addressing My Soul


Within my mind I saw no change,
And conscience would not rearrange.
So if my fears I were to surrender,
Who would be my heart's defender?
I wish no more to suffer speech,
Words with meaning out of reach.

Seeing how I've fallen prey
To all my views -forsake-
Walking down the narrows of my mind.
I just pretend this life I make.

So in silence may I dwell,
There within all secrets tell.
Onto joy I'll surely hold,
In my smile it will be told.
Then without a single word,
You may be sure my voice is heard.

The watcher of this pageantry,
Wonders if soul may be the absent me;
Who pardons my "presence" with a kiss,
And simply returns to bliss.


_____________________________________________________________________


Marcia:

I have a friend and when I look into his eyes I
feel all the wonders of the sacred sexual chemistry.
We will never dance. Ah, yes, we are both
committed to someone else. And....we will never
dance for another reason. This reason I see in his
eyes also. A tremendous strength forged in the
fires of hell. For you see he will never dance. Not
in this lifetime anyway. He will never dance because
he is crippled. My heart breaks right open and he
and I enter the sacred chamber in total silence. I
shed silent tears of love and in his great strength
and compassion he comforts me. And somehow
we both feel complete.

_____________________________________________________________________

Tim Gerchmez:

There is a place where life is eternally minted anew, every second,
every instant. In this place, every moment is full of nothing but
POSSIBILITY. It is the very place that life itself exists and
continually renews itself. Most of us focus our attention on the past,
which is gone, or the future, which is unreal. The place I refer to is
the "Eternal Now Moment." Dwelling there, there is only joy, because
life has only possibilities and nothing else. At this borderline to
eternity, it is seen that life continually ceases and renews itself
afresh, forever, timelessly. Here is found no predestination, no cages
of dumb habit and ceaseless repetition of old patterns, but total
liberation. Each instant constantly dies and is renewed, and thus life
is ever fresh and new and unpredictable, like a cool mountain stream.
There are no looks back to the past, and no projection into a future,
because neither exist in this place. It is seen here that all is still,
that time does not exist. This is still-point -- the place from which
all life arises. Here lies a gateway to Eternity.

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

Gloria Lee:

It reminds me of some story about how the wake of the boat only marks
our passage and is not pushing the boat. The wind in our sails is, ever
fresh and new. I forget where I heard that metaphor, but your writing
evoked the memory of it. It also speaks to Ramana's remarks that there
is no predestination, nor free will. The wind blows....

I am glad to see more expression of feelings emerging with your concern
for truth. Someone once impressed me with the fact that truth and love
are the same, and cannot be separated, as any supposed difference is
another duality illusion. Only in limited, relative reality do they
appear as different and distinguishable. If you try interchanging one
word for the other in your reading and thoughts, it makes for some
interesting insights.

_______________________________________________________________________

Gene Poole responds to Andrew Macnab:

> Thank you Gene for your shining post.

Thanks to you, Andrew, for corresponding with me. It is your presence
which makes this possible.

> Yes, nothing is dropped, discarded, reviled;
> it is consumed, sacrament, sustainance. All is holy. Temporal life is >food
for true life. Relative is relative to itself and it is relative >to absolute,
but all including relative is absolute.

Yes, yes, and yes. "All including relative is absolute".

> The scene becomes the scene only through the
> viewer, and the viewer is made the viewer by the scene.

Yes. I hope that this fact is not skipped over as a mere 'new aphorism'
to read once and forget. This is what is stated by the finest secret
oral teachings of the Shamans of ancient Tibet. It is in 'realizing'
this, that one may be at peace, at a very basic and elementary level.
That peace soon attains to true emptiness. The inner 'I/Eye' will gaze
upon basic reality, if it is not assigned endless and essentially
undoable tasks. In so gazing, distracted less and less by this
understood reprioritzation of values, the 'absolute' is seen to come
into existence as the 'scene'; it may come in flashes, sudden events of
awareness, and it may come as a slow seeping or infiltration. At that
point of seeing, the viewer knows themself as the absolute, seeing the
absolute; the absolute seeing itself. It is not a reflection, it is it.
The illusion of reflection is actually what makes separation 'seemingly
possible', with all of the lifetimes of trouble that come with the
assumption of separation.

It is possible to articulate all of the many and various steps and
versions of this process or 'path', and such has been done in the inner
teachings of Vajrayana. Nothing definite is ever 'found'. By a lengthy
practice of daily 'ruling out' (or as some would say, 'neti-neti'), this
process of the realization of the seer is accomplished. It may take
'time', but at a certain point, the practice actually becomes
transtemporal (across time); eventually, one is able to 'enlighten' not
only themself, but also all of their ancestors. As you say, as long as
one is bound, all are bound. This is literally true. That is why it is
so important to give attention to the _process_ of unbinding.

Many dramatic stories, designed to recruit or enroll the 'needy', have
infiltrated the literature of spirituality. These dramatic stories,
which portray the romance of attainment, are like the wind that will
blow out the match you are trying to light. Even an old, weak and
somewhat damp match will ignite, in the absence of that sort of wind.

That wind is known as 'Vata', in the terminology of the ancient way of
Ayurveda, the Indian science of health and healing. 'Vata' is composed
of two 'forces' or 'properties', those being that of _movement_ (like
wind of air) and also _space_, called Aether. It is that space which is
consciousness; it is that wind, generated by the passions of attachment
and aversion, which disturb (perturb) that space which is consciousness.
Movement of consciousness is only occuring when there is stimulation to
that space; stimulation to that space may be from memory, or from the
environment. Much and troublesome stimulation to that space which is
consciousness, occurs if memory is parsing the environment, continually
culling in subtraction of 'neti-neti' or 'ruling out.

Neti-neti and ruling out must be done. The point is, to do that practice
to _clear space_, not to add a hurricane to that space which is
consciousness. This is why gentleness must be learned and exercised, at
least in regard to oneself. Getting extreme or rough with oneself, leads
only to more and more violent and self-punishing movements in that
space. Having compassion for oneself, one learns that in dealing with
oneself, one may create peace and space in ones own life. It is that
space which is the workshop of the conscious self.

This is entirely different than dealing with 'others', but eventually
the practice will infiltrate the lives of those around us. This event
leads to lessening of worrying feedback from others, or what _seems_ to
be others attitudes of criticalness toward oneself. When those two
factors are attended to... the factors of relationship with _self_ and
then with _others_... at that point, much space is freed. It is in that
space that is freed, that the 'real work' may begin. It all starts with
our ability to recognize that we are a real Being, with feelings,
attachments, and that it is more productive to the work, to have plenty
of space to do that work in. Adding huge files of 'shoulds' and
'shouldnots', no matter how holy-seeming, in an attempt to do something
good, only adds movement to the space which is consciousness.
Self-regulation is possible; gentleness and compassion for _oneself_ is
the foundational step. The work... is to gain that space which is the
power.

>I am Alpha and Omega (and the sound of Alpha and Omega is "AUM").
>Loving care for the new born, the one clinging soft winged to the pupal >case.

Yes. Each of us was and is that vulnerable Being, in our own time.

> No come-alongs, but sound the alarm, the walls of the cave are collapsing..
> If one is free all are free; if one is bound all are bound. The Judgement
>day is
> always right now, and the judge is the unicorn.

Indeed... the judge is the Unicorn. And to insure that my 'Unicorn'
metaphor does not lose potency, I will mention that we are speaking of
actual, real Unicorns here, not some vague and mushy idea of Unicorns.

Once again I thank you, Andrew / Ã-‡.

...Got a truthpick?

==Gene Poole==

_____________________________________________________________________


Jan:

The witness is only a witness in relation to self. Without self, nothing
remains to say a witness is left. A new situation arises where nothing
is left to witness. BTW, letting go suggests a return. One cannot "let
go" as a kind of trial to see "what is left". Something that speaks much
more to the imagination than self are feelings. Either one has feelings
or one doesn't. Suspension of all feelings is dreamless sleep or total
narcosis. So one cannot imagine how it is to be fully awake, yet
entirely without feelings, and likewise one cannot imagine to be without
self, no matter what intellectual game one is playing. This is the
meaning that when self is no more, neither is the witness.

______________________________________________________________________

Skye:

The solitary moon shines over the still clear lake,
But in the pool there is no moon,
The moon is in the night blue sky.

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