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Issue
#1123 - Wednesday, July 3, 2002
All posts in this issue
from NDS
AL
LARUS
No number crunching
midnight brunching
no simple riddle
or magic fiddle
one or two or all together
looking for the single feather
when we ask
who gets the task
begin to think
here is the link
I and that out of the hat
Remember when
first count to ten
one white swan
on the lake at dawn
no to and fro
just letting go
bursting dying
no goodbying
no thing is staying off or on
not even zero, nothing, none.
______________________________________________________________________
Dear Fellow
Reader:
The new issue of the TAT Forum is now online at
http://www.tatfoundation.org/forum.htm.
This month's contents include:
The Mind (part 2 of 2) by
Richard Rose | Poems by Shawn Nevins | To Change or Not
to Change by Shawn Nevins | Still Point of the Turning
World (part 1) by Bob Cergol | Take Notice by Jim
Clatfelter | Awakening into Awareness (part 4 of 4) by
Metta Zetty | That Problem Mind by Bob Fergeson |
Honesty by Gary Harmon | Humor | Reader Commentary.
We hope you find inspiration and, as always, appreciate
hearing from you.
Sincerely, The Forum staff
____________________________________________________________________
GENE POOLE
Soon, I will go to see the new movie 'Minority Report'.
In this movie, the plot revolves around the question:
"What is VALID consciousness?"
It seems to me that behind a thin veil of spiritual
jargon, much of the rhetoric of 'enlightenment' is
nothing more than the ages-old argument over 'who has
the valid consciousness'.
That is to say, that I observe what is far worse than
mere snobbishness and eliteism; it is the virtual
relegation of persons who do not buy into a given
program, to a (nonexistent) realm of perpetual
ignorance and suffering.
In this modern 'advaitist' version of this age-old
racket of control and manipulation, persons are given
the choice between seeking 'enlightenment' as defined by
someone (the master in question) or wandring forever on
the astral hell-planes.
I am sure that there do exist valid teachers, guides,
and points of view; but those are being drowned out by
the delusional rantings and ravings of a few bad eggs,
who seem utterly determined to exploit the current
atmosphere, the current popularity of Advaita.
I advocate that a person may choose to utterly forget
all prior definitions, concepts, and advocacies which
seem to emanate from religious or quasi- religious
sources; it is possible to experience your own
experience, without having to have it defined and
qualified by anyone else at all.
It is not necessary to seek experience by category, not
is it necessary to categorize experience.
It is not necessary that every thought be accompanied by
an emotion; and emotion need not necessarily stimulate
thought.
It is unnessesary to 'know' the emotion which
accompanies the thought of another; it is also
unnessesary to assume that such is known.
It is difficult to determine the motive of another, and
it is foolish to allow the motives of another to become
your own motive.
Those who have been programmed/conditioned to expect
duality, will seek enlightenment as the obvious
alternative.
Those who do not expect duality, may not get it.
Putting the Enigmatic Transmission in 'Drive'...
==Gene Poole==
____________________________________________________________________
LISA
Hi Folks,
I hope this post finds you all well. I used to think of
nirvana as a gray mist, an endless place of
tranquility, peace and stillness however, looking at
the reality of our physical and mental states where
everything is in constant motion (cells continuously
remaking themselves/ourselves, thoughts, feelings
constantly emerging then fading into other/different
thoughts/feelings)I think nirvana is less a place of
tranquility, peace and stillness and more THE PLACE/TIME
where or at which one recognizes and accepts the
constant flux and motion of reality. Put more simply,
nirvana is reached once we see our situation for what
it really is...the point at which one stops struggling
to halt the motion. In my mind, that point does not
equate to tranquility, peace or stillness...seeing and
acceptance is just seeing and acceptance; it does not
make it hurt less or more nor does it add or subtract
happiness.
I realize this is a bit garbled but then so am I. Any
insight based on experience or not will be greatly
appreciated.
TIM HYDE
It may be that Lisa has said all that needs to be said,
here. But since this is a forum for words, I'll add some
of my own.
There is great character in nirvana. Although it is, as
you say, the point of accepting reality, it is also the
point of connecting with reality. It is a doorway
through which one enters the promised land. Without
getting too wispy and ethereal, the contact can be
overwhelming, but once it becomes familiar (hence an
emphasis on meditation as practice), there is a
lemniscate relationship. You know, the figure-of-eight
on its side symbol, which can represent infinity, but
also demonstrates the inter-relationship of energy flows
between two poles.
Here, the poles might be consciousness and its
manifestation, which of course includes the 'physical'
world, or world-of-form as I'd prefer to call it, since
that includes the psychic dimensions. Hence this is not
either a passive state. Our very polarisation as
tending-to-separate elements of one whole, means that
the interaction with that pole (which might be better
visualised as a centre) is a dynamic one of reciprocal
energies.
This picture of the flowing energies ... perhaps one
might call it Tao ?
RICHIE
Really, I do not think that any person having the
ability to speak, can truthfully speak with knowledge
on the topic you mentioned. I believe Nirvana is
another world having with different dimensions than we
have here. Think that our present mind and bodies must
die within us, before we will experience any thing new.
Could be completely wrong in what I am saying, but hey,
you asked for opinions, and I just gave it.
AVASA
Hi Lisa,
The definition of Nirvana: - extinguished.As in when
no-one and nothing is. What you are speaking of is
standing as the observer. As the one who observes you
are not what is being obsrved so by being in this
position you will eradicate your identity from the
objective reality and bring it back to its home ground,
the subject. Duality consist of both the subject AND the
object, they come into play together. One is the
manifest, the other the unmanifest. They arise together
other, two sides of the same coin. By staying in this
position the moment will arise when both dissolve into
to that which is neither manifest or unmanifest and this
that then remains is what you ARE. It is not new,
neither is it old. It is what you are each night in
deep sleep.YOU are No-thing which endures for ever. I
did not in any way find what you wrote garbled in fact i
thought it well explained, My God !? I understood it ,
where does that place me?
Much Love Avasa
JAMES TRAVERSE
Hi Lisa,
Nothing Endures! - Quite right!
~~~
The nature of One is two - this is the Tao.
One is like a couple or a 'marriage' which appears as
'two' and yet the couple is: "Two - together as One".
This is Tao.
Like the duality of electricity or magnetism - a couple
has the polar qualities of feminine and masculine and
yet 'The Whole' is before/between/beyond its
qualities/poles etc...
There is never (was or will be) a time when the 'two'
are not together - there is the illusion of separation
which can only exist with 'you' as its accomplice (even
the illusion of 'two' is 'not two').
The qualities of One are Definite and Infinite:
Movement and Stillness - Stillness and Movement.
JAN BARENDRECHT
Whatever thought on nirvana isn't nirvana. All creatures
are born fully aware. Overpowering feelings and the
thoughts stirred up by them cause this to be forgotten.
As the primordial bliss is subtlest of subtlest and
doesn't oppose, that happens without noticing it. I
still remember how the feeling of hunger did that but
didn't leave a memory of "forgetting" - the term
"recognition" when suddenly fully aware again comes
closest, despite the notion that nothing really happened
which was quite puzzling when a layman regarding
"spiritual affairs".
Hence, what the ignorants term "enlightenment" is but
the dissolution of this mental flurry of feelings and
related thought patterns, you never asked for but had to
continue to accept in order to function... Surprise
then that at age 50 the flurry is a bit more than at
say, age 24?
For the sake of argument, this "primary layer" of
conditioning could be termed unnatural as it is the
residue of painful experiences, determining
responsiveness a great deal (Expressed in phrases like
"life is determined by fate/the stars/God/Kali/the
Kundalini" etc. etc..)
The secondary layer is another matter, it concerns the
conditioning termed "animal man" and when dissolved,
peace rules, irrespective activity/emotions. The
"Advaita" idea of peeling the onion could easily be
proved to be incorrect as functioning actually improves
and "hidden" talents spontaneously surface. As to no
surprise the dissolution of the second layer is termed
"nirvana/moksha/union of lover &
beloved/liberation"
and it won't be a surprise it is "hard work" as
"animal
man" is quite pernicious and doesn't leave
"voluntarily" (i remember a Ramana quote, stating he
didn't talk on 'liberation' often). For those with eyes
to see, Lalla recorded her impressions on "liberation"
in a poem - one that was posted some time ago.
All good things coming in three, for the sake of
argument, there is a third layer which could be called
"human perspective" and is not "up" for
discussion. But
the Buddha left a few marks on it...
BTW, the above wasn't quoted or "made up": just a
summary of past events "while the show continues".
JERRY KATZ
The more mind ('I think') and movement ('Nirvana is
reached') are removed, the better. And this is tricky
because such 'removing' would seem to require mind and
movement!
A shift is required. There are different ways of
positioning oneself -- basically known as sadhana, a
spiritual life, a teaching, relationship with a Guru --
so that the shift happens.
VICKI WOODYARD
Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within. He had
a lot of nirvana to say that!
___________________________________________________________________
JERRY
mmm, i really like this one. me too, i always wanted to
be perfect Chinese girl...
http://www.favoritepoem.org/archive/liang.html
(link may no longer be working.)
Yina Liang, teenage student -
I'm Nobody by Emily
Dickinson
____________________________________________________________________
JERRY
Kip Mazuy. A new guru on the block.
http://www.bliss-music.com/enlightenment.htm
______________________________________________________________________
JERRY
Believe me, you spend 15 minutes in a 200 degree sauna
and everyone in there is sharing one experience:
melting, breathing, watching the breath and heartbeat,
and everything else is dropping away. At such a point
must be where the sauna meets the Sweat Lodge.
I'm not comparing the two experiences, the Sweat Lodge
being a deeply traditional spiritual experience in
which commonality is realized not just on a physical
but on a spiritual level. Everyone is brought to their
commonality, all the members of different tribes, and
that's a good direction to move, toward commonality not
separateness.
NINA
Sweat Lodge may be a deeply traditional spiritual
experience, but the women's sauna at the Y half an hour
before closing on a Sunday has had a particular appeal
to me.
I thought it a freezone, a space situated behind enough
thresholds to remove it from the demanding eye of
social structure. Skins sloughed with each threshold:
down the stairs, through the vestibule, through the
dressing room door (this, a significant one, into the
women-only realm), to the locker (where the artifacts
are shed), through the toilet rooms (more shedding),
through the showers (more shedding), and into the
sauna. Deeply buried, it is amazing what starkly naked
strangers will share... and how alike the sharings are.
One time, though, I found the reverence of my Sunday
Sauna disrupted in an oddly cutting way.
That week, after warming right up to the 10 minute
warning mark, my sauna companions went their way to the
locker room while I stepped into the shower to cool
off. Walking out of the shower, I was surprised by the
janitor. Actually, I don't know who was more surprised,
or if he wasn't surprised at all. Beyond all reasoning,
I said "Hey, how you?" in my most casual local speak.
He stammered, "Uh!" I left the room.
I mentioned this incident to other women in the locker
room, who were greatly disturbed and asked a
surprisingly unconcerned staffer to look into it.
Thinking this was the end of the story, I was walking
out of the Y, past the front desk, when I heard someone
yell "That's her! She's the one!" I turned to see the
janitor pointing at me, the staffers behind the desk
laughing and everyone in the lobby staring.
Suddenly, I'm the villain. Just for being naked in a
place where it ought to be totally ok. That is what
happens when the worlds outside the thresholds collide
with the worlds within. Seems that my construction of
the sanctity of that space was shown to be just that: a
construction, very easily shattered.
I'm still looking for the commonality in that scene. Was
it the moment of mutual surprise? Was it the moment of
mutual embarrassment? Which is worse? Losing your job
or losing your dignity?
Luckily, neither of us lost either of those things.
________________________________________________________________________
VIORICA WEISMAN
Awareness cleaned my mind
to a polished mirroring.
The presence came near , and I knew
that That was everything ,
and I nothing.
- Lalla
Naked Song