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Newcomer Cyndy introduced
herself and her M.O., then
shared an afterlife joke:

I've been sitting in the
bleachers eating popcorn for
quite a while now, listening,
learning, laughing, generally
enjoying the game. I receive
the digest version of the
Salon so even if I feel like
replying with my own little
bits of sarcasm or insights,
I don't, because I'm afraid
my response will be out of
sync with a thread long gone.

The comedy thread over
the last day was fun and
another rip off from another
list happened my way today.
I'll use it as my attempt as
an intro and a "thank you" to
all of you.

Cyndy

A couple made a deal
that whoever died first would
come back and inform the other
of the after life. The woman's
biggest fear was that there was
no heaven. After a long life,
the husband was the first to
go, and true to his word he
made contact.

"Mary... Mary.... "

"Is that you, Fred?"

"Yes, I have come back like we
agreed."

"What is it like?"

"Well, I get up in the morning;
I have sex; I have breakfast; I
have sex; I bathe in the sun,
then I have sex twice; I have
lunch, then sex pretty much all
afternoon; I have supper, then
I have sex until late at night;
sleep; then start all over
again."

"Oh, Fred, you surely must be
in heaven."

"Hell, no! I'm a rabbit in
Kansas."
__________________________________

Rony contributed a pithy pointing
about the ego:

If you can't find it it's either
because it doesn't exist or
because you are it.
__________________________________

An sweeping and intriguing
statement from Jan:

In some way, the manifest has to
arise from the unmanifest. Whether
called desire or disharmony, it
starts with an unnoticeably small
change. When disharmony exceeds a
certain limit, a movement sets in
to the unmanifest.
__________________________________

Andrew responded poetically:

A stirring in stillness, a tiny
turbulence, explosion of being.
Again and again.
__________________________________

Kristi held forth on the ego --
and death:

The ego is.....oh, so many
different things to so many
different people. The construct
that I like is: the false idea
that we are separate....or the
aspect of self which develops
through time and experience and is
the source of our identification
with the unreal...it is the
grasping, attaching, part of mind
....the source of pain, fear,
anxiety, offense...it is that which
we realize never existed except as
illusion when we walk into the
Source or the awakened mind....or
that "that which always was." So,
you're right, I guess, it's not
really there....but it has effect
until we choose an allegiance
elsewhere....I like this story......
about the illusory yet powerful
quality of ego.......A much beloved
master died and his student/ascending
master (Yogananda, I think this is a
true story) cried and cried. A
neophyte approached him and said...
"but teacher, you have always taught
us that death is an illusion....why
do you grieve?" Yogananda said, "Yes,
but it is the most painful illusion
of all."
__________________________________

This from Jerry:

MEANING

Whenever you assert something --
anything -- ask yourself, "What do
I mean?"

Having said whatever you say next,
again ask yourself, "What do I
mean?"
And again.
And again.

Continue to challenge yourself in
this way until every explanation,
justification, opinion, belief,
and defense of self falls before
the question,

"What do I mean?"

Finally, you will have no answer to
your self-questioning, and you will
admit that you do not know what you
mean, that everything you say and
believe is robotic, conditioned,
and obsoletebefore the last word is
out the door.

You will be silent.
You will remain silent.

That silence is meditation,
the heart of wisdom,
the center of the universe.
__________________________________

...and this from Phil:

"ECHO"
______

They never said self-realization
would be fatal to poetry --
as words come seldom to that One
that relishes the silence. That
is why there are occasions in which
the tranquil water must be stirred --
if only to enjoy the aberration of
being another One.
__________________________________

Petros on sex:

Ah yes, sex . . . a topic near and
dear to my heart.

You see, it's ALL sex. The birds do
it, the bees do it, the bees do it to
the birds, even the little atoms 'n'
molecules do it. It's all one
continuous giant megalo-cosmogasm.
Every cell and atom of my body is in
continual andgasm. (That's what I
believe in, not "or-gasms," which are
exclusive, but "and-gasms," which are
nondual.) The Universe is just an
excuse for God to have sex with
himself.

(I tried to explain all this to a
priest, but he kept mumbling something
in Latin and holding his crucifix up
in my face. Go figure.)
__________________________________

Jan apparently demurred:

No, God is just plain easygoing.
Instead of having continuously to
create, enjoying a continuing soap
opera of auto-multiplying meat eating
meat. For that reason, God made the
urge in humans so strong that they'll
risk anything to satisfy it in the
name of God and never get the idea of
being hoodwinked :))

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