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Non Duality Highlights Tuesday, April 15, 2003 issue #1402 editor - michael
Words from the Dalai Lama:
The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it--and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves as a human species, so that we will never treat each other this way again.
more at: www.sacredcow.com/ ta2001/dalai.html
--- In SufiMystic@yahoogroups.com, Jan Sultan wrote:
from Diamond Heart, Book II
[ http://www.ridhwan.org/dheartb.html ]
Liberation and the Experience of Essence
This issue typically arises for people who have a taste of
essence,
some experience of their true nature, because the taste brings an
appetite for complete liberation. Liberation or freedom is not
really
concerned with any particular essential aspect, quality, or
state. It
does not matter what essential state exists in the experience of
liberation. If you are free from personality, you are free no
matter
what the state is. In the state of liberation the content of
experience becomes unimportant. It is very ordinary. Nothing
specific
happens, no huge realization or mindshattering experience. It is
the
most natural state. It is so ordinary and so natural that when we
have it, we don't know we have it. It is so uneventful that
almost
everyone goes in and out of it frequently. There are no flashing
lights or brilliant suns. There is no drama. Liberation is beyond
the
dichotomy of essence and personality, and because it is so
uneventful, it usually escapes us. Its subtlety prevents us from
recognizing it, or even from being aware that it is happening. It
is
not easy to talk about it because it is so ordinary; there is
nothing
in particular that is present or not present. It is a state you
experience every day when you are not self-conscious or concerned
with anything in particular.
When your mind is free, not concerned, or worried, or focused on
anything in particular, and your heart is not grasping or
clinging to
anything, then you are free. The most characteristic quality is
that
there is no fixation on anything; you're not focused on any issue
or
experience. Whatever is there, is there. So there is a freedom of
mind. The mind is not saying, "I want this," or "I
want to look at
this," or "It has to be this way." The mind is
loose. The
expression "hang loose" tells us what it means to be
liberated.
http://www.geocities.com/~cathing/
--- In SufiMystic@yahoogroups.com,
Jan Sultan wrote:
Q: What do you mean by 'it was done'? You became enlightened?
Catherine Ingram: Enlightenment is not a word I use. I prefer to
call this a natural way of being, the most natural actually. Or
just radiant
presence or dear awareness, clear seeing. I don't use the word
enlightenment because the term itself is very loaded. To many
people
it implies a kind of Big Bang after which you are eternally in a
steady state called enlightenment. While in fact the actual
experience is a kind of opening in spaciousness, here and now,
which
allows anything to come and go, with no resistance. It is not a
state, it is just relaxing into a natural ease of being. It's
already
here. When people use the word enlightenment, it implies some
point
in time that you hop into or it happens to you and then you are
there
for ever more... I don't think this is a good way of thinking
about
it.
Q: Then let me put the question this way: with Poonjaji you
realized
your true nature?
CI: Yes, but what I saw was a recognition of something I already
knew. I just hadn't been paying full attention to it. I hadn't
given
it it's due, it's importance, until I met Poonjaji. I didn't
realize:
this is IT. And then I saw it really was ~. And it became more
and
more IT, over time. Everybody has the potential of knowing and
living
in this vastness. Everyone has an awakened nature and is
consciousness manifesting. It just has to do with what you are
paying
attention to. Some people are paying more attention to this ease
of
being. They are allowing their attention to rest essentially in
this
ease of being. Little bubbles on the screen may come by and
sometimes they get a little attention, but that's about it. While
normally people are lost in the bubbles on the screen; they focus
on them.
That's the difference. It is a switch of perception.
Q: A switch in perception which usually takes place as a gradual
process?
CI: Well, it can happen totally instantaneously too. Some people
recognize their true nature right away and that is where their
attention rests from that moment on. But for many people it is a
process of getting used to it. It is not a process of an
occurring;
it is a process of a consistency. It is a deepening and a slow
relaxation into that recognition. .... It takes a moment to
realize
that the central problem is gone before you realize that all the
other problems that were hanging on to it are also gone. The
moment
you recognize your true nature, it takes a moment to realize that
all
your problems were hanging on the central erroneous belief that
you
are somebody. When this belief is gone, all the problems are gone
at
the same time. To realize this is waking up fully from the dream.
Q: How did the process of realizing your true nature develop for
you?
CI: When I first recognized this pure awareness, that nobody ever
touches, which nothing ever sticks to, it was very thrilling to
me. I
thought that I would never again notice anything else. But the
little
bubbles, neuroses and all kinds of things came up again. They
caught
my attention for a little while. And then they fell away again
and
there was this spaciousness, vastness again. So on one hand I
could
say it has been a gradual process. But on the other hand I would
say
it has really gone quite quickly and continuously. And it still
goes
on and on.
Readers Write Back
Please tell our friend Ken Wilber that he has the rare gift of
obscuring any issue or question in a flood of meaningless
neologisms and absurd concepts.
Earl McHugh Jerry responds:
It's no wonder he's so popular. Look at all the stuff he
drops into your Halloween pillow case: THE TWENTY TENETS
THE FIVE PHASES
THE FOUR QUADRANTS
THE TEN LEVELS THREE TYPES OF SCIENCE And more!
However, I have seen quotes that are direct and without the
intellectual ginger bread. Jerry
dear jerry,
i think this piece is by you? i'm appreciating its beauty and clarity, for me right now. (whoever that is)
i've written a couple of small questions below, in the "avenues" paragraph.
if you would care to clarify these for me i'd like that. and if it's inappropriate for me to ask that in this context -- maybe i should be sending this to the NDS list (but i don't generally read it) -- that's fine.
thanks
& love
martha
(martha is responding to issue #1401)
--- In NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com,
"fewtch" wrote:
"What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the
homeless
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of
totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
--Mahatma Gandhi
--- In NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com,
"markwotter704" wrote:
Go to Sleep - Dan Bern
Enough of this throat singing already
If you wanna sing two notes at once
Why don't you do like everyone else
Get a multi-track machine
Lay 'em down separately
Make a little harmony
Maybe a bass track
Like one from the Rolling Stones
None of this long lost art
This archaic stuff
Go out and make something
If you wanna make some dough
You oughta invest in my company
We're putting barcodes
On the fetuses
Using ultrasound
And laser technology
We used to do babies
But some of them still got mixed up
This takes care of that
My love, go to sleep
We'll wake you tomorrow
My love, go to sleep
We'll wake you tomorrow
There's some tomatoes
Chemically engineered
They come out square
To fit in boxes
There's some people
Chemically engineered
They come out square
To fit in boxes
I'm sitting on the roof today
All by myself
Not saying nothing
To no one
I'm sitting on the roof today
All by myself
Not saying nothing
Goodbye
My love go to sleep
We'll wake you tomorrow
My love go to sleep
We'll wake you tomorrow
Love, Mark
--- In NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com,
"Jerry Katz" wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mary Bianco
> To: Nonduality Salon
> Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 12:10 AM
> Subject: [NDS] re: the end of it all
>
>
> <Tell me your world didn't change a little
when you met your
first square pizza. Mine did. Oh it was a good pizza, but I felt
I was
shooting marbles with dice. It was like waking up and finding the
pyramids are concrete boxes. Sure, there's still a mummy encased
in gold, still gobs of Italian sausage lost in a quick sand of
mozarella, but where's the sacredness? The day they squared
pizza, God nearly left the ristorante. I say 'nearly' because
there were still the meatballs. And Louisa!
>
> Jerry>
>
>
> ...and (sigh) square watermelons that fit in the
fridge...
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1390088.stm
>
> mary
>
> lord have mercy, what they've done to
watermelons shouldn't be
done to anything. Except gurus.
>
> j.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Illuminata
Mace Mealer
Whatever one may think it
is,
it is not.
Whatever one may long to
find
is unfindable.
Have you not been instructed
that the answer,
that is not an answer,
does not bend to thought
or desire?
Yet not garnered
by the thoughtless
or corrupted by want,
recognition patiently awaits
the caring heart.
--- In NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com,
"Gene Poole" wrote:
A long, entertaining, and thought-provoking
article in Scientific American online...
http://tinyurl.com/9jsf
Note: The site has been 'slashdotted' (again) and
so may be slow to load.
If less is more, nothing is everything.
==GP==
editor's note: the site loaded fine on my dial-up connection.
Thank you for the link, Mr. Poole.