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Highlight #1428 Sunday, May 11, 2003 Editor: Gloria
Only those who risk
going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.
T.S. Elliot
What
is Divinity
"What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch,
These are the measures destined for her soul."
~ Wallace Stevens ~
Sunday Morning, 1915
http://spotmetering.com/magnolia.JPG
Magnolia image and poem thanks to Joyce, Know Mystery
Daily Dharma
"The Buddha's
teachings on love are clear. It is possible to live
twenty-four hours a day in a state of love. Every movement, every
glance, every thought, and every word can be infused with
love."
~Thich Nhat Hanh
From the book, "Teachings On Love," published by
Parallax Press.
A
Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
http://www.advaita.org
May 11
Nature does not know or care about the world or man-made
opposites. Nature
is perfectly satisfied and happy to produce a world of infinite,
rapturous
variety that knows nothing about pretty or ugly, ethical or
unethical.
Nature never apologizes for anything, nor does it see or
acknowledge
anything of man's misconceived errors of opposition.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Man has become addicted to the drug named "intellect"
and under its
influence compulsively analyzes everything, cogitating,
speculating and
making all simple things complicated. This addiction can
only be gotten rid
of by unconditional surrender to the process of pure receptivity.
Bill Rishel SufiMystic
RE:
Earning a livelyhood
A couple of months ago it struck me that my
"real job" is to be a *being of light*,
and it is a job that no one can take from me.
It is a job that is always mine, if I want it.
And more recently it has struck me that,
"If I don't stay on the job, I don't get paid!"
-Bill
Gill Eardley SufiMystic
From:
An Interview with Joseph Goldstein By Amy Gross
http://www.dharma.org/teachers/joseph/interviews/jg_int3.htm
How
have your teachers responded to this intermingling of traditions?
Within each tradition there's a liberal-conservative spectrum.
Some
teachers emphasize preserving the purity of a tradition, and
others are
more open and engaged with other perspectives. I genuinely don't
believe that one approach is right and one is wrong. They each
serve
different types of people and temperaments, and each approach may
also be appropriate at different times in one's practice. There
are
dangers and strengths in each.
What is the danger of openness?
Confusion. People can pick a little of this and a little of that
and not
go deep. Or we can begin to pick and choose what parts of the
teachings we like or are comfortable with and discard the
rest.
This could lead to diminishing of the power and scope
of the
teachings. But if we integrate aspects of different traditions
from a
deep place of practice, then the traditions can support each
other
and be wonderfully harmonious.
Jerry
Katz NDS
http://real21mt.audiovideoweb.com/ramgen/avwebbb1055/dennisjennings.rm pretty good website: http://www.georgecarlin.com
Roy Whelan LivingAdvaita
Dear
Steve,
Thankyou once again for this dialogue.
I think that what we are really saying is that there is still
a 'wanting', a feeling that we are lacking something. This
feeling
may be an habitual reaction coming from the emotional and
physical
levels, when there is a lack of stimulation coming from the mind.
When we stop what we are doing, there is an emptiness. If we stay
with this emptiness, in the feeling of it, it has a chance of
transforming itself. On an emotional level, there may be a
feeling of
flatness, but if we stay with it, in the feeling and the
listening,
it transforms itself, without our willing it to do so. But we
have to
stay with it - not expecting anything - but just keeping the door
open.
My feeling is that residual emotional and physical impulses can
be
dispersed through gentle, spontaneous, and mindful meditative
body
movement, stretching and bending. There are numerous methods and
non-
methods, but one can experiment onself - staying always in the
feeling and in the listening, not grasping after any result -
just
participating in it purely for the enjoyment of going deeper and
deeper into the feeling and into the letting go, into letting out
the
breath that we have been holding in - that final resistance that
we
have been holding onto. One movement, one stretch, one bend may
take
10 or 20 minutes .... or it may take 10 or 20 seconds. We just
lose
our mind in it, in the deep mindfulness of it. There is no one
doing
this - it is just happening in the emptiness, and in the
emptiness
the mind is cleared of all its grasping, all its residual holding
on.
Of course, when the movement is over, the mind may come back
again
with its habitual ways ... but we do not need to identify with
it.
Did you see the film 'A Beautiful Mind'? The thoughts, the
visions,
may continue for a long time - but we change our relationship to
them, we see them for what they are - a shadow show, an endless
play
of images that have no attachment to what we really are in our
deepest centre. So, anger and fear may arise occasionally, and we
do
not have a personal reaction to them - we just see them rise, and
we
see them fade away. We breathe them in and we breathe them out -
holding on to nothing.
And getting back to what you say: "I try to become
enlightened,
awakened to this truth that I am not feeling or experiencing like
they are" (those who give satsang). How do you know you are
not
feeling or experiencing like they are? They may only be repeating
what they have heard elsewhere. You may never know who is for
real
and who is faking it, convincing themselves that they are in a
higher
state than they are, or a higher state than you are. It is simply
a
matter of awareness, humility and a deep confidence that one is
not
fooling oneself. When you are not in becoming, not trying to
reach
some state, some different level, and also not running away from
anything, you will know where you are. Calling it 'the now'
or 'reality' satisfies the mind, but means nothing really. There
are
people who talk about it but don't really know it, and there are
people who know it but don't talk about it. There is nothing
fixed.
Enlightenment is merely a concept. The wise know that there is no
end-
state which once attained never changes. Enlightenment may only
be
the beginning. It is my feeling that when some of these teachers
speak of their awakening, they are merely talking about the first
real time when they saw through the veil non-intellectually. This
awakening is bound to broaden, deepen and become more constant
during
the course of their lives. But I have seen such teachers when
they
have been stuck in their minds, depressed or angry - long after
their
so called 'awakening'. The residues still arise and get
dispersed.
Life is an ever changing revelation - whether we are
'enlightened' or
not. And who is enlightened anyway? The 'person' is a figment of
our
imagination - it appears and it disappears. Even the biggest egos
dissolve into nothingness. They are merely an appearance. This is
all
we need to see, that it is a play of the infinite. In the seeing
of
this is the key to the transformation of how we relate to
everything
in this world. In this seeing is also the key to our happiness
and
sense of inner peace.
But, then you already know all this ..........!
Warm regards
Roy
Gill Eardley Rumi-Hafiz
Feast at
Purani Haveli
The haunted palace resounds with songs.
The doves dance around the lamps, and the owls, amazed, shake
their heads.
Far, far away the noise of the teeming
streets: stars, falling in ponds, and the rhythms of drums. Out of a broken
heart grows the slender date-palm of grief, shedding its fruits
on the meadows of joy - fruits, sweeter than death. From:
'Nightingales Under the Snow' Annemarie
Schimmel
------------
Allspirit
Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk
Group
homepage: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rumi-hafiz/
Gloria
Lee
http://www.newdimensions.org/online-journal/articles/primal-sounds.html"We all were alive in our grandmother's womb...."The following is an excerpt from a "New Dimensions" radio program featuring master percussionist and performer Layne Redmond. She teaches workshops and performs internationally, powerfully blending ritual with virtuoso playing. She is the author of When the Drummers Were Women (Three Rivers Press 1997). This program was hosted by New Dimensions' Associate Producer Jeff Wessman.
Layne Redmond: I believe it is the oldest instrument. The frame drum is an archetypal idea. It turns up over and over again in many cultures throughout the world, in all time periods. I think of it as an emitting artifact because it sounds the same as it did at least 8,000 years ago when we first see it depicted on a wall painting in Çatal Hüyük in ancient Turkey. It is exactly the same-a skin stretched over a hoop. So I know that when I play the frame drum, it sounds the same as it did thousands of years ago. So it is very archetypal; yet the hand technique that is played on it in different cultures can be very, very complex. I focused on studying the hand technique. There is a tradition in which the frame drum is played with a stick, but I concentrate on the hand technique. I've only been able to master a few of the techniques. There are so many that I could spend a number of lifetimes trying to learn them all. As I studied the designs and images painted on the frame drum, I realized that many of the designs represented the womb of the Goddess. Many of the drums were painted red, the color of blood. Last night I opened the concert with the first sound that you ever hear, the sound of your mother's blood pulsing through her arteries. You actually don't hear her heartbeat; you hear the sound of the blood gushing. I have come to realize that is why all the goddesses in ancient art were holding the frame drum. I studied fetal development because I wanted to find out when we could actually hear in the womb. Our ears complete their development at six months of fetal age, and that is when we can actually hear. We entrain immediately to sounds. In studying the fetal development I came across another piece of information that was profound: that all the eggs a woman will ever have form in her ovaries by the time that she is a four-month-old fetus. That means that the egg that became me formed in my mother's ovary when she was a four-month-old fetus growing in the womb of her mother, my grandmother. In the form of that sacred egg I spent five months in my grandmother's womb! That was very profound for me to realize. I created a meditation based around it taking people back through the sound of the blood, back through all the grandmothers, back to the very first mother, and back to that pristine state of unconditioned consciousness-our original nature, which is total and pure potential. That has become a profound meditation for myself and then for my students. I teach it in all my workshops. All drumming is an extension of that first sound that we cellularly formed to. Our cells came together and we grew into a human being to the pulse of that sound. Drumming is an echo of that first sound. Through that first sound and through this meditation, we can go back to that pristine, original nature of unconditioned, unrestricted consciousness and bring that into the present moment.
Order Layne's book through Powell's and support New Dimensions at the same time. Learn more about Layne's work at her site: (Ed.note: and hear her drumming)
This article has been excerpted
from New Dimensions |
