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TIM HARRIS

Each life a pebble
dropped
in the sea of life.
Each one a song
singing
that can not hear itself
until it reaches
every shore
and then,
returning home
it finds peace.

=====
Gentle Peace.

___________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

"Chimes"

A soft and gentle rain falls.
A strange, thin cloud layer sings in the sky.

Softly, the wind blows.
The sound of wind chimes are heard.

Strangely, the sound is silent.
The absence of E minor chimes.
The absence of A major rings.
Absolute silence chimes
with each non-movement of the hollow tubes.

Silence mingling with the raindrops.
Emptiness blowing in the wind.
Chime after chime, gently, ringing only silence.

The rain falls,
The chimes ring silence.
Nothing is happening.
Nothing has ever happened.
Nothing will ever happen.

___________________________________________________________________

ALEKS

(from the works of Goethe)

the holy longing

tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the massman will mock it right away.
i praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

in the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

now you are no longer caught
in your obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.

distance does not make you falter,
no, arriving in magic, flying,
and, finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

and so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on a dark earth.
--1814

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MELODY

One more tonight from my file of Sandeep's postings:

Once there lived a great artist, a sculptor and painter.
His art was so perfect that when he made a statue of a man,
it was virtually impossible to differentiate the man from
the statue.
It was so lifelike, so alive, so similar.

Comes a seer who tells him that his death is fast
approaching.
Frightened and wishing to avoid death, the sculptor thinks
hard and finally gets a clue for escape.

He made eleven statues of himself and when Death knocked at
his door he stood among the statues, not breathing.

The angel of Death was puzzled, couldn't believe his eyes.
So alike, so same, who to take with him?
It had never happened before, so irregular, God always
creates unique, never duplicates and here 12 of the same.

Worried and nervous, he goes to God and explains the
problem.
God laughs and whispers something in his ear.
"Will it work" asks the nervous Angel of Death.
"Oh yes, I know Man a bit" replies God.

Returning back to the room of 12 statues, the Angel of Death
looks around and addressing no one in particular says
"Everything is perfect except one thing.You have done very
well, only one point was missed. Only one error."

Immediately the sculptor jumps out " What, what error?"
He the greatest sculptor and error!

The Angel of Death laughs" The only error was that you could
not forget yourself.
Come along chum."

Death is of what we have known about ourselves, what we have
believed ourselves to be, both the mundane definitions as
well as the spiritual definitions mind you.
This bag of knowledge concretised is the ego.
And the spiritual ego is the hardest to see through as it is
more subtle and hence more powerful.

So long the identification is with these definitions, death
is a reality.
Cut the identification and death is a joke.

The sculptor was a caught because he truly could not become
one of the statues, I.e., could not disappear into
non-being.

In zikr

Sandeep
____________________________________________________________________

XAN

I think sometimes I just got to get me a church 'cause I
feel the spirit coming on and just rushing around in me so
strong, I just got to let it out my mouth. Yessiree. This
heart of mine wants to jump out of me and run around the
whole place and gather everybody up and sit them down
because I've got something to say. I've got to say it.
I've just got to.

And maybe you don't want to hear about it, but I really
think your heart wants to hear it. And maybe you don't like
the way I preach, but I'll tell you something. In the
deepest heart of you, it doesn't care how I preach or how
the other fellow preaches, because all it wants to hear
about is the plain truth. And this is just what I've got to
preach about, and deep in the heart of me I don't even care
if you're listening or judging or thinking or something
completely different, because this spirit just comes over me
and jumps out of my mouth.

And this is what I've got to say ... and this is all I've
got to say. If you think you are a somebody who did this or
that, and who this and that happened to, well you've just
plumb mistaken. All those stories you tell about you and
her or you and him or you and them that's all they are.
They're just stories. Maybe they're good stories with a lot
of adventures in them and maybe they're pretty sad stories
and maybe they're sort of boring stories, but it doesn't
matter at all. Because once you put down that book or walk
out of that movie or shut your own mouth about it, what are
you then? What are you when all that talking and
remembering and singing has quit? Aren't you that Alive
something that was talking and was listening and watching
that whole time? And aren't you just that same Alive
something that is still here now?

In fact, I'll ask you this. If it came right down to it and
you had to say what that something is, could you even
rightly call it a Something? Be honest, now. Could you?
Maybe you're saying 'Well that's just me.' and I would have
to say to you 'Yes ma'am' or 'Yes sir' it is you, but does
that mean it's a Something? Look real close now, just as
quiet as you can be.

Just as quiet as that mouse they talk about. And now I bet
you can't tell what you said was something called Me from
what is looking. Can you now?
Tell the truth.

And this something that isn't really anything you could name
at all how does it feel to look real close? Closer and so
close that looking just plain quits because there's nothing
there to look at? But what's it feel like?

Can you get any words together around it that cover the
whole of it? Oh, I know, sometimes it'll shoot all out like
fireworks and sometimes it'll be as still as a trout fishing
hole. And sometimes you'll feel like the first time you
fell in love back when it was all pure and happy except you
just can't think who it is you might be in love with. But
mostly if you keep on there and don't go off wandering
around the world getting into trouble again you'll find out
this Alive something that is nothing just has no end to it
at all. And if you don't go trying to decide what it ain't,
well it'll just keep on showing you more and more of where
it's been hiding at.

It's that kind of something and nothing that just fills up
the whole darn place, like sky except it doesn't even stop
at the top of your head or the bottom of your feet. And
lord knows there's just no end to the surprises you can get
once you get off of your high horse and down on your knees.

It just makes you wonder how you ever could have gotten
yourself in such a fix that you didn't even know this sweet
beauty was going on all the time.
It's like you played a game of hide and seek with yourself
and you got so much into the hiding part that you feel
asleep in there, like the kids do sometimes. Then you go
around calling and calling them to dinner. Once they come
out they're all grumpy and fussy for a while but it's ok
because the game is over and everybody gets to go home.

amen
___________________________________________________________________

JERRY: That was the moment in which Reality was seen. That
moment, however, is not sufficient.

MIRA: If that moment is not sufficient, then what is...?

JAN: For those not satisfied with seeing a moment of
Reality, perhaps this:
When that moment is the unconditional "NOW", events are
being witnessed as seemingly forming an ongoing movie at the
end of which, nothing really has changed :)

PEON: Maybe my answer is not anyone elses answer and that is
fine, but one moment it would appear changed the life and
future of Jesus, the story of his being in the desert and
confronted by Satan before beginning his ministry, Buddha
had his moment, Whitman "How I lay upon the grass, my heart
stripped bare....." Ospensky, Bucke in a chariot returning
home after an evening dicussing Whitman and Emerson, Dante,
J Krisnumurti relates his single experience, and hundredsof
others who relate a sinlge "moment" as being sufficient to
die and be reborn a new person, free of the attachments and
desires of the one who died.


Yet one moment is not "suficient" for the state of Awakening
need remain a constant in ones life to be of great value.
The knowledge of oneness is IMHO fruit of the experience but
living Enlightenment is not the single experience itself,
anymore than a ticket is flight to elsewhere or an auto is a
trip.


I have seen all too many however confuse feeling with
Enlightenment....as though the Bliss should endure as a
constant. The same nerve endings and brain cells which
deliver pleasure deliver pain and I would not wish to endure
intense pain as a constant.


Best those Awakened acknowledge such and be on with the
living rather than the regretting less the value be lost,
____________________________________________________________________

JERRY: There is a space, an interval there, at that place
which neither is nor is not. Everything pours into that
interval eternally. The knowing, the seeing of that
spilling into the interval, is something of what it is like
to be, what people call, enlightened, if you want to look at
the dynamics of enlightenment.

SYENA: This is what I call the Gap...The space between
breaths....between thoughts...The stillness....The silence
that is not silent. As far as I am concerned it is
sufficient to just go there.
Everything comes from there and it all filters out to here.
That is all I know put very simply. My brain just drained
reading all the words and thoughts and ponderings between
you two. It was exhausting. I am not being critical here,
just expressing what it literally did to me. Now maybe this
comes from my ignorance of what was being said? But I do
know the essence of it. I know if not Understand. I just
wonder what use is it to go round and round and round about
with a finite mind trying to sort out that which is infinite
and unexplainable in limiting terms of speach? Does not the
experience of that solve the whole shooting match? Is not
the other just mental masterbation? Words that have spirit
behind them, that enliven the heart that point the way to
Bliss.....those are recognized by all. I think you are
grand......Thanks for bringing this out for me to see.
Love and Namaste.

______________________________________________________________________
The Pathway of Nonduality

by Raphael

Chapter 8

Maya

Q. What is meant by the term maya?


A. The term has a number of different meanings according to
the points of view of the different Vedantic currents.
Thus, phenomena, prakriti-nature, sakti, avidya, that which
renders possible the impossible, taking one thing for
another, veiling superimposition, etc. refer all to maya.


Q. What is meant, for example, by 'veiling
superimposition'?


A. It means superimposing a thing upon another thus taking
a thing to be something else. For example, we can
superimpose the colour blue upon the sky which is really
colourless. We can superimpose the physical body upon the
pure atman so that we fall into the error of considering the
physical body as being absolute and real. We can
superimpose a 'concept' upon a reality, the nature of which
is different. In this way we had, for a long time, a
'concept' of matter which we have to rectify. This implies
that we superimposed an erroneous idea upon the datum called
'matter'.


Superimposition is caused by two factors: the one projective
-- we project with our imagination an idea, a concept, etc.
-- the other veiling, because the projection veils and hides
the reality of the datum. In fact, the blue colour that we
have projected upon the sky hides the true nature of the
sky, just as the concept of physical body, which we have
projected upon the atman, hides as a result the true nature
of the atman.


Maya is not a real-absolute datum, it does not belong to the
category of tangible objects, it can be recognized by simple
ascertainment. For example, we might easily take a piece of
rope -- if we saw it lying in a country lane -- to be a
snake; in this case we have superimposed the concept of
'snake', or the image-snake, upon the rope, which is not the
snake. But on looking more carefully we recognize, or
ascertain, that the snake does not exist and what really
exists is instead a rope. Who fooled us? Maya. From this
standpoint we can say that the 'projection' of the snake is
the outcome of an error of perception, the effect of not
knowing, the fruit of avidya (ignorance concerning the true
nature of a thing).


Q. What is meant by saying that maya is synonymous with
prakriti-nature?


A. Prakriti is the equivalent of natura naturans, of
substance, of 'matter' (in a special sense), of the
universal Mother that produces bodies, forms of all
dimensions and degrees.


It is the plastic and eternal substance (as a pole of the
essence) from which all things produced are made. A
body-form (such as a cloud in the sky or a mineral or
vegetal body) which is born, grows and dies represents a
phenomena; therefore, maya-prakriti is a producer of
phenomena. All we see around us is phenomenon, it is
maya-prakriti.


This prakriti-matter -- as we now know -- not only undergoes
endless change, but can resolve itself into other grades of
energetic density; mass can resolve itself into energy and
physical energy into subtle, superphysical energy, or into
non-matter. All bodies and planes of existence are made of
maya-prakriti stuff. Therefore, maya is synonymous with
prakriti, with phenomenon, with movement-change, since a
body is the result of a particular mayika movement.


Sakti is the name give to nature in movement.


Q. We are all maya-sakti then?


A. If the human individual were made of only the physical
body we would be obliged to give a positive answer. The
dense physical body of man is maya, because it is matter,
phenomenon, movement-change. It is born, it grows and dies;
it is subject therefore to transformation, change,
dissolution. This is the conception of the materialist who
considers matter to be the absolute reality.


But for the traditional Philosophy, man is not merely
maya-prakriti, he is also purusha, this is atman, Spirit,
Essence or Being. We therefore have the polarity
purusha-prakriti; we have Being which through
quantity-substance expresses qualities. When the purusha
withdraws from its manifest body, this remains inert, void
of intelligence, of will and of self-consciousness.
Intelligence and will, like self-consciousness, are
con-substantial aspects of the purusha, while prakriti-maya
substance is only 'sentient'. Purusha can detach itself
from its physical body and perceive clearly how its material
instrument is something other than itself. Moreover, it can
be aware, in an intelligent way, of being able to operate,
manifest and express itself on other existential levels
beyond the dense physical one.


Q. What does the physical body represent, then, for the
purusha-essence?


A. A body, at whatever dimensions or level it may be, is an
instrument of contact and of expression capable of operating
upon an existential level of life. To live and ooperate
upon the dense physical plane, for example, we must have a
body of expression or an instrument capable of establishing
relations with that exitential plane. However, the body is
only an instrument of contact which can be taken up or
dropped.
______________________________________________________________________

SOME ACTUAL PERSONAL ADS FROM AN ISRAELI NEWSPAPER

Divorced Jewish man, seeks partner to attend shul with,
light shabbos candles, celebrate holidays, build Sukkah
together, attend brisses, bar mitzvahs. Religion not
important. PB 658

Sincere rabbinical student, 27. Enjoys Yom Kippur, Tisha
B'av, Taanis Esther, Tzom Gedaliah, Asarah B'Teves, Shiva
Asar B'Tammuz. Seeks companion for living life in the
"fast" lane. POB 90.

Yeshiva bochur, Torah scholar, long beard, payos. Seeks
same in woman.
POB 43.

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