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NDH * Issue # 1490 * Saturday, July 12, 2003 * Editors: Joyce and Christiana  

Manuel Hernandez ANetofJewels@yahoogroups.com

The world is like a sheet of paper on which
something is typed. The reading and the
meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper
is the common factor, always present, rarely
perceived. When the ribbon is removed, typing
leaves no trace on the paper. So is my mind -
the impressions keep on coming, but no trace
is left.

- The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj    

art: Agnes Pelton - Messengers  

Toombaru AdvaitaToZen@yahoogroups.com  

He fashioned himself a hunter of ideas and had
found himself wandering with a small band of
seekers in cyberspace.   

They talked in a language that was little
understood among the common folk.  

Over the years, he had grown quite fond of
some of them and wondered what they looked
like. He felt that he knew them as much as he
had known anyone.  

He noticed that he tended to gravitate to those
who agreed with his spiritual conclusions and
how he became irritated with those who
pretended to have acquired what he had
sought for so many years.  

Those who he considered to be the "real"
gurus, he fawned over. He would travel great
distances to be with them and sit quietly in
sychophantic bliss.  

He would loose himself in the ecstatic poets
and would ponder how much of their intent was
lost in time and translation. He even studied
their languages in an unsuccessful attempt to
unravel their bliss.  

He parused obscure publications for the ever
emerging possibility of capturing his
completness in words.  

The arrival of newly purchased books
adrenalized his trips to the post office.  

It was unfortuate that, only at the end of his life,
was he able to see that when ideas rub against
each other and merge in an ecstatic confluence
of syncopated synchronisities..... everything
disappears into itself.  

..........and that consciousness had, in some
strange and wonderful way..... used him in a
dream to discover itself.........  

Joyce OmniConscious@yahoogroups.com  

Astro-sleuths crack van Gogh 'Moonrise' caper
By Richard Stenger CNN Friday, July 11, 2003   Sky & Telescope   

MOON IN SYNC Because of a quirky, 19-year
lunar cycle, the moon that rises on July 13 this
year will appear almost exactly the same over
the Saint-Rémy field as it did 114 years ago.   

(CNN) -- Using old-fashioned detective work
and modern astronomical tools, researchers
said they have solved one of the most intriguing
mysteries in art history, the moment that
Vincent van Gogh immortalized in his painting
"Moonrise."   

The Dutch artist created the masterpiece the
night of July 13, 1889, while watching a nearly
full moon rise over a hill exactly at 9:08 p.m.
local time, according to astronomer Donald
Olson and colleagues.   

At that moment, "the scene in front of van Gogh
looked almost exactly like that painting," the
Southwest Texas State University physics
professor said."  

Read the rest at:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/11/vangogh.moonrise/index.html  

Anyone else going to be out there watching the moonrise on July 13? I will!  

art: Vincent van Gogh - Moonrise  

Choo meh wah BuddhistWellnessGroup@yahoogroups.com  

Mind Training - Exchanging Self for Others  

Be Grateful to everyone

So in a sense all the things taking place around us, all the irritations and all the problems, are crucial. Without others we cannot attain enlightenment -in fact, we cannot even tread on the path. In
other words, we could say that if there is no noise outside during our sitting meditation, we cannot develop mindfulness... If everything were lovey-dovey and jellyfishlike, there would be nothing to work with.   

We can write our own case history and employ our own lawyers to prove that we are right and somebody else is wrong - but that is also trouble we have to go through. And trying to prove our case history somehow doesn't work.

In any case, hiring a lawyer to attain
enlightenment is not done. It is not possible. Buddha did not have a lawyer himself.   

Without others, we would have no chance at all to develop beyond ego. So the idea here is to feel grateful that others are presenting us with tremendous obstacles -even threats and challenges. The point is to appreciate that.
Without them, we could not follow the path at all.  

Training the Mind - Chögyam Trungpa  

art: Mabel Alvarez - Dreams of Youth  

Jan Sultan AdvaitaToZen@yahoogroups.com  

Remembering deep sleep  

"Some sleep researchers speculate that during
REM sleep our brains lack the chemicals that
transfer thoughts into long-term memory; if this
is true, it is not surprising that we forget our
dreams so quickly."  

Any wonder why we do not remember our
awareness without consciousness during deep
sleep? Strangely there is a way out. Go into
samadhi before you go to sleep. Soon you will
fall asleep and occasionally will stay aware
even though you are in deep sleep. If you are
lucky you will notice this awareness in the
background even when you are awake.  

[snip]  

Some people take, when this awareness
comes in the foreground and stays there, as a
sign of spiritual progress. There is no such
thing as spiritual progress. It is all a matter of
perspective ... not yours, of course ... for did
you find a 'you' anywhere?  

There is also no progression from A to Z. 'Z'
can come first, as can any stage in between.
Anybody claiming to be more advanced than
another is simply showing his 'spiritual ego'.
And believe me there are some huge spiritual
egos out there! It all started when you said, "My
dad can beat your dad." Now it is more subtle
... or not ... this constant need to correct
another. Nobody is wrong ... the words just
come from another perspective ... and no
perspective is superior to another.   

Brian Fitzgerald HafizDiscuss@yahoogroups.com  

well I never!
well... not quite

have ever before
here been I
in this place
both familiar and not
in this time
or any other
version of now before
knot that I recall
a twisted memory
turning around itself
who would have known
from times of old before
each moment can be
as sweet as this
one is

art: Susan Prout - healing flower orange

Robert O'Hearn AdyashantiSatsang@yahoogroups.com  

Main Entry: con·cept

Pronunciation: 'kän-"sept

Function: noun

Etymology: Latin conceptum,

neuter of conceptus, past

participle of concipere to conceive

Date: 1556

1. something conceived in the mind: THOUGHT, NOTION

    You might prepare yourself to accept the
thesis that everything in the universe is an
illusion, yet you will more than likely fail to
include in this illusion the most essential factor,
which is yourself. - Ramesh Balsekar

Khorov Kelley DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com  

PRAJNA-PARAMITA "When we find ourselves
in a place of discomfort and fear, when we're in
a dispute, when the doctor says we need tests
to see what's wrong, we'll find that we want to
blame, to take sides, to stand our ground. We
feel we must have some resolution. We want to
hold our familiar view. For the warrior, 'right' is
as extreme a view as 'wrong.' They both block
our innate wisdom. When we stand at the
crossroads not knowing which way to go, we
abide in prajna-paramita. The crossroads is an
important place in the training of a warrior. It's
where our solid views begin to dissolve."  

- Pema Chodrun  "The Places That Scare You,"  

Jan Sultan SufiMystic@yahoogroups.com  

Planting words in your consciousness - Nisargadatta  

'I don't think you really understand the
purpose of my dialogues here. I don't say things simply to convince people that they are true. I am not speaking about these matters so that people can build up a philosophy that can be rationally defended, and which is free of all contradictions.  

When I speak my words, I am not speaking to your mind at all. I am directing my words directly at consciousness. I am planting my words in your consciousness. If you disturb the planting process by arguing about the meaning of the words, they won't take root there.  

Once my words have been planted in consciousness, they will sprout, they will grow, and at the appropriate moment they will bear fruit. It's nothing to do with you. All this will happen by itself. However, if you think about the words too much or dispute their meaning, you will postpone the moment of their fruition.' 

http://www.davidgodman.org/interviews/nis1.shtml  

Mazie Lane  AdyashantiSatsang@yahoogroups.com  

Erik Davis - Snakes & Ladders
Originally appeared in Gnosis, Fall, 1994   

These days, when everything breaks down
and comes together, spiritual explorers find
themselves in a vast, tangled forest. Myths and
metaphors, practices and words of wisdom,
criss-crossing paths multiply in all directions. In
many ways, this eclectic and fragmentary zone
itself defines our moment of religious
experience. Perhaps the question is less which
path you find yourself on-what religious
philosophy or spiritual technology you're
remaking yourself with-but on how you move
through the space itself. How do you engage its
polymorphous shapes, the density of its data,
the absence of traditional clues? With rigid,
one-pointed determination? Loose eclecticism? Craziness?   

In my own tentative errancy, I've come to
identify two contrasting modes of spiritual
movement, two pervasive "styles" or religious
impulses. On the one hand, the desire to
establish an intense, deeply wedded
connection with the imaginative matrix of the
natural world; on the other hand, a desire to
overcome desire, to ascend towards virtual
light, to escape the demands of matter and
wake up to a new order of knowledge and
being.   

The tension between these impulses takes
many forms, replicating across many levels of
scale: gnosis and nature, masculine and
feminine, transcendence and immanence,
evolution and eternal return, sky gods and
chthonic spirits, monotheism and polytheism,
unity and multiplicity, soul and body, spirit and
soul. But though they certainly bleed into one
another, and may "ultimately" meet, I distrust
any easy attempt to shove them under one roof.
It's too simple to paper over their real
differences be appealing to the supposed unity
of mystical experience or the clicheéd notion
that various religious languages describe the
same truth from different perspectives.  

What if the truth itself is multiple?   

read the complete article at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdyashantiSatsang/message/6508

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