#1494
- Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - Editor: Joyce
(Know_Mystery)
Amrita
~ DailyDharmaLet Go
"To
let go in the deepest recesses of the heart, to release
all struggle and
wanting, leads us to that knowing which is timeless. As
one teacher has said:
'After I opened beyond any sense of myself, I could feel
"my pain"
change to "the pain," the pain of the world. I
saw how the universe moves
and the planet is on fire - that much pain - and yet it
all could be held, and it
didn't touch anything. It rested in the midst of an
immense peace.'
"In the gate of sorrow we free ourselves from
illusions and grasping,
from a false separation form all life, and hold it all.
We can rest in
the great heart of Buddha, in the heart of the One Who
Knows. "
The process of
awakening generally does not take hold or
quicken
until one attains or moves to the
position of the witness. That
position or point of view is prior to all
that arises in ones
perception. It is essentially the
position of the dreamer who
witnesses the universe arising within his
consciousness. The position can only be
held if one abides in stillness and does
not
judge or cling to that which arises. It
is not necessary to think of
what arises as real or dream or to make
temporal (past or present) or
spatial (inner or outer)
judgments...simply hold to the still
point
and dispassionately witness the unfolding
content of your
consciousness. The process will unfold
without effort...without a
doer.
Shawn
~ Nisargadatta
The
Goal and the Process
When you speak of a path,
where are you now? And where do
you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of a
path.
Know first where you are and what you are. There is
nothing to
be reached. There is no goal to be reached. There is
nothing to be
attained. The conception that there is a goal and a path
to it is
wrong. We are the goal or peace always. You are the Self.
You
exist always.
If there is a goal to be
reached it cannot be permanent. The goal
must already be there. We seek to reach the goal with the
ego,
but the goal exists before the ego. What is in the goal
is even
prior to our birth, that is, to the birth of the ego.
Because we
exist the ego appears to exist too.
There is no reaching the
Self. If Self were to be reached, it would
mean that the Self is not here and now and that is yet to
be
obtained. What is got afresh will also be lost. So it
will be
impermanent. What is not permanent is not worth striving
for,
Self-enquiry is the process and the goal also. "I
am" is the goal
and the final reality. To hold to it with effort is
self-enquiry.
When spontaneous and natural it is realisation. If one
leaves aside
self-enquiry, the most efficacious spiritual practice,
there are
no other adequate means whatsoever to make the mind
subside. If made
to subside by other means, it will remain as if subsided
but will
rise again. Self-enquiry is the one infallible means, the
only direct
one, to realise the unconditioned absolute being that you
really are.
~ Sri Ramana Maharshi ~
"Absolute Consciousness"
Tom Hickcox ~
AwarenessTheWayToLove
The
family of five were enjoying their day at the
beach. The
children were bathing in the ocean and making castles in
the
sand when in the distance a little old lady
appeared. Her gray
hair was blowing in the wind and her clothes were dirty
and
ragged. She was muttering something to herself as
she picked
up things from the beach and put them into a bag.
The
parents called the children to their side and told them
to stay away from the old lady. As she passed by,
bending
down every now and then to pick things up, she smiled at
the
family. But her greeting wasn't
returned.
Many weeks later they learned that the
little old lady had
made it her lifelong crusade to pick up bits of glass
form the
beach so children wouldn't cut their feet.
Here is more
of the same from Adya. This is handed out at all his
retreats. There is great depth in this piece. I have read
this many
times and it is still revealing itself to me.
Ed
__________________________
True
Meditation
"True
meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All
methods aim at
achieving a certain state of mind. All states are
limited, impermanent
and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to
bondage and
dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial
consciousness.
True
meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when
awareness is
not fixated on objects of perception. When you first
start to meditate
you notice that awareness is always focused on some
object: on thoughts,
bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This
is because the
mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects.
Then the mind
compulsively interprets what it is aware of (the object)
in a mechanical
and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make
assumptions
according to past conditioning.
In true
meditation all objects are left to their natural
functioning.
This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or
suppress any
object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is
on being
awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting
as primordial
awareness itself. Primordial awareness (consciousness) is
the source in
which all objects arise and subside. As you gently relax
into awareness,
into listening, the minds compulsive contraction around
objects will
fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into
consciousness as a
welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open
receptivity, free of
any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of
silence and
stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.
Silence
and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be
produced or
created. Silence is the non-state in which all states
arise and subside.
Silence, stillness and awareness are not states and can
never be
perceived in their totality as objects. Silence is itself
the eternal
witness without form or attributes. As you rest more
profoundly as the
witness, all objects take on their natural functionality,
and awareness
becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and
identifications,
and returns to its natural non-state of Presence.
The
simple yet profound question, "Who Am I ?," can
then reveal one's
self not to be the endless tyranny of the
ego-personality, but
objectless Freedom of Being-Primordial Consciousness in
which all states
and all objects come and go as manifestations of the
Eternal Unborn Self
that YOU ARE."
~
Adyashanti ~
Shawn ~
Nisargadatta
gate gate paragate
back to where I started from
"Nothing stands in the way of your liberation
and it can happen here and now, but for your
being more interested in other things. And
you cannot fight with your interests. You
must go with them, see through them and
and watch them reveal themselves as mere
errors of judgments and appreciation.
Discard every self-seeking motive
as soon as it is seen and you need
not search for truth; truth will find
you."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~
"Just look away from all that happens in your mind
and bring it to the
feeling "I am". The "I am" is not a
direction. It is the negation of
all direction. Ultimately even the "I am" will
have to go, for you
need not keep on asserting what is obvious."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj ~
JP
~ NondualitySalon
Le
Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!
My
dear NDS Friends,
This
afternoon, I am going to a funeral home to dress the
corpse of
my father.
Tomorrow,
I will give his eulogy.
His body
will then be buried under a silver birch tree, in a
cemetary
in Toronto, returned to Mother Earth to dissolve into the
stuff of
stars, grass, flowers, trees - sweet nourishment for
living
creatures.
My
children will be at the funeral to hear their father talk
about
their grandfather, about Life and Death.
I will
speak to them of the One Love in all of this.
Together,
we will be silent witness to the continuation of Life and
Love in this vast cosmic dance of vibrant Form and
Emptiness.
One day,
they will attend my own funeral, accompanied by their own
daughters and sons.
And so it
is.
In this
temporariness, in this interdependent, interarising,
everchanging dreamscape dance and flow - through tears of
joy and
sorrow - Love is.
My
father, even during his days of terrible madness and
suffering,
would again and again proclaim the one thing that he felt
he knew
without doubt. He would tell me:
"My
dear son, remember always that the One God is a God of
diversity."
Yes, my
beloved father. Unity in diversity.
Please,
no condolences.
Instead,
simply join me in proclaiming:
LAHAIM!
OPA!
OM! AH!
HUM!
Father Death
Blues (Don't Grow Old, Part V)
"Hey
Father Death, I'm flying home
Hey poor man, you're all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I'm going
Father
Death, Don't cry any more
Mama's there underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Aunty
Death, Don't hide your bones
Old Uncle Death, I hear your groans
O Sister Death, How sweet your moans
O
Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts'll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius
Death, your art is done
Lover Death, your body's gone
Father Death, I'm coming home
Guru
Death, your words are true
Teacher Death, I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues
Buddha
Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we'll work it through
Suffering
is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father
Breath, once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell."
Allen
Ginsberg
Douglas E. Fireman
~ Spiritual-Friends
Arboreal
Memories
Gnarled and withered
the lonesome tree
once stood like a sentinel,
its vibrant roots
silently burgeoning
in receptive ebony soil
And now...,
like an old man grieving
his lost youth, tree limbs
hang limply toward
the parched earth
A single drop of sap
absorbs the sunlight
evoking arboreal memories,
when seed, first sown
by timeworn winds,
took root and blossomed
into life's uncertainties.
Ancient
Photo
by Bernie Ranson
Ely ~ DirectApproach
Her Grace
Drawing by Bill
Rishel
The
Third Approach Love-Bliss
The
key to realizing our true nature is being still (not
pursuing).
When that is done at the center of perception regarded as
the
discriminating mind we awaken to clear or non-dual mind.
When we are
still at the heart center we awaken to our ecstatic
nature. The
practice of holding attention (being still) at the points
of
perception releases the conditioned content of
consciousness at the
root emotional and mental levels. In doing so we awaken
to what is on
the conditional level (dualistic) as well as the source
or non-dual
level. You move through the spectrum of your
consciousness
witnessing (and there by releasing) the fears, sorrows
and
conditioning that you have accumulated since birth. These
are the
memories both consciousness and unconsciousness that we
mistakenly
identified as self. Being attentive at the centers of
perception and
facing who and what you are is not escape from what is...
Helena Vidrascu
~ NondualitySalon
Alice's
conversation with the Chesire Cat
"Chesire-Cat",
Alice began, "would you tell me please, which way I
ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want
to get to," said the Cat. "I don't much care where-----" said
Alice.
"Then
it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"------so
long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an
explanantion.
"Oh,
you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only
walk long enough."
Alice felt
that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.
"What sort of people live about here?"
"In
that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw
round, "lives a
Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw,
"lives a March
Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But
I don't want to go among mad people,", Alice remarked.
"Oh,
you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad
here. I'm mad.
You're mad."
"How
do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You
must be," said the Cat, "or you wouln't have come
here."
ALICE'S
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Caroll
Yosy Flug ~
SufiMystic
[In
response to a discussion about whether one needs to
first ask a question when seeking an answer from the I
Ching...]
i am
reminded, dear friends, of a following tale (nasrudin, of
course lol)
an
officer, back from wars, stopped in a small roadside tavern.
while waiting
for service he noticed that in the whole area were lots of
shooting targets
drawn. upon closer scrutiny, he saw to his amazement that in
each of the
targets there was a single arrow embedded - in the precise
centre of the
bullseye... unable to contain his curiosity, he asked the
proprietor: "who is
this master, that shoot all those arrows?"
"oh,
it's my son, nasrudin" answered the owner.
"could
i please talk to him?"
"sure,
he's around".
when
nasrudin presented himself, the officer's curiosity grew - he
was just a
barefeet boy in his early teens! "pray tell me, young
man," said the officer. "did
you shoot all those arrows?"
"yes,
i did" answered nasrudin.
"well,
i am the best sharpshooter in my regiment, but i am not
nearly that good!
who is the master that taught you? could i have the good
fortune to be introduced
to him?" said the excited officer.
"oh,
mister officer, it is not what you think" said nasrudin.
"you see, first i shoot
"the arrows - then i draw the targets!"
Mike
Pendragon ~ smartgroups2
My
Philosophy
PEN DRAGON
- as in writes and breathes fire :-) I'm all for down-to earth, practical, and
provable ...... I am a simple guy, really ............... and
I see "proof, practicality, and down to earth"
wherever I go. My philosophy of life was well summed up by the American comedian Bill
Hicks .....
""Its
like a ride in an amusement park and when you go on it you
think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are.
The ride goes up and down, round and round, it has thrills
and chills, and it's very brightly coloured and it's very
loud. And it's fun for a while. Some have been on the ride a
long time and they begin to question : Is this real, or is
this just a ride ? And others have remembered and they come
back to us and they say : "Hey, don't be afraid ever,
because this is just a ride." And we kill those people. "Shut him up, I've got a lot invested in
this ride, shut him up. Look At my furrows of worry, my big
bank account, and my family. This has to be real."
It's just
a ride, but we always kill those good guys who try to tell us
that and let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter
because it's just a ride, and we can change it anytime we
want. No job, no savings, money, just a choice right now
between fear and love."
Life is a
game. To be enjoyed, not endured. My
motto. Don't take life too seriously. No one ever got out
alive !
Namaste
Freyja ~ AdvaitaToZen
Bicycle
Photo by Alan
Larus
Jack
Says You Can't Handle The Truth
Wanting the truth
of who you are means that
there is a you that thinks
there is some truth to get that you don't have.
And
thinking you now have that
truth and know exactly how you got it
is more of the same.
Somehow I
learned how to ride a bicycle.
A bicycle
came to me somehow. Something, somehow, prompted me to
keep trying
to stay up on the bicycle until one day, without
knowing that it was going to happen, or how it
happened, or having any kind of knowledge like,
"On the sixth day of trying to get
up on your bicycle for six hours a day, you will
definitely know how to ride a bicycle."....
it finally....just....happened.
It is a
process for which there are only markers, but,
the markers are not the process.
And,
now, how ever it happened,
I will never, ever forget how to ride a bicycle.
Do I know
what caused the process of
learning to occur or what caused that crossover
click to happen? That permanent
adjustment of synaptic recall?
No.
Those that
see others "avoiding"
whatever prescriptive truths they are offering
are doing just that.
Avoiding
the truth.
Oh. How
subtle we are.
Which,
again, is all a part of what is and what is happening....
It's just
the way it is.
The buck
stops nowhere. Until it does.
Bill Rishel ~
SufiMystic
you get to
give up all your rights
All there is
that counts for anything at all
is what honesty *knows* is true,
and it lives for that
and it dies for that;
it is everything for that.
It is just a one way flow:
everything that *you* are
for what you *know is true*.
You finally get to
give up all of your rights:
your right to love, happiness, pain relief, peace
...your right of way.
And all that remains
that has any right of way,
ever again, is
the tiniest little bit
that you *know is true*.
There is nothing
easier.
That is what this life is for.
That is what the surface bodies are for:
living vehicles to express Truth,
not what we want or need.
When we are quieted and gentled inside,
we actually *know*.
-John de Ruiter
"Unveiling Reality"
Gods
have many faces,
But true divinity has no face.
There are so many gods in the
world. Taoists have their
pantheon. The Buddhists, Hindus, and other religions have
theirs. The Islamic and Judeo-Christian schools may be
monotheistic, but their sects differ vastly from one
another. Those who follow Tao assert that each of us sees
the divine in our own way. Is there one god, or many?
Among those who follow Tao, there
are those who say that if
there are gods, then everyone is a god. You are god.
There
is nothing in the sky, and no one lives your life but
you.
Whatever one believes in terms of deities is fine. It's
all
individual preference, and it ultimately means
self-awareness. But there is something beyond the
diversity
of gods, and that is the absolute.
That which is absolute is formless.
Thus Tao is nameless
and faceless. We cannot consider Tao our god. That would
be to give it form and therefore bring it back into the
world where the myriad things have manes. We use the word
Tao for convenience only, but in fact, we are referring
to a
deep mystery. As long as we live in the world of
diversity,
whether it is the frantic pace of our professional lives
or
the involvement with all the gods of the world, we will
not
be with Tao. It is only when we leave the diversity of
existence and find the formless absolute that we reach
Tao.
Panhala
~ Joe Riley
Mind
The slow
overture of rain,
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop. What is it
they cast for? The poplars,
advancing or retreating,
lose their stature
equally, and yet stand firm,
making arrangements
in order to become
imaginary. The city
draws the mind in streets,
and streets compel it
from their intersections
where a little
belongs to no one. It is
what is driven through
all stationary portions
of the world, gravity's
stake in things, the leaves,
pressed against the dank
window of November
soil, remain unwelcome
till transformed, parts
of a puzzle unsolvable
till the edges give a bit
and soften. See how
then the picture becomes clear,
the mind entering the ground
more easily in pieces,
and all the richer for it.
~ Jorie Graham ~
Jaeson ~ Spiritual-Friends
I am writing to myself again,
But instead of addressing to Jaeson
I address it Julee... or Angie... or Joanna...
But I tell them I love them... and will never leave
them...
Trying to leave them hints to repeat those words to me...
Just so that I can listen to what it sounds like to be
told that I'm
loved...
By someone other than me...
As if it was such a big deal to have some stranger love
me...
When they don't even know me...
They may not have even had the patience to try...
And I want them to love me?
I want them to accept me?
But how?
So I am writing to myself again,
This time I will say Hey Jaeson... I'm you...
I'm writing to let you know that you're beautiful,
And you're poetic, and you're gorgeous, and loyal,
And sincere, and have a wonderful way about you,
And that you're uplifting and even when you're down
You have a way of making people think of better days...
Of making people smile about something deeper than just
the everyday
nuance or diurnal diatribe, you are a prince among men
and you are
loved with more fire and fervour than the stars and
angels rolled
into a cup of warm sweet comfort and unconditional
affection...
You are
the reason why heaven was created... you are the moment
of
love's spur and eternal yearning unleash and unstuck...
you are the
hurried spasm of the eternal crush... you mash on and
rush forth until
all words mean nothing... until all heated embraces
return to you like
a constellation of ache and burning... stunning and
bedazzled... you
glitter and tear... know no more fear... and can address
letters to you...
instead of some one who is only mirror... only
reflection... only puppet
in the machination of divine scheming... teaching us that
there is only
One...
And once you've found you...
The
universe will at last be silent, still... and immortal.
Is This
Namaste?
July 2003
jaeson
Winter
Palace - Ayutthaya, Thailand
Photo
by Richard Burnett
Hilary
Collins ~ TrueVision
A Kiss
Photo by
Hilary Collins
A
Kiss
Open up my Dear to take this summer kiss
upon your lips from your friend, whose not shy, a dainty
Hollyhock.
Diana
~ OmniConscious
Think and
speak only that which is true, kind, helpful and necessary.
Boy, these are very serious principles. Does the above principle
eliminate humor? Hmmmmm ...
maybe humor is ok only if a joke illustrates a spiritual
TRUTH. Let's see ... humor could be ok on the grounds that
it is HELPFUL for our immune systems and stress levels.
It is a KINDNESS to facilitate the strengthening of
immune systems. Humor is NECESSARY to being fully alive. How's
that?
