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NDH Issue # 1525 Saturday, August 16, 2003 Editor: Christiana
anneli rufus from her book Party of One: The Loners Manifesto http://www.annelirufus.com
Nonloners call loners crazy. Cold. Stuck-up. Standoffish. Selfish. Sad. Bad. Secretive. But we know being a loner isn't about hating people. It's about essence, about necessity. We need what others dread. We dread what others need.
We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create. Loners, by virtue of being loners, of celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave — like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels and sole survivors. Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the Kabbalists. Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarefied. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline.
A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions. A talent for seldom being bored. Desert islands are fine but not required.
The Internet is, for
loners, an absolute and total miracle. It is,
for us, the best invention of the last millennium. It educates.
It
entertains. It transforms. It facilitates a kind of dialogue in
which we need not be seen, so it suits us perfectly. It
validates. It makes being alone seem normal. It makes being
alone fun for everyone.
Aspects of the [Buddhist]
practice appeal to loners: the inward
sojourn of meditation, the bright one-off flash of satori. From
deep observation flows acceptance and, from this, serenity: the
mindfulness by which each moment, as the Vietnamese
Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say, is a precious
moment.
Loners do some of this
anyway. Spending a lot of time alone is
like an accidental meditation. A casual mindfulness. We do not
have to work at this, at observation or serenity. Any loner is
halfway to Buddhism without knowing it. So it should not
surprise loners that Buddhist hermits have produced some of
Asia's most immortal poetry.
One of these hermits was
Han Shan, an 8th-century Chinese
monk known in English as Cold Mountain. In his Zhejiang
Province hermitage, on a mountain that is also called Cold
Mountain, Han Shan wrote bold loner-friendly verses studded
with such imprecations as "trust your own true nature ... do
it
fast as an order."
"Since I
escaped to Cold Mountain," he confides in one poem,
"I've lived on mountain fruit/What worries does life
hold?"
Melody
offers this from Sandeep to NondualitySalon@yahoogroups.com
Moment to moment to
moment in your alotted life-span, "you" are relating.
Even a sage is relating, how can it be otherwise, he/she does not
exist
outside Life.
The only difference is
the altered gestalt.
Whereas in you, there is a "me" relating to an
"other" and thus wondering,
agonizing and exhilarating with the relating in the moment,
because there is
a stake in that relating............
..........in a sage, the relatings, whatever it be, in whatever
shape and
form, in the moment is apperceived to be a functioning of the
same through
an apparent dualistic media.
There is no stake in the relating.
Jeff Belyea to NDS
At issue was the loss of
value of enlightenment in the midst
of life's ups and downs. My position is that it abides in
residence and never goes away.
With E.A.R. (enlightenment, awakening, realization) the
intensity of concern with the superficial aspect of life
is turned down to a pilot light and never a flaming
intensity.
Gene Poole responds to Melody's questions on NDS
Mind and
unconsciouness
Melody: It would be great to really look into these
questions - not only as they pertain to
Osho, but to all gurus in general. Let's talk about the idea
that gurus can be 'had' by unconsciousness.
Gene: Anyone can and will be 'had' by their
_unconscious_ mind. It happens all the
time.
All humans 'have' 'the unconscious mind'.
Depth psychology defines 'the unconsious'
as:
"As opposed to 'ego consciousness', the
unconscious is that aspect of the mind which
we are unconscious of. This is not to say
that the unconscious is itself, unconscious;
rather, we are unconscious of it."
'unconsciousness' is when you are in bed
asleep, or in a coma, or in popular speech,
distracted by one thing and fail to pay attention
to another, and make a mistake, etc.
So there is in fact a major difference between
'unconsciousness' and 'the unconscious (mind)'.
I have been speaking of 'the unconscious (mind)'
during this thread.
www.
cgjungpage.org/fordhamintro.html - link
no longer active
The unconscious (not
unconsciousness) will
'get' anyone who persistently and chronically
violates the protocols of human Being.
No matter that a person is in a crowd, or alone,
rich or poor... by committing such violations,
the human organism will try to correct itself,
and also to show to the conscious mind, just
what is going wrong. I am saying, that no
matter what is in a person's conscious mind,
no matter the assumption or hope or fear, that
the unconscious 'knows' what is truly right
and serves as 'error-checker', 24/7. There is
simply no way around this; it is how we are
made. It is intrinsic to our design.
Poor Osho, performed as pitifully as any
human could, in that he simply overshot
his mark. His velocity and momentum carried
him well beyond the point where he was
susceptible to graceful self-correction, and
so, the larger immune-system of humanity
was called into play. Osho the man was
committed to a trajectory of deep and chronic
error, and so, he was simply identified as
being 'out of spec' and neutralized. I am
saying, that this was all and entirely an
automatic action, and had nothing to do
with anyone's 'beliefs', and nothing to do
with 'civil authorities', police, courts, etc.
I am saying, that Osho made himself into a
'foreign body' within the human collective;
and that he was therefore identified, isolated,
and neutralized. We are looking at the action
of 'the unconscious' in all its automatic glory;
we are seeing the human immune system
at work. Osho made himself into a dangerous
toxin... not 'just' to the body-politic (as he
would have us believe) but more importantly,
he became toxic to his own self. His rampant
toxic behaviour did attract 'phagocytes', and
he was 'eliminated', impersonally, as is any
such matter.
Melody:The myth about enlightenment says that once someone is
awake to their true
nature, unconsciousness disappears.
Gene: The unconscious cannot disappear; to do
so, if would first need to appear. By definition,
the unconscious is the aspect of mind that we
are unconscious of; we don't see it.
"enlightenment" may reduce the tendency
to split attention, but this has to do with
the conscious mind. Fewer errors may be
made, but this has nothing to do with
the unconscious.
Melody: That since unconsciousness is "of
the mind", and the guru lives in a reality 'beyond mind',
the guru is immune to matters of of unconsciousness. A
guru cannot be blind to something that simply does not
exist for them. So how can he be 'had' by it?
Gene: If you cannot see oxygen, but it is taken
away, you will suffocate. If it is taken away,
you may sense that something is wrong,
but you will not know what to ask for,
never having seen oxygen.
Osho was ignorant of or had decided to
ignore the 'issue' of the unconscious, and
to somehow pretend that the conscious
mind is 'all there is'.
This is akin to the plight of a person who
believes that the monitor and keyboard are
the only parts of a computer. If something
seems to go wrong, it therefore must be
in the monitor or keyboard. Never mind
the motherboard, CPU, RAM, PSU, etc. It is
just the parts we can see, that matter. If
I cannot see it, it does not exist. So don't
hand me any of this stuff about 'the rest
of the computer' and other esoterica. That
is 'all of the mind'. I see before me, a display
of words and pictures. Don't try to tell me
that there is more to this, that is hidden
from me! If I am not aware of it, it does
not exist!
Thus we see the dilemma of poor Osho;
doomed by his own (conditioned) values,
he decides arbitrarily 'what is reality' and
then proceeds to live that way.
In his case, his ignorance of his own
deeper processes (the unconscious)
tripped him up. He did not take it into
account, he thought he could over-ride
it, he fooled himself into assuming that
because he could perform advanced
siddhe-tricks that he was above it.
Melody: Other myths come to mind, for
example: since the guru no longer identifies with the
body, he no longer suffers with pain. (Stories of
guru's bodies being filled with cancer, as
they continue to hold satsang displaying no signs of
suffering at all, come to mind). Could you speak to that?
Gene: What you speak of is actually quite
common. There are many records
which show that people can function
with major and fatal debilities and be
blissfully unaware, and then die. I
have known one such instance; a man
performed brilliantly every day, had
no pain, etc, and then one day was
injured. An exam showed that his body
was literally filled with tumor material
which emanated from his prostate.
He died the next day. Would he have
died, if he had remained unaware of
his cancer?
There is no doubt of the immense
power of the human. Mind over matter
is a reality, at least insofar as the body
is concerned. Spontaneous remission
of fatal illness is a fact. Do we understand
much of this? What can we then accurately
say about the cancerous Guru?
Then there is the well-documented
case(es) of the 98-pound granny who
effortlessly lifted the car, to save her
trapped grand-child. What is going
on there? Is that 'explainable' by reference
to 'enlightenment' or any other known
thing?
Melody: Could you speak to the difference between being
unconscious (of, for example, "family of origin
issues" that get played out), and
unconsciousness itself?
Gene: The unconscious...
the entity of mind
identified by depth psychology... is not
unconsciousness, but ego-consciousness
remains literally unaware of it.
The unconscious is called the unconscious
because we are unconscious of it... not
because it is unconscious. It is in fact
conscious, but it is not the field of ego-
consciousness; it is yet another consciousness,
that we are unconscious of.
The conscious mind it seen as about
10% of 'mind', with the unconscious
being the greater 90%.
Think of a candle and its flame...
the flame is the minor part of the candle,
and yet, without the candle, there is no
flame. Without the flame, the candle is
just a 'thing', until lit and burning.
Conscious awareness is that flame; and
the unconscious is the candle. The
candle supports the flame. In the case
of Osho, the flame did not notice the
candle.
In days gone by, the unconscious and
its behaviour was 'explained' by means
of belief in gods, spirits, etc. We are no
longer burdened by those outdated super-
stitions, but we have invented a whole new
set, called 'psychology', and one of its gods
is the unconscious. It will have to do until
something better comes along.
Jung and latter-day explorers of consciousness
have given us a great gift; we can know some
of the predictable behaviours of the unconscious,
and thus we can avoid taking a major nose-dive
ala Osho. His example serves us all.
Jung said:
All humans are the same human, growing like blades of grass from
the same collective unconscious, and each blade seeing the
other, at first mistaking each other as separate
individuals, then later recognizing that by common roots, our
fruits are also in common.
How I know what another means, is by knowing what I mean; but I
know another only as well as I know myself. Since my
unconscious is my greater part, by knowing my own unconscious (by
my own fruits), I am able to know the greater part of the other.
In seeing
this greater part, I see it also as my own; and thus need of
necessity to love others, as I benefit from loving myself.
==Gene Poole==
Flame notices candle; film at 11
Gill Eardley allspiritinspiration@yahoogroups.com 
Every day, immediately on awakening in the morning, I make it
my business to align myself with my highest purpose and recollect
my innermost conviction that I am never alone in this universe.
From this I derive strength for the challenges of the day. Every
night, before going to sleep, I make it my business to surrender
to the infinite plenitude of Life. From this I gain fortitude for
the
challenges of the hours in which my body rests but my psyche
experiences a rich world of untold possibilities.
- Georg Feuerstein
Harsha offers Here are a few poems http://www.harshasatsangh.com/MagazineV2/harsha/poetry.html
anipanchen DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com
THE MYSTERY
"Every once in a
while,
stiller than air
an old ponderosa whispers,
'You are the bride of the Beloved.' The sacred everywhere we turn
and turn again --
an intermingling of our senses
which reveals ourselves in each other
at the far end of perception where the mind becomes the heart
and form dissolves so generously
it offers entrance to the mystery."
- Stephen
Levine
An exerpt from the poem,
"Mystical Wedding," from the
book, "Embracing the Beloved - Relationship As A Path of
Awakening,"
sshomi AlongTheWay@yahoogroups.com 
Man becomes what he
believes himself
to be. Abandon all ideas about yourself
and you will find yourself to be the pure
witness, beyond all that can happen to
the body or the mind. - Nisargadatta Maharaj
"I Am That"
Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Toby Wilson
AdvaitaToZen@yahoogroups.com Openness
The grace of openness,
is love toward illusion.
Robert Cooper DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com
POINTING THE FINGER
The Sufi
Bayazid says this about himself:
"I was a revolutionary when I was young, and all my prayer
to God was:
'Lord give me the energy to change the world.'"
"As I approached middle age and realized that half my life
was gone
without my changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to: 'Lord,
give
me the grace to change all those who come in contact with me.
Just my
family and friends, and I shall be content.'"
"Now that I am an old man and my days are numbered, my one
prayer is,
'Lord, give me the grace to change myself.'
If I had prayed for this right from the start I should not have
wasted
my life."
Anthony De Mello The Song of the Bird
anipanchen DailyDharma@yahoogroups.com
NOTHING
It is amazing how often
we avoid the ocean's reach;
holding our breath when air is free. Although it is certain that we are
both the curl of the shell
and the soft wave washing in
we refuse to be entertained. And still, and always, comes the
friend:
stranger than dishonesty
closer than our certainty
inviting our involvement
with what we do not think to see. He passes through, whispering in our
dreams.
What does he say?
'Don't grasp at the form, it cannot grant
you peace.
Praise the emptiness which gives all form
its shape;
the womb from which all creation pours,
cascades,
overflows, ripples, crashes, slumbers,
stagnates.
From the very no-beginning the wheeling
life-force surges into being
then dries up, evaporates, just when
you've got the pipes securely set in
place. Beloved one, let go.' The message vibrates the edges of
clarity
leaving an imprint of something more powerful
than possessing a reality. What does he say?
Nothing. Really. Absolutely no thing.
-Charlene Jones,
Linda Stitt and Cecilie Kwiat
An exerpt from the
poem, "Tapestry For Friends," found at www.serve.com/cyberkaya/cyframe.html
Ian Pitchford evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
A new type of "smart" machine that could fundamentallychange how people interact with computers is on the not-too-distant horizon atthe Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories.
"Overall, these
projects are developing technology to fundamentally change the
nature of human-machine interactions," Forsythe says.
"Our approach is to embed
within the machine a highly realistic computer model of the
cognitive processes
that underlie human situation awareness and naturalistic decision
making.
Systems using this technology are tailored to a specific user,
including the
user's unique knowledge and understanding of the task."
The idea borrows from a
very successful analogue. When people interact with one
another, they modify what they say and don't say with regard to
such things as
what the person knows or doesn't know, shared experiences and
known
sensitivities. The goal is to give machines highly realistic
models of the same
cognitive processes so that human-machine interactions have
essential
characteristics of human-human interactions.
Story available at
http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2003/comp-soft-math/cognitive.html
Sandia National
Laboratories' World Wide Web home page is located at
http://www.sandia.gov.
Lisbeth Monks_Mystics@yahoogroups.com
For each of us, it is only
depth of character that determines the
profundity with which we face life. We can either add to our
character
each day, or we can fritter away our energies in distractions.
Those who
learn how to accumulate character each day achieve a depth that
cannot be
successfully opposed.
Depth
365 Tao
Deng Ming-Dao
Daily Meditations
Hur Guler rumi_info@yahoogroups.com
what you most want
what you travel around
wishing to find
lose yourself
as lovers lose themselves
and you'll be that
-- attar,
excerpt from "looking for your own face"
Alan Jacobs RamanaMaharshi@yahoogroups.com
The separate self is but
the mind Drunk with and reeling under the notion That it
is bound.
This very mind When it
stands steady, Still, Desiring nothing Proud of
nothing Becomes the SELF SUPREME.
383 from The Garland of Gurus Sayings by Muruganar who versified the utterances of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, translated by Dr.T.M.P,Swaminathan