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Nondual Highlights Issue #1546 Saturday, September 6, 2003 Editor: Mark

Habitually conditioned to avoid fear and insecurity, most people compulsively cling to what is familiar, even if it is very painful and confusing. I have witnessed countless people turn away from the experience and revelation of freedom because in that freedom there is nowhere to hide and nothing to hold onto. As they begin to awaken to a freedom that is profound, many turn back to a familiar condition of struggle and confusion in an unconscious effort to avoid stepping completely into the ungraspable and indefinable mystery of liberation. Why? Because in that mystery there is absolutely nothing for the personal ego to attain or define itself by.


This is not the liberation that most people envision when they start out. Consciously or unconsciously most people envision a freedom that they can attain and possess. So many who glimpse the enlightened condition tell me that it is so much bigger than they ever could have imagined. To realize that freedom is not something that you possess, but something that possesses you, is often experienced as shocking, frightening, and unbelievably liberating. It is a revelation that swallows up the dream of a separate you and reveals Self to be a limitless expanse. What I am describing is the experience of Self void of any sense of selfhood, a timeless and uncaused condition which is constantly birthing manifest existence into form.

To have a glimpse of this profound freedom requires very little, but to live it requires the destruction of every concept of self you have ever held or will ever hold. This freedom is a flame that burns the need to struggle to ash and reveals one's Self to be all there is.

- from The Impact of Awakening: Excerpts from the Teachings of Adyashanti, published by Open Gate Sangha.

Approaching the moment of the ego death might feel like the end of the world. Paradoxically, while only a small step separates us from an experience of radical liberation, we have a sense of all-pervading anxiety and impending catastrophy of enormous proportions. It feels as if we are losing all that we are; at the same time, we have no idea of what is on the other side, or even if there is anything there at all. This fear drives many people to resist the process at this stage; as a result, they can remain psychologically stuck in this problematic territory.

When the individual overcomes the metaphysical fear encountered at this important juncture and decides to let things happen, he or she experiences total annihilation on all levels - physical destruction, emotional disaster, intellectual and philosophical defeat, ultimate moral failure, and even spiritual damnation. During this experience, all reference points - everything that is important and meaningful in the individual's life - seem to be mercilessly destroyed.

Immediately following the experience of total annihilation - hitting the cosmic bottom - one is often overwhelmed by visions of light that has a supernatural radiance and beauty and is usually perceived as divine. The survivor of what seemed like the ultimate apocalypse experiences only seconds later fantastic displays of rainbows, peacock designs, and celestial scenes. He or she feels redeemed and blessed by salvation, reclaiming his or her divine nature and cosmic status. At this time, one is frequently overcome by a surge of positive emotions toward oneself, other people, nature, and existence in general.



- from The Stormy Search for the Self by Christina Grof and Stanislav Grof, M.D., published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

- Image entitled "Jesus on the Cross", painter unknown (by me anyway...)

AWARENESS

Although I'm aging,
my retinas still see
in living color
a few electromagnetic waves,
but just those
from .4 to .7 millimicrons -
that is, from what we call red
to what we call blue.
And, I'm happy to say,
my tympanic membranes
still hear a few waves
amidst the acoustical ocean.
Some we call Bach.
I can't explain how I taste
certain molecular structures,
but I do,
and so it is with touch and smell.
Thus I keep in contact
with what we call reality,
and I have a lot of opinions about it.
My problem is
I know I'm missing out
on most of the waves.
Why should bees see more,
dogs smell more,
bats hear more?
And even they are missing
most of the show.
Why plunk down
such a small receiver
in the midst of this symphony?
When I die
do I get to hear it all?

Awareness by Tom Greening, published in Journal of Humanistic Psychology

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

- William Blake

The problem for the "me" is that it knows that the separation is a false phenomenon and that perfection without any boundaries is its true nature. What is not deeply understood is that in this perfection that it seeks, the "me" must perish. The "me" is itself the separation that is sought to be corrected.

- Ramesh S. Balsekar from The Final Truth: A Guide to Ultimate Understanding published by Advaita Press.

What's wrong with right now?
Unless I enter the thinking mind!
The thinking mind is just the drive-in theater screen
There is much more than that

I alone am. Sat Chit Anand.
I am beyond the thinking mind

I am the whole ocean and I reside in the still depths
The surface turmoil, the separation, is at a distance
So what's wrong with right now?
Unless I rise to the surface!

I alone am. Sat Chit Anand.
I live in the depths, not on the surface.

If you reside on the surface, the waves seem huge to you
When you have discovered the depths
The ripples on the surface do not disturb you
When you have discovered the no-mind
the thinking mind is just an insignificant side show

The goings on of the thinking mind
And the disturbance on the ocean surface
Are but drawings on water
Something happened, yet nothing really happened.

- Jan Sultan on Nonduality Salon

Subject: Stillness - Ashtavakra Gita


All things arise,
Suffer change,
And pass away.

This is their nature.

When you know this,
Nothing perturbs you,
Nothing hurts you.

You become still.

It is easy.

God made all things.
There is only God.

When you know this,
Desire melts away.

Clinging to nothing,
You become still.

Sooner or later,
Fortune or misfortune
May befall you.

When you know this,
You desire nothing,
You grieve for nothing.

Subduing the senses,
You are happy.

Whatever you do
Brings joy or sorrow,
Life or death.

When you know this,
You may act freely,
Without attachment.

For what is there to accomplish?

All sorrow comes from fear.
From nothing else.

When you know this,
You become free of it,
And desire melts away.

You become happy
And still.

"I am not the body,
Nor is the body mine.
I am awareness itself"

When you know this,
You have no thought
For what you have done
Or left undone.

You become one,
Perfect and indivisible.

"I am in all things,
From Brahma to a blade of grass."

When you know this,
You have no thought
For success or failure
Or the mind's inconstancy.

You are pure.
You are still.

The world with all its wonders
Is nothing.

When you know this,
Desire melts away.

For you are awareness itself.

When you know in your heart
That there is nothing,
You are still.

- posted by Jan Sultan on Nonduality Salon

Don't complain of affliction,
for it's a smooth-paced horse
carrying you toward nonexistence.

--Mathnawi, VI:1474
Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1996
- posted on Sunlight Yahoo Group

Hollow Bamboo
by Osho.

Tilopa said:

Like a hollow bamboo
rest at ease with your body.
This is one of Tilopa's special
methods. Every Master has his own
special method through which he has attained, and through which he would
like to help others. This is
Tilopa's specialty:

LIKE A HOLLOW BAMBOO REST AT EASE WITH YOUR BODY.

A bamboo, inside completely hollow...
When you rest, you just feel that you
are like a bamboo: inside completely
hollow and empty. And in fact this is
the case: your body is just like a
bamboo, and inside it is hollow. Your
skin, your bones, your blood, all
are part of the bamboo, and inside
there is space, hollowness.

When you are sitting with a completely
silent mouth, inactive, tongue
touching the roof and silent, not
quivering with thoughts, mind watching
passively, not waiting for anything
in particular, feel like a hollow
bamboo -- and suddenly infinite energy
starts pouring within you, you are
filled with the unknown, with the
mysterious, with the divine. A hollow
bamboo becomes a flute and the divine
starts playing it. Once you are empty
then there is no barrier for the
divine to enter in you.

Try this; this is one of the most
beautiful meditations, the meditation
of becoming a hollow bamboo. You need
not do anything else. You simply
become this -- and all else happens.
Suddenly you feel something is
descending in your hollowness. You
are like a womb and a new life is
entering in you, a seed is falling.
And a moment comes when the bamboo
completely disappears.

- Excerpted from The Book of Secrets
- posted by Karta on Meditation Society of America Yahoo Group

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