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MAURICE

Non-Dual Infants

You think you know so much,
peeking out from the womb
like a one-eye Cyclops,
crawling on all fours to the moon.

You think you know so much,
infant babes with peek-a-boo treats,
crawling infinity, skipping along on cosmic feats.

You think you know so much,
non-dual infants, slobbering of spiritual greed,
smelling of conceptual pride, of ignorance dribbling
with a babbling of non-dual desires and fears
in the cosmic kindergarten of eternity.

Sometimes your crawling ass,
could stand a cosmic wiping..

Maurice

postage@jps.net
http://www.jps.net/postage
____________________________________________________________________

TOMAS

All I want is to be free to hold nothing, All I want is to
be free to be fully and fearlessly with whatever is occuring
here and now

I commit to being open to the meanings I am generating, to
be allow the meanings to be.


GREG

This is an exquisitely beautiful statement of desire, which
comes straight from the fullness and fearlessness of the
here and now.
____________________________________________________________________


SKYE

who needS a dictator, the illusion of time is enough of a
dictator in this dimension as it is.

____________________________________________________________________

LARRY

Gloria Lee wrote: "How does an intentionally nondualist
community want to deal with conflicts?"
It seems to me that a short coming of "nonduality" is that
there is no social context. Off the top of my head, I can
only think of two places in the stuff I've read where
society is an issue. In the Gita where the advice seems to
be follow the local neurosis and hope for a good charioteer
and secondly in some off hand remarks by Douglass Harding
about "nonconfrontation". There the idea seems to be to
present the other with the space that you are, but I don't
know if this would be particularly helpful if the other guy
is having a hard time, and I don't see how it could be
comunicated in an email anyway. At any rate, my main point
is that any steps in the direction of articulating a social
or "mahayana" nonduality could be something totally new and
would probably coincidentally facilitate an appreciation of
nonduality in a broader audience.
______________________________________________________________________

RAHASYA

Hello, I am new on the list and I want to introduce myself.
I am female, 42, teacher, married with firak, we have
together a 6 years old son and a little private school for
English and German.
Sometimes I need to share and then I
write.....................

Dear friends.

here I am again after more than one week. Last week I was
in go(o)d old Germany . I visited teachers from Pliezhausen
(Germany) with teachers from Lasko(Slovenia). The area is
called Baden Wuerttemberg. It was really nice. They showed
us Thuebingen, and Ulm with the big cathedral.
This was a beautiful church, but I didn't feel right in
place. The best for me was the castle in Sigmaringen from
the family Hohenzollern. ( The German people know this
places. ) I must say, that this people drink a lot. (I
have been together with non-meditative people ) Mostly they
drink at home with friends and then they sing from all the
heart and this i like. I know them for a long time and they
are always the same and for me they say that I am always
changed.
Anyway, I like them.........

How are you??????????

I am still O.K. My non-master Maitreya is now in England
and will go after one week to America........He starts a
world tour. It suprised me a little , because he wanted to
stay in Pune (India) until February, but suddenly he sent us
this message. I must say that Maitreya is a really dynamic
enlightened person. He always changes his plans. God the
beyond tells him always what to do. He says for himself,
that he is only a puppet in gods hands and everyone who
visits his Satsangs can see it.................
If you are near, where he stays, try to go to a Satsang and
you will see.............
I am steel in conection with him and this makes me really
happy.

Years before I was in total devotion with my master Osho, I
loved him and I still love him. I came to the Commune one
year after he left his body. The energy in that time was
very strong. I learned how to meditate , made groups and so
on. I learned a lot. I learned also sufi-whirling.
I am not a whirler by birth, but last year I whirled very
good. ( this said Akhil- whirling master in Buddha hall).
But the last two years I felt less and less energy in the
commune. I was good into meditation, had high energy by
whirling, but I was missing something. In that time I
didn't know what. Then I met Maitreya on the Satsang and I
knew , that I had missed him. The first Satsang was just
great. ( I wrote about that to the sannyas list before) I
had after that a satori.

Osho is still for me a master, but also Maitreya is very
important for me. In the Commune I learned meditation
techniques and other important things, through Maitreya I
feel the cosmic energy.
The market place is not so difficult for me anymore.

With all my love Rahasya ( it means mystery )
__________________________________________________________________

ERIN

Hello dear friends,

My life is full and so I have only been able to just keep up
with the current of the conversations, but I wanted to put
in a note of gratitude for the enormous growth and changes
that I have experianced since Eric and I came here. Amazing
that I am no where near the *end*. My ego puts up quite a
fight. I have looked at my understandings and the fire of
looking with the eye of god has burned down my proverbial
house. I am naked and standing outside, warm as the sun,
reflected by the moon. the wind of my breath is me as I
play. and then something comes up and I feel ego rising,
and I look again. Oh, anyway, I could go on forever about
that sort of thing....


Lately I've been thinking about my desire to experiance a
belonging, whether it be to a species or a religion. Is it
like a name we wrap up in to keep warm, or what? Does
anybody have any thoughts on that? I've felt myself very
attracted to the 3HO group, is it the experiances that I
crave? I get blissed out when I use my body within
Kundalini Yoga.
very very still. What is my Nature and how does that relate
to feeling a comeradery with Kindred Spirits?


By the way, Aleks, I haven't talked with you much lately.
Eric mentioned you a while ago, but I've not had a chance to
write. I hope that you are lurking and will receive my
wishes for love in your life and cosmic footrubs.=) I love
you and have kept you in my heart.

__________________________________________________________________

JAN

My father used to say "Noblesse oblige" (nobility obliges).
A teaching that is seen as "best" inevitably has to be lived
up to; it has to be reflected in the entire society. If
not, it will become a mere belief or worse, a dogma.
Forcing you to take a few belly-breaths, how about this joke
I read somewhere (but is said to be actually observed): When
in India a man stumbles and falls on the street, it is seen
but nobody does anything about it. When in another part of
the world a man stumbles and falls on the street, he is
helped :) I know, from a nondual perspective no one falls
and no one gets on his feet again but there isn't a doer
either, so why isn't the man helped? No more Buddhists
around or could it be the adapted version of the first
directive from Star Trek - don't interfere with karma ?:)

A warm welcome to the new members...

_________________________________________________________________


PHIL

Often there seems to be a kind of a club atmosphere here.
The same small group of people interact and others try to
find a way in. That's more an observation than a criticism,
as it is a common social dynamic. And it becomes
problematic when, lacking an adequate supportive environment
at home, one goes to an internet mailing list to find that
which one lacks.


The welcoming you ask about is crucial to any spiritual
life. If we only welcome what we like and avoid or
marginalize what we don't like, we are just like the other
dualists. That too is a rather common dynamic. It would be
sad if such is all the NDS is capable of.


ANDREW

I know in myself when I meet a person whether in person or
on a list it usually takes a little while before I become
comfortable with that person, I need to listen to them for a
little while, it doesn't even really matter what they say so
much, but I need to form an image of their personality. I
think this is not uncommon, so for a person who wants to
join a group of people who are already interacting, you have
to speak up maybe a few times and maybe not get too much
response, but know that people are hearing you and forming
their own images of you, and integrating you into the
group. There is the natural resistance of shyness on all
sides, both in the person coming into the conversation and
in the people already in.


PHIL

OK. The problem is this need to have an image. We need to
have an image in order to keep someone or something distinct
or separate. How does one know if the image is even
truthful? My experience is that (a certain person) often
openly expressed my own negative emotions. Forming and
maintaining images of others and self is one of the
syndromes that nondual teachings address. It is an
ingrained habit that accounts for conflict and social
division. That is why this list often gets bogged down in
"personality"
issues. Is it not so?


ANDREW

I think that when we are aware of the process, it ceases to
be a problem, it becomes a problem when we don't understand
what's going on, when we just act instinctively. I don't
see a conflict between awareness and this sort of mental
process, awareness puts it into context, lets us go through
it consciously instead of blindly. I think that people need
to have a crisis occasionally, a katharsis, a "brain dump"
to borrow one of Gene's phrases. Doing it here is a pretty
responsible way of doing it, better by far than doing it in
the "real" world. I don't see that any harm has been done
in the events of the last few days. Just the opposite, I
think there has been development and learning in many
directions.


DAN

Phil: (Forming and maintaining images of others and self is
one of the syndromes that nondual teachings address. It is
an ingrained habit that accounts for conflict and social
division. That is why this list often gets bogged down in
"personality" issues. Is it not so?)

Dan: It is precisely so. Thanks for clarifying this so
cleanly.
The maintenance of personality structure and learning about
reality through this structure - that is generally what we
consider learning. Along with such learning comes all kinds
of emotional responses when our intellectual attachments or
attachment to images of self or other are threatened.
Nonduality is not this kind of learning, which is
essentially fragmented and fragmenting. Nonduality is
precisely renunciation of attachment to fragemented being,
allowing the opening of nonfragmented being. However,
because the nonfragmented supercedes and subsumes the
fragmented, when Nonduality appears in the realm of Duality,
it is as all-encompassing compassion that supports no
structures. We tend to make the mistake of thinking that
Awareness/compassion wants to compassionately support our
structure as is. No. It is the end of it.

GLO (referring to Dan's post)

I started humming,"Killing me softly with his love..." Now
the next question is...who and how may anyone assist anyone
in this shattering of images?? This seems to me a far more
awesome risk than undertaking brain surgery...yet I have
felt it was done most tenderly at times ... others wilh
violence..I suppose depending on my own degree of
attachment. At times I have thought I was "volunteering" by
surrendering...other times, it seems life simply did it "to
me"...

JAN (referring to Glo's post)

If, as was my case, one has taken leave of life seriously
but is restored to it again, "Killing me softly with his
love..." cannot happen anymore. It was more like dissolving
in love, being totally absorbed, a state of bliss sometimes
changing in ecstasy; never depression but the most enjoyable
ever experienced until then. The crux of the matter is
"having take leave of life"; it can done mentally with the
same result and sooner or later it will be forced anyway.
What possibly can happen after that? My favorite saying was
"having lost everything, everything is gained": all images
are shattered in one blow. Admitted, this is an extreme.
The other extreme is being completely attached to ephemeral
life. From that perspective, "Killing me softly with his
love..." is more than an understatement; at times it could
be "being hit real hard with a hammer". The first extreme
is called unconditional surrender and the other extreme is
clinging.
Between the extremes of black and white there is an infinity
of shades of grey. Be aware of the feeling

ANDREW (referring to Dan's post)

To me it's like the story of the Child King and the Chief
Minister.
While the King is a child, The Minister carries out all the
day to day duties of his office and also rules the Kingdom
on the King's behalf.
When the King is mature, the Minister still carries out his
day to day duties, but now is subservient to the King who
rules on his own behalf.
The personality with its various mental functions is like
the chief minister, still carrying out his duties, but no
longer ruling.

PHIL

If you really understood what was going on, you would drop
it like a hot potato. I mean really understood. "Image" is
not an ingredient of relationship. "Image" is destructive.
I say it as I see it. The operative meaning of image is
something constructed or fabricated. On the other hand,
there is absolutely nothing wrong about image-making in
itself. Imagination is wonderful. But when it's
psychological it is a symptom: the refusal of What Is.

ANDREW

Now I understand, yes I did speak of forming an image, that
was confused in my expression, I was thinking of the time it
takes for a perception to develop, it takes some time and
some tentative interaction with someone I meet before I can
be open with them. Openness comes with familiarity. It's
not me actively forming an image, it's the image forming
itself. Like an image forming on the film in a camera.

BRUCE

What is problematic isn't imagery and imagination per se,
it's the error of mistaking an image -- by (Phil's)
definition a construct or fabrication -- for the actuality
it may well have been intended to evoke or point toward.
If one harbors an image, that image tends to perceptually
displace the actual. When we understand the nature of
imagery, we are free to enjoy it as such, as part and parcel
of "what is" -- if we don't we will very likely mistake the
menu for the meal.

JERRY

There is no image for this community to hold onto. Yet
there is always an image coalescing. It needs to always be
dispelled. It's very difficult to do, but that dispelling
of the coalesced image is not different than the attentional
work anyone does or needs to do every moment. It's
neti-neti. It is out of this knowledge, this attentional
work, that Andrew's Listguru, or what I've called holo-guru,
arises.

Melody asked several days ago (and I got caught up in the
recent storm and neglected to respond) where I thought this
community was going (I'm not quoting Melody exactly). Well,
I don't really want to know. The best plan is no plan. But
it's going somewhere and all we can do, I feel, is remove
the obstacles in the way, and we know what the obstacles
are.

______________________________________________________________________

XAN

Judgement is one of the primary functions of ego-mind that
holds the illusion of duality in place. But, you must know
that, at least as a concept.


SKYE

.....just looking into the *illusion of duality* part a
little more. I want to probe the illusion to its depths, i
want to grant the diversity that exists. With loving
endeavor, i want to be completely immersed in it, as if no
other existed, free enough to explore the nature and direct
experience of every living thing in this system of human
physical consciousness and know that it is me before i
leave.

I don't want to cause myself any unnecessary illness through
neurotic rejection.

I want to know that i created the limitations and the
depths, that i was the game and all was not in vain, that
the illusions i created were important and valid learning
experiences for the self.

So i will play it with divine humor and deep reverence. All
the while aware that i am dwelling in other realities
simultaneously.
These are tender children i lay to rest.
____________________________________________________________________

JUDAS THOMAS

Likewise, trees sprout and grow only while their root is
hidden. If their root is uncovered, the trees wither. So
it is with all begotten things in this world, not only
things that are visible but also those that are hidden. For
so long as the root of evil is hidden it is mighty. But as
soon as it has been recognized it has perished, and as soon
as it has appeared it has ceased to be. For this reason
scripture says that "even now the ax is laid to the root of
the tree."
It will not just cut them down, for what is cut down sprouts
back up: rather, the ax will burrow down until it extracts
the root. And Jesus weeded the whole place, while others
did so one part at a time.

Let each of us, too, burrow for the root of evil that is
within, and root it up from his or her heart. It will be
rooted up when it is recognized. But if we are ignorant of
it, it sinks its roots within us, and yields its crops
within our hearts; dominates us; we are its slaves; it takes
us captive, so that we do the things we do not want, and do
not do the things that we want; and it grows powerful
because we do not recognize it. So long as it exists it is
at work.

Lack of knowledge is the mother of all evil. Lack of
knowledge will lead to nullification: for, those who existed
as a result of the lack of knowledge neither existed nor do
exist nor will exist. Those remaining will become perfect
when the whole truth appears. For like the lack of
knowledge, truth rests in itself while it is hidden. But
when it appears, and is recognized, it is glorious insofar
as it overpowers lack of knowledge and error. It brings
freedom. The Word said, "If you know the truth, the truth
will make you free." Lack of knowledge is a slave:
knowledge is freedom. If we come to know the truth, we
shall find the fruits of truth within us. If we join with
it, it will receive our fullness.
(GoPh 104)
_____________________________________________________________________

The Pathway of Nonduality

by Raphael

Chapter 11

Transmigration

Q. People speak of reincarnation, of metempsychosis,
rebirth, transmigration. What do these terms mean? And who
is it that is reborn or transmigrates?


A. All the branches of Tradition have faced the problem of
rebirth.The Western Mysteric Tradition speaks about
metempsychosis, the Oriental -- in which Buddhism, Taoism
and Jainism may be included -- about transmigration or
rebirth.


The concept of transmigration or rebirth implies, obviously,
that there is something which leaves and comes back,
something which creates movement or changes condition.
Further questions may be asked: why does one transmigrate,
why is one reborn?


This point is very important and very much discussed. First
of all let us restate the problem in metaphysical terms:
that which is 'born', if it really is so, cannot be born a
second time; that which is not born cannot be born or come
into existence, because it is an eternal presence, an
absolute or a constant. The non-existent cannot either be
born or exist or be.


Therefore, if the atman-constant, the pure Spirit, the
Absolute in us or the pure Being cannot be born because it
simply 'is', nor can it transmigrate because it is not
subject to change, then what is it in us that transmigrates?
And why does it transmigrate, why is it reborn?


In order to understand who is reborn and why, we must know
the make-up of the manifested entity in its psycho-physical
components. In this way we shall be able to examine the
whole problem in all its details.


As we have already seen, according to the Western Mysteric
Tradition man is a synthesis of nous, psyche and soma;
according to the Vedanta Tradition he is a synthesis of
atman, jiva and jivabhuta. The nous, like the atman, being
the constant, the immortal, the non-born, and the Absolute
in us cannot, obviously, be subject to birth and
transmigration. The immortal cannot become mortal, nor can
the mortal become immortal, as Gaudapada states in his
karikas to the Mandukya Upanisad.


The body or bodies of the entity, being as perishable as
flies, disintegrate, and their elements return to the plane
and to the existential element from which they have been
drawn. They cannot transmigrate or be reborn because, being
compounds, they dissolve and disintegrate leaving no traces
behind them.


The jiva or psyche is a reflection of consciousness of the
atman-nous, it is a ray of pure consciousness which, though
being a mere ray, has within itself being-will,
consciousness-intelligence and creativity. It attracts
towards itself a certain amount of substance from the
existential planes of Being, producing its bodies of
manifestation through which it can experience the various
objects of the senses.


"An eternal fragment of Me, having become in the world of
mortals a living soul (jivabhuta), attracts towards itself
the five senses and the mind (manas) as the sixth organ,
which find their basis in prakriti." (Bhagavadgita: XV, 7)


If the atman belongs to the state of Being -- and therefore,
being immortal, cannot transmigrate --, if the body belongs
to the condition of non-being, and therefore has no life of
its own or aseity, then we must shift our attention to two
very important factors: the reflection-jiva-psyche and the
qualities that represent the 'scent' of the substance.


"The vital breath," writes Rene Guinon in his L'homme et son
devenir selon le Vedanta, paraphrasing a number of chapters
of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Chandogya Upanisad and
Brahma-sutra, which deal with the question of death,
"accompanied by all its other functions and faculties
(already reabsorbed in it and not subsisting in it except as
possibilites, having now reverted to the state of
indifferentiation from which they had to rise in order to
actually manifest themselves during life) is in turn
reabsorbed by the living soul (jivatman, particular
manifestation of the Self at the core of human
individuality, as already explained, and distinct from the
Self so long as that individuality endures as such, though
this distinction is an illusion from the standpoint of the
absolute reality for which there is nothing but the Self);
and it is this very living soul(as the reflection of the
Self and central principle of the individuality) which
governs the whole of the individual faculties (considered in
their integrality and not only in their relationship with
the corporeal mode). Like the servants of a King gather
around him when he is about to undertake a journey, even so
all the vital functions and faculties of the individual
(external and internal) gather around the living soul (or
rather within it, from which they all issue and by which
they are all reabsorbed) at the last moment (of life, in the
ordinary sense of the word, that is of manifested existence
at the gross state), when this living soul is about to leave
its corporeal form. Thus, accompanied by all its faculties
(as it contains and keeps them as possibilities) it retires
into a luminous individual essence (that is, into the subtle
form, compared to a fiery vehicle, as we have explained with
regard to taijasa, the second condition of atman), which is
composed of the five tanmatras or suprasensible elementary
essences (just as the body has the five bhutas or corporeal
and sensible elements), in a subtle state (as opposed to the
gross state, which is the state of external or bodily
manifestation whose cycle, as far as the individual is
concerned, is completed).


"As a result (due to his passage into the subtle form,
described as luminous) the vital breath is said to withdraw
into the Light, without meaning by this the fiery principle
in the exclusive sense (as in reality it concerns an
individual reflection of the intelligible Light, a
reflection the nature of which is basically the same as the
mental one during bodily life and which, on the other hand,
implies a combination of the five basic principles of the
five elements as its support or vehicle). This withdrawal
does not necessarily imply an immediate transition; in fact,
(to give an example) a traveller is said to travel from a
city to another, even though he may stop at one or more
cities in between.


"This withdrawal from or leaving the bodily form (as
described so far) is common to the ignorant person (avidvan)
and to the contemplative Sage(vidvan), up to the point at
which their respective (and from now on different) ways
part."


--to be continued!


__________________________________________________________________

XAN'S BROTHER


Six wise, blind elephants were discussing what humans were
like. Failing to agree, they decided to determine what
humans were like by direct experience.
The first wise, blind elephant felt the human, and declared,
"Humans are flat."
The other wise, blind elephants, after similarly feeling the
human, agreed.

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