Nondual Highlights Issue
#1864 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - Editor: Mark
The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing
as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the
self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the self
is the self. How can I make you understand this simple thing?
There is no 'how'. If I tell you that, it will only add more
momentum to that...
-U.G.Krishnamurti
Part of a conversation on SufiMystic:
Raymond Sigrist:
This might lead back to the perennial discussion on cultivation:
Can the ideal be cultivated, so that in practical terms, we can
be in this unified disposition more often? Or does such
cultivation give lie to the purported fact of our already always
being One with "God?
Jesa:
Seems to me like we are all already there, but sleeping. What we
cultivate is clarity and awareness.
Farishtah:
I favor cultivation, too, consciously acting as if one is in the
Divine Presence
(which we always are, even if we don't feel it). There are so
many parts to this, all of the practices conducive to the
unlearning and self-effacement that empty us of
"ourselves". As my sheikh once said to me, when God
comes into the heart, everything else has to go.
I know people who are in this state much of the time. Simply
being in their presence opens the heart. Once one has a taste, by
paying attention, a kind of non-cognitive note-taking, a person
can find the way back there again....
FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING.
Freedom from suffering comes from examining and understanding the
source of our suffering, the root of our problems ie. our
ignorance. We must clearly understand what our habitual wrong
view is like. Changing our views or concepts will not solve our
problems, although they may be an appropriate first step, we must
ultimately be free of them through patience, perseverance and
spiritual practice. To be clear about our confusion is to be
clear of it. Your attitude to life will be different according to
your understanding. When we clearly understand how we cause
ourselves suffering we will also understand the skillful action
to take to be free of suffering.
"Study the prison you have built around yourself, by
inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your
Self." Nisargadatta Maharaj
All true spiritual practice and progress is intended to uncover
or realize our true nature, our compassionate heart, through
experience, not blind faith or belief in some dogma. It is very
important to check and see if the spiritual practice we do is an
actual remedy for our suffering. Does it eliminate our delusion?
'In this life we cannot do great things we can only do small
things with great love." Mother Teresa
"Those who enter the gates of heaven are not beings who have
no passion, or who have curbed their passions, but those who have
cultivated an understanding of them." William Blake
The Buddha's eightfold path was given to end suffering through
the practice of right: understanding, thought, speech, action,
livelihood, effort, mindfullness and concentration. When we have
right understanding and awareness the other seven will follow
automatically. Right understanding develops by seeing the
impermanence, suffering and emptiness in everything perceived
through the senses; this leads to detachment. Right understanding
also means seeing the oneness, the interdependence of all people
and things and realizing that all the relative differences,
emerge from and are part of the larger whole, the oneness of our
true nature. Right understanding is not just intellectual it is
practice itself. You don't have to remove the darkness of the ego
you just have to turn on the light of the practice of right
understanding, of awareness and darkness leaves immediately. We
suffer due to our ignorance of what is real and what is unreal.
Right action involves doing whatever you do as part of your
mindfullness practice. When you perform action it "may feel
like you are doing something special, but actually it is only the
expression of your true nature." Suzuki Roshi
"So even though there is no you doing anything, something is
getting done. You are expressing yourself, your true nature. Keep
it simple. What we truly seek in life is to express our true
nature." Susuki Roshi
Proper effort is not a matter of achieving or making something
happen, it is the effort to be awake and aware and loving in each
moment, to make each moment a meditation, free of achieving, free
of results, or attachments to the goal or fruits of the effort;
the effort itself is enough. "Any effort we make is not good
for our practice because it creates waves in our mind. It is
impossible however to realize absolute calmness of mind without
any effort. We must make some effort but forget ourself in the
effort we make...we must make some effort up to the last moment,
when all effort disappears." "Some people think freedom
or naturalness means there is no need for discipline or effort, a
kind of leave it alone policy. No need to do anything. For a
plant it is natural, no problem. But not for us. We need to work.
It is natural to sleep when tired but not when lazy. If it comes
out of nothingness, whatever you do is natural, that is true
practice."
Mindfulness is the precision of observing everything. Mindfulness
is practiced to see clearly for oneself how things are. To see
what is happening in the present moment, observing and
experiencing without reacting unconsciously, bringing our whole
heart and mind, our full attention, to each moment. Through
mindfulness we begin to see all our thoughts, feelings and
sensations, the world, without identifying with any of it, in
order to clearly see life "as it is". Mindfulness helps
to purify and balance the mind, opening it to deeper insight and
realizations. The basis for all of the Buddhist practices of
insight and awakening is the practice of mindful awareness in the
following four areas. Awareness of the:
BODY - the body armor, physical pains, and the underlying nature
of them
HEART - grieving and letting go, forgiveness and compassion, the
heart opens when we come to terms with sorrow
MIND - its dualistic nature, its ignorance, and illusions
LAWS - universal laws of karma, emptiness etc.
Concentration will bring calm, mental focus, powers and even
blissful states, however if it isn't balanced with mindfulness to
examine or practice awareness of the nature of body and mind, it
is temporary and incomplete. It is the silent concentrated
attentive inner listening and seeing, the mindfulness that leads
to true learning. Be careful not to get attached and hung up in
the deep absorption states, the states of bliss and power that
may come from deep concentration, employ your concentration to
the practice of mindfulness and develop true insight and
learning.
Awareness is absolute love in action. Awareness is seeing the
realizations and insights from being mindful and being willing
not to cling to or resist the insights. Awareness is timeless and
unchanging and brings direct insight into the whole field of
consciousness. Awareness in one aspect of your life does not
automatically spread into all areas, you must practice awareness
in all aspects of your life.
Consciousness is only of the mind, it is relative to its content.
Consciousness contains the whole world, including the body, it is
all one, including the waking and dreaming states. Nisargadatta
Maharaj said "The only difference between the waking and
dream state is that one is longer than the other. They assume
different bodily sheaths, but both are illusion." All
differences in manifestation exist only in your consciousness as
appearances, the source is the same. You can be aware of being
conscious but not conscious of being aware.
Establish yourself in "I am" consciousness only. When
the thought of "I am good, bad, man, woman, or whatever
arises, let it go. Return to being, "I am", that is
all. It is the only knowledge that we really have. When the
"I am" becomes steady then it too will disappear into
pure awareness, without any object of consciousness. Then you
have no identity, no desire, no disappointments, no suffering,
pain yes, but no one to claim or own the pain, there is no
attachment to it, that just leaves blissful awareness.
"All I know is that "I am" here, now."
Nisargadatta Maharaj
When our true nature is personified we call it Buddha. When we
understand it as the ultimate truth, we call it Dharma. When we
accept the truth and live accordingly to it, we call it Sangha.
Image from here (looks like an interesting
site, although I haven't looked deeply yet...): http://www.enlightenment.com/
"Accept everything that comes your way as God-given.
Pleasure, accept it. Pain, accept it. Profit, accept it. Loss,
accept it. By accepting everything the great benefit is you don't
disturb your peace. You are always in peace. That is what we are
looking for. That is what real Yoga is. That is what real
spiritual attainment is. That's what you call enlightenment. So,
learn to accept things. That doesn't mean that you should not
think of doing something, wanting to get something. It is better
not to have any wants, but if you still want something, okay.
Have your wants under one condition: those wants should be
approved by the Higher Way, by God. If you get it, all right, God
approved it. If you don't get it, all right, God disapproved it.
There is no harm in that kind of want.
God bless you. Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi."
Sri Gurudev Swami Satchidananda, contributed to
Meditationsocietyofamerica by Bob Rose
Nothing can match or even come near
the miracle of who you truly are.
Let this be the mantra of your life.
A Being of Indescribable wonder
has, again, become a bearer of
the Light on Earth. Let nothing
dissuade you from this truth.
Brotherhood on the Way, is the incentive, purpose and final goal
of this list. Brotherhood on the way means that we never judge
any one according to his colour or race, we simply walk together
along the same Royal Road to Enlightenment. All stupid worldly
differences are of no value, they are just simply blindness of
the ego. The ego is the cause of all what you described, the ego
may take Million Forms and Million Paths all begin and lead to
DIVISION. Your list and what you are pouring in our hearts
through your posts in this list, shows and demonstrates beyond
any doubt this ETERNAL BROTHERHOOD.
- Wu Nein on MillionPaths
From Ramana Gita(On Society):
------------------------------
O Great Sage, what is the supreme goal on Earth to be attained by
human society as a whole ?
Bhagavan:
10. Brotherhood based on a sense of equality is the supreme goal
to be attained by human society as a whole.
11. Through brotherhood, supreme peace will prevail among mankind
and then this entire planet will flourish like a single
household.
- Viorica Weissman on MillionPaths
It is not possible, at last,
to end one's own suffering,
but it is possible to
love so much that only
Love survives, triumphant,
in the devastation
it has wrought.
Beloved -
let's disappear
in That!
Let's allow the mournful animals
of our reluctance to curl up
in our laps and rest there,
at peace, stroked by
the loving hands we grew to
touch ourselves in the place where
we have never been divided, never been
other than the poignant part of
ourselves, the star cream beauty,
come to flesh for the festival of
fleshiness, this embodiment of
light, God made, God mad,
flush with the rush of pulsing
oxygen, this breathing heart,
the source and destination of
all light, unbearable intensity,
furnace of happiness, fueled by a
fire without end, the smeared ash of
our surrender fingered across our foreheads
so all can see the testimony of
Love's glad disaster.
Bob O'Hearn on AdyashantiSatsang
Editor's
note: With 274 messages in the first 5 days of its existence,
Greg Goode's list NonDualPhil looks like a potential new star in
the nondual pantheon of Yahoo lists... I'd post something from
it, but I'm not smart enough to understand any of it. I like the
picture of the bridge though...
