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DAN

I once met a man from Brazil
He claimed he was climbing a hill
He came to the top
Then made a full stop
And said, "I'm a vista that's drinking
my fill"

JAN

And when he was full, he went to a
bull
But its milk was yellow and not very
cool
He shouted out loud:
"What the heck is this about"
And the bull said: "you fool!"

___________________________________________________________________

Here now!
it was but a collective nightmare, that Y2K hysteria, ja?
here is the
song about the big picture.

i love you
gen

WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING

what's the sign? another time?
*now* who is the enemy?
what makes one the anti-truth?
a bleak finality?
WE COULD CROSS THE FUTURE NOW
BRING BACK A WAY TO BE
OR REACH INTO THE PAST AND FIND
A TWISTED, NIGHTMARE HARMONY

where's the line ARE YOU DOING TIME
where's the line?

GOT YOUR HEAD SO FULL OF WORDS
buy a pound of soul
Buddha's westernized for you
Send dollars and be whole--
Y2K AND NUKES AFRIGHT
THOSE WHO DWELL ON FEAR
BT THE FUTURE'S ONLY BLEAK UNTIL
WE LOVE EACH OTHER HERE.

WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING?
WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING
ARE YOU DOING TIME
ARE YOU

THERE IS NOTHING YET TO SAY
WHAT IS HAPPENINGHERE?
Children cry! Mother's moan!
THE END IS NOWHERE NEAR
CRAWL OUT OF THAT FOREIGN PLACE
Truth can hurt
BUT HEAL
REALITY IS VIRTUAL
VIRTUALLY REAL

"like the LIGHT that IAM"

lyric through
gen berlin

i submit that we call this year OT-OT,
as they did back in the summer of OT-3.

gen-na-sis
_________________________________________________________________

JAY

Dear Everyone,

I've been a baaaaaaad boy. I've posted to this list without
introducing myself. Apologies, apologies. And my posting
was a bit forward of me. Where are my manners? One of the
pitfalls of email lists, I suppose. We forget our manners.

I was just in my kitchen thinking about being mindful as
news about terrorists was playing on the boobtube and --
whoops -- I spilled some milk while pouring it into my
coffee.

Lucky for me it wasn't mercury...

Anywho, my name is Jay Schneider. I live in Honolulu
(pretty close, anyway) and have had quite a long life for my
29 years on this earth. I even have a few crow's toes from
squinting in the sun and from worrying too much.

I'm pretty eclectic for someone of my ilk, but consider
myself an unfettered Christian for the most part. I know
some of you on this list cringe when I say that, but I trust
that most of you respect the source and not the lengthened
shadow of the (human) institution.

For many years I've been interested in Sufism and have
always felt an affinity for all the mainstream spiritual
paths (Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and all the other
isms out there). I am a walking meditator -- I'm always
trying to apprehend God. My weakness, like so many of us,
is in my conditioning and in my attachment to my persona. I
get too caught up in the sensual sometimes, and as a result
find myself thinking/doing/saying things that seem alien to
me later. You know: "Did I really say *that* this morning?
Man!"

Mostly, I'm pretty much a down-to-earth kinda guy who is
very active and enjoys the company of people who strive to
live a life that is true to their souls.
__________________________________________________________________

TIM: So over the Internet or through reading a book there is
no way to gain that *knowing*, and thus no way to judge
whether someone is 'realized' or not.
~~~
XAN: Actually there is a way. It is to recognize any held
ideas that the subtle communication and connection among
those awakening and 'realized" depends on physical presence.
Once this idea dissolves ... well, you'd be surprised.
___________________________________________________________________

JAN: Getting to know the inner resistances and clearing them
precedes the undoing of the identification; it is
unavoidable.
~~~
XAN: Most assuredly this work of vigilant self-honesty is
unavoidable for any who aspire to no *I* in this lifetime.
__________________________________________________________________

Sri Ramana: Just realize that you are dreaming a dream you
call the world, and stop looking for ways out. The dream is
not your problem. *YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU LIKE ONE PART
OF THE DREAM AND NOT ANOTHER.

Dan: Thanks, Skye. Just dream that you're realizing you're
a dream.

skye: yes "a dream that you're realizing you call the world"
and are not apart from.

dan: Stop dreaming you're looking for ways out. Dream that
I'm telling you to stop dreaming.

skye: Bit of a contradiction there. No matter, you know me
dan, i love the dream i call a world. I have chosen to wake
up TO the world dream as gene says, instead of FROM the
world dream. I'm not looking for ways to separate *as a
self* from it. As you well know, much to everyone chagrin
:-)

dan: Dream that you stop looking for ways out.

skye: Do you mean stop dreaming ways to separate myself out
from the world dream? Done.

dan: Dream that you've stopped dreaming that I'm telling you
to stop dreaming.

skye: Its easy to stop dreaming that you're telling me to
stop dreaming, for the *individual you* that is dictating
your separative dream to me is an illusion. But to wake up
from the dream that i am a world that i love dearly and have
no problem with? nah i love it too much sorry :-)

dan: Dream that your problem is no longer that you like one
part and not another.

skye: Within the dream there is no separate self able to
realize that there is or is no longer a problem of liking
one part and not another.

dan: Dream that I didn't tell you this.

skye: done

dan: Dream that you're a butterfly dreaming that you're
reading a computer screen. Wake up. Then dream that you
woke up.

skye: Woke up to love.

dan: Dream on you beautiful dreamer.

skye: back atcha.

dan: You're not more one part then another.
You're no problem. You're not mine, you're Dreamy.

skye: Too cute :-)

But it is interesting that you have interpreted ramana's
quote as an individual *you* or *me* that he's speaking to,
whereas i interpreted him as speaking to a dreamer that is
to become aware of being undivided from the dream called the
world and that that dream is not the problem.

skye: Thank yOu dan Though on a different track, tis a pity
our culture tends to invalidate dreamers as immorally lazy
or deluded, yet we would not be able to communicate like
this over the net if it weren't for them, reminds me
of........

ramana: The dream is not your problem. YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT
YOU LIKE ONE PART OF THE DREAM AND NOT ANOTHER.

Much love skye
_________________________________________________________________

CHRISTIANA

Cooperative communal lessons from geese..

http://www.somerton.k12.az.us/geese.html
_________________________________________________________________

JOSHUA: So why are we talking about non-duality, again?

DAN:
When there is no outside, there is no inside.
When there is no other, there is no self.
When there is no before, there is no after.

Looking ahead, looking behind, it is missed.
Looking outside, looking inside, it is forgotten.
Looking to others, looking to self, it is disregarded.
Having no objects, it reveals itself.

Breaking with conceptualizations of reality, Reality reveals
Itself to Itself. We discuss this because by not breaking
with conceptualizations of Reality, ignorance breeds
ignorance.
-- Namaste --
___________________________________________________________________

BOB BAYS

A few months ago I introduced Kay to the list (see her entry
in Realizers and Confessors). Well, she has finally made an
appearance on the Net, some of her friends in the UK having
set up a website inviting all to a retreat she is giving
next April in Cambridge.

If anyone is interested (some of our European contingent may
well be), the site is at
http://www.kaynextapril.dabsol.co.uk

Although she is not a Buddhist, Kay follows the Dana
tradition, in that participants pay only room and board, no
tuition. So even at $585 (covering meals, lodging and
meeting facilities for four days) I think it's a bargain!

OM shantih, Bob B.
____________________________________________________________________

MELODY

Having sat with Benjamin Creme's talk for a while this
morning, it opened me back up once again to simply sitting,
and allowing what ever's coming up.

(Although the chorus is singing quite clearly that there is
nothing of benefit to be found in Creme's words, I'm glad I
followed my intuition rather than the song of the well
intended choir.)

He said:

"One of the great trials of Hercules, if you remember, was
the slaying of the many-headed Hydra. The Hydra lived in a
cave, and had nine heads, one of them was immortal.
Hercules was enjoined to conquer the monster.
"One word of counsel only I may give," the Teacher said.
"We rise by kneeling; we conquer by surrendering; we gain by
giving up. Go forth, O Son of God and Son of Man, and
conquer."

Isn't that it in a nutshell? so simple, yet I seem to
profit by hearing it again and again, first one way and then
another.....helping me to remember that surrendering isn't a
one time only deal......surrendering is called for day after
day, one moment at a time.
______________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIANA

At the Still Point of Background... the negative *pole* of
the foreground becomes quite agitated.. It knows that it's
Show is Being revealed.

care in *not* attending the cacophany is what we can offer.
___________________________________________________________________

TIM HARRIS

Show me the 'man' that can 'stop the Buddha' from 'laughing'
and I will show you the 'he' that 'I know'.

Buddha may have been a great architect of 'the way' but it
took a simple, poor, 'disgarded', carpenter with 'dust' on
his feet to build the 'home'... with his 'wood' (body)...
with his 'hands' (nails)... with his 'pen' (spear in the
side)... with his 'blood' (ink).... with our memory
(paper)... with his 'desires 'in' head' (thorns)... and
the 'weight of the sins' of 'the fathers' at his 'back'
(cross).... and with his 'cup' (fear)... Courage has never
know the likes of him before and I fear it will never know
it again.

However we 'choose' or 'choose not' to celebrate Christmas,
whether it be one day or everyday, let us never forget that
Jesus was born on this day and regardless of right or wrong,
this or that, even if we consider the evils that are done
'only' in his 'name' (label and definitions of that label)
and not with his 'heart'...

Jesus saw a 'way' and we must never forget that the true
meaning of Christmas is not the 'gifts'... the 'gifts' came
from the 'wise men' (buddhas)... Jesus's gift was his
sacrafice...

Perhaps we did what we had to do. Perhaps. But did we
cross the line when we 'spat' on him?
_________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

Competition is basic to life. Since the first appearance of
self replicating molecules on this planet, competition has
driven evolution.
In multicelled organisms competition is modified; the cells
in the body compete with each other only in limited ways,
otherwise they abide each other. In fact, according to
current theory on cell death (apoptosis) they are actually
programmed to die unless they continually receive a 'stay
alive' message from their neighbours. It is the body as a
whole which competes in the world.
With social animals, there is a further modification of
competition, with limits to competition within the social
group, and the group as a whole competing in the world.
In human society, there is a similar situation, but the
social group is expanding, there is constraint on
competition between individuals there is constraint on
competition between nations.
All of this is obvious.
Competition is not the only dynamic at work, there is also
symbiosis, the living world as a whole seen as an organism,
with all the living things within it being parts of its
body, competing, but also completely interdependant. There
are limits in the system, any organism that competes too
succesfully will unbalance the system and conditions will
change until it is brought back into balance.
It is interesting to understand the role and dynamics of
competition, but having understood, what then?

SKYE

I too ponder, western culture urges and programs us to
tackle life competitively, which focuses our consciousness
primarily on *eternal* reality and specific goals. E.G..
artists and dreamers are not considered valid if their
creativity does not compete in the market place.

But there does seem to be a balanced physical and
psychological propensity towards cooperation operating
within the framework of existence, which our external
competitive ideals seems to have upset.

As children and adults we naturally and playfully compete
against ourselves in an urge to outdo old performance with
new. But when competition becomes an *ideal* at *all*
levels of activity it becomes determined, rigorous,
desperate and sometimes deadly, in which a person determines
their value according to the number of individuals he/she
has shunted aside. (e.g. Columbine)

To me the environment is conscious and consciousness of self
is dependent on the miraculous conscious cooperation exiting
between mineral vegetable and animal kingdoms. Cells
therefore have memory within themselves of all the previous
forms they have been a part of. I think future man will
discover we are naturally bisexual, but our ideas of love
and sex are at present distorted and so men and women go to
war and compete with each other.

I prefer to live by the fact that life is a cooperative
venture, an ideal yes, but one that is at least life
promoting in all levels of activity.
This great gracious cooperation is based on love, a love
that has a biological AND spiritual basis.
__________________________________________________________________

NEO

Listen to your heart and your own inner knowledge. I have
spent many hours with fear and depression. These are tools
of the ego that try to keep you from the goal. You cannot
run from them or suppress them.
The only way that you can minimize and ultimately abolish
their power over you is to do exactly what you are doing.
Sit with the fear, face the fear, explore every aspect of
the fear, and then go into the core of the fear. Eventually
it will lose its power over you.
___________________________________________________________________

TIM G.: Contemplating today as the last day of this body's
life, I get -

* A profound sense of relief... to be free of the constant
demands of the mind and of the flesh... release from the
heavy weight of perceiving Awareness overshadowed by
physicality...


* A strong feeling of expectation... as if about to enter
totally uncharted territory... something entirely new and
unexperienced (or unremembered)
about to happen... Wondering what it will be like to feel
the body die, and what might occur...

Not exactly the reactions of a 'Realized sage' (who would
probably not care one way or the other if the body drops),
but not a shred of fear, either.

I'm ready to go, if indeed there is anywhere to go.

Aside from Melody, anyone else?

JERRY: I ease into it. No relief from anything. I went for
surgery a few years ago and I was laughing on the operating
table, getting a kick out of entering unconsciousness. When
I woke up my first thought was, 'Death is deeper.'

After saying final words, and the fixation of the thought
that if there is a tunnel, to head for the center of the
light, all is released. Just the clear charm of going.
Then the going. Then gone.

GLO: The hubby told me once he thought dying would be like
going under anaesthia, because its so much deeper than
sleep. I said back, so how would you remember or know to
say its deeper, if you were really gone like dead? So yeah,
death must be deeper. Now I have been dead to this reality
and wide awake to remember consciousness. The living dead,,
kinda makes me a zombie, huh? Anyway, that's how I picture
dying slow..if its sudden, it might feel more like the
suddenness of going under anaesthia.

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