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Nondual Highlights Issue #2051 Sunday, February 6, 2005 Editor: Mark
-
Editor's note: I want to thank you all for being supportive of my
efforts. Thanks!
The transfiguration of matter occurs through wonder.
- James Hillman, posted to AlphaWorld
All around you there is an incredibly fine Mist.
This Mist is absolutely invisible
for it is Undifferentiated Unconsciousness.
It is like an Invisible Ocean of Nothingness
filled with the Pure Energy of Bliss.
This Void of Pure Energy is the Womb of Creation.
Small Disturbances occur in this Pure Energy
and these first Stirrings
are the Eddy Currents of Differentiation.
Differentiation means Individualities
and Individualities are Spores of Awareness.
These Spores of Awareness are but Sensitive Atoms
and many billions cling together for Company.
Slowly more and more Disturbances
gather Speed... Power... Mass... and Awareness
and before we know what is really happening
the first primitive Thoughts are born.
These Thoughts turn into Points of Light
and by an innate Ability they sense
that they all spring forth from the same Source
but have diverse Disturbances and Characteristics.
Their Individualities are Unlimited.
These Points of Light or Centers of Awareness
slowly increase and they become consciously aware
that this Invisible Mist of Unconsciousness
is the undisputable Source
of their Unique and Individual Existence.
The First Godbeings of the Universe are born.
By the Experiences they enjoy and endure
they grow in Awareness.
They gather Knowledge and Wisdom.
They become aware that they are the Consciousness
of the Unconscious Creator they represent.
Billions of Beings gather together
for their Disturbances or Vibrations are similar.
They form Groups and Societies
and they start to explore the Usefulness
of this Incredible Void of Pure Energy.
They work upon it with their Awareness called Mind
and they discover that they can create anything.
Galaxies... Planets... and Worlds are created
and out of Sheer Exuberance and Enjoyment
they begin to live in Bodies
which they create out of the Dust of their Worlds.
AND SLOWLY THEY GET LOST IN THEIR OWN CREATIONS
- posted to CosmicCookies
Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course.
Then your mind will become still in any surroundings. Like a
clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will
come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the
nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful
things come and go, but you will be still. This is the
happiness of the Buddha.
- Achaan Chah from the book, A Still Forest
Pool, edited by Jack Kornfield and Paul
Breitner, published by Theosophical Publishing House, posted to
DailyDharma
Question: No doubt the method taught by Bhagavan is direct. But
it is so difficult. We do not know how to begin it. If we go on
asking, `Who am I?, who am I?' like a japa (repetition of the
name of God) or a mantra, it becomes dull. In other methods there
is something preliminary and positive with which one can begin
and then go step by step. But in Bhagavan's method, there is no
such thing, and to seek the Self at once, though direct, is
difficult.
Sri Ramana Maharshi: You yourself concede it is the direct
method. It is the direct and easy method. When going after other
things that are alien to us is so easy, how can it be difficult
for one to go to one's own Self? You talk of where to begin?
There is no beginning and no end. You are yourself in the
beginning and the end. If you are here and the Self somewhere
else, and you have to reach that Self, you may be told how to
start, how to travel and then how to reach.
Suppose you who are now in Ramanasramam ask, `I want to go to
Ramanasramam. How shall I start and how to reach it?', what is
one to say? A man's search for the Self is like that. He is
always the Self and nothing else.
You say `Who am I?' becomes a japa. It is not meant that you
should go on asking `Who am I?' In that case, thought will not so
easily die. In the direct method, as you call it, in asking
yourself `Who am I?', you are told to concentrate within yourself
where the `I'- thought, the root of all other thoughts, arise. As
the Self is not outside but inside you, you are asked to dive
within, instead of going without. What can be more easy than
going to yourself?
But the fact remains that to some this method will seem difficult
and will not appeal. That is why so many different methods have
been taught. Each of them will appeal to some as the best and
easiest. That is according to their Pakva or fitness. But to
some, nothing except the Vichara Marga (the path of enquiry) will
appeal. They will ask, `You want me to know or to see this or
that. But who is the knower, the seer?' Whatever other method may
be chosen, there will be always a doer. That cannot be escaped.
One must find out who the doer is. Till then, the Sadhana
(spiritual practice) cannot be ended. So eventually all must come
to find out `Who am I?'
You complain that there is nothing preliminary or positive to
start with. You have the `I' to start with. You know you exist
always, whereas the body does not exist always, for example in
sleep. Sleep reveals that you exist even without a body. We
identify the `I' with the body, we regard the Self as having a
body, and as having limits, and hence all our trouble.
All that we have to do is to give up identifying the Self with
the body, with forms and limits, and then we shall know ourselves
as the Self that we always are.
- Ramana Maharshi, from Be As You Are,
edited by David Godman and posted to MillionPaths
Love Untitled 43
This longing sluices through me,
flushes me, trails my insides
across the street, down drains,
through sewer lines,
still screaming for you.
My mind rips from my skull
and I spit dreams and images
and words and terrors that
flee out of my eyes in a hunt for you.
I am colonized by these thoughts
camping within me. They’ve built
cities of verbs, towers of nouns,
fountains of prepositions, whole
subway systems that snake underground
and rumble the feet of the day.
I am creating my own weather with
this electricity that flows between us,
whooshes of cirrus clouds that
write your name in the sky, great
thunderheads that roar your voice,
ice crystals that birth lightning
when you’re away.
Catch me as I fall in the floodwaters,
stumble over the debris of old fears
and call out your name.
© Zen Oleary, February 5, 2005, posted to SufiMystic
The Human Route
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed ... that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?
- Zen Master Seung Sahn, from Soen-sa-nim,
posted to SufiMystic