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CYNDI ROY from Osho Zen Tarot

Ice-olation

We are miserable because we are too
much in the self. What
does it mean when I say we are too
much in the self? And
what exactly happens when we are too
much in the self?
Either you can be in existence or you
can be in the
self--both are not possible together.
To be in the self
means to be apart, to be separate. To
be in the self means
to become an island. To be in the self
means to draw a
boundary line around you.
To be in the self means to make a distinction between 'this
I am' and 'that I am not'. The definition, the boundary,
between "I"
and "not I" is what the self is--the self isolates. And it
makes you frozen--you are no longer flowing. If you are
flowing the self cannot exist. Hence people have become
almost like ice-cubes. They don't have any warmth, they
don't have any love--love is warmth and they are afraid of
love. If warmth comes to them they will start melting and
the boundaries will disappear. In love the boundaries
disappear; in joy also the boundaries disappear, because joy
is not cold.
______________________________________________________________________

JAN BARENDRECHT

AFAIK, the deepest desire is to keep up individuality and it
is "holier"
than a mind-body. Even the the label "Self" as expressed in
the Upanishads is based on the impersonal sense of
individuality that remains when samadhis are "over".
Without having been so close to death that individuality
fades away, one cannot know it is but another layer(be it a
most tenacious one). It isn't a "necessity to know" as it
sure is "far enough".

Yama is the greatest teacher indeed. Everything one offers
to him is returned as knowledge and one can only "travel" as
far as revealed inner knowledge goes. The "devotees" of
Yama give up self; dispassion, renunciation, tapas,
meditation, subtle desires etc., this lot is superfluous for
them as it pertains to a "self" and the little self can be
sacrificed only once. Also, it is the one time "radical"
decision the "self" can ever take: give up.

It is said every thing has two sides. Kali Yuga has the
disadvantage of "maximum ignorance regarding one's real
nature". But without knowing even one's real nature exists,
one can "seriously" take leave from life or discard the self
with one blow and when else is this possible but in ...
Kali Yuga.
__________________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE

Selected from ABRAHAM'S BOSOM by Basil King

Go back to what we said as to sight being not the action of
a temporary optic nerve. We see God by what we understand
of him; we understand him by his attributes; and we measure
his attributes by their beauty and goodness and
practicality. Wherever there has been a blessing to enjoy,
you've seen God. Wherever love has cheered you or kindness
helped you, you've seen God.

In sunrise and sunset and moonlight and starlight, and trees
and fields and harvest and flowers and ice and snow and air,
and health and beauty and generousity and friendship, and
all that gives to existence, you've seen God. He hasn't
been invisible. There is not one world in which God is seen
and another world in which he is not. There is not a life
with God and another life away from him. There is only one
world and God fills it; there is only one life, to which God
is All-in-All.

More blessed are they who learn to live in God as in One
Vast Certainty -- which created everyone, and supplies
everyone and upholds everyone and defends everyone and loves
everyone; and does it all with unlimited intelligence and
might.

***

"The soul cannot move, awake or open the eyes without
perceiving God. We peceive God by the soul as we feel air
on the body.

Shall I dare say it? We know God easily so long as we do
not force ourselves to define him."
~Joseph Joubert
__________________________________________________________________

JAY SCHNEIDER

My first attempt at understanding this nonduality thing hit
me when I realized that I aready knew what it meant for me
-- it was simply a matter of connecting the dots.

It came this morning when I was in the midst of the annual
family craziness at Christmas. What a great time to reflect
on everything from the state of the world to relationships
to spirituality to, uh, everything.

The reason why this list is at first blush (my cheeks are so
rosey red right now!) so useful is that it makes for a great
sounding board. A sounding board for what? The best way to
sum the 'what' of it up is to use a term Krishnamurti coined
as "the content of consciousness". Specifically, this list
is a great sounding board for what I imagine to be the
content of my own consciousness, 'imagine' being the
operative word here. (But you already knew that, right?)

We talk about Unity, Awareness, Nirvana, whatever. I think
the best word for me to use would be Truth. Truth begs the
question: What is it? And that's where I am. Unity?
Awareness? I'm not there in any permanent sort of way yet,
I don't think.

At the same time, my intuition tells me that I cannot attain
Truth through any organization, creed, dogma, guru or
ritual, nor through any philosophical knowledge or
psychological technique. I must find it in the mirror of
relationship, through understanding of the content of my
mind, through observation. I won't find it through analysis
or dissection -- though these tools are helpful to
communicate in spaces like this one, they are limited.

K. wrote:

"When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts
he will see the division between the thinker and thought,
the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the
experience. He will discover that this division is an
illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is
insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This
timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the
mind."

"Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there
is negation of all those things that thought has brought
about psychologically, only then is there love, which is
compassion and intelligence."

Is it mere coincidence then that the name of this list is
*non*duality? Only the person who name this list can answer
that, I suspect.
______________________________________________________________________
TIM GERCHMEZ

Eventually, you may discover that you cannot attain Truth at
all, because you already have it (and having it certainly
prevents its attainment!). In fact, you may find that you
cannot attain at all (it is all within you already), nor can
you lose anything (there is nothing within you that can be
lost).
...
Dwell in Truth. Don't look for it. It is ever-present,
everywhere, so present that there is nothing else but
Truth. To realize that deeply is 'realization'. There's
not much more to it than that. It's so simple that it
appears impossibly complex or difficult.
...
The mind is trained to deal with complexity. Train it to
deal in simplicity. Unlearn everything you've learned.
Simplify until there is nothing remaining but what you are,
what you have always been, and what you will always be.
...
At times, everything is clear. At others, things seem
unclear.
Underlying all those times is Awareness, which is Timeless.
Knowing this, knowing the temporality of everything, knowing
that nothing changes but change, there is nothing here I
could call "suffering."

There is understanding here. I can claim no more and no
less. I have no way to gauge "how much" understanding. I
sense that understanding cannot be quantified, cannot be
reduced to numbers or formulas of any sort.

That's about all I can say.
___________________________________________________________________

JAY SCHNEIDER AND TIM GERCHMEZ

JAY: I think the issue here isn't whether I need to attain
or search for anything -- forgive me of that word "attain".
I know it's a humbug on this list. Rather, I would use "tap
into" if I had to do that post over again.
And where would I put the tap? In me, I suppose. Picture
this: You run a tap on a rusty pipe and what comes out?
Rusty water and then, gradually, clear water. You run a tap
on a rusty person? I dare say I wouldn't like to be around
when the first part of that stuff comes out!

TIM G.: Why form a mental picture at all? It seems to me
that such 'pictures' only serve to obfuscate, not clarify.

JAY: But I digress. No...I play. Without playing around
let me say that you seem to be of the school of thought that
has claims to instantaneous "enlightenment."

TIM G.: Actually, I don't consider myself a member of any
school of thought at all.
There's no need for "instant enlightenment." Enlightenment
is Ever-Present. Not instant, but has always been there.
There's no belief or school involved in that, it's
wordless. Awareness is just Here, timelessly. There was no
time when Awareness suddenly appeared, and no time when it
gradually appeared.

To be a member of a school of "instant enlightenment" still
suggests "attaining something" that wasn't there before
(only attaining it instantly, not after a period of work,
contemplation, etc). If I had to be a "member" of
something, call it a "school of non-thought." But I prefer
freedom from all schools, all definitions, all labels.

I can remember going through all sorts of scriptures,
writings of Gurus etc, and that they seemed helpful at the
time. They seem to have helped in some way, but I don't
know how. Certainly not through the gathering of mental
knowledge. They seemed simply to spur something that was
already here, to clarify it, to make it visible somehow.
But I can't be sure. I really don't know anything. I don't
know causes. I sense there are no causes for anything, that
things just happen as they do.

JAY: I'm not really looking for enlightenment, either. I
don't know what it is. My goal here is to share, to learn,
to grow and to learn to let Truth come to me.

TIM G.: I would like to say I have no goal for being on NDS,
but that wouldn't entirely be true. But what the goal is,
I'm unsure of. I used to think I knew what it was, now I
don't have any idea why I'm on the list. Nor do I care to
try and find out. Why interfere with something that seems
to be a natural process, that seems to be 'working' just
fine?

JAY: I can only respond by saying that for me things seem
very clear sometimes but at others they are downright
terrifyingly muddled -- with all shades in between. (I know
I risk invoking the old fallacy of a continuum of awareness
-- please don't take it that way...) Is there something
called *non*awareness?

TIM G.: Definitions of terms are always getting in the way
of communication. But I wouldn't say (using this mind's
definitions) that there is something that could be called
non-awareness. Awareness is "Ground of Being." It cannot
be non-present. It is Presence Itself. Can Presence be
non-present?

JAY: Why did you mention suffering?

TIM G.: Because it seems to be pretty "universal." Or so it
is said. People seem to suffer, and it's talked about all
the time as being the reason for the "need" for
enlightenment. So I mentioned it.

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