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SARLO

One way of obliterating the duality
between the path and the
goal is to treat the path as the goal.
That is, i am on the path. The path
is going nowhere, there is nowhere to
go. I have arrived on the path. I
celebrate being on the path, and i
celebrate who i am at this moment on
the
path. There is nothing to do but be on
the path. You seem to be walking
beside me at the moment, also
celebrating. So great! There's room
enough
for both of us. There's room for more
if they want to join the party.

_______________________

XAN & LARRY & JAN K. on circles of the mind


xan wrote: ~ Who said anything about analysis?
Keeping vigil is keeping watch, seeing.
Seeing the silent Self as Self
Watching out for the mind's tendency to self-deception. Not being fooled
through seeing clearly in oneself any motive to perpetuate ideas/lies.

Larry: if seeing is allowing, permitting, letting be, then mind's
tendencies aren't reacted to. There's no convincing or being fooled.
Correct?

Xan ~ In vigilance everything is just seen, including assumptions
about what will or will not be, mind's tendencies, reactions

Jan K. aka Dutch
> There are many circles and there is no way out. We can observe all these
> circles, so, these circles are just parts of us. We are not part of the
> circles. Wanting to get out is based on the thought that we are in some
> kind of circle. There is no way out, because we were never in the
> circle, we just thought we were. What do I mean when I say 'we'?
> Nothing. Could 've used the words 'I', 'You', etc. Makes no difference,
> but in words. Call it Love, God, Parabrahman, Awareness...
>
> Larry: This is a circle too. All understanding is a circle. No circle is
> no understanding. Who wants that???

Jan K: Let the circles be there. And know you are watching them. That's true
understanding.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From: "Jan Koehoorn"

I'd like to offer a piece of text from Alexander Smit to the list.
He was a student of the honourable Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
and gave satsangs in the Netherlands for 12 years.

Alexander:
Most spiritual 'searchers' have a conflict.
The conflict expresses itself through the idea
that they have to do it all by themselves,
that no help is to be expected from the 'outside',
which implies that a teacher is not needed.

There is another group, just as big, that is convinced
that you do need a master, that you can't do it without a guru.
Both comparisons are faulty, because the truth never lies in the middle,
the truth is paradoxical.

snip
The one that can put an end to that conflict is a true master.
Someone who is free from ideas like 'guru' or 'non-guru'.
Someone who can be a guru at one moment,
and a 'non-guru' at another moment.
Someone who can demonstrate a great flexibility.
When you think a guru is needed, and the teacher says:
'No guru is needed', there will be conflict.
And when, a month later, you think:
'All this shit with gurus, all that spiritual hocus-pocus,
I quit, it's all useless', there will be conflict too,
because then the other side shows up.

Because both sides are true!
Existence is more than adding up all parts.
When you don't try to fight the conflict anymore,
when you don't try to avoid it any longer,
you're on unknown grounds, from where you know, deep down,
that a teacher is a means to realize what you already are.
Then you know: "This is the one to show me that I don't need anyone."

But when in conflict, or in doubt, you lean over to the other side,
and you feel that you have to make a choice again.
This feeling of having to make a choice is rooted very deep,
because you know very well that sometimes one thing is true
sometimes another thing is true.
We know that it's relative, that it's not absolute.
Making one thing absolute, always evokes the other side, which means conflict.

Therefore, a good teacher constantly contradicts himself.
At least, so it seems to you, when you think one side of the story is true.
And when you think like that, and you hear the opposite, you think:
"So that's not true" and you're in doubt again.
And that can go on and on.

from the Dutch book: Het Onmiddelijke Zien (The Immediate Seeing)

_____________________________

From: andrew macnab

In a way, awareness is analogous to bandwidth and processor speed.
The personal computer between the ears is connected through the senses with
connections of practically infinite capacity and can operate at practically
infinite processor speeds. However, it oftens runs much more slowly because of
inefficient buggy programming and clogged up memory.
When it runs at full design capacity, the bandwidth and processor speed are
so great that it no longer need function as a separate unit but is instead only
a local node in an infinite interconnected web.


....the computer analogy is pretty bad. I got carried away. The germ of the
idea
was
bandwidth. People live day to day as if with a restricted bandwidth. Awakening
is like
suddenly having the bandwidth expand to infinity. With infinite bandwidth there
is no
sense of separation between self and other.

__________________________

PETROS & DAN

P: Recognizing an 'enlightened' person? (I prefer the term 'awakened,' fwiw.)
I guess the biggest sensation I get from being in such a one's presence is
that that person is not separate from my truest self. There is a sensation
that one sometimes gets in dreams, when you see a person in the dream and
yet there is this background awareness (not articulated) that that 'person'
is really just one of your own alter-egos. That's kind of what it feels
like.

> From: "Dan Berkow, PhD"
> By the way, a useful question here is:
> What exactly is an "enlightened" person? How would you know one
> if you met one?
> How do you know you are not meeting yourself when you meet an
> "enlightened" one? What are you seeing other than your own awareness
> projected and idealized?

P:That is indeed exactly what one is seeing, you are right on the money.
snip
A related feeling that I have around such ones is the sense that what they
are expressing outwardly is nothing but a mirroring of my own reactions to
them, or a projection of my own reactions back to me. I know that in some
psychological and hypnotic methodologies (such as NLP), 'mirroring' is a
deliberate technique used to influence and persuade people. But in the case
of these people, there is no sense that they are doing it deliberately for
ulterior motives. It feels spontaneous and natural.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

more DAN
>Larry: Dan, would you expand on this? What is nondwelling awareness and
what is the nature of learning in that awareness?

Dan: Nondwelling awareness is directly mentioned in many Buddhist texts,
and interestingly seems referred to by Jesus when he said, "the foxes
have their dens, birds have their nests, but the Son of Adam has no
place to rest his head." I see nondwelling awareness as exactly the
"rebirth" that Jesus described in his expression. The tendency of
awareness is to identify with and in "something". Somethings appear in
awareness, and awareness tends to get caught in the appearance.
Particularly, awareness believes it dwells in the human body. Once
"positioned", awareness experiences the pull of things it wants, the
fear of trying to avoid or escape things (or sensations or thoughts)
that it doesn't want, etc. The tension of this situation leads awareness
to deeply question its situation. Many proposed "solutions" may occur
(more and better "things" to have, "enlightenment" to get, beautiful
people to relate to, drugs and alcohol to numb or enhance the
senses, etc.). If no solution is accepted, awareness eventually confronts
the untenability of any position. At this instant (of impasse, of
no tenable position), there is a "shift" or "release" - awareness
suddenly has no dwelling place. It is not in things, and things
are not in it. The infinite appearance of things is seen as nothing
other than awareness itself. There literally is no dwelling place,
no position for awareness. Awareness is not fighting against attachments,
there literally can be no such thing as attachment, as there is
nothing there to attach to. Deception (of sensory
awareness/perception/cognition/emotional reactivity) is seen through.
Is this the end of any work for awareness? No. It is an insight
opening endlessly. The full energy of awareness is required every
moment (and there is only one moment). This endless deepening of
intensity and extensivity of That which is endless and beginningless is
the reason for the Bodhisattva Vow, at least as understood here.
Because the relative and absolute are not apart from each other, and
are not two, we can say there is endless deepening with no beginning
or end. Nondwelling awareness, having no place to be, no situation
to call home, only can endlessly "flow into itself" as it always
has and always will. Remarkable that I am sitting here typing this,
looking out the window at beautiful snow-covered trees, as awareness
"circulates" infinitely.
Love, Dan
___________________


JAN B

Regarding Self-realization, the idea that something is an attachment is
just as conditioning as the idea that something is a requirement.

____________________

XAN


Much later someone asked Ramana about his
vow of silence for so many years. Ramana said
"I took no vow. I just didn't have anything to say."

________________

OLD HAG shares quotes

Thomas Merton:

"The Absolute Ground of Being (and beyond that the Godhead as infinite
uncircumscribed freedom) is realized so to speak 'from within' - though
'myself' is now lost and 'found' in Him. These metaphorical expressions
all point to the problem we have in mind: the problem of a self that is
'no-self,' that is by no means an 'alienated self' but on the contrary,
a transcendent Self which, to clarify it in Christian terms, is
metaphysically distinct from the Self of God and yet perfectly
identified with that Self by love and freedom, so that there appears to
be but one Self.

Experience of this is what we here call the illumination of wisdom.

To attain this experience is to penetrate the reality of all that is, to
grasp the meaning of one's own existence, to find one's true place in
the scheme of things, to relate perfectly to all that is in a relation
of identity and love."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The quote in signature box [ "While alive be dead,
Thoroughly dead...All is good then, Whatever you may do." Bunan]

is from The Enlightened Heart, edited by
Stephen Mitchell (he visited this list once when he was first
commissioned to write the book; got lots of his quotes from nds posters;
Bunan was passing through at the time, started up a discussion about
whether competition still existed after death, got bored with everyone's
first hand experiences, so left...but i digress ,^)))

Mitchell says Bunan was a Japanese Zen Master (1603-1676) worked as a
gatekeeper until his forties.

Here are a couple other quotes from that fine book:

"God, whose love and joy
are present everywhere,
can't come to visit you
unless you aren't there."

Angelius Silesius

"When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace,
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy nor wise,
just an ordinary fellow
who has completed his work."

Layman P'ang

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