Click here to go to the next issue.

Ed's note; oh is not a good/bad person
so hold her responsible for
nothing/everything.

______________________________

In Response to Dave, Annie Gets Out
Her Choicelessness Gun:

A: No, that wasn't what I was asking.
I was trying to state that you
have no choice in what you are, that
you cannot help but be the person
you are. You can't help but care for
others... it is inherent in your
very being to care for others... you have no choice in this... nor do
I... I, as Annie, have never been motivated by money, I was always been
more motivated by a 'need' to help others. I didn't think of this until
a 500 pound career's analysis I had done in London pointed this out. I
realised that it was probably true because I never did seem to make
choices based on
money :-) (no wonder I never have any!)

I didn't choose the values I have... but I'm thankful I have them... it
means I can like me :-) and that I have a natural compassion that is
:far more inherent in me than any material :wishes... lucky aren't I. I
really don't care :about money at all now.

A: I am convinced that it is OK to say with a big smile I'm OK... but I
will still find myself caring for and helping people, animals, the
earth, etc (only if they want help) ... because I can't help it... I
have no choice... its part of what this body/thoughts/emtions is...

A: Strangely I have no need to show others more... but if someone
crossed my path looking for more maybe I would be there? I do admire
people who go 'out of their way' to help others... not that they had a
choice...

______________________________

Greg Shares Excerpt From "No Way: For the Spiritually 'Advanced,'" by
"Ram 'Tzu" - All Saloners Rushed to Read Certain It Was Written
Specially For Them.

"You read the
Spiritual guidebooks.
God on $25 a Day.
You are inspired.
You can't wait to see
All the sights
So eloquently described.

It all sounds
Much more exciting
Than what you have at home.

But the fear sets in
When it's time to leave.
You try to pack
Everything you own.

Now you can't move
For the weight of it.
Ram Tzu knows this...

If you finally go
You'll travel light."

________________________________

Christiana Offering Some Life-rafts,


C: "I could go back and try to capture the many points which have moved
and stirred me these past days.. but I do not have the time to do so.
For this I apologize, as I have known significant perspectival shifts
from these awesome ponderings. Written energy-words which come at us at
such an accelerated rate that monkey-mind has little time to wrap itself
around some confabulated idea.

And when it does.. the next wave challenges even that to be released..
moment to moment.. observing self in this iteration and then in the
next. It is enough to observe this moment.. it is a fullness I have
never before known.

Tonight I wrote the following to a friend

'I am learning about joy.. it seems to be what shows up when I drop my
ideas of myself.. it simply arises in the formidable creation which I am
now knowing as LIFE. It is more than merely abandoning ideas, there is a
perceptible widening gap as interface between the stimulation of life
and this perceived central processing unit. In the interface is a
viscocity of aliveness... awareness. It is a mystery to me that it took
so long (50 years!) to become aware of this..

Perhaps.. in all my years of not wanting to be in this 'dual world'.. I
maintained a hold on a stance of resistance. Perhaps the 'spiritual
work' was partly motivated by a desire to 'get out'.. but ironically,
*now* I find that once I drop the resistant stance and the idealized
stance... once I drop the attachment to any particular way of holding
myself, the nondual manifests, and to my utter surprise.. in tandem with
it is a profound delight in the splendor of manifested form. It is a
direct experience of the paradox of intention.'

Today, a very sensitive friend told me of a dream he had about me last
night. I appeared before him radiantly, cradling in my arms two
beautiful babies.. a boy and a girl.. and I offered them to him in joy.
He wondered what was going on in my life.

I told him that I was in radiance discovering the beauty of the
magnificent ordinariness of each manifest facet of duality.. seen so
much more clearly for having also experienced some 'death' of *meaning*.

The writings about 'death' have been significantly poignant for me, as
well as the indications about how we each (in NDS) are participating in
what I know as a Self Organizing System... in Margaret Wheatley's words:

'systems are fluid relationships.. webby, wandering, nonlinear entangled
messes.. unknowable through traditional forms of analysis.. creating
pathways, communication flows, causal loops.. irreducible... needing
access to itself.. fed by information. No one knows what information an
individual will choose to notice. This is why structuring, gatekeeping,
and censoring threaten people's ability to discover something new. They
also threaten the vitality and stability of the entire system.'
.o00o.

I am also moved this week by another paradox inherent in this community,
which is elucidated beautifully in the new book of commentary by Shunryu
Suzuki's (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) _Branching Streams Flow in the
Darkness: Zen talks on the Sandokai_

'In Zen sometimes we say that each of us is steep like a cliff. No one
can scale us. We are completely *independent*. But when you hear me say
so, you should understand the other side too -- that we are endlessly
*interrelated*. If you only understand one side of the truth, you can't
hear what I'm saying. Zen words are different from usual words. Like a
double-edged sword, they cut both ways. You may think I am only cutting
forward, but no, actually I am also cutting backwards.'

This paradox of the *relationship* of independence and interrelation, as
well as words which cut both ways, seems, to me to be a core dynamic of
this community. If it is not entered into with Understanding, then words
and people appear as mere flotsam on our screens.

It has taken me 15 months to arrive at relative stillness in this
community. It has taken me 15 months to know you as my Body.

what grace..


_______________________________

Terry Offers Rumi to Stop Our Mouths:

"Is there a human mouth that doesn't
give out a soul sound? Is there love,
a drawing-together of any kind, that
isn't sacred? Every natural dog
sniffs God in the stew. The lion's
paw trembles like a rose petal.
He senses the ultimate spear coming.
In the shpeherd's majesty wolves
and lambs tease each other. Look
'*inside* your mind. Do you hear
the crowd gathering? Help coming,
every second. Still you cover
your eyes with mud. Watch the horned
owl. Wash your face. Anyone who
steps into an orchard walks inside
the orchard keeper. Millions of
love-tents bloom on the plain. A
star in your chest says, *None
of this is outside you.* Close your
lips and let the maker of mouths
talk, the one who says *things.*


"A star in your chest says, 'None of this is outside you.'"

Ed Note: (Just thought that might be worth repeating.)

________________________________

Dan (Pretty hipDude) & Victor Still Choosin' To Discuss Choicelessness:

V: I was trying to show that
there do not exist any words that I know of that do not have an
opposite or dual. To me this means that there are no words that exist
as singularities or as non-dualities. Now I really am unable to take
these two facts any further than this. Perhaps someone can help me.

D: No words are singularities, including the word singularity. No words
don't have a boundary, thus always is there something 'outside' the
concept. To take this further: what happens exactly at the very
boundary of a word, a concept? At the very "edge" one is on neither
side. This is from where reality explodes - its
multifacetted-diamond-precision-organization infinitely self-enfolding
in one singularity.

V: Well stated. Now is it possible to further build on your
description?

D: What?! Build further on: 'this is from where reality explodes -
its multifacetted-diamond-precision-organization
infinitely self-enfolding in one singularity?' You're
kidding,
right? Tell me you're kidding, Victor?? I mean, here we are
exploding infinitely, on neither side of any dichotomy,
our incredible and awesome complexity/diversity enfolded in
a perfect
singularity - and you want to build further???!!!!

Sheesssh - I've gone so far out on a limb, I left Shirley Maclain
umpteen lightyears behind -- there's no further to go on
this limb,
the only thing to do is saw it off, and let the chips fall
where
they may :-) A blind leap into empty space is the only thing
that occurs to me here...

V: Give a guy an easy task and he finks out on you. :) I
sort of picture it as balancing on the high-wire, which
is the awareness or all knowingness expressed as the union
of clarity and emptiness, without falling into the
dichotomous pit of mere thought and words. Conversely
one could jump from the pit onto the wire. One falls
from the wire into the pit in a non-synchronous random
fashion with the time on the wire gradually increasing
until can dwell on the wire under all circumstances. So
we keep going back and forth from pit to wire until we
no longer fall off or have to jump up

~~~~

V: Maybe a word is a
thought and we are always choosing whichever aspect of the word is
pleasant and avoiding the side of the word which is unpleasant. To me
this implies choice.

D: There is no "we" doing this. To say "we" is to already have
situated energy on one side of a boundary. Since there is no "me" or
"we" choosing to be on one side or the other, it is happening
choicelessly. It is the very nature of words, thought, and memory that
is "doing" this. Nobody is to blame. Did you hear me, Nobody? In fact,
"having a body" is exactly the sensation that grows out of situating one
one side of a boundary, so clearly it is "no body" who is choicelessly
situating in this way.

V: So the so called problem is that we are ignorant of the fact that
the Totality or Reality is all inclusive and our Being is the actuality
of that Totality or Reality. Despite the ignorance this in no way
changes the Totality or Reality. As you say it is the very nature of
words, thoughts, and memories that are seemingly doing this so called
choosing which is occuring within the Totality -- I suppose you could
call this process minding.

D: Okay. So, then, we can certainly ask at this point,
'Who's minding the store?' Really, it's a good question.
It can be read in terms of the storehouse of
mind-body-action
'seeds' (the alaya), or as the store of conditioning,
or store as in the view of the body as storing a being
inside.
See - it's deeply metaphysical -- who's minding the store?!!
If we don't get an answer quick, someone may come like a
thief in the night, and then where will we be? Up the
well-known
God forsaken creek without a paddle, that's where.

V: The question arises is there such a store?

~~~~~~~

V: ....Similarly there is the appearance but not the actuality of blame.
Similarly there is the appearance but not the actuality of having a
body. Similary any so called suffering is unreal. It's all minding but
in no way real. Now the realizer of this situation dwells in Reality
and the non-realizer of this situation dwells in unreality. "The
Realizer is not confused and the non-realizer is confused. recognize the
minding."

D: Well, wait a second. Now, you're slipping in a realizer.
Just when I thought such ideas were just the workings
of thought/memory/emotion - which you were calling 'mind'.
Sorry - this realizer can't be anything other than workings
of this 'mind'.

V: Uh oh, the bullshit detector just let forth a raucous
blast. Let me rephrase so we can shut the damn thing off. Replace the
two sentences in quotes with: Minding creates confusion and non-minding
reveals truth. Hmm?

~~~~

V: My understanding of the non-dual condition is simply dwelling in
choiceless awareness. I was trying to tie this to choiceless
non-existent words. Now I have succeeded in thoroughly confusing my
little self.

D: There can be no choice to be in choiceless awareness. That is a
contradiction in terms. Thus, this moment, exactly as it arises, is
choiceless awareness. People say things like, "don't choose between
what you prefer or don't prefer". Well, sure, but to whom is this
comment addressed? If there is no preference to be on one side of a
dichotomous perception, there can be no one to address such a comment,
and no one to receive it. Confusion/clarity is simply another
dichotomy, so choicelessly be confused and you'll soon notice that
you're at the very boundary that determines confusion/clarity.

V: Ah yes -- that famous song "Tiptoing Through the
Dichotomies" as augmented by "Melancholy Boundary" both graciously sung
by Peggy Clarity accompanied by the sound of silence.

....I enjoy your "choice" of words -- "so choicelessly be
confused".

D: This enjoyment is a good sign. It typically precedes an
unprecedented insight. Therefore, let us
continue to choicelessly be confused - or not.

V: Why not? Perhaps reading the entrails of a chicken would also
work. :)

_______________________________

Dave Joins In With Dunno Microscope Better To See the Chick's Entrails:

Dave: (Dan says:) "This moment, exactly as it arises, is choiceless
awareness.", but how is it for you, and how is it for me. The nature of
the physical construct, a subset I can't imaging how deep in levels of
consciousness, is what puts energy on one side or another of boundaries.
Your skills, then I imagine, work to help individuals in resituating
that energy, changing their percepcion, arriving at another moment of
choiceless awareness.
You, coming from a different point in the same moment situate your
energy differently, perhaps on the very edge, "seeing" the situation,
but being so entirely emersed in the physical, must fall off that edge
to "change the perspective" of your client. Perhaps the client doesn't
make the choice, but you do. Fortunately your a good guy, or so it seems
:-)

So many years ago, I was given a touch of light that took my breath
away, completely choiceless, it will never leave me. But from that
moment on, strangely I've felt the intensity of choice / no-choice.
Firstly the choices that I had to make for myself to connect myself to
that light, then the choices I feel I must make for the others, that
they see it.

OK, I can't force anybody to change their perspective, and they meander
in choicesless awareness oblivious as to what is happening to them until
"they see the light". Then they wonder what is happening to them...
making choices to hack their way out of this physical laberynth.

Dunno Dan, we're here in the physical, no matter how closely we're
connected to the 73 gijillion lines of timeless existence, maybe that's
the choiceless part, but because we're here, there's nothing but choice,
I don't know, kind of like free will has to be excersized here to
remember that there's no need for it to wander.
____________________________

Melody Responds to Roger's quote in Response to Melody's Comments on
Roger's .....well, you get the idea:

M: Be aware. Feel the difference between action and activity. And when
activity takes hold of you - in fact that should be called a
possession...

R: Some similar thoughts:
"The test for yourself is: do I genuinely intend to act on the
thought-line I am following? If not, give it up."

M: I like this, Roger. I like this a lot.

R: "Worry is false self interest because it contains no intention of
action".
From "meditation a foundation course", Barry Long.

M: I am not much of a worrier, but the times I tend to become
'possessed' by activity of thought is in replaying over and over again
certain conversations or engagements. It's like 'instant replay' in my
head, and as soon as I recognize it, I can see these replays are about
'reliving the glory'.... trying to hold onto the sweetness....as if I've
scored the winning touchdown.

To ask myself "Do I intend to act upon this thought?'' will be a fine
tool to assist in breaking that spell.

______________________________

James Bean Offers Kabir:

From the book, "A Weaver Named Kabir," Charlotte Vaudeville, Oxford
University Press.
A POEM OF KABIR
Tell me, O Brother,
on what prop does the sky rest?
Happy is he
who has pierced the Mystery!
On that canopy of the sky,
stars appear:
Who is the clever artist
who painted them?
Him whom you seek
is not up there --
He has His dwelling
in Immortality. *
Says Kabir,
He alone will know Him
Who has Ram [God] in his heart
and Ram on his lips. **
____________ _________________

Melody Quotes Osho on Compassion vs Cultivated Compassion and Kristi
Responds:

"What will the difference be between real compassion and a cultivated
compassion? A real compassion is a response - the situation and the
response. A real compassion is always fresh; something has happened and
your heart flows towards it. A child has fallen and you run and help the
child to stand up, but this is a response. A false compassion, a
cultivated compassion, is a reaction.

These two words are very very meaningful: 'response' and 'reaction'.
Response is alive to the situation; reaction is an engrained habit -
because in the past you have been training yourself to help somebody if
he has fallen, you simply go and help, but there is no heart in it.
Somebody is drowning in the river, you run and help the person just
because you have been taught to do so. You have cultivated the habit of
helping, but you are not involved. You remain out of it, your heart is
not there - you have not responded. You have not responded to *this*
man, to *this* drowning in this river; you have not responded to *this*
moment, you have followed an ideology.

To follow an ideology is good: Help everybody, become a servant to
people, have compassion! - you have an ideology, and through the
ideology you react. It is out of the past that the action comes, it is
already dead. When the *situation* creates the action and you respond
with full awareness, only then does something of beauty happen to you.

If you react because of ideology, old habit patterns, you will not gain
anything out of it. At the most you can gain a little ego, which is not
a gain at all. You may start bragging about the fact that you have saved
a man drowning in the river. You may go to the market-place and shout
loudly, 'Look, I have saved another human life!'

You may gain a little more ego, you have done something good, but it is
not a gain. You have lost a great opportunity to be spontaneous, to be
spontaneous in compassion. If you had responded to the situation, then
something would have flowered in you, a blossoming; you would have felt
a certain silence, a stillness, a blessing."

Kristi: I like this alot. It speaks to a distinction I don't often make
yet feel is very important...and is perhaps one of the joining places
between the apparent disparate views of the purpose, function, and
nature of compassion, here on the list. The genuine vs. the contrived;
the spontaneously arising vs. the rehearsed and expected; the flow from
the moment, filled with the joy of life vs. obligation and duty.

Melody: Me, too, Kristi. I've sat with this one a lot today. With
this one and the post offered by Roger, it's getting easier to
distinguish ideology and habit from spontaenity. It really surprised me
when I began noticing how easy it is for my mind to 'wrap' ideology,
preference, even morality, up such that it looks like....could pass
for.... compassion.

Osho says there are no good habits, or bad habits. All habits are bad,
because all habits are 'dead' actions. As long as one acts out of habit,
they remain asleep. I certainly see what he's saying.

Kristi: I think this is the kernel of my own "damage." I was once - am
still in essence; now remembering again, re-birthing; a totally
spontaneous, utterly unbound by habit and ideology, filled with life and
learning by "revelation" person.

My experiences so trounced me that I began to doubt everything about
myself, became bound by the ways of the world, began to borrow knowledge
and look to "acceptable thinking" so as to not be trounced again. The
trick is to remember, not the past or how I was then, but to reach past
the form to the substance of what spirit is, what freedom is, and to
discover again and again that of myself, I can do nothing...but by
untrying it returns to me...in new form, but true to freedom.

I didn't realize how lucky I was then, how naturally free I was, how
much I lived by inspiration and the authentic experience of my own Self.
I know now. And am climbing slowly....but at least I'm moving
again...for so long I thought to never walk again......I am thankful for
the many states of grace that provide me respite from the times when
walking feels so hard and I am torn by the loss of that former freedom.
And if anybody wants to tell me about whining, or just get over it, or
any of that stuff....just stick it in your ear where you can hear it
best. LOL

_________________________________

Bruce and Sadhana Louise Carryin' On Wild Love Affair
On-List....Editor's Keyboard Kept Short-Circutin' Tryin' to Copy....Here
Is All That Got Thru:

(Warning: All listees with H.H. before name, read at your own
breaking-bramacharic vow risk.)

S: dear Bruce......you're wise.... relationship......

B: Love's impetus is not to be denied.

S: Oh, yes.

....What's in this for you?

B: Nothing :)

...close....personal....sticky....Why not open?

S: OK.

..."exposing"...."exposing"...

B: there is a reason there is more "juice"
....isn't under control...

S: Thanks for the 'show,' Bruce.

B: We live to serve, even if as mere entertainment.

Ed's note: old woman admttedly very bad.
________________________________

On Two Separate Threads, Bruce and Jerry Give Insights as to NDS List
and Site Make-up, and They Ain't Talkin' Max Factor:

B: I'm more concerned that some
sort of politically correct
affirmation orientation may
(figuratively) castrate the
"list guru" here. There are
many places online where such
an orientation prevails (to a
certain extent, HarshaSatsangh
is one of them, and there it's
made clear from the gitgo and
works well), what makes NDS
unique is that fact that it's
a free speech atelier and not
a formal ashram or satsangh
with "play nice" rules. I
love both HarshaSatsangh and
NDS for what they are, but
there is a reason there's more
"juice," more (mostly
constructive and interesting)
turmult on NDS. That is far
too precious to allow
dilution into some sort of PC
blandness through imposition
of a "walk on eggshells"
quasi-gentleness paradigm.

~~~

Jerry, "Guerilla Nondualist:"

....what we've been saying here for over two years is that ordinary
people know their real nature and speak clearly about it. That's why I
set up the Nondual realizers/confessors list to include 'ordinary
people' and put them smack dab in the company of Ramana and the rest of
those guys and I called it Street Nonduality.

I feel the pains of long time hurts and sorrow. I feel the joys of just
plain feeling good and having a good time and going out. I do. No one
has to escape pain or feel guilty about feeling good. What is required
is attending to the source of all that, call it what you wish: God,
consciousness, I AM, the Self, your true nature. Whatever. That really
needs to be done. If there's anyone having a hard time doing that or
thinks there's anything more to it than that, please raise your hand.

Now I know there are some who have become their true nature and there is
no effort of attention. For others there is the effort of attention. One
whose attention on the Self is effortless must expend effort to
communicate beneficially and harmoniously with one whose attention on
the Self comes only with effort. That is called consideration and it is
what makes great Satsang, I believe.

Life is lived every day with pain and pleasure and lets welcome it all,
because anything else is resistance and no mental resistance is good.
Celebrate everything and see what happens.

______________________________

Larry Offers Ramana Maharshi, Always A Sublime Fine':

This is from "Talks With Ramana Maharshi"
January 23, 1937

Mrs. Jennings, an American lady, asked the following questions:

Devotee: Is not affirmation of God more effective than the quest, "Who
am I?" Affirmation is positive, whereas the other is negation. Moreover,
it indicates separateness.

Maharshi: So long as you seek to know how to realize, this advice is
given to find your Self. Your seeking the method denotes your
separateness.

D: Is it not better to say, "I am the Supreme Being" than ask, "Who am
I?

M: Who affirms? There must be one to do it. Find that one.

D: Is not meditation better than investigation?

M: Meditation implies mental imagery, whereas investigation is for the
Reality. The former is objective, whereas the latter is subjective. D:
There must be a scientific approach to this subject. M: To avoid
unreality and seek Reality is scientific.

D: I mean there must be a gradual eliminaton, first of the mind, then of
the intellect, and finally of the ego.

M: The Self alone is Real. All others are unreal. The mind and the
intellect do not remain apart from you.
The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God." Stillness
is the sole requisite for realization of the Self as God. D: Will the
West ever understand this teaching? M: There is no question of time and
space. Understanding depends on ripeness of mind. What does it matter if
one lives in the East or the West?

Later Sri Bhagavan said the whole Vedanta is contained in two Biblical
statements: "I Am that I Am" and "Be still and know that I am God."
________________________________

BE STILL AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOD.

love,
oh


_________________________________________"The Three Answers: 'Go
Anywhere. Do Nothing. Love Everybody." Neem Karoli Baba

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