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Mary writes:

...I grew up believing that I had the
free will to do good or to do bad. I
also
believed that I controlled my own
destiny. Boy was that a lesson and a
half.
Later, I was exposed to the concept of
"everything is perfect and as it should
be.
(Oh, the violence is ok?). I really
battled that one. And this world as
Brahman's
Leela was hard to grasp. God playing with us or entertaing himself? Byron
Katie
helped me to see that everything is perfect when that everything makes me turn
inward. But it was through the Course in Miracles (after 3 years with it)
that I
realized that the only free will I had was to either accept the atonement
(God's will)
or
not and that all my struggles are with wanting my will to be done (stay the ego
in
this world and not" disappear into the Presence beyond the veil" [thanks,
Christie.])
The key word is Disappear. I realized, no matter how much I say I want
Reality,
Truth, Freedom, I still want to remain aware of myself while I'm in Reality.
Perhaps, I'm confused by all the teachings. I've had some insight by the
grace of
Truth, but my surrender to that Truth is not complete. I have a question to
all of you. I've never been able to get an aswer to this. What does I
am that
I am mean? So many teachers have tried to explain it but the explanation
just goes
over my head...

Mary
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Check out gen's new webpage:


hi One 'n All :-)
the Miranda Soliloquy's are being placed on a web page, the address of
which should appear as my signature below.
i hope to have the entire book up within the next two weeks--so far i've
got the first few pages. the bits that i have already shared are from
a long poem/story called "the kid: when? does the dream begin."
this is what i'm publishing on this page, from beginning, whatever that
means. :-)

i hope to add my songs and lyrics as they occur! thank you all for your
continual support of my words. they are my "kids," and sometimes they
behave. usually, they just be.

love and light
and blessings,
gen


http://community.webtv.net/bshanti/

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Melody:


A memory from the past
requires an "expectation" from the future

in order to take root in the body.

Letting go of the expectation,
the memory simply has nothing
left to anchor itself to.

Allowing the feelings from the past,
allowing them without reservation,
without judgment,
without criticism;

is one way to reveal
those hidden,
underlying expectations

tethering you like a ball and chain.
________________________________________________________________________________\
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Xan answers Dan L. (see yesterday's highlights):

~ Dear Dan

That's a pretty intense story of your life - drugs, co-dependent with your
mother, caring for your aging parents and socially isolated. What I hear
about you in this and other messages is a sense of being overwhelmed by
feelings at times and a theme of doubting yourself. I know that form of
guilt quite well and I know how much of a challenge it is. As you have
discovered, mental understanding is not enough. People need to meet
themselves more from the heart than the head. These are some ways I have
learned to let strong feelings and self-doubt become gateways to the truth of
myself rather than barriers:

-Developing detachment - noticing when the self-doubt pattern appears
and recognizing it as a voice of learned and therefore false identity. It
has been helpful to me to say, "Oh it's just the mind." To me that means a
thought does not have the meaning or value it believes it does.

-Practicing acceptance - The truth of yourself has no judgement whatsoever,
and judgement patterns in the mind are a major barrier in letting go to that
truth. To facilitate opening up in silent awareness, the mind can learn
self-acceptance and self-appreciation with a moment to moment practice.

-Seeing the mind's judgements for what they are and replacing them gently
with acceptance, when feelings arise it becomes easier to simply be present
with them and to feel one's way down through their layers to the peace that
is always beneath.

-Constantly feeding of support for awakening as pure awareness - Reading,
watching videos, attending true teachers, whatever ways that touch you into
your silent heart. A negative mind especially needs saturation in the truth
to counteract the conditioning.

Perhaps these suggestions will be helpful, but I feel the most valuable thing
I can tell you is that Grace is available to you and will take you all the
way Home. You can depend on it! My life story is quite different from yours
but the themes of strong emotions and self-judgement have been the same.
Even so, silence, joy and deepening are constant for me now and will be for
you. It is inevitable because it is You.
________________________________________________________________________________\
______


Jan B. and Larry:

Jan wrote: There could be a rather simple reason why in in
Buddhism "free will" is taught: suffering could be defined as
"condition of pain, putting one in a deadlock as to effectively
disable one from gaining insight into one's situation". In
other words, a condition where the tamas guna prevails to such
an extent that only "action" will be accepted as relief.

Larry: Jan, what is the "insight into one's situation" that
is missed?

The insight that is missing is that there is no need nor
obligation to think and react in an "I vs the world" fashion.
Once engaged in such a deadlock, one's experience will
seemingly validate the "I vs the world" fashion. When the mind
is in "victim mode", all experience will remind of it,
maintaining that mode until relief is offered. In Jainism, one
would say the insight is missing, due to knowledge obscuring
karma (which can vary from "light" to "severe"). It is obvious
that even the best intellectual arguments or explanations
about "unconditional nirvanic bliss" won't transform a
Casanova into a sage; only spontaneous arising knowledge will
do that.

Jan
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You Are Love about satsang with nome:


The first time I attended a Satsang with nome was
around 23 years ago. This body was around 18 at that
time. I had gone to Oakland to spend a month
attending Satsang with Baba Muktananda. After I had
been there around 3 weeks I was in a book store in San
Francisco and saw a poster on the bullitein board
about Nome. I attended two satsangs with nome. One of
the satsangs was on a weekday and lasted around an
hour and a half. The other was on a sunday and it was
a 6 hour satsang. There were times during that 6 hour
satsang when people stopped talking. During those
times I felt a silence that was unlike any silence I
have ever felt. The suprising quality of it was that
it was so tangible. Tangible in the sense that I felt
as though I could have reached out and touched it.
Something like a room filled with honey. So tangible
so real. A booklet called answers and questions is
available from books beyond words. It contains four
satsangs from Russ and Nome. Information on how to
obtain recordings of Russ and Nome's satsangs is
available on the SAT web site: http://www.satramana.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...and sends this quote:

"If you go the way of your thoughts you will be
carried away by them and you will find yourself in an
endless maze." 7th January 1935 from the book:
"Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi"
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A very quiet list:


I recently became 'owner' of the I AM list. Although
nobody's posted there for many months, the list of members
is stellar, and I AM was the first nonduality list on
Onelist, dating from May of 1998. It spawned HarshaSatsangh,
Nonduality Salon and others.

I have nothing to say about it other than that it is
available for anyone who wants to stake fresh nondual
ground. It will be relatively unmoderated. Perhaps it could
be common meeting ground for people from different
nonduality lists where they can share their experiences and
find out stuff. Perhaps it will remain the quiet unwalked
beach it has been for some time.

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/iam

Jerry Katz
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Joshua (competition) surfaces:


Remember Joshua, talking about competition all the time? Just saw a large
ad of his in the March 2000 issue of Shambala Sun (good 'zine about
Buddhism from the Chogyam Trungpa school). About 1/3 page or so, with a
brilliantly colored Kabbalistic-looking graphic, along with his URL and the
tagline, "Sick of Competition?"

Love,

--Greg
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______


Petros sent this:

How to Become Fooly Aware

By Swami Beyondananda

Like many of you, I began as a seeker of wisdom. I came of age during the
sects revolution, and I explored all kinds of kinky sects. But I never felt
fulfilled. I finally saw the light when I woke up one morning with a sugar
hangover at a biker crash-pad. I was wearing an orange leather vest and
reeked of incense. Yes, I had become a Harley Krishna. I took a good look at
myself in the mirror, and that's when enlightning struck and I found
foolfillment. I became fooly-realized the moment I realized that I was a
fool -- and there was nothing to do about it but laugh. And I've been
preaching FUNdamentalism ever since.

The Five Fundamentals of FUNdamentalism

1. Life Is a Joke -- But God Is Laughing With Us, Not At Us. God is tuned to
the Comedy Channel, and we are His Funniest Home Videos. We take turns being
comedian and straight man (and yes, a gay woman can be a straight man -- it
happens all the time), so we get the fool spectrum of experience. And we
have free choice. We get to choose whether or not we laugh. While we
FUNdamentalists are ardently pro-laugh, we are pro-choice as well. We honor
every human being's right to not be amused. But I figure, why resist a Farce
that is greater than any of us? If life is a sitcom, might as well sit calm
and enjoy it.

2. Fun Is Fundamental. FUNdamentalists believe that life is fundamentally
fun -- that underneath all the stress, distress and negativity, there is an
deep well of joy. Each time laughter bubbles up from that well, we
experience deep wellness. A fooly-aware person need only look in the mirror
to begin laughing. So play to God daily. Surrender to the Farce, and smile
... you're on Candid Karma.

3. A Laugh Track Has Been Provided. The FUNdamentalist scriptures tell us
that on the Eighth Day, God saw the world was funny and created Laughter.
And since we were humoring Him, He decided to humor us. So He provided a
laugh track so we could laugh along. But when things get serious, we lose
track of the laugh track. Fortunately, the best way to overcome gravity is
with levity. We can use the levitational pull to help us rise above whatever
is bringing us down -- and help us get back on track.

4. We Are Put In the Material World To Get More Material. Spirit is
immaterial, so it must materialize to experience anything. Without material
existence, there would be nothing to laugh about and no one to do the
laughing. We have been given the human jestive system to turn the material
of life into laughter. When we laugh, God laughs. And when we laugh with
God, we are using the spiritual to heal the material. To be happy in life,
you must be able to take a joke. And if you can leave a few as well, all the
better.

5. Nonjudgment Day Is At Hand! When a majority of human beings would rather
laugh than condemn, we will have an uncritical mass, and this will usher in
Nonjudgment Day. On Nonjudgment Day, we will all win beauty contests.
Lawyers will disappear, and all our trials will be over. On this glorious
day when enlightning strikes, our clown chakras will open, we will become
fooly-realized, and we will finally get the joke. The world will stop -- and
everyone will get off.
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Jan K sent this:


Sent to me by srvfan. Forwarding it to the list...
Enjoy!

love
Dutch

Comparative Analysis of World Religious (and other) Philosophies
===============================================
Taoism:Shit Happens
Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit Happens"
Buddhism:If Shit Happens, it isn't really Shit
Zen (Rinzai):What is the sound of Shit Happening?
Zen (Soto):Shit just Happens
Hinduism:This Shit Happened before
Sikhism:Leave our Shit alone
Jainism:Don't accidentally swallow flies and Shit
Islam:If Shit Happens, it is the will of Allah
Nation of Islam:Don't take no Shit!
Hare Krishna:Shit Happens, Shit Happens, Rama Rama *ding ding*
Agnosticism:Does Shit Happen?
Atheism:No Shit!
Catholicism:Shit Happens because you are BAD
Protestantism:Catholics are full of Shit
Methodism:Let Shit Happen to somebody else
Calvinism:Shit Happens because you don't work hard enough
Presbyterianism:This Shit was bound to Happen
Episcopalianism:If Shit Happens, hold a procession
Lutheranism:Shit Happens, but as long as you're sorry, it's OK
Anglicanism:Shit Happens, but only to Lutherans
Mormonism:Excrement Occurs
Baptist:You're Shitting all wrong, and you're going to hell for it, too
Pentacostal:Praise the Shit!
Christian Science:Shit is all in your mind
Existentialism:What is Shit anyway?
Hedonism:There's nothing like a good Shit Happening
Dadaism:Bathtub full of power tools
Jehovah's Witness:Knock knock. Shit Happens!
Televangelism:Your tax-deductable donation can prevent this Shit from
Happening
Fundamentalism:There's no Shit in the Bible
Creationism:Shit has only been Happening since October 23rd, 4004 B.C.
Judaism:Why does Shit always Happen to us?
Reform Judaism:Got any laxatives?
Moonies:Only happy Shit really Happens
Wicca:Shit is part of the Goddess, too
Paganism:Shit Happens for a variety of reasons
Pantheism:It's all a bunch of Shit
Panentheism:Shit transcends us
Mysticism:This is some weird Shit
Unitarianism:Go ahead, Shit anywhere you want
Vegetarianism:If it Shits, don't eat it
Scientology:All this Happens to be Shit
Church of the SubGenius:Shit has happened. For $20 "BoB" will sell you a way
to MAKE MONEY FROM IT.
Discordianism:Hail Shit!
Seventh Day Adventist:No Shit on Saturdays
Amish:Shit is good for the soil
Stoicism:This Shit is good enough for me
Zoroastrianism:Shit Happens half the time
Rastafarianism:Let's smoke this Shit
Voodoo:Let's stick some pins in this Shit
Twelve Step Program:Shit Happens one day at a time
Environmentalism:Shit is biodegradable
New Age:It's not Shit, it's feldspar

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