by Swami
Gaurangapada on
15 Mar 2007, 12:40 Click here to go to the next issue
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#2798 - Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
One: Essential Writings on Nonduality http://nonduality.com/one.htm.
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Some really good posts from a variety of sources: original contributions, private emails, blogs, and Nonduality Salon.
Yosy
if you seek special illumination look upon a human face: see deeply within laughter the essence of the ultimate truth (jallal from balkh) it is better to bind a free man with love then to release a thousand slaves. nonduality is absence of concepts and ideas and facing whatever arises as it does with an inner smile and gratitude...
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times". "Tale Of Two Cities". Charles Dickens
So are the tales of every human thought process, including our own in the duality of life as it exists. There is a clarity of synthesis that moves us beyond its separative experience into the unity of life itself.
Life itself is the experience, we add the colours, the textures, the flavours, the sights and sounds depending on how we recreate our deepest selves: our visions complete with everything we have ever experienced, thought, seen, heard, felt, touched, smelled and then remembered. And so it goes.
And then we wake up.
Peace, Anna
The Table
by Gary Crowley
Nondual experiencing is not at all complicated. As a matter of fact, it's as simple as bumping into your kitchen table. One must only understand that when you bump into your kitchen table, you also bump into all the experiencing that arises from it. Your entire neurology simply reacts to the situation.
When you understand that you and others don't consciously control the perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and emotions that arise in any situation, you are open to being the nondual experiencing of each moment. Bumping into a table is no different than encountering the rest of life. What you are is the experiencing of an inherited and conditioned neurology "bumping into" life situations.
Whether you are bumping into a table, meeting a friend in the park, considering the pros and cons of "paper vs. plastic" in the checkout line, awed by a beautiful sunrise, or grieving the death of a loved one, it's all part of the experiencing of living. Pain, pleasure, confusion, beauty, amazement, and grief are some of the many elements of living that are experienced along the way.
Every second of living is interpreted through the lens of your absolutely unique neurology that has been built and shaped through your genetics and life conditioning. You are the experiencing of your neurological lens meeting life. With this understanding, "living" becomes the magnificent and completely unique experiencing of each moment.
The good news is that you are always already the experiencing of life. Whatever allows for the dismantling of "the illusion of conscious control over your present moment experiencing" will only free you to discover what you already are. And then there you'll be, the nondual experiencing you've been searching for, but that you have always already been. You'll simply be the dynamic experiencing of living - all "Am" and no "I."
For a FREE Chapter of, From Here To Here: Turning Toward Enlightenment, please visit http://www.GaryCrowley.com. To read Jerry Katz's review of the book from Nonduality Highlight #2711, please visit http://www.nonduality.com/hl2711.htm
from http://nitai.in/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=171&sid=614c8fb7f728ceb692aeeaf17975ed4c
by Swami
Gaurangapada on
15 Mar 2007, 12:40
"A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. The Barber began to work. They began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists. "Why do you say that?" asked the customer. "Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things." The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barber’s shop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barbershop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist." "How can you say that?" asked the surprised Barber "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"
"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards like that man outside."
"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is people do not come to me."
"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."
Bill Rishel
In physics black holes are referred to as
singularities. What this roughly
means is that all the laws of physics break down, all notions of
time,
space, dimension, etc. are collapsed.
Black holes can serve as analogy for the
living moment, for in the living
moment there is no time, no is there distance (distance requires
time).
In the living moment all thoughts and forms
collapse. In the intense
vibrance of the moment consciousness becomes as a plasma,
compressed as to
a point, but also seemingly everywhere. The dream of events and
happenings
continues after a fashion, but diaphanously, transparently, as
fleeting
dreams, as shadows dancing on a wall. At the core is a vibrance
of such
intensity that whatever shadows there are instantly fade in
significance.
As the tongues of flame in a fire, such is the impermanent non-
lastingness
of events as they unfold from the vital life of the burning Now.
There are those who will not understand
this. There are those who will
understand it perfectly. As with a black hole the notion of an
"event
horizon" applies. Once the "event horizon" is
crossed there is a *falling
in*. Having "fallen in" the immediacy of Now grows with
crushing intensity.
The dross of old notions, dearly held, are burned away.
Eventually more and
more the crust of self is melted and extinquished at the core,
leaving a
silent burning blaze.
So it is not about ideas and understanding.
It is about an event horizon,
and its being crossed or not.
The blaze of burning presence is utterly
indifferent. And yet, somehow
also, there is an *ache*, a yearning to reach back out across the
infinite
window of nothingness whereby everything collapsed to a
singularity. Such
yearnings are fleeting, just as the tongues of flame... but like
the
tongues of flame, the yearnings *are* again and again.
Response by Mark Otter
Yum!
I've had an aversion to physics metaphors for spiritual matters,
possibly because some seem to see the finger and not realize it's
only pointing. But, I love this one. It's clear, and it's clear
that
it's a metaphor.
I thought of another this morning. I was talking with someone
about
planetary orbits, and explaining that there is no "hand of
God"
causing Mars to orbit the Earth, but that Mars is actually
falling
into the sun all the time. It just is moving sideways so fast
that it
keeps missing. Seems like an apt metaphor for my ego movements.
By trying to exert control over my life, I'm moving sideways so
fast that I fail to fall into God.
consciously exerting the brakes on myself,
Mark
ps I don't know if actively trying to
surrender is the ticket, but
perhaps it serves as that braking mechanism, which allows the
loss of
ego momentum up to some point where the "falling into"
just happens.
It's a concept, but I think I'll explore it just for the fun of
it.