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Nondual Highlights: Issue #2865, Saturday, July 7, 2007
When we are in the mind, we exist in separate worlds. There are
as many separate worlds as there are unconscious people upon this
planet. We get along with those whose separate worlds are
somewhat similar to our own. We are at odds with everyone else.
But when we become present, we leave our separate worlds and come
into the one world, experienced through the senses, in this
moment of now.
There are no memories or imaginings to distort our reality. There
are no concepts, ideas, opinions, or beliefs to distort our
experience of what is here now.
There are no philosophies or religions to separate us. Our minds
are silent. I am silent. You are silent. How can the experience
of silence differ for us? It cannot. In silence and Presence, we
come together in Oneness.
- Leonard Jacobson, from: Journey into Now, posted to
adyashantigroup
Be aware of your presence in this room. Say to yourself,
"I'm in this room." It's as if you were outside
yourself looking at yourself. Notice a slightly different feeling
than if you were looking at things in the room. Later we'll ask,
"Who is this person who is doing the looking?" I am
looking at me. What's an "I"? What's "me"?
For the time being it's enough that I watch me, but if you find
yourself condemning yourself or approving yourself, don't stop
the condemnation and don't stop the judgment or approval, just
watch it. I'm condemning me; I'm disapproving of me; I'm
approving of me. Just look at it, period. Don't try to change it!
Don't say, "Oh, we were told not to do this." Just
observe what's going on. As I said to you before,
self-observation means watching -- observing whatever is going on
in you and around you as if it were happening to someone else.
Anthony De Mello, SJ, posted to The_Now2
All judging of others creates an implied hierarchy into which a
personal "you" struggles to fit in.
Discrimination, however, is simply noticing the apparent
distinctions between things without adding anything else to your
observations.
In the end, though, absolutely everything must be welcomed by you
with an open and non-resistant heart.
Heaven and Earth are separated only by the differences, no matter
how slight, that you see between "what is" and what you
think "should" be instead.
- Chuck Hillig, posted to AlongTheWay
The I amness, initially, is a pale reflection of what is. It is
not truly what is, but is a reflection of it filtered through our
minds. And that I amness will develop... as one meditates more
and more on it, it develops. And in fact eventually it fades as
concept, it fades away as concept, because its unreality is seen.
And then that I amness becomes something utterly different. It
becomes an isness, what is.
- Robert Powell, transcribed from the video Nisagadatta Maharaj -
Awaken to the Eternal by Bill Rishel, and posted to
NondualitySalon
The following post comprises two quotes from Nisargadatta Maharaj
along with commentary by Bill Rishel and was posted to
AdvaitaToZen:
Just keep in mind the feeling 'I am', merge in it, till your mind
and feeling become one. By repeated attempts you will stumble on
the right balance of attention and affection and your mind will
be firmly established in the thought-feeling 'I am'. Whatever you
think, say, or do, this sense of immutable and affectionate being
remains as the ever-present background of the mind.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Interesting the notion of "right balance of attention and
affection".
Also the notion of "thought-feeling" ('I am' or
otherwise).
For myself experience does seem to be a fundamentally merged
sense of seeing-feeling. As if there is a *depth* that comes from
the merging of that combination. Neither can be separated out
(they are truly merged), and yet somehow there is a sense of both
seeing and feeling as in that.
This all brings to mind:
- Bill I find that somehow, by shifting the focus of attention, I
become the very thing I look at, and experience the kind of
consciousness it has; I become the inner witness of the thing. I
call this capacity of entering other focal points of
consciousness, love; you may give it any name you like. Love says
"I am everything". Wisdom says "I am
nothing". Between the two, my life flows. Since at any point
of time and space I can be both the subject and the object of
experience, I express it by saying that I am both, and neither,
and beyond both.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj
There again the sense of the two aspects profoundly merged.
I have sometimes called this kind of dual unity "twoness
without distinction".
Am struck just now by the comment in the second quote: "I
call this capacity of entering other focal points of
consciousness, love." Am really struck by that as it
resonates with my experience in connecting with others. To really
connect with others and in a sense "merge" with them I
experience as a deep opening of awareness into profound
connection with the "other". His description seems to
map to that very well.
Speaking of love, my path has been a fundamentally jnana path.
Investigating the nature and experience of attention has been a
key part of that. Just this year I have started noticing a sense
of "being Love", as if awareness itself were a great
Presence that seemed only natural to call Love. A friend and I
used to debate about Love vs Truth. To me Truth was the most
fundamental. To her it was Love. My path has always been that of
Truth (investigation of attention being part of that). It struck
me this year that here I am finding Love as my "filled
cup". It is as if for me Truth has been the path, and Love
the *consequence*. All of which relates back to the two
Nisargadatta quotes above.
I wonder if for some the path is Love and the consequence is
Truth. Perhaps that is what it was for my friend (she is now
deceased). I don't know. But it seems plausible.
Thoughts About Things
When i thought i wanted enlightenment
suffering was my quest,
when i thought i was separated from consciousness
and God
fear was my companion
when i thought someone to love was my endless need
loneliness was my attachment
my pain became guilt
when i saw the truth of my own life
innocence
was the gift
restored and bestowed
and the world became
What Is
pure, luminous and fluid,
freed from my hate.
- Anna Ruiz, 2005, posted to NondualitySalon