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#2897 - Friday, August 10, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
One: Essential
Writings on Nonduality. Amazon site: http://nonduality.com/one.htm
Check availability at your local Borders Store: http://www.bordersstores.com/locator/locator.jsp?tt=gn
This issue includes a few writings from a website dedicated to "M", one of the first people I met online, and a teacher of a very small number of devotees. This is the website: http://www.celebrationoftheself.com/ M's lineage is that of Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, Swami Muktananda, and Mahamandaleshwar Swami Nityanand.
Read more at the website above. Also visit M's web pages on nonduality.com, one of the earliest contributions to the site: http://nonduality.com/m.htm --Jerry
Bhakti
The scriptures tell us to love God with all
our being,
with every moment of our existence,
more than family, wife and children.
What is meant by this exactly?
It is not a call to love our family less,
no no,
it is a call to love all more.
To love God first means to love all.
God is the root, the trunk, and the flower of life,
the All-In-All.
The dictum to 'love God first and foremost'
is a dictum then to love all.
This means that we must not love our family
less,
but rather, we should love the whole of existence as our family.
It is a call to love, this dictum.
This universal love is called samarasya or
samávesha,
meaning 'same sightedness'.
In this universal love there is no room
to love 'this' more than 'that',
nor is there any room to
'hate this' and to 'love that'.
Sadhana will bear lasting and meaningful
fruit
only when one cultivates 'sameness' towards all.
Sadhana will not bear fruit
when 'selective affection' for only a few exists,
nor will it bear fruit when hatred abides within.
See yourself in others, for love, hatred,
anger, jealousy,
envy, desire, passion and greed are the same for all.
As you feel, so too does your brother.
As you need, so too does your sister.
To love God foremost
is to love all,
is to love
itself.
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Eat Your Dog
Eat your cat! Eat your dog!
Eat them now!
Gut your hamster,
skin him and fry him in olive oil.
What? What is this?!
You can't eat your guinea pig?
Nonsense!
Listen to the three-fold wisdom:
Man does not eat his pet because he loves
his pet;
he spend his days with his pet,
and yet he can eat an animal he has never met
because he does not know the animal,
he has never spent his afternoons with it.
This is selective compassion! Selective love!
Fill the greedy belly,
for it is coarse in compassion and cares not.
Love one and eat the other;
have love here and hunger there,
But do not claim to love all.
Either learn to eat your dog or to let the cow live!
Either be of the animal nature or be Godly
of nature,
but do not straddle the fence my friend,
for if you fall you will
certainly bust
your
gonads.
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Yoga Not Democratic
People in the West think that Tantric Yoga
is a democratic process.
This is naivete at its pinnacle. Discipline, surrender,
and perseverance are the hallmarks of the vira,
the hero of Yoga.
Debate and argument as witnessed on lists
and get togethers are for the political ring;
it draws one outside the center.
Mute, humble practice and acceptance
are for the yogin or yogini,
it draws one into one's own being.
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Stillness, The Essence
There are a hundred yogas,
yet one stillness of mind that is their goal.
People fret over which yoga,
which lineage, which sect,
for stillness of mind.
People fret to such a degree
that they forget the stillness
that is the real fruit.
Lost in their worries about whether or not
they have done their practice 'justice',
about whether or not they have practiced enough,
or simply about whether their practice is right,
they forget this one thing:
Stillness of mind Practice is good,
but Stillness of mind is the essence.
Do not practice in your room
and then forget the stillness everywhere else.
Be possessed of stillness during the most absurd of times,
the most inopportune moments.
One who realizes this utter simplicity
is really getting
somewhere.
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Puja
When one performs puja in the home shrine
and,
through constant practice, reaches a high level of attainment,
he continues to perform puja.
In the beginning, puja is performed to a beloved deity or to the
Guru;
in the end, puja is performed out of bliss;
it is performed out of love;
it is performed out of celebration of the Self.
If one claims to outgrow puja, then he does not know.
We do not outgrow puja,
we grow into its deepest understanding,
its deepest and true meaning--
the celebration of the Self;
the celebration of the play of Consciousness.