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#2919 - Tuesday, September 4, 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
Three different types of articles, a nonduality sandwich on fancy bread.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070904/od_afp/hongkongeducation_070904160137
University 'very easy' for Hong Kong nine-year-old
Tue Sep 4, 12:01 PM ET
HONG KONG (AFP) - Hong Kong's youngest ever
university student said he was already bored with his
"very easy" classes as he started his mathematics
course on Tuesday.
The nine-year-old maths genius gained two
grade As and a B in his A-levels in England -- normally
taken by 18-year-olds.
March Boedihardjo told reporters gathered
at Hong Kong Baptist University he was excited about
starting school, but the classes were not stimulating.
"I've learned it a year or two years
ago," Boedihardjo said as reporters peppered him with
questions and cameras flashed around him.
The boy appeared impatient with the endless
questions from reporters and kept asking his father
when they could leave.
Boedihardjo did not have a good impression of his classmates either.
"They made no response (in classes).
They just listened in the class and didn't interact with each
other," he said.
The boy said that his old school friends "wanted to play", unlike the university students.
The university accepted Boedihardjo last
month and has designed a special five-year course for him
that will lead to a masters degree.
The following is from Floyd Henderson's active and committed blog, which is at http://advaitavedantameditations.blogspot.com/2007/09/satsang-tuesday-through-thursday.html
The books described below may be viewed and ordered at http://www.floydhenderson.com/
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
SATSANG TUESDAY THROUGH THURSDAY
Postings will continue on Friday. You are invited to visit the
archives or to read the information below on various non-duality
books.
INFORMATION ON THE BOOKS: Occasionally, people ask about the recommended order for reading the books. Some ask for more details before ordering. While the next three days are spent with seekers, postings will be suspended, so the information requested by some will be offered:
THE MEDITATION GUIDES
These books can be read in either order since each stands alone.
The entries each day provide an excerpt from a non-duality book,
followed by one or more considerations for that day. Some read
the books from beginning to finish while others use them on a
daily basis. Either way, they offer hundreds of pointers that are
all rooted in the Advaita Teachings.
IT ALL BULLSHIT (And Why Knowing It Sets
You Free)
This book contains a series of “propositionalities”
that would be worthless except to the extent that they prepare
all seekers to become willing to question the sacred cows of your
culture. Ultimately, this all deals more with the relative than
the Absolute, but one cannot abide sanely as the Absolute without
first seeing the insanity of the relative. If one can question
his/her core beliefs that are generally held sacred by the
masses, then discarding all of the other nonsense of the culture
might become easier. That alone can begin the "journey"
toward total freedom and total peace. Few will ever be able to
discard the minor cows, much less these six sacred cows, but this
book is an invitation to begin questioning what is usually taken
for granted after years of programming and enculturation.
SPIRITUAL SOBRIETY (Recovering What
Religions Lost)
This book is for the 6 billion+ persons who have been programmed
with the dogma of the planets’ religions, especially the
three outgrowths of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It
is also for those who are playing a spiritual role or who have
become spiritually intoxicated (which prevents moving beyond all
role-playing and Realizing Fully). It's intent is to allow
persons on the "path" to transition beyond the
religious and spiritual identities that are assumed at the third
step of the "journey." The focus is on those three
since their dogma has programmed—and corrupted the
consciousness of—most persons on the planet, but the overall
message reflects the truth about all religions and all
“spiritual” programs or movements as well. The content
reveals the 16 tenets common to those religions which evolved
from the killing of virgins; exposes the contradictions of those
teachings; discusses the glorification of suffering; catalogues
and exposes the false promises that are made in order to attract
and control the masses; explains the way that their leaders'
addiction to power drives them to manipulate their followers;
exposes the lies upon which those institutions are based;
identifies the results of religious and spiritual intoxication;
and uncovers the mental disorders that result from strict
adherence to the dogma and ideology. If you have been exposed to
any religious or spiritual indoctrination, or if you live in a
culture where the leaders have been indoctrinated by religion,
this one should be read.
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “PEACE
OF MIND” (There Is Only Peace if You’re Out of Your
Mind)
This book leads to the next level of freedom, allowing seekers to
transition beyond the mind. The content explores the history of
the human brain, including the fact that for millions of years,
human and human-like beings functioned without any mind. The book
uncovers the ways that the brain evolved over the ages and
developed an ability to store and retrieve memories. It then
shows how the original memories were used constructively but how
programming and conditioning changed all that and created a
"mind" that most often overrules the brain and
generates relative-existence harm and destruction. Similarly, the
book shows the way that personality develops during childhood as
a means for survival and adaptation but later becomes a liability
when those childhood personality traits continue to drive adult
thinking and behavior.
Ultimately, the book shows why Advaitin sages for centuries have
correctly identitifed the "problems of the planet" as
being rooted in body-mind-personality identification and offers
suggestions for being free of all of that nonsense via
Realization.
LIBERATION
This book helps remove the next barrier to Realization:
personality. After being freed from body-mind identification,
transitioning into the next step begins the process of being
freed from identification with personas and being unconsciously
controlled by personality traits. This book studies the nine most
basic persona types as identified in the enneagram method and
offers the way to be freed of the influences of personality.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DIE?
This book offers the opportunity to shift to the next level of
understanding, the level at which you come to realize that you
cannot die since you were not born. Fears generally begin to fall
away after reading this work. The Foreword offers this: “If
you find the answer to ‘What happens when I die—what
happens after the body ends?’ the result will be that the
remainder of your relative existence will be marked by an
incredible lightness of being. Persons addicted to chaos will
hate that possibility. Those seeking to be restored to sanity
will seek the answer until it is found.”
THE ESSENCE OF THE TEACHINGS
This book is used by many as a primer and companion piece to FROM
THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE. "PART ONE" includes answers to
frequently-asked questions and provides an overview of terms used
during the teachings. "PART TWO" provides information
for those who are “close” but haven’t yet
“gotten it.” "PART TWO" moves the seeker to a
depth of understanding that sets the stage for the final message
in FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE.
FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step
Journey to Reality)
Most of the so-called “Spiritual Masters” addressed in
random order all of the steps that must be taken to shift from
identifying with the false “I” to abiding as the
Absolute. All of the steps (or “stages” to use
Maharaj’s term) have been discussed for centuries, but this
is the first time that the steps have been offered and explained
in simple language in the exact order in which the seven steps
must be taken in order to move from “the lie of the I”
to Full Realization. Most of the content of this book contains
the complete set of transcripts from audio tapings of a series of
satsang sessions that guided the participants from step one to
Realization. Some have said that by reading the questions from
seekers and the immediate responses by floyd (all offered in
their original easy, conversational format), they have felt as if
they were present in the room, actively engaged in the satsang
along with fellow seekers. This one should be read last.
CONSCIOUSNESS/AWARENESS: The Nature of
Reality Beyond Self-Realization (Peace Every Day When Abiding as
The Absolute)
After following the “path” as outlined in FROM THE I TO
THE ABSOLUTE (A Seven-Step Journey to Reality) in order to
Realize, the next step is to understand the difference in
consciousness and awareness in order to abide as the Absolute for
the remainder of the manifestation and then be totally free.
"The Final Frontier" of the Advaita Teachings is
transitioned when the Nature of Reality is understood and when
the Advaita Teachings are "applied" on a daily basis
even in the absence of any "Applier." The Nature of
Reality cannot be understood until the differences in
Consciousness and Awareness are understood. Understanding the
Nature of Consciousness allows for abidance in the I AM, but what
of THAT Which Is beyond, and that which is beyond the beyond? To
be at perfect peace on a daily basis, adibance as the re-purified
Consciousness must be transitioned and abidacne as the Absolute
Awareness must happen. Only abidance as the Absolute allows for
the remainder of the manifestation of Consciousness to happen in
Perfect Peace. This book will distinguish between Consciousness
and Awareness, will define the exact Nature of Reality, will
offer explanations that will allow fixation in the Full
Realization to happen, will allow for an understanding of the
Functioning of the Totality, and will assist all earnest seekers
to find the way to fixate in a state of peace from NOW until the
Consciousness Unmanifests.
YES, WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY. New rates by the USPS went into effect on 14 May 2007. You may visit http://ircalc.usps.gov/ to calculate rates and view options. (Select your country, then in the “weight” box, estimate 1 pound per each book ordered.) Add $5 to cover package preparation, the assistant's trip to and from the PO, and the time for completion of international shipping forms.
Books may be viewed and ordered at http://www.floydhenderson.com/
The following is from the Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams (submitted by Dustin).
I don’t tell this story often, because no one believes it.
It was 1979, my senior year at Hartwick College, in Oneonta NY. One early morning I woke up from a dead sleep and had what could best be described as a vision of my future. In this vision, I would move to San Francisco, and create something that would make me famous. And I saw myself standing on stage in front of a huge audience. At the time, I knew no one who lived in San Francisco. I didn’t even know anyone who had visited. It seemed entirely random. I was majoring in economics so I could become a banker in New York City, not a stage performer in San Francisco.
After graduating, I traded my beat-up Datsun 510 to my sister for a one-way ticket to Los Angeles, where my brother had moved a few years earlier. I slept in a sleeping bag on his couch and applied for banking jobs. I had two offers, and was planning to pick one of them.
Meanwhile, sometime after my so-called vision, an ex girlfriend dropped out of college and moved to San Francisco. While I was in LA, she invited me up for the weekend. I went. She convinced me that San Francisco was a much nicer place than LA, and I should move there. I said I’d stay if I could find a job on Monday. I was almost out of money. Otherwise, I would return to LA and accept one of the offers there.
On Monday morning, I walked into a branch of Crocker National Bank in San Francisco, asked for a job, and got one, as a teller. I’ve lived in the San Francisco area ever since. This is where I created Dilbert. And I have stood on stage in front of huge audiences a few hundred times, just as I saw it in the vision.
I’ve had several of these so-called visions. Most of them happened just the way I saw them. A few haven’t happened yet, but could. So how do I explain it?
The obvious explanation is that I remember the alleged visions that come true and forget the ones that don’t. I can’t rule that out. Another possibility is that I have some weird psychic ability. That seems unlikely. If people had that sort of ability it would have been measured in a lab by now.
Perhaps my subconscious makes all my decisions, and creates all of my so-called visions. Then it does its best to make me do the things that would make the visions come true. That seems like a perfectly good theory.
But my favorite theory is that I’m nothing but a hologram in a computer program built by my ancient self, before the planet was destroyed by some disaster. The reason I can glimpse my future is that I have all of the qualities of the real me who wrote my program. In other words, I can accurately imagine my future because it is playing out much like I would have authored it myself.
The great thing about this theory is that I can find all sorts of clues to validate it. For example, when I come up with a “new” idea only to discover that others have had the same thought, this fits my theory too. The reason other people have my same thoughts is because they were programmed by my ancient self, who only had a finite number of thoughts to build into the program. This reality is bound to have repeats.
Then there is all the science I don’t understand. One explanation is that it’s over my head. But I prefer the explanation that it is nothing but gibberish programmed into the system. The reason I don’t understand string theory, for example, is that there are no real scientists, only holograms programmed by my ancient self. And since my ancient self didn’t know string theory, he concealed that fact by making it seem as though it is just too complicated to understand.
That’s how I would have programmed it.