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Nondual
Highlights: Issue #2983, Sunday, November 11, 2007, Editor: Mark
Direct self-inquiry questions the basic assumption that you are
"somebody".
This assumption is rarely examined because what usually follows
is, "What I need, what I want, what I have, what I don't
have, what I should have," and on and on.
These stories keep you identified as a person set apart from the
vastness of your true identity. It keeps you identified only as a
particular form, a body that is subject to birth and death. This
identification is conscious individualization.
There is nothing evil or even mistaken about individualization.
It is natural in the evolution and development of the human
being. It is part of the mystery of human beingness.
- Gangaji, from The Diamond in Your Pocket, posted to
The_Now2
To want nothing and do nothing - that is true creation! To watch
the universe emerging and subsiding in one's heart is a wonder.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj, from I Am That, posted to
AlongTheWay
still the body
still the mind
still the voice inside
in silence
feel the stillness move
friends
this feeling
cannot be imagined
- Kabir
A body-mind organism in which enlightenment has happened doesn't
become a vegetable. Thoughts will arise. Emotions arise. But
those thoughts or emotions or desires are not taken delivery of.
They just happen.
- Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
Emptiness is not like a black hole or darkness, or like an empty
house or an empty bottle. Emptiness is fullness and openness and
flexibility. Because of emptiness it is possible for phenomena to
function, for beings to see and hear, and for things to move and
change. It is called emptiness because when we examine things we
cannot find anything that substantially and solidly exists.
There is nothing that has a truly existent nature. Everything we
perceive appears through ever-changing causes and conditions,
without an independent, solid basis. Although from a relative
perspective things appear, they arise from emptiness and they
dissolve into emptiness. All appearances are like water bubbles
or the reflection of the moon in water.
- Khenchen Palden Sherab, posted to DailyDharma
The Still-Point of Ecstasy
On the Night of Creation I was awake,
Busy at work while everyone slept.
I was there to see the first wink
and hear the first tale told.
I was the first one caught
in the hair of the Great Imposter.
Whirling around the still-point of esctasy
I spun like the wheel of heaven.
How can I describe this to you?
you were born later.
I was a companion of that Ancient Lover;
Like a bowl with a broken rim
I endured his tyranny.
Why shouldn't I be as lustrous as the King's cup?
I have lived in the room of treasures.
Why shouldn't this bubble become the sea?
I am the secret that lies at its bottom . . .
Shhhh . . . no more words
Hear only the voice within.
Remember, the first thing He said was:
"We are beyond words."
- Rumi, Ghazal 1529, interpretive version by Jonathan
Star, from A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of
Rumi, posted to Sunlight