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MARK OTTER

There is a wonderful song by Van
Morrison on his album
"Common One" called "When Heart Is
Open". I wish I could
play it for you. "When there's no
coming and there's no
goin..." Mmmmmm.... I dunno, it may
sound soppy, but we
ARE flowers opening. (and being source for bee happiness,
and wilting and dying and being fertilizer for new plants,
and, and, and... and maybe it just is and we can just be.)
I am enjoying the opening and I'm in no hurry to be "fully
open", whether such a state exists or doesn't exist, or both
or neither. Words are words and experience is experience,
and if you like the words and the experience, then enjoy
them and benefit, and if you don't like the words and the
experience, then know it for what it is and benefit from
it. Give benefit and you'll receive benefit. Demand
benefit and you will most likely be disappointed. If you
are a flower, open. If someone says you are not a flower,
open anyway and don't be surprised if it fails to prove to
them that they are wrong. They are busy being closed, and
that won't change until they change it. You can only open
one person, and by opening that one person, you open it all
because you ARE it all.

And when heart is open
And when heart is open
You will change just like a flower slowly openin'
And when heart is open
You will change just like a flower slowly openin'
When there's no comin'
And there's no goin'
And when heart is open
You will meet your lover

BRUCE
Morrison's songs tend to
have strong mystical (if
not always explicitly
nondual) implications.
Even on sessions that
largely comprise
material written by
others, he has the
uncanny ability to
confer that mystic
quality -- I strongly
recommend is project
with The Chieftains,
"Irish Heartbeat."
__________________________________________________________________
MARK OTTER

Why do you reach out to grab on to something to keep
yourself from falling? Everything is falling...

You might enjoy:
http://www.geocities.com/~spiritwalk/demello1min.htm#source

______________________________________________________________

JODY

"Salutations to the Devi who exists in the form of desire!
Namo Namaha!"
--from the Devi Mahatmyam

Desire as a force is the primary engine of evolution.
It is Shakti built into each of us, directing us along our
life paths as Her playthings.

We are all on this list for a reason. We desire to be.
We all have a desire for greater understanding.

All famous masters had a desire to teach. They also had the
desire to eat and quite a few of them ended up dealing with
their repressed desire for sex.

Desire cannot be eliminated if one is to function in the
world. Even an ascetic has the desire to eliminate desire.

Masters who teach asceticism are from ascetic lineages.
It is a choice one makes. It is not mandatory by any
means. Realization comes to those who Shakti blesses.
She exists in the form of desire.

What is there to worry about?
_________________________________________________________________

XAN:
~ And therein lies illusion!
What you think you really are is not what you are. What
appears to be a personality within a skin is just an idea,
or collection of ideas.

LARRY I agree, but if I understand this correctly,
everything is still real in the sense that misunderstandings
are real misunderstandings and realness itself is to some
extent a misunderstanding but also not. Or something like
that, I think?

XAN:
~ Yes, stuff happens, no doubt about it.
The mind thinks, understands, thinks it understands ......
What do you identify as yourself?

MATTHEW let's see........if i say i identify myself as
everything then i can be sure someone will argue that
dharmic point. If i say i identify as nothing then someone
else (or perhaps even the same person)will argue that
point. If I say I identify as any particular this that or
the other thing then that can easily be proven "illusory".
So i'm wrong any way you look at it. I just can't win.(and
winning is what it's all about isnt it?) I'm so confused i
don't know whether to shit or go blind. But i sure do enjoy
this "philosophy-go-round" anyway.

HANS Hey Matthew, my advice would be : both or neither one.
If you do that, all your problems will be gone :)
__________________________________________________________________

MELODY

"The first day I thought it was hilarious.
Yesterday for a couple of hours it hurt like hell. I did
some 'active meditations' to dive right into the hurt last
night.

This afternoon I return to the computer, and find all the
'jabbings' aimed at me sound just like 'noise'....
(Or like Marcia says, 'blah, blah, blah'. )

Who knows what it'll sound like tomorrow?

And.... who cares?

And why do they do it? It's great to have the attitude
today that says

"who cares" and "so what?"

HANS Hi Melody, this posting of yours made me think. and
that was wrong. I looked up the posting you are referring
to and you know what, I think it is quite hilarious because
today i am thinking like hell. I will have a look again
tomorrow :) Just kidding. But it's true in a way. It
happens all the time, when i've sent a message and i reread
it, i sometimes wonder if it was me who wrote it. There's
only one solution to this problem as far as i can see it :
never reread your messages :)

who cares ?
___________________________________________________________________

I always thought it was because he could and as he stated on
the phone call he was going to show everyone what the world
really is.

neo

--- Hi Neo,

I'm grateful to you in ways you don't know.

The Matrix. I've seen the movie three times in the theater
and I think it's time to see it on video. What you're
saying sounds like what it is to be self-actualized. To be
self-realized implies abidance. The person who is engaged
in a doing that arises out of abidance seems to be referred
to as self-actualized.

How can abidance itself be shown in a mainstream movie?
It's a moment in a movie when a person finds himself moving
toward abidance or the center point around which all things
bend, such as the white space in Matrix, or the plastic bag
blowing in American Beauty. It's a moment of truth. Matrix
had many. Knowing that moment of truth, a person becomes
self-actualized. She or he can fly. Pushed off the cliff,
or weary, weary in the legs -- I'm thinking of two poems
recently posted -- one finds flight.

Great movies -- especially Academy Award winning movies --
make a person feel they are or can be self-actualized. And
they always contain those moments of abidance or
truth-tasting. They entail risking it all, abidance or
tasting truth, and then flying on one's own.

Future episodes of Matrix will have to go deeper into
self-realization and further into self-actualization in
order to be truly successful, I feel. And they can. But
will they?

deeper and further

____________________________________________________________________

NEO:
You are correct. There is no difference between my pain and
the other because there is no other, there is only one of
us. So you are correct again that I must deal with it. The
question is how?

HANS Neo, I honestly do not know. I learned one thing
though, there is no "how ?"
because this would imply that there is an answer and there
isn't. It's a process which is something quite different
than an answer.
_____________________________________________________________________
DAVID HODGES

At the Oscars, the writer who won the Oscar for American
Beauty actually thanked the plastic bag that he saw blowing
in the breeze one day at the foot of the World Trade Center
in New York. Now that's a first! What if everyone at the
Oscars thanked the really important things that go into
their creative or professional lives, rather than the usual
litany of producers, family, friends, etc.?

Speaking of which, one of the producers of American Beauty,
in his acceptance speech, talked about reading the script
for the first time, about two totally disfunctional families
in the middle of which is a character, Ricky Fits, who says,
"There is so much beauty in the world I can't stand it".
___________________________________________________________________
HARSHA COMMENTS ON GLORIA SUBMISSION

Lama Surya Das says:

"One need not travel to distant lands, seek exotic mystical
experiences, master esoteric mantras and treatises, or cul-
tivate extraordinary states of mind in order to experience a
radical change of heart and inner transformation. Spiri-
tually speaking, everything that one wants, and aspires to,
and needs is ever-present, accessible here and now - for
those with eyes to see. It's the old adage all over again:
You don't need to see different things, but rather to see
things differently.

( from "Awakening the Buddha Within" page 47 )."

Striking and beautiful Gloria and thanks for sharing.

We might indeed be destined to see many things and
experience many events.

At some point, we might be inclined to look at and examine
the nature of seeing itself. There is a certain subtlety to
that seeing which diffuses itself over a range of perception
and sees nothing in particular and is content and at peace
with the absence of content in its own nothingness.

Remember once you posted T.S. Eliot's verse which spoke to
this. Something like after much travel, we return home, and
see it as if for the very first time.
__________________________________________________________________

HARSHA

Passing on Sri Frank-Ji's wisdom.
Frankji is one of the most remarkable exponents of
nonduality of our times.

Love to all Harsha

hariH OM!
namaste

vedic sruti states "all this, verily, is brahman."
therefore, we can make no mistake that the world that we
see, experienced through the six indriyas (senses) is in
fact real; however, as we also know, there is an unreal
component within it, and this is where we have to apply
viveka, to discriminate and find out those aspects that are
unreal. and such [unreal] components lie *exclusively*
within one's perception. therefore, it's how we SEE the
world that creates or not such unreal aspects.

we have to bear in mind that *all* nondual philosophies are
applicable only to a point---their purpose basically being
to simplify the relative mind and its thought process
[enabling one to thus eventually become an apt receiving
mechanism for the ineffable Absolute]. however, once [this
certain point] is reached where the mind is sufficiently
purified, then these systems of [nondual] thinking tend to
become an attachment and therefore a trap, and this is what
has to be understood at the *right* moment in time. for
there and then it needs to be released, because otherwise
the mind will continously focus on the methodology rather
than the essence of what it is attempting to
"experientially" impart. and this is where the metaphor of
the finger pointing to the moon comes in, where the finger
itself is not the real but that which it is pointing to
[i.e. the moon].

regarding teachings and gurus, it's important to bear in
mind that virtually *any* path is appropriate regarding the
the unique temperament of the individual

in question. where, for example, j krishnamurthi's idea
that really no-one needs a guru outside one's own Self
within the Heart, needs to be respected and understood for
such individuals. this is also true of someone like u.g.
krishnamurthi's very radical approach [being appropriate for
certain other personality types].

and this can be said about virtually any teacher and
teaching method. from osho to sai baba, to nisargadatta,
poonjaji, gangaji, ramesh. (all of these were/are, in my
view, very effective teachers. and they all in fact are a
product of the lineage of bhagavan ramana, with the
exception of osho and sai baba [who both enthusiastically
acknowledged sri ramana as well]. however, the important
thing is that we should withhold judgment of others, the
path they [evidently *must*] follow, as well as their
teachers. in light of this, for example, although it never
suited my personality type, i would never claim that the
traditional approach isn't appropriate... there are many who
can truly benefit from it. on the other hand, the
unorthodox approach can also be just as right for others.
so to have judgments re the 'right' approach that
[presumably everyone] should adopt, is really delimiting and
erroneous.

judgments of others, and even *more* significantly,
judgments of oneself, cause unfathomable bondage to the one
harboring the judgment.

that aspect of the axiom, 'mind is the slayer of the real'
especially has to do with this matter--not re discrimination
or even ideological criticism--but the reckless habit of
judgment.

all is brahman's leela, perfect in its relative
perfection/imperfection. realize this and release the
myriad egoic shards of contraction.

in fact....don't realize this at all!
what is there to realize?
Self-realization can neither be created nor destroyed.

tattvamasi!....[automatically]...
___________________________________________________________________

CHRISTIANA

Jerry: "I don't see any intent in this particular email
community, no course of action that we intend to follow."

"I think we live with implied intentions, yes. "

Jody: Desire as a force is the primary engine of evolution.
It is Shakti built into each of us, directing us along our
life paths as Her playthings.

We are all on this list for a reason. We desire to be.
We all have a desire for greater understanding.
~~~~~
Ok, Jerry.. (thank you Dan and Jody)

Perhaps 'intention' is used these days more as a directive
towards an outcome. "Intend" meaning a direction of mind.
As I understand this forum it is more a direction to
undermine mind individualized.. to see through the land
mines of mind.

Yet we each come here writing, with mind quite evident as
words flow forth. The locus of the seat of awareness seems
to come from many vantage points. There appears to be
educated mind, emotive mind, rational mind, defensive mind,
mind of heart, habit mind, idea-bound mind and on rare
occasions a free mind appears. Please know that I am using
these relative differences metaphorically as I understand
them all as facets of One mind. (Using the definition of
mind as 'to become aware of').

A community such as this one is maintained, as Jody says, by
a desire to deepen understanding. This desire is apparently
predicated upon an understanding that through fellowship..
communion.. we each learn and share; expand and collapse.
If we didn't 'desire' this, we'd be in our solitariness
reading books, meditating or walking in nature silently.

I am simply proposing that since we are here as persons
within a community, that there may be a way of listening to
each other, as well as to what arises amongst us, from a
point of awareness which as Dan says (below), subsumes 'the
attempting-to-exist-entity that wants to be known as an
individual and wants to lose itself in the collective'.
~~~~~~
Dan: Freedom is neither individual nor collective, but is
the ending of reliance on the attempting-to-exist-entity
that wants to be known as an individual and wants to lose
itself in the collective. The attempts of this fictional
entity to establish its nonexistent reality as its "own"
Reality, and to perpetuate itself in subtle or obvious ways
is the only thing distracting from the 'voice beyond the
personal.' There is no one to hear that voice, as it is a
sound resonating within its own infinity. It is neither a
monologue or a dialogue, although the appearance of
incredibly diverse conversations arise within it.

It seems to me that pure listening itself is the answer to
any questions that arise from not hearing clearly. It also
seems to me that listening, really listening, takes all of
the energy of who one is.
~~~~~~~

Dan, and yet the 'sound resonating within it's own infinity
appearing as diverse conversations arising within it'
arising within each of us as 'no choice'... is met (or not
met) within the *moment* each of us place our hands on a
keyboard to offer whatever tidbit is moving through us to
better see or share. "Really listening" indeed is a
different use of energy. Do you see this differently?
__________________________________________________________________

KRISTI

Jesus dying on the cross....this is they symbol of all the
world does to keep us from the truth which is resurrection
..... freedom.......it is the symbol of man's errors and
lack of vision ....it is what he does...crucify...until he
learns that he is not the crucifixtion.....but the
resurrection.....Oh, I do so hate it that Christianity and
religion have made the beauty of the metaphor so
inaccessible.

XAN
~ What puzzles me is why there is so little interest in the
ascension.
What is it's symbolic meaning?

KRISTI
If the crucifixtion is the symbol of man's errors, of the
errors in his way of thinking...then the resurrection is the
symbol of God's way of thinking...."his thoughts are higher
than ours." The anthropomorphization (is there such a word)
of God and the personalizing of HIm in relationship to us
serves, IMO, the function of reminding us that we find Him
in our relationships to others....It has, however, taken on
the cultural tones of western, moderne cultures that reflect
fundamentally on power...the power over others...and so, we
interpret the language of christianity through the
understandings of words that are culturally based and not
spiritually based. This is unfortunate...as it perpetuates
cultural norms rather than advancing the teachings of a
great master.....a master who came uniquely prepared to
converse with a particular culture at a particular place and
time.

The ascension suggests that the body is not the determining
factor in "aliveness" or in the experience of
being........it also suggests the very mundane grace of
second chances and of absolution. If one re-interprets the
notion that Christ died for our sins.....away from the
concrete and literal notion, into the abstraction, that the
worldly self in us must be "dead" in order for the spiritual
self to live...."you must grow smaller that I may grow
greater in you," it is not such a barbaric or outlandish
proposition. Further, if guilt is the flip side of the coin
of anger, and if anger or judgement is what keeps us from
knowing our brother.....than to the literal minded....the
fact that Christ died for "my" sins leaves one knowing that
one is redeemable.....a first step, perhaps, in detachment,
or in the capacity to watch one's actions rather than
identifying with them.

Christianity is the language of self in relation to
others...it seeks to teach a path toward realization founded
not in the self's identity as a separate entity but in the
self's identity as part of a relational whole. The
crucifixition is the antithesis of this...for only in those
with the capacity and belief in the rightfulness of
judgement and condemnation could Christ be condemned...and
we condemn him time and time again in our brothers. The
invitation to recognize Christ and accept the redemptive
value of Christ, is the accept wholeness in ourselves and
others. It is the invitation to recognize Self....not of
personality....but of wholeness and to seek to know that,
and see that and only that, in others. In a western culture
steeped in then norms of the discrete personality,
individuation, and patriarchal power....these are compelling
and demanding teachings.....to look within for mercy....and
to surrender the ego to the wisdom of awareness...these
cannot be compelled or coerced at will.....but they can be
opened to and revealed.

That's why I trip on the resurrection!
______________________________________________________________________

NORA

is there not a difference between honest disagreement
forthrightly stated and gratuitous insults?? i think so..
when little protestant kids first toddle off to sunday
school at 3 or 4, what is their very first lesson? you know
it is "God is Love" after all the intellectualizing
sometimes the simplest and most elementary truths are the
most powerful...
__________________________________________________________________

XAN

What is temporary desires satisfaction from the temporary.
One gets caught within a dream of starvation, believing the
smorgasbord of objects, relationships, meanings, and roles
is all that is available to fill the craving.
Once one knows their wholeness, all this can be tasted and
enjoyed, not from hunger.
_______________________________________________________________________

It has been said that if you have a good laugh, the whole
Universe is laughing and i guess that if we are sad the
whole Universe is sweetly smiling at us. It understands.

smiling sadly,
Hans
________________________________________________________________

it has been said that all you have to do is give up your
life :) Okay, i agree, it's all nondual nonsense.

dead-end street,
Hans

_________________________________________________________________

JODYR: "Why are you worried about me Hans?"

I was worried about you because you said you have nothing to
worry about but now that you are worried because i was
worried about you i am not worried about you anymore.

world upside down,
Hans
______________________________________________________________

WILL

IT's all one juice...fruit punch! No good juice, bad juice,
it's all mixed up into one, swirling with lines crossing
every which way. PhD's and know-nothings, actors and
critics, watchers and do-ers...coffee-achievers!!

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