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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3018, Sunday, December 16, 2007, Editor: Mark
Self-enquiry is a passive rather than an active process. Mind is
allowed to subside into its source even while engaged in normal
activity, which then becomes an undercurrent of witnessing that
gradually extends throughout all waking hours and begins to
pervade all one's activities without intruding on them or
interfering with them.
Ramesh Balsekar, posted to ANetofJewels
All questions and problems go POOF! right now in this present,
spontaneous moment of being, in which there is nothing at all but
awareness watching. Every moment is brand-new, free of all
content. Right now, the whole world is brand-new. Nothing ever
existed before this very second. An independent "you"
seems to exist, as a few disconnected thoughts float in - an
image here, a memory there - and they glom together and you start
believing a story that there is a whole person.
And then in the next moment, a different image, a different
memory, and they glom together, and a wholly different
"you" is thought of. You think they are all the same
"you," but they are obviously not. "You"
changes every moment, as different thoughts of "This is
me" arise, and form different patterns.
So who are you? In every moment there are different thoughts
arising and forming your idea of who you are. You might insist
that you have a lifetime history, but as you recall it right now,
you'll only be recalling tiny glimpses of it, flashes, distorted
memories. The stored "history of you," even if it did
exist as a whole somewhere in the brain (and it does not - those
memories go through changes as they recede in time), you can only
be recalling any tiny portion of it at a time, a few
brushstrokes, like an impressionist painting. So where is this
solid story of you? Is it really real?
So what is being pointed to is this - that you do not exist as a
solid, discrete entity as you believe, and ALL your questioning
and suffering and problems refer to this NON-EXISTENT entity.
You ask: What am I not getting? Why are you getting it and I'm
not?
There is no difference between what's going on for you and what's
going on for me, what I "get" and what you
"get," because neither of us has ever "got"
anything. Both of us are in the same boat. That boat is: right
now, there is awareness going on.
- Annette Nibley
I'd love to invite you to be completely clueless about what it
was you experienced, about how to get back there, because you
are! Be completely clueless about what you are. About everything!
Just hang out here.
- Jeannie Zandi
Where is the need of changing anything? The mind is changing
anyhow all the time. Look at your mind dispassionately; this is
enough to calm it. When it is quiet, you can go beyond it. Do not
keep it busy all the time. Stop it, and just be. If you give it
rest, it will settle down and recover its purity and strength.
- Nisargadatta Maharaj from I Am That
MISHLOVE: It's really a pleasure to be with you. You know, in
your writings you often describe the struggle, the conflict that
we humans engage in as we're caught in between our dual nature.
We're locked into a finite body, each with our own life story and
melodrama, and yet simultaneously we're like God; we partake of
the entire cosmos.
KHAN: Yes. I call that reconciliation of irreconcilables. It's
very difficult for our minds to accept this dual nature of
identity, and I think we're cutting right into the main problem
of psychology. I think most people have a bad self-image, or
overcompensate, or don't know how to assess their value in any
way. Because it's very difficult to accept what my father calls
"the aristocracy of the soul, together with the democracy of
the ego"; or he calls it "the greatest pride in one's
divine inheritance, and humility about one's inadequacy in
bringing it through, and yet still accepting the divinity of
one's being" -- I think as Christ said, "Be perfect as
your Father."
MISHLOVE: Somehow, listening to you talk about this peculiar
dilemma that we humans are in is making me feel that the whole
thing is very humorous.
KHAN: Yes, I think there's some point about laughing about things
we don't understand.
MISHLOVE: But it's almost ironic somehow, and maybe quite
ridiculous, that as cosmic beings we're always finding ourselves
in such dilemmas.
KHAN: Yes. Well, the Sufis say, "Oh, man, if you only knew
that you're free. It's your ignorance of your freedom that is
your captivity." And I would add, if only you knew what the
potentials in your being are, you would realize that it's your
ignorance of those potentials that limit you to the inadequate
sense of your self-image, or your inadequate self-esteem --
denigrating yourself.
- excerpt from interview of Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan by Jeffrey
Mishlove
Love yourself first and everything falls into line.
- Lucille Ball
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet
I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
- Charles Schultz
If God can work though me, he can work through anyone.
- St.Francis of Assisi