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#3079 - Sunday, February 17, 2008 - Editor: Jerry Katz
Nonduality Highlights - http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/NDhighlights
Featured are
selections from Roy Whenary's The Texture of Being.
Further information is available through the following links:
http://www.amazon.com/Texture-Being-Roy-Whenary/dp/0954310004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203339351&sr=1-1
http://lotusharmony.com/
Roy is regularly quoted by nondual writers, such as Dennis Waite.
CHAPTER 1
LIVING ADVAITA
Our Apparent separateness from the rest of the
universe is not due to the universe being separate
from us, but because we have contracted within
our minds what we think we are.
We must always be aware that our use of
language is limited, is only representational ....
We must be careful not to get trapped in words
and definitions.
When we really understand, we begin to use
our own language, our own expression - we no
longer stick to formulas and phrases that our
teachers used.
Spiritual understanding is not something which
comes from the head, from the intellect - it comes
from a deep feeling-level understanding.
CHAPTER 2
THE TEXTURE OF BEING
It is with the ‘feeling’ that we truly
understand and comprehend. The mind
understands very little, because it is
usually disconnected from reality.
There is, in reality, nothing ‘personal’ about our
life. Through our repetitive thinking processes
and our emotional involvement, we have
temporarily created this virtual entity that
we call ‘me’ or ‘I’. Life knows no
‘me’ nor ‘I’ -
it exists purely in our imagination.
CHAPTER 3
BEYOND THE DOER
Acting from the ‘doer’, you are merely acting
from repetition. There is nothing new or
creative about anything that is born out
of the ‘doer’ mentality.
From a spiritual or scientific perspective, there is
no substance to the ‘doer’, to the ego. It manifests
in the world for a period of time and then is gone.
The ‘doer’ is a contraction, a limitation, a
prisoner of the mind. We are fixated by this
non-entity, and this fixation causes tension
and anxiety in all that we ‘do’.
Imagine the quality and depth that comes
from a mind that is not burdened by the
sense of being a ‘doer’. Such a mind flows
like water, like poetry.
CHAPTER 4
DIVING INTO THE BLISS
We do not need to search in order to find our
true being. We already are it, and the mind
which searches for it is the very reason
why we cannot find it.
Everything that is done from the ego, the
doer, always carries the flavour of
incompleteness and dissatisfaction.
In meditation, one sits with openness,
not focused on arriving at a thought-free
state nor focused on anything else.
CHAPTER 5
LOVING KINDNESS
‘Loving Kindness’ is a term used in Buddhism.
It is a recognition of our oneness with each other.
How can I be angry with you when I understand
why you are the way that you are, when I
comprehend your suffering and your intense
desire for peace and joy? How can I feel anything
but Loving Kindness towards another being who
does not know how to find freedom, but
ceaselessly causes suffering for himself and
others because of his ignorance?
There is nothing original, nothing different,
nothing better or worse about you or I. We use the
same materials in life. So what is so special or
significant about ‘me’? Why do I put so much
effort into ‘my’ welfare and enjoyment, and so
little into yours - and vice versa?
The atoms and molecules that make up your
body are not personal to you.
CHAPTER 6
SEEKING HAPPINESS
When we find the clarity of our true nature,
all the obstacles to happiness fall away,
revealing an inner joy which, like a flower,
is always ready to respond to the light.
If happiness is a state which comes and goes
according to circumstances, is it really worth
having? Happiness should never be seen as an
object. It is not something which we can go out
there and obtain. It is an inner attitude.
CHAPTER 7
LIVING IN THE WORLD
We need to stand back from all that is going
on in the world, enter that timeless part of
ourselves and learn to feel what it is to be
alive. Then we can live in the world if we
wish, but not be a product of it.
There are many obstacles to spiritual
unfoldment in the modern world, but there
is also an intensification of any awakening
that begins to take place, because the chasm
between what is going on in the world and the
spiritual perspective is so vast that everything
becomes clear and obvious.
People use emotion in order to avoid really going
deeply into the feeling. It is much easier to play
around with emotion, manipulating other people
through emotional blackmail, but never really
going to the root of the problem, never seeing
beneath the surface of life.
CHAPTER 8
DEATH AND SLEEP
Time is a human invention. When we live
by the clock, we miss the passing moments
of life, which means that we do not live at
all. These passing moments are all that
we have. The rest is merely a dream.
Everything that has a beginning must have
an ending. It is only a matter of time, but life
operates timelessly. Death only has meaning
in terms of the particular, the individual
who is caught up in the dream of a solid,
permanent existent entity enduring for all
time. Such a view is a complete illusion,
having no basis in reality.
CHAPTER 9
BEYOND EMOTION
When we live from the silent emptiness
of our true nature something different
happens. Instead of life being a continual
regurgitation of old ideas and beliefs, it
becomes a creative exploration, from
moment to moment, of the unknown.
The ego learns, in life, that in order to get
what it wants, anger and aggression are very
useful tools, so it uses them in order to
manipulate situations to its advantage.
That is what living in duality is about -
protecting the interests of the ego.
Emotional life is about the ego: “I want
to be happy”, “I want to have this”, “I
don’t
want that”. All the emotions revolve
around these issues.
Negative emotions are like seeds within us.
If we feed them, they will grow, and
eventually they will take us over .....
CHAPTER 10
LIVING IN PEACE
In order to bring peace into one’s life, one
needs to first learn the art of acceptance and
surrender to whatever reveals itself in every
moment. This means ... no resistance.
How is it that human beings can live
for sixty, seventy, eighty or more years
and still not find inner peace? Why is it
not a priority in our lives?
CHAPTER 11
WORKING WITH THE BODY
Living in the mind only is like living in
a virtual world. It may be your personal
reality, but that personal reality is still
an illusion.
In moving with the body we surrender our
control, going into the pure feeling and
sensation of the movement. There will be
limitations in our ability to move, depending
on our age and flexibility, but we do not need
to react to these limitations or allow ourselves
to be psychologically constricted by them.
We will become aware of our breathing,
which may seem tight and shallow. But we
surrender all our ideas of how we should be
physically, and go with the way things are.
We do not identify with any limitations that
we feel in our body, in our breathing, and we
let go of any personal involvement. Then we
find ourselves in the pure feeling of the moment.
CHAPTER 12
WHAT IS THE POINT?
What you have now, which you do not
have to struggle for, which you will never
lose, but which you may not even know you
have, is Being, in the silent emptiness
of your true nature.
What you are is the pure essential radiance of
your true nature. This is what underlies the
canvas of your life’s painting. All the
negativity is little more than the dirt on a
window, partially obscuring the view.
CHAPTER 13
THE PAIN OF SEPARATION
When we live in the person, when we live
in this little ‘self’ that we carry around
everywhere, life brings us difficulties.
When we are concerned about our own
personal, individual interests, we immediately
cut ourselves off from life. When we understand
fundamentally that we are not this person,
this body, this mind, and that we are really
nothing less than ‘pure consciousness’ itself, then
we also know that we do not need to
suffer anymore. Indeed, we also know that
there is no one here to suffer anyway and
that there never was anyone here.
There is a vast play unfolding in our universe -
a play which goes on and on, a play in which
all its actors, like phantoms, appear and
disappear. The price that we pay for believing
in the illusion of separateness, is pain and
suffering. The yearning that most of us feel
at some stage in our life is the yearning to
return to our original purity, to our true
nature, to the bliss of simply Being.
CHAPTER 14
RELATIONSHIPS
When we meet each other outside of the mind,
in the silent emptiness of our common true
nature, then our relationship becomes not
one of opposites or from different perspectives -
it becomes a relationship from common
understanding. Then we see the beauty in
each other and instantly realize that the
beauty in the other is identical with our own.
Then we cease to try to control each other
and, instead, rejoice in each others’ well-being
and, indeed, our outward differences.
CHAPTER 15
TEACHERS & ENLIGHTENMENT
We all have the potential to be awake, to be
conscious, in the silent emptiness of our true
nature. However, there are thousands of us who
have studied spiritual writings and scriptures
for decades and still are unable to break through
the enclosure of the mind, to taste the nectar of
realization directly. Thought cannot take us
there. No prescribed practices will jolt us into
this realization. No book will lead us there.
The fact is that there is nowhere to go, nothing
to realize and no one to realize it. We have
created this myth about enlightenment and
the enlightened seer, out of our own frustration
and confusion. We have set them apart from
ourselves, as something to achieve, something
to reach out for, and in doing so have made
them unattainable.
Listening to the voice of our own true nature
is what we really need to trust in. Then we need
no outward teacher. The outward teacher then
becomes, maybe, a source of inspiration and a
motivating force rather than someone
on whom we become dependent.
CHAPTER 16
WISDOM OF THE ORDINARY
We need to stand back, sit back and relax
into clarity. What we seek is already here.
Truth, reality, are not at the end of some
psychedelic trip, not the result of some
magical ritual, but are right here and now.
When we live in full openness, energy is not a
problem - it just flows through us without any
effort. When we abuse ourselves or cling to
certain psychological states, the energy flow is
naturally inhibited, and we need to boost it
by excessive and dubious means.
CHAPTER 17
LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
If you cannot live in the present moment,
there is no other time to live. This is what
is on offer - this is your opportunity to
manifest your destiny.
Living in and accepting the present moment
does not confine you to your present
circumstances. When your mind is dissatisfied
with what is manifesting right now, it wants
to take off, it wants to run, to escape into the
dream. But the dream does not become reality
in this way. The dream, the possibility, the
creative unfoldment of your inner destiny,
does not come about through the ego’s desire
and its reaction to the here and now. It comes
about through the ability to keep sight of
the vision whilst, at the same time, living
in the here and now with patient and
alert understanding.
CHAPTER 18
WHERE DO I BEGIN?
ENLIGHTENMENT
Who am I? All I can do is to Be who I am -
to be who I am in the feeling of it, in the
silent emptiness of my true nature. I can
never say who I am. And the moment that I
say “I am this” or “I am that”, I have lost
it.
When we live our lives in the feeling, rather
than in the thinking, we are truly in touch
with reality. But there are no limits on that
reality, which is why you can never truly say
“he is enlightened” - as if enlightenment was
some kind of object with boundaries and
limitations, some kind of goal that can
be achieved and owned.
CHAPTER 19
CONCLUSION
The conclusion is that
there is no conclusion!
~ ~ ~
Thankyou for reading.
For more information on the work
of Roy Whenary, and how to obtain
copies of the full-text version of
‘The Texture Of Being’,
please refer to the website:
www.lotusharmony.com
or
http://www.amazon.com/Texture-Being-Roy-Whenary/dp/0954310004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203339351&sr=1-1