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"Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy."

Chuang-Tzu (contributed by Andrew
Macnab)
_____________________________________________________________

GILL EARDLEY

"Is it wonderful that I should be
immortal? As everyone is
immortal.
I know it is wonderful, but my
eyesight is equally
wonderful, and how I was conceived in my mother's womb is
equally wonderful; and passed from a babe, in the creeping
trance of a couple of summers and winters, to articulate and
walk - all this is equally wonderful.

"And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each
other without seeing each other, and never perhaps to see
each other, is every bit as wonderful. And that I can think
such thoughts as these is just as wonderful; and that I can
remind you, and you think them and know them to be true is
equally wonderful."

--Walt Whitman
________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

I am enlightened...

is a statement of awareness resting on awareness...
consciousness of consciousness...
a proclamation of the universality of peace and freedom.

It is a proclamation of nondual consciousness as
body-mind-universe.

Say it loud and clear, without doubt, wholeheartedly, it is
truth.
_____________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW, Ph.D.

we are talking about the ways that projection works. Jung
warned people that when they think they are pure and free
(i.e., positioning as "innocent"), that there is fertile
ground for the projected 'shadow'.
It goes back to aphorisms found in the West as well as the
East, e.g., 'the unexamined life is not worth living', 'who
will protect us from the protectors?', and, of course, 'know
thyself'.

Indeed, 'ego' works very well as a projected 'cause' of
suffering, 'something' we can form groups to get rid of, a
common enemy.

You're right that the concept 'ego' can be used to
perpetuate endless seeking. Also, the belief in states of
'egolessness' also can perpetuate subtle ego-inflation.
With 'subtle states' comes possible 'subtle projection', and
along with this, as Jung warned, the danger of
ego-inflation. With ego-inflation comes assumptions of
infallibility, one's judgments as constituting reality
(particularly if one is 'beyond evaluating' one's judgments
will be taken as reality), nameless forces of ignorance
(e.g., people with ego's 'out there') working against the
holy truth of one's self.

Projection seems to operate because we need a reality to
call our own, because we need to know ourselves against
something else, because we position the known against the
unknown, and identify with something, e.g., a belief we are
enlightened, a belief that others are enlightened, etc.

By the way, since I've mentioned Jung here, I want to
clarify something.
Jung believed there always must be an ego involved in human
perception.
This belief itself becomes an identification, a way to
maintain a fixed reality.
Neither maintaining a fixed reality, nor having no reality,
simply being reality as it stimultaneously changes and
remains as is -- this is the indescribable Way. To be
'centerless' is to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously
- neither against ego, lacking an ego, nor with an ego.
__________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE AND DAN BERKOW

GENE: Indeed. If we make one part 'real', all other parts
automatically become 'real' also. Just beware that one
first step, of making anything 'real', or of making anything
'unreal'; thus is born 'duality'.

DAN: Thanks for expressing wisdom clearly.
I made this real by making something else less real or
unreal.
I made myself incomplete by believing there is some other
completeness that has been lost, or is to be gained.
Once I knew myself as incomplete, I projected everything
that makes me feel diminished.
I projected everything that threatens this partial, false
self - including "enlightenment" - which would fix me if I
could get it, but which I can't handle because I'm so
limited.
In fact, I projected this world of defined things, because
my limited self fears ambiguity, uncertainty, and
definitionlessness. My thinking and language I project at
the same time I try to own - I want what I can't have - a
linear, static reality to save me from discontinuous flux.

Namaste, a deep bow to wisdom,
____________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER

I think it's fear itself afraid for its existence, but I
don't really know. It comes in waves when I yawn, and I
catch myself running, stop and turn to embrace it. It pops
up when buttons are pushed, and try to notice it and ask if
it serves me. It wonders when I break into spontaneous
unprovoked hysterical laughter/crying if I'm going mad and
it stops me at the edge and says "It's too high, we might
fall". I think in spite of it, I'm falling, taking it with
me? I don't know, but it's definitely not boring. It's
fear, but I trust it. Crazy, huh?
___________________________________________________________________

MARCIA PAUL

If you can see something in someone else clearly there is a
high degree that you have something similar in yourself.
The degree to which you are not attached to that something
is the degree to which you can point it out without blame or
violence to the other guy. If it is an unacknowledged part
of your psyche then most likely you will you will be telling
the other guy how bad they are in one way or another.

JAMES MORGAN

Yeh.

People get real messed up around this one - like they start
thinking that even to *see* anger in another means you are
angry...... Not so. We can see other's pain - without
being attached or identified with it.....

As to whether you tell the other person what you see....well
my rule of thumb is to not have a rule of thumb......

____________________________________________________________________

ANNIE HEPPINGSTONE

I imagined what an infant's expression would be like and
tried it... it feels light and happy and watching and
accepting and trusting and open and joyful... works for
me...hmmmm...

...all the best things are available :-)
____________________________________________________________________

NEO

According to Gangaji, her teacher Papaji traveled all over
India to find an Enlightened teacher. He found many that
said they were and who turned out not to be. His search
stopped when he found Ramana. A number of years ago I
started a similar search in N. America. Although I met a
number of wise teachers, none appeared, to me, to be
enlightened. So when a member here said they were, I needed
to check it out.

***

Don't let anyone fool you, there are not any enlightened
ones here.

***

Again, there are not any here. From my observations it is a
very hard road to travel but the rewards are beyond
imagination.

JAN BARENDRECHT

ROTFL... Prove you are familiar with those rewards -
otherwise you are but fantasizing or parroting :)

GREG GOODE, Ph.D.

Is part of your definition of "enlightened one" that such a
one "does not subscribe to Internet lists"?

ROGER ISAACS

Neo attacks authority. Yet, the result of this attack
ultimately promotes Neo as the authority.

A brilliant red sign flashes and a deafening electronic
buzzer blares:
!!!CONTRADICTION!!!

How do you know, Neo, that there are no enlightened ones
here? All of us should accept you as an authority on this
question? Please supply the grand evidence supporting your
conclusion, something more substantial than egoic delusion,
please.

You are very entertaining, Neo. You chase you own tail and
invite us to join in your egoic celebration of self.

NORA

who knows whether anybody on this list is enlightened?
who the hell cares?
why are we spinning our wheels about it?
as for so called "enlightened ones" only zen roshis and
gurus and people like that there are allowed to slap people
around--and only their followers who signed on board.....
and i personally doubt their enlightenment too..

XAN, WITH NEO AND MELODY

NEO: According to Gangaji, her teacher Papaji traveled all
over India to find an Enlightened teacher. He found many
that said they were and who turned out not to be. His
search stopped when he found Ramana.

MELODY: Did Papaji happen to say why he searched for an
enlightened teacher?

Does he attribute his own enlightenment to having found an
enlightened teacher?

I have heard it stated here many times that only an
enlightened being can recognize another. This seems to me
to be nonsense, although I find the term 'enlightened being'
a rather silly one.

I know Stillness and Presence when it touches 'me'.
I wonder if this is what Papaji meant, as well?

XAN: Melody, I'm glad you asked.
These are excerpts from Papaji's biography, written before
his death, with his supervision, and called, Nothing Ever
Happened:

When Papaji was 6 years old he had a spontaneous event of
samadhi which lasted for 2 days, in which he was "consumed
and engulfed by an experience that made me so peaceful and
happy." and "was so overwhelming, it had effectively
paralyzed my ability to respond to any external stimuli."

Years passed, he attended school and served in the Indian
army but, "I wanted God, and I wanted Him more than anything
else in the world. I also wanted to find a real Guru who
could help me in my search."
Throughout his 20's he visited most of the saints and swamis
he heard about in India, asking each of them ,"Have you seen
God? and if you have, can you show me God?"

each of these would laugh at him or tell him to stay with
them or do some practice. "They would say, 'You can't see
God without meditating on Him for some time.' I wasn't
satisfied with this answer. I thought 'God is like the
sun. I don't need practice to see Him. I just need someone
who can point my head in the right direction, or someone who
can remove the cateract from my eyes so that He becomes
immediately becomes apparent to me. My God is all love, all
grace, all majesty. Why should He hide Himself from me?'"

There is an unusual story of how he came learn of Ramana and
to meet him in l944, which is too long to be told here. At
first meeting he asked his two questions - Have you seen
God? and Can you show me God? "Ramana answered, 'No, I
cannot show you God because God is not an object to be
seen. God is the subject.
He is the seer. Don't concern yourself with objects that
can be seen. Find out who the seer is.' He also added, 'You
alone are God.'"

Papaji described himself as hard headed and he did not like
this answer, but as Ramana gazed at him he had an exerience
of` shakti energy and "...became aware of the spiritual
Heart, the source and support of all that exists. Within
the Heart I saw or felt something like a closed bud. With
the Maharashi looking at me, and with myself in a state of
inner silence ... the Heart opened and bloomed."

Still with a critical and mistrusting mind, Papaji continued
the intense spiritual practices he had been doing. He
returned to Ramana a few times in the next months to ask
specific questions about his spiritual progress.

On one of these occasions, "Then he looked at me intently.
I could feel that my whole body and mind and being washed
with waves of purity. They were being washed by his silent
gaze. I could feel him looking into my Heart. ... A
process of transformation was going on ... Then, suddenly,
I understood. I knew that this man who had spoken to me
was, in reality, what I already was, what I had always
been.
There was a sudden impact of recognition as I became aware
of the Self.
... I knew, unerringly, that this was the same state of
peace and happiness that I had been emersed in as a
six-year-old boy ... I knew that my spiritual quest had
definitely ended, but the source of that knowledge will
always remain indescribable."

_____________________________________________________________


HANS DEUNHOUWER

What happens when we try to understand something. We tend
to get lost in the process of understanding. One thought
trying to understand another. A never ending process. I
have been thinking about the issues in question for over
about 30 years and nothing has been solved. NOT A THING ! I
repeat NOT A THING. That means that i am either very stupid
or i have been focussing on the wrong thing. I bet it's the
latter. (i know, the one does not exclude the other :)

The question seems to be WHO (subject) is trying to
understand rather than WHAT (object) is tried to be
understood.

WHO seems to be silence, WHAT seems to be noise, and we are
used to noise. So we identify with the noise. We seem to be
addicted to it. From the day we are born, everything seems
to be focussed on the object and not many seem to care about
the WHO. So we are pushed in what seemingly is the wrong
direction.

Another obstacle seems to be that the WHO can not be known
or seen. AND WE WANT TO KNOW. You can look with your eyes
(or rather your eyes are looking) but you can not see your
eyes (haha i can see them in the mirror haha). Whatever you
think about your eyes, your eyes are simply your eyes and
there is no need at all to think about them. There's no
effort needed.

We seem to trust our minds and go on reasoning forever and
ever. But whatever enters into our brain becomes a concept,
an image or whatever, but it can not be or become reality.
It is not possible to think about reality. So the best thing
to do seems to be to totally ignore all concepts, images or
whatever floats around in our brains and get in touch with
the WHO. Maybe we think about it but do we actually do it
? I wonder. Know what is not YOU. What remains is YOU.
Nothing to think about.

I will think about it
___________________________________________________________________

JODYR

there is no universal formula for realization. Even the
best minds studying long years find that there is no
substitute for the grace that befalls s/he who has
surrendered all concepts of self, spirit, and universe.
___________________________________________________________________

ED AARONS

Thoughts emerging from Awareness seem ambiguous when
explained with words spoken in duality.

Is it possible that thoughts from Awareness can be clearly
conveyed while typing and editing on the computer?

Perhaps sitting quietly in meditative communion thoughts may
be clearly conveyed and interpenetration may occur.
__________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

definition of 'ego' comes from 'depth psychology', and from
'transpersonal psychology'.

I find it endlessly amusing, that 'new-agers' have discarded
the notion of 'satan', but have found a new universal
scapegoat; the almighty 'ego', the master trickster, the
boogyman in the closet, in the basement, and under the bed;
the 'whipping boy' of the mind, upon which endless heaps of
blame get displaced, and to which so many fingers point, as
the 'cause' of misery, delusion, and fear. Tch, tch.

It seems that as long as there is suffering, that the
sufferer will look to a 'foreign agency' to blame, and also
as a source of help; first identify the 'cause' of the
suffering and then 'eliminate' it.

It is important to recognize, that as long as there is
suffering, there will be blame, and the need to be 'saved'
from that which is blamed. It seems that humans just cannot
endure self-resonsibility; it seems that there must always
be a scapegoat. I am saddened that so many otherwise
seemingly intelligent people fall for this racket.

Here is the central racket; this is how it works; this is
very slippery, try to catch it.

Denial requires hiding things from oneself; the first thing
to hide, is the fact of denial itself. To aid in the task
of hiding the fact of denial, one needs to fabricate a
'cause' of the trouble that denial brings, that cause being
of course, something other than denial itself. So 'in order
to' have a haven from the troubles caused by denial, one
must invent (or conspire in the invention of) a plausible
cause of the troubles (suffering) that denial brings. It
used to be 'satan' (I guess it still is, in certain
circles), but now it is 'ego'. Woe unto one who does not
subscribe to the 'party line' that 'ego' is a cause of
suffering!

Phase two: To have an 'excuse' for the troubles brought
about by denial is only the first part of this racket; the
next phase it to make it virtually _impossible_ to eliminate
'ego', thus tacitly giving permission for the games of
denial to go on forever. How is this trick accomplished?
Here is how:

To make 'ego' impossible to get rid of, and to thus give
oneself permission to be 'dysfunctional' forever, all one
has to do, is to assign the quality of 'egolessness' to the
highest, mightiest, and holiest of persons, both dead and
living. That is all there is to it!

"Gee, I can never be egoless... look at what happened to
Ghandi, to Jesus, even to mother Teressa! I cannot ever
hope to reach those exalted heights... I guess I will be a
_seeker_ forever! Hmmm...
maybe I'd better join the SEEKER'S UNION! Maybe I should
seek NEW DIRECTIONS, to find UNITY with a SOCIETY OF
FRIENDS... maybe I should become a VEGETARIAN, or better
yet, a BREATHAiRIAN! It should be OBVIOUS that the greater
the degree of PURITY, the lesser degree of EGO will remain!
Ego is the GREAT IMPURITY of the human Being!"

"Take my ego... PLEASE!"
__________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE, ANDREW MACDONALD, JODY

GENE POOLE:
Jung also warned: "Do not identify with an ARCHETYPE". The
archetypes are 'forms' which dwell in the 'collective
unconscious', which in their interactions, literally _enact_
(yes, as in stage-drama) out our exterior lives, moment to
moment. <snip>

ANDREW MACDONALD: Someone I see regularly engages wonderful
archetypal qualities when I'm in her presence, a grounded
Buddha, a Wise Fool, a King. . . characters which have
enriched my days and hers. The living quality, vibrancy and
worthiness of these characters is evident and I don't
imagine Gene or Jung (or Cheech and Chong for that matter)
not valuing them. My friend certainly "identifies" with
these guys when they're there, recognizes them as parts of
herself.

Why not identify with an archetype - not be it instead of
"you" or anything, but enjoy and open to its qualities?

Does anyone have any juice for this?

JODY: As a personality, I'm a Jungian nightmare. I'm
identified with the Great Mother archetype in the form of
the Hindu goddess Kali, to the point where I even act it out
in drag. This would also be considered anima possession by
some.

Fortunately, my Jungian therapist knows that this is exactly
where "I" need to be, this being part of my role to play in
the Lila this life.

However, that's not to say that I'd *ever* recommend it to
anyone else. There's something quite insane about it, and
it can get kind of scary too.

It was sort of like being blasted by a psychic nuke, and
then picking up the pieces of a shattered ego.

Thankfully, it didn't kill me. Therefore I am stronger.
This is the way Ma has worked in my life.

Jai Ma Kali Dakshineswari Ki Jai!
_______________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

Self-Knowledge - a short essay
------------------------------

Self-knowledge does not consist of knowing what you are.
What you are, you are already. Rather, it consists of
*knowing what you are not*.
Eliminating self-delusion clears the way for *what you are*
to manifest.

In other words, if you know what you are not, you are free
to *be what you are*.

There is no way to state what you are in positive terms,
except perhaps as simple Being: "I Am." The fact that you
*are* is obvious. What you are cannot be known - you can
only *be it*. And until all mental confusion is undone,
until you know what you are not, you cannot really be what
you are (please excuse the implied paradox). You are caught
in a mental trap, a trap of delusive ideas about yourself.

There can be no quality of genuineness in life until you
know all that you are not. This process of elimination,
often termed "discrimination" or "self-enquiry" (sanskrit:
viveka) clears the way for vidya (often translated as
"knowledge," but not really translatable into English) to
manifest. It is the spiritual practice recommended by both
Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, in the form of the
question "Who am I?" RM states that it is best to put the
question only once, and then begin to enquire. NM states
that to turn the focus of attention to the "I AM," the pure
and simple state of being, is also a method of enquiry. The
discovery is that the question "Who am I?" has no answer
except in the negative. One can *know* only what one is
not... and this knowledge is imperative. What one knows,
one is free of. When you know what you are not, you are
free of what you are not... and what remains is simply what
you are.

At the same time, to constantly dwell on the temporality and
impermanence of all perceivables and conceivables is
vairagya (dispassion). Viveka and vairagya go
hand-in-hand. When the body, the mind and the world are
known deeply to be temporal, impermanent, momentary and
dreamlike, there is no longer any need to either do or not
do anything. In other words, there is (at first) freedom
from the compulsion to satisfy desires, and finally freedom
from desire itself. The deeper the realization of
impermanence goes, the more it can be seen that there is
nothing to build, nothing to do, nowhere to go. Nothing
lasts. The death of the body/mind is an absolute
guarantee. Without viveka, this could result in a
nihilistic viewpoint, but when combined with viveka, it can
easily result in what is often called self-realization or
enlightenment (a couple of really lousy terms that mean
something different to everyone).

To conclude, there is really nothing that can be known about
oneself. The reality of what we are is mystery beyond
mystery to the mind. The mind can only progressively
eliminate confusion and incorrect views, until it becomes
utterly still in complete bafflement, and the mind is at
last transcended.

What is it that transcends the mind? How could the mind
possibly know?

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