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GENE POOLE

Giving up the implant

***

Reaching

Into the bottom of the bag
And pulling out
What was put in first

This is the thing

This is what we need
It is in hand
But it is slippery

It feels sickeningly organic

It is not crisp and clean
Looking at it
Makes us go blind

So we must feel it

Visual references
Are inadequate
But it can be classified

By touch

It precedes knowledge
It pre-seeds knowledge
It prejudices knowledge

It is like a tumor

It is in bad taste
It is an intruder
I want to hawk it up

It is slimy

How did it get in?
Good question
Here is how;

When you were blank
You were used
As a spittoon

It is no wonder
That you now resist
Playing the role

Of being the repository
Of the ejaculations
Of others.
____________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

As I have discussed extensively, our 'identities' stem from
'agreements' (compromises) made during our PRE-VERBAL period of
development. As bizarre as these agreements tend to be, made between
infant and 'other', these bizarre agreements form the foundation of
ALL SUBSEQUENT AGREEMENTS.

Our initial agreements are the criteria which must be OBEYED as we
form all later agreements. Can you see how this is a virtual
guarantee of disaster?

Rooting out and feeling our initial agreements can be done. In my
'case', 15 years of psychotherapy actually was a big help. But that
is 'just what I did'. I am very grateful to be able to manifest an
'identity' other than that of a 2-year old.

To realize that there is no actual arbitrary qualifier, frees; any
criteria held by you is indeed, held by you. As someone pointed out
the other day... "the thoughts you think, are YOUR thoughts".

To take on choice itself is what is called for... and this means to
abandon 'choices'. Choice in this context is sheer possibility, which
includes 'everything and nothing'. This is freedom.

The authoritarian context of the world-dream offers only 'choices';
to seize CHOICE is your choice, and is what has been called 'the
choiceless choice', because when you consider it, it is the only
choice. In a manner of speaking!

Enjoying Choosing,

Choosing Enjoying,

==Gene Poole==
____________________________________________________________

JAN BARENDRECHT

Thanks for the reminder Gene. Instead of rational or
emotional, a little observational:

The stereotype which BTW can be frequently met in NG's too is
that males translate their emotions into arguments whereas
females will directly express the emotions, eventually with
the reasons for it. That difference by itself can give enough
ammo to keep "discussion" going for a long time and
particularly in NG's about health and animal rights it can get
rather extreme, making the NDS look like a sanctuary :) Apart
from that, even if arguments are convincing they remain
without effect (like on diet and smoking) and emotions as
"convincers" are just as worthless because, to mention one
example, all the sadness and misery of WWII didn't prevent the
massacres/wars in Tibet, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo, to name
just a few. This doesn't mean all hope is lost, simply I never
had nor will have any hope/wish to "solve" anything:)

________________________________________________________________

MANCHINE

Love is not so much bliss and joy
as it is the way through
Without it we go back as we came.

Love does not live in itself
Outside of love is nothing
Within it is all

Love IS within
__________________________________________________________

HANS

It seems that WHATEVER enters the mind ceases to be real, unless of course
it's a splinter :)
*the context of mind wrapped around it* appeals very much to me. This seems
to be so for me. I can not speak for others.
i also notice a hunger for experience in myself which IMO seems to be the
desire for control in disguise which makes unreal things look very real and
personal. On the other hand, even unreal things are part of Reality. If not,
it simply would not exist. Or we are simply making things up by defining
them as *real* and *unreal*. In other words, they either exist both or
neither one exist. The socalled *real* and *unreal* can not be separated but
by the mind. Realizing this, why bother about the *real* and the *unreal*.
Who or what is it in which all this appears ?
________________________________________________________________

XAN

Funny thing, this drop being only of ocean,
and yet forgetting and then remembering ...

***

Truth is one. No types, no sets, no them.
Ideas are many but truth is no idea.
In fact, if something is many, variable and subject to belief
you can be sure it is not Truth which eternally only itself.

***

You are always in Love
and you can only Love yourself,
the Changeless One in which even space is.
There is no beginning, no middle, and no end to it.
Only Love is worth Loving and this is your own Self.

Papaji
_________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER

I was just reading in Shambala Sun, the article The Practice of Love, by
John Welwood, and came across the Sanskrit word maitri, which means
unconditional friendliness, or loving kindness, or unconditional
positive regard (metta in Pali). As I was looking at the word on the
page, this 3 year old voice in me rose up and asked in an innocent and
simultaneously plaintive voice "May I try?"

___________________________________________________________

ROGER ISAACS

"The only purpose of this human birth, which is very
difficult to get, is to realize God and hence terminate this incessant cycle
of birth and death."

Who is it that wants to escape this cycle of birth & death? Such Hindu
escapist doctrine is just more vain exercise of egoic identification
attempting to acquire some imagined goal, trying to gain some imagined
security. Believers in such nonsense sometimes become impractical & avoid
appropriate worldly responsibilities.

There is a razor's edge to walk here. In the west we have fallen off the
razor to one side claiming that only matter exists, scientists sometimes
claim that consciousness is only an artifact of having a material brain.

In the east they have fallen off the other side of the razor claiming that
an escape from the material world into a pseudo Spirit separate from matter
is the thing. They make this imagined/projected Spiritual escape superior to
the higher discovery of material creation as a projection of spirit.

This "spirit superior to matter" or wanting to "get off the wheel of karma"
is an egoic trap, an illusion in itself.

Isn't material creation the expression of God? Why would we want to escape
God as material existence? How is LOVE served by escaping from the
challenges of this material world ?!

The world constantly provides the challenges necessary for each individual
to realize the truth. Escapism is a diversion, it's a failure to take
advantage of the divine opportunity present in every moment.

________________________________________________________________

MATTHEW FILES

Belief in the reality of "me" definitely needs to be examined, and perhaps even
more necessary is the examination of the belief that there is no longer a
"me". This "me" will continue to exist but that doesnt mean that the
belief in it as an exclusive entity needs to exist.

______________________________________________________________

The following appeared on Petros-Truth:

------------------------

from Ch. 1 of the Ribhu Gita, vv. 35-38

35.
I truly am the Highest Truth;
I truly am ultimate Joy.
I truly am nothing buy Myself.
I truly am nothing but God.

36.
I am nothing but pure Consciousness,
Possessed by that Divine Truth beyond "knowledge,"
A knowledge without words to speak.
I truly am nothing but God.

37.
There is no "meaning" to Life;
For I am That,
The Maker of all meanings.
I truly am nothing but God.

38.
I abide unalloyed, forever.
I am nothing but Joy and Freedom.
I truly am nothing but God.
I truly am "you," for you (as you) are not, save as you are
Me.

______________________________________________________________________

Silly people
Doing silly things.
These too are one.

>From the Heart of Awakening - Mu

__________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

Once upon a time, there were billions of bubbles drifting in an endless,
timeless, expansive void, something like empty space or pure awareness.
Inside each bubble existed some of the empty space outside it, but also a
cloud of memories, images and habits. Most bubbles were either unaware of
the empty space inside them, or so focused on the memories and habits that
they did not perceive the awareness-space.

The walls of each bubble were more or less permeable. Many had managed to
make themselves totally impermeable, self-enclosed in a world of their own.

The entire goal of each bubble was to strengthen its own sense of
"Bubbleness." This it tried to do by doing these things:

(1) Strengthen the outer membrane, so that neither the empty space nor
other bubbles could intrude. The stronger and tougher the membrane, the
more the bubbles felt they *existed*. You see, each bubble treasured its
own separation, and at the same time was utterly terrified of the idea of
its nonexistence. It was so used to being a bubble that it did not even
perceive the space in which it floated, and most did not even perceive the
space within. Most of the bubbles were entirely ignorant of what lied
outside them, and were obsessively focused on their membranes, and the
contents of memory within.

(2) Constrict, to become smaller, so that there was more of the
memory-habit content and less of Awareness. You see, the bubbles were
terrified of the Awareness they contained within. It intimated of the
empty space that lied outside them, the unknown. They had been bubbles so
long that they had forgotten what they were and where they were. Yet, as
bubbles, they suffered and caused other bubbles to suffer. The bubbles
were something like prisoners that had been in prison so long that they had
become totally institutionalized, and were terrified of parole.

The individual bubbles were so self-enclosed that they could not
communicate with the other bubbles. To strengthen their membranes and
constrict further, they bumped up against other bubbles. This bumping was
termed by the bubbles as either "love" or "hate." Both the words "love"
and "hate" were used to describe a bump against another bubble. By bumping
and pressing against each other, the sense of separation was increased, and
the membranes of each bubble strengthened. The "hate" bumps were often
violent, even attempting to pop other bubbles, while the "love" bumps were
more of the nature of prolonged pressing. Yet the results were the same.
Even when a bubble had pressed against another bubble a long time, and
somehow wanted to merge with that bubble, the membranes of each made it
impossible.

Often, bubbles delighted in popping or trying to deflate other bubbles. It
strengthened their own membranes to do so.

Each bubble had a specific lifespan. When a bubble died, it popped, yet
through habit and desire the contents of memories and habits were held
together just long enough for another membrane to form around them. When
a bubble popped and re-formed, the previous contents of memory were
sublimated or hidden away, and new memories began to form, thus making each
bubble a part of an endless cycle. Again and again, membranes formed,
dissolved and re-formed around collections of memories and desires.

The bubbles usually referred to their membranes as "I" or "me," and
considered them the center around which the internal contents of memory and
desires flowed. Rather than seeing the membrane as the outer part of
themselves, they thought the membrane to be the innermost part, while
thinking the inside contents the outer. Very few of the bubbles ever
managed to see past this illusion.

Very rarely, but occasionally, a bubble began to focus on its membrane, and
wonder if there could be anything outside it. Most bubbles were so
terrified of anything outside them that they could not even entertain the
possibility that they were bubbles. Occasionally, though, a bubble became
conscious of the fact that it was a bubble, and somehow realized that the
membrane, the "I," was their own outer shell, not their center. These rare
bubbles began to believe that there might be something outside of their
membranes, and that perhaps whatever was outside them was not threatening,
but would give them a new kind of freedom - something much greater than
just being a bubble. Somehow, they sensed that the endless expanse was so
much greater than what was trapped within the membrane.

... To Be Continued....

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