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NEO: I could use all the help I could get right now. Perhaps
a direct materization into my room, maybe a bullet to find
out
what really happens after death of the physical body (just
kidding, well on second thought that is what it took for neo
in the
movie but then I do not have Trinity to give the kiss of
love back to the body, darn!), or perhaps Grace (George
Burns played God and he had Gracie. Is there a connection
here?)

JAN BARENDRECHT: Few people, if any at all, realize that
without feelings and automatic thinking (the "ongoing chain
of thoughts"), there is no way to determine whether dead or
alive, when no sound can be heard nor light can be seen.
When feeling and automatic thinking remain, the death of the
body cannot go unnoticed...

__________________________________________________________________


NEO ASKED

What is Enlightenment?

THE RESPONSES:

enlightenment is a process
of getting lighter and lighter
by dropping away
the heavy and dense
--Xan

The end of the search for Enlightenment.
--Greg

The process that occurs in the mind of a being who has
been blessed with Self realization.
--Jodyr

Yes, certainly.
--Andrew Macnab

Awake while asleep.
--Jan Barendrecht

Actually, dear, What is the third base coach, giving signals
to Who when to steal Home. Whoa....there Who goes! What is
shouting,
"Slide, slide......SAFE!!!"
--O.H.

I'm trying to point to it, but I can't. I can't even lift my
hand. I can't even move. You're a pigeon sitting on a statue
in the park.
--Jerry
___________________________________________________________________

NEO ASKED JAN BARENDRECHT...

Do you maintain full awareness while in deep sleep?

JAN REPLIED:

What could be observed throughout the years is that deep
sleep has been less and less deep, so extrapolation is
justified. There has been an occasion where from a deep
sleeper, it became necessary to wear earplugs almost the
next day, in order to prevent waking up from proverbially
falling
feathers :) To me, there has been more than enough evidence
that deep sleep is but a dissolving veil and then, there are
some remarks in scriptures that also point to the fact that
what is sleep to the ignorant, is wakefulness to the wise...

___________________________________________________________________

NEO NEO

I fall back to the only truth being that I exist,
all else is belief.

***

at this moment there is nothing that does not change.
Awareness seems not to change when present but it does seem
to come and go and therefore changes. In the present moment
nothing changes. There is no change in a "moment" of time. I
feel like I am writing nonsense.

***

It is silence that I spend so much time in.

***

It seems that my awareness is aware that it was gone for
awhile because of the change in the world when it as gone
and returns. I really don't know. I cannot detect anything
that does not change in some respect but this may be due to
my own limitations at the moment.

***

In my experience I look at the clock in bed (I am in the
bed, not the clock) and it says 11 PM. Shortly after all is
gone, no awareness (that I can tell), no sounds, nothing.
The next thing I know is that awareness gradually appears
again. I open my eyes and my clock says 7 AM. At that point
there is the awareness that time has passed but there was no
awareness during that time.

I am starting to feel like I am a misanthrope here, a
Cromagnum (?sp) with a bunch of humans. Are you aware 24
hours a day, day after day?

***

When this moment changes to the point where these bodies
cease to function will our awareness cease to exist?

***

I am but I do not know what that I is.

***

I have had the experience you speak of above but it is now
gone. I do not know if I created it or it was real. How do
you know it
is real?

***

How do you know consciousness is present in deep sleep if
your are not aware of it? How do you know that this is not
just a belief system of yours? How do you know it is not
just part of the spiritual/religious psychosis?

***

I am just going through a shattering of belief systems. I
have gone through many over the years and the latest was the
Ramana-Papaji-Gangaji system along with ACIM that we are one
universal SELF or THAT and all that goes with it. I have had
some experiences that could be interpreted to support it. I
am now just trying to understand how people know what they
say is true.

***

I agree that one can talk about beliefs and not truth. I
suppose one could talk about a variety of subjects but they
all,
perhaps, entail belief. So let us just rest in silence. But
don't ask me
because I know almost nothing.

***

I just do not have the energy for these long debates. I am
sorry. Everything you say I probably would have agreed with
2 days
ago. The problem is that it is based on the belief that one
universal
consciousness is at the core and is the origin of the entire
universe. I have lost this belief. It may be true. I just do
not know
anymore.

***

For the past 3 days something strange has been happening to
me. It started with the message from Mary re ACIM. During
the
message and my responding to it I dropped my belief system.
All words
depend on beliefs and words became meaningless. Thought
depends on
words and thought is becoming meaningless. my mind is
getting very
quiet.

I feel very strange. I have been here before but it is
somehow different now. The water running over my hands as i
washed
them felt so alive.

___________________________________________________________________

HANS

Sometimes i even doubt if a thing called spiritual journey
exists at all or if this is just part of our urge to search
for new experiences ? The only end to this search seems to
be a direct experience that there is nothing to be
experienced. Since my mind does not seem to be convinced of
this as yet i continue my search (i couldn't stop if i would
so i just hang in) and try to have as much fun as possible
on this path that does not seem to exist.
Heeeeelllllllpppppppp :)
__________________________________________________________________

DAN

So who is forming
the image of "my body"?
Who is defining death
as ending?
Where does this moment go?
It's simply present, not moving!
Events seem to stream past,
but past what? There is
only "streaming". And
streaming always is of This,
from This - this being/time,
this infinite uncreated moment.

This moment is only, simply
this moment.
It changes as it remains as is.
It is all time/being.

What is this miraculous moment,
containing everything and nothing
at the same instant?

Where could there be to go,
and who could there be to
go somewhere?

Only this moment,
nonmoving, timeless --

***

Even the position that "everything
is just another position, another strategy
of ego," is just another position.
Now what?

***

An appearance commenting
about an appearance
is simply another
form of appearance.
______________________________________________________________________

XAN

A time of 'nothing makes sense', although uncomfortable,
can be a wonderful opportunity to see what you are without
all the sensible structures you has made up for yourself.
This *not knowing* can be an opening to what is beyond the
mind's knowing.

When everything else falls apart, what is revealed?

As for what you would do without the beliefs you have relied
on to protect from animalistic reflex behavior ... There is
a third option - to act from the core essence of yourself,
deeper than belief and deeper than primitive reactions.
Seeing through all these layers, what lies beneath?

***

The question is, how do you feel about the discovery
that everything is meaningless? It can be liberating
and joyful news.

***

My 22 year old son is traveling alone in southeast asia
having set an ambitious itinerary because he wanted to see
Everything.
About a week into the trip he dislocated a bone in his foot
which
slowed him down enormously. In that slowing down and a
person he met
(not a girl) while hanging out on the beach in Thailand he
began to
see an entirely different purpose to his trip, and not only
that,
to his life overall. He is much happier ... and so am I,
for him.
__________________________________________________________________

GREG

The consciousness that we *are* is not the waking state.
Rather is is that which is aware of the coming and going of
waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Case in point: what is it
that allows you to claim that you went to sleep and then
woke up as the same neo? Even the claim that we *don't*
remember anything before the last deep sleep state is based
on awareness -- we are saying that no present memory is
appearing that points to a past state. Appearing to what?
To awareness itself. Awareness is the presence maintaining
the continuity between thoughts, between states, between one
period of wakefulness and the next. The periods of waking,
dreaming and deep sleep are just appearances in that
awareness. You can test this by an openness to the
intervals between mentations.

__________________________________________________________________

BRUCE

Ego originated evolutionarily
(yes, imo) as a survival
trait, but when combined with
the awesome processing power
of a human brain it becomes
the great orchestrator of
mischief and misery -- it's a
tool that's constantly
dreaming that it's its own
rightful wielder, like an
animated hammer run amok
treating everything as if it
comprised nails.

___________________________________________________________________

MATTHEW FILES

hmmmm, any position we take is just another position,
another strategy of ego, another way of "winning". Even the
position
that we have no position is just another position.

editor's note: Matthew's submissions of selections from
Bukowski's Chinaski are at
http://www.nonduality.com/nugget.htm

____________________________________________________________________

MARY

I find that I also need Ramana's inquiry technique,
Nisargadatta's the Absolute beyond the I Am, and Byron
Katie's The Work in addition to the Course (In Miracles).
But the real hindrance to awakening for me is that I don't
wanna disappear...not yet. (Others would say that thinking
that there is a hindrance is the hindrance.) Until I have
the willingness to completely and sincerely undo (forgive)
or to step off the cliff in complete trust (I want to but
I'm terrified to), or until there comes grace with direct
revelation, I can only live my life here and now with as
much awareness as I can of my inner teacher whom I call the
Holy Spirit. The Course says the key is to have the little
willingness and then trust Jesus/ Holy Spirit to do the
rest.

___________________________________________________________________

MIGUEL ANGEL

Neo: "If we are consciousness then why does it appear
to not be present during deep sleep?"

MIGUEL: It doesn't appear because you don't appear.
And you don't appear because you are not functioning,
you are without objects (ie perceptions or emotions).
You, Neo, only appear to exist when you are
functioning, ie when you are projecting the world in your
mind.
When you are not, you simply are.
Consciousness appears to be present only
when there are objects. Otherwise it just is.
In deep sleep, the mind is at rest, so there
are no objects and consciousness is not felt.
In other words, in deep sleep consciousness _is_
present but does not appear to be because there is no
recording of its presence, no functioning of memory.

This does not only happen in deep sleep, but also in
deep meditation, when there are no thoughts, no mental
objects, and therefore no recording of anything.

This happens also, momentarily, even in everyday life,
between two thoughts.
For a fleeing moment, mind is at rest
and there is only non-dual consciousness,
but not the appearance of conciousness.

And I like to imagine death as conscious deep sleep, as
the presence of consciousness without the appearance of
any objects.

Consciousness is like the sky. You see it best when
there are clouds that make a constrast with it.
But a cloudless sky is not the less present for that.
Only not felt, not recorded.

Consciousness is also like a cinema screen.
You see it best when a film is projected on it.
Otherwise you don't even look at it.
But it is not the less present for that.
Only not preceived, not recorded.

Consciousness is the background where everything
appears.
The problem with perceiving the presence of
consciousness is that we are so accustomed to
perceiving objects that we don't feel the presence of
the background once the objects are absent.
We are much too used to noise. All objects are noise.

Nisargadatta said that consciousness is a bit like a
mirror. When you look at the mirror, you don't see the
mirror but the objects reflected on it,
as if they were stains on the mirror.
And he continued to say: "The whole world is a stain."

______________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

Aperture of language,
Reticule of jargon


What can see all
Is peering through
A small slot
And wants more

What can see all
Focuses on detail
Mistaking detail
For more

What more
Can there be
Than all
Do you see?

*

Not seeing all
Embellishing
By extrapolating
From detail

Filling in blanks
By logical deduction
Making models
Do they fly?

Competition
Between model makers
Leads to clashes
Crashes

*

What can see all
Wants more
Because it sees only
Through an aperture

Composed of language
Constricting space and time
To criteria inherited
From aperture-dwellers

Still needing more
Hungering for more
Safely staying
In narrow slot

*

Ritual of seeking
Never finding
Finding would be
Leaving the slot

Define not reality
As a slot
Reality so defined
Is no longer a slot

Refuse to speak
Refuse to think
In words which invalidate
The aperture view

*

Find filters to narrow
Rather than expand
Enhance detail
Rather than open

Never satisfied
Always wanting more
Never leave the slot
Always seek instead

Always ask for more
Never take what is given
Never leave
The company of seekers

*

Safe
In manufactured
Mundane madness
Rest the weary

Eyes
Unfocused
Refuse to see
Defined as bleary

Outside
The slot
Of aperture view
Be leery

*

Languge
Defines
Validates
Invalidates

Language
Your master
Possesses you
Defines you

Validates you
Invalidates you
Curses you
Blesses you

*

How to be free
Of a master
tyrannical
Which serves you?

The bargain
Costs much
The price
Is freedom

Master language
Or it remains
Your master
Dare to know

*

Before and beyond
Aperture of language
Being
Being seeing

Is constraint
More or less?
Is limit freedom
Or constraint?

Does limit
Give freedom
To one
Who sees all?

_________________________________________________________________

MARCIA

For me this is a very clear thing this universal experience.
It is an intense experience which turns itself inside out
with the realization that others throughout time and in
the exact same moment were experiencing the same thing.
In my Holotropic Breathing experience when I was looking
up at my son being crucified it was clear on a personal
level and a global level at the same time. Mothers have
experienced this pain. The breaking of the heart is the
universal experience. I don't know how to say it any other
way. It makes one aware of being on drop in a huge body
of water. I am part of the universe and not the center of
the universe.

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