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#3349 -
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 - Editor: Gloria Lee
Nonduality Highlights -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Do not think the knowledge you
presently possess is
changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded
and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment
from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints.
Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge.
Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe
reality in yourself and in the world at all times
~Thich Nhat Hanh
---
gill
http://allspirit.co.uk
I AM THAT
Nisargadatta Maharaj
* * *
Stop making use of your mind and see what happens. (p197)
Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination. (p.113)
General knowledge develops the mind, no doubt. But if you are
going
to spend your life in amassing knowledge, you build a wall round
yourself. To go beyond the mind, a well-furnished mind is not
needed.
(p50)
The window is the absence of the wall, and it gives air and light
because it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all
imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will
cause
reality to rush in. (p260)
Abandon all verbal structures, all relative truth, all
tangible
objectives. (p340)
All are mere words, of what use are they to you? You are
entangled in
the web of verbal definitions and formulations. Go beyond your
concepts and ideas; in the silence the truth is found. (p295)
Too much analysis leads you nowhere. There is in you the core of
being which is beyond analysis, beyond the mind. The legitimate
function of the mind is to tell you what is not. But if you want
positive knowledge, you must go beyond the mind. (p341)
So far, you took the mind for the knower, but it is not so. The
mind
clogs you up with images and ideas, which leave scars in memory.
You
take remembering to be knowledge. True knowledge is ever fresh,
new,
unexpected. It wells up from within. When you know what you are,
you
also are what you know. Between knowing and being there is no
gap.
(p520)
What is independent, uncreated, timeless and changeless and yet
ever
new and fresh is beyond the mind. When the mind thinks of it, the
mind dissolves and only happiness remains. (p488)
Of course, you can only learn what you are not. To know what you
are,
you must go beyond the mind. Awareness is the point at which the
mind
reaches out beyond itself into reality. In awareness you seek not
what pleases, but what is true. (p346)
contributed by Tom McFerran
Enlightenment isn't a big deal, illusion is a big deal
Get to the cause. The cause of it is the perceived separateness. The perception of separateness rips open this immense negative void inside of us that you can't fill. That's why spirituality goes to the root of things, the cause of things, the ultimate root which is the perception of separateness. When the perception of separateness is healed or awoken from, it's very odd until you get used to it that all of a sudden all these things that you were doing to fill this perceived void, all of a sudden you have no desire to do them anymore. And those of you who have had that experience and live this know that it's actually sort of odd until you get used to it cause all these things you were doing in your life to fill this perceived void …all of a sudden the separateness is healed, you've woken up from the illusion of separation and no longer do you feel like you have to keep pouring things into yourself to satisfy yourself. And your mind for awhile sits around going, 'Well, that's strange! I don't have the impulse for that or for that or for that. I don't need to achieve that, I don't need to grasp that and I don't need to receive that from that person.' And also even the inner seeking disappears. To seek it seems ridiculous. Why would we ever seek for what we already are? Unless of course we haven't realized what we already are.
All these forms of suffering arise from various misperceptions. I would be much better instead of trying to fill ourselves, to look at, 'How am I creating, right now, how am I literally creating with my thoughts and belief systems the illusion of separation. How am I making myself feel like I'm isolated. How is it that I pull off the amazing magic act of making myself appear less than I am. What thoughts must I believe to make myself feel separate.' This would be much better than trying to fill the void 'cause there's no bottom to it. It has an infinite capacity for you to put things into it trying to heal it.
I often say to people, 'Don't worry about looking for enlightenment. Find out how is it that you unenlighten yourself at each moment. It's much more important. Since everybody's nature is enlightenment. Contrary to popular opinion, enlightenment isn't a big deal. Illusion is a big deal. Enlightenment is just the perception of the way things are. I mean it feels like a big deal for awhile if you haven't seen it. And it is kind of a big deal in the sense that it's not anything we suspect it to be. But illusion, that's the big deal. How it is that we could be the One, the only One, whatever you want to call the One—Consciousness, Spirit, Buddha-nature, Allah, it doesn't matter. How it is that we could be the One and then delude ourselves into imaging we are not the One and separate from the One, that's impressive. That's not an easy thing to pull off. It takes lots of training to do that. So much more valuable than chasing enlightenment would be to really look, present time, right here, right now, since everything is One, since you are the One, how is it that you unenlighten yourself. In any given moment. Once you see exactly how you unenlighten yourself and you see through it and you see the illusions of it, any way we unenlighten ourselves is based on ideas and assumptions and beliefs and self-images that have no basis in reality. When we see that we stop unenlightening ourselves. We don't need to achieve enlightenment, we need to stop unachieving unenlightenment.
Adyashanti – Omega 2007
Disk 7