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#3588 - Thursday, July 9, 2009 -
Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - The first periodical
publication on nonduality - Submissions welcome
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In this issue a selection of Tweets and a couple articles discovered through links on Twitter. Follow me at http://twitter.com/nonduality
lux1008 anyone that is selling you your Self is a con, period. ~ is really difficult to keep the proper ethics in this NO-business: 2 B available guruphiliac I fought my inner freak for a long time. Now that I own it, it's disappointingly less freaky. ammamona "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." ~Abraham Heschel LeonardJacobson "Waking up is one thing. Staying awake is another." LJ iamwun "We don't attach to things. We attach to our stories about things." ~Byron Katie saddha Never make the same mistake twice or you'll never get around to all the other ones. TheLeapGuys "All our science, measured against reality, isprimitive and childlike and yet it is the most precious thing we have" Einstein iam_that Problem with "spiritual teaching" - TRUTH can only be expressed partially. Lao Tzu said it best : If you can speak about it, that is not it. Beingness Simply make every effort just to look at yourself. The briefest look, repeated over time, does all the work. ~ John Sherman elasticfate Bowing in gratitude for all the internal healing I've done these last 2 months & the opportunities Maine gave me to hold strong in my power. jnanic How many times have you seen the sun rise? guruphiliac About one-hundred-fifty pounds lighter || RT @eve11: Who are you when you don't think about yourself? - Adyashanti Takuin Why on earth, if one is serious about liberation, would anyone ever ask someone else to give it to them? I can not see the value in this. majidrazvi When I grow up I want to be a countryside.
The following is an excerpt from a book review written for Time Magazine in 1942: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,773849-1,00.html
Monday, Nov. 2, 1942
The first full English translation of one of the world's most extraordinary religious documents was published last week. It is The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1,063 pages, translated by Swami Nikhilananda,
Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, New York City; $7.50). Says Aldous Huxley in the foreword:
"A book unique ... in the literature of hagiography. No other saint has had so able and indefatigable a Boswell. Never have the small events of a contemplative's daily life been described with such a wealth of intimate detail."
Sri Ramakrishna (1836-86) barely knew how to read or write. To millions in India and elsewhere he is an authentic Incarnation of God—in a class with Buddha, Krishna, Christ. His unique claim to fame is that he was the first prophet in history actually to practice the ways not only of all the principal Hindu sects but also Christianity and Islam.
To Ramakrishna the act of worshiping God was more important than the form. Himself a Brahman, who on the whole observed the complex code of this highest Hindu caste, just as Jesus observed Jewish law, Ramakrishna like Jesus never hesitated to break it when his common sense told him to.
"Wherever I look," he said, "I see men quarreling in the name of religion —Hindus, Mohammedans, Brahmos, Vaish-navas, and the rest. But they never reflect that He who is called Krishna is also called Siva, and bears the name of the Primal Energy, Jesus, and Allah as well —the same Rama with a thousand names. A lake has several ghats [bathing-places]. At one the Hindus take water in pitchers and call it ' jal' ; at another the Mussulmans take water in leather bags and call it 'pani.' At a third the Christians call it 'water.' "
...
Woman & Gold. Gist of Ramakrishna's gospel: 1) Every religion is true, and a possible path to God. 2) For most men, who are slaves of their senses, a dualistic religion with ceremonies, music and symbols is necessary. Men of purer intellect can attain modified monism; they know there is a further range of experience but are not able fully to realize it. Monism, the realization of oneness of all things with differences merely in form, can be achieved only by those who reach ecstasy. 3) For each ladder of thought there is a corresponding series of duties. "In order to learn archery one should first aim at a banana tree, then at a reed, then at a wick, and last at a flying bird."
Chief stumbling blocks in the path of spiritual progress, Ramakrishna told his followers in an oft-repeated phrase, is kaminikanchan (literally "Woman & Gold," meaning "lust & greed"). " 'Woman & Gold' alone is the obstacle to yoga," said he. "What is there in the body of a woman? Only such things as blood, flesh, fat, entrails, and the life. Why should one love such a body?" In some of his ecstasies, Ramakrishna regarded himself as a woman and worshipped Kali as her handmaid. Said his woman devotees: "We seldom looked on Sri Ramakrishna as a member of the male sex."
Says Gandhi: "Ramakrishna was a living embodiment of godliness. His sayings are not those of a mere learned man but they are pages from the Book of Life."
Excerpts from Daniel Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha from his Chapter No Self vs. True Self:
"You see, as all phenomena are observed, they cannot
possibly be the observer. Thus, the observer, which is
awareness and not any of the phenomena pretending to be it,
cannot possibly be a phenomenon and thus is not localized and
doesn't exist. This is no-self. However, all of these
phenomena are actually us from the point of view of non-duality
and interconnectedness, as the illusion of duality is just an
illusion. When the illusion of duality permanently
collapses in final awakening, all that is left is all of these
phenomena, which is True Self, i.e. the lack of a separate self
and thus just all of this as it is. Remember however, that
no phenomena abide for even an instant, and so are empty of all
permanent abiding and this of stable existence."
"Awareness" is not a phenomena,
thing or localized in any place that you can't say that duality
is true. A duality implies something on both sides, an
observer and an observed. However there is no phenomenal
observer, so duality does not hold up under careful
investigation. Until we have a lot of fundamental insight,
the sense that duality is true can be very compelling and can
cause all sorts of trouble. We extrapolate false dualities from
sensations until we are very highly enlightened.
Thus the word "non-dual" is an inherently paradoxical
term, one that confounds reason and even our current experience
of reality. If we accept the working hypothesis that
non-duality is true, then we will be able to continue to reject
both unitive and dualistic experiences as the true answer and
continue to work towards awakening. This is probably the
most practical application of discussions of no-self and True
Self."