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#3818 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Yogi Jayanta, Susan Kahn, and Vicki Woodyard.
http://belovedyoga108.blogspot.com/2010/02/who-am-i-and-father-of-self-inquiry.html
I wonder how many have taken some time to
consider the people and events in their lives that cause them the
greatest emotional reactions. These, it will turn out, are your
greatest teachers. That may seem like a bit of a stretch but on
the path of relentless awareness characterized by self-inquiry
everything warrants attention and the work begins and ends
within. Your perception is the only thing you can control so that
is where the game is won or lost.
The impetus behind self-inquiry is Advaita philosophy or
non-dualism; in fact, self-inquiry is like applied non-dualism.
The "two" implied by the term duality is everywhere in
our lives. In any given moment in your life there is a
"you" and an "other"; you are the subject and
that which you are perceiving is the object. Duality is the
on-going relative reality of subject-object. The suffering in
your life is directly related to "the great
misperception" of subject and object. The jump from duality
to the non-dual perspective where the subject and the object
collapse into the state of Oneness or the moment of NOW can seem
elusive. Teachers like Eckart
Tolle (who I think is awesome, by
the way) have done a wonderful job presenting various frameworks
for the process of crossing the chasm of duality. Essentially,
any process or practice that facilitates the collapse of
subject-object is a spiritual practice or yoga.
If Byron Katie is the Mother of Self-Inquiry (in her presence it
is clear that she is the Mother) then the great Indian saint, Ramana Maharshi is the
Father. He did not provide a detailed architecture of human
perception nor did he create a multi-step path leading to the
realization of the Oneness that he emanated in his life. Ramana
Maharshi's path is the simplest and most direct of all
self-inquiring systems. I will let him share his message with you
in his words,
"By the inquiry 'Who am I?'. The thought 'who am I?' will
destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring
the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed. Then,
there will arise Self-realization."
To practice this simplest form of self-inquiry one must simply
pose the question, "Who am I?" within their own
consciousness. This is not to be repeated mechanically but with
an intense longing to discover the very source of the
I-consciousness. This practice serves to turn the mind in on
itself resulting in a concentrated state of awareness that, if
sustained, may lead to liberation from duality or
Self-realization. Stay tuned for our next blog, "From
self-inquiry to Self-realization". The next time you catch
yourself reacting to someone in your life try to be aware of the
fact that you are really just reacting to your thought about that
person.
Namaste,
Steve Yogi Jayanta
Susan Kahn writes...
My primary site is http://www.NondualPointing.com. It includes an interview of my work as a Nondual
Psychotherapist with Scott Kiloby and I'll be adding some video
soon too. I use many different paths, but emphasize the Direct
Path of Atmananda Krishna Menon on my site.
I also host the website http://www.NondualPoetry.com where I post nondual poetry and writings.
~ ~ ~
Here is a sample of Susan's poetry:
Song Of Emptiness
There is movement in stillness,
A blossoming of emptiness.
All hope binds the infinite heart.
No need for it here.
In the peace of this divine space,
A white cloud would clamor.
To this joy of Being,
There is the light of eternity alone.
It is silence that truly sings,
Before the world is dreamt.
No thought can know
This invisible truth.
No earth dream
Can touch this aliveness.
Mind is a great prison
Invented and owned by 'I'
Silence this phantom thought.
Beyond the veil of concept
Emptiness is singing.
Death Is Love
This that never was,
This that cannot be known
Or seen or felt,
Lives silently as the formless heart.
Even appearing shadows
And the lightness of air,
Cannot touch the emptiness
Of always and never.
The death of all that is believed
Opens the one heart
Beyond all imagined fields and skies.
For both grand and subtle things
Are always limited,
But what cannot be named
Never started and has no end.
To die to the grip of mental pictures,
To all you believe you know,
Is to see who you really are,
That you are existence,
That you are inexhaustibly here.
For the death of every grain of a thing
Reveals this formless life, this one true home,
Where love is present as itself
And has no reasons.
Poem title by Scott Kiloby
Poem verses by Susan Kahn
Undying Self
Infinitely here, infinitely itself,
Unbounded within,
Yet immeasurably outpouring.
Going nowhere,
This undivided field of now.
Singular and endless simultaneously,
Innocent and fresh beyond dawn.
I have held the mind's breath to die here,
Only to remain indestructibly This.
Unseen luminosity voices
This choir of silent emptiness,
This that is not created or imagined,
This one undying Self.
Voice Of Summer Light
There is an empty sound
That reaches through the summer sky,
Like the faded call of a grand horn.
Low and high notes of a phantom echo
Wind absently through the air,
Yet dwell in great stillness.
The sound of summer
Is the sound of forever,
Beyond all dreams of the mind.
Beneath the vibrant grain of light
Lies a still presence that is its voice.
Undivided, it reaches everywhere,
Even down to the low plains.
There a mind drifts in phantom thought,
Faded in the burning, blurring sun
That overtakes its field.
The heavens have lowered,
In an endless span of golden heat
That dissolves all passing time.
And as light consumes surrendered trees,
The still forever of summer speaks.
http://www.NondualPoetry.com
Who Are You?
I made an important call this morning. I wanted to know how to
get back
home. I wasn’t sure who to call, so I dialed up my
next-door neighbor
and said, “I need to get back home.”
“Where are you?” she asked me.
“I’m sitting on my couch.”
“Well, then you are at home,” was her perplexed reply.
“It just doesn’t feel like home,” I said somewhat
peevishly. “It feels
so....not at home.”
“But you don’t have to feel like you’re at home
when you are,” she said
practically.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I want to
get back home.”
There was a silence on her end of the line.
“Where are you?” I said.
“I’m at home,” she said.
“How did you get there?”
“I live here,” she said with a touch of irony.
“You must be enlightened,” I said.
“No, I’m Baptist. But I know when I’m at home. I
don’t have to be
enlightened to know where I am.”
When I asked her who she was, she hung up on me.
Vicki Woodyard
http://bobwoodyard.com