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The tenderness of erring
is never understood in the moment.
Not for what it is.

Its coldness,
its hollow pleasure
Huh, its brazen arrogance!

Something's not right!
I can't look IT in the eye.
From here.

How is it that I got here?
So very far away.
ah, the dream, oh sweet dream!

Your tender touch
testing my knowledge of you.
I'm here for you again.

this image
is ALL
but nothing in your LOVE

--Dave
___________________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER: Selections

Say gang, no more accusations of non real realization.
(please?) From now on, help everyone towards real
realization. It it's ego based, it needs to be looked at.
That's fine - looking can be done with love. loving words
are helpful, but it is important to use them skillfully -
use them to help others. Neem Karoli Baba told Ram Dass
many times when Ram Dass asked him how to become
enlightened "feed people." True for calories, true for
love. Hey Maharishi, back me up, and hit these people with
your whip o' love. (or hit me anyway...) humbly asked. I
know I can't do it. do it now.

*****

I dont' want to hear about experiences. I want to dive into
them.

*****

I think aspirants tend to focus on everything and anything,
and hopefully become skilled at distinguishing what is true
and what is false. I truly believe that this is helpful,
however the final unveiling comes crashing in.

*****

The ego preservation movement is very strong here in Mark,
but mark is very willing to look at it closely. Mark does
not wish to preserve ego shit. ego shit is lies lies, lies.
bullshit limitations bullshit self agrandizment bullshit
defense. no defense. Mark willing to die. mark dying
already. Oh push over edge. no questions. I'll spread my
wings while I fall. okay. lets fall together. let go. no
value, no ego, no nothing. fall into life. there is no
reason to resist. if I am wrong, then so be it. no worse
than Hell that Mark earned and suffered in and deserved
fully. done now. enough. areyou love?

________________________________________________________________________

ASHWIN KHAMBADKONE

My dear friend, before you take Ramana's teachings for
there literal meaning (world disappears) please think about
this.

As far as the Self is concerned it was not worried about
what came from a body called Ramana. This body, as per its
programming, spoke in tamil, telegu most of the time. Yes
it also spoke english but sparingly. Many questions were
asked, some were answered by silence, some with some words.
Some of these words were translated by some bodies with ego
notions (as only few were realized as per your count).
Hence the translation was done in illusion, the printing
and your reading is happening in the delusion.

Your posting them on different list is happening in the
same delusion and my responding to them is happening in the
same delusion.

The same can be said about Nisargadatta Maharaj, he spoke
in Marathi, most of his works are translation.

It is said that Ramana's teaching in silence were the best
of all teachings, I pray that those silent teachings touch
your heart.

*****

For one who quotes Ramana Ramana also said the ego of a
sage is like a burnt rope, the shape of the rope exist but
it is of no use for it can't tie anything.

It is good that you are reading Ramana's teaching. But it
looks like you are infatuated with only a particular aspect
of it: effort in killing the ego. Either you try to kill
the ego and tell us what happened or keep an open mind and
read all of Ramana without searching for authentication of
your concepts of effort to kill ego.

If you have som much faith in your interpretation of
Ramana's method on killing the ego, why not try it out. Why
waste time discussing with the advaita theorist? After you
have killed the ego....may be you can share your
insights......

___________________________________________________________________

DAVE (MANCHINE)

In the presence of "Self" there does not exist a shadow of
a doubt as to "sincerity of conduct". It is perfectly true,
however, that maintaining attachments to worldly comforts
limits "access" to Self, thus "such a person IS discarded
like a lowly one" almost by definintion.

Each day it seems more the rage to look down on well
meaning discoverers. We seem to be moving towards the
attitude of the old religions of the past, breathing fire
and brimstone.

Yes, the ego is a tough cookie, and requires, at precise
moments solid shots, but even those should be administered
with the compassion of "Being" itself. If one is puting up
a show that he is realized, it is more likely that he is
innocent, and should indeed then be treated with
compassion.

It seems self regulatory. We are in a process, an
intentional play. We curse at other, we cannot see Self. We
fall for larger periods, any glimppse into Self is fearsome
yet leaves one with the inspiration to "give their head a
shake".

There IS a connection to Self, know it.

___________________________________________________________________

JERRY

Inner vigilance, discernment, discrimination are always
required. It's important to shine a light on the darkest
corner's of one's life, even if behavior can't change so
easily.

All Scriptures swiped off the desk, I find only my elbows
on it.

___________________________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE

Like the hunger site, your mere click creates a donation by
sponsors and advertisers to buying land to protect it from
deforestation.

http://rainforest.care2.com/

*****

The higher your aims and vaster your desires, the more
energy you will have for their fulfillment. Desire the good
of all and the universe will work with you. But if you want
your own pleasure, you must earn it the hard way. Before
desiring, deserve.

- Nisargadatta Maharaj

This quotation is from: "I Am That" Talks with Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj The Acorn Press, 1973

________________________________________________________________________________\
__
MELODY ANDERSON

I'm spending the day with Osho today...

"These techniques [described in his 'Book of Secrets'] are
to help you, to bring you back. Much will have to be
destroyed - all that is wrong, all that is false. Before
the real arises the false will have to leave; it must
cease. And these are the false notions - that you are.
These are the false notions - that you are a soul, atma,
you are Brahma. Not that you are not, but these notions are
false.

Gurdjieff had to insist that there is no soul in you.
Against all the traditions he insisted, 'Man has no soul.
Soul is simply a possibility - it can be, it may not be. It
has to be achieved. You are simply a seed.'

And this emphasis is good. The possibility is there, the
potential is there, but it is not yet actual. And we go on
reading the Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible, and we
go on feeling that we are the soul - the seed thinking that
it is the tree. The tree is hidden there, but it is yet to
be uncovered. And it is good to remember that you may
remain a seed, and you may die a seed - because the tree
cannot come, the tree cannot sprout by itself. You have to
do something consciously about it, because only through
consciousness it grows.

There are two types of growth. One is unconscious, natural
growth: if the situation is there, the thing will grow. But
the soul, the atma, the innermost being, the divine within
you, is a different type of growth altogether. It is only
through consciousness that it grows. It is not natural, it
is supernatural.

Left to nature itself it will not grow; just left to
evolution it will never evolve. You have to do something
consciously, you have to make a conscious effort about it,
because only through consciousness it grows. Once
consciousness is focused there, the growth happens."

________________________________________________________________________

Nora asks: Speaking of Andrew Cohen, does anyone have a
link to a website that has his mother's experiences with
him? seem to remember reading about it from a link someone
posted a long time ago

Try
http://scp-inc.org/publications/newsletters/N2203/mother_of_god.html

Love, Sarlo

______________________________________________________________________

Gloria Lee shares:

From "Four Quartets" by T.S. Eliot

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

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Harsha: Thanks Gloria. This is a beautiful verse. It seems
to nicely describe the context of the spiritual search and
Self-Realization.

_________________________________________________________________________

MARCIA PAUL

Talk about having things backwards.

Two things I realized I had backwards:

1. In "realizing one's nothingness," I always thought what
was nothing was the Self because it didn't feel like
anything (i.e. no sense of self) but what I have come to
realize is that what is nothing is all the stuff I thought
was "me."

2. Second thing is that awakening means awakening to life.
I thought it meant awakening to the Self. The Self already
is awake. As I am, I am asleep or dead really and as Jesus
said..."Let the dead bury the dead." It is the white bag
blowing in the breeze. When awake, the whole of me responds
to life; otherwise there is only fragmented reaction. It
can be rational, emotional, or sensation but the key thing
is that it is not whole but fragmented.

_________________________________________________________________________

UARELOVE

There was and is no body, no world. Over and over people
used to say things to Nisargadatta claiming he had a body
and that he acted and he would plead not guilty. One
example is someone wondered why he was smoking a cigarette?
Nisargadatta said: If you examine it, you will see it is
your I am the body idea that makes you perceive the I see
you smoking idea. For those still under the delusion of the
ego it appears Ramana had a body, and that there is and was
a world. Those in whom the ego notion has ended have made
it clear there never have been any bodies and there never
have been any worlds. someone, maybe xan recently posted an
excellent Teaching of Bhagavan Ramana of how there is no
all for God to pervade. All these thoughts about sages
having a body, and there being a world, are thoughts of an
all. There is no all. All is one may be a good stepping
stone view, because it is so difficult for a human to see
there is no all. However all is not one because there is no
all. There is only One. That One has always existed by
itself, with no worlds, no beings, no universe, no this and
no that. Just Infinite Empty Awareness.

______________________________________________________________________________

MIGUEL-ANGEL RESPONDS TO UARLOVE

UARLOVE: Ending the illusion is the purpose of the effort
and the Inquiry Who am I? Effort does not apply to Being
the Self according to the Teachings of Bhagavan Ramana.
Effort does apply to ending the ego

MIGUEL-ANGEL: You seem very much in love with effort. May I
ask whose effort?

The mind's effort? Hardly. The source of the problem can't
be the agent of the solution. The ego's effort? Impossible.
The ego can only try to survive. It can't possibly commit
suicide. The Self's effort? Out of the question. The Self
doesn't act. It's not a doer. Whose effort then?

Don't you see that the very idea of effort is part of the
(false) problem? "Effort" is as empty an idea as that of
free will, or individual independence. The idea of "effort"
(and that of free will) are based on another, equally
wrong, idea : "personal doership". Only if there are
separate independent agents is it possible to speak of
effort or free will. But can you see our body-mind
organisms as separate, independent, free agents? Only if
you subscribe to the dualist philosophy, which states the
existence of the individual souls as separate substances.
For nondualism there is only consciousness, and only one.
Therefore there are no separate souls, no individual
entities, no personal agents, no free doers, no
effort-makers.

The idea of effort is clearly dualistic. It arises from a
split carried out by the mind : first the continuum of the
manifestated is divided into two parts: ego as a separate
entity and the rest of the world. Then this imaginary ego
is seen as facing the world (including there one's
personality) and trying to control it. But this split is a
chimera. There is absolutely no division in the manifested.
It is all a continuum, an undivided whole, and not existing
in itself but in consciousness.

There is only Consciousness and its contents. No part of
Consciousness can be a separate entity, because IT has no
parts. And no part of ITS contents (the manifested world of
phenomena) can be a separate entity either, because
consciousness' contents have no substance, no individual
entity. Therefore nothing can be a separate entity. So, in
the absence of a separate entity, where is effort?

All idea of effort is an illusion. As is the very idea of
doeship. As is the very idea of a goal, of something to
achieve. As is the very idea that something needs mending.

All is as it is. All is as it must.

_________________________________________________________________________

PINKY GIZZARDNOSE

Thank you for the recent posts on the ego notion. Yah, it's
just a notion. But never forget - all is One. :-))

If your ego is identified with your name, it may be time
for a new name. Below is a tool for finding your new 'true'
name. Enjoy!

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

Read directions carefully - this is hilarious!

All of us have a small child somewhere within us, and when
you get your new name, chances are you'll end up giggling
just like a child.

The following is an excerpt from a children's book,
"Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor
Poopypants," by Dav Pilkey:

The evil Professor forces everyone to assume new names ....

Use the FIRST letter of your first name to determine your
NEW first name:

a stinky

b lumpy

c buttercup

d dorkey

e crusty

f greasy

g fluffy

h cheeseball

i chim-chim

j poopsie

k flunky

l booger

m pinky

n zippy

o goober

p doofus

q slimy

r loopy

s snotty

t falafel

u gidget

v squeezit

w oprah

x skipper

y dinky

z zsa-zsa

Use the FIRST letter of your last name to determine the
first half of your NEW last name:

a diaper

b toilet

c giggle

d bubble

e girdle

f barf

g lizard

h waffle

i cootie

j monkey

k potty

l liver

m banana

n rhino

o burger

p hamster

q toad

r gizzard

s pizza

t gerbil

u chicken

v pickle

w chuckle

x tofu

y gorilla

z stinker

Use the LAST letter of your last name to determine the
second half of your NEW last name:

a head

b mouth

c face

d nose

e tush

f breath

g pants

h shorts

i lips

j honker

k butt

l brain

m tushie

n chunks

o hiney

p biscuits

q toes

r buns

s fanny

t sniffer

u sprinkles

v kisser

w squirt

x humperdinck

y brains

z juice

Thus, for example, George Bush's new name is Fluffy
Toiletshorts.....and Al Gore would be Stinky Lizardtush,
pretty fitting!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

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