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HARSHA'S LETTER TO UARLOVE

You are love indeed. I admire your sincerity and passion
and the fact that you are a devotee of the great Sage of
Arunachala, Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi. Your emphasis that the
pure teachings come from the Original Source is very
beautiful. The Original Source is always the Self, the
Heart. The Guru Is the Self. Appearing as a body, S/He,
through Look, Thought Force, Touch, and Teachings
transforms so that You Realize that You are the Self and
that your consciousness is identical to that of the Guru.
To Realize Directly and without hindrance One's Own Nature
is the way.

Uarelove, you clearly have read a lot, met many teachers,
and have much spiritual experience and a well formed
outlook on Self-Realization. That is wonderful. I want to
tell you that Bhagwan Ramana was one of the most
compassionate sages who embodied non-violence. He was
humorous but rarely condescending. He was relaxed and easy
and natural and love shone through his eyes. He did not
impose any teaching on anyone. He gave different answers to
different people to suit their tastes and outlooks and
background, although his essential teaching of Self-Inquiry
is well known. The Highest Teaching, the Great Sage always
said, was in Silence. Ramana shines like the sun for me and
his light has such beauty and radiance and warmth that I am
never away from it as it is only my Own Self-Radiance.

I understand the desperation for Realization from personal
experience. I have known such times of weeping and sobbing
and asking for Self-Realization (or Knowledge or
God-Realization or call it you want) and questioning, Why
not me? Why not me? When others have done it, why not me?
Of course this feeling would pass. You have to come out of
your room at some point and face the world :-).

Then I gave up reading this and that teacher. What was the
point, I thought? Lost interest. One book, "Talks with
Ramana Maharshi" became my sole companion. Intuitively, I
knew the Truth of Ramana's words. I used to sleep with that
book next to my head. "You are already That - Give up the
notion that you are not!" Such words of Ramana Maharshi
were my constant companions. It is about giving up
everything uarelove. Giving up all the notions no matter
how sublime. No need to make a game of it and analyze ego
preservation strategies, etc. Just giving up everything
completely and totally in one stroke is the way. Whether it
is ego preservation or destruction or this and that, all
these are concepts hindering Clear Self-Knowledge. However,
the "Giving Up" can't be done. One can try to create a
climate for it, but it must happen spontaneously in order
for the Truth to become Self-Evident.

One day, almost 21 years ago, as was my habit, I had been
meditating for some hours and my back was very stiff and
tired and aching. And I was tired. I thought, let me just
lie down and rest a little. I lay down on my back and got
some relief from the pain and then just gave up everything.
Grace allowed for that. Just before it happened, Sri
Ramana's guidance flashed in my mind and through His Grace,
I allowed myself to be swallowed up by the Heart. As Rumi
would say, the hunter finally became the prey.

I Realized the Truth of the Self as an Immediate Truth and
Directly Understood the nature of Sat-Chit-Ananda. The
utter emptiness of awareness has such total beauty and yet
it cannot be fully described. When I came out of this and
opened my eyes, I thought, "Of course! It is Only Me! It Is
Me! It Is Me even Now! What else did I expect? I Realized
that the highest state and the most ordinary states are
permeated by the same Reality of Consciousness. The Same
sameness, the same taste of Silence is present everywhere
in all states. Where the Seer and the Seen Merge, That I
AM! I AM the Seer and the Seen. Where Perceiver and
Perceptions Merge, That I AM. I am the Perceiver and the
Perception as One Whole. I AM the Utter Simplicity,
Self-Evident to It Self.

So follow your truth uarelove, and you will see that You
are the Truth It Self. Then you will love and support
"others" and allow them to follow their truth in their way.

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

DAVE

Have a wonderful time everybody! Your going to make a dent
in the world, I just know it.

It's going to be so cool to see all the new faces when you
come back!

________________________________________________________________________

KKT

An anecdote from the book "A Vision of the Sacred - My
Personal Journey with Krishnamurti" by Sunanda Patwardhan:

A strange, esoteric event took place once during
Krishnaji's visit to India . I am speaking now about a
meeting between a Jain sadhu (holy person) and Krishnaji,
with Achyutji and I as silent and fascinated witnesses. The
sadhu told Krishnaji, "Sir, for fourteen years now, I have
devoted myself to meditation, yet I am not able to get into
samadhi. I have been practicing meditation, dhyana, but I
have not been able to go to the depths of it. Can I do
this? Will you be able to tell me what my impediments are
?"

Krishnaji asked him to describe the kinds of meditative
practices he had been following. After listening to him, he
said, "Do you realize that you are still acquiring? Open
your fist. There is nothing to acquire".

For some minutes, the sadhu was silent. He then got up and
prostrated himself before Krishnaji, who then asked him to
stay on for some more time . After a while, the sadhu said,
"Sir, I want to ask you one more question. Is it the impact
of your personality that has given me this [experience]? Is
this due to your gurukripa [grace of the guru]?"

Krishnaji replied, "I knew you would ask this question.
That is why I asked you to stay on for some more time .
This is not something to acquire but to give up. Release
your fist. Leave everything." He paused for a moment and
said, "Is it the [new] mind that is asking that question?
Or is it the mind before you experienced 'this' that is
full of questions? You have been caught up in it again. I
took you out of it, but you have gone back to it. If you
stand firmly on that and let go everything, 'it' will come
. 'It' will come, not because you want it, but 'it' will
come . Have you understood what I am asking?"

The sadhu prostrated himself again before Krishnaji, sat
down and said, "I don't need to go anywhere else".
Krishnaji then said to him, "The 'other' is out of time,
and we live in time . And we want to bring timeless into
time . I have told you all this, but it is not mine".

Unknowable are the nonverbal experiences and mysterious are
the ways by which a teacher communicates them. What I
understood from this conversation is that transformations
in oneself could take place in the presence of an
enlightened person if one was open and vulnerable to the
teaching.

_________________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER

This is from Tricycle, in an ad for Verses From the Center:

What do you think Of a freedom that never happens? What do
you make Of a life that won't go away?

_________________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW

This isn't someone else's inquiry -- it doesn't
depend on someone else's words, insight,
experience, or point of view -- it wasn't
originated from somewhere else and isn't
an imitation of how someone else went about it,
is going about it, or says to go about it.

This inquiry is only this:
looking into suffering (friction
between "me" and "it")
experienced here, and noticing
how that friction occurs.

Without suffering, there is no inquiry,
no need for inquiry.
Suffering arises "here", so there is
inquiry.
The ending of the basis for suffering
is the ending of inquiry.
To say "there is no 'me' or 'it'" while
friction continues is not useful.
So, it's not about "having the right answer",
it's about really "looking into it" (and not
from outside of it), so as to see directly
how "friction" arises.

"The end of the inquiry" doesn't mean always smiling,
always feeling supremely great or blissed out,
always having positive thoughts (all of that is
an idealized image rather than simply "what is").
"The end of the inquiry" isn't determined by any
criteria, measurement, or observation from
"a position outside" (or "inside" for that matter ;-).

It is its own criteria, there is no one "else" there
to judge it. It's not of "the past," not memories
nor words spoken in the past, *not something gained
and then brought forward*. Thus, any position
taken about It, or attributing it to a particular
person, experience, or situation, has limits.
Itself has no limits. Positions about it have
limits, *particularly positions that localize it
somewhere in space and time*.

Suffering can arise in many ways;
the response is always simply
to "look into 'what is'".

This inquiry is a natural, choiceless
response to the experience of
splitness, of "me" and "it", of
tension between the reality that
is present and the image of what it
should be, needs to be, etc. The
inquiry is only awareness noticing
clearly the reality of itself, as is.
It is not awareness apart from "this"
not anything other than
exactly "this" as presents itself
"here".

If I attempt to make someone else's
description, plan, explanation, or
experience real for me, all I have done
is split myself from who I am this moment.

This inquiry is not an attempt to receive Grace,
gain an enlightenment experience, be "in
the know", etc. It is not an attempt to
manipulate reality, to be like someone else,
to have reality conform to an idea,
to have a different experience than this,
or to formulate a conclusion
that will explain everything.

This inquiry is only the necessary and choiceless
response of awareness to its own self-constructed
dilemma.

Can awareness notice how itself is
rejecting its own being, constructing
distance, this instant?
It is this construction of distance that
defines a 'self' confronting an 'other' in a process
taking time, psychologically.

Distancing begins preverbally, through a felt sense
that "something outside is affecting me in a way
I don't like", or "I'm uncomfortable and something
needs to be different". Inquiry can go to the
preverbal awareness in which "self" and "other" split,
not just to thoughts about a "me". This is not
a journey backwards to a remembered time, it is
a nonjourney of "now" because this split occurs
nonverbally and cognitively "now".

Notice "distancing" as: "I exist and need
to take care of this existence,"
"I need to protect myself"
"this isn't good enough,"
"I need to control what I'm feeling and thinking,"
"I need to solve this," "I need security",
"I need to be somewhere I'm not," "I need
to fit such and such image," "I need to get
something I lack," etc.

Inquiry isn't an attempt to stop "distancing", make
it go away (that itself would be "distancing").
It's "looking into" (*not* from an "outside
position") the nature of "distancing" or
"separation" as it occurs.

This "noticing" takes no time, psychologically
speaking. Time is simply
awareness postponing
its being by projecting another moment when
"I will know something" or "I will have what I need".
Being is rejected
as soon as I assume a continuing position, project
a place I need to be, or invest energy in maintaining
a description or explanation.

So, one's inquiry can "look into" the continuity assumed
in the inquiry itself, the assumption that
there is a consistent process of inquiry being
maintained over time.

This instant does not continue.
It does not come from someplace "else",
nor from "the past".

There is no one "else" here.
Nothing is continuing here.
There is not a process toward a goal here.
There is no room for anyone here.
There is not even a space for "here" nor
time for "now".

_________________________________________________________________________

MELODY ANDERSON

I have two true friends - one guy, one gal.

One reason I consider the guy my best friend is because I
know if I would ever beg or manipulate for his attention or
solace -

rather than him opening his arms for a big hug, or giving
me a pat on the head, he would have simply laughed his ass
off.

And then, after a few difficult minutes, so would I.

Even though I haven't spoken to him in weeks, I can hear
his loving laughter ringing thru my body even as I write
this, and it makes me smile.

My gal pal's response would have been more delicate, but
everybit as effective.

From neither of these friends would I have received solace,
nor a warm blanket, nor the pat on the head I was looking
for.

That's why I'm so grateful for their love

and grateful I'm finally healthy enough to recognize it.

_____________________________________________________________________________

BRUCE MORGEN


I have said this a few times on this forum, but even at the
risk of
sounding repetitive, let me narrate this one more time:
someone at
Rishi Valley asked K (when he was nearing his end): "Sir,
what is
the message." K thought for a second, looked at the
questioner
and in the clearest of clear voices replied: "Sir, you are
the
message."

________________________________________________________________________________

MIGUEL-ANGEL

OSHO: "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."

This quite contrasts with what Nisargadatta had to say:

"There is nothing we can do, we can only let things happen
according to their nature." (I Am That, page 496)

"The self-styled gurus talk of ripeness and effort, of
merits and achievements, of destiny and grace; all these
are mere mental formations, projections of an adicted mind.
Instead of helping, they obstruct." (I Am That, page 422)

*****

UARLOVE: Ramana Maharshi says the world will disappear, he
even has gone further to state that the Self will not be
Realized unless the world disappears.

MIGUEL-ANGEL: And I am ready to bet you what you like (say
$1,000) that when _you_ end your ego notion the world will
not disappear. Take it?

I know you won't take it, because either the world will
disappear and then I won't be there to pay you, or it won't
and then you'll have to pay me.

___________________________________________________________________________

XAN

Killing the ego
is like trying
to drain the water
from a mirage.

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