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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4230, Sunday, April 24, 2011
What does one want to protect? That without which nothing else
has any meaning or value: the animating presence of
Consciousness, without which you cannot know or enjoy anything.
And the best way to protect anything is not to be away from it at
all. This is the purpose of spiritual practice - to remain
continuously one with Consciousness all the time.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, posted to A Net of Jewels
Presence is a quality of welcoming, open awareness, which is
dedicated simply to "what is." There can still be
someone who is aware and there is that of which they are
conscious - the sound of running water, the taste of tea, the
feeling of fear, or the weight and texture of sitting on a seat.
And then there can be a letting go of the one who is aware, and
all that remains is presence. All of this is totally without
judgment, analysis, the wish to reach a conclusion, or to become
anything. There is no mentation and no expectation. There is
simply "what is."
- Tony Parsons, from As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual
Awakening, posted to AlongTheWay
What is the root of pain? Ignorance of yourself.
What is the root of desire? The urge to find yourself.
All creation toils for its self and will not rest until it
returns to it.
Nisargadatta Maharaj, posted to Distillation
The disciple goes to the guru seeking enlightenment as something
which he can enjoy as an individual, while the enlightened guru
knows their relationship to be a completely impersonal
evolutionary process in which no individuals figure at all.
- Ramesh S. Balsekar, posted to A Net of Jewels
Everlasting Inheritance
An Unfinished Poem by Adyashanti
Listen now, or lose your life, for what I have to say is what you
have imagined in quiet moments but have failed to realize in
full. Perhaps you were too timid or astonished at the critical
moments, or couldn't find the courage to step through the veil of
your frail life when the door was opened for you.
Or perhaps you wanted to keep your life as your own, and chose to
hold onto a few pennies when you could have had gold. No matter,
for yesterday has passed into the dust of remembered dreams, and
tomorrow's story is yet to be written.
Which is precisely why you and I are now here together. You and
I. You and I. Oh, the sheer mystery of it - how could anything be
more grand? Stand with me here at the precipice and take my hand
in yours, for I am good company to those ready to depart familiar
ground. If not, then let loose of my hand now and take that of a
more familiar companion. For where we stand is known, but our
next step will not be - nor the one after or the one after that.
So shoulder all of your longing and intent and leave all else
behind. I give you fair warning: The world you are about to leave
will not be there when you return. For nothing truly left behind
is ever the same upon our return. Let us not waste any more time
on discussions or debates; you have surely been caught in those
tide pools too long already. Too much talk is wearying to the
soul and evades the spirit of things. Longing is the true measure
of a man or woman and alone has the power to draw us out of
ourselves and into the vast air of eternity. But we shall not
rely only on the winds of longing, for they can be fickle and
unpredictable. We shall also need the fire of intent - that
fine-tipped arrow of courage flying true and straight to its
goal, piercing through the fabric of our dreams as it goes.
This is as fair a day as any to begin the journey back to your
origin. So lift your foot together with mine and we will step off
the well-trodden paths and into the uncharted woods where the
essence of things lies waiting for you to open your eyes.
It is time to begin watching your steps, dear companion. For you
have already wasted the goodness of too many days stumbling along
with the unconscious drove. Today I bid you to place no foot upon
the earth without feeling the sinews, skin, and bone of your feet
with each step. How awake you are to the least of things will
determine how awake you become to the greatest in due time. For
in the play of time, the great and manifold diversity of things
in the end proves their unity. And it is toward the end that we
are headed, for it is only by means of the end that we arrive
here, on this spot, free and immortal.
I can see in your eyes a fear and confusion. All this talk of
endings brings a tremble to your bones. But fear not, for I do
not speak of death or chaos except to point out that you have
already fallen prey to both. No, I talk of awakening from the
death of sleepwalking in dreams and veiled imagination. Beyond
the veil all is well, and more well than I can attest. Within the
immortality of what you are, there is a contentment and peace
born only of your true identity.
Have you not been told how grand you are, how uncontained, how
limitless? I for one maintain that you are as unseen and eternal
as the space that spans beyond the myriad universes. I praise the
immortal self - not one self among many, but the self within all
selves. For everywhere I go, and in each and everyone I meet, I
greet my secret and unseen self. For I know each man and each
woman as I know myself, none greater or lesser in essence or
worth.
I have no desire or pull toward the gods, nor sacred relics, nor
holy books. For I have waded through the various dogmas and found
them lacking the essential vision, the unitary glance that
reveals God's hand within every gesture. Why should we go looking
for more than we are, when we are what we are looking for? Beware
of a misguided longing, for it leads in the end to brutality. How
much blood has already been spilled in God's name and how much
more to come?
I bid you, dear companion: Throw off the yoke of belief, for to
arrive at the nobility of truth you must be cleansed of all
borrowed knowledge till you are as innocent as the day before you
were born. You must forge from within your longing a fiery sword
of discrimination, unsheathed from the past - starting now on
this hill we stand upon, determined to never again take anything
secondhand, but instead prove true or false each statement
yourself.
For truth belongs to neither man or woman, nor holy book, nor
well-reasoned philosophy or belief, but only to itself - immortal
and pure. I seek only to remove untruth from your mind so that
you may be restored to the unitary vision which is your
everlasting inheritance.
- Adyashanti