Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day
How to submit material to the Highlights
#4369 -
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Gabriel
Rosenstock
Osho's epitaph, 'Never
born - never died ...' is a nice summary of Advaita.
But summaries tend to be somewhat abstractionist.
There's a danger here, a feeling of disembodiment.
Osho, you, I and those who read these words - we all had parents,
no?
This leads me to a poem:
To My Parents
When you coupled
as One
you conjured me-
the One -
out of the Universe
where I've always been
into this world
of night and day:
Mother, how can I not hold on to your breast
and its taste of the Milky Way?
Meet Jan Hodgman
Next free group telecall of
Luminous Awareness
Thursday, Sept. 15, 11am to noon,
Pacific time
E-mail jhodgman@zenjan.com for details, including call in number and pin
These calls are open to whomever would like
to join a group by phone to rest in effortless being. It's always
surprising how powerful the sense of sangha can be over phone
lines. I think it's partly because we are all resting in our own
familiar environments and yet meeting in this space of no-space
to support each other.
“Jan is an
outstanding spiritual teacher and guide. She combines decades of
immersion in Zen, therapeutic focusing and nondual modalities.
Her enthusiasm and commitment to her students’ self
understanding and awakening radiates through all her work. She is
like a unstoppable river who continually opens up new vistas and
possibilities for everyone who had the fortune to work with her.
I heartily recommend her as a nondual coach, Zen teacher and
workshop facilitator.”
-Peter Fenner, Ph. D.
author of Radiant Mind and developer of Radiant Mind and Nondual
Teacher Training
programs
“Jan leads the group
with gentle humor in dialogue and silence calling participants to
this place of clarity and nondual awareness. She refrains from
providing 'techniques,' 'methods,' or 'procedures,' knowing that
we don't really need such intermediary steps in order to realize
the perfection of here and now. Rather she calls us home to the
truth and completion of this very moment in all its perfection
and grace, just this.”
-Luminous Awareness
workshop participant
Robert V. Burke
Robert,
There is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve spiritually.
All techniques lead to a false self and reinforcement of the
image on the screen of consciousness
of the doer. Yet this also needs to arise.
Rolando
__________________
Rolando,
True, true...
And yet this going nowhere and this achieving nothing is still
another subtle deceit of the ego.
Is there anyone not going and not doing? If there is, that
is still the ego. Right?
Same thing if there is a "no-one" not going and not
doing!
We are making something out of nothing, some-thing out of
no-thing.
This no-thing to achieve, is that a goal too?
If so, that too is another deceit of the ego.
Ego is subtly there whether doing or not doing.
It appears to this indescribable Me onto this 'image on the
screen of consciousness.'
That is: "I" see it.
Though consciousness exists, "I" am beyond being and
non being.
That is, consciousness is all there is, there is no
'individual.' Absolute is beyond.
It does not exist unless there is a me for It to appear to.
Because I am, It is.
Why does anything "need" to arise? There is no
need. It just arises.
I was once given a string of apparently meaningless words.
Jibberish. Non sense.
And the teacher asked me if I could make any sense out of these
words using them in the same order they appeared.
Punctuation was required.
This was a sophomore high school assignment.
Now, nearly 50 years later, I appear, to understand this puzzle
completely.
Unbeknownst to me, the teacher was a real Teacher.
The words precisely as he laid them out are:
that that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is
I will save you some time, because so did the teacher.
That, that is, is. That, that is not, is not. Is not that
it? It is! (Read these four sentences slowly, out
loud)
The meaning of the four sentences in the line directly above have
meaning.
The string of unpunctuated words in the line above the meaningful
punctuated words, have no meaning.
The meaningful words are mahavakya (understanding: a pithy
kernel of truth, seed of ephiphany, kensho leading to satori,
enlightenment). Maha=great, Vac=speach, thus a great
saying. The meaningless string of words are Avidya. A=not,
vidya=wisdom; ignorance.
What 'i' have learned from all this is that when most people
attempt to read Nisargadatta Maharaj or most masters, they are
reading from within the state of 'avidya.' In avidya, one's
perception is in ignorance, like the unpunctuated string of
words.
The real seekers see, feel the wisdom and great sayings in
Nisargadatta's words. Like the words in the punctuated
example.
The transcendent appears to those who can punctuate meaning, are
open enough and earnest, thus perceiving the wisdom in jibberish.
In the light of wisdom words by themselves appear as jibberish;
however, if the writer has wisdom, and the inner wisdom of the
reader is open, Truth prevails.
Truth always prevails!
But upon presenting wisdom, nothing happens if the student is not
ready: if the student is not 'earnest' the wisdom will have
no meaning for him; cannot be perceived, will not be received.
Why?
Reality is misperceived because one has the misunderstanding that
he 'is' a body, he 'is' a mind.
What you are is much greater!
Feeling and knowing what one is, is the greatest
understanding. This understanding liberates one
completely. You are light and lightness itself. Your inner
being is weightless and airy. Nothing weighs you down.
Completely free. Freedom Itself!
Nothing can touch you! Yet you touch everything. Thus
you are spontaneously and simultaneously nothing and everything.
Nisargadatta said: "When I know I am nothing, that is
wisdom; when I know I am everything, that is love. Between
the two my life moves."
Letting go of misunderstanding, and understanding there is
nothing to let go of, and no one there to let go, is
understanding.
Letting go of the body, letting go of the 'mind', what you are
appears to you in your real form, your real nature.
Or, as Guruji says: "Otherwise not!"
That's It.
Robert