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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #4412, Sunday, October 30, 2011
There is a Reality which is Indivisible, One, Alone, the Source
and Being of all; not a thing, nor even a mind, but pure Spirit
or clear Consciousness; and we are That and nothing but That, for
That is our true Nature; and the only way to find It is to look
steadily within, where are to be found utmost peace, unfading
joy, and eternal life itself.
- Douglas Harding
Be still and listen
To the sounds around you.
The sounds are heard, aren't they?
Heard perfectly.
Now shift the attention from the sound
To that which is hearing the sounds.
What is that?
What sound does that itself make?
Ask yourself, who am I?
Now feel the sensations in the body,
Just as they are:
The breathing, the places of tightness and relaxation, pleasure
and pain.
Let the attention shift, from the sensation in the body
To that which is feeling the body.
What is that which feels?
What is that which says "my body"?
And ask, who am I?
Let the eyes be gently open.
Look, see what is here.
Notice the shape of it, the color of it, the form of it.
Now let the attention shift from the object to that which sees.
What is that which sees?
Again, ask yourself, who am I?
Whatever arises to be experienced, Shift your attention from the
object to the experiencer. Seek out your own presence, and
discover what that is.
All our life we use the terms "I" and "mine"
and "me." We talk about my body, my thoughts, my mind,
my family, my money, my life. We know what the body is, we know
what a thought is, but do we know who claims to own these things?
As long as this question remains unexamined, we remain trapped in
a world of limitation, fully identified with things that have a
beginning and an end in time.
When you start to inquire in this way, you may pass through many
layers, rather like peeling an onion. Every time you ask the
question, "Who am I?" the mind will kick up an answer.
"I am a man or a woman, I am rich or poor, I am educated or
a simple person." But do not stop with any of these answers.
Keep asking and going deeper. To this question, all the answers
given by the mind are false. You may shift from identifying with
the body to identifying with your thoughts, believing that you
are the thinking mind. But that, too, is being experienced. You
may drop deeper, into an identification with feelings. But
feelings also are passing, coming and going. Finally, you come to
the label "me." Who am I? Me. I am me.
Stay with this "me." Try to find it; try to investigate
its real nature. You may be surprised to find that it is a
challenge to locate a "me." It cannot be found. It
simply is not there. And yet this moment is being experienced;
sounds are being heard; form and movement are being seen. In the
absence of any entity to be found, what remains?
This simple practice returns you home to yourself, to infinity.
- Arjuna Ardagh, from Leap Before You Look
Still Here
Meeting all things today,
with their other sides intact
In the full emptiness,
all things have this balance:
light in dark, and dark in light
joy in sorrow, sorrow in joy.
Today it all comes together
without me.
Its amazing
how the world
all keeps happening
without my meaning-making
mechanisms,
Just as it is,
already finished, always in motion.
- Alice Walker
Rest and Be Taken
When there is deep abundance
there is nowhere to abide.
There is nowhere to rest
or grasp onto
and yet there is rest
The sky abides
yet it never rests.
Neither can we say that
the sky is not always at rest.
We talk about the sky
as if it were something
as if it actually exists -
and yet we cannot say that
the sky does not exist.
The sky is nothing but
coming and going.
Everything is perfectly spontaneous.
The coming and going arise mutually
instantaneously.
If the true I is asleep
you will miss the point entirely
and you will continue to dwell
in the world of opposites.
So see the two as one
and the one as empty
and be liberated
within the world of duality.
At first it seems
as if begoing follows becoming.
But look even closer
and you will see
that there are only
flashes of lightning
illuminating the empty sky.
Life and death
becoming and begoing
are only words.
In order to save your life
you must see that you die
instantaneously
moment to moment
instant to instant.
Now where are you going to abide?
And where are you not abiding already?
Indeed there is nowhere
to rest your head
and there is nothing but rest.
So let go of all ideas
about permanence and impermanence
about cause and effect
and about no cause and no effect.
All such notions are dualistic concepts.
The Truth of what you are
is completely beyond all duality
and all notions of non-duality,
and yet it includes duality
and non-duality alike.
Like an ocean
that is both waves and stillness
and yet un-definable
as waves or stillness.
The truth of being
cannot be grasped by ideas
or experiences.
Both waves and stillness
are the manifest activity
or your own self.
But self cannot be defined
by its activity
nor by its non-activity.
The truth is
all-transcendent
ungraspable, all-inclusive
and closer than your own skin.
A single thought about it
obscures its essence.
The perfume of true life
is right in your nose.
There is nothing you can do
to perceive it
and yet you must do something.
I say:
Rest and be taken.
Rest and be taken.
- Adyashanti