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Wednesday, August 16


CHRISTIANA: Hi Thunderbolt..

Quite a post. Here we go with the "most people". Who are
these "most people", Michael? And are you sure?

MICHAEL: Yep! I'm sure. Not judging - just observing. Been
there - trough that!

MICHAEL: Most people on NDS are more interested in
perpetuating their trips than waking up! Sheesh! They want
their expectations met. They call mind tripping inquiry and
congratulate themselves on their wonderful perceptions.

CHRISTIANA: As someone who likely flickers in and out of
your "most people" category, I'll say.. talk to me. Maybe,
turn down the thunder.

MICHAEL: Nope! Lightning bolts for one and all! Again -
just observing.

MICHAEL: When someone says that all is an illusion - even k
work - chakras - levels of awareness and all that
'spiritual' claptrap is just garbage illusion, boy, do they
get upset. But, that's what they prefer - validation of
thier illusion(s). Fine, let them validate the bejesus out
of each other. Just don't make me watch. ;-)

CHRISTIANA: Yet you are watching, from what appears as an
assumed counterpoint

MICHAEL: No counter to point. If you had any idea what I'm
talking about, OOOOOOH!

CHRISTIANA: to "most people". Can you offer an integrated
view? If all is consciousness, how is this not? Todays
garbage might be tomorrow's compost.

MICHAEL: All is conciousness. Never know what IT is up to!

MICHAEL: Well, who gives a shit! Fuck'em, let em suffer.
Maybe, someday, they will get tired of it and just break
down and cry. Maybe not. It is after all the great game.
Who knows how it will end. A comet strike perhaps. Or,
total crustal displacement - that's always good.

People! Sheesh!

CHRISTIANA: It sounds like your attempt to not care comes
from caring, filtered through frustration. From whence the
frustration?

MICHAEL: Hardly frustrated. Joyous! Been frustrated -
didn't work!

CHRISTIANA: thunderbolt struck the garbage pile.

MICHAEL: Well then, let some flowers bloom!

Dear Christiana, as you know, many who post on this list
and others like it have followed or favor some sage or
tradition. What do those sages always say? Be still, this
is beyond intellect, this is the peace that passes all
understanding. True? Yes.

Also, they invite us to join them! Yet, the price is high.
Everything a person believes in must/will be lost! How many
are willing to pay that price? One in a million, maybe not
even that many.

Why is it, or better yet, why does it appear to work that
way? For meaning or to give the appearance of meaning to
life. It's a passion play. At the base of things life has
no meaning. At least not in the way that many would prefer.
By clinging to our preconcieved notions the meaning
continually slips by us.

So, if a thunderbolt gets thrown once and awhile, you can
duck and run for cover. Or, you can stand and take it full
in the chest!

Because IT has happened to/for me I can report that Jesus
was bang on when he said that you have to die and be reborn
before you can enter the kingdom of heaven.

Want to know where heaven is? Right here! Duck!

A hundred little duckies swimming on the pond. Lighting
struck one and that one saw the Universe and the Light.
Tried to tell the other little duckies. They didn't quaking
know what the one was talking about. Poor little duckies
killed the one and went on quacking! Didn't they know it
wasn't his choice?

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Michael

________________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL READ: Well, who gives a shit! Fuck'em, let em
suffer. Maybe, someday, they will get tired of it and just
break down and cry. Maybe not. It is after all the great
game. Who knows how it will end. A comet strike perhaps.
Or, total crustal displacement - that's always good.

JOHN METZGER: Who knows how it will end...Surely one sign
of the end is when we wonder if Krishnamurti usurped the
rights to his freedom in combing his hair in a certain
direction. "Freedom From The Known" suggests he was free
from conventional, even incongruous, hair-dos and
don'ts??.. "Who gives a shit" and when Krishnamurti shit I
wonder which hand he wiped with? REPENT:THE END IS NEAR.
Apologies, Michael, but one last quote.."Sheesh."

GILL EARDLEY: Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning,
then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end
will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one
who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and
will not taste death." - Gospel of Thomas

Actually, I have little to ponder than such trivialities.
There comes a time when it is all just so funny that there
is nothing to do but laugh. :-)

GLORIA LEE: Here is Francis Lucille's take on "dying."

Q: Someone mentioned feeling alarmed when she got to a
certain point and other people have described being
terrified at the point where they were just ready to open
up to this awareness. What causes these overwhelming
reactions?

FL: In these circumstances you have the opportunity to see
what you are not, the ego. The ego is not a single thought,
it is a recurrent thought pattern which, like frozen
yogurt, comes in various flavors such as "I am a mother,"
"I am my body" and so on. But it is also made out of
feelings, such as fear, boredom, dissatisfaction, sense of
lack, etc. When you feel boredom, you touch the tip of the
iceberg. If you welcome this feeling, you move into deeper
waters as it becomes fear and even panic. Remain in
welcoming. It is a test of the intensity of the desire for
truth. At some point the desire for the truth becomes so
intense that you are willing to die for it. When there is a
readiness to give up everything, the fear will
instantaneously disappear and the eternal consciousness
will reveal itself in all its glory. That will be the end
of the ego and of the problems that are associated with it

GENE POOLE: "It is after all the great game. Who knows how
it will end. A comet strike perhaps. Or, total crustal
displacement - that's always good."

According to the late Terrance Makenna, it will 'end' on
December 27, 2012. On this date, time will have caught up
with itself; all 'individual consciousnesses' will have
finished their contributions to the whole, the result being
a great flash of total unity, as the sower reaps what has
grown over time.

In this model, the entire universe 'will be' a self-aware
entity, all questions having been asked. And there will be
'no' subjective comparisons available, unless there is
'another' Self-Aware Universe-Entity with which to commune
and compare notes on "how it is".

I am excited to find out; is there another self-aware
entity?

If we look at this, what you state/bemoan in your
posting... perhaps the behaviour of humans is not so hard
to understand, after all. Perhaps humans are (blindly,
instinctively, naturally?) following the Master Imperative
of the Community of Universes, which simply put, is to look
around and try to find another self-aware entity. This
would 'explain' our endless search for the 'Guru', and our
painfully precise criteria for determining just exactly
what it is that determines and reveals self-awareness.

Postmodern physics and philosophy allow for a multitude of
'dimensions'; perhaps, each dimension is the domain of a
Universe, growing into self-awareness via what we
experience as our lives as individuals. Perhaps, as each
Universe matures into full awareness, that the ability to
consciously co-exist 'trans-dimensionally' is the next
phase. This would be pointed to by the natural evolution of
humans and how they grow though phases into 'unity
awareness'.

Perhaps there are/will be a trans-dimensional community of
self-aware universes, all of whom will contribute to the
eventual joining to form a 'Super-Universe', as we now
contribute to join in a 'Super-Being'. It is this
Super-Being who is our self-aware Universe, which is
itself, on the lookout for another self-aware entity.

Of course, we must remember that it has already happened;
that is how some of us have seen all the way through and
have decided to just abide the ride as it happens.

________________________________________________________________

MELODY ANDERSON

Jacob Boehme:

"If (Love) but once kindle a Fire within thee, my Son,...
thou shalt feel it in the burning up thyself, and swiftly
devouring all Egoity, or that which thou callest I and Me,
..."

Osho:

Love is painful because it creates the way for bliss. Love
is painful because it transforms, love is mutation.

Each transformation is going to be painful because the old
has to be left for the new. The old is familiar, secure,
safe, the new is absolutely unknown. You will be moving in
an uncharted ocean. You cannot use your mind with the new;
with the old, the mind is skillful. The mind can function
only with the old; with the new the mind is utterly
useless.

_______________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

You know how blueprints tend to roll back up, if you try to
spread them out on a table? It is really a nuisance.

Master architects and contractors use weights to hold the
blueprints open and flat, for long and careful study. They
have these devices handy, because they know the nature of
blueprints.

In a general way, I could point out that the "blueprint of
identity" is equally hard to observe; it tends to conceal
itself, unless held open by the 'weights' of habitual
self-inquiry.

Master self-inquirers use the ingrained habit of
self-inquiry to hold identity open and flat, for long and
careful study. They have these devices handy, because they
know the nature of identity.

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

MANCHINE

Until I started to look at myself,I used to think I knew
what Einstein meant when he said "The more you find out,
the less you know!".

What you don't know is nothing(empty space), but it's more
than you'll ever know. Funny how that works!

I just love throwing away models, because the next one that
get's built is even more spectacular, in an almost simpler
way!

Now then, some say, "throw away 'model making'" and I think
that therein lies a very precarious situation! Is the
building under construction, the one for which the bluprint
was made, is it finished?

Will the building need maintenance, which may require the
blueprint?

There have been so many times that I've been ready to throw
out my blueprint, when I feel that what I see before me is
just so perfect, when 'boom', the staircase just doesn't
line up with the hallway!

I've actually gotten to like the imperfections! It's such a
wonderful mystery.

____________________________________________________________________

MOD TOLLENS

Strolling along the trail, leaves of the cottonwoods
flutter. A kingfisher waits for a meal. There is only
'seeing' and 'that which is'.

______________________________________________________________________

MIGUEL-ANGEL CARRASCO

VICTOR WROTE: There is a really interesting web site at:
http://faculty.virginia.edu/consciousness/

Stanley Sobottka, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia has a
wonderful site where he presents "A Course in
Consciousness".

This course consists of three parts: Part One - Quantum
theory and consciousness, Part Two - The metaphsics of
nonduality, and Part three - The end of suffering and the
discovery of our true nature.
-------------------------------------------------------

MIGUEL-ANGEL: Yes, I've been reading this course in the
last few weeks. I'm now in Part 2. So far, it is a study of
consciousnes from a scientific point of view.

I find that philosophy-oriented people will be tempted to
skip Part 1, and even entire sections of Part 2, because
they are rather technical and require some knowledge of
quantum physics. But that would be a pity, because there
are interesting things to be found there.

For example, here are some conclusions that Stanley
Sobottka (who is not a materialist) draws :

"Experiential awareness [i.e. consciousnes of an
experience] always *follows* stimuli *and decisions*."
(Part 1, section 9). I find this a revolutionary statement.
According to him, biochemical studies show that decisions
are made a bit before the brain becomes aware of them! In
other words, I come to know my own decisions only some
nanoseconds after they have been made.

"Free will as the possibility of alternative action is
impossible. There can't be any free decision: either it is
determined or it is random." (Part 1, section 10)

"Free will implies a duality agent/outside world, and even
a split within the agent: inner I/outer I. No such duality
is supported by science." (Part 1, section 11)

"In fact we cannot even control our thoughts freely." (Part
1, section 12)

"True freedom is freedom from an imagined free will." (Part
1, section 13)

All these observations are quite in concordance with what
Nisargadatta and Ramesh Balsekar say: the existence of a
separate, independent, autonomous individual is an
illusion, there is no real "me", and it is the functioning
of Totality which determines whatever happens, including
our supposedly free choices. Freedom then consists not in
choosing alternatives, but in becoming free of the
identification, of the idea that I am "me", and getting to
realize that it is only the one Consciousness which exists
and experiences the world in each of us.

________________________________________________________________

CHRISTIANA AND MARCIA

C: Good evening Marcia..

M: Good afternoon to you. And a very, very hot one at that.

C: I have spent portions of my day observing the movement
of my thoughts as they relate to the various posts you have
made today.

I have begun several letters to you.. and find that it is
so difficult for me to communicate simply.. each letter
seems endlessly verbose. So.. here I am with another
attempt... no doubt, equally verbose.

M:I love this about you.

C:> My entry point in writing to you last night was your
comment about the list as squiggly lines, not necessarily
being ego destructive.

I have hesitated at times to enter dialogue with others
here, as so often any attempt to investigate something
either sounds pedantic or is heard as point to contradict.
I have also hesitated, as I know that I am not yet myself,
skilled at inquiry which is not flavored with pedantry and
contradiction. All that I can do here now is enter the flow
of observation into the nature of my own mind as it allowed
your words to be caught in my web for observation.

For all the affinity I feel with you, I have observed that
we often *appear* to be on different sides of
conceptual/perceptual frameworks. I suppose that is the
nature of duality. So, I am challenging myself to look
deeper.. to explore what Franklin Merrell-Wolff refers to
as the third organ of knowledge: introception.

M: I have that feeling also but many times at the end of my
'response'to you, I have this recognition that we are
really saying the same thing or similar things.

C:> ("When activated, introception provides immediate,
categorical knowledge that transcends the subject-object
distinction, i.e., it is not a relational knowledge of
something by something else, but a knowledge through
identity in which there is only knowledge itself that
includes and transcends both knower and known.")

From the resonance of "relational" affinity I feel with
you, it is easy to hold space for this inquiry. To meet you
as myself and to listen for what is beyond. Your various
posts, as you responded to others, were met within me as a
series of paradoxes, contradictions and mixing of levels.

M: I perceive myself as responding from different levels.
What is consistenton one level is paradoxical on another.
I, in no way, make any claim to be consistent and non
contradictory. Sometimes I feel very clear within and am
merely trying to be as clear in my expression and other
times I am working on clarification as I write. So your
perception is correct.

C: Nbe.. I am not saying that about your words.. but about
how they echoed within me, and my decision to notice my own
paradoxical flow.

I readily could hear my frontal readiness to assume that,
a) I understood your words and b) that something I could
say might matter as response.

So, I used those assumptions to inquire within. I've often
felt that we could go further on this list by more
frequently asking *ourselves* or each other questions. My
thought here is that perhaps the questions might serve the
other, but equally or more important might be that we could
inquire into what locus of awareness (or who) is really
asking/responding. In such a process, both listener and
speaker might in fact notice the 'hypothetical'.

So.. I'll explore just one piece which arose to look at (as
the you in me) and how this inquiry unfolded within me.. (I
offer this as my piece in the dialogue of how this list, in
fact, operates to "threaten the ego structure".)

* focused inquiry point: you stated in your post to
Michael, a list of conditions for your choices of whom to
read and not read..

M: What I was trying to do here was to show that different
people speakfrom different centers but as long as all they
do is speak from one center, then they are not necessarily
relating in dialogue. It was not meant to be a list of
conditions but just an example. Actually I mostly read
depending on how I am feeling. But I was not clear. See how
communication is difficult? My emphasis was on how only one
aspect is focussed on and what you picked up on was the
part about, which did sound judgmental, not reading it. On
that note, I just type and spell check. I rarely read over
and 'fine tune.' Perhaps I should. Each moment my
perception changes and if I 'fine tune', I have this
superstition, perhaps, that what I was 'seeing' in that
moment will be lost in all the correcting. Make sense?

C: Instead of asking you, I asked myself, what's that
about, and where do I do this?

As a consequence, today I noted (amidst the plethora of the
daily 6,000 folk who call or arrive before our reference
desks) my operating movements towards patrons. Some met
openly, some resisted. And I kept catching myself; then
asking what were the criteria being activated and why. I
noticed the aperture around identified antipathy.. noticed
the beliefs holding that aperture in place.. noticed the
nature of movement which that belief confabulates.. noticed
it's facial expression, body rhythm, precedented posture.
Then I released it, and opened to observe what might be
unprecendented.. unformed... free.

I looked up "confabulate" as that word just arose, and see
these definitions: Confabulate (etymology: to talk story,
fable) 1. chat 2. hold a discusson, confer 3. to fill in
gaps in memory by fabrication.

It occurs that much of what we do in all dialogic
relationship, with self, other, or what we hold as sacred,
is some facet of this confabulation based on conception and
perception. If I understand this correctly, this is all,
byproduct of the hypothetical.

I remembered the echo of something learned last Fall with
Gangaji and Eli.. "the coliseum you are in, is the one
you've chosen withinwhich to wake up.. and if you are in a
coliseum, you can be sure that the lions will come.. and
when they come.. stand real still.. it's a good day to
die."

M: The thing that I have come to with 'typing' or ranking
or categorizingof people, (myself included), is that this
process itself tends to hold people in these positions that
I have categorized them into. Especially with intimates. If
I can allow that my mate, for instance, is not or not just
anyway, blah, blah, blah then he has freedom to move and we
can relate in the space between us. Make sense?

C: So today, I was likely an emptier vessel, provided
better service and had more fun. For me.. this process..
though perhaps still within the dance of the hypothetical,
as there is still a self here reporting.. is a facet of the
work available here.

As an aside to other points you made today, I'll add that
what we do here is no replacement for touch through eyes,
voice, skin or beingness. Much information and love is
communicated that way. Yet I also find that much
information and love is communicated here. I am not
concerned that my Introvert Intuitive nature is finding
delusional escape through email lists. My life is filled
with people. Yet the opportunities available for deep
communal inquiry are rare. So, I use this list as
opportunity to meet, and inquire into, the village of you,
as you all live within me. And it is a rather frequent
occurance that the point-counterpoint focalized foreground
poles release to merely a simple point in the open field of
conscious play.

Offered not as any contradiction of your position, but as
another weft thread in a continuing dialogue.

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

GREG GOODE:

Thank you for this beautiful post - the heart, the candor,
the clarity! I love you and Marcia, glad youse guys are
here. I like the "coliseum" metaphor. "A good day to die."
One can see a graphic image of that in the movie
"Gladiator." The camera follows Russell Crowe and his
haggard combatants through the entrance tunnel towards the
grounds of the huge coliseum. Thousands of screaming
bloodthirsty spectators, vastly overpowering opponents in
their face as soon as the door opens, the thrill and
adventure of impending death!

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