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Wednesday, August 23


Only preoccupation with what is not real
keeps you from realizing the Truth of who you are
Here and Now.
Desiring anything else,
anything that comes and goes,
is foolish.
The wise one does not do this,
so Love the Lord
with all your Heart.

- Papaji
contributed by Xan

_______________________________________________________________________

dan,

right here,

and blown away
that words can even be "exchanged"
the joy is indescribable
you know!

0=2
and one is not even
in my vocabulary

within and without love,
cee

----------

Where dat Buddha?

Blown away.
Be - lone - a - way.

Words explode
silently
in Infinity,
as Infinity.

Nothing has been said.

Happy Day.
This sparkling unbounded
infinity
is Home.

Oh Say!
Can you,
Cee?
Heeee...

-- Dan

____________________________________________________________________


The Secret

don't worry, nobody has the
beautiful lady, not really, and

nobody has the strange and
hidden power, nobody is
exceptional or wonderful or
magic, they only seem to be
it's all a trick, an in, a con,
don't buy it, don't believe it.
the world is packed with
billions of people whose lives
and deaths are useless and
when one of these jumps up
and the light of history shines
upon them, forget it, it's not
what it seems, it's just
another act to fool the fools
again.

there are no strong men, there
are no beautiful women.
at least, you can die knowing
this
and you will have
the only possible
victory.

-Charles "Hank" Bukowski (1920-1989)
contributed by Gene Poole

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


Nora wrote:

ah bukowski--my daughter (The Poet) is nuts bout his stuff-

you know i believe what he wrote--i really do, but... i
just finished reading a very interesting article about
remote viewing--there really does seem to be a nondual
dimension of reality that contains all knowledge, all
everything in fact, and some people do seem to know how to
access it.. i guess that doesn't necessarily make them
special at all, i'm sure it doesn't, but it would be
interesting to be able to access this dimension-- which
some people do in another way when they have an
"enlightenment experience" or a NDE.. Hopelessly Left
Brained Double Earth

Hi Nora,

We don't seem to talk much, parallel dimensions that rarely
cross perhaps. I admit, I like to listen to you and to me
you're like a mist, with a sort of feline character.

Accesing that dimension is possible, and as you intimate,
the key is in familiarizing yourself, and trusting the
right brain. Actually the work involves an intimate
relation between the two "halves", but in the typical case,
and as in yours, it's more an excercize in working the
"weaker side", or your right side. There are tons of
excercizes and for some, it may require at least a couple
of years. There are some who just cannot, but more than
anything, it is a matter of choice, they just give up
before "it happens".

I have a conference coming up where I will have to explain
the need to break through the intellectual barrier into
experience by basically opening the non-physical channel,
which is historically proven to be located (in humans) on
the boundary between the conscious and sub-conscious minds.

You're right, one does not have to be special to accomplish
it, but for some, it can require a significant amount of
work. The good part is, that one does not have to leave all
other paths, nor change their direction, it's a form of
training that helps open the way to a new way of seeing
things.

Dave
___________________________________________________________________

as a human being
i am no one in particular

just one of the billions
of two legged mammals
thinking i am unique

as the absolute divine being
i am nothing in particular

having no definition
blissfully unique
without a single thought

either way
i is a big fat zero

within and without
cee

____________________________________________________________________

Standing slightly separated but not detached from the
whirlwind of 'me', I silently wish with all my being to
have more faith in the things unseen than that which my
senses show me, and something from inside cradles me in its
loving embrace, allowing 'me' to just let go and be flooded
with love.

--Marcia

_______________________________________________________________

MARCIA

What were your breathwork experiences about? --Mark-O

Hi Mark,

Long time ago. First one was meaningful but the second
seemed to be an attempt to recapture something from the
first. I had been working with a group of friends for over
twenty years and six of us went together to the first one.
The last two years before we went, we had been meeting
daily, early in the morning and most recently doing guided
meditations from J. Small and experiencing altered states
that way so we were primed. So I think the connection
between us and the factors such as the music and the
breathing made a big difference. The second time I went
alone. The first time, what came up for me, was an
extension of some of the images from our morning meetings
and guided meditations.

I have always had a group which I have met with regularly
and worked on personal stuff with. I am wondering if some
of what you get is from that kind of exchange and not just
the breathwork. I meditate with a group regularly and daily
by myself and work with Movements which is, on one level,
is work with the body. There is no substitution for the
kind of subtle energies which can be built up and
accumulated in a group and between members of a group. A
real connection is formed and made and seems to me to be
sort of a safety net in a way. We can help 'hold' each
other. I never feel totally alone even if my friends are
off doing their personality stuff. There is still the
essence connection. Make sense? Gurdjieff calls them
essence friends. --Marcia

_______________________________________________________________

ROYAL'S (DOOMSDAY?) MESSAGE

Time is short. We give the Divine Message of Love to all.
Now we are to spread Agnihotra only. There is no more time
for lengthy discussions on this path. Do Agnihotra and all
the rest unfolds. If we tell people to practice Fivefold
Path, that is enough. All unfolds with practice of
Agnihotra.

The Fivefold Path sets up life patterns based on the
biophyschological techniques given through Vedic knowledge

THE FIVEFOLD PATH

1. Perform AGNIHOTRA for purification of the atmosphere
which leads to automatic purification of mind. 2. Practice
DAAN (sharing of assets in a spirit of humility to reduce
attachment to worldly possessions). 3. Practice TAPA
(becoming better managers of our energy expenditure by
training the body and mind to react to all circumstances in
life with Total Love). 4. Perform KARMA (every action for
self purification only and thus no expectations which bind
us to the material world). 5. Practice SWADHYAYA
(Self-study) for liberation. Who am I? Why am I here? My
work on this planet is to learn to react with total LOVE
with each opportunity given to me.

This is the Fivefold Path for happy living on the planet.
By practicing the Fivefold Path you become better members
of your society, group, religion, community, etc.

Teachings of Eternal Truth by Vasant Paranjpe

In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was One. Several
thousand years have passed since teachings of Eternal Truth
have been let go. NOW IS THE TIME.

Circular movements in air pollution cause friction in outer
atmosphere. Our plants are affected by radiation from the
sun. DARKEST HOUR OF MANKIND IS HERE NOW. No matter who you
are, Agnihotra performed in the home twice each day by any
one person present is going to have an uplifting and
cleansing effect on all.

For further information and Satsangs
http://www.summit.net/home/agnihotra/

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

editor's note: the above generated lots of response. Here
are a couple of the letters:

Perhaps the lifepatterns of the fivefold path come
automatically as a result of maintaining a focus which
connects to Self, rather than working it the other way
around.

So many "religions" define rules on how to behave,
calculating that in doing so, x% are going to eventually
fall into knowledge.

The problem with following fixed paths is that the
conditioning merely replaces existing conditioning. The
light at the end of the tunnel remains conditioned.

Any path counts on Grace. Here we share Grace's gifts. What
worked for me or someone else may not work for others, but
each individual must be free to "try it on" for themselves.
In the end Grace decides.

No time for lengthy discussion? Grace works when she works,
and it seems that Grace is more fluid without conditions.
(Given that we're on a spiritual path).

--Dave/Manchine

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

Agnihotra is an interesting ritual. Consciously or not I
engage in many rituals each day. Maybe only brushing my
teeth in a certain way. What is ritual about? What is the
power, the pleasure, the meaning? Seeing the world as I see
it is a ritual, when the ritual way of seeing changes, the
world changes, disappears, takes form anew.

The individual is a ritual.

--Andrew Macnab

________________________________________________________________________

MANCHINE

A prelude from Stephen Hawking's book, "Black Holes and
Baby Universes".

"In my teens, I built modedel airplanes and boats. My aim
was to always produce working models that I could control.
This was also a part of a drive that led me to invent a
very complicated series of games. There was a manufacturing
game, in which units of different colors where made, roads
and railways on which they were carried and a stock market.
There was a war game, played on a board of 4000 squares and
even a feudal game in which each player was a whole
dynasty. I think these games came from an urge to know how
things worked, and to control them. Since I began my Ph.D
this need has been met by my research into cosmology. If
you understand how the universe operates, you can control
it in a way.

I was sure that nearly everybody was interested in how the
universe operates, but most people can't follow
mathematical equations. I don't have an intuitive feeling
for equations, instead I think in pictorial terms, and the
aim in my book was to explain these mental images.

There were two concepts in particular that I felt I had to
include. One was the so called sum over histories. This is
the idea that there is not just a single history for the
universe, rather, there is a collection of every possible
history for the universe, and all these histories are
equally real. The other idea, which is neccesary to make
mathematical sense of the sum over histories, is "imaginary
time". Finally it is not neccesary to understand exactly
what "imaginary time" is, just that it is different from
what we call real time.

In a Time Magazine review: He has written this book about
the biggest question of all: Where did we come from and
where are we going? The answer that Hawking proposes is
that the universe is neither created nor destroyed: It just
IS. In order to formulate this idea, Hawking introduces the
concept of imaginary time. Still, if Hawking is right, and
we do find a complete unified theory, we shall really know
the mind of God.

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

OK, now it's me speaking:

I made the scientific approach, much as did Stephen (just
not as famous :-) I used to take things apart, turn doll
buggies upside down and spin the wheels, fix the mixmaster
(and efficiently re-assembling it, using even less
components than the origin construction). I was an inventor
at age 10, the electric toothbrush was actually invented in
1959, I just wasn't sure how to take out a patent! I
invented an electric bolt tosser, I could make a bolt stick
into the wall from 2 1/2 feet. Had to go reset the curcuit
breaker every time that I plugged the firing coil into the
wall socket. My mother didn't like the black oxide marks on
the wall sockets either!

Later, for about 8 years, I had my own company as an
inventor and inventor's consultant. Creation was a marvel,
seeing something come out of nothing. My company had a
logo, that hid a secret.

It was a single star... Well, you know my secret. Even then
I knew, but I really didn't understand. That star to me now
is more than I can ever imagine, yet I'm as certain as I've
ever been that the mystery and awe will never end.

The "image" of that star is so misleading, because it can
only be an image from outside. A single point, surrounded
by nothing. Such a point cannot have dimension, as you
"approach", it remains the same, seemingly unreachable. As
you "recede", it remains the same you cannot evade it.
There comes a moment when you have to face the only
incongruity, that "I" am not outside it. Being inside of it
looks like THIS here all around us. The same rules hold for
moving within a dimensionless "object". You can neither
approach nor recede "your bounds" at least physically.

If somthing moves me, or if I learn to move (in a
non-physical manner) I can become fixed in another
viewpoint, whithin which I seem physically mobile, but in
fact it is much akin to the first scenario where I cannot
approach or recede from the star, sort of like a three
dimensional parallel domain. "I" am one of those fixed
views, you are another one of those views. Sort of like
what Stephen Hawking was saying with his "sum over
histories".

Where were we, "inventing", "something out of nothing".
There is just so much truth to that. Making something, some
physical thing, out of nothing is like what magicians do.
When it's done, abracadabra, 1.2.3. then it's magic. When
it's done using an elaborated procedure, then well it's
more real. Inventing television was done using an
elaborated procedure. Sure, if some guy came from the year
1810 and you sat him down in front of a TV and clicked your
remote control, he'd faint when you brought him to the
flushing toilet to change his pants! But to us, no big
deal.

Now the scientists are using long elaborated procedures to
explain what we already know. Unified theory, humph, that's
peanuts! Nonduality, now there's the ticket!

Creation, taking things apart, discovery, seeking, how ever
you do it, it's all part of THIS.

I liked what Jerry said today,

"I find there is that work of vigilance, attentional work,
and at the same time complete trust in 'the universe' or
'source'. It has to do its thing. That's part of the
attentional work, attending not only to the pockets of
denser energy, but to their source, which I think is what
you mean by 'seeing through'. When the attentional work
becomes seamless, then perhaps it could be said one is
'pocketless'."

Jerry

All that I said previously was very visual and
hyperfocused, more as a warm-up excersize, but I feel those
excersizes sharpen the attention, keep it alert and
sensitive. Be permissive with your attention, and know the
intent of its presence. Have absolute faith that the intent
is rooted in the joy of Its own well being, Compasionate in
discovery through creation in you. Just go with it, what
else is there?

_________________________________________________________________


VICTOR TORRICO

This was an email I received about a year ago from Joyce
Short a Canadian Dzogchen practitioner.

------

Get comfortable and let mind and body really relax - no
need to sit in any strict meditation position - relaxed in
a comfy chair is fine. - Locate awareness in space and then
put attention on the breath flowing in and out quite
naturally.

After a few minutes, cease to focus on any particular
object and practice "choiceless awareness", simply
observing whatever objects arise and pass in Awareness.
Notice the following about each object:

It is impermanent It has no existence apart from Awareness,
Itself. Being a form of Awareness, it is transparent to it.

1. Without fixing attention on anything, just consider:

is there awareness of sights? is there awareness of sounds?
is there awareness of sensations? Is there awareness of
thoughts? is there awareness of feelings? Tastes? Etc.

This very Awareness which is right here now, IS that
eternal, self luminous Reality that you have been striving
to realize all along. Since this Awareness is already here,
your striving is unnecessary.

2. Abandon all concepts about experience and simply
observe.

See how appearances arise in Awareness. Since whatever
appears is already present, how can it be avoided?

See how appearances pass in Awareness. Since whatever has
passed is no longer present, how can it be grasped?

See how everything appears in Awareness without the least
obstruction. Since nothing obstructs appearances, there are
no obstacles to be removed.

See how everything passes in Awareness without the least
hindrance. Since everything is self-liberating, there is
nothing to be set free.

Relax into this effortless contemplation of how things
actually are.

3. Without making any adjustments, continue to observe:

Although you say, "forms arise in Awareness," can you
really separate Awareness from its forms? is not Awareness
like an ocean and forms its waves?

Because Awareness and forms are ultimately inseparable,
duality never existed. How then can it be transcended?

Although you say, "I am aware of such and such object," can
you truly distinguish between yourself and the object?
Where does 'self" end and "object" begin?

Because subject and object are, in reality,
indistinguishable, delusion never originated. How then can
it be dispelled?

4. Look! reality is staring you in the face:

You say you cannot eliminate your 'self' but there is no
self to eliminate.

You say you have not attained "Enlightenment" but there is
not the slightest thing to attain.

you say, "I am ignorant of my true identity." but how can
this be? What else is there besides this infinite, eternal,
non dual field of Awareness-and -form which is alreadty
present, right here and now....and now...and now.....

Therefore, surrender all desire for attainment and just be
what you are" Awareness, Itself!

Do not grasp anything, do not reject anything...be whatever
is. "Enlightement" is not a place in which to settle, nor
is 'Gnosis' a state that needs to be maintained. All
experiences, all feelings, all states-whether mundane or
sacred are by their very nature transient and ephemeral.
Without maing an attempt to either hold on or push them
away, simple remain identified with awareness, Itself and
continue to practice effortlessly.

By practicing effortless contemplation you will develop the
realization that the self is empty of any inherent
existence. Thus, while objects continue to appear in
Awareness, the delusion that they are being experienced by
some'one' will subside. This state of profound selflessness
or Awarenesss-without-a-subject is often a prelude to full
awakening. What is missing is the complimentary realization
that not only does the 'self' lack any inherent existence,
but so do objects. Consequently, as long as objects seem to
exist in their own right there is no Gnosis. However, if
you remain in the state of Awareness-without-a-subject then
as Awareness-without-an-object finally dawns, you will
realize that the now vanished objects were, in themselves,
only imaginary projections of this objectless Awareness.
Furthermore, you will realize that your own
Awareness-without-a-subject is, in fact, indistinguishable
from (and thus identical to) Awareness-without-an-object.
In other words, you will directly and simultaneously
apprehend not only the True nature of your "self" but the
true Nature of all 'objects" and 'worlds' - which is to
say, Awareness-without-an-object-and-without-a subject.
This is the end of the Path.

_____________________________________________________________________

"Thinking that I must do this or do that is simply a story.
If I have to move one millimeter, it is of no interest to
me. What I want is none other than what I have. If I look
deep inside myself, I don't have to make a single movement.
Anything that I can find outside myself, I may loose. I go
nowhere, I stay where I am. If I'm in jail I stay in jail,
if I'm in an ashram I stay in an ashram, if I'm at home I
stay at home. Out there, there is nothing waiting for me.
To think that there is anything other than what is here
right now is a total fantasy and it prevents grace from
being felt."

--Eric Baret: http://members.aol.com/bhairava1/graceGB.html

_______________________________________________________________________

PARSLEY, SAGE, MELODY AND GREG

Hi Melody,

You mentioned using sage in the house. How do you do that?
I love the smell. I bought a sage bundle at a Greenwich
Village Native American boutique a few years ago, but never
used it. Should I get a fresh one or do they last? How do I
light it, use it, etc.? Thanks!

Love,

--Greg

Hi Greg,

A woman in New Mexico, who was a student of an elderly Hopi
shaman taught me what she was taught:

With dried sage bundled up and lit at the end, the fire
quickly dies down such that the bundle simply smokes.

A large feather then is used to help guide the smoke.

To 'cleanse' a person, the person is made to stand with
arms stretched out to the sides, and the smoke is then
feathered onto another beginning at the frontside... at the
feet, working upwards and accross the arms. Once at the
face, the person being cleansed cups their hands and brings
the smoke to their face and over the top of the head. The
process continues on the person's backside.

when I smoke my house I begin at one end and feather the
smoke, while I visualize all impurities and negativity
being washed away. I end the process by feathering the
smoke out the front door as if I'm ushering impurities out.

I, too, love the smell of sage.... ... there are so many
varietes, and they all smell different. The desert sage
that used to grow wild near where I lived remains my
favorite.

Once the sage is dried, it doesn't go stale.....I don't
think! In New Mexico, I could buy sage leaves in a bag, and
I used to crinkle them into a conch shell to light. I
really liked that, but I can't find that stuff anymore here
in Missouri.

Melody

________________________________________________________________

When I decide to have fun, I loose all anxiety and boredom
and feelblissful. So I'm thinking that enlightenment is
just "fun." I feelstoned all the time now. So, I'm
wondering why we have to go throughall kinds of convoluted
processes, when we could just consciouslydecide to just
have fun all the time. I know this sounds incrdiblynaive
and childish, but I'm 51, and this has never really
occurred tome. I mean, "awarenes," and "compassion," and
"freedom," don'treally do it for me. But "fun," really does
it, like totally, forme. So what the hell's been going on?
Yes, I'm generally a blissful person. But not like THIS!
Andall I did was just glom onto a word that DOES IT for me.
So, until Iget some better perspective, I'm putting this
question out: WHO WANTS TO TELL ME THAT FUN AND
ENLIGHTENMENT ARE DIFFERENT? OK, sure, "fun" seems more
temporary. But, as far as Ican tell, "enlightenment" is
really just total commitment topermanent fun. So, it's just
a question of relative "stubbornness,"or, as I say,
"commitment."

--Sky

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