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Wednesday, September 6



But O how wonderful!
I am the unbounded deep
in whom all living things naturally arise,
rush against each other playfully,
and then subside.

- Ashtavakra Gita (via Xan)

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Bodhidharma's eyes
crash over me
with forceless force,
leaving this feeling:
the calm after the storm.

Bodhidharma's eyes,
heavy branches laden
with sublime flowers' perfume,
rouse me, intoxicate me
taking root in my heart

Bodhidharma's eyes
set me afire
a conflagration of borrowed manacles
Ah! They were paper after all
I am light as ash

Bodhidharma's eyes
are open sky.
They are driving gales before which
these clouds dissipate:
insubstantial vapor

Bodhidharma's eyes
molten, razor-keen
flash of steel blade
I am forged in this crucible
a vessel neither empty nor filled

Bodhidharma's eyes,
My Guru's eyes:
Sparkle with delight,
Smolder with compassion,
Blaze with love.
Now why hasn't that fellow got a beard?

--Daniel Heller

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MARCIA PAUL ON THE WAY OF THE KITTY

Hey guys!!!!

I have discovered a new Way; the Way of the Kitty.

Seriously with a small s, has anyone every tried rolling on
the floor just like a kitty and playing with a kitty? I
don't mean the human petting the kitty or the human with a
string and a kitty stuff but actually like you are a kitty?
It is quite something to do the whole body thing and swat
out with a paw at the other (much smaller in this case)
kitty. And then roll gently together round and round.
Purring is the hard part.

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DAN BERKOW AND ROYAL

Greetings Dan,

You wrote:

"The universe is my body. Because this is true, there is no
universe, there is no body. As there is no body, there can
be no identification as a body. I am not the universe or
the body. For that reason, only the universal body is."

Can you expand on this for me? I'm getting all tangled up
in the words and having difficulty finding my way through
to understanding.

This is where I'm at right now.

If the universe is my body and my body is illusion then the
universe also is illusion within the sole reality of Divine
Consciousness (universal body).

Am I anywhere near what you meant?

With Love, Royal

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

Hi Royal, You are so near that your mind and body are
dissolving in It ;-)

I can expand on this, intellectualize it, make it seem like
a meaning is being communicated.

Then, for sure I've lost it.

It is immediate and total, or it isn't.

But hey, let's explain the unexplainable, why not? ...

What is this body? It is the universe. This can be seen
scientifically or poetically. The atoms, which can't
actually be defined as locatable entities, constantly
interact with surroundings, energy constantly moves
through. Without food, air, water, space, this body can't
be. So it *is* the food, and the planet that grew the food.
It is the air and water.

The universe "grows" this body, which is indistinguishable
"really" from the universe.

Because I and universe are not-two, there can't be said to
be "universe" or "body".

Thus, there is no 'body' to identify with, no 'I' to do the
identifying.

This is the "universal body" - unspeakable, nonlocal.

If conceptual misperceptions are cleared, resolved, only
this unspeakable nature is. The universe of mental creation
dissolves - it never existed as thought to exist. The
thought that supports the view of a body in an external
universe dissolves. Only the universal body is left - Tao -
nothing to think about, maintain, continue, describe, or
explain.

Namaste, Dan

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KRISHNMURTI SPEAKS (via Bruce Morgen)

Question: I am contaminated by society. How am I to be free
of that contamination?

K: Surely, the question is not how to be free of that
contamination, for then you merely create another conflict,
another problem. The 'I' is not contaminated by society; it
is the contamination. The 'I' is a thing that has been put
together through conflict, through envy, through ambition
and the desire for power, through agony, guilt, despair.
And is it possible for that 'I' to dissolve itself without
conflict?

These are not theoretical or theological questions. If one
is at all serious about understanding oneself, one sees
that any effort to dissolve the 'I' has a motive; it is the
result of a reaction, and therefore still part of the 'I'.
So what is to be done? One can see the fact and not do a
thing about it. The fact is that every thought, every
feeling, is the result of society with its ambitions, its
envies, its greeds; and this whole process is the 'I'. The
very act of seeing this process in its entirety is its
dissipation; you do not have to make an effort to dissipate
it. To see something poisonous is to leave it alone.

J. Krishnamurti, June 10, 1962, London, England

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JOHN DUFF ON WHY IT'S CALLED FOURTH WAY

It is called the Fourth Way to distinguish it from the
other three paths of attainment <publicly> available to
those in life. The First Way or, the Way of the Fakir, has
to do with attaining Will by subjecting the physical body
to tremendous privations. By doing this the practioner
creates 'something' not subject to the influences of the
body, over which (s)he has gained mastery. Climbing Mt.
Everest, Hatha Yoga, <above mentioned>, marathon runners,
maintaining the same posture, etc. may be said to fall in,
or border, this category of spiritual pursuit.

The Second Way or way of the Monk is attainment through
emotional discipline. Ways of Faith, replacing many
emotions with just one, devotional discipline - whether to
God himself as abstraction or concept - or in the person of
one's teacher or guru fall into this category. Belief is
core to many of these practices as before one attains Faith
one must have confidence and trust one is being shown the
proper path. Love, or talk of love, or external physical
displays simulating the bodily postures and queues of love
dominate.

The Third Way or the Way of the Yogi is attainment through
intellectual discipline. One thought, replacing many
thought or the mill-race of intellectual associations.
Obviously, that thought can be to have no thoughts or one
of just pure experience or observation. This, however,
still remains a concept - with an observer. Zen is the
classic example of this path in my mind, Taoism is another,
as are many of the East Indian non-dual practices.

We are offered that the first Way is the slowest, most
painful (obviously), and riskiest in terms of 'getting
something', but not what you were aiming for. The second is
faster than the first, and the third is the quickest - in
terms of results start to finish for the first three ways.
It should be mentioned that all of these ways have aspects
to varying degrees of the other two, yogis do Hatha yoga,
monks used to flog themselves or take oaths of silence,
fakirs have faith they will attain their aim, etc. But the
primary focus is the use one of the human aspects for
attainment. All of these ways usually carry with them some,
if not a total, withdrawal from the distractions of life to
focus on the purity of the practice.

The Fourth Way is the balanced use of all three ways at the
same time and it is done within life. It is a requirement,
in fact, that one stay engaged with, and in, life. It has
been called the hardest of all the paths because there is
no aspect of one's existence that can put aside to focus on
another. Also there are the same habitual distractions and
noise of life one was formerly carried away by.
Bodily/physical sensation, emotional experiences and
psychological experiences must be accommodated, accepted,
understood and digested - as much as one is capable of
doing this - at the same time. Then one must try again.

From one perspective, if we sort of squint and turn our
organs of perception the right way (maybe slightly askew),
we might see this as a description for being totally in,
and experiencing most fully, the present moment.
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MANCHINE AND SKY ON EXPERIENCE OF BEING

SKY: The distinction between the physical and the
nonphysical seems gratuitous and fraught with immense
pitfalls. Many so called Hindu "saints" spend their whole
lives torturing their bodies in order to shed their
attachment to their bodies. I find that unappealing. They
just don't seem to be having fun. If they are, then they
are.

MANCHINE: OK, let's get back to something that we can both
relate to, BOTH at once, instead of distinguishing between
the two. When I say I don't live in a physical world,
perhaps a clearer description would be "not restricted to
just physical...", although clearly I'd have to say
predominantly non-physical.

I really didn't have to torture myself, although it took
almost 50 years to "get it", but I took my time. I suppose
that was torture enough!

To me it's physical as in "things in a dream seem physical
and real while you're dreaming". Also clearly, THIS dream
is quite a bit more intense and detailed. And like any
other, it's difficult to distinguish that you are "in it".

SKY: I don't know how to "be" them, though, of course, I
am. (What does it feel like to spend 10 years standing over
a swing? What does it feel like to roll on the road for a
few hundred miles to get to a sacred temple? Not just
physically, but emotionally, conceptually, etc.) Yes, we
are all One body, as you pointed out in your earlier post.
And, as you so appropriately put it,

"When the touching happens as I said yesterday, through
that point in the chest, there is more warmth. That warmth
sky IS the essence of All."

MANCHINE: This process of "awakening", IMO doesn't end
'till all the physical lights go out, and I'm not even sure
if it finishes then.

There are many phases, and there are a few of them that
feel like "the end", like there's nothing more to do. In
the earlier phases, its a personal journey, maybe there,
solitary work, ten year swing rides and other torture may
be useful, but there comes a time (maybe) where ka-ching!
the reality appears that it is not personal.

Often it's at this point that some feel, "well it's all a
dream, so fuck the rest, let them sort it out for
themselves", but it's more complicated than that!

I'm still suffering! Me, that goof on the swing, or me
fighting over some piece of land or me the mother of her
dead drug dealer.

We can see all this stuff like, "well it's there to show
them, so they have to figure it out". We can see it like,
"nobody shows nobody nothing... they "do" figure it out
themselves whether it's because somebody showed them the
right "hard lesson" or somebody took the time to create an
ambient of "Grace"."

I noticed that every time I think I understand this thing,
it gets deeper. I notice that I learn more when I talk like
now, and I learn that others do to.

SKY: But, when you say,

"Another thing, I don't live in a physical world... and I'm
not crazy either!,"

I need some experiential illustrations. What does it feel
like to live outside the physical world?

MANCHINE: Quite a bit like lucid dreaming only longer and
slower. And often very still. Life happens around you, in
the only way it can and ever will. It plays out, precisely,
it seems like you knew it would play out just like it did,
but every instant is new.

It feels just like THIS!

SKY: What does it feel like not to be crazy? (I've never
experienced either sensation, myself.)

MANCHINE: Are those rhetorical questions?

There was a point when I was on the edge of being crazy
over all of this. My experiences of "being" were so intense
it presented a paradox that I could not escape from, until
that warmth let me unite with it. That warmth let me become
"being". "Being" is NOT physical.

That warmth let me feel not crazy.
_________________________________________________________________

JIVANO

There are no guidelines in "spirituality" - but (far too)
many, many line guides.

Shrines and portals to reach to onself are for idiots or
cheats. Idiots try them, cheats sell them.

Space is destroyed by entering it - oneself is destroyed by
space entering. Another word for space is love.

To create a Master-phenomenom like (say) modern Esoteric
5.000,000 people plus one Tao plus 30 years are needed. To
get rid of all Master-phenomena will take less time (I
hope).

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