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Marcia,

I think we probably agree, I don't know. You wrote,

"This is the way of life. We have this inside ourselves. Each of our
'i's is a leaf. It is possible to be inside oneself differently than
this and from that internal position to connect with others in that
internal position also."

That's what I'm saying when I write,

"This, I believe, is the core dilemma of being. It simply cannot be
resolved, except in the moment of warm heartedness. May we remember.
Though we cannot but forget. Love is here BECAUSE we forget. Otherwise,
love is meaningless. We must turn our love precisely toward those
without it. That what it's for:
Warmth against the cold."

I'm saying that in love, we can connect. But in no other way. There
is no political solution. There is no consensus that really means what
it says it means.

Christ is said to have warned, "the letter killeth but the spirit
giveth life." People will never agree about much. But when we're in
our hearts,

We are One.

I emphasize, however, WHEN we're in our hearts. And I'm saying it
is a subjective experience. It cannot rest in some other area. That's
why I agree, that whenever you invest in expectations from others, you
will always be disappointed.

But I may be saying something that you're not. I'm saying that it
is utterly impossible to be without expectation. That would mean that
one is without anxiety. And I that without anxiety, there is no love.
For love is the relief from anxiety.

Just as a car cannot move without having a road to move away from.
What's positive about love is that it overcomes negativity. No
negativity, no love.

warmly
~*~
sky


So is there no such thing as unconditional love? How disappointing. how
disannointing.

Love, Mark


Mark my words,

You really crack me up!

"So is there no such thing as unconditional love? How disappointing.
how disannointing."

Don't you know these are serious world shaking issues you're trifling
with!!??

Give me levity or give me death!

(Alternatively, kill me with comedy.)

Anointed by the Big Guffaw (contraction of God Fellow) in the sky
love
~*~
sky

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NDS

Greetings ALL,

Welcome to our new German members!

First, I must ask, is what we are dealing with here, an ethnic issue,
or is it a human issue? Several members have pointed out that it is
only Hitler (German, or is that Austrian?) who is being used as an
example of mass mayhem, to the exclusion of other infamous
mass-murderers such as Stalin and Idi Amin.

This would point out to me, that what we are dealing with is an issue
of humanity, not ethnicity.

On the other hand, it is also about the culpability of the German
people (1930 to 1944?), who allowed Germany to be used as the
platform for crimes against humanity.

And others have rightly stated that our own beloved United States is
guilty of initiating genocidal policies directed against the
indigenous people of the north American continent, and further,
institutionalizing the abhorrent practice of human slavery and
exploitation of kidnapped Africans.

If we examine human history, we see that humans are capable of
immense cruelty to other humans; what I want to point out, is that
this is (from my point of view) a problem of individuals, not
cultures, nations, or races.

Every culture is composed of individuals, but certainly, culture
finds its way into each of those individuals, and it seems that the
majority of those individuals identify with their own culture.

Personally, I feel that it is a huge mistake to mistake culture for
individual, and individual for culture.

Yes, many individuals identity closely with culture; we have many
rabid football fans, who identify with certain teams, as we have many
individuals who closely identify with their nationality or ethnicity.
But if there is a problem with this identification, if it leads to
mayhem (as football and nationalism both tend to do), it is still a
problem of human individuals, not categories of individuals.

It is as much of an error to hold entire cultures to blame, for the
acts of individuals, it is to excuse individuals on the basis of
cultural conditioning. Do you see what I am saying here?

We know that it is improper to excuse the evil acts of individual
persons, on the basis that they had been influenced by numbers of
people; we cannot excuse a violent and destructive soccer-rioter, on
the basis of group excitement. It is acknowledged that an individual
is not innocent of wrongdoing on the basis of 'following orders' or
that 'everyone else was doing it'. We have come at least that far, in
our collective wisdom. Can we go a step further?

We hold people responsible for their acts, regardless of the context,
but can we also hold persons innocent, of allowing context to take
control of individual behaviour? I think that this is what
spirituality is really 'all about'. Spirituality is 'supposed to make
a better person'.

Here, in NDS, there has been talk of becoming so involved in the
esoteric, that basic practical matters go begging. This is true, and
it is always a danger. People are vulnerable to being swept away by
ideas and the feelings engendered by ideas; if enough people are
swept away, what results is a group of ideologues, a mass-mind with
predictable course and momentum. This phenomenon is just the sort of
thing that we are discussing; how can an entire nation be swept up in
a mass-movement, which is entirely destructive by design, and not be
accident?

If we are to learn anything by the lessons of history, perhaps we
could focus on just how it is that human individuals are vulnerable
to group-think; how it is that persons lose their personhood, to gain
the identity offered by a mass-movement. If we look at commercial
professional sports events, and at nationalistic or ethnically-based
movements, we see just how vulnerable 'we' are to such forces.

I offer that if each of us can understand just how world-dream
influences can take over human individuals, that we will have the
answer to how masses of individuals are 'taken over' by mass-movement
ideologies. An individual who does 'his own thinking', who
thoughtfully considers all events, is one who will not contribute to
mass evil. We should be questioning the basic precepts of the
ideologies of 'belief' and 'faith', and every other real or imagined
influence which have traditionally set groups of humans against
each-other.

It is possible to understand the mass-psychology of fascism, but is
it possible for human individuals to deeply examine themselves, to
understand themselves? It is easy to point at others, or groups of
others, and to make judgements of those others, but does the one
making judgements, understand who and what that one is?

How does one person set themself apart, as superior in some way, and
then set about judging others? It is this very trend that we may be
deeply concerned about; it is a matter of individuals, rather than
masses, which I feel should be our focus. And I advocate that we each
have a very close relationship to a certain individual, that being
oneself, and that it be self which is the focus of our examinations,
rather than 'other'.

Thank you for reading,

==Gene Poole==

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Seen at www.egroups.com/messages/oshana

>It's beautiful if Satsang is arising from your
>realization of Truth. Be aware that identification
>runs deep and can be very subtle.

I appreciate all advice. Well, I take it in. One can never be sure
when one will need it. I always keep a Holy Book at the bedside just
in case the Shiva Shakes, not to be confused with the Shakti Shakes,
strike at 4 a.m in the morning.

Interestingly, this spiritual health warning is nearly always given
by Papaji's followers. Something, in me irons out any tendencies to
identify. Anyway, how to identify with being a Teacher? It is a
ridiculous profession. I am most ashamed. No wonder, Ramana ran away,
shaved up, threw away his clothes and hid in cave.

>Many who have had
>this Realization (esp. those who have given Satsang)
>have had to contend with "setting up house" somewhere
>in the mind! At least for a while.

And some have built skyscrapers!

>Many who have been
>living wide open to Truth made many visits to
>Master Papaji, and Master Ramana and had deeper layers
>of identification revealed.

But that sounds suspiciously like "seeking" only under a different
guise. Whatever became of the words "Call off the Search"?

Identification happens! Shift Happens! Who is it that cares anyway?

Is Ramana Ashram now a Chinese Launderette for the daily maintenance
of Awakened Souls? Real sannyasins are naked!

Annamalai Swami was one of Ramana's closest disciples. He got IT, and
was told to move on. He set up next to Ramana Ashram but never again
visited. Why should he? Even Ramana ignored him when they crossed
paths on the Hill.

Didn't Papaji say "Nothing Happened"? So is anything really drowning
daily?

> Yes, it is also my experience that this Pure
>consciousness that we are never leaves, NOW the
>challenge is to not indulge any latent tendency of
>mind.

But who cares if you do indulge?

love dave oshana

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...Apart from that my understanding is, as long as I cannot see Buddha
and Hitler as being one in consciousness, I am still dreaming!

Much love
Sarah Winter



Hi Sarah,

I agree, and as long as one cannot see oneself as the same thing too, one
is dreaming. There is only one of it.(wow)

Love, Mark

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To truly forgive any "person"
is to forgive all "persons",
and the main one to forgive
is myself, for directing
actions on behalf of a
"me" that has no substantial
reality.

To accept that the "'evil' I see
out there" isn't removed or
separated from who I am is
a different issue than
being able to critique
actions that hurt people.


Namaste,
Dan



Further, forgiveness need not be viewed as a
competitive act as Osho seems to suggest (when he states that your
forgiveness is not big enough).

We may as well be comparing our biceps and how much weight we can lift.

Ultimately the only person you can truly forgive is yourself. If that is
done, all else is done.

Ultimately, the only Self you can realize is your Own. There is No Other!

Love to my beautiful and wonderful friends.

Harsha


Dear Harsha,

...and Love to you,
beautiful friend.

You point directly
to Heart, to Self.

Your direct pointing
has no place for
comparison, for
"proving" oneself.

Let me forgive and
release this
"me" and directly
know Love as Self!

This Love is purely
Unknown and Unknowable,
unlike anything
the world ever
constructed.

Blessed be,
Dan


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Hi Sarlo,

<snip>
thank you for sharing Osho's response
concerning finding forgiveness for Rudolph Hess.

What he says reminds me of what is written
in the Christian Scripture

"If you love only those who love you, what
reward can you expect? Even the tax-collectors
do as much as that. If you greet only your brothers,
what is there extraordinary about that? Even the
heathens do as much. There must be no limit to
your goodness, as your Heavenly Father's goodness
knows no bounds".

And from the Buddhist text, the 'Compendium of
Practices', "If you do not practice compassion toward
your enemy, then toward whom can you practice it?"

Melody

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What is real is
what can't be
asserted.

Any assertion taken
as reality, is
mistaken.

In making this assertion,
I find myself
making a radically
dishonest statement.

Love,
Dan

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Hmmmm.... Not to rock the boat or anything... (Oh yeah, I don't even HAVE a
boat to rock), but I WOULD compare myself to Hitler. (Well, hopefully I don't
look terrible in comparison...) But seriously folks, I agree with much of
what Dan has said on this topic. (I haven't been following the thread, having
had a nice weekend away from the computer, but I saw a recent post which
suggested that at least part of the dynamic driving acts of genocide is the
idea folks have of who they are. What was it that made the holocaust happen?
What caused all the other genocides and generally poor behavior in human
history, and in the present? It seems to me that it really does boil down to
who we think we are. If I think I am a separate being and that some aspect of
you as a separate being threatens my existence in some way, I am likely to
defend myself from that threat. Is that not something "I" do? Then the
comparison is worthwhile. I don't think this is a particularly new idea, but
we seem to have our knickers in an uproar over it, and I seem to recall
similar knickers activity from my putative past, so it is a topic worth
looking at. Perhaps the stakes seem too high when we talk about the really
egregious examples, so let's look at our own lives instead of dealing with
history, and see if there might not be some action we have taken recently
ourselves that in retrospect looks like an unprovoked defense (I'm not talking
about provoked defenses here, so don't bother asking me if we ought not defend
ourselves against someone attacking our children with a knife. yes we should.
Let's focus only on defenses which could be seen to be unnecessary.), which
proved to be offensive to someone else. Anybody got any examples?

I'll go first. I am feeling threatened by the second job loss of my
illustrious career, and offended by the fact that the university where I work
has decided to not renew my contract because I have not been submitting grant
proposals regularly like they asked me to. They have every right to do so, as
they made it clear what they were looking for when they hired me, and I have
simply refused to do it. Nonetheless, I am bummed that they don't see me as
so remarkably useful that they want to keep me around anyway. Recently, the
Deans office asked me to spend 40 minutes or so talking to incoming freshmen,
giving an orientational pep talk (telling them to study hard and the like,
warning them about college traps like drugs and drink and excessive popcorn
eating - you know the idea) Well, I basically told them that if they weren't
going to keep me on to do teaching and mentoring activities in the absence of
research productivity, that they were rude to ask me to do this sort of
mentoring activity. Hmmmmm... Basically I told them to take a hike when they
asked me to do the very sort of thing I want to do. How smart was that? I
was rude because my sense of identity was feeling sorry for itself. I did
harm (or at least failed to do good) because of my identification with
something that has no importance in the context of their request. Now it's not
the same thing as making soap from the administration's hide, but it looks to
me like the same dynamic. I imagined that someone hurt me and I hurt them in
response (not to mention hurting myself in the process). Now the person who
asked me to do this task probably has no clue that I have not been
reappointed. (and the fact that i wasn't reappointed was never relevant to the
request in the first place.) So, can we see Hitler's Germany as arising from
a similar (not identical, so don't bother with that one either...) dynamic and
having similar results? the Germans were hurting from an unhealthy economy
and there had for a long time already been enmity over economics between the
Non-Jews and the Jews, and some persuasive fellows were able to whip that into
a frenzy and try to get rid of the Jews. Now they obviously hurt the Jews in
the process and they to my fevered mind hurt themselves horribly as well, by
depriving themselves of their own humanity and depriving themselves of the
comeraderie and friendship of the very people they murdered. What a mess.
Two messes is my point. One small mess for Mark, One giant mess for mankind.
Not so different, just a matter of scale, and so important (I think) to see
that I could so easily scale my mess up and get more and more caught up in it,
each turn on the spiral to Hell being just the next defense on my part against
some putative (I like that word) attack from someone who, to be as honest as
possible from this place of attack and defense, is just defending themselves
from the previous attack from me, which I initated not as an unreasonable
attack, but as a very reasonable defense against.... Well, if you don't see
the dynamic now, perhaps you never will. (oops sorry for that last comment,
it was a defense against future attacks... see how messed up I am? I am
human. (so common sense or no, I compare myself to Hitler and Buddha and
everyone else to maintain my sense of identity. And I will attack you all if
I fail to measure up...)

Love, mark


Oh , by the way.... My intent in comparing myself to Hitler is not to make me
(or
you) feel bad (or good), it is to make it as clear to myself how universal this
thing is, and by doing so to make it clear how serious it is. It's not just a
thing that I do and that everyone else is above and beyond. It is rock solid
deeply ingrained in the world. It is what the world is about - 6 billion
"games"
of defense. And I want very much to be aware of it all the time, as long as I
am
playing it in even the most subtle of ways, and I am not so subtle, folks... I
am
not a subtle defender of the self. This is a dumb game. I don't want to play it
anymore, and yet, I see more and more that it is just about the only thing I do.
I hear now and then that I am struggling with defensive postures that used to
serve me but no longer do. I can hear that about specific things like I am a
fairly solitary person, which arises at least in part from my brother's illness,
which embarrased my family so that we didn't often invite people over, and I can
hear that about existence on this planet in global terms. As an animal, I
needed
to defend myself against being caught and eaten by other animals. As a free
spirit, that is illusion, so the very idea of having a body to defend is
becoming
no longer useful. It's actually rather limiting.

now, to find out what all the fuss was about in the first place. Why have a
body? Gotta go find that amrita nadi...
Love, Mark


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Dear Jerry, dear Melody,

Thank you for your welcome.

Yes I am German from my lineage, I am even born in Austria where also Hitler is
coming
from.
You challenged me to share what does it mean for me.

I remember years of childhood where everything was hidden concerning the past,
children were not allowed to ask, there was shame and guilt and nothing to be
proud
of, no nation. I was 16 when I saw the first pictures about Holocaust. This has
brought me to the generation who has rebelled.

This has also brought me to the search. The shame, the guilt was too much it
had cut
off the feelings. But then there was no live, nothing worth living for.

I wanted to escape and found a Master in Osho who has displayed for me that
what I had
projected out was in me. The whole experience with the ranch around him showed
me that
what I had criticised in my parents it is in me.

Dan, it is just what you are saying it is something else to criticise that to
feel it
is in me.

Greetings

Elly Seidel


Greetings, Elly.


Yes, awareness can take a good look
at "me". Prematurely deciding I'm
going to release "me" makes little
sense. Who is doing the releasing?

The desire or attempt to release my "me"
(or to believe I've released my "me")
is an attempt by "me" to continue the
belief that there's something
"I" can do, or have done, for "me".

Thanks for joining our merry band
of nondual pranksters, er, I mean,
truth-tellers.

Love,
Dan

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xan sent:

The true task of spiritual life
is not found in faraway places
or unusual states of consciousness.
It is here in the present.
It asks of us a welcoming spirit
to greet all that life presents to us
with a wise, respectful, and kindly heart.
We can bow to both beauty and suffering,
to our entanglements and confusion,
to our fears and to the injustices of the world.
Honoring the truth in this way is the path to
freedom.

~ Jack Kornfield



>From the HarshaSatsangh list:


Pleasant is a transitory mindstate, like unpleasant.

Fun is a form of pleasant. Beautiful is too.

As much as it may sound strange, i would prefer if i did not
look for things that were pleasant and felt good. That is hardly
the point of a spiritual path, to wander here & there after what
feels good, is beautiful, etc. Such things to me, are the pursuits
of gods and royalty. Dangerous, like honey-flavoured poison.

Because it ends. pleasure ends, gives way to whatever comes
next, pain or pleasure. Therein is its danger. Its as bad as getting
stuck on the negative side, of aversion. Of avoiding this or that
because it is not beautiful, clean, pleasant.

There is a state of calm. Clarity. Not grasping at the pleasant
and not avoiding the unpleasant. It allows one to stand firm,
calm, able to be of help to others, not perturbed by the
dangerous delusions of grasping and aversion. Totally involved,
yet not moved by the situation from one's core. Crying when it
is time to cry; dancing when it is time to dance.

maitri,

-janpa tsomo

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