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Tuesday, September 12


VICTOR TORRICO: FIXING

Dear Friends,

If I cannot save, fix or help myself how can I expect to
save, fix or help others?

If I cannot recognize truth how can I expect others to
recognize truth?

If I cannot simply be how can I expect others to simply be?

If I cannot be joy and happiness how can I expect others to
be joy and happiness?

If I cannot drop endless idle speculation how can I expect
others to drop endless idle speculation?

What to do or not do? What to do or not do?

May we all be in It As-It-Is and have the experience of It
As-It-Is.

Peace, equanimity, joy and happiness,

Victor

_____________________________________________________________

SKY - ROYAL - GENE: LOVE

High Royal,

Yes, I, too feel most certain that it is the feeling of
love that is all that is ever the point. Ever.

As long as there is the feeling of love, it doesn't matter
what is said, if there is no feeling of love, it matters
even less.

Education can be as much a tool of ignorance as one of
knowledge, of love as of hate.

Royal, isn't love what moves toward it's absence? Yes, this
is a duality, love/not love. But In love, there is only
love, and that is the nonduality. To me, nonduality means
the state of perpetual motion, like a river, of love,
through the absence of love, toward love's source, till it
reaches the ocean of love. And back again. A never ending
cycle.

warm love ~*~ sky

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

Your loving spirit is as a sweet, sweet balm to my heart.
You who have such courage to open your heart to us all. I
have missed our exchanges during my absence. To live always
in love is my dream/reality. The spirit yearns toward it,
but alas the ego still pulls me back too often. When I can
dwell in love at all times -- when I can see love in all,
then I will be home.

I dwell in love as I write this to you.

In Fullness, Royal

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

On the issue of love;
I have no quarrel with love
Love is all before
And after all

Love may be One
Shining Indescribable Object
In infinite blue sky
It is love

And it is loved because
There is room
For something else
In the sky;

To fill the sky
With love
Is to crowd out
Love's companions.

Knowing love,
I know love's companions
I make room for them
In myself

***

King love is blind
Surrounded
By courtiers of every stripe
Universal in judgement

***

Why do we call upon love
But for counsel
In it's absence?
And that is good.

***

Softly to hard
Yet hard to soft,
Love serves
And seeks to meet itself.

***

We say "mystery", yet
"Miracle" is saying;
And how much astonishment
Can a person take?

***

Calm seas
Allow inner voyaging

**

Wide Flow

==Gene Poole==
________________________________________________________________

HANS AND JAN B.: GREETINGS FROM GERMANY

HAN: Hello, some friends told me to join this group to
deepen the understanding and to experience alive sharings
with difficult issues. I am pretty busy to integrate all
the unwanted sides of me, and to find a path through the
jungle of projections, judgements, believes etc. The mere
fact that there is no I experiencing all this does not make
the pain go away, nor the resistance against the pain, nor
the confusion or anything.

JAN: Hello Hans, A good observation - the absence of the
sense of "I" doesn't mean the absence of the potential to
feel pain. But the "good" news, no "I", no sufferer (that
nasty guy "inside", complaining his fate).

HANS: A key issue for me is the capacity to feel. The more
I feel, the more expansion. The problem arises: With a
clear decision to feel, everything comes to be felt, not
only bliss unfortunately. And that is the grace, the work
as far as I can see.

JAN: Yes, that could be called "the sour apple"; feeling
will go on expanding until it embraces the entire universe.
There is no alternative but to accept "what is".

HANS: The thought, that Adolf Hitler might be an
enlightened being gave an axblow to my beautiful spiritual
concepts and actually opened an understanding for
nonduality for the first time. So here I am, very junior,
with a lot of human imperfection in my mind. Greetings from
Germany. --Hans

JAN: The point is that no differentiation can be made
between "enlightened" and non-enlightened". When
enlightened (whatever that is :-), everything is
simultaneously enlightened and that does include the
dictators. If enlightenment had a beginning, it would have
an end, so "everything has been enlightened even before the
foundation of universe".

Don't worry about the imperfections in the mind: the mind
itself is the imperfection :-)

____________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW: PROJECTION OF AND BY 'ME'

When I say this is activity of the "me", I don't at all
mean the "me" of one particular body-mind is "at fault".
That is not what I said, or am saying.

The "me" is the way the body-mind believes itself to be an
autonomous independent entity. The "me" doesn't belong to a
particular body-mind -- it's the other way around: the
conceptualization "separate body-mind" is a means to
establish "me". ;-)

The "mechanism of projection" was very active in Nazi
Germany, but was very active in the U.S. during the Viet
Nam War, the Gulf War, in fact, can be found to be an
over-stimulated mechanism in general during times of
national pride gearing up for war.

Projection (of and by "me") occurs not just with
nationalism, as by Germans onto Hitler, but in religious
movements that have charismatic leaders as well. Hitler's
manipulation of projection through propaganda, and the
scapegoating of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals, is just one
example of ways that images are used to raise and focus
aggression - many examples can be found - as in mass
rallies in Iran, or widespread propaganda in the U.S.
during "the Cold War".

Projection is an essential aspect of the way that
nationalism organizes, can be found very active in the
sense of cultural superiority evident in every major world
power that has ever been. Nationalism parallels the
organization of the body-mind around "me", which will need
to be protected and enhanced.

Projection and "identification" is the activity of "me" and
is how "the masses" identify with a nation that provides
ideals, purpose, rightness, and something "much bigger"
than the vulnerable individual body-mind.

The intent to dominate the world cannot, IMO, simply be
attributed to the condition of "starvation", nor to lack of
resources. In fact, it takes a great deal of resources to
mobilize a war machine as the Germans did.

Feeling humiliated and diminished by the results of WWII
was the collective projection of the "hurt 'me'", not to
mention an authoritarian culture that gravitated to a
leader presenting the illusion of a "strong 'me'".

The "me's" activity is quite noticeable. The "me" was
active before the conditions that led to a sense of
national diminishment, and re-surfaced with a vengance with
Nazism. Nazism began as an idealistic, nationalistic means
to instill pride and order. This isnt' to point fingers:
the American democracy based on the individual
profit-motive surely generated its share of projection and
"me-oriented" activity, not just in demolishing Native
American culture, but very much today in widespread media
"entertainment" and "commercialism" that thrives on
generating competition, greed, and aggression.

Well, end of history lesson. I'm off the soap-box.

This eternal Now-moment is edgeless and open - my mind is
silent and I'm appreciative of the day.

Love, Dan

___________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER AND POU: THE KING AND THE FOOL

Hi Pou,

I thought it would be fun to take a stab at this question
(I think I'm the one who keeps bringing Hitler up in polite
company as if it were relevant to nonduality.) I think it
is, but only in how it helps me to see my own dilemma. I
see myself as having responsibility to look closely at who
I am, just as Ramana Maharshi has suggested. As I try to do
so, what do I see, but all these defenses? Yikes, I am
always checking to see if I have just made a blunder or if
(even worse) someone else is monitoring me for blunders.
Moment after moment of checking to be sure I am doing this
life thing correctly. And if I find a mistake, let everyone
beware, because I will punish myself and anyone standing
near by (because I am so threatened by the potential loss
of self-image). I think this is madness, and I think (maybe
I hope? - so I won't be alone in this) that everyone "else"
is insane too. My point in mentioning Mr. Hitler is that I
think his situation and my situation are only different in
degree, not in essence. I'd like to learn how to undo this
madness in myself because it causes me suffering and I
think it causes suffering in those who are nearby when I am
not subtle about my reactions to it all, which I am getting
less and less as time goes on. I would say that at the
present time, I feel like a puppet of this defense game,
which I could argue that arose from conditioning, and my
goal is to dismantle the string mechanism and become free
from this nonsense. I can believe to some extent, without
having directly proven this, that if the defense mechanism
can be halted that it would turn out to have been an
illusion that never in fact truly existed but just a
thought (an "I" thought) which was never necessary in the
first place.

I don't mean this to be an answer for anyone else, I just
am clarifying my own thinking. thanks.


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

Dearest Mark

Where I live it is time to say goodbyue for all boys and
girls to go to bed. Because you live in the USA and it is
probably dinner time. Anyway a quick bedtime story.

I am touched what you share here. If I may just share a
little. About eight years ago I was in a terrible dilemma.
I was working as a psychotherapist and I really learnt how
to wear the mask - I was looking good going nowhere. But
behind the mask the castle was crumbling. I was living in a
wastleland where crops no longer grew and the people in
this land no longer trusted their king. The King was a
liar; the King was a fraud, and what's more the King was
dying, he was dying in being able to make others leave that
he was really the King. No, this King wasn't called Lear,
this is King Pou, and every day he began the journey, the
journey of the three feet, the journey from his knees to
the ground. The journey that never ever had any other
journy felt so long. I knew always that that the head and
the heart are the furthest things apart from the whole
universe but on the three foot journey it suddenly occurred
to me that the head had invented the heart. The castle
crumbled even more and the last of the people left the
wastelands in search of the new king in the fertile lands.
All the King's friends left him. His queen, his wise man,
and wise woman, but the one who never deserted him as you
can guess was his fool.

One sunny day after the last person had left in utter
disgust at the lies, the deceptions and the promises that
were perpetually held up as truths. THe King fell finally
on his knees and his face fell into the dirt. He asked the
question 'am I in the world or is the world in me?' The
fool started laughing. The King continued asking 'am I in
the world or is the world in me?' And in a moment it felt
like an eternity. The King's rusty old crown toppled from
its place from the King's head and landed in the mud. It's
jewels no longer sparkled for they too had given up on the
Kings' dreams lies and deceoptions. But with the fooling of
the crown, the king's head fell out. This made the fool
laugh even more. For he had always told the King 'take the
three foot journey' but the king could never hear the fool
because he always dreamed of three day journeys to far away
places in searcy of truth and beatiful women and eternal
rivers of wine.

The King slowly got back up onto his knees assisted by the
fool. The Kin looked into his eyes and said to the fool, I
feel for the first time I'm ready to learn from you.

King Mark, for the last eight years, for the last short
eight years the King became the student and the fool
claimed his rightful place as the Master.

Love Pou

PS This wasn't a story explicitly for you Mark, this was a
story that you created an avenue for for me to tell
somebody out there in the universe.

__________________________________________________________________

MARCIA PAUL: DARK ENLIGHTENMENT

POU: John, may I ask the question, could you conceive or
allow the possibility of a dark enlightenment? The reason I
ask is that here in the realm of mind, the state of
suffering is endured through holding one duality to the
exclusion of its opposite. It's at this point it could also
be clear there is no light and dark enlightenment. For who?

MARCIA: I know you are asking John this question but if I
may, I would like answer for myself. I read John's post and
thought, again, how perceptive he is. I did have one
lingering question or pondering which you have pointed to.
I do not think it is totally a matter of man being asleep
that makes the difference between Hitler being a bum on the
corner and actualizing what he did. There are people who
have reached a certain level and have power at their
disposal that the common man doesn't because he is so
asleep and dreaming he is awake. This would be IMO what you
are calling a dark enlightenment. These are powerful
people.

_____________________________________________________________


JOHN DUFF: SEEING IT

There is within my personality a part that sees itself as
'teacher'. This part however, is 'NOT I', it is an aspect
of my personality. With it comes all sorts of emotional and
behavioral baggage, 'doing good', vanity, filling the
messiah complex you spoke of - there are other things,
also, of practical benefit - like allowing for
solidification of (my) conceptual grasp and exposition of
that understanding, developing patience (to write, to read,
to digest), synthesis, attempting to meet others at their
level of understanding, assimilating other's views, to
learn to in turn be taught. Now, what to do about this? Do
I eschew this part of my personality's existence, believing
this denial will somehow eliminate this 'presumptuous' side
of myself?. Do I not express myself because of this
'unflattering' process of identification with a picture of
myself?

Practically, I do precisely what brings this feature up -
where I can see it. Where I can smell it, where I can keep
an eye on it (sometimes). I saw it this morning, before
coming to work. What did I do? Recognized it. Bow to it.
Take my sense of 'I' from it. Hold the picture there,
recognize my projections. Drain it. Throw the picture away.
Judgment? Right? Wrong? None of these are required. Just
recognition and awareness that this aspects exists (within
me) and will come around again. Next time, because there is
constant familiarization with the taste (not denial of it),
one could *recognize* it earlier and move sooner. This to
me is perhaps not the politically correct, but a
*practical* approach to such an issue. No need to be coy,
indirect or self-effacing, for this is also part of
personality and often culturally acquired. Someone states
their understanding, you state your own, from yourself.

If you sense an emotional energy coming from what I write
and a certain flavor of judgment that is because I am in
the Fourth Way perspective a man number two, emotionally
centered, judgment is one of the chief weaknesses of
emotionally centered people. It is also said (the Gospels)
that to make progress on must convert one's chief weakness
into one's chief strength (talent).

What I wrote to Sky about projections of my own low level
of being onto others is true. I try (when I can remember)
to use examples of things I have found and verified in
myself. Therefore I am (trying to) speak from my knowledge
of myself, not knowledge of another or from supposition of
another's motives. Someone states something and a part of
me resonates, I recount what I have observed about this
part of myself in light of a general aim to awaken. I could
be totally wrong and off base about the other person, I do
not know this. I could be misunderstanding. The (other)
person digesting the information is the determiner of the
accuracy of the observations offered - based on their own
self-knowledge. I routinely make an ass of myself this way.
This too, is okay.

One observation of Fourth Way schools are that there are
three methods of thought: Philosophical, Theoretical,
Practical.

Most people believe the Philosophical school to be the
highest, actually, according to the Fourth Way it is the
lowest. The Practical school is highest.

The three schools cannot exist without one another. You
have to have a vision (philosophical) some ideas on how to
attain the vision (theoretical) and then you have to
'do'(practical) it (the theories) to attain (philosophical)
the goal - reverse order to what people normally think.

If it remains on the level of the first two schools
(philosophical, theoretical) subjectively perceived results
are usually (objectively) imaginary (or worse). I can
recount numerous instances of people in long association
with philosophical systems who are less able to cope with
life than your average cab driver, who takes things in
stride and is more adaptable to the blows of life, than
someone who has 'worked on themselves' for some time.


_______________________________________________________________

HARSHASATSANGH MAGAZINE

The first issue of the quarterly HarshSatsangha Magazine
will be out in December. We aim to be a high quality
spiritual journal with diverse and eclectic content in a
variety of areas.

We have several editors now for different sections and are
still looking for more. Here is a partial listing only:

For the Astrology section the editor is Sri Linda. Her
knowledge of Astrology is well known. (By the way, this
reminds me of Sadaji's excellent exposition on identifying
the dates of the Mahabharata War through Astrological
charts - That was quite an excellent article - Sadaji are
you listening? :-).

For the Raw Foods/Vegetarianism section, the editor is Sri
Jan who has been mostly a raw food fruitarian for more than
a decade now. Jan is one of the rare examples of fruitarian
yogis today and exemplifies Ahimsa.

Sri Mark Otter has offered to be the editor of the
stories/poetry section.

Horia will be the editor and writing on the topic of
Resonance.

There are other people like Colette (Web Design editor) and
Gloria Greco helping me in the background as well and I am
in communications with others.

Last week someone left a message on my office phone in an
Indian language that I do not understand. I have listened
to the message several times and cannot make it out. I only
speak and understand punjabi and Hindi. I mention this in
case it was someone from the lists.

Here is briefly what the HS Magazine is all about. I am
pasting this from a previous post.

HarshaSatsangha will be publishing 4 extremely high quality
on-line magazines a year (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer). We
are going to give the Yoga Journal and other big names a
run for their money. :-). The first issue will be out in
December.

We are looking for editors, reviewers, contributors in the
area of the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti,
(and others), Kundalini Yoga, Hatha Yoga, and other yogas,
Traditional Advaita-Nonduality, Poetry, Stories, Astrology,
Health and wellness, Raw Foods and the vegetarian Diet, and
other selected topics. Please feel free to contact me
privately and give your suggestions about what you would
like to see included in the magazine.

We are the Ramana generation!

Love to all Harsha

http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/HarshaSatsangh

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