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Wednesday, September 13


Hello. This is another lengthy edition of the Nonduality
Salon Highlights. There were well over 100 posts yesterday.
Thank you for reading the Highlights.
--Jerry
________________________________________________________________

INGRID

Dear everyone in the Nonduality Salon,

I'm new here and I've enjoyed reading the different
viewpoints and contributions so much because of the
underlying feeling of LOVE that does allow everything - not
only the "goodies". I'm feeling touched by the warm
welcomes and can also under- stand when someone says, What
does this rambling have to do with the work I myself can
only do?

I'm German and you might call me a shame-based person.
Maybe being born into Germany is just a wonderful starting
point (call it excuse) for feeling lots of shame... I
wonder.

For me it's about feeling all that which I would have loved
to keep projected out there (which I used to call evil,
odd, ugly and so on) AND at the same time becoming able to
express myself in words. Getting out onto this stage,
showing myself with the frailties and uncertainties, while
knowing the ONE consists of light and darkness, is a
challenge and a remedy at the same time.

In this sense I'm sending you my love. Ingrid
________________________________________________________________

ROSE VIRCHOW

I am new here - and another German - and it still is not so
easy for me to feel proud to be one - this is what I feel
right now and I was not so aware of it before and still
tried not to see this - It was interesting to watch myself
- tiptoeing and reading all your letters from today -
feeling welcomed through some of them very much - that
there were almost tears - and now again tiptoeing carefully
and start writing this letter - here was spoken about
Hitler a lot and even if I was born after the war I still
carry shame and guilt with me and this particularly becomes
strong right now in this moment when I "admit" to you and
say "I am German" and remember the times when I was as a
child and in youth in other countries - when I felt this
judgement coming from others. I did not even know anything
about politics at that time. And it is a gift to me right
now to become conscious of this right now what I ( and I
believe others) am still carrying and what pulls me down.
And now I do understand the better that my longing to be
free started very very early and pushed me onto the so
called spiritual path. It is the pain who does that because
I missed so much to be allowed just simple and human. Now
here it is as if I walk through a door where after I have
entered I am standing naked. - So, thats great, I stepped
through another door into a room I do not know yet and look
around. Where am I and who are you? - It took quite a while
for me to get into NDS - I was reading the letters the last
few days and had also a strong pull to sign in. It is
almost time to get up for me and go to work - but the full
moon seemed to hold me and helping me staying here on the
computer. My English is not the best and I need some time
to "tune in" to this. Thank you for listening. Love, Rose

_______________________________________________________________

LILLY AND JAN B.

LILLY: I'm joining the NDS since today and have been
reading many of the dialogs for hours.

What catches me most are the talks about strong and
embarrissing feelings. As I experience them, they defintely
are sitting in my body, where I may have stored them by not
wanting them or they are inherited through my whole lineage
(and culture) in my cells. More often I meet this unwanted
feelings in other people and have to be pretty aware to not
deny them that way – it is "the other", not me. Nothing
helps but feeling!

JAN: Contemplation will help too - like contemplating why a
feeling can't be just that feeling but has to be judged in
wanted/unwanted, good/bad etc.

LILLY: Through love only – and I mean the appreciation of
mySelf in a non- judgemental attitude– I'm able to go
through the whole storage of anger, hate, lust for power,
sexual-lust, misuse a.s.o. which we call the dark side of
the moon, but in whole it feels female, round and
mysterious and everybody loves to look at the light side.
Right now I'm sitting in the light of the still full moon
and feel its power.

JAN: Many so called unwanted feelings are a result from
bringing up and culture. The classical example being
burping, in the West causing embarrassment but not so in
China.Why not accept all feelings "as are"? Suppressing
feelings doesn't solve anything - more likely it will bring
problems. Taboos are the cause for suppression and whatever
is forbidden will become magically attractive (remembering
some "farting" threads on the list :). Also I am reminded
of a story by an Arab, who said Western women were utterly
unattractive because their faces and legs were so visible
:) Then, it is forgotten that mind and body mutually
influence each other - for instance, sexual lust can be
caused by a wrong diet. Ignorant of that, one is unable to
differentiate between lust and love - a sure scenario for
suffering. Mood also is greatly influenced by diet - it can
cause a real bad temper one is directly suffering from and
indirectly, by the responses one will harvest through one's
behavior... The so called "dark side" is man-made - in
nature there is no excuse for ignorance/stupidity.

LILLY: So what does the image of HITLER provoke in me is my
utter ugliness and the feelings of unworthiness and shame –
I can't help but this is me in my inner spectrum.

JAN: Today, everyone will agree that the UN is very useful.
It was founded after WW II, in order to prevent such an
event from ever happening again. And WW II also "birthed"
the foundation of what now is the European union. If only
these organizations had been founded earlier, history had
been very different. But this is the sad history of life on
planet earth: always something very tragic has to happen
before measures are taken to prevent it from happening
again. And how "bad" humans are when it comes to learning -
despite the experience of WW II, is shown by the tragedies
in Bosnia and Rwanda that couldn't be prevented. This
doesn't make Hitler a "good guy" nor gives him a merit - he
was the instrument. But at least the Germans acknowledged
and took the consequences. The Japanese still haven't done
that and their textbooks on history are a falsification of
what happened - "losing one's face" is the motive for that.
Knowledge obscuring karma results in neglecting that, what
should require our full attention. Without that attention,
suffering will result. Some will only stop smoking when a
lung cancer develops whereas others will stop when knowing
smoking is a health-hazard.

LILLY: I like to more participate – it seems to be a good
practicing ground! Greetings to you all

____________________________________________________________

RALF WIENKEN

I saw in the E-Mail-Group that Hitler was mentioned and I
have read most of the following mails

I want to add some thoughts.

Hilter and Nazism cannot be understood by sociological
and/or psychological explanations. Or does anybody really
believe that this phenomenon arose in Germany between 1925
and 1933 only because the german economy had crashed or
because all the germans were nutcases?

Nazism can be understood only if its religious and
spiritual dimensions are included. All witnesses of this
time mention the spiritual fascination of hitler, of the
symbols, of the Party and of the people`s alignment.

Why is is important to make such statements in an
E-Mail-Group about spirituality? Because Spirituality in
itself is neither good nor bad. It can be used, and it was
used throughout the whole history by forces which we name
good and evil.

These forces exist not only on the abstract level of social
systems, but also in us.

That means: if someone is awaken, this doesn’t necessarily
mean that all evil is gone. We have the concept that these
people are loving, adult, caring – maybe crazy somehow, but
essentially on the good side – on the side we like to see
them.

But how often have charismatic people, who clearly had an
understanding of the nature of the Ego, lead their
followers to desastrous actions?

Are we really prepared to meet the devil (and the god) in
us and in the outer world? Or are we still remaining in an
spiritual identity, doing meditations, eating plants,
hoping for the best?

Waldfee, Germany

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

GENE POOLE

Thank you for this, Ralf. You share a perspective that is
needed.

Spiritual fascism is indeed a reality today, as it was in
pre-war Germany. And it has to do with social groups and
individuals, both.

In the USA, ranks of fanatics are always ready to march, to
murder, to cause harm, in the name of religion, or in
support of an idea. We must all be aware of this tendency,
which seems to be universal among humans.

It is, in my opinion, certainly worth a small amount of
personal discomfort to consider these things, especially if
we consider how our world would be, if no attention were
given to our vulnerabilities.

Thank you, and welcome.

____________________________________________________________

POU TO GREG GOODE

Beloved Greg.. Divine principle of intelligence.. Love
Supreme..

I had all my upper crowns done in a surgery in northern
Germany. I'm not German but for reasons only known to God
I've needed to go to Germany a lot. While I was having the
crowning work done, and I'm sure that you are aware that in
certain circumstances crowning requires much gold. I asked
the dentist - do you have any idea where this gold has come
from? I did not suggest any Advaita principals to Herr
Doktor! Back here in the UK while having my lower teeth
crowned, dental surgeons here have remarked the excellence
of the work that I've received in Germany. Sometimes I've
said to the dentist, yes, and I wonder where this gold
comes from.

I don't need to remind you Greg that 60 years ago there was
a holocaust in Germany and the gold fillings were removed
not only from Jewish people but also homosexuals, gypsies,
anything left of right. I'm sure you get the picture.

Divine principle in this dream play where I get to play the
part cfalled Pou and you get the part called Greg, we pick
our pay cheques up at the end of the week and we both know
who we really are. Not only from a wedding ring to a dagger
but from a dagger to a gold crown.

Love Pou

___________________________________________________________________

ROYAL AND POU

I received this from Light-Mission and thought it
beautiful, so I wanted to share it with you.

E.J. at Light-Mission said:

"As Namaste is to say *may the Divine Essence IN me Embrace
the Divine Essence IN you as a Divine Essence of One*, so
too Metta is to say *may the Loving Kindness IN me Embrace
the Loving Kindness IN you as Loving Kindness of One*, so
too Zikr is to say *may the Self Remembering IN me Embrace
the Self Remembering IN you as a Self Remembrance of One*.
It is in the Inner Embracing of each other that we Realize
that we are all cut from the same bolt of cloth yet most do
not Realize it yet.

My Love to You All,

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

Dear Royal

May I ask you if you feel it is possible to repeat this
what you share here in front of the photo's of Adolf
Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Idi Amin, Malocovich, Pol Pot,
Nixon, and any other expressions that evil should work
through here... Do you honestly feel that you could look
into the eyes of any of these beings and honestly say you
are from the same cut of cloth..

Pou

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

I am yet a baby on the Path, yearning toward realization,
but not yet able to dwell in Grace totally and irrevocably.
Knowing that duality IS NOT, but not yet ONE with
nonduality. So I continue in my contemplation of that which
realized beings and non-realized beings share with me,
searching for the core of truth, until one day I may become
enlightened.

It is my belief that all is the manifestation of Divine
Consciousness. So, yes I think I could look into these
beings' eyes and honestly say we are cut from the same
cloth. But we all fashion our garment on the basis of our
state of Being. I might not admire the garment, yet still
the cloth is lovely.

Royal
_________________________________________________________________

MICHELE

Hello,

I am new in the salon and have read what some of you wrote
about Hitler...

I would like to add something...

As I see it not only the word 'Hitler' has become a
powerful tool for propagandists to use for, but also his
picture. Last year a advertising agency in Berlin designed
a campaign for a political party (FDP) and they had
prepared a big poster to hang all over Germany showing a
photo of Hitler beside Osho and Freddy Krueger (!). The
message was concerning the education policy and the text
said something like: "If we don't show our children the
way, they will find their own teachers". The reactions on
this campaign were vehement and they were large discussions
in the newspapers. The result was that the posters were not
hang in public. Not only the political context but to use
Hitler's picture was a total provocation. As I see it (
coming from Southamerica and living over 17 years in
Germany) Hitler is still a taboo in Germany, remains
undigested. His body might be dead - but Hitler as denied
part of consciousness is still very alive! There is a
collective incapacity of allowing to see him as "inside
me", as part of "myself".

Michèle

___________________________________________________________________

HANS AND MARK OTTER ON HITLER

HANS: Hello all, after spending the last 20 years again and
again being confronted with the issue of nazism (being
raised in East-Germany, total denial there), I followed the
group discussion very attentively. The main point in
historical research concerning Hitler is always: How could
this man (a bad artist, an austrian meaningless private)
attract so many intelligent people in such a catastrophy?
He attracted intellectuals, artists, generals , mothers,
children .... Of course you have economical circumstances a
lost 1.world war, whatever. No personality I believe can be
so radiant to destroy half of the world within 12 years.
Impossible. The first KZ (Dachau) was established after 3
month(!) of Hitlers claim to power in 1933. When I ask the
generation of my grandfather about that time I usually get
two kind of replies: Denial and shame mixed with
fascination. To be very clear on that point, I am not a
Nazi or a right winger or anything. I enterd the issue from
the other side, from the pain of million people killed in
KZs. But I always had the feeling this is just half of the
truth.

Hitler is reported to express exactly the common believes
of the people just listening to him at that moment.

Who says that the Self is showing up always in light? When
I look at old films when Hitler was speaking, all I could
see was love speaking throuh his eyes, no matter how
awfully cruel the words were. I actually could not see any
difference to Osho or Ramana or any great master. I heard
the master attracts you in the teaching by telling you
sweet lies in the beginning (confirming your concepts,
giving you what your ego needs, approval, sex whatever).
And give you the axeblow to free you eternally.

If Auschwitz and the 2nd world war was not an axblow to the
whole mankind, I don't know what it was.

And this is my point of view as an ashamed German being. We
collectively cannot stand the fact, that God can give birth
to such evil. Through the German people. After
Schopenhauer, Mozart, Wittgenstein, Goethe, Schiller....

A friend of mine suggested to me going to Dachau and
holding the thought "all what happened here is God". It is
an experience that I can highly recommend.

Love.

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

MARK: Thank you for this post. I think that issues like a
people's collective shame need to be brought into the
light, and I am so glad you are doing so. As a 4th
generation American of German descent, I remember feeling
shame about my own heritage in junior high school upon
learning about the holocaust. This increased upon seeing
such films (as an adult) as Shoah on PBS, which showed the
bodies of concentration camp victims piled high, and the
incredibly skinny living prisoners being liberated, etc. No
need to recount it all, it happened, now what do we do with
it? I think it is very important to root out our shame and
be done with it. (to learn from it but to stop suffering
from it and propagating such suffering). It is amazingly
painful to get in touch with inner shame, but it gets worse
the longer we keep it hidden. I have shame about an adult
lifetime of alchohol misuse, and am doing work to expose my
own shame in a holotropic breathwork community which is
beginning to explore gestalt therapies. I welcome other's
suggestions about how we can bring our personal and our
collective shame into the light of love to let the energies
go free. I think Scott Peck has drawn a very interesting
picture of evil in his book People of the Lie, which
(although I read it years ago), I summarize as "evil is
what happens when we allow ourselves to hide parts of
ourselves and refuse to acknowledge them". As my desire for
nonduality grows and I find myself abandoning what I
thought was my life to pursue it, I find myself becoming
intolerant of any of my own lies. Sharing means of
eliminating them so they don't come back is becoming
central. I say all this in the context of your post because
shame for something others did seems to be not quite true.
I can relate to it, having shame for how my grandfather
boxed my father's ears and caused some hearing loss during
drinking episodes, and then comparing this to my own
periods of not being quite sure what I have done during
drinking episodes but feeling that it may not have been up
to my sober standards. I would like to let my grandfather
off the hook as I go find out what I did and make amends
and forgive myself as well. I hope the German people can
find a way to forgive themselves and that the rest of the
world will join in. For the world to keep the hatred going
by hating Mr. Hitler and to let some of that leak over onto
the present German population is to keep hatred alive,
which just harms us. Let's collectively find a way to
dismantle all of it. (I don't know how, but I am willing to
work to help us find ways.)

thanks. Love, Mark

___________________________________________________________

SKY: EMBRACING THE DARK SIDE

I get the impression, both from what I hear and from my own
experience, that there is a tendency to make
conquest/acceptance of one's "dark side" a kind of humble
and "courageous leap into the unknown." But my experience
is that this approach, for me, is a bit off. The "solution"
tends to feed the "problem."

One might say that there really IS no "dark side." In which
case, I would suggest, there is none. I mean, all those we
label "evil," isn't their main characteristic that they
themselves seem to be a bit overactively labelling others
"evil," ("evil Jews," "evil capitalists," "evil heathen,"
etc.). What if the very effort at confronting, "facing"
the, one's, "dark side" was itself what made us "dark"?
Now, wouldn't that be scarey, "dark"?

But that is what I'm saying: there is no dark side! It's
just part of the dualism, dark/light. In love, there is
only love.

And even if there were a dark side, I would then agree with
Osho that one shouldn't waste time examining it. He likens
it to staring carefully at the darkness in a dark room.
Just turn the light on, he proclaims. Focus on the light,
not on the dark!

Thus, practically speaking, instead of analysing one's
resentments, problems, conflict, I suggest focusing on the
love one feels and moving out of it's fullness, a radiant
warmth from the heart.

Thus, to "understand" Hitler, or any boggy man, focus on
his goodness, focus on his inner light. Boggy men are dark
rooms. Turn on the light. Because the subject is never
either right or wrong, light or dark, but one's own
personal relationship to the Universe Itself: How to bask
in ITS warm light. We need never either condemn or forgive
anyone. No one is concerned. Only the One is the real
issue. Love IT and all else will follow in the light.

Another word for condemn is to denigrate, from roots
meaning "to darken." But darkening (or naming things dark)
never shed light on anything.

(Am I saying that it's dark to darken, thus darkening or
denigrating the act of darkening, denigrating? No, I'm
saying that behind even that is light, nevertheless, if one
refrains from darkening even that, instead to focus on The
Light.)

______________________________________________________________

TAMARA

Dear all, the name of this manifestation here in Bavaria
(south Germany) is Tamara. I am an advaita addict and enjoy
very much the conversations of this group and it seems to
be on a very mature level and playful. Therefore a feeling
is here of wanting to participate to give something to the
"bigger picture" of what is or only appears to be. I assume
that most of you have another cultural background than me
and in sharing our viewpoints this creates in my experience
a bigger horizon and understanding for everyone. In
expressing that what I am .... please apologise, if the
translation or words is sometimes not appropriate, but this
should be no barrier.

Since years playing with the advaita concepts there seems
to be always this paradox and difficulty how to express
nonduality in terms of duality. Also speaking from the
impersonal or personal level. (there are no levels of
course)

My feeling is also that it is extremely important to
discuss matters of actuality and share about your
impression for example of Adolf H. As born in Germany in
the 60ies it is still a repressed and avoided theme in
society today and it is often not easy to be called a
"nazi" in foreign countrys, when speaking German, because
it is my mother's language (She is Austrian). For many
years really I got into this historical matter of this
unbeliefable happening and it is still going on.

I know the german conditioning is to be tooo serious. I am
very excited to hear from you all.

Greetings and "Servus" T a m a r a

_________________________________________________________

CLARISSA

Dearest Sky, I am new to this nondualistic salon and just
read through some of the emails. Very insteresting. Reading
yours in response to Ralf's adressing the dark side, there
is something I would like to respond. I have been to Dachau
and to another place in Germany where Hitler lived and now
it is a museum, for everyone to come, see and feeeel. And
this places do not feel warm and full of light. Have you
ever been there? I did not feel in particular warm being
there, but I felt the pain and despair. May these things
never happen again, but lets pull them from under the
carpet and bring some light in.

Lots of Love Clarissa

___________________________________________________________

BENINA

I am new in the salon and read with interest what was
written about Hitler. For my understanding it is very close
connected with the dark side.Being raised by parents who
where growing up in germany while Hitler was in power,I
experienced how deeply this period in their live has been
denied and burried. Yes it is disscussed a lot in the media
but how I see it, only on an intellecual level. For me the
healing starts to happen since I start feeling, realy
feeling what has happend.Feeling it, embracing it so it can
dissolve. Greetings Benina

___________________________________________________________

ELLY SEIDEL

Dear Mark, dear Liliana,

Being a mathematician I cannot resist writing to you, Mark.
You cannot take for granted that 1 + 1 2. It can also be 1
+ 1 10 (which is actually so when you look deep into the
functioning of your computer). It depends on the concept
you are taking for granted. In this case with how many
digits you are working.

So the concept you are taking leads to the result. When you
work with 10 digits it is 2, when you work only with 0 and
1 it is 10.

What has this to do with Hitler? For me Hitler was not a
psychopath (on the personal level it might be), but there
was a believe system around the world and he acted it out
and this leaded to the experiences. These believe systems
are still working that races are superior, inferior,
…

Just now there is a whole series in a German Magazine Stern
about Nietzsche. His philosophy got used. He was against
anti-Semitism and his own sister falsified his books and
caused that it could be used for believes where Nietzsche
would never have agreed. The whole German culture got used
for this believe system and the old German culture is lost.

Liliana I have not written dots instead of the name Hitler.
It is just not possible. For me the work is to look to the
believes what created Hitler. For me this is work in
consciousness. It is daily work, it is not intellectual:
Where do I hurt others. What do I act out in my daily life.
What are my concepts behind, my limitations? It is
feeling!!!!

Mark I was reading the letter from you and from Pou and I
was just crying, feeling, nothing to say

Much love

Elly

___________________________________________________________

MANU

I signed in on Sunday and now I've read now most of the
e-mails and try to "catch up" - I think this is bound to
fail!! So I just jump into it:

I feel this opening of the issue of Hitler as very healing.
I studied history here in Germany and focussed very much on
the third Reich as I felt a very strong pull to do so.

When I read your e-mail, Jerry, about your experience with
the need to hide any interest in Germany or Germans it
hurts although I can surely see and feel the standpoint of
your parents. As I was brought up in the sixties and didn't
have the slightest "life-touch" of the third Reich it is
such a strange feeling and yet very real to live with this
heritage. Finally in the last 2 years I gained a glimpse
(or a bit more) of how it is to live in this country and
also to see the beauty of Germany and the Germans. Before I
was caught up in more or less unconscious shame. And with
this wider view I finally have the chance to take another
look at this whole creation of the third Reich.

To discuss this issue without getting identified of being a
German and yet allow all the different feelings about it
(which I see as a real treasure) is quite difficult for me.
I can very much associate with the picture that all these
Hitlers, Amins, Stalins etc. - as well as Buddha, Jesus,
Rajneesh, not to forget my father and my mother, are
symbols for parts of myself. With this viewpoint I also
have the possibility to work with it, to feel all the
different feelings without any separation. Any other way
leads me into non participation and seeing life just as
seeing a movie in the cinema.

About the spiritual part of Hitler and the Third Reich
which Ralf brought up: Yes, I agree with this. And I think
the work is to bring spirituality and lived religion back
to every bit of life. Every non-spirituality for me is
avoidance - avoidance to feel and fully live an experience
in every dimension that wants to be experienced.

Bye and love Manu

__________________________________________________________

MELODY ANDERSON RESPONDS TO HANS

HANS: Who says that the Self is showing up always in light?
When I look at old films when Hitler was speaking, all I
could see was love speaking throuh his eyes, no matter how
awfully cruel the words were. I actually could not see any
difference to Osho or Ramana or any great master.

MELODY: This is, to me, a rather stunning statement, and I
ask myself, "what would I have to change, what would I have
to 'drop'....in order to see this as 'true'.

"What would it cost me to believe this?"

I have read (elsewhere on the web) a SS agent's description
of the Hitler he knew, loved and served . He spoke of a man
who was an artist, a poet. He spoke of a man who would give
his jacket away to a homeless person on the street....who
would share his food with children on the street....who
always got home in time at night to feed his cat himself.
He spoke of a man who studied the words of Jesus and
Buddha, who was heavily influenced by the secret societies
of Tibet, who quoted paragraphs of Schopenhauer's words by
memory, and was a strict vegetarian. He was described as
one who, on the morning of his death, ate breakfast as he
did every other morning, silently shook the hands of his
friends, and walked calmly, without a hint of panic or
anxiety, to his own death.

I say this not to inflame anyone's sensitivities further,
but as a way of showing that people can't simply be written
off as 'black and not white'

HANS: I heard the master attracts you in the teaching by
telling you sweet lies in the beginning (confirming your
concepts, giving you what your ego needs, approval, sex
whatever). And give you the axeblow to free you eternally.

If Auschwitz and the 2nd world war was not an axblow to the
whole mankind, I don't know what it was.

MELODY: This, too, is quite a radical departure from seeing
him as 'a deranged madman'.

It reminds me of a book I once read, "I Remember Union".

It was an 'alternative' account of the Jesus, Mary, and
Judas story

in which Judas loved Jesus so much that when he saw his
life's plan in the 'swing between worlds' (before being
born) he at first protested....until he was reminded that
this 'story' had been set in motion, and only someone who
loved Jesus as much as Judas did could be asked to be the
'betrayer'.

Again, not wishing to make people even more uncomfortable,
but at the same time grateful to finally have a forum where
such a radical consideration can be voiced,

what if Hitler, like Judas, was simply allowing the karmic
energies to be sung thru him?

I'm not suggesting this is what happened. I'm suggesting
that when I CONSIDER such a possibility, it changes ME.

Pou said the other day, "I belief there is a vast
difference between the physiological make up of A. H. and
the forces of evil that used the body mind psyche to work
thru that of A.H."

If we were to except this as 'true', we would then be free
to no longer take acts of brutality 'personally'. By that,
I mean we are free to then not take ourselves....and our
history.... so 'personally'. It opens the door to dropping
shame, doesn't it?

It would also demand that people own their portion of the
'evil' that was collectively expressed thru Hitler.

HANS: And this is my point of view as an ashamed German
being. We collectively cannot stand the fact, that God can
give birth to such evil. Through the German people. After
Schopenhauer, Mozart, Wittgenstein, Goethe, Schiller....

A friend of mine suggested to me going to Dachau and
holding the thought "all what happened here is God". It is
an experience that I can highly recommend.

MELODY: I went to Dachau in 1986. I realized, as I was
standing in the open field where the barracks once stood,
that I would have a very difficult time trying to describe
the feeling of this place. (I realized later I could not
distinguish the 'feeling of the place' from 'the way I
felt' standing in such a place. I see, years later, there's
a big difference. )

I asked my friend to take a picture of me standing there,
that exact moment ....fearful that somehow I could one day
forget that feeling.....feeling as if all the air had been
completely exhaled out of my body.

I know I can visualize that place, my body's reaction, the
tears I cried.....I can easily 'step back inside that
space. So I think at bedtime tonight I will do as you
suggest. Stepping back into that 'space' I will look around
and say, "all what happened here is God".

Thanks for giving me the 'space' to say these thoughts
outloud.

love, Melody

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WELCOME TO NEW LIST MEMBERS

Hello! Welcome all of you! You are helping make Nonduality
Salon an even more valuable, open, sharing place. Everyone
can learn from you. I'm glad you're all here! --Greg Goode

Amen -- and, I might add, the new influx of posters from
Europe is helping to balance out both sides of the North
Atlantic. Thank you all for emerging from lurkdom to
contribute -- s'wonderful, or perhaps I should say
"wunderbar!" --Bruce Morgen

_____________________________________________________________

Living things don't usually grow at a constant rate, but in
surges. I think that the Salon is in the midst of one of
those surges. Welcome and love to everyone. This full moon,
tonight, is the mid-autumn moon, a festival in China. It's
considered very auspicious to bathe in the moonlight
tonight.

love,

andrew
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For those interested in some of the history of discussion
on this list concerning racism and marginalization, please
see the following websites. With permission of the authors
perhaps another web page can be constructed which would
capture the many facets of the discussion that is going on
right now.

http://www.nonduality.com/margin.htm
http://www.nonduality.com/alice.htm

________________________________________________________________

VICTOR TORRICO

Dear Friends,

Bidding you all a fond farewell for the time being. I'm
spending entirely too much time at the computer generating
all these inane ramblings when I should really be working
on learning to be. This is only an individual job and
cannot be done by someone else. I've had enough pointers
towards reality to last ten lifetimes. Now it's time to put
these pointers to work.

The project of my heart is building a place to be used as
an occasional retreat center, meeting place and for
individual meditation retreats. I have no idea why I'm
doing this crazy thing --- something just is urging me on.
With luck I hope to be finished with the main part by next
year (May of 2001).

It is located on fifty acres in the Western Appalachian
mountains about thirty miles West of the Shenandoah Valley
and about as far West as you can go in the state of
Virginia --- a place of singular beauty and peace. It is in
a wooded place, immediately behind our home, overlooking a
meadow and river.

I plan to post occasional reports to let everyone know how
the building is going on. Ground leveling, digging of
foundation holes, pole raising, and saw-milling of lumber
on site will start in the next couple of weeks. Then the
lumber will have to season over the Winter with actual work
starting around February or March.

I invite one person to help me build this next year. If you
are interested please send email and we can talk about it.
This would be a labor of love since the pay would be room,
board and fellowship.

With love, peace, equanimity and happiness to everyone,

Victor

___________________________________________________________

CARLA CARLSON ON TOUCHING

I want to share something about my everyday experience in
the workplace with people having had accidents or any
physical dysfunction.This work is a daily discipline in
directing attention and being aware. Listening with
attention not getting caught in the story is my exercise
and it seems to calm the other and creates trust.

Touching the disturbed bodypart with awareness and asking
inside who feels this ,something in the physical cell
structure changes,its electrical field . I start to feel
movement in the cells .I can have all kinds of feelings
myself and staying focussed on the enquiery there is a
presence where every thing get sucked into . I call it
falling into Love .Also physically its an exquisite feeling
through the whole body like in an love act. The other
persons body changes and they enjoy . Every day new
mysteries unfold in this exchange and truly all this people
feel like helpers in my process of awakening . Strangely
falling in Love happens more with people I don't like . Is
not Love and awareness the same ,everything has place in
there .

____________________________________________________________

JOHN DUFF ON UNDERSTANDING

True Understanding requires the participation of ALL
centres (or minds). The Intellectual (the head brain)
sixth/seventh chakra the Emotional (the Heart or solar
plexus), fourth the Moving, the Instinctive (or some might
say Moving/Instinctive).

Understanding with one centre is not understanding,
understanding with two centers gives weak or inconsistent
understanding, only understanding with all centers can be
considered complete understanding. Why? Because these
centres generate our 'I's and usually awareness passes from
"I'm hungry" to "I want that" to "I'm thirsty" to "I want
sex" to "I don't like him" to "do I look good?" to (very
occasionally) "What's this nonsense, isn't there something
else?", all related to one of the 'brains' fighting over
the 'telephone' to speak with the master's voice to get
what it wants in that moment.

If understanding of "something" penetrates all of the
centers, then all of the 'I's know "it". The intellectual
'I' that heard the idea of and 'understands'
non-identification has no control when the emotional 'I'
that does not understand takes control when pride is
wounded, the emotional centre must understand this concept
in its own language, deeply, that identification is death,
and the language of the emotional center is not words it
something else, perhaps, pictures or images (when this is
perceived the 'reins' from the driver to the horse may be
formed). This lack of each brain understanding in its own
way may be one reason it is so hard to 'do' what we have
heard 'intellectually'. These brains don't communicate and
usually don't know of each others existence and they - it's
usually a mixed up stream of thought, feeling and sensation
that, since they occur in one body, with one name, we call
them all 'I'.

______________________________________________________________

Zen master Changqing Huileng entered the hall to address
the monks. After a long silence he said, "Don't say that it
will be any better tonight." He then got down and left the
hall.

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