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Friday, September 29




As the Energy essentially is unimpeded,
any and all apparent impedements
(which are attempted solutions to suffering)
are dis-solved ...

The Energy frees Itself everywhere ...
always freeing Itself to return to Itself.

How this occurs has many guises, infinite guises,
but is always through the Energy Itself.

The Energy that has never been separate from
who you are. Appearing as guide, as teacher,
as grass, as trees - I release who I am into
"This"... So breathing, moving, stillness --
all return Energy to Energy.

--Dan Berkow
___________________________________________________________________

MICHELE

Hello NDS-beauties,

every year my parents remind me the 29 of September:
"Michele it is your name-day, the day of Archangel Michael,
congratulations, the vibrant power of Michael is in
you...don't forget...praise to God..."

As a child I was fascinated by a small picture of the
Archangel Michael defeating the "devil". The power of light
and the dark side. Strength and understanding versus lie
and unconsciousness.

Over the years I found more interpretations of the picture
and the understanding goes deeper:

The sword as a symbol of conscious awareness, the devil or
dragon as the "dark side", I heard a friend say, it is not
about killing the devil but to bring conscious awarness to
all those parts of the dragon in "me" that are unconscious,
about all "I should...or I should not", "I must...or must
not", "I have to..." Killing the devil: That's what the
catholic church wants to do with the so called "evil": I
have tried it as a child - it didn't functione. The result:
guilt and shame, shame and guilt. So, it is not about
killing but about ascencion, bringing light into darkness.

Today I recognise the power of Archangel Michael as an act
of utter compassion. Compassion with the sword. Compassion
cutting through darkness. Never ending compassion.

What has this to do with the NDS? I am missing that kind of
compassion. The world we live in is a dragon that is
becoming bigger and bigger, the dragon has seduced the
enlightend ones, the state of "no I" can/may be as selfish
as any other state of the mind, more than ever the
force/strenght/power of St. Michael is needed to raise
consciousness, living force of life, ...

_______________________________________________________________

MANU

I was thinking about expectation: It is true, expectation
leads automatically into suffering. Even if the expectation
gets "fulfilled" what remains is a bad taste. So living
without expectations. Feels pretty free for me, peaceful.
Glad, that I am not involved in terms of glued. Attention
is free. Compassion arises for expectators because there is
knowing about the suffering of expectation. Then - just for
"fun" (or unawareness) - expect again, suffer, let go, free
attention, compassion arises... does this burning fire ever
end?

___________________________________________________________________

POU

Unprepared disciples with no formal 'disipline' who
suddenly lose their inner mapping system / reference points
i.e. throu sudden view point shifts unexpectedly, and are
not under direct spiritual supervision with a mature
Master, often these people end up in a very disturbed
psychologically state.

A state that I have often seen requiring a person to be
admitted for psychologically care under the supervision of
a qualified psychiatrist. This senerio I have witnessed
many times over the last 20 years.

I am aware some people scoff at the importance of this, yet
these same people also profane themselves and others
working in a responsible disipline.

Marianna Caplans book 'Half way up the mountain' has many
examples of unqualified people who believe themselves
enlightened, offering spiritual help to unprepared people.
Well know published author and Psychiatrist Mr. Claudio
Naranjo speaks openly and honestly in this book of
Mariannas re offering personal versions of enlightenment
concepts to unprepared students by folk not fully conscious
of the full picture required.

I sincerely trust dear sir, you yourself Realise the
serious implications and the importance of a strong
disipline before and after enlightenment..

Shri Ramana was asked once " Can a person lose this
enlightenment?"

He answered ' many do for in a moment of non vigilance,
they pick up the 'i thought and the entire world with it"

_____________________________________________________________________

SANDEEP

In a dream, a dreamed character labeleld "Sandeep" is
bandying about concepts of non-volionailty, no guilt, etc
etc, to other dreamed characters through the Web-based Mail
Lists. (Consciousness having gone high-tech from the days
when it used to use dreamed character sitting on top of the
Himalayas, spouting oral words to poor other dreamed
characters who sweated their ass up those mountains).

With the bandying, prattling taking place, in some of the
dreamed characters, there will be a piercing, in some
nothing and in some bitter objections.

In all these "occurings", it is the same gamester. The
"prattler", the prattling and the "prattled to". All the
same gamester.

That is all, the sum total, the bottom line of the game.

And when Consciousness has had enough, 'poouuf",
Consciousness in Movement reverts back to it's noumenal
state, or the state where pure awareness is not even aware
of it's awareness.

_____________________________________________________________

JAN B.

although nothing really changes, the mind-body is
continously changing and the change can be quite large. It
reminds me of my former friends, who thought they were
communicating to an alien after my spontaneous sadhana :)
Needless to say those friends became ex-friends :) Of
course new friends were made and one of them recently send
me an article, an ex-colleague wrote about me - it is
hilarious! A pity it's in Dutch, it is to laugh one's ass
off :)

___________________________________________________________________

RALF

you write beautiful E-Mails in NDS, but you seem not to
know much about life outside of your little computer room.
Jesus lives! So don't fear. Help is available, just a
little openness is needed. And trust. And determination.
And surrender. And..., well,..to much effort to mention all
the other things needed. You can read about them in NDS.

____________________________________________________________________

JIVANO

When I made up my mind about 6 years ago, discovered that I
myself was the only hindrance to myself, because I was
repeating my old egocentric patterns again and again...
when I was really determined to follow the advice of a
competent help - without doing any thinking and judging
myself... ... then within months out of the blue this help
was offered in the town were I lived.

One of the reasons why I say, that our lifes are guided
from beyond.

__________________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

The 'world' is full only because it is inherently empty;
that emptiness is the greatest power, and it is ours, it is
awareness itself. Receptivity represents this power, the
host for "everything". Everything is really only visiting,
though sometimes it seems to be a permanent guest, and a
rude one at that.

Being this emptiness, I may choose who and what I host,
because I see that I can so choose. Others have not as yet
discovered that this choice is possible.

I subject myself to a chosen spectrum of stimuli, for the
nourishing effects afforded to me. I have learned how to do
this, over many years of (sometimes very painful) trials,
errors, and successes. I have opened myself to 'all of it',
and having had it all, choose to deal with certain parts
more than others. It is okay that it works this way.

I see around me, many people who are working hard, to
attain the conditions for their own freedom, as they see
it. I do feel a certain sense of irony, that what I have
done 'in order to be free', is exactly nothing. I see that
there is nothing that can be done, and so do nothing. I am
free, even of the effort of not-doing, after years of
experience to make this habitual. I think the word spoken
in this realization is: "Oops!".

If it can be said that there is such as emptiness, and the
consequent fullness, is there ever any 'garbage' to take
out? No. There is no waste, but there is wide 'belief' in
garbage, the category of worthless, what should be disposed
of. If this is considered, the world could be a better
place, especially in regard to the issue of people; are
some people worthless? It is the assumption of
_worthlessness as a reality_, which opens the door to
pogroms, at the extreme end. But it is also this same
assumption of worthlessness, which drives 'us' to conform
to standards, so that we ourselves will not be cast into
the trash-bin. As a value, it is intrinsic to the method of
control of persons.

Morals, values, ethics, beliefs, standards, specifications,
criteria, filters, etc etc, etc... all utilised for control
of persons; and the rampant side-effect of this 'morality'
is the violence which we all decry.

That is why I say that the sword cuts both ways.

____________________________________________________________________

J
CARLA

About body pain and psychological pain ,this is my
experience with other bodies and myself when touched with
hands or just the inner attention in awareness becomes
bliss . specially today I feel a fast change between pain
and grace filling me. I believe pain is resistance to god ,
but god is in Pain wanting to shake me up getting my
attention.

____________________________________________________________________

NEO

(editor: Welcome back, Neo!)

I recently understood the title. Most fear death. The
grateful dead are grateful for the death of the individual
self. It is funny how it can take 30 years to understand 2
words.

______________________________________________________________________

LEELA

Yes,it is so important the desire to want to know - not to
be dead in the water. And sometimes it is so important not
to know - only to be alive in the water.

___________________________________________________________________________

CLARISSA

How I perceive the oneness is beyond mind, is stillness, is
love, beauty. No mind. For me there is one large whole
"stillness" or "nothingness". And in separation I feel
myself being caught in "my little mind" - my little I. But
the big one for me is beyond mind.. May be its like that:
The big one put himself in all the little ones to make lots
and lots of different experiences, just for the feel of
it.. Conciousness getting lost in the play...

__________________________________________________________________________

BRUCE AND NEO

NEO: We all caused WWII. By leaving Germany in such a state
of depression after WWI we set the stage for someone like
ourselves in the form of Hitler to arise and be part of the
entire episode.

BRUCE: This punishment of Germany after the 1914 war was
done in the name of "justice" but is was actually vengeance
on the part of the victors -- the ensuing karma was
certainly not surprising when seen in that light!

NEO: The effect was much better after WWII when Germany and
Japan were actually helped to recover. Sort of like hate
was used after WWI and love after WWII.

BRUCE: The rehabilitation of the Axis nations after 1945
indicates that at least some of the lessons of the previous
world war were learned -- but I would call it self-interest
on the part of the victors, especially the U.S., which felt
it needed strong, prosperous allies and trading partners on
the borders of the Soviet Union and its client states. I do
not see "love" as being the motive at all, although a great
deal of economic rehabilitation and and emotional healing
were accomplished by refraining from outright revenge and
instead helping Germany and Japan to dig themselves out of
the ashes of war.

NEO: This large powerful mind of ours seems to be healing
but there are still so many dark places.

BRUCE: Your optimism is noted and appreciated, but I wonder
if the essential conundrum of the human condition has
really changed at all, not only in the past century but in
the past several millennia -- it seems much the same as it
was in the days of Abraham, the Buddha, and Lau Tzu, the
major changes since then seem to involve scale and
technology more than true healing of humanity's "core
wound," which surely continues to bleed.

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