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Tuesday, October 17


A candle is made to become
entirely flame.

In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.

It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.

Look at this
just-finishing candle stub
as someone who is finally safe
from virtue and vice,
and the pride and shame
we claim from those.

Rumi (via Xan)
---------------------------------------

Hafiz sang.....

"In the morning
When I began to wake,
It happened again -

That feeling
That You, Beloved,
Had stood over me all night
Keeping watch,

That feeling
That as soon as I began to stir

You put Your lips on my forehead
And lit a Holy Lamp
Inside my heart."


May you awaken to that Kiss
in the morning....

and every morning to come.

love,
Melody

____________________________________________________________

SKY

As some may have noticed, I've been off NDS for a while. It's
been because I've found it to be too abrasive, negative,
elitist, egotistical. I take responsibility for that part
projection. (Some of you may not be able to stomach "part"
anything. Some of you can only see things as either or, all or
nothing. In that case, if the shoe fits, best not read on.) This
is not a condemnation. But it definitely verges on one. I'm in
that much maligned, yet also, much vaunted, betwixt and between
state.

I'd like to offer two sides of my ambivalence. First the
positive:

Perhaps there actually IS something "wrong," as is so often
declared, with NDS. But what could "it" be?

There are those who say that too many are saying the same old
thing: Who needs the redundancy, the cliquishness, the "us
against them," the "we're right and they're wrong," the
adolescent initiation rituals? Others say that there's too
little consensus, too few are saying the same thing. That there
should, instead, be one leader, one and only one enlightened
luminary, the rest but followers.

If there's actually nothing "wrong" with NDS, then, some
suggest, it's because there is no "right" or "wrong," and NDS,
is ultimately testament to this: non duality. Similarly, if it
offers nothing more than "prattle," it also claims to offer
nothing more.

For me, all of the above are "correct," in the following sense:

1) There is something "wrong" with NDS. (It's too negative.)

2) There are too many saying the same thing. (Negation.)

3) There aren't enough saying the same thing. (Affirmation.)

4) There is nothing wrong with NDS. (It confirms that it
negates.)

But I'd like to offer an alternative. For I believe that the
whole implicit premise of NDS leads, inevitably, to actual
contradictions. Why? Because it begins with, is predicated upon,
a negation. The negation, "Non," in "Nonduality," requires, I
believe, on a very basic affective level, that all arguments
that follow, also confirm a negation.

My alternative, which remains logically and essentially
consistent with nonduality, but which does not lead inevitably
to negation, would be:

"Unity." (Or some such word emphasizing affirmation, wholeness.)

There has been some talk about changing the name of NDS. I
suggest, "Unity in Diversity," or some such proactive
nomenclature.

So, the above is what I consider my positive contribution. The
following is what I consider my negative contribution.

Life is an impulse, a spasm whose patterns and cosmic
permutations are more infinite than the mathematical imagination
can even begin to fathom.

Yet leave it to the hollow soul to find intoxication in an
abstract grain of self-recovery/"surrender," a glint of numb
fellowship, in the blind wink of another some such as herself, a
distant star, casting seeming recognition into her myopic and
solitary eye, though millions of light years long past dead.

The farther the neighbor, the least threatening the dreaded
intimacy with her own physical immediacy.

What's dead is her dry relationship to her own body, her own
physicality.

For the body thirsts for recognition. She thirsts for the
experience of her own subtlety as affective, ongoing being, in
each unique and nervous moment, as she unfolds toward the
tumescence of acknowledgment, honor, compassion, communication,
perspective and the fleeting experience of her own perfection,
blossoming, even, especially, in her infinitely vulnerable
mortality.

Though soul death declares itself most brazenly in the wails of
its insistence on its own invulnerability, of its permanence, of
its cosmic unity, of its ever presence.

The living soul, life itself, is, rather, an ongoing flux of
sensitive and delicate fragility, never completely safe, never
completely certain, always only half "right," and alway only
half "wrong."

Life embraces the flesh and blood of feeling and sensation,
thrives in it, declares it and its anxious longing, the
whispered poetry of ceaseless tentativety.

______________________________________________________

JIVANO

You - as a group - have some tendencies:

a) The tendency to think that understanding is enough.

b) The tendency to re-interprete spiritual facts as if you could
do something about it.

I think, that's a well-maintained group-illusion in the
NonDualitySalon.

Of course I know, that not all writers in the NDS share these
viewpoints, but there are enough emails of active participants
each day, which try to maintain exactly these two illusions. And
of course that they are illusions is my opinion. I'm not
believing I could speak about any absolute truth, I'm allways
speaking only for myself (that's enough to express anyway :o).

ad a) - understanding --

Understanding is not enough. Understanding can even be a
hindrance. Our mind is overstuffed with all kind of rules,
behaviour-patterns, knowledge. And one of the paramount
behaviour patterns nowadays is the attitude to understand
everything - feelings, love, partners, nonduality, spirituality,
no-mind, meditation ... etc.

Didn't you all have ENOUGH experience by now, that understanding
is futile in these realms?

ad b) - improving oneself --

I talk about frustration and hopelessness as - obviously -
neccessary steps to simply living in the moment, and - whoosh -
you jump up and re-interprete these statements as if you were
asked to create your own frustration and hopelessness.

Of course one cannot frustrate oneself. That's one of the
reasons why a living spiritual friend is needed. One cannot
improve oneself.

And, secondly, if I say "When you learn to walk, you must be
prepared to fall." you twist the meaning into "How could falling
down make me walk?".

Obviously there are strong subconscious feelings present, which
obscure the clear understanding of what was said by me. That's
why I call that an illusion.

Also these tendencies can be seen in the postings of several
persons at the same time - often answering and enforcing each
other - that's why I call it a group illusion.

_________________________________________________________

LARRY AND MATTHEW

LARRY: Jivano, you say the living teacher makes the difference
but I disagree and I think you disagree too. We have both had
living teachers for many years and it wasn't enough. We are
truely hopeless but unfortunately still hopeful.

MATTHEW: wasn't enough for what larry? What did you expect would
happen in the time you spent with your teacher? It sounds as if
you expected results, didn't get them, and blame the teacher by
saying the living teacher doesn't make the difference. Just
because one is willing to be "done in" by the teacher doesn't
mean one is capable / ready. Or maybe the time you spent just
wasn't quite enough time.

____________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW

JIVANO: "The fact, that you are using black-and-white logic,
shows that you are (consciously or unconsciously) defending
something. You logic (your mind?) is not clear in this
discussion."

DAN: The fact that you repeatedly use so many "you are this.."
statements may be a cue that there is projection. To check this,
one may take all the "you are this..." "you are doing that..."
statements, definitions, caricatures and shifted to "I am
this..." See how that is. Can you reverse roles? How is it to be
the one who lacks logic, is promoting a point of view, is trying
to convince others, who is manipulative and tricky?

How is it if there isn't a separation between you and me?

I have described you as critical and projecting. So how is it
for me to say "I am being critical", "I am projecting"? It
attunes me to my tendency to want distance.

This wanting distance seems very much at the heart of things.
There is distance in seeking to "destroy" what is projected
"outside". What happens for me when there is no distance? I am
that which I'm trying to eliminate. There is no not-me. I start
to see that distance is very important to keeping my usual sense
of self. With no distance, there is no control, nothing to be
controlled, no way to "make" things happen at all.

This can be called learning from noticing reaction against
projections.

Also learned here - none of this defines who I am. These
contructions, projections, opinions are static - "what is" is
not at all static.

________________________________________________________________________

WHY MEDITATE? VICTOR TORRICO SENDS THIS:

Recognitions Newsletter - October, 2000 Volume 1 / Number 10

Theme: Creating Stillness Through Balance

Why do you meditate? Have you ever really considered your true
motivation in spending a very significant portion of your life
engaged in something, which to most people, seems intangible at
best? To be sure, there are probably as many reasons to meditate
as there are meditators, but let us examine this question from a
Conscious Living perspective.

First, it is useful to consider why we do anything at all. Why
do we act, make choices, engage relationships, experience life
as we do? Why are we alive? What do we get for it? Many say that
life is about growth and expansion and therefore we engage life
in all the ways that we do because it is a means to experience
that growth for ourselves, whether it is knowledge, power,
pleasure, wealth, or whatever. But, we can take it a step
further to a more fundamental understanding that life is simply
about experience. This is what Master Charles consistently says
whenever questions of "life purpose" arise.

This understanding about life as just being about experience is
a very liberating one because it takes the pressure of goal
orientation out of the picture. Anyone can experience, so there
is no possibility of "failing" life. Experience is not dependant
upon doing, so there is no question doing life "wrong". And,
experience is not something we have to search for...it is all
around us wherever we are, so there is no possibility of
"missing" life.

So, let us now return to our original question about why we
meditate. Of course, based on our progression above, we now know
that meditation, like life itself, is about experience. Any
experience comprises three elements: the experiencer, the
process of experiencing and the experience itself. In some
philosophical traditions, this is referred to as the knower,
process of knowing and object known. What is unique about
meditation, among all the other types of experiences we could
have, is that meditation allows the experiencer or knower to
access itself directly. With meditation, it is possible to
entrain a focus in stillness (cessation of thinking), which
allows the experience of awareness (witness consciousness) to
become apparent. This is the right-brained, positive polarity
and is the essential balancing element in human experience.

In all other kinds of experience, the emphasis is on the side of
the object and process of knowing which is commonly understood
as the left-brained, negative polarity. An excellent example is
our contemporary system of education, which can really be more
accurately described as an information delivery system. It is
completely focused upon saturating the individual mind with as
much external diversity and complexity as possible, while
virtually ignoring the subject or the "I". This leaves a major
gap in the three-fold process of knowing (as outlined above),
which results in a characteristically imbalanced human
experience, with little understanding of its own nature or
capabilities. Such a dis-empowering experience of life can be
aptly described in terms of fragmentation.

So, when considering why we meditate, it can be understood that
all the "usual" reasons (which mainly involve getting something
we want), do not really address the core issue. What meditation
uniquely offers is the opportunity to know who and what we are
as awareness rather than as a mind identified with its data or
negative history. Such an opportunity brings balance to life,
delivering the blissful freedom that is the hallmark of the
meditators' experience. More than anything else, stillness is
the most subtle and powerful experience of the positive polarity
and results from regular meditation along with a consistent
focus on balanced Conscious Living.

Quotation "The aware are free and the aware are radically happy"

-Master Charles

___________________________________________________________________

SANDEEP

Quotation "The aware are free and the aware are radically happy"

The aware are aware that the body-mind complex with which there
is a continued identification, this identified entity is
conceptual, a dreamed character and hence cannot move beyond
it's alloted role.

They are also aware, "that" which identifies itself is the real
dude, not that with which it has identified itself.

And to "that" there is no question of being free or being bound.

The question itself has no relevance, because being free or
bound, both have a relevance in duality, in phenomenality.

And to the aware, there is no entity being aware.

________________________________________________________________________

LO.JO

Hi Sandeep...

lots of your posts since I subscribed a few weeks ago went to my
(temporary) keepers folder...so let me apologize for speaking up
the first time arguing with one of your views ;)

please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that
all techniques are essentially useless since there is somebody
to perform the technique, thus creating only another
experience...

a good meditation or whatever technique is one that first does
away with your identity and subsequently destroys itself....or
simply dissolves...consider this simple one (and if it's not
simple it will work out the way you describe!) I used to use: in
order to stop the thought circus you can try to put your mind on
something specific...like putting your arm on your belly to feel
it move up and down while you are breathing in and out... after
doing this for 20 or so minutes "you" have left. It becomes an
experience only _after_ a "me-entity" returns to the stage by
beginning to identify. Before that 'after' and after the
technique and "you" are gone there is no before or after...if
you know what I mean ;-)

My point was that a meditation might well get you there where
you then realize that there is nowhere at all to get...while
that, of course, may or may not happen...non-volitionally...

besides that, regarding another ongoing discussion in here, I
believe that "the truth" requires only the tiniest shift in
perception, and not a single year in a zen monastry... I have
never met a guru but it appears to me that the only thing the
whole 'spiritual szene' does is suggesting something lika a way
that one needs to go which is the biggest obstacle in itself...
and thereby validating itselft...

in that light...

...NDS is worth a thousand gurus :-)

________________________________________________________________________

NOBODY

There are severe complains in NDS about the German contingent,
Percy does not know anymore, what to write, Harsha spreads love
continously by the help of historical experts, and Dan keeps his
mastery and face in beautiful verses.

Jutta finds in German more swearwords than in her dictionary,
and the non-duality-world reflects the substantial dualities in
subjects like <<black sex with blondes>>.

A part of the German contingent comes from Munich, called in
A.H.'s times the ''capital-town of the movement''. In Munich
today is more Satsang sold than in Pune for example. some praise
Munich as ''capital-town of the spirituel movement."

In Italy and Swiss people and animals lost their last breath in
floods, destroyed values for about more than 2.000.000.000
Marks. The leader of the Bavarian ''Water-managment-office''
(Wasser-Wirtschafts-Amt) says, only by coincidence this bad
weather front came down on the south side of the Alpes.

These floods could come in South Bavaria as well. Earth climate
is changing dramatically felt in the NDS as well.

nobody

enjoys Jivano's shouting love and compassion as long Jivano
behaves nice beside my side!

_______________________________________________________________________________


DAVE OSHANA

Hi Bob,

Am I a SatGuru? Oh, how I wished?

Nej meneer, I am just an ordinary London lad.

I hang around the all-night Brick Lane Bagel shoppee, hence
there has been speculation that I am the Christ-Maitreya first
revealed to the world by artist/chaneller Benjamin Creme back in
the late 70's. In 1982, full page advertisements appeared in
major international newspapers, like the New York and the Lond
Times, announcing that the Christ-Maitreya would be seen by the
whole world. This was subject to all the television networks of
the world linking up and showing the Christ-Maitreya's beaming
face as he transmitted telepathic messages (read Cosmic jokes)
to every man woman and child (it would have tyo be before the
watershed time of 9 p.m.) on the planet.

Unfortunately, I had school exams at the time and was worried
that my relatives might be conscripted to sort out the Falklands
crisis. The time was not right.

Then, international haute couture fashion guru, Paco Rabane,
predicted that the Messiah lives in London, would be revealed in
the year 2000 and be the same age as Jesus Christ when He
finished his mission. I only discovered this relatively
recently.

Of course, I discount all these theories because I do not want
to be exceptionally famous, because I eat in some of the
cheapest, most authentic restaurants in Chinatown for the sheer
ambience. The waiters are generally perceived as incredibly
rude. They tell you where to sit and, almost, what to eat. My
mission has been to find stillness in such chaos. By Grace, this
has been bestowed. I now generally get what I want in Chinese
restaurants.

Soon after this Bestowal-Betrothal of Grace. I started to share
my Perspective Shift and this became 'Teaching' due to
market-forces. However, after having done the "Shaking Up the
Money-Changers in the Temple" scene I now seek an early
retirement to the Wilderness. There I can be found shouting
"Eli! Eli! Lama sabachtani? My God! My God! Why has thou
forsaken me!" at passing cacti.

Moi, a "Sat Guru"? Per piacere non chiamarmi con quel nome
perche' e ridicolo! Please don't use such names for (because for
me) they are ridiculous.

Moi, a "Teacher of Truth"?. Truth cannot be easily taught. But I
give a lesson:

I encourage you to look. Really look at yourself. Totally naked,
no make-up, not even with the radio on. What do you see? What is
there? Really, what is there?

"Can you see what I see?" as the children's nursery rhyme goes.

love daveO

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