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October 24


TIM GERCHMEZ

I am nothing and nobody. I am so small and meaningless that I am
a non-person, almost nonexistent. I know nothing at all. Every
word I say is just a guess, a pretense, a lie. Even my name is
too big and important sounding for me.

I am so small and meaningless that when someone attacks me, it's
like yelling at a particle of dust, or punching the wind. I know
so little that I am unable to get into an argument or a debate
with anybody, so I do not try. Even a wino living downtown under
a bridge is a king compared to me.

Knowing that I can know nothing, I do not crave knowledge. Being
small and meaningless, I do not seek meaning in life. Being
unimportant and knowing myself unable to be important, I do not
crave power. Too unimportant and small to own anything, money
means little or nothing. Knowing how mortal I am, it's useless
to fear death; it could come in the next five minutes.

It is strange; I find myself at peace.

______________________________________________________________________

AARON ULLREY

Bhairave according to John Grimes, my wonderful teacher, in his
Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy,a book I find
continually useful and enlightening, bhairava means "frightful,
fear inspiring, horrible, terrible, formidible, form of siva"
further "Siva the terible. A name for siva implying the Lord who
is responsible for the creation, sustenance, and disolution of
the universe. In the Kapala and Kalamukha sects of Kashmir
Saivism, they worshop Bhairava as Siva or the absolute"

According to Jaideva Singh, Bhairava consists of three letters,
bha, ra, and va. Bha indicates bharana or maintenance of the
universe. Ra indivates ravana or withdrawl of the universe. And
Va indicates Vamana or projection, manifestation, of the
universe. Thsu, Bhairava indicates all three aspects of the
divine. (side note: vihanana means wisdom or intellect, hence
the wisdom of Bhairava)

I always thought of Bhairava as the wrathful form of siva, like
the tibetan wrathful deities. The etymology, however, shows that
this is a form of siva that indicates all aspects of the divine.
There is also a feminie form of Bhairava called Bhairavi who
corresponds to sakti in the siva sakti dyad.

Bhairav in a paper by Paul Muller-Ortega (any errors in
representation are of course mine and not his) is denoted to
represent both the cremations-ground culture of hindu tantra
and, by Abhinavagupta, as the samavesa-sadhana, the
tantric-yogic exploration of the Non-dual consciousness. "Here,
Bhairava comes to mean the unencompassable adn exquisitely
blissful light of consciousness which is to be discovered as the
practitioner's true identity."

Thus we come to your other question to me about sunya. Bhairava,
as seen in the quotes, in the Vijnanabhairava is said directly
to be the absolute void being above all vikalpas, being
nirvikalpa. Vikalpa meaning though construct and nirvikalpa
being an absence thereof or a negation of. Thus, Bhairava's very
character is of sunya, emptiness. The meditation on Bhairava is
to meditate upon sunya. The formless divine which is the
ultimate reality. This formless divine, in my opinion, is the
sunya state, the beginners mind, the dharmakaya, brahman, siva,
whatever name one has for the reality which is ultimately
nameless, the not-two.

As far as the anupaya path, it is pretty much a universal.
Sankara even states that the path is ultimate realization, there
are no means to get you to reality, nonduality, because you are
already there. There is no taking you to the divine. As far as
anupaya directly addressed in scholarship, I cannot think of any
specifics. I know Dyczkowski talks about it in several of his
books. I think the best treatment that I can think of at the
moment is the Siva Sutras (check out Dyczkowski's Aphorisms of
Siva) which deals with the three light, the three emanations of
the path. The first emanation is definately anupaya and then it
moves to the second which is the "sort-of" means and then the
third light is a spelled out path to follow. The greatest of
aspirants will only need the anupaya path, they will hear and
attain. I however am far from being the greatest of aspirants.

Thank you for the questions. They keep me on my toes and force
me to think more and make connections. There is no such thing as
too much good homework, thank you for the assignment. I am sure
you will have some sort of comments on what I wrote so please
ask me more questions and we can discuss. Tell me more about the
Buddhist Mahakala. I have only the most general of knowledge.

____________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

We each see what we see, who's to say one is right and one
wrong? I read a quote from Blake last night, saying "If a thing
loves, it's infinite." To be a thing that loves is to be
vulnerable, to be (the) infinite is to be invulnerable. Is the
recognition that one is both an absolutist escape? I don't want
to single out any individual's post as an example of
vulnerability. The series of posts last month from some people
about being German and growing up with parents who had in some
cases been Nazis come to mind. Please excuse a very brief
personal story, replete with the word "I", because that's the
easiest way to tell it, which is no attempt at argument and may
be disregarded as meaningless. Call it delusion dream or
madness, if you like. I can't see myself any more as only a
separate individual. About 30 years ago when I was a teenager,
following a period of intense personal enquiry after the
untimely death of a family member, an event occurred in which I
saw (God, Jesus, the void, unnameable,... you pick a name) in
the eyes of everyone I met with unbelievable overwhelming
intensity. It was intensely emotional, all the emotions together
in the extreme. I knew also that it was also myself I was
seeing. It was unbearable then, and I found ways to block it
out, just to function. Gradually, over the years, the blocks
have come down. I've come to know that I can only live in
openness to that. The event came first, words and theories are
found or formulated afterwards. The experience is that a
division between me and the void cannot be found. That the world
is in me and me in the world both.

____________________________________________________________________

SANDEEP

I do not know whether anybody noticed a mind boggling (actually
a mind annihilating) development in the field of Particle
Physics..

The speed of Light thought to be THE constant for Life, has been
breached.

On the breaking of the "ultimate" barrier, the speed of light
currently sanctified at 186,000 miles per sec, I was in Europe
last month when the London Sunday Times carried a report on an
experiment carried out at the NEC Research Institute in
Princeton, USA where "light pulco" has been accelerated to 300
times their normal velocity of 186,00 miles per sec.

The details of the findings I am told had been submitted to the
International Scientific journals "Nature" and "Science" for
verification and validation before open publication.

This validation and verification took place in the last few
days. The experiment has been validated and reported by the
Science magazines and journals, including BBC, Washington Post
and other leading newspapers.

The implications of this finding, as I said are not mind-
boggling but mind-annihilation.The Human Genome project is
nothing in comparison.

For the experiment showed that light pulse existed in two places
at once. In effect, it is "leaping forward in time" (Sunday
Times)

What is making the scientists aghast is that "if light can
travel forward in time, it could carry information".

This (carriage of information) is being hotly argued against by
the rest of the scientific community, but that to me is like a
Scientific DNS(Dark Night of the Soul, where all your life long
dearly cherished beliefs are getting exposed for what they are.
Obviously you are pissed off, in agony)

The breaching of the speed of Light, would breach one of the
basic principles in Physics-Law of causality which is based on
the premise that cause must come before effect.

It would also shatter Einstein's theory of Relativity." (Sunday
Times)

However for me, the Princeton experiment is completely aligned
to the premise or concept that mystics have indicated for the
last 5,000 years, that everything that has happened, is
happening, is to happen, have all already happened. And thus has
anything ever happened?

Is there anything like a cause, an effect or are both "existing"
together simultaneously? Is the totality of the Picture already
IS?

If yes, the concept of karma goes out of the window, the concept
of effort which really is a process of becoming (from an
un-enlightened state, you meditate or whatever your favorite
poison, towards enlightenment), all that is OUT.

Dobeee Dobee Doooo

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

WHITE WOLF

It is about time that the scientific community made some
progress toward a new scientific paradigm of the universe. Time
and Space like all things material are relative and relational.
As such, they are an illusion of consiousness. The scientific
community is still in search of a grand unification theory for
the universe -> Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time."

For the mystic, however, time past is contained in time future
and both are contained in time present.

The ability of Spirit to dream/prophecy/forsee/telepath/stand
beyond the limits within time and space imposed on it by the
body/mind has always been one of the reputed signs/powers
attributed to those who are Enlightened. Spirit in the
unenlightened is limited by the Five Skandas (Form, Feeling,
Perceptions, Mental Formations, Consciousness) and remains in
bondage to the time/space continuum (false self) it projects.
Spirit (no-self) in the enlightened knows them to be empty and
transcends them, actualizes non-duality.

Perhaps that is why those is history who are reputed to have
been enlightened have manifested it more than they have talked
about it. Perhaps, too much talk evaporates the realization and
causes Spirit to fall back into maya.

what lies beyond...?
______________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW



You are who I am, I am who you are.

There is no distance, no space between.

All this arises out of Awareness-space,
which means "you" and "me" arise
equally, motionlessly, without
any space between "you", "me",
and universe.

Sure, someone can say, there is a space
between us, I'll prove it by throwing
dirt on you. But that doesn't prove
anything. That there is no space
is an awareness-fact. It's not
a dream of immortality for "me".
Far from it. It's the total end
of that dream. It's really seeing
and knowing what "insignificance" in
the terms of "me" is. Dying is
very real. Being able to keep nothing
is very real. Not being able to
accomplish or have anything to keep is
true. Not even from "this moment"
to "this moment".

Articulating it is nothing special.
I type as I type.
So what?

I have no expectation for "you" to get
something from what "I" type.
Why should you?

If someone posts here saying "I get
nothing from what you write, why
do you continue to write here?",
I can only say this writing must
not be for you. If typing here occurs,
then it occurs. Sometimes someone says
that they got something from words
typed here. I like that. So what?
They didn't get something real, and
they're not really there getting it,
and I'm not here giving something to
someone. But a temporary feeling of
enjoyment appeared, then dissapeared.
Probably, typing here would not happen
if it seemed inappropriate as construed
here. And if it stopped, so what?
Would anything real be lost? No.

If typing arising here is judged
"meaningless", that's not a problem.
Meaninglessness is where the mind's
activity ceases. There is no
meaning-maker and nothing to be
had. It's just simple livingness.
Livingness that includes, not excludes
dying.

You've been writing about vulnerability
and not denying vulnerability with
illusions of immortality.

That rings true to me.

If any idea is clung to as a means
to evade death, including the idea
of not-clinging - there is
only futility.

What you call "my mantra" I might
call the meditation of non-meditation.
In this livingness, typing sometimes occurs,
sometimes reading occurs, sometimes talking,
sometimes sharing, sometimes touching,
sometimes making love.

What arises, arises.

There's really nothing to say about it.

I'm not saying anything about it.

_________________________________________________________

LARRY BIDDINGER

This is the Siva Sutra from _The Aphorisms Of Siva_ by Mark S.
G. Dyczkowski

The First Light Called "The Description Of The Nature Of The
Light Of Universal Consciousness"

1. Consciousness is the Self.

2. Knowledge is bondage.

3. The group of sources constitutes the body of obscuring
energies.

4. The ground of knowledge is "Matrika".

5. Bhairava is upsurge.

6. When the Wheel of Energies fuses together, the universe is
withdrawn.

7. Th consciousness which is the expanse of the Fourth State
(abides constantly in) the various (states) of waking,
dreaming, and deep sleep.

8. Knowledge (born of sensory perception) is the waking state.

9. Dreaming consists of thought constructs.

10. Deep sleep is Maya, the lack of discernment.

11. The enjoyer of the three states is the Lord of the Heroes.

12. The planes of union are wonder.

13. The virgin is the will, the supreme power.

14. The perceptible is (His) body.

15. By fixing the mind in the Heart (the yogi) has a vision of
the perceivable and of dreams.

16. Or (the yogi can realize Siva) by contemplating the Pure
Principle.

17. Energy established in its own abode.

18. Right discernment is the knowledge of the Self.

19. The bliss of the Light is the joy of contemplation.

20. The body comes into being when the energis unite.

21. The union of the elements, the separtion of the elements and
the union of the universe.

22. (The yogi) attains mastery of the Wheel by the arising of
Pure Knowledge.

23. (The yogi) experiences the vitality of Mantra by
contemplating the Great Lake.

The Second Light Called "The Arising Of Innate Knowledge"

1. The Mind is Mantra.

2. Effort is that which attains the goal.

3. The secret of Mantra is the Being of the Body of Knowledge.

4. The expansion of the mind in the womb (of consciousness) is
the slumber of (all) particular forms of ignorance.

5. When the knowledge innately inherent in one's own nature
arises, (that is) Siva's state--(the gesture of) the one who
wanders in the Sky of Consciousness.

6. The Master is the means.

7. The awakening of the Wheel of "Matrika".

8. The body is the oblation.

9. (This yogi's) food is knowledge.

10. The withdrawl of knowledge heralds the vision of dreams that
arises from it.

The Third Light Called "The Vibration Of The Powers"

1. The mind is the Self.

2. (Emperical) knowledge is bondage.

3. Maya is the lack of discernment of the principles beginning
with "Kala".

4. The forces are withdrawn in the body.

5. The withdrawl of the vital channels, the conquest of the
elements, freedom from the elements and the separation of
the elements.

6. (The yogi attains) perfection through the obscuring veil of
delusion.

7. (But) by conquering delusion and by (his) infinite expanse
(the yogi) achieves Innate Knowledge.

8. Waking is the second ray (of consciousness).

9. The Self is the actor.

10. The stage is the inner Self.

11. The spectators are the senses.

12. The pure state is achieved by the power of the (illumined)
intellect.

13. (Once this has been achieved) freedom is achieved.

14. As it is here, so it is elsewhere.

15. The nature (of consciousness) is emission and so that which
is not external abides as such.

16. Constant attention to the seed.

17. (Comfortably) seated (the yogi) sinks effortlessly into the
lake (of consciousness).

18. (Siva) fashions the world by means of His mother.

19. Once (limited) knowledge is destroyed, rebirth is destroyed.

20. Mahesvari and the other mothers of the soul in bondage
reside in the gutterals and the other classes of consonants.

21. The Fourth should be sprinkled like oil into the three.

22. Merged (in his own nature, the yogi) must penetrate (the
phonemes) with his mind.

23. The emergence of the lower (plane) occurs in the centre.

24. When the breath moves uniformly one has an equal vision of
all things.

25. That which was destroyed arises once more in the course of
the unifying awareness of one's own perception of the
individual units of experience.

26. He becomes like Siva.

27. The activity of the body is the vow.

28. Common talk is (his) recitation of Mantra.

29. Self-knowledge is the boon.

30. Knowledge and the cause reside in the cosmic nature and the
source (of the universe).

31. The universe is the aggregate of the powers.

32. (Such is also the case with) persistence and absorption.

33. Even when these are operant, (the subject) is not lost
because (he is) the perceiving subjectivity.

34. (The yogi's) feeling of pleasure and pain is external.

35. The one who is free of that is a liberated soul.

36. A compact mass of delusion, the soul is subject to karma.

37. When diversity has been eliminated (the yogi's) action is to
give rise to another creation.

38. The power of the senses (is proved) by one's own experience.

39. That which is preceded by the three states vitalizes them.

40. The same stability of mind (should permeate) the body,
senses and external world.

41. Due to (one's) craving, that which is transported moves
outside.

42. Then (when the yogi) is established in pure awareness (his
craving) is destroyed and so the individual soul ceases to
exist.

43. (The soul) clad in the cloak of elements is not free but,
like the Lord, becomes supreme once more.

44. The link with the vital breath is natural.

45. (The movement of the vital breath is stilled) by
concentrating on the centre within the nose. Of what use
(then) are the left and right channels or "Susumna"?

46. May (the soul) merge (in the Lord) once again.

-finis-

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