Click here to go to the next issue.

Friday, October 27, 2000





HARSHA
"Awareness does not mean carelessness.
Deep wisdom does not require reckless behavior. Aggression is not proof
of authenticity. Bad manners do not always indicate enlightenment :-).

SKY So, how does one Know? I never Know. Do you?

HARSHA
Knowing the "other" is through the mask of the "I."


SKY Honestly, Harsha, I absolutely "Know" what you mean. I swear, I
say it all the time, see it all the time, feel it, breath it, all the
time. But I STILL never Know. (And, you know what, I'm gladder and
gladder of it all the time. NOT that I believe in "progress," nor any
of its certainties. I don't. Otherwise, I'd Know.)

But if you're focused on the word "mask," as you may be, then
you, too, know that you never Know, and know that you don't even know
this.

HARSHA
Perhaps what you are saying Sky is that the "Knowing" is not known separate
from It Self. "I" wants to Know. But "Knowing" devours the "I." Then the "I"
is not separate from the "Knowing." So Who Truly Knows? Who can say, "I
Know" when The Self Knowing has no reference point.

The mask itself (the personality sense) is indicative of a particular focus
in terms of preferences, likes, dislikes, joys, sorrows, love, rage, hate,
etc. That is the nature of a "mask" - an ongoing appearance of changes in
mental and bodily patterns and structures. The "Knowing" does not invalidate
the mask and the mask cannot completely hide or contain the "Knowing", as
the mask itself is a condition, a programmed pattern of thoughts, waves that
rises from the "Knowing" and subsides back into It.

_______________________________________________________

DAN & HARSHA

Thanks, Harsha-ji.
In my case, though,
as you've probably noticed,
bad manners are equivalent with enlightenment.

That's because I took enlightenment
by the throat, wrestled it to the
ground, and screamed obscenities
at it until it gave up.

I guess we each just speak according
to our experience.

Namaste,
Dan


****Yes, it was quite a match. And I enjoyed being the referee, except the
time that I was accidentally kicked doing the one two three countdown as you
pinned poor enlightenment. By the way, the diamonds on the championship belt
are fake. :-).


I guess we each just speak according
to our experience.


****Speech itself is an experience of referring to other experiences and
concepts.

Shalom
Harsha

__________________________________________________________

MARCIA

I don't think it is a problem. I am beginning to think
that this is how it is supposed to be. To be alive is to
feel. It isn't about acting like we are feeling but really
feeling. I suspect there is the 'other side' of this which
Jan could comment on but still 'this' can't be avoided.
Can't take a camel through the eye of a needle.
Camel perhaps being protection against consciously feeling.
As G. said conscious labor and intentional suffering.
We are totally helpless to do anything about it and in
that helplessness, we are found. There is nothing to
be done. I mean I can't do anything. Perhaps this is
what is meant by 'no doer'. It is not to say that doing
doesn't happen.

LARRY

I'm still bewildered by this. It seems to me that the same enlightened
blindness that looses sight of the doer also can't find any doing. You
can't not have your cake but still eat it. If there's no cake, there's
no eating. Maybe there's a difference between analysis and experience.
Analysis can't find anything, but experience is full and empty at the
same time, so to speak, maybe.

MARCIA

I am thinking it is kind of like 'being in the zone'.
If I try to do, the trying seems to get in the way.
Trying seems to be associated with a doer or
someone who is trying. There is an agenda; hidden
or otherwise.

The Gurdjieff Movements are an excellent source
of instruction. Attention is required as there are many
and complex movements. On occasion the person
who is doing all this trying just sorts of pops out of
the way. The Movement get done. The Movement
comes through the body. Attention is still a must
but there is no one trying. Also the field of awareness
expands and there is a group movement.

LARRY

Marcia, I know what you mean but I think I'm more interested in ordinary
life. Nonordinary is a lot of work even if the worker eventually
disappears. I'm pretty lazy; that's part of the attraction to
nonduality. You don't have to do anything; you don't even have to lose
the loser. No need to make ordinary nonordinary because nonordinary is
really ordinary in the sense of being temporary. If temporary isn't a
problem, maybe ordinary isn't a problem. I don't know. I'm just thinking
with my fingers.

________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

WHITE WOLFE

Dear NDS:

Gratitude! Keep up the work! It is (w)Hol(l)y.

i crossed a river i been afraid of for most of my life. in some small way those
of you who bothered themselves to pretend that i matter by acknowledging my
feeble whimpers have helped me journey further up and further in. i took the
first tenative step to becoming a Camaldolese Oblate of the Order of St.
Benedict, a continuation of my journey that will allow me to reconcile a duality
within, the need for an ascetic life of contemplation with the need to rejoice
and serve within a community of Love.

The Beloved is My Abode.

I am divinely guided.
I am on the Way.
I am the Way where there is none.

further up and further in,

white wolfe

________________________________________________________________


JERRY

I am starting a new list on my website (not an email list). It is the
list of people who no longer want to be on the nondual teachers list. So
far the list includes Don James, who voluntarily took himself off the
realizers/confessors list. As well, the rumor is that Mikaire no longer
considers himself a spiritual teacher. The rumor has not yet been
confirmed, except Mikaire's website is off the air.

Is there anyone else who wants to be on this exclusive list? I will be
taking myself off the realizers/confessors list and adding myself to the
list of people who don't want to be on the realizers/confessors list,
because I think we are seeing the beginning of a definite movement. And
I want to be at the forefront of the movement. Why? you ask. Why not? If
I'm no longer an enlightened teacher of nonduality I can do whatever I
please. I'm free. I don't have to explain.

Now, let me conclude by saying that it is not easy to get on the list of
people who don't want to be on the list. I will be the one to decide who
is genuine and who isn't. I will even be rating the people on the list
who don't want to be on the list as to the degree they stand free from
the spiritual teachers list. Now it is not beyond my field of perception
to realize at once that there are people who will not want to be on the
list of people who don't want to be on the list. Those people will most
certainly be listed.

top of page