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Friday November 3, 2000



WHITE WOLFE

Isn't it fascinating to live in a time during which we can participate, even if
only as spectators, at the confluence of rational intelligence (masculine) with
intuitive intelligence (feminine) for the first time that we know of in
humankinds pathetically brief history of self-consciousness? Is it possible
that humankind will achieve non-dual consciousness before all the wolves are
gone?

~~~~~~

i recently re-read
Descarte after reading him @ UCLA. Descarte, i think now (i think therefore
i am, ha!) was just as misunderstood as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed....., as I
read him again at 45 instead of 20 something, i experienced the same thing i
am experiencing at present with St. Paul: these teachers were but one of
many manifestions of Tao/Love...we sometimes do not, cannot understand them
properly... because we do not hear them in the 'situation, the '"sitzem um
leben" (?), in which they spoke and taught until we are at least partially
"Awake."

____________________________________________________

VICTOR TORRICO


William Butler Yeats (WBY) collaborated with Sri Purohit Swami (SPS)
in writing "The Ten Principle Upanishads" and was most assuredly
interested in non-duality. I've been trying to get the book but with
no luck so far. Supposedly this is one of the more clear and literary
versions of these Upanishads -- sheer poetry.

SPS and WBY were great friends for many years. SPS was the third
major Indian teacher to come to the West after Vivekananda and
Yogananda. This was in the 1930s I believe. SPS has a beautiful
translation of the Bhagavad Gita which is still available.

Here's a short article about SPS:

http://www.realization.org/page/topics/purohit.htm

Here's an exract from the Geeta translation by SPS:

http://www.beshara.org/gitaext.html

. Luckily I was able to find a copy
at Nataraj Books. They sent the book today. Their web site is:

http://www.natarajbooks.com/
____________________________________________________________

GARY
The problem is that there is a thinker (or appears to be), separate from
thinking.

Now you see me now your don't kind of thing!

DAN
For whom is that appearance
a problem?

GREG
For whom is that an appearance?

GARY
Now, there is no problem
Now, there is no thinker
If I had a future I'd be in big trouble

DAN
If I had a future,
that would be something
to worry about.

Nonetheless:

Past, present, future
is now.

______________

HARSHA

Hello everyone . Just wanted to follow up with a note I wrote to
Ivan who wrote the critique on some verses by Wayne Liquorman/Ram Tzu. I am
passing it on to this list because it may be of some interest as a general
discussion on how the internet can be expected to impact the spiritual
markets and on the role technology may be playing in evolution of spiritual
sociology.


"Thanks Ivan. Today, there are many buyers and sellers of "enlightenment."
People like you Ivan and Dan and Greg and Moller and others are the quality
control mechanism of the future in this market for "enlightenment." This
quality control mechanism is arising spontaneously, it seems to me, as part
of the natural way things move. We see some extremely perceptive and
brilliant minds on the internet offering their views and insights and
sometimes their critique of the spiritual scene. This has great value and
adds much depth to the discourse.

We all communicate using language. Therefore, we end up agreeing or
disagreeing with the way words and language are used by others as they evoke
certain feelings in us. The fact is that words can be extremely powerful.
Ivan, what I liked about your critique of Wayne was that you took the
language of Wayne's verses and you authentically shared the feeling they
evoked in you about state of the author, the source of those words and you
shared it honestly.

I think you can improve your presentation by quoting Wayne's words as they
actually appear in verse in his book in order to be fair to Wayne. This can
be followed up by giving your reaction in prose and/or verse that you think
is appropriate. Wayne has every right to say what he wants and use the
language in the way that suits him. So do you Ivan. However, what you are
saying is in a way more important than Wayne and has universal value as you
point out how language can be used to subtly manipulate. Don't underestimate
your contribution and there is no reason to feel guilty about it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GREG
Ivan offers another viewpoint, writes of it with power and passion. As much as I like Wayne (and I know you like him too), think
of this - for all the slavish bhakti-stuff written and said about the
advaita teachers, how many "contra" or alternate viewpoints does one hear?
~~
Maybe Ivan will write one of these viewpoints. What would that be? For
example, I have some friends who've been around the satsang biz for years
and years - they know some of the satsang teachers up close and personal.
Many of the teachers talk about the gift of satsang and the characteristics
they themselves have. They say they have been transmitted the gift of a
quiet mind and the permanent grace of bliss from their teacher - in satsang
they strive to pass these on to the students. But out of satsang, they are
anything but blissful or quiet. Not a big deal, not talking major sexual
scandals here, but these kinds of things are at odds with what some of the
teachers publicly say is enlightenment. And the ones who see the behind
the scenes things are never their devotees, who are held separate and at
arm's length, but rather the non-satsang-goers, the folks who do the
schlepping, the audio/video, the publicity, etc. Definitely a different
viewpoint!

HARSHA
there are no sacred cows here others than the one we choose to
imagine.
If God can write poetry and love songs to Himself, it certainly follows that
on occasion God can be critical of Himself as well. Surely Perfection allows
for such possibilities :-).

Don't get so stressed out OK! What you are really saying is that Ivan is
just God in another form being critical of Himself. Right?


______________________________________________________

MACE MEALER

Why spend our precious time
with these endless word games?
Ever wonder
What's happening
Outside
or Inside
Look, truly look
at the Autumn Sky
Look, truly look
at the beauty
you carry within.
If these make
you think
of words.
You're not looking
close enough.

___________________________________________________

WHITE WOLFE

The Lesson of the Beloved

"Too late have I loved you."

-Saint Augustine


I knew you would leave even as we met

Since you are neither here nor there,

I knew we would never even meet

Not these eyes, not these hands ever

Not these warm bodies that rise and fall

Fall and rise endlessly without effort

For the only place you are is stillness itself



Outside the seamless canopy behind the stars

There, lost, in the empty, dark, background

Within the endless depths of Compassion

Here, drifting effortlessly in the light interior



My Mind can be a silly child though

Since it is relentlessly neither here nor there

It would force an issue and have us meet

These sultry eyes, these sensuous hands

These two burning bodies of carnal desire

Rising and falling effortlessly without end

For the only place it is is here and now


Racing down the roaring white water

Here, laughing, in the rush of ecstasy

Precariously riding the cresting waves

There, crying for something never lost



My soul can be a brutal master though

Since it too is neither there nor here

It would start a Holy Fire and burn, burn

These two flaming bodies to white ashes

Burn desire itself into fragrant white smoke

Drifting heavenward on the Cosmic Wind

For the only place it is is not here, not now


Neither outside the seamless canopy

Not hiding in some serene, clear pool

Not within the bliss of Compassion

Not at rest in the bottomless blue waters


My Spirit, however, will not, cannot cheat

Since it alone is either here or is it there?

Witnessing with smiling eyes of Love

The joy and sorrow, ecstasy and suffering

The perpetual falling and persistent rising

The enduring dance, the everlasting music

It is the Cosmic Breath of The Sacred of Heart


If you would grab hold of the Beloved

She will elude you and play at being coy

She is the fertile womb, the empty chalice

Creation itself and cannot be manipulated


If you would become her faithful Lover

Your desire must become perfectly still

Your longing must become tranquility itself

You must be Spirit itself and fill the void.


Now you will ask, "How do you become Spirit?"


By listening to what your suffering whispers,

By watching how your suffering purifies you,

By allowing suffering to melt you into Spirit.

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


­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Hail Mary, Sacred Heart of Compassion,

Too late have I loved you Beloved,

Hail Holy Beloved, Immaculate Vessel,

Too late, too late, but soon enough!

Mark Christopher Valentine

_____________________________________________________________

SKY

Do you ever feel as though you've gulped down a huge mouthful of
emptiness? I mean, so much as to have filled you to the brim? And your
eyes squint with awe at the enormity of it?

And you wonder how it is that all that former passion could have
come either to or from such numbness? And you ask yourself, what has
been constructed, this fat yawn, or those furious passions, so entirely
absent now?

And you know the answer to be both and neither. But that, too,
draws a blank because there's now a new commitment, as a playful inkling
spreads, a perverse impulse that wants to see how far this hollowness
can go without interruption. You want to be aware, like a cat, to see
if you can catch the next zeal, before it escapes into the room.

You want to see how much of this paw of uneventfullness can cover
that next excitement. There's the tiniest trace of a smile at the
corner of your mouth as you wait. And waiting, you already know that
your fervor has already overcome you and that this was the very
something you'd been hoping to foreclose, but alas!

_______________________________________________________

PIETER S SAMARA

The idea of a spiritual man and a materialistic man are illusions of the
mind. Somehow this message needs to be heard by the True Hearer that is at the
substratum of this universe and lights all its apparent planes of
consciousness.

Maybe the reading attunes the mind to the enquiry into the source of seeing and
hearing, until one abides as That, and that which is the only Truth
automatically dissolves the false notion of an ego "I" [ that the "I" has an
identity to a "this and that" - images and impressions and predispositions.

What you are writing about is semantics. there are no contradiction in
terms, only the ever abiding in and as the Self, which is one's own Self
devoid of any planes of consciousness and levels to be attained, highs and
lows.

By reading (or by chance meeting with someone that tells you this verbally)
about This single Truth, the mind becomes absorbed into a state of Dissolusion,
and simply vanishes. Seeing is no longer subject/object related, and you abide
as single all-pervasive consciousness.

There is neither letting go not clinging, neither attachment nor detachment.
These are concepts of the mind that seem to have validity only because of the
use of attention. Abiding as Self, attention dissolves and is
relinquished and with it the world and impressions of the world.

This may seem like a new idea, but there is One that Hears It, and That One is
our Self, always Awake never veiled. Suddenly we abide as That and the illusion
dissolves.

Read this a few times and you'll begin to see what happens and know what
"hearing" (Sravana) means.

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