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Tuesday, November 7


SKY

In the beginning is a feeling of utter exposure and
vulnerability. Then a quest for the Protector. Then an
identification of invulnerability with that (parent figure)
Protector and Its Code of Conduct: "right vs. wrong." "Right"
signifying a way to achieve and maintain that
invulnerability.

Any quest involves a reexperiencing of this cycle. Whether it
be with a group such as NDS, or a lover, partner,
institution, religion, etc. NDS is a clique with its own
protector connections and codes. You are in the process of
discovering them: within yourself as well as within the
interactions.

For me, as I believe for everyone, this discovery requires a
test of just how invulnerable IS this Protector. This test
cannot be performed without rage, aggression, animosity, on
one or another level. I went through, in my opinion, a very
similar rage as yours toward NDS. I "know" you're "right."
And I "know' NDS is also "right."

So, I say, rage on!!

It's NOT futile or meaningless, and the outcome is known by
none. Your vulnerability is no greater or lesser than that of
NDS and its participants.

We will always return to our own private state of
vulnerability and disorientation. NDS is a way station to and
from that place.

subtle down ~*~ subtle in

______________________________________________________________________

IVAN FRIMMEL

CRY MURDER Tuesday, 07 November 2000

Did your love-affair with Advaita, Taoism and Zen led some of
you to a paralysing moral agnosticism and cowardice that you
are mistaking for a freedom of expression, and to the
conclusion that anything goes, and anarchy rules?

Now that you are sooo enlightened, and One with the Universe,
and, soo full of love, you think that you stand way-above
such petty dualities as right and wrong, truth and lie,
beauty and ugliness, right and wrong, pettiness and
profundity, drivel and wisdom, awareness and unawareness?

Would YOU just stand by and silently watch, or walk away, if
you saw someone abusing a child, or dog, or try to murder
your mother? Of course not.

Then how can you silently stand-by and watch how so many
people around you abuse and murder their beautiful mother
tongue AND this beautiful, profound and priceless Advaita
teaching for all kinds of petty, selfish, ignoble, personal
ends and purposes, and you, too, unashamedly, join in the mob
killings?

And it's not even my mother tongue that many of you are
murdering here.

Please wake up and express your awakeness. I am still hoping.

____________________________________________________________

JAN BARENDRECHT

IVAN: Sri Ramana Maharshi is probably turning around with
great disgust and distress in his grave about what is going
on nowadays under the name of nonduality here.

JAN: A more profound misunderstanding of Ramana can hardly be
uttered :) If anyone showed utmost dedication to "dive into
the dirt to get hold of the pearl" it was Ramana, who didn't
care being the target of mischievous boys nor being consumed
by insects nor being "bothered" by seekers and yogis...
Without such passionate dedication, forget about
nonduality/moksha/nirvana and join the local sewing club
instead :)

GENE POOLE

IVAN: Sri Ramana Maharshi is probably turning around with
great disgust and distress in his grave about what is going
on nowadays under the name of nonduality here.

Ramana knew, I would suppose, that everything which is eaten,
eventually becomes 'fecal material'. The body itself
decomposes. So here, we have some fine folks, who have
voluntarily accelerated the process, and evidence as much in
their various writings. Instead of rendering what is eaten
into shit, you are offered shit to eat. Ah, the subtle
expediency of it all!


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

WHITE WOLF TO IVAN

Jesus sat with the publicans and sinners who were 'below' him
and took their flack. He also stood and debated with the
Sadducees and Pharisee who were 'above' him and returned them
better than he recieved. He in the end, like all great
teacher, he lifted them all up with himself into Love,
Equanimiity, Joy and Compassion.

Humbly, may i recommend that you look deeply within and you
will discover that what you are rejecting in this a message is
a part of yourself that you have not comed to know, forgive
and accept.

_____________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

Except in memory there is no one to KNOW and nothing to be
KNOWN. In the present there is no me. (true for everyone)
This is why understanding the nature of "I" consciousness
(its hollowness) is key, the question "Who am I?" Openness to
what is is an endless state of unknowing.

_____________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW


If we can't affirm nor deny the self,
we can't affirm it as being illusory
either. Illusory compared to what?
Whatever we compare it with is only
available as an image of knowledge.

You say 'self' is a projection of
thought. But is thought more
real than self?

To say "self" isn't affirmed or denied
means the identity of anything isn't
affirmed or denied.

Another way to say this is that
everything known is known because
it is referenced to 'self'. If
self isn't affirmed or negated or
denied, anything that has been
referred to the self for its
meaning and apprehension is also
neither able to be affirmed, negated,
or denied.

___________________________________________________________


"Christ came onto earth to form contemplatives."
-Thomas Merton

When I am, who laugh and cry grow weary,
I step into the darkness, the nighttime,
And listen for the wind that does not move,
the cosmic wind that blows the moon and stars
across the seamless canopy of mind.

When I am, who sing and dance grow tired,
I stop the movement within time and space,
And smell the fragrance of incense cedars
Wafting through the warp of woof of my soul
Returning me to the solid present.

When I am, who endlessly shift and change
Seek diversion, I sit in stillness
And feel tree frogs mating in the coolness,
The inexorable passion to be
Surging through my infinite Sacred Heart

Then, I fall back into the universe
And create the daylight dream once again.

Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man
We who made you into Christ the King
You who come from the womb of the Mother
You who return to the gentle Father
We who made you return ourselves to You.

In obedience to your Compassion
we bear Witness to You we are and are not.
I am in Thou and Thou art in me, Lord.

Mark Christopher Valentine

______________________________________________________________

ANDREW AND HARSHA


Dear friends,

This poem by Sister Jessica Powers, a carmelite from
Wisconsin, encountered for the first time this morning,
illuminates.

andrew

So I, with eager voice and news-flushed face,
cry to those caught in comas, stupors, sleeping:
come, everything is running
flying,
leaping,
hurtling through time!
And we are in this race

http://www.spondee.net/JessicaPowers/index.html

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

Thank you Andrew for that beautiful poem from Sister Jessica
Powers "Everything Rushes". Reminds me of a verse from a poem
of mine written long ago ---- perhaps because the urgency
itself has been consumed but there is a knowing that the
"rush" has its own nature.

Still and Silent I have kept
Loved you very quietly
from a distance while you slept
Know that one day this love of mine
will overtake; it must.
Nothing much I can do because
inevitably this Heart will burst
Being much too full for too long
with unsung lullabies and songs
But I am only too content
to just let it go like that.

Harsha

________________________________________________________________

ANDREW AND MARK

This question and answer about Holotropic Breathwork might be
of interest to some.

Dear Mark,

I was recently talking with a friend who is an MD, and she
mentioned some friends of hers who are doing breathwork, and
said she was concerned that it might be physically damaging.
As she explained it, prolonged hyperventilation lowers blood
ph by reducing co2 levels, as a result, the transfer of
oxygen by the hemoglobin is reduced, and you become hypoxic.
She is concerned that repeated sessions might have some
long-term effects. Is this concern addressed in what you have
learned about it? What do you think > about this?

andrew

Hi Andrew,

I don't really know enough to answer, except that when I am
doing the work, I stop now and then and ride the experience,
and then when it dies down pump it back up. My sense of the
work is that an inner healer directs and that I let go and
allow it. Who knows what damage might be done? I do know that
I am significantly more relaxed about life and that I am
making a major career change that has me feeling I'm finally
finding out who I am after pretending to be my Dad for 40+
years. I've done psychedelics and a LOT of drinking in my
life, so I am willing to risk a bit of anoxia to reverse the
rather intense self loathing that has been a constant
hallmark of life for me for all of my adult life.

I have seen folks on this list express fears about kundalini
as well in conjunction with breathwork. I think I see a lot
of kundalini energy on the floor, and have never seen, nor
heard reported any spiritual emergencies, although one of the
4 mandatory modules in the training is on spiritual emergency
(not one of the 2 I've attended, so I may well learn more
there.) I think everything in life is risky, but that we tend
to try to evaluate the benefit/risk ratio, and if holotropic
breathwork killed me tomorrow, I would not regret having done
it. (yikes, how extreme can one guy get?) Well, you know me,
I love pretending to be extreme. I think hb is a good thing,
but there is an awful lot that I don't know.

If you feel like making your question and my answer available
to the list at large, I have no objection. It's a worthy
question, and a fairly ignorant answer. Such is life.

Love,
Mark

ps as I reread your email and ponder it some more,
I wonder if long term hypoxia is damaging to structures like
the amygdala, the seat of fear and not so harmful to the
Raphe nucleus, the seat of love, and that long term hypoxia
might well be the mechanism of change. Again, if so, so be
it. I am happier because of the work and I have clearly in my
own mind established a direct correlation between the work
and the happiness. (It wears off and I go back, although the
cumulative effect is real too.) Hey, I have to mention that I
am also in favor of psychedelic therapy, with whatever
attendant problems that may have as well. LSD definitely
changed my life and I believe for the better, and that was
with recreational use. The therapeutic setting has a huge
effect, and I wish psychedelic therapy in such a setting with
appropriate monitoring and testing of outcomes were
available. I would use it without hesitation.

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