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Petros wrote:

Trying not to get all muddled up in the words of this
particular debate, I might just suggest that ALL experience
is interpreted by necessity, by the very organs that channel
it. Even seemingly 'simple' percepts (sight, sound) have to
be mediated by the nerves that carry what we come to call
'sight' and 'sound.' Without the optic nerves, there IS no
'light' _in itself_. It's all interpreted.

"Nondual - nontemporal - nonspatial experience" is a
contradiction in terms. Or else it's everything all the
time! It erases itself.

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

A common problem we see is that people tend to make "It"
more complicated or erudite than it really needs to be.
Again, as before, it is all a matter or your own
postulation, your own creation of that reality. Think about
the sources of that belief -- where you first obtained it or
read about it or heard about it, and why you accepted it.

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

Organized religion is not necessary for some people, but it
is for others. Ironically, I have often noted that the
founders of religions (Siddhartha, Mahavira, Muhammed,
Joseph Smith, LRH) tend to be arch-individualists who
usually had some sort of conflict with organized religion
and, having no place to go, ended up starting their own by
default . . . on the other hand, those who later joined
those new religions tend to be purely of a group-mentality.
An inherent and inevitable contradiction.

____________________________________________________________________

The following three selections are from Greg:

One very good teacher, friend of mine, answered a question
from a seeker
who thought he was realized:

"The difference between you and me, is that you think
there's a difference between you and me."

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

We don't *have* to talk about "being realized." I think
realization is a conventional way of speaking, and it serves
as an incentive for some people to get and stay interested
in a path. But it is no more a real thing than "otherness,"
which we always seem to be talking against on this list.

1. It is based on the mistaken view that there is an entity.
2. It encourages the belief in a real distinction between
realized and unrealized (more dualities).
3. This distinction then must be based on certain
descriptive
qualities (kindliness, saintliness, lack of ignorance,
etc.).
4. There is no agreement on just which qualities aptly
define
realization.
5. Even for those who believe in something called
realization and
realized beings, those beings themselves almost always
say that
there isn't any such thing.


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


I don't think anything blocks the knowing of the non-dual.
All of
everything is non-dual, is Knowledge right here and now.
Nothing depends on a person's point of view or state or
attainments. Isn't it really the other way around? Don't
the person, the psychology, the objective knowledge, the
language and definitions all appear WITHIN this knowledge?


______________________________________________________________________



Tim G.:

The "road signs" on the nondual "path" are (non-sensual)
bliss, joy, peace and love, and the absense of the
"opposites" of these. Follow these signs, and you will
"reach" the nondual perspective without fail.

Words can either be an aid or a distraction. They are crude
tools, and
should be viewed as such. Let experience be your guide.


______________________________________________________________________


from the I AM list, a portion of the Initiation Verses of
Umba:

VERSE ELEVEN

And through I AM find out who you are.

You are not your name, position, body, thoughts, feelings,
desires, or fears.

You are not anything you can attend to.

"Then I am not I AM," you say.

I AM is initiation. It is the way, not the way IT is.

That which can be attended to, may be the way,
But it is not abidance within ultimate reality.

So now you know the limitation of I AM,
The limitation of attention.

Therefore move quickly and straight to the final attention:
I AM.

So that you will be carried beyond it.


______________________________________________________________________

Some rich contributions from Melody:

I cast my eyes
upon the waters

seeing my image
reflected before me.

Yet when I reach down
to closer inspect

touching that face
and staring into those eyes,

it disappears...

into the clear, cool waters
as 'I' do.


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

Religion need not always be considered
by freedom seekers as a 'bad word',
especially when used in its fullest
expression.

The Traditons have served many a Master....
even Jesus - who knew the Law (the Torah),
and likely other traditions, well.

Can we even begin to count the numbers
who are said to be awakened thru the
lineage (the tradition) arising out of the
words of Ramana Maharshi or Papaji?
----------------------
Looking at these words just now, I see
how imprecise they were in conveying my
thought.

It is not simply the words written on a
piece of paper or a sacred text that
helps open the way, or point to What Is.

It is the presence, the embodiment of
Light, that is experienced by seeker,
when in the presence of such an embodied
Radiance - that not only catapoults us,
it 'grounds' us.

And all traditions (religions) have them.

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

These past weeks I have delighted in the absolute
freedom of my existence....AS I dance thru the
images and symbols of the Christian tradition.

Melody

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


Women for years were beaten, raped and (in some
countries still today) killed by men living within
organizational systems that not only allow, but
encourages such treatment of women.

The fact that a Middle Eastern country still
today condones the killing of women if a man
even 'suspects' her of being unfaithful, is
not the 'fault' of Islam, but rather a natural
reflection of the consciousness of the citizens
within that country - who *use* Islam, and their
manipulation of it's images, as justification
of projection of their hatred and fear onto those
who cannot fight back.

Yet had there been a tradition in that country,
within Islam - that *encouraged* it's followers
to look inward, as these fears and hatreds
danced thru them, how different would be the
lives of everyone living there today....and yet
'the structure of the organization' may be
even more solid than ever before.

It is the *consciousness* of people that determines
the manifestations of these organizations.

Structure, in and of itself, is neither 'good' nor
'bad'.

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

For me, my best teacher in life has been my very own
words. I find that in listening to them when
they're flowing thru me to others, I receive
all the guidance and inspiration I ever need.

That's perhaps why talking to me can be so
frustrating at times. I'm truly listening
to my 'Self' speak to my 'self'.

Now whether this is true for you as well, I
cannot say. I simply offered it as a
possibility.


________________________________________________________________________

Bruce:

J. Krishnamurti, whose famous
1929 speech includes the
statement "I maintain that
Truth is a pathless land, and
you cannot approach it by any
path whatsoever, by any
religion, by any sect," when
asked what he was in the
vocational sense responded
that he was "a religious man."


_____________________________________________________________________


Where the male and female are in full embrace,
the two are one.
Shiva joins Shakti in an embrace that is the universe.
There is only a divine dance and gendered words about
the divine are a human
personification of this dance.

---Dan

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

Ignorance can be defined as whatever it is that interferes
with nondual
awareness. However, what if defining realization as the
absence of
ignorance is itself something that often blocks nondual
awareness? That
is, what if people who define the situation this way then
try to "remove
the ignorance," which in itself is a dualistic approach?

---Dan
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Living through you is different than living you.
Perhaps to be fully clear, I can say, living through
me feels right for me, living me doesn't feel quite
right. That which is living me is beyond words.

---Dan
_______________________________________________________________________


God is always the First Person. He is the Heart. The Great
Shakti, who is the Stunning and Supreme Beauty, whose eyes
radiate innocence, love, and compassion, rises from the
Supreme Person who is the Ocean of Consciousness. Ego, Mind,
etc. are all manifestations of the Great Goddess known by
many names. When She takes all the names and forms and
merges back in the First Person, that is the Heart, there
arises then the Great State in Perfect Self-Recognition. It
is devoid of Mind or Ego or any of its manifestations having
totally consumed them . That is Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is
beyond all the Samadhis, Superconscious states and beyond
the Supermind. That is Nityam and Poornum. It is the essence
of Completeness and Eternally Free. Resting in Its Own
Nature, which is Perfect and Supreme Satisfaction, It knows
nothing other than IT Self and has no longing for anything
what so ever.

---Harsha


________________________________________________________________________


Could "realization" simply be the capacity to live only in
the present
moment, which, re: an earlier thread, is the present moment
precisely
because of its absence of memory? "I eat when I eat; I sleep
when I sleep."

---Kristi

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

If Buddha had not been recognized,
loved,
would he have died
a simple vagabond in the streets,
merely accepted
by a culture that valued
mysticism?

If Jesus had not been remembered and
written about
would he have simply died
an executed, criminal
in a culture that did not value
mystics outside the hieararchy of the synagogue?

Are there today, messiahs and wise ones,
in the guise of tramps
and the insane;
when we look only to the modern synagogue,
the therapists office
and professor's office,
for wisdom?

We've been writing about ethics in corporations and the
heart chakra but one of the things I have looked for here,
that I haven't seen, is the
interratlational aspect of healing. We talk about our
spiritual journey as though it is singular, removed from
relationships and contact with other people, except when we
disclaim knowledge.

We note the world has been ready to self-annihilate and that
the masses are ignorant and in peril......but Co-Dependence
theory and "healthy" ego concerns with boundaries have named
rescueing, once used as a term to describe succor and help
to one in need, into a symptom of an emotional disorder.
Have we moved farther, in our personal journeys, from loving
to thinking?

Earlier I read that particularizing behavior associated with
the Heart;
kindness, generosity, etc....is a move back into
duality....perhaps I
misunderstood this but it seems to me that healing is
pointless if it does not precisely impact on the manner in
which we treat other people, and deal with conflict at the
personal, tribal and universal level.

Each of us with our wisdom, insight, knowledge and
experience, yet know very little about each other, the
quality of our personal relationships etc. I'm not
suggesting we digest ourselves and each other in the
list....but I am curious about the lack of evidence of that
particular aspect of "that which we seek" and how it affects
our dealings with the world.

I also think that universal rhythms call to group
consciousness to heal
along generalized dimensions at a given point and time; we
need desperately, coming from a culture suckled on sacrifice
and guilt, to understand the nature of joy. Perhaps in the
coming generations our (collective) harvest of the
individual seeking we do now, will reap the wisdom and
sophistication of kindness that will reach out to those
"masses," and each other, not in fear that we are in danger
of giving up something, but in the sure knowledge that we
will get something. I understand, intellectually, the
boundaries stuff, but it still leaves a niggling little
something...isn't the point to live, not in fear, and in
inclusion, not with walls.

---Kristi


________________________________________________________________________

Ivan and Jan dialogue:

Ivan: At first
sight all sensorial inputs
are processed in the brain
-- *from within or without*
-- and we call
it perception in the usual
meaning of the word. But
what is the brain?
It is also a perception,
obviously. You may touch it,
weigh it, smell it
eat it (if you like) or
sense it. A perception. So
what is the implication
of this short analysis? All
is perception. Then where is
the perceiver?

Jan:
1. The perception that All
is a perception has to be a
perception as well.
2. The perception that the
perception that All is a
perception has to be a
perception too...
3. The perception that....
(: to be continued ad infinitum :)

Conclusion: The universe
must have been created by
MS. It hangs up :)

Ivan: I am not sure if you
are joking....but...
No. There is no perception.
There is no perceiver. It is
being this.
Anything I or you may say or
conceive, is being it. When
one says that the observer is the
observed, is not a matter of
trying to merge
them, none of them is
separate -- a new relation
is born -- a non-relation
-- the one and same is not
said to relate to itself...


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

Ivan and Xan:

Ivan: I don't understand this. If you perceive something
directly
you may try to comunicate it. Obviously the words are not
the fact
you perceived. Whay do you say that they are always
expressions
of a concept?

Xan: How could you express in words without going by way of
a concept, even if it is a concept of what is
non-conceptual? *It* can't be communicated in words, but
we do try to communicate 'about' it. In my experience, we
can commune in/as It, but words have nothing to do with
that.

Ivan: Yes, I understand it. But obviously words that came
from a source
that is in touch with that has more meaning than words that
came from
a concept itself -- unrelated to directness. And words may
*inspire* both to stand toghether -- but I agree, words are
just air in vibration.


Xan: Responsibility is for you only and your integrity of
purpose. There is no way for anyone to guarantee how their
words are heard.

Ivan: Again, if I perceive something, it is my
responsability the
emiting of the words, and their purpose -- as you say. But
you,
in the position of the listener, may have a dislike for my
image,
or you may be in a competitive mood, or you may feel that
you
have a reputation to defend...etc...and block any real
comprehension
coming from the conceived image you make from the writer. So
it is
also your responsability as the reader to be attent in order
to avoid
automatic associations/responses. Would you agree?

Xan: I would say that if we get into deciding what other
people's
responsiblities should be we will begin forming a
religion. One way of
looking at responsibility is, it is just between you and God
... or you and Self, whichever word you prefer.

-Certainly I like it better when I and other people take
responsibiity for our ego-mind stuff, but there are no
guarantees there either.

Ivan: Yes, no guarantee. And you are right in saying that,
on emiting
the words it's up to me if I am or not playing with
thoughts...right.

Xan: If your focus is on the communication, you will get all
the variations of communication.

Ivan: Thanks. This is a lesson for me. I never looked at it
this way...

Xan: If you want to know the truth of yourself and relax
into
that, communication will occur but without an investment in
its effect.

Ivan: Yes. Otherwise is intelectual blablabla.

Xan: Knowing what you are is primary, according to me.

Ivan: Certainly. Any atempt into trying to convey words
is secundary to that. If one wants, then one may go into
whatever one feels is worthwile, reach into details if one
feels like -- if the primary is present.

_______________________________________________________________________
Humor and wisdom from Glo:

When I was reading one of those "this is your body" books
to my
then young son, he came up with an unforgettable answer to
such
metaphysical questions. As I read the chapter title, "Why We
Have
Skin," He exclaimed, " I know. Its so people won't laugh at
you."


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

When I read those stories
of Zen masters, who replied to their questioning disciples
with
"Eat, your soup is getting cold."..golly, my Mom said that
at
nearly every meal. If only I'd listened more to her...

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

quoting Wei Wu:

Why are you unhappy?
Because 99.9% of what you think,
And everything you do,
Is for your self,
And there isn't one.


________________________________________________________________________


bless the wierdos
and the freaks--
i know one
i am one,
---aleks


Me too.

--Greg

me three

---have a nice weekend!

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