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Tues/Wed January 16-17


CAREY

I used to walk down my old street past the piles of garbage and
burned-out cars. People rarely smiled and they never looked me in the
eye. They just stared straight ahead at something that wasn't there. If
they weren't walking past me, I would have sworn they were already
dead. It was a cold, dark and frightening place.

One day I took a wrong turn and found myself on a different street. The
sun was shining and everything seemed alive. The people on the street
were friendly. They smiled at me and looked me in the eye. Some people
were arguing together at a sidewalk cafe. Occasionally, someone would
jump out of a darkened alley yielding a knife only to find that it was
made of butter and could not withstand the sunlight. Sometime later, I
would see them chatting happily with the other people on the street.
The knife-wielding incident was long-since forgotten like a bad dream.
Others stop me in the street and ask me who I am and where I'm going. I
usually tell them I don't know, but it makes me think about it.

My old street seems like a distant dream, now. I look at a steet sign
here and it says 'Nonduality Street'. I like it here. I think I'll stay
awhile.


____________________________________________________________________

Nonduality Salon (NDS) website home page has been completely
re-organized so that it is compact yet reflects the personality of NDS.

The Matrix web page has been organized and recent articles by Gill
Eardley, Terry Murphy and Dan Berkow have been added. There are 23
articles/letters. (Contributions are always invited.)

Several new lists have been added to the Nonduality Email Lists page.

The following articles have been added to the new web page called
Nonduality for the People:

The Four Rhythms of Lectio Divina, by Christiana Duranczyk Fire
Ceremony's "Manifestation", an internet slideshow, by Amanda This is a
People's Nonduality, by Michael Read Getting Back to Innocence, by Sri
Sri Ravi Shankar Nothing to Add, Jan Barendrecht's new website

To easily access all the links, please go to
<http://www.nonduality.com/new.htm>

--Jerry Katz

To subscribe to the Nonduality Salon email list:
<http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/nondualitysalon>

___________________________________________________________________

CEE

dear omkara,

i have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts and your site. i have no
mind for nondual debate. i leave that to you pros. i just spew out some
words now and then from experience, just for fun. if we belabor every
word it ceases to be fun for me. please be patient with the words as
they are so inadequate.

i don't subscribe to the do nothing approach that seems to seethe in
modern spirituality. that is why there are so many lurkers who have no
idea what their true identity is. if you want to be a meat body do
nothing. if you are fully awake, of course, you do nothing. if you find
your self anywhere in between, for gods sake, do something! There is
clear and direct spiritual guidance available.

by witness i meant the impersonal consciousness that is constant during
waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep. for 'me' there was a sense
of suffering here. a separation. even though witness and witnessed are
the same, as long is there is even a slight awareness of an object,
there is duality. (the object here being states of mind) honestly i
don't know who wanted it, but there was a spontaneous movement to end
the separation my teacher gave me the advice- to eliminate everything
witnessed from the witness- some time ago. it was easier to 'do it' in
deep meditation than in the so called waking state. but eliminating
everything witnessed in the waking state --well--what can i say?

there are no states of mind. only this unspeakable reality

love, cee

_________________________________________________________________

MARK OTTER

Hi All,

I just saw a fun commercial. It was for potato chips, but the fun bit
was that the referee was so busy eating chips that he missed the play.
The commercial ends with him announcing on the field something like
"... but on closer inspection, we found ourselves asking what is
possession? Can we ever really possess anything..." Hee, hee, hee!

Love, Mark

___________________________________________________________________

STILLPOINT

Dear Tim,

I found this beautiful post in the ND Highlights and would appreciate
your permission to quote.

Thanks,

Ed -------

Tim Gerchmez:

There is a place where life is eternally minted anew, every second,
every instant. In this place, every moment is full of nothing but
POSSIBILITY. It is the very place that life itself exists and
continually renews itself. Most of us focus our attention on the past,
which is gone, or the future, which is unreal. The place I refer to is
the "Eternal Now Moment." Dwelling there, there is only joy, because
life has only possibilities and nothing else. At this borderline to
eternity, it is seen that life continually ceases and renews itself
afresh, forever, timelessly. Here is found no predestination, no cages
of dumb habit and ceaseless repetition of old patterns, but total
liberation. Each instant constantly dies and is renewed, and thus life
is ever fresh and new and unpredictable, like a cool mountain stream.
There are no looks back to the past, and no projection into a future,
because neither exist in this place. It is seen here that all is still,
that time does not exist. This is still-point -- the place from which
all life arises. Here lies a gateway to Eternity.

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

TIM

I had it "right." Now I've lost *my way*. Exactly. "My way" exists no
longer. You hit the nail right on the head.

Looking at that artificial plastic flower of a post, it's evident that
every word is stolen from somewhere else. Even the first sentence where
it says "life is newly minted here" is from the Stephen King novella,
"The Langoliers."

______________________________________________________________

HOBBES

The 'american greed machine' (not the american 'people') got ahead of
itself when it tried to build on the ownership of a 'land line system'
when in reality the next generation of internet would be digital...

Thus, the billion dollar 'boom' internet companies that sold 'ideas for
software' through a network or list of contracted wannabe companies
that offered hype but no content (however, they would regularly swallow
up and steal the 'intellectual property' of those outside of the
dirt-loop) made it necessary to print more money to pay for the real
things that these real people at the top were really purchasing
creating inflation as demand exceded supply and, as is the bullshit
market dictates when 'uncovered', when the market shifted to digital
(the obvious next generation) they were left with there phone
companies, land lines and 'false prophets' but the money was already
spent.

Thus, the simple commodities, like food, clothing, education, medicine,
natural and human resources and entertainment (the things that the big
hogs do not pay for as they are paid to appear not to do; to bad they
did not forget how to consume) take the biggest hits and the common
people must pay back their bill in the forms of illegal hidden taxes
and cut throat scemes.

How do you pay that back to those that were mowed under by assholes
that new nothing about the volitility of the market beyond its
potential?

Digital communication and cyberspace are free. No one owns the internet
or the content it contains. It is all free game up here so post and
publish with care.

Profits should not have been about 'leaching' onto and exploiting
digital power but about finding the cheapest possible means of making
digital technology avaiable to all people.

These are your winners and these are those that are at the bottom of
your markets and on their way out as the fatheads are pushing them out
of this new market with as much force as before. How much inflation can
you take as your paycheck gets smaller?

As a planet we learn. As a people we grow. Who amoung us stands in our
way to know?

--Hobbes

____________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

Jerry and all,

I have not been participating much recently, in fact have had little
time for anything but work. And this work is beginning to pay off.
Today, my oldest son's high-school principle called me, to give
permission for James to graduate at the end of this semester. James had
accumulated extra credits by taking college classes while still in Jr
High.

James will be working full-time, along with me and Princess Dharma, to
perfect our 'product'. We are in the process of choosing a company for
our first co-located, remote server, from which to serve our customers;
James will be fully in charge of the technical aspects of software and
administering the server and networks, while I and Princess Dharma
cover the creative end of things.

Our project is still unveiled, and 'top secret' at this time, and will
require total dedication for the next few months. I will be reading
NDS, and will contribute when I can. I hope that I communicate the
sense of excitement and promise that our venture holds; when we 'go
public', there may be quite a splash!

I extend my appreciation and love to all; I love NDS and am working
quitely behind the scenes, to further Jerry's world-domination plans.
Yes, when (not if) our project succeeds, non-duality may be able to
gain an equal footing with the more popular versions of human
conceptual insanity!

Keep on keeping on, all...

Gene Poole

<http://news.excite.com/news/r/010116/10/net-india-cisco-dc>

Quote from above article:

"Cisco predicts a worldwide shortage of two million networking
professionals by 2005."

"Cisco announced on Monday it will set up 34 training academies in
India to produce about 100,000 Internet network executives to combat
the expected professional shortage. The Cisco Networking Academy
program has about 5,900 academies worldwide now with about 150,000
students enrolled in learning how to design, build and maintain
computer networks."

<http://www.ciscosystems.com/>

_______________________________________________________________

WHITE WOLFE

the only way i have found to 'talk' about non-duality/spirituality and
not become trapped in dialectical argumentation is to retreat into
poetry as does my brother dan...then one is not talking about but
attempting to give expression to the experience...language is something
less than spirit...hence Taoism's rich use of poetry,symbolism andd
double negatives..."the true way that can be talked about is not the
true way"...^^~~~~

___________________________________________________________________-

MELODY

" I am the Self, omnipresent, the very source of all thought and
experience, the inner light of Consciousness because of which the
entire manifestation arises and becomes perceivable and cognizable.

I am this Self, the experiencing, the Sole experiencer of everything,
with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes.

This universe exists in me, the infinite Consciousness, like a
reflection in a mirror. As the basic energy of Consciousness I exist in
all things that exist, as their very essence. I am the fragrance of
flowers, the sentience in sentient beings. I am the noumenal tran-
scendence and the phenomenal immanence in the entire manifestation.

I am Consciousness with the slightest touch of objectivity or the
slightest taint of any modification. What a joke! I who have never been
bound, seek liberation!

There is neither bondage nor liberation. There is nothing for me to
acquire or to abandon. For me who has neither happiness or misery,
where is the question of meditation or non-meditation? There is nothing
that I should or should not do. Let the spontaneous action take place,
whatever it be. I am the Witnessing of it."

from "The Final Truth", Ramesh Balsekar

__________________________________________________________________

JERRY

Who am I?

Today I hear everyone suffering. Even in laughter and in joy I hear
everyone suffering. It is like a fountain that shoots strong and high
and draws everyone's attention. I am here to understand suffering. I
know there's a time and a place where there is no suffering anymore. It
is not really a time or a place. It is 'no suffering anymore'. One
might know a desire to be in 'no suffering anymore', to be there all
the while. And everything I do is what I need to do to get to 'no
suffering anymore'.

If I'm here to understand suffering, I must be here to understand what
I do to get to 'no suffering anymore'. But if I am here to understand
suffering, why do I want to get to 'no suffering anymore'? That's the
dilemma: to understand suffering and yet to get to 'no suffering
anymore'. The best I can do is understand the dilemma. I can understand
it by watching my movements to 'no suffering anymore'. By watching what
I do.

It has come to this: everything arises as suffering, upward like a
fountain, and it all drops down to the pool of 'no suffering anymore',
to arise again.

Even the Intelligence of God arises fountain-like into the air.
Galaxies swirl at its peak. Everyone looks. Have you noticed? But I'm
bent to the wind, walking the sidewalk leading to 'no suffering
anymore'. I feel I'm the peak of the spray spilling down and about to
meet the pool that is its source: 'no suffering anymore'. Suddenly I
sense that this experience is only another peak of a spray. Indeed, who
am I?

--a spiritual seeker

______________________________________________________________________

XAN

"Those who know, don't speak... those who speak, don't know."

I have a different (inspired) interpretation of this quote from the Tao
Te Ching, which folks seem to enjoy using to disparage each other's
speakings, and their own:

That which knows does not speak... that which speaks is not that which
knows.

Mind knows 'about' and speaks 'about' the Tao, which just Is.

Once that is accepted... no problem.

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

DAN

Those who speak, and know, know that they don't speak, even while
they're speaking.

Thus, they speak without knowing what's being said, as they know
without speaking.

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

CHUCK HARRINGTON

Very interesting. Let me add to what you said, for Taoism (the
original, organic, non-dogmatic Taoism) is one of my favorites. So this
is fun and play to me. "Those who say do not know, those who know do
not say," is an important aphorism. Though it is said in many ways in
many cultures all through history. I believe that this quote was said
by Lao--tzu (the legendary Chinese hermit philosopher). He said it over
2,000 years ago. I do not believe he meant *not* to say anything (after
all, he reportedly *said* the quote and he *wrote* the classic work
"Tao Te Ching" ). As I mentioned before, If you talk about it, you are
talking about the past, and dualism pops up again. But, I think it is
only human to attempt to say that which you cannot say. The great
mystics knew the difference between the words they used and what the
words were pointing to. Words can only be used to point to a reality
that exists beyond. ((May I add a side remark here: There is much
confusion with a few of us on this mailing list.... Especially with
what Wittgenstein called "the bewitchment of our intelligence by means
of grammar." Some of us on this list are not paying attention to the
difference between the words and what the words are pointing to. Some
will take one sentence out of context and criticize it without looking
at the whole picture or meaning of the complete post..... Or give a
whole serious critical rant/question about "who" is doing the
observing...(which is appropriate in many cases)..... but in certain
instances this was already understood and was meant to point beyond. I
use nouns and verbs even though "I" know there is no subject or object
doing something separate---there is just the "doing." I do not think
one has to explain their meaning after each sentence they use. A waste
of bandwidth. Language is awkward and limited. One should look at the
whole of the post. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts in
many cases. It is a matter of understanding what the whole expression
was pointing to. If the language is taken too literally then the whole
one-up game of attack and correction comes into the fold "which folks
seem to enjoy using to disparage each other's speakings" because it was
not understood.)) Anyway, back to Taoism: the fundamental is elusive,
marvelously elusive. Lao Tzu also implied that our inner awareness of
this undifferentiated unity (wholeness, allness of creation) is
invisible, inaudible, unfathomable. It is impossible to define. The Tao
is really a symbol of that which is ineffable. There is a named Tao and
an unnamed Tao. The Taoist Sage who has gone the way of Tao holds it
within himself or herself, but doesn't filter it down into a
categorized perception. The Tao was something that was at the same time
within and without; for in Tao all opposites are blended, all contrasts
harmonized. In the context of Taoism----to be and not to be arise
mutually... The early Taoists talked about returning to your Original
Nature (The Uncarved Block) Keep returning to no-mind (Buddhist) and
again the Taoists said "keep returning to the Source" You can always
return to it (the Taoists say the only motion is returning) one
discovers that there is no place to go because you have always been
there. A young Zen enthusiast once asked his Master, Gensha, how to
enter the path of the Buddha. "Do you hear that stream?" asked the
Master. "Why yes," answered the student. "There," said Gensha, "is the
way to enter."

----------------------- ANDREW

Who is not who.

Is not is not is not.

________________________________________________________________________

TIM GERCHMEZ

Dear List,

The following is from "The Sage and the Housewife" (book about U.G.
Krishnamurti) and I thought it interesting enough to post here.

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

I just met a man.... --------------------

Before I met U.G. I was immersed in the book I am That, conversations
with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. In the course of conversation with U.G.,
whenever Maharaj's name was mentioned, U.G. would point to me and say,
"Your Nisargadatta," and I would feel quite elated. I asked U.G. if he
had ever met Maharaj. U.G. replied that Maurice Frydman had somehow
arranged a meeting. But Frydman did not know Marathi which was the only
language Maharaj spoke. And the other person in the room with Maharaj
could not be of much help as an interpreter because he could not
understand much English. Anyway, as U.G. returned home someone asked
what he thought of Maharaj and U.G. gave a typical answer, "I just met
a man."

I told U.G. that his name was mentioned in the I am That in Chapter 72,
and that Maharaj had commented that "this man", referring to U.G. would
soon stop talking altogether. U.G. on hearing this said, "Maybe, I will
develop throat cancer or something. It is only the privilege of a saint
to die of cancer. I told Mahesh to see that in my death certificate the
cause is put down as cancer and not anything else. Otherwise I won't be
recognized by the world. Anyway it is only when I stop travelling that
I will drop dead."

I had somehow got Maharaj to autograph the book I am That, and this
made the book all the more precious to me, so precious that I was
reluctant to lend it to anyone. And if I did lend it I was quite
worried about losing it till it came back to me. U.G. remarked, "If you
are that attached to that book, whatever you get from it will be a big
zero." This statement surely succeeded in reducing my attachment to a
certain extent, but even at this point it has not completely vanished.
Just to end this narrative concerning Maharaj, I remember I had told
U.G. that when I had first read Maharaj's book I felt as if the chair
that I was sitting on was pulled from under me. And U.G. replied, "I
will pull the chair, the carpet, and the very ground that you are
standing on." I was so hypnotized by his words that even for my own
sake I did not have the strength to run away from him.

________________________________________________________________

MATTHEW FILES

When a particular american poet first met D.T. Suzuki, this man was
very young and enamored with the Zen literature and Buddhist teachings.
Given his age and his highly refined and sensitive intelligence but
simple lack of experience, he was quite impulsive. He saved his money
with one goal in mind.To travel to Japan and visit Suzuki at the temple
in which he was residing. When he finally got there, of course he was
very excited. Suzuki greeted the poet and his friend, and very
graciuosly invited them to join him in the temple for his practice.
They were thrilled. Imagine, seeing this great man at his practice-
this man who embodied for them the goal of realization. Suzuki walked
into the temple, and the men followed. He proceeded to light candles
and incense, and to worship the Buddha shrine. Now, the two americans
were shocked by what they saw. "what is this?" they asked the great
master. "What is this worship of idols? You're supposed to burn the
Buddha, kill the Buddha..."(Being such enthusiastic students, they had
read all the great Zen stories.) Suzuki turned, and very sweetly and
gently smiled at them."You burn the Buddha", he said. "I'll worship the
Buddha". Now of course,what needs to be clarified,is that Suzuki had
"killed" the Buddha years before. He had already realized nonduality.
Because of that he was truly available to worship, to express real
devotion. To "kill the Buddha" is only the first step. Life doesn't go
on by living on the first step, however. One needs to "move
ahead"-always.

............matthew

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