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Saturday, 02/17/01 Highlights

Oops I got too long for aol I guess...this is the rest, with a repeat of the
last paragraph on the first highlights sent:

Tim:
The "raging against the injustice" is in fact a worse problem than
the injustice itself, because it is adding to suffering, and creates
yet one more suffering being (you). Look into this. Instead of
looking for solutions, take a good look at the problem.

The problem is not the circumstances, but with your thoughts in
disarray from their effects, your ability to help is greatly
reduced. Who can help in a state of emotional turmoil? Peace starts
right here, right now with you. You can start the healing, but you
have to be in a position to do so, and that means freedom from the
problems most of the rest of humanity is facing. It isn't selfish to
want peace, because peace begins "one person at a time."

The so-called 'mystical realizations' are phoney -- forget what you
may have heard. The 'goal' is to get 'you' out of your own way, if
you see what I mean? "Nonduality" is intensely practical.

Maybe it will involve an acceptance (not necessarily fatalistic, but
it could seem so initially) that there is nothing more you can do...
that the world is as it is because human society is inherently
diseased. To give up utterly (surrender) has unexpected "benefits,"
because if you stop seeking solutions, the problems clarify
themselves. That might be a place to start.
-------------------------------
Tim quotes Bruce Morgen:

"The past is dead"

The past is dead, the future is imaginary, the one and only abode of
the truly sacred is the eternal now moment. The recurring cry of the
charlatan and the hoodwinked is "wait and see."

The fact is that the future is intrinsically unknown, and it is the
nature of thought to attempt to predict it -- but what does thought
have to work with in its attempt to forecast the coming years,
months, days, hours, or even minutes? The answer is that thought can
only imagine the future from knowledge, which is information acquired
in the past, and therefore, in the words of the sentencing
jurist, "dead, dead, dead."

Thought, manifesting as ego, is a survival tool by nature and thus
fears its own extinction. Because the future is inherently unknown,
the thought-full consciousness cannot face that which contains the
very real possiblity of that dreaded ego-death. It marshals all its
resources, comprising knowledge, and replaces the fearful unknown
with the resulting concocted "future."

Thus does ego imagine its way into the illusion of psychological
security, and in the process preclude the exclusively in-the-moment
advent of the truly sacred, which theists call "God." That is also
why people like Benjamin Creme, who encourage future-fixated
consciousness aka "wishful thinking," are, by their actions and
announced intentions, clearly opposed to the living, actual "God!"

... Bruce Morgen
---------------------------------
Tim/Seeker:

>The so-called 'mystical realizations' are phoney -- forget what you
>may have heard. The 'goal' is to get 'you' out of your own way, if
>you see what I mean? "Nonduality" is intensely practical.

Dear Omkara,
I don't know what you mean by 'mystical realizations'.
Less than two months ago I was a hard core agnostic! If not for a 'mystical
experience' which completely changed my way of thinking I would not be on
this list. Here is what I wanted to post before but did not have the guts to
do so.

>A month or so ago I had a mystical experience, while staring at my
>computer screen, deep in thought about something I had read. I do >not
remember now what exactly happened!

>All I know is that my life changed completely after that. The next day >or
two I felt incredibly happy. I remember a couple of days after that
>experience somebody damaged my property and I could not get even >a little
angry or concerned! My neighbours watched in disbelief as >they were
expecting an angry outburst! The most radical shift?... My >sex life... from
over indulgence to zero indulgence! [Good bye to all >those sex sites!]

>Now, every waking moment that I am free and am not too tired I am >devoting
to the study of 'mysticism', 'gnosis', non-duality, whatever. >Can somebody
please direct me to websites where I can read others >mystical experiences.
[So that I can understand mine better]. I would >be delighted if anyone can
share their mystical experiences or give me >advise as to what to do next.

>[By the way, I found Terry Murphys articles about Enlightenment and
>Mindfulness on the Allspirit website very useful. Which is how I found >my
way to this group.]

------------------------------
The Ultimate Duality:

Dusty:
Hi tmurphy and everyone else,

part of quote from tmurphy's last post:
>transcending every possible conceptualization and objectification.

I enjoyed the quote. I am wondering if it is possible to define and
then give a specific example of just what it means to transcend a
concept -- then to do the same thing for an object?

Tim:

To transcend a concept is simply to see it as concept, rather than
some "hard wired reality" or fact.

No "point of view" is any more factual than any other. If anyone
tries to tell you differently, they have an agenda or ulterior
motive, and are to be distrusted immediately -- especially if someone
tries to put over the idea they know more than you do or are "more
enlightened than you are," which is absolute crap. Nobody has a
stranglehold on "the one right view."

Concepts are inherently dualistic, because there's always
an "anticoncept." And all concepts are based on some arbitrary
situation, time period, historical location, ad infinitum.

All thinking and thought is based on concept. As for object, a
subject is required to know an object. Subject and object both being
concepts, they are not based on anything "solid" or "real" but only
based on thought, which is constantly changing.

If you want a specific example, here's a concept: "I am a good
person." One moment I may feel this way, then this perception is
dashed when something occurs that I feel now makes me "a bad
person." If something later occurs to fix it, now "I am a good
person" again. Transcending this, see only that this perception
depends entirely on circumstance, and "self-image" changes not only
from year to year but even from day to day and hour to hour.

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