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Sunday, March 4, 2001

hi from inner directions

Jerry:
hi,

i'm at an internet cafe saloning the web.
The Inner Directions gathering was very good;
not much more to say right now. We met lots
of people and a few of us had dinner Saturday
night, including Jody, who I didn't spend enough
time with, Christiana, Thomas Murphy from
see-what-is list, and his stunning wife Diane,
Chuck Hillig and his friends Bob and Mary, and
Cee, who is a living statement of her poetry,
someone I've been hanging out with for the last
ten thousand years.

i'll be writing more about this next time i get
to a computer.

love,
jerry


Tim:
Dear Jerry,

Thanks for writing from La Jolla! If any plans
arise for a get together this summer, I would
really enjoy meeting you and anyone else who
posts to NDS -- including the ones (thankfully
not too many) who would like to bust me a
good one in the jaw <grin>.

Namaste!

Tim / Omkara
-------------------------------------------
The Benefits of Awakening

Webfarer/Matthew/Cyber Dervish

At 04.03.01-01:58 PM, you wrote:
>--- In NondualitySalon@y...,
Webfarer <swork@a...> wrote:
>
> > When a person awakens there is no
> >benefit to Reality. To Reality it makes no
> >difference if a form [body/mind] is realized
> >or not.
> >
> > As Gensha once said:
> > "If you understand, things are such as they are.
> > If you do not understand, things are such as they are."
> >
> > So the only benefit, if any, is to the body/mind?
> >
> > =============================
>One who is awake in the spiritual sense,is
>expressing Light, is rapture itself, ecstatic,
>blissful. Such a one is like a pulsating
>moment or event of Radiance, filling all
>corners and all directions with light, even
>unto the darkest place in all of the universe.
>Such a one is Love itself, present to shine
>on any and all who will recognize this
>benediction. And shining on all who won't
>recognize this benediction as a silent and
>profound encouragement towards recognition.
>Surrender to the Will of God, or Slavery to
>the Law in every moment, allows one to be
>or to exist as perfect sympathy to the
Divine Process and to the Divine Essence,
>which is Light, Love,Power, Glory, Compassion,
>and Mercy.
>Such a one loses personification (in
>the Real sense, not in the apparent sense)
>in bending to the needs of everyman, and
>even to the endless worlds of creation in
>every form.
>....................matthew

Now this fits in with my small experiences and
with what I have read elsewhere. But on this
list some people claim that there does not
have to be any change in an awakened person!
I am not a religious person, nor do I believe
in any organized religion. In fact it is only
recently that I have started believing in God
again. However, yesterday when I saw that
Whoopie Goldberg movie about nuns
singing their love for God in that church
my heart wanted to burst out of
my chest and tears were rolling down my eyes.
love,
Cyber Dervish
----------------------------------------
Impure Love

Jan/Glo:
Imp, you're "above" imp you're love...
What a funny language is English :)

Jan

Well...we aren't quite funny enough
yet to take our act on the road, but Tim
and I are working on it. :)

Glo

White Wolfe:
...there is no such thing as 'Impure Love'...
unless of course these words refer to love
that is carnal to the point of lacking
compassion for the object of one's desire,
but even then this cannot trully said to be
impure...eros is the beginning of love....it
may be discovered in a brothel....but from
there it will begin its endless ascent into higher
love...so even selfish love is only impure when
it is placed in relationship to a higher love
which cannot exist with that impure love as its
true ground....is the ocean impure...perhaps,
in relationship to a snowflake...but without
one the other does not exist....eros to storge.
to phylia...to agape....and back again.....
the circle spirals ever upward into the Beloved
...hence the fact that all great relgious/mystic/
non-dual poetry is erotic...love is both profane
and sacred...carnal and spiritual...to not
realize this is to fall into one of the endless
traps of dualistic illusion....^^~~~~

further up and further in,

--------------------------------------
Spontaneous Pure Love

Dervish:
(snipped)
When I felt that 'love' I did not see their faces
or bodies, just some sortof aura surrounding
them. I mean I felt this love for their 'auras'.
But it was a total kind of love. No reservations,
no holding back.

Any explanations? >


Xan:
~ in Reality
we are all completely in love with each
other all the time.
It shows how far we have strayed from
our nature that these moments have
become rare and amazing.
Now they are signs we are waking up from
the dream of forgetting...
with or without the concept of non-duality. :-)

Bhadraiah:
Xan, this answer of yours is dearest to my heart.

Check out some more on the states.. (it
needs some familiarity with argon like agni,
indra to post on that list though).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VedicRitual/message/9
---------------------------------------------
Compassion

Tim:
Dear List,

Let us not forget the natural statement
of love when confronted with suffering:
Compassion. This letter is not meant to
be a full exploration of the subject.

Compassion is definitely not pity ...
it is a feeling of love for suffering beings.

The other day, someone apparently looked
at my website dedicated to Fresca, a cat who
was my companion for almost 20 years, who
died in 1998. This person sent me an Email
from a forged address, that started off as though
they were relating to the sadness of Fresca's death.
Later in the Email, the person said some very
nasty, ugly things. Included in this Email was
an attachment (picture) of a partially rotted,
dead cat that had been run over in the road.

My first reaction was to think that this was
a very sick person, and a sort of horror at
seeing the grotesque picture of the dead cat
(roadkill) that was sent.

Later on (last night) I was thinking about it,
and I realized that the picture of the cat
represented the suffering of the person who
had sent the Email and picture. The image
of that poor, ravaged cat was the state of
the sender, lost and crying for help. When
I realized this, I felt a great compassion for
this person who sent the Email and picture,
whoever they are, and a great deal of love.
Much moreso than the many who wrote to
express "their condolences." Condolences are
appreciated, but a cry of suffering is seen
and love rushes to respond.

There is still the compassion. For all beings
who are suffering -- the cat who is run over
in the road, the person who lashes out for
seemingly no reason against the loss of
another... the world is full of suffering and
hurt, and the response of love to that is
compassion.

In contrast, the response of ego to suffering
is anger, hatred and frustration. If someone
lashes out the ego defends itself by becoming
angry and taking a 'vengeful' stance -- "You
got me so I'm going to get you." That's a
continuation of the suffering. The response
of love is to see the real situation -- to see
the reason why someone lashed out the way
they did.

That letter and picture was a learning
experience that will never be forgotten.


Bhadraiah:
Thanks Tim, your idea of compassion tests the
limits of compassion a heart can have,
because we have to look beyond the obvious.
It helps me understand how much I am lacking
in compassion and what I can do to get it
back even a little.

Now what about compassion for the ego?
Why is everybody is beating on this poor ego?
Why does every philosopher or thinker or seeker
insult, abuse and crucify this concept called ego?

Ego or self concept is merely a tool that
detects the situation when we are thrown
into this so-called waking state, and it helps
us to find something to hang on to, gives us
a helping hand, helps with filling our stomach
when we are hungry, takes care of the body and
mind while we pursue the higher goals.. but
why are we so unkind to this ego?

And then, to add insult to injury, when we
get our cherished liberation, we drop this
ego like a disposable glove.

Have some compassion for this ego, please..

With love and compassion
Bhadraiah


Tim:
There is nothing there to beat on -- because
the ego is imagined to be here, things like
insult and abuse are taken (and given). As in
my post on compassion, the first reaction to
that nasty letter and picture of a dead cat
was shock and horror. That was an "egoistic"
reaction. Yet another potential reaction might
be to try and track down the sender, and
get him or her kicked off the ISP, or even
getting so angry as to wish the person
who sent the letter was dead.

If ego went far enough, and someone was
upset enough at the "insult to dead loved
ones," it could even occur that someone
would try to track down the sender and kill
them!

What does that solve, what does that
change, who does that help?

> Ego or self concept is merely a tool that
> detects the situation when we are thrown into
> this so-called waking state, and it helps
> us to find something to hang on to, gives
> us a helping hand, helps with filling our
> stomach when we are hungry, takes care of
> the body and mind while we pursue the higher
> goals.. but why are we so unkind to this ego?

How to be unkind to a concept? Who is being
unkind? It depends also on the definition of
"ego." You seem to equate it with thought --
and thought is indeed a tool, used by nobody
but operating "by itself." The idea "I am
thinking" is the ego.

It is this "I" which is the "snake in a rope."
There is no snake there!

> And then, to add insult to injury,
> when we get our cherished liberation, we
> drop this ego like a disposable glove.

Only the ego cherishes the idea of liberation.
Only an idea can cherish an idea.

There is no liberation or bondage. Only the
ideas of these, both of which the sense of
ego clings.

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