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Saturday, 31-March-01

Gurus????

Tony:

The guru is the last impediment, the last vestige of form a god. Once
you invest yourself in the guru and surrender to him. There is nothing
else afterwards, so you become like Nisargadatta Maharaj you return to
yourself. So it handy to have a guru even if it is to have the
opportunity to dispense with this form.........ONS Tony.

Jody:
It is a deep blessing to have a real guru, and the result of
very good karma. However, there's no reason to go running to
anyone offering initiation. If there is no access to a living
guru, one can take an ascended saint as a guru, or one can
regard Ishvara as their guru, or Mother Kali. If one is blessed
with sincerity in their intention, even their life can become a
guru to them.

Tony:
Any form Ishwara, Ascended Masters,(Devas), is still a form and no
different from a full human body. The only guru is the 'Inner Guru',
which is one's own Higher Self. Even an ant can be one's guru..in the
form...
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"Meeting the Buddha"

Tim:
Meeting The Buddha
------------------

I met the Buddha on the road.
Remembering advice, I pulled my knife,
and prepared to kill him.

To my surprise, his movements echoed mine.
He pulled his knife, and prepared to kill me.

Not letting this throw me, I swung the knife
in a downward arc, straight into the Buddha's heart.

Echoing my actions, the Buddha swung his knife
in a downward arc, straight into my heart.

What happened next was surprising.

For a split second, there was a view from above,
watching both bodies fall, again exactly as one.

For a split second, there was a feeling from below,
feeling both bodies fall, again exactly as one.

Both bodies falling, they vanished together as one.
Above and below meeting, they vanished together as one.

And one Buddha continued his stroll down the road.

Omkara
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Question

Jerry:
If we ever start The Course in Nonduality, this might be
turned into a good question on the finals:

wouldn't it be nice to talk about nonduality from the place
prior to anything ever having been written about it by anyone?
when people first started talking about nonduality, many
must have done it at the same time without knowing about
the others. we know what scriptures have survived, but i
wonder what else was being said that has been lost. what
would you have talked about? unable to refer to the
nonduality of friends and literature, what would you say
to describe the nondual state and what might prompt it?
Pretend you're the first one!

Jan:
What has been lost is "civilization" - one where caring
wasn't but a concept, where one wasn't delivered at funny
farm when not understood, where human feelings weren't
expressed in dollars - etc. etc.. So even if the "original"
knowledge would be restored, there wouldn't be anyone
to benefit from it - the nondual pun of it (lol).

Without the requirement of upgrading software via Internet,
I would have been silent about nonduality the entire life,
because in a society like the present one, people are way
too biased (through upbringing, education and media) to
understand the "original discovery" of nonduality and
both the laugh and beauty of it.

And being unfamiliar not only with nonduality, but with
the entirety of spirituality, and an atheist too, in my
case, the discovery was made under "worst case"
conditions...
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Return

Xan:
For ages you have come and gone
courting delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure Consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.

So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely.
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come -
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You were born from the rays of God's Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you deceive Us with this outer show?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Rumi
Sufi poet
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-
Omkara quotes:

"'Realization or Enlightenment is not something anyone
ever could possibly want'. This is both a literal statement
of truth and a koan. Parse the statement first and be sure
you've realized its true meaning, its full import. Then
attacking it as a koan, realize what you are."
----------

"Words are not what they refer to, and what they refer
to is also unreal, only a thought in the mind. There is
no difference between self and Self except the capitalized
letter S, and what you imagine to be self or Self is
only in your imagination. It is possible to be the reality,
but unreal to think about it, just as it is unreal to think
about yourself but it is possible to be yourself. To let go
of the hold words and ideas have on the
mind is the beginning of knowing naturally what is
always ever-present but is obscured by the universe
of ideas built by the mind. The mind constitutes the
Maya or Leela, and the idea of self or 'I' is also just a
thought in the mind, part of the Maya."
----------

"There are seeming levels to communication, but it is
not so. Two winos discussing where to get their next
drink is the same as two math professors
discussing the integral calculus. Communion is
happening in both cases, and in both cases the words
are extra, just an excuse for the communion to
be, a carrier or transmitter of the communion."
-- Omkara
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Hindu-Adwait

jb:
Funny story about the cute cat Sandeep... What comes
to this mind is a picture of a man with an infected tooth
who visits the dentist. And the dentist asks:" How do you
want it sir... With a pain that is bearable, it will cost you
$600 and me, 4 hours... The other treatment gives a
severe pain, for a short time you will think to be dying
and then it's over, the treatment will cost you only $1 and
me, just one minute..." Says the patient:" I can't stand
severe pain, so I'll take the expensive treatment. But
first, I have to earn the money for it"

Yes, the majority doesn't want the shortcut, but a life
filled with the pain of seeking. Fill the mind with
dogma until it becomes so heavy that it grinds to a halt...
If Jesus would be alive today, he would be locked up
as an anarchist, if Buddha would be alive today he
would be called ignorant as no one is suffering, only
experiencing the effects of bad genes causing some
kind of disorder....

Putting those "famous dead guys" on the highest possible
pedestal outside the atmosphere, is a sure guarantee
there won't be anymore of them. And of course, using
only those quotes, that will fortify one's "arguments".
With a "famous living guy", that would be impossible...
Too inconvenient, so in order to get famous, die first -
physically that is :)

Sandeep:
Who is appearing in front of a sage is but an individual
with an assumed sense of individuality, who is asking
what to do, how to do.
These very question denote the continued presence
of the entity. With the non-volitional erasure of the
"questioner of the how", the how or what, also drops.
And there is existing in spontaneity in the moment ,
which is all that separates a sage from a clown.
The arising compassion in a sage, for the deep misery
of the individual in front of him/her, "births" an
appropriate life line, which is thrown to the seeker.
Knowing all life-lines are useless, unless it is the will
of Consciousness (a mere conceptual term) to end the
entitification in a particular body-mind complex, the
sage, out of his/her compassion, suggests to ponder
on 'Who am I", or to do exactly as the seeker wishes
in the moment (whatever is wished and then acted
upon, is anyway exactly what was to happen in the
first place) or X, Y, Z, whatever.

That offered life line(s), was appropriate in the
moment and appropriate to "a" seeker.

Now other idiots, make a book out of it, some other
idiots edit it to suit their societal/political purpose,
and some idiots centuries/decades later, believe
that is the gospel to be carried on their head for
enlightenment to seep through.


That they are doing so, is also part of the dance
of perfection.

Otherwise it would not happen.

So I have no problem with it.

A lovely question and an equally lovely answer.

Why are there so many fake Gurus today, peddling
their wares?

To whom will the fake seeker, turn to, without these
fake Gurus.

All part of the dance of perfection, a Duet of One.

---------------------------
jb:
How is it in India? An allergy for "scripturally
incorrect" too? Would a guy like Nisargadatta still be
recognized?

Sandeep:
India is in a mess.

You have maybe couple of million people so poor, that
they are just sitting waiting for death.
Not from any disease, but from hunger, for lack of
ability to produce or buy any food.
Can you imagine, a million people, silently waiting for
the relief of death to arrive?
Statistically, they only come to 1-2% of the total
population, so, a nice little figure forgotten about, in
Govt reports. And the cruel joke is that from this year ,
India will me a major player in exporting food grains
to the International markets.

For these couple of million, there is no concerns of
spiritual correctness or incorrectness.

A vast majority of 6-700 Million deeply steeped in
Hindu/Islamic (2nd largest population of Muslims in
the world is in India)/Christian/Buddhist, rituals and r
igmarole, using them as props, as Insurance Policies,
more concerned with improving status in life, how to
get their son on to the Information Technology
band-wagon and head for the US and earn dollars.

It is this mass-pool, which enables something like
Kumbh Mela to take place, where every 12 years,
close to 200 Million people would gather in one town
of Allahabad and take a dip in the waters of Ganges
(one of the most polluted rivers in the world).

The scripture says, it will wash up away all sins.

Sort of a renewal package, come take a dip, slate
clean, go back to your old ways.

Akin the Christian Vatican practice of granting indulgences
for rape, murder, theft, or whatever you get into.

Now to service these huge mass-pool, you have the
Shankaracharyas and their whole team, spouting the
usual dead crap from the Gita, the Islamic Imams with
their fatwas, the Buddhist clergy and the Christian
missionaries (with their own mission of converting the
eluded Hindus, to the path of Jesus through actual cash
hand-outs, benediction for a fee, as proposed by the
Vatican ), making up a nice orgy of divisiveness.

It is this divisiveness of the mass-pool which is used
by political leaders, spiritual leaders, religious leaders
to generate frenzy inter-alia faiths and religions and
perpetuate their hold on power.

Religious power and political power are co-habitating
partners.

Next comes, the neo-rich, the so called educated class,
a segment of which, finds it fashionable to go after
New-Age spirituality. Straight from California.

Seeing the bucks that can be made in these start-up
ventures , we have "home-grown experts", who throw
in a bit of Upanishads into Astral flying to check out
and improve Akashic records. Big money in "channeling",
Gita Satsangs, cute homilies like Hindu Advaitins, etc, etc.

And yet there are the few, who see the appropriateness
of the mess, see the necessity of destruction for
creation to take place and finally also see that there
is no destruction and creation at all in the first place.

They are there, few, unrecognized.

To answer your question, Nisargadatta, during his
times, was as unknown as he would be right now.
As is UG Krishnamurthy today.

In recent times, it was Osho who made quite a song
and dance but then he was all about song and dance
himself.

Ramesh lives in the same city as I do and I often
drop by.

99% of the audience are non-Indians.

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