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Friday May 4, 2001









Checkin it out with you Guys/Gals:

About conditioning, practice, and grace....

These factors of spiritual unfoldment, which were once seen as significant separate
conditions, now appear to be dissolving into one nameless reality.

It began at the stillpoint of self, followed by "knowing" that practice and grace are
really one "process". Then comes the realization that grace and conditioning are also
one. Soon other factors fall into line and I suddenly find myself without conceptual
crutches, wandering about freely, going nowhere. It all seems very new, a feeling of
blissful wonder in seeming to be "someone else", just born.

Will somebody please pinch me and see if I'm real. :-)

swirling eddy



** what if i pinch you really hard and you lose your bliss? Will you still love me?

Reminds me of a story from a book called "Aghora, at the left hand of god" by
Robert Svaboda. (No relation to Ron) He is in india with his guru and his guru takes
him to see this "holy man" who sits around in the bliss of samhadi all day and is
revered by thousands. So they go, and his guru says this guy is a total phony and he
will prove it by stabbing the "holy mans" foot with a nail. He says that if he is really in
this state he claims to be, he won't even feel it. He goes up to offer prasad, whips
out the nail, jams it down and this guy just starts screaming and howling. The two of
them run off into the night pursued by a very agitated mob of followers of the
"holyman".

All are blessed
justthis



Reminds me of the song
"I am a rock" by Simon
and Garfunkle.

Plenty of rocks already in the world.

Funny how supposedly religious
people want to be rocklike.
I guess it comes from the
old "warrior mentality"
handed down from Genghis
Khan and before.
Impervious to pain = good, realized
feeling pain = bad, nonrealized.

When not attached to thoughts
placing good against bad,
then freedom is from
conditioned mind.

Not much of an achievement to be
a rock, not equivalent to the
ending of conditioning.

The typical reaction to abuse is to
to dissociate and deny feelings.
The healing is in allowing feelings.

"I will take away your heart of stone
and give you a heart of flesh" says
YHVH.
(Hebrew Testament)

A rock feels no pain no matter what is done to it.
Some see this as an enviable state of being.

The only bright side of abuse is when it is learned how
to stop its cycle.
Comments suggesting that abuse is helpful for
learning simply echo that attitude of the abuser:
"this is for your own good" -- beware of the internalized
abuser believing abuse is beneficial -- for this
voice has been part of the human cycle of violence
for millenia ...

Peace,
Dan




DISCLOSURE

Mark,

Thank you for this. The so-called ET's work most radically via kundalini energy and are not separate from
it. Reports of 'abductions' are essentially the same as various reports of Kundalini/Spiritual experiences.
There apparently is a secret intelligence faction that is separate from (because it is so secret) yet part of the
U.S. Government, that works to convert UFO technology into technology we could use. I feel 'they' have
been experimenting with the Kundalini energy itself for at least the past ten years, either knowingly or
unknowingly, and some of their own have both suffered the Kundalini and been transformed by it,
depending on the capacity of their psycho-mental apparatus.

Some of those who have suffered the Kundalini imposition -- which has
incapacitated some -- are being relieved of it, but they may never be able to link their experience with their
secret work, as they are being treated by doctors who are not familiar with Kundalini medicine, and
chances are they themselves are not and have never been inclined toward the development of spiritual
interests.

I feel that the public is not about to know what is really going on, because the Kundalini force -- what it is,
how it works, questions regarding how it should be developed, how it should be explained -- is just too
weird and unknowable. Besides, the same questions could be developed to the technology. What this
means is that there's bound to be disagreement among those closest to the UFO/ET secrets.

Even without introducing ET's, the public can't handle the nature of spiritual force and technology.
Therefore, I don't feel anything will be revealed about UFO's, except that the result of the described
meeting may be a greater leaning of the 'military-industrial complex' toward the reality of the phenomenon.
There is just too much too explain and too much disagreement on how to begin explaining it.

Jerry



Jesus Jerry, there weren't any smilies in this post.

"Nonduality" meets Eckankar meets Scientology meets UFO abductions meets government conspiracy
theories? Is this *really* where your "understanding" of the "nondual" is floating around at these
days?

Baffled and Concerned,

Tim



I'm more serious than you can know, Tim. My first post to any list, which was the Kundalini list, was about
the relationship of Kundalini to UFO abductions. Someone said, 'We've talked about that already.' Yeah,
well talk about >this< bucko. I've very openly experienced the kundalini/abduction scenario and have
heard descriptions just like it.

I'm involved in my own research. There are many levels of human interaction involved. What does it have
to do with the nondual? This thing called the world that I created has things called people which i created
and they are unevolved, which i created, and kundalini/ufo's, which i created, are part of the evolutionary
process, which i created. and they will all see the nondual nature of the nature of all these things i created
and then i'll wake up!
into what??

jerry




Hi Jerry --

Tim raised a good question
and you answered in a forthright
way. Appreciations.

It's interesting what you say here.
Reminds me of "Communion" by
Whitley Streiber ...

Into what? indeed.

Into what has no space, time, or
dimensionality -- thus, no
"into" nor "out of" ...

The feeling of what you write
about, as read here,
is "at the boundary
between what is real and
what is fantasy, between
what is image and what
is no-thingness ...
where orientation meets
disorientation, and
what is known meets
the unknown meets
the absolutely unknowable ...

Namaste,
Dan




TERRY MURPHY responds to GENE POOLE

Dear Gene,

Gene, your work is brilliant to a fault, but still there is something
missing. What is missing is what is usually missing in anyone's writing, so there is nothing personal about
what I want to say, and it isn't criticism
because I clearly see the accuracy of your observation, and the
appropriateness of its application here.


>GENE POOLE
>
snip

>automatic behaviour is characteristically found among those who have somehow avoided vital insight into
the nature of the human; that is to say, that such automatism (seeing evidence of health or disease in others,
based upon an uncritical use of oneself as the standard of health) is normal, statistically speaking.

>The 'nondual perspective' (NDP), which Ramesh struggles to present by using such metaphors as above
as 'teaching examples', actually finds no difference between the human heart and anything else which is
apparent to perception. The NDP "is" based upon a different system of logic, than is found to be operating
as the 'statistical norm' in humans.
>
There seems to me an irony here. A 'nondual perspective' is explicitly
introduced, and yet throughout this post the perspective of the individual
is used. We keep talking about 'the perceiver.' Who is this perceiver?
The 'liver of life' is an inference, the life itself the reality. Where
there is a perceiver (as subject) there is not really a nondual perspective.

snip

>Gene:_1 The perceiver is 'outside of time'

snip

>Gene:_2 Being outside of time, the perceiver has no beginning and no
>foreseeable end. Yet, the perceiver does actually perceive.


I suppose we could refer to the 'perceiver' as 'the subject' and it
would be ok. There is no objective self, there is only Me, or Us; I and We. *We* are outside of time, we
are endless, time is a convenient fiction often used to compartmentalize mental contents (as in, 'I'll think
about that later...).

Does the perceiver actually perceive? If this hadn't been represented
to begin with as 'nondual,' I wouldn't quibble. But nondual 'perspective'
(an unfortunate word, actually, with its connotation of visual projection)
involves a lack of a perceiver as the reality *in perception* is unveiled to
be the reality *in reality.* As William James says, there are not two
realities, one taking place in a little theatre inside your head, and
another 'out there'; there is only one reality, either all mental contents
or all physical phenomena.

R. H. Blythe comments on case 30 of the Gateless Gate:

-------------
THE CASE

Daibai asked Baso, "What is the Buddha?" Baso answered, "The mind is the Buddha."

When we ask, "What, who, which, where, how, when, why is the Buddha?" the form of the question
already forbids the right answer. The Hsinhsinming says, "As soon as you have 'this or that,' the Mind is
lost." However, it is not lost because the Buddha is everything, not merely this or that. The Hsinhsinming
also says, "Do not keep to the One." Our minds, which pride themselves above all things on distinguishing
good and evil, God and Devil, truth and error, by this very distinction commit a greater error than the
wholehearted embracing of the error:

If a fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

But this is not the folly of distinguishing but the folly of not
distinguishing. The word "mind" does not mean the Buddha mind, for this would make Baso's answer
tautology: "The mind (or Buddha) is Buddha."
Clearly "mind" means Hitler's mind, or a kangaroo's mind, or the mind of a dewdrop trembling from the
eaves with "a mind to fall." It does not mean that my mind is part of the World-Soul, but that my soul is the
whole of the World-Soul. Let us rise to the occasion, and vehemently declare that the Buddha, the
World-Soul is part of My Soul, so that we should translate Baso's answer once more: "The Buddha--that
is Your Mind!"
----------------

Do you see my point here, Gene? The accuracy of your observations
reveals the genuiness of your own seerhood and your perceptions of the
literature and individuals you have met. But this is in itself not
descriptive of the nondual experience, and would appear ironically to use the 'seer' individually as a
standard of health.


snip

>_4 Perception of all 'others' as being somehow or mysteriously,
>'oneself out of phase with this phase of myself'; that is to say, that
>the only real distinctive differences between apparent persons, is
>essentially the degree to which self-realization is consciously
>experienced.
>
>As to the 'why' of this apparent aphasic relationship between
>individuals, many theories abound.

I well know this 'aphasic' condition; I was just talking about it with
cee as we were walking in Polulu Valley. But the 'distinctive difference'
between persons being the degree to which self-realization is consciously experienced again is not
especially reflective of a nondual state of consciousness. Just as deep sleep and death are related to
nondual awareness, many people who make no distinctions between themselves and others readily lapse
into nonduality (that is where all this spontaneous unconditional love - aloha - comes from, here in
paradise).

I live in a remote district where people typically make their living as herdsmen and fishermen; rather like
Nazarenes, as opposed to Jerusalemites. Unconditional love is literally a tradition here. Saintly lives and
extraordinarily cultivated manners and disciplines are not unusual.
Unconditional love does not allow the 'seer' to judge people, to take
that chance of underestimating people by means of our judgment as to theirdegree of self-realization. Not
only may people have depths we cannot even guess at, but they have the potential to hit the jackpot right
before our eyes (besides, 'the last shall be first, and the first last' - though we wouldn't have it any other
way). In any case, relative degrees of spiritual realization can change radically in a heartbeat; or may be
considered to be outside of time. Not to mention that we may be generically older and wiser than a child
whose realization will wax as ours will wane.

snip
>Is it these very ideas that cause pleasure and pain and joy and
>suffering?
>
>If you can see that such ideas are species of 'idealism', the answer is
>yes.

Even this step back from the presented view still may take the
perceiver for granted. This perhaps may have something to do with the way you and I have expressed
rather different and thus far unreconciled views of what ego means and its use and value. I suspect we
don't disagree too greatly at root but it might be fun to air it out some, if you are agreeable. But even as
(or if) we do that, we could easily miss the point of what I am saying here, that the nondual 'perspective'
*transcends* any conception of a perceiver separate from that which is perceived. The so-called 'witness
consciousness' may be a useful tool for raising mindfulness at a certain stage (as toys are useful to a child
to gain basic motor skills), but the nondual seer is beyond such things. The seer *is* nondual love and
flows with the perfect obedience to law that water displays on its path to lower ground. As below, so
above, the seer obeys the law of love, which is for the seer the path of least resistance (as you said, lack of
integrity 'hurts'), like the planets obey the heavenly decree to follow their orbits in the kingdom of heaven.

Can you reconcile, gene, a perceiver, ego personality, soul or whatever as being the subject of a
nondual perspective? Does not nonduality eliminate either subject or object, and make the whole world
my (our) mental contents, or me (us) completely nothing?

You leave yourself an out, there at the end, noting that all such ideas
are idealism. Let me assure you that all these ideas are Idealism as well. ;-)

aloha, terry


Michael Read sends:

http://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Poetry/poetry-home.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``
Poems on the Oxherding series, by Master Hsu Yun

1. Pushing Aside the Grass to Look for the Ox

Wanting to break through to Emptiness with my white cudgel
I cried out louder than the bellowing Ox, mooing through my senses.
I followed mountain and stream searching for the Ox, seeking it
everywhere.
But I couldn't tell in which direction it had gone... west?... or east?

2. Suddenly Seeing Tracks

On I searched... into the mountains and along the river banks.
But in every direction I went, I went in vain.
Who would have suspected that it was right where I stood;
That I needed only nod my head and my true Self would appear before me.
(please see the website for the rest)

NDS

photos from Christiana's digital camera are displayed at
<http://www.nonduality.com/id.htm>

Christiana, cee, chuck hillig, and myself are shown.

they're large photos, so i hope they don't take too long to download.

--jerry


CyberDervish wrote:

Anybody on this list has experience in Vipassana Meditation? What does the author mean below ...
"mental vacuum ... state like dreamless sleep is to be avoided???"


Two basic common problems in meditation are distraction and oblivion. Distraction is easy to understand
and avoid. Oblivion is a little harder. Oblivion is cloudiness. If you get drowsy, that's oblivion, but it can
also be drifting off into a blurry cozy nothing, without feeling sleepy at all. It's loss of focus. Buddha said
"Place the mind on one point, and everything can be done." Meditation is that sharp onepointedness.

andrew

Dear List,

It seems i have a new friend,
He visits me each night.
He sends to me a beautiful song,
floating on the wind.

I never get to see him,
He always hides so well.
He's in a tree, of this i'm sure,
but the direction, i cant tell.

So i just sit and listen,
and accept his gift to me,
From the little whipperwil
that i never get to see.

:-) Does anyone know what color they are, i am really curious.

Love Gracie


Gill Eardley sends:

Edie Brickell
What I Am
Album: Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars

I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean

Philosophy, is the talk on a cereal box
Religion, is a smile on a dog
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean

Chuck me in the shallow water
Before I get too deep

What I am is what I am are you what you are or what
What I am is what I am are you what you are or what

Oh I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean

Philosophy, is a walk on the slippery rocks
Religion, is a light in the fog
I'm not aware of too many things
I know what I know if you know what I mean
Do do ya



Gloria

(snip)
Dan's a big boy can speak for himself, but "from here" it doesn't look
like you heard his point that sometimes wanting to be an unfeeling
thing like a stone, is an escape that merely re-inforces the message of
the original abuser, that you are a thing with no feelings to be
considered.

So I wouldn't be so quick to label anything "not nondual"
understanding, without a closer look at "what" is being excluded here.
Setting up any image of what nondual understanding must look like or
where it must come from, just might contradict someone's "taking a
closer look" at simply what is.
~~~~~~

Hi Glo --

Of course, you're speaking for Glo, not Dan.
I know that.

And what you're saying rings loud and clear,
stated with precision and clarity.

You hit on an important point with what you
said about reinforcing the message of
the abuser by identifying with being
non-feeling. There can also be
identification with "having non-dual
awareness" leading to supression
of emotions and relationship patterns
not wanting to be acknowledged,
being messy ... The nondual self
then pushes away and rejects
the dual self, by saying it doesn't
exist, or has no meaning because
not identified with -- and a split is maintained.

Of course, institutions like monasteries,
meditation retreats, nondual talk,
all can fit into such a scheme -- but
they don't *necessarily* fit into such
a scheme. The scheme is developed
by the schemer, until there is no
schemer. Nondual talk can support
a schemer in the scheme of claiming
specialness because of a special
knowing in which there is no schemer,
thus making the schemer invulnerable
to all the things that others are vulnerable
to.

Appreciating what you share here --
Enjoying the resonance --
Dan

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