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Sunday, May 6

JUST THIS

"how do you let the crisis, this death just occur?"

"you" can't. A little bit of attention and intention never hurt but
"you" can't make it, or even *let* it happen. In fact it may help to
come to terms with the fact that this "death" may not occur at all.
There are NO guarantees. You may very well spend the rest of your life
exactly as you are. Wouldn't that be a kick in the ass eh? What if life
never gets any better, never changes from how things are for you right
now? Better to make peace with the way life is right now than to try
and change anything i think.

JAN BARENDRECHT

Right on target justthis - I have to meet the first one yet, able to go
through that "death": Accumulation of conditioning in full sway - the
same old song... Not to mention the topic of "veils containing extreme
pain" that can't be dissolved (karma). Hence the advice to make the
"best" of life without any hope for that "death" almost sounds like a
scientific approach <laugh>.

How many "seekers" will pass that point of "no return"? Probably less
than 1 in thousand. And how many, having passed that point of "no
return" will "celebrate" a "renewed" universe? Probably less than 1 in
a hundred thousand. And how many "made it" without any support?
Probably less than 1 in a billion <laugh>

Hope is the dope to cope with life as a soap...
<laugh>

JOHN METZGER

The Greatest Stress.

"How, if some day or night a demon were to speak after you in your
loneliness and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived
it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and
there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every
thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your
life must return to you - all in the same succession and
sequence....Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and
curse the demon who spoke thus? Or did you once experience a tremendous
moment when you would have answered him, "you are a god, and never have
I heard anything more godly."

~Nietzsche

__________________________________________________________________________

ANDREW MACNAB

Almost the whole of _Unworldly Wise_ by O.O.O is online here;
http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/uwcontents.html Delightful!

...

As a sacred vessel, the UFO is without form and without limit. That it
is secret has nothing to do with governments. It is not secret.

________________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE

Jerry...

You wrote (in part):

"I'm in favor of revealing these UFO secrets. I think it would be funny
to see how it's explained and to see how people react and to see how
the reaction is handled."

Once the 'UFO secrets' are revealed, it will be difficult to ever
again, see that coffee table as just a coffee table. Or to be able to
watch TV, with the assumption that what is being viewed, is the same
for everyone, or that it is even being broadcast from 'somewhere'. It
will take a magnificent effort to forget what was revealed, but knowing
humanity as I do, a lot of forgetting will take place right as the
'truth' is being revealed, as it is being revealed, just as right now,
we are bathed in the 'truth', but for some reason, choose to be
occupied with 'other things'.

Maybe the last truth to be revealed, and the easiest one to deny, is
that we are the truth. The same truth as the mysterious UFOs and the
many species of occupant, not to mention the many time-traveling,
dimension-hopping, shape-shifting, universe-gobbling,
innocent-abducting, and species saving-and-destroying, temporary forms
of pure, unadulterated awareness. Just like that coffee table sitting
next to you, which you naively and innocently 'think' is simply a hunk
of wood, metal, and plastic.

To know that it all retains its shape and form _by its own volition_,
is an awesomely disturbing perception. Maybe that is why it is never
mentioned.

On the other hand, nonattachment may allow everything to be simply what
it actually is, unconstrained by assumptions of apparent historicity
and/or practicality. In the face of this reality, human concerns have
no context in which to manifest; this equals spontaneous loss of
identity for everyone, everywhere, immediately.

Of course, we 'nondualists' are already 'one jump ahead of the crowd'
in that regard. Holding no assumptions or expectations, we will only
laugh we it is revealed that the universe is being 'run' by a cartoon
duck (and probably not any cartoon duck you have ever seen, BTW!).

The ancient Tibetans are even more 'jumps ahead', with their
concept/revealing of 'Display' technology. Couched as it is in the
jargon of 'spirituality', who would ever guess that it is literally
true?

Or as true as 'truth' can be, when cut loose from its final anchor to
relative awareness...

Universal Test Pattern:
<http://alumni.cse.ucsc.edu/~mikel/sriyantra/sriyantra.html>

You will have to imagine the 'test tones' which go with it.

Once you clear the channel, the UFOs can come.

___________________________________________________________________________

DAN BERKOW

> What if there are no examples?
> Nothing and no one to imitate?
>
> This is it --
>
> Intuition, openness, and honesty are
> the guides -- from "who I am" not
> from "how someone else does it
> or says it should be done" ...
>
> In other words -- once someone is
> an example, there is the basis
> to maintain a split to mimic that
> example ...
>

________________________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE AND DAN BERKOW


G: Thanks Dan, I feel heard as well. If I may resonate some more on the
issue of the split you brought up, there seem to be lots of
implications and questions raised by maintaining that split.



D: Yes. And discussing this doesn't imply that anyone
"should" be doing something differently. I note that
nothing that arises is out of place. Even splits, ultimately,
are unsplit from the "allness" of being.
Resistance can be released, yet resistance isn't
to be resisted -- and thus, the totality
cannot be resisted, it just appears more
clear when the holding on is released.

Primarily, with splits, a sense of identity is maintained.
Claiming to be beyond identity can become a maintained
identity, with a split "against" whatever doesn't
fit with the "non-identified" identity.


G: When "the sage" appears invulnerable to the messiness of being human,
sagehood may look like an easy out, or all life and relationship
problems are written off as irrelevant to "real spirituality".


D: Yes.

The mantle of sagehood is simply
one more mask involved in the human
condition.

If not involved in a mask, a presentation,
then how can there be knowledge of
who one is? One is not knowledge,
not a mask, not a presentation.


G: Granted that "having non-dual awareness" can be extremely
transformative of personality and whatever other issues may arise from
one's life experience and conditioning. Transcendence is not about
being in resistance to what is "here now". Thus even relationship or
communication difficulties or issues might be worth paying some
attention to. How do you think a nondual perspective can contribute or
be helpful to the looking into process?

D: By allowing honesty without defense,
without an agenda, with no reliance
on maintaining charismatic presence,
and without the assumption that beliefs
must be maintained, done away with,
or constructed.

By allowing honesty without either
the resistances of ruthlessness or
avoidance. Allowing
natural sensitivity as a newborn,
yet without naivete. A mature
awareness that doesn't flinch or hide,
and doesn't have an ax to grind.

And of course, "nonduality" becomes
associated with certain conceptual
attitudes, becomes a belief system.

For example, a nondual person supposedly has no attachment
to personality. That easily translates to:
I deny, excuse, rationalize, hide,
or minimize personality characteristics.

So, "nonduality" interferes with honesty, unless
honesty and nonduality are the same. If that is
so, then nonduality is no longer an approach,
just "what is" ...

As "what is" has no personality, there is
no personality to get rid of, or to hide.

Thus, a human being is free to deal honestly
with personality issues, because
those personality issues aren't real,
and hiding from them would just
increase the sense and belief they are real.

Similarly, reality isn't split into human and nonhuman
aspects. Thus, being human can flower
freely, without impediment. Similarly,
a plant is free to be a plant, because
reality isn't split into plant and non-plant
aspects.

To paraphrase the Tao te Ching, once
the people are discussing "nonduality",
you can be sure there is ongoing
investment in "duality", through claiming
"nonduality" in some way.

The only way meaningfully
to discuss nonduality,
is to be free to be
meaningless.


G: What else would you say might contribute to healing this split?

D: Simplicity.

G:I have heard this split you described as something like taking a
spiritual bypass. Jack Kornfield is a well-known example of someone who
after years of spiritual practice decided he wanted to do therapy to
address some personality and relationship issues.

D: Yes - it was honest of him to make this known.

And yet, there is still the sense here of him being
an example in some way.

What if there are no examples?
Nothing and no one to imitate?

This is it --

Intuition, openness, and honesty are
the guides -- from "who I am" not
from "how someone else does it
or says it should be done" ...

In other words -- once someone is
an example, there is the basis
to maintain a split to mimic that
example ...

G: These are not mutually exclusive processes. In fact the spiritual
practice was largely what enabled him to see the need for the other.

D: O.K. That was what arose as the
process given the name "Jack Kornfield" ...

Yet there is no process to engage
in to "become all" or
"to be totality" ...

All processes coexist and interpenetrate,
and this interpenetration is not itself
a process.


G: If therapy supports healing this split or contributes to removing
obstacles to clear seeing, then this too is acceptance rather than
resistance of "what is here now".

D: Yes, quite so.

The Way includes the splitting
and healing of splits.

Thus, the Way is split, without
ever being split.


G:With the problem arises the solution, not with being in resistance as a
way to avoid seeing it.

D: Yes, resistance is the split, and resistance
to acknowledging resistance, is furthering
the splitting.

To fully accept being split and healing the
split, is to be unsplit from before the beginning.

The human race is split, and healing is to occur,
and the reality in/as which this takes place
is unsplit the whole time.

G: Denial is a short term strategy that cannot work in the long run, as inevitably
issues will surface again thru similar life situations.

D: Quite so. And if there is honesty, this is acknowledged.
Yet the honesty now involves not just the surfacing
of what was denied, but acknowledging and accepting
the denial as well.

G: How to balance a willingness to look at emotions and relationship with
change as a possibility issues with a reasonably healthy
self-acceptance, warts and all, is another concern.

D: Not a concern, just the natural acceptability
of all that is, as is ;-)
What is, is change ...

G: Once having said all this, a tendency to over-idealize or set
perfectionistic ideals that define "the nondual self" is a red flag, at
least to me it is. Definition is (by definition) identification. And a
list sets requirements to be met. What is being dis-identified with in
these standards is thereby excluded, setting up restrictions.

D: Yes. Disidentification can only
be "having never had anything
to be identified with in the first place" --
otherwise, the process of disidentifying
will be an identification ...

It can't be a process of intentionally dropping this,
then this, then this ... only can be
the freedom to be meaningless ...

G: This reminds me of that funny list Greg has describing the EO
(enlightened one) in such contradictory terms. Again, don't
identifiable behaviors require an identified self?

D: Well - there is no identifiable self.
Reality has never manifested a personality.

As has been said, "don't be fooled, Dan, don't
be fooled, Dan!"

G:... loosely evocative seem better.

D: True, because only "who you are" is what
the writing is evoking ...

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