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10/22/01 Monday

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CHRISTIANA
Gene - breathing the crucible of fire, stream and space

Dear Gene..

I spent the day in direct relationship with the precision of your words... entrained through the various portals
you hold open. Pulsations of lightfire, wateressence and spaceheart. Crucible and breathe.

As I read your commentary on the 'diehold', its holography as an archetypal mold, as well as it's relationship
with suffering, I was moved by the homonym... dye. For the dye to 'hold', salt is used, and the fabric is colored
forever as such; unless, of course, other 'agents' intervene. I then thought about salt, and the salt produced by
the tears of suffering. As if on 'cue' your last lines spoke....

To identity, reality tastes like salt-water;
but for the realizer, it is the purest spring

to saltless tears from the font of pure beauty... to relaxing and being absorbed by the space 'outside'..

Christiana



CHRISTIANA

Hello Hur...

Your post brought me to my knees. I am actively listening. Perhaps
that is the only true space many of us know to go. Our political
impotence seems wedded to witnesses our collective heart being broken
open. We can sign or march or speak out (as you've done), but I think
the forces at work are beyond our control.

If you, or others, think otherwise, do please speak. So much energy
is being released as 'force'. The only small part I know is to open
to the interstice of power in each moment. To witness the temptations
to squander. To abide as though our lives depended upon it.

Still chewing on the notion of 'nondual activism'.

Christiana


JERRY KATZ

Hur,

A terrorist willingly dies, God opens another can of virgins.

Something other than the current war is needed to handle this.

Those willing to die need to see that the cupboard is empty except for a
can of creamed corn that God is going to eat when we're all full.

Jerry


MICHAEL READ

> It's scary how often I use the expression "I" when I write. shit...
>
> Laura

ah don't be scared - halloween is coming and you can use the 'I' for
a really scary costume!

Yah, all kinds of systems and religions are available - to explore and
spend time contemplating and defend, even.

However - the whole thing is really rather simple.

There is nothing to believe in. Well, there is a lot of stuff to
believe in, if a person wants to. Still it is just stuff to believe
in.

all there is, is god - god is all there is

simple? yes
simple? no

Well, there is really nothing wrong with being an 'I' or an 'i'
You could be and I for and i or and i for an I.
Either way works.

loveya - michael



I've created a Michael Read Web Page, which includes links to several of
his articles scattered throughout the website, as well a bunch of
Michael's recent writings, which has been very 'alive' and free.

<http://nonduality.com/mread.htm>

Jerry Katz



JERRY KATZ

Hi Laura,

I long for days when I'd drive out to the Bodhi Tree bookstore on
Melrose in Los Angeles, look for that 'certain' book, find it, go to a
favorite coffee shop (they've all been torn down) and read, looking for
something that would bring me to the next level. Then home and to the
beach where I'd run five or ten miles and maybe gain an insight or two.
But I can't do it anymore. In other words, I hope you're getting some
joy out of what you're doing and 'going through', because it won't last
forever.

Of course I'm a nostalgia freak. I long for the old days of this list,
which will never come back either. We've matured too much.

Call me the Neal Cassady of nonduality. Dont I wish...?

always lookin for new thrills,
jerry


GLORIA LEE



People still hold the view that what is handed down to us by tradition is
what in reality lies behind us - while in fact it comes toward us because we
are its captives and destined to it. The purely historical view of
tradition and the course of history is one of those vast self-deceptions in
which we must remain entangled as long as we are still not really thinking.
That self-deception about history prevents us from hearing the language of
the thinkers. We do not hear it rightly, because we take that language to
be mere expression, setting forth philosophers' view. But the thinkers'
language tells what is. To hear it is in no case easy. Hearing it
presupposes that we meet a certain requirement, and we do so only on rare
occasions. We must acknowledge and respect it. To acknowledge and respect
consists in letting every thinker's thought come to us as something in each
case unique, never to be repeated, inexhaustible - and being shaken to the
depths by what is unthought in his thought. What is unthought in a
thinker's thought is not a lack inherent in his thought. What is un-thought
is there in each case only as the un-thought. The more original the
thinking, the richer will be what is unthought in it. The unthought is the
greatest gift that thinking can bestow. But to the commonplaces of sound
common sense, what is unthought in any thinking always remains merely the
incomprehensible. And to the common comprehension, the incomprehensible is
never an occasion to stop and look at its own powers of comprehension.
"This silence is language; it may speak more eloquently than any words...it
is the primordial attunement of one existence to another, out of which all
language comes. It is only because man is capable of such silence that he
is capable of authentic speech. If he ceases to be rooted in that silence
all his talk becomes chatter."

.......By Martin Heidegger


GREG GOODE

Great quote Gloria!

I like Heidegger's phrase that the more original the thought is, the richer will be the unthought in it.

Also, as the region of thought grows, the border to the unthought grows along with it. This shows the
futility of achieving omniscience and eradicating ignorance simply by accumulating knowledge. Imagine the
region of what is thought as the inside of a circle, the "thinker's" vantage point at the center. The border or
circumference is the interface with the unknown, the unthought. The unknown, unthought lies beyond. As
the circle grows, the border grows. As the thinker in the center looks upon the edge of the known, the
region of ignorance is ever-growing.

In other words, the more ya know, the more ya don't know!

Love,

--Greg

JOHN METZGER

Hello friends, Reading through, trying to fathom some of Gene's stuff is a real
trip, enjoyable. In bracketing this pass from Merton I attempt to get a handle
on a process which Gene says is "open-ended." The "terrible breaking and
burning of idols" seems maybe to refer to one's evolution from mainstream
theism onward to/thru various psychic, subtle, nondual realms?? I don't
know, just a thought. What think ye?

Gene, your recent posts lead me to ask; Are there limits, or not, to that
which can be made intelligible? Haven't you said before, maybe it was Dan,
that truth is in language, and only in language? Is there any alternative for
one lacking the power of articulation/vocabulary/language/semantics?
Thanks, John




Let no one hope to find in contemplation[nonduality] an escape from conflict, from
anguish or from doubt. On the contrary,the deep, inexpressible certitude of
the contemplative[nondual] experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens any questions
in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding... The worst of it is that
even apparently holy conceptions are consumed along with all the rest.
It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the
sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy that place that God[the unknown] has
commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which
simply "is." T. Merton


You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked?
Have you ever risked disapproval? Have you ever risked
economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see
nothing particularly courageous in risking one's life. So
you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything
is milk and honey 'til the end of time. Right? You get your
reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That's not
courage. Real courage is risking something you have to
keep on living with, real courage is risking something that
might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer
change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking
one's cliches.
Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

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