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10/23/01 Tuesday

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ERIC BLACKSTEAD

Glo & Friends,

I'm so glad that I got to read, even study, don Juan's thoughts
without the impediment of knowing anything about Castaneda. Once
you've encountered him as himself(nominally himself), you are at
least comforted by the solid realization that Don Juan could not have
been invented by this utterly silly man. Castaneda just doesn't have
that kind of imagination or integrity to be capable of inventing a
stunning and mysterious being like Don Juan.

What Don Juan really is, or was, is a mystery, but what he assuredly
is not is the invention of Carlos Castaneda, and I like to think that
we're all the better for it.

When people would ask Muktananda about someone like the Maharishi,
Baba would say "Oh, he's a very good yogi. Now his Guru was a great
Siddha..." and he would be off. Years before the word got out,
someone connected with the SYDA library in S.Fallsburg, knowing of my
fascination with Castaneda's works, got me a copy of his interview
with Baba, and Baba, true to form, talked only of Castaneda's guru,
tantalizingly pointing out that the great siddhas, the achievers of
his own lineage did many of the same things as Don Juan, like
appearing differently to different people at the same time, or
appearing in 2 different places before 2 different groups of people
at the same time.

That was long ago, but one of my fascinations with my early rambles
around the internet in the last year or so, was stumbling on many
sites with latter day material on Castaneda, including a lot of these
Tensegrity Workshops. Nothing is more obvious in Castaneda's silly
presentation of himself, where he is clearly trying to be cool,
mysterious and magnetic, than that he has neither the wit nor the
insight into the wellsprings of human action to have invented Don
Juan. Carlos presents himself as a "fool", a "fart", etc., and does a
remarkably convincing job of it. He seems something like the Andy
Warhol of spiritual life, where your reaction to him will produce a
lot more insight for you than the actual work with which he presents
himself.

yours in the bonds,
eric

"Gloria Lee" <glee@c...> wrote:
> Castaneda lived an obscure, mysterious life and kept himself
hidden from public view. He did not allow anyone to take a photograph
of him. There are only a few rare family photos and this portrait of
him that Dick Oden drew and Castaneda (who himself was an artist
before the height of his writing career) partially erased.

> for more see:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1476768337


HARSHA

**************************************
The reference made by Swami Muktananda here is to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the
founder of the TM movement. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's guru was Brahmananda
Sarswati, who later became one of the Shankracharyas of India.

Swami Brahamananda led a highly disciplined and ascetic life and was widely
respected as a great yogi in India and was often referred to as a Siddha.

Love to all
Harsha


DIANA

Continuing gratitude to Jerry for NDS. Like a dream, one can
never exhaust its richness.

...Would give an eye tooth to see Lucille...well, maybe not...I'm old
and need to hang onto my teeth.

...Buffeted, recently by all the pov's of the lists. Recontenting
myself to abide in Silence, not reopen yet another, 'higher level'
search.

...Wonderful Tom Robbins :) Now, THERE would be a satsang! :))


JERRY KATZ

Because there is no elsewhere,
The desire to be elsewhere
Is called suffering.

Being present with desire itself,
But not the desire to be elsewhere,
Is a position of power.

When in that position
The World Dream
Sits at your knee
And listens


BOBBY G.


The following is from "Vivekachudamani" -Ramana Maharshi

...This infinity of Brahamn is my Self and yours and that of other
individuals.
Great texts such as 'That thou art' reveal the identity between the
Brahman known as 'That' and the individual known as 'thou'. The
identity is not shown by the literal meaning of 'that' and 'thou'.
The literal meaning of 'that' is Ishvara's maya which is the cause of
the universe, and the literal meaning of 'thou' is the five sheaths
of the ego. These are non-existent superimpositions, the cause and
efffect of non-existent phantoms. Their qualities are opposite to
each other. like the sun and the glow-worm, the king and the slave,
the ocean and the well, Mount Meru and the atom. There can be no
identity between Brahman and the individual in the literal sense
of 'that' and 'thou' , and it is not in this way that the scriptures
postulate the identity...

Now you guys straighten up!! :]]

Love,
Bobby G.



DAN BERKOW

Hi John --

I don't believe it was me who said that.

I don't believe there is any special truth
in language, although there is no less
truth in language ...

"What is" moves very quickly.

There is no keeping up with it,
only being it.

Being it, there is perfect, undisturbed
stillness.

We can discuss "what is", but words
have neither added a special truth,
nor subtracted ...

Words are inevitable, as we human beings
are word-forming creatures :-)

Namaste,
Dan


DAN BERKOW

The so-called ego dude is the doer, the wanter,
the knower, the haver -- yet there is no agent
anywhere.

With no doer, there can be no done to.

Ah, mind-traps of conceptuality, also
known as mother maya ...

Without her, not a thing is.

With her, not a thing is.

But with her are a thousand worlds
of appearance and belief :-)

Swing those veils, dance that dance!

Let's you and me take our places
as simultaneously is predestined before time began
and is spontaneous movement of now...

Dan


JODY
Nonduality and Drugs

. I don't have
> anything against drugs. I guess I thought that if a person was realized,
> they wouldn't really have any desire or need to take drugs. What do you
> think? Are drugs "bad" when trying to transcend? Are they helpful? I'm
> very curious what an acid trip would be like for one who is fully
> realized...would it even do anything?
>
> Laura

Realized people are *exactly* like everyone else *except* for the
presence of jnana. A realized person will experience drugs just
as any other person does. However, an unrealized person might
experience a shift in their identification as an individual as
the result of a drug experience, whereas a realized person will not,
as they have already shifted permanently.

Drugs can help *and* hinder simultaneously. It really depends
on the personality structure of the individual imbibing. The thing
to remember is that there is nothing to transcend. Realization is a
simple recognition of something that is always available, always
present. Taking a psychedelic drug might shake things up enough
to provide an opening where jnana can shine, but this is extremely
rare and not to be counted on.

However, because much of the "path" is psychological, there is
something to be said for the efficacy of certain psychedelics
such as psilocybin, lsd, mdma, mescaline, yage, etc. It all
depends on what you want out of them and who you are going into
them.

BRUCE

There's a famous anecdote
about that involving Ram
Dass and his guru, Neem
Karoli Baba. Here's a
telling of it from the
introduction to Ram Dass'
"Doing Your Own Being"
written be someone named
Ernest Scott, it's toward
the end of the page:
<http://www.neemkarolibaba.com/stories/books/start.html>


JERRY

It's cool what you say, jody.

whatever happened to 7 day STP? Was that a real drug, or what? Anyone ever try it? Anyone got any? I
could use some 7-day stp in my system. And how about some Jewish LSD: lox, salami, and danish.

I'm listening to music from the 60's and 70's. Having flashbacks. Bread's 'Make it with You' is on and
coffee is a dime at Denny's.

bang a gong,
jerry



BRUCE

Yeah, but does gasoline go
for 22.9 cents/gallon and do
brand new VW beetles cost
$1,800 complete with a
dealer-installed AM radio?


JODY

> It's cool what you say, jody.
>
> whatever happened to 7 day STP? Was that a real drug, or what?

I've never tried or happened across any STP, although I knew
someone who used it once. He said it was like he grabbed on
to a freight train that was moving at 100 mph while he was
standing stationary next to the tracks.

There's also Salvia Divinorium, which when smoked might turn
you into the outside wall of your house for five years, or
ketamine, which sometimes gives you an NDE complete with the
tunnel and light at the end of it. DMT is a favorite of some
friends of mine, where you might have conversations with the
machine elves that work the controls behind the curtains of Maya.

However, none of that is jnana. It all takes place within Maya
with Maya as the provider of content. I know a ton of people who
say they use psychedelics to find "inner meaning" when really all
they're after is a good high. They've come to associate peak
experiences with spiritual experiences, and therefore have completely
inhibited their own realization as they're expecting it to be just
like their peak experiences.

Not that there's anything wrong with getting high once in a while,
as long as you aren't hurting yourself or others. But if you come
to expect realization to be like being high, you'll never see it
sitting right there in your shirt pocket.

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