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Friday, November 16

ASHE

"Who cares if somebody is enlightened or not.
Sometimes even a little kid can give you a great
idea or cause you to see something which was right
in front of your eyes." --cYBER

Hi Cyber

You reminded me of something

"You need to know a lot more to be quiet than you
do to keep on talking."

Anna aged 6

(from Anna and Mister God)

and I still havent managed to shut up!!!

love

Ashe

_______________________________________________________________________

JOYCE: One can note that pursuing the myth of
nonduality always occurs within accepted practices
and norms and is kind of a "church" where its high
priests stand up to proclaim the obvious as the
miraculous.

GARY: Yes, really, being a pseudo-non dualist is
complement indeed! even if not intended as such. It
is right on the button. Its the real non-dualists
that I'm worried about. The mythic nature of
reality is not recognised which is to say the
common sense assumptions that make up our view of
the world are still unconscious and taken for
granted as obviously true. There can't be a
paradigm shift or new myth without exploration into
the old one as despite intellectual knowing of a
theory our 'modus operandi' is still rooted in the
old view. Needless to say the essence of myth
revolves about 'self' and relationship to the
universe. We have a 'myth' about ourselves as
subjects in an objective universe, separate selves,
that has been passed down through the generations
and continues to be dysfunctional and neurotic.

________________________________________________________________

RON WHITAKER

My meditation this morning was just like the
weather foggy, lots of thoughts. Where do they all
come from? There must be some reason for these
thoughts. Then the daily AHAM message:

Bhagavan Ramana: Seek the Self through meditation.
In this manner, trace every thought back to it
origin, which is only the mind. Never allow thought
to run on. If you do, it will be unending. Take it
back to its starting place, the mind, again and
again, and it and the mind will both die of
inaction. The mind exists only by reason of
thought. Stop that and there is no mind. As each
doubt and depression arises, ask yourself, "Who is
it that doubts? What is it that is depressed?" Go
back constantly to the question, "Who is the 'I'?
Where is it?" Tear everything away until there is
nothing but the Source of all left. And then - live
always in the present and only in it. There is no
past or future, save in the mind.


__________________________________________________________________

NINA

My professional decline began with aggressive
idealism, shifted to the need for positive feedback
about what I was doing, shifted to the need for
mentorship, finally shifted to the need to simply
get compensated fairly for the shit work I was
doing. That was the crisis point.

Some have joked that I was 'ordained' as a child to
do this kind of work. Somehow, it got all warped
out of any realistic manifestation. How did that
happen? Long story. In the end, I finally blew it
off. Totally, unspeakably, set myself adrift.

The moment I completely let go of it and could see
myself not ever doing it again, a curious thing
happened.

I was offered a job that is, essentially, exactly
what I was looking for when I started out. Granted,
this is a temporary job, so in a way, it feels like
a brief peek into a past life. Given what I have
gone through, I laugh at myself in this job every
day. Hard to take myself seriously anymore. Despite
the kudos I am finally receiving. <g>

The conversation? That in order to see the work
clearly and do it well, an architect must let go,
completely, of any attachment to architecture. To
find oneself in a position of -not caring at all-,
of not identifying at all with the work. To realize
that architecture doesn't save the world.

Funny that this firm would still hire me after I
told him that I had spent the last year scraping
out all vestiges of, essentially, ambition for my
career. Ha! Put that in your job-seekers' manual.
Funny, too, that though I have been hired by a
"dream firm" and have this "dream job", I realize I
could walk away and it wouldn't matter one iota.

MELODY

I read the following last evening just before bed.

It seems to tie nicely with Nina's sharing on
dropping attachments to outcome, and Jack's
thoughts about being 'conscious' only 3% of the
time.

( I really like this lady, Toni Packer, a whole
bunch. She may have inspired my trip cross country
to simply 'sit' with someone for a while.)

She writes, in part:

"In the expectation of wonderful things to happen
in the future, one doesn't hear the sound of the
wind and rain, the breath and heartbeat this
instant. Fantasy provides stimulation. When
fantasizing, one imagines pleasant past and future
experiences....

Can we see that fantasy creates constant new
stimulation that drowns out the lack of stimulation
right now? And what is that?

Boredom?

What one one labels "boredom", one does not take
the time or energy to experience directly........

What is boredom when the label is put aside? There
are sensations throughout the body. There may be a
very flat, dull state and also a certain
restlessness from wanting something else, something
more exciting, a new and different stimulation.
This is not just mental or verbal stuff: the whole
body creaves its accustomed "fix". The process is
like addiction and withdrawal - feeling deprived
and wanting, wanting, wanting.

.......We rarely touch THIS. We rarely contact this
simple moment. So used to constant input and
excitement, we lack fine-tuning into all the
subtleties of this instant, the ability to register
quiet aliveness without the stirring of
expectation.

.....We think we can't bear it - the boredom, the
depression, the pain. We feel it's too awful, too
difficult. It's not the "spiritual work" we
imagine. But these are all thoughts, feelings,
labels.

What is the real thing - this instant of not
expecting anything?"


_____________________________________________________________

MICHAEL READ

So now you're enlightened, awake, realized and flat
broke. Just how the heck do you make any money off
of this? I mean after all those trips to India,
Burma, China, Peru; all those workshops,
intensives, and retreats; the yoga, tai chi, qi
qong, and karate lessons; the channelings, the
tarot readings, the past life regressions not to
mention the divorce and child support payments -
well you are just tapped out. You couldn't buy the
echo off of a two bit whistle.

You could take your traveling satsang act on the
road. But the price of admission is usually only
$10 or $15 and the audiences are small. And you
don't have the right charisma or agent for the
really big draws. Heck, it's just enlightenment not
charm school.

But all is not lost for you broke yet glowing folk.
We'll just apply a little good old American
ingenuity and creativity to the problem. And voila!
T-shirt sales. Hey, it has made many a goof ball
rich - don't knock it!

Here is the nut of my proposal - free franchise.
Yes, free franchise. You pay no royalties, fees, or
assignments. You only share your T-shirt ideas with
the other franchisees. It is up to you as a
franchisee to finance and produce your own T-shirt.
You choose from the pool of T-shirt sayings what
you like. Then you go to a T-shirt printer and have
your idea printed up on how ever many t shirts you
can afford. If you get some friends to pool money
with you, you can do more.

So, say, if you would like to use:

I'm not only ENLIGHTENED I'm with Stupid here ->

the idea will cost you nothing but what you are
willing to invest. You can do whatever you want
with the profits - if any. Keep it, donate it to
charity, buy lottery tickets, whatever. Totally up
to you.


Here are some starter ideas.

If you got troubles,
you must think you are real.

(the above was right out of tonight's NDS posts)

---

I've heard that God is All There Is.
I just wonder what the fuck
YOU'RE looking at. :-)

---

Go Anywhere
Do Nothing
Love Everybody

(the above from the NDS Salon home page)

---

If I weren't such a blissful Buddha like
person, I'd kick your ass for that!

---

God, party of one...

---

Hey!

YOU!

loveya

---

Buddha BEER
the beer to have
when you're only
having one!

---

Well that's the idea folks. What you do with it is
what you do with it.

There is one little teeny tiny matter left - the
disclaimer. If you should get laughed at, ridiculed
or punched because you actually are wearing one of
these T-shirts, or if you go broke trying to
market, produce, or profit from the sale of one or
all of these T-shirt ideas, tough luck!

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