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Friday, November 23

JOHN METZGER contributes

Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a
hundred million years to prepare the world for him
is proof that that is what it was done for. I
suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were
now representing the world's age, the skin of paint
on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent
man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive
that that skin was what the tower was built for. I
reckon they would, I dunno. --Mark Twain

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JAN BARENDRECHT

although we have no free will our actions,
thoughts, feelings can affect the facts of our
lives. Or am I totally off track. --Ron

Quite on target. Breathing can mean "hell" with
asthma but "heaven" when an accomplished yogi. What
would be the difference in one word? "Caring" - it
has been known that asthma will leave with the
proper diet and exercise and that makes the
mind-body fit for yoga too. Without caring, the
situation is accepted as a kind of "final verdict"
dependent on medicines but with caring, all
available resources are used to change it and it
will - there have been several healers, who, having
experienced that, were changed for life and became
health-apostles for the remainder of it.

Some, attracted to the "spiritual scene" meditate
for over 30 years in a cave without "success"
whereas others didn't pursue any spirituality and
"realized" without knowing what happened to them.
Without caring, unconditional self-surrender
remains utopia and without unconditional
self-surrender, "spiritual life" remains confined
to "hanging around" and quoting. And yes, "caring"
has to be to the extend as willing to give up life.
Not a surprise is it?

The so called "Bodhisattva ideal" is a "deal" about
caring - no more, no less.

_________________________________________________________________

SHANKAR (FROM I AM LIST)

Long Live the Feet of the One (Sri Ramana) who
utters, "Just be (still) without thinking of
anything".

Long Live the Feet of the One (Sri Ramana) who
sings, "Every day (always) rest the mind in your
abode (of the Self)". (L1&2)

Translation of Lines 1 and 2 of Song 2 of the 5
Jewels in praise of the Feet of Sri Ramana by Sri
Sivaprakasam Pillai

________________________________________________________________

PIETER SCHOONHEIM SAMARA

The seer is really the substratum of both the
subject and the object. The individual
consciousness, when purified is discovered to be
the same as the Universal All-Pervasive
Consciousness, like lifting a top off a jar that
shows that the air inside and outside are the same.
This isolation of the seer is Yoga.

These seem to be 2 (subject and object) because
attention is focused through the lens of the mind
into images apearing in the mind (whether from
inward takes or the impressions of the moment to
moment takes on the senses).

But when the mind is purified, there arises easily
an inward pulling, like a graviton into the Heart,
and attention to objects dissipitates with the
brightening of the inward consciousness that fills
and transends the mind and the body. (The wise
man's heart inclines him to the right. -
Ecclesiastics 10:3)

Gradually, a transition occurs, where the mind is
no longer used to see, rather one awakens to the
Singularity of the "I as I." There is still a
world, but it just appears, not separate, without a
separate self to see or know. It's like the analogy
of a color coming into the proximity of a pure and
clear the diamond, which seems to reflect the color
variously, yet remains wthin its own nature always
resolute, unchanging, pure and clear.

When the Sun of the Heart rises, the Moon of the
Mind is no longer necessary to see.

From the moment that This awakening emerges into
the consciousness, the "I" pulsates and withdraws
as the subject of attention.

"All is empty, clear, self illuminating with no
exertion of the mind's power." (Faith Mond - Third
Zen Patriarch)

There is no experiencer or experience, no subject
nor object, no seer nor seen. For the time being,
these may seem like empty words. But when inward
hearing arizes, these words are recognized any
trigger an inward pulling. This is the Truth the
Founders of all the religions have been saying in
whatever way that those that haveears to hear might
hear when the heart is pure.

A pure heart means that the mind has become clear
enough through any means that the pulsation of the
"I as I" is heard. Then we abide simply as That,
and the subject-object notion in the mind simply
dissolves, having no relivance at all to the
emerging Truth. The idea of an identity to images
is suddenly and simply relinquished.

Theories, concepts, strategies, methods,
philosophies ... all just drop off, having no
relivance to the continuing pulsation of the
All-Pervasive Self.

The Truth resonates as soundless sound: "InfinItely
large and infinitely small, no diference, for
definitions have vanished and no boundries are
seen." (Faith Mond - Third Zen Patriarch)

There needs to be some practice that purifies the
mind. At the same time there needs to be an effort
to hear the Truth recorded in the Scriptures of the
various religions. As the mind becomes pure and
still true hearing begins to manifest in the
consciousness. The Truth of one's being Recognizes
Itself and draws the mind inward to dwell in and
abide as Truth.

__________________________________________________________

GLORIA LEE

NONDUAL COMMUNITY -- WHAT'S THAT?

What's here is a transcript of a group meeting with
Lex Hixon and people identified only as voices,
about twenty, loosely on the topic of what a
nondual community might be like and do...perhaps
relevant to email lists even? Considering it was a
live, spontaneous conversation... well, bear with
the intro, once they get going and into the heart
of exploring it, I think you may find it quite
interesting. ~Glo

http://www.mightycompanions.org/page4.html

[...]

LEX: I would suggest that you're not used to
non-dual communication and understanding. Most of
us are not used to the atmosphere of non-duality.
Most of us have the strong dualistic habit of
immediately making a connection, immediately
checking out what it is. We give ourselves five
seconds or five minutes. Is it soul? Is it
intellect? Whatever it is, we've got the definition
almost instantly. This is the habit that we have to
slowly erase.

I said earlier that I would try to operate as the
principle of non-duality, which is always erasing
distinctions and definitions. If you feel in a
slightly erased state, that's all right, right now.

VOICE TWELVE: But the way you're speaking doesn't
lead me to want to achieve this state.

LEX: That's good. Why should I attempt to attract
you? Why should non-duality become another
achievement? This is going to disappoint Suzanne,
but we're not going to have a large movement here,
with people flocking to the door to be part of a
non-dual celebration.

[Laughter]

We need the courage to present basic truth, which
is not holding out some glamorous promise, "Get to
this man, no matter what he charges. This is going
to be the highest you've ever been." We're not
enchanting or compelling anybody by eloquence or by
miracles.

I suggest that you look at the experience you're
having in a positive rather than a negative light.
The fact that you're not feeling any strong
attraction is good. The spiritual trips are all
setting up romantic attractions. How about a
teaching that is plain and profound, that doesn't
create some tremendous dualistic pull? "We've got
it over here. We've got the real treasure which
doesn't exist where you are. We're at the end of
the rainbow. Come on over."

VOICE THIRTEEN: One thing that keeps coming back to
me, and I think I heard it correctly, is that you
started out by saying that non-duality is a
process.

LEX: It is revealed by a process but is not itself
a process. There is a dialectical, dynamic,
spontaneous clearing away of the notions of
duality, as they arise.

_______________________________________________________________________

MICHAEL READ

Caught unawares - a moment of Zen, unexpected, open
a package of cookies and find a message.

"If you re going to have a cookie, have a cookie."
And. "Never have an ordinary day."

Alas, both trademarked, can't use them on a T Shirt
unless you work for Pepperidge Farm. HOHOHO!

Awakening is like that. You go for one thing and
find another. Something totally unexpected. Ah,
yes.

The whole of the universe is aware. Alive in a way
that cannot be imagined. Everything is contained in
awareness but does not stain it. A very nice
arrangement actually. Peaceful.

Only the thinnest of barriers separates one from
seeing that one is this awareness. Ah, that opaque
tissue of beliefs and expectations. No matter where
or how it is pushed, it yields and flexes. It moves
just out of range and you can't grip it to tear it
to shreds. Ah, the man behind the curtain, doesn't
want to be found out. Or, so it seems.

No, he is just coy with you and loves to play. Then
one day, one moment of that day, the curtain is
whipped aside. Oooooo!

love is eternal - michael

MATTHEW

that's it? ooooo? then for the rest of eternity you
just ooo and aah over the magnificence of it all? I
mean it is magnificent truly, and glorious, and
wonderful, perhaps majestic even but if that's what
you call awakening then ....then... i just have no
words for the tragedy of that mistake.


_____________________________________________________________

PETROS (FROM PETROS-TRUTH)

"Being trapped in this universe is something on the
order of being caught in a matchbox. You know,
here's this huge, powerful individual who's
standing there outside the matchbox looking at it
saying, 'Boy, I wonder how I'll ever get out of
that matchbox.' This is the silly aspect which life
presents to individuals."

-- LRH, "Solution to Entrapment" lecture series
1955

_________________________________________________________________________

JAN SULTAN

Action and Non-Action...3
http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/index.html

The half-century during which Ramana Maharshi lived
in a state of permanent Illumination (Liberation,
Satori, identified with Reality) presents a
remarkable picture of the dynamism of Non-Action.

From the records of his life (for instance 'Les
Etudes sur Ramana Maharshi', by five or six eminent
observers and Arthur Osborne's admirable biography)
one does not have the impression that he was ever
known to 'act' in the sense in which that word is
normally applied to human endeavour, that is in the
sense of 'do' which implies initiative and
reaction. He was the living example of the
philosophy of Lao Tzu. Even when attacked by
ragamuffins, crooks, burglars, and hornets, he did
not re-act; he rarely seems to have given orders,
correction, or to have made plans, yet far from
living in chaos and disorder his life and his
ashram seem to have been a model of harmony and
precision.

Only in the interim between his illumination at the
age of sixteen and the emergence in him of a
working-model of an ego for the purposes of human
contact did he find it necessary to act, and those
few recorded actions are worthy of study. From his
life it would appear that the I-Reality does not,
perhaps cannot, act or re-act on the plane of
seeming, and that the dissolved ego being no longer
available to that end, the living being remains
negative to the circumstances of life. The Maharshi
had no wishes, fear or anger; he merely did what he
had to do with the directness and simplicity of a
young child, illuminated by an intelligence of rare
lucidity.

His real action - Adequate Action, as we may call
it - which is Non-Action on the plane of Reality
was in the medium of what we know as Silence. But
such Silence was not the negative state we
associate with that word; on the contrary it was
highly positive, potent, dynamic. Constantly his
'radiation' was felt, very occasionally 'seen', and
is even described as 'terrific'. Indeed for a
number of people it appears to have been too
powerful - like a high-voltage current. And by
means of it he administered, directly to
individuals, and generally to all, present and
absent, what is adequately described as his Grace -
which was his guidance, more effective than words,
and which constituted his revelation.

His case, as far as one knows, is unique as a
contemporary phenomenon experienced by innumerable
people now living, many still young, but its
importance may be regarded as a function of its
uniqueness. (© RKP, 1958)

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