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Wednesday, December 19

The caterpillar just does what's natural, for a caterpillar,
and the little wee beastie has no need to figure that out.

andrew

............so true. and humans don't really need to figure
anything out either. humans also cannot do anything natural
until they work their way out of the cocoon.
.............matthew

humans are like caterpillars insofar as each is doing what
they do.

humans being human, caterpillars being caterpillars.

it doesn't matter if humans think there can be something
outside of nature, because thoughts like that are just part
of human nature, which is never apart from nature.

...............dan

I realize that metaphors seldom constrain themselves to the
mere facts, but in this case the facts may add something to
Matthew's point of view. The caterpillar actually does
nothing, not even eat, while it is transforming within the
coccoon, that is all hormonally driven. However, without the
struggle to break free from the cocoon, it would be too weak
and deformed to ever fly. If someone "helps out" by opening
the cocoon, all is lost. Of course, that effort is also
natural, but it does have to be made.

____________________________________________________________________

JERRY KATZ

"This "art of living," is this Sri³ Ravi Shankar? I get more
respect for him." --Sarlo

he's a nice, down to earth man, Sri Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and
the organization seems to reflect that. They have a presence
in Nova Scotia, and everyone I've met is normal. No permanent
smiles, glazed-over eyes, or sales pitches.

I happened to catch Shankar once as he was leaving a talk. He
was walking alone down a long hallway toward the elevator and
we walked together for a minute maybe. I said something about
a lot of people interested in spiritual things. He said, yes,
"it's changing, everything is changing," were his words. I
didn't say anything else. He came to the elevator and said
goodbye.

A day or two later I was with him and a dozen or so other
people in someone's home. Again, I didn't say anything to him
during that time. He seemed very peaceful and ordinary. It
was very good to be in his presence. What's to say, really?

I also saw him a third time at a Satsang/Darshan/whatever you
call it type thing where people were dancing and jangling
bells and stuff. I spent an hour or two there, and when I
came home, Dolores (my late wife) was almost knocked back by
what she said was energy emanating from me. She said it
stunned her a little. I did feel 'high' from the encounter.

I think some followers are addicted to that. In fact, I
recall a conversation with one couple who had come to Nova
Scotia from California to see him; they said they needed
their 'fix'.

But you know what? Maybe that 'high' is what people are
supposed to feel. Like cee has told me: "allow bliss." Maybe
bliss is default and I have blocks to it, and these retreats
and darshan things bring one to a normal state, not to a high
state.

Having said all that, bliss or no bliss, ecstasy or misery,
what doesn't change, doesn't change in any case. And if one
is That, then what of bliss, ecstasy or misery? What are
they? How can default be that which one blocks, frees,
allows, disallows, or experiences in any way?

__________________________________________________________________

JERRY KATZ

what i'm really getting into is my search engine which is
going to search 7000 of the best emails ever sent to this
list, all the postings to the I AM list, dozens of the best
nonduality/advaita websites, and the postings of other lists
as well.

right now you can search about 4000 of the best emails ever
sent to the NDS list by entering '+ (your topic of interest)
+highlights. For example, if you want to find long lost Annie
Heppingstone's posts enter +Annie +highlights in the search
engine. <http://nonduality.com/search.htm>.

You can also search the entire NDS website as well as the
websites of Wide Open Windows, and A Course in Consciousness,
simply by entering keywords.

A number of people have contributed to selecting the 'best'
posts sent to this list. Gloria Lee has been involved for
longer than anyone and is still active. She even kept the
project going when it was almost dead and gone. Andrew Macnab
put many long hours over a period of a few years into
compiling the posts. Gloria and Andrew have been the main
contributors with me. Melody gave the project the initial
energy and contributed extensively early on. A few others
have been involved for varying periods of time. Mark, OH,
Lynn, Bruce, Christiana. There have been others. Forgive me
for not remembering. When the search engine is officially
ready, I'll have a link to a formal statement of
acknowledgements.

Beth and Manchine were the two others involved in putting
together the Highlights. Everyone gave generously of their
time and energy.

____________________________________________________________________

JOHN METZGER

SEARCHING FOR JESUS (editor's note: John used the search
engine described above to compile the following:)

Gene Poole: Now that I have the reader writhing in a
veritable melange' of value-judgements, I should clarify that
I now know that Jesus is... an eternal commentator on all
things which impact humans. His gentle voice may be heard,
revealing and telling the story of how this all works. He has
informed me that hell is only for those that really need it,
and that fear is the gateway to hell, and that He (Jesus) is
free to go to any place and any time to help any person who
needs help, whether or not that person is a 'Christian' or
has even heard of Jesus. He further informed me that the
basic human 'flaw' is to _decide_ or _conclude_. I learned
that there is no such thing as 'objectivity', and have since
that time, had to fight the (conditioned) tendency to take
things seriously.

I learned from Jesus that the way that He speaks, is designed
to initiate a person who is ready, into ever-deeper
mysteries; that in the way that He speaks, every phrase is
like a step on a long staircase, leading up to what humans do
not now know. In this regard, there is a place for faith,
once a person has taken the offered help, and has seen that
it works; that from that point, one is a fool to ignore what
is offered. But perhaps, only one who has suffered as
drastically as myself, can appreciate and use this insight.
Others seem to persist in maintining that they can 'figure it
out for themselves', and thus ignore the Grace (however it
may come) which is the Free Ride. As you know, Judy, Grace is
'where it is at'.

Bruce Morgen: Buddha and Jesus notwithstanding, the primary
"graven image" remains "ourselves," our harbored self-images.
Statues of Buddha and lovely images of a kindly Jesus
comprise a distraction from confronting the crucial fact of
this imagined and imaginary idol.

Dan Berkow: We worship the graven images we project. We
idolize our mind's constructs. Jesus didn't die to leave us
an image to worship. He died to invite us to face ourselves,
account for ourselves, not postpone rebirth, no-birth, birth
as imageless infinity, within, from, and through the One
beyond One. The Greek word "Christos" has no equivalent in
Hebrew. Jesus was made into the image of a divine savior to
be worshipped, he spoke to reveal truth. By making of him a
divine image to worship, humanity revealed itself to be
affected by the energy he released, yet postponed dealing
with this Truth that he pointed to as present.

Melody: When 'images', whether of a savior, heaven, father,
lover, etc are taken out of the 'concrete', and allowed their
fluidity, images have the potential of leading awareness far
beyond the realm of 'belief' and 'worship'.

Images - as living metaphors - can open us to spaces of
consciousness we have not yet touched, much less 'embraced'.
And once one has traveled all the way through an image, the
image...and the traveler...simply fall away.

As an example, I could 'worship' a Jesus,

or I could recognize Jesus as a distracting graven image,

or I could 'step inside of' Jesus with mind and heart, and
open to where it takes me. (I remember the first time I tried
this, I could not sustain the 'fullness' of the experience.
After only a minute, I had to let it fall away, it was so
...so...'expansive' (hard to find a word.....).
http://home.epix.net/~miser17/trans.html

DAN:
Let us "empty ourselves" first, before we engage in debates
about reality. Otherwise we run the risk of debating until
the cows come home and never knowing what it means to
"empty". It seems that this emptying is how "Jesus" and "me"
end up not being separate. It's not me saying that this is
so, it's the emptying that is the seeing that it is so. Such
emptying is not a doing on my part, so Grace may be an
appropriate word to suggest that it is not "action of the me"
that can ever "empty me of me."

Judi: ...you can't get closer to the truth or to God by
looking at the subtle. God is not subtle!! The second thing I
want to say ... is that I would like to see you start
thinking on your own. You are your own person, second to
none, not Sandeep, not Jesus, not anyone!! This whole
business that we are talking about is about standing on our
own, not gleening information or leaning on anyone else. And
there is one thing I can guarantee you thruout this whole
process and that is you are never alone.

Gene: Now, such a one, living among others, shall maintain
integrity by an honest (righteous) expression of Being as
that one. This 'means' that such a one will, inevitabley,
come to be seen a 'different' by those others with whom such
a one associates. The story of Jesus illustrates the dangers
to mortality which such honest expression of Being may
attract; Jesus abject honesty led to His demise. But His
Realized 'non-alive/non-dead' condition was revealed to the
populace as his apparent 'ressurection'. The depth of His
realization was such that not only had death lost any
reality, but life also. His power is such that he existed
outside of the 'dualistic universe'; the dichotomy of
apparent 'life and death' had been resolved as being neither
life nor death, but something else entirely, which is the
'Kingdom of Heaven' itself. Already being there, in that
Kingdom, Jesus thus had neither life nor death, but instead,
Divinity, which is 'beyond' the life-death dilemma.

That Jesus intention was potent, is well-known; his intention
brought forth the very fruits he summoned. Wine now but water
before, life now and death before, as honest expression of
His way of Being, which is that of righteousness (integrity).
Jesus demonstrated the potential within integrity as power
beyond life and death, beyond the assumptions of the world of
duality. His life was thus of our salvation, if it can but be
seen. That He is seen as God is no suprise, and is as good as
true, to those who are still laboring in the sweat-mines of
duality. That Divinity is defined as exclusive, embodies or
exemplifes the isolationist/separateness of the false
principle of exclusion upon which duality rests.

Jesus life is a signal that integrity empowers. Jesus exists
as a timeless beacon, in the timeless realm which is the
Kingdom of God, which is this realm. His intention, once
implemented, continues to bear good fruit; His intention is
to alert us to the way of integrity, which if implemented,
opens the gates of That Kingdom. Thus the truth of his
assertion that He is the way to the father and His Kingdom;
his 'life/death' are an enactment of the potential or
possibility open to anyone who realizes.

The choice-factor is clearly emphasized in the story of
Jesus; choice of how _will/intention_ is manifest, _either_
to integrity, or to gains 'of this world' of duality, is a
clear choice that is made. That one would choose, is the
first step in the direction _either_ of the gaining of the
power which is the result of 'having integrity', or to the
direction of trading one's 'soul' for worldly gain. 'One may
not serve both God and Mammon'.

Here then is the answer to the question of the practical
application of Nonduality; that the only application of
Nonduality is the maintaining of integrity, which is
something which can be done only for oneself. Nonduality is
an individual experience; an imagined community of Nondual
realizers is thus a community of individuals 'in integrity'.
I leave it to the reader to imagine the possible fruits of
such a community. That such a community as a possibilty is
imaginable, and thus possible, is intuitively obvious.

When the rewards of this 'world of duality' are finally seen
to be fickle and empty, what then? The story of Jesus
remains, as a hint to the direction which one may move, to
the 'final reward' of Heaven. The 'finality factor' is not to
state an end, but timeless beginingless endless
already-always Being. Momentum is thus converted to
stillness, and direction becomes one-point-only, nowhere to
go, having already arrived, from here to Here.

Jesus life [2] is thus a statement of Be "Here" now [3].
Jesus pointed to himself as an example of our own potential
to be able to enter where He dwelt then and now, the Kingdom
of Heaven, which is not gained, but received by Grace. I
might say that Grace is our natural state, and thus that our
worries of insufficiency and mortality are the very fetters
which bind us to the world of duality.

Leaving attachment is not detachment, but an acknowledgement
of our weakness of succumbing to attachment; and is thus
properly stated as _non-attachment_.

Detachment is denial of weakness; non-attachment is
confession of weakness, which confession itself points to
integrity as a way of Being, and is thus strength. Thus the
confession of weakness, is the means to the entry of the
Kingdom of Heaven, or as can be said, the Nondual
perspective. This confession can be stated as "Not my will,
but Thine". [4]

ANDREW
"Christ" means the anointed one, and Jesus's message to me is
that all who accept his (nondual) teaching become the Christ.
Baptism (Christening) is the symbolic representation of this.

GLO
The other side of this coin, is that God first ended that
separation, and demonstrated the oneness of God with man thru
the appearance and life of Jesus. Baptism is symbolic of our
awareness of what is is already so!!

Jesus message to me was that HE so identified himself with US
that "whatsoever you do unto the least of one of these, you
do unto me." That's anyone and everyone..who is excluded
here? Very little depends on our awareness or acceptance of
this way of becoming the Christ, ...what is flowing down from
the hierarchy is lowliness and humility, mercy and love.
"Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of
men."

Dan: Nondwelling awareness is directly mentioned in many
Buddhist texts, and interestingly seems referred to by Jesus
when he said, "the foxes have their dens, birds have their
nests, but the Son of Adam has no place to rest his head." I
see nondwelling awareness as exactly the "rebirth" that Jesus
described in his expression. The tendency of awareness is to
identify with and in "something". Somethings appear in
awareness, and awareness tends to get caught in the
appearance. Particularly, awareness believes it dwells in the
human body. Once "positioned", awareness experiences the pull
of things it wants, the fear of trying to avoid or escape
things (or sensations or thoughts) that it doesn't want, etc.
The tension of this situation leads awareness to deeply
question its situation. Many proposed "solutions" may occur
(more and better "things" to have, "enlightenment" to get,
beautiful people to relate to, drugs and alcohol to numb or
enhance the senses, etc.). If no solution is accepted,
awareness eventually confronts the untenability of any
position. At this instant (of impasse, of no tenable
position), there is a "shift" or "release" - awareness
suddenly has no dwelling place. It is not in things, and
things are not in it. The infinite appearance of things is
seen as nothing other than awareness itself. There literally
is no dwelling place, no position for awareness. Awareness is
not fighting against attachments, there literally can be no
such thing as attachment, as there is nothing there to attach
to. Deception (of sensory
awareness/perception/cognition/emotional reactivity) is seen
through. Is this the end of any work for awareness? No. It is
an insight opening endlessly. The full energy of awareness is
required every moment (and there is only one moment). This
endless deepening of intensity and extensivity of That which
is endless and beginningless is the reason for the
Bodhisattva Vow, at least as understood here. Because the
relative and absolute are not apart from each other, and are
not two, we can say there is endless deepening with no
beginning or end. Nondwelling awareness, having no place to
be, no situation to call home, only can endlessly "flow into
itself" as it always has and always will. Remarkable that I
am sitting here typing this, looking out the window at
beautiful snow-covered trees, as awareness "circulates"
infinitely.


__________________________________________________________________

ERIC
from Nisargadatta list

The great black folksinger Huddie Leadbetter, better know as
Leadbelly, said on a great Folkways record including his
spoken words with the music: Relax your mind, relax your
mind, and you will live a great long time. Perhaps this is
part of the song you're thinking of?


_______________________________________________________________________

GENE POOLE
from Center of Friends

From: Polly Hymnia <hardcoretheist@yahoo.com> Subject: a
question for Gene Poole

What do you interpret the phrase "no cohabitation during
gestation" to mean? Does this Oahspean law recommend no sex
during pregnancy?

Well, I have not read the Oahspe for so many years, that
there is no way that I can be of help with your question in
that context.

I consider how the question appears to me, and say:

"Gestation" in this case, refers to the development of what I
am becoming. "Cohabitation" refers to the invited or
passively accepted presence of an influence which would
distort or otherwise inhibit gestation.

The cohabitation which is prohibited, is that of my
'conditioning', which would live in me as 'host' for all of
my life. Because I can see my conditioning, I can 'invite it
to leave'.

I do retain, however, the aspects of conditioning which allow
me to commune with the apparent others of this apparent
world. This would be language, and the habit of putting
meaning on every event, be it sound, image, or memory.

This may seem to be a compromise, and I agree, it is. I
sometimes am aware of suffering for making this choice, of
retaining the 'things of Babylon'. I think of this ploy, as
'hedging my bets', like the atheist who prays, 'just in case
there is a God'.

At least, I can have fun and indulge myself in this way. I am
sure, that if I continue with my vast and profound cosmic
studies, that someday, my writing talents can be parlayed
into a vast fortune as an important author.

Now, in relating what 'I am becoming', or the gestation, I am
becoming what I am. Because I am already that, I can amuse
myself by conversing between what I am and what I was. Or is
it, between what I am, and what I will be.

Maybe I am actually 'out of the loop', being neither what I
was, nor what I will be. I am only sure, that I am.

On the other hand, I have to ask myself, just who is talking.
Knowing as I do that my conditioning loves to hide behind
things I am attached to and thus will not throw away, the
person speaking may not be me. And the irony is, that there
is no-one being used, and the user, the conditioning, would
like to think of itself as a real and whole person.

I hate to disappoint 'it', but beyond making babies (which I
have done with superb results) and supporting 'the common
weal', there is little for me, but such indulgence as this.
If my conditioning wishes to continue to see me as a 'fine
catch, who am I to disappoint?

Perhaps my conditioning hangs out in me, because I am like a
fine pub. I wonder what flavor of brew I am serving, in
there? Well, I guess that would define what is meant by
'staggering intelligence'.

I had a shocking memory quite a few years ago, of awakening
in a bizarre, fractally-distributed landscape. It was obvious
what had happened; our ship had 'crashed' and to prevent us
from dying in the void of space, it had deployed its own
substance, to create this world.

This was confirmed, when the voice of the ships computer
(affectionately called 'Seeuness') managed to speak to me,
apparently from nowhere. Then I understood; the ship, in
'sacrificing itself' in order to create a world which would
be able to support us, had unfortunately distributed its
communication capabilities far and wide. I could communicate
with it, but at this point, have to contend with ideograms
and even phrases which are themselves, also fractally
distributed.

This problem can be overcome, by simply allowing the gestalt
of stimuli to which I am subject at any time, to arise in me
without any interpretation being applied by myself.

In this way, by removing any counter-pressure to the arrival
of the whole intent of my whole world (which is of course my
beloved yet now mutated ship, appearing to be a world) I am
able to simply imbibe the song which my ship now sings, in
lonely isolation from her former crew of 12.

And the parts of the 12, you ask, where are they? They are
striving to come together, but every time they do, they just
make more parts!

So, I ask, do I simply wait for rescue, or do I set about, to
use the parts of my ship (this world) to make a new ship,
with which to then resume my journey?

I could, but I need a full crew, or more likely, a goodly
number of duplicates as well, keeping in mind that the new
ship will not be autonomous and self-aware as was faithful
Seeuness. It will probably be many moons before our scattered
parts can remember how to produce a sentient ship.

In the meantime, I will amuse myself in this way.

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