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12/23/01 Sunday


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DAVID HODGES
GO STRONG


Hello everybody!

When IT crashed into my life I woke up on a battlefield.

I didn't wake up with my problems solved and with love streaming from a newly-opened heart.

I woke up as if under bombardment in some desolate Afghanistan of the soul and spirit.

But as IT worked its way from outside in and and from inside out the battles resolved themselves and life
became filled with more light and clarity. It was as if there were another point of view always available.
Sometimes I didn't like that point of view and would spend months avoiding it, but with quiet insistence it
would eventually have its way. I began to feel as if I were being hollowed out, all my solid insides being
replaced with emptiness.

One problem I carried over from the battlefield of my prior life was depression. While I am no longer subject
to the crippling desolation of earlier years, I am still moody and subject to emotional downswings several
times a year. In some ways I can see that my life has, in part, been structured around managing depression
and that other thorn in the flesh, migraines.

But recently IT has lead me to what may be another kind of solution that is very promising.

Gene Poole has often recommended, on this list, a book called "Power vs Force", by David R. Hawkins
(Rather than summarize its argument I can point you here: http://www.nonduality.com/gene13.htm and here:
http://www.nonduality.com/archive4.htm#12

On page 231, Hawkins says, "There is no antidepressant that will cure a depression that is spiritually based,
because the malaise does not originate from brain dysfunction but from an accurate response to the
desecration of life."

What will cure a depression that is spiritually based, then? What I have been learning is that there is a way
that does not involve pharmaceuticals. It does not involve talking therapy and dream analysis. It does not
involve finding the perfect relationship that satisfies one's perceived emotional needs.

It involves raising your energy level.

"Power vs Force" teaches this very clearly. Exposure to higher energy fields makes us go strong. Exposure
to lower energy fields makes us go weak.

I have realized that some of the things I was doing were unwittingly lowering my energy level, thus opening
my emotions to the disorganizing, entropic effects we call depression. Some of the music I was listening to,
entertainment I was watching, food I was eating, people I was associating with, were pulling down my
energy.

So I began to pay attention to what raises my energy level to higher energy fields, to what makes me go
strong. Yoga is one. The game of chess is another. Many kinds of creative effort as well. Certain people.
Certain foods. Certain poems, novels, movies.

Then I read this in "Power vs Force": "The music of Bach makes everyone go strong, even if they don't
personally like it" (p.250).

This idea stuck in my mind. The music of Bach makes everyone go strong, even if they don't personally like
it. How interesting! So it has nothing to do with personal preference. It is a matter of exposure to an energy
field that operates at a higher level, that exhibits a higher complexity.

Lately I've been doing this: I listen to Bach every day. It might be a Brandenberg Concerto. Or Glenn Gould
playing the Art of Fugue or the Well-tempered Clavier. Or a joyful Contata. Or Dr. Hannibal Lecter's
favorite, the Goldberg Variations. Right now I am listening to the Mass in B Minor. This is wonderful music
and I do enjoy it, but have never listened to it as consistently as I do now.

The effects on my mood have been remarkable. I am far less subject to the little peaks and valleys I have
been used to all my life. And it is not a matter of feeling "happier". It is a matter of feeling stronger. What is
going on in the emotional center no longer predominates, and doesn't spread its gloom to the mental center.
And IT continues to help me organize around this energy field of higher complexity, greater beauty, deeper
compassion.

This discovery helps me to apply it to other areas of life. Now I find myself choosing things that make me go
strong, and avoiding things that make me go weak.

One area in which this makes for difficulties is relationships. As Hawkins says, telling the truth makes you go
strong. But it has a way of weeding out the false from the true and a couple of relationships I used to enjoy
have suffered. Sometimes it isn't just a matter of telling the truth, it is seeing the truth. When I see the ways
in which someone tries to hang onto themselves out of fear of going off the cliff, I can't support that.

Because the view from the bottom of the cliff is pretty damn fine.

Thanks for listening!

David Hodges


JERRY KATZ

Hi David,

I've been reading Hawkins too, at Gene's suggestion. I never liked
classical music but have been listening to it for the last couple of
months. I enjoy it very much now for some reason. It's a beneficial
thing, especially where I live with two schizophrenic young men
grappling with the disease. It was also recommended by Spencer Perdriau,
who overcame schizophrenia. His recommendations for dealing with the
disease would probably be approved by Hawkins. I link to his website at
<http://nonduality.com/s.htm>.

Jerry

GENE POOLE

>Whence the assumption the universe has a purpose?
>It just is and in less than a wink of an eye, entire
>galaxies are blast to cinders by gamma-ray bursts.
>Humans have no more importance than the extinct dinosaurs,
>who at least weren't in the act of destroying the planet...
>And the way it looks, the visible universe is expanding with
>an increasing speed - as if every atom likes its neighbors best
>at infinite distance :)
>
>Zero importance,
>Jan

I will say 'that is how the universe appears to you', Jan.

The universe is actually 'transient modeling-clay' or 'play-dough'.

It is meant to be taken seriously only up to a point, and it appears
that you may have passed that point.

The universe and 'the planet' are resilient enough to easily endure
the role they play, that being a staging-field.

As David H pointed out in his recent letter, we may indulge our
lives as we may. We do have choice, and we can learn. To the
point, life is if we allow it, an upscaling beyond fear and the
defensive annihilation-impulse, to seeing how everything
(everything!) that has come before, is to support me, to
elevate me to the awareness to literally see this.

And in fact, this view does not support 'importance'.

Try to figure out, how to be open to fractally-distributed
communications. It is a virtual private network; go ahead
and hack it. Or let it hack you.


==Gene Poole==


JERRY KATZ

The other day I sent a post in which I couldn't remember the name of Kir
Li Molari. I entered the name into the NDS search engine and found the
following quotes from Kir Li:

--------------------------------


Enlightenment is not as precise a term as Realization for the
most precious experience. The light is always here, now. At
one point in the eternal present, This is realized.

***

Where there is Awe, Laughter, or Bliss, there is no
chattering mind.

***

If you want to know The Answer, stop asking the question.

***

Until there are no ????,
there is no !

***

The veil of illusion is torn asunder and the beauty, love,
and wisdom of reality is realized. As the moment occurs, the
mind says its final farewell with statements like "Oh my
God!" and "Thank you God!" Then, the freeing realization that
One is talking to OneSelf. And the blissful silence sounds
internally, infinitely, eternally.

---------------------------------------------------

There are now 700 of the 900 Highlights searchable on my website. The
search engine covers the entire NDS website, about 7000 hand-picked
posts from this list, the Course in Consciousness website, and the Wide
Open Windows website which feature over 1000 spiritual teachers. I
encourage anyone to enter anything into the search engine and see what
comes up. There are references to just about everything, obscure quotes,
movies, geographical locations, yogi berra, and what not.

http://nonduality.com/search.htm

Jerry


JAN SULTAN

Extracts form Eckhart's Power of Now [1]

....Moreover, since every person carries the seed of enlightenment within,
I often address myself to the knower in you who dwells behind the thinker,
the deeper self that immediately recognizes spiritual truth, resonates with
it, and gains strength from it......

.....Don't read with the mind only. Watch out for any "feelingresponse" as
you read and a sense of recognition from deep within. I cannot tell you any
spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already. All I can do is
remind you of what you have forgotten. Living knowledge, ancient and yet
ever new, is then activated and released from within every cell of your
body.......

......When I occasionally quote the words of Jesus or the Buddha, from A
Course in Miracles or from other teachings, I do so not in order to
compare, but to draw your attention to the fact that in essence there is
and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many
forms. Some of these forms, such as the ancient religions, have become so
overlaid with extraneous matter that their spiritual essence has become
almost completely obscured by it. To a large extent, therefore, their
deeper meaning is no longer recognized and their transformative power lost.
When I quote from the ancient religions or other teachings, it is to reveal
their deeper meaning and thereby restore their transformative power -
particularly for those readers who are followers of these religions or
teachings. I say to them: there is no need to go elsewhere for the truth.
Let me show you how to go more deeply into what you already have.....

.....I speak from inner experience, and if at times I speak forcefully, it
is to cut through heavy layers of mental resistance and to reach that place
within you where you already know, just as I know, and where the truth is
recognized when it is heard. There is then a feeling of exaltation and
heightened aliveness, as something within you says: "Yes. I know this is
true." .....

From: Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now"

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