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JAN SULTAN

To the conscious mind isn't falling into sleep and falling
into Self the same thing?

Both involuntary actions. Both shutting down or 'paying no
attention to mind'. Both not possible when the activities of
the mind are at beehive busyness level. Both more easily
entered into when the mind gives up, surrenders playing the
many games and roles it normally plays.

Yet we have been falling asleep from when we were young and
have not lost that ability. Whereas we have lost the ability
of falling into Self.

Yes. It can be that easy. Maybe even easier as you cannot
fall asleep if you are not tired.

Just some prattling! Any takers?

JERRY KATZ

What's really enlightening is to read the definition of
'fall' in the dictionary. I'm surprised the word isn't used
more often in these circles. Forget falling asleep, in love,
or anything else. Consider 'falling'.

After you've looked-up 'fall' in the dictionary, enter
'falling' or 'fall' into the NDS search engine. I think
you'll enjoy what you find.

http://nonduality.com/search.htm

GENE POOLE

I am reminded of the guy who built some big strap-on wings,
and fastening them to his arms, leapt off of a high cliff,
and fell to his death.

The onlookers, his friends and other interested parties,
watched this display of innovative brilliance, and the
unfortunate end of the inventor.

Shrugging, they all rose effortlessly into the air and went
their separate ways.

***

The culture states its dilemmas in approved ways; no
difference in the statement of the dilemma of 'lack of
enlightenment'.

Culture-bound individuals, having been taken in (deceived) by
the standard cultural (world-dream) news-stories ("People
confused, stupid; story at eleven!") will also look for
equally dramatic issuances of news of 'remedies' ("Stupid,
confused people flock to so-called 'gurus'; story at
eleven!")

The assumption of the lack, precedes any seeking.

Statements of 'you cannot' is the issuance of more standard
cultural propaganda, designed to lead the encultured to feed
at a particular trough.

Culturally approved remedies always exist for culturally
engendered dilemmas, but the 'cure' is simply the next phase
of the disease.

The drama of confusion is carried over into the drama of
gaining clarity; consider that we do ourselves a disservice
by entertaining drama.

The problem of solving a problem, is to be able to correctly
define the problem. If the problem is correctly defined, the
correct definition is always the solution to the problem.

If there is any doubt that this is true, please give it a
try.

In the case of 'your' provocative posting, the problem has
not been correctly defined. Thus, the remedies offered are
inappropriate.

The actual challenge is to correctly define what 'you' see as
'the problem'. If you can accurately state 'The Problem', the
solution (if any) will be immediately apparent.

I am interested to see what you can come up with, especially
if it is devoid of directives.

_______________________________________________________________________

JAN SULTAN

Q] I don't want to lose my ability to analyze and
discriminate. I wouldn't mind learning to think more clearly,
in a more focused way, but I don't want to lose my mind. The
gift of thought is the most precious thing we have. Without
it, we would just be another species of animal.

A] The predominance of mind is no more than a stage in the
evolution of consciousness. We need to go on to the next
stage now as a matter of urgency; otherwise, we will be
destroyed by the mind, which has grown into a monster. I will
talk about this in more detail later. Thinking and
consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small
aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without
consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.
Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to
a level below thought, the level of an animal or a plant. In
the enlightened state, you still use your thinking mind when
needed, but in a much more focused and effective way than
before. You use it mostly for practical purposes, but you are
free of the involuntary internal dialogue, and there is inner
stillness. When you do use your mind, and particularly when a
creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes
or so between thought and stillness, between mind and
no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in
that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in
that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone,
when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of
consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.
The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and
defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and
analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is
not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it
or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.
The mind then gives form to the creative impulse or insight.
Even the great scientists have reported that their creative
breakthroughs came at a time of mental quietude. The
surprising result of a nation-wide inquiry among America's
most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out
their working methods, was that thinking "plays only a
subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative
act itself."' So I would say that the simple reason why the
majority of scientists are not creative is not because they
don't know how to think but because they don't know how to
stop thinking! It wasn't through the mind, through thinking,
that the miracle that is life on earth or your body were
created and are being sustained. There is clearly an
intelligence at work that is far greater than the mind. How
can a single human cell measuring 1/1000 of an inch across
contain instructions within its DNA that would fill 1000
books of 600 pages each? The more we learn about the workings
of the body, the more we realize just how vast is the
intelligence at work within it and how little we know. When
the mind reconnects with that, it becomes a most wonderful
tool. It then serves something greater than itself.

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

_____________________________________________________________

If chasing one's shadow seems foolish;

What would be, shadow chasing the Self asking "Who am I?"

Sheng Hui

______________________________________________________________________

from The End of the Rope Ranch

A Police Mug Shot - Saniel Bonder

It's a good thing you don't have to perfect the body-mind,
because the truth is you can't. It is not within our capacity
to perfect the body, emotions, and mind. What would such a
perfection be? What are the criteria by which we could judge
such a thing?

It's true that most people are not exactly trying to perfect
body, emotions, and mind. What we must also acknowledge,
though, is that even to produce significant changes in them
by dint of willful effort is extremely difficult.

Reading this, some people rebel. Others breathe a sigh of
relief. The latter are probably better candidates for this
particular sacred work. To such people, the news that you
can't really perfect or willfully transmute the human
organism into some idea state is more than welcome. This news
is an oasis in the desert. It's a transfusion of new blood.
It's ultimate food for which they did not know they were
searching.

Over the years of my work with people, I have gone on and on
about it many times. You would think that, with all the
idealogies of self-acceptance and dharmas of no-seeking that
people ingest and then carry like host organisms, it would be
natural and easy for them to really get this point. But it's
not. Almost never. Those ideologies invariably indicate
states of consciousness, mind, emotion, or body that you must
first seek to attain, which will then provide sure evidence
that you are really ready for freedom from seeking and for
safe, ultimate self-acceptance.

They never tell you that it is one hundred perfect OK to just
stop in your tracks. They never tell you it's OK to accept
yourself as the wretch or weakling you feel or know you are
underneath it all.

And even if they do, they don't give you the necessary tools
of transmission and other forms of sacred help which allow
you to make such a deep acceptance in a manner that liberates
you.

Those ideologies and their realizers never give you the green
light of Being, and they never, ever encourage you to
greenlight your own true and total Self. They may greenlight
your true (read: transcendent, immortal, pure and immaculate)
ground of conscious identity, your ultimate self. But your
total Self, including all your desires, reactions, antisocial
and destructive impulses, shadow hatefulness and fear-driven
survival instincts? No. You will never get a green light in
Being for those aspects of your total Self from the purveyors
of hypermasculine ideologies.

In the earliest months and years of my work, I did intensive
seminars with individuals who were interested in awakening. I
used to tell them, "Take a mug shot" - a police station
snapshot of an arrested person - of your body-mind exactly as
it is. This is the one who is going to awaken. Welcome to
that wonderfully relieving and terribly distressing reality.
Right, you don't have to change all the parts of yourself in
order to be able to awaken. You don't have to worry about
that anymore. Just do exactly what Being requires - which it
will reveal to you, don't worry!

So, that's the good news. The bad news is, guess who awakens?
You, essentially as youy have always known yourself to be!
Not some squeaky clean, saintly, superhuman version of you.
No - just you, as you are and have been. That's right,
awakening does not bissfully relieve you of all the parts of
yourself you really hoped would disappear. Welcome home!

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