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01/01/02 Tuesday

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JAN SULTAN
-Your Ego is Your Troubleshooter - Alan Watts

Only we've got this little partial view. We've got the idea that 'No, I'm something IN this body.' The ego.
That's a joke. The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention. It's like the radar on a ship.
The radar on a ship is a troubleshooter. Is there anything in the way? And conscious attention is a designed
function of the brain to scan the environment, like a radar does, and note for any trouble making changes.
But if you identify yourself with your troubleshooter, then naturally you define yourself as being in a
perpetual state of anxiety. And the moment we cease to identify with the ego and become aware that we
are the whole organism, we realize first thing how harmonious it all is. Because your organism is a miracle
of harmony. All these things functioning together. Even those creatures that are fighting each other in the
blood stream and eating each other up. If they weren't doing that, you wouldn't be healthy.

Extract from: Alan Watts: The Nature Of Consciousness
http://www.deoxy.org/watts.htm
[There are several more good, but lengthy excerpts from Watts, please
see the archives to read more of them.]

GARY MERRILL

Hi Gene,

snip>
G> So, the focus of the seeker 'should be' upon the nature of
G> emptiness itself, rather than upon the many, many examples
G> of how things can go wrong in the world-dream, and the
G> numerous and ultimately, misleading examples of remedies
G> based upon world-dream perceptions.

Any focus would be to assume that the answer to the 'problem' would
lie 'somewhere'. Problems of 'wholeness' may be badly defined
problems, which is to say that in talking about 'totality' or
'emptiness' there is a particularization process which makes such 'things'
part of the problem again.

Problems must be 'particular', or 'partial'. The question itself must
always be partial, thus the answer. 'Self' is a constant problem, a
constant challenge. It would seem to have no answer apart from the
dissolution of the question.

Total emptiness would be equivalent to total fullness. So what is 'it'
that is full or empty? is Consciousness a container? Is it possible to
distinguish the container from the contained? The container is the
contained. Dualistically this makes no sense, but 'totality' is
undivided.

To be simple, where then is the problem? Our problem is self created.
Exit 'self' stage left.


ANDREW

Conditionalunconditioned
no perception is more valid than any other
what is going on here
solutions that are not solutions
for a problem that is not a problem

who is on a voyage of discovery
of how it is said

perception perceiving perception perceiving emptiness what is

emptiness what is

the thick of things

for what disease is this the cure

the small medium is at large

Happy new year

andrew



GENE POOLE

Thank you, Andrew.

And well-stated, the perception
of the paradox operative in
someone's moment.

My question (which I assume
to be open-ended and perhaps
unanswerable, except perhaps
provisionally) is this:

When, if ever, is it good, or even
permissible, to 'pretend' to be
at the (perceived) level of another's
understanding?

I ask, because while I myself
am quite comfortable in and as
formless emptiness (actually
my preferred 'state'), there is a
certain line of reasoning which
I understand to be usable to
those who have grasped the
ladder, yet have not yet committed
to the climb... so to speak.

It is of course possible to
obviate the entire journey, to
find oneself in the overall
context of 'objective experience'
in a quite literal way, and to
thus dispose of the ladder,
to drop the skif used to traverse
the divide, to 'go beyond'
with or without definition or
explanation, etc etc.

Nonetheless, the issue of
'offering guidance' remains,
especially in a forum such
as this.

Certainly there is great value
in speaking plainly 'from where
one is coming from', unabashedly
leaving any chips where they may
fall. My question as to the
propriety of a way of speaking, does
not imply otherwise.

And we may disqualify the very
means of communicating, as
an example of the futility of
'mere words'. Yet, words have
exercised their power in many
ways, both agreeable and
disagreeable. We may use them
as we wish.

To that end, suggestions of direction
or 'guidance' may be exampled or
phrased, and are better placed
deliberately into the context which
is intended (by the speaker) as the
link between each rung of said ladder.

Yes, the saying of the doctrine of the
completion of the task that has no
beginning, undoubtably has value,
because such statements in themselves
reveal the gap in the understanding
of a hypothetical reader, but is there not
a place for the assembly of the structure
which will eventually disappear, when
any usefulness that it once may have
had, is finished?

While I can make no claim to
'enlightenment' or to be a 'teacher'
of 'it', I do feel that there is (and should be)
room for such expressions, which for
the reader, could (if used receptively)
lead to understanding by way of
explanation, rather than action by
way of directive.

Huh!


==Gene Poole==

ANDREW

Communication is not transmission of information.
As human beings we are closed systems
continuously making information,
making ourselves, in forming.
Communication is an interactive display of data.
The other is an interactive display of data.
So this play of pattern matching goes on
as an invitation to dance,
or a response to an invitation
shape shifting dance shamanic
Permissible? Compulsary?
A matter of the heart.
Ah the heart!

andrew


NDS

Hey, it seems to be 2002...


A future of possibilities


Here is a link.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/01/science/01END.html>

Scientists speculate that the universe is not only expanding,
but that it is in fact, accelerating! Read all about it in this long
and amusing article.

Why the NYT article may be of interest to 'us':

As you may know, 'space' is one of my favorite studies.
There has been talk of 'space migration', or of moving
people into space colonies, and of colonizing other
planets.

The NYT article quotes scientists as saying that 'life may be
doomed' if the universe is expanding at an accelerating
rate.

I recently wrote that it is possible to perceive 'other than
the world dream'. Jerry has written about the 'interval'; now,
science states that 'space' is actually not empty, but may
be 'full of mysterious dark matter' (dark because we
cannot see it).

Life is not doomed if we take the option of migrating into
'space', no in space-ships, but to learn to live here with
full perception, everything seen, and then step into
the 'interval' or 'emptiness', leaving behind dependence
on the physical universe.

The physical universe 'may be' an incubator, and
school, to prepare 'the worthy' for expansion into
'space'. Nonduality 'may be' the fulcrum-point of this
possible expansion, acting as a method of parsing
layers of perception.

The issue of 'enlightenment' has been with us for
as long as we can remember. It may be that the actual
'purpose' of enlightenment is to prepare us for our
next evolutionary step, deliberate and bodiless
conscious awareness.

The Holy Scriptures of antiquity seem to indicate the
actuality of versions of 'heaven', and propose methods
of purification of the 'soul' to enable a person to enter
the 'afterlife'. It is possible that such scriptural teachings
are actually 'echoes from the future', information
embedded in the holomatrix of the universe.

Our (actual or latent) abilities to perceive 'higher dimensions'
could be our means to understand and navigate in
this space of emptiness; and our ability to co-exist and
cooperate, may also be a key factor in this possible
migration.

It seems that certain 'Masters' have succeeded in
'going beyond' in this literal sense, which would itself
indicate that the possible future is now.


==Gene Poole==

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