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01/08/02 Tuesday

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COLETTE

The BIG Question

> > Louis Majors wrote:
This is one place I fall out with the East and the West, both sound
alike as they attribute creation and it's manifestations as a fall or
error.
Colette:
I think Louis what you might find interesting is the Buddhist theme
of interdependent origination (in other words) one's desires could be
said to be effected or even originate through a unique wholistic
field effect (not confined just to one's own idea of individual
consciousness).

"Circuminsessional Interpenetration" (adapted from Religion and
Nothingness, by Prof. Keiji Nishitani, translated with an introduction by Prof.
Jan van Bragt, and with a foreword by Prof. Winston L. King, 1982, Berkeley
1983)

All things that are in the world are linked together, one way or the other.
Not a single thing comes into being without some relationship to
every other thing. Scientific intellect thinks here in terms of natural laws of
necessary causality; mythico-poetic imagination perceives an organic,
living connection; philosophic reason contemplates an absolute One. But on a
more essential level, a system of circuminsession has to be seen here,
according to which, on the field of shunyata, all things are in a process of
becoming master and servant to one another. In this system, each thing is
itself in not being itself, and is not itself in being itself. Its being is
illusion in its truth and truth in its illusion.

This may sound strange the
first time one hears it, but in fact it enables us for the first time to
conceive of a force by virtue of which all things are gathered together and
brought into relationship with one another, a force which, since ancient
times, has gone by the name of 'nature' (physis).

To say that a thing is not itself means that, while continuing to be
itself, it is in the home-ground of everything else. Figuratively speaking,
its roots reach across into the ground of all other things and helps to
hold them up and keep them standing. It serves as a constitutive element
of their being so that they can be what they are, and thus provides an
ingredient of their being. That a thing is itself means that all other things, while
continuing to be themselves, are in the home-ground of that thing;
that precisely when a thing is on its own home-ground, everything else is
there too; that the roots of every other thing spread across into its home-
ground.
This way that everything has of being on the home-ground of
everything else,without ceasing to be on its own home-ground, means that the being of
each thing is held up, kept standing, and made to be what it is by means
of the being of all other things; or, put the other way around, that each
thing holds up the being of every other thing, keeps it standing, and makes
it what it is. In a word, it means that all things 'are' in the 'world'.

To imply that when a thing is 'on its own home-ground, it must at the
same time be on the home-ground of all other things' sounds absurd; but in
fact it constitutes the 'essence' of the existence of things. The being of
things in themselves is essentially circuminsessional. This is what we mean
by speaking of beings as 'being that is in unison with emptiness',
and 'being on the field of emptiness'. For this circuminsessional system is only
possible on the field of emptiness or shunyata.

http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/excerpts.htm#nishitani"


Louis:
> Self is being that likes to express or create.
> We sleep, we wake up and move and create, it's ALL good!

Colette:
The Eastern Vedic path led Maharishi Mahesh Yogi states that Being is
absolute & beyond form, but its expression includes the whole range
from absolute to relative ~ as creative intelligence or consciousness
the unified field reverberates within Itself to manifest creation. He
also describes It as Love.

~*~
Louis:
Thanks for sharing this as this is exactly what I remember from my memory as
Self. I must have also awakened in YOgi.

Colette:
Yes like you I believe that activity is precious to creative
intelligence. Lover & Beloved. Same.


RASHMI

Is repeating I Am a good approach. I begin and before half the day is
over I feel well "it ain't for me." I wonder how Jerry did that for
so many years.I prefer the "lazy man's approach" where even i
couldn't think of witnessing or being aware. Is this a better
approach. But then the world keeps saying awareness is the key. What
is this term "awareness"? Is it witnessing and how is one to be aware?
Is there a secret to it?

DAN BERKOW

Louis wrote:
> It does resolve the quetion and is my point.
> Our being has a desire.
> A desire to be active or move.
> It is inherent in our being and evolves into everything we are and
> experience now.
> We are literally inside our own being and outside our own being.
> Nothing has to give the desirer the position - it's part of the
nature of our being to be active and to be inactive, like the cycle indicated
in the vedas.
Dan:
If being has a desire, then there is "whatever"
is prior to being, which "composed" being with
desire. "Whatever" structured being with desire,
didn't "compose being" out of desire, nor as an expression
of its being (there is no being or nonbeing "here,"
which needs to be expressed).

Action doesn't necessitate desire.
Movement doesn't require desire.
Movement that isn't based on desire or
lack of desire has been called "spontaneous,"
"thusness," "wei wu wei" (action of non-action),
and other names.

Yes, nature considered in terms of activity
must have an inactive aspect as well.

When there isn't a division separating active from inactive,
there is "undivided nature," which is perceived in
relative terms as active and inactive, in which there isn't
a desirer separable, hence no "desire" to be considered
as such ("desire" implies one who desires, and something
that is desired).

"You" and "your desires" arise naturally from "whatever"
is beyond desire. This "whatever" has been called
"original nature," "the Self," "Godhead"
"emptiness" or "the unnameable."

Namaste,
Dan


JERRY KATZ

Hi Rashmi,

hey, you make me sound like i was some kind of wandering monk in India or
something.

it doesn't take a lot of effort to pay attention to a toothache.

you have your own toothache.

just keep looking at the barest essence of what it is.

follow it to the fundamental spark of energy that you are.

keep attending to it.

that is I Am.

now

having considered what i said

doesn't walking around repeating 'I Am'

seem kinda....

dumb?


ROBERT HUNTON

> To me, the key to this paragraph is the phrase 'wake
> up suddenly'. If
> that happens in any setting, whether it's the woods
> or at the desk, he
> could have written that paragraph.
>
> Jerry
>

(Robert)

Hello everyone, I am glad to start my conversatoin
with all who attend non-duality salon.

I am stationed in San Diego, CA. I am in the U.S.
Navy. I have been waiting to start this dialog for a
while. So I will begin.

I agree that the key phrase in Catherine's quotation
above is, "wake up suddenly", and also that the
paragraph above could be written after the "wake up
has taken place."

For those of you who have woken up, do you fall back
to sleep? I do.

I remember when I did wake up. It was when I was
about 16 years old. I had clearity as though I was a
crystal ball where all information passed through me
and from every direction. I could percieve and see
things in a way that was ineffable. I felt like I was
a part of the whole universe and it was beating and
alive like a living organism.

As time went on this awareness diminished and I....

Let me see if I can get this accross....

I fell back into my conditioned being and reasumed my
identity that I lived into thus far in my life. Which
was definately not an entirely aware being.....

I am 21 years old now and the great feeling I had when
I became aware is not with me now. In fact I have not
had it but a few times since then. Usually when being
coached by aware people.

Some times I wonder if it just because the excitement
I had after the ah ha has diminished, that I think I
am not aware. I often distinguish between those
around me who seem more conditioned than others.

One reason I am starting this conversation is to get
back into the conversation that exists today among
aware people. Why else? For some reason I don't
think a why is required, in fact, I am here and what
ever comes from that can be called what happens.


I look forward to hearing from anyone.

Good Bye

Robert

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