Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 Why Dearest Bob; You Golden Sufi you! Love it when you speak from the heart place. I have spirit money to burn in the Ghost Festival, and The Laws of Heaven allow no exceptions:>>>>>>>>> We light our candles on paper leaves, and send them floating on the river. Who sent them? Who saw them go? Who can keep them? Only the prayers arrive. love eric , shawn <shawn@w...> wrote: ....watching the "me project." And watching me project...... Who is this? ..... Brothers and Sisters, Hearts of Faith, Channels of Grace, a moment please – we have been checked into these drab motels for so long we begin to think of them as our actual forwarding address. We are driven hither and thither by a little imaginary machine percolating under our skin, so that we never rest. In the fervor of our archaeology, we hold pieces of broken glass over our heads and crow about our treasures. In solitary moods of desperation we always crave that of which we have already despaired – Final Blessing. Believe me now - the secret of Blessing is that Blessing is never denied, nor is It ever final. I have spirit money to burn in the Ghost Festival, and The Laws of Heaven allow no exceptions: luck and misfortune are intertwined, and although I've played with these dice my whole life, they are useless to me now. It is said that someone who doesn't make flowers makes thorns. "If you're not building rooms where wisdom can be openly spoken, you're building a prison." Truly, the slightest breeze can pull us inside these prison gates, and even the strongest ox can't pull us out again. Wherever we walk, the monkey is surely not far behind. He even volunteers for jail. Perhaps this is why the King of Masks remarked: "The dragon in the shallows is forever toyed with by shrimp." The world often seems to be a cold place, but we can bring warmth to it. What other enjoyment can there be in life? A drop of Compassion brings wellsprings of Gratitude. Is there water in this wine, or wine in this water? When such questions are asked, my eyes drift up to the sky. I stare, still somehow disbelieving, at the charred ruins of my own boat. How swiftly the fire, once ignited, showed me that there is nothing we can own. You ask from whence I come. I answer "Here". These ashes are my crib, and in this mud a kind of sprout has pushed through into daylight. Thank you for Your Water. I stagger, blinded, from The Tavern of the Drunken Idiots, my limp more evident now, but the tricks of the monkey are wasted on me in my condition. God takes pity on fools such as I. I hold you here where we both blend with eternity, and something there makes me hear the whole world sigh in relief. I sit astride the toenail of the Buddha of Infinite Qualities, without any qualities I can find in myself. Where She roams, thunder echoes from Her footsteps, but I hear only the most imperceptible glad murmur of reception from the earth on which She treads. They say that the heart acts as a translator between mystery and intelligence; that it has its own dwellers who do not speak with those who are just passing through. But I ask: "Who is there on this shining floor who is not trampled by Her Dancing Feet?" The Princess arrives on the Boat of Kindness, and along the banks there are Lilac Groves whose fragrance runs riot through the senses. Spring's first Buttercups are enough to quiet all dispute, just as the Tulips reveal the meaning of our appearance. Yes, no, maybe so – in this lovely garden of our souls, what use are these distinctions? When life is this dear, can we not feel the One Who is calling us Home, even now, even Now? Don't stop anywhere! Not until we vanish can we know where we truly stand. After this death we can become human at last. I have emptied out my pockets – there is nothing in them anymore. If you grab me by the collar, what you hold is only air. One after another, each will pass through this Gate in their time, and these words like ashes will be scattered along the avenues of towns long ago abandoned. And please forgive me for this indulgence here – my sand has now poured through. LoveAlways, b ------------------------ Sponsor ---------------------~--> Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! Click Here! ---~-> /join All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to a. Your use of is subject to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 STOP PRETENDING By Catherine Ingram INNER DIRECTIONS JOURNAL, SPRING 1997 One day a six-year-old friend said to me, "Pretend you are surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. What would you do?" I visualized the situation as he had suggested and, coming up with no viable plan of action, said, "Wow, I don't know. What would you do?" And he replied, "I'd stop pretending." In many ways, our usual pretending to be' somebody, to prove' something, to aggrandize some notion of ourselves is similar to imagining being surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. It is a condition of fright based on an illusion of our own creation. As soon as we take ourselves to be a separate agent—a somebody—we are more or less in competition with or trying to be protected from—other bodies. With the beliefs in "I,me," and 'mine" come fear and craving. It's a package deal. Waking up is the refusal to indulge this nightmare any longer, the simple decision to stop pretending. Beyond that, nothing further is required. In other words, you need not add anything. You need only to no longer entertain thoughts and beliefs that are not true. Then this beauty that you are, your true nature, shines through effortlessly and brilliantly. A classic metaphor suggests that we observe clouds covering the view of the sun. Eventually the clouds pass. The intelligent observer would not assume that any thing inherent in the passing of the clouds actually created the sun. There would be recognition that the sun had merely been temporarily obscured by clouds, but had been there all along. In this same way, our true nature of clear presence is, at times, obscured but always shining. Yet, if this is so simple, so available, so obvious, how have people consistently missed its ongoing realization? Why have people gone to such lengths ardently practicing techniques, programs, and religions only to become further entrenched in ideology and sometimes even fighting wars to defend their "faith"? The answer lies in the investment in beliefs. I once interviewed J. Krishnamurti, and as I was about to ask him a question beginning with the words, "Do you believe...?" he stopped me and said, "I don't believe in anything." Most people believe their thoughts, and if they have had a lot of thoughts on a given subject over time, there is a long-term investment in the belief of those thoughts. The good news is first, that one need not believe one's thoughts, and secondly, that there is no loss whatsoever in abandoning the long-term investment in what had been believed. On the contrary, without belief in habitual thought, there is clear seeing and open potentiality. Beliefs lock us into a set way of perceiving that filters reality through these beliefs—like a screen—and conditions our actual experience of life. As one believes, so one experiences. If one holds a belief that the world is a dangerous place, one experiences danger all around. If one believes oneself to have been damaged in childhood, then one experiences life as a victim and feels abused at every turn. If one believes that something more is needed for happiness—more money, more sex, more power, more notoriety—then that person experiences hunger and a sense of lack, no matter what divine showers occur. These thoughts and concepts all cluster around one central belief—the belief in "me." This is the ridgepole for the entire illusory house of pain. With it comes an obsession with the related topics of my life, my past, my future, my likes and dislikes, my opinions, my needs, my feelings, my worth. With this one central belief comes also an enormous and miserable workload—the me project, which requires continual feeding and entertainment. Because there is an inherent feeling of separation that comes with the belief in "me," there is also a perceived need for protection, so there is wariness and suspicion of possible threats. Its appetite for experience is driven by an unrelenting sense of discomfort and a desire to be at least temporarily distracted from the project. To that end there is abuse of all kinds of substances, sex, material consumption, and power. After working many years on the me project, and finding no lasting satisfaction in any of its pursuits of "happiness," some people decide to try a different approach, and they direct the project in a search for enlightenment. They become spiritual seekers. But, often it is just the same old me project, only now with a new spin: "I will become enlightened, and then I will be respected, feel better about myself, spend time with spiritual people, get out of this pitiful condition I've been living in, and someday maybe have lots of followers, sex, and money, to boot." I know this well from experience. By the time I was twenty years old, I had realized that all the worldly promise for happiness paled in time or worse, grew bitter to the taste. For the next two decades I lived a life of spiritual pursuit, mostly focusing on Buddhist meditation practice. But, I did so with the hope of attaining something someday. I wanted to feel better; to have a sense of belonging, to be visionary and wise. Yet, as long as this feeling of "I" is around, there is almost no hope of feeling better. Even when I was getting what I wanted, there was always the nagging sense that it would soon be gone. Anything gained in time may also be lost in time. Looking back on the twists and eddies of this life journey, I see that so much of what I attempted in my longing for happiness was a way of exhausting all possibilities that the world offered, including spiritual pursuit. Neti neti as they say in India. Not this, not that. Many years of spiritual endeavor eventually ended in disappointment and spiritual disappointment is a most troubling kind of despair as there is a sense that there is nowhere else to turn. Of course, this is also a potential dawn of realization, for when there is nowhere else to turn, one may be forced to recognize that mysterious essence which silently permeates one's discontent all along, that supreme peace which is never shaken or diminished in all those long wanderings in sorrow or joy. A friend of mine recently remarked (as a play on the old Janis Joplin song). "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to choose." If one is fortunate, there comes an eventual giving up of the me project altogether— when you've played out all your dreams and schemes and found no consolation in any of them, when the tired stories about "me," or spiritual attainment, or needing to have some particular life experience have no lure and cannot seduce you for one moment from your mountain seat of freedom. And there you rest effortlessly, no longer looking for love but being love, no longer yearning for vision but continually baptized in a mystical vision of perfection, no longer trying to live in the present, but knowing that is it is impossible to live other than in the eternal stream of now, no longer trying to clear your mind but knowing without doubt that nothing—no thought, worry, fear, or idea about yourself—has ever stuck to you or ever could. LoveAlways, b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 I play your game when you make me cry like this. If I had a sister I would have probably been fighting with her over that shell! Yet, now I am a worthless shell I can listen to the sea that you speak of. And know that the ocean is my sister Yet in truth. Much closer than this. love eric , ErcAshfrd@a... wrote: >Love it when you speak from the heart place. Waves of love wash over my shore, faithfully, obliterating the little scratched markings in the sand left by beachcombers long gone, the carved shapes of hearts and words returned once more to pristine sparkling innocence of primal virgin elements. This vast and timeless shore! Laughing and sweeping their arms out across the horizon as if to encompass this infinite panorama of delight, a couple make their way along the ebb & flow of tidal waterline, and before them two children, pails and shovels in hand, race along with breathless wonder. The little girl stops momentarily, her eyes widening with the joy of treasure's discovery, and she reaches down to scoop up a half-buried seashell. Rinsing it off in the cool waters playing around her ankles, she beams with happiness to share it with her brother. "O look!" She offers, "Look at what I've found!" He peers into the intricate shape, forged in the same ocean that birthed his ancestors, and with the exquisite regard only children can summon, pours into that small shell and finds himself drifting through immense galaxies of starry radiance, and it is a timeless realm of vast and silent majesty, and he is that in which he floats, and all swims within him in utter perfection and brilliance, and he recognizes his own face, the face of the splendor and glory that he is, that he has always been -- his own form stretched across space, birthing star clusters and trailing comets through endless paths of luminescent ecstasy. Worlds within worlds, worlds upon worlds, appear and disappear in the twinkling of his eye, and all the while a flaming yearning is met by an open welcoming embrace, as if one huge spirit heart perpetually forgets and then remembers itself, and only for the sheer joy of the thrilling re-discovery! And so he looks up into his sister's expectant eyes, and behind her the golden sands, and then the hills race up into the bright blue sky -- the hills ablaze with sunlit vibrant greens and rich deep earthy browns, and soaring hawks tilt wings upon the air currents, and wisps of clouds emerge from nowhere and just as soon vanish, and it is all one piece, they are all one Body, and now his heart is breaking with unbearable beauty, with overwhelming love for the mere and sublime presence of every thing, and the no-thing out of which and back to which it flows, and flows, and flows. And so he smiles at her, and gently hands the small shell back, and she says, laughing: "What game shall we play today?" LoveAlways, b ------------------------ Sponsor ---------------------~--> Will You Find True Love? Will You Meet the One? Free Love Reading by phone! Click Here! ---~-> /join All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to a. Your use of is subject to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 Love this! The "me project". The maypole is down to one stand. ...a mantra....mystical visions a siddhis occur......there is this subtle sense of suffering....why? "I" am still here. The "me project." ....watching the "me project." And watching me project...... Who is this? ================================ on 7/5/02 6:57 AM, hrtbeat7 at hrtbeat7 wrote: STOP PRETENDING By Catherine Ingram INNER DIRECTIONS JOURNAL, SPRING 1997 One day a six-year-old friend said to me, "Pretend you are surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. What would you do?" I visualized the situation as he had suggested and, coming up with no viable plan of action, said, "Wow, I don't know. What would you do?" And he replied, "I'd stop pretending." In many ways, our usual pretending to be' somebody, to prove' something, to aggrandize some notion of ourselves is similar to imagining being surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. It is a condition of fright based on an illusion of our own creation. As soon as we take ourselves to be a separate agent—a somebody—we are more or less in competition with or trying to be protected from—other bodies. With the beliefs in "I,me," and 'mine" come fear and craving. It's a package deal. Waking up is the refusal to indulge this nightmare any longer, the simple decision to stop pretending. Beyond that, nothing further is required. In other words, you need not add anything. You need only to no longer entertain thoughts and beliefs that are not true. Then this beauty that you are, your true nature, shines through effortlessly and brilliantly. A classic metaphor suggests that we observe clouds covering the view of the sun. Eventually the clouds pass. The intelligent observer would not assume that any thing inherent in the passing of the clouds actually created the sun. There would be recognition that the sun had merely been temporarily obscured by clouds, but had been there all along. In this same way, our true nature of clear presence is, at times, obscured but always shining. Yet, if this is so simple, so available, so obvious, how have people consistently missed its ongoing realization? Why have people gone to such lengths ardently practicing techniques, programs, and religions only to become further entrenched in ideology and sometimes even fighting wars to defend their "faith"? The answer lies in the investment in beliefs. I once interviewed J. Krishnamurti, and as I was about to ask him a question beginning with the words, "Do you believe...?" he stopped me and said, "I don't believe in anything." Most people believe their thoughts, and if they have had a lot of thoughts on a given subject over time, there is a long-term investment in the belief of those thoughts. The good news is first, that one need not believe one's thoughts, and secondly, that there is no loss whatsoever in abandoning the long-term investment in what had been believed. On the contrary, without belief in habitual thought, there is clear seeing and open potentiality. Beliefs lock us into a set way of perceiving that filters reality through these beliefs—like a screen—and conditions our actual experience of life. As one believes, so one experiences. If one holds a belief that the world is a dangerous place, one experiences danger all around. If one believes oneself to have been damaged in childhood, then one experiences life as a victim and feels abused at every turn. If one believes that something more is needed for happiness—more money, more sex, more power, more notoriety—then that person experiences hunger and a sense of lack, no matter what divine showers occur. These thoughts and concepts all cluster around one central belief—the belief in "me." This is the ridgepole for the entire illusory house of pain. With it comes an obsession with the related topics of my life, my past, my future, my likes and dislikes, my opinions, my needs, my feelings, my worth. With this one central belief comes also an enormous and miserable workload—the me project, which requires continual feeding and entertainment. Because there is an inherent feeling of separation that comes with the belief in "me," there is also a perceived need for protection, so there is wariness and suspicion of possible threats. Its appetite for experience is driven by an unrelenting sense of discomfort and a desire to be at least temporarily distracted from the project. To that end there is abuse of all kinds of substances, sex, material consumption, and power. After working many years on the me project, and finding no lasting satisfaction in any of its pursuits of "happiness," some people decide to try a different approach, and they direct the project in a search for enlightenment. They become spiritual seekers. But, often it is just the same old me project, only now with a new spin: "I will become enlightened, and then I will be respected, feel better about myself, spend time with spiritual people, get out of this pitiful condition I've been living in, and someday maybe have lots of followers, sex, and money, to boot." I know this well from experience. By the time I was twenty years old, I had realized that all the worldly promise for happiness paled in time or worse, grew bitter to the taste. For the next two decades I lived a life of spiritual pursuit, mostly focusing on Buddhist meditation practice. But, I did so with the hope of attaining something someday. I wanted to feel better; to have a sense of belonging, to be visionary and wise. Yet, as long as this feeling of "I" is around, there is almost no hope of feeling better. Even when I was getting what I wanted, there was always the nagging sense that it would soon be gone. Anything gained in time may also be lost in time. Looking back on the twists and eddies of this life journey, I see that so much of what I attempted in my longing for happiness was a way of exhausting all possibilities that the world offered, including spiritual pursuit. Neti neti as they say in India. Not this, not that. Many years of spiritual endeavor eventually ended in disappointment and spiritual disappointment is a most troubling kind of despair as there is a sense that there is nowhere else to turn. Of course, this is also a potential dawn of realization, for when there is nowhere else to turn, one may be forced to recognize that mysterious essence which silently permeates one's discontent all along, that supreme peace which is never shaken or diminished in all those long wanderings in sorrow or joy. A friend of mine recently remarked (as a play on the old Janis Joplin song). "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to choose." If one is fortunate, there comes an eventual giving up of the me project altogether— when you've played out all your dreams and schemes and found no consolation in any of them, when the tired stories about "me," or spiritual attainment, or needing to have some particular life experience have no lure and cannot seduce you for one moment from your mountain seat of freedom. And there you rest effortlessly, no longer looking for love but being love, no longer yearning for vision but continually baptized in a mystical vision of perfection, no longer trying to live in the present, but knowing that is it is impossible to live other than in the eternal stream of now, no longer trying to clear your mind but knowing without doubt that nothing—no thought, worry, fear, or idea about yourself—has ever stuck to you or ever could. LoveAlways, b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 Hi Shawn, > ...watching the "me project." And watching me project......> Who is this? There is really no need to question oneself. "That one's existence was questioned around the moment of birth, does not have to mean that one has to take that question seriously." "You had no trouble with you; someone else may have had..., and maybe often enough for it to become a condition around you. You then may have bonded with that condition and the search for "who this is" and the "reason for being" becomes serious." "We really do not have to worry so much about how we may be projecting OUT, just notice that and how we were projected UPON... to eventually discover that there is no need for those projections to keep sticking to us." Wim (from "Do it the other way around, it works better") shawn [shawn (AT) withouraloha (DOT) com]Friday, July 05, 2002 12:09 PMSubject: Re: Stop PretendingLove this! The "me project". The maypole is down to one stand. ...a mantra....mystical visions a siddhis occur......there is this subtle sense of suffering....why? "I" am still here. The "me project."================================on 7/5/02 6:57 AM, hrtbeat7 at hrtbeat7 wrote: STOP PRETENDINGBy Catherine Ingram INNER DIRECTIONS JOURNAL, SPRING 1997One day a six-year-old friend said to me, "Pretend you are surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. What would you do?" I visualized the situation as he had suggested and, coming up with no viable plan of action, said, "Wow, I don't know. What would you do?" And he replied, "I'd stop pretending."In many ways, our usual pretending to be' somebody, to prove' something, to aggrandize some notion of ourselves is similar to imagining being surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. It is a condition of fright based on an illusion of our own creation. As soon as we take ourselves to be a separate agent—a somebody—we are more or less in competition with or tryingto be protected from—other bodies. With the beliefs in "I,me," and 'mine" come fear and craving. It's a package deal. Waking up is the refusal to indulge this nightmare any longer, the simple decision to stop pretending. Beyond that, nothing further is required. In other words, you need not add anything. You need only to no longer entertain thoughts and beliefs that are not true. Then this beauty that you are, your true nature, shines through effortlessly and brilliantly.A classic metaphor suggests that we observe clouds covering the view of the sun. Eventually the clouds pass. The intelligent observer would not assume that any thing inherent in the passing of the clouds actually created the sun. There would be recognition that the sun had merely been temporarily obscured by clouds, but had been there all along. In this same way, our true nature of clear presence is, at times, obscured but always shining.Yet, if this is so simple, so available, so obvious, how have peopleconsistently missed its ongoing realization? Why have people gone to such lengths ardently practicing techniques, programs, and religions only to become further entrenched in ideology and sometimes even fighting wars to defend their "faith"?The answer lies in the investment in beliefs. I once interviewed J. Krishnamurti, and as I was about to ask him a question beginning with the words, "Do you believe...?" he stopped me and said, "I don't believe in anything." Most people believe their thoughts, and if they have had a lot of thoughts on a given subject over time, there is a long-term investment in the belief of those thoughts. The good news is first, that one need not believe one'sthoughts, and secondly, that there is no loss whatsoever in abandoning the long-term investment in what had been believed. On the contrary, without belief in habitual thought, there is clear seeing and open potentiality. Beliefs lock us into a set way of perceiving that filters reality through these beliefs—like a screen—and conditions our actual experience of life. As one believes, so one experiences. If one holds a belief that the world is a dangerousplace, one experiences danger all around. If one believes oneself to have been damaged in childhood, then one experiences life as a victim and feels abused at every turn. If one believes that something more is needed for happiness—more money, more sex, more power, more notoriety—then that person experiences hunger and a sense of lack, no matter what divine showers occur.These thoughts and concepts all cluster around one central belief—the belief in "me." This is the ridgepole for the entire illusory house of pain. With it comes an obsession with the related topics of my life, my past, my future, my likes and dislikes, my opinions, my needs, my feelings, my worth.With this one central belief comes also an enormous and miserableworkload—the me project, which requires continual feeding and entertainment. Because there is an inherent feeling of separation that comes with the belief in "me," there is also a perceived need for protection, so there is wariness and suspicion of possible threats. Its appetite for experience is driven by an unrelenting sense of discomfort and a desire to be at least temporarilydistracted from the project. To that end there is abuse of all kinds of substances, sex, material consumption, and power.After working many years on the me project, and finding no lastingsatisfaction in any of its pursuits of "happiness," some people decide to try a different approach, and they direct the project in a search for enlightenment. They become spiritual seekers. But, often it is just the same old me project, only now with a new spin: "I will become enlightened, and then I will be respected, feel better about myself, spend time with spiritual people, get out of this pitiful condition I've been living in, and someday maybe have lots offollowers, sex, and money, to boot."I know this well from experience. By the time I was twenty years old, I had realized that all the worldly promise for happiness paled in time or worse, grew bitter to the taste. For the next two decades I lived a life of spiritual pursuit, mostly focusing on Buddhist meditation practice. But, I did so with the hope of attaining something someday. I wanted to feel better; to have a sense of belonging, to be visionary and wise. Yet, as long as this feeling of "I" is around, there is almost no hope of feeling better. Even when I was getting what I wanted, there was always the nagging sense that it would soon be gone.Anything gained in time may also be lost in time.Looking back on the twists and eddies of this life journey, I see that so much of what I attempted in my longing for happiness was a way of exhausting all possibilities that the world offered, including spiritual pursuit. Neti neti as they say in India. Not this, not that. Many years of spiritual endeavor eventually ended in disappointment and spiritual disappointment is a most troubling kindof despair as there is a sense that there is nowhere else to turn. Of course, this is also a potential dawn of realization, for when there is nowhere else to turn, one may be forced to recognize that mysterious essence which silently permeates one's discontent all along, that supreme peace which is never shaken or diminished in all those long wanderings in sorrow or joy.A friend of mine recently remarked (as a play on the old Janis Joplin song). "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to choose." If one is fortunate, there comes an eventual giving up of the me projectaltogether— when you've played out all your dreams and schemes and found no consolation in any of them, when the tired stories about "me," or spiritual attainment, or needing to have some particular life experience have no lure and cannot seduce you forone moment from your mountain seat of freedom.And there you rest effortlessly, no longer looking for love but being love, no longer yearning for vision but continually baptized in a mystical vision of perfection, no longer trying to live in the present, but knowing that is it is impossible to live other than in the eternal stream of now, no longer trying to clear your mind but knowing without doubt that nothing—no thought, worry,fear, or idea about yourself—has ever stuck to you or ever could.LoveAlways,b /join All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to a.Your use of is subject to the Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 , shawn <shawn@w...> wrote: ....watching the "me project." And watching me project...... Who is this? ..... Brothers and Sisters, Hearts of Faith, Channels of Grace, a moment please – we have been checked into these drab motels for so long we begin to think of them as our actual forwarding address. We are driven hither and thither by a little imaginary machine percolating under our skin, so that we never rest. In the fervor of our archaeology, we hold pieces of broken glass over our heads and crow about our treasures. In solitary moods of desperation we always crave that of which we have already despaired – Final Blessing. Believe me now - the secret of Blessing is that Blessing is never denied, nor is It ever final. I have spirit money to burn in the Ghost Festival, and The Laws of Heaven allow no exceptions: luck and misfortune are intertwined, and although I've played with these dice my whole life, they are useless to me now. It is said that someone who doesn't make flowers makes thorns. "If you're not building rooms where wisdom can be openly spoken, you're building a prison." Truly, the slightest breeze can pull us inside these prison gates, and even the strongest ox can't pull us out again. Wherever we walk, the monkey is surely not far behind. He even volunteers for jail. Perhaps this is why the King of Masks remarked: "The dragon in the shallows is forever toyed with by shrimp." The world often seems to be a cold place, but we can bring warmth to it. What other enjoyment can there be in life? A drop of Compassion brings wellsprings of Gratitude. Is there water in this wine, or wine in this water? When such questions are asked, my eyes drift up to the sky. I stare, still somehow disbelieving, at the charred ruins of my own boat. How swiftly the fire, once ignited, showed me that there is nothing we can own. You ask from whence I come. I answer "Here". These ashes are my crib, and in this mud a kind of sprout has pushed through into daylight. Thank you for Your Water. I stagger, blinded, from The Tavern of the Drunken Idiots, my limp more evident now, but the tricks of the monkey are wasted on me in my condition. God takes pity on fools such as I. I hold you here where we both blend with eternity, and something there makes me hear the whole world sigh in relief. I sit astride the toenail of the Buddha of Infinite Qualities, without any qualities I can find in myself. Where She roams, thunder echoes from Her footsteps, but I hear only the most imperceptible glad murmur of reception from the earth on which She treads. They say that the heart acts as a translator between mystery and intelligence; that it has its own dwellers who do not speak with those who are just passing through. But I ask: "Who is there on this shining floor who is not trampled by Her Dancing Feet?" The Princess arrives on the Boat of Kindness, and along the banks there are Lilac Groves whose fragrance runs riot through the senses. Spring's first Buttercups are enough to quiet all dispute, just as the Tulips reveal the meaning of our appearance. Yes, no, maybe so – in this lovely garden of our souls, what use are these distinctions? When life is this dear, can we not feel the One Who is calling us Home, even now, even Now? Don't stop anywhere! Not until we vanish can we know where we truly stand. After this death we can become human at last. I have emptied out my pockets – there is nothing in them anymore. If you grab me by the collar, what you hold is only air. One after another, each will pass through this Gate in their time, and these words like ashes will be scattered along the avenues of towns long ago abandoned. And please forgive me for this indulgence here – my sand has now poured through. LoveAlways, b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 , ErcAshfrd@a... wrote: >Love it when you speak from the heart place. Waves of love wash over my shore, faithfully, obliterating the little scratched markings in the sand left by beachcombers long gone, the carved shapes of hearts and words returned once more to pristine sparkling innocence of primal virgin elements. This vast and timeless shore! Laughing and sweeping their arms out across the horizon as if to encompass this infinite panorama of delight, a couple make their way along the ebb & flow of tidal waterline, and before them two children, pails and shovels in hand, race along with breathless wonder. The little girl stops momentarily, her eyes widening with the joy of treasure's discovery, and she reaches down to scoop up a half-buried seashell. Rinsing it off in the cool waters playing around her ankles, she beams with happiness to share it with her brother. "O look!" She offers, "Look at what I've found!" He peers into the intricate shape, forged in the same ocean that birthed his ancestors, and with the exquisite regard only children can summon, pours into that small shell and finds himself drifting through immense galaxies of starry radiance, and it is a timeless realm of vast and silent majesty, and he is that in which he floats, and all swims within him in utter perfection and brilliance, and he recognizes his own face, the face of the splendor and glory that he is, that he has always been -- his own form stretched across space, birthing star clusters and trailing comets through endless paths of luminescent ecstasy. Worlds within worlds, worlds upon worlds, appear and disappear in the twinkling of his eye, and all the while a flaming yearning is met by an open welcoming embrace, as if one huge spirit heart perpetually forgets and then remembers itself, and only for the sheer joy of the thrilling re-discovery! And so he looks up into his sister's expectant eyes, and behind her the golden sands, and then the hills race up into the bright blue sky -- the hills ablaze with sunlit vibrant greens and rich deep earthy browns, and soaring hawks tilt wings upon the air currents, and wisps of clouds emerge from nowhere and just as soon vanish, and it is all one piece, they are all one Body, and now his heart is breaking with unbearable beauty, with overwhelming love for the mere and sublime presence of every thing, and the no-thing out of which and back to which it flows, and flows, and flows. And so he smiles at her, and gently hands the small shell back, and she says, laughing: "What game shall we play today?" LoveAlways, b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 , ErcAshfrd@a... wrote: >If I had a sister I would have probably been fighting with her over that shell! ....Ah, Dear Brother -- not if you looked into those eyes of Hers, the same ones looking out our window at dawn and writing about Whale Visions and Tasting God in Water! >Yet, now I am a worthless shell I can listen to the sea that you speak of. And know that the ocean is my sister Yet in truth. Much closer than this. ....Nearer than a heartbeat! LoveAlways, b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 on 7/5/02 9:56 AM, Wim Borsboom at wim (AT) aurasphere (DOT) org wrote: Hi Shawn, Hi Wim! > ...watching the "me project." And watching me project...... Who is this? There > is really no need to question oneself. I'll be the judge of that "That one's existence was questioned around the moment of birth, does not have to mean that one has to take that question seriously." I have never taken my birth seriously...... "You had no trouble with you; someone else may have had..., and maybe often enough for it to become a condition around you. You then may have bonded with that condition and the search for "who this is" and the "reason for being" becomes serious." I am watching your ideas.....wow pretty cool "We really do not have to worry so much about how we may be projecting OUT, you mean speaking.... just notice that and how we were projected UPON... you mean pro-jectile vomiting? to eventually discover that there is no need for those projections to keep sticking to us." gross! Wim (from "Do it the other way around, it works better") a book on 69? It's been....well very nearly real! Thanks Wim Shawn m-m-m-m-m-wa shawn [shawn (AT) withouraloha (DOT) com] Friday, July 05, 2002 12:09 PM Re: Stop Pretending Love this! The "me project". The maypole is down to one stand. ...a mantra....mystical visions a siddhis occur......there is this subtle sense of suffering....why? "I" am still here. The "me project." ================================ on 7/5/02 6:57 AM, hrtbeat7 at hrtbeat7 wrote: STOP PRETENDING By Catherine Ingram INNER DIRECTIONS JOURNAL, SPRING 1997 One day a six-year-old friend said to me, "Pretend you are surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. What would you do?" I visualized the situation as he had suggested and, coming up with no viable plan of action, said, "Wow, I don't know. What would you do?" And he replied, "I'd stop pretending." In many ways, our usual pretending to be' somebody, to prove' something, to aggrandize some notion of ourselves is similar to imagining being surrounded by a thousand hungry tigers. It is a condition of fright based on an illusion of our own creation. As soon as we take ourselves to be a separate agent‹a somebody‹we are more or less in competition with or trying to be protected from‹other bodies. With the beliefs in "I,me," and 'mine" come fear and craving. It's a package deal. Waking up is the refusal to indulge this nightmare any longer, the simple decision to stop pretending. Beyond that, nothing further is required. In other words, you need not add anything. You need only to no longer entertain thoughts and beliefs that are not true. Then this beauty that you are, your true nature, shines through effortlessly and brilliantly. A classic metaphor suggests that we observe clouds covering the view of the sun. Eventually the clouds pass. The intelligent observer would not assume that any thing inherent in the passing of the clouds actually created the sun. There would be recognition that the sun had merely been temporarily obscured by clouds, but had been there all along. In this same way, our true nature of clear presence is, at times, obscured but always shining. Yet, if this is so simple, so available, so obvious, how have people consistently missed its ongoing realization? Why have people gone to such lengths ardently practicing techniques, programs, and religions only to become further entrenched in ideology and sometimes even fighting wars to defend their "faith"? The answer lies in the investment in beliefs. I once interviewed J. Krishnamurti, and as I was about to ask him a question beginning with the words, "Do you believe...?" he stopped me and said, "I don't believe in anything." Most people believe their thoughts, and if they have had a lot of thoughts on a given subject over time, there is a long-term investment in the belief of those thoughts. The good news is first, that one need not believe one's thoughts, and secondly, that there is no loss whatsoever in abandoning the long-term investment in what had been believed. On the contrary, without belief in habitual thought, there is clear seeing and open potentiality. Beliefs lock us into a set way of perceiving that filters reality through these beliefs‹like a screen‹and conditions our actual experience of life. As one believes, so one experiences. If one holds a belief that the world is a dangerous place, one experiences danger all around. If one believes oneself to have been damaged in childhood, then one experiences life as a victim and feels abused at every turn. If one believes that something more is needed for happiness‹more money, more sex, more power, more notoriety‹then that person experiences hunger and a sense of lack, no matter what divine showers occur. These thoughts and concepts all cluster around one central belief‹the belief in "me." This is the ridgepole for the entire illusory house of pain. With it comes an obsession with the related topics of my life, my past, my future, my likes and dislikes, my opinions, my needs, my feelings, my worth. With this one central belief comes also an enormous and miserable workload‹the me project, which requires continual feeding and entertainment. Because there is an inherent feeling of separation that comes with the belief in "me," there is also a perceived need for protection, so there is wariness and suspicion of possible threats. Its appetite for experience is driven by an unrelenting sense of discomfort and a desire to be at least temporarily distracted from the project. To that end there is abuse of all kinds of substances, sex, material consumption, and power. After working many years on the me project, and finding no lasting satisfaction in any of its pursuits of "happiness," some people decide to try a different approach, and they direct the project in a search for enlightenment. They become spiritual seekers. But, often it is just the same old me project, only now with a new spin: "I will become enlightened, and then I will be respected, feel better about myself, spend time with spiritual people, get out of this pitiful condition I've been living in, and someday maybe have lots of followers, sex, and money, to boot." I know this well from experience. By the time I was twenty years old, I had realized that all the worldly promise for happiness paled in time or worse, grew bitter to the taste. For the next two decades I lived a life of spiritual pursuit, mostly focusing on Buddhist meditation practice. But, I did so with the hope of attaining something someday. I wanted to feel better; to have a sense of belonging, to be visionary and wise. Yet, as long as this feeling of "I" is around, there is almost no hope of feeling better. Even when I was getting what I wanted, there was always the nagging sense that it would soon be gone. Anything gained in time may also be lost in time. Looking back on the twists and eddies of this life journey, I see that so much of what I attempted in my longing for happiness was a way of exhausting all possibilities that the world offered, including spiritual pursuit. Neti neti as they say in India. Not this, not that. Many years of spiritual endeavor eventually ended in disappointment and spiritual disappointment is a most troubling kind of despair as there is a sense that there is nowhere else to turn. Of course, this is also a potential dawn of realization, for when there is nowhere else to turn, one may be forced to recognize that mysterious essence which silently permeates one's discontent all along, that supreme peace which is never shaken or diminished in all those long wanderings in sorrow or joy. A friend of mine recently remarked (as a play on the old Janis Joplin song). "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to choose." If one is fortunate, there comes an eventual giving up of the me project altogether‹ when you've played out all your dreams and schemes and found no consolation in any of them, when the tired stories about "me," or spiritual attainment, or needing to have some particular life experience have no lure and cannot seduce you for one moment from your mountain seat of freedom. And there you rest effortlessly, no longer looking for love but being love, no longer yearning for vision but continually baptized in a mystical vision of perfection, no longer trying to live in the present, but knowing that is it is impossible to live other than in the eternal stream of now, no longer trying to clear your mind but knowing without doubt that nothing‹no thought, worry, fear, or idea about yourself‹has ever stuck to you or ever could. LoveAlways, b /join All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to a. Terms of Service <> . Sponsor <http://rd./M=229641.2166546.3626727.1829184/D=egroupweb/S=17050609 55:HM/A=1142329/R=0/*http://promo./debtscape/> /join All paths go somewhere. No path goes nowhere. Paths, places, sights, perceptions, and indeed all experiences arise from and exist in and subside back into the Space of Awareness. Like waves rising are not different than the ocean, all things arising from Awareness are of the nature of Awareness. Awareness does not come and go but is always Present. It is Home. Home is where the Heart Is. Jnanis know the Heart to be the Finality of Eternal Being. A true devotee relishes in the Truth of Self-Knowledge, spontaneously arising from within into It Self. Welcome all to a. Terms of Service <> . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2002 Report Share Posted July 5, 2002 Hi Shawn, :-))) m-m-m-m-m-wa Wim: "That one's existence was questioned around the moment of birth, does not have to mean that one has to take that question seriously."Shawn: "I have never taken my birth seriously...... " I understand, but that was not what I was saying, I was saying "That one's existence was questioned...." Shawn: "you mean pro-jectile vomiting? " I actually almost used the word projectile, but not with the vomiting connotation :-) Shawn: "gross! " It would have been... Wim: (from "Do it the other way around, it works better") Shawn: "a book on 69? " Sortof, you know that together those numbers make the yin yang symbol.Shawn: "m-m-m-m-m-wa " Thanks Shawn, Wim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 6, 2002 Report Share Posted July 6, 2002 And please forgive me for this indulgence here – my sand has now poured through. Well, at least now someone can make sandpaper with it, now that it is all poured out. With the sandpaper we can smooth out those rough beams of our mental constructions, and then erect a new town to replace all those abandoned and ruined ones. Love, Zenbob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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