Advaita.org message board

[Guest guest]

The message board is removed from Advaita.org website. It seems to be

a permanent decision. It's sort of sad because it was one of the

first nonduality related boards I came across on the net.

 

Hur

[Guest guest]

Nisargadatta , hur@n... wrote:

>

> The message board is removed from Advaita.org website. It seems to be

> a permanent decision. It's sort of sad because it was one of the

> first nonduality related boards I came across on the net.

>

> Hur

 

Loss is often accompanied by sadness. What is sadness? Loss opens up a

hole in our personal form, and sadness fills that hole. So sadness is

there to keep a balance. Without that balance we would become

confused. Then sadness is gradually replaced by new things in our life

so that a new personal balance is formed. This is the horizontal path.

 

The vertical path is: leaving the sadness without having any personal

thing to replace it (a mental possession such as a message board, a

job title or a personal relationship). Vernon Howard said that we are

sad about leaving our sadness. Sadness is an occupation; it is

something to _do_, to feel, to own, to have, to possess and be

possessed by, it is clinging, an attachment to our conditioned sense

of self.

 

There is of course nothing wrong to feel sadness on the level of the

horizontal path. But on the vertical path sadness must become purified

so that personal fear is no longer in command. On the horizontal path

there is always a fear of personal loss.

 

How can there be a path where there is no fear of personal loss? That

seems impossible, doesn't it? On the vertical path " myself " gradually

dissolves. Without a personal " myself " , can there be fear of personal

loss, of loss of any kind?

 

Who dare to take the vertical path? I find such a path pretty scary. I

think I will cling to my sadness for a little time longer. :-)

 

/AL