The biz, the books, the people, the connections, the confessions
Along with James Traverse, I am a guest on Mandee Moon Labelle’s YogaHeart radio show. Listen live on the Internet from 12:30-2:30 pm EST, Wednesday, November 11.
It’ll be like sitting at the kitchen table and talking about nonduality. We will be promoting our upcoming gathering, but any topic could come up in that context.
Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness
by Floco Tausin
Original, Challenging, Memorable
Book review by Jerry Katz
This is a memorable novel full of spiritual teachings touching many levels of understanding. It is about a spiritual journey that is intimately linked to the restoration of a secretaire, or writing table. As restoration is tedious and slow, so is the reading of this novel. But in a good way. It never gets dense, longish, or self-indulgent. The longer the book goes, the more interesting it gets, which is the same with restoration: as you get near the final stages and everything starts to come together, the level of excitement, revelation, and involvement increases. I was sorry to see this book, this wonderland, come to an end.
The secretaire, the physical world, the dots and strands (floaters) before the eyes, the people on the left side of the Emme River in Switzerland, come together in a world that is both complex and clear as water, making for a delightful read.
The characters created by Tausin cut through you to the bone, but you’ll fall to your knees and love them, their abodes, their habits, their tricky and unfailing wisdom and practices. In the following scene the author, who is the main character, is suprisingly visited by an old woman who sees the truth about people and speaks it. Also appearing is Nestor, the author/seeker’s guru and the owner of the secretaire.
“You’ve startled me,” I told her.
“That’s quite right,” I heard a voice from the hallway. It was Nestor who entered the living room. “In moments of fright, the intensity increases. Those are precisely the moments in which people learn the most.”
“The way it looks, the boy seems to believe he can do without an increased energy flow – probably because he thinks he’s Mr. Know-It-All,” she added with a cynical tone of voice.
“That’ll make him turn old and senile in no time.” Then she looked at me with an expression of distrust. “What’s he doing here at the young lady’s place anyway, hey?”
I seized the chance to parry her sneering remarks: I was here to become even wiser, I explained. Iris, I told her, informed me about the erotic unification.
“Uh, the erotic unification,” she giggled. “Yes, yes, it’s a hell of a difference whether the dickie is attached to the boy, or the boy attached to the dickie.” Nestor and the danseuse laughed loudly.
The left side of the Emme is in my bones. I can smell the place and feel the impersonal chill of what is both an amusement park and a land of higher learning.
Elsewhere Nestor inquires of the seeker, “Are you searching for justifications to explain away your idleness and phegm? Crossing the bridge is not a question of character, let alone fate. It is a decision. It is a decision that every person walking the path in the basic structure has to make. It is the point when a human being has to decide whether he or she wants to remain a human being that wants to continue to experience the small joys and woes of this world, or if he or she wants to fly over into the left side so as to outgrow themselves in an ecstatic way, and to see the world with the eyes of a seer from then on.”
Read Mouches Volantes and enter a world of challenging, original spirituality and memorable, uncompromising characters.
Mouches Volantes – Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness
by Floco Tausin
The following are not my notes, but those of Robert Wallace, reprinted with permission. Visit his blog!
Science and Nonduality: The Many and the “One”
by Robert Wallace
from robertmwallace.com
Last weekend (Oct. 22-25, 2009), my wife Kathy and I participated in the first international Science and Nonduality Conference, in San Rafael, California. “Nonduality” is an English word deriving from the Sanskrit “advaita,” which is the distinctive concept of the most influential school of spiritual thought and practice in India, Advaita Vedanta. Originating with Shankara and others around 800AD, Advaita’s central doctrine is that Brahman (or “God”) and Atman (“Soul”) are not, as we might think, two things, but one. This idea has been generalized to apply to numerous prevalent dualities in present-day thinking, such as mind/body, matter/energy, and so forth. So the conference sought to bridge also the duality of science and spirituality, bringing together prominent writers and researchers from both “sides.”
The conference was organized by Maurizio Benazzo, of Neti Neti Media, and (on the science side) Prof. Stuart Hameroff of U. of Arizona (Tucson). Prof. Hameroff is also the organizer of an ongoing biannual series of conferences at U. of Arizona on “Consciousness,” which attracts leading neuroscience researchers, philosophers, etc. Hameroff’s two talks at this conference were probably its most ambitious attempts to synthesize nonduality and science, the latter extending down to the quantum level. Hameroff collaborates with Roger Penrose, an Oxford University physicist whose The Emperor’s New Mind and other books have drawn connections between consciousness and quantum phenomena.
Penrose and Hameroff suggest that the quantum level may be where “Platonic Forms,” both mathematical and ethical, most directly affect the physical universe. As an admirer of Plato, I’m naturally quite interested in this proposal. I’ll have to learn a good deal more about quantum physics and physiology before I’ll be in a position to evaluate it.
I feel better equipped to assess some of the philosophical or religious ideas that were laid out at the conference. There was a good deal of inspirational invocation of the idea that “we are all one,” through the non-dual Brahman/Atman. As I’ve indicated in this blog and other writings, I have a lot of sympathy with this idea. I’m glad to see it being taken seriously in public venues like this conference. However, I want to emphasize that it’s an idea that needs to be handled carefully. If we assert it as a blanket truth that simply has to be “accepted,” rather than understood, we may erase crucial differences that I think should be respected and preserved, and are respected and preserved within the true “One.”
More than one person at the conference reported having heard people say that they sometimes feel guilty about insisting on their personal needs, in negotiating with others—in view of the supposed fact that the difference between them and the others is really just an illusion!
The difference between you and me is not, I think, a mere illusion. On one level it’s perfectly real, so that I shouldn’t suppose (for example) that your experiencing pleasure or convenience compensates for my experiencing pain or inconvenience. In this sort of context, it’s perfectly appropriate to raise issues about justice and fairness.
The metaphysical truth (as I think I’ve learned from Plato and Hegel) isn’t that the boundaries between us are simply unreal, illusory, but that they aren’t features of the fullest reality, what’s “most real.” Because the One is completely self-determining, it’s real as itself; whereas we, who are only partially self-determining, aren’t fully real as ourselves. But whatever degree of self-determination we do have, contributes to or derives from the complete self-determination of the One, and thus it’s preserved, rather than erased, in the One’s fullest reality.
So it’s important for us to preserve our sense of how “the world” of distinct people and things functions and ought to function, at the same time that we love and orient ourselves towards the ultimate, most real One. If distinct things were insignificant, why would the saints and mystics report that the One loves everything? In my own life, my newfound (in recent years) consciousness of the One, powerful as it is, doesn’t erase my consciousness of my individual past and future, and my particular responsibilities and decisions. If anything, it intensifies and deepens that consciousness—and makes it manageable, by putting it within a universal context of love and forgiveness.
As Rumi says, “there’s no need to go outside.” The Atman/Brahman, the Soul/God, is in every one of us, insofar as each of us has some capacity for self-determination. Since my finite self-determination is infinitely far from infinite self-determination, my awareness of infinite self-determination, or the One, does reduce the finite me to nothing, in comparison. (This is what the Sufis call “fana,” annihilation in God.) But at the same time, the fact that I have this awareness, that I have some self-determination, gives me infinite importance, as it gives infinite importance to all of us. (This is what the Sufis call “baqa,” dwelling in God.) So we nothings must love and nurture ourselves and each other, as the One loves and nurtures all of us. But in order to love and nurture each of us effectively, we must preserve a sense of how each of us is a “something,” distinct from the others. Even though, unlike the One, these “somethings” aren’t fully real.
I think this sort of “down-to-earth” recognition of our partial distinctness is found in every spiritual tradition that endures. Sufi sheikhs have families and jobs. Hinduism makes provision for love and raising a family, as well as for monastic life. Taoism makes fun of exalted pretensions. Christian monks pay their bills by making and selling wine. Plato and Hegel, both of them mystics, develop complex theories of love, ethics, and society. A person doesn’t pass directly from childhood and youth to spiritual maturity—there are intervening stages to pass through, having to do with learning the ways of the world, learning to think for oneself, and developing one’s capacities for love and for nurturing (and thus resolving any inherited “issues” one may have). If a metaphysics or a religious world-view neglects any of these stages on the way, it won’t really satisfy its followers. (Nor, probably, will it integrate well with the sciences.)
Standing As Awareness: The Direct Path
by Greg Goode
Review by Jerry Katz
Greg Goode is like a pianist playing a complex composition with a light touch. I’ve read this book about four times and each time new seeings emerge.
This book creeps up on you. Although I wrote a friendly Foreword, and Greg Goode comes across as kindly, with a clean cut ego, this book takes you to where there is no person. It’s good that this book creeps up and doesn’t hit you all at once.
You’ve heard over and over again that “there’s only awareness.” Standing As Awareness delivers that knowing.
This book is about self-inquiry, using methods you have probably never seen. It also comes with this notice:
“Don’t stop if it gets rough. The search is sweet, but it is not always comfortable or reassuring to the assembly labeled as the person. Be unafraid of what might come up.” … “Comfort is not the criterion of being in touch with awareness, and discomfort is not the criterion of being out of touch with awareness.”
There are many other exquisite nuggets of revelation. This is a rarely heard statement:
“One can wait until the dissolution (of the witness) happens. There is no reason to hurry, because there is no suffering, and the witness is sweetness itself. … One may wait for the dissolution to happen, or one may feel called by higher reason to investigate the dualities. Either way is fine.”
Greg shows you how to bring about that dissolution of the witness or the I Am, whatever you want to call it. That you can dissolve the witness without waiting, is an amazing teaching, and delivered so effortlessly. That effortlessness in presenting rare teachings is what makes the book creep up on you: you may not see what he’s saying at first or second reading.
I recommend Standing As Awareness even if you are already familiar with nondual teachings and books. If you are first exploring the teaching of nonduality, this book may be challenging but it will smarten you up quickly about the game of enlightenment, satsang, and nonduality itself.
Standing As Awareness: The Direct Path
by Greg Goode
At the Conference I got the hint that nonduality is starting to creep into the traditional colleges and universities. If there’s still such a thing as the “college circuit” (I’m totally out of that loop), speakers and teachers might be thinking about tapping into it. However, it’s not yet clear to me whether that movement is going to take off or what. Nor does anyone know what form nonduality will take in the universities. Probably new versions of the teaching and new teachers will emerge along with freshly influenced creative works, expressions of activism, and psychological studies, and god knows what else since all fields of knowledge could be influenced.
Josie responds:
hi jerry:
some thoughts that came when reading this… from
another perspective.
nonduality is already present in many of the
institutions. it slipped in through the medical
field to receive validation scientifically as
beneficial for health and it has continued to
quietly move through all different organizations
including prisons. it goes by the name of
“mindfulness”. it was used for helping with
high blood pressure, chronic pain, heart
disorders, cancer etc in its early form:
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, (thanks
to Jon Kabat-Zinn) and later variations
for treatment with borderlines: DBT, with
depression, trauma and anxiety: ACT and in
addictions: MBRP. the word that is used in
trainings in reference to nonduality in an
experiential way is “groundlessness”. this
is being taught in elementary schools, high
schools and universities. ongoing research
continues to give permission and inspiration
for others to include it ever exponentially
for people in education, healthcare and work
or business.
i am not implying nonduality is about health
benefits, greater productivity, clarity,
healthier relationships or happiness.
however it is those side benefits from
being fully present and aware, that have
allowed it to come more and more into
mainstream. of course this is also due
to the dedicated efforts of many individuals
including ongoing research studies in every area.
some of the speakers that show up at different
events with the dalai lama or at conferences
like Awakening to Mindfulness (FACES)expand
on this in very accessible ways.
the dalai lama as one source of inspiration
has challenged everyone he has been in contact
with from the blue men, ebay founder, nobel
prize winners, actors, authors, advocists to
the university professors, researchers and
educators to take these results of the efficacy
of kindness, compassion and mindfulness into
real concrete practical action in the world
and many are rising to do so.
mindfulness is one of the many doorways that
continue to offer the invitation to simply be,
to let the story drop or flow through, and to
rest. just for this moment.
it may seem that practicing mindfulness, and
taking action are opposites, but paradoxically,
(as it all is), being mindful allows clear
seeing to arise which makes evident what the
next action is.
having used many different words to communicate
this with others, i find that along with the
words “compassion” and “grace”, “mindfulness”
is accessible for almost all.
Jerry responds:
Thanks, Josie, for that bundling of practices and doorways. I find that useful. Stuff I didn’t know about. I agree that they’ve paved the way for the acceptance of nonduality. If all those practices and teachings were available without the presence of both the word and the teaching of nonduality, they would be lacking a certain overall coherence, I feel. Nonduality brings everything together and at the same time dissolves it. Maybe I’m overly pushing the nonduality agenda, but my sense is that the word is important to use. It’s the word itself, along with unique understandings of it, that I see creeping into the doorways of society and culture.
Here are a few excerpts from my notebook kept at the Science and Nonduality Conference:
“The no state stateless state. Notice it. … Notice the stateless state of not depending upon thoughts, memories, associations, perceptions…
Notice how the stillness appears to go on forever. … Realize you are conscious of that stillness … just be the consciousness. … What would you have to unpack if there was no purpose?”
Wolinsky said the his teacher, Nisargadatta Maharaj, was a Zen master of the highest order. Nisargadatta said that spirituality is about realizing who you are not. Through neti-neti you realize who you are. He also said that everything Nisargadatta gave was a thorn, a thorn that would pluck out the thorn causing suffering and pain.
Amit Goswami
His turning point in life was when he was suffering and suddenly asked himself, “Why do I live this way?” In that instant he knew he was changed.
“Do you see anything that separates seeing from you? … There are no “sides” just open presence. … No containment going on in our experience. … Thoughts that say there are borders have no borders, no containment. … The notion of containment arises in the sea of the uncontained. … Are you perceiving me as though I’m a container?
“Anything you think about nondual realization is wrong. … Everyone is in nondual awareness right now. … You’re never closer to or further away from nondual realization. … Images of nonduality are the biggest occlusion. … The actual is always present as pure awareness. … Grace is how the recognition happens. … Give up the search, not the practice. … Cognitive neuroscience is the most important field right now. … Reason is a veneer and a crude tool.”
~ ~ ~
CDs and DVDs of speaker sessions from The Science and Nonduality Conference 2009 are available here.
~ ~ ~
The Conference was not only about speakers. “Heather Munro Pierce leads her signature modality in the Experiential Room hosted by Conscious Dancer Magazine, Oct. 25, 2009.”
The future will be as it is now. The only difference is that in the future, Self will be known, widely known, and this will make all the difference.
Jerry Katz
April, 1981
from unpublished journals
What was important in my life of spiritual experiences was seeing the suchness or I-am-ness of everything. That levelled everything. What comes out of doing that is that the suchness looks back at you and suddenly there is a deeper experience of being.
The fog is a lightest when standing as suchness.
When the fog disappears altogether, a different kind of description of the world and reality appears.
What is seen these days is a lot of the fogless descriptions, confessions, showings. They form the genre known as neo-advaita, which tries to cut out the middle man of suchness. It tries to cut out all middle men except the neo-advaita teachers themselves.
It is not hard to see that neo-advaita teachers are saying the same thing in different ways. When that is seen, the suchness of neo-advaita is seen. Then it is possible that the suchness of all things is seen and is seen looking back at you. And the fog is lightest at suchness.
What the neo-advaitins (don’t know what else to call them) are talking about can’t be known in the same way suchness is known. All you can know is suchness. That’s all that can be taught and it is the most high spiritual experience. It is pure love.
What the neo-advaitins are talking about is exactly what is, “this,” and it can’t be expressed. Every expression of “this” has to rent a room at the hotel of suchness. But the fog is the lightest there.
So what can be done to know “this”? Absolutely nothing, except to depend upon a neo-advaita teacher to tell you more about it, to confess what it’s like to be/not be “this.” But the fog is quite light there.
Had a relaxed chat about nonduality, nondual people, and stuff with Mandee Labelle on her YogaHeart radio show based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
It’s unplanned. We just start talking. Covered all sorts of topics and mentioned a bunch of people and things.
Mandee is a local teacher of Yoga and meditation, but mostly of … whatever “this” is.
Listen to the conversation. Good music on the show too. (It begins with talk from the previous show then a couple commercials for local businesses. They’re the only commercials you will hear.)
Betty Camhi sent the following notice about 30 minutes ago:
I just got this message from Wayne Liquorman.
Love,
Elliott
(eliyahu)
¢¾
****************************
Dear Friends,
It is with the heaviest of hearts I write to tell you of the passing of our
beloved Ramesh this morning at 9AM in his home in Bombay. His death was quick and peaceful.
Ramesh was truly an extraordinary being. His life as a successful banker, author and spiritual teacher directly enriched the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Having met Ramesh was one of the defining moments of my life, as I am certain it was for many of you reading this note. His generous spirit, open, loving presence and spiritual Understanding combined to make him one of the truly great Sages of the 20th century. We are truly blessed to have known him…be it “in person” or through his Teaching.
Ramesh lives on. Though his body will this evening return to the elements, his spirit lives on in his books and in the hearts of all of us who have known him and loved him..
Twenty-two years ago Ramesh came into my life. Today his body leaves it. To have been able to walk beside him for all this time and to have been able to bow at his feet has been for me the greatest of life’s blessings.I shall miss not being able to sit with Ramesh, to watch a cricket match together or to share some chocolate or to laugh at some silly joke he reads from the newspaper. It is not the greatness of the man I will miss most…his greatness remains undiminished by his death…it is the little things, the human things..
Many of you will share with me the exquisite human pain of the loss of a beloved one. If you take a moment to quietly look at it you may see in the pain the wonder of Life itself. If so, it will truly be the Grace of The Guru.
With much love,
Wayne
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