Now Consciousness: Exploring the World Beyond Thought

by Albert Blackburn

Selections:

To me, the valuable characteristic of Now Consciousness is the universal availability for anyone. It can be experienced by rich or poor, in a palace or a hovel, by an intellectual or a simple person. It is the common heritage of everyone. Because of its simplicity, it is easily overlooked by the erudite.

It is the only approach to the experiencing of reality that is non-dualistic. Therefore the transformative results are not ego induced. What is discovered is true and uniquely understood by each in his own way. This truth becomes an intrinsic part of one’s nature and leads to right behavioral patterns. In this behavioral change, which so subtly comes about, one finds his or her place in the over-all fabric of life. It is a true uniqueness in which there is no competition or exploitation of another.

I have found that it is all too easy to reach conclusions about anything. Any conclusion or definite answer is a blockage to the ceaseless flow of life which gathers around itself other mental debris. This effectively brings to an end further insights into that particular subject. Therefore what I happen to be now observing is only my individual point of view. My findings may be of interest to others who are also seeking the true meaning of life.

~ ~ ~

Selected sayings:

The right question contains its own answer.

By discovering what is not true, there is the possibility that truth can flower in the space of not-knowing.

If we can see in any given moment what the facts are, there is no problem.

Truth finds no abiding place in the house of authority.

To believe anything is always to step away from truth.

Now-Consciousness is the perception of reality moment by moment.

~ ~ ~

Albert Blackburn wrote from the 40s through the 80s. He died in 1987. He was a very modern teacher. In fact, he didn’t consider himself a teacher and did not give talks. Rather he held discussions or dialogues and was invited around the world to do so, and always invited back. His teacher was J. Krishnamurti, but Blackburn stood alone and encouraged others to understand not him, but themselves.

To my knowledge, Blackburn’s work has not been widely disseminated in the current Internet era. However, his books are still in print and his wife Gabriele runs the publishing company, Idylwild Books.

Although you may find Blackburn’s books on Amazon and other online bookstores, they are used copies and overpriced (although worth every penny!). To pay the regular retail price, visit

www.idylwildbooks.com

I also recommend The Light of Krishnamurti, by Gabriele Blackburn, for the fascinating story of her life, including her time with Albert. It includes numerous photos of her, Al, and Krishnamurti, whom they called Krishnaji.

Twenty-First Century Stoic — From Zen to Zeno: How I Became a Stoic

William B. Irvine

William B. Irvine is author of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Oxford University Press: 2009).

This is the first in a series of three essays, written by a Stoic, about what it means to practice an ancient philosophy in the modern world.

I never intended to become a Stoic. Who, after all, were the Stoics? They were those grim, wooden figures of ancient Greece and Rome whose goal it was to stand mutely and take whatever the world could throw at them. Right?

About a decade ago, though, I began a research project on human desire. The goal of the project was to write a book on the subject, but I also had a hidden agenda in conducting my research: I was contemplating becoming a Zen Buddhist and wanted to learn more about it before taking the leap. But the more I learned about Zen, the less it attracted me.

Practicing Zen would require me to suppress my analytical abilities, something I found it quite difficult to do. Another off-putting aspect of Zen was that the moment of enlightenment it dangled before its practitioners was by no means guaranteed. Practice Zen for decades and you might achieve enlightenment — or you might not. It would be tragic, I thought, to spend the remaining decades of my life pursuing a moment of enlightenment that never came. Zen doubtless works for some people, but for me, the fit wasn’t good.

Then something quite unexpected happened. As part of my research, I investigated what ancient philosophers had to say about desire. Among them were the Stoic philosophers — people like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus — about whom I knew little. As I read them, I discovered that they were quite unlike I imagined they would be. Indeed, it soon became apparent that everything I “knew” about the Stoics was wrong. They were neither grim nor wooden. If anything, the adjective that I thought described them best was “buoyant” or maybe even “cheerful.” And without consciously intending to do so, I found myself experimenting with Stoic strategies for daily living.

Thus, when I found myself in a predicament — being stuck in traffic, for example — I followed the advice of Epictetus and asked myself what aspects of the situation I could and couldn’t control. I couldn’t control what the other cars did, so it was pointless — was in fact counterproductive — for me to get angry at them. My energy was much better spent focusing on things I could control, with the most important being how I responded to the situation. In particular, I could employ Stoic strategies to prevent the incident from spoiling my day.

I also started making use of the Stoic technique known as negative visualization: I would periodically contemplate the loss of the things and people that mean the most to me. Thus, when parting from a friend, I might make a mental note that this could conceivably be the last time I would see the friend in question. Friendships do end, after all, and people die suddenly. Doing this sort of thing may seem morbid, but the practice of negative visualization is a powerful antidote to a phenomenon that will otherwise deprive us of much of the happiness we could be enjoying: negative visualization prevents us from taking for granted the world around us and the people in it.

When they hear about negative visualization, people often get the wrong idea. They think the Stoics advocate that we spend our days dwelling on all the bad things that can happen to us. This, of course, would be a recipe for a miserable existence. What the Stoics in fact advocate is not that we dwell on bad things but that we contemplate them, a subtle but important difference. They also recommend that we engage in negative visualization not constantly but only a few times each day and for only a few seconds each time. Our negative visualizations, then, will take the form of fleeting thoughts.

Visualizing in this manner has the effect of resetting the baseline against which we measure our happiness, and it can have a profound and immediate effect on that happiness. As the result of negatively visualizing, we might find ourselves taking delight that we still possess the things that only moments before, we took for granted, including our job, our spouse, our health — indeed, our very existence.

One of my favorite visualization exercises involves the sky. When I see it, I periodically remind myself that the sky didn’t have to be blue. But on most days it is blue, and a gorgeous blue, the hue of which changes subtly from hour to hour. Then I reflect on how wonderful it is that we inhabit a universe that can, on a nearly daily basis, present us with such a spectacle. A simple exercise, to be sure, and some would say a silly one. But if you can learn to appreciate the sky — something most people take utterly for granted — there is a good chance that you can learn to appreciate your life as well and thereby enjoy a happier existence than would otherwise be the case.

I mentioned above that the benefits to be derived from practicing Zen are uncertain. Stoicism, by way of contrast, does not dangle before its adherents a moment — maybe — of life-transforming enlightenment. Instead, it provides a body of advice for them to follow and a set of strategies for them to employ in everyday life. The strategies in question are easy to use. (Indeed, I suspect that many of the readers of this essay have already, in the last few seconds, successfully attempted negative visualization.) That said, I should add that it takes rather longer to internalize Stoic advice and strategies so that one’s response to the events of daily living becomes reflexively Stoical, at which point one can truly claim to be a Stoic.

My experiments with Stoicism were sufficiently encouraging that I abandoned my plans to become a Zen Buddhist and decided instead to follow in the footsteps of Zeno of Citium, the Greek who formulated Stoicism in about 300 B.C. I decided, in other words, to become a walking, talking anachronism: I would attempt to transform myself into a twenty-first century Stoic. My goal in the essays in this series is to describe some aspects of this transformation.

Most people, of course, would think of Zen Buddhism and Stoicism as being polar opposites, philosophically speaking, but that is because people tend to be, as I was, woefully ignorant of what Stoicism is. One of the most surprising things that came out of my research was how much Zen and Stoicism have in common.

They both advocate taking what Buddha referred to as “the middle path.” Buddha lived a life of luxury in a palace but was not fulfilled by that life. He abandoned the palace to live a life of extreme asceticism but again did not find fulfillment. It was then that he experienced his moment of enlightenment. The wise person, Buddha concluded, will not shun pleasure; at the same time, he will keep firmly in mind how easy it is to become enslaved by it. He will therefore be guarded in his enjoyment of pleasure.

The Stoics likewise advocated taking the middle path. Zeno of Citium began his philosophical education by practicing Cynicism, the ancient philosophy that advocated an ascetic lifestyle. The ancient Cynics (including Diogenes of Sinope and Zeno’s teacher Crates) lived on the street and owned only the clothing that they wore. Zeno abandoned Cynicism in part because he rejected its asceticism. In the Stoic philosophy he formulated, we are told that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures, as long as we are careful not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by them and as long as, even while we are enjoying them, we take steps to prepare ourselves ultimately to be deprived of them.

Offer a Stoic a glass of fine champagne, and he probably won’t refuse it; as he drinks it, though, he might reflect on the possibility that this will be the last time he drinks champagne, a reflection, by the way, that will dramatically enhance his enjoyment of the moment. Then again, offer a Stoic a glass of water, and he might go through the same thought processes with the same result.

In having “last time” thoughts (which, by the way, are a form of negative visualization), a Stoic is behaving rather like a Buddhist. Both Stoics and Buddhists think it important, if we are to have a good life, that we recognize the transient nature of human existence, and both advise us periodically to contemplate impermanence. This is what Stoics are doing when they reflect on the fact that since we are mortal, there will be a last time for each of the things we do in life. Thus, there will be a last time you drink champagne — or water, for that matter. There will be a last time you touch the face of another human being. There will even be a last time you utter the word “forever.”

Along similar lines, both Zen Buddhists and Stoics think it important for us to strive to stay “in the moment.” People tend to spend their days and consequently their lives as well dwelling on things that happened in past moments and worrying about things that will happen in future moments. As a result, there is little time left for them to savor the moment they currently are living. If we are to have a good life, it is important, says Stoic Marcus Aurelius, for us to keep in mind that “man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant.”

For one last parallel between Buddhism and Stoicism, consider again the above-described blue-sky exercise. As a Stoic, I had practiced this exercise for years before I became aware of the work of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It turns out that Buddhists, in their practice of mindfulness, employ a similar exercise: see this video.

On adopting Stoicism, I discovered how much the world has changed since the philosophy was first formulated. Back then, if you told someone you were a practicing Stoic, they would have understood what you meant. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was common for people in the upper classes to adopt a philosophy of life; indeed, parents sent their sons to schools of philosophy (prominent among which were the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Academic schools) in part to acquire such a philosophy.

Tell modern individuals that you are a practicing Stoic, though, and they are likely to be puzzled. “Is it some kind of religion?” they will ask.

My standard response: “No. Religions generally concern themselves with the afterlife; philosophies of life such as Stoicism concern themselves with daily life. They teach us what things in life are most valuable and how best to attain them.”

This response is likely to give rise to a new question: “And just what did the Stoics think was valuable?” My response: “Not what most people think is valuable — namely, fame and fortune. To the contrary, the Stoics (and in particular the Roman Stoics) valued tranquillity, and by tranquillity they had in mind not the kind of numbness that can be attained by downing a third martini, but instead the absence of negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, grief, and fear, from their life. They had nothing against positive emotions, though, including that most positive of emotions, joy. The Stoics were also confident that people who exchange their tranquillity for fame and fortune have made a foolish bargain.”

This, by the way, is yet another point of agreement between Zen and Stoicism: both philosophies of life point to tranquillity as the thing in life most worth attaining. But wait a minute, if Zen and Stoicism share the same goal in living, namely, the attainment of tranquillity, won’t they count as the same philosophy of life?

No, because although they share this goal, they offer different advice on how to attain it. Thus, a Zen Buddhist might advise those wishing to attain tranquillity to spend hours each day trying to empty their mind of all thought. And when they are not doing this, they should spend time trying to solve koans, those paradoxical questions, the most famous of which is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

The Stoics, by way of contrast, would recommend neither of these activities. Your time would be much better spent, they would suggest, analyzing what it is in your daily life that disrupts your tranquillity and thinking about what you can do to prevent such disruptions. And to aid you in your thinking, the Stoics would go on to suggest that you take a look at the writings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. There you will find much advice on how to deal with insults, how to overcome grief, how to avoid getting angry, how to take delight in the world you inhabit, and so forth.

At this point, my introduction-to-Stoicism conversation sometimes turns ugly. The conversation can cause the other person to realize that he has never taken time to think about the “grand goal of living;” instead, his attention has been focused on the short-term goals of daily life, such as getting a promotion at work or acquiring an even-wider-screen television. Or, even worse, the conversation can put the person on the defensive. If he routinely spends his days exchanging his tranquillity for a (quite possibly unsuccessful) shot at the acquisition of fame and fortune, he will not take kindly to my “foolish bargain” comment.

In either case, he might resent what he will construe as an attempt by me to impose my values on him, and his resentment might be expressed indirectly, by ridiculing Stoicism. It is, to be sure, easy to avoid this ridicule: if you decide to give Stoicism a try as your philosophy of life, I suggest that you keep your plans to yourself and practice what I call stealth Stoicism. This is what I would have done had I not taken it on myself to become a twenty-first century Stoic teacher.

This, in a nutshell, is what Stoicism is and why I found myself drawn to it. I hope that if I have accomplished anything in this essay, I have persuaded readers that the ancient Stoics were not stoical in the modern sense of the word — they were not, as the dictionary puts it, “seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.” Indeed, the phrase joyful Stoic is not the oxymoron it might seem to be.

©2010, William B. Irvine

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/27/twenty-first-century-2.html- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights

Eric Chaffee sends the following article:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/27/twenty-first-century-2.html

Twenty-First Century Stoic — From Zen to Zeno: How I Became a Stoic

William B. Irvine

William B. Irvine is author of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Oxford University Press: 2009).

This is the first in a series of three essays, written by a Stoic, about what it means to practice an ancient philosophy in the modern world.

I never intended to become a Stoic. Who, after all, were the Stoics? They were those grim, wooden figures of ancient Greece and Rome whose goal it was to stand mutely and take whatever the world could throw at them. Right?

About a decade ago, though, I began a research project on human desire. The goal of the project was to write a book on the subject, but I also had a hidden agenda in conducting my research: I was contemplating becoming a Zen Buddhist and wanted to learn more about it before taking the leap. But the more I learned about Zen, the less it attracted me.

Practicing Zen would require me to suppress my analytical abilities, something I found it quite difficult to do. Another off-putting aspect of Zen was that the moment of enlightenment it dangled before its practitioners was by no means guaranteed. Practice Zen for decades and you might achieve enlightenment — or you might not. It would be tragic, I thought, to spend the remaining decades of my life pursuing a moment of enlightenment that never came. Zen doubtless works for some people, but for me, the fit wasn’t good.

Then something quite unexpected happened. As part of my research, I investigated what ancient philosophers had to say about desire. Among them were the Stoic philosophers — people like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus — about whom I knew little. As I read them, I discovered that they were quite unlike I imagined they would be. Indeed, it soon became apparent that everything I “knew” about the Stoics was wrong. They were neither grim nor wooden. If anything, the adjective that I thought described them best was “buoyant” or maybe even “cheerful.” And without consciously intending to do so, I found myself experimenting with Stoic strategies for daily living.

Thus, when I found myself in a predicament — being stuck in traffic, for example — I followed the advice of Epictetus and asked myself what aspects of the situation I could and couldn’t control. I couldn’t control what the other cars did, so it was pointless — was in fact counterproductive — for me to get angry at them. My energy was much better spent focusing on things I could control, with the most important being how I responded to the situation. In particular, I could employ Stoic strategies to prevent the incident from spoiling my day.

I also started making use of the Stoic technique known as negative visualization: I would periodically contemplate the loss of the things and people that mean the most to me. Thus, when parting from a friend, I might make a mental note that this could conceivably be the last time I would see the friend in question. Friendships do end, after all, and people die suddenly. Doing this sort of thing may seem morbid, but the practice of negative visualization is a powerful antidote to a phenomenon that will otherwise deprive us of much of the happiness we could be enjoying: negative visualization prevents us from taking for granted the world around us and the people in it.

When they hear about negative visualization, people often get the wrong idea. They think the Stoics advocate that we spend our days dwelling on all the bad things that can happen to us. This, of course, would be a recipe for a miserable existence. What the Stoics in fact advocate is not that we dwell on bad things but that we contemplate them, a subtle but important difference. They also recommend that we engage in negative visualization not constantly but only a few times each day and for only a few seconds each time. Our negative visualizations, then, will take the form of fleeting thoughts.

Visualizing in this manner has the effect of resetting the baseline against which we measure our happiness, and it can have a profound and immediate effect on that happiness. As the result of negatively visualizing, we might find ourselves taking delight that we still possess the things that only moments before, we took for granted, including our job, our spouse, our health — indeed, our very existence.

One of my favorite visualization exercises involves the sky. When I see it, I periodically remind myself that the sky didn’t have to be blue. But on most days it is blue, and a gorgeous blue, the hue of which changes subtly from hour to hour. Then I reflect on how wonderful it is that we inhabit a universe that can, on a nearly daily basis, present us with such a spectacle. A simple exercise, to be sure, and some would say a silly one. But if you can learn to appreciate the sky — something most people take utterly for granted — there is a good chance that you can learn to appreciate your life as well and thereby enjoy a happier existence than would otherwise be the case.

I mentioned above that the benefits to be derived from practicing Zen are uncertain. Stoicism, by way of contrast, does not dangle before its adherents a moment — maybe — of life-transforming enlightenment. Instead, it provides a body of advice for them to follow and a set of strategies for them to employ in everyday life. The strategies in question are easy to use. (Indeed, I suspect that many of the readers of this essay have already, in the last few seconds, successfully attempted negative visualization.) That said, I should add that it takes rather longer to internalize Stoic advice and strategies so that one’s response to the events of daily living becomes reflexively Stoical, at which point one can truly claim to be a Stoic.

My experiments with Stoicism were sufficiently encouraging that I abandoned my plans to become a Zen Buddhist and decided instead to follow in the footsteps of Zeno of Citium, the Greek who formulated Stoicism in about 300 B.C. I decided, in other words, to become a walking, talking anachronism: I would attempt to transform myself into a twenty-first century Stoic. My goal in the essays in this series is to describe some aspects of this transformation.

Most people, of course, would think of Zen Buddhism and Stoicism as being polar opposites, philosophically speaking, but that is because people tend to be, as I was, woefully ignorant of what Stoicism is. One of the most surprising things that came out of my research was how much Zen and Stoicism have in common.

They both advocate taking what Buddha referred to as “the middle path.” Buddha lived a life of luxury in a palace but was not fulfilled by that life. He abandoned the palace to live a life of extreme asceticism but again did not find fulfillment. It was then that he experienced his moment of enlightenment. The wise person, Buddha concluded, will not shun pleasure; at the same time, he will keep firmly in mind how easy it is to become enslaved by it. He will therefore be guarded in his enjoyment of pleasure.

The Stoics likewise advocated taking the middle path. Zeno of Citium began his philosophical education by practicing Cynicism, the ancient philosophy that advocated an ascetic lifestyle. The ancient Cynics (including Diogenes of Sinope and Zeno’s teacher Crates) lived on the street and owned only the clothing that they wore. Zeno abandoned Cynicism in part because he rejected its asceticism. In the Stoic philosophy he formulated, we are told that there is nothing wrong with enjoying life’s pleasures, as long as we are careful not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by them and as long as, even while we are enjoying them, we take steps to prepare ourselves ultimately to be deprived of them.

Offer a Stoic a glass of fine champagne, and he probably won’t refuse it; as he drinks it, though, he might reflect on the possibility that this will be the last time he drinks champagne, a reflection, by the way, that will dramatically enhance his enjoyment of the moment. Then again, offer a Stoic a glass of water, and he might go through the same thought processes with the same result.

In having “last time” thoughts (which, by the way, are a form of negative visualization), a Stoic is behaving rather like a Buddhist. Both Stoics and Buddhists think it important, if we are to have a good life, that we recognize the transient nature of human existence, and both advise us periodically to contemplate impermanence. This is what Stoics are doing when they reflect on the fact that since we are mortal, there will be a last time for each of the things we do in life. Thus, there will be a last time you drink champagne — or water, for that matter. There will be a last time you touch the face of another human being. There will even be a last time you utter the word “forever.”

Along similar lines, both Zen Buddhists and Stoics think it important for us to strive to stay “in the moment.” People tend to spend their days and consequently their lives as well dwelling on things that happened in past moments and worrying about things that will happen in future moments. As a result, there is little time left for them to savor the moment they currently are living. If we are to have a good life, it is important, says Stoic Marcus Aurelius, for us to keep in mind that “man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant.”

For one last parallel between Buddhism and Stoicism, consider again the above-described blue-sky exercise. As a Stoic, I had practiced this exercise for years before I became aware of the work of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. It turns out that Buddhists, in their practice of mindfulness, employ a similar exercise: see this video.

On adopting Stoicism, I discovered how much the world has changed since the philosophy was first formulated. Back then, if you told someone you were a practicing Stoic, they would have understood what you meant. In ancient Greece and Rome, it was common for people in the upper classes to adopt a philosophy of life; indeed, parents sent their sons to schools of philosophy (prominent among which were the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Academic schools) in part to acquire such a philosophy.

Tell modern individuals that you are a practicing Stoic, though, and they are likely to be puzzled. “Is it some kind of religion?” they will ask.

My standard response: “No. Religions generally concern themselves with the afterlife; philosophies of life such as Stoicism concern themselves with daily life. They teach us what things in life are most valuable and how best to attain them.”

This response is likely to give rise to a new question: “And just what did the Stoics think was valuable?” My response: “Not what most people think is valuable — namely, fame and fortune. To the contrary, the Stoics (and in particular the Roman Stoics) valued tranquillity, and by tranquillity they had in mind not the kind of numbness that can be attained by downing a third martini, but instead the absence of negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, grief, and fear, from their life. They had nothing against positive emotions, though, including that most positive of emotions, joy. The Stoics were also confident that people who exchange their tranquillity for fame and fortune have made a foolish bargain.”

This, by the way, is yet another point of agreement between Zen and Stoicism: both philosophies of life point to tranquillity as the thing in life most worth attaining. But wait a minute, if Zen and Stoicism share the same goal in living, namely, the attainment of tranquillity, won’t they count as the same philosophy of life?

No, because although they share this goal, they offer different advice on how to attain it. Thus, a Zen Buddhist might advise those wishing to attain tranquillity to spend hours each day trying to empty their mind of all thought. And when they are not doing this, they should spend time trying to solve koans, those paradoxical questions, the most famous of which is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

The Stoics, by way of contrast, would recommend neither of these activities. Your time would be much better spent, they would suggest, analyzing what it is in your daily life that disrupts your tranquillity and thinking about what you can do to prevent such disruptions. And to aid you in your thinking, the Stoics would go on to suggest that you take a look at the writings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. There you will find much advice on how to deal with insults, how to overcome grief, how to avoid getting angry, how to take delight in the world you inhabit, and so forth.

At this point, my introduction-to-Stoicism conversation sometimes turns ugly. The conversation can cause the other person to realize that he has never taken time to think about the “grand goal of living;” instead, his attention has been focused on the short-term goals of daily life, such as getting a promotion at work or acquiring an even-wider-screen television. Or, even worse, the conversation can put the person on the defensive. If he routinely spends his days exchanging his tranquillity for a (quite possibly unsuccessful) shot at the acquisition of fame and fortune, he will not take kindly to my “foolish bargain” comment.

In either case, he might resent what he will construe as an attempt by me to impose my values on him, and his resentment might be expressed indirectly, by ridiculing Stoicism. It is, to be sure, easy to avoid this ridicule: if you decide to give Stoicism a try as your philosophy of life, I suggest that you keep your plans to yourself and practice what I call stealth Stoicism. This is what I would have done had I not taken it on myself to become a twenty-first century Stoic teacher.

This, in a nutshell, is what Stoicism is and why I found myself drawn to it. I hope that if I have accomplished anything in this essay, I have persuaded readers that the ancient Stoics were not stoical in the modern sense of the word — they were not, as the dictionary puts it, “seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain.” Indeed, the phrase joyful Stoic is not the oxymoron it might seem to be.

©2010, William B. Irvine

Article from http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/27/twenty-first-century-2.html

Mora Fields wrote the childrens book Peculiar Stories - http://ostreetpublishing.com – Mora talks on Nonduality Street podcast about what inspired her to write the book and the nondual teachings contained within them. We also meet one of the most memorable characters in nondual spiritual literature, Uncle E, a free spirit in touch with the fundamental vibration of life and which he tries to transmit to his niece. Click here to listen. (You may have to reload the page to get the complete podcast to play.)

Here is an excerpt from Peculiar Stories, by Mora Fields

Intergalactic Beans

Uncle E has this one habit that drives me crazy.

He has a lot of strange habits, like hibernating in his

house for a whole week sometimes, and skipping down the

street (even though he’s actually a grownup), and shaking

Braggs Liquid Aminos sauce on almost everything he

eats. But these are habits I’ve gotten used to and they don’t

bother me.

The one that drives me crazy is this thing about

winking.

He winks at people. At me, and at other people he

knows, and even at strangers on the street. He doesn’t do

it a lot, but he does it at weird times when you wouldn’t

expect someone to wink at you (if you ever would). I don’t

mind when he winks at me, or at people he knows, but

when he winks at total strangers, it sometimes gets him

in trouble.

I asked him one time why he winked at me, and he said

it was sort of a secret signal. “Yeah, right,” I said. “What is

that supposed to mean?”

“You know,” he said.

“Come on, Uncle E, what kind of signal?”

“I know you know. But in case you have temporarily

forgotten, I’ll go ahead and remind you.

“So, what if some alien bean from another planet landed

here? What if it looked just like regular people, so you

couldn’t tell it was actually a bean from outer space? But

once it gets here it goes all over the world and discovers

that there are actually quite a few beans here from its own

planet. There is this kind of radiation stuff all these beans

give off , and whenever they run into one of their own kind

they can feel this radiation stuff , and then they use a secret

signal to show they recognize each other. Like maybe a

hand signal. Or hopping on one foot. Or winking.”

“Right. I’m an alien bean and you’re an alien bean, so

you wink at me?”

“That was just an example,” he said. “What it is, I wink

at people when they remind me about myself.”

“Remind you about what about yourself?”

“Remind me that I am really not who I pretend I am

and that I’m only wearing a costume. You know, an Uncle

E costume. So here we are, thinking we’re grownups,

kids, surfers, rock stars, Chinese, Swedish, smart, dumb,

whatever—when those things aren’t who we are at all. We

just wear those ideas about who we are, like costumes.

Underneath, we’re really all the same. We’re from the same

tribe of beans from the same faraway planet.”

“But I’m a girl, Uncle E. I’m not the same as a BOY!”

“Well of course you are. Your ideas might be different.

The way you’re made is different.… Duh! And the way you

act is diff erent, too, partly because you’ve learned to act

those ways, and partly because you were born with your

own special design. But underneath all that, the real part

of us, that’s the same. The problem is, sometimes we forget

that this is just a costume game and we start thinking the

costumes are real. So, when I see someone who reminds

me I’m not diff erent from them, and that I’m playing a

game, I wink at them to thank them for reminding me.”

Well, this made me feel kind of good, because I figured

Uncle E thought we’re from the same planet. And even

though I didn’t really get what planet we were supposed to

be from, I liked that he thought we were from the same

one. As a matter of fact, I always secretly liked it when

he winked at me since it made me feel like we were in on

something together, whatever it was.

But still, winking at strangers is risky. And Uncle E has

gotten himself in trouble this way.

One person he winked at—a really big, raggedy-looking

guy with a motorcycle helmet—grabbed Uncle E by the

shirt. Apparently he didn’t approve of winking, and he

said, “Hey, buddy, if it wasn’t for your daughter here, I’d

break your nose.” I was kinda glad the guy thought I was

his daughter, even though it did scare me a little. “I’m sure

glad you were here,” was what Uncle E said afterwards.

And then there was the day he winked at Sofia.

We were on our way to the beach, down by the train

tracks, when we passed a lady going the other way. She

was kind of tall and wearing this long dress with a hood

that I found out later is called a “djellaba.” She looked

preoccupied, which means she was busy thinking about

something important and serious instead of looking at the

scenery. Uncle E winked at her, and then she stopped and

said, in a pretty unfriendly voice, if you ask me, “Get a

life.” And she walked off , real huff y. I guess she was in a

bad mood.

Uncle E just shrugged. It looked like she didn’t know

about the beans-from-another-planet thing, so he might

have made a mistake when he winked at her in the fi rst

place. She probably thought he was some kind of dweeb,

which I was wondering about, too. I kind of wished that I

had stayed home to do the homework I was supposed to

be doing anyhow.

But later when we were running around in the ocean

waves up to our knees, and seeing who could get the longest

piece of seaweed, who came walking in our direction but

this same huffy lady, with her djellaba blowing behind her

in the breeze like a queen cape. Only she didn’t look so

huffy any more, she just looked kind of friendly. So what

did she do, she winked right at Uncle E, and then right at

me, too.

Read the rest of the chapter and and order Peculiar Stories at http://ostreetpublishing.com/dialog/peculiar-stories/

Reflections of the One Life
Daily Pointers to Enlightenment

Scott Kiloby

“This book is written from love to love. It is a daily
reminder of what you already know. Everything
a perfect expression of nothing, which is to say that
the boundary between everything and nothing is not
real. There is only ‘what is.’ That is love.”

July 7th

Resistance in the mirror of relationship

Each relationship is an opportunity to see whether
you are at war with life and others. If a person walks
up to talk to you today, it is an invitation to allow
awareness to fully welcome that person, to listen
intimately to what she is saying, and to be the space
in which she is speaking. This allowing is not a
doing. It is a present recognition that awareness is
always and already open, loving and compassionate.
If there is resistance within you to the person or
what she is doing or saying, the person is acting
as a mirror in which your own resistance is being
revealed. This person is showing you your illusion of
separateness. You are living in a conceptual dream
called self v. other.

When you encounter this “other” today (and
the other includes every manifest object that
appears in awareness) notice any corresponding
resistance in the form of irritation, frustration,
unease, uncomfortableness, anger, or resentment. In
allowing your relationship to people, situations, and
things to be a mirror in which your own resistance is
being reflected back to you, the possibility of waking
up out of that resistance is available.

July 8th

Roles

When you identify with a role, you cannot see your
own identification. You are that role. Perhaps
you are lost in your role as a doctor, secretary, or
salesman. Or perhaps you are lost in some other role
such as recovering addict, cancer survivor, victim, codependent,
or even brother or parent.

Roles are false, egoic identities. When you are
lost in a role, the spirit is not free to react naturally
and spontaneously to life. You are lost in a past
image of yourself. You act and react within the
pattern of that past image. You tend to treat others
according to their roles and how they relate to your
role. If you are a doctor, you see only patients. If
you are a salesman, you see only customers. If you
are a mother, you see only children. Others people
simply reflect back to you your particular role, which
strengthens the role. There is no true relationship
when images are relating to images.

In present moment awareness, there is freedom
from all roles, identities, images, and self-concepts.
You are no longer living life through rigid thought
patterns of the past.You are free to respond to life
intelligently, naturally, and spontaneously.When you
notice each role you are playing in the moment you
play it, you are present.You are transcending that
role.This allows others the freedom to no longer
react from their roles.True relationship is then
possible.

Reflections of the One Life
Daily Pointers to Enlightenment

Scott Kiloby

Amazon.com link

DUTCH TREAT
18 SlamSatS
by
Zil Chezero
The Mule

176 pages. $8.00
Purchase by PayPal and download now

Excerpt from…
Prolog: The Story

Rotterdam, an unusually warm evening at the end of March. The promise of spring softly fills the city and the hearts of her inhabitants. It sure fills mine. It makes me uncommonly relaxed and easygoing, mixed with an untamable expectation and a yearning for – yes, what exactly? Well, probably the desire to be free. Free from all the tangles that come with my personal me. To be free from myself. In the end, that’s what drives me, almost monomaniacally, and all my emotions revolve around reaching this goal.

I’m sitting in a cafe, it’s early in the evening and just barely the right time to be reading a while without attracting too much attention. The tall man with his stubbly beard, sitting beside me, seems to think the same. He’s reading, like me. The two of us are like an island of tranquility within the hectic social interaction bursting loose all around us at this very moment. Is it the feeling of springtime coming? Is it the undefined sense of loss, which seems to translate itself into a longing for contact and mingles with the feeling of informality? I don’t know the answer, but even though most of the time I clam up around other people, it suddenly makes me open up towards my reading companion. He’s reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I notice. I know the book. For me it was so overwhelming I read it straight through, twice. At over 800 pages, this was an all-encompassing and deliciously long immersion in a universe in which large and small, cosmic scale and triviality mingle to give rise to a liberating ecstasy of estrangement. Perhaps this is what I’m looking for. Will the man beside me be getting the same message from the book?

The man has a relaxed friendly look in his eyes. On impulse I decide to ask him the question. “Pardon,” I say in Dutch, “mag ik u wat vragen?”

“English please,” he replies with a northern European accent.

“Excuse me, may I ask you something?” I try again. He answers with a small nod. “Would you agree that this book is about freedom?”

The man looks me straight into the eyes. Friendly, I hear myself think in a flash, and at the same time I realize that his expression hasn’t changed at all from when he looked up from his book, nor has it now after hearing the question. The same kindness – no more, no less. Suddenly I hear myself add to my question:

“…about enlightenment?” Immediately I feel embarrassed. Why did I say that? How can he possibly know what I’m talking about? He must think I’m an idiot!

The same instant the redness of shame creeps onto my cheeks, the man himself comes to my rescue, saying, “That’s exactly what this book is about.”

My heart jumps with joy! I’m saved, and I seem to have found someone who could be on the same wavelength as me. Out of relief I show him the book I am reading, and translate the Dutch title: You are not what you think. The book is written by a Dutch guru I visited a couple of times recently, and who I am rather taken with. I understand exactly what he is talking about, which gives me a pleasant and quite hopeful feeling.

“This book is about enlightenment too, but in a direct way; through accounts of satsangs. Are you familiar with the term ‘satsang’?” I ask him.

The man smiles. “Yes,” he says. “That book, going by the title, might be about enlightenment. But it’s not about realization. Neither book is about realization.”

His answer takes me by surprise. “Excuse me, what did you say?” I ask a little bewildered. “Realization and enlightenment mean the same thing, I would think…”

“If your book was about realization, the title would be You are not what you are,” says the man, grinning and still looking at me with the same friendliness as before. Unmoved kindness, I find myself thinking, I didn’t know that was possible. But still his answer makes no sense to me. “I don’t understand,” I blurt, trying desperately to get a grip on his answers. You’re not what you are? How, what…?

“Of course you don’t understand,” he replies, “because if you could, it wouldn’t be about realization. But can you follow it?”

Now I am totally lost, and when I hear myself answer “Yes,” it feels like I have just lost my last ally – still being looked at by those unmoved friendly eyes. For an instant there is silence: while I can hear the murmuring sounds around me, this noise seems to be drawn into a bottomless pit and I’m sucked into it too. I’m here, but I’m also gone. What is happening?

~ ~ ~

Excerpt from…

“Dear guys and girls,

We are about to engage in a series of what this mule Zil calls ‘SlamSatS’. Although that which we are pursuing has no form and is older than the world, older than time in fact, the way we will be pursuing it does have a form, and it may strike some as ‘new’. It isn’t, it is just a variation on the ancient ‘neti-neti’ – not this, not that – approach, be it using a modern vocabulary and expanding itself to persons, enlightened beings and everything else you might hold holy.

Remember as we go on: if you take something personally, look at what it is in you that takes it personally, because it will be something that still thinks it’s a person. Mind you, even mules in full view can get insulted. But that would be on topics like their car or their wife. On matters concerning realization they cannot be insulted, because their certainty is not on that level. If, concerning realization, any feelings of hurt or insult might come up in them anyhow, both the insult and the insulter for them will be the source of deep gratitude, because it means something lit up that subsequently was destroyed by the mere fact it was in full view.

Hmmm.

~ ~ ~

Excerpt from…

Separation and Oneness

1 (20) Sometimes I get a long period of oneness, but then it’s followed by a feeling of separation. How does this happen?

2 Separation is a thought, do you see that, 20?

3 No Zil, actually I don’t. I mean, it’s not something I invent, it’s something I perceive, like I perceive this room… and what you say…

4 That’s what you think, but it is not true. There’s this oneness, everything is fine and warm and whatever – and then all of a sudden: ‘separation’…

5 Yes, that’s what happens.

6 Or so it seems. What’s the crux of oneness?

7 Well, absence of separation – or is that just being silly?

8 No, it’s extremely well put in fact. There’s no separation in oneness. So can oneness recognize separation, does separation have any meaning to oneness?

9 No, that doesn’t seem possible…

10 It isn’t. So what can recognize separation, something that doesn’t know about it or something that already knows?

11 The second one, I guess.

12 Right you are again. In order to recognize separation, there first has to arise something in which the seed of
separation is already present. Which is you, small you, mule. There has to be the belief in an entity that is separated already and only when that has formed, the experience ‘separation’ can arise. Which means that ‘separation’ is a belief, a thought of this entity – which in its turn consists of a belief called ‘experience’. Thus, separation is a thought of an experience. A belief within a belief.

13 But it doesn’t feel like a thought, and on the face of it it doesn’t feel like ego either!

14 You can see that it must be there first, can’t you?

15 I would have to admit that’s the only answer.

16 So mule is there already, only it has not been recognized as such yet. A moment later it takes the shape of separation and then your good mood is ruined. Do you know how it is possible for mule to already exist in that oneness you talk about?

17 I think I’m scared to find out.

18 You’d better, because it will hurt. It is possible for mule, because the oneness you experience is mule too. It’s an experience, an experience of oneness. That should have made your alarm go off. Every experience is mule, baby.

19 Damn. So there is no oneness?

20 Yes there is, but never as an experience. Realization does not belong to a level, experience does. Experienced oneness may be a side effect of the realization of oneness, but that does not mean experienced oneness is the same as realization. It’s a common mistake of enlightened mules to forget that. And as a result getting attached to this great oneness-experience. Like you are. Separation is a thought, oneness an experience. Both come up. Accept that they do, accept that their appearance does not matter at all. Then you won’t be fooled by them.

21 But… if the experience of oneness isn’t the oneness itself, what’s the point of being realized?

22 None at all for mule. None at all for oneness either, because oneness cannot become more one by realization. The realization that you want, the goodies that you expect – they are all part of muleworld. And muleworld will never become one, because it only exists by the grace of separation. Seeming separation, because all is one and will remain so no matter if you realize that or not. That’s why I say nothing changes with realization. There’s only experience, and experience does not exist…

23 So why should I…

24 …try, want, strife? You shouldn’t, it won’t help you a bit. You don’t have to either, let me show you. Get out. (points at the door)

~ ~ ~

Excerpt from…

Silence

1 (32) Lately I feel like I’m getting more and more attached to silence. And I’m starting to get the idea that you use a lot of words. Why do you do that? Isn’t realization all about silence?

2 Realization is silence, 32. Nothing more silent than nothing. But that silence has nothing to do with the ‘little silence’ you are describing. Your silence has an opposite called ‘noise’. In this case the noise of my words. That silence is disturbed by the words – and by the thoughts they provoke on your side. The silence that can be realized is not only the silence that noise comes in and disappears into again, but also the silence that your little silence comes up in and disappears into again when it’s replaced by noise.

3 The real silence is a roaring, thunderous silence, a silence that is as much present in a meditation cave in the Himalayas as right in front of the Rolling Stones performing. Every noise in this seeming world, and every silence, consists only of this. Once your mule is in full view, it is aware of this silence all the time. Not as silence as such, but translated into some quality of ‘shhhhh’ that cannot be otherwise described. Within this ‘shhhhh’ everything happens, while the ‘shhhhh’ makes this happening somewhat translucent, somewhat not happening at the same time. Which is the actual situation, or non-situation in fact. Your question and the world of images and judgments behind it, get slaughtered the same way by this ‘shhhhh’. When that happens, it turns out that these words, however agitated they may seem, reflect the roaring silence in a very, very clear and tranquil way.

4 (19) So you mean that the sense that I find your blustering annoying is the sense that I am deaf for the real silence?

5 My dear mule, these words you just uttered were utterly worthwhile to utter, because they present your aggravation as a barrier. So they are useful. But they’re not true of course. That what can hear is not you. You consist of deafness. There’s no way you may hear the silence, you’ll never experience you being dead either. You are the barrier itself. You’ll have to die first and who will hear the silence then?

6 But you said that the silence can be heard.

7 I did not. I said its effect can be perceived. This effect is described as ‘shhhhh’, but it is not a sound, it’s a translation into a quality. But not a quality that can be perceived as such. The only sign of its existence is what it causes in its turn: a translucence of everything that formerly was solidly existing within space and time.

8 But isn’t music a much more effective way to point at that?

9 You’re all undoubtedly familiar with the ‘finger pointing at the moon’ phrase. And you all know that looking at the finger instead of the moon is a mistake, don’t you?

(confirming sounds)

10 Well, there are two problems with music. First, it’s designed to enchant you, which is looking at the finger. However, you might be able to get past that first trap, look at what the finger is pointing at and suppose that is the moon: some higher principle of beauty and tranquility. Suppose you indeed are able to experience truth in some shape or another. Then you might say that the music does help to make you become aware of this moon, doesn’t it? Maybe even gets you there, which at least must be awfully close to that?

11 Yes, that’s what I experience and why it seems such a good way…

12 …to point at the moon. Well, maybe it is. But what moon is the finger pointing at? Clearly something you can imagine, feel, suspect… and ultimately even experience. Which means it must be something that’s part of muleworld too. Only when it is part of your world or part of your imagination, what I just described can happen, can’t it? Now, lots of spoken word is positive, imaginative, describing the indescribable – and as such pointing at a moon. And I agree, lots of times music can do that kind of pointing better.

13 But how about a sentence like “That whole pointing at the moon business is pure muleshit because the moon consists of finger”? What music can give you that precise notion? What music can break itself to pieces like the words in these SlamSatS do? Words that describe the moon in a way that says “These words point at the moon. But don’t be mistaken: the moon that you can perceive, imagine or even suspect as being pointed at by these words is not the moon they point at”… Only words can be wielded with the precision needed to kill themselves on the spot. Bang! It’s a bloody self-sacrificing bloodbath! And as such leaving behind nothing alive or in one piece, which is as close as you can get to describing the moon.

~ ~ ~

DUTCH TREAT
18 SlamSatS
by
Zil Chezero
The Mule

176 pages. $8.00
Purchase by PayPal and download now

Humanity: Our Place in the Universe
The Central Beliefs of the World’s Religions
by Colin Drake

E-book is $8 by PayPal. Click her to order and download now.

Excerpts

[References are not included in these excerpts. The book cites over 200 references.]

From the Chapter, Judaism:

In Judaism consideration is given to the orthodox scriptural view and that of Kabbalah, literally ‘received’ wisdom, which is a mystical path based on a number of Aramaic texts from the late 13th century, which together constitute the Zohar. These were probably composed by the Spanish mystic Moses de Leon, who maintained that they were based on the writings of a famous rabbi from the second century C.E., Simeon bar Yohai.
…
Kabbalists maintain that this process of purification and achieving perfection is necessary for the soul to finally break out of the cycle of transmigration and eventually return to God. However, there is no hint of this in the Torah which states that man is composed of and returns to dust. As for heaven, where this word occurs in the Torah it can be equated to ‘the heavens’ or the sky/firmament; and ‘the underworld’ (in the Basic English Bible) is translated as ‘grave’ (in the St James Bible) or ‘pit’ (in the New English Bible). There are also passages in the Torah which warn of the dire consequences of disobeying God’s laws, but these are always couched in worldly terms such as plagues, fevers, defeats, famines, desolation and exile. Nowhere are these couched in terms of any after-worldly fate awaiting such ‘sinners’. It is true that later books of the Tanakh have passages that can be read to imply belief in the afterlife, but these could well be due to the influence of Hellenistic ideas in which the afterlife figured prominently. As Rabbi Michael Levin says,

In the Torah there are no explicit references to a “world to come” nor are there any statements referring to an individual judging of souls… Intriguingly by the time you get to the Talmud, approximately 1800 years ago, you find that most of the words used to describe the afterlife come from the Greek … Most Jews in the US – almost 85 per cent – belong to branches of Judaism which do not accept any sort of afterlife.

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Christianity:

In Christianity consideration is mainly given to fundamentalist Christians who believe in the literal truth of the Bible and to Catholicism which is the most widely adhered to of the various denominations. Christadelphianism is used as an example of a fundamentalist viewpoint, although other fundamentalists may interpret the literal truth of the Bible differently.
…
The Christadelphian view is of man as a physical being who is animated by ‘the breath of God’ and who dies when this is withdrawn. However, that there is the possibility of resurrection indicates that humans have a personal-essence which survives death, albeit unconsciously, and can be reborn. Quite how or where this ‘essence’ survives is not clear, certainly not in the original body which decomposes after death; maybe in the ‘mind of God’ from which everything is created. This essence is rather like the software (in a computer) which cannot function without its compatible hardware. So this essence, having been ‘stored’ on the death of the original body, can only function in a compatible body which must be reborn on the Day of Judgement. The Catholic view, by comparison, is pure Descartian dualism in which the essence is an immortal soul placed in a physical body which survives and lives independently after the death of that body.

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Islam:

This chapter will consider orthodox Muslim views based on the Qur’an and those of the Sufis, the mystical arm of Islam. The Sufis comprise many different sects, each with its own practices, all of which have the same aim: that of achieving union with God whilst alive, and this is to be realized by attaining ‘the death of the conventional self’ (fana).

…

According to the Sufi Jili, man is created in the image of God and the universe is created in the image of man; not only that, but man represents the world-spirit so that when mankind exits from the universe it will perish in the same way that an animal dies when the spirit leaves. Man is made in the image of God so he is unique in creation and has the potential to be the vessel through which the Hidden Treasure might be known, in fact can know itself. This can only occur when man stops identifying himself as a separate individual and realizes his one-ness with the Absolute. In other words, this represents the mystical interpretation of the Godhead and its relationship to humanity. In Sufism, man is considered to be a complete microcosm, a miniature universe, containing all the elements and potential qualities of creation. For him the universe was created, and he was created, to serve God.

Muslims believe that man, as made by God, is pure, free from any ‘original sin’ and is naturally inclined to be righteous and serve God. However, when caught in the snare of superstition, customs, selfish desires and false teachings, he can easily revert to the animal level of greed, lust and selfishness. As to whether man has an immortal soul separate from the body, the Muslim position is not clear. There are many references in the Qur’an to ‘killing souls’, and it is stated quite clearly that ‘every soul shall taste death’ (Q 21 v.35 and 29 v.57). Muslims believe that when one dies, the body is destroyed, but the essence of a person goes into a kind of limbo state of semi-consciousness (barzakh) awaiting the day of resurrection. This is not the same as the Descartian view of the soul as a separate entity, for this ‘essence’ still requires a body which will be provided on the day of resurrection. However, those who are judged the foremost of the foremost transcend this need for a body and achieve ‘union with God Himself in a realm that is beyond comprehension and description.’

This does indicate some kind of spiritual essence which can exist permanently separate from a body, but only when it achieves such purity that it can be reabsorbed back into the Godhead. To indicate this essence Sufis use the word nafs which means breath, life-force, soul, spirit, self, individual substance and pure essence. There are different levels of nafs through which one must pass on the journey to union with the divine such as mineral, vegetable, animal and various levels of human development. This is beautifully illustrated by Rumi, the great Sufi poet, who wrote:

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as a plant and became an animal,
I died as an animal and became a man,
What is there to fear? When have I ever become less by dying?
And as a man I shall die once more to soar
With the blessed Angels, but even from angelhood
I must pass on; Everything perishes save His Face
And when I have given up my angel soul
I shall become that which no mind has ever grasped.
So let me not exist!
For non-existence proclaims in organ tones:
‘From Him we come and to Him we shall return.’

This journey takes place by the purification of the self so that one returns to that original purity of man created in the image of God. The contemporary Turkish Sufi Said Nursi, who is well known for his 5,000 page Epistle of Light collection of commentaries on the Qur’an, has an interesting opinion on the nature of this self as ‘an abstract entity whose sole function is to act as a kind of yardstick against which God’s names (i.e. his attributes) can be measured.’ Through one’s own limited attributes one can extrapolate from them God’s attributes as being similar but on a much vaster cosmic scale. The ‘I’ is a mirror-like device through which one can affirm the existence of and glimpse, the Absolute. It is when one takes the ‘I’ to be a real separate entity, which claims individual ownership of its attributes, that one falls and is cut off from God.

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Hinduism:

Advaita Vedantists teach that Brahman is the creation, everything in manifestation, as well as being its origin, cause and final dissolution:

The Lord of Love (Brahman ) willed: “Let there be many!”
He who has no form assumed many forms;
He who is infinite appeared finite;
He who is everywhere assumed a place;
He who is all wisdom caused ignorance;
He who is real caused unreality.
It is He who gives reality to all.
Before the universe was created,
Brahman existed as unmanifest.
(Taittiriya Upanishad Part II 6.1-7.1)

This creation occurs in cycles, emanating from the One, expanding until it reaches a certain point, when it contracts back to a point. Then once again creation occurs, expands, and finally contracts back to the One, and so on ad infinitum. This occurs ‘over an incalculable period of time’, and can be likened to a never ending series of ‘big bangs’, expansions, contractions and ‘big crunches’. The reason for this creation is that Brahman wills it: ‘because He likes to; because He is free’, and its purpose is for His enjoyment and play. Also, the unmanifest Brahman wished to behold Himself and by manifesting into ‘the many’ He could achieve this.

Gaudiya Vaishnavas also believe in cyclical creation, with each cycle being a ‘breath of Vishnu’ lasting four billion three hundred million years, and that Krishna created the material world by creating three different energies which assume the form of three different Vishnus. These are the Karanodakasayi Vishnu, mahat-tattwa, the total material energy; Garbodakasayi Vishnu, the energy which creates the many diverse forms; and Kshirodakasayi Vishnu, the Paramatman, which is the all-pervading supersoul ‘who is present even within the atoms’. These three Vishnus are incarnations of Krishna who direct the activities of the material world. The first is the ’cause of all causes and lies in the cosmic causal ocean beyond the highest spiritual world’, who becomes the cause of the universe by glancing towards Maya, Krishna’s inferior energy. The second manifests as Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, which are known as the guna descents of Garbodakasayi Vishnu. Of these, Brahma creates, Vishnu preserves and Siva destroys the material universe. The third (Kshirodakasayi Vishnu) is the supersoul of all beings.

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Buddhism:

With regard to self-identity, Buddhists maintain that there is no eternal self, soul, or atman: a theory they call anatta, which literally means ‘no atman’. They regard persons as being a combination of physical material form and mental states of feeling, perception, disposition (intentions/volitions) and consciousness. These five are known as the bundle of aggregates (kandhas), each of which combine with the others in a dynamic bundle. This bundle exists moment to moment, with each bundle-moment causing the following bundle-moment. Thus the impression of the continuity of a person is given by a series of instantaneous causally linked person stages (bundle-moments) flowing into each other. At death it is claimed that the bundle of aggregates, except the material form, reconfigures in accordance with karmic causation, unless the person has attained nirvana, in which case no re-birth occurs. The new bundle is then reborn into a material form and circumstances commensurate with the karmic residue of the previous bundle. Thus the Buddhists deny that there is any sort of persisting entity (self) that continues over time. A person appears to exist and continue as a separate entity; but this is an illusion. Just as a river is not in fact a single entity but a continuous flow of water, so a person is a flow of causally linked person stages (bundle-moments).

Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism have expanded the concept of anatta to that of emptiness, Shunyata:

“Early Buddhism, with its teaching on not-self, or Anatta, taught that there is no such thing as an enduring self or soul… As Buddhism developed the Anatta doctrine was subsumed into something more extensive in which all phenomena were seen to be ‘empty’ of self or essence.”

This means that literally everything is empty, like a magical illusion. Or, to put another way, everything is a ‘conceptual construct and has no own-existence, empty of individual primary irreducible existence’. This corresponds with the string theory which says everything is composed of strings of energy vibrating at different frequencies, thus nothing has any intrinsic irreducible existence. The present Dalai Lama states that ‘all phenomena are empty and selfless’ and maintains that this understanding is much more powerful than the mere recognition of anatta, no-self.

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Ramakrishna – A Living Example:

This chapter is about the Indian saint and mystic Sri Ramakrishna, who was chosen to highlight the themes explored in this book because of his broad range of experience in following many different spiritual paths. Such was his spiritual aptitude that it enabled him to reach the zenith, the culmination, in an amazingly short time, of any practice to which he turned his mind and being. Whereas most mystics struggle along a single path for a whole (some would say more than one) lifetime, often without reaching the ultimate experience obtainable, Sri Ramakrishna was able to complete every path that he tried in less than six months. This makes him particularly useful to study as he followed four of the ten paths previously considered; whereas most anyone else that could have been chosen would have only followed one.
…
Ramakrishna verified, for him by his own experiences, many diverse Hindu paths, Islam and Christianity. He found that they all lead to at least one of the three aspects of God: the personal in form, the personal without form (the formless with attributes) and the formless without attributes. Indeed many of them led to all three, commencing with a vision of God in form, graduating to communion with the formless God with attributes and culminating in complete union with the formless Absolute. Although he did not practice Buddhism, he held the Buddha in high regard, denying that he was an atheist by remarking:

“He was not an atheist. He simply could not express his inner experience in words. Do you know what Buddha means? It is to become one with Bodha, Pure Intelligence, by meditating on That which is of the nature of pure intelligence; it is to become Pure Intelligence Itself.”

Whilst he did not completely agree with the world-view of any particular path, that of Advaita Vedanta and Sufism being nearest to his own views, he had no doubt that all religious paths, if practiced with sincerity and devotion, lead to God-realization. He admitted that all religions contain superstitions and errors, but maintained that this did not matter if the devotee had a deep yearning for God and said that all of the different names that people use for God denote the same Absolute Reality. He decried sectarianism and religious elitism in any form, for as far as he was concerned ‘each religion is only a path leading to God, as rivers come from different directions and ultimately become one in the ocean.’

Although followers of particular religions may disagree with this and promote the primacy of their own views, they have not had the breadth of spiritual experience of Ramakrishna. It is indeed fortunate that he was born a Hindu, for Hinduism has not, in general, denied the validity of other religions; although followers of particular Hindu paths have tended to promote their own path as the best, or easiest, way to God-realization. Within this Hindu framework Ramakrishna, who had such love of and yearning for God, plus possessing a deep interest in all spiritual paths, was able to thrive. His view was that God provides different paths to suit the many different temperaments, tendencies and states of spiritual development, of humanity, and that no path has pre-eminence over any other. About this he said:

“God Himself has provided different forms of worship. He who is the Lord of the Universe has arranged all these forms to suit different men in different stages of knowledge. The mother cooks different dishes to suit the stomachs of her different children. Suppose she has five children. If there is a fish to cook, she prepares various dishes from it – pilau, pickled fish, fried fish and so on – to suit their different tastes and powers of digestion.”

~ ~ ~

From the Chapter, Comparison and Conclusion:

It is interesting to note that Sufism, Kabbalah and Advaita Vedanta all fit into the same categories – coming from God, having an essence which can achieve union with the Godhead and finally merging back into this Godhead. As previously noted it could be posited that this also applies to Buddhism. There are also Christian mystics who have had similar ideas, most notably Dionysius the Areopagite and Meister Eckhart. For Dionysius God was The ‘Hidden Dark’ and ‘The Cause beyond all causes’, who ‘overflows into all of creation’ ; with whom one could achieve union, becoming ‘united, in his better part, to the altogether Unknown’. Meister Eckhart posits an Absolute Godhead with which we can achieve union and about which he said,

“When I enter the ground, the bottom, the stream and the source of the Godhead, no one asks me where I came from or where I have been. No one missed me there, for there even God [the creator] disappears.”

Thus it could be argued that there are mystical streams of all five religions which share the concept of humans as beings that come from, contain an essence of and return to God or The Absolute.

One other topic which has not been systematically studied, but which also affects our world-view and concept of self-identity, is the function of a human being. This has become apparent in many of the paths that have been considered and, whilst linked to the purpose of life, it is not the same thing. For instance, in Advaita Vedanta the function of a human being is as an instrument of Brahman through which He can sense, interact with, experience and enjoy the world, whereas the purpose of life is to realize one’s unity with Brahman.

[References to quotations and ideas are given in the complete volume. They have not been included as part of these excerpts.]

Humanity: Our Place in the Universe, by Colin Drake

E-book is $8 by PayPal. Click her to order and download now.

Into the demon’s mouth…

Milarepa, who lived in the eleventh century, is one of the heroes of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the brave ones. He was also a rather unusual fellow. He was a loner who lived in caves by himself and meditated whole heartedly for years. He was extremely stubborn and determined. If he couldn’t find anything to eat for a couple of years, he just ate nettles and turned green, but he would never stop practicing.

The story goes that one evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about the teaching of the nonduality between self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were a projection of his own mind- all the unwanted parts of himself- he didn’t know how to get rid of them.

So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we all are one. He talked about compassion and emptiness and other key Buddhist teachings. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally he gave up and just sat down on the floor saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.”

At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said “This one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too. The moral of the story is, when the resistance is gone, so are the demons.
~ The Pocket Pema Chodron

Wraith in Wings writes…

I’d like to say something about self love, and not in the sniggering wink wink nudge nudge kind of way. I mean genuine self love, self forgiveness, appreciation, and recognition.

All my young adult life, and perhaps when I was younger, though I don’t recall very well my state of self awareness back then, I have struggled with this very anti Western concept.

The Western world is big on swagger and ego, but low on genuine self esteem, and I found self love a very hard concept to wrap my mind around. I asked myself, Why the hell would I want to do that? What benefit is there?

(As a matter of fact, I was outside on the phone with my partner, banging my head against the wall in frustration (literally, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit) yelling at him for even suggesting something (so ridiculously stupid) as just showing a little simple loving kindness to myself.)

The more I’ve delved into my understanding of teachings of mindfulness, awareness, acceptance, and that simple loving kindness, the more I’ve sensed a deep change in my own personal awareness and sense of self. I find a deeper sense of self respect in being true to even my darkest hurts and shames and addictions.

The Western philosophy we’ve had drilled into our brains since infancy is that we hide the dirty ugly things and fear in a big kind of way our own belief of our badness. Churches mediate to their respective god heads for that ever elusive forgiveness for sins, perhaps forgiveness they can never give themselves.

I’ve seen how the shift in mindset has changed my actions. Oh yes, the urges to lapse, to panic, to hurt myself in major ways still pop up into my head and scream for attention, just because they are so used to living here. They want to share my bed, eat my food, hide my keys and take the mate to my sock.

Just as in the story at the beginning of this entry, I used to scream at these demons. I screamed, I raged, I begged. I threw things, I broke things, I cried. I generally made a huge mess. And then it slowly stopped mattering. They live in this little house along with me , I couldn’t rage against that machine anymore, I had to accept them. They were here, and so was I. I wasn’t going anywhere, even though many times I thought ending it all would be the answer.( If I was going down, they were going down with me, right?) Slowly I let them sit next to me through the day, I listened to the chatter, and I let it float by me, unarmed thoughts, untouched clouds, harmless.

And the world shifted.

This is a big deal for me, something I felt worth sharing.

~ ~ ~

This entry is reproduced from the Live Journal of Wraith in the Wings: http://wraithinwings.livejournal.com/13524.html. It was composed by someone known as Wraith in Wings and was not written by the owner of this blog.

Nonduality: A Scientific Perspective

Preface

Chapter 1: The Nature of Inflationary Cosmology

Chapter 2: The Unification of the Laws of the Universe

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Chapter 4: The Nature of Spontaneous Emergence

Chapter 5: The Nature of the Quantum State

The Nature of the Observables, Observing and the Observer

Chapter 6: The Incompleteness Theorems

The Natural Interpretation of the Holographic Principle

Chapter 7: The Nature of the Mind and Body-Based Self-Concept

Chapter 8: Object Relations Theory and the Nature of the Ego

Chapter 9: The Illusion of Personal Identity

Chapter 10: Selected Quotes from I Am That

Chapter 11: Selected Quotes from The Matrix

Read Nonduality: A Scientific Perspective

On Wednesday, December 2, 2009, on YogaHeart Radio, CDKU, 88.1FM in Halifax, Nova Scotia, we read from Gabriel Rosenstock’s new book Haiku Enlightenment.

We had a lot of fun with the reading, enjoying spontaneous laughs and bursts of joy. Clyde, our guest on the show, had never heard a haiku. He was blown away, as you’ll hear:

yogaheart_20091202.13.30-15.30_haiku.mp3

Listen to the entire radio show here:
yogaheart_20091202.13.30-15.30.mp3

Haiku Enlightenment
by Gabriel Rosenstock

Read an excerpt from Haiku Enlightement
Read another excerpt from Haiku Enlightenment

Order from Amazon.com

Optimism—The Lesson of the Ages

by Benjamin Paul Blood

Purchase at Amazon.com

Eirini Press has released a reprint of one of the first non-dual treatises written by an American: Benjamin Paul Blood. Published in 1860, on the eve of one of the darkest periods in American history, Optimism is a stirring practical guide to faith in, and acceptance toward, whatever life delivers. Impassioned by his own mystical experiences, Blood’s distinctly American voice had a profound effect on William James, whose last published essay was a tribute to his mystical mentor. As pessimism again darkens America, Optimism shines a dazzling guiding light on wholeness: “We easily conceive ourselves invested in bodies or spheres of palpitating, ethereal lightness, which may fly, at will, around the pendant world; yet the sense in which we were independent of God’s consciousness in our own world would be as mysterious as now. However we exist, doubtless we shall feed only upon his bounty, and shall never inspire ourselves.”

“I have always held the opinion that one of the first duties of a good reader is to summon other readers to the enjoyment of any unknown author of rare quality whom he may discover in his explorations. Now for years my own taste, literary as well as philosophic, has been exquisitely titllated by…Benjamin Paul Blood.” — William James

Optimism-The Lesson of Ages by Benjamin Paul Blood
Excerpts

He is the One-the original-the all in all. All creeds acknowledge him. His name needs no interpreter when they say “God created.” Boundless and incomprehensible, yet indisputable, the key of all mystery, without form, without centre or circumference, beginning or end, the life, space, and atmosphere wherein all being dwells, words were not made to present him; we cannot show him to another, nor another to us; yet in the human soul he has said immemorially, “I am! And there is none beside me!”

~ ~ ~

We easily conceive ourselves invested in bodies or spheres of palpitating, ethereal lightness, which may fly, at will, around the pendant world; yet the sense in which we were independent of God’s consciousness in our own world would be as mysterious as now. However we exist, doubtless we shall feed only upon his bounty, and shall never inspire ourselves.

~ ~ ~

Not God himself can be supposed to transcend his nature; nor can any being that he has created: only the forced positions of an erroneous system ever could have driven men to the invention of a free will-free of the world, free of its creator, and free of its own construction, without bounds or definition.

~ ~ ~

Tear away bravely the frightful background that fear has painted in life’s picture, and send your gaze out unobstructed through the blue of eternal time.

~ ~ ~

Could we have proof of God’s existence, there were no God worthy to be proved. Proof shifts its object into other essence, or other truth: but that which is infinite cannot be shifted to aught that is within our capacity. Incomprehensible as eternity, against what background shall our God stand relieved? Say space is filled, and time is filled, and we are a portion of that filling; how shall a part contain the whole?-how shall that which cannot be compassed be known, whether it be entirely proved or not? The poet cannot teach his poetry to a stone; nor can God condense his being to a picture in our souls; he were not God, nor we men. Yet God is in us, the assurance of his presence, whose majesty is the birth of reason. He is not afar, that we should see him. He is in the light of the eye, and in the object that it shines on. He is not a curiosity, a member of a species, or a thing to be represented by any device. He is the One-the original-the all in all. All creeds acknowledge him. His name needs no interpreter when they say “God created.” Boundless and incomprehensible, yet indisputable, the key of all mystery, without form, without centre or circumference, beginning or end, the life, space, and atmosphere wherein all being dwells, words were not made to present him; we cannot show him to another, nor another to us; yet in the human soul he has said immemorially, “I am! and there is none beside me!”

~ ~ ~

Optimism—The Lesson of the Ages

by Benjamin Paul Blood

Purchase at Amazon.com