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The Nonduality Highlights

Happy New Year!

We bring you a few appetizers, a main course, and music.

Here are a few tweets:

aflow For the first time in almost twenty years, there’s going to be a Blue Moon on New Year’s Eve.(NASA): http://tinyurl.com/blooon

dustmapper I’m finding it harder to fake euphoria for the New Year…what I sense in the celebration is a momentary escape from profound suffering.

LeonardJacobson “If you are to awaken, you will have to learn to be in right relationship with your feelings.” LJ

margonaut HAPPY NEW YEAR… I’m heading to the Promise NYE party in Toronto tonight http://www.ilovepromise.com

DrWeil Parties and celebrations tonight? Be safe and remember these 5 tips to prevent a hangover: http://bit.ly/4IHAOZ

jhalifax this for the last day of 2009: Benjamin Franklin:There never was a good war or a bad peace.

lux1008 As the end of the year approaches, may the Heart of Wisdom dharani vibrate strong: Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha! #buddhism

guruphiliac RT @jmknapp53: First Issue of free #Spiritual_Abuse Newsletter out: Click to view! http://bit.ly/7PQ5og http://twib.es/t-82EDF

Jodpurs A single honest attempt to convey your own highest principle (however awkwardly) is worth more than a million spiritual quotes.

Rhea11 Tony Parsons’talk at the Urban Guru Cafe — http://urbangurucafe.com/category/ugc-speakers/podcasts-blogroll-12/

Yogaheart A Consideration: There is A LOT of space here ) Space is open, accepting, unconditional… Isn’t that what we call love? xoxo

Vicki Woodyard
http://www.bobwoodyard.com

Dec.26, 09–There comes a time in every aspirant’s life when push comes to shove. When we think our little candle may go out. When the world conspires to push all of our buttons. And then you remember to be dust under the guru’s feet. Here is another way of saying it. Let thought be dust under the feet of awareness. That brings it back to you being the One. The only. It reminds you that it is all maya, that the cards were played long, long ago and that the house is rigged. And yet Christ said that there were other mansions, better and higher places to live. It ain’t on Househunters.

In my life there have been many years of genuine sorrow. Times when I have done nothing but study truth, ponder wisdom and try my best to walk the path. And there have been times when I have realized that I knew nothing for sure. And that is the direction of self-abandonment.

I have been watching accounts of people stuck in their cars in this winter’s December blizzard. Stuck at the airport. Stuck on airplanes themselves. Surprisingly, these people were cheerful and following the way of tao. This attitude, too, is self-abandonment. Caught in snowdrifts, they responded like old Chinese sages.

Today I drove to the mall to meet a friend for lunch. There had been a water main break and the mall had shut down until it was repaired. I drove home and called my friend to say we couldn’t meet today. Then I hassled with my insurance company because the system had spit me out. I had driven into a very small snowbank. I put on a new pair of fuzzy slippers and hoisted myself onto the couch to watch TV. My attitude, I noticed, was cranky. Apparently I needed to watch reruns of those people stuck in the blizzard.

Real sorrow is behind everyone’s attempt to awaken. Never mind what anyone says to the contrary. This world is a pit and a snare even while wearing fuzzy slippers.

Regina Spektor

My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)

The Nonduality Highlights

Vicki Woodyard

You’re better off if you know certain people, and, for me, Vicki’s one of those people.

Vicki has the gift of showing us our heartbreak and our natural state.

Out of crushing heartbreak, most people would run from God. Vicki “ran to” God, or Self. Not as an escape, not to deny that any heartbreak ever happened, but to go deeper into the darkness.

These talks last five minutes each:

Listen to “An Important Talk.” Reclaiming the power of your inner world, of your inner wisdom. Honoring one’s limits and losses rather than overcoming them. In that honoring we are brought to our knees and we recognize the one truth. One of the great source teachings of VW.

Listen to “Zits, Incorporated.” Vicki mixes silliness, the nuts of bolts of life, death, and real reality. “With zits and gas, I think it’s time to start dating again.”

Listen to “The Voice Inside.” “The inner voice is unerringly right. … The world lies to us. This voice is the voice of your guidance.”

Listen to “It’s About the Music.” “I knew that my daughter was gone, but I knew that God was not gone. So I set on a path of inner discovery. This path is never ending. But for some of us it is music.”

Dustin: What did you say your favorite one was?

Davis: Who’s In Charge. I don’t remember when I wrote that. I think it was about ’03 or ’04.

Dustin: February 1, ’05, it says.

Davis: There’s a little preface to this one. I was thinking about free will, destiny, that whole trip. I was looking back on my life. The most important things in life are your career, your mate, your kids, they’re 99% of your time and energy, right? It occurred to me, those things had nothing to do with any plans of mine. It was all like nothing I would have planned out. This poem is about destiny and free will and that juxtaposition.

Who’s In Charge:

I WANTED TO BE A GOLF PRO
YET SOMEHOW WOUND UP A SHRINK

I WANTED A LITHE BLUE EYED BLOND
BUT WENT BONKERS OVER A REUBENESQUE BRUNETTE

I WANTED A DAUGHTER
NOW I’VE GOT THREE SONS

I WANTED TO RETIRE AT 58
BUT I’M STILL WORKING FULL TIME

I’M A SHIP WITHOUT A RUDDER
A TRAIN WITHOUT A TRACK
A MOVING CAR WITHOUT A DRIVER
BUT THERE’S NO TURNING BACK

MY LIFE’S BEING LIVED
‘XCEPT IT ISN’T BY ME!
WHOEVER’S IN CHARGE
IS ONE HUGE MYSTERY

Dustin: Tell me something, is your wife into this stuff, or what?

Davis: Not much.

Dustin: No? Does she understand what the heck you’re talking about?

Davis: I think she knows what I’m talking about. It just doesn’t seem to hit her. She’s a very spiritual woman in her own way. She’s very empathic and loving. But I think she’s much more comfortable with traditional Jewish types of teaching and seeing God as more out there and praying to God and that kind of thing. Not that she’s all that religious either, but I think she needs it very comfortable and she approaches it that way.

There are three editors of the text edition and one editor of the podcast edition. The three editors are Mark, Gloria, and Jerry. Dustin is the podcast editor. Each editor works independently. We don’t have meetings about what we’re going to publish.

First, I want to tell you about a new direction the Highlights is taking. Dustin, with my participation, is conducting phone interviews with nondual people. We have invested in the best electronic recording equipment and editing software. Our first interview has been completed and is now being edited. When it is published, I’ll write a separate entry for it. That should be next week.

The following are topics that are scheduled to appear in upcoming text issues of The Nonduality Highlights that I edit:

Spiritual autobiographical notes from Robert, grounded in the words of Nisargadatta.

Extracts from Dennis Waite’s new book, Enlightenment: The Path Through the Jungle.

Writings from Jeff Foster’s new work on neo-advaita, Beyond Awakening.

Excerpts from Alan Mann’s Nowletter and capacitie.org.

A review and selections from Richard Beymer’s novel/unauthorized autobiography, Impostor.

Writings from Johanthan Harrison’s We Are All One.

Poetry by David.

Selections from James W. Stelzenmuller’s The Path of Awakening: A Guide to Spiritual
Freedom.

Stephen Wingate’s One Life – One Heart – One Love monthly eLetter will be featured.

New websites, the Center for NonDualism in Florida, poetry by Birgit, poetry by Anna, the Jung Lexicon, Swami Lord Collins.

Excerpts from When Fear Falls Away, by Jan Frazier.

Announcement of the publication of Stewart Bitkoff’s A Commuter’s Guide to Enlightenment, with excerpts.

Writings from regular contributor Vicki Woodyard will appear.

Also the unknown: whatever shows up on any particular day that I feel like including in The Nonduality Highlights. So Subscribe!