They Were Having a Cipher

Six youths gather on a corner in any given city in the world. They form a circle and engage in a few seconds of discourse concerning what is about to happen. One opens the top to a 22 ounce of beer, pours some on the ground for “those who ain’t here,” drinks some and passes it to his comrades. Members of the neighborhood glance in from the outside and wonder what is about to occur. A concerned citizen thinks that they should call the police before a crime is committed, thinking, “There has been an increase in break-ins and thefts in the area lately, and someone has got to do something about these drug dealers.” All of a sudden one creates a rhythmic pattern using their mouth, hands, a foreign object, voice, or all of the above. The others begin to move their heads in unison, and one opens his mouth and begins to speak, juxtaposing his words over the rhythm. The neighbors calm a bit and watch out of curiosity what they are witnessing: six youths moving in unison to one rhythm, each expressing different emotions and thoughts through different styles. There is no fighting, drug dealing, or crime committed. The event lasts for two hours and then the circle disperses, promising to meet up the next day and do it again. The neighbors watching catch on to what just happened. “Oh, they were just rapping,” says one. A youth watching smiles and says, “Naw… they were having a cipher.”

Cipher:

1. Code, hidden meaning.

2. Nobody, a non-entity.

3. An enclosed circle of Hip-Hop practitioners and listeners, engaging in authentic discourse (Freestyling) with the aim of strengthening self-awareness, self-worth, knowledge of other practitioners and their styles, lyrical skill, or one’s connection to a creationary force, through

offering words of harmony (verbalizing a connection with group and creator),

awareness (verbalization of issues which cause difficulty within one’s life or issues that bring joy into one’s life),

actualization (verbalized plan of change or continuance),

alignment (verbalized understanding of one’s issues as being their own),

and synthesis (verbalized unity with creationary forces of change and continuance as to actualize new behavior or continue old behaviors);

sharing a message of personal importance with the congregation in order to increase another’s self-awareness, self-worth, knowledge of one’s self and style to another practitioner, and the collective’s ability to connect to a creationary force by maintaining harmony, balance, interconnectedness, and authenticity.

Creation within the Urban Placenta

To a Hip-Hopper the cipher (or cypher) represents the womb, an urban placenta that gives birth to emcees and beatboxers through the sharing of spiritual energies, transferred around and through a cosmic circle of combined rhythms. It is the training ground for those who aspire to reach the heights of the greatest emcees, a soapbox for the believers in a higher mode of expression and communication, a forum for those who wish to just enjoy in an individual-collective experience, or a combination of all three. The cipher embodies the sacred principles and dynamics of relationship found in and between all things, even if the practitioner is not cognizant of the subtle events taking place.

Think of Hip-Hop as being the binding energy of the cypher, existing between things and individuals. It is what helps Hip-Hoppers acknowledge each other and distinguish between authenticity and falseness of an individual, group, or their beliefs.

It is important to note that the description of this energy or force is not done for convention, but to describe an existing non-entity that would be associated or equitable with chi, prana, spirit, essence, the All, Ultimate Reality, Truth, etc. These words are used to describe an ever-present Reality that pervades all substance, but which could never be fully described.

To practitioners and listeners, Hip-Hop is that force which allows one to create, provides the atmosphere for creation to exist, and is the foundation for all creation of the music. It can be described as a feeling of elation, bliss, ecstasy, that one feels when one is in the environment that Hip-Hop is played, cultivated, or demonstrated.

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This is an excerpt from an unpublished article. To hear more from this article please listen to the podcast:

http://nonduality.com/nondualitystreet_hiphop7september2010.mp3

Pattern Interruption Hall of Fame: people that wake us up from the monotony of mindlessness. These are iconoclasts, straight-shooters, rascal sages, and eccentric oddballs of all walks of mind — i.e. the denizens of the brave new world of self-aware unorthodoxy.

Watch an episode of “Between Two Ferns” to see Zach Galifianakis at his pattern-interruption best. Galifianakis seems to have an intuitive grasp on paradox and nonduality.

…

Pattern interruption leverages mindfulness by way of new information and confusion. How new information changes our minds is clear. Here’s how confusion comes into the picture. Confusion means loss of certainty. Loss of certainty means open-mindedness to what is. As such, a pattern break is a pre-requisite for mindful presence (and the stuff of comedy). Pattern break confuses the conditioned mind and in so doing gets it out of its own way, opening up new vistas of clarity. In other words, when mind is closed off to new information, confusion helps kick that door wide open. In sum, mind is a closed-system pattern, interrupt it to open it! Expose yourself to new information. Update your understanding of the world to prevent dogmatic stagnation. Remember: reality updates with every now!

-Pavel Somov

Andrew Pyper writes in the Globe and Mail:

“It’s funny,” Holden observes at the end of The Catcher in the Rye. “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

I have returned to these lines almost as often as those of Joyce’s The Dead, and though the former isn’t nearly as poetic as the latter, it offers the value of practical advice. Because it’s true, isn’t it? You tell yourself the story of yourself and no matter how alive you might feel, it’s like you’re looking back from outside of time, already a ghost.

Read the entire article.

Namaste means “my soul and your soul are one,” according to nonduality teacher Dr. Jean Klein. Further, Klein points out in the video Discovering the Current of Love, that when the hands are held at heart level it is intended for your neighbor and all people. When the hands are brought to forehead level it is a namaste for the Guru. When the hands are held over the head, Klein says, this is namaste for the gods.

On the Regis show, Meg Ryan brought her hands to forehead level, signifying to Kelly Ripa that this namaste was for “the Guru.”

So, what Guru do Meg Ryan and Kelly Ripa share or recognize? More broadly, what is the spiritual connection between Meg Ryan and Kelly Ripa?

How deep, diverse, and widespread is the teaching of nonduality throughout Hollywood? I think it is prevalent and takes the forms of Tibetan Buddhism, Eckhart Tolle-ism, Kabbala, and open Christianity ala A Course in Miracles. That’s only a few.

It’s all over the internet that Jeff Goldblum is reading Talks with Ramana Maharshi.

Acclaimed British actor Terence Stamp has voluntarily read the audio version of David Carse’s most nondual Perfect Brilliant Stillness.

Legendary Richard Beymer has written the wild and penetrating nonduality book, Impostor, a creation that should be made into a movie.

Since my work in nonduality over the last ten years has been to bring nonduality to “the people,” it makes sense that I would try to gauge how nonduality has penetrated the lives of people within certain groups. The mass entertainment group is interesting since it could spread the teaching of nonduality very broadly, if, perhaps, not too deeply.

My mother went shopping one afternoon in 1958. As a treat she bought me an album of popular rock and roll songs by Elvis, Dion and the Belmonts, Buddy Holly, and others. Resting the needle on the record I realized at once they weren’t the real songs, but covers. Unknown singers sang songs originally sung by Elvis, Dion, Buddy Holly, Perry Como.

At least once a year my mother would buy me a budget cover album. Here’s a cover of a Beatles song: pleasepleaseme.mp3.

Today it’s funny to listen to, but in 1963 when you were 14 years old, you wanted to hear the Beatles. It was as depressing as life got. Not that the version of Please Please Me is bad. The singers of these cover songs were often better than the original singers.

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When we were kids we hated cover songs. Nowadays cover songs are much loved, widely accepted and very popular. YouTube is full of cover versions of popular and even little known songs. The song Only Hope, by Christian-inspired group Switchfoot, must have been covered a hundred times on YouTube. Here’s the lyric:

“Only Hope”

There’s a song that’s inside of my soul
It’s the one that I’ve tried to write over and over again
I’m awake in the infinite cold
But You sing to me over and over again

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only Yours
I pray to be only Yours
I know now You’re my only hope

Sing to me the song of the stars
Of Your galaxy dancing and laughing
and laughing again
When it feels like my dreams are so far
Sing to me of the plans that You have for me over again

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only Yours
I pray to be only Yours
I know now You’re my only hope

I give You my destiny
I’m giving You all of me
I want Your symphony
Singing in all that I am
At the top of my lungs I’m giving it back

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only Yours
I pray to be only Yours
I know now You’re my only hope

Here’s a typical YouTube singer, Joyride13, covering Only Hope. Note that she reveals she is doing a cover of Mandy Moore’s cover of Switchfoot’s Only Hope. (You can easily imagine that there’s a cover of this girl’s cover of Mandy Moore’s cover.)

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In the world of nonduality, we could ask, “Are some teachers imitative of famous gurus or scriptures? That is, are they doing ‘cover songs’? Could the ‘cover songs’ be better than the originals? Are teachers doing ‘cover songs’ of ‘cover songs’?”

It’s up to the consumer of nondualia to be aware of those questions and to decide how to value what they read. This portion of Only Hope points to what the only authentic voice might be:

I’m awake in the infinite cold
But You sing to me over and over again

Tony Parsons. …is the same eye with which God sees me.” –Meister Eckhart”

“Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Did Timothy Leary have it backwards?

The following is from the Wikipedia:

“Turn on, tune in, drop out” is a counterculture phrase coined by Timothy Leary in the 1960s. The phrase came to him in the shower one day after Marshall McLuhan suggested to Leary that he come up with “something snappy” to promote the benefits of LSD. It is an excerpt from a prepared speech he delivered at the opening of a press conference in New York City on September 19, 1966. This phrase urged people to initiate cultural changes through the use of psychedelics and by detaching themselves from the existing conventions and hierarchies in society. The phrase was derided by more conservative critics.

“The phrase is derived from this part of Leary’s speech: ‘Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out.’”

Now consider what nondualist Tony Parson invites. The following was posted to the Nonduality Highlights today:

“Drop asking ‘why’ and simply become totally involved in the absolutely wonderful miracle of life just as it is, right here, right now. Can you not see that whatever has just happened for you at this moment has never happened before and will never happen again? It is totally unique and fresh and innocent, and it is here and then it isn’t. Isn’t that just great?”

Seems like Tony is saying first to drop out: “Drop asking why…”

Then he’s suggesting you “see” the moment for what it is, or tune in. “Can you not see…?”

Finally he asks you to value the moment, to be turned on to the moment. “Isn’t that just great?” It follows that you will “turn on” others to become inclined to drop out.

Using Leary’s terms, those three invitations might be re-phrased as, “Drop out, tune in, turn on,” the reverse of what Leary declared.

Dropping out is the main step. It means to stand free of the thousands of trances that compete for your mental space.

Then you will be able to tune in or “see.” See what? God, creation, the structure of reality.

Finally, when you value this seeing, you will turn on, which means to naturally express it (perhaps silently, perhaps through some creative effort), send it forth, cast the light of it in all directions, emit the perfume, turn-on the world, whichever metaphor you prefer.

To walk on Nonduality Street, rather than Psychedelic Boulevard, discriminate. If a practice or a person makes you feel high or blissful, you are turning on. If in the presence of a person or practice you see the futility of everything, that “all is vanity,” then you are dropping out.

Dropping out is only the beginning. Often fear or despair sets in and the process stops and one settles for a glimpse of the freed mind, which is better than not having had a glimpse.

Remember the chant of the nonduality generation: Drop out, tune in, turn on. Or does that put you in a feel good trance? Well, no one ever said there’s a winner in the nonduality game.

I wrote on discussion boards that Kristy Lee could win the competition.

People vehemently opposed my position. “It’s impossible.” “She’s lucky if she lasts another week.” “She doesn’t belong there with the others.” “You’re delusional.”

Now Kristy Lee is in the top seven and guess what the consensus is? “Well, she might make the top four.” “The others aren’t doing so well anymore, so she might stick around.” “She sang a couple good songs and she’s pretty, so people are voting for her.”

Point is, Kristy Lee Cook showed sparks of brilliance, and then lifted and expanded those sparks. She dresses better, carries herself with greater confidence, sings with more emotion, connects with the audience. She has evolved from a contestant many felt forced to watch to a contestant very many look forward to watching.

How does this bear on understanding nonduality? Nonduality means no thing is separate from reality. Yet no two things are the same. When a person, a thing, is beheld, reality is beheld. The beholding is reality. The beholding is the recognition of perfection.

“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48

None of us — nothing — is separate from perfection or the Father, if you don’t mind the Christian reference. If you are Islamic, then Allah. Native American? Then the Great Mystery. Doesn’t matter what you call it.

Perfection is our condition. That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard. It means you are more free to work hard. It means you acknowledge your already-perfect condition through your actions.

This isn’t positive thinking. It isn’t thinking at all. It is seeing. Perhaps it is faith. It is recognition of perfection and allowing action out of that. What is the action? It is the identification and raising of the sparks of brilliance.

The task of individual men and women is to extract those sparks that are his or her fortune to encounter in life, and to raise and spiritualize them. … The Hasidic doctrine of Tikkun holds that a person’s soul exists in sympathy with the people and objects in his environment, in such a manner that each moment in a person’s life presents an opportunity to “raise the sparks” that only he or she can redeem. The Lurianic Kabbalah

I saw that Kristy Lee knew the perfection of her own self, recognized the sparks to be raised, and that she was on the verge of waking up to that recognition. And she did. She is. That’s all there was to my prediction.

In your everyday life I invite you to recognize this perfection. At least have faith in it. Don’t write anyone off. Don’t be disappointed by your kids or frustrated by your parents. Don’t let go of that friend or mate. See the perfection, the sparks of brilliance in them, that they may come to see it. Of course, recognize the sparks in yourself.

Yes, there is a time to fully dis-engage from one person or another. No, I’m not saying that in the name of perfection terrorists should be allowed to roam freely.

Be more attentive to those in your social circle. Recognize perfection. See the sparks in a person that might rise toward perfection.

Kristy Lee may get voted off the show this week if she slips up. The raising of sparks is not like lines that go straight up. They could stall. However, the observation is that she has awakened to her perfection. If she keeps raising those sparks in fairly straight lines over the next few weeks, she will win American Idol.

Watch Kristy sing.

Richard’s new book is called Impostor. He writes…

Let me say at the outset that this is NOT a book written by an advaitic master, enlightened guru or self-proclaimed teacher, of which there are many, trying to jar “us sleepy ones” out of our somnambulistic stupor…it espouses no knowledge or technique nor does it give any advice on how to make your life any other way than it already is. It is simply a work of fiction that hopefully people who are interested in advaitic concepts along with Hollywood movies will enjoy in this topsy-turvy mad-cap search for, “Who am I when not being who I think I am?” which is what this book is about.

It’s an unauthorized autobiography of someone who is stumbling along the path, rummaging up and down the alleys of his mind, and others, searching for clues as to who he is (or isn’t), figuring everybody else gets “IT” but him. It’s about George, someone who is addicted to the bliss of ignorance, someone who has lived his whole life acting as if he were who he appeared to be-an impostor, an ego encapsulated bag of bones and flesh suspended between the belief of birth on the one end, and the fear of death on the other, and who, in limbo, betwixt and between, has managed to eke out this momentary existence, it having (as George finds out) at its core, no more reality than a dream.

EXCERPT

FADE UP: INTERIOR. HOLLYWOOD SOUNDSTAGE. A LARGE WHITE SPACE. CLOSE ON SPACEMAN GEORGE. He’s suited in his silver spacesuit looking as deranged as ever, a physical and mental wreck.

THE DIRECTOR: (screaming from off camera) “Roll ‘em!” Now for God sakes, try to get it right this time, George. Action!

The only object in the scene with Spaceman George is a full-length mirror on rollers. Spaceman George takes a deep breath and deftly, in the tradition of the great Hollywood musicals, leads his reflection throughout the space as a combination visual aid and dance partner as he rambles and rants his way through his self-obsessed monologue.

SPACEMAN GEORGE: All right, here’s my dilemma. See if you can relate. On the one hand (referring to his reflection), there’s not remembering who I am when being who I appear to be. On the other hand (referring to himself), there’s who I appear to be when being who I think I am. That is, this me, here . . . the one in question.

Spaceman George spins the mirror around and cozies up to his reflection. He continues:

SPACEMAN GEORGE: Let me be more precise. I’ve forgotten who I am when not being who I think I am. That’s it in a nutshell, the one-liner. That’s what this whole film is about, so be warned.

Now I don’t know about you but I assumed I’d live forever, that somehow or other I’d get out of this life alive, that I’d figure it out, slip by unnoticed-maybe through some tear in the cosmic fiber-and I would just step out into eternal life, God-like, you know, in my white tie, top hat and tails . . . maybe doing a little soft shoe routine in my shiny black patent leather shoes . . . kind of free and easy like Fred Astaire in one of those 1930′s MGM musicals, like Flying Down to Rio with Ginger Rogers . . . you know, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again-ta da,- happy ending. But that was another film. Instead, I was destined to relive the end of West Side Story, where I died tragically, too soon, having almost-but not quite-figured it out, about remembering who I am when not being who I appear to be.

I was so close I could taste it. The clues were everywhere. It was only left for me to reconstruct the puzzle, connect the dots . . . but NO . . . I had to die. What a shocker to wake up dead. I mean you have no idea. It’s like nothing else ever. All I knew was, this life, this precious moment of eternity was over too soon . . . far, far too soon. There were all those things I never did, never said, the wasted moments, the years. I was just beginning to get the hang of it, the feel of it, the shame of it, the blame of it, the rage, the guilt part . . . the “I’m sorry, Marie, forgive me, I messed up” part . . . the part where you and me and everything is perfect just the way it is, with no deletions, additions, corrections, expectations, or otherwise tampered-with parts . . . the unconditional love part . . . the part where I don’t demand in you what’s lacking in myself part. The part where I accept who you are when not who you appear to be, rather than trying to change you into who you aren’t, so I can forget who I am when not being who I appear to be in your eyes.

Well, it’s all over now, baby blues. I jigged when I should have jagged, zigged when I should have zagged. I hesitated. And as you reminded me time and time again, “He who hesitates is lost.” There was so much left unfinished, the whole last act . . . was he really insane or just play-acting? Did she really fool him into thinking she loved him or did he know all along she didn’t? Or was he just pretending he believed her to see if he could detect a lie in her performance? Or did she set the whole thing up and just let him believe it was his idea to prove she was who she appeared to be, when she was really someone else? Now I’d never know.

Picture it yourself . . . if you were to die, no warning, like right now, just keel over and die, not knowing who you are when not being who you appear to be-that is, this part you’re playing-and don’t kid yourself, you there . . . you are playing a part-what would be left? There would be nothing, that’s how I see it. Zilch. Nada. But, if you were to die being who you are when not being who you appear to be, then dying wouldn’t be death, as in annihilation, the total eradication of being, but rather, could conceivably be just a change of scene, like in the movies. In fact, from the die-ee’s point of view, nothing would be any different . . . Oh, maybe a little bump in the road, a little What the hell was that?, but no difference, not really. Right? I mean, you’d just be whoever you are when not being who you think you are- simple.

Now, to an outside observer in a fixed matrix, of course, you would appear dead, gone, outta here . . . but for the die-ee, the one in question, it would just be a blip on the radar screen . . . a simple dream shift . . . no biggie. But, and this is the heart of the matter . . . I’m lost in the play, consumed by my part, obsessed with my image. (In a sudden rage Spaceman George breaks the mirror.) I really believe the lie, that I am this “I,” that I am who I appear to be. I’ve forgotten something, something key, something vital to the whole outcome. I’m sure of it. And whatever it is (screaming in the camera) IT’S DRIVING ME CRAZY!

Impostor: Or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer, by Richard Beymer

Read reviews and order the book.

Read another excerpt

Review of Impostor:

Impostor is a confession of the author’s true nature. The form of the confession is a screenplay that unfolds as do one’s thoughts or dreams. Using videos and films and a fun house full of characters, layers of thought and experience slip into other layers, drop, blend, recycle, always washed by a witnessing of it all.

The author’s true nature becomes known through a process of facing his nature as an impostor in life. Throughout this book, just as we get a feel that the main character has awakened to his true nature, we find that it is only another video, another false self, another impostor. There is a constant pushing forth into new layers of awareness without any real breaking through the mode of impostor until the very end.

By immersing oneself in the flow of this book, one may see how difficult it is to break out of impostor mode. At least we can be aware that we are in it! Then through a process of playing all the videos of our so-called life, and the videos within them, and videos within them, and the videos and films created to explain them, we can finally come to a true knowledge of what this existence is all about. Impostor is a wild, funny, tumultuous tour of an amusement park fun house. The amusement park is the world, the fun house is your life, and there is a way out.

Review written by Jerry Katz

Ellen attended a Buddhist high school in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The school actually houses, in a single building, about 130 students ranging from pre-school to 12th grade. Neither all the teachers, nor all the students are practicing Buddhists. Get out of your mind any images of Buddhist monks in orange robes. If you walked past the school, you will see that no thing and no one seems other than ordinary.

Something that is unusual about the school is that the older students learn meditation and Yoga as part of their daily work. The values that permeate the education may be called Buddhist, but they may also be called wholly human.

From interviews I’ve seen on YouTube, Ellen seems minimally materialistic, grounded in relationships with family and friends, and appreciative of life in Nova Scotia. Ellen engages promotion without a lot of apparent fuss. Her style is spare, whether being interviewed or acting, yet deeply direct, so that she communicates in a memorable and impacting way. There’s no neurosis around her.

These are qualities of a person who lives from a nondual approach to life, which means realizing and valuing the atmosphere in which all things are interconnected. I don’t mean to put Ellen Page on a pedestal as an enlightened saint. Nova Scotia is infused with nondual spiritual traditions: Buddhist, Celtic, Hindu, Advaitin, Pagan, Yogic, Native People’s, and unaffiliated/undefined. There must be thousands in Nova Scotia whose nature is inclined toward the nondual.