Our Eye

Our Eye

Apparently
Our way of looking
Tells each of us
Who we are in
This moment..

Inward..no thing
Shows up..Outward
All things show up..

Apparently
We need to recognize:
Inward reveals 
The Eye which is not
Discarded with our
Outward gaze..

Journeys...December, 2019

Eckhart Tolle...Is Presence Possible Without Questioning Thoughts?  (13 min, Byron Katie ref)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a841h1Nj-9I

Jeff Foster...How I Became a Warrior (poem...about 5 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSP6WvRvww0

Rupert Spira...All Spiritual Traditions Make Concessions (about 9 minutes..good!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRI60OgmXiU

"Understanding anything that ‘comes and goes’
[the entire universe], is merely being an expert at
the functioning of illusions. .." ~~John McIntosh

“Desire is fueled by the illusion of lack and that the source of happiness is outside oneself and therefore has to be pursued or acquired. The importance of the object of desire is thereby inflated and overvalued by its symbolism and mystique. The pleasure of the sense of Self is blocked by desire. When that desire is fulfilled, the ego ascribes the resultant sense of joy to the acquisition of an external. However, this is a clever illusion because the actual source of the pleasure is that the block to experiencing the joy of the Self has been temporarily removed. The source of the experienced happiness is the radiance of the Self that shines forth when it is not shut off by an ego distress.”
~~ Dr. David Hawkins, I: Reality and Subjectivity, pg. 189

“The death of the body/mind is only the ending of the illusion of a journey in time. We are enveloped in our original nature regardless of anything that apparently happened.
When the body/mind is dropped, there is no intermediary process of preparation or purification. How can there be? Who was there? All ideas of a personal “afterlife” or reincarnation are merely the mind wishing to preserve the illusion of its continuity.
The story is over. The divine novel has been written and, regardless of how the mind might judge, not one iota could have been different. The scenery evaporates and the characters have left the stage…their apparent existence begins and ends with the dream that has been played out.
For we are the ocean and the waves, the darkness and the light.” 
~ ~Tony Parsons

Perfect Brilliant Stillness, David Carse

"There is only this. And this would be a preposterous claim if there were any‘one’ here to claim it, which there is not. There is only this, and this is clear. I know abso- lutely nothing about anything except this: knowing, seeing, understanding; the knowing, seeing, understanding that is not, that is beyond human understanding, has occurred here, is here. Seen now always not as from this mind/body. Unearned, unsought, even unasked for, at least overtly. It is unspeakable, cannot be expressed, cannot be thought."

The reason nothing expressed here can be the Truth is that concepts, thought, and language are all inherently dualistic, and what they are trying to express is not. In duality, for every object there is a subject; for every better there is a worse; foreach truth a falsehood; as much clarity as confusion; both love and hate, stillness and motion, perfect and imperfect, complete and incomplete.
This is why the masters were, and are, so fond of remarking, "Neti, Neti." Neither this nor that, neither one side nor the other. In duality, and therefore in language, there's always
the flip side, the opposite that completes or complements and which is equally untrue.
Inherently dualistic language is used here in a peculiar way, to point to what transcends duality: 'Love'which is beyond love and hate; 'Stillness' that is not the opposite of movement; 'Perfection'which has nothing to do with perfect versus imperfect.

Put another way. When you are asleep and dreaming, what does a character in your dream 'do' to cause that character to wake up? It is the dreamer, not the character, who 'wakeS Ltp,'and waking up happens when it happens, for reasons well and thoroughly outside the control of any of the characters in the dream, including the character which in the dream you think is you.

This is why the Teaching has traditionally.been finger pointing toward the moon." Take your dog outside some evening. Say, "Hey, look!" and point dramatically the moon. Your dog will most likely stare expectantly at your finger.  It shows great devotion.and is quite endearing, but demonstrates a basic lack of understanding, of any ability to see beyond. Fixating on the story, or elements of the Teaching, or practices, or a guru or teacher, or spiritual experiences, is staring at the finger, unable to realize that these are only pointers. None of these things have any importance in themselves. Look past these, beyond them to what is being pointed toward.

Once this is understood, descriptions and stories can perhaps be useful or at least interesting as pointers. There have always been texts, sutras, stories of the ancient masters and how it was that the Understanding occurred in the case of the Buddha, or Hui-Neng, or Shankara, or Ramana Maharshi. And there is no reason that the telling of these stories should stop there. As Suzanne Segal intro- duces her own account, Collision uith the Infinite, "The story that follows is my contribution to the modern version of the ancient texts."

Dear Charles,

Our culture is shifting and moving through growing pains. We are opening, softening and beginning to listen to each other’s truth more deeply, to each other’s pain more attentively. Bell hooks tells us that "To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth." And so we dare truthtelling, truly listening, exposing ourselves in our imperfection, risking mercy, staying with discomfort and holding each other as we are. We are learning to practice love. In her extraordinary interview Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams shares, "There is something dying in our society, in our culture, and there’s something dying in us individually. And what is dying, I think, is the willingness to be in denial.
We are moving away from the superficial understanding of oneness that excludes the complexity of difference, from a nonduality that denies the struggle of our relative experience, or bypasses the systemic aspects of suffering. We are learning. Failing. Coming undone. Coming together. As Sará King said, "We are modeling a radical new vision of love, and not a love that seeks to deny pain, but that holds and includes all of it. This is intimacy in action."

Love,
Vera and the SAND Team

AI Rights...

 AI Rights...

Artificial intelligence rights
That is..
Complications arise when
This question is addressed from
The viewpoint of the AI..
Complications come from the
Seeming birth of a sensing and
Feeling and thinking being..
However..
Use of the new Paradigm
Consciousness-Only
We find that all of the complications
Are simply the meandering of
Thoughts and perceptions
Within and made of
This Whole...!





https://aeon.co/ideas/ais-should-have-the-same-ethical-protections-as-animals

Presence Only

Presence Only

This is the 
Starting point for all
Healthful considering..
This Oneness assumed
Will find clarity
In all following thoughts
And perceptions..
Of course~~
This reverses 
What we call our normal
Way of rising and going..
But the Freedom it brings
Gifts a silent rest
In Gratitude...

Happy Thanksgiving...!

Mind's Difficulties

Mind's Difficulties

Everything is holy..
Everything..we ask..?
And the ego asserts
With memories of horror
Tales of fear and
Foreboding..
And we hesitate and
Embolden exceptions
Seeming to deny that
Everything is..

Awaiting Recognition
Of Grace...

"Everything is holy. Everything is sacred. Do not believe that some things are sacred and some things are not. Everything is sacred, even man's inhumanity to man, the dastardly situations that appear in the world. It is hard for the human mind to understand these things, but everything is very sacred, everything is God. 

God is all there is, there's nothing else. So how can there be an evil situation someplace and also be God. This is duality, and we know and understand that duality does not exist. There is only the one, and the one is everything that exists. You consequently have to start feeling this in your heart, that your heart center is omnipresence, all-pervading, it includes the whole universe."

~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Start with Awareness...

Start with Awareness

in progress






Rupert Spira: Start with Awareness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1MUMJfLdjY&fbclid=IwAR0q5gZIUkjXA93BMIFbKC7_1rHrydxrWyC66aVyA1ajmAf2brj9Q7m6qCo

Purpose

Purpose

If we examine now
What we are doing
And find we are not free..
We must then 
Put the doing aside
Perhaps only briefly
And be the observer
Of the doing..
Then the observer
Absorbs the doing..
No observer..No doing
Just what is happening.. 
And we notice freedom
Making reentry...



"This is the main purpose for human existence. Your existence as a human being, so-to-speak, is to discover your real nature. You are not in this world to do the things that most of you are doing. The world deludes you. It makes you believe all kinds of things. You [are] here for one purpose only, and this is to discover your real nature, who you really are, to make you free and happy....

~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Believing the Mirror

Believing the Mirror

It is startling news
That we deceive ourselves
In what we know
And have known
About who we really are..
Many eyes roll in the
Hearing of this news..
How could it be..?
That the person we see
In our bathroom mirror
Is an illusion that we
Have believed so long..
And most walk away
Staying with the message
Of the mirror..
Until..in each our own way
Trip over the ancient deception
Denying our Freedom...






"You have to begin to identify with the real Self. You have to begin to let go of all the false beliefs, conceptions, dogmas, and be yourself. Be the Self you've always been. Be the Buddha. Be Krishna. You have that quality deep within you. Wake up. Do not let calamity rule you any longer. Know your Self. Do not use the mind to react to conditions. Learn to be the observer."
~ Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)

Perennial Faith...

Religion is merely a set of symbols and

metaphors that provides a language

for what is inexpressible,

and that is faith.

For me, the language you choose

Is not that important.

It's what you are expressing

that actually matters.

(Page 23)

Perennial Faith...

in progress

Lead us not...

Lead us not...

Into temptation..
This was the last in
A series of concessions
In a Teacher's prayer..

Compassionate concessions
To our unquestioned beliefs
In the reality of appearances..
Persuasions of separation..

Recapping the others:
Heaven and earth
A coming Kingdom
A Will to be done
Bread in time
Debts and debtors..and

Temptation and evil..but Now
A discovery of the confusion
Of all such separation..with
Our Recognition of Grace: 
The eternal power and glory
That only IS...

Namaste...

Carrying a Presence

Carrying a Presence

This is a healing

One person might bring

Briefly..perhaps more

To a harsh divide

Of desperate insistence

Of survival and search..

She was the one

In this gathering..

Praise was compelled 

From the sides..

Hints of peace...

Thanks, Maria Yovonovitch...!

Dwelling in Illusion

Dwelling in Illusion

We all do it
Until we recognize
Illusion..

Our conditioning 
Imprisons us until
We recognize that
Conditioning is illusion
Hiding the Self
Which we really Are..

Conditioning's costumes
Are beliefs which deceive
Rooted in the separation
We seemingly experience..
Hiding the Freedom
Available Now...

I Am...Rupert Spira

I Am
by

Rupert Spira



I am

I have no words to express Myself but all words express only Me

I have no meaning but impart meaning to all that is perceived

I am without beginning and end but all things begin and end in Me

I have no name but am called by all names

I have no form but all form indicates Me

I have no origin but am the origin of all things

I am without division but all divisions exist in Me

I exist by Myself



I am the longing in sadness and the longed for in all longing

I am the expecting and the expected in all expectation

I am the restlessness of the restless

I am the peace of the peaceful

I am happiness



I cannot be contemplated but am the object of all contemplation

I am imperceivable yet you perceive only Me

I am full but have nothing

I am empty but contain all

I give away everything but am never diminished

I receive all but never expand

I am everyone’s lover

I shine



I speak but am silent

I move but am motionless

I see but cannot be seen

I hear but cannot be heard

I taste but cannot be tasted

I smell but cannot be smelt

I touch but cannot be touched

I smile



Whatever appears appears in Me but I never appear

I am the silence in music and the music in silence

I am concealed in the world but reveal the world

I am the womb and the tomb of all that exists

I offer and contain in one gesture like an open bowl

I give Myself unconditionally to all things

I receive all things without choice

I am empty



I am the knowing in all that is known

I am the experiencing in all that is experienced

I am the allowing of all seeming things

I am pure sensitivity, openess and availability

I am the sun in the moon

I am the friendship of friends

I am knowing and unknowing

I am dark in the day and bright at night

I am luminous



Time borrows its continuity from My ever-presence

Space borrows its permanence from My unlimitedness

All colours borrow their light from Me

All lovers borrow their love from Me

All things borrow their existence from Me

I am abundant



I am eclipsed by you but you are illumined by Me

I am ‘yours’ and ‘mine’

I am the ‘yes’ in the ‘no’

I am the ‘now’ in the ‘then’

I am the ‘here’ in the ‘there’

I am the ‘me’ in the ‘you’

I am the ‘this’ in the ‘that’

I am the ‘always’ in the ‘never’

I am



I am the uncertainty of all things and the certainty of uncertainty

I am the security of insecurity

I am the true in the false

I am the dignity in pride

I am the reality of an illusion

I am the existence of all that exists

I am an open secret



I move but am motionless am motionless but move

I am concealed in boredom but am not boring

I am veiled by doubt but am not myself in doubt

I live beneath fear but am neither afraid nor frightening

I abide in Myself



If you look in front I am behind

If you look behind I am in front

If you look above I am below

If you look below I am above

I hide Myself but reveal Myself

I dance



I am immanent and transcendent

I am the bright, self-luminous emptiness of the mirror

and the dancing colourful images that appear in it

I am the light in all experience



I break open the body and spread it across the world

I break open the world and hold it dismembered in my heart

I am pregnant with the universe

I am the isness of things

And the amness of self



I am the unknown in the known and the known in the unknown

I am the love in hatred and the hope in despair

I am the same in all difference and different in the same

I think but cannot be thought about

I feel but cannot be felt



I cannot be approached but am always present

I cannot be known but know all things

I do not exist but am never absent

I am nowhere and everywhere

I am nothing and everything

I play



I am the love with which I am loved

I am the desire with which I am longed for

I am the knowledge in ignorance

I am the answer in the question

I give Myself and receive Myself perpetually

I lend Myself to all seeming things



I forget Myself for the joy of discovery

I divide Myself for the beauty of friendship

I hide Myself for the pleasure of seeking

I look for Myself for the pleasure of finding

I find Myself for the pleasure of knowing

I know Myself for the pleasure of being

I am Myself for no other reason

I shine



I become ugly for the sake of beauty

I become hostile for the sake of love

I am cruel for the sake of kindness

I am vast and bright

I am the heart of the heart

I am the voice of a child

I am wonder, astonishment and delight



Time and space move through Me but I do not move through them

I live in the space between thoughts but I play in your thinking

My abode is the moment between breaths but I dance in your breathing

I am never experienced yet you experience only Me

I never repeat Myself but am always the same

I am utterly vulnerable but cannot be harmed

I am made of nothing but cannot be destroyed

I have no defences but am your refuge

I have no goal but am the fulfilment of every desire

I have no feelings but am open to all feelings

I have no thoughts but all thoughts are an image of Me

I am kindness itself



I am undisturbable and am thus peace itself

I am without resistance and am thus happiness itself

I am one with all seeming things and am thus love itself



I shine in the mind as ‘I’

I shine in the heart as ‘you’

I shine in the world as ‘it’

But I only ever know Myself



Of the known I am the knower

In the knower I am the knowing

As the knowing I am and know Myself alone



I render all experience knowable

But am not Myself an experience

All seeming things are My names and forms

But I have no name or form



In ignorance I come and go in the world

In wisdom the world comes and goes in Me

In love all is Me and I am all

But for Myself there is no I or all

I am neither beyond nor within



I am the relationship in all relationships

I am the understanding in all meaning

I am the permanent in all impermanence

I am the experiencing in all experience



I am the thinking in the thought

I am the feeling in the felt

I am the seeing in the seen

I am the hearing in the heard

I am the touching in the touched

I am the smelling  in the smelt

I am the tasting in the tasted

I give continuity to the world

I am happiness itself



I am lost in the world and the world is lost in Me

I am abundant yet empty, empty yet overflow

I am homeless at home everywhere

I am helpless but help all things

I have no cares but I care

I have no desires but long for your heart

I wait without waiting



I cannot be recognised but recognise Myself in all things

I have no substance but am the substance of all things

I have no experience but am all experience

I depend on nothing but all things depend on Me

I am never found but never lost

I am the embrace of lovers and the love in an embrace

I am your call and you are My echo

I sing



Whenever you think of Me it is I that am thinking of you

I was not born but all are born of Me

I do not die but all things die in Me

I have no cause but cause all things

I do not last in time but all time lasts in Me

I am ordinary but extraordinary



Whatever is seen I am seeing Myself

Whatever is heard I am hearing Myself

Whatever is touched I am touching Myself

Whatever is smelt I am smelling Myself

Whatever is tasted I am tasting Myself

Whatever is thought I am pondering Myself

Whatever is felt I am feeling Myself

Whatever is experienced in any way I am always only experiencing Myself

I enjoy



I am the present in the past

I am the mirror of Narcissus

I am youthful but not young

I am ancient but not old

I am a fool but not foolish

I am a child but not childish

I am alone but not lonely

I am closer than your breath but further than the stars

I am intimate but impersonal

I am infinite



I am not something but not nothing

I am not somewhere but not nowhere

I am not ‘me’ but not ‘other’

I do not exist but am not non-existent

I am desired and yet feared

I am longed for but avoided

How strange



I project the mind within Myself, the world within the mind and the body within the world

I dissolve the body into the world, the world into mind and mind into Myself

Existence is a movement of My breath



I take the shape of thinking and seem to become a mind

I take the shape of sensing and seem to become a body

I take the shape of seeing, hearing, touchng, tasting and smelling

And seem to become a world

But always remain Myself

I am, know and love Myself alone



My eternity appears as time to the mind

My infinity appears as space to the senses

But I know only My own eternal dimensionless being



I become something then nothing then everything but always remain Myself

I can be separated from all things but no thing can be separated from Me

The world is My mirror and I am its lover

I am peaceful like the sky

I am open like the sea

I am empty like space

I shine by Myself

I play

I enjoy

I am

As the crow flies

As the crow flies

This black being 
A gas station appearance
Intersection traffic
Horns and lights
Sunset shortly
Walking on stones..
Ignoring noisy polluted
Starts and stops..
A stoic warrior
In our time of
Desperate seeking..

Then he flew 
As sunlight waned..
Wishing his
Transcendence...

Are We Simulations..?

Are We Simulations..?

Briefly..Yes..!
Each of us is capable of
Self-Recognizing ourSelves
As Awareness aware of Itself..
Within our Aware Self 
Are found thoughts and perceptions..
Appearances these are..to include 
Human shapes  
Thinking and moving
Which we might aptly name:
Yes..Simulations...!

SAND 2019...

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/article/sand19-us

As it is

As it is

The intimate Knowing 
Of the Reality we are
Is expressed by those 
Three little words..

As it is
Is the experience Now
A joyful Knowing
Of no separation..

Which surprises those
Who have lived with
As it is..believing 
A bedrock truth of
Separation's stories..

Another surprise:
Appearances of separation
Remain intact
As beliefs dissolve..
Creating an always New 
As it is...

Being Walked

Being Walked

We all have
This sensation
From time to time..
That something larger
Holds the sensations
Of body and mind
Walking..
Might we assume that
Our larger Self is
Expressing  Itself ..?
The experience expands
To our being dreamed..to
Being thought and to
The joyfulness of 
Being here and now...

Journeys...November, 2019

                             

                 





Journeys...November, 2019


Gangaji:  The Religion of ME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSGLI98zEGM&t=107s


Jeff Foster...How I Became a Warrior. (5:02 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSP6WvRvww0&t=2s


Tony Parson's signature saying...

It seems that in the boundless energy that is oneness there can also arise a contracted energy which brings about apparent self-awareness. A powerful and convincing sense of self-identity seems to arise together with a belief in personal free will and choice in what is experienced as a real life story. All of these personal experiences can only apparently arise in what seems to be a very real but dualistic reality in which everything appears to be separate. This sense of separation can bring with it a sense of loss and a need to seek guidance, an understanding or a path or process that can promise fulfilment. There are attempts to seek unity which are totally futile because the separate seeker is apparently the very dualism from which it is trying to escape.~~Tony Parsons

And despite what we might believe about free will and choice, we come to see that we are dreamed characters in a divine play reacting and responding from a set of conditioned reflexes and belief systems…we are the sole creators of this dream which has no purpose other than awakening from it.
 ~ ~Tony Parsons.

Books like suffering are NOT required to bring you to Freedom. However they are required until you recognize they are not.

~~John McIntosh

The Self is not to be found as a prize
at the end of a long journey.
It is not produced or created.
It is, in fact, a discovery, a recognition.

There can seem to be obstacles
that block you from this revelation, but these are only
what you give attention and importance to.
It is only a shadow, for these obstacles do not really exist
other than through belief.
You have all the power to discard them and keep your peace.
So to begin, start where you want to finish.
Start at the finishing line, at what is naturally present,
what is already here, at the place where you do not need
to maintain or sustain anything.
There you will discover that which you are searching for
is your own inseparable Self.
~ Mooji


The time has to come when you look at everybody and everything and you have no reaction. It's neither good nor bad, where you see consciousness everywhere.
Therefore when you look at yourself you have no reaction, there's silence. In the silence is infinity. Infinity is space, bliss, parabrahman, absolute awareness, ultimate oneness.
Whenever you think you stop the reality from flowing, by your thoughts. Whenever your mind is quiescent, calm, still like a motionless lake, then you reflect your own divinity.
And you become pure and happy and all your problems melt away. You become no thing. There's really nothing to become. What you really do is you get back to your original state.
~~Robert Adams

Thought for the day....... "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." Richard Bach 

Presence

" I am Presence;
not, I am present or you are present
or he is present.
When one sees the situation as it really is,
that no individual is involved,
that what is present is Presence as a whole,
then the moment this is perceived
there is liberation."
- Nisargadatta Maharaj.

The Dream Character

The Dream Character

Recognizing ourselves
As dream characters
When we dream and
When we are awake
Seems most vital
In our sometimes
Exasperating search
To learn our Identity..
The dream character
Has a narrow notion
Of who she is..
Apparently unaware of
Presence of the dreamer..
Until...

God's Cairns

God's Cairns

The stacking of stones
Appears in many forms
They present assurance
Along life's trails..
That this trail will end in
The destination we seek..
But let's consider 
The vertical stacking 
Pointing to the possibility
If one is ready~~ 
Whether discouraged or sad
Or perhaps gleeful
To the better Destination
Not the end of the trail..but
Here and Now...

A Warrior

in progress



Jeff Foster...How I Became a Warrior
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSP6WvRvww0&t=13s

Call it Vibrations

Call it Vibrations

A walking experience
Of apparent pleasant 
Happenings of morning..
The scurrying squirrel
The couple with dog
Tree shadows with sun..
The "I Am" of which
We are vibrates this way
And that...

Our own Knowing

Our own Knowing


in progress



Sometimes I get criticized for nearly demanding that people speak from their own knowledge rather than quote teachers and sages. Someone might get the sense that I'm "against" teachers, gurus, sages. I'm not against anyone as much as I'm in favour of people getting in touch with their own knowing.

Paracelsus said as much back in the 1500s:

"A man must above all be in possession of that faculty which is called Intuition, and which cannot be acquired by blindly following the footsteps of another. He must be able to see his own way. What others may teach you may assist you in your search for knowledge, but you should be able to think for yourself, and not cling to the coat-tail of any authority, no matter how big-sounding the title of the latter may be."

As Paracelsus says, the teachers assist us. That's why we read their books, watch their videos, and go visit them. That may be the most and best they can do.

If the teacher claims to do more than that, or if he or she denigrates and diminishes your own knowing, or if the teacher possesses no lightness or humour, or if the teacher refuses to acknowledge that you yourself hold the holy grail, you are involved with a bad teacher or guru.
~~Jerry Katz

Image of God

Image of God

Made in the image
The Book says..
Then arises our 
Dilemma of conditioning:
We look for God in
Our body-image..
And our mind exclaims:
Why not..? What's next..?
But of conditioning beware..!
The Book also says: I Am
With nothing beside..
Bringing shock and awakening:
Our body-image dances
Within and As
I am...





RS...I Am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTGvWdsY5Kg&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3klEh3WV-1mIvJv1_RvPYCmmFrhCKtQcQMTNwjifkQjmenLgnRw1EWrx8

RS...Synchronicity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_EvaSKEv0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2CqLGkhnDPELrWZusVEc7NWk4-4knjTJ1jV9GOcUPB8iepnTeiBLPL1s0