We are beyond,

Beyond what we have read by the light of so many moons,

A quarter, to half, to full and back.

A shadow behind us,

We are born from this,

Until feeling the sun at our backs

Even as we stand up in exquisite castles

Never far from mud

Embryos, all of us

Magicians by breath

Longing for a moment where there is no other moment

Like waves searching for sand untouched

And although the roles played, embraced

We are more than actors

Or one costume handed in for another

For we are amongst flowers and forests that burn and rebuild

Each of us ancient without the sense of this

Bubbles of beauty forgotten

Sadness not new

And yet the arch of love

Grand and succulent

Perpetual in it’s call

A varied wholeness

No death, to the contrary

Ray Madrigal ©2011 all rights reserved

I have photographed seriously for 25 years.  Photography to me is about energy and vibrancy, whether this be with people, trees, or a flowers or the sky.

For professional photographic services including dance, portrait, celebration and fine art prints contact me by email: raysun2011 at comcast dot net

Please visit my website:

Starting Point Photography

UK
One Day Meeting in London – Saturday 21st January 2012
Two/Seven Day Retreat in Shropshire – 18th – 25th May 2012
One Day Meeting in London – Saturday 23rd June 2012
*Oxford Meetings not shown

Europe
Weekend in Paris – 28th June & 1st July 2012
One Week Retreat at Le Moulin de Chaves, France, 29th July to 5th August 2012
Meetings in Eindhoven, Holland – Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th March 2012
Science and Non-Duality Conference – 29th May – 3rd June 2012
Weekend in Barcelona – 24th – 26th February 2012
Weekend near Verona – 17th & 18th March 2012
Weekend in Denmark – 15th to 17th June 2012

 *Feel free to send in any Live Meetings & Retreat listings.

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History.

The film, created by the Museum was part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan.

Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/universe/

Visualization Software: Uniview by SCISS

• Director: Carter Emmart
• Curator: Ben R. Oppenheimer
• Producer: Michael Hoffman
• Executive Producer: Ro Kinzler
• Co-Executive Producer: Martin Brauen
• Manager, Digital Universe Atlas: Brian Abbott
• Music: Suke Cerulo

For more information visit http://www.amnh.org

The other day a friend of mine told me about a weekend conference taking place about women and technology. Since I am investigating technology and I am a woman, I thought I should check it out. I could not attend the conference in person so I streamed via the web. Unfortunately, the first video I viewed spooked me so deeply that I never made it back to see what else was happening at the site.

The presentation was by a mommy blogger/expert, who was sharing tools for women who were traveling (to the conference for example), and leaving their children with a caretaker. In the video, the blogger/expert, dressed in a lovely tan business suit with a patterned scarf, offered three tips for women traveling without their children.

1. Mommies should make sure to arrange ahead of time when they would call to speak with their children. The times chosen should be hours when the children would be available to speak.

2. The mommies should make sure to alert the caretakers to any times in the day that would be particularly stressful for their children, as in homework time.

3. Mommies should review any chores for which the children are responsible, with the caretakers AND children present, making sure that everyone is aware of the children’s tasks while the mommies are away. These were her tips for traveling mommies.

Now I may be old fashioned but these “tools” (even the word “tools” sends shivers up my spine), to me, sound like what used to be called living, relating, or the decisions that generally just fall into the category of being a human being. Maybe the technical language might be “common sense.” I wondered, do we really need a power point presentation from a mommy blogger/expert to tell us to call our children when they are free to come to the phone?

©Roger Ingraham

I was so perplexed by these expert suggestions that I had to call a friend to come over and watch the video again. She said that it reminded her of an infomercial/instructional video on how to slice a mango.

The internet boom is creating a technological language around what used to just be part of or integrated into basic human interaction. Will we soon need to be reminded to breathe too, before we pick up the phone to call? Or perhaps to go to the bathroom when we feel the urge? If we have a relationship with our children, and our caretaker (which presumably we would if we are leaving our children in their care) do we really need “tools” for how to function when we are home or away? We are developing a science and an industry around what already is, and spending a tremendous amount of time congratulating ourselves on the packaging of what just is. There is something eerily unnerving about a woman streaming into my home, appearing on my desk, and telling me that I should communicate and have a relationship with the person with whom I entrust my children.

My women-friends who have become deeply involved in the web remind me of Stepford wives whose souls have been snatched, leaving behind only their cupcake-frosted frames. Where have they gone, these women who are clapping and congratulating this mommy blogger on her earth-shattering “tools” for what used to be considered “being a mommy”?

What’s the big deal you might ask?

So what that we are repeating the obvious, as if it were something terrific and worth dialoguing about? The big deal or poisonous part of all this is that our focus is now on packaging life in place of living of it.

It reminds me of a friend who recently returned from a conference on film making. The entire dialogue was on how to use technology to sell the film, and the filmmaker. Absent was any discussion about the work itself, on creating story lines and characters that would move audiences or shed light on the human condition. Creating instructional videos on what we might have previously considered “living life” is co-opting life itself. We have turned life into an object, and worse, a product. Life has become a “something” that we relate to through a strategy or plan. Instead of experiencing life directly, from inside it, we are experiencing life through a middle-woman, a marketing expert, who is voicing over our own existence.

As a result, we are depriving ourselves of the staggering gift that we have been given: life itself, and accepting a hollow substitute in its place.

Photo Rob Vena©

Of course it is important to spend time thinking about what our children need and what we need when we are away (and when we are home) and of course we must dialogue with all those in our life about how we can best take care of those we love, but can’t we do all this without turning any of it into a plan or strategy, without aiming a laser pointer at it?

In making life into an object, the mind is once again strengthening its position as the boss of us, of our true nature. In truth, we do not need instructional videos on how to be. We are human “beings” after all. The new science, strategy and language around what is really just plain living, being alive, is reinforcing the belief that being is something that we must be taught (usually for a fee), and worse, manufacture. And yet, our human being-ness is not and can not be a construction of the mind or any industry. Nothing—not even the mind— precedes or can create our being. But because the mind has successfully convinced us that we need it to teach us how to be human we are now relying on the mind and its resulting industries for what we already know—who we already are.

“Being human” is an item that we can safely remove from the current “to do” list.” ~Nancy C.

When we stop trying to figure out how to be human, we will again remember our inherent humanness. While it may put a dent in several new industries, and reduce the need for so much new information, in fact, “being human” is an item that we can safely remove from the current “to do” list. We do not need a roll-out strategy, strategic plan or search engine optimization expert to teach us how to be alive, how to make what already is exist. The only thing that we need to do is to throw out the manuals and all those who tell us that we need them in order to be who we are.

Thankfully, the majesty of our basic human being-ness, of life itself, is greater than anyone or any technology could ever create or control.

Nancy Colier is a psychotherapist, interfaith minister, writer and public speaker. She graduated from the University of Virginia, Columbia University School of Social Work, The Focusing Institute and One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. A longtime student of Eastern spirituality, awareness practices form the ground of her work.

She is the author of several books and her writing has been featured in numerous publications — most recently on SparkPeople.com.

After having spent 25 years as a top-ranked equestrian on the national horse show circuit, Nancy serves as a performance consultant to competitive athletes and professional artists. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two daughters.
www.nancysc.com

The Un-Happiness Project

The desire for enlightenment once drove an earnest and highly determined individual to spend several years in the company of a spiritual teacher. During these years he proved himself a devoted disciple who was totally committed to the attainment of spiritual realization.

When the time came for him to leave and return to his native place, his guru made him promise that he would write every month, reporting on his spiritual progress. The disciple gave his promise and received his guru’s blessing. They said their farewells and parted.

The disciple had been gone just over a month when his first letter arrived:

“I am experiencing the Oneness with the Universe,” he wrote.

The master said nothing, but crumpled up the letter and dropped it in the bin.

The next month’s report came promptly and stated:

“The Divinity present in all things has been revealed to me. I behold It in a flower, in a stone, in the very air, everywhere.”

Again the master read the letter, crumpled it up and tossed it into the bin without a word.

For four months the letters arrived regularly. In his third message the disciple declared:

“The mystery of the One and the Many has been revealed to me. I now know and truly comprehend there is no difference between you and me or anything else.” Once read, this missive also ended up in the guru’s waste-paper basket. In the fourth letter the disciple said, “No one is born, lives or dies, because there is no one who exists.”

This letter too was read without comment and followed its predecessors, slipping with a rustle into the trash.

After the fourth month, however, no further letters arrived. No letter in the fifth month, no letter in the sixth month, no letter for a whole year! As the time passed and brought no news, the master became increasingly curious as to what had happened with his beloved disciple. Eventually, he wrote to him inquiring about his spiritual progress, and reminding the disciple of his promise to keep him informed.

Some time later, the guru was handed a letter addressed in a familiar hand. It was from his distant disciple. The guru opened it and read, [and laughed out loud] with obvious delight. His attendant disciples were puzzled as to what had prompted this outburst of joy. Beaming gladly, the guru passed them the letter.

They saw that it contained just three words, and the three words were:

“Enlightenment? Who cares!”

The above writing reprinted with permission. The piece was originally published in the book by Ramesh Balsekar, titled “Who Cares?” (for which transcripts of the daily talks were also provided).

Some of Ramesh’s last talks are also available here if interested.

Official website for Ramesh Balsekar

Gladys Rockmore Davis (1950)

Dear All,

I feel moved to personally thank each and every one of you for your continued support and wish you all a joyous Holiday Season among family and friends and a New Year filled with much happiness.

It’s been a blessing and honor to share this journey with you this past year!

Blessings and Warm Wishes for 2012.

Matthew

The folks at Non-Duality Press wanted his plain speaking, rigorous and humorous approach to be available more widely, so they transcribed some of his talks and satsangs. The talks are arranged under subject headings, rather than chronologically, so that you can read from cover-to-cover or dip in as you please for inspiration. It is their hope that you will feel the thrill of resonance that wells up inside when something within us recognizes the beautiful simplicity of The Loving Awareness in Which All Arises.

“What you have before you here in Dr.Rick’s book is another delightful and beautiful message that explores the ramifications of his understanding that Consciousness is all there is. Once you really understand that to the point where it defines the every living moment of your so-called life, you are truly home and need look no farther. I do believe that is actually happening more and more these days on planet earth.” – [From the Foreword] by Satyam Nadeen

Please enjoy a sample chapter reprinted below with permission from the publisher. You can also download the sample here [in .pdf format] if you prefer to read that way. I know some have a hard time with white text on a dark background.

Who you really are transcends all stories. All the stories, all concepts of time and space, all are contained in who you are.

Most of my life I spend talking about medical things because I’m a medical doctor in the United States.

But for whatever reason I show up every year at Baden Baden in Germany, talking about spiritual things, and I have absolutely no idea why that is. And I don’t care. Over the years I found it more and more difficult to initiate, to begin speaking about this. I seem to have less and less to say spontaneously.

The only time I ever talk about this is when somebody else brings it up, so today that job falls to you. Anybody have any questions or anything they’d like to discuss?

Baden Baden Wintertime!

Not everybody knows you. Perhaps you could say a few words about how you came to spiritual topics.

That’s even harder to explain. It seemed very important when it happened and now it seems less and less important to talk about.

All my life, as with most of us, I’d had this precious notion of an individual in control of his life. If things seemed to be going my way I was very satisfied and proud, but when things weren’t going my way, which wasn’t unusual, I was angry, disappointed and generally miserable. But there was always the thought that I just had to work harder or do something different and I could make life go my way.

I would meditate hours every day because I thought that would get me enlightened. I would exercise hours every day because I thought that would get me strong and healthy. And I would work even more hours every day because I thought that would get me rich and famous and successful. Then one day I was diagnosed with cancer and I lost my health, my medical practice and my wealth, and every definition, every way in which I had defined myself, was gone…

Over the next year and a half I sank deeper and deeper into despair. During this time I continued to try to gain control of life; since I still believed it was up to me to get myself healthy, it must have been my fault that I got sick. So I worked harder and harder and I meditated four or five hours every day and I worked out physically harder and I started taking vitamins and minerals and all kinds of things. All of this was surrounding a feeling of desperation.

And then at one point I just felt that there was no chance. I felt like giving up. I was in complete despair of gaining control over everything. In every way that I had defined myself I was finished. I had nowhere to turn and in every way I felt alone. It was in that state I first heard Nadeen.

I had gone down to Costa Rica for a rest; I had never heard of Satyam Nadeen and knew nothing about the place that he owned. He said something that I had heard before—but somehow I had never really heard it: He said, ‘Consciousness is all there is and you are that.’

And in that moment there was the realization that there was no Rick to fix anything, that there’s only one consciousness. There’s no-one outside consciousness to change consciousness. And in that same moment Rick disappeared. And in fact there was a realization that there was never any such thing as Rick. There’s only consciousness unfolding.

And there was complete peace and relief. That peace never left.

In this ‘story’ it seemed that the Rick character had had experiences before that in meditation, there was deep peace and unbelievable ecstasy, but those were always seen as an experience happening to Rick and they were always seen as something that if Rick worked harder he could go get and get back. This was different. This was much quieter, less spectacular. It was a simple disappearance of any belief in the reality of individuality.

It was not an experience happening to Rick, just a disappearance of anyone who could have an experience. I said that these ‘events’ have become less important to me. I used to start out my satsangs sort of introducing myself in that way—telling the story—but truthfully this is a story happening to a character in a play. Not really any particularly more or less interesting than any of the other stories of all the other characters. When the play is seen through, all the stories are equally interesting. There’s recognition that the story has never been that important. Who you really are transcends all stories. And it’s not about an entity in time—it’s outside of time. All the stories, all concepts of time and space, all are contained in who you are. So the story has become more and more vague. It’s more like a memory in the present that has sort of faded.

Are you awake?

Rick is not awake; Rick is a character in the play. There’s no character in the play that’s awake. The concept that a character can awaken is associated with a lot of suffering. The essence of awakening is the recognition of the absence of the character, the disappearance of the character. The realization that the character never was, that he or she never existed in the first place.

Pic Rob Vena

“Awakening is your birthright—that’s who you are.” ~Rick L.

Was it because you were sick and going through a very difficult time before?

In the story, there are lots of patterns that seem to be potentially associated with awakening. But they are completely unimportant. There’s no more importance to any one of those awakening stories than there is to somebody who learns to play football or has a drink in a bar. Awakening is your birthright—that’s who you are. The story goes on; the individuals who seem to awaken don’t get any benefit from it, because they’re gone! The belief that there ever was an individual is gone. It’s like winning the lottery and then not being able to be around to collect it.

The moment that it happened, did you notice any physical changes?

All kinds of things happened: sensations, feelings, thoughts—but there was no longer anyone experiencing them. I should add that many of the questions about the specifics of enlightenment or enlightenment experience come from the mind attempting to find a way to judge itself or to find for itself what you feel is missing. So listening to these enlightenment stories is in some ways a trap, because the mind will find a way to start comparing itself: Am I there? Am I not there? This could be awakening, but you know it’s not exactly like his or the other guy’s. And of course it’s a very clever way to continue the need for belief in this concept of an individual.

So when you first realized that you are no-one, did all the parts of the identity that you had before suddenly disappear or did it take a while? Did the habit of them keep repeating so that you would keep examining it and then they started to fall away?

Let’s go back to what I’ve mentioned about time and history, and then I’ll try to answer the question by talking about a history.

First thing: we’ve talked about this in these meetings in the past and I’ve said that we’re talking about All There Is. In talking about All There Is means there’s nothing outside of it and nothing that isn’t included in it. So within All There Is, and arising within All There Is, is this notion of time; it’s just a notion, a concept arising within this All There Is. It is timeless, it’s eternally present, it’s the eternal now, it’s the eternal unfolding in the present. So in this presence, this nowness, there’s a notion of time, but where’s history? How does history develop in this? How is individual history accounted for in All There Is, since there are no individuals, just oneness appearing as discrete individuals?

So in this eternal present, there’s this notion that there are individuals sitting in a so-called room. There’s also the concept of space; the idea of an expanse of space is arising in this All There Is. All There Is includes all that, so it has no size and it has no time; it’s timeless, it’s sizeless, but it appears to be a room. There’s the appearance of a room arising in this oneness and there appear to be individuals sitting in this room. And in this appearance there also appears to be something that is called the past and that something seems to include a history of the apparent individuals in this room, but all of this is being created, constantly created, in the most unbelievable and inexplicable way in this eternal now.

So, that being said, there still is this apparent history that can be spoken about, and so we’ll talk about the history of this Rick character. The Rick character had this precious belief, which, as I said, seems to be universally precious, that there was an individual named Rick who could accomplish things and who could work really hard and achieve anything he so desired if he worked hard enough at it. And it was a given, so when things didn’t go exactly the way he wanted them to, he would just work harder and make sure it happened. And there was a real belief that anything he wanted he could definitely accomplish if he worked hard enough and did whatever had to be done.

So when Rick got sick over ten years ago it was a great shock because one of the things that Rick was sure he could do was to live to 110 or as long as he wanted because he was never going to get sick, never have any illnesses, and that was the case up to age 52 or thereabouts. He gets this illness and it was indeed a shock and a disappointment. There comes with this illness a fear of death and a desire to make sure that this didn’t happen—a very strong desire—and of course Rick attacked this the same way he attacks everything else. I had to learn about cancer, about what makes it tick because I started to realize that there was nothing that conventional medicine had to offer me after the surgery; there was no way to prevent it coming back. The only thing they told me was to keep getting X-rays, which didn’t seem like prevention at all; it just was trying to detect it early enough to be able to treat it again. So I started looking and reading and studying, but all this time there was a fear of death and maybe an expectation that I was going to die. It was a terrible shock to my system that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be—I was supposed to be healthy—I was arrogantly healthy…

You thought you had control over your health?

Yes, control over my health and control over everything else of course. So added to this backdrop of intense working, I worked harder now than I did on anything ever in my life—and I’m used to hard work. My spiritual experience was in the Zen tradition, so I would go to these sesshins in a Zen temple and spend fourteen hours a day for seven days in walking and seated meditation and getting cracked on the back if I was falling asleep. What would you expect of a compulsive guy like me?

All of that was going on, so I was working a bit harder, and somewhere along the line was this conviction that if Rick became enlightened his cells would become enlightened and he wouldn’t die; the cancer was going to leave his body and would never come back. So that was when I started following gurus and going to India and traveling around.

After the diagnosis, about a year and a half into this quest, there was a process that felt like sinking into despair, like really maybe I couldn’t do this, because along with the desire to cure myself there was also an intense disgust about being imperfect. How could this have happened? What have I done wrong? There was self-blame and a lot of stuff going on. There was this kind of paradoxical series of thoughts and emotions going back and forth: trying to get better, trying to make sure my kids wouldn’t lose their father and my wife wouldn’t lose her husband, and on the other hand not wanting to live because I was disgusted with myself and angry.

I was almost like a Zen koan—an insoluble paradox—with these two mutually exclusive kinds of feelings and emotions. Then I went to a retreat given by my friend Satyam Nadeen in Costa Rica where he said, ‘Consciousness is all there is and you are that.’

I had heard it before and it wasn’t anything so outrageous, but now there was a total sense of there being nothing I could do. I was like a wet noodle, like a puddle. Every way in which I had defined myself was already gone. I defined myself as a physician but I wasn’t able to work, I was a husband and father and I was kind of drifting away from my family, I was an athlete and now I was unable to do anything physical. Any way that I had defined myself was gone. Successful no longer, at least not in the way that most people define success.

I had built up a structure, a history that described who I was. I used to talk as if I had a résumé and I was always working on my résumé, trying to add things to it, trophies—psychological trophies. All of a sudden this structure that I had built up with all these hard edges just turned into a puzzle—sorry, puddle, but it was a puzzle too. And this puddle was shapeless and formless; then I hear this: Consciousness is all there is and you are that.

There’s this recognition that, if consciousness is all there is, who is this Rick character trying to change everything? Who is he and what’s he working on? I mean, if consciousness is all there is, then there’s no-one separate from consciousness, it’s just consciousness, it’s just unfolding. In that instant there was a sense of great relief. It wasn’t like fireworks going off or ecstasy—just a deep relief. Like [exhales deeply] phew! And there was a great sense of freedom, because no longer was there anything to do.

At first it seemed like I didn’t have anything to do because that was the only language I had, but it became clear that not only didn’t I have anything to do, but there was no I to do it. There was no-one left, there was no I, there was no you, there was nothing to do, there was nothing separate; it was just consciousness, just oneness. It was just All There Is, just That, and the history disappeared too, because without the individual, what was this past like? What exactly was this story? It was just a story arising in the now, that’s what it is. What’s being discussed now is a story arising in the eternal present of this supposed individual who had a supposed history. That’s why, when I talk about before or after the shift, it’s just figurative, it’s just a story arising in the now.

Given that, it seems that there’s a history unfolding over time, so it seems that there’s a recognition, first that I didn’t have to do anything, and then there was no I to do it, and then there was no history. But there’s also recognition that, every time that some apparent insight occurred, it was always known. In fact there’s a recognition in this moment that there was no time before this now. This was always known, this is known in this room, this is known because this is what oneness is. There’s no individual in this room that doesn’t know this. If there’s a tingle of recognition it’s because that’s what is, that’s who you are. There’s no individual who doesn’t know this.

I can resonate with some of what you say; I can just tell from your story as I’m checking it back with my own situation—I see that I’m invested in that kind of ambition and pursuit of success. Not for its own sake, but because I feel incomplete, lacking or not good enough. Like if I am productive or achieve all the ambitions my life will work. It’s sad to say but utter failure is the big opening door. There’s nothing to put effort into because there’s no-one here actually doing it.

Yes. And the most fascinating side of that is that the apparent life doesn’t stop there. The apparent seeking of success goes on, but there’s nobody seeking it any more. There was a period of time when I was so disabled because of my illness that I wasn’t practicing medicine, but somehow it seemed to start happening again. I don’t know how that happened and there are lots of hours of work and there’s apparent effort. There’s an apparent somebody who cares deeply about his patients and yet there’s a knowing that there’s nobody and there are no patients—it’s just oneness expressing itself that way. There’s no questioning of it—that’s the difference—there’s no concern about it. If there is success it’s enjoyed and if there’s no apparent success in the way that most people define success, it’s also ok. There’s nobody doing it, there’s nobody who can change it and there’s nothing to change.

I have a very different question. I have been at satsang with Satyam Nadeen some years ago, but he is no longer giving satsang. Why?

I don’t know why exactly but I know he said it’s more and more difficult for him to say anything. As it seems that we get deeper into this mystery, as time appears to go on, there seems to be less to say. There’s kind of a recognition that, since everything is perfect the way it is, why bother? He’s living alone now in a house by a river and seems perfectly happy that way. I know for this character it’s become only responding. If somebody seems to pull me to do something in the story, that’s where I show up. In the Rick story, Rick seems to be moving more and more in the direction of just doing medicine as his job and may be less and less satsang. That may change—I have no idea.

Who is Nadeen?

Nadeen is a friend and a spiritual teacher . For those of you who don’t know him he was imprisoned for dealing ecstasy and woke up in prison and taught all around the world for several years. That’s what I tell people when they ask me what my lineage is—it’s a lineage of ex-convict drug dealers.

So dealing drugs leads to …

Obviously!

That why I say that there are so many different stories you just [throws up hands]… You may as well just give up!

Dr. Rick Linchitz graduated with honours from Cornell University Medical College and went on to found and manage an innovative multi-speciality Pain Alleviation Center. After two decades of hard work and achievement he became seriously ill; his career and his life fell apart. He chased cures, both physical and spiritual, and had nearly given up hope.

Then the words of Satyam Nadeen, “Consciousness is all there is”, sparked the realization that there was no Rick who had to fix everything and that brought with it a peace and relief that has never left him.

Rick still works as a doctor, focusing on wellness and integrating conventional and alternative medicine. He occasionally gives satsangs in the New York area and Germany.

Linchitz Medical Wellness

No You and No Me on Amazon

Non-Duality Press

*Special thanks to Catherine Noyce for compiling and editing.

*Photo © Baden-Baden Kur & Tourismus GmbH

We want you to grow a family. And in that family we want you to grow a community. In that community we want you to grow love, and in love we want you to grow.

• View more of Amanda Clark’s amazing artwork on her blog Earth Angels
• View more of Robin Craig Clark’s words of wisdom on his blog Wisdom of Life

Pic Emily Goodman

According to the founders, “the Science and Nonduality Conference was created to provide an arena where various aspects of nonduality can be explored, discussed, and experienced.  Part seminar, part festival, part conference, this event also explores science and combines meditation, philosophy, art, music, dance, and entheogens to point the way to nondual experience, to aid in integrating nonduality into daily life, and to deepen the understanding of a fundamental nondual reality.

The conference opens up these experiences for further exploration. It places each attendee face-to-face with each other and with individuals living from the life-spanning varieties of non-dual expression.

This gathering is also a celebration of the bottom-line truth of our existence: that in our distinct and individualistic arisings and turnings, we are truly not limited, bound, or separate.”

Who are the conference founders?

When Zaya and Maurizio met in 2008, it immediately became clear that they could make a lot of noise together in this illusory world! They discovered that the only book they had both been reading for the past several years was “I Am That” by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Almost immediately, they went to India together to shoot The Legacy of Nisargadatta Maharaj. The rest, as they say, is history…

Maurizio was brought up in Italy and went through many incarnations, always looking for answers under every stone. In 1986, he came to the USA on a 98 year-old sailing boat. He started working as an actor, model, and then filmmaker, but his thirst for knowledge was never satisfied, until he encountered I Am That in 2001 while shooting the documentary “Short Cut to Nirvana” in India.

Zaya hails from Bulgaria and has degrees in Engineering, Environmental Science, and also Film. For many years, she worked as an environmental activist in Holland and Bulgaria. She later produced and directed several award-winning documentaries in Europe and the United States. Her life long passion for science and mysticism finally came together with the emergence of the conference.

The team known as Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo are truly inseparable!

I sent over some interview questions and they proceeded to knock them out “tag-team” style. Let me explain: First Zaya answered [while M was driving!] and then they switched and Maurizio answered [while Z was behind the wheel]. They were read aloud once more and the finishing touches were added and sent. I thought that was adorable! Enjoy the interview.

Matthew: Congratulations on starting one of the most interesting conferences of the last decade! SAND is one of the few public events that make it possible for non-dual thought to emerge. It’s a great coming together of teachers, scientists, authors, musicians etc. I think such a “meeting of the minds” helps to facilitate in-depth discussion, fresh material and a genuine [in-person] way for folks to network in the community. 

What’s your take please?

Yes, this year the feeling of community was palpable. Walking in the hallways you could feel the invigorating energy that only a like-minded, creative, mature community can spark. The combination of scientists, teachers from all traditions, philosophers and artists created an explosive mix that is still reflected in the feedback we are still receiving. “The next Buddha is the community” became the mantra of the gathering this year.

What would you say sparked your first interest in the connection between Science and Nonduality?

Both of us have always been interested in science and mysticism and for us somehow they were never separate. When we first met we went to India to film a movie about Nisargadatta Maharaj and one of the translators told us that Nisargadatta used to say: “…this is a scientific knowledge. One day scientists will come to understand all this very easily. It is scientific…” A few months after we found ourselves organizing this event. But, this is just another story! We do what we do and that is what it is.

Do you believe it is necessary to convince scientists of the non-dual nature of reality and vice versa?

We don’t believe that it is necessary to convince anybody about anything. We see our work more as a reflection of what “is” rather then having a mission or a goal to meet. The beauty is that many scientists do know and touch through their work the essential nondual nature of reality but most likely will not use the language the nondual teachers will use to describe it.

Do you believe it is important to help “nondualists” pay more attention to scientific theory?

Science today can tell us quite accurately about the body mechanisms from which the mind and the ego emerge, so, in a way, it becomes easier to understand things mystics have said for centuries like: “the ego is an illusion”.

Today you no longer have to believe the mystics blindly as you can also study the mechanisms through which this illusion manifests.

For example, teachers from all traditions have said: “you are not the doer.” Now mainstream neuroscience proves, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the sense of “I” comes later, after our actions have been performed. And up to six seconds later!

It would be interesting to know, which events were typically drawing greater numbers of participants – sessions with the prominent scientists and or spiritual leaders?

We asked that question in the evaluation form this year and to our surprise we discovered that the community has an interest in both aspects of the conference and they enjoy the balance.

What might a match between nonduality and science look like or does there need to be a match?

There is no need for a match.

We simply offer different fingers pointing to the same moon. Science can help us understand [more deeply] the wisdom teachings and vice versa. There is no “absolute” truth out there. Neither science nor spirituality can give us “final, absolute” answers.

At SAND, we simply invite our audience to experience thing by themselves and take nothing for granted. There is no absolute truth out there… There is only what is and how you perceive it is your point of view of it, your personal truth.

I applaud you guys for inviting more exploration of entheogenic studies as there are a lot of misconceptions about their usage. They can be a portal or “opening” in Consciousness [albeit temporary] and or successfully used to treat some patients with responsible administering etc. What’s your view on this?

Entheogens are another portal, a large [for some] finger-pointing to the moon, it’s very potent and direct portal that many have had the opportunity to explore at some point in their path of discovery of what is. These “substances” allow us to perceive our reality in a slightly different way opening the space for questions and deep insights.

That is why we have created a partnership with MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). MAPS organize a session every year on entheogens as portals to non-dual awareness. Next year we will have even more sessions designed to inform and discuss this topic along with more dialogues about social justice and ecology.

It appears you are growing rapidly. Did you expect such a great turnout—so fast? Now in its third year, what are your future goals for the conference?

We didn’t expect such a fast growth. We thought this was a very niche, extravagant, subject in which not many will be interested—but clearly there is a deep longing and need for this conversation. Again, we don’t have “goals.” We believe the moment we create goals it is easy to get disconnected from what is in front of us needing to be expressed. What we do is listen to our community, encourage feedback and suggestions while, we share what touches and inspires us personally.

And more and more communities around the world are requesting to bring the conference on the road.

The event is also attracting folks from all over the world, what do you attribute that too? Flying halfway around the world for a single conference is an amazing testament!

Yes the audience is not local as we expected it to be at the beginning. This year we had people from twenty-one different countries and thirty-five states in the US. Evidentially “this understanding” spreads all over the globe regardless of boundaries and socioeconomics. It’s a movement trickling from every corner of the globe. The next Buddha is the community!

I’ve heard you might be taking the conference to Europe next year, is that true and what are your expectations for that locale. How do you think the European mindset differs on such material and speakers vs. the U.S.?

Yes, we will have the first SAND European conference in Holland May 31st-June 2^nd, 2012. Since both Zaya and I were born in Europe and choose to move to the USA to work it is quite tingling to get back in there with a project.

We have a local organization helping us with the logistics and they are giving us a lot of advice and our European SAND community is already quite large (due to social media channels and the many Europeans that came to SAND already). It’s going to be a lot of fun! We are exploring a new format and most likely we’ll have less speakers and longer sessions. The goal, as in California, will be to involve the audience and reduce the separation between speakers and audience. Again: “The next Buddha is the community”.

You’ve always put out a very attractive 3-DVD set for purchase. I’ve enjoyed the mini interviews and questions you ask some of the key speakers at each event. This is a great way to experience the depth of the speaker(s). Kudos on that! How did that come about?

We are both filmmakers and before we started the conference we were already creating media, film, DVD’s, etc. on topics related to the conference, so creating a DVD series was a natural evolution of what we do. But this project is also pointing at the evolution of the event; the interviews become a way to document the evolution of the conference.

The interviews are made primarily by Zaya together with our good friend Nick Day and the two of them are an awesome production team.

I noticed for this year’s event, you added a streaming video option for folks who could not attend and or perhaps in another country. Tell us about the ForaTV service.

All the sessions from the conference are available now on ForaTV. We were looking for a way to make the conference available to everyone who couldn’t afford to travel. They’re a great channel and allow many people to be with us without traveling half way across the globe.

But, [if we wish to be picky], the issue with ForaTV is that it is not free and it is becoming clear to us that this material, this knowledge, belong to the community and it should be available for free. Next year we will have a different arrangement and we have some great ideas about our internet presence that will be unveiled very soon!

I have to ask, it seems folks are buzzing about the commercialization of nonduality and or the “spiritual marketplace” as some call it. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Does anyone complain about people charging money to design, promote or sell solar panels or items that will reduce our carbon footprint? I don’t think so.

It is great to see professional people devoting their time and energy in creating “dreams” designed to make the world a better place instead of thinking about money as a motivator.

To us the only factor is where your motivations are. We don’t see what we do as a commercial product. It is a sincere labor of love which financially doesn’t make sense at all. We have no financial partners, foundations or universities behind us. As long as there is an inspiration and energy we probably will keep doing it.

Is there a way to promote responsibly?

Surely there is a way to promote responsibly and the line is drawn by your motivation! We do very little promotion because we don’t have the resources to do more and in any case we see our community growing more from word-of-mouth which is way better than advertising.

We can only do what we can and look at what happens next.

I read some of the feedback on your blog from the first event (that took place back in 2009). This a summary of what the participants requested:

• less speakers
• longer talks
• more integration between talks and experiential
• a science closer to our day-to-day experience
• and better coffee…

Were you able to meet the challenge and offer that in 2010 and how about 2011? At least for better coffee?  Haha!

Since the first year we have 30% less speakers, “only” one hundred and twenty or so.

We shortened the talks and the integration is slowly happening but it is not as complete as we would want it to be. We definitely got better coffee…we seem to have solved that issue at least!

There are so many little issues that are solved every year.

Don’t forget we are not conference organizers and volunteers mostly run the event. By-the-way, our volunteers need a huge thank you for their hard work and commitment! They are an amazing group of committed people.

I really appreciate being asked to moderate a panel this year on behalf of Non-Duality America. Although I could not attend, I am honored to be asked.  The fact that gatherings like this exists is such a blessing for all.

Thanks again for hosting such a fun + creative experience and for your service and dedication…very inspirational!

Is there anything you would like to add?

Matt, really, without you there will be no conference. It is people like you devoting their time to “this” that are creating the foundation for such an event to materialize. And it is people like your readers [yes, I am talking about you], that are making all this happen.

Thank you both for being who you are and for doing what you do.

“THE NEXT BUDDHA IS A COMMUNITY!”

Love, Maurizio & Zaya

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Since it seems that the general public is obsessed with lists these days, I thought it would be interesting to compile some “Top 3′s” or highlights from this years Science and Nonduality Conference (SAND). I sent out the short questionnaire to various folks in the spiritual community who either attended the event and or were a featured speaker.

Interestingly enough, some of the individuals couldn’t come up with three, and or decided to relay their “highlights” or observations in other ways—which is cool too. Thanks to all for sharing. N-Joy!

*all photos Emily Goodman

Kenny Johnson:

1. This years conference was so amazing, the love kept building, it never really waned. That blew me away. The LOVE.

2. The Premanator was an answer to my inner prayer. To be introduced with song. Took me back to the church. It was the choir that set the tone for the message, the pastor was going to deliver.

3. The highlight of course was to meet so many beautiful humans that came and supported the event, the gurus, scientists of walks of life, but at the end I was afforded the honor to introduce Gangaji the woman who came into prison and saved my life and other men’s lives. “I want to introduce, my sister, mother, friend, teacher, and everything, Gangaji.”

Mariana Caplan:

*I loved every minute of my time there!

1. Hanging out in the hallways on the floor playing with the baby meeting visionaries of the highest caliber while just chilling out

2. Seeing my friend Kenny [Johnson] rock the house.

3. Feeling Maurizio and Zaya‘s European pizzaz behind the often stoic and dryer nondual vibe!

James Waite:

1. A rare and delightful gathering in natural ease and enjoyment of Self.

2. As a first time presenter, I spoke to several ”experienced” presenters earlier about my deep disinclination to prepare and otherwise organize for my presentation. They all confirmed my inner feeling about this need to remain open and (largely) unscripted…to embrace the reality of not knowing, of living in uncertainty, and to speak or not speak from there. One said: “Just get up there and die!”…another said: “you never get used to it…so get used to it!”

3. SAND provided an opportunity for many of us to speak simply from truth to truth, from love, to love. And to laugh a lot!

Peter Baumann

Jerry Katz:

 *I can’t really select the top three talks or events as I tend to appreciate each one
for what it is, so here are some observations.

1. The seeing that the Conference is Community.

2. The great abundance of quality offerings including talks and experiential
opportunities.

3. Numerous unpredictable encounters that bring joy, insights, humor, harsh
reality, new information, friends, and opportunities to serve each other.

Bentinho Massaro:

1. Meeting Rupert Spira

2. Hanging out with Scott Kiloby

3. Giving my talks

Jeff Foster, Unmani, Scott Kiloby

Scott Kiloby:

1.  Meeting with the many attendees and presenters

2.  David Ellzey‘s unique way of presenting comedy and wisdom

3. Watching Maurizio and Zaya enjoy themselves a lot.

Unmani:

Even though it seems completely paradoxical and surreal to have a conference in the name of ‘non-duality’ (or in other words, absolutely nothing), my first experience of the Science and Nonduality Conference was wonderful. Such a mixture of unique flavors and expressions, spiritual teachers, spiritual seekers, scientists, authors, artists, musicians, bishops, rabbis, and so much more… all under one roof, with the intention to see beyond the usually assumed boundaries of separation. Wow! 

We are all explorers of reality, no matter what we call ourselves.

Peter Dziuban:

1.  Overall, just the underlying “atmosphere” of Oneness and love—despite the many different expressions and even sometimes, disagreement.

2.  One particular incident for me “personally,” but this is something I’m sure all speakers/presenters have had happen to them, too:

I was waiting outside one of the meeting rooms, a few minutes before I was going to give my Sat. talk.  A young rabbi named Olivier [Benhaim—ed] from Seattle walked up and introduced himself.  He said that at last year’s SAND, he received a free DVD with his registration kit (along with all the other free stuff they give you).  The DVD was a video interview I did with Chris Hebard a couple of years ago.

Olivier said he shows the DVD over and over to a group of friends and congregation members in Seattle who are interested in nonduality.  Olivier said, “I can’t tell you how much that has meant to us,” etc.  In the DVD there’s also an example of deconstructing an “apple” to show why there really is no such separate object apart from sensations/or “mind-stuff”—and thus, by extension, there really is no separate world, no separate others, no separate ANYTHING…and he said that really blew the lid off the whole illusion of separateness.

*Anyway, it’s very “satisfying” to hear that kind of feedback sometimes, and I’m sure all speakers have similar experiences.  It’s what seems to make all the “work” worthwhile.

David McConville:

1. The memetic mantra of “The Sangha is the Buddha”

2. Leslie Combs connection of the ecological and cosmological via Thomas Berry

3. The epiphanized expressions of delight in the GeoDome

Interview with founders Maurizio and Zaya coming soon on NDA!

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Steve’s book The Fall was published on the very same day as Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth back in October 2005.

As a result (and given the similarities of the books), Steve sent a copy of the book to Eckhart’s office. To his surprise, a few weeks later he received an e-mail from his assistant, saying that he thought The Fall was a wonderful book, and would like to help him promote it. Steve states, “I spoke to Eckhart on the phone a few days later, and he struck me as a gentle, funny and generous man.”

Eckhart gave Steve a great endorsement for the cover of The Fall, and arranged for him to be a part of a ‘spiritual documentary’ directed by Guy Ritchie (which unfortunately never appeared).

Steve has kept in contact with Eckhart sporadically ever since; most recently, he interviewed him for his latest book, Out of the Darkness. Enjoy the article…

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In a recent survey by Watkins Bookshop — the UK’s most famous spiritual bookstore — Eckhart Tolle was listed as the ‘most spiritually influential living person on the planet.’ You might think that this accolade would be given to someone who is a major presence in the media, and who appears regularly in public. However, Eckhart rarely gives interviews to the mainstream media and over the last few years, he hasn’t given very many talks. He isn’t a particularly prolific author either.

So how did he become so influential?

Eckhart’s Transformation

I was interested in interviewing Eckhart because he’s an example of a phenomenon which I have become more and more aware of in recent years — the power of turmoil and stress to bring about a shift into enlightenment.

As readers of The Power of Now will be aware, until the age of 29 Eckhart lived in a state of anxiety and depression. As he described it to me when I interviewed him for my book, ‘There was a sense of great fear of life: fear of the future, fear of the meaninglessness underneath it all, but not wanting to fully face that meaninglessness and find out what underlies it.’

There were some external factors in Eckhart’s depression. One was his parents’ unhappy marriage, and the continual conflict between them. He had also been unhappy at school, where he felt like an outsider: ‘I didn’t fit in. I remember my closest friend at school had a severe physical handicap. Most people didn’t want to have anything to do with him. I was an outsider for inner reasons, and he was an outsider for physical reasons.’

Another external factor was Eckhart’s lack of social roots. After his parents separated when he was 13, he moved countries twice, first to Spain then to England. In England, he found that he could boost his sense of identity through intellectual pursuits. He did a degree at the University of London, worked hard and got a first, and went on to do post-graduate studies at Cambridge. But this success didn’t bring him any contentment: ‘The more I pursued my intellectual search, the stronger the sense of despair became…In every ego satisfaction there is always fear that it’s not enough. The more you present a facade to the outside world of confidence, the greater the unconscious fear grows. That’s why people need to play roles.’

This growing despair culminated in the transformation described in The Power of Now, when, on the brink of killing himself, Eckhart’s ego dissolved away, leaving him in a state of pure peace. He experienced not a break down, but a ‘shift up’ into a state of enlightenment.

Although he wasn’t completely aware of it at the time, one of the major psychological changes he underwent was that his mind became quiet; the ego’s incessant ‘thought-chatter’ had stopped. As he told me: ‘There were long periods in my daily life where there was no thinking. I was no longer identified with thought processes. Those compulsive automatic processes had subsided, the noisy mind which I had identified with, which had covered up the deeper dimension within me.’

“A sudden awakening doesn’t mean a sudden understanding.” ~Eckart T.

Although he was very well read, Eckhart knew little about spiritual states or traditions, and so didn’t fully understand what had happened to him: ‘Being able to talk about it to others, to explain it to others, let alone help them — that came years later. A sudden awakening doesn’t mean a sudden understanding. I only knew I was at peace and I didn’t know why. But because I felt at peace, I felt very drawn to investigating spiritual teachings and schools and religions.’

It has now been more than 30 years since Eckhart’s transformation, and his  awakened state has never faded, although there are sometimes fluctuations in its intensity: ‘Sometimes the underlying peace is just in the background; at other times it becomes so all-encompassing that it almost obliterates sense perceptions and thoughts and what one would usually consider one’s life. Even when things in the foreground might seem turbulent, in the background there is some sense of stillness and peace.’

Other Transformations

Although its intensity is perhaps unusual, the transformation Eckhart experienced is not uncommon. For my latest book, Out of the Darkness, I spoke to 32 other people who went through a spiritual transformation after intense turmoil in their lives — people who were ill with cancer or ME,  who reached ‘rock bottom’ through alcoholism, became severely disabled, or suffered from severe depression or intense stress. Like Eckhart, they all reached a point where they thought they were completely lost and broken, where they felt they had no choice but to give up and surrender to their predicament. And at the moment something shifted inside them. Suddenly they felt a sense of lightness and freedom. The world seemed a different place, with a new sense of meaning, harmony and beauty. And although the initial intensity of experience faded, the shift remained. They felt re-born, with a new identity. Years later — even decades — they were still filled with inner peace.

All of the ‘shifters’ — as I call them — were ordinary people with normal jobs and conventional lifestyles, who knew little or nothing about spirituality. As a result, it took some of them a long time to understand what had happened. Like Eckhart, they spent years slowly gravitating to spiritual books and teachers, gradually building up a framework to understand their new state.

Eckhart’s Uniqueness

If the transformation Eckhart went through is not so uncommon, what is it that makes his teachings so influential and powerful?

On the surface of it, Eckhart’s books are not standard mind, body spirit fare. They’re not always consoling and positive — a large part of A New Earth, for example, is taken up with explaining what’s wrong with human beings, analysing the dark side of human nature and the dysfunctional workings of the ego. Eckhart’s books don’t tell us that we can get everything we want just by wishing in the right way, or that there are angels or extra-terrestrial entities looking after us. But this is also part of their power. They express a very pure and direct form of spirituality, uncluttered by unnecessary concepts. They get right down to the core, beneath all the distracting bright lights and colours.

His writing style helps with this too. Perhaps because his first language was German — a logical and concise language — his use of English is simple and direct. Every sentence is measured and stately, pared down to its essence.

Some spiritual teachers — Krishnamurti, for example — say that books can be a hindrance on the spiritual path. They fill the mind with unnecessary knowledge, inflate the ego with learning. And in any case, how can words convey the richness and fullness of spiritual experience? As the Zen saying goes, ‘The finger that points at the moon is not the moon.’ But this doesn’t seem to apply to Eckhart’s books. In some mysterious way, his words are the moon. He has the rare ability to transmit spirituality through the medium of words, so that it’s possible for the reader to gain a taste of enlightenment through reading his books.

“Occasionally it happens that people want to make you into something special. This is a pitfall for anyone who becomes a spiritual teacher.” ~Eckhart T.

Compared to many spiritual teachers, Eckhart is self-effacing. Some spiritual authors and teachers seem to crave attention and power. But perhaps because he became a spiritual teacher almost by accident — simply because people were drawn to his peaceful presence — Eckhart doesn’t need disciples. He seems quite happy to be no one. Although he knows that something profound happened to him, he doesn’t see himself as a special person. As he told me, ‘Occasionally it happens that people want to make you into something special. This is a pitfall for anyone who becomes a spiritual teacher. I always point that what I term presence comes through me, not from me, and that it’s also in them, otherwise they wouldn’t even notice it. It’s not my presence or your presence.’

In my view, this integrity lends a great deal of power and authenticity to Eckhart’s teachings.  

It’s also significant that Eckhart was an intellectual before his transformation. Intellect and spirituality are sometimes seen as opposites, but they need each other. Intellect without spirituality is cold and narrow, but spirituality without intellect is dangerous too, often leading to a mush of irrational wish fulfilment. The state of enlightenment, and the path that leads to it, is unknown territory for most of us. We need explorers to map that territory, guides to show us the way there, to point out difficulties along the way, show us the signs of progress and help us distinguish the false from the true. And because of his sharp intellect, Eckhart does this better than anyone. He’s really a ‘spiritual psychologist’, offering an acute analysis of the insanity of the human mind, identifying its causes and showing us how to transcend it.

And if, as my research for Out of the Darkness suggests, the kind of ‘suffering-induced transformation’ which Eckhart went through is becoming more common, over the next few years we’ll hopefully see other spiritual teachers emerge, with a similar power and integrity.

*Article orig. appeared in Kindred Spirit [UK].

Steve Taylor is an author and lecturer whose main interests are psychology and spirituality. He is the author of Waking From Sleep, The Fall and Making Time. His books have been published in 11 languages, including Dutch, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Polish, Spanish and French.

Steve is a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Metropolitan University and a researcher in transpersonal psychology at Liverpool John Moores University.

Out of the Darkness: From Turmoil to Transformation. Kindle version is available now in the U.S.

His website is www.stevenmtaylor.com

Pic Rob Vena

“A dog owns nothing, yet is seldom dissatisfied” ~ Irish Proverb

You awoke.

You were there, among the luminous beings. You did not know how you had arrived, or what language they were speaking, but you understood they meant no harm and they wished to sing you a story.

It was important.

Their words, somehow familiar, shimmered on the verge of meaning. And as their iridescent music enfolded you, you knew they longed for you to understand.

Then it was over, and you awoke, and you were back.

This is what you remember.

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Akara plays mystical dance floor symphonies. Channeled-language light-being vocals with a classical orchestra and hyperdimensional psychedelic production. Steve Reich meets Shpongle meets Indian classical music and dubstep. Filigreed and beautiful and immersive, there is nothing like Akara!

Akara is the brainchild of Joshua Penman, a conservatory-trained classical composer turned electronica producer. He was working on orchestra music and chamber music and opera, and meanwhile going to Burning Man and underground psy-trance parties. As Joshua’s success in the classical music world grew – his shamanic-journey orchestra piece “Songs the Plants Taught Us” has been performed by over fifteen orchestras – he began more and more to mix the psychedelic sounds he fell in love with at parties with the deep expressiveness and structure of the music of his training and upbringing.

Akara is the fruition of a twelve-year process of experimentation and development. Fed by an enormous number of musical streams – from the twelfth-century polyphony of Perotin to the hyper-current West Coast bass-music scene, Akara‘s influences include Shpongle, Claude Vivier, Indian classical music, The Glitch Mob, Steve Reich, Maurice Ravel, an-ten-nae, Beats Antique, Frou Frou, Irish traditional music, old-school jungle, Phillip Glass, Air, Tuvvan Throat Singing, Judd Greenstein, Logic Bomb, Bluetech, Orbital, Peruvian Icaros, and Amma Bhajans.

Akara features the otherworldly vocals of Femke Weidema, a highly trained musician and accomplished songwriter in her own right, leaving her country/pop/Latin roots to be reimagined and recreated as extradimensional psychedelic goddess…

For more info or to purchase/download their music:

www.akaraproject.com

www.facebook.com/the.akara.project

Review: Matthew K.

Are you sabotaging the love that is possible in your relationships? Have you ever wished you could unlock the love that is your true nature and express it fully?

Loving in the Moment offers a spiritual approach to transforming relationships by showing you how to let go of preconceived ideas and judgments. By moving beyond your ego and conditioning, you can create a richer, more loving life for yourself and those you care about. You have the power to determine how much love you experience in any given moment.

The main focus of Gina Lake’s writing and teaching is to help people be in the present moment and live the happy and fulfilled life that is possible. Gina accomplishes this by shedding light on the programming that interferes with awakening to one’s true nature.

This book focuses on relationships and is delivered in Gina’s loving, light/conversational writing style. And this is precisely what allows the material to be easily understood and lived. But don’t be fooled, it’s not only about relationships—her insights are applicable to all areas of your life.

In these crazy times, lots of folks are needing help, and so it’s beneficial for someone to break-it-down for us.

We know that every being in the world cannot possibly understand everything that the past sages or teachers such as Nisargadatta or Ramana Maharshi are saying in their quotes or writings. Perhaps you’ve never heard of more contemporary teachers/authors such as Byron Katie or even Eckhart Tolle (which her writing is often compared too). And that’s OK. Gina has the life experience and ability to make these concepts clear and easy to grasp for anyone struggling in their relationship or daily lives.

On a more personal note…

This book was sent to me at a very trying time as my mother had just suffered from a stroke and my family and I were just trying to cope as best as possible. I would read the lovely passages from the book each day after returning from a long, grueling day from the hospital and it was such a breath of fresh air!

Many months later, when my mother was able to return home, she noticed the striking “blue” book in my hands and inquired about it. I let her check it out. I figured she would read a little bit of it and just put it down. Well, she basically confiscated the book from me [temporarily] and read the book front-to-back and enjoyed it wholeheartedly!

The central message that she picked up on, was the fact that love is always available to us and that was very transformative for her. These words are genuine, heartfelt and easy to “get”…even for a recent stroke victim, who could barely read at the time. Now that says something!

Of course, being grounded in the present moment or aware of your inner-chatter/thought stream is not an easy task for most people. The unchecked “egoic mind” can certainly wreak havoc in our daily lives. The EGO is crafty!

You may be asking: “what to do now? or “where do I start?”

Don’t worry, as she offers up plenty of valuable advice on how to overcome these “obstacles” throughout the book.

 Loving in the Moment offers profound insights and practical advice about:

• How the ego interferes with love and happiness

• How to move beyond romantic illusions

• How to recognize, find, and sustain a meaningful relationship

• How to overcome anger, judgments, criticism, and resentment

• How to resolve common issues, such as infidelity, money, commitment & sexual differences

• How to see the Divine in another

At the end of the day, we humans are creatures of habit and many of us allow our [past] conditioning to run our [present] lives—usually on auto-pilot, and oblivious to the myriad of ways in which our habits gradually take over the wheel and steer us down the wrong path. Some of us need a gentle nudge in the right direction, others are so lost they are not even remotely close to the highway!

Gina offers both “drivers” and “passengers” alike—the insightful guidance and gentle encouragement you might need to change certain elements in your life. Learning about this is not always comfortable either…all relationships are either working or not working.

As the old saying goes: “it takes two to tango” but to find (true and lasting) love it takes knowing and loving oneself first. For most couples, it’s hard to keep the various types of judgment and blame out of relationship. A lot of people spend their hard-earned money on workshops, private coaching sessions, couples retreats, and or self-help books. We’ve all read those before.

Let it be known, however this is not such a book [meaning the type that you read once and then toss out shortly afterwards!]. Gina is pointing to our true essence which is what we are in the most basic sense and not something we cannot ultimately learn to be. We can only recognize it within ourselves by seeing through the egoic mind.

Whether you’re in a relationship or not…this is a book you will come back to again and again for inspiration.

If you appreciate practical advice and assistance with various obstacles, then I am happy to recommend this book. This book is such a gem!

Gina also has several other books you may be interested in checking out and a website/blog with book excerpts and lots of other material to sample.

*Click here to enjoy a complimentary chapter excerpt from Loving In the Moment.

Gina Lake is a spiritual teacher who is devoted to helping others awaken and live in the moment through her books, online courses, and intensives. She is the author of many books, including: Embracing the Now, Radical Happiness, Trusting Life, Return to Essence, What About Now?, Anatomy of Desire and Getting Free.

She is also a gifted intuitive with a master’s degree in counseling psychology and over twenty years experience supporting people in their spiritual growth.

Her website [Radical Happiness] offers information about her books, free e-books, book excerpts, a monthly newsletter, a blog, and audio and video recordings.

TOP QUOTES

“Although you are responsible for what you do with your conditioning, you aren’t responsible for the fact that it’s there. It’s just the programming you were given. Seeing this will help you detach from the conditioning and not act on it.”

“You can’t keep judgments from arising because they aren’t under your control or anyone else’s, but you can decide to do nothing about a judgment.”

“It is our nature to love, to be gentle, to be kind. When all thoughts drop away or aren’t given attention, love is our natural response to life. The only thing that ever interferes with love is a thought, usually a judgment or fear. These are the enemies of true love.”

She stops the songs and says…

NINA: “You know that? OK, as a robot get’s itself together and we do it, and we get to the middle, where we have forgotten our feelings of love — you will help me huh?”

[enter silence here...]

You will always stay here in my heart

“no matter what the words may say, no matter what the day, no matter what they compose or do, no matter what the drugs may do or songs may do or what people may do or machines will do to you…I will always have my feelings, nothing can destroy that, cause I know that that is all that that is…”!!

• Is this simply singing?
• Is she giving the audience a taste of her unique capacity to feel?
• How about you – Have You Lost Your Capacity to Feel?

*Thanks to filmmaker Roger Ingraham for the inspiration

Pic: Rob Vena©

“The contemplation of nonorigination means that things have no nature of their own; they are born of mutual interdependence, so their origination is not really existent. This means they are empty, and there is not so much as the tip of a hair in emptiness.” ~ Tu Shun, “Cessation and Contemplation in the Five Teachings of the Hua-yen” (translated by Thomas Cleary)

Many years ago, when I was in music school, one of my music theory professors related a story involving a student he met in the hallway who was carrying an armful of papers.

The professor asked the student, “What are you carrying with you?”

The student immediately answered, “Music.”

The professor was quick to correct him.  “No, what you are carrying are music manuscripts—these are just instructions for playing music.  Music itself is an event, an experience between the performer and the listener.”

This same teacher also reiterated that what mattered most in musical analysis was not the notes themselves, but the intervals between the notes—it was the relationship between the notes that ultimately mattered.

“In this matrix of interdependence, there is no one center of causation; it may be said with equal truth that cause is everywhere and constant, for everything is a cause for everything else.” ~ Francis H. Cook (Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra)

Think of a passage in music (in any genre) that you particularly enjoy and find memorable—perhaps there is a moment you find catchy, or deeply moving.  As striking as such musical moments may be, you cannot isolate them from the rest of the music.  The other parts of the music that lead up to that passage (and follow it) are precisely what gives it such power.  Imagine listening to just your favourite passage, and then looping it over and over again—it would quickly lose its charm!

Why is this? 

Such wonderful musical moments actually require other moments that do not possess, for the listener, the same quality of intensity.  Those memorable passages depend on other passages—the overall structure—in order to become so moving to the listener.  A climactic moment in a piece of music is empty of any inherent power.  This is one example of emptiness (sunyata) revealed as the music unfolds.

“Emptiness does not at all rob existence of its vitality and color, rather, the full, round, solid form of the object and its vigorous life of activity are in reality precisely its emptiness. Its concreteness, discreteness, and true individuality are indeed realities of the most vivid kind, and it is only the manner in which this object exists that is an issue, not these qualities.” ~ Francis H. Cook (Hua-Yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra)

In addition, there are the musical instruments, the voices and perhaps words that all depend on one another in order to create the unique sound world.  Each element lacks an inherent identity.  Music is the result of the dynamic relationships between these musical elements. Certainly, we can speak of rhythm, melody, harmony and tonal colour and examine these elements individually in analysis, but in abstracting this from the whole, we lose the integral experience of the music itself.

-

• Special thanks to Josh for allowing us to feature his post for our GUEST BLOGGER spotlight.

• Also to visual artist Robert A. Vena for the great photo.

Joshua Sellers (aka’ “Josh”) is a composer and producer.

He has a blog called Riverflow, which is a journal of his personal travels in Buddhism (mostly from a Soto Zen perspective).  Josh is also a musician, and has an interesting music blog, which focuses on meditative Ambient music called Earscapes

Both blogs tie into different aspects of nonduality.

A path implies the connecting of one point with another.

It is an experiential process to be traversed, not a philosophy to be learned or accepted. It involves the personal transformation of the person on the particular path. A spiritual path is one which can potentially lead to the realization and actualization of our true nature.

To realize true nature means to have experience of it, and to be able to discriminate between that and our ordinary states. To actualize true nature means to achieve a level of integration that permits the embodiment of that deeper dimension of our being.

Pic S.Ricketts

Q: Don’t all paths lead to the same goal?

Not exactly.

Reality is one, but has many facets and aspects. If we explore the various spiritual paths, we will find that they each make one aspect of reality central to their aspirations. Some lead to a relationship with the divine, others to union with it. Some recognize the personal dimensions of existence, others consider them illusory. Some think there is a Self; others aim at No Self.

*The answers to these questions are from the Ridhwan School. The school is oriented around the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization as developed by A. Hameed Ali [aka' A.H. Almaas]. The approach utilizes a method of open-ended inquiry into one’s immediate experience as a means of liberating the soul from the conditioned patterns of the past and the fixed ideas and beliefs about one’s identity and the nature of reality.

Joan Tollifson, Jeff foster, Chuck Hillig and Scott Kiloby enjoy lunch together.

The Science and Nonduality Conference (San Rafael, California) is taking place this week.

This is a very unique gathering. Where else and you going to find more than 70 spiritual thinkers, philosophers, artists, teachers and psychologists in one locale to explore the concept [and paradox] of time? Nowhere that I know of —esp. from the perspectives of modern science, ancient traditions, philosophy, phenomenology, psychology and, of course, direct experience!

The conference, now in its third year, is well underway and features presentations of world-renowned quantum physicists, scientists, lecturers and authors like Jeff Foster, Stanislav Grof, John Hagelin, Menas Kafatos, Lynne McTaggart, David Peat, Dean Radin, Scott Kiloby, Rupert Spira, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Chuck Hillig, Joan Tollifson, Fred Alan Wolf and many more.

Stay tuned for more pic’s and event coverage.

www.scienceandnonduality.com

FOUR INSPIRING EVENTS

1. A Dialogue with Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass
2. Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer in Conversation
3. Kim Eng Presence through Movement Retreat
4. A Hawaiian Retreat with Eckhart Tolle

A Dialog with Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass

Nearly 30 years before the publication of Eckhart Tolle’s bestseller The Power of Now, the legendary Ram Dass captivated readers with his landmark book Remember, Be Here Now—a monumental work that quickly became “the instruction manual of choice for generations of spiritual seekers.” Now for the first time, these two master teachers will engage in an open conversation about spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer in Conversation

Bestselling authors Eckhart Tolle and Wayne Dyer have touched tens of millions of lives across the globe through their inspirational writing and life-changing public events. Now for the first time, these two master teachers will engage in an open dialogue about spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness.

Kim Eng Presence through Movement

Our bodies are more than just a physical form; they can also be a portal into a new way of being in the world. Join Kim Eng in Maui, Hawaii, for a weekend presence through movement retreat to help you learn how to access inner stillness and sustain it in everyday life as you experience the joy that comes through an unconditioned dimension of consciousness. Kim uses pointing-out instructions, meditation, and movement to access the formless, the state of consciousness that is presence.

Hawaiian Retreat with Eckhart Tolle

At Non-Duality America we’re very passionate about creating “sound” as well as helping people share their sounds. Check out this unique video [from the fine folks over @ Soundcloud] about sound and hear from a few sound experts and friends of the Cloud.

So why is sound so important to all of our lives?

In this article, I set out to address a nondual audience regarding psychotherapy. My specific aim is to challenge the position that the whole of therapy can be replaced by a nondual approach. While nonduality holds the key to overcoming endless cycles of emotional pain, the notion that there is only one way to address diverse emotional issues and circumstances, can create a limited, fundamentalist lens. Instead, nonduality and psychotherapy can complement each other. Why this is not contradictory is another area of this article’s focus.

People go to nondual teachers to see through the myth of a separate self and all duality, and usually with the hope of alleviating their deepest distress. Nonduality provides the insight to uncover the root of emotional affliction, the whole painful human misunderstanding, and then the opportunity to overturn it.

Comparatively, psychotherapy often misses the primary recognition of selflessness. However, therapy offers effective methods for assessing and responding to a diverse range of emotional difficulties that also need to be considered. This is especially true in early into middle stages of therapy.

To recognize only one method as useful or correct, can be a significant liability.

A nondual approach can potentially overlook important individual difficulties and practical solutions. On the other hand, psychotherapy can attend to branches of issues without end. Each needs to consider the other, even though the function, the job of each, need not be the same.

The different emphasis between nonduality and psychotherapy has its place. Nonduality tends to highlight unity and sameness, while therapy often addresses diverse individual situations. However, nonduality is not at odds with diversity, just as the trunk of a tree is not inherently separate from or at odds with its branches or blossoms.

Pic E.Ludes

While there are valid criticisms of therapy from a nondual standpoint, there is a lot to respect within this well investigated, practical field of study. To reduce psychotherapy to a misguidance, to a belief that it is an expendable field of practice merely catering to illusion, can do a great disservice. “Nondual diversity” recognizes any knowledge as relative and relational, not absolute, and therefore also values practically.

I have heard the nondual critique that therapists view their clients as needing therapy because they see them as “broken.” If this statement means that there is no separate self to be broken, I see the point. It is the key point, but does not cover the full range of considerations. Despite the absence of an independent self, there are experiences of distress that need to be assessed and responded to. Symptoms matter, not only for the person that they appear to, but for families as well. Would we say that medical doctors are unnecessary because there is no separate physical body?

If someone is depressed, it is not always the best initial response to emphasize that there is truly no one to be depressed. There are various effective methods, some with a greater nondual emphasis and some less, depending upon the individual situation. Addressing emotional affliction is not a “one size fits all” proposition. If a person is exhibiting self-destructive behavior, one may not want to bring up selflessness right away. If someone is experiencing obsessive thinking or compulsive behavior, there are effective therapeutic strategies to consider. In my opinion, nonduality would do well to include assessment and referrals as a part of its practice.

Regarding the alternative interpretation that therapists see their clients as “broken” in the traditional sense:

I do not see this to be true.

Overall, psychotherapy does not view emotional difficulties as reflecting something true about the client, but as the result of false views. In one of the most commonly used approaches these days, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, ongoing emotional pain is seen to be the result of distorted thinking or beliefs that stem from events and conditioning. These distortions contribute to behaviors that in turn reinforce the distorted beliefs.

One example of a cognitive distortion is called “all or nothing thinking.” This describes the false view that people and things either need to be perfect or they’re mud! This distortion is characterized by absolutism and a belief in objective rather than relative truth. It contributes to the belief that thought equals an objective reality.

“Labeling” is another cognitive distortion. In this distortion, a quality or characteristic, such as “inferior” is looked upon as an essential truth about oneself or other people. Labeling “concretizes” and creates the impression that characteristics are embedded into things, that people and other phenomena possess solid, fundamental qualities. Labeling (and many other distortions such as “personalizing”) reinforces the belief in a separate self and other phenomena on a daily basis. Exposing labeling, also uncovers the way that language constructs one’s sense of reality, and then helps to deconstruct it. Challenging distortions can lead to increased freedom in everyday life and both deepen and broaden nondual understanding.

In 1999, the 14th Dalai Lama lent his support to the practice of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and said, “If we can reorient our thoughts and emotions and reorder our behavior, not only can we learn to cope with suffering more easily, but we can prevent a great deal of it from starting in the first place.” He referred to cognitive psychotherapy as analytic meditation and stressed the importance of education about this method.

Recently, I have also heard the assumption that therapists see themselves as truly different from and better than their clients. Such a belief would be viewed by therapists as nothing short of grandiose. Compassion, empathy and non-judgment are emphasized at every turn. While nonduality goes further still, in recognizing selflessness, the focus of Humanistic Psychology on therapist-client mutuality and inclusion, has had impressive and inescapable influence throughout the field of modern psychology.

For instance, if a client is idealizing the therapist, this is identified in therapy as an unhealthy, distorted view to be explored and worked through. And if a therapist observes him or herself enjoying this kind of attention, this is seen as a significant issue to reflect upon and resolve. It is never acceptable for a therapist to see oneself as a guru. Introspection is an important practice for us all. Additionally, if a therapist engages in an inappropriate relationship with a client, not only is the license to practice revoked, but depending upon the offense, legal action can be taken.

The overall therapy process is a collaborative endeavor.

• Where is the person coming from?
• What are their expressed needs, short and long-term, generally and specifically?
• Where is there an opening and what would be an effective method to help move through the “stuckness”?

Where the client is at, guides the therapy. Methods and goals are part of the dynamic discussion between client and therapist, at the outset and throughout therapy.

Another nondual critique of therapy relates to “the story of me.” Although nondual strategies critically expose the illusion of the separate, personal story, dismissing stories may not always be the best first approach for everyone. Sometimes people’s stories first need to be aired and made sense of. This is where we can learn from Psychodynamic Therapy. Deconstructing the story directly, can feel powerful and relevant.

For some, attempting to connect-the-dots that run from childhood to current emotional difficulties, can offer a lot of insight and subsequent relief that the story is not ultimately personal. Blame can be replaced with understanding. For stories are a vast web of interrelations. Psychologically, it is helpful to see that one’s difficulties are not intrinsically “who I am,” and ironically, investigating stories can refute the belief that an independent self can even be found in the story! When such nondual realizations are specific, they can be very powerful.

The phenomenon of memory as the great illusionist, presenting the false appearance of the independent continuity of “my life,” can also be uncovered while exploring the story. People easily get stuck in the sense of a separate self unless the myth of inherently existent memory is seen through. This is another example of how deconstructing the ingredients that have constructed the belief in an essential self can be a potent nondual method.

Genuine insight can lead to a liberation from what seemed so real, so concrete and heavy. One can be the magician who sees through the trick of the false appearance of the story of self-hood. Then one can move away from the story, not as an act of blind will, but as the result of not being fooled anymore. Allowing what arises to be, without the overlay of the story of the separate me is a whole different way of living.

The point is that simply bypassing stories from the outset can for some, prolong suffering and impair the readiness to remove the false appearance of a fundamentally separate self altogether. For what one is blind to, can persist in its influence behind the scenes and in subtle ways. Emotions can be tricky and if denied, easily manifest as hidden assumptions about oneself and life. This can keep people in the dark and therefore diminish the opportunity for deep nondual understanding.

“A person seeking help (as the result of long-standing anxiety or depression), may be looking for the magic bullet of nonduality.” —Susan K.

A person seeking help as the result of long-standing anxiety or depression, may be looking for the magic bullet of nonduality. However, symptoms and strategies need to be assessed. The lack of attention to bothersome thoughts, feelings and behaviors can compound difficulties and result in a poor outcome. There are many specific and effective therapeutic interventions that can spare people a lot of pain and are worthy of consideration.

Medical considerations too, cannot be overlooked. Serious physical conditions can mimic emotional symptoms, and to neglect these possibilities can be life threatening. I once saw a client who had what she called panic attacks. She had previously been told by a nondual guide to simply observe these attacks, sit with them, and watch them come and go. There was no further assessment. Its cause turned out to be the result of a serious cardiac arrhythmia.

One last example of a questionable nondual critique of therapy, is the need for the role of the therapist to be eliminated because there is no true separation between the client and therapist. Should the role of the teacher, firefighter or parent be eliminated because everything is nondual? When nonduality excludes diversity it loses relevance and practicality. Although no fixed separation can be found between anyone or anything, does not mean that the functioning of relatively existent phenomena is strictly illusory. What needs emphasizing, is that nothing functions independently, dualistically, as its own thing. We still can and do value functioning and practicality.

It does not follow that functioning roles inevitably prop up the sense of an independent self, although we need to be careful about that. Everyone has different roles in life, relatively speaking. Actually, no one is identical to anyone else, just as no leaf is identical to any other. We are all like leaves on a tree. Although we are not identical, we are not inherently different people either. Recognizing the diverse interconnection between everyone and everything supplies the wisdom of compassion.

There is not one mountaintop view to find absolute truth, including a “view from nowhere.” To refer to a phrase from the Heart Sutra, “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form,” emptiness is not seen as a substance, substratum, essence, absolute nature, or vantage point. Form is not made of emptiness! Emptiness is the absence of inherent existence and the realization of interconnected and relative existence, so that nothing is seen to be its own entity.

Emptiness therefore, is not a place or truth to land in. In nondual interrelationship, we cannot point to one place or notion without considering its relationship to all places and notions. This is why the inclusion of diversity brings nonduality to everything and everything to nonduality.

Addressing emotional affliction is a tall order. Life’s interrelated diversity requires various approaches. Nonduality and psychotherapy can work together and learn from each other. Nonduality is not separate from the world, it is the world. To recognize that there are many considerations in addressing the diverse web of life, including the mind-body, is humility. No one stops learning. Learning only appears to stop when someone constructs the belief that there is but one fundamental truth and approach to realize.

That however, would be “playing God,” a story to be deconstructed.

-

Susan Kahn, nondual therapist, licensed clinical therapist.

My work as a licensed therapist, is carefully woven together with nondual emptiness teachings. The aim of emptiness teachings is to alleviate suffering and do so in a way that identifies and addresses its root cause, without finding it desirable or even possible to withdraw from relative individual or worldly considerations.

www.emptinessteachings.com

Pic by Shlomi Nissim

The trick is to trust yourself

not to try to trap your prey

or seduce your lover

If you feel frustrated

the animal will scent your anxiety

and veer away

your lover will sense your desperation

and spurn you

Your soul is delicate

you can’t shake and squeeze her

or scrape her sides

for a few last crumbs of insight

She needs time to collect herself

to gather her dissipated power

Too much force will break the mould

of invisible patterns and potentials

which give birth to beauty

She may seem barren now

but she’s not dead, only sleeping

New life is slowly seeping through

from that deep underground source

making her moist and rich again

until she’s ready to release

strange new joys

-

Your soul has never you let you down

and never will

as long as you are patient

as long as you are still

-

www.stevenmtaylor.com

www.shlominissim.com

Filed under: Poetical Writings Tagged: New life, Steve Taylor, The Trick, The Trick - Steve Taylor, Your soul ]]> http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/the-trick-steve-taylor/feed/ 0 nondualityamercia Animal - Pic by Shlomi Nissim http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/john-astin-lighting-up-the-world-video/ http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/john-astin-lighting-up-the-world-video/#comments Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:08:28 +0000 Nonduality America Blog http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/?p=3067 ]]>

John is an internationally known singer, songwriter and recording artist. Following his early years in which he was a student of classical guitar, in 1987 he released his first major studio recording, “Into the Light.” He has produced seven other recordings of original contemplative music including his most recent title, “What We’ve Always Been”.

http://www.integrativearts.com/

Out Beyond Ideas

Whether it is his poetry and writing, his research, or his music, John’s life and work is rooted in the recognition that who we are is not merely the ever-changing pattern of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that appears and then disappears every moment, but the ground of consciousness or awareness that is awake to and inseparable from it all.

*Thank you for your service and creativity John — folks like you make the world a better place! – MK

Filed under: Random Viewpoints Tagged: apple, apple computer, steve jobs, steve jobs1955-2011 ]]> http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs-r-i-p/feed/ 4 nondualityamercia steve jobs http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/undivided-perspectives-on-emerging-spirituality/ http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/undivided-perspectives-on-emerging-spirituality/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:18:09 +0000 Nonduality America Blog http://nondualityamerica.wordpress.com/?p=3023 ]]> We thought this event [daylong workshop/retreat] hosted by East Bay Open Circle was something many of our readers might be interested in. We get excited when we see different communities and perspectives being integrated such as at this event as there is no one definitive path.

If you are in the Berkeley (California) area and are able to attend, this event will take place on October 8 from 11am to 5 pm.

Exploration will be through dialogue, talks and meditation (and perhaps a little music)…the topic of an emerging spiritual paradigm for modern times. Topics will include:

• a cross-traditional exploration of the nature of awakening
• the true meaning of non-dual and integrative practices
•  the role of practice and meditation and
• how to live fully engaged with our busy and troubled world

Please join us and show your support as we continue to co-create an emerging spiritual paradigm for modern times [grounded in direct experience], rather than belief systems, and the collective shared wisdom traditions of the world.

For more details visit: East Bay Open Circle

*Click here to download a .pdf flyer for the event

For the latest Aural Audio category post we have a rather candid and down-to-earth talk with Jeff Foster and Scott Kiloby, two of the freshest and most accessible voices in modern nonduality teachings!

(pic Emily Goodman)

Jeff and Scott reconvene in their ongoing dialogue about freedom. They don’t purport to be experts as there is no ultimate authority. But they are experts in their own experience, like everyone else!

In this discussion, they speak about their experience, running the full gamut between notions of Absolute and Relative and all things in between.

N-Joy!

*Click Here to Listen or Download the Audio

You can also right-click and Save As to download or import into your preferred player

This pair held a great 5 hour workshop recently @ the Science and Nonduality Conference entitled:

Before the “I” thought (time and feelings)

The workshop was about the relationship between our embodied human experience (sensations, feelings, emotions) and time itself.

What makes YOU happy?

Please enjoy an excerpt from Jeff Foster’s new book (which will be published in 2012) -  MK

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home, wherever I find myself.”

~ Maya Angelou

The search for home goes so very, very deep in the human psyche. Throughout all human history it has expressed itself in every single facet of our lives – in our art, our music, our science, our mathematics, our literature, our philosophy, in our quest for love, in our spirituality.

Male and female seek each other, try to complete themselves through sexual union. We seek our ‘soul mates’, search for our ‘other halves’ who will complete us. In our cosmic homesickness we seek union with God, with Spirit, with Nature, with the guru. We buy houses together and magically transform them into homes, and after a long, exhausting day at kindergarten, or at the office, we just want to go home, back to mother, back to our loved ones, back to sleep, back to the cosmic womb. We populate landmasses, create countries, and call them our homeland, our motherland, our fatherland. We fight and die to protect our homeland – the land that we love, the land our ancestors were born in and died in. We wander in the wilderness for a thousand years and long for the promised land, for our heaven on earth, for our Jerusalem.

Characters in novels, in plays, in movies, journey far away from home, discover who they really are and return home, somehow changed, somehow the same. We love our movies, our television shows, to end with a tearful homecoming, a tearful reunion, and the story of the one who never came home haunts us like anything. In The Wizard of Oz, perhaps our most beloved movie of all time, a young girl leaves her colourless home, goes on an incredible journey, meets various facets of herself, and returns to the same place – but now she sees what’s really there. In many Disney musicals, often the main character, feeling like an outcast in their own home, will sing a song about their longing for adventure, for love. Something calls them away from home, but in the end, they return home, or they find a new home, their true home, their true place in the world. It has been suggested that on the most basic level every story, every myth, shares this common structure – ending with the hero’s return. As children, we are homesick when we are away from home for too long, away from the ones we love.

Pic by Bill Hale

In music, notes and chords go on a similar journey, moving away from home, creating tension for the listener, but finally they resolve themselves, and we feel like the song moved us in some way – took us on a journey away from the ordinary, and returned us to where we were, somehow changed, touched, transformed. In art, the interplay of foreground and background, light and shade, positive and negative space creates tension, drama. Our longing for resolution makes the artwork compelling. Perhaps it is the same longing that has driven mathematicians, philosophers, physicists, for all of human history, to seek some kind of grand, unified, all-encompassing theory of reality, to find wholeness in the chaos, to find love in the midst of devastation.

The spiritual seeker leaves home in search of enlightenment, and returns home again, only to discover that the enlightenment he sought was there from the beginning. When people die we say they have ‘gone home’, or found a new home where they can rest eternally. We are told that even the universe is expanding and contracting – somehow seeking equilibrium, seeking home. Yin and yang, light and dark, creation and destruction, tension and resolution, contraction and release – this is the heartbeat of the cosmos, the heartbeat of all art, music, literature, spirituality, the beat of our very own hearts, which must come to rest eventually. All things long to come to rest. It is no wonder that at its root the word ‘home’ means ‘rest’ or ‘lie down’. Home is not a place, a thing, or a person – it is rest.

• Jeff Foster will be speaking at the Science and Nonduality Conference 2011 (October 19-23, Embassy Suites and Marin Center, San Rafael, California).
• He will be holding a pre-conference workshop on Wednesday October 19^th 2-6pm.
• And on Monday October 24^th  10am-4.30pm he will be holding a joint workshop with his dear friend Scott Kiloby entitled “Feelings and Time”.

More information here: www.scienceandnonduality.com

• On 31^st October – 5^th November 2011 Jeff will be holding his first retreat in the USA!

FREEDOM IN EVERY EXPERIENCE

A 5-day Retreat with Jeff Foster

Petaluma, California, USA

What goes to the root of all my suffering and seeking?

Why do I continue to search for love, happiness, freedom and enlightenment?

Why does nothing ever seem to be enough for me?

What is the meaning and purpose of my life?

Who am I, beyond the image of myself?

What is the true meaning of ‘Acceptance’?

What is spiritual awakening? What is ‘nonduality’?

Is it possible to become awakened? Who awakens?

“On the retreat we will explore these questions, in dialogue and in stillness. Meeting together as friends, we will deeply explore the nature of our present moment experience, and discover the freedom and intimacy inherent there, no matter what is happening…” ~ Jeff

Discover who you really are, beyond your thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Explore the origins of addiction, conflict in relationships and physical suffering.

Find out the true meaning of peace, freedom and enlightenment.

Recognize what meditation and healing really are.

Discover the Home you never left.

-

31^st October – 5^th November

@ the beautiful Earthrise Retreat Center at IONS, Petaluma, California.

(45 minutes north of San Francisco)

Now booking. Prices from $645.

-

For more information please visit:
http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/retreat-jeff-foster-2011.shtml

Jeff’s website is: www.lifewithoutacentre.com

*Special thanks to photographer Bill Hale for the childrens pic from Hawaii.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbybillhale/sets/

Ah, my annual holiday walk along the Horseshoe at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, (South Carolina). The Horseshoe is the heart of the campus, with its lush lawn and brick-path promenade that showcase nearly a dozen 19th century buildings and a multitude of towering trees, including Southern magnolias and majestic live oaks. As always at this time of the year, there are less than a handful of people about.

My secret place is in one of the five gardens that are located to the rear of one of the buildings. Within the garden’s firebrick walls, there is a snug greenhouse with its opalescent exterior; dormant rose bushes and vines; cropped crape myrtles flaunting their smooth, cinnamon trunks; and (slightly to the rear of the space) a circular, softly pruned rosemary bush that I’ve claimed as my own. I dip my hands into the sticky leaves and gently rub their evergreen fragility between my fingers. Several seconds are all that is needed before my hands are pungent with the herb’s heady aroma.

I sit on a bench in front of the gun-metal, three-dish fountain (its steady murmurs formed by a thin stream of water). Again and again, I bring my cupped hands to my face and relish the camphoraceous scent. Through the years, it has always been a delight to come here and savor the quietness. But this year, having finally become clear on who and what I truly am (awareness itself!), I discover that there is even a space within the quietness, a space that is—at once—subtle, beginingless, and profound.

 
I then do something that I don’t often do: I simply sit with the presence of Beingness. Anyone entering the area would intriguingly (or annoyingly) think I was meditating or praying. But no, all seeking has stopped; and if I were praying, it would be for thanks, not supplication. There is just the simple sitting with the wafts of rosemary and the soft gurgles of water.

Or as Dōgen Zenji wrote:

Awakened, the one great truth:
Black rain on the temple roof.

Rodney Stevens: After decades of exploring many spiritual paths, Rodney came upon John Wheeler’s classic, AWAKENING TO THE NATURAL STATE. In the spring of 2007 (after some brief email exchanges with John) Rodney recognized his own radiant and ever-present clarity.

He lives in Columbia, South Carolina, and enjoys conversing with those who are vitally interested in self-knowledge.

Check out: A Vastness All Around: Awakening to Your Natural State
http://radianceofbeing.blogspot.com

“Should I focus your attention on the beautiful flowers in the garden in front of the house, or the new painting I recently completed on the porch?

I wonder if this is the way perception works….”

~Kim Schrag

http://unbound-art.blogspot.com/

http://www.unboundart.com

Dear Friend,

Detailed below are Rupert’s meetings in the U.S. from August to December 2011.

Please click on the DETAIL link(s) for more info:

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26th August 2011 – Evening Meeting in Ahwatukee, Phoenix, AZ. DETAILS

27th & 28th August 2011 - Weekend in Ahwatukee, Phoenix, AZ. DETAILS

6th September 2011 – Evening Meeting at Bodhi Tree Bookstore, Los Angeles, CA. DETAILS

8th September 2011 – Evening Meeting in Sebastopol, CA. DETAILS

9th September 2011 – Evening Meeting (Keynote Speaker) at Nondual Wisdom & Psychotherapy Conference, San Francisco, CA. DETAILS

10th September 2011 – Non-Dual Wisdom Conference at East Bay Open Circle, Berkeley, CA. DETAILS

11th September 2011 – One Day Meeting in Sebastopol, CA. DETAILS

14th October 2011 – Evening Meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland, MD. DETAILS

15th & 16th October 2011 – Weekend in Ijamsville, Maryland, MD. DETAILS

17th October 2011 – Evening Meeting in Charlottesville, VA. DETAILS

20th October 2011 – SAND Pre-conference Workshop, SAND, San Rafael, CA. DETAILS

20th – 23rd October 2011 – Science & Non-Duality Conference, San Rafael, CA. DETAILS

24th to 29th October 2011 – Five Day Retreat at Earthrise Retreat Center, CA. DETAILS

29th October 2011 – Evening Talk in Grass Valley, CA. DETAILS

30th October 2011 – One Day Meeting in Grass Valley, CA. DETAILS

11th – 16th December 2011 – Five Day Retreat, Bailey Farms, Millwood, NY. DETAILS

Where are we headed?

What does it mean to Live?

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The Economics of Happiness Blog

For information on: The Economics of Happiness documentary

2011 Conference on Nondual Wisdom
and Psychotherapy

“Relationships within the Undivided”

Thursday-Sunday
September 8-11, 2011
CIIS Main Building
1453 Mission Street, San Francisco

12 CEUs available (MFT, LCSW, RN) must attend full conference

CONFERENCE FEES
Full weekend: $250 regular, $150 student/member/CIIS community price
Single day passes available
Pre-conference workshops and Friday evening talk require separate registration
Register here

PRESENTERS
Marlies Cocheret
Dorothy Hunt
Lynn Marie Lumiere
Evelyn and Paul Moschetta
Kaisa Puhakka
Gary Rosenthal
…and more

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
As nondual awareness emerges in the West in both therapists and clients, the practical and theoretical implications for psychotherapy are far-reaching. This annual cutting edge conference hosts leading therapists and teachers who are exploring the confluence of nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. How does psychotherapy change when therapists and clients awaken to and embody their true nature as open, lucid awareness that is essentially not separate from the whole of life?

This year’s conference focuses on relationship as experienced within and as the Whole, and how awakening affects all relationships – therapeutic and non-therapeutic, alike.

The conference is appropriate for licensed psychotherapists, psychology graduate students, interns, clergy, bodyworkers, and anyone interested in nondual teachings.

Register here

SPECIAL EVENTS
Friday evening talk:

“The Essential Nature of Peace and Happiness” with Rupert Spira

 
Pre-conference workshops:
Gottman Couples Therapy Meets Nondual Wisdom in Sufi Dance
with Michael Baugh

Radical Love: A Nondual Approach to “Coupledom”
with Judith Orloff

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4 CEUs available (MFT, LCSW, RN) for each workshop

Register today to guarantee your spot.

Somewhere in NYC

The sense of “personal” rider…

gone!

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*Thanks to C. Surface for sending in the “winning” photo caption.

I must admit, that when I received this I was a bit skeptical with a title like that. Upon viewing though, I think it’s rather appropriately titled and such a rare gem. I mean, how often did one get to attend a small Satsang in a tiny room with Nisargadatta?!

Yes of course, it’s a bit rough around the edges and the video footage is pretty old, but this is perhaps an important historical document for many.

It’s such a rare find, that the producer Neti Neti Films themselves have not even been able to identify the people who actually created this amazing footage! Whoever they are—we are grateful and extremely thankful for their effort though. The video came from S.K. Mullarpattan, who was Maharaj’s primary translator from 1976 to 1981.

Here’s the scoop:

• The footage was taken from an old, low quality, VHS tape.
• The camera stays on Nisargadatta (even when questions are asked) providing us with a rare chance to see his expressions for most of the video.
• Three different translations were used to accurately translate this important historical document. The main translation was provided by Mohan Gaitonde (Maharaj’s part-time evening translator).
• The DVD is fully subtitled in English, while the original video material has not been edited.

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The above video clip is from a recently discovered VHS tape that was filmed in Mumbai, India in 1979. The film features one and a half hours of questions and responses taking place between Maharaj and some of his devotees.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (birth name: Maruti Shivrampant Kambli) was an Indian spiritual teacher (1897 – 1981) and philosopher of Advaita (Nondualism), and a Guru, belonging to the Inchgiri branch of the Navnath Sampradaya.

One of the 20th century’s exponents of the school of Advaita Vedanta philosophy, Sri Nisargadatta, with his direct and minimalistic explanation of non-dualism, is considered one of the most famous teachers of Advaita since Ramana Maharshi.

An English translation [in 1973] of his most famous and widely translated book, I Am That, brought him worldwide recognition and followers.

http://www.maharajnisargadatta.com/

http://www.netinetimedia.com/

In case you missed Part 1, or Part 2, we are serializing an updated version of his book Nondualism in Western Philosophy, which is a series of pointers to how the Western approach can assist with one’s self-inquiry.

It is less a historical survey, and more a collection of Western views that might serve as tools for inquiry, along with suggestions on how these tools might be used.

Please enjoy the final post from Greg. Without further ado, here is Part 3.

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The Turn Towards Language

The older monist-style idealism lost its steam early in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, partly due to the rise of science and mathematics. The popularity of science stimulated an effort in philosophy to emulate scientific styles and methods. Importance was given to observation, verification and language. New philosophical movements arose, such as “logical positivism,” “philosophical analysis” and “ordinary language philosophy.” These movements examine the relations among sentences, as well as between sentences and states of affairs in the world.

Philosophies that focus on language are not themselves trying to make a nondual or monistic metaphysical claim. Rather, they merely critique the claims made by metaphysics about how the world is really is, in and of itself. They root out the metaphysical assumptions of other philosophies and argue that these assumptions are simply not needed to live life or to explain our experience.

One can attack a dualism with the weapons on hand, without leaving anything in its place. This is just what Royce, Wittgenstein, Quine, Sellars, and Colin Turbayne did – they gave the new focus on language a startlingly broad application. The result was to soften, blur or eradicate the old Cartesian and Kantian dualities that had occupied center stage for three hundred years.

Josiah Royce proposes a notion of the world consisting of signs interpreted by an infinity of minds. This is less dualistic than at first appears, since the minds themselves may also be interpreted as signs. Ludwig Wittgenstein turns away from the notion of language as having meanings that represent the world. For him, there is no independent entity called Meaning. Rather, the meaning of a word lies in its use. For Wittgenstein, conversation is a series of language games, where word choices are moves in the game.

W.V.O. Quine argues against the distinction between two kinds of sentences, sentences that are true in virtue of a logical relation between their terms (“No married men are bachelors”), and sentences that are true because they happen to represent facts in the world (“Some men are married.”). This dualism is Kant’s “analytic/synthetic distinction,” and refers to the difference between what we can know without worldly experience, and what we need experience to know. The stronger the grip of the analytic/synthetic distinction, the stronger will be the felt difference between what we supply to knowledge, and what the world supplies. In Eastern nondual terms, this is very similar to the distinction between Self and Other.

But Quine’s view is that the analytic/synthetic distinction does not stand. What really distinguishes the two kinds of sentences, he argues, is that we treat the former kind of sentence as hard to give up, and the latter kind as easy to give up. The difference is merely conventional, even though it is widely believed to be metaphysical. And with the linguistic analytic/synthetic distinction succumbing to Quine’s attack, the metaphysical distinction between Self and Other loses a prime means of support.

Pic by by Evan Ludes©

In Wilfrid Sellars’s attack against “The Myth of the Given,” he proposes that “all awareness is a linguistic affair.” He argues against the classical dualistic empiricism, in which there is supposedly something given to experience in a bare, raw, un-interpreted way, versus something known as the result of interpretation. This “given” is supposedly known non-conceptually, such as a red patch of color, and serves as a secure foundation for interpreted data, which is known conceptually. The conceptual knowledge would be something captured by the statement, “I see something red.” This is the classic empiricist account of something being perceptually given. Most people these days probably subscribe to a view very much like this.

Against this notion of a simple given like the red patch, Sellars argues that there is no such thing as raw and un-interpreted data. Sensing is not knowledge. When you’re driving on “auto-pilot mode,” you might actually be able to stop at a red light, even though you are not aware of having done so. Even a photoelectric cell can be constructed to respond differentially to red vs. green. Knowing, on the other hand, involves bringing something under classification.

Sellars response to the dualist empiricist is this:

If something is given, it’s not an object of knowledge. And if it’s an object of knowledge, it can’t be given.

For example, if seeing the red patch is knowledge or something of which we are aware, then we know that it is a red patch, or that it is something red. In this case it is not a given, but the result of some interpretation and enclosure within a web of concepts. On the other hand, if it is a raw given, it is not something known, but rather exists on the level of a sunburn, or the reaction of the iris to a change in lighting. So for Sellars, the “given” drops out. Knowing is always conceptual, always holistic, always devoid of a distinction between raw and interpreted. For something to be known is for it to exist in the “logical space of having and giving reasons.” Therefore, all knowledge is a matter of language.

Colin M. Turbayne suggests that we get away from the old dualistic “spectator” view of the world, and see the world as a language instead. According to the spectator view, the external world is the photographer’s model, which, thanks to mechanical rules, is conveyed to the theater of the mind. Turbayne proposes that we dispense with this mechanical, ocular metaphor and take up the linguistic metaphor instead.

Why? It is easier to account for oddities and changes in science if we interpret them with the linguistic metaphor as exceptions to grammatical rules or as linguistic evolution. Science can be very hard to explain (and embarrassing as well) with the mechanical metaphor, where we say afresh with every new innovation, “Now we really see the world accurately as it is.” Employment of the linguistic metaphor is an emphasis on language but it is not a monism or a true metaphysical claim. Turbayne is not saying that the world is a language. It is not a machine or giant theater either. He is saying that anything we say about the world is some kind of metaphor. So let’s choose an effective one, and not take any of them literally.

Experiencing the world in this way frees us from the alienating and anxiety-provoking dualisms (such as feeling cut off from the world) that we have inherited from the Cartesian mechanical world-view.

And Away from Metaphysics

Beginning in the early twentieth century, Western philosophy began to sprout reactions against the metaphysical urge. Philosophers such as John Dewey, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Nelson Goodman and Donald Davidson have criticized metaphysical claims that there is a way the world truly is. These writers have inspired anti-metaphysical movements such as pragmatism, existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstructionism and postmodernism.

The individual philosophers and movements lie beyond the scope of this chapter, but many of them are summarized quite nicely by Richard Rorty in a recent article. Rorty, who has referred to himself as an “antidualist” or an “antiessentialist” or a “pragmatist” or a “nonrepresentationalist,” has written tirelessly against metaphysics ever since his well known book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Rorty, 1981). In his recent article “A World without Substances” (Rorty, 1999), he summarizes the various philosophies that have turned away from making metaphysical claims. He sees most anti-metaphysical philosophies as trying to shake off the traditional dualisms such as essence/accident, substance/property, appearance/reality and subject/object. There are certain other commonalities as well. Anti-metaphysical views do not hold that there is a way that things really are. Instead, they hold that:

• No description of things is intrinsically privileged over others. Its “betterness” depends upon the purpose at hand.

• Things do not consist of essences but of relations to other things.

• We never know a thing-in-itself. We never know anything in a description-neutral way; we only know true sentences about it.

• “Objective truth” does not mean “in touch with reality,” but instead means “in consensus with other inquirers.”

• The old, invidious distinction between appearance vs. reality has given way to the new, pragmatic distinction between less useful descriptions vs. more useful descriptions.

The anti-metaphysical approach is somewhat like Nagarjuna’s teaching, in which phenomenality is likened to Indra’s net of jewels. In Indra’s net, no jewel is primary or basic, and there is no basic substratum or essence holding everything together. Rather, each jewel reflects only the reflections of all the other jewels. Anti-metaphysics can be seen as nondualistic, not by claiming that “reality is One,” but by not falling into dualistic claims. Instead of advocating a new replacement for the essences that have been dropped, anti-metaphysics says, “Let’s change the subject.”

Pic by by Evan Ludes©

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Where Do I Go From Here?

All these philosophers say different things. God, ideas, brain science, language, anti-metaphysics! Who’s right? How do I proceed? Since Western philosophy is not as soteriologically minded as Eastern philosophy, there is no strong culture of enlightenment surrounding Western teachings.

Nevertheless, Western nondualistic philosophy can be used as a tool to root out the conceptual bases of suffering. All nondual philosophies attack the claim of a truly dualistic world by attempting to show how our normal understanding of the world is mistaken. Normally, we think that the world is made up of a multiplicity of objects or substances or sentient beings. Nondual philosophies attempt to provide a clearer understanding which reveals how these distinctions are not the case. One just needs to know where to look and how to proceed.

OK, I see that – Still, what do I do?

It can certainly help to have a human, written or internet guide to the Western philosophers. Human guides include college teachers, spiritual teachers and philosophical counselors. You can find teachers through Google, through Jerry Katz’s www.nonduality.com, which includes one of the largest list of teachers in existence. You can find philosophical counselors through www.philosophicalgourmet.com, which evaluates various academic departments, or through www.APPA.edu, the official website of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Basic philosophy guidebooks can be found on Amazon by typing “guide to philosophy” into the keyword search field. Lou Marinoff’s Plato Not Prozac! is a well-known place to begin learning how various famous philosophies might be of service. Informative internet links include Garth Kemerling’s www.philosophypages.com and the giant www.Epistemelinks.com. There is a much smaller list of books and writers (Western and Eastern) on my www.heartofnow.com that I and others have found helpful.

Test the Grip of Duality

Not all dualities are created equal. Some of these dualities have actually been proposed as the solution to other dualities. Certain dualities exacerbate more than others the sense of alienation and being out of touch with reality. If you are interested in nondual inquiry and have a philosophical bent, you might be able to work on those first. Or you can work on the ones that seems the easiest to dispose of.

You can test the grip of these dualities. Ask yourself about each of the Big Dualities and check how you would feel if you had to live without it: Free will and determinism. Good and evil. Cause and Effect. Matter and spirit. Subject and object. Free will and determinism. When you visualize going about life without this duality, which one gives you the worst sinking feeling? This is probably the one you feel most attached to. Which one seems conceptually impossible to do without? This is the one that is probably the most integral to the rest of your understanding. About which one do you say, “Yeah, and so??” This is the one you can do without most easily.

TAG art by Matthew King

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One Duality at a Time

Here are some examples of how you might proceed by tackling the dualities one-by-one.

The notion of free will/determinism often carries a charge. It often seems that human life would be anarchic or chaotic without freedom of choice. If you wish to look into the issue, you can begin with Ted Honderich’s How Free Are You: The Determinism Problem (Honderich, 1993), which shows how a just, fair, safe society is compatible with the notion that our actions are determined by causes. Closely related to this duality is the distinction between good and evil. Do they really exist? Are they absolute? Are there true resolutions to ethical conflicts? Do you feel that a path of nondual inquiry would invalidate this distinction? You might try Richard Taylor’s genial and compulsively readable Good and Evil (Taylor, 1999), which argues that the basis for morality is neither naturalistic nor supernatural, but conventional.

Another related duality is the distinction between cause and effect. Often this grabs our interest because we wish to know what is responsible for the world, and how we can act so as to remain safe. If you are interested in looking into this duality, the classic work is David Hume’s An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (Hume, 1999), especially Sections 19 and 43. This groundbreaking work shocked eighteenth century readers by arguing that that cause and effect are nothing other than regularity of succession of ideas. A cause as a special power transmitted from one thing to another simply cannot be found.

One of the more deeply entrenched dualities is matter vs. spirit. Why do they seem so irreducibly different from each other? Why do I feel separate from the moon but not from my thoughts? No philosopher has set out to demolish this distinction in such a thoroughgoing way as George Berkeley. His simplest work is Three Dialogues Betweeen Hylas and Philonous (Berkeley, 1998).

And – The Winner Is

The stickiest duality of all is the distinction between knowledge and its object, which is the same gap that Kant formalized over two centuries ago. This distinction is basic to the claim that knowledge has a real, independently existent referent. According to this duality, our thoughts represent an independent world of physical and mental existents, which are truly present even when they are not perceived or cognized. This duality is perhaps the most entrenched of all. It seems as if every moment of our experience is structured according to this gap. Even questioning it can begin to make a person feel alone in the universe, exposed and vulnerable. This duality is often the last one to dissolve in the course of one’s nondual inquiry.

Examination of this duality makes a person feel as though the world is about to disappear, or that intellectual and perceptual blindness is about to hit. This can be scary and cause people to back away from the investigation. Experienced teachers of course take this fear as a favorable sign that the inquiry is reaching deeper than the word level, and have skillful and helpful ways of guiding the person through the process.

There are several fine shadings on this duality. Various writers attack it by interpreting it as the distinction between subject/object, thought/referent, or language/meaning, appearance/reality. Regardless of how it is clothed, there are several quite direct and helpful attacks on this duality.

Subject/Object – William Samuel and Joel Goldsmith write in a mystical way that everything is an outpouring of God. Samuel’s A Guide to Awareness and Tranquility, (Samuel, 1967) is a triumphant song of praise to God as one’s nature. Joel Goldsmith’s The Mystical I (Goldsmith,1993) and Consciousness Is What I Am (Goldsmith, 1976) proclaims that God is the only cause and the only subject. Everything else is an effect of God’s nature.

Thought/Referent – If you would like a nondualist account of the relation between a thought and its referent, you might consider Blanshard’s The Nature of Thought (Blanshard, 1939), particularly a chapter in Vol. I entitled “The Theory of the Idea,” which generously examines various theories and concludes that our ideas, when fully developed and fully coherent, just are that reality.

Language/Meaning – Wittgenstein performs a similar task in his influential Philosophical Investigations. Here he investigates the relationship between language and its object. Using aphorisms and often cryptic pronouncements, he argues against the picture theory of meaning (that language accurately captures reality). He states that this picture theory is a kind of bewitchment. He argues that language is better understood by its use in particular contexts which he calls “language games.” Meaning lies in use, not in a separate metaphysical realm that language supposedly points to.

Appearance/Reality – Things seem so intransigently distant because we think that our thoughts are supposed to represent an independent reality that is not made of thoughts. One of the best philosophical antidotes to this dualism is W.T. Stace’s clear and engaging “Refutation of Realism” (Stace, 1934). Stace (1886-1967) was a mystic and a philosopher who combined Eastern with Western approaches. In his 1934 article he updates Berkeley by arguing that there is no such thing as an unexperienced object.

Then there are Richard Rorty’s well-written essays in his Objectivity, Relativism and Truth, Vol. 1 (Rorty, 1991), especially the Introduction and “Inquiry as recontextualisation: An anti-dualist account of interpretation.” Rorty calls himself an “antirepresentationalist.” He argues against both realism (the external existence of the world) and antirealism (there exists only a web of beliefs). Both sides of the debate are based on the unsupportable claim that our ideas represent things that are not ideas. This representational claim can never be proven, so there is no basis upon which to make the distinction between realism and antirealism. Hence the distinction is unnecessary.

A Note about Who is Right

Sooner or later most serious enquirers reach a point of doubt or exasperation. ` Who is right?” This frustration parallels the one felt by aspirants in Eastern traditions. These aspirants observe that the advaitins say everything is consciousness, while the Buddhists say it’s all emptiness. Faced with this diversity, the philosophical aspirant finds herself asking who is correct, or whether the teachings can be reconciled.

The question really hits home when one considers the goal of inquiry – the pacification of the sense of separateness. One begins to ask, How can this pacification arise when one’s teachings might be saying the wrong thing? Teachings seem so different! No one wants to be led down the wrong road. So the aspirant comes to feel the need to adjudicate between teachings, or at least prove that they are all saying the same thing after all.

Skillful nondual inquiry confronts this very issue squarely. One comes to see how the goal of a picture of a real world beyond the picture makes no sense. The very notions of “accuracy” and “representation” themselves depend on a dualistic split between appearance and reality. In other words, any nondual inquiry that goes far enough will bring peace about this question.

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Nondual Nacho Satsang

[Excerpted from a conversation over a plate of nachos]

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So, can Western philosophy really help?

A: It has helped for others. The insights and teachings are out there. Yes, they’re scattered, and not as easy to find in one work such as Nisargadatta Maharaj’s I Am That. But they are there.

That’s just it! It’s so all-over-the-place! How do I find direction?

A: Do an internet search “philosophy” and “practitioner” or “counselor” and ask whether the practitioners you encounter can help with nondual inquiry. Follow your heart, which will let you know which philosophical issues are relevant to your nondual inquiry, if any. Explore the bibliography and weblinks in this article.

How do I keep all this from getting dry like a brainiac?

A: Again, follow your heart. Of course this stuff isn’t for everybody – no approach is. But if it has gotten under your skin, then the deeper your desire for clarity on issues like free will, knowledge/object, self/other, etc., the less dry you’ll find the philosophical approach. It’s quite similar to Advaitic jnana yoga and Buddhist analytic meditation. Some of those who do this inquiry find that it matters more than anything else, and it shows up as the breath of life itself. You can also combine this approach with yoga, meditation, exercise, loving-kindness, and devotion to a chosen figure or ideal.

 But that sounds like a lot of “doing.” I’ve heard that there’s nothing to do.

A: Hah! That itself is a great topic for inquiry. Is it really the case that there are bodies and a world, but no actions, no performers of actions? Why would certain kinds of things really exist, and other kinds of things really not exist? Is there really any difference between inquiry, and a bird singing on a tree branch? Is there really anything counterproductive about performing an action or participating in activities? This is a rich area to look into. And in a thorough nondual inquiry, this is one issue that always comes under scrutiny!

Are there groups that do this?

A: As of yet there’s no widespread Western-style social context for this exact kind of inquiry. Nothing large and analogous to the satsang movement. Small, private gatherings do happen (for instance, I have an occasional “nondual dinner” on Thursdays in Manhattan, New York, and there are others in the country as well).

But the culture of Western philosophy is slowly starting to enlarge. The West is seeing a growth in cafes philos, diners pensants, and salon gatherings. These social structures are already in place, and Western philosophical self-inquiry is well suited to their dynamics. There’s no doubt that Western inquiry or combined East/West-style inquiry will grow, and take new shapes as it proceeds.

Weblinks:

General

http://google.com

Popular general search engine, very commercial.

http://www.dogpile.com

General meta-search engine, searches other search engines for you, not so commercial.

Nonduality

http://www.nonduality.com

Jerry Katz’s comprehensive site on nonduality.

http://heartofnow.com/files/links.html

The links page on my site. Includes books and writings I have found helpful.

Academic

http://www.APPA.edu

Official non-profit site of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Members can assist with study on the well known Western philosophers. Some members can assist with nondual inquiry.

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/philinks.htm

Guide to Philosophy on the Internet, by Peter Suber at Earlham College. He stopped updating it in 2003, but many links there are still active.

http://www.Epistemelinks.com

General philosophy web portal. Lots of links to links, from e-texts to job listings!

http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com

Ranks the academic graduate programs in philosophy.

http://www.philosophypages.com

Garth Kemerling’s philosophy site. An easy first stop to look up a philosophical word, book or person.

http://plato.stanford.edu

The authoritative Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online.

E-Texts

http://www.questia.com

Online library. Charges a monthly fee, but you can find classic, old, obscure, and out of print books and articles here.

http://www.epistemelinks.com/Main/MainText.aspx

Episteme’s (see above) E-texts page.

Bibliography

*View the detailed Bibliography [for all three posts] here.

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Special thanks to Greg for sharing this excellent text!

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Greg Goode has been a philosophical counselor since 1996 and has extensive experience with online consultation. As a philosophical counselor, Greg is nationally certified by the American Philosophical Practitioners Association, trained by Prof. Lou Marinoff, author of the well-known Plato Not Prozac! and by California State University, Fullerton’s J. Michael Russell —a true pioneer in the philosophical consultation movement.

Greg is a well-known innovator for having combined the ancient “direct-path” method of self-inquiry with modern electronic media. Nondual inquiry includes the powerful teachings of Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. Greg studied Advaita Vedanta through the Chinmaya Mission, Sri Atmananda, Jean Klein, and Francis Lucille. He studied the Mahayana teachings of Pure Land Buddhism through Jodo-Shinshu, and studied Chinese Middle-Way Buddhism through the lineage of the pre-eminent scholar of Chinese Buddhism, Master Yin-Shun of Taiwan, P.R.C., author of The Way to Buddhahood.

*All text herein copyright Greg Goode, 2007. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this monograph may be reproduced in any manner without prior permission from the author.

**Photos used courtesy of Evan Ludes.

“What if nature cares for us or even misses us?”

The above online short film is intriguing and has a clear message.

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So where is our real home? Will nature take it back?

Pic by Kevin Bauman©

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Peep the green above…

Nature is all around us, how often do you “visit”? Maybe it’s time to remember an old friend!

http://www.wemissyou.de/

In the meantime, please enjoy some of the most highlighted quotes from the previous two discussions.

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• RUPERT SPIRA — “There is no relationship between that which is not and that which is. The activity of resisting and seeking that is sometimes called the ‘ego’ appears to veil the non-dual nature but in fact does not. Therefore, the ego is only real from the point of view of the imaginary ego”

• SCOTT KILOBY — “You can never find the actual object “self” or “ego.” You only find the movement that seems to refer to an ego.”

• NIRMALA — “Words do not contain the truth, they only point us to it.”

• GARY CROWLEY — “Do notice that everything has changed and nothing has changed, since it’s what you have always already been.”

• RANDALL FRIEND — “Appearance is essence, essence is appearance. Not-two.”

• GREG GOODE — “Form and emptiness are inseparable. You never have one without the other.”

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Did you miss the first two rounds? Not a problem, peep the links and catch-up here.

In the Round: ROUND ONE

In the Round: ROUND TWO

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Per Jonsson’s [Norrköping, Sweden]music incorporates an intangible essence of flow. The importance of flow as a point of reference in the art of self-expression has been emphasized within the framework of Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do, an introspective martial system in which Jonsson has undergone several years of training.

In his case, the principle of flow manifests itself in a refusal to be deadlocked in templates, an almost obsessive idea of avoiding the static, expressed in an irrepressible will to discover and explore. The music is, paradoxically enough, seen to the swarm of allusions and unabashed borrowings—a “style without style”.

The concept of flow can furthermore be used to describe how the music of the artist in question never returns to the point of take-off. It shows a distinct linear movement, or poly linear movement; the music branches off, like a river becoming a delta just before the reunion with the all-encompassing ocean. Flow is thus a suitable metaphor for the onward direction that pervades the music, which manifests a joy and a will to, in a [semi-improvisation] travel through new musical landscapes.

The Jeet Kune Do emblem—The Taijitu, represents the concepts of yin and yang. The Chinese characters show:

• “Using no way as way”
• “Having no limitation as limitation”
• The arrows represent the endless interaction between yang and yin