It's Not What You Think

he's got the whole world in his mind

2009-10-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

"carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone." ACIM Lesson 151

Here's Looking At You . . .

2008-06-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

From the closing minutes of an audio program by Kenneth Wapnick, titled The Body: An "Engine of Destruction":

"All you want to do is not change anything. You simply want to look at what your ego's up to. That's all. Don't try to make your self kinder, more loving, sweeter, less judgmental. That's not going to work. Because if you try to make yourself other than judgmental, you've already made the judgmental part of you real. Otherwise, you wouldn't be trying to undo it. The ego is very, very slippery and very clever. What you want to do is you want to look at it. Look at this judgmental part of you without judging it in yourself and recognize where it's coming from. It is an attempt to serve the ego's purpose of proving that the separation is real."

The Dual

2008-05-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

My first chosen career - of some 25 years - was the legal profession. And in the grand divide between "deals and disputes," I was a deal maker rather than a litigator. I saw my role as a facilitator rather than a combatant, as "consiglieri" or counselor rather than gladiator or hired gun. Although vastly different arenas, when you face your opponent across the table of a conference room rather than across the aisle of a courtroom, the options remain the same: to negotiate or to litigate. In either case it is essentially a duel where your weapon is the pistol of persuasion, loaded with the ammunition of your words. And if you can't come to terms with your opponent, ultimately a decision will be imposed you by a court or other adjudicator.

It seems to me that I have been battling a duel all of my life. A grand legal battle. And I have spent my entire life gathering witnesses to testify on my behalf. Very early on, I learned of the advantage of assembling a multitude of witnesses - an entire cast of characters - to testify on my behalf. Each and every item of evidence was meticulously identified, cataloged and archived. Nothing left to chance. No evidence would be lost, misplaced or forgotten. No impeachment of fading memories.

And if that were not sufficient, I have rehearsed the case many times and in many situations, cloaking unwitting participants with the garment of my opponent. One of my most formidable opponents, whom I met on the battleground of a "real life" courtroom two years ago, sarcastically and, perhaps accurately, conferred upon me the fitting title of "supreme adjudicator." I suppose "self-appointed" was implied. It is a convenience of these self-generated recapitulations - which as a rule don't involve a real courtroom -- that I get to decide the outcome. And I go to great lengths to make this reality show very convincing. It is what my life is about.

Guess what? I win. I make you wrong, which makes me right. Every time. And, to ensure that ultimate outcome, I always grant a re-trial in these practice battles through the thin veil of changing opponents. It is a very effective mechanism. The only drawback - the inevitable consequence - is that it's never over. Never. Never ever. Never ever ever.

That's an interesting result. Because I'm noticing that the subject matter of the duel - what the duel is about - is always over. How could it be proved if that weren't the case? It wouldn't need to be proven if it weren't a story about what has passed. About what is past. There would be no need of persuasion. Words would be of little use if the matter at hand were self-evident.

And what is the duel about? What have I been dueling about? What is a "duel" anyway?

Well, I looked to Answers.Com, and found that a "duel" can be defined as:

1. A prearranged, formal combat between two persons, usually fought to settle a point of honor.

2. A struggle for domination between two contending persons, groups, or ideas.

Interesting again that a duel involves a dual because, when I'm not spending my time dueling, I'm immersed in nondualing. "Nonduality" is more apt the phrasing. Is that nondueling? What would that look like? How do you not-duel? And with what do you not-duel? With persuasion? With words? With the tools of the trade?

Is that like waging war for peace?

Again, another pattern repeated. Chasing my tail. Or, more accurately, chasing my tale.

Obviously - to this mind, at this moment at least - it seems that somewhere along the road I have to put down my weapons even though this life's work - and the very mechanism of this life itself, it seems - is built of the weapons of this duel . . . of this dual.

But if it's really not dual - if it's really nondual - then there really isn't a duel nor any duelers.

And this noticing is told with these words. With the motive, if my truth be told in this moment, to persuade. The object of my persuasion? Me, of course. The means or mechanics? Words. All that I know to do is turn these weapons around. Pointing back to me. Questioning what's true. To see through the facade of the duel and of the dual . . . when I do. To see innocence as the ultimate outcome . . . when I do. To beware the mechanism of my duel . . .when I do. To be aware of the mechanism of my dual . . . when I do.

And when I don't, . . . I don't.

Until I do.

Ride the Snake

2008-05-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

In resurrecting this blog, I've perused a few of my previous musings for update and republishing. At the time - in 2006 - I had read a series of books (all published by Nonduality Press), as well as books by other nondualists, in which the authors talk as if they are speaking through inherently dualistic language from a still, silent nondual source. Not like you and me, perhaps. And how would I know about you? (Actually, I know all about you.) So, speaking for me, I confess that I'm skeptical, as they also seem to concur that all this . . . you know . . . THIS . . .is happening spontaneously, all on its own, including thoughts. ("We are being thought," Byron Katie has said often, and "Thought appears.") And, in these books, there's kind of this "aw shucks," if you don't get it . . . because you really do get it . . . you just don't realize that you do . . . and, by the way, there's no you to get or realize this . . . and there's no me, either . . . . . . . Right!

I'm transported back to my early youth, listening to a comedy album of Bill Cosby doing a skit about a conversation between God and the biblical figure, Noah. Every time God calls out: "Noah! It's the Lord," Noah would reply sarcastically. . . "Right!" It's like in the 80's Saturday Night Live skit when an extraordinary statement would be followed by . . . NOT!

I get that there is awareness of thought and awareness prior to thought. I don't get how that stillness - that loving-aware-beingness - sometimes speaks and sometimes doesn't. Perhaps, in the nondual author's case, one - or, rather, the no one speaking from nowhere to nobody - is hanging out in that present awareness as speaking is happening, while the rest of us (read that to mean: me) are hanging outside somewhere, captivated by the content rather than freed in the spaciousness.

The analogy is often told, from Buddhism to Byron Katie, about fearfully encountering a snake while walking through the desert which, upon further inspection, is revealed to be simply a rope. It is said to be difficult, if not impossible, to remain scared of the snake once you see through that appearance and perceive it to be the rope that it really is. So, I suppose the vibration of speaking in recognition of "that snake is a rope" may be different from speaking in the belief, and hence, the experience, that it is a snake.

"It's all about seeing there's nowhere to go, nothing to attain, nothing to be blamed, nothing to fight for and nothing to defend" (borrowing lyrics from a Peter Makena song).

As for me, I seem to know and to have known and to have seen and experienced that snake to be a rope, and yet also, nevertheless, still having the experience of encountering the very real and lasting appearance of a snake where I knew the rope to be just before. In that event, it seems that all I can do is (borrowing lyrics from a Jim Morrison song) . . . ride the snake.

When You Wish Upon . . .

2008-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

The wish for faith is doubt

The wish for peace is unrest

The wish for harmony is conflict

The wish for acceptance is resistance

The wish for connection is separation

The wish for enlightenment is confusion

The Way of It

2008-05-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

It knows confusion with clarity.

It knows doubt with full faith.

It knows mistrust with utmost confidence.

Turn and Face the Stranger

2008-05-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

The rapidity of alternating images produces the illusion of singularity and continuity, like the spokes of a wheel or the blades of a propeller. The binary code of the computer flashes millions of pixels to create the illusion of form or pulses the rapid succession of digital signals that produce the illusion of a melody or continuous tone.

Perhaps, this is a digital universe.

Nothing is continuous.

It is all made up of pieces.

Which change, move or disappear in your grasp.

Movement and change cognized as perception and experience

Wild thing,

I think.

You move me.

My Midnight Confession

2008-05-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I was sleeping in the spare room at my mother's house in Northern Arizona, when I was awakened by something brushing against my face or hands or something . . . I'm not sure. But I was startled from a sound sleep. I lept to my feet, turned on the light and saw that a cockroach was lying beside me on the bed, on its back. Having heard Byron Katie tell her account of a cockroach crawling across her foot on the floor of her room in the attic of a half-way house, I knew just what to do, of course. I grabbed the cockroach in my hand, ran down the hallway to the bathroom, and promptly flushed it down the toilet and went back to sleep. And with that, I suppose, my chances of enlightenment this lifetime were flushed down the toilet along with the cockroach.

My ignorance was such that it took a couple of days for me to make any connection to Katie's story and to realize that having a cockroach crawl across your body in the middle of the night is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, then the "oh shit" realization settled in.

I am reminded of the way a similar story is told in a greater context in A Course in Miracles: "Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh." (Text, p. 586)

The Course also says, "Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place of love." (Text, p. 552).

Ah yes. That aptly sums up my "midnight" experience. "The time of terror took the place of love."

Sorry, Mr. Cockroach. I didn't recognize you. And I remembered not to laugh

Make Love Manifest

2006-09-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Why don't we do it in the road?

No one will be watching us.