Thomas Merton quotes...

Thomas Merton Quotes...!!

The Nondual State

The Nondual State

by LouiseSilk

 Bubbe Wisdom

Being with God is a nondual state. This means it can never be achieved by choosing only one side of reality in reaction to a less preferred condition or state.

Words like awakening are necessary evils. They open a path to thinking about things, but they block the road, even as they point the way. They make us think there is a special way- that being with God or being awakened is a special feature we need to recapture again and again. But God is kinder than that and makes everyplace the way home. Every molecule of reality- whether tangible, like matter, or emotional and psychological, like varied states of being- can be the gateway to the nondual experience of God. 

Try this: Whatever you are feeling right now has a silent opposite that is present at the same time. So, confusion is present with its opposite understanding; lost accompanies found. Hope is present with despair and loneliness with companionship, even though there may be no one around to fulfill that function.

Now: Allow both pair of opposites to exist. Completely. Vividly. Open your body to this allowing. You may notice a subtle feeling of openness, or silence, of expectation without a goal. This is one of the million gateways to God; it comes from being with  what is in this particular way. Trust this opening, Friend. You can extend it further, to opposites that are more challenging, like sickness and health and even life and death. As you do so, the doorway to God will open wider, as wide as your heart.

Jason Shulman pg. 56-57 The Instruction Manual For Receiving God

Read more: The Jewish Chronicle - entry The Nondual State 

The White Robe

The White Robe

In our separation

in what appears as real life

we see colors and many things..

Our birth and our customs

brought this shading of what is..

Now a sentinel in white

silent and welcoming yet

 frightening on this morning

of unexpected encounter..

A sudden removal

of our veiled confusion

all now is seamless

but we cannot stay..

Returning outside

running in joyful alarm

we now know who

I am...

Mark 16:5  And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

Amazon review of Karen Divine's A SMALL AMOUNT OF COURAGE

  (cover photo of Karen Divine's 

A Small Amount of Courage)


Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars Words with iPhotos!! 
Charles R. Coon (polarityinplay.blogspot.com), 

March 24, 2016
By Charles R. Coon

Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Small Amount of Courage (Hardcover)
Karen Divine has produced a superb small book containing 64
poetic statements with accompanying blended iPhone photographs.
The blending, found in the photos as well as the words, gives readers
a freeing and energy-giving experience. Each of the statements might
address us in a particular placeon a spiritual or artistic path.
For example, her # 30, SYNERGY, uses the metaphor of trees and heaven
reaching for each other. This basic polarity in motion, together with
her tree imagery, seems to me to represent the basic self-understanding (Who
am I?) we need to accomplish our lifework in a fulfilling and joyful way.
She concludes: "RETURN TO the source of THIS ENERGY."
To me, it seems she is pointing to a recognition that heaven arises
as branches within, and further, the branches are made of
heaven (consciousness.) This is only one example of 64 with many
inspiring messages...

Five stars are too few..!!

Names

Names

Confusing
the map and the territory..
But beyond this confusion
we mask our real Self
by naming and worship of facts..
Life becomes as protection
of this confinement
this prison 
of our limited selves..
Eventually this illness
calls out for help
and the map is searched
searched and again searched
until and hopefully one day
we ask of the gaps in the map..
We experience music without
knowing who wrote it
and at last
we are on a path
of recovery
knowing now that
 grace has always
saturated the territory..
And all of the names
which have misled
are revealed as 
 made of grace
also...

“It is possible I never learned the names of birds in order to discover the bird of peace, the bird of paradise, the bird of the soul, the bird of desire. It is possible I avoided learning the names of composers and their music the better to close my eyes and listen to the mystery of all music as an ocean. It may be I have not learned dates in history in order to reach the essence of timelessness. It may be I never learned geography the better to map my own routes and discover my own lands. The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unnamed was my science and progress.” Anais Nin

“A large part of man can never find its expression in the mere language of words.  It must, therefore, seek for its expression other languages – lines and colours, sounds and movements.  Through our mastery of these we not only make our whole nature articulate but also understand man in all his attempts to reveal his innermost being in every age and clime —It is the duty of every human being to master, at least to some extent, not only the language of the intellect, but also the language of the personality which is the language of Art.”  Tagore

Consciousness confusion

Consciousness confusion

Many examples there are

of consciousness seen from limitation

from the separate self

from the ego..

Duality reigns in these formulations

an on-off switch is their visible icon..

Seemingly never to experience

infinite consciousness

even though all of our 

thoughts and sensations and perceptions

are made of the consciousness stuff which is not stuff..

So science continues to search inside the head

for what cannot be found

and the reports provided

are simply thoughts limiting seemingly

but actually leaving consciousness

untouched...

Consciousness feels like an on-off phenomenon: either you’re awake and experiencing the world or you’re not. But finding the button, or even the dimmer switch that allows our brains to move between these states, is tricky.

“Consciousness is not something we see, it’s something through which we see, which makes it challenging to study,” says George Mashour, director of the Center for Consciousness Science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

One common definition of human consciousness is “the thing that abandons us when we fall into a dreamless sleep, and returns when we wake up”. But it probably comes in different levels. Say I anaesthetise you: you may be able to hear my voice, but not respond to it; you may be dreaming and not hear my voice; or you may hear or experience nothing at all.

Because we are reliant on people’s subjective descriptions of their experience, it is difficult to correlate these different levels of awareness with specific patterns of brain activity. “The bottom line is, I really don’t know if you’re conscious of me, conscious of something else or not conscious at all,” says Mashour.

We do know there are certain brain regions that, when damaged or electrically stimulated, will result in loss of consciousness. The claustrum – a thin, sheet-like structure buried deep inside the brain – is one of them. But there are others, and many of the leading theories that aim to describe consciousness veer away from a single anatomical site being its ...   (New Scientist)

Self at birth

Self at birth

Happiness in life

seems as realization

that our birthself

is our goal..

Our vast diversity

after birthtime

prompts life searches

looking for happiness

in many places..

In those places

a quick glimpse

yet permanence fails

as new searches

beat new paths..

Then one day

as the mind exhausts

our birthlight
dawns once more...