The End of Illusion

Genuine Love

2007-03-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

Our sense of inadequacy, weakness and incompletion comes from the strong investment in the "scarcity principle" that governs the whole world of illusions. From that point of view, we seek in others what we feel is wanting in ourselves. We "love" another in order to get something ourselves. That, in fact, is what passes for love in the dream world. There can be no greater mistake than that, for love is incapable of asking for anything.

~~~A Course in Miracles~~~

In marriage you are neither the husband nor the wife;
You are the love between the two.

~~~Nisargadatta~~~

The Suppression of Sacred Feminine

2007-03-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

The suppression of the female principle especially over the past two thousand years has enabled the ego to gain absolute supremacy in the collective human psyche. Although women have egos, of course, the ego can take root and grow more easily in the male form than in the female. This is because women are less mind-identified than men. They are more in touch with the inner body and the intelligence of the organism where the intuitive faculties originate. The female form is less rigidly encapsulated than the male, has greater openness and sensitivity toward other life-forms, and is more attuned to the natural world.

If the balance between male and female energies had not been destroyed on our planet, the ego's growth would have been greatly curtailed. We would not have declared war on nature, and we would not be so completely alienated from our Being.

Nobody knows the exact figure because records were not kept, but it seems certain that during a three-hundred-year period between three and five million women were tortured and killed by the "Holy Inquisition", an institution founded by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. This surely ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history. It was enough for a woman to show a love for animals, walk alone in the fields or woods, or gather medicinal plants to be branded a witch, then tortured and burned at the stake. The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared from human experience. Other cultures and religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism, also suppressed the female dimension, although in a less violent way. Women's status was reduced to being child bearers and men's property. Males who denied the feminine even within themselves were now running the world, a world that was totally out of balance. The rest is history or rather a case history of insanity.

Who was responsible for this fear of the feminine that could only be described as acute collective paranoia? We could say: Of course, men were responsible. But then why in many ancient pre-Christian civilizations such as the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Celtic were women respected and the feminine principle not feared but revered? What is it that suddenly made men feel threatened by the female? The evolving ego in them. It knew it could gain complete control of our planet only through the male form, and to do so, it had to render the female powerless.

~~~Eckhart Tolle~~~

The Passion of Christ

2007-03-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

Why is the suffering body of Christ, his face distorted in agony and his body bleeding from countless wounds, such a significant image in the collective consciousness of humanity? Millions of people, particularly in medieval times, would not have related to it as deeply as they did if something within themselves had not resonated with it, if they had not unconsciously recognized it as an outer representation of their own inner reality.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Tanzan & Ekido

2007-03-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

Two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking along a country road that had become extremely muddy after heavy rains. Near a village, they came upon a young woman who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side.

The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn't restrain himself any longer. "Why did you carry that girl across the road?" he asked. "We monks are not supposed to do things like that."

"I put the girl down hours ago," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

The Cannons of Christianity

2007-02-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

Christian cannons have fired at my days

With the warning beneath the holy blaze

And bow to our authority

Say the cannons of Christianity

Oh the children will be sent to schools

Minds of clay are molded to their rules

Learn to fear all of eternity

Warn the cannons of Christianity

Holy hands will count the money raised

Like a king the Lord is richly praised

On a cross of diamond majesty

Say the cannons of Christianity

Missionaries will travel on crusades

The word is given, the heathen souls are saved

Conversions to our morality

Sigh the cannons of Christianity

Come the wars and turn the rules around

To bend your soul on the battle ground

And the Lord will march beside me

Drone the cannons of Christianity

Cathedral walls will glitter with their gold

And the sermons speak through silver robes

Building castles amidst the poverty

Say the cannons of Christianity

Worship now and wash your sins away

Drop the coins, fall to your knees and pray

Cleanse the world of all hypocrisy

Smile the cannons of Christianity

Christian cannons have fired at my days

With the warning beneath the holy blaze

And bow to our authority

Say the cannons of Christianity

~~Phil Ochs~~

Beliefs and Ideas Cannot Free Us From Fear

2007-02-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

One asks why human beings, who have lived on this earth for millions of years, who are technologically intelligent, have not applied their intelligence to be free from this very complex problem of fear, which may be one of the reasons for war, for killing one another. And religions throughout the world have not solved the problem; not the gurus, nor the saviours; nor ideals. So it is very clear that no outside agency --- however elevated, however much made popular by propaganda -- no outside agency can ever possibly solve this problem of human fear.

~~J. Krishnamurti~~

Silence: A Portal Into The Unmanifested

2007-02-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

The unmanifested is not separate from the manifested.

It pervades this world, but it is so well disguised

That almost everyone misses it completely.

If you know where to look, you'll find it everywhere.

A portal opens up every moment.

Do you hear that dog barking in the distance?

Or that car passing by?

Listen carefully.

Can you feel the presence of the unmanifested in that?

You can't?
Look for it in the silence out of which the sounds come

And into which they return.

Pay more attention to the silence than the sounds.

Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence:

The mind becomes still.

A portal is opening up.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

We Know Not What We Do

2007-02-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

The ego loves it's resentment of reality. What is reality? Whatever is. Budda called it tatata ---the suchness of life, which is no more than the suchness of the moment. Opposition toward that suchness is one of the main features of the ego. It creates the negativity that the ego thrives on, the unhappiness that it loves. In this way, you make yourself and others suffer and don't even know that you are doing it, don't know that you are creating a hell on earth. To create suffering without recognizing it -- this is the essence of unconscious living; this is being totally in the grip of the ego.

The extent of the ego's inability to recognize itself and see what it is doing is staggering and unbelievable. It will do exactly what it condemns others for and not see it. When it is pointed out, it will use angry denial, clever arguments, and self-justifications to distort the facts. People to it, corporations do it, governments do it. When all else fails, the ego will resort to shouting or even to physical violence. Send in the marines.

We can now understand the deep wisdom in Jesus' words on the cross: "Forgive them for they know not what they do."

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Mastery of Life

2007-01-27T03:46:00.000-08:00

Mastery of life is not a question of control,

But of finding a balance between human and Being.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Moral Responsibility

2007-01-08T05:28:00.000-08:00

As a nation in this world (the most powerful; the most affluent), we have the power to make sure that all have what they need; that this is not some pie in the sky vision, but instead, that this is our call, as Christians, to make this happen.

~~Rev. Altagracia Perez~~

Changing the World

2006-12-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

You must be the change

You expect to see in the world.

~~Gandhi~~

Western Civilization

2006-12-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

Gandhi was once asked

What he thought about western civilization.
His response was: "I think it would be a good idea".

War is a Mind-Set

2006-12-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to "eradicate evil", as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against.

Fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.

These days you frequently hear the expression "the war against" this or that, and whenever I hear it, I know that it is condemned to failure. There is war against drugs, the war against crime, the war against terrorism, the war against cancer, the war against poverty, and so on.

For example, despite the war against crime and drugs, there has been a dramatic increase in crime and drug related offenses in the past twenty-five years. The prison population of the United States has gone up from just under 300,000 in 1980 to a staggering 2.1 million in 2004.

The war against disease has given us, amongst other things, antibiotics. At first, they were spectacularly successful, seemingly enabling us to win the war against infectious diseases. Now, many experts agree that the widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics has created a time bomb and that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, so-called super bugs, will in all likelihood bring about a reemergence of those diseases and possibly epidemics. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, medical treatment is the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United States.

War is a mind-set, and all actions that comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated. There is a deep interrelatedness between your state of consciousness and external reality. When you are in the grip of a mind-set such as "war", your perceptions become extremely selective as well as distorted. In other words, you will see only what you want to see and then misinterpret it. You can imagine what kind of action comes out of such a delusional system. Or instead of imagining it, watch the news on TV tonight.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Love, And Do What You Will

2006-12-05T15:07:00.000-08:00

Laws, commandments, rules, and regulations

Are necessary for those who are cut off

From who they are, the Truth within.

They prevent the worst excesses of the ego,

And often they don't even do that.

"Love, and do what you will," said St. Augustine.

Words cannot get much closer to the Truth than that.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Conflict Nourishes the Ego

2006-12-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

The content of the ego varies from person to person, but in every ego the same structure operates. In other words: egos only differ on the surface. Deep down they are all the same.

In what way are they the same? They all live on identification and separation.

When you live through a mind-made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego, the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral, fleeting. So every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself.

To uphold the I-thought, it needs the opposite thought of "the other". The conceptual "I" cannot survive without the conceptual "other". The others are most other when I see them as my enemies.

At one end of the scale of this unconscious egoic pattern lies the egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"

At the other end of the scale, there is physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations. In the Bible, Jesus' question remains unanswered, but the answer is, of course: Because when I criticize or condemn another, it makes me feel bigger, superior.

~~Eckhart Tolle~~

Search for the culprit within.
The ideas of 'me' and 'mine'
Are at the root of all conflict.
Be free of them
And you will be out of conflict.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Worry

2006-12-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

Can any of you, by worrying,

Add a single hour

To the span of your life?

Matthew 6:27

Article 51 of the UN Charter and Self Defense

2006-12-03T15:29:00.000-08:00

The language of this article is restrictive: "Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." However, a threatened State, according to long established international law, can take military action as long as the threatened attack is imminent, no other means would deflect it and the action is proportionate. The problem arises where the threat in question is not imminent but still claimed to be real: for example the acquisition, with allegedly hostile intent, of nuclear weapons-making capability.

Can a State, without going to the Security Council, claim in these circumstances the right to act, in anticipatory self-defense, not just pre-emptively (against an imminent or proximate threat) but preventively (against a non-imminent or non-proximate one)? Those who say "yes" argue that the potential harm from some threats (e.g. terrorists armed with a nuclear weapon) is so great that one simply cannot risk waiting until they become imminent, and that less harm may be done (e.g. avoiding a nuclear exchange or radioactive fallout from a reactor destruction) by acting earlier.

The short answer is that if there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorize such action if it chooses to. If it does not so choose, there will be, by definition, time to pursue other strategies, including persuasion, negotiation, deterrence and containment -- and to visit again the military option.

For those impatient with such a response, the answer must be that, in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order and the norm of non-intervention on which it continues to be based is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action, as distinct from collectively endorsed action, to be accepted. Allowing one to so act is to allow all.

We do not favour the rewriting or reinterpretation of Article 51.

The UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change

December 2004 Report

Your True Being is Fearless

2006-11-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

Once you know with absolute certainty

That nothing can trouble you but your own imagination

You come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas

And live by Truth alone.

~~Nisargadatta~~

An Eye for an Eye

2006-11-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

~~Gandhi~~

Television Commercials

2006-11-26T09:59:00.000-08:00

Why are there commercials on television, altogether?

If you take an economics course, they'll tell you that we have a market system, and a market is based on informed consumers making rational choices.

But when you look at a television ad, is the ad trying to make you an informed consumer, who's going to make a rational choice? Everybody knows that's complete garbage.

The purpose of the commercial is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices.

~~Noam Chomsky~~

Listen to Chomsky's talk on corporations

I Think, Therefore I Am

2006-11-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Ego arises when your sense of Beingness, of 'I Am', which is formless consciousness, gets mixed up with form. This is the meaning of identification. This is forgetfulness of Being, the primary error, the illusion of absolute separateness that turns reality into a nightmare.

The seventeenth-century philosopher Descartes, regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, gave expression to this primary error with his famous dictum (which he saw as primary truth): "I think, therefore I am." This was the answer to the question "Is there anything I can know with absolute certainty?" He realized that the fact that he was always thinking was beyond doubt, and so he equated thing with Being, that is to say, identity -- I Am -- with thinking. Instead of the ultimate truth, he had found the root of the ego, but he didn't know that.

~~~Eckhart Tolle~~~

The Consumer Society

2006-11-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

"Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn't work: The ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming."

~~~Eckhart Tolle~~~

An Optical Illusion of Consciousness

2006-11-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical illusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

~~~ Albert Einstein ~~~

Internal Change Must Precede External Change

2006-11-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

The history of Communism, originally inspired by noble ideals, clearly illustrates what happens when people attempt to change external reality -- create a new earth -- without any prior change in their inner reality, their state of consciousness. They make plans without taking into account the blueprint for dysfunction that every hunman being carries within: the ego.

---Eckhart Tolle--

Play vs. Purpose

2006-09-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with play?

You have a purpose as long as you are not complete;

Till then, completeness, perfection, is the purpose.

But when you are complete in yourself,

Fully integrated within and without,

Then you enjoy the universe;

You do not labour at it.

Why do you introduce purpose?

Purpose implies movement, change,

A sense of imperfection.

What is your happiness worth

When you have to strive and labour for it?

True happiness is spontaneous and effortless.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Everything Known, Nothing Remembered

2006-09-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

To know the world you forget the self -
To know the self you forget the world.
What is the world, after all?
A collection of memories.
Cling to one thing that matters,
Hold onto 'I am' and let go all else.
In realization, there is nothing
To hold on to and nothing to forget.
Everything is known,
Nothing is remembered.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Love is the Realization of Unity

2006-09-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

To see myself in everybody

And everybody in myself

Most certainly is love.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Being All, What am I to Fear?

2006-09-12T18:52:00.000-07:00

I have no shape, nor name.

It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear.

I am not attached.

I am Nothing,

And Nothing is afraid of no thing.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Pleasure and Pain

2006-09-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

My experience is that everything is bliss. But the desire for bliss creates pain. Thus bliss becomes the seed of pain. The entire universe of pain is born of desire. Give up the desire for pleasure and you will not even know what pain is.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Questioning

2006-09-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

Give up all questions except one: 'Who am I'? After all, the only fact you are sure of is that you are. The 'I am' is certain. The 'I am this' is not. Struggle to find out what you are in reality.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Freedom

2006-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Nothing can set you free,
Because you are free.
See yourself with desireless clarity,
That is all.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Simple Truth

2006-09-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Truth is simple and open to all. Why do you complicate it?

Truth is loving and lovable.

It includes all, accepts all, purifies all.

It is untruth that is difficult and a source of trouble.

It always wants, expects, demands.

Being false, it is empty,

Always in search of confirmation and reassurance.

It is afraid of and avoids enquiry.

It identifies itself with any support, however weak and momentary.

Whatever it gets, it loses and asks for more.

Therefore put no faith in the conscious.

Nothing you can see, feel or think is so.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Sin and Virtue

2006-09-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Discard all traditional standards. Leave them to the hypocrites. Only what liberates you from desire and fear and wrong ideas is good. As long as you worry about sin and virtue you will have no peace.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Causality

2006-09-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is it's own cause.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Spontaneity and the Eternal

2006-09-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

To realize the Eternal is to become the Eternal, the whole, the universe, with all it contains. Every event is the effect and the expression of the whole and is in fundamental harmony with the whole. All response from the whole must be right, effortless and instantaneous. It cannot be otherwise, if it is right. Delayed response is wrong response. Thought, feeling and action must be one and simultaneous with the situation that calls for them.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Knowledge

2006-09-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

To earn a livelihood some specialised knowledge is needed. General knowledge develops the mind, no doubt. But if you are going to spend your life in amassing knowledge, you build a wall round yourself. To go beyond the mind, a well-furnished mind is not needed.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Liberation

2006-09-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Liberation is of the self from it's false and self-imposed ideas; it is not contained in some particular experience, however glorious.

~~Nisagardatta~~

Incessant Mental Noise

2006-09-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

Watch how you take your food. As long as it is in your mouth, you are conscious of it; once swallowed, it does not concern you any longer. It would be troublesome to have it constantly in mind until it is eliminated. The mind should be normally in abeyance - incessant activity is a morbid state.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Awareness and Consciousness

2006-09-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a refection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to it's content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Reflections

2006-08-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

"It is not your real being that is restless, but it's reflection in the mind appears restless because the mind is restless. It is just like the reflection of the moon in the water stirred by the wind. The wind of desire stirs the mind and the 'me', which is but a reflection of the Self in the mind, appears changeful. But these ideas of movement, of restlessness, of pleasure and pain are all in the mind. The Self stands beyond the mind, aware, but unconcerned."

~~Nisargadatta~~

Happiness

2006-08-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

"True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes from the self and can be found in the self only. Find your real self and all else will come with it."

~~Nisargadatta~~

The Real World

2006-08-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on some scale of time, and be very short on another, but ultimately it comes to the same. Whatever is time-bound is momentary and has no reality.

~~~Nisargadatta~~~

What is Born Must Die

2006-08-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find what is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale reflection is our sense of "I".

~~Nisargadatta~~

Who You Are

2006-08-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

You are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing consciousness is the manifestation and expression.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Diverse in Appearance, One in Being

2006-08-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

To me all [persons] are equal. Differences in appearance and expression are there, but they do not matter. Just as the shape of a gold ornament does not affect the gold, so does man's essence remain unaffected.

~~Nisargadatta~~

You Are It: The Source and Heart of All

2006-08-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

Let go of your attachment to the unreal and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the realization that you are the source and heart of all will dawn upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things love-worthy and lovable.

~~~Nisargadatta~~~

Self Knowledge

2006-08-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

....As long as knowledge means description in terms of what is already known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be no such thing as self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be described, except as total negation....

~~Nisargadatta~~

Are You a Mere Body?

2006-08-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere body, or something else? Or, maybe nothing at all?

Don't you see that your problems are your body's problems --- food, clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame, security, survival --- all these lose their meaning the moment you realize that you may not be a mere body.

~~Nisargadatta~~

Understanding Human Affairs

2006-08-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

"It is no easy task to gain some understanding of human affairs. In some respects, the task is harder than in the natural sciences. Mother Nature doesn't provide the answers on a silver platter, but at least she does not go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human affairs, such barriers are the norm. It is necessary to dismantle the structures of deception erected by doctrinal systems, which adopt a range of devices that flow very naturally from the ways in which power is concentrated."

----Noam Chomsky----