--- In [email protected], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > --- In [email protected], Peter Sutphen > > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Sure. The nice thing about TM is that I'm always > > > > > right... > > > > > > > > Yes, certainty and truth are dangerous bedfellows. > > > > > > Did you understand what I meant? > > > > Better than you did, I suspect. > > I guess...
It's just that, from a certain point of view, being "right" is the enemy of knowledge. If you are certain that you are "right" about something, how open are you to other possible ways of seeing that something and other states of consciousness from which *to* see it? It's the classic Zen-master-pouring-tea-into-the-already- full-cup thang. How much emptiness can fit in a cup full of certainty? On the other hand, spiritual certainty is *comforting*, man. When you're caught in the flow of the Tao, or the dharma, or Road Trip Mind, or whatever you choose to call it, the pace of change can be pretty gnarly. You don't know from one minute to the next who you are or where you stand in this amazing universe or even whether the universe exists or whether you exist. It's life on the edge. In such moments, being able to munch on a few "core teachings" can be a major "comfort food." Everything around you is changing so fast, "you" are changing so fast, that the snippets of dogma that still seem to be relevant in this particular event horizon(*) serve as life preservers, a way to keep on keepin' on until one passes through that particular portal and to what awaits on the other side of it. And then you *get* to the other side of it all, and you look around and you're in a different universe, one in which the life preserver you clung to to get you here is so Last Season, fashion-wise. You look at the Universal Truth that you clung to to get you here, and *from* here it's not all that universal a truth. It's just a life preserver. And the social event you've landed in the middle of in this new universe is clearly a fancy dress ball. Life preser- vers, no matter how much they might have been in fashion on the decks of the sinking ship "H.M.S. self," and even envied there, just aren't cuttin' it with the critics from Vogue and Elle in the room. So you just peel off the life preserver and toss it in the corner. Maybe someone who needs a life preser- ver will find it and make use of it. Maybe it'll just get thrown out in the morning with the rest of the leftoevers from the fancy dress ball. Whatever happens to it, it has served its function. It got you here. Other "truths" and "certainties" will get you from here to wherever you wind up next. And they'll wind up in a corner there, too. Truth has a remarkably short shelf life if you're moving fairly quickly through the Bardo... Unc (*) 'event horizon' -- a term I first ran into in the poetry of Bruce Cockburn. The song it appears in is one of my all-time favorites. It's a love song. Given Bruce, and the mulitple levels of meaning he weaves into his work, it could be a love song for a woman, or for God, or both. Anyway, at one point in this song, Bruce sings: In the elevator and the empty hall How am I ever going to hear you when you call? I'm always living and I always die on the event horizon of your eyes Ever experienced "love at first sight," gazing into someone's eyes and seeing your entire multi-incar- national profile there, seeing the Good Times you've had together, remembering and *feeling* at the same time the Bad Times you've had together, having no choice but to Go For It anyway? That's the kinda moment -- and the inescapable "pull" of such moments -- I was trying to describe in the meat of the post above. The real meaning of the term 'event horizon' is to be found in astrophysics. When a star begins to go nova, and begins to shrink into itself prior to becoming Self, this "inward stroke" creates such a powerful field around itself that nothing can resist it or escape from it. Even light. Astron- omers call such events "black holes," because even the light of such an event cannot escape from the intense gravitational well of the dark star. If you were in the vicinity of such a dark star, there is theoretically a point from which you can safely observe the phenomenon without getting sucked into it. If you stay outside that point, no problemo. But the instant you venture past that safe point, which astronomers call the 'event horizon,' you're toast. There is nothing you can do to escape the gravitational well of the star going nova. You're a part of the phenomenon. You can no longer escape from it. The only thing you can possibly do, once you've passed the 'event horizon,' is sit back and enjoy the ride until you emerge in a new universe. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
