Dear Share, Right on the money! I just reread this section of SBAL and had a great time looking over the sentences that I had highlighted all those years ago. Today I would highlight others.
Perhaps you might do an updated Concordance for me. You seem to know my interests. Also, I have begun my Commentary of the BG. One of the 128 remaining to do. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <sharelong60@...> wrote : Dan, for more on this, see SBeing, ArtL pg 238 On Tuesday, August 26, 2014 6:32 PM, danfriedman2002 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Rich and richer, Your are right (and Rich again). This one's for Share, because I never, ever think I disagree with what is Right: "Material possessions don't bind us. What they do is liberate us from the pangs of unfulfilled desires. Our desire is to get this and this and this, and then if we don't get, we feel miserable. Whatever we have, that is a solace to us in that misery. Material possessions are not a means of bondage. If anything they are a source of solace in our weakness. They do not bind us. If anything, they are a source of solace, contentment, happiness, joy, peace. "Possessions will always be a means of joyfulness. It is the non-possessions that bind us in the craving to get them. Do you see the point? It is something that we don't possess, that non-possession binds us in the craving to possess it. Possessions are not a bondage. They are a means of joy, happiness. "What is bondage? Lack of awareness of the Unbounded. That means: ignorance, ignorance of our unbounded nature, ignorance that the Self within is unbounded, eternal, infinite, absolute, bliss. Lack of knowledge about this is ignorance, and this ignorance is a bondage to us. Material possessions are never a bondage. They are a means of happiness." - Maharishi ~"Growth of Consciousness" ~Humboldt State University, USA~ August 1970~ ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote : On 8/26/2014 5:37 PM, danfriedman2002 wrote: Dearest Share and Richard, Desire is good. Desire for Enlightenment. No regrets, hear? > Dan, you are a fast reader - better to let this one sink in slowly: Because the desire to prevent desiring more than will be attained is itself unconsciously desired too much. For whenever one desires to stop 'desiring more than will be attained', this additional, deeper desire also becomes a desire for more stopping than will be attained. Thus this additional, deeper desire requires its own additional, still deeper desire to stop desiring more stopping than will be attained. You are only going to get as much enlightenment as you are going to get. > ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> mailto:punditster@... wrote : On 8/26/2014 9:38 AM, Share Long sharelong60@... mailto:sharelong60@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: Thanks, Richard, cool info. I once heard from a friend that we can fulfill those less than wonderful desires in dream state. And that counts too but doesn't, I guess, accrue any negative karma. > It is obviously counter-productive to desire to be enlightened more than one is going to be enlightened. Desiring more than one is going to get leads to frustration, lamentation, and grief. It is impossible to to stop desiring, and at a more subtle level, it is fruitless to want to stop desiring more than one is going to stop desiring, relative to wanting to stop wanting. According to Professor A.J. Bahm, these practical difficulties do not invalidate the principle of wanting to attain a state of desirelessness, they merely indicate desire's universality, the subtlety with which it operates, the reason why it is commonly misunderstood, and the need for a special meditation to bring it into manageable operation. Base desire also works subtly, not merely because desires are emotively imprecise, but especially because the desire to prevent desiring more than will be attained is itself unconsciously desired too much. For whenever one desires to stop 'desiring more than will be attained', this additional, deeper desire also becomes a desire for more stopping than will be attained. Thus this additional, deeper desire requires its own additional, still deeper desire to stop desiring more stopping than will be attained. You are not going to get any more enlightenment than you are going to get. When you realize this, you will be free and there won't be any more stress. Any time there is stress there is wanting - even if it is wanting less stress. The answer to this riddle is actually very simple when you think about it. According to Bahm, "He who finally gives up trying to solve the problem of frustration, thereby becoming willing to accept his desires and frustrations for what they are, finds the problem solved." > On Monday, August 25, 2014 9:16 PM, "'Richard J. Williams' punditster@... mailto:punditster@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com wrote: On 8/25/2014 8:59 PM, s3raphita@... mailto:s3raphita@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: Re "I have never met a single TM'er who could honestly say they had fulfilled all desires": And yet, . . ., and yet . . . Isn't it the case that *when you are meditating* you often enter a state in which your quotidian desires no longer impinge on your consciousness and you are happy to remain just where you are. True, one could say the same thing about being asleep, but Indian philosophers have often taken the deep sleep state as a paradigm for enlightenment. No desires = fulfillment of desires. > In Tibetan Dream Yoga, maintaining full consciousness while in the dream state is part of Dzogchen training. This training is described by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche as 'Rigpa Awareness'. Lucid dreaming is secondary to the experience of 'Diamond Light'. Rigpa Awareness is very similar to 'witnessing sleep' in TM, which helps the individual understand the unreality of waking consciousness as phenomena. Apparently the EEG patterns are the same in Rigpa Awareness as in TM. Read more: 'Tibetan Yoga Of Dream And Sleep' by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Snow Lion, 1998 >
