--- In [email protected], "tomandcindytraynoratfairfieldlis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Barry writes snipped: > > The nature of the Image probably doesn't matter; > > it's the *process* of focusing one's attention > > that's important. And once the powerful attention > > of a powerful seeker has been focused on an object > > or a place or an activity, something of that > > attention remains, even when the seeker who infused > > it with his essence is dead and gone. Possibly it's > > the same thing for seekers who focus on spiritual > > teachers who are dead and gone. > > TomT: > Yup. What the hell have we been doing for the past 35 > years except the focus has been on that which is not > an object, nor a place nor an activity. Focus on that > called the nothing and it turns into Everything.
Yup indeed. I've mentioned it before, but one of my favorites of Rama's metaphors was "the teacher as doorway to the infinite." He claimed in his early years of teaching that he was not trying to get us to focus on him but "through" him, to the infinite. I find this metaphor very appropriate in this particular thread. Most of us here have studied with one or more charismatic spiritual teachers. And one way or another, *all* of them have tried to get us to focus on what really matters, the infinite, the unbounded, the formless, because as you say it *IS* Everything. The teachers have been standing in a doorway, pointing to what lies beyond it, trying their best to get us to focus on infinity, or even better, to step through the doorway ourselves and *become* infinity. And so what do we do? We focus on the finger pointing and not on what it's pointing at. So is it any wonder that when the "doorway" dies many seekers *continue* focusing on it? The infinity that the now-dead teacher was pointing towards is still there, in everything they see and feel and hear and smell and touch, but the only way that many seem to be able to perceive that infinity is in the image of their dead teacher's finger.
