I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the second coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
…
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped into church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune it in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the living end
…
and I am waiting happily
for things to get much worse
before they improve
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a cliff somewhere
clutching its atomic umbrella
…
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and save me forever from certain death
and I am waiting
for life to begin
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
…
and I am waiting
for God to lookout
from Lookout Mountain
and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
as a real farce
and I am waiting for retribution
for what America did
to
Tom Sawyer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for Tom Swift to grow up
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am
waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Back to Index
akhaNDAkAra’.Electronic Journal
Dennis Waite writes:
In connection with my website, (www.advaita.org.uk),
I have now produced the first version of what I hope will be a regular,
approximately quarterly, free, Electronic journal. Each one will address a key
topic in advaita and will use the format of my book ‘Back to the Truth’ to
present it, i.e. my own words and understanding, linking together articles,
book extracts and quotations from other writers and teachers. The first issue
is on the topic of ‘Enlightenment’, since the title I decided upon for the
journal is ‘akhaNDAkAra’.
If anyone is interested in receiving
this (and subscribing to future issues), please send me a brief email (using
the email address dwnot@advaita.org.uk) – it can just contain the heading
‘Subscribe’ if you like.
Comments,
suggestions, questions for future issues etc. will all be welcome.
Dennis
(If you haven’t already been
to the www.advaita.org.uk it is a most
comprehensive resource of material relating to Advaita through the ages. It has
helped me to come to grips with my difficulties with the neo-advaita movement.
Alan)
Thanksgiving at Nacton from Steve Palmer
I'm just back from Nacton.
The burial of Douglas's ashes in a cask with around 30 to 40 friends in
the churchyard was a beautiful occasion.
The sun shone, Catherine smiled and many old friends gathered to
celebrate Douglas's life.
The feeling was one of gratitude, friendship and sharing. We met at Under Shollond and walked with
Catherine up to the church. The Tombstone
has one of Douglas's circular style pictures, carved in stone on the top of the
tombstone The words—
"The
Kingdom of Heaven is within you "
DOUGLAS
EDISON HARDING 1909-2007
beloved
husband of Catherine"
are under the stone diagram.
The tombstone is right in the corner of the churchyard with a
young tree leaning towards it.
Catherine noticed the buds which should flower soon. Many if not all of us put a handful of earth
into the cask plot and it had the feeling of a simple spontaneous ritual of Thanks
for Douglas's life.
Catherine and few others spoke about Douglas in a simple way. A French man, possible Phillip, spoke for
the French group of about 12 friends who came from France. Catherine translated the talk, to paraphrase
"Douglas walked his talk"
Two Theravadan Buddhist monks, from Amaravati ,came.One spoke
saying Ajahn Sumedho would have come but was in Japan. The monk expressed thanks for Douglas's
simplicity and directness in teaching.
Paul had to tread down the earth above the cask so the grass turf
could be replaced.
Richard Lang watching joked " Why am I not surprised to see
you on his grave" ......Jose's phone rang as Catherine finished a
sentence, Catherine quipped straight away “It must be Douglas”. The atmosphere was light, friendly and
thankful.
Afterwards we went to Nacton Village Hall for Tea,coffee, cakes
and conversation. Then back to Under Sholland with Catherine for more chat,
recollections, talk of a biography, jokes and general sharing.
I left with Chris and Camilla for the four hour journey home and
others stayed to go to Felixstowe for the evening meal.
What a memorable day.
"Seeing is for Sharing" is my thought for the day. Especially with seeing friends.....may there
be many more friends who benefit from Douglas and Seeing.
regards,
Steve
Palmer
Michael Hoey also posted on the
no-face book site filling in my gaps.
Thanks so much for this Steve. I
wanted to write something but you've pretty well said it all. Except that there
was a hearty rendition of Blake's "Jerusalem" which nicely honoured
Douglas's Englishness. Also there was another intriguing unconventional
headstone nearby which beautifully complemented Douglas's. It commemorated a couple
( the woman having lived to 105!) and had some beautiful non-dual words which I
wish I'd written down. They were obviously keen gardeners and there was
something about us all meeting in the green veil and wherever we are being
home.
I also loved the international
flavour of the gathering and it was touching how far some had travelled for
this single event. For some reason I had a really powerful sense of us all
being essentially identical at Source. Thanks to you, Douglas, for your wisdom,
clarity, courage and love.
Back to Index
Harding Meeting at Greville Street on Sunday 5 April 2009
Most of us had seen the TED tape
of Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist who suffered a left hemisphere brain
haemorrhage. My aim in devoting this
meeting to her experience was to see whether her explanation of what happened
would help people who are having difficulty with the experiments by giving them
a new angle. That is, her language of right and left hemisphere orientation
might be more digestible to some than our familiar terms of first and third
person. Also, the comparison with John Wren-Lewis, himself a noted scientist,
who thought Douglas was a bit of a crackpot until he, like Jill Bolte Taylor
found the wholeness he had spent much of his life dismissing as non sense. Here
is the link to the original talk.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
This Sunday meeting we watched
the series of interviews Bolte Taylor subsequently made with Oprah Winfrey.
Bolte Taylor speaks of her
awakening to ‘Nirvana’ when her left hemisphere completely closed down due to the
stroke. I think we should beware of expectations of bliss as a consequence of
the Harding experiments as we are not aiming to eliminate left hemisphere
perception but to go beyond or behind it, to see in what it appears, and
discover how exclusive embedment in the left obscures right hemisphere
apprehension of the bigger ‘picture’.
In the opening session she talks
of tuning into the body, awakening to her molecular and sub-molecular identity,
at the same time discovering she is the universe; at one with all that is, yet
aware of the need for the balance of left and right apprehension. As far as I
can see, that is in complete agreement with what we are saying.
There are other parallels with
headlessness: asked whether she could go back to that space she says she never
leaves it and, if occupied by left hemisphere activities, the perspective of
wholeness is only a thought away and accessible at all times. There was an
objection that this is not really what Douglas is on about, but the point of
looking at the Bolte Taylor story is to test someone else’s language in
communicating a similar message.
We carried out four experiments
by way of exploration and comparison. Our main objection was her use of the
word Nirvana to describe the nature of right hemisphere experiencing when freed
from left hemisphere interference—although she does offer this as the extreme
position which manifests when left hemisphere input is at a bare minimum. She
also emphasizes the need for a balanced brain.
In addition to the obvious
similarity of the split-brain approach to the first person and third person
perception of headlessness she brings out the significance of simply being
alive and the need for an attitude of gratitude. Speaking of her state
following the stroke she says: To you I
am a drooling wreck but for myself I knew what I was - another interesting variation on “I am not
what I look like”. Everything was
interesting: I was a miracle, I was alive. She felt she was boundless,
I am enormous, I'm as big as the universe.
And as to what consequences might follow from a wider, general understanding: A world full of compassionate people who
could step into this right hemisphere consciousness at any time. Asked about religion she says that religion
is an outcome of this comprehensive apprehension. The various creeds and
stories that have been substituted for the experience in formal religious
practice are fine if they get us there. An echo of Douglas’s “any road that
gets you there is a good road”.
I found the exercise very interesting and well worthwhile. There are
some objections to her message and method. I trawled the net to seek out
critics and list three websites below. They seem to be reasonable observations
from professionals in her field. The main objections are to what is claimed to
be her over-simplification and the fact that her case rests on right/left brain
theories that have been largely superseded. I don’t find these argument
persuasive myself as Bolte Taylor’s message is about what actually happened to
her and on which she must remain the sole authority. The anti-argument seems to
be about the language she has chosen to share her experience. It is almost as
if the left brain of the Internet, in the shape of her professional objectors,
is fighting for the spotlight against the right brain of the Internet,
represented by the Jill Bolte Taylor story.
1. http://chaunceybell.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/comment-on-jill-bolte-taylors-impressive-ted-talk/
2. http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/04/15/can-someone-really-know-what-its-like-to-have-a-stroke-comments-regarding-stroke-of-insight/
3. http://westallen.typepad.com/idealawg/2008/04/some-critical-t.html
Alan Mann
Back to Index
The Winter Journal. Page 39 Margiad Evans.
Thanks to Jane Cox for
this contribution from The
Autobiography of Margiad Evans, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1943
The dusky darkness spread like
the network of a great tree. In an elm the thrush was singing. He was so hidden
and one with the bushy twigs that I could only see him by his tail which twitched
when his song altered. Everything else was motionless except a broken twig
which stirred and swung by a strip of bark.
As I went along I made an effort to climb out and get into these things
- into the mysterious darkening and sealing of the earth, the quietening that
is as the loveliest psalm of rest. And at last I did. I stood leaning on a
gate. I was behind the sky. I was in the ground. I was in the space between the
trees. My meaning grew in the earth and the firmament - I in the Nothing in which
all is related.
Dancing with Adyashanti from Alan Mann
Joanna sent me Adyashanti’s
latest book “Emptiness Dancing”. I started this note as a letter of thanks to
Joanna but the book raises issues that might be worth considering at our next
meeting so I expanded it into notes for that meeting. (Joanna pointed out that
my initial comments seemed over-critical and that more heart and less head
would be in order. I subsequently modified my original response).
If he came to our meetings I’m
sure Adyashanti would find us approximately in accord with his teaching. He
sounds like an update of Krishnamurti
with a coating of Advaita. I wonder if he would come to a meeting of us lay
folk and if he came would he expect to be present as a participant or as a teacher?
I also wondered, as I read, why he had to change his name from Stephen Gray to
Adyashanti. I read somewhere that Adyashanti means primordial peace.
I am skeptical about gurus. This
is based on too much patient listening and reading (and watching). As many of
you know, I spent years listening to Krishnamurti. My only concession to guru
these days is to seek it amongst my friends.
I thought I’d try to summarize
Adyashanti’s message as I read the book:
·
See through the strong identification with my story
and see that the seeing of that is not enough, we have to live our realization.
P3 and p69.
·
Do not seek enlightenment somewhere else.
·
Do not seek enlightenment for one’s self. It is not
something to be acquired.
·
Enlightenment is what is—freed from the ‘what is not’.
·
What is (everything-All) is sacred.
·
No continuity to realization
·
A childlike interest in everything.
·
Simplicity and the ordinariness of enlightenment—the
extraordinariness of the ordinary.
·
The observer is the observed. The awakened being can be
a tree, a mountain, etc., p33.
·
The necessary shift from knowing into being. P71
·
The contribution of mystical Christianity, opening of
the heart. P192
·
Not a matter of finding the answer but the dissolution
of the question.p190.
.
I don’t think there’s anything in
that list we haven’t endorsed at our get-togethers, so, there is no argument
from me about content.
Many Advaita people seem to be
trapped in a doctrinaire commitment to nonduality and the ‘you and the world
don’t exist’ stuff. Adyashanti gets a bit too close to this for my comfort on
occasions, for example: ‘nothing is actually happening’, p98, and then goes on
to talk about the flowering of life, e.g., p170. I think he is saved by his Zen
training and sees that underlying wholeness (I think Brahman is his choice of
name for it) appears as separation manifesting as the duality or multiplicity
of living, i.e., Eternity is in love with the productions of time. I
found an interesting and persuasive commentary on this thorny subject on the
Dennis Waite’s website. A Realist view of Advaita by Chittaranjan Naik.
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/chittaranjan/realist_chittaranjan.htm
I thought, as I read, that
Adyashanti should be more careful to make clear that his teaching is about what
he has found to be true for himself. There is a danger in assuming that what
has worked out for the teacher is true for you and me or others in general.
However, he put that objection to rest with a comment on page 70
No
knowledge, no statement of the Truth touches what's eternal. What you
really are. And no statement about how to get there is true either, because what gets one person there doesn't
get another person there. A mind that likes to look for the one true
path cannot find it. Of course, the mind
doesn't like that. "No right path? Nothing that could be said or read that ultimately, in the end, could be true? The
most enlightened being can't speak the Truth?"p70
One of my litmus tests for the
claims of the realized is ‘kindness’. Sounds rather banal I know but I have
never been happy with the pearl in the mouth of a swine perspective. If the
pearl has no impact on behaviour, if it does not transform its cruel, callous
or merely uncaring custodian into a considerate human being it cannot, in my
view, be the ‘pearl of great price’.
Many teachers disagree with this, not least Andrew Cohen. Donald (Ingram Smith) ascribed this
unenlightened view of mine to my early Christian conditioning! I have never met
Adyashanti so I don’t know whether he passes the kindness test. Perhaps some of
you who have met him might like to comment. What is the effect of the
realization of the impersonal on the personal? (I have since spoken to or heard
from three people who have met him and/or attended workshops, all of whom
assure me that his teaching is reflected in his doing*). On page 68 he says;
When you see what you really are, no concepts apply anymore. You are
so empty there is just consciousness. There is no inner child, and there is no adult either. None of your
identities exist until you think them
into existence. Consciousness can look down and see there is a body, but that's not the source of anyone's problem.
The problem
is what you add on after that in your mind.
(Or, as we might say with
Douglas , ‘look up’, and see there is a body). One of the difficulties I have
in reading the neo-advaitists is their constant switching between first person
and third person perspectives without making clear where they are coming from
and Adyashanti is no exception. This makes them sound as if they are constantly
contradicting themselves. On page 127 Adyashanti opens his chapter with his version
of the ‘Closed Eyes experiment’, dissolving the barriers between inner and
outer. On the previous page however he had said “Everything that happens
between the ears is not the truth; it’s just a story. What are you without your
story?” That’s very much a third person perspective, a statement by the
story, an objective observation on the workings of the brain—the first person
perspective he begins to unfold on the following page, quoted above, would
respond with ‘what ears?’ Not to mention the matter of holding your ears and
asking yourself what it is that appears between these two sensations or what is
it these sensations are happening in? Is whatever is revealed to you in that
condition false? Check it out, it takes five seconds. I know what he’s getting
at but it’s not a good explanation.
Finally, why no index? If this
work encapsulates his latest teaching surely it’s worth a bit of extra time to
prepare an index. I made a few notes as I read but I’d like to review a few of
my ‘facts’ without having to scurry through the whole book.
Alan
Mann
* From: http://www.globalserve.net/~sarlo/ReportsAS.htm.
I told Joe that I thought the one quality that stood out during the satsang was
Adya’s impeccable manners and incredible politeness and sweetness. I’ve
attended satsangs with other teachers who did not exhibit these qualities, but
it didn’t occur to me at the time as a lack in them until I became aware of it
so fully present in Adya. Only then did the comparison become obvious to me. He
was gracious, generous, kind, a good listener, funny, friendly, very sweet, and
never once introduced any kind of negativity into the discussions of the
audience’s questions or concerns.
More on
Adyashanti at http://www.adyashanti.org/ and
http://www.adyashanti.org/cafedharma/index.php?file=radio
Back to Index
Nothing to do, No problem to solve. From Colin Drake
If you sit quietly noticing
that awareness is always present it is very easy to see that for this to be the
case there is absolutely nothing that the mind needs to do. Similarly there is
no problem that the mind needs to solve to recognize this deeper level of awareness,
as this very awareness is never absent being the constant conscious presence in
which all thoughts and sensations appear. For without this presence we would
not be aware of any thought or sensation.
Now the mind is basically a
problem solving device, so when it realizes that there is nothing it needs to
do, and no problem that it needs to solve, it naturally quietens leaving the
cloudless sky of awareness in its full glory. Provided one has the intent of
identifying with this deeper level of awareness, then thoughts and sensations
appear as clouds in this sky, which come and go leaving the sky unaffected. In
this context the mind will not follow, or identify with, these clouds as the
task it has set itself to perform is to identify with awareness itself.
The mind is akin to an
‘onboard computer’ which is a wonderful tool for problem-solving, information
storing retrieval and processing, and evaluating the data provided by our
senses. However when it is not ‘engaged’ it tends to search for other problems
to solve, and if these are not available in the present moment it tends to
speculate in the future, wallow in the past, or imagine in the present,
creating non-existent problems which it then tries to solve! Whereas a computer
will just sit idle until it is given a task to perform, so to put the mind into
this same ‘idle’ state one has to ‘engage’ it in a task thus disabling its
‘search’ tendency. If it turns out that this task entails no problem to solve
the mind will not resume searching as long as it remains totally engaged in the
task it has been set, and if this entails ‘nothing to do’ then the mind will
‘do nothing’!
In this mode thoughts and
sensations come and go effortlessly without luring the mind to follow, or
identifying with, them. This is why committing, or having the intent, to
identifying with the deeper level of our being, pure awareness, is so
important; for this sets the ‘milieu’ in which the mind is to operate. This in
turn leads to the realization that for this identification there is truly
nothing the mind has to do, or problem to solve, as awareness is obviously
already here and is a constant presence (the perceiver) whilst thoughts and
sensations are just ephemeral objects (the perceived).
At this moment you can
totally relax letting go of all striving, seeking, desiring and longing; in
fact of all effort. As this relaxation deepens, and the mind quietens, one
becomes totally open to further revelations stemming from the recognition that
one is pure awareness. For this reason the intent to identify with the deepest
level of our being, pure awareness, and the realization that for this there is
truly nothing the mind needs to do, or problem it has to solve, is of great
value in going totally beyond identification with the surface level of thoughts
and sensations.
This total relaxation and
letting go then effortlessly leads to merging with awareness itself, with all
the peace and bliss that this entails. For in this state there is truly ‘no
mind’, as the mind is still due to the fact that it has nothing to do, and no
problem to solve; and thoughts and sensations are merely witnessed as they
spontaneously arise and subside, without re-activating the mind.
Colin Drake
(Colin advises that his book Humanity,
Our Place in the Universe. An Introduction to the Central Beliefs of the
World’s Five Major Religions. (How They Answer the Five ‘Big’ Questions of
Life.) is nearing completion. Chapters of the book have appeared in the
NOWletter from time to time and I’ll let you know when the book is available.
Alan)
Back to Index
The Missing All from Alan Mann
William Franke takes Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘The Missing
All’ as the title for an essay in which
he argues that her poetry is best understood
as ‘a form of negative theology’, what he describes as apophatic discourse. See
the link below.
I stumbled on this essay when
looking for the definition of ‘apophatic’, which is one of the words whose
meaning constantly escapes me. I regularly draw on Emily Dickinson and I
discovered on reading the essay that the poems I most admire are, according to
Franke, the result of her attempts to represent her apophatic understanding.
That is, her experience of an underlying wholeness of being beyond words.
The essay filled some of the gaps
in my recent consideration of the question of the beliefs of unbelievers and
the nature of faith, as well as providing examples of occasional uncanny
experiences of a reality outside my normal consciousness. They seem to come as
though openings to a dimension from which I am excluded yet to which I somehow
belong.
This is the one of the Dickinson
poems which captures the sense of these experiences:
701
A Thought went up my mind today—
That I have had before—
But did not finish—some way back—
I could not fix the Year—
Nor Where it went—nor why it came
The second time to me—
Nor definitely, what it was—
Have I the Art to say—
But somewhere—in my soul—I know—
I’ve met the Thing before—
It just reminded me—‘twas all—
And came my way no more—
I find her poem ‘The Missing All’ from which
the essay title is taken to be particularly hard to unravel:
985
The Missing All, prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World’s
Departure from a Hinge
Or Sun’s Extinction, be observed
Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.
The
fact that the All is missing, or is excluded from everyday perception, is the
condition that allows the appearance of things and events. Well, that’s my take
on the opening lines. As for the rest of the poem I’m uncertain. Maybe she’s
saying the most drastic action or event in our world of things and events such
as the earth flying out of orbit or the collapse of the sun, could not disturb
or distract the All. I’d be interested in other interpretations readers may
have but my real interest lies in her emphasis on the wholeness of life and the
apparent inaccessibility of this ‘ground’ to everyday consciousness. I’m surprised
that Franke left out the poem I think addresses the issue most directly:
959
A loss of something ever felt I—
The first that I could recollect
Bereft I was— of what I knew not
Too young that any should suspect
A Mourner walked among the
children
I notwithstanding went about
As one bemoaning a Dominion
Itself the only Prince cast out—
Elder, Today, a session wiser
And fainter, too, as Wiseness is—
I find myself still softly
searching
For my Delinquent Palaces—
And a Suspicion, like a Finger
Touches my Forehead now and then
That I am looking oppositely
For the site of the Kingdom of
Heaven—
I’m particularly appreciative of
this poem because it concludes with the most familiar of the Harding
experiments, designed specifically for redelivering us to the Missing All.
Alan
Mann.
The William Franke essay "The
missing all": Emily Dickinson's apophatic poetics can be viewed or
downloaded from a number of websites. I used this one—
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb049/is_1_58/ai_n31041796/\
Back to Index
The Centre for Progressive Religious Thought
Doug Lloyd— who has contributed
a number of articles, issues 114, 118, 134 and, after discussing his commentary
on why Headlessness would not be acceptable to orthodox Christians in Nowletter
139—drew my attention to the Progressive Christian Network of Victoria:
http://www.pcnvictoria.org.au/
I subsequently
found an Australia-wide organization with similar aims The Centre
for Progressive Religious Thought with chapters in all states.
This is their
introductory commentary from the site’s home page:
The Centre for Progressive
Religious Thought was founded in July 2002 in Canberra, Australia, with a
further Chapter established in Sydney in 2004. Each Centre is open to any and
to all who wish to explore a more progressive and open theology, in a safe
environment. They stand in deep contrast to a general tendency which often
requires a theology be built on what should be believed. As such, folk who will
find comfort in each of the Centres will be those who either (i) remain in the
institutional church but find their progressive theology not reflected in much
of the local church's thinking, or (ii) have already stepped outside the
institution and are 'exiles' or members of the 'church alumni association' yet
looking for a friendly and safe environment in which to share discussions and
push boundaries. On this site you will find information on various events being
staged, some articles from our presenters, listings of resources you might like
to check out further, as well as For Sale resources. You will also find links
to several other 'progressive' Centres, who with CPRT, form an informal
progressive religious network in Australia and New Zealand. It is our hope that
both the Chapters, will become fertile soil in the rebirthing of a new
awareness of and thinking on, the sacred in today's post-modern society. So
welcome to an exciting journey. You are not alone! Rex A E Hunt, National
Director
http://www.progressivereligion.org.au/?q=node/1
Back to Index
Those 'Silly' Experiments from Pete Sumner
Someone in Sedona, USA,
ordered one of the 'Headless' posters designed by our very own Sam Blight, then
sent the following message:
"I want to express my
gratitude to you for continuing the work of Douglas Harding. I had come across
the Web site many months ago, had saved my favorites, but my rational mind
completely dismissed the experiments as silly.
A few day ago, I was again
drawn to it, did the experiments and it blew my mind away. I have been
meditating daily since the mid 1970's, studying Advaita Vedanta teachings for
about 3 years now, and just by doing a few of the experiments, I was finally able
to see the Spaciousness, the clear emptiness of the Awareness That I AM. What
an incredibly simple, fast and effective method! We must continue to spread
this message."
Lifted from Clearsight
at http://peterspearls.com.au/
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The 2009 Templeton Prize
PARIS, MARCH 16 – Bernard
d’Espagnat, a French physicist and philosopher of science whose explorations of
the philosophical implications of quantum physics have opened new vistas on the
definition of reality and the potential limits of knowable science, has won the
2009 Templeton Prize.
In his nomination of d’Espagnat
for the Templeton Prize, Nidhal Guessoum, Chair of Physics at American
University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, wrote, “He has constructed a
coherent body of work which shows why it is credible that the human mind is
capable of perceiving deeper realities.”
These perceptions offer, d’Espagnat
has said, “the possibility that the things we observe may be tentatively
interpreted as signs providing us with some perhaps not entirely misleading
glimpses of a higher reality and, therefore, that higher forms of spirituality
are fully compatible with what seems to emerge from contemporary physics.”
Notes from the website at http://www.templetonprize.org/currentwinner.html
where you will find comprehensive coverage of the reasons for the award and
information on d’Espagnat’s work.
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