A Far Distant Howl

New Mexico has bought a stretch of track for the first phase of a commuter-rail system, and trains could be running in June, Gov. Bill Richardson announced Friday.

The $50 million purchase from BNSF Railway of 51 miles of track between Belen and Bernalillo was finalized Friday.

"You'll see trains on the tracks in the next couple of weeks" as the equipment is tested, said Lawrence Rael, executive director of the Mid-Region Council of Governments.

Over the next couple of months, a contractor will build covered platforms for commuters at nine stops along the route, he said.

Plans for the $393 million Rail Runner project include extending the service to Santa Fe by the end of 2008.

The state intends to buy a total of nearly 300 miles of track from BNSF, stretching north to the Colorado state line.

The 48-mile Bernalillo-Lamy portion of the track is scheduled to be purchased in 2007 and the 200-mile stretch from Lamy to Colorado in 2008. The total price tag for all three segments is $75 million.

Transportation Secretary Rhonda Faught has said BNSF wanted to sell all the track between Belen and Colorado rather than selling portions of it. BNSF and Amtrak will pay the state for the use of the tracks.

Rael said the 300-foot-long platforms will have adjacent parking at all but the downtown Albuquerque stop, which has nearby parking facilities. The cost of the platforms, to be built by Twin Mountain Construction, will range from $2.5 million to $2.8 million each, he said.

Service will be free to riders for the first three months and discounted -- a $2 flat fare -- through the end of the year. A permanent fare structure would be in place in 2007.

Transportation officials have said the commuter rail will have to be subsidized. The Belen-Bernalillo stretch is estimated to cost about $10 million annually to operate, with about $1 million projected to be recouped from ticket sales.

"The dollars that we're spending here are well worth it," said House Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé.

The administration says traffic is projected to increase dramatically over the next 20 years, and the Rail Runner will be a convenient and reliable alternative to driving.

Interstate 25 "is becoming more and more difficult to navigate on a daily basis," Rael said.

The train will operate at peak commuter hours Monday through Friday; Saturday service could be added, transportation officials said.

Sandoval County contributed $10 million to the project for equipment and station development.

Rail Runner stations are planned for downtown Belen; Los Lunas; Isleta Pueblo; the Albuquerque airport and South Valley area; downtown Albuquerque; the Los Ranchos and North Valley area; Sandia Pueblo; downtown Bernalillo; and at U.S. 550 in Sandoval County.

Attorney General Patricia Madrid cleared the way for the purchase a couple of weeks earlier after a legal review.
By DEBORAH BAKER | Associated Press

Pure Awareness is the base of consciousness. We'll define
consciousness for our purposes as a functioning, thinking
elaboration of Awareness.

Ego consciousness is a natural formation of the energies of
Awareness that arise as thought. This naturally arising mental body
is the form of ego. It's the "subject" as conceived by itself.  Take
for example when you dream at night.  In the dream you exist with a
body and a mind.  The consciousness you have in the dream also
manifests an ego self in the dream.  That's your sense of "me" in
the dream.  That "me" arises from potentials that already exist in
the mind, traces from our experience, thoughts, feelings.  When we
wake up from our dream, ALL the problems of our "dream self"
vanishes spontaneously without the least effort.  Likewise when we
have a deep awakening in ordinary waking consciousness, the problems
of "me" vanishes instantly, as that "self" was a projection from our
traces that arise from our memories, fixations, feelings,thoughts
and conditioning. Well, when that ego self vanishes suddenly, what
are we left with?  Who are we? What are we?

Remaining is a naked, luminous knowingness or sphere of Awareness. 
This sphere of Awareness has a 360 degree perceptual field that has
no boundaries.  Some traditions refer to this Awareness as a crystal
sphere that radiates light.  It is this sphere that is our own
beingness beyond mind or body.  While we are alive that sphere of
Awareness is centrally positioned in the skull and uses the eyes,
ears, nose and mouth in experiencing the external world.  Literally,
we are looking out of our eyes from the center of our skull.
Awareness has the ability to look out of the eyes through a much
more subtle channel of light that is separate from the optic nerves,
as well as having connections to our other sensory organs.  There
are practices that allow our ability to see without our eyes and
hear without our ears, but to perceive "directly".  Our Awareness
has this potential, to perceive without the physical body.  Some
people call this an out-of-body perceptual experience.  In that
situation, the sphere of Awareness (you) moves out of the skull and
floats about in the external environment.  You can see clearly and
perceive everything directly and without the filters of the body's
perceptual systems.  Your perception is global without front, back,
top or bottom. When you have this experience you have absolute
certainty that you are not your body and are not the least bit
dependent upon it.  This sphere of luminous knowing clear-light
Awareness is known as Rigpa in Tibetan, or the Son-Light.  We will
call that simply Awareness.  That sphere of Awareness is
indestructible and unchanging.  That Awareness in its basic or naked
state, does not rely on mind, nor does it need to "think". It has a
higher mode of knowing directly, more like intuition.  When its
Awareness is directed within, it would experience itself as an
infinite presence without boundaries or materiality.  It has no
sense of defined "self" as an ego or self image.  It is simply Being.
It's a Presence that is always present in every experience.  This
Sphere of Awareness IS who we are and who we have always been! 

Exercise:
Notice and reflect upon your Presence of Awareness looking out your
eyes reading these words right at this exact moment!  That's
immediate self-recognition...

Next we'll discuss how the mind, ego and thinking consciousness
arises from this pure and perfect sphere of Awareness.

ejackpete

By Anonymous - Pygmy - Today is God
(18th Century)

In the beginning was God,
Today is God,
Tomorrow will be God.
Who can make an image of God?
He has no body.
He is the word which comes out of your mouth
That word! It is no more,
It is past, and still it lives!
So is God.

-- from An African Prayer Book, Edited by Desmond Tutu

I've spent so way too much time at this site. Complexity within complexity.
Check out the silly song.

"When we speak of meditation on love, this does not mean
taking love as an object, but rather seeking to transform our
whole state of mind into that state of love or compassion."

Both of these remind me of something I was reading last
night in Julius Evola's "The Doctrine Of Awakening: The
Attainment of Self-Mastery According to The Earliest
Buddhist Texts" Inner Traditions, translated form Italian
by H.E. Musson (and many thanks on whomever
recommended this book). From the chapter 'The
Four Jhanas: The 'Irradiant Contemplations'
(brahmaviharabhavana) Evola writes - or rather quotes:

Here are the formulae that are given by the canon for
the four irradiant contemplations: "The ascetic dwells
with his spirit pervaded by love (metta) and irradiates
one direction, a second, a third, a fourth, so across and
upward and downward: identifying himself with all
things everywhere, he irradiates the whole world with
spirit pervaded by love, with ample, profound, unlimited
mind, free of hate and rancor." The formula is repeated
three more times, except for the term, love, which is
replaced in turn by compassion (karuna), sympathetic
joy (mudita) and lastly equinimity, immutability or
stability (upekkha). Through love, the ascetic feels
himself in all beings, noble or common, happy and
unhappy, both of this world and every other world;
he feels their destiny as though it wee his own he
takes upon himself the contingency of their life; he
feels with their feeling or suffering (compassion) but
then he irradiates joy, as if the darkness in each bring
had dissolved, as if the feeling he irradiates were
beneficial to the beings and were sustaining, clarifying
and liberating them. Then follows the last irradiation,
that of immutability or stability; the ascetic, still
developing universal consciousness, is as if he willed
the "being" of each being. He aims at infusing in every
creature that same calm, that same quality of stability
and of equanimity that he has developed in himself,
by projecting in them the quality of "being," that same
unshakability or security that he has achieved by
completing this process of universalization...
To set free one's heart by unfolding a love that turns to
compassion, a compassion that turns to joy, a joy that
turns to unchangeability, to impassible clarity and
unshakable detachment, is the aim of this fourfold
contemplations. To achieve it entirely, that is to say
to dissolve all trace of finite and unquiet subjectivity
is, according to Buddhism, to have achieved the
condition necessary for a state of union with the
theistic god, with Brahma - 'brahma-shayata.'

Ramon Sender

A solitary crane
In winter snow
Needs no jewels.
Ding Ming-Dao

"When you sit, don't expect to be noble.
When we sit with what is, even for a few
minutes, then this presence that we are
is like a mirror. We see everything. We
see what we are: our efforts to look
good, to be first, or to be last. We see
our anger, our anxiety, our pomposity,
our so-called spirituality. Real spirituality
is just being with all that. If we can really
be with who we are, Transformation occurs."

- Charlotte Joko Beck

Your only duty is to understand and master your mind.
...

Mastery of mind comes automatically with the
Full understanding of mind...

Mind is not your enemy but, just a very potent
Tool that you need to understand fully and use
It only after understanding it fully!

Its misuse can cut you...
Its misuse can create pain...

Liberation is the "use" of mind by understanding it...
Slavery is being used by mind because of not
understanding it!
...
Understanding mind is the answer to all
your questions!
...

Are you enlightened?
Ask it as... have I 'mastered' my "mind"?
...

Once you know the Source of Mind, once you know
the source of all its states, emotions, feelings
and thoughts including... joy, love, happiness,
Peace, greed, fear, emotional pain, suffering...

and, once you gain the consciousness to abide
in the Source of Mind...

Once you can "choose", "use" or "drop" these
feelings, emotions and thoughts as you see fit -
you have mastered your mind!

...

Do I know God?
Ask it as... Do I know the Source of mind?
...

Do I know where I came from?
Ask it as... do I know the origin of "mind"?

...

Why I am the person that I am?
Ask it as... why do I get thoughts, dreams and
emotions that I get?

...

Why I suffer?
Ask it as... why does my mind get thoughts/emotions
that it does?

As long as you keep using mind beyond your understanding
of it and without your *awareness* of it...

you will keep getting thoughts/emotions/feelings [and pain]
that you may not expect or [consciously] want!

...

Why am I not happy?
Ask it as... why do my mind has thoughts/emotions that
it does?

...

What makes me happy?
Ask it as... what makes my mind quiet, content and
peaceful?

...

How will I find God?
Ask it as... how I will know the Source of mind?

...

What is the purpose of my life?
Ask it as... what is the purpose of my mind?

...

Where will I go after I die?
Ask it as what happens to "mind"... after it disappears?

...

How long it will take me to become enlightened?
Ask it as... how long it will take me to fully
understand mind and 'use' it consciously in place
of being blindly driven by it?

~Adithya K

Check out this Simpson The TV Comedy's
new opening credit segment.

The situation here is not unlike a bus in
which different passengers are constantly
competing and scheming to take over control
of the driver's seat, and when they do, they
take the whole bus and all the other pasengers
on their trip. For example, someone makes a
contemptuous remark to us: this is the cue for
a hated or worthless image to take over the
driver's position. Egos at every level of
consciousness go on the trip of rage or rejection,
directed at the other and/or at self. The heart
beats violently, the cells shiver in fear, the other
is perceived as mean or stupid, etc,; and whatever
trip the bus was on before is, of course, completely
disrupted while all systems go on this detour.

--Ralph Metzner

hat tip-Steve Toth

I'd like to try to answer some messages on the threads that I started...



hafizullah@...
Date: Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:49 am
Subject: RE: [SufiMystic] method and story, poem and analysis
<<>>

h: Deconstruct if you wish (though I don't have a problem with the
rest of your
epistle),
------------

t: That, my friend, is a surprise and a delight...

_______________

h: but "The Word" doesn't mean that in the context of the Scripture.

-----------------

t:
There are multiple meanings to scripture. I try to bring that
out, but it is difficult, and my skills limited.
I might also tactfully suggest that people may see scripture in
different ways, and that one person's view is not necessarily flat
wrong if it is not another person's.
Epistemology finds its end in the realization that knowledge
(and thus philosophy, or Truth) has its roots in the Word,
interpreted as I do as the Light of the use of language-concepts to
understand things. Wittgenstein essentially wrote the final word in
Western philosophy in its classic sense of explaining reality:
"Whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent." We turn to the
nature of language itself for the limits of human
knowledge. Language - once we have detached from
language-as-environment, a veil over reality often likened by mystics
to how fish regard water, as invisible and unimagined, but
nonetheless actually being the very matrix of their reality - turns
out to be much more than what we imagine it to be, while concepts
themselves turn out to be less.


---------------------
h:
It is referring to a phenomenon, well-known in yoga and in the oral
tradition of Sufism called "Nada Brahma" (by the yogis) and "Saut-i Sarmad"
(by the Sufis). It is the primordial vibration of the universe, and it is
literally audible in high states of meditation ("shabd yoga"), heard usually
in the center of the head or in the right ear.

Once this is opened by particular breath and sound techniques or by the
bestowal of the teacher (depending upon the tradition), the sound begins as
a sine wave, like tinnitus but sweeter. As consciousness becomes more
refined and follows the sound, it becomes more complex and begins to sound
like one of the Tibetan "bowl bells" that are played by running a wand
around the rim of the bell. With continued practice, the sound goes through
definite stages (sounding like rushing water, crickets, carillon bells,
etc.), and the practitioner's consciousness tunes to the various planes of
consciousness and is finally carried into the classical Samadhi states of
yoga.

Read "The Music of Life" by Hazrat Inayat Khan for more info.


Hafizullah
@}->----

__________



I will look for the book, and pick it up if it comes to hand.

Nothing I said was meant to undermine the *concept* of the Word
as the primordial vibration... in fact, I spoke of enthusiasm,
quoting Wilhelm thus:


"From immemorial times the inspiring effect of the invisible
sound that moves all hearts, and draws them together, has mystified mankind."


The Word, including the concept God and the concept Love...then
moving to Love as actuality, beyond the concept, a clarity of seeing
which is non-conceptual...then the *transmission* of love from one
being to another, via words which point to that which is within, this
common vibration which mystifies us but makes us know we are One, and
One is us...all of this was in that letter.
Why has this vibration been called "The Word," and in many
cultures? And Hinduism has long deconstructed A-U-M in order to
discuss it with each other.

The grasp that Helen Keller had of the mysticism of words is
generally forgotten by most of us (maybe yosy remembers), but every
child at some point knows that "water" means water. And when the
connection between spoken sound and thing is made, the endless
usefulness of language lights up a child's world. The word "no" and
expressions of pain utterly transform the infant's world from a unity
of love to a disunity of conflict, but that is life using language
for means other than communicating understanding.

There are many interpretations of those words, "In the beginning
was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." Many
Christians refer to the Book itself as the Word (of God). And they
would say that Jesus is the Word made flesh. In this multiple usage
of the word "word," they seek to arouse a sense of the mystery
whereby Jesus, a human being, could be Lord and also Yahweh the one
God could be Lord. The mystery of the divinity of humanity, and the
unity of God and Human. Admittedly not a Koranic approach, which is
why I am surprised that you authoritatively interpret Christian
scripture, and in such an unchristian way. And you didn't refer to
any christian sects who used "Word" in the manner that you do.
Nonetheless, I freely admit that your understanding is a true
one. I in fact have extensively practiced meditation based on a tone
that your 'sweet tinnitus' describes quite well (though I wouldn't
presume to compare my experience with yours). That was in the days
when inducing samadhi was of interest to me. The practice and
similar ones also help one remain aware of the divine in the midst of
the crowd; rather as I imagine prayer beads or rosaries might. There
are other methods perhaps more appropriate to our post-modern times.
The Buddha has a parable about a man crossing a river, the
river of samsara, and using a raft, the raft of the dharma (or
whatever expedient means an individual finds works for them), in
order to effect the crossing. Once the man crosses the stream, he
casts aside the raft, that is the practices and views he used to
cross the stream. In respect to this discussion, my views and your
practices are both expedient means. My light is my light, and your
light is your light. Both practices and views are necessary, and
each individual must use what works for them.
A physician of the spirit might be able to discuss with a group
the background and nature of disease and its cures, but he would not
supply everyone in the group with the same medicine for their various ailments.
Practices and views designed for one culture and time cannot be
transplanted whole into a new world culture. Our world *requires*
that we respect incompatible views as (at least conceivably) equally
True; as Buddhism has always done. Views are never totally right;
the only Right View (in the Middle Way) as abandoning attachment to
all views. Believing what is expedient, what serves love in the current time.
We no longer live in a world where the only source of spiritual
truth a person has is a church, temple, or monastery; perhaps a club
or group. We have *media*. We don't have to serve some teacher for
twenty years before we are allowed to study a scripture...for "all
that was once hidden is now made plain. And what was once spoken in
the ear is shouted from the rooftops (paraphrasing)." And we have
new ways of finding fellowship, as well.

Thanks for your comments.


aloha, terry

Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.
So we might as well burst out laughing.
Lama Surya Das

As a man in his last breath
drops all he is carrying,

each breath is a little death
that can set us free.

-Mark Nepo

Behold, Arjuna, a million divine forms, with an infinite variety of color and shape. Behold the gods of the natural world, and many more wonders never revealed before. Behold the entire cosmos turning within my body, and the other things you desire to see.

But these things cannot be seen with your physical eyes; therefore I give you spiritual vision to perceive my majestic power.

-Bhagavad Gita 11:5-8

There are different levels of communication. You can communicate from the soul or you can communicate simply from the mind. If communication is only from the mind, if it's merely cognitive, it becomes just a form of entertainment. But when the soul dimension is present, everything changes. In that kind of conversation, you have to be careful what you say because inherent in that dimension is a shared recognition that you have to back it up, you have to live it. Otherwise, even a discussion of the most profound and subtle spiritual matters is just sophisticated conceptual entertainment. It may be fascinating, intriguing, even inspiring, but it lacks the weight of obligation. The nature of any discussion about serious things is going to be radically different when inherent in it is the knowledge that you have to back it up. That makes it very real. So if you are communicating with that level of attention and are listening to others with that kind of seriousness, you are literally creating a new moral context. You are communicating in the presence of a higher consciousness and a higher conscience that is not just your own. The words are not free. It's not a one-night-stand kind of conversation.

Andrew Cohen

Why did I visit the Magic Monastery? Well, I'm a monk myself, and the strangest thing happened in my monastery. We had a visit from the Buddha.
We prepared for it, and gave him a very warm, though solemn, welcome. He stayed overnight, but he slipped away very early in the morning. When the monks work up, they found grafitti all over the cloister walls. Imagine! And do you know what he wrote? One word...TRIVIA...TRIVIA...TRIVIA...all over the place.

Well, we were in a rage. But then when I quited down I looked about and realized, "yes, it is true." So much of what I saw was trivia, and most of what I heard. But what is worse, when I closed my eyes, all inside was trivia. For several weeks this was my experience, and my very efforts to rectify it just made it worse. I left my monastery and headed for the Magic Monastery.

The Brother showed me around. First, the Hall of Laughter. Everything fed the flame of laughter, big things and small, scared, solemn, inconsequential. Only laughter there. Next, the Room of sorrow. The very essence of bitter tears-those of the breaved mother, the lonely, the depressed. only sorrow here.

Now the Hall of Words. Words upon words, spoken and written Alone they must have had some sense, but all together-total confusion. I cried out. "Stop! Stop!" but I was only adding words to words.

Next the great Hall of Silence. Here there is no time.

He took me finally to the Hall of Treasures. "Take anything you want," he wispered.

I chose the heart of Jesus, and with it I am heading back to my monastery.

"The University of Miami found two free protein building
amino-acids, glycin and alanin, in lunar rocks brought back
by the crew of Apollo X1. Actualy man, who so dislikes being
alone, ought to be very happy about these scientific proofs
which assure him that he is not alone in the cosmos,
and that on the contrary probably lots of clever playfellows
are waiting there for him to pick up the traces of their former
visits that they left behind.
For according to the present state of knowledge we should accept
the folowing facts: All matter in the universe was originally
united in one primordial atom. The chemical perquisites for life
exist on other stars in our galaxy.
But where is there room for the "good God" in this fantastic
theoretical structure erected by science? The personification of
the force that must have existed before the big bang as God,
and the conceptions of this kindly old man produced for the
faithful by the cathechists simply blindfold us.
The original prodigious force which existed before the
beginning of all being was a neutrum.

IT existed before the big bang.

IT unleased the great destruction.

IT caused all the worlds in the universe to originate from the explosion.

IT, incorporeal primordial force, the decisive primordial command, became

matter and IT knew the result of the great explosion.

IT wanted to reach the stage of lived experience.



In all places where men gather together to praise the
creator, they feel a beneficent strengthening togetherness.
As if roused by the note of a tuning fork, the shared sense
of something transcendent echoes silently through the interior.
Temples and churches are places for contemplation, spaces
for the communal praise of the indefinable, of IT,
which for want of a better word we have learned to call God.
The places of assembly are necessary, but the rest is superfluous.
-End-


Excerpts from 'The Gold of the Gods' (final chapter)

by Erich Von Daniken

The most compassionate and helpful thing we can do 
is to make room for our own hurt so that we do not 
have to look away when we see it in the eyes of another.

--Scott Morrison
    Hat tip-Ana

The Audacity of Humility
I walked up to an old, old monk and asked him,
"what is the audacity of humility?"   This man
had never met me before, but do you know what
his answer was?  "To be the first to say 'I love you.'"


Theophane The Monk
       Hat tip-Ana

Start seeing everything as God
But keep it a secret
Become like a man who is awestruck
and nourished, listening to a golden nightingale
sing in a beautiful foreign language
while god nests invisibly upon it's tongue.
Hafiz, who can you tell in this world
That when a dog runs up to you
wagging it's ecstatic tail,
you bend down and whisper in it's ear
'Beloved, I am so glad that you are happy to see me,
Beloved, I am so glad, so very glad, that you have come.

Hafiz

The pot is a God. The winnowing
fan is a God. The stone in the
street is a God. The comb is a
God. The bowstring is also a
God. The bushel is a God and the
spouted cup is a God.

Gods, gods, there are so many
there’s no place left
for a foot.
There is only
one God. He is our Lord
of the Meeting Rivers.

By Basavanna
(1106 - 1167)

Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have engineered a strain of pond scum that could, with further refinements, produce vast amounts of hydrogen through photosynthesis.

The work, led by plant physiologist Tasios Melis, is so far unpublished. But if it proves correct, it would mean a major breakthrough in using algae as an industrial factory, not only for hydrogen, but for a wide range of products, from biodiesel to cosmetics.

Read on...

"Egos clash. That's the nature of egos.
Treat these outbursts as sneezing fits."

~Hugh Prather in Spiritual Notes to Myself

In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain--only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune--only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the religion of the Prophet--only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes--only God I saw.
I opened mine eyes and by the light of His face around me
In all the eye discovered--only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire:
Amidst the flames outflashing--only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with God's eyes--only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living--only God I saw.

By Baba Kuhi of Shiraz
(980? - 1050)

English version by Reynold A. Nicholson

In the physical world, you are here
and everything else is without you.
You are contained in space.
In the dream, all that you see
is contained within you.


Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
From: A Meditation Theme for Each Day
Selected and arranged by Hazrat Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

At first a childhood, limitless and free
of any goals. Ah sweet unconsciousness.
Then the sudden terror, schoolrooms, slavery,
the plunge into temptation and deep loss.

Defiance. The child bent becomes the bender,
inflicts on others what he once went through.
Loved, feared, rescuer, wrestler, victor,
he takes his vengeance, blow by blow.

And now in vast, cold, empty space, alone.
Yet hidden deep within the grown-up heart,
a longing for the first world, the ancient one...

Then, from His place of ambush, God leapt out.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

A shout comes out of my room
where I've been cooped up.
After all my lust and dead living I can still live with you.
You want me to.
You fix and bring me food.
You forget the way I've been.

The ocean moves and surges in the heat
of the middle of the day,
in the heat of this thought I'm having.
Why aren't all human resistances burning up with this thought?

It's a drum and arms waving.
It'a a bonfire at midnight on the top edge of a hill,
this meeting again with you.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Coleman Barks version

"Don't look for help from someone other
than yourself. The remedy for your wound
is the wound itself."

~ RumiMuriel Maufroy, from:
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"