The 'teacher' has had enough?

Feeling the pinch? Things looking a bit gloomy?
Check out the Urban Guru Cafe.

Note: I have been trying to track down Puppetji or the guy that does Puppetji, so that we can interview him for the UGC. If anyone has details for contacting him, please let me know. If you have not watch his youtube videos, then check them out - very funny stuff.

Here is an ancient story:
A man, sleeping on the side of the road lay with his mouth wide open….. a traveling dervish saw a snake slip into the man’s mouth and disappear.
The dervish picked up a stick and beat the man. - The man woke up and screamed and objected to this treatment, as anyone would. - The dervish was unrelenting……and continued to beat the man. - Eventually the man lost consciousness and the dervish continued to beat the body. - Then the snake came out of the man’s mouth and the dervish struck it dead with his beating stick. - The man woke up and saw the snake on the ground.
The dervish smiled at the man and quietly said “I could not tell you that you had swallowed a snake or you would have died from shock. - I did what was necessary. - You are battered and bruised - but you are alive”.
Some ‘people’ dream that they are ‘awake’ in a special way, ‘enlightened’…..that dream adds onto itself the notion of being a guru and it is often just vanity parading.
They talk about love endlessly - but the poison of vanity in them prevents that love from glowing in themselves. - If the ’snake’ sleeps one may have a few moments of exceptional love expressing itself….but the slightest impression of being special awakens the snake and a spiritual empire is built upon vanity.
Examples of this abound this world.
King Solomon says “Vanity vanity, all is vanity under the sun”.

................... ....................... ...................... ....................

A friend wrote and told me he was thinking of dissolving his web presence and opting out of the Non Duality 'scene'.
Who wants to be in a 'scene' anyway. - There is no option to get out of Non Duality - because it is what 'we all are' without the 'we' and the 'all'.
All is not One - One is appearing as All.
My response to his email is here below, as a matter of interest.
"Yeah - I know how that feels (to want to give it all away) - yet it all just plays itself out (as it does).
The 'truth of being' is like a light that shines...(As SEEING-KNOWING) - it seems to be dim in 'the many' - (and they long for it - but are unwilling to 'pay the price')
When the light of knowing shines on the 'me' - it is revealed for what it is -
getting anyone to look directly at 'the belief in me' is like trying to shovel runny shit up hill - yet every now and then ....one out of those 'many' - hears something - sometimes something that 'we' don't expect or intend them to hear - everyone is a unique expression of THAT.
Respect for everyone just as they are, is what we call compassion - it arises spontaneously - can't be taught, learned or contrived by the mind.
I always laugh when I read the spiel of some guru or teacher who proclaims to be able to teach compassion. - It is such a fraudulent concept but very profitable it seems - playing on the ignorance of the masses.
As messengers 'we' may well need to look at the 'driving force' and the 'spin offs', the perks and payoffs - and examine whether there is some expectation hiding there - some 'self-image' that needs to be fed.
Being 'a wise one' can be seductive (for any residue of belief in 'me' - evidence of that is found in many of the popular teachers).
Being ordinary is so easy and free from a lot of crap - 'I have avoided' getting labeled as a teacher so far.
I move around without being hassled by seekers.
I do a few emails and notes on the web - and a few HEAR something.
I cannot predict who will hear it and who wont. - Actually I don't care. - Even in the ones who hear it - there is no one left to be grateful - no big checks arrive - because they see through the me completely.
Gratitude may arise - but the one who would give all and everything for this understanding has gone, vanished - so no check comes.
Ramesh said when I was visiting his meetings in Bombay many years ago that "when the check arrives" he knows that they 'got it' - that is BULLSHIT - I reckon (But he was a Banker most of his life and old habits die hard). I am not having a go at him - only the behavior, the appearance and the guru game.
The best book that ever came through that pattern, in my opinion was the first one "Pointers from Nisargadatta".
I witnessed what I would call 'devious manipulation' going on - the power of 'suggestion' to donate larger sums of money - equivalent to their gratitude etc.
That 'bit' did not feel so 'right' and I ended up donated nothing at all.
Maybe you will notice how the teacher, in these 'tight financial times' will emphasize how important it is to keep your 'fees' paid up to date. They don't want to feel the pinch. "Your development depends on your continued contribution - and it will help you so much more if you sacrifice even more"...or some such bullshit.

You can't BUY this 'knowledge' and to imagine that you can is just imagination and ignorance.
Those who run expensive seminars and workshops are just business people dressed in the guru dressage.
Many times I had the impulse to pull my website down - because it seems that no one really wants to cut away the bullshit in their own lives. It seems that 'they' do everything in their power to preserve that believed in 'entity'.
If we drop the biased MISSIONARY complex - and just BE - our very existence touches others - in unexpected ways.
I don't care one way or another.
Everything leads back to non duality - or away from it -we have no choice which 'path' we are on - and BOTH are an illusion.
The Universe breathes OUT and it breathes IN.
Can't have one without the other.
The same Principle is self evident in us - is us and is everything.

Inner Guide - is there one?

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” Jane Austin from Mansfield Park.

In our ‘journey’ we have all been informed by life.
We may all have come to various conclusions about life and its meaning.
When someone asked Nisargadatta - “What is the meaning of life?” – He answered “Living is the only meaning of life.”
‘Living’ is not a concept. Without it, life, there would be no question about meaning and no answer(s) either.
If we study the ‘evidence’ presented by scientists about the activities of neurons and synapses in the brain it doesn’t take much to conclude that behavior and the belief system itself could well be related to the ‘network’ that ‘builds’ itself in the brain.
The argument about the differences between brain and mind go back centuries and NO satisfactory ‘answer’ has ever put ‘an end’ to the debate.
‘Quantum Physics’ has postulated that the ‘observer’ plays a role in the ‘observation’.
They are intertwined. So-called ‘objective facts’ are postulated and argued over.

In this so-called ‘field of self-enquiry’ or what we may call the subject of ‘Non Duality’ the concept of being an observer is ‘important’ – a useful ‘tool’ to investigate ‘present evidence’ or ‘what is’.
The usefulness of the concept of being an observer ceases to be needed in the ‘moment’ of recognizing that the ‘observer’ is merely a conceptual appearance in what we call ‘mind’. In the ‘moment’ of recognizing that the ‘thinker’ is merely another thought is the same equation. It does not matter how much ‘I’ or ‘anyone’ talks or conceptualizes about this ‘moment of insight’, it cannot have any true value unless this ‘moment of insight’ ‘happens’.
As the old saying goes “You can lead a horse to water – but you CANNOT make the horse drink”.
The attachment to these habitual frameworks in ‘mind’ is due to the identification – the fabricated ‘entity’ and the ‘patterns of belief’.
The apparent bondage is what we can call ‘identification’.

The fabric of this so-called identification dissolves in the ‘moment’ of SEEING the ‘fabric’ – One SEES from beyond the fabric that ‘I am not this fabric’.
The value of such ‘seeing’ can not be quantified or evaluated by the mind. In fact the mind is the fabric and yet the ever-present true nature of mind is ‘emptiness’.
The potency of “You are not the body – you are not the mind” has the capacity to cut through the habitual activities of mind.

In a way, to mention these ‘sayings’ or ‘pointers’ is not so helpful.
The problem is we get used to hearing these ‘pointers’ and the ‘mind’ may well have already built a ‘defense mechanism’.
Knowing this equation, it would seem that, I have made every effort to present new ‘angles’ for looking at these ‘things’.
Many, it would appear, have not reaped any benefit from this and it would also appear that a few have.
Looking at things from the perspective of being the phenomenal appearance, the pattern, it looks like THIS is a ‘big deal’.
Seeing from clear and present, naked awareness, it is no big deal at all.
In not playing any games about being an enlightened being, guru or teacher, leaves one free to move without getting stuck in the ‘honey jar’.
You may have a hundred horses at your water hole, or a thousand, yet you cannot make them drink.
The ‘odd one or two’ that actually ‘drink’ may be any one of them or even a stray that wanders down to the water hole.
Most usually that habitual attachment to body and mind is ‘seemingly’ to strong.
The grossness and the subtleness of that attachment appears to run deep.
Therefore many come up with a concept of ‘Grace’ and this would appear to be a self-calming ‘devise’ and the ‘dark side of it’ is that ‘I am unworthy’ – ‘I must strive to become worthy’.
All conceptual notions merely appear and disappear.
Awareness is ‘at all times’ beyond the grasp of conceptualizing and the realm of thoughts. That is WHY all these things are ‘known’.
Giving them some value, is the realm of mind content and an ‘entity’ that evaluates.
Awareness is clear and untouched by the content.
Knowing that is not the knowing of some entity – it is the nature of knowing.