Progressive vs. Direct Paths
While the identification of Consciousness with the individual is strong, the 'progressive path' is the path of choice because time and 'me' are the foundation of the experience of such aspirants. Aspirants involved with the progressive path often experience moments of presence but fail to understand Presence's impersonal quality. They invariably refer to those high states as 'mine' and they say 'they are not permanent yet'. This lack of understanding then manifests as seeking a future attainment and an investment in methods and practices, that is, in mind activity that supplants other types of mind activity which are defined as undesirable. This is the path that says: 'if you do this long enough you will get that'. It is the path designed to keep you on the path ad infinitum.
What could be called the 'direct path' is the path of a single pointer to the timeless and ever present reality of our Being. This pointer can come in any of a number of unexpected ways. It may come through written words, it may come through the silent presence of a sage, it may eventually be realized as coming from the Consciousness that we are itself—and here the path ends. This is the path that says: 'you already are what you are seeking—all there is, is Consciousness'.
The truth is that there is no path at all. It is all conceptual—a dream made of the same substance, and put in effect by the same power, as the dreams in sleep. All there is, is pure Being or Consciousness appearing as everything including the individual seeking the resolution to the question of existence.
~
Writing: Felipe Oliviera
Art: Unknown
One to One
Follow The Yellow Brick Road
Lion: Stay with us, then, Dorothy. We all love you. We don't want you to go home!
Dorothy: Oh, that's very kind of you, but this could never be like Kansas. Auntie Em must have stopped wondering what happened to me by now. Oh, Scarecrow, what am I going to do?
Scarecrow: Look! Here's someone who can help you.
Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn't you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
Tin Man: What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: Well, I—I think that it—that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. And that, it's that—if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?
Glinda: That's all it is!
Scarecrow: But that's so easy! I should have thought of it for you.
Tin Man: I should have felt it in my heart.
Glinda: No. She had to find it out for herself. Now those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!
Dorothy: Oh! Toto, too?
Glinda: Toto, too.
Dorothy: Oh, now?
Glinda: Whenever you wish.
Dorothy: Oh, dear, that's too wonderful to be true! Oh, it's—it's going to be so hard to say goodbye. I love you all, too. Goodbye, Tin Man. Oh, don't cry. You rust so dreadfully. Here, here's your oil can. Goodbye.
Tin Man: Now I know I've got a heart, 'cause it's breaking.
Dorothy: Oh. Goodbye, Lion. You know, I know it isn't right, but I'm gonna miss the way you used to holler for help before you found your courage.
Lion: Well, I would never would have found it if it hadn't been for you.
Dorothy: I think I'll miss you most of all.
Glinda: Are you ready now?
Dorothy: Yes. Say goodbye, Toto. Yes, I'm ready now.
Glinda: Then close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself. 'There's no place like home. There's no place like home.'
Dorothy and Glinda: 'There's no place like home. There's no place like home.'
Dorothy: 'There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home...'
Waking up in Kansas,
Dorothy returns Home!Dorothy: ...There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place....
Auntie Em: Wake up, honey.
Dorothy: There's no place like home. There's no place like home. No place.....
Auntie Em: Dorothy. Dorothy, dear. It's Auntie Em, darling.
Dorothy: Oh, Auntie Em, it's you!
Auntie Em: Yes, darling.
Professor: Hello, there! Anybody home? I—just dropped by because I heard the little girl got caught in the big—well—she seems all right now.
Uncle Henry: Yes. She got quite a bump on the head. We kind of thought there for a minute she was gonna leave us.
Professor: Oh.
Dorothy: But I did leave you, Uncle Henry. That's just the trouble. And I tried to get back for days and days.
Auntie Em: There, there, lie quiet now. You just had a bad dream.
Dorothy: No!
Hunk: Sure. Remember me, your old pal, Hunk?
Dorothy: Oh.
Hickory: And me, Hickory?
Zeke: You couldn't forget my face, could you?
Dorothy: No. But it wasn't a dream! It was a place. And you—and you—and you—and you were there.
Professor: Oh!
Dorothy: But you couldn't have been, could you?
Auntie Em: Oh, we dream lots of silly things when we...
Dorothy: No, Auntie Em, this was a real, truly live place! And I remember that some of it wasn't very nice—but most of it was beautiful. But just the same, all I kept saying to everybody was, 'I want to go home!' And they sent me home. Doesn't anybody believe me?
Uncle Henry: Of course we believe you, Dorothy.
Dorothy: Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home! Home! And this is my room—and you're all here! And I'm not going to leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all! And—Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home!!
~
Dialogue: The Wizard of Oz
Beautiful Words
The FormulaThe mystic was back from the desert,
"Tell us," they said, "what God is like."But how could he ever tell them what he
had experienced in his heart? Can God
be put into words?He finally gave them a formula—so
inaccurate, so inadequate—in the hope
that some of them might be tempted to
experience it for themselves.They seized upon the formula. They
made it a sacred text. They imposed it
on others as a holy belief. They went to
great pains to spread it in foreign lands.
Some even gave their lives for it.The mystic was sad. It might have been
better if he said nothing.—Anthony DeMello
Art by: Megan Duncanson
Sights & Sounds
U2 —Live at Slane Castle
"Where the Streets Have No Name"
6:03 min
Funny One
© Bob Seal
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