From: mw@ki.fht-mannheim.de (Marc Wachowitz)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: "Modern Times"
Date: 22 Jan 1993 18:26:38 -0800
Organization: Fachhochschule fuer Technik, Mannheim (FRG)
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: gap.caltech.edu

Some pieces from the book "Modern Times", a collection of short quotes by
Michael Barnett [German title: "Ferien in Teufels Kueche"]:

"Do you really think you knew what beauty is?
 Sure, some of you have an image of it:
 the beauty of a human, a building, a sunset, a garden.

 But real beauty, that you will only experience when all ideas about it have
 disappeared. Beauty and the essence of all things are one-and-the-same.
 When you are having this essence-to-essence-experience with another part of
 the universe, then you will be overwhelmed by it - however it looks like.

 Sunrise or sunset, a dark, black, rainy day, a snowy, stormy, foggy day -
 connect to its essence and you will experience this immense beauty.

 It is there, ready to connect with you, this immense energy,
 this perfume of beauty.

 And we are loosing ourselves with wandering through our inside,
 and are searching in every corner."


"In contrary to the claims of many people, despite the teachings or at least
 their interpretation, despite all what they say, I claim completely against
 your belief: God is not within you.
 You need not believe me this, but God is not within you.

 'What? Did not even Jesus say that God were within us?
  Don't the Buddhists say: Look within, you are a Buddha?'

 Yes, they say that. Now, I'm sitting here and tell you: God is not within you.
 And the belief that God is within you is the biggest error of this time.

 I have used twenty years for searching God within me; often I thought I had
 found him, but he disappeared again and again. Then I started searching
 outside myself. Somehow I've always searched outside, but only for measures
 and ways to finally find him inside. Outside I took the power to look somewhat
 deeper within. My discovery is that God is not within you, but outside.
 The 'I' where you are searching is the only place where God is not.
 Hey, you godless creatures! You are the only place where God is not.
 Throughout the world people are busy searching God within. And when you tell
 them that God is not there, they'll crucify you."

A few pages later, in the same context, he tells the following:

"A man came to Ramana Maharshi. Ramana said: 'Why did you come here?'
 He answered: 'I came for learning.' Ramana replied: 'Then you are
 at the wrong place. Here the point is UNlearning.'

 So when you came for growth ... I should have made it clear in the program,
 but now you are here! So, if you came for growth, you are here at the wrong
 place - even when you may accidentially get something into that direction,
 which will let you grow. Or when you get something the wrong way what we are
 doing here, it will let you grow. You will make a lot of experiences with
 energy, that is a kind of extra.

 But when you came here on your journey for enlightenment, then I'm happy
 you are here, and I'll do everything to carry you along a few steps on
 that way. I'd also take you the whole way, but the problem is: YOU are
 still there. You came here to get something, but you already know the
 answers. Of course we have some of this kind here. Always there are some
 of this kind - I can't help you. I just hope you'll not hinder me,
 but I cannot help you."

"There are three ways.
 There is the path to enlightenment.
 There is the flash of insight
 that you are already enlightened
 and this insight remains.
 And there is the possibility of the quantum leap into enlightenment.
 Three very different directions."

"No principle how to live does work.
 The only principle is the Tao, and that you cannot live, you can only
 allow that it lives through you. When you try to grasp the Tao, and
 say 'according to you I live', then it isn't the Tao anymore.
 No principle works in the long run. Whether you are in a certain way
 or at times in another, whether you let go, surrender yourself, are
 total - no principle does really work.

 It does only function for a moment, another principle for another moment.
 There is a time for this and a time for that. When you come to the Tao,
 you can be with the one principle, but then everything else is there, too."

"When you think you know what's going on, you are likely to fall sleep.
 When you know that you don't know, you feel that you are awake."

"Do you know that being happy comes from nowhere? Have you felt that?
 If not, I hope it will soon happen. Suddenly you are happy, totally
 happy. Not that you jump up and down, but every cell in your body
 feels good and smiles, as if you would rest in the hands of luck.

 Whenever that happens, you will not find a reason for it. You are just
 doing something completely ordinary, and within you are just laughing -
 just for laughing's sake - and suddenly you feel connected to something
 that is beyond everything which you can see, hear, feel, know or find.

 When you are touched by that and let that happen, then slowly the unknown
 comes into your life, into the life that you know. Then completely ordinary
 things are often ecstatic: a simple view takes your breath away; holding
 someone's hand feels like paradise; embracing someone feels like - ah! like
 fluid gold! A shadow on the wall exceeds the greatest picture that has ever
 been drawn."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Marc Wachowitz, mw@ki.fht-mannheim.de   /  news zombie - reply by e-mail, too
  *  wonder everyday    *    nothing in particular    *    all is special  *