Van: "Integral World" Aan: Onderwerp: Reprieve from Death Datum: zaterdag 1 november 2014 21:45 INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST =========================== http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 530 Amsterdam, November 1st, 2014 THE HUMAN ODYSSEY: OUR JOURNEY OF LIFE FROM INFANCY TO ETERNITY - Prologue and Epilogue: Reprieve from Death How Hugh Martin Came to Write The Human Odyssey - HUGH & KAYE MARTIN “... Why is life so precious to me? Why have I spent so many years pondering what it means to be alive? When you hear my answers to such questions, dear reader, you will understand how I came to write a book like The Human Odyssey. To begin my story, I'd like to take you back to my early years at Esalen Institute -- that fabled growth retreat on California's Big Sur coast… “I first discovered Esalen in the Spring of 1965, just three years after its founding. At that point, I was in a chronic state of shock. I had recently been diagnosed with advanced-stage Hodgkin's Disease lymphatic cancer, and given just two years to live. To make the best of my last days on earth, I had dropped the intensive stress of graduate school, and traveled via Berkeley to California's rugged Big Sur coast in search of a new life. With my young wife (a 'Joan Baez with curves') and baby daughter, I settled into a little cabin in the redwoods, only accessible in mid-winter by an undulating suspension footbridge over a raging stream. From there, my family and I commuted to Esalen Institute, for volunteer work developing the grounds of the new growth center...” Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/martin26.html EMPTINESS - Part II: The World seen as Emptiness - MARTIN ERDMANN Buddha with the eye of contemplation saw consciousness as emptiness, as blissful nirvana, as the great void. This was an emptiness, an absolute seen as separate from the world of relativity, of samsara. Then came Nagarjuna, who in a supreme vision saw the whole world of samsara, of relativity, as blissful emptiness. Not content to keep the revelation to himself, he sat down to logically unveil the pure emptiness of samsara. The eye of mind, which always sees some-thing, cannot see the world as no-thing. By making a correct use of the discerning mind, one can, however, demonstrate that the whole world of relativity is emptiness, is the absolute. This is what the present article wants to accomplish. It will only partly rely on Nagarjuna's deliberations on the subject. To point out the emptiness of the world I will mainly draw on my own line of argument. It should be understood that this is not meant as a metaphysical project to be conveyed in a postmetaphysical age. To employ an old Zen adage: The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. The message here delivered is the finger, it is not the moon. The finger, however, is indispensable. Without it you will miss the moon, like Suzanne Segal did, who in her widely read Collision with the Infinite had fallen prey to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ill-conceived teaching. We shall see. Now for blissful emptiness to be realized, one does not have to confine oneself to the arguments lined up in this essay. One can engage in appropriate methods of meditation, some of which have been outlined in the following exposition. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/erdmann12.html To SUBSCRIBE to this Integral World Newsletter or change your email address, click here: http://www.integralworld.net/pommo/user/subscribe.php To UNSUBSCRIBE, update your account by logging in. For explanation, see: http://www.integralworld.net/nl_faq.html