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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.sufi,alt.islam.sufism,alt.religion.gnostic,talk.religion.newage,talk.religion.misc,alt.consciousness.mysticism,sci.philosophy.meta
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Subject: Sojourner: Truth
Date: 13 Sep 1997 03:09:22 -0700

[from tariqas@world.std.com: Sojourner ]

At 09:24 PM 8/21/97 -0400, Egeriae@aol.com wrote:

>In a message dated 97-08-21 14:41:05 EDT, Sojourner wrote:
>
>> At 02:06 PM 8/21/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>>I have been operating from a point of view that I must go through the
>>>mechanisms of learning -- learning specifics to arrive at a destination
>>>wherein other Sufis reside.  In other words, do not all Sufis share the 
>>>same Truth?   
> 
>>  No.  What you've described is empiricism.
>
>Soooo, the Truth is person-specific?  

Let's see if I can put it this way.  If you shine a light, a pure
stream of photons, through a prism, you get the full rainbow
of colors our eyes can see (plus many more our eyes cannot
see like infra-red).  Then you and I could sit down and I could
say the world is green, and you could say the world is
blue, and we would both be right.

The Truth is a misused word in English, as it tends to represent
objectiveness.  Objectiveness is an incomplete tool used by
science to gain footholds in absorbing new knowledge.  The
Truth of science says everything is made up of elements, which
in turn are made up of atoms, in turn made up of electrons
and neutrons, in turn made up of hadrons and quarks and
subatomic particles, which in turn have the ability to disappear
and re-appear a short interval away, but to not "exist" during
the period of transit.  So the whole truth of objectiveness is
that nothing is true for more than a picosecond.

The Truth you and I seek is another word for the source of
that light.  The world is the prism, each of us is a prism, every
atom and blade of grass is the prism.  There is a religious
tenent that if you listen with true devotion, you can hear the
"Ohmmmm" of the world -- the sound the world makes.  Consider
God or Allah or the Truth or the Good as the combined light
of the world, the combined sound of the world, the combined
everything.


>Or is it that it is more likely that there is one Truth, but the perceptions
>and the experiences of the people who are doing the perceiving are what
>varies?
> 

There is no giant super man God.  God/Allah/The Truth/the Good is
the entire sum of everything.  When you seek to know what to
do, where to go, what to strive for, what is the Truth, do this: make
yourself as open to knowing the world around you, and then you
will be on your way to aligning yourself with the world.  

Consider this:  every cell in your body has its own world we barely
consider.  It has its battles, its needs, its work that it does, its DNA
to follow, its decisions to make.  No one cell in your body however
contains that which is YOU does it?  One cell makes you?  And then
you find you have a larger Oneness, which is your body as a whole,
a functioning, producing One-thing, which works and has battles
and has needs and desires, decisions to make.  And yet no one
person ever created a city, or a society, or a culture, or even a large
building.  And so societies and cities become a One-thing, a thing
within itself, with its own identity, its own work, its own needs and
desires.  Who here is in favor of a war?  A war where children and
innocents suffer, people maimed and the land ravaged?  Nobody.
It is a society-one-thing versus another society-one-thing.  And all
the society-one-things together make up "humanity", which is a
one-thing.  It's hard to see humanity as a one-thing because there
are no other one-things around to compare to.  

And if you take this up and up and up you get the original one-thing,
the one-thing that is all-things, which is Allah or God or Truth or
That-Which-Is-All-Things or the Good.

>>>Thank you for responding.  I am so pleased when others help me untangle the
>>>cobwebs in my mind. 
>>
>>>Egeria. 
>
>>  If I could leave your mind as tangled as when you first spoke,
>>  I would be happy enough for a camper.
>
>Why is that?
>
>I am finding it "awkward" to ask my questions here - on Tariqas.  I have been
>reading this list for quite a long time... silently.  Because I have no
>formal teacher, I've been trying to find books that are helpful.  But
>basically, what I'm doing is a "best guess" as to what might be the direction
>in which to travel.  

Now.. you know what God is: everything.  But you are not
this God or Truth, so how do you know which books are the
Truth and which are not?  Or what people you can learn from
about which things?  Ahh... a difficult question but has a
simple answer.

As the Taoists say, water flows and fire burns.  What do you do?
Do you need a teacher or book to see the beauty of a sunrise?
Of course not.  Books and teachers are only more sunrises, more
expressions of the Good.  Everything you need to know God is
already inside yourself.  What you need to practice is listening to
that God/Allah/the Good inside yourself and align yourself with
it and become one with it and you will be and feel and see and
live it and not be in conflict with yourself, which is really what you
want.  Conflict with yourself brings unease, dissatisfaction and
unhappiness.  Else why would you seek if you had already found?

Seek yourself, and find that God/Allah/the Good is as firmly in
you as it is in a blade of grass, or a law professor shopping for
beans or the sun's first rays on a newborn's face.

>
>I ponder a lot of questions from all the assorted things I read, but after a
>while, I get myself so buried in the muddle of my thinking, I can't seem to
>find my way out of the maze.  So I really wonder why you think it is better
>to have one's mind all tangled up instead of having some idea of how to
>proceed.  Is it explainable?
>

yes.  Only when you do not know what to do, will you say
"I do not know what to do" and then you will have to come to
a new understanding ON YOUR OWN, and will have gained
from it.  

A soldier, who always follows orders, is perfect, until his or her
superior officer is killed, and then they do not know what to do.
A soldier, who is well trained, comes into a situation where his/
her training does not cover, and then he/she does not know
what to do.

A person, well trained and educated, comes to a point where
they do not know what to do.  Every society and culture in
the world makes you fear such a situation, and yet this is the
perfect place!  Becuase now you get to open your mind, and find
out stuff for yourself, by yourself, through yourself, and have
an unfiltered quality experience with the world.

If you are seeking the Truth, it means that the truths you have
been taught do not satisfy you.  It's as simple as that.  I, and
hopefully everyone else here will not try to give you a new
truth that you like better, a new truth or teaching which you
can then cling to and say "thanks, i like this new truth better".
My only goal is to provoke you into a state where the Truth
that Is will reveal itself to you, and you will refract that Light
through your prism-self with true purity.

Dig?

>Egeria.
>

EOF
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