Native American Cherokee Legend

Thanks to 12 Realms Media for posting the following story:

A grandfather and grandson were out hunting one early morning, and they came upon a ridge on the mountain they were walking on. Over the ridge was a large clearing below where, at a distance, they could see two wolves - a black one and a white one - fighting furiously. They watched as the wolves attacked each other in battle.

The grandfather narrowed his eyes and said slowly, "Ah yes... this is the way with all of us human beings, within our hearts, each and every day." The grandson asked, "What do you mean grandfather?" The old one replied, "Always in our hearts, every day, there is a struggle going on like those two wolves down there... The dark wolf, he wishes to do harm. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The white wolf, he wishes to do good and honorable things. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. He looked down at his grandson and said, "The same struggle is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The Grandfather went on, "Sometimes, the dark one seems to win. Other times, the light one seems to take a stronger lead. When we see honorable people who do great deeds, make sacrifices for the good of others, we know that the white wolf's spirit is strong within their hearts and is the winning spirit in those human beings. Each good and honorable deed they do gives this spirit more power within them. This in turn empowers a human being to be even more honorable." The white wolf does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

The boy smiled as the grandfather continued to speak... "But the black wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger is so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing. When we see people who turn to badness, doing terrible and dishonorable things, we can know that the dark wolf within them is strong. Each wrongful deed they do gives the dark one more power over them, until it has won and has utterly consumed them.

The young one's face fell with a look of deep concern. So the boy thought long and hard on these things and he continued to watch the wolves battling below. They both were fierce, giving no quarter - neither backing down. Seeing this, the boy looked within himself and saw the truth of his wise grandfather's words, and it made him very worried for himself. And a great, deep fear fell upon him.

The boy looked intently up at his grandfather. With a trembling voice, he asked, "But grandfather, how will I know which wolf will win within me?" The grandfather smiled, gazed at his grandson with love, compassion and understanding and after a moment, he answered him.

In a quiet yet firm voice, he said, "The one that you feed."

Advaita Tao

Thanks to Tawan for writing the following article:

Advaita, all that can be, and yet, what every I can not see. Unless you have directly burned through and detached from I-in-the-world then you’ll find this next statement seems to be conceptual, far-fetched, meaningless nonsense.

'I can not die, I have lived every life, I have been the environment in which that life was lived and I have been that living natural world.'

You are nothing but what I am also, except for group reinforced mistaken identity. A clothes line is no longer a clothes line when the string is cut. 48 strings and a stick are 48 strings and a stick but using one string to tie 47 to the stick it is a mop. One piece of string and a stick could be a fishing pole, bow, whip, or a way to hang a basket. A heap of sheet metal and rivets could be made to float you over the ocean. The arrangement of parts calls for a name. Disassembled or reassembled the name must be changed.

No matter your view or understanding of science, even if you deem it fanciful guesswork or if you are sold down the line as to how it holds the answer to every question, then either way or any other way you say: “The universe is made of parts”. The arrangement of parts would have you say that you are you and a tree is a tree. Why not indeed? This forms a very practical situation.

Given your own version of science, the universe will be constructed of anything from the five elements to the 7 flavours of Quark or some other similar or far-fetched theory. Analyzing these parts then you or the scientists you depend upon will find parts, they will do this ad infinitum but convinced at each step they have reached the indivisible atom. Of course the atom was only literally atomic, indivisible, until it was divided. Then the mop became a stick and string theory.

Science aims to prove and some people agree without looking that there will eventually be a true atom, a point where division is impossible. How their logic allows for this I have no idea as 1) If unsplittable, then what is it made from? 2) Where is it? ‘Where’ is very important a question when you are looking at ‘what’ as the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ seem to be two things and thus disproving that the ‘what’ is elementary. This is saying nothing even of what is observing the what.

Besides the actual searching and various descriptions we have come up with for ‘what stuff is made of’ the generally held idea is that arrangements of this ‘what’ goes to make the independent separate entities, person and tree.

You will be in one of many schools of thought then but clustered into one of only two groups; They who see that one elementary part arranged in various ways forms the world described by language, and They who see that language induces the very idea that there must be some base part.

Those who say that the universe is merely arrangements of one core part -must- now see that there is no true division one thing to another, and those who see that language infers parts from what is truly One, have already seen this. A consensus. Now that all parties hold a similar consensus, that the universe is One but for labels, then we have what Advaita says. One, not Two. Tao.

The Two that is so strongly denied by Advaita is rendered in so many ways from Me and You, to Friend and Foe, Life and Death, Good and Bad, Heaven and Hell, God and Devil, object and subject, thing and observer, to any duality and any entry into the world of conceptual thought and labels, life as we “know” it.

Advaita is not though to deny life as we know it, but to affirm it, just as it IS and not as it seems to be. When you can exist with a consistent background of peace, you can see all life as is, living forever deathless, then you are being what you truly are. When you question or compare this to that, affirm or deny, seek, think, then you are pretending to be a conceptual part 'I-separate'.

Jim Carrey explains Consciousness and Oneness

This is a great compilation of Jim Carrey and others talking about consciousness, oneness, mental suffering, and happiness.