Can you explain how... (from post to the newsgroup - alt.consciousness.mysticism) Betsy: Could you explain how you come to this awareness, this enlightenment, this Self-realization? Bruce: No. Many methods are offered, none of them are truly causal. Some come to it through decades of devotion, some through unspeakable suffering, some through selfless service, some through the discerning eye of neti-neti, some unexpectedly, in the blinking of an eye. You will find some who speak highly of Sri Ramana Maharshi, or J. Krishnamurti, or Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, or A Course In Miracles, or Ch'an/Zen practice, or Sufism, or Kabbalah, or Sant Mat. The ways are endless in their diversity, but the great nondual truth is universal and underlies them all. All this testimony as to efficacy is personal, and therefore may or may not apply to your incarnation. Look into any or all of what your hear of for yourself, let the famous "still, small voice" within be your guide and not your wish to be exalted or to be respected or to be admirable in the eyes of others or to be at one with The Creator or even to be a wonderfully good person. In the course of your enquiry you may (nothing whatsoever is vouchsafed) find something resonant, a "pointing" that leads somewhere more and other than the words themselves or their deepest implications, somewhere different and yet not apart from ordinary "bean & weiners" life, something literally immeasurable yet as close as your own breath and heartbeat. At this point "the still, small voice" will strengthen and merge with what has been revealed. In the aftermoment, there will still be water to draw and wood to split and stack, but consciousness itself will never be as it was, for it is "changed incorruptible." It will be made plain -- not elaborate, not spectacular, not impressive, not glamorous but exquisitely plain -- that "thou art That."