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Extracts from “Being One” by Steven Harrison

Extracts from Steven Harrison’s book “Being One” ISBN 0-9710786-5-3
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The mind will always bemoan its fate. It will never be satisfied. Its nature is only conflicted. The cave of the recluse won’t make us happy. The household won’t make us happy. The mind cannot be happy. – pg 2

The arising of thought gives the impression of separation. thought, by its nature, divides. Its function is to create separation, distinction. The basis of our intellect is separating, categorizing. our identification with the thought process gives us the impression that we are separate.

Yet if we pay attention to the field of consciousness in which thought arises, we can find no separation. The field of consciousness is apparently boundaryless. This vast, undivided awareness is available to us at all times. It is there at any moment we are still. It is as present in us as our thoughts. But we identify with thoughts, which are limited and separating by nature. Why is it that we do not identify with the field of consciousness, the milieu in which these thoughts arise? – pg 13

… Tension reinforces our importance in the universe and gives us a feeling of receiving attention. … – pg 35

We join a religion where we can agree with everyone about what God is, how to worship, what is right and wrong. We are relieved, we are free of our addiction, we are no longer separate. Then we walk by the other church or temple where we see the others believing something different. We are glad we went to our church, that we believe what we believe, that we worship the “right” god. Does this separation from those others who have chosen the “wrong” faith give us some small measure of security? The addiction is back, the addiction of separation. …

We control our children in the name of parenting. We obsess about money as if worry creates security. – pg 38

Language is not what it describes; it is symbolic or representational. It may convey accurately, but often it distorts, interprets, and confuses.

We are so in love with our words and ideas that we forget the direct experience from which language arises. We build concept upon concept. In the end we have abstracted our contact with life, a contact that is fresh and vital, into a rote regurgitation of thought bound ideology. …

One of the curses of human existence is the tendency to misconstrue language for actuality. Relationship has nothing to do with language, name, or concept. We cannot analyze relationship. We cannot control relationship. We are already in relationship, but our view is so obscured that we do not recognize the fact. If we are particularly alert, sensitive, and open, we may discover this fact. We are already in relationship. – pg 43/44

Thought has nowhere to go buts its own isolated, endless, fragmented repetition. – pg 45

Aloneness is fearless. It is the ground on which we may enter into relationship with the world around us. Aloneness has the integrity of needing nothing. … – pg 59

… When one of us meets another, there doesn’t need to be a deal. Try honesty. Try maturity. Try being an adult. Throw out the contract, if there is one, and start over. If there isn’t a contract, don’t negotiate one. – pg 67

Psychology has massive tomes filled with the symptoms that indicate each one of its diagnoses. Like a tabloid journalist with a deadline, the psychologist finds the story, whether there is one or not. …- pg 91

The conflict is existential. It is the friction between the bundle of ideas we call our self and the actuality of the boundarylessness of the world. – pg 93

We don’t demand of psychology that it resolve this pain for us once and for all. That would be asking too much. And psychology doesn’t demand of us that we resolve this pain one and for all. That would be asking too much. – pg 95

Anger is where thought blocks energy. It is constriction on the movement of energy. Thought, which is a constriction on energy, asks how to further constrict energy so that constriction won’t take place. You can’t approach it from your mind, because your mind is the problem. You will go around in circles endlessly until you recognize that. You cannot constrict energy and find expansion. You can just do nothing. It is energy. It is innately expressing. – pg 102

pg 105

 

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