What context do you live in most of the time?

[stardustpilgrim]

I thought this needed a fresh start, new thread. It gets to the question I continually come back to. I'm going to quote GM from Purification yesterday. I don't know how to isolate a post to link it (easily), or I would start that way. This was a reply to tools, techniques and practices. "In the context of self, they are useful, and some better than others. But in the context of Self, they are useless and therefore all the same". ZGM

ZD accepts the world as it is, how it appears. But for ZD there is no personal self, he says when the mind-body denoted as Bob, or ZD, thinks or acts, it's the Whole acting in that particular mind-body. ZGM talks about contexts, as he did above.

Now, it seems from what has been written, that SR or TR is a once and for all time realization. So my question is, from what context do you live most of the time? Most of the time can mean anywhere from 51% to 99%, or even 100%.

Now, the answers I can imagine. This is an ill-conceived question. Or. After SR-TR, 100%. But I mean in the present moment, throughout minute by minute life. It seems that everyone admits there is a context of a mind-body-brain-individual, but there seems to be disagreement on what animates that. So I'm asking, to what extent is there, in life-circumstances, the gnosis of SR-TR, here & now, and to what extent is there just chopping wood, carrying water? Maybe put another way, to what extent is the fish aware of the ocean? And then ZGM talks about Source looking out of these eyes. Is there a shift? This even goes back to 1st mountain, 2nd mountain and 3rd mountain. Does my question at least make sense? How often are you aware of the Whole? Or, how often is the Whole aware of you, in you, from the you context? So there is really a continuum, from 1% to 99%. And, when one is merely chopping wood and carrying water, is there a loss of awareness of present moment SR-TR? I get the sense that question doesn't even matter, after SR-TR.

You see, what doesn't make sense is the sense I get that after SR-TR you can just go about your life, as it is, as things used-to-be.

Honest question.

[zazeniac]

If God speaks through zd or Reefs or anyone else, then you kind of have to wonder when He makes mistakes. ZD has admitted to a few like in his discussion with sifty over financing at low interests rates versus paying cash.

It's not so simple. Contexts can be useful. But they are concessions to the intellect. The wave still ebbs and flows when it realizes the ocean. It still crashes into the shore. Peace.

[andrew]

Aug 26, 2023 8:14:22 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

I thought this needed a fresh start, new thread. It gets to the question I continually come back to. I'm going to quote GM from Purification yesterday. I don't know how to isolate a post to link it (easily), or I would start that way. This was a reply to tools, techniques and practices. "In the context of self, they are useful, and some better than others. But in the context of Self, they are useless and therefore all the same". ZGM

ZD accepts the world as it is, how it appears. But for ZD there is no personal self, he says when the mind-body denoted as Bob, or ZD, thinks or acts, it's the Whole acting in that particular mind-body. ZGM talks about contexts, as he did above.

Now, it seems from what has been written, that SR or TR is a once and for all time realization. So my question is, from what context do you live most of the time? Most of the time can mean anywhere from 51% to 99%, or even 100%.

Now, the answers I can imagine. This is an ill-conceived question. Or. After SR-TR, 100%. But I mean in the present moment, throughout minute by minute life. It seems that everyone admits there is a context of a mind-body-brain-individual, but there seems to be disagreement on what animates that. So I'm asking, to what extent is there, in life-circumstances, the gnosis of SR-TR, here & now, and to what extent is there just chopping wood, carrying water? Maybe put another way, to what extent is the fish aware of the ocean? And then ZGM talks about Source looking out of these eyes. Is there a shift? This even goes back to 1st mountain, 2nd mountain and 3rd mountain. Does my question at least make sense? How often are you aware of the Whole? Or, how often is the Whole aware of you, in you, from the you context? So there is really a continuum, from 1% to 99%. And, when one is merely chopping wood and carrying water, is there a loss of awareness of present moment SR-TR? I get the sense that question doesn't even matter, after SR-TR.

You see, what doesn't make sense is the sense I get that after SR-TR you can just go about your life, as it is, as things used-to-be.

Honest question.

Personally, I think the question is a bit misconceived. There are two contexts to talk about, and that's inevitable because the dualistic aspect of mind has to express itself in dualistic ways. That's its function.

But it's not that people live in one context or the other, or even partly one and partly the other. Life isn't differentiated into 2 contexts in that way. It's more just that some folks are deeply attached to, or identified with, the dualistic aspect of mind, whereas spiritual folks have released some of that energy, and so they don't experience Life so 'dualistically'. Spiritual folks' experience is no longer dominated by the dualistic aspect of mind, so their experience is more whole.

So for me, the question isn't which context I live in, the question is...to what extent am I living through the dualistic aspect of mind?

[zendancer]

Aug 26, 2023 8:14:22 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

I thought this needed a fresh start, new thread. It gets to the question I continually come back to. I'm going to quote GM from Purification yesterday. I don't know how to isolate a post to link it (easily), or I would start that way. This was a reply to tools, techniques and practices. "In the context of self, they are useful, and some better than others. But in the context of Self, they are useless and therefore all the same". ZGM

ZD accepts the world as it is, how it appears. But for ZD there is no personal self, he says when the mind-body denoted as Bob, or ZD, thinks or acts, it's the Whole acting in that particular mind-body. ZGM talks about contexts, as he did above.

Now, it seems from what has been written, that SR or TR is a once and for all time realization. So my question is, from what context do you live most of the time? Most of the time can mean anywhere from 51% to 99%, or even 100%.

Now, the answers I can imagine. This is an ill-conceived question. Or. After SR-TR, 100%. But I mean in the present moment, throughout minute by minute life. It seems that everyone admits there is a context of a mind-body-brain-individual, but there seems to be disagreement on what animates that. So I'm asking, to what extent is there, in life-circumstances, the gnosis of SR-TR, here & now, and to what extent is there just chopping wood, carrying water? Maybe put another way, to what extent is the fish aware of the ocean? And then ZGM talks about Source looking out of these eyes. Is there a shift? This even goes back to 1st mountain, 2nd mountain and 3rd mountain. Does my question at least make sense? How often are you aware of the Whole? Or, how often is the Whole aware of you, in you, from the you context? So there is really a continuum, from 1% to 99%. And, when one is merely chopping wood and carrying water, is there a loss of awareness of present moment SR-TR? I get the sense that question doesn't even matter, after SR-TR.

You see, what doesn't make sense is the sense I get that after SR-TR you can just go about your life, as it is, as things used-to-be.

Honest question.

Apparently for a few rare people, such as the Buddha, Hui-neng, and a few others, TR is one sudden and all-encompassing realization. Ramana may fall into that category, but it's hard to know because I don't think he ever fully described what happened following his realization that personal death is an illusion. Another category of folks would include people like Niz, who apparently had a sudden awakening after three years of following his guru's advice. Niz, however, has said that he was a simple man and not an intellectual, so perhaps he wasn't as attached to various ideas as other people. For most people who find freedom, clarity, equanimity, and understanding there seem to be sequential realizations that reveal the falsity of numerous ideas to which they were attached. I would assume, without any specific evidence (and based upon this character's experience), that for everyone who attains non-abidance in mind there is a deepening process of what some people have called "embodiment" that continues after TR and involves further minor realizations.

This character's life can be described as simple, ordinary, direct, in-the-moment, down-to-earth, and action-oriented. My primary interest is telling people who are interested in psychological freedom about the various activities that seem highly correlated with attaining freedom. I think most people who attain freedom, peace, and happiness will be interested in helping other people find the same thing, but people are different, so this may not be true for everyone.

Although life is ordinary, it is NOT ordinary in the way that it was before the age of forty when meditation began. Prior to that age I was like most people who live in their heads and are attached to a meta-reality created by the intellect via cultural conditioning. IOW, there was a strong attachment to various thinking habits that created a kind of roller coaster of good days and bad days, good moments and bad moments, good experiences and bad experiences, etc. There was a strong intuitive sense that dozens of things I had been told couldn't possibly be true, but I had no idea what could reveal something that I thought everybody must be overlooking. As already noted, I started meditating in an effort to attain some peace of mind because I had begun to suspect that the business-related stress I was feeling might be partially a result of incessant mind talk. I had read in one of Castenada's books that the internal dialogue can stop, but I had no idea whether that was true or not. Here then, is a sequence of what happened after meditation began:

1. Incredible frustration after discovering how difficult it was to slow down, even minimally, the internal dialogue.
2. About two weeks after starting to meditate, I noticed something unusual, and wondered if what I had noticed had been noticed as a result of the meditative activity. This resulted in great curiosity that prompted me to start a second meditative activity that I now call "ATA-T."
3. The very first day I started doing ATA-T, memories from childhood began to return.
4. After two or three days of doing ATA-T, I had a significant realization--that I had been living in my head for twenty years and had ceased looking at the world around me.
5. After about two months of doing both the breath awareness activity for an hour at lunch and the ATA-T for about an hour in the afternoon, I began to do a third formal Zen-sitting exercise for an hour in the evening.
6. Five months after beginning to meditate, I fell into the state of nirvikalpa samadhi while sitting one night, and everything disappeared except pure awareness. This happened three nights in a row on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.
7. On Monday morning a ringing telephone in a business associate's office triggered a huge CC that was life changing. The CC, called "kensho" in the Zen tradition, resulted in catapulting "me" from one world into a new and mind-bogglingly different world. Somehow the Infinite was directly apprehended, and I was left in a state of awe, humility, and wonderment. It became clear that there is no actual separation of any kind, that awareness is primordial, that love is foundational to everything, that the Infinite is infinite (haha), and much more. For three days it felt like I was living in the kingdom of God. Seven of my existential questions were answered as well as the famous "Mu" koan. Self interest was gone, and all I wanted to do was help people. New patterns of thought were operative and a huge amount of thinking had simply ceased. I knew things that I had never known before as a result of what some of us call "the download phenomena" (something like getting hooked to a super-computer that downloaded completely new ways of seeing and understanding things).
8. After three days, and probably because reflective thinking got crancked up again, the sense of unity with reality began to disintegrate, and it felt like I was being forced to return to the dead flat world that I had lived in prior to the CC. It felt sickening.
9. After writing a letter to the only Zen Master whose address I could find asking about what one should do after having such a CC, I spent the next five months in libraries during all of my spare time reading spiritual literature about people who had had similar CC's. During those five months I told everyone I met how important it was to meditate but I was unable to meditate at all. All that the body/mind organism wanted to do was think about what had happened and engage in speculation.
10. About 10 months after beginning to meditate, and five months after the CC, I learned about a nearby Zen group that held silent weekend meditation retreats. I had concluded that everything else I wanted to know (I still had dozens, if not hundreds, of existential questions) was "inside" and I suspected that with sufficient internal silence I could find out everything else I wanted to know.
11. On the first Zen retreat I was introduced to koan-resolution methodology, and on the second night I had another huge breakthrough when the bottom fell out of the mind. Thinking that I had become enlightened, I challenged the Zen teacher and got knocked on my butt! It was a huge assault on my sense of selfhood, and there were all kinds of unbelievable somatic phenomena that resulted from that. For two days it felt like my chest was wrapped in steel bands that were crushing me to death. I had read about similar experiences, but having that kind of experience was rather incredible.
12. After two days, at a point where I felt like I could barely breathe, the bottom fell out of the mind again, the body relaxed, and I understood the mistake I had made during my challenge to the teacher.
13. For the next several years I attended Zen meditation retreats, solved many koans, and found answers to several of my own existential questions. The idea of running off to a wilderness, leaving my work responsibilities behind, and getting enlightened became a dominant idea that created a lot of stress with my wife.
14. One day while pouring concrete I had a huge realization; I realized that my idea of running away to get enlightened was an idea that was keeping me separated from the truth of "what is." I asked myself, "What must I be doing this moment?" and the answer was clear. I had to be pouring concrete. This was a life-changing realization because it brought me back to my family with a new understanding--that if awakening were ever going to occur, it would have to occur right through the middle of my family and business life.
15. After going on Zen retreats and meditating for about ten years, I decided to intensify one particular retreat by doing ATA-T during every free period between sitting sessions. A few days later it dawned on me that ATA-T while driving around or walking in the woods was exactly the same activity as sitting on a cushion watching the breathing process. I then began to lose interest in the rigidity of the Zen format and began doing more and more informal ATA-T.
16. In about 1996 I read "Collision with the Infinite" and realized that what I was looking for had to be here and now rather than in the future. For the second time I thought that I had become enlightened, but later realized that this is what Adyashanti called "mind enlightenment." There was intellectual understanding, but it had not penetrated deeper than the intellect.
16. By late 1998, after about 14 years of pursuing many different meditative activities, I had no more existential questions, but still did not feel free and did not know why. I was living in the present moment; most of the old negative mental habits had ceased; and I felt happier and more at peace than most of the people I knew, but still lacked something.
17. In 1999 a new existential question arose, but it wasn't thought about in the same specific way as other existential questions. Looking back, I knew that I had experienced numerous periods of time when self-referentiality had disappeared (during a CC, during NS, and many times of falling "into the zone" during mountain-climbing, etc), but the sense of "me" always returned afterwards. I began to wonder if, or how, it might be possible to remain in unity-conscious selfless state of mind permanently. In August of that year I decided to do another solo mountain-climbing ATA-T retreat, and that was the subtle question that occasionally arose. After four days of hiking, and a talk with Gangaji at a satsang in Boulder, I decided to hike to the summit of Mt. Audubon. At a certain point I was overcome with a sense of gratitude and became quite emotional. A few hours later, I looked "within" but there was no longer anything there. In the past, I had sort of looked "inside" to see what I thought or felt about things, but on that day "the inside," along with the past sense of "me," had totally vanished. Gone. Nada. Empty. It then became clear that there had never been a "me" in the way that I had imagined. That ended the spiritual search for truth because it was then clear that there had never been a "me" and that the real doer of everything was the infinite and unified field of Reality, Itself. I like to call it "THIS." Seeing this obvious truth resulted in freedom and equanimity, and that has never changed in the last 24 years.

All of this to say that I then realized that there had never been a "me" searching for the truth. Reality, Itself, Source, or THIS, had been the actual searcher, and that's the cosmic joke.

Because this character spent 15 years shifting attention away from thoughts to direct sensory perception thinking is no longer dominant in the way that it was at the age of forty. Now it doesn't matter whether there is thinking or silence because it's known that there is only THIS unfolding however it unfolds. There are no expectations about anything. I still have most of the same interests as in the past, the same personality, and the same proclivities, but life is now almost impossible to describe. Do I feel one with the flow of life? Yes, because what I am IS the flow of life. I have no idea what might happen next, but I'll respond to whatever happens in whatever way seems most appropriate in the moment. Abstractions hold little interest except as a way of pointing to THIS. I still enjoy construction activities, and I love the physical work of construction whether it's digging a ditch, framing, or painting. Virtually everything I do is fun, and I often tell people that if hard work of any kind is fun, then it's not work. It's more like play. I could add a lot more, but this should give a general sense of what life is like with there is non-abidance in mind.

[zendancer]

Aug 26, 2023 10:37:13 GMT -5 zazeniac said:

If God speaks through zd or Reefs or anyone else, then you kind of have to wonder when He makes mistakes. ZD has admitted to a few like in his discussion with sifty over financing at low interests rates versus paying cash.

It's not so simple. Contexts can be useful. But they are concessions to the intellect. The wave still ebbs and flows when it realizes the ocean. It still crashes into the shore. Peace.

Yes, I used to think that I had made some mistakes, but that idea eventually disappeared. I may occasionally use the word "mistake" in a conventional conversation with people who are unfamiliar with ND, but even that is pretty rare these days. Why? Because we are all, as THIS, doing whatever we must be doing at any particular moment. The idea of having made a mistake is based upon the erroneous idea that THIS could have unfolded any differently than it did. This understanding became clearer and clearer as time went by, and I now frequently explain this to people who are interested in ND. If people asked, "What must I be doing this moment?" regularly, the fact that it's impossible to make a mistake would become clear.

Do we do things that result in effects that later seem inappropriate or ineffective? Sure, but at the time we did those things, that was exactly what we had to do at that time. If you don't believe this, check it out. Find out if there is ever a moment when you are doing something other than what you must be doing.

[zazeniac]

Aug 26, 2023 10:59:53 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Aug 26, 2023 10:37:13 GMT -5 zazeniac said:

If God speaks through zd or Reefs or anyone else, then you kind of have to wonder when He makes mistakes. ZD has admitted to a few like in his discussion with sifty over financing at low interests rates versus paying cash.

It's not so simple. Contexts can be useful. But they are concessions to the intellect. The wave still ebbs and flows when it realizes the ocean. It still crashes into the shore. Peace.

Yes, I used to think that I had made some mistakes, but that idea eventually disappeared. I may occasionally use the word "mistake" in a conventional conversation with people who are unfamiliar with ND, but even that is pretty rare these days. Why? Because we are all, as THIS, doing whatever we must be doing at any particular moment. The idea of having made a mistake is based upon the erroneous idea that THIS could have unfolded any differently than it did. This understanding became clearer and clearer as time went by, and I now frequently explain this to people who are interested in ND. If people asked, "What must I be doing this moment?" regularly, the fact that it's impossible to make a mistake would become clear.

Do we do things that result in effects that later seem inappropriate or ineffective? Sure, but at the time we did those things, that was exactly what we had to do at that time. If you don't believe this, check it out. Find out if there is ever a moment when you are doing something other than what you must be doing.

Hahahaha! That's what the unfaithful husband said to his wife about cheating when she put a gun to his head. Maybe not. I might not disagree. It's just this kind of thinking is way above my pay grade. In conclusion God speaks thru me even when I'm FOS which is often. Just messin' zd.

[zendancer]

Aug 26, 2023 12:31:23 GMT -5 zazeniac said:

Aug 26, 2023 10:59:53 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Yes, I used to think that I had made some mistakes, but that idea eventually disappeared. I may occasionally use the word "mistake" in a conventional conversation with people who are unfamiliar with ND, but even that is pretty rare these days. Why? Because we are all, as THIS, doing whatever we must be doing at any particular moment. The idea of having made a mistake is based upon the erroneous idea that THIS could have unfolded any differently than it did. This understanding became clearer and clearer as time went by, and I now frequently explain this to people who are interested in ND. If people asked, "What must I be doing this moment?" regularly, the fact that it's impossible to make a mistake would become clear.

Do we do things that result in effects that later seem inappropriate or ineffective? Sure, but at the time we did those things, that was exactly what we had to do at that time. If you don't believe this, check it out. Find out if there is ever a moment when you are doing something other than what you must be doing.

Hahahaha! That's what the unfaithful husband said to his wife about cheating when she put a gun to his head. Maybe not. I might not disagree. It's just this kind of thinking is way above my pay grade. In conclusion God speaks thru me even when I'm FOS which is often. Just messin' zd.

[stardustpilgrim]

Thanks ZD, I hope you have that in the new edition of Pouring Concrete. I chanced on it in a used bookstore before the forums started here, read it. Later, I was quite surprised to find that ZD was RH. I haven't looked at it in over 13 years. I think I can put my hands on it, I'll give it another look. (Meaning, I don't remember how much of that is in PC).

[zendancer]

Aug 26, 2023 13:42:40 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Thanks ZD, I hope you have that in the new edition of Pouring Concrete. I chanced on it in a used bookstore before the forums started here, read it. Later, I was quite surprised to find that ZD was RH. I haven't looked at it in over 13 years. I think I can put my hands on it, I'll give it another look. (Meaning, I don't remember how much of that is in PC).

SDP: I added some new information to the updated, expanded, and revised edition. In fact, the new edition just hit Amazon today. In retrospect it's amazing that I omitted some crucial elements of the story, and I can only assume that I finished writing the original version of the book so quickly after returning from CO in 1999 that I didn't explain or describe a few things with sufficient adequacy. In the new edition I also included an epilogue as well as some additional material after the epilogue. Some of my friends have suggested setting up a website with links to a lot of stuff that can't be found without knowing specifically how to find them, and my daughter has offered to help with that in the near future. Lots of fun!

[stardustpilgrim]

Aug 26, 2023 10:59:53 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Aug 26, 2023 10:37:13 GMT -5 zazeniac said:

If God speaks through zd or Reefs or anyone else, then you kind of have to wonder when He makes mistakes. ZD has admitted to a few like in his discussion with sifty over financing at low interests rates versus paying cash.

It's not so simple. Contexts can be useful. But they are concessions to the intellect. The wave still ebbs and flows when it realizes the ocean. It still crashes into the shore. Peace.

Yes, I used to think that I had made some mistakes, but that idea eventually disappeared. I may occasionally use the word "mistake" in a conventional conversation with people who are unfamiliar with ND, but even that is pretty rare these days. Why? Because we are all, as THIS, doing whatever we must be doing at any particular moment. The idea of having made a mistake is based upon the erroneous idea that THIS could have unfolded any differently than it did. This understanding became clearer and clearer as time went by, and I now frequently explain this to people who are interested in ND. If people asked, "What must I be doing this moment?" regularly, the fact that it's impossible to make a mistake would become clear.

Do we do things that result in effects that later seem inappropriate or ineffective? Sure, but at the time we did those things, that was exactly what we had to do at that time. If you don't believe this, check it out. Find out if there is ever a moment when you are doing something other than what you must be doing.

Probably not a good idea to get off topic, and I don't know much about the educational system now, but when I was in school I was NEVER taught that making mistakes was a part of life and you can't really learn much without making mistakes. I didn't get that nobody knows anything about a subject, in the beginning, that learning is a process, you just keep plugging away at the process. It seemed like, you just study, do your homework, learn the material, pass tests. I learned early, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, that learning was about learning to learn, as I realized a lot I learned, I forgot, that is, the knowledge was not readily available, So I agree, mistakes are just a part of the learning process, sometimes, learning is learning what not to do next time. IOW, children from kindergarten onwards should be taught not getting things perfectly,is OK. I was a bit of a perfectionist, so many things I wouldn't try. Kids need permission to mess up. Many years later, after my schooling, I read the book Summerhill by AS Neil. I thought, OK, that's the way to do schooling. We homeschooled our kids until my former wife's job situation made this not possible. Oldest son went into 8th grade, oldest daughter jumped from 5th grade homeschool to 7th grade public school. Youngest daughter went into 4th grade, youngest son went into 2nd grade. I bring this up because there was this famous family who lived in the middle of nowhere, were not on an electrical grid, grew their own food. They had four sons. Learning materials were available, I think both parents had been teachers, that's a vague recollection, but the sons were not forced on any kind of learning schedule. IOW, they basically lived a Summerhill life, they learned what they wanted to learn. Then the oldest, 11th grade age, decided he wanted to go to Harvard. So he set himself a schedule to do what he needed to do to get into Harvard. And he did, he fulfilled all the requirements and entered and finished Harvard. Sons 2 & 3 followed, also entered and finished Harvard. The 4th, I can't recall specifically. So all education is really about motivation.

[stardustpilgrim]

Aug 26, 2023 14:07:29 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Aug 26, 2023 13:42:40 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Thanks ZD, I hope you have that in the new edition of Pouring Concrete. I chanced on it in a used bookstore before the forums started here, read it. Later, I was quite surprised to find that ZD was RH. I haven't looked at it in over 13 years. I think I can put my hands on it, I'll give it another look. (Meaning, I don't remember how much of that is in PC).

SDP: I added some new information to the updated, expanded, and revised edition. In fact, the new edition just hit Amazon today. In retrospect it's amazing that I omitted some crucial elements of the story, and I can only assume that I finished writing the original version of the book so quickly after returning from CO in 1999 that I didn't explain or describe a few things with sufficient adequacy. In the new edition I also included an epilogue as well as some additional material after the epilogue. Some of my friends have suggested setting up a website with links to a lot of stuff that can't be found without knowing specifically how to find them, and my daughter has offered to help with that in the near future. Lots of fun!

Thanks, I'll probably get the new version, I may be your first sale. I'm going to presume it's print on demand, no problem, they do a quality print on demand. On second thought, as it is a TAT book, it might not be print on demand. Actually hope it has the original cover picture. Edit: Ordered it. I'm not an Amazon prime member, so it arrives next Friday. Nice cover photo, I approve.

[zendancer]

Aug 26, 2023 14:32:36 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Aug 26, 2023 14:07:29 GMT -5 zendancer said:

SDP: I added some new information to the updated, expanded, and revised edition. In fact, the new edition just hit Amazon today. In retrospect it's amazing that I omitted some crucial elements of the story, and I can only assume that I finished writing the original version of the book so quickly after returning from CO in 1999 that I didn't explain or describe a few things with sufficient adequacy. In the new edition I also included an epilogue as well as some additional material after the epilogue. Some of my friends have suggested setting up a website with links to a lot of stuff that can't be found without knowing specifically how to find them, and my daughter has offered to help with that in the near future. Lots of fun!

Thanks, I'll probably get the new version, I may be your first sale. I'm going to presume it's print on demand, no problem, they do a quality print on demand. On second thought, as it is a TAT book, it might not be print on demand. Actually hope it has the original cover picture. Edit: Ordered it. I'm not an Amazon prime member, so it arrives next Friday. Nice cover photo, I approve.

The new edition was handled through TAT and TAT people did the proofreading, formatting, etc. The new ISBN number came from TAT, and the submission of the manuscript was through Shawn Nevins who operates this website. Yes, it is print-on-demand if I understand correctly. Amazon only stocks up on a book if the sales are sufficient. I gave TAT all rights to the book, and the TAT trustees hope that in the future all of the books they publish will generate some income that will help support the foundation.

I learned a lot in the process of issuing a new edition because the proofreader checked every quotation from other sources, found numerous small errors and asked various questions that forced a re-write in some cases. I write on an old PC and I never knew the difference between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash. I could never understand why, when I wanted to insert em dashes, Word would insert an initial em dash and then end the phrase with a double hyphen. Fortunately, google explained three different ways of inserting an em dash in place of the double hyphens, but it took quite a few hours to go through the book and fix all of the incorrect dashes.

Someone recently asked me to send them the text to the Christ-Consciouness book so that he could convert the text to an audio file and listen to the book while driving. I went through all of our old computers, but could not find any written material prior to about 2004. Unfortunately, I never thought about saving old floppies, so all of the original text is gone. I then began trying to learn how to convert a printed book to a text file, and that was an interesting experience because people from all over the world do that sort of thing for a price. One person in Serbia wanted me to photograph every page and email 225 photos to her. It finally dawned on me that the guy TAT used for producing the new covers of the PC book might have that kind of expertise. He does and the book is now with him, so I'll soon have a text file that I can send to the guy who wanted to convert it to an audio file. Interesting stuff for a Luddite like me.

Thanks for being the first purchaser of the new edition! I hope that you find it interesting. I haven't seen it yet, so you'll probably see it before I will.

[stardustpilgrim]

Aug 26, 2023 16:12:51 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Aug 26, 2023 14:32:36 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Thanks, I'll probably get the new version, I may be your first sale. I'm going to presume it's print on demand, no problem, they do a quality print on demand. On second thought, as it is a TAT book, it might not be print on demand. Actually hope it has the original cover picture. Edit: Ordered it. I'm not an Amazon prime member, so it arrives next Friday. Nice cover photo, I approve.

The new edition was handled through TAT and TAT people did the proofreading, formatting, etc. The new ISBN number came from TAT, and the submission of the manuscript was through Shawn Nevins who operates this website. Yes, it is print-on-demand if I understand correctly. Amazon only stocks up on a book if the sales are sufficient. I gave TAT all rights to the book, and the TAT trustees hope that in the future all of the books they publish will generate some income that will help support the foundation.

I learned a lot in the process of issuing a new edition because the proofreader checked every quotation from other sources, found numerous small errors and asked various questions that forced a re-write in some cases. I write on an old PC and I never knew the difference between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash. I could never understand why, when I wanted to insert em dashes, Word would insert an initial em dash and then end the phrase with a double hyphen. Fortunately, google explained three different ways of inserting an em dash in place of the double hyphens, but it took quite a few hours to go through the book and fix all of the incorrect dashes.

Someone recently asked me to send them the text to the Christ-Consciouness book so that he could convert the text to an audio file and listen to the book while driving. I went through all of our old computers, but could not find any written material prior to about 2004. Unfortunately, I never thought about saving old floppies, so all of the original text is gone. I then began trying to learn how to convert a printed book to a text file, and that was an interesting experience because people from all over the world do that sort of thing for a price. One person in Serbia wanted me to photograph every page and email 225 photos to her. It finally dawned on me that the guy TAT used for producing the new covers of the PC book might have that kind of expertise. He does and the book is now with him, so I'll soon have a text file that I can send to the guy who wanted to convert it to an audio file. Interesting stuff for a Luddite like me.

Thanks for being the first purchaser of the new edition! I hope that you find it interesting. I haven't seen it yet, so you'll probably see it before I will.

You can tell if a book is print on demand, as on the final page it gives the date printed and the location (sometimes it will say available in 2-3 days). There is an Amazon facility in Columbia, SC, two hours from me, that prints Amazon books, but different locations print different books.

Oh, I recall that some months ago you wrote about coming across another book you had written, but had forgotten about. I don't recall if you told about the content. I'd be interested in hearing more about that one, too.

[park]

Can someone post an Amazon link? I can only find the 2000 edition.

[laughter]

Aug 27, 2023 1:19:06 GMT -5 park said:

Can someone post an Amazon link? I can only find the 2000 edition.

I like this cover pic betterer.