Conversations with Avant-garde Sages

I will be on the radio show, Conversations with Avant-garde Sages on WCOM 103.5 FM Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC on Tues Nov 15th from noon to 1pm. They stream the broadcast online as well. They have shows every Tuesday, schedule here. Enjoy!

The most radical expression of spirituality

The most radical expression of spirituality is ordinariness. I met the sage John Troy (also known as The Wizard) yesterday. You can read the details of his life story here and he also makes his books "Wisdom's Soft Whisper" and "The Human Gospel of Ramana Maharshi" available for free here. I am reading the Human Gospel now. In it, John shows the human side of Ramana. Some who would choose to worship him as something super-human didn't like the book that reveals an ordinary man with an extraordinary understanding.

I have met some "spiritual superstars" who radiate an air of specialness. You can tell when they walk in a room by the way that they hold themselves that they are "different". With John, there were no airs of superiority or fronts, there was just sitting together and sharing and a deep sharing it was. Some people, by their open presence embody oneness. It is not a "you and me" or an "us and them" duality game that is being played but a simple basking in the universal awareness that is the true source and heart of life. I am that. You are that. It ALL is that.

Thank you John. I only found out about you a week ago but being with you, your wife and companions was like being with a group of life-long friends. I say "yes" to your message of true spiritual equality--non-duality.

Death, obsession of the ego

Death is an endless object of fascination for the ego idea. Interestingly enough, death isn't an object and, in an honest examination, we can't state authoritatively that there is such a thing as an object at all. Death and decay are one of the transitional forms of appearances as are birth and growth. Every form comes into appearance at some point and disappears at another. This is readily observable in life. By what trait or capacity is this known? Consciousness.

Some say that consciousness is the eternal principle. Obviously it isn't as transient as the perceptions that appear within it but still consciousness (in the traditional understanding of that word) gives way to unconsciousness.What is this entire process known by? THAT is the absolute. That within which all experiences arise and fade. It is that which gives rise to the appearance of life and death and is beyond both. Only appearances are born and die. Life is the timeless show of the infinite.

Advaita is not complex

All that is ever being pointed to is the simple fact of being--the presence that all experiences and sensations appear in. It is impossible to lose this. At this moment, fingers are typing on a keyboard and I glance out of the window at the brilliant colors of changing leaves. This is the way being is appearing at the moment. Now, in this moment, something different is appearing but only because consciousness is present.

The ever changing colors, forms and other perceptions are the way the absolute sees itself. The absolute is that which registers all--pre-conceptual and self illuminating. There is nothing apart from this. Where ever "you" are is only where this is. Without this, nowhere, no one or nothing would manifest.

More stores

Blessed Disillusionment is now also available from Barnes and Noble and Buy.com.

Which Advaita?

Scott: I enjoy reading your pointers and posts.  Great content.  I do have one question I hope you can shed some light on.

I discovered Advaita Vedanta recently, a couple of months ago.  More recently, I have stumbled upon a "different" philosophy, the followers of which call "True Advaita".  Yours is what they call "Neo Advaita", and of course they say it lacks truth, substance, and is a perversion of the "real thing".  From what I can tell, "true" advaita requires me to basically quit my job, move to India, learn Sanskrit, and spend an undetermined amount of time sitting at the feet of a guru who also has dedicated his life to advaita.  Since I don't really care to abandon my family or my career to become "realized", this caused me to basically abandon the idea of ever escaping the karmic cycle of rebirth in this lifetime.  Maybe next time around.

But then I found your site.  So here it is:  Which advaita is true?  Why?  You speak of kindness as being the fruit of realization.  If nothing is real, why be kind?  You see where I'm going.  Anything you can offer to help me figure this out is much appreciated.

Morgan: Hey Scott. My book "Blessed Disillusionment" was published recently and in it I have a chapter that quotes extensively from "Crest Jewel of Discrimination", a classical Advaita Vedanta text. I also suggest the Ashtavakra Gita to my readers. In it, I also say: "What in the hell is neo-Advaita? Advaita means not two, non-duality. So there is a new non-duality as opposed to an old one? Once again, thought makes distinctions where there are none."

Dennis Waite seems to be one of the people who coined the term "neo-Advaita" but I've emailed extensively with him and he admits that Sailor Bob and John Wheeler's approach has value for those who are ready and I couldn't agree more. It really comes down to seeing that seeking isn't getting one anywhere and that the wild goose chase could go on forever. Why not see what is here now instead of looking to an imaginary future for satisfaction?

Some say you have to study scripture and follow a guru for years before realization can happen but the respected sage Ramana Maharshi realized the Self at the ripe young age of 16 through self inquiry, without a guru. To me, "realization" means seeing past the arbitrary conceptual frameworks of thought to the common ground of "being/consciousness/bliss". The absolute is always present and appears as the world of form. Thought, one of the aspects of the world of form, describes what appears as being separate objects apart from a subject who sees but, in our own direct experience, we see the unity of consciousness and its objects. If they were isolated from each other, life would not be. It is all one unified movement--non-duality, Brahman, God, whatever we want to call it.

As a hobby, I have read a lot about cults. Often, in groups headed by a charismatic leader, you hear reports of abuses at the hands of this person who is supposed to be an enlightened being. It seems that this cruelty still shows that, deep down within them, they believe they are separate from and better than their followers. If you don't believe in this concept of "higher and lower", i.e.--duality, then you treat others with the same love and respect you would like to be shown. That is why I say kindness is the proof. Some talk about non-duality and high minded concepts but their abusiveness reflects that they still believe in the self idea (ego).

I don't claim to be an authority on these things, I just try to communicate how I see it. In the absence of belief in the divisions of thought, there is effortless oneness. This is our direct experience.

Scott: What you say makes a lot of sense and resonates with me.  It seems to be common sense.  I already know what I am, what everything is, so what am I expecting to accomplish by more seeking?

Thank you so much!

My book, "Blessed Disillusionment" is now for sale on Amazon

Link here. Thanks to Julian and Catherine at Non Duality Press and John Wheeler for his kind words.