Month: December 2019
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Spiritual Teachers With Penetrating Smiles
The pictures we have of spiritual teachers are of gentle, smiley, ethereal creatures and of wanton charlatans. The latter have, when the traditional media catches wind of something, been news fodder (Rajneeshpuram, anyone?) whereas the former appear only as caricatures of saints and sages, those who levitate and love and laugh. We both know the…
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Dreaming And Dreamless Modes Of Being Are Realer Than The Waking State
Consider the fact that you will sleep for approximately one-third of your life. Yet you do not, nor do many others, take this fact with the utmost seriousness. You think that sleep is just a void of sorts, one, all the same, that is necessary for the restoration of the body and mind. Sleep, a trap…
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The Heart, The Rational Mind, And The Ego
Setup Let the heart be that which is distinct not just from the ego but also from the rational mind. The Heart Moreover, let the heart be the name provisionally given to “the knowing with which one knows.” This knowing is unified (there is no dissensus), simple (there is no complexity), indubitable (there is no…
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The Apparent Impossibility Of Being With ‘It Is So’
Is there anything more to say, really, than: “It is so?” Yet words, dipped in fire, leap out of the void, then singe the earth. Yet thoughts pitch and whir and whirl, putting us in a trance. Yet feelings itch and inch forward, subtly or acutely denying this. It is apparently impossible to meet and…
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We Cannot Confront Thought At The Level Of Thought
We cannot confront thought at the level of thought. Imagine that there is a still pond. Now imagine that the slightest–or, in some instances, the most volatile–stirring or agitation disturbs the surface of the pond. In this analogy, the stirring or agitations are what we rather inaptly (approximately) call “feelings.” The full-fledged forms–here, waves and…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 
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