Author: Andrew Taggart
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There Is No Such Thing As Mind Control
If you’ve started meditating, initially you felt some sense of peace. After a bit more meditating, you began to realize the predicament you’re in: the mind keeps rising and seems out of control. And when mind rises, there is suffering (dukkha). Naturally, at this point it may have occurred to you to use meditation as…
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On Sacred Art And Profane Art
We might contemplate, as if drinking cool spring water to quench our spiritual thirst, the following passage from Frithjof Schuon on the prerequisites for creating sacred art: In the ancient Church, and in the Eastern Churches even down to our own times, icon painters prepared themselves for their work by fasting, by prayer and by…
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‘The Idea Of Difficulty Is Itself An Obstacle To Realisation’
Over the years, I’ve quite often heard conversation partners and meditation students say, “Yes, but X is hard,” “Y is difficult,” and “Z is challenging.” But who says this? For whom this difficult? Who is putting up the illusory blockade? In “Talk 244,” Sri Ramana Maharshi deftly meets the resistance of a disciple: D[isciple]: How…
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Ethical Practice: From Pride To Humility
What are the basic spiritual virtues of those who are on the path of nondual realization? Frithjof Schuon suggests that there are three: humility, charity, and veracity (or truthfulness). Today I’d like to discuss humility. Now, we do well to begin not with humility but with the vice of pride. When pride is removed, humility…
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Why Neti Neti Is Not Enough
We learn something crucial during a satsang between a disciple and Sri Ramana Maharshi. At the end of “Talk 41” of Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (PDF), Sri Ramana responds quite decisively to what a disciple says about his spiritual practice (sadhana): D. [Disciple]: I meditate neti-neti (not this – not this).M. [Sri Ramana Maharshi]:…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 