Author: Andrew Taggart
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Ramana Maharshi On Self-Inquiry In 2 Sentences
In the “Preface” to The Collected Works of Ramana Maharshi, Arthur Osborne includes an elegant summary of self-inquiry in Ramana’s words: “It is not right to make an incantation of ‘Who am I?’ Put the question only once and then concentrate on finding the source of the ego and preventing the occurrence of thoughts” (p.…
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Metaphysical Univocity And Neti Neti: Going Too Far
One of Brad Gregory’s elegant arguments from Th Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society is that metaphysical univocity made possible the disenchantment of the modern world. Here is his summary: Despite cascades of (post-)Enlightenment propaganda to the contrary, the mathematization of ordinary natural processes could entail no exclusion of God’s alleged, abiding, mysterious…
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How To See Off Samskaras
In a short essay, “Freedom from Binding Ego Tendencies: The Essence of Spiritual Liberation,” Timothy Conway discusses the “constricting ego tendencies of attachment and aversion (variously termed samskaras, vasanas, kleshas, nafs, sins, etc.), and cessation of the ignorance which creates a sense of a separate ‘me” (italics in the original). Of course, a good number of these ego tendencies simply fall…
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Conclusion: A New Aristocracy
You can read the entirety of the final chapter from my book on Total Work here.
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Who Creates Your Dreams?
Each night we go to sleep and we may have as many as seven dreams before waking up in the morning. Where, I wonder, do all these dreams come from? And who, or what, created them? If you’re being honest with yourself, then the questions above should strike you as being quite mysterious. You don’t…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 