Author: Andrew Taggart
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Practice, Understood As Action, Cannot Remove Ignorance
Advaita Vedanta takes very seriously Shankara’s claim in his little textbook Atma Bodha that “[a]ction cannot remove ignorance; but knowledge disperses it as light disperses darkness.” This, effectively, rules out karma yoga as “a way” of coming to Self-knowledge directly. But can we pull out more from Shankara’s statement? In the hands of Atmananda, we…
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Does Pain Hurt Me?
The basic distinction in Advaita Vedanta–namely, that the Seer is different from the seen–can be restated thus: the Witness is different from all objective experiences. Now, if the Witness is different from all objective experiences (namely, thinking, feeling, perceiving, and sensing), then It can’t be affected by the content of any objective experience? To explore this,…
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Do I Have To Clean Up All My Psychological Baggage Before I Can Hope To Wake Up?
I have to Clean Up all of my psychological suffering before I can even possibly Wake Up. Isn’t that right? No, the Direct Path teaching would point out that that view is precisely courting ignorance: implicit in what’s written is the deeply held belief that one is a vigilant doer who must “do all of…
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The Individual Has No Control Over The Content Of Experiences
Awareness naturally manifests Itself as the universe, and the universe flows forth spontaneously with all sorts of experiences. I, as an apparently existing individual, have no control over the experiences that arise. Thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and sense perceptions all arise spontaneously and subside just as spontaneously. Therefore, any attempt that I, as an apparently…
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What I Am Cannot Be Disturbed
The teaching says that What I Am cannot be disturbed. How can this be understood? Objective experiences are (a) thinking and feeling (finite mind), (b) perceiving (the world), and (c) sensing (bodily sensation). What I Am is not an objective experience. I’m the Unseen Seer (The Upanishads). That is, I can never find Myself as an objective…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 