Category: philosophical counseling

• February 18, 2021

  Love, Work, And Paragate

  Freud once said, “Love and work…work and love, that’s all there is… love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” As a normative statement about the good life, the claim can’t be true, yet as a description of modernity’s cornerstones, it is close enough. The invitation comes from a rupture in our lives, a rock that shatters the illusion.…
• February 17, 2021

  Losses, Failures, And Mysticism

  Rare is the person who hears and heeds the call Home unless one has first been rocked by losses and failures. Yet too often, and too quickly, losses and failures can cement the obstinate sense of pride of the sufferer. Presented with loss and failure, the proud one may try harder, may try to be…
• February 16, 2021

  A Forgetfulness Deeper Than Forgetfulness

  In the only book written during his lifetime, Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization, Nisargadatta puts it to us directly: One who leads his life without ever wondering about who or what he is accepts the traditional genealogical history as his own and follows the customary religious and other [now very secular–AT] activities according to tradition. He leads…
• February 15, 2021

  The End Of Questioning

  A satsang on February 23, 1981 begins powerfully: [Sri Nisargadatta] Maharaj: If you have really understood the core of the matter no questions can arise. Questions arise only to an entity. The question is usually–“What can I do?” Where the “I” itself is not, who will want to know anything? (Prior to Consciousness: Talks with…
• February 12, 2021

  ‘Whatever You Witness Will Not Remain With You’

  Nisargadatta, an Indian teaching master, tells students during satsang: “Whatever you witness will not remain with you” (Prior to Consciousness: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, p. 56). This is at once simple and profound. Like a sharp knife. Any sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste you witness will not remain with you. Therefore, it is…