Category: philosophical counseling
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Game Over
An Analogy Imagine that for the longest time you get fixated on objects illuminated by the sun. How interesting! Or how terrible! When each object is illuminated, you get caught up in this one. Then that one. Then that one… Imagine that one day you became interested in where this illumination comes from. At which…
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The Negative Way As Whiplash
The negative way refers to the method by which false identifications are removed, typically one after the other. It’s fair to say that a good number of spiritual practitioners don’t much like the negative way since it’s believed that it can desiccate the spirit and inadvertently lead one to nihilism. More preferable is the positive…
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Nisargadatta’s I Am That: Crucial Distinctions In Advaita Vedanta
In Nisargadatta’s I Am That, we find an astonishingly clear articulation of important features of the teaching of Advaita Vedanta. Three distinctions in particular are used to good effort: 1.) Change / changelessness: Also: Ponder this. Is it true? See how pondering it “drives you inward.” 2.) Dependence / independence: Ponder this: 3.) Subject / object:…
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How One Wakes Up
How can we describe the process by which one Wakes Up? I sketch what I take to be a fairly standard process below. Is it the only way? Of course not. But does it account for many stories of enlightenment? I think so. Many Small Glimpses A glimpse can be said to a brief “seeing”…
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Sri Ramana’s Tears
Anyone with a big heart can’t help but cry when reading this story about Echammal from Arthur Osborne’s Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-knowledge. It must be noted that Ramana is not crying for “himself” (whatever this could possibly mean); he is only crying on behalf of Echammal, whose sorrow runs deep. The following…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 