Category: philosophical counseling

• November 1, 2022

  Let Us Just Be

  I’d like to share with you the beautiful final words with which Michael James’s fine book Happiness and the Art of Being: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of the Spiritual Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana concludes. I do so below the “*.” * This world and everything that we experience in it, including…
• October 28, 2022

  Administering Electric Shocks Or Sitting With One’s Thoughts?

  1 In 2014, a study published in Science declared something that, to the researchers concerned, was quite surprising: In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and…
• October 24, 2022

  Only Practice In Atma Vicara Makes Perfect

  One elegant, and very intuitive argument, from Michael James’s Happiness and the Art of Being: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of the Spiritual Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana is worth sitting with: Only practice [in atma vicara, i.e., self-inquiry, self-investigation, or self-abidance] can make perfect. By repeated and persistent practice of turning our…
• October 21, 2022

  The Truth Of Being Here Now

  As Richard Alpert tells it in his now famous book Be Here Now, he went to India as a late–almost last–ditch effort after he realized that taking psychedelics, even heroic amounts, always left you down, always left you more or less where you were before. Such was–is–the nature of samsara. In India, Alpert met a…
• October 20, 2022

  Turiya And Self-inquiry

  Manolaya Sri Ramana really cuts to the chase: for serious sadhakas, there is no point to engaging in any meditation technique except Self-inquiry. This is because pranayama, counting exercises, chanting, etc.–while they have their modest place in the nondual spiritual life–nonetheless fail to get to the heart of the matter. They leave the central ‘problem’…