Category: philosophical counseling
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The Four Noble Truths Of Advaita Vedanta
Naturally, the Four Noble Truths are expounded by the Buddha in the first sutra, The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (“Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion”). I hereby offer what I take to be Advaita Vedanta’s riff on the following structure: Advaita Vedanta’s First Noble Truth The mind is suffering. This should be understood with the utmost…
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Are There Two Selves, Is There Only One?
Only one. Only: “I am.” Can’t be two. No, never. Honestly, you’ve never had, nor can you ever have, any experience of a second self. Language, here, is bewitching as sentences like “I loved myself,” I myself reflected upon the course of my life” betray a patent misunderstanding. Investigate: Can you go toward yourself? Can…
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Atmananda’s Teaching Is Like Smoking Out Your Prey
Atmananda’s teaching can be analogized to smoking out your prey. You have the sense that there is some prey that’s hiding off yonder. The prey, which has yet to reveal its essence, is apparently separate from you. You resort to cunning. In lieu of chasing after it (for such is futile inasmuch as you’ve treated…
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‘Consciousness-without-an-object Is’: An Aphorism By Franklin Merrell-Woolf
“Consciousness-without-an-object is.” This is the first of 56 aphorisms by Franklin Merrell-Woolf. In it is contained much of the teaching of Advaita Vedanta. A brief commentary: 1. Consciousness is the ontological primitive: there is nothing more basic than Consciousness. And “everything else”–though there is nothing else–can be reduced to Consciousness-without-an-object. 2. Consciousness is also the…
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Our Mind Is Unreal, Only ‘I Am’ Is Real
One crux of the idealist teaching of Sri Ramana in particular, of Advaita Vedant in general can be found clearly elucidated by Michael James, who for many years was a disciple of Sri Sadhu Om (who was a disciple of Sri Ramana): All thoughts are known by us only through the medium of our mind,…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 