Category: philosophical counseling

• 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’…
• October 19, 2022

  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…
• October 17, 2022

  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…
• October 13, 2022

  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…
• October 11, 2022

  ‘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…