Tag: Advaita Vedanta
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Suffering, Ultimately, Never Was
For most spiritual seekers who set foot on a nondual spiritual path, the idea that suffering–indeed, my suffering–is real provides the motivating force to embark. This is a good, albeit provisional, thing. Slowly, however, this claim is sublated. First, this suffering seems to spread until it seems almost ubiquitous, sometimes to the point of suffocation.…
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Maya As A Kind Of Seduction
Atmananda offers us a helpful clue when it comes to trying to understand the nature of maya. In Atma Nivriti, he likens bondage, or maya, to the captivation one experiences while being transfixed by “the beauty of the figure” carved into a rock. There are three key remarks to make about this metaphor: One, maya…
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Does The Mind Exist?
1. The mind, it can be asserted, is limited consciousness. This definition gives rise to two questions. One, is consciousness ever limited? And, two, is there such a thing as the mind? 2. If consciousness is limited, it must be limited by something. There are only two possible cases to examine: 3a) and 3b): consciousness…
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How To Transcend Engagement With The World
‘Engagement’ You stated that not infrequently it seems as if you’re still “engaged” with the waking state. Take time to contemplate the following point: And what seems to follow from taking “all this” to be real? If this interpretation is correct, ghen what’s so neat about it is that all we have to do is to…
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‘I, O Arjuna! Am the Self, Seated in the Heart of All Beings’
“I, O Arjuna! am the Self, seated in the heart of all beings.” —The Bhagavad Gita 10.20 One can investigate this beautiful teaching thanks to Atmananda’s Direct Path method. 1. Start with the experience of being yourself. Hold onto this sense of “being myself.” 2. Then ask yourself: “Where is the center or seat of…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 