Tag: Consciousness
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Is Right Thinking Just Pollyannaism?
The Pollyanna objection to “thought power” has been, I trust, on your mind since you’ve been reading the last series of posts. The thought power thesis states that positive thinking is more powerful and truer than negative thinking, and it doesn’t flinch with regard to the twin implications. One, your life is “the product” of…
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Power And Clarity
Over a decade ago, my wife Alexandra and I met a spiritual teacher in Southern California. What puzzled us at the time was the fact that while his teaching was very crisp and clear, the energy in the room was very low. We’ve since come across teachers around whom one feels that the energy has…
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Vivarta Vada And Self-inquiry
You may have heard this line from Chandogya Upanishad: “May I be many, may I grow forth.” Hearing it, you may have fallen to wondering: “How did the many actually come from the One?” What if manifestation never really happened? In this connection, let’s consider just one doctrine: vivarta vada. This teaching draws upon the…
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Going Beyond The Student-Spiritual Teacher Framing
We need a new, more deft understanding of “student” and “spiritual teacher.” In fact, ultimately both, rightly says The Avadhuta Gita, have to go. But first the promised understanding. The student in life–be he a spiritual practitioner, an entrepreneur, or (really) anybody–tells a story in which he, the protagonist, is struggling to follow the path.…
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Personal Peace Is Not The Ultimate Aim
The contemporary spirituality scene–be it New Age or Neo-Advaita–is lacking in many respects. Two such are pointed out by Swami Satyananda Saraswati in Rikhia: The Vision of a Sage, an account of the rural development project undertaken in Rikhia, India, starting in 1989. Satyananda, presumably speaking to younger disciples, asserts, “Personal shanti may be an…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 