Tag: Meditation
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America’s Volksgeist And The Actuality Of Redemption
In “Is America a Creedal Nation” (First Things June/July 2025, pp. 33-8), David P. Goldman offers a fascinating take on America’s Volksgeist. Just what is that glue, that something, that underlying creed that holds the American people together? Goldman’s answer: “Uniquely among the cultures of the world, it [American culture] is monothematic. It is obsessed…
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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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The Quotidian, The Heroic, Or The Heart Of Being?
Is It Possible To Justify The Quotidian? I recently read the Washington Post critic Michael Dirda’s fine review of Ellmann’s Joyce, a book written by Zachary Leader about Richard Ellmann’s biographical work on the novelist James Joyce. Key to this review is, of course, Joyce’s novel Ulysses. Dirda summarizes: “Ulysses” takes place during one day…
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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…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 