Francis Lucille and Advaita

Jeroen

Have you ever heard of a French man named Francis Lucille? He was Rupert Spira's teacher and part of Jean Klein's heritage. So more in the direction of Advaita than standard Buddhism.

Below is a link to his blog, which has over 250 questions, answers and simple pointers, I hear it often goes down for whatever reason, so thought I'd share it here as he seems a worthwhile teacher and articulator of truth.

https://francis.ugjka.net/eng/index.html

Ask yourself who is hypnotized. Inquire deeply. Who is it? Where is it? You will find that it is not possible to find such an entity. If you explore your mind and your body, you will find a few concepts that you identify with like “I am a woman”, “I am a human being”, “I am a lawyer”, etc.. You can also find certain sensations in your body, certain areas that are more opaque, more solid, that you identify with as well. But when you look more closely, it becomes obvious that you are not this sensation in your chest, nor this thought of being a woman, since feelings and thoughts come and go and what you really are is permanent. At this very moment, the hypnosis ends. The occurrence of these thoughts and feelings is less of a problem than your identification with them. As soon as you become aware of them, you distance yourself. You are free. In this freedom, you do not locate yourself anywhere. It is important to stay in this non-localization, as we have the tendency to hasten to take hold of a new identification as soon as we have let go of the previous one, like a monkey who doesn’t let go of a branch before latching onto another.

You will see how wonderful it is to live in the air in this way, without hanging on, unattached. In the beginning, it seems a bit strange, although your new attitude doesn’t constitute an obstacle to anything. You can always fulfill your functions as a mother or as a lawyer, feel your body and so forth. In fact, to be nothing, in the air, no where, is very practical. It simplifies life a great deal. Do not be content merely to understand. Put your understanding into practice. Try being nobody. Let go of the branches

Jeroen

Since the point last year where I more or less acknowledged that my path was carrying me away from a pure Buddhist expression along the lines of Ajahn Chah and the Thai Forest Tradition, I have been reading a variety of teachers which eventually led me to Advaita. In a way a lot of it is not dissimilar to Zen, if you read texts such as the one I quoted above.

I enjoy the freshness of it, the directness of it. It has a lot of immediacy which reminds me of Zen, and if you keep in mind a lot of the core lessons from Buddhism about craving and letting go, it is like these writings from the world of Advaita are complementary. Somehow I feel that deep inside they make something more whole.

Jeroen

The mind is not the locus of enlightenment, which is the direct experience of the Self, by the Self, through the Self, without any intermediary agent such as thoughts, body sensations or external sense perceptions. However, your statement "the mind is a tool to be used to the maximum of its capacity in the way to knowledge" is correct as shown in the previous paragraph.

Now in Advaita the word ‘Self’ with a capital S means the greater self which we all are a part of, more or less the interdependent universe.