From the non-dual book pile…
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I recently ‘inherited’ a trove of books on non-duality, and I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of the people and what they say.
I came across a book by this man, Darryl Bailey, who I found quite sympathetic. It was only when I listened to a talk of his that I heard about his extensive background as a Buddhist monk under Ajahn Sumedho. In any case, he talks about the impermanence of things, how this means that things have no permanent form and are really constantly changing. He talks about how impermanence affects thoughts, and the desire for pleasure.
He talks about how examining impermanence can bring you to the realisation that the universe is a mystery, made of constantly moving and evolving matter without permanent forms, and that the acceptance of a world without form can bring change to the thoughts that are trying to describe form, and so ultimately freedom and peace.
Here is the YouTube talk…
Comments
Just to add something that I see people miss sometimes when talking about emptiness, non self and impermanence. I think you're probably aware, but it wasn't specifically spelled out and I suppose its a bit of philosophical pedantry on my part.
"Things" aren't just impermanent and ever changing. Even if we were to take a snap shot in time of something, it still wouldn't be "thing" in its own right. At every point any thing is made up of other things, which are made up of other things, and so on.
So less this
And more this
The "thing" isn't changing, all the parts that make it up are shifting and changing.
A bit more from Darryl Bailey — apparently he is Canadian — in this interview he talks more about the formlessness of things. I really enjoyed this one.
I’ve been reading another book from my non-dual book pile, Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Consciousness and the Absolute, which was made from talks not long before his death, covering the period 1980-1981. In there Nisargadatta comes to the conclusion that he is not consciousness after all, that consciousness rather is just a concept and indistinguishable from the everything, which he calls the absolute.
In a way it is rather similar to Darryl Bailey above, in his vision of the everything as being one giant whole… I think what speaks to me particularly is the modern quantum physics perspective of everything as an unfolding process.
The other thing that he talks about quite a lot is that the body is food for consciousness, without the body there is no presence.
Today I have been reading Ajahn Chah, and in many ways, it has come as a breath of fresh air after all the digging into gaming stuff I had been doing (which fosters a lot of attachment).
So one quote I came across was “alternate systems of teaching are fine as long as they foster relinquishment.” And I thought it might be good to look at these writings in response to that.
First of all, a belief that the world is an ever-changing Mystery is good for letting go of physical possessions, the body, the mind… it challenges a lot of established thinking about what physical things actually are, and it’s a good opportunity to let go of them.
That is the good side of it. The downside is if you start identifying yourself with this Mystery, which would be rather a thinking mistake because you obviously can’t control very much of it, so how can you be it?
From the thread “There is no purpose, only love” in which I talked some about the Tony Parsons books that I found in the non-dual book pile…
I think this is true, when I went into computer games when I was 25 it was also because it was something I loved doing, and that determined much of my adult life, including my breakdown. Just a few years ago when I decided to buy a house with my mother and stepfather which was also a turning point in my life, that was also about love.
It’s interesting to look at the ways in which love moves us, throughout our lives. In a way it is all that really matters, whether you have acknowledged and followed love in your life. Love is not passion or lust, it is something gentler and more mysterious.
I wanted you to know that, because of this topic, I read Darryl Bailey's books. Reading it gave me profound insight, for which I am grateful. Thanks.
That makes my day, cheers. I’m just leafing through this big pile of non-dual books, some of it is unexpectedly good like Darryl Bailey and Tony Parsons, but some of it is proving dense and not very accessible. I thought I’d put some comments on the highlights of it all in this thread mostly for the sake of having a record of it, I’m pleased someone has gotten something from it.
The thing is, classic non-duality has some links to Hinduism, when you read through Balsekar or Nisargadatta, and that tackles subjects like sadhana, puja’s, reciting the names of God, and so on. The more modern neo non-duality is much cleaner and simpler, but there are still some good insights to be found in it.
I was reading some more Tony Parsons today, and the core of his message seems to be that there is no-one there, that a body just creates an illusion of separateness but from an awakened perspective he sees that pretty much everyone is already at some level awakened. It’s cool that he keeps on repeating the message that there is no-one, there is only oneness.
A lot of his discussions with people who come to his talks are about working out the details of this. A lot of people are still talking from the old paradigm.
This channel usually sticks closer to verified science, there is some research offered though regarding a universal consciousness. The speaker is the Columbia psychologist and spirituality researcher Lisa Miller.
Really interesting, @person. The talk about the Schumann resonance and alpha waves in the brain is very “on point” as far as the whole idea of oneness is concerned. It seems that the spiritual universe is vast, with many different resonances.
This mornings perusing is through a volume of Mooji teachings, called Breath of the Absolute:
To me this makes a lot of sense. Ultimately the desire for freedom leads to the breakdown of structure, structures of thought and structures of society in which human beings are caught. The mind is not in favour of that.
I’ve heard this from a few different sources, that non-duality imposes no criteria and makes no demands. There is only the Truth. Of course as written there are a few areas where it differs from commonly held Buddhist belief — for example Self with a capital letter as shorthand for what Nisargadatta in his final book called the Absolute. It is a holdover from the Hindu roots of the original Advaita Vedanta, which Mooji retains through his lineage from Papaji and Ramana Maharshi.
In the phrase “There is no Path” you may also hear echoes of Jiddu Krishnamurti and U.G. Krishnamurti, they would say kind of similar things. Osho too, in his insistence that man was unique and that no path could ever lead one to meditation, that it was just a knack one had to discover. A lot of these teachings of modern spirituality are related. But just to read the words is enough to put me in a very particular space…
There is a Christian tradition, Lectio Divinorum which is the meditative reading of holy words, which this reminds me of.