Bulldozer spirituality

malet egg

To verbally espouse and preach spiritual things can be deeply inappropriate:
Do you tell someone who is suicidal,
That their problems are due to a false notion of self?
Or that all phenomena are insubstantial, formless and everchanging?
Or that like the desert mirage, life and its problems are a dream?

It would be like telling someone who is choking that ‘ALL IS ONE‘. Continue reading

What is non-duality anyway?

lotus flower

This website is sub-titled ‘Spirituality and Non-Duality’. But what exactly is non-duality (advaita in Sanskrit)? Even in spiritual circles only a few people will ever come across the notion of non-duality and fewer still seem to be interested. From my point of view that’s a real shame as as far as I can see, non-duality is where spirituality gets real and freedom can become reality. Continue reading

Spirituality is not physics

church door

Spirituality is not physics. Lots of people who are interested and immersed in spirituality get confused about this. Just because something feels/ is perceived/ is intuited a certain way, does not mean that it is actually like that. It’s obvious really. Spirituality deals with subjective experience. Science deals with learning how to predict what will occur in various different situations. Some examples:

eg. I have a feeling/perception that all is one and everything is interconnected. Therefore everything in the universe is actually one and interconnected.

Continue reading

Spirituality and science have common aims

music violin

It just so happens that in the so-called ‘West’ there has been a rapid development of science in the last few centuries. If we want to understand how things work, if we want to develop technologies and medicine, we turn to ‘Western’ science.

Also, it just so happens that when it comes to introspection and exploration of subjective inner states of consciousness, the so-called ‘East’ has had the historical monopoly. There have been a few thousand years of rigorous exploration of consciousness through meditative, contemplative, tantric and various other practices. This has allowed humans to discover and access mental states in which truths about our minds and subjective experience can be discovered and experienced first-hand without the need for belief. Continue reading

Alan Watts: You and the universe are one

centaurus A

“It’s not true that you came into this world. You came out of it, in the same way a flower comes out of a plant or a fruit comes out of a tree. An apple tree apples, the solar system peoples…You are a function of this total galaxy”
Alan Watts

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Beyond self-realisation

face illusion flower
There is nobody here

No sadhanas are required
No sadhana (spiritual practice) can lead to self realisation. No map can take you to where you already are, and no practice can transform you into that which you always have been.

All sadhanas such as meditation, mindfulness, mantra, puja, selfless service and devotion – all sadhanas are for the illusory individual. They are an extension of greed/egotism. It is this web of illusion, all hinged upon the idea of being a person with a body and mind, that prevents the obvious from being ‘seen’. Continue reading

Non-duality has nothing to do with non-duality

face illusion
There is no person here

There is no non-duality in non-duality. What do I mean by that? Non-duality is non-conceptual. This means there is also no sense of non-duality in it. If you think this is all about oneness, then that’s not non-duality. That’s a concept of oneness. Same with non-duality. If you think this is all about non-duality or ‘x’ ‘y’ or ‘z’ other concepts, then that’s also wrong. There are no concepts in non-duality, yet all concepts operate within it. Continue reading