Consciousness
Is The World Real? Reflections on Change and Illusion
Is the world real? Why is it said by non-dualist teachers and sages of Advaita vedanta that the fact that the world of phenomena, of the senses and perception, is constantly changing, shows that it is illusory, whereas reality is unchanging, permanent? I asked this of Francis Lucille once. I said, “A candle flame is…
Read MoreDoes Consciousness Ever Die?
Does Consciousness Ever Die, Disappear or “Go Under”? Q: If I am consciousness (which I know I am)… and, if consciousness gets lost under General Anesthesia, what does it mean regarding my “life”? When am I ever born and when do I die? Or, is consciousness more like a function, a process… like digestion and…
Read MoreThe Master Game
Here we are trying to make little jokes, but life itself is a joke. We are born into a body only in order to discover the game is to realize you’re not a body! What’s the point? Why go through all that misery, suffering and craziness, falling in love with an illusion, living in a…
Read MoreOn Beyond Seeking
These notes are in response to a question. QUESTION: Namaste. [I am] curious to know how your seeking started? When it ended? Many stages you underwent? How you interact with people who are spiritually ignorant trapped in duality? I will be eager to receive your response. Thanks. – GM Hi GM – I’ll answer…
Read MoreOn Beyond Beliefs: What Is Self-Realization?
When I ask myself this morning, where am I, this being on this…whatever it is: this “pathless path”, this understanding (for the benefit of the reader, I didn’t actually say that to myself but was reflecting wordlessly, but wanting to write it, as a practice)? So-called Self Realization is both the simplest thing and the…
Read MoreNo Body No Problem
Neither scenario or worldview that society hands us, make any sense: neither the religious model nor the scientific one: 1. That a loving benevolent God out there or in another dimension or behind things, created us and the universe out of nothing, only so that we could suffer, fight for survival and die, and create…
Read MoreWhat is Real? Sailing On The Sea Of The Unknown
“…a non-mental [material] world is inevitably abstract.” – Bernardo Kastrup “No question can be there regarding the time, place and cause of the origin of this world, for these themselves are part of the world, for these themselves form parts of the world. The question seeks to have an explanation of the whole in terms…
Read MoreMatter and Acceptance
Matter and the world is an abstraction. What we actually know, directly, is awareness, consciousness, Being, whatever you want to call the nameless formless we Are: what every thing appears in; the continuity behind the change, the solid ground behind the appearance of a body, mind and world. Physicists haven’t been able to find matter…
Read MoreThe Four Seals and Buddhism in a Nutshell
A while ago I wrote an article about the lyrics to a song I loved, Ott’s Jack’s Cheese and Bread Snack. I didn’t know it at the time, but the lyrics are known as the “Four Seals of Buddhism”, or “The Four Dharma Seals”. I’m not a Buddhist, not a Christian, not an Advaitan, I’m…
Read MoreThis Side of Paradise and the Unexamined Self
Last night I watched an old Star Trek original series episode that had come to mind: “This Side of Paradise“. The story in it always intrigued me: artificial happiness and the cult-like dramatic conflict when the agricultural lifestyle colonists encounter the Star Trek crew, as well as the entertainment value of what happens with the…
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