This book is a radical leap into the apex of philosophy.
Written in a penetrating style that is designed to induce
deep thinking and thoughtful reflection, the book
explains how to attain lucidity, a type of acute, profound
awareness that serves as the fundamental base for
Gnosis, individual illumination. It may not be an easy
read the first time through, but well worth it. The book
can be studied and reflected upon many times.
Impeccable, more of an experience than just a book with
profound information. It is a potent tool shed of ideas
that will be of interest to psychologists, philosophers,
social scientists, meditators, contemplatives, or anyone
who wants to know what's really going on and how to
SEE in a very clear and luminous way.
Here is a book you will appreciate even if you have
read many Buddhist books. This book expounds the
Dharma in a very lucid way and illuminates the
Heart Sutra from Buddhism's apex of psychology
and philosophy. This book is a sharp weapon useful
for cutting the root of ignorance. It is one thing to
talk about or read about the meaning of life and
quite another to move through the levels of wisdom
to actually live that meaning. Here you'll find a
detailed map of the journey to meaning.
The Sanskrit word ADVAITA means “not two”, or “nonduality”. So, what is it, really? Looking
at the world from the standpoint of dualistic perception is partial and errant
perception mixed
with superimposed conceptual classifications with reference to ego-notions and
selfhood.
Awakening to the standpoint of nondual wisdom where there is certainty of
understanding in
spontaneous presence we can remain in the absence of false discrimination. What is usually
taken as normal perception and cognition is, in fact, a state of false
understanding in which
nearly everyone abides constantly when they fail to honestly inspect their
mental mechanisms
and recognize the truth of things as they really are. Enlightening texts always suggest
inspection and analysis of our inner and outer worlds so we can awaken to the
real nondual
situation. Even the “inner” and “outer” are mere conceptual designations and are not two in
reality because reality cannot be one-sided. But this is the way the mind habitually splits one
reality into a relative pseudo-dualism.
The real nature of phenomena is nonduality. No single object or event has its own self-essence,
so no two things can be ultimately different since they both are merged in the
totality of the
matrix of existence. The flux, the process, and all functions within the totality of existence are
the matrix of reality. Reality has no opposites or anything that is not included within it. There
is nothing outside the matrix; it is all inclusive.
There is no thing that can be accurately or completely described and defined by
limited
language because characteristics are infinite. Therefore, reality is inconceivable, beyond any
kind of conceptual elaboration, beyond the discriminations of the mind. All manifested
appearances of objects and events are always simultaneously the same in their
real identity, no
matter what the apparent temporal differences and characteristics may seem to
be. The reality
of any thing is the same as the real reality of anything else. The interdependence of all
phenomena is as it is because, ultimately, any one thing depends for its
existence on all else,
and all depends on each one, whether remotely or immediately.
The mind gathers in partial details and characteristics of things through sense
contact, and
then compares qualities and discriminations. The human mind is limited, while details of
knowledge are limitless because of the limitless change and infinite motion
taking place within
conditional perpetual flux. Reality cannot be known through any intellectual construct; reality
is known only through identity with it. This means it is crucial to dissociate with conceptual
error. To try to conceptualize what is too vast to be conceivable by the discriminating
mind is to
quit the race one step short of the finish line.
Consciousness in the individual is just ordinary wakeful awareness interacting
with the
supposed differentiations of the manifested world. In its unobstructed and unconfined state
consciousness has a natural lucidity, the individual contemplative, once having
recognized his
natural holistic presence, is then concerned with integrated wholes, or the
total system of
manifestation within the phenomenal matrix, rather than with deluded absorption
in and
attachment to the supposedly separate parts of it. All phenomena are then recognized as they
really are, as interrelated components of the unified field of ever changing
conditionality. In
undifferentiating, nondual holistic lucidity all the implications of the
afflictions of conceptual
dualism have ceased to be and the phenomenal matrix is clearly observed and
understood.
