Articles
New Site Incarnation… In progress
Hi All – I resurrected the site on AWS (for free first 3 months, the $5 after), after much deliberation, gnashing of teeth and technical difficulty. It involves a great deal of jumping-through techie hoops to do it this way…
Causeless Freedom
The Person-ality is a Phantom It’s not that a person has a phantom personality or not – it’s the fact that indeed the personality actually is a phantom, period, for anyone – it’s like constantly changing vapor or cloud, with…
Dialogue: Two Ways to Dissolve Anxiety
Q: I’ve been suffering from anxiety.It’s been pretty bad lately. Been with me for quite some time, like decades. So bad these last few days I just take to bed and curl up in a ball. The medication, even though…
Time to Talk About Time
Open Time … Like an opening out, like the shape of a delta but in 3D, and seeing it from the outside. Open, limitless, freedom, choice, adventure; there is creativity… (separation never existed). A friend in India (javi…
The Three Mysteries: A Dialogue
Or it could be titled, “Is the world a dangerous place – do you really know that?” T = Teacher S = Student S: You said something the other day about “Is the world really a dangerous place,” something like…
Is Your Robot Conscious? A Dialogue
A dialogue on a contemporary issue concerning wetware and wireware. T = Teacher S = Student S: I have a question. T: OK. S: In one of our earlier dialogues we talked about the brain, but didn’t really go…
Is The World Real? A Dialogue
A common notion is examined. ~ * ~ T = Teacher S = Student S: I have a question. T: OK. S: I often hear this from spiritual teachers or read in teachings, that the world isn’t real, or is…
Is Consciousness Local? A Dialogue
Is Awareness Local? A dialogue with “Zephinanda” (a pseudonym I made up, for cognitive distance and for fun). ~~~ * ~~~ Z = Zephinanda S = Student S: Hi, I have a question. Z: Yes. S: So, I’m pretty…
Pondering the Universality of Truth
Let’s look at the hierarchy – the true hierarchy, not the ones derived from social structures: religion derives from the spiritual, in its historical genesis, and its core of “mystical” truth; spiritual truth springs from the non-dual. So at the top,…
The Ending of All Violence
The way to solve violence has been known for thousands of years. Why is it not heard, known or understood? If understood, why not put into practice? How to restore or continue to enjoy, allow to flourish, a harmony and…
The Fascinating Error of Non-Duality Students: Food, Sex, Money and Truth
It seems to be consistent with modern guru’s or teacher’s behaviors and teachings that liberation or awakening or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, does not reduce the desire or love of food, money, or sex. (And yes,…
What is Ignorance?
A question from a reader: Eric, I have a question for you… if you have time. The question is, within nonduality, how would you BEST describe the concept of IGNORANCE. Thanks…. Hope all is well The first inquiry is:…
Will The Real Guru Please Stand Up
It is fascinating, and potentially educational and revealing, to look at the pattern of criticisms and complaints about spiritual teachers – for example, things people say to me, such as about a teacher we both visited or listened to, or…
Non-Duality and Suffering V. 1
This is an earlier revision of the post on non-duality and suffering. After a reader talked about being depressed, and reacted to the article, I re-wrote it to seem less harsh. However, I’m re-posting it because I think it’s worthy,…
Psychedelics & Nonduality: Towards an Understanding of Ego Death , Openness, and More
Have you ever noticed how kids can have fun so easily, without any fancy toys or drugs or special circumstances? Playfulness and lightness are natural. A stick, a culvert, and a friend (or not) are all that’s needed. * Some…
A Meaningful Meaninglessness
I have a question. It’s kind of personal but kind of not. OK, shoot. I’m feeling the GP. The what? The GP. The “General Pointlessness”. Ah. (Laughs) I like that. The GP… It’s not good. It feels, like, kind of…
On Beyond Pantheism
Pantheism is a mistake. Here’s a definition – one is as good as another: it’s the idea behind it that counts. And for “divinity or a supreme entity” or “God” you can substitute “consciousness” or universal consciousness, or awareness, or universal…
An Inquiry Into Feelings
I’m adopting a garden. A labyrinth. What do you mean adopted? Good question. I volunteered to be the one to take care of this section of the botanical garden. I can pretend to be like a little old Zen monk,…
On Having Never Left: Being Awake to Being Awake
A reader asks: … there is no way for us to presume that freedom from self deception or waking up however we wish to phrase it, has any similarity for different instances of consciousness. The only similarity we can vouch for…
To Be Human is to Be Frustrated
Readers were asking why all the articles disappeared… It’s too much “responsibility” for lack of a better word… besides, I never intended to start a blog, but that’s what people called it. It was merely a writing experiment (such as…
Self Inquiry: Finding One’s True Nature
I have a question. [S = “Student” A = “Teacher”] T: OK. S: Can you give me what you have – this True Nature – you seem very, you know, grounded? I want what you have. T: If I would…
Self Inquiry: On Spiritual Liberation
I have a question. [S = “Student” A = “Teacher”] T: OK. S: How can I attain spiritual liberation. T: I don’t know. I am not spiritual. S: You seem like a very spiritual dude. T: I don’t have…
A Simple Question: A Dialogue
I have a question. [italicized = “Student” regular text = “Teacher”] OK. How can I awaken, achieve the non-dual state of consciousness? I have a simple question for you. OK. Are you conscious right now? Well, I’m not alseep.…
Tracing Consciousness Back to the Source
Let’s “reverse engineer” Consciousness, tracing it back to the Source, the origin of the world. And, to address the modern skeptic and materialist – who the author often tried to communicate with in his line of work and interest –…
No Path To Everywhere
Jiddu Krishnamurti said something along those lines – in the elegant phrase “the pathless path” – but the complaint (such as by a certain non-duality teacher I hung out with for 7+ years) is that JK didn’t provide a path,…
Two Kinds of Liberty and Ultimate Liberation
I remember once being at lunch with a friend, many years ago, and mentioning regarding freedom, that there is freedom from and freedom to. I’d heard it from a teacher, and although I wasn’t clearly remembering what was meant, I…
Waking From the Dream
The dream metaphor is very beautiful and powerful. It is no wonder that it has been used so frequently by teachers, especially of the Direct Path: Ramana Maharshi, Atmananda Krishna Menon, Papaji, Wei Wu Wei, Francis Lucille, Rupert Spira, Lester…
The Real Value Of Meditation
Meditation can be good for the body and mind, temporarily. It’s beautiful thing, like a tranquilizing drug, to help with clarity of mind and relaxation of the body. It can, for example, temporarily allow anxiety – a bodily reaction or…
How to Get What You Want (Part 1) – On Goals and Goal Setting
There’s a big difference between what they call “setting goals” and pursuing them – such as in the self-help field – and the way that life happens in actual experience, when one really knows what one wants and lives in…
Higher Reasoning II
A first article on higher reasoning can be found here. A friend asked: Concerning Higher vs. Lower hierarchy: Isn’t it all one, all at the same level, no distinctions? Yes and no. The hierarchy “higher” and “lower” is a way…
What is “Higher Reasoning“?
A friend sent a question: What meaning do you give to “Higher Reasoning”? I believe it started with Atmananda Krishna Menon. Simply put, “Higher Reasoning” is reasoning applied towards the Source, towards Consciousness, rather than the objects thereof. Higher…
All Else is Bandaids
The Truth, or Reality, or Awareness, whatever concepts you want to use, is intangible-and also the totality of tangibility-thus not abstract or intellectual; it is an experience, and felt as Joy. The totality of the invisible is concrete, as concrete…
What Is “Self Realization”?
What does one really want? It may seem like an object at times: a partner, a material thing or state (“wealth”), a substance, an activity (beyond simple living that is – the psychological wanting arises)… but we want that object…
Non-Duality and Suffering V. 2
A Dialogue Q: What’s your real value, at the end of the day, after years of seeking and suffering and finding, and all you’ve inquired into and seen and practiced over the decades? Is it worth anything, or just…
Non-Duality Is Not Spiritual
Although what we call spirituality may have something to do with nonduality, it is obvious that nonduality has nothing to do with spirituality. It’s not even an experience, and cannot be an experience, nor item of experience. Nothing can be…
“The Real Awakening”, by Zephinanda
A Phantom Cannot Awaken There is no person to awaken, no separate entity that can awaken. From bodily sleep, a seeming entity can awaken, but this is only a seeming. It is in a relative way. How can…
On Beyond Depression
I was diagnosed with “clinical depression” 30 years ago or so. I was told I’d be on Prozac – a popular SSRI antidepressant at the time – for the rest of my life, akin to how a diabetic needs to…
True Love and Relationships, Part 1
A series about non-dual love. This article is the first in a series about love and relationships. It may challenge your ideas about love, or it may serve as a clarification of what you’ve already seen. It will serve as…
Real Intelligence
It is an amazing and profound predicament the Western mind has gotten itself into, using the faculties of natural intelligence and consciousness to entangle itself into a corner about the very thing it professes to want to understand, while denying…
What Is Your Purpose?
What is your purpose on the planet? The dictionary definition of purpose is: purpose | ˈpərpəs | noun the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Breaking it Down Purpose can be seen as…
Will The Real Sage Please Stand Up?
Who Becomes Enlightened? Who Is The Real Sage? Topic: This article, this little foray, is about coming to grips with one of the the central paradoxes in a field of paradoxes*, of the spiritual game here on Earth, for the…
On Beyond Concepts
All Teachings are Dodos, and Tightening up what this Site is About I let my personal feelings cloud my discernment, and published a guest essay that I realized was of more of a religious or spiritual-y nature or attitude…
On Beyond Cause and Effect, Part II
A reader asked “how can one go beyond cause and effect?” in response to my article “On Beyond Cause and Effect“. Here is one possible answer (hopefully a practical one): One cannot, as a person, as a human being, go…
There’s No Such Thing As Enlightenment (Part 2)
Warning Label: what follows is dangerous knowledge. Yes, Self Realization must come first in your life, if you want to be permanently happy, at peace, and get off the rollercoaster of up and downs, “karma” and suffering. But what the…
On 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…
On Beyond UG Krishnamurti
“Pathological” – Francis Lucille, quoting his teacher Jean Klein, regarding U. G. Krishnamurti “The teaching mainly concerns the dying of the “I”, the “me”; then you are free from the psychological memory. Can this shift happen without crisis, or is…
On Beyond Addictions
This article was a response to a question I received from a reader. Question: I’ve watched a lecture of Krishnamurti on addiction. He said that incorporating mindfulness in your life can help to some degree. Watching the urge can make…
On Beyond Thinking – How To Be Present
How to be more loving and happy and at peace? Be more present. To what is real. How to be present? Quiet down the thinking, the mind, without introducing the doer. Don’t try and stop thinking. Just observe benevolently (with…
How To Stop Thinking
It is sometimes thought, or heard from spiritual teachers, that one needs to stop thinking. Why would one want to stop thinking? The question comes up when it begins to dawn on one the importance of thought and thinking in…
The Body and Self-Healing, Physical Pain, Disease, Suffering: Is Being an Embodied Being a Fall from Grace?
One’s physical well-being has a lot to do with one’s mental, emotional and spiritual well being. It’s all tied together. Physical illness does not happen in a vacuum. No thing is separate. In around March 2019, I was cleaning…