Posts by Eric Platt
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 However, site email is still not working – meaning subscriptions to comments, the Contact form,…
Read MoreIs 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 new to this, but in this teaching, in nonduality, and, I don’t know, many of…
Read MoreWhat 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: why ask about ignorance in the first place? As a practical matter, the topic comes…
Read MoreWill 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 posts on Facebook groups dedicated to criticising or exposing high-profile non-duality teachers. There are clear…
Read MoreNon-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, or at least interesting enough, to preserve. It’s more direct, for better or worse. …
Read MorePsychedelics & 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 context for what this article is about: regarding psychedelics, the current culture either: 1. Denigrates,…
Read MoreA 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 empty. A bit heavy. Not exactly a depression, but like “what am I even doing…
Read MoreOn 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 intelligence, and so forth, as those terms are used in Advaita, non-duality, spiritual wisdom traditions…
Read MoreAn 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, toiling away, weeding the Zen garden, day after day, ignored by the world, listening to…
Read MoreOn 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 is its ineffability… The various words used to express the inexpressible often seem to have…
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