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Issue #2787 -
One: Essential Writings
on Nonduality http://nonduality.com/one.htm
The Nondual
Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
In this issue is a book
review of Grandpa's Notebooks: The Evolution of an
Amish Soul by Orva Schrock that I wrote for Amazon.com.
Some of the points within the review bear on nonduality, nondual
literature, and the writing of books.
All I want to say about
nonduality or nondualism is that, whatever people say about it,
it is not a recognized tradition, like Advaita is. There's not
the sense of organization, tradition, or history within
nondualism that there is within Advaita. Nondualism, as it is
commonly recognized today, is the study of nonduality wherever it
is found, whether it is identified in the tradition of Vedanta,
Buddhism, quantum theory, surfing, music, Western philosophy, or
whatever.
I do think that
Nonduality or Nondualism is becoming organized. That's bound to
happen when you have so many people freely talking about it. At
least I think so. I don't know quite how that organization is
going to look. I think it currently looks something like
Nonduality Salon and The Nondual Highlights, and my book, One:
Essential Writings on Nonduality. My website, nonduality.com, has
always carried the spirit of a tradition and organization of
nonduality. But it's all still unstructured.
Wikipedia has an article
on nondualism that reflects the partly and vaguely developed
architecture of the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism
Compare the Nondualism
article to the one on Advaita: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita
The Advaita article is
tight and unified. The page has gravity.
I'm not saying the
Nondualism article should be as tight as the Advaita one. At this
point it shouldn't be. Maybe it never should be.
The Wiki articles are
paralleled by two major email lists: Advaitin, which is about
Advaita and is breathtakingly moderated in scholarly tones and
deep bows; and Nonduality Salon, which is about general
Nondualism and is moderated more for the purpose
of eliminating extreme behaviour than for the purpose
of controlling and managing ongoing content. Nonduality
Salon welcomes anything related to nonduality, as the list owner
broadly defines the topic.
The book reviewed in this
issue easily falls under nonduality. I don't think it would be
considered an Advaitic text. It's a nondual text. It's not
an extreme or radical nondual text. It's nondual
according to how I define it. I can do that. I can define
nonduality and nondualism and by doing that allow a tradition to
form and an organization of the material and the approaches
toward it to occur. (Or to be more spiritually, or whatever,
correct, "This form is open to allowing definition of
nonduality to apparently happen." Yeah, that's what I meant
to say.)
And so can anyone else
define nonduality if that's what they find themselves doing. And
maybe that points to the next wave of evolution for nondualism,
the next turning of the wheel of nonduality: creating traditions.
We've created the email lists and online communities, websites,
written a few books. Now the tradition-creation begins. It's the
kind of thing we can never know for sure we're doing, but we can
sense we're doing it.
Happy Friday the 13th!
--Jerry "Black"
Katz
A review of
Grandpa's
Notebooks: The Evolution of an Amish Soul
by Orva Schrock (Author)
A Gift for
Everyone,
Reviewer: Jerry Katz -
See all my reviews (
Orva Schrock lives on
"5 mostly wooded acres in
northern
grandkids, friends, peace, solitude, Gaia; the earth and mother
nature,
good books, Jnana yoga, Advaita Vedanta, nondualism, Bhagavan Sri
Ramana
Maharshi..."What better life than this? Sitting quietly by
my window, i
watch the leaves fall and the flowers bloom as the seasons come
and
go".-Seccho-
A Gift;
self-pleasing:
Grandpa's Notebooks: The
Evolution of an Amish Soul, is dedicated to the
author's grandchildren. The book is a gift to them. The book is
also
written in a way that is clearly pleasing to the author: you can
tell by
the way it is freely but logically constructed. There is no sense
of
imitation. Orva is writing and building a book in the way that
pleases
himself.
These are two important
qualities for a book or creative work to possess:
that it be a gift and that it be pleasing to the author or
artist.
Grandpa's Notebooks contains these two elements. Of course there
are other
qualities necessary for a successful work. In the case of a book,
it has to
be well written. This book is written plainly, consistently,
coherently,
literary by virtue of not trying to be literary.
Thus the book
"breathes," vibrates with life, feels real and
authentic, and
allows the inner light of the author to shine through. These
elements of
gifting and self-pleasing -- and you need to have both happening
-- exist
in the book as a whole and within each chapter. Some chapters may
be gifts
to God, to an unknown reader, to a specific email recipient, to
people
interested in nondual spirituality. Orva probably has his own
inner sense
of what this gifting is.
Also, this book is
beautifully designed and printed on high quality paper
and in hardback. The book is a pleasure to hold, read, and page
through. It
is a very high quality publication, which goes along with good
gift giving.
Purpose:
The purpose of this book,
then, is to present a gift. What is being given?
The author is giving himself fully, fully enough to offer
confessions of
Truth. Truth can't be given; it can be confessed:
"I did survive and
get away from my oppressive home of origin. I did have
wonderful children to love. I did find an interesting and
successful career
in business. A great light did finally dawn on me. Every worry
was for
naught, because there was always a greater hand guiding mine. A
greater
purpose seemed to surge ahead of my own feeble reasoning and
efforts."
"The Self doesn't
know the truth. It IS the truth. And 'life' goes on as it
should, in spite of our efforts and not because of them."
This book ends with the
wordless knowing of love, being, acceptance,
gratitude. It begins and carries through with themes of
questioning, doubt,
insight, loss of insight, pain, suffering, struggle, pleading to
God. This
is a human story, autobiographical, told in short chapters of no
more than
a page or so. The chapters are poems, short stories, short essays
about his
life and family, book reviews, emails, some quotation of other
authors.
Point of view:
Schrock takes the point
of view of ongoing inquiry into life itself at
every point of his life. In a 1973 journal entry, he wrote:
"We need to
search within for truth, and follow the path wherever it leads.
If the
search is sincere, honest, and a work of love, we can only
ascend." The
book proceeds chronologically. Schrock reveals a hard life built
on the
fractured foundation of physical and mental abuse by his Bible
thumping
preacher father. The book ends in 2004. We see that the statement
above
holds up throughout the book. Ultimately, Schrock can say,
"Not only am 'I'
not a damned sinner destined for hell but instead I am God in
disguise
playing out a dream in maya."
The Nature and
Hallmark of Nondual Literature
At its core, nondual
literature consists of confessions of the nature of
reality as nondual. These take the forms of scripture from major
traditions, scriptural-like writings by legendary and great
writers,
transcribed talks of recognized saints, Masters, gurus, teachers;
popular
writings by people such as Alan Watts, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart
Tolle, and
several others; and semi-popular or little known writings by
so-called
ordinary people who take advantage of available publication and
marketing
opportunities. Of course these "ordinary" people are no
less enlightened or
self-realized than anyone who composed scriptural texts. However,
they may
not have the extremely rare gift to write stuff that will last a
thousand
years. Then again, maybe some do. Who knows?
While the confession of
the nature of nondual reality is the core of the
genre, there are other kinds of writings that serve to define the
genre. At
some point these other forms of nondual literature will often
include
writings which are confessional: fiction, non-fiction, poetry,
novels,
autobiography, how to, book reviews, emails, journals and
notebooks and
blogs, essays, articles, question and answer books, anthologies.
That is,
every form of the written word finds its way into the genre of
nondual
literature. However, the hallmark of nondual literature is
the confession
of the nature of reality as nondual.
We can also describe
nondual literature in terms of how extreme it is.
Neo-Advaita is perhaps the most extreme teaching, which says you
don't
exist and there is nothing you can do. It is a zero-point
teaching. What I
have said about Neo-Advaita is not and cannot be what it is,
because it is
nothing. Less extreme teachings within nondual literature speak
of directly
experiencing reality. They may say there is nothing you can do to
directly
experience reality other than see it. Other teachings expressed
in nondual
literature advise practice, surrender to God, meditation,
awareness of
various levels of consciousness. I have tried to give a broad
sense of the
genre of nondual literature.
Grandpa's
Notebooks as a Contribution to Nondual Literature:
Where does Orva Schrock's
book fit in? As demonstrated above, the book
contains the hallmark of nondual literature: confession of the
nature of
reality as nondual. The book as a whole is autobiographical,
showing the
evolution of the author's awareness of truth. Most interestingly,
the
author uses a variety of literary forms, noted above, to achieve
wholeness.
Because of the overall quality of the book and the mix of
literary forms,
this book is unique in the genre of nondual literature. That
makes this
book important and a must to own.
During my ten year online
involvement in nonduality, I have tried to make
the teaching of nonduality accessible and encourage people to be
active
participants within that process. I would like to encourage
people to write
books. Anyone who has written some poetry, emails, book reviews,
a story
here and there, an article, an essay, can construct a book. It is
not easy!
It's a very hard thing to do. You have to compile your works and
make sense
of them, as Orva has done. You have to put some money into the
endeavor.
You have to sell the book knowing you may never break even.
Orva's book is important
because it serves as a model for what others can
do. The elements of a book like Orva's get written in the course
of living
and spending time online, writing about spiritual life, living
life,
figuring things out, seeing the truth and confessing it over and
over again
in a unique way.
Orva Schrock has made a
significant contribution to the culture of
nonduality. This book is powerful and inspiring reading. If you
have a lot
of writings and don't know what to do with them but you feel they
could be
made into a book, get this book to inspire and guide you.
There are two essential
teachings within this book that are not separate
from the spiritual or nondual: (1) make your writing a gift -- a
gift to
God, perhaps -- and (2) write your book so that you are pleased.
A couple of
things to mention:
I think my favorite
writings in this book are the chapters where Orva talks
about his job and the workplace. I wish there was more. I hope
Orva writes
another book.
This book has two
excellent appendices. One is a 4-page reprint from the
book, Seven Words That Can Change the World, A New Understanding
of
Sacredness, by Joseph R. Simonetta. It is a stunning cosmological
statement
which finishes off the book nicely. The second appendix is a
solid list of
25 recommended books for further reading. There is also a helpful
index,
which most books in the genre lack. As well, the Table of
Contents is over
5 pages long and serves as its own readable chapter.
Conclusion:
I like Orva's voice. He's
a regular guy talking about a rare knowledge, a
rare process of development. Reading the book, it sounds like
he's
barbequeing while talking to you. He has the easy,
everything's-under-control voice, even at times when the coals
are too hot,
too cold, the kids are teasing the dog, the mosquitos are thick,
or -- God
forbid -- your veggie burger has fallen through the grating.
There's a
sense of calm and real-ness throughout this book.
Grandpa's
Notebooks: The Evolution of an Amish Soul is a
successful work.
Orva Schrock accomplished what he intended: to create a gift for
his
grandchildren. On many levels, it is a gift for the world.
~ ~ ~
Grandpa's
Notebooks: The Evolution of an Amish Soul, by Orva
Schrock