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#2814 - Tuesday, May 15, 2007 - Editor: Jerry Katz The Nondual Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
One: Essential Writings on Nonduality: http://nonduality.com/one.htm
I wrote two book reviews over the last couple days and they make up today's Highlights. One book is An Introduction to Awareness, by James M. Corrigan, and the other is Life Without a Centre, by Jeff Foster.
Life Without a Centre: Awakening from the Dream of Separation by Jeff Foster
Amazon.com link: http://snipurl.com/1ku20
The Nondualist Next Door
A Book Review by Jerry Katz
Free of arrogance and of taking offense;
free of the attitude, "I'm enlightened and you're not;"
free of an air of superiority or celebrity; ordinary, pleasant,
Jeff Foster is the nondualist next door.
Jeff talks directly and without compromise about `this'. `This'
is form. It is not only a special form such as a statue of
Buddha, or the world's largest diamond. It is also a crumb on the
floor. The values you place on a crumb, a diamond, and a sacred
object, are `this'. This is `this'.
But that's not all. `This' is not separate from the
"Nothingness that contains all things," as Jeff says.
Jeff does a brilliant job of reminding us of what `this' is and
of its non-separation from Nothingness. In this regard, Jeff
writes:
"Truly, everything is a manifestation of unconditional love.
It is all One Mind, it's all God, it is Nirvana, it is
Consciousness, Oneness, The Kingdom of Heaven (call it what you
will) - ALL of it. The sacred and the profane, the living and the
dying, the fear, the guilt, the pain, the compassion, beheadings
in Iraq, mass starvation, bodies being ravaged by cancer, the
search for enlightenment, the frustration at `not getting it',
paying bills, feeding the cat, stroking the cat, being bitten by
the cat, EVERYTHING! (Okay, so I could do without being bitten by
the cat....)"
Although Jeff says in the beginning of the book that "no
methods are laid out," instruction is given. Jeff writes,
"Perhaps it's a question of noticing - right here, right
now, and in every moment - how the mind wants something more,
something else, something more than just this." ...
"Simply notice the movement of thought, pulling you into a
future moment where you will be `enlightened.' Come back to the
present moment. Who is the one that wants enlightenment?"
The above sounds like instruction in inquiry, which is a method
or practice. The instruction is repeated elsewhere. In fact, the
book is a call to the reader to notice the ever-happening
slightest movement elsewhere, so that the absoluteness of the
instant is recognized with open eyes.
At another place in the book, Jeff confesses, "There is no
self to realize; there are no enlightened individuals."
This is how every sage talks. They tell you there is no self to
realize and at the same time give instruction on how to realize.
Whether it's Jeff Foster, Tony Parsons, Ramana Maharshi,
Nisargadatta Maharaj, or whoever, they all do it. But as Jeff
says, "...even the search for oneness .... is simply an
expression of oneness... ."
As we read the descriptions and declarations of `this', as we
take Jeff's instructions on how to pay attention, we start to see
ourselves as `this', as an immediacy. That's the effect the book
has. The floor we stand upon, the floor that we call `me', starts
to give way. In the opening cracks we see the Nothingness out of
which `this', out of which `me' arises. This is a quietly
powerful book that leads you to the plunge into Nothingness.
Amazon.com link: http://snipurl.com/1ku20
An Introduction to Awareness by James M. Corrigan
Amazon.com link: http://snipurl.com/1ku28
From Archaelogy to Metis: A Walk to Nonduality A Book Review by Jerry Katz
James Corrigan writes on his website,
"I have not studied with any particular teacher, although I
have researched, and continue to research, many different
philosophical and spiritual systems. ... [I] went back to school
to get a PhD at age 50 so that I could engage people on a
philosophical level -- for that after all, is what I am talking
about." Corrigan studies in the philosophy department at
Stony Brook University in New York. His prior full time work was
designing and developing computer software for Fortune 50
companies.
The purpose of this book is to turn the reader's view of reality
toward the nondual. The author says, "There is a fundamental
assumption behind this work: that our difficulties are all
indirectly caused by the way we view ourselves and the world
around us, and that this must change if we are to survive,
prosper, and find happiness once again."
This book is a philosophical presentation of the teaching of
nonduality. James Corrigan uses a refined language to describe
Awareness, one that establishes a position of strength from which
to make judgments about world and self. The terminology includes
archaelogy (not archaeology), apodictic, animadversion, omnific,
surjectivity (and subjectivity), and others. These terms are
available in a glossary, a wise and very useful inclusion at the
back of the book.
Even the term "is" is included in the glossary and
discussed within the book in a way that demonstrates the author's
sharpness of consideration:
"Thus the statement `Awareness is real' can be interpreted
as meaning: That which is necessary and non-contingent is
presence for that which arises from it. The pitfall in this way
of thinking is, as always with Awareness, to find some
implication of separate existence in the above statement for
Awareness. The difficulty with the copulative verb `to be' points
up a very significant problem in delving deeper into Awareness.
Language and discursive reasoning are inapplicable beyond a
certain point. It is fine to talk abstractly about the concept of
awareness; it is an error to do so about the real
Awareness."
Further description of this book can be given by showing how this
terminology comes together:
"Our habitual dichotomization of the mind and the body does
not hold in the surjective view of reality in which Awareness
animadverts, bringing into being and giving rise to consciousness
of, that which it animadverts upon. It doesn't matter if this
focus is a thought or a rock." ... "Awareness
animadverts the world, including the framework and structure of
it, spatially and temporally." ... "It is disconcerting
to hold that the phenomena upon which Awareness animadverts
exist, but have no separate reality and are not founded upon some
substratum apart from Awareness."
Not disconcerting to those with Understanding, but to those who
have lost happiness, who see things materialistically or
physicalistically, and create lives and communities of difficulty
and essential poverty. Ultimately, this book addresses ethics and
reformation of consciousness, and calls for understanding the
wholeness of reality.
While this book is pure philosophy, Corrigan makes note of the
limitations: "Philosophy has been little more than a
propagandizing of positions for at least the last two thousand
years because each philosopher had an end-point in mind when they
began the construction of their system. That is the nature of
reasoning itself. It is always goal-directed. Poetry is therefore
a much better vehicle for the `Love of Wisdom' that philosophy
purports to be. How then, do we find the truth?"
How do we find truth? Well, answers are found throughout the
book. In words that are relevant to philosophy itself, Corrigan
points to the discovery of truth: "...thinking is a type of
phenomenon that arises due to the activity of Awareness and not
due to some phenomenal aspect of the world -- that which
Awareness gives rise to. That is, it is not something that
supervenes upon some aspect of the world. Nor is there any
foundation for positing something separate and apart from
Awareness itself. If we assume the form of the world in which
matter and mind are two separate and distinct classes of being,
then we must deal with where and how Mind arises. If we do not
make any such assumption, but instead attend to what it is that
does occur 'in reality,' and what the source of these
'occurrences' are, then we have no such dualistic problem."
An Introduction to Awareness is a philosophical walk toward an
understanding of nonduality. Energized by metis, this book will
fully change the world view of one who feels contained within a
dualistic reality.
Amazon.com link: http://snipurl.com/1ku28