Author Archives: Dennis Waite

Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 3)

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*** Read Part 2 *** *** Go to Part 1 ***

Advaita refers to the unchanging reality by the Sanskrit term paramārtha and to the constantly changing appearance by vyavahāra. Within this phenomenal realm, separate individuals and objects are recognized and a creator-god, Īśvara, uses the power of māyā to obscure the truth and project the apparent world. It thus affirms that our experience does not tally with its non-dual claims. It acknowledges an appearance of duality, which is at odds with the reality. It also states that we can never directly know the reality. Accordingly, its effective teaching strategy is to successively negate the appearance. That which ‘remains’ and cannot be negated must be the reality. Once the reality is thus effectively (but not literally) known, then it is also realized that the appearance, too, is that same reality.

This process inevitably takes time, from the vantage point of the seeker who is still mired at the level of appearance. The ignorance that prevents the immediate apprehension of reality is effectively in the mind and it is at the level of the mind that this ignorance must be removed. Knowledge must be introduced in such a way that the mind can accept it, using reason and experience. Just as a student is unable to appreciate the subtleties of quantum physics without having the preliminary grounding in mathematics and science, so the seeker is unable to assimilate the ‘bottom-line’ truth of Advaita since it is so contrary to his everyday experience.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Part 2)

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There are also two significant dangers regarding the Neo-Advaita ‘movement’. Firstly, there is the clear possibility of charlatans who, having read a little or heard the fundamental elements of ‘descriptions’ of reality, can devise a few ‘routines’ of their own and then advertise themselves on the circuit. Providing that they are good speakers/actors, it is certainly possible to make a living from deceiving ‘seekers’ in such a way, without ever giving away their true lack of knowledge or the fact that they are no nearer any ‘realization’ than their disciples.

Secondly, seekers themselves may be deluded into a belief that some specious realization has been obtained when, in fact, all that has happened is that they have come to terms with some psychological problem that had been making life difficult. The ending of such suffering could well be seen as a ‘liberation’. Of course, such a thing would not be at all bad – it simply would have nothing to do with enlightenment. Indeed, such people might well go on to become teachers in their own right, not charlatans in the true sense of the word, since they genuinely believe that ‘realization’ has taken place.

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Traditional versus Neo-Advaita

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This will be a multi-part post, triggered in part by Ramesam’s recent post ‘Liberation is Disembodiment’, following which I promised a separate post. First of all, I will repost an article on the subject from advaita.org.uk, with which readers may not be familiar. Secondly, I will post an article on the subject that I apparently wrote in 2006 but do not seem ever to have published. Finally, I will add a new section and make a radical suggestion (as promised in my comment).

The word ‘neo’ means ‘new’ so that ‘Neo-Advaita’ is an impossibility. Advaita means ‘not two’, referring to the non-dual reality that always was, is and will be – unchanging because change would necessarily be from one thing into another, which would be contradictory. There cannot, therefore, be an ‘old’ and a ‘new’ Advaita, only the one truth.

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Waking Up (Conclusion)

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Part 4 (conclusion) of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

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Drugs

Many pages are devoted to a discussion of Near Death Experiences, although the reason for this is unclear – it is quite disproportionate, given the supposed topic of the book. He rightly condemns them as having nothing to do with spirituality, since they are merely the result of a cocktail of naturally produced chemicals in the brain. But then, inexplicably, he lauds hallucinogens as a mechanism for artificially inducing spiritual experiences, when all that they do is introduce a cocktail of man-made chemicals into the brain! You know full well (afterwards) that any experience you might have had was chemically created and therefore unreal. How can it possibly teach you anything useful? This is the height of irresponsibility and should have been rejected by the publisher.

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Waking Up (Part 3)

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Part 3 of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

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Other Religions and Non-duality

It is not at all obvious why ‘religion’ should be so disparaged. He recognizes “the needless confusion and harm that inevitably arise from the doctrines of faith-based religions”. The literal meaning of ‘religion’ is ‘joining back’, from the Latin ‘re ligare’. Its essential aim (and, I suggest, one rather more worthy) has nothing to do with psychology or personal happiness but with the nature of reality itself. It is difficult to understand how someone could place more value on a drug-induced experience than upon use of reason applied to scriptural revelation.

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Waking Up (Part 2)

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Part 2 of the review of Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

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Science

Another problem which adds to the book’s confusion is the attempt to utilize science, supposedly to improve upon or correct the ancient (and therefore bound to be mistaken) views of the original philosophies (be these Advaita or Buddhism). Harris explains that “Throughout this book, I discuss certain classical spiritual phenomena, concepts, and practices in the context of our modern understanding of the human mind.” Why would one want to do this? It is missing the point completely. The truth cannot be found in the mind; rather the mind is a tool with which we may discover the truth.

I explain in my article ‘Science and Consciousness’ that science can never explain the nature of ‘I’ because I am the subject, doing the investigating. The subject can never objectify himself. It is true that I can investigate both the body and the mind because I am neither of these. But this also means that understanding the human mind is not going to help in an ‘investigation’ of spirituality; it is simply not relevant to ‘who I really am’. Furthermore, if Harris is ‘talking about the nature of experience itself’, he is not talking about ‘I’, since I am the experiencer. Finding out about household electric light circuits and how they work tells me nothing at all about the one who operates the light switch.

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Dṛṣṭi- sṛṣṭi-vāda

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There has just been a brief discussion on the Advaitin List under the heading of ‘Quotes from samkshepa shaareeraka’. This was effectively on the perceived consequences of accepting the theory of dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda – the creation theory that claims that the world is the mental imagination of the jīva; a theory equating to the Western belief of solipsism. Sri ‘Sudhanshu Shekhar’ made the original post and Sri ‘Bhaskar YR’ represented the objections (with which I agree). Rather than joining in, I thought I would ask ChatGPT for an ‘opinion’ and its response seems to me to be very reasonable. (I even find myself more disposed to DSV than I was before!) Here is the exchange:

Q: How do Advaita believers in dṛṣṭi- sṛṣṭi-vāda explain how they can discuss the topic with other believers and non-believers?

A: In Advaita Vedānta, particularly within the framework of dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda (the doctrine that perception precedes creation), explaining and discussing the philosophy with others presents an interesting challenge. Since dṛṣṭi-sṛṣṭi-vāda asserts that the world arises in accordance with the perceiver’s experience, the question arises: how can multiple individuals engage in a discussion if each person’s world is subjectively projected?

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Waking Up

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Here is another old book review, this one from just over 10 years ago. It is for the book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris.
It is an even longer review than the last, so will require at least 3 parts. Here is Part 1.

The Meaning of the Word ‘Spiritual’

Regardless of how well a book is written, and how interesting its content, if it is non-fiction it seems that its value should be judged upon how successfully it achieves its stated objective. As far as potential readers are concerned, the objective is traditionally determined from a book’s title. And, in this case, it appears that the intended purpose of this book is to teach us about ‘Spirituality’ whilst avoiding any ‘religious’ overtones.

This tells us that the author acknowledges that ‘spirituality’ is usually associated with religion. It suggests that, not only does he believe that it need not be so associated, but also he thinks that he can teach us about spirituality without needing to say anything at all about religion. Before starting to read the book, therefore, it would be useful to know exactly what is meant by the term ‘spirituality’.

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Being: the bottom line (Conclusion)

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(Read Part 1)

Another misleading claim is that “there’s no one bound and therefore no liberation from bondage.” This sounds very clever and obvious and is very likely to be accepted without question by the listener, adding still more to the ammunition against the traditional Advaitin position. But everything should be questioned! Advaita is a supremely logical and scientific philosophy if followed correctly and glib statements such as the above must be looked at carefully. (And it is acknowledged that ‘glib’ here is a ‘loaded epithet’!) Traditional Advaita does not, in fact, claim that there can be liberation from bondage. In fact, it is stated openly that there is not actually anyone bound. What is said is that there can be the realisation that there is no one who is bound – and that is liberation.

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Being: the bottom line

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Since I am busy writing my next book (for a change), I have been looking through the past 25 years of written essays and reviews, looking for material that is not currently available anywhere. And there does seem likely to be quite a bit. So I will be (re-)publishing some of this over the next few months. The first of these is a two-part (quite long!) review of the book by Nathan Gill (who sadly died some years ago), I wrote the review back in 2006 but it is still relevant – possibly more so.

A Review of the book “Being: the bottom line” by Nathan Gill and a critique of Neo-Advaita.

This is a courageous book in that it openly tackles some of the most difficult questions that neo-Advaita has to answer and it doesn’t shy away from those that are phrased in the most challenging ways. It is also a dangerous book, in that it appears, superficially, to be providing satisfactory answers. Nevertheless it is a valuable book, albeit not perhaps for the reasons the author intended, in that there are some very searching questions and Nathan’s attempts to answer them expose the vulnerability of the neo-Advaitin position.

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