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.

The problems begin with the title, containing as it does, a fallacy of ambiguity: ‘The bottom line’ is both a cliché and a meaningless claim. As I read more books by neo-Advaitin teachers, I feel that I am beginning to understand why it is that their message is so persuasive for so many. Fundamentally, this seems to be because what they say appears to be logically irrefutable. Mostly, however, this is not because they make valid arguments which reason cannot deny but because their statements sidestep reason and utilise fallacies of one sort or another.

In the case of this title, for example, the cliché ‘bottom line’ carries the colloquial sense of the underlying truth, which is reached after ‘cutting through all of the crap’ – and this is obviously the intention. But it does not have any clearly defined meaning here. What meaning could it have in respect of ‘being’? Being is being – what have lines to do with it, bottom or otherwise?

Next, having stated at the outset that ‘there is no one’ and ‘nothing can be done’, the well is poisoned and no one can object to what is being said because that would be claiming that there is someone and, moreover, someone doing something – namely objecting. Of course, those who make this claim do not explain how it is that they are able to make these statements in the first place.

The point that “nothing can be done, because there isn’t actually any entity present that could do anything” is also a non-sequitur. Although ‘I’ cannot do anything (because ‘I’ do not exist as a separate entity), this does not mean that things do not happen. Yoga will cause movement in one direction; selfish indulgence will cause movement in another, simply according to the natural law of cause and effect within the phenomenal realm. The implication that ‘nothing needs to happen’ (in order to become enlightened) is erroneous.

Another way that neo-Advaitins make the same claim is to say that our “true nature is already Being” and ‘enlightenment’ only takes place within ‘the story’. This is true, of course, at the level of ultimate reality. There is only Brahman and that is that – end of story! But this is clearly not the end of the story in the phenomenal realm because neo-Advaitins continue to hold regular satsangs and books of their ‘dialogs’ continue to be published. What are these ‘dialogs’ when there is only Being? I don’t know if there is a fallacy of ‘having your cake and eating it’ but this seems to be an example if there is! Surely all of these words (the answers in the book) are arising in response to questions being asked, i.e. cause and effect in the phenomenal realm, with the assumed roles (by both parties) of teacher and seeker. If this is not the case, then the whole situation is ludicrous and the teachers ought to be committed!

One must be constantly vigilant when speaking on this subject. Otherwise what we say may lack self-consistency or even prove contradictory. In one paragraph in the book, Nathan says: “So speak with your friends and advise them on the basis of your experience. Isn’t that what’s already happening in ordinary everyday life anyway, whatever the subject matter in question? There are no false or true teachers because there is no one – there’s only Being.” So how, if there is only ‘Being’, do we speak with our ‘friends’? Conversely, if ‘we’ can speak with ‘friends’, why can’t ‘teachers’ speak to ‘us’? This is the ‘hoist by own petard’ fallacy!

One of the ‘mantras’ of the neo-Advaitin is ‘This is it!’ – a slick and evocative saying that trips easily off the tongue and is easily remembered. But what does it mean? In ‘Being’, Nathan says: “Presently there is simply this – which may include mesmerisation with the story of ‘me’. If the story of ‘me’ is what appears to be real presently, then it is reality.” This seems to be an extended definition which is amenable to contradiction. To my mind, the way things truly are is the way they are, i.e. reality is reality. But this is not saying very much – it is a truism. However, to expand on this, the way things are seen to be depends upon the state of the equipment that sees them. If you are wearing rose-coloured spectacles, things will appear rosy but that does not mean that they are. Just because it appears that the lady is being sawn in half does not mean that is genuinely the case.

Enlightenment is an apparent happening in the phenomenal realm and so is subject to the cause and effect laws of the universe. The fact is that the addressing of a seeker by a teacher takes place in seeming duality because this is where the seeker believes herself to be. The misunderstanding is in the mind and the ignorance that prevents the apprehension of the truth must be eliminated if the misunderstanding is to be dispelled. The only difference will be that the ‘character in the story’ is now known to be only a character, as all Advaitins understand intellectually – but that makes a big difference to the part that the character plays and a world of difference to their attitude to that part!

Nathan says that: “whether there’s identification or whether there’s liberation, both of them are appearing in the movie of being.” This is a poisoned well fallacy. Obviously, a character in a movie is not going to be able to argue with what is being said. Even though the initial statement is also being made by another ‘character in the movie’, this seems to be a powerful argument. But it is again attempting to describe the appearance from the vantage point of reality and this is not possible since there is no duality in reality; no teacher or seeker, no language and no movie. If we are to speak meaningfully about anything in the appearance, we have to make our stand in that appearance. From this vantage point, while there is identification, ‘I’ seem to be suffering; when there is liberation, it is known that the ‘me’ who seemed to be suffering does not really exist. So (in the phenomenal realm) there are seekers and there can be liberation if the obscuring ignorance is removed.

This is the truly great danger about neo-Advaita and it is voiced by one of the questioners in ‘Being: the bottom line’. The questioner comments: “It’s helpful for me to hear this hammered out time and time again, and given that in my case there’s such a compulsion to chase understanding and use the intellect, particularly to hear that I don’t have to do anything about it.” (My emphasis.) This is one of the key points made by neo-Advaitin teachers and again it is untrue at the level of appearance. There, the law of cause and effect applies: if nothing is done, nothing will happen! The imagined ‘I’ will continue in its life of suffering. Of course this is irrelevant at the level of reality – after all ‘I am Brahman’ – but to the ignorant jīva it makes all the difference. This is why, having heard this message many times (and, after all, it is simple enough!), the seeker still keeps coming back to satsang and reading books that only tell him the same thing over and over again.

Although this questioner might claim that it is “helpful for me to hear this hammered out”, I suggest that most seekers do not find it helpful, once the novelty has worn off. In fact, another questioner makes this very point in ‘Being’: “…increasingly I was getting bogged down in an emotional belief that there was nothing ‘I’ could do. Which of course led at times to intense feelings of futility and frustration, because I no longer had a direction in which to focus in order to resolve this dichotomy – Tony (Parsons) had taken it away from me!” This might indeed be the intention of neo-Advaita, namely to take away the props that hold up the ignorant position of the ego, but if it fails to do so (as, I suggest it fails in the vast majority of cases) it leaves the seeker in a very vulnerable and directionless situation. The questioner in ‘Being’ concludes: “Now, despite everything Tony said about there being no one, despite my own intellectual understanding of that, my emotional reality was of a ‘me’ trapped in a situation that was hopeless.” It is noteworthy that Nathan does not offer any solution to this questioner.

There is also the consequent implication that ‘I can do whatever I want’ and it won’t make any difference. Nathan actually says as much: “Go away and live an ordinary life then. All of this is just nitpicking really, isn’t it? If the ‘I’ disappears, then it does so entirely spontaneously anyway, not as a result of anything the ‘I’ does. If that’s really understood then you can leave it all alone and do whatever else you like.” (My emphasis again.) This is again confusing real and apparent. What ‘I’ do only makes ‘no difference’ at the level of reality. In the apparent world, where the seeker lives out his albeit apparent life, if he ‘does what he wants’ and breaks the law for example, he will end up in prison or worse.  He is most unlikely to end up ‘enlightened’! Regardless of how unappealing the mental preparation and practices of the scriptures might be, it is those that are most likely to lead to enlightenment in the world of appearance.

Another fallacious claim by neo-Advaitins is that ‘seeking’ is itself part of, or even the principal cause of the problem; that it functions by propagating or maintaining the sense of a separate individual. In ‘Being’, Nathan puts it thus: “It could just as easily be said that performing practices in accordance with a story about future realisation is itself what presently gives rise to the very sense of lack it seeks to eradicate!”

The metaphor of the mirage illustrates how this is a mistaken view. We may be initially taken in by the appearance, genuinely believing that there is an oasis in the middle of the desert. Once the physical properties of the air and the principles of refraction have been understood, however, and an actual mirage/oasis has been investigated, this illusion will no longer be accepted as real. We will still see the same effect as before but the knowledge is now there to refute the appearance.

This is the general effect of knowledge removing ignorance and exactly the same principle applies in the case of our mistaken beliefs that we are separate and that there is an objective world. Once the knowledge of Advaita has removed the ignorance, the appearance, though unchanged, is now known to be illusory. The fallacy in the neo-Advaitin claim is the un-stated assumption that seeking never ends, that the ignorance will remain forever. It may well do so if the seeker is exposed only to the teaching of neo-Advaita but traditional methods are able successively to address the various levels of misunderstanding and remove them. This is possible because traditional Advaita recognises and appreciates the misunderstandings while neo-Advaita simply states that understanding or misunderstanding makes no difference. (Again this is the recognition of the appearance by the traditional teaching and the insistence on attempting to see everything only from the stance of reality in the case of neo-Advaita.)

Nathan is effectively asked this question about ignorance in the book. The questioner says: “But as long as you’re assuming that you are a character in the play, there is the implication that this ignorance needs to be dispelled through self-knowledge.” Nathan’s response is as follows:

“When the unexamined assumption that ‘I’ am an actor in a play is taken to be reality, then the misconception may arise that ignorance needs to be overcome, by following a path that dispels ignorance through self-knowledge.” Where does this ‘misconception’ arise, if not in the mind of an apparent individual? Since it is apparently not arising in the mind of Nathan, this is a difference and hence duality. How can this be so in the reality of Advaita? Nathan goes on to say: “When the ‘actor’ is recognised as an appearance only and it’s seen that there’s actually no one in the first place that any of this is happening to, what ignorance would need to be overcome?”

This is another logical fallacy of the ‘begging the question’ type, effectively assuming the conclusion as part of the premise. The recognition (that the ‘actor’ is an appearance) only comes about as a result of dispelling the ignorance! So obviously, once the ignorance has been overcome there is no ignorance to be overcome and the argument is no argument at all.

*** Read conclusion ***