Continuing to look for essays and reviews etc. that are no longer available online, I came across the following dialog that I had with Jeff Foster in June 2007, after I had read his book ‘Life Without a Centre: awakening from the dream of separation’. In fact, the dialog is still available at the advaita.org.uk site but, since that site does not seem to be much visited these days, I thought it would be a good idea to republish here, as a follow-up to the recently posted article on neo-Advaita. A link to an extract from the book is included below and you can purchase the book at Amazon.UK or Amazon.com. Jeff’s website is here.  

This post will be in several parts. This first part contains our initial exchange; the remainder will contain the ensuing discussion. Readers should always remember that this was nearly 20 years ago and views may change. I understand that Jeff has said that he no longer holds some of the views that he did then.

In all parts, my words are in blue (Dennis Waite) and Jeff’s are in red (Jeff Foster).

<<<As you would no doubt have anticipated, I could not give a favorable review of Jeff’s book ‘Life without a centre’. In fact, I was tempted to ‘hold it up’ as an example of the extreme reductionism of neo-advaita (to the point where there is no teaching left whatsoever). But I don’t want to be negative about any teacher directly, only about neo-advaita teaching in general.

However, I would be willing to host an extract at the website with a link to buy the book because I do still want the site to represent all angles of advaita. The section ‘Nothing wrong with silence’ pp82 – 86 was actually quite good (or at least up to the bottom of p.85). What do you think? I can express the same view to Jeff directly if you want.>>>

As you see, I left the original wording and haven’t attempted to hide the fact that I don’t accept the neo-advaitin message as being of any value for the seeker, even though true in an absolute sense. But then you probably knew that already! There are currently essays/book extracts from Tony, Nathan, Leo, Jan, Richard, Unmani and Liz Jones so, if you would like me to host an extract from your book, with a link to your website and to buy the book, I would be happy to do so. As I indicated to Julian, I liked pp 82 – 6 best and actually agreed with most of it but, if you would prefer a different passage that would be fine, too.

Thanks for your email! I’m always interested to hear what people think about the book, and I do honestly appreciate your comments. Of course, the message I write about isn’t for everyone!  I’m interested to know why you say I’m a “neo-advaita” teacher….. you see I have very little idea what that actually means!

I would in no way consider myself to be aligned with any school of thought, though I can see why the writing in the book may be classified in that way. I would never want to force a viewpoint or a way of thinking on anyone, including any “neo-advaita” viewpoint.I can see what you mean about the message appearing to be an example of “extreme reductionism”, and how it leaves nothing for the seeker to do. However, what I would say is that this view, although completely valid, I think misses the point in some ways. The message isnotthat there is nothing for the seeker to do. The message isnotthat anyone should give up, or stop trying, or any such nonsense. The message isnotthat the person “doesn’t exist” and so should give up all attempts to get anywhere. This, again, would be to miss the point entirely.  The message is not about rejecting or denying the individual, the seeker… it’s not about negating the search, the attempt to reach goals, although again, this is how the message is often interpreted. This message (or what I write about, anyway) actually embraces and honors the individual and his attempts to find what he thinks he has lost, or what he thinks he needs. It honors this “I”, this “me”…. it is not about going around repeating the mantra “there is nobody there”, “the I does not exist”, “there is no-one”.

Maybe some teachers say this, I don’t know. The point is, there is this apparent person, and let’s not deny that! There is an apparent seeker, who goes out and searches for liberation, awakening, for enlightenment, for oneness. But the message asks – what reality does this person have in the first place?

This isn’t about DENYING that person, or REJECTING that person. That’s a very different message, and I wouldn’t want to be put in the same group as those life-denying teachers. This is about the realization that the person who goes out into “the world” and does all those things, the person who meditates and follows practices and rituals and has beliefs and tries to improve himself… that person only ever appears as a presently arising thought.

This message is about the simple and obvious appearance of life, now, now and now. That this moment – right now- is all there is. And everything, our whole lives, our pasts and futures, are just stories appearing now. And yes, of course, THAT is a story too! And so this can never really be expressed in words. It’s the attempt to put into words what could never be put into words.

It’s about the preciousness of this moment, the absolute divine mystery of each and every “thing” (even though there aren’t really any separate “things” at all), the realization that the entire spiritual search rests on the assumption of an entity there, a “self” who does the seeking. And with that, the assumption of a future, the assumption that there is “something to get”. And that’s fine – this is NOT about denying this search.

But – and here’s the point – what is wrong with THIS moment? Why do we want something more? The spiritual search is wonderful, but it requires a future. What if THIS is the last moment? What if THIS is all we have? I don’t see any ‘extreme reductionism’ here. This is not about reducing life in all its mystery and wonder to a simple concept (e.g. “this is all there is”, “there is no self”, etc)… although of course, those concepts can be useful, so it’s also not about denying those concepts either!

If anything, this is the opposite of extreme reductionism! This is about the possibility of absolute freedom, absolute “happiness” as you put it, right here, right now. This is about seeing that the miracle that we are searching for is always fully present, that enlightenment is already the case, but the “search” implied that it wasn’t. This is about the absolute gift of this moment. Extreme reductionism would be to claim that absolute statements like “this is all there is” tell the truth about life. But life could never be contained by such pathetic little statements! (and the book is full of such statements! ;))How could life ever be contained by little strings of words, by concepts? Yes, concepts can be useful, but we get so lost in concepts, in systems of thought, in trying to “understand” reality. And all of that is wonderful, but it kind of misses the point.

And so yes, I can absolutely see why you want to classify me as a “neo-advaita” teacher, and maybe some parts of Life Without A Centre have a “neo-advaita” flavor to them. But I’d ask: why do we have to endlessly classify teachings? The mind loves that, to be sure, it loves to classify and compare and contrast teachings, ad infinitum. And there’s nothing wrong with that, that’s what the mind does. But again, it’s kind of missing the point. We can argue and classify and judge and label until we’re blue in the face. And that’s really the point of Life Without A Centre – where do all these mind games ever get us? All this knowledge? Knowledge is wonderful, and we can build it up over time, and become authorities on every topic under the sun, and we can feel wonderful that we know and others don’t, and that we are closer to the truth than others.

But what’s more wonderful, in my experience, is the collapse into not-knowing, the profound mystery, the liberation that is apparent when the mind dies down, stops all its games and there is just a clear seeing of what is. The mystery, the miracle is all around us, all the time. Which means, the miracle is right now. I don’t think that is extreme reductionism. Extreme reductionism would be to try and reduce the overwhelming mystery of being to simple concepts, simple beliefs. If anything, I’m saying the exact opposite, that the Mystery could NEVER be contained in ANY belief (especially simplistic neo-advaita beliefs!) No, it’s not extreme reductionism… you see, I think that’s an astonishing miracle that is always available! That everything the spiritual teachings promised us is always available, right here, right now. If that’s reductionism then fine, that’s reductionism!! 😉 Having said all that, I do appreciate your thoughts and as I say, I completely understand why someone would disagree, and would argue for the “traditional” approach of self-enquiry, meditation, etc. As I say over and over, I’m not rejecting any of that, and I’d never want to stop anyone from doing all of that. God knows, it helped me back in the day. But there came a point at which all striving, all desire for “something more”, something more than the present appearance of things, just died away. There came a point in which the present moment was seen to be the Miracle of all miracles, and the desire for seeking just faded away, and this “Happiness” I’d been searching for throughout my life had ALWAYS been freely available- and it was the seeking that implied that it wasn’t (because the seeking always aimed at a future… a future that never came)

But this is just my experience. I’d never stop anyone from seeking, and would never want to. I disagree with the Neo-Advaita teachers who deny seeking, who deny the seeker, who deny the self…. this message has nothing to do with any sort of denial. I hope in some way I’m making myself clear. And I absolutely love that you don’t necessarily agree with me – I love diversity, the way different people believe different things. That’s really beautiful, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I truly appreciate your honesty and the way in which you didn’t hide your feelings about the book. I find this very refreshing, and thank you once again for this.

P.S. I just read on your website that you summarize neo-advaita as: “We can stop seeking because there is no seeker and nothing to be sought…… Everything is already fine as it is. We just need to accept this.”

Dennis – if that’s neo-advaita, I want nothing to do with it! 😉

*** Go to Part 2 ***