Q.511 Direct Path vs Traditional – Pt. 4

Part 4 – Experience

Q: While I agree with your statement about philosophers over intellectualizing the truth, there is something about Greg’s writing that is so magnetic to me. I really think he is the most articulate writer I have ever come across. Usually when I write, I feel a big part of what I’m trying to get across gets lost, whereas with Greg, I feel like 100% of what he’s trying to express comes through perfectly. I’m going through Standing as Awareness at the moment and the clarity with which he writes is so so beautiful.

But as you can probably sense by my emails, I’m a bit disappointed with the direct path. It is without a doubt the clearest and most direct teaching I have come across (so far), and the teachers themselves are brilliant, and I have no doubt that they understand the truth, and also live their understanding, but I feel I am craving something more systematic and formalized, that can answer these questions I have without confusion.

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‘I’ is a Door

Philip Renard appears in the ‘Teacher Lineage’ charts in Advaita Vision under Nisargadatta Maharaj but he has also been significantly influenced by both Ramana Maharshi and Atmananda Krishna Menon. In his first English language book, Philip writes about Advaita as communicated by all of these modern sages.

An extract from the book (about Atmananda) can be read here.

I have not yet read the book, which has just been published. It has a chapter devoted to each teacher, followed by a summary chapter, short biographies, extensive ‘Notes’ and bibliography.

It is available from Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats:
Paperback: Buy from Amazon US ($14.00) Buy from Amazon UK (£11.00)
Kindle: Buy from Amazon US ($6.06) Buy from Amazon UK (£4.59)

Traditional Teaching and Deep Sleep – I

Part – I        Part – II          Part – III 

In my Talk on “Inquiry in Science and Vedanta “, the slides numbered 50 and 51 are about  the three states of  consciousness — Awake, Dream and Deep Sleep. (The full PowerPoint Presentation can be viewed at : http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.in/ ). The three worlds are represented by the three distinct circles I, II and III and a ‘Me’ is shown by the circle IV in the Slide 50 (Fig. 1 below). In our normal understanding, we think that “I am a separate ‘self’ (individual) and I pass through three distinct worlds viz. the Wakeful world, the Dream world and the Deep Sleep world.” We also take that the worlds to be external to ‘me.’

Fig 1: The Normal Worldview – an individual “I” (IV) passes through three distinct worlds (I, II, III) that are external to ‘me’ during a day of 24 hrs.

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