Tag Archives: tony parsons

Traditional versus Neo-Advaita (Conclusion)

Posted on by
Reply

*** Read Part 3 *** *** Go to Part 1 ***

The term ‘neo-Vedanta’ is used these days to describe the teaching of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda followers. It is characterized by ideas such as the need to ‘experience’ Brahman through samādhi, since Self-knowledge is only an ‘intellectual’ understanding. Up until the late 20th C, it was also sometimes called neo-Advaita. It diverges from the Advaita as systematized by Śaṅkara because Vivekananda was adversely influenced by Yoga philosophy, incorporating some of their teaching and denigrating the scriptural authority of the Vedas. I am not addressing this further in this article. Read the excellent book by Anantanand Rambachan – ‘The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda’s Reinterpretation of the Vedas’ – if interested. (Amazon UK; Amazon US)

My own book ‘Confusions in Advaita Vedanta – Knowledge, Experience and Enlightenment’ also has an account of the differences, and sources of confusion. (Exotic India; Amazon US). (N.B. there only seems to be a hardback available at Amazon UK at present, at a ridiculous price. Exotic India is much cheaper. It is in US but has free postage to UK. Alternatively, probably cheapest of all from the publisher, Indica Books, in India.)

Continue reading →

Being: the bottom line

Posted on by
3

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.

Continue reading →

Advaita Gurus and Critics – part 6

Posted on by

by Prof. Phillip Charles Lucas

<Read Part 5>

Theme Three: Insufficient Grounding in Vedanta Traditions (concluded)

Tony Parsons articulates the NTMA counterargument on this matter quite clearly:

Traditional Advaita appears to make proper use of logic, reason, belief, and experience, rational explanation, truth, and traditional wisdom, all directed towards helping the seeker along the path to their enlightenment. The Open Secret’s apparent communication is illogical, unreasonable, unbelievable, paradoxical, non-prescriptive, non-spiritual and uncompromising. There is no agenda or intention to help or change the individual. Its resonance is shared energetically, not through the exchange of ideas. It is prior to all teachings and yet eternally new. [Tony Parsons, “Traditional Not Two-ness.”]

Waite counters that Advaita tradition, although holding a high degree of reverence for its scriptural corpus, does not regard the scriptures as a perfect articulation of absolute truth that cannot be questioned or clarified. Rather, they are a “reliable source of self-knowledge in which one can trust until such time as the truth is realized for oneself, at which time they are discarded along with the ignorance they helped to dispel.” [Waite, Enlightenment, 24, 37-39]

Continue reading →

Advaita Gurus and Critics – part 3

Posted on by

by Prof. Phillip Charles Lucas

<Read Part 2>

TMA proponents strongly disavow these claims and emphasize the necessity of lifelong, sustained sadhana. An essential aspect of this sadhana is mental preparation, which entails the development of habits of discrimination (discerning what is real from what is only appearance), detachment (releasing attachment to the world of forms), calmness of mind and a profound desire for liberation. Only once this preparation is well underway can the student’s mind fruitfully engage with advanced Advaita teaching. As put by American TMA teacher/author James Swartz, a one-time student of Swami Chinmayananda:

It requires a mature adult with a one-pointed desire to know the Self. The reason for this insistence [in traditional Advaita] is based on the fact that enlightenment takes place in the mind. Therefore the mind must be capable of grasping and retaining the knowledge, “I am limitless Awareness and not this body mind.” The retention and assimilation of this knowledge will necessarily destroy one’s tendencies (vasanas) to seek for happiness in the world.[Waite, Enlightenment, 37; James Swartz, “What is Neo-Advaita?” at <http://www.shiningworld.com/Satsang%20Pages/ HTML%20Satsangs%20by%20Topic/Neo-Advaita/What%20is%20Neo-Advaita.htm>, accessed 6 May 2013.]

Continue reading →

Book Review: European Masters – John David

Posted on by

Blueprints for Awakening: European Masters: Unique Dialogues with 14 European Masters on the Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi Who am I?

Premananda, Open Sky Press Ltd, Nov 2010, ISBN 978-0956607003. (350 pages).

Buy from Amazon US
Buy from Amazon UK

Note that, when I originally reviewed this book, it also included a free DVD of extracts from the interviews. This is no longer the case.

Premananda is the author of a number of books, including ‘Indian Masters: Blueprints for Awakening’, which I have reviewed at http://www.advaita.org.uk/reading/read_general.htm#blueprints. He spent 15 years with Osho, followed by another 5 with H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji) and much of his teaching now is influenced by Ramana Maharshi. He runs the Open Sky Satsang Community in Germany (between Cologne and Düsseldorf) and periodic meetings are organized throughout Europe.

(Extended biographical details may be found at his website – http://www.premanandasatsang.org/.)  

Note that, sometime during the elapsed time since I wrote this review (around 2011), he has reverted to his (presumed) birth name of John David. All reference to the name ‘Premananda’ appears to have been removed from his website and books (although the URL remains the same). I have left the words of the review itself, and the images, as they were in the original review.

Continue reading →

Does spiritual practice empower the ego?

Posted on by

Does sAdhana (spiritual practice) empower the ego?
An essay by Atman Nityananda

If you abandon sAdhana in order to avoid this sAdhana-ego you are left with nothing except egoism. Egoism plus sAdhana is better than egoism minus sAdhana.
~Swami Sivananda

Liberation is the dissolution or the death of the ego which is a field of energy crystallized in our bodies. Liberation has nothing to do with an enlightened ego. There cannot ever be an enlightened or liberated ego.

Liberation is neither for the ego nor for the consciousness which is already free. Liberation is for the mind. When the mind after intense spiritual practice (sAdhana) becomes free from all egoistic tendencies, rajas and tamas then liberation takes place for none and the mind celebrates its unity with the spirit or Consciousness.

But some neo-advaita or non-teachers as they call themselves like Tony Parsons claim that the spiritual practices empower the ego instead of dissolve it. They claim that is impossible the ego to be eliminated by sAdhana by the very fact that the sAdhana is done by the ego. They say that sAdhana and the dissolution of ego is a contradiction because the ego itself is engaged in sAdhana and this keeps the ego alive. Continue reading →