Not Two: The Essence of Non Duality


Book Description

“This royal path (Advaita), revealed by the sages of yore, is now in danger of being closed. The by-lanes are being taken for the royal path. Our effort now is to make people realize that these diversions from the royal road will lead them nowhere. Life’s real problem is not solved with these shortcuts to spirituality. These shortcuts will only result in endangering the seeker… This is a movement for the propagation of the true Vedantic wisdom, the legacy left behind by Shankara Bhagavathpada, the timeless knowledge that is eminently adaptable to the modern times.” ----Shri Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao What is the Absolute Truth? What is my essential nature? How can I grasp the truth and make it my every-day experience? In this book, Shri Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao, with great insight and clarity, answers questions that intrigue seekers of the truth. Srinivasa Rao’s clear and lucid explanations of the Absolute Truth resonate deeply, and awaken the seeker to a direct experience of the Self as Pure Consciousness. “This book is a very useful addition to the Vedanta texts in English. It is an excellent summarization of Advaita.” --- Dr. Aravinda Rao Karanam, Retired DGP, now teaching at www.advaita-academy.org “Shri Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao imparts a no-frills Advaita that has a high fidelity to Shankara’s core teaching. His unique style of explicating the Knowledge Path captures analytical minds and makes one marvel at the rigor of logic and precision of the ancient Indian Sages. His metaphors are often enthralling and highly instructive. Here is a truly rewarding Advaita text that challenges everyone’s intellect.” ---Dr. Ramesam Vemuri, Author of Religion Demystified, and writer at www.advaita-vision.org.




Life Without A Centre


Book Description

We try to escape from the play of life and the suffering that being "a person in the world" entails. Our efforts to find spiritual enlightenment have the opposite effect and reinforce an underlying feeling of lack, of separation. In Life Without a Centre, Jeff Foster suggests that there is only ever the present appearance of life, with no individual at its core who could ever escape even if they wanted to. The entire spiritual search is nothing more than a game we play with ourselves, the cosmic entertainment. Jeff cuts through the confusion and frustration surrounding the search for escape through spiritual enlightenment, by pointing to the utterly obvious: This moment, and everything that arises in it, is already the liberation that is sought. Life, just as it is, is already what we've been searching for our entire lives. Jeff Foster graduated in astrophysics from Cambridge University. Soon after graduation, life events propelled him onto an intense two-year spiritual search, culminating in the realisation that there was never anything to find in the first place. He currently writes and talks on what some people have called "non-duality," but which he just refers to as "the utterly, utterly obvious."




How to Attain Enlightenment


Book Description

This complete guide to enlightenment presents the wisdom of the ancient science of self-inquiry, a time-tested means for achieving spiritual freedom. The author convincingly refutes the popular view that enlightenment is a unique state of consciousness and debunks a host of other myths. In his straightforward style he reveals proven methods for purifying the mind, and takes the reader from the beginning to the end of the spiritual path, patiently unfolding the logic of self-inquiry.




Living Nonduality


Book Description




The Illusion of Will, Self, and Time


Book Description

A Seminary Co-op Notable Book of 2016 William James is often considered a scientist compromised by his advocacy of mysticism and parapsychology. Jonathan Bricklin argues James can also be viewed as a mystic compromised by his commitment to common sense. James wanted to believe in will, self, and time, but his deepest insights suggested otherwise. "Is consciousness already there waiting to be uncovered and is it a veridical revelation of reality?" James asked shortly before his death in 1910. A century after his death, research from neuroscience, physics, psychology, and parapsychology is making the case, both theoretically and experimentally, that answers James's question in the affirmative. By separating what James passionately wanted to believe, based on common sense, from what his insights and researches led him to believe, Bricklin shows how James himself laid the groundwork for this more challenging view of existence. The non-reality of will, self, and time is consistent with James's psychology of volition, his epistemology of self, and his belief that Newtonian, objective, even-flowing time does not exist.




Being Myself


Book Description

Being Myself is a contemplative exploration of the essential nature of our self. Everyone has the sense of ‘being myself,' but not everyone knows their self clearly. In most cases, our sense of self is mixed up with the content of experience and, as a result, its natural condition of peace and happiness is veiled. Through investigation and analogy, the meditations in this collection take us back to our true nature again and again, until we begin to find our self naturally and effortlessly established there, as that. In time, experience loses its capacity to veil our being, and its innate peace and joy emerge from the background of experience. * * * The Essence of Meditation Series presents meditations on the essential, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions, compiled from contemplations led by Rupert Spira at his meetings and retreats. This simple, contemplative approach, which encourages a clear seeing of one’s experience rather than any kind of effort or discipline, leads the reader to an experiential understanding of their own essential being and the peace and fulfilment that are inherent within it.




Advaita


Book Description

'The nature of truth is to be free from contradictions. We approach nearer and nearer truth as we fi nd less and less contradictions. The only thing which is so free is non-duality'...'This may be achieved at fi rst, as the Upanishads say, in lightning fl ashes, in fl eeting momentary glimpses, but later this must be established into permanency. You should stabilize them through self-recollectedness to be done throughout the day, and through the constant reminder that the world is not separate from yourself. It is not enough to grasp the intellectual truth of non-duality'...'As the man of realisation knows the world to be an idea, a mental construct, the sense of unifi cation and love to all mankind is simultaneously its materialization, for he knows no difference between idea and matter. Hence too he wishes all beings to be happy, loves even his enemy, wishes him no harm, for he knows the truth of universal self-identifi cation. Thus to the extent a man realises the truth, he can do good and no more'...'Any kind of difference means contradiction. Nothing whatsoever other than the Atman exists. If you think there is another entity, whether man or God, there is no truth. This is the teaching since time immemorial of those who have inquired into truth.' - V. SUBRAHMANYA IYER




The Transparency of Things


Book Description

The purpose of Rupert's book is to look clearly and simply at the nature of experience, without any attempt to change it. A series of contemplations lead us gently but directly to see that our essential nature is neither a body nor a mind. It is the conscious Presence that is aware of this current experience. As such it is nothing that can be experienced as an object and yet it is undeniably present. However, these contemplations go much further than this. As we take our stand knowingly as this conscious Presence that we always already are, and reconsider the objects of the body, mind and world, we find that they do not simply appear to this Presence, they appear within it. And further exploration reveals that they do not simply appear within this Presence but as this Presence. Finally we are led to see that it is in fact this very Presence itself that takes the shape of our experience from moment to moment whilst always remaining only itself. We see that our experience is and has only ever been one seamless totality with no separate entities or objects anywhere to be found.




Nondualism


Book Description

Many traditions and mystics talk about nondualism. But what is nondualism, and how have people-from different religions in different parts of the word-described this concept over the millennia? In this book you will discover the long history of nondualism, from its first roots in the Indian Upanishads, to its expression in Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, to its most modern-day expressions in the West. If you are a person in a nondual tradition, this book is an invaluable companion on your journey.




The Nondual Shaman


Book Description

The first practical guide to shamanism from a nondual perspective which concentrates on the practitioner's own spiritual evolution as well as specific esoteric techniques. Includes exercises, methodology, meditations and a detailed explanation of the shamanic path as a discipline that heals both the client and the practitioner. Written by Jason Shulman, a master healer and teacher and the founder of A Society of Souls, in the United States, Europe and the United Arab Emirates.