Category Archives: Nonduality

To be an observer is to be responsive. We can understand our lives as a collective response to a world brought forth by the responsiveness of its observers. This is analogous to the principle in A Course in Miracles that “projection makes perception” (T-13.V.3:5), which gives rise to critical insight that “our function is toContinue reading “On the Inherent Responsiveness of Observers”

I want to make a brief point about the marginal utility metaphysics (and theology et cetera) when it comes to the work of bringing forth love, and do so – I hope – through a concrete example. I will ask if the world is real or not and suggest that our living does not changeContinue reading “Who Cares if the World is Real?”

We create an image of ourselves. We see ourselves as others see us. Or perhaps as our imagined God sees us. Or as we wish we could be. Or should be. Or would be if we had different parents, lived in a different part of the world, spoke another language, had another partner, lived inContinue reading “The Observer and the Observed Redux”

It is a staple of a lot of contemporary neo-advaita writing that we are awareness itself and what happens – the whole of our living – happens inside of us. Here is how John Sherman, a teacher I admire a great deal, puts it. I say, ‘There is nothing but you anywhere to be found’, andContinue reading “Nitpicking and Neo Advaita”

We have ideas about what life should feel like and look like and these ideas guide our behavior.  These ideas are not our own; we acquire them from the culture in which we find ourselves. We think that spiritual people are peaceful vegans or celibate monks or scholarly ascetics. And we act accordingly, and ourContinue reading “Beyond Spiritual Ideals”

What is a helpful way for us to think about the question of what is real and what is an illusion? What light can direct experience – giving attention to our experience of living – shed on this question? I remember an ACIM study group many years ago. A woman arrived late and as sheContinue reading “Direct Experience: What is Real and What is an Illusion”