John Sherman cuts the crap out of Advaita

Advaita, often the headline name for non-dual philosophy these days  …  and while stating that our True nature is one with the infinite and that our imagined lives are, well, just that … this view often puts people’s backs up, or does not get enough traction to form a path out of the human maze …  check out this statement which is the intro quote in John’s recent ebook, available free on his website:

In spending our lives learning to tell our story, mostly to ourselves, we really only meet ourselves in terms of either reflections of our bodies in a mirror or in comparing concepts we have of our “self” with what we imagine other “selves” are or think, etc.  Self-definition  …  hard and frustrating work, that nobody really has to do.  Who cares?  John is talking about looking directly at our experience of being alive, of existing … without regard for what we find or not.

Video clip of John in action with a questioner …  doesn’t get much clearer than this  … part 2 if you’re interested.

… and finally a quote of direct pointing what to DO …

“Most important is to hold your attention on something that you believe to be your self. Since your self is everything whatsoever, it does not really matter! There is no way of determining, of defining, of pointing to some particular experience that is your self. Most important is to find some location in the mind that seems to be you, and to hold your attention there — without regard to all the Advaitic nonsense. I say nonsense because, in the context of one who is earnestly seeking for an end to their belief in the experience of separation, all of these ideas are nonsense.  For the one who believes oneself to be the doer, the thinker, the sufferer, all the ideas that deny the existence of the doer, the doing, the done, the sufferer, the suffering, all of these ideas are useless.

You must start where you are. Make this effort, just for
today. Find some thing that feels like “me”, and hold onto it. And
when your attention skitters away from it, hold onto it again.
Ramana promises that a) the actual entry into the core of ego is
the dissolution of ego, which does not mean that ego disappears;
and b) if you try for nothing other than this, with all your heart,
you will be successful, you will be unable to fail.”

… this is from another free ebook found on John’s site, “Meeting Ramana Maharshi”