Dear Haran, Thank you again for reminding me of India's religious and philosophical traditions. I had, of course been aware of their existence, but had shied away from studying them them because of my ignorance of Sanskrit, its history and its dialects, all of which still are inaccessible to me. I've given more thought to Rupert Spira's Ashes of Love; have found the book very stimulating. I consider it an attempt to create reality from language. The Christian prototype of such an effort is the Nicene Creed. I criticize neither persons nor books. I try to learn from them, but what I learn from Spira's book is not what he wanted to teach me, as Spira's wife Ellen Emmet summarizes it in her translation of the introduction: "Truth seekers familiar with his teaching will find its essence here: concise, sharp as a diamond, overwhelming with its awesome higher reasoning, whilst bathing us in unconditional love. Others will be struck by the clarity and profundity of Reality as conveyed by this master of Advaita, and illumined by the glimpse of an inner revolution. Monique Proulx JANUARY 2013 Translated by Ellen Emmet and Caroline Seymour" What I learned from the Ashes of Love is different. From the Internet's Wikipedia I obtain an explanation of Advaita Vedanta: The Advaita Vedanta school has been historically referred to by various names, such as Advaita-vada (speaker of Advaita), Abheda-darshana (view of non-difference), Dvaita-vada-pratisedha (denial of dual distinctions), and Kevala-dvaita (non-dualism of the isolated).[36] According to Richard King, a professor of Buddhist and Asian studies, the term Advaita first occurs in a recognizably Vedantic context in the prose of Mandukya Upanishad.[36] In contrast, according to Frits Staal, a professor of Philosophy specializing in Sanskrit and Vedic studies, the word Advaita is from the Vedic era, and the Vedic sage Yajnavalkya (8th or 7th-century BCE[37][38]) is credited to be the one who coined it.[39] Stephen Phillips, a professor of philosophy and Asian studies, translates the Advaita containing verse excerpt in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as follows: सलिले एकस् द्रष्टा अद्वैतस् भवति एष ब्रह्मलोकस् सम्राट् ति ह एनम् उवाच अनुशशास याज्ञवल्क्यस् एषा अस्य परमा गतिस् एषास्य परमा सम्पद् An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement. —Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.32[40] Language is fluid. It obtains much, if not most of its meaning from him who listens or reads, above all perhaps from him who struggles to understand. What I understand is that there are some English words with which translators have tried to explain the vedanta, onto which Spira has latched and on which he attempts to develop his own thinking. I have no criticism, but my understanding veers in a different direction. It's my policy to criticise neither books or persons, but to try to understand and to learn from them. Rupert Spira's book reminds me of the power of words to create a virtual reality in the susceptible mind. But I'm persuaded by the cogency neither of his Awareness nor of the non-duality he advocates. Reading his book stimulates me to think about the different circumstances by which I am persuaded. I believe dualism. Binarity (if you permit me to coin a word) is fundamental and essential to human mental activity. Yes and no, 1 and 0, subject and object are the stuff of dialectic and as such are fundamental characteristics of our thought. Thought is language, and language develops its meaning not in a state of isolated meditation, but in an exchange of ideas in society, between two or more individuals. That truth is dialogue, is contradiction, is my inference from Plato's writings. Never forget that the Greek root of our word "idiot" refers to an individual who is isolated by himself or by society. I do not deny that duality entails spiritual problems. I do not deny that the spirit, the hagia pneuma, the holy spirit lays claim to the entirety of our existence. It is true that man does not live by bread alone, but it is also true that man cannot live without bread. Please consider, if one believes in non-duality, he cannot use the digital computer, based as it is on binary logic, the most fundamental exhibit of duality. My life is change. I am a different person every day. I cannot subscribe to monism, to non-dualism, or for that matter, to non-pluralism. For me, life is motion, from here to there, from today to tomorrow. I am too fidgety to sit and meditate on my Awareness. I need my thoughts as the bricks and girders with which I actively build the temple of my understanding. That temple is the only place where I am safe from the cruel and deceiving world. There is no inspiration without expiration, no systole without diastole. no truth without falsehood, no yes without no, no life without death. Monism is not for me. I acknowledge monism to be an escape from the burdens and pains of life; but in many years of meditating on these issues, I have become accustomed to escape these burdens and pains by other devices, by working, by learning, by building, by creating, by doing something; I'm unable to sit still inactively and meditate. For me meditation is the activity of thinking thoughts. I understand religious and "philosophical" dogma as nothing but words to be interpreted by each of us according to his needs of the moment. I understand (religious) philosophy as an exhibit of language. Saint John wrote: In the beginning was the word. If the word is also at the end, then everything is talk, and perhaps non-duality, monism, is demonstrable after all. Jochen