This Terrible Love, a journal of nonduality

    Whenever anyone offers explanations or descriptions of the nature of reality/this/what is, or tells you who/what you "truly" are, all that is happening is some thoughts arise that appear to explain what is going on. Whether about you or life or reality, the belief that these thoughts are accurate in any way is like going up to a squirrel and asking what it truly is. No more information outside of the conditioned thinking is possible when asking these questions to what seems to be your internal self (as "internal" is simply one more interpretation) or asking what you perceive as "others." From neuroscience to nonduality philosophers, the conclusion is always the same----all that can ever happen is what is perceived and experienced, and any interpretation of that experience is part of it. There is no observer looking in or out, thus even ideas like a self or other or reality or life are part of the interpretive scheme that appears in thinking, ...

  S. writes to ask:   Why do nonduality speakers say things like “this is it,” like they know that there’s only what appears, when at the same time they say we can’t know what we’re seeing is real? I’m not saying I know there’s more than just what’s seen, what they’re calling 'this,' but maybe there’s more to this than just what we see?    Dear S:   “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ---Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland   All the words will always fail, yet the assumption of what lies beyond words, put into words, comes no closer than a zeno mile. There simply can’t be anything beyond whatever is perceived, for if something indefinable and mysterious and ineffable is mentioned, how is it mentioned if it has not entered perception? Pointing at what isn’t…well, simply isn’t, though pointing at what is, is not “it” either.   I’d rather read Alice in Wonderland than listen to most talks on the nature of reali...