http://www.richardsylvester.com/page1.html

...and click the buttons "Book Extracts" and "Interview & Links".

As a result of two exceptional, brief moments in his life, Sylvester now doesn't experience persons, or any kind of separated things as real anymore. For him, there are still phenomenons, but without a person who perceives these phenomenons. He stopped his spiritual search, as now there is no one left who can search for anything. For him, paradise is here, as it has been always here, only it can't be noticed as long there is the jail of the illusion of the person.

Interestingly in conjunction with Bruce's work, Sylvester labels the oneness he experiences as "unconditional love".

Nice read, challenging, mind-boggling, funny.

Spooky

A number of years ago I was really into Advaita Vedanta.  I found that the guru I used to see and many other non-dual gurus aren't what they claim to be. Some of them contend that when your body dies your awareness merges back with pure consciousness and that's it. No focus 27, no disks, no nothing.

Fortunately, I eventually found a better way. Ramana Maharshi was one of the most well known advocates of Advaita Vedanta. One evening my spirit guidance showed me an image of Ramana sitting at one half of a table while wearing a business suit (when he was alive he wore a loin cloth).  At the other end of the table sat a lady. Ramana wore a business suit because he was being too conservative.  He didn't acknowledge the creative aspect of being. The lady in the image represented the creative aspect of being. They sat at halfs of the table in order to represent the proper balance between the manifested aspect of being and the unmanifested aspect of being (pure consciouness).

I'm open to levels of being I wasn't open to when I was involved with non-duality.  Once you open up to such levels of being, it is hard dismiss such levels as non-dualists tend to do.

A non-dualist takes one part of his (or her) mind, and focuses his attention so he is more aware than usual of the space in which everything takes place.  The reason he is able to be aware of something, is because he is aware of the energy of existence in an unmanifested way, even while it is manifested in a particular way.  This energy doesn't become non-existent, simply because it manifests in a specific way.  When it manifests in a specific way we can experience qualities such as beauty, happiness, love and peace. Nothing wrong with that.

It isn't pure consciousness that denies the manifested aspect of being. Pure consciousness is too fomless to do anything specific. It is simply aware. Only an aspect of mind can establish relationships and either in a faulty or accurate way come up with a viewpoint of what truth is (or isn't).

Richard Sylvester's association with Tony Parson's is mentioned, and Tony Parson's is one of the gurus who claims that your awareness merges back with pure awareness when you die, and that's it.

It is much better to contact your higher self, than rely on a guru who claims that nobody is here or there, yet benefits from other people.

Bets, that's a nice little story, and I have gotten similar messages, like "find your lost companions". It's to go astray and find each other again, isn't it? This is quite a game. But I don't want to play it for all eternity.

Spooky

Well suit yourself Spooky. Say goodbye to your disk, get involved with the non-duality circus, and try to think your way out of existence.

Sometimes I don't know why I bother. Nobody seems to listen. Perhaps there is no point in trying to share what you learned through years of experience.  Perhaps it is better to let people waste their time and find out the hard way. Their souls do after all have all of eternity to do so, despite what non-dualists state.

Spooky:

I take back that "Suit yourself" comment. Since you no longer believe there is a self to suit, it is illogical for me to make such a suggestion.

Here's a Zen koen.  Who/what is it that believes that there is no self to suit?

Why take it so personally? Doesn't it make your life more interesting?

Recoverer:

I think I'm well suited, from my education in philosophy I know this concept. The question is, could there be perceptions without a perceiver? Maybe, if we use another label for "perceptions", but it would be a very very different world. It's suspicous to me that Sylvester can behave (at least almost) like a normal guy, giving interviews and having meetings while in this state. There are other cases of non-personality persons similar to Sylvester and they are cared by psychiatrists.

Recoverer wrote: "Sometimes I don't know why I bother. Nobody seems to listen."
   You know Hesse's "Siddharta"? When Siddharta had been almost at the end of his path, he had to set free his rebelling son who won't take any education from him. Siddharta found, his son has to commit the same failures as he himself once had committed, but finally everybody will come together again in the great big river. Maybe it is so, maybe not. I listen carefully to you and take what I need.

Of course, Sylvester's view seems not to fit with RAM's and Bruce's and traditional western schools. But maybe I find a way to combine both views. Finally, all discs belong to a master disc. We don't know if it's an aim that they will once remerge totally with the master disc or not. And it is a question how a "resident member" of a disc feels like. We certainly have to think about what individuality and personality means when we think about those questions. I don't think we will continue for eternity as a person we now are used to be.

Believe me, I'll not go to meetings, I'll not spend money or devote myself to spiritual teachers. I'll just look what it is, and if it rings any bells within me. When I can't get something out of it I drop it. I become bored quite easily . And after what Sylvester said, he can't start a cult because he dissed the whole spiritual search thing as useless (except "making one's prison more comfortable").

Yes, of course you can't get a grip of someone moralically who claims "he/she" is not existant, there only is "this character" and things that are just happening ("it happened automatically" ha ha, that's a good substitute for "the devil made me do it"). Contradictions though speak for themselves of course.

As to what the caring about the world and other people belongs, I believe the first focus has to be on spiritual truths; I think that is in accord with the New Testamentum and certainly with gnostic scripture, and RAM said we have to build up escape velocity, meaning loosen our focus on the physical reality to a sufficient degree. As a side effect of our growing insights, our actions will change accordingly. There is no right action in the wrong spirit.

I keep your warning in mind.


Bets:

The extreme segmentation is a tendency of the modern times. Starting with Plato, accelerated by modern philosophers and, in recent times mainly by a world view inspired by the sciences of nature and engineering, this tendency has become such bizarre in some areas that it is to hope it will become obvious that this is just plane silly.
The natural and primal way of thinking and perceiving is in "entirenesses", "gestalts". Out of these entirenesses we can, if required, extract more specific details. This has led to the wrong opinion the details are the primary and we could rebuilt the world with those little elementar pieces.
However, the person or, more phenomenologic put, the personal situation is one of these entirenesses, a very special one. In order to have a rich view at us and our role in our environment, it's not needed to fall in the other extreme and declare the whole world to one. But it's interesting.


Spooky

Good post Justin:

Not all gurus are exactly the same. Some are unethical and dishonest with the people they mislead, some are dishonest with themselves about what they know, and mislead other people accordingly.  I know a few people from the group I used to belong to who became non-dual gurus.  When I knew them, they were nice people.  For whatever reason, they never got away from the non-dual approach. They deprive themselves accordingly.  I would have a hard time fitting into that old set of clothes.  

Non-dualists contend that they don't have to worry about things such as chakras and energy levels because they deal with higher truth, not illusions. The fact of the matter is that they haven't dealt with spirit realms and aren't qualified to speak about such levels of existence.

Beliefs can come in many forms.  If a person comes up with a way to believe that he or she doesn't exist, he or she might end up believing this is the case, even though his or her life shows something quite different.

If it is okay for each of us to exist to an extent where we can experience love, then perhaps it is okay for each of us to exist.  If we experience love and act with love, where is the problem?

SPOOKY:

I hear ya.