Sometimes I wonder why I even read someone else’s stuff on topics like these. You have a thing for cutting straight to the bone with things. No detours and stories. I appreciate that. Hope all is well
Your posts describing the 'self' as loops have been profoundly helpful. Earth always revolved around the Sun, but before that was seen, there were endless efforts to explain celestial movement. The physics didn't change. The 'problem' went away. I've read forever that I'd not 'get it,' but I always thought that meant there was an it to get, only that it was ineffable. Your explanation that nothing in human experience is outside of self, and beyond that well, who knows? And also, who cares. Thanks.
Hi Robert, Great subtitle! It seems everything is about "selling tickets" in one form or another these days, sadly. In any case, I wanted to respond to a few of the notions in what you wrote:
"I see the belief in “Oneness” as a cul-de-sac."
Yes, "oneness" is a dualistic notion posing as a spiritual truth, like a new age proxy for the term "God" more than anything. It is not a notion present in Vedanta, although superficially "non-dual" and "oneness" seem similar.
Non-dual in Vedanta refers to the empirical observation that where there is one, there are many, which is to say that anything closely examined is made up of parts. The only exception is the context in which experience itself occurs, which never becomes objectively knowable even though it is impossible to refute.
"The idea of a single universal consciousness—one essence behind all appearances—is metaphysical theory, not a fact. And there’s no evidence for it."
Vedanta does not posit a "single universal consciousness" (though the idea that it does is common) either, or anything else for that matter. It presents what amounts to an idea that negates the belief in belief altogether, and inserts nothing where belief used to be. You offer much the same in my observation, Robert, albeit perhaps with a different emphasis "post deconstruction" with respect to the experience of being alive that obviously does not disappear along with fundamental beliefs.
There is no "essence behind all appearances" in Vedanta. That idea comes from a longstanding (dualistic) misinterpretation of what is actually said. What is actually said is that there are not two existences, realities, or principles operating here, even though there appear to be.
Yes, I know that Vedānta, strictly speaking, doesn’t use the word oneness. That’s a Western gloss, often conflated with Advaita’s “one without a second.” But in practice, many readers of Vedānta (and much of the contemporary nondual scene) do interpret it as pointing to a single universal consciousness behind appearances. That’s the reading I was countering.
Your distinction is a good one: Advaita as negation, not insertion of a new belief. Where I diverge is that I don’t feel the need to adopt even that frame. I don’t see evidence for a context “in which” experience occurs. I only see experience—whatever shows up. That’s as far as I can go. A context may be assumed, but that assumption is dualistic in and of itself. For example, I reject the movie screen as different from the movie analogy.
So perhaps we overlap in the deconstructive gesture, but I stay with phenomena and don’t take the extra step of naming a context beyond them, even as unknowable. For me, there is no “behind.”
In Vedanta, as you say, the context in which experience occurs is impossible to refute. I agree with Robert that the fact of experience itself doesn’t necessarily mean there is a context. Maybe infinity, but is that a context? ‘Context’ also seems finite.
So then, there’s this thing, even though it can’t be found, yet impossible to refute, from which all types of assumptions, based on what is often called direct experience, arise because humans have a hard time coping with being left hanging. Still, “direct experience” is basically non-conceptual, it is apperception (no perception of it), meaning direct experience can’t be defended or shown in any other way, or provide any kind of evidence except “the negation of the belief in beliefs”. All beliefs. That’s all.
It follows that due to the need for stability, there are tickets to many shows telling one what kind of effort is needed and the ideas and concepts to look for, in their direct experience, to actually know what this context is, and that the knowledge of this promises freedom. As Robert says, “any of these practices, rituals, trainings, psychologies, philosophies, etc. can easily slide into that conviction that there must be something behind it all, a source”. Could be some type of intelligence, who knows. Something beyond our ability to fathom. I would say all conclusions are imagination.
I really like what Robert says in another post “About liberation: for me, it's not a matter of seeking it or wanting it. In a way, it's liberating enough just to stay with what appears. But the deeper cut is this: liberation isn't about getting free--it's what remains when the wanting for freedom falls away".
Thanks Lila, nicely said. I think my follow on reply to Robert's comment addresses many of these points, which I generally agree with, if you'd care to have a look.
You also said "Could be some type of intelligence (re: Source), who knows. Something beyond our ability to fathom. I would say all conclusions are imagination."
This is an "intelligent" statement, as in both "deduced using (logical or illogical) analysis" and conscious as in "made by a conscious being." Therefore, since you personally did not create the evidence used in the analysis, logic, intelligence, or consciousness, and yet those obviously exist, does that not imply a "cause?" And, does that not also imply that the cause is "intelligent," since it (apparently) created a lawful order capable of being analyzed?
If this does make sense, and it is also obvious that whatever I am as a conscious creature/entity is not that cause (source), then it follows that speaking "practically" it behooves me to understand my relationship to that cause. Unless I can genuinely make the statement "I don't care at all what happens," which is of course absurd, then the "staying with what appears" that becomes the case when freedom is no longer sought anywhere else (which really means not at all), is really not any different at all than enjoying my existence with as little self imposed misery as possible.
Thank you, VG. You are making some good points. And I did read your follow-up comment. I spent a lot of time studying with a teacher of traditional Vedanta, so your comments are interesting to me. Yes, I can accept that whatever this fact of experience or Consciousness is, is not different from my and any and all experience. Therefore it cancels out being knowable or unknowable. It just is. Of course I'm curious about this that is here. Caring happens. This can look like anything and everything. Being intimate with the immediacy of it and noticing impermanence and suchness and the awe and wonder of it seems to be prevalent here with me. I am all for enjoying my existence with as little self imposed misery as possible, yes. And too, not all suffering is to be avoided, it can be very illuminating. Thanks for the "intelligent" :) dialogue.
I agree with your critique with reference to the "contemporary non-dual scene," I just feel it must be pointed out that this has ZERO to do with traditional Vedanta teachings and the teachers that disseminate it properly.
The part where you "diverge," for example, is not a divergence from traditional Vedanta :). If there is a context "in which" experience occurs (like in the movie screen metaphor when it is taught dualistically, as it almost always is), then the "context" becomes reified and deified as a separate "substance" called Consciousness. That is not Vedanta, which says there is nothing other than Consciousness.
What Consciousness is (in the way Vedanta uses the term) cannot be known by direct experience, referring back to your original post, precisely because "it" (for lack of another term) is not something different than experience, the subject of experience, the "context," or anything else for that matter. It is also not "unknowable," for the same exact reasons.
There is no behind in Vedanta, nor is there anywhere else. After the "deconstructive gesture" (love that) there is nowhere to go. I think we converge there too (?). Thereafter, since we do not drop dead after this deconstruction, we can comment or not on what way of looking at what "remains" (a poor word but what to do?) works best for us. THAT part is where we seem to differ in some ways, though very much not in others.
I do understand the distinction you’re making between what you see as authentic Vedānta and the contemporary nondual scene. My point isn’t to conflate them. It’s that even in classical Advaita teaching, the analogies themselves — gold and ornaments, screen and movie — already lean toward positing a “one substance” behind appearances. That’s what makes the popular misreading so easy.
Śaṅkara’s commentaries are full of that imagery. You can call it “not a substance” if you like, but the metaphors function precisely as if it were — they’re pedagogical devices meant to undercut multiplicity by pointing to an unchanging “something” beneath. That’s why, when the teaching travels West, it turns into “Oneness” so quickly.
Where I differ from both the pop-nondual scene and your version of Vedānta is simple: I don’t assert or imply a context, even an unnameable one. I only stay with what appears. As I argued in the Hegel piece, there is no “direct experience” outside language and concept — so to treat “Consciousness” as a ground behind phenomena is just another projection.
So yes, perhaps we converge in the deconstructive gesture. But when the metaphors turn back into an implied ground, I drop them. That’s all.
Only ideologues believe they have a direct experience of truth which means they are closed to the unknowable mystery of being which they find terrifying.
I do love that subtitle Robert. I don't know all the Buddhist words and different teachings/dogma. I do favour your idea that direct experience is a myth. It explains for me why trying to 'relive a fantastic experience' leaves me feeling disappointed. If direct experience represented 'truth', it stands to reason that what I experienced the first time could be identically replicated? I'm yet successful with this experiment because my perceptions have changed, my feelings have shifted, my memories have altered.
Perhaps then, this 'oneness' term applies to me as a sole entity. The world 'according to me' is as truthful as I may hope for, albeit a recursive illusion. What shows up for me is all there is. Beyond that, well, I don't know.
I appreciate this dialogue -and so much of what you write in general- for a specific reason. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. I left it in my early 20's. But it has taken me a long time after that to realize how automatically I can accept, as fact, spiritual ideas that sound (feel) great and even seem to operate from apparent logic, but ultimately don't.
As well, in reading your work I've seen how untrusting I can be of my own, simple experience. Also, how attendance to simple, everyday experience can seem "not spiritual enough". The time I've missed just experiencing my life can be sad and burdensome to me, but the realization is still invaluably worth it.
I don't find any debate with your descriptions, Robert, just a refreshing and intelligent simplicity. An obvious-ness. What I do often find myself wondering about are your occasional mentions of self-hypnotism. Here, you've rightly said "No one gets behind the veil, though many sell tickets". Do they sell tickets so easily because people wish for the hypnotism of "I can experience from behind the veil!"? What is self-hypnotism, and how does one protect themselves from it?
If you don't find this particularly relevant to this thread, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on self-hypnotism, perhaps in another context. It's relevant to me, this person who values not buying unnecessary tickets. Thanks, Robert.
Yes. The “tickets” sell because people want exactly that: the suggestion that there’s a point of view behind the veil, a secret place from which life can be observed or controlled. That suggestion is powerful—almost narcotic—because it flatters the self with the promise of special access. But that secret place is a projection.
Self-hypnotism is just that: mistaking your own projection for revelation. The feeling of certainty becomes its own proof, and you convince yourself you’ve touched what no one else can see. From there, it spreads outward. Some preach because they are true believers, honestly convinced of their own discovery. Others imagine they are helping—passing on what feels like a gift. And yes, some know it’s smoke, but they sell it anyway, because it’s lucrative or gratifying to have power over others. In every case, the mechanism is the same: the loop tells itself a story and takes it as fact.
How to protect yourself? I don’t think there’s a method. It’s more like a habit of suspicion—of noticing when a claim rests on “special access,” on a promise of behindness. Whenever the pitch says “step past the veil,” you can be fairly sure it’s the veil talking.
The habit of suspicion is its own safeguard: every time you hear a promise of what’s behind, remember—behindness is the oldest trick of the loop.
Thanks, Robert. This describes well what I experienced growing up, looking around in church. Self-certainty, which is a very potent kind of emotional hit.
Unfortunately, I was young, so I wanted to believe the adults were right and I wanted to believe, by proximity to them, I had special access too. Fortunately, I have found a great adult relationship with skepticism and I've found it a helpful litmus test of sorts.
I keep coming back to your books and blog because you take an approach that doesn't insult my intelligence. Also, I know the smell of something being sold and that odor is not detectable here. Your words are fresh, and you seem to have a fealty toward reality.
Robert this seems to tie-in with your explanation of how loops work:
“Things change / Stuff happens” works almost like a bridge between Madhyamaka and PCT (Perceptual Control Theory).
1. In Madhyamaka terms
Things change: Everything is dependently arisen, in flux, without fixed essence.
Stuff happens: What we experience are appearances playing out according to conditions — causes and effects unfolding.
If I don’t cling to them as mine or me, they don’t bind me.
Seeing this: my attachment softens (no permanent thing to grab), my aversion softens (no permanent enemy to fight), and my ignorance lessens (I stop believing in fixed essences).
2. In PCT (Perceptual Control Theory) terms
Things change: Disturbances are always happening (the environment shifts, people act differently, the wind blows).
Stuff happens: The control system (me, you, any living system) responds by correcting errors — adjusting perception back toward the reference level.
Life is not about controlling the world, but about continuously adjusting in relationship with it.
If I understand this, I don’t take disturbances personally. They’re just “stuff happening,” and the system naturally rebalances.
3. The Spiritual & Psychological Benefit
When I deeply see things change / stuff happens, I don’t need to freeze life into how I want it.
That loosens attachment (I don’t demand permanence),
aversion (I don’t fight reality as if it were an enemy),
ignorance (I no longer mistake flux for solidity).
Both Madhyamaka and PCT show that the flow self-corrects — reality itself is a dance of adjustments, not a battlefield to be won.
A daily way to use this:
When something disturbs you — the soup is burned, someone criticizes you, the schedule shifts — silently say:
“Things change. Stuff happens.”
Then notice: the system (your heart, mind, body, community) begins its own rebalancing.
Yes, the parallels you’re drawing are sharp and well stated. My hesitation is only with that last part about “using it.” That phrasing already presumes a user—someone outside the process, taking up a method and applying it for a result. From where I stand, that recreates the very illusion both Madhyamaka and my loop framing are meant to dissolve.
What actually happens is simpler and stranger. The loop adjusts, perceptions shift, attachment softens, aversion loosens—all without a manager behind the scenes. To say “I use this teaching” is like saying “the whirlpool steers the water.” The language feels natural, but it smuggles in a chooser where there is only choosing happening.
This is why I tend to resist talk of “practices” or “techniques” that promise liberation. They often reintroduce the agent they’re trying to expose. It’s not that practices are bad; they may set the conditions for insight. But the seeing itself isn’t something “done” by a self. It’s the loop catching itself in motion.
And even “effortless practice” can be misleading, because it still frames the matter as practice. The more precise way to put it, at least from my angle, is that sometimes the turbulence folds back on itself and, for a moment, recognizes the pattern. No practitioner required.
There just seems to be this conclusion that we can't actually do anything to rebalance or adjust to errors and I just don't think that's true. I know there's no "doer" but that doesn't mean there can't be improvements we can't make...we make corrections(improvements) a million times a day.
How you're clarifying it is helpful, thank you Robert.
Robert, what you say comes close (as I see it) to what UG Krishnamurthi had to say about the illusory nature of the self.
Have you read him? He did not write anything himsef. What exists are compilations of his talks with numerous people over his lifetime and a couple of biographies.
* Btw this man is not to be confused with his famous namesake - J Krishnamurthi - who was a guru of sorts and quite well known internationally. It so happens that they also knew each other.
On internet Archive - archive.org - there is a free pdf and an audio file of one of UGK's earliest books "Mind is a Myth". I would love to hear your thoughts on this when you get the time to take a look at it.
Yes, people often compare me with UG Krishnamurti. I’ve read some of his talks and seen him on video. There is overlap in the content: both of us describe the self as illusory, a kind of construct without essence, and both resist turning that into a metaphysical concept or a path.
But the differences matter too. UG’s style was abrasive, confrontational, and deliberately disruptive—interrupting, provoking, hogging the stage. Perhaps that was his way of dramatizing the point, or maybe he felt that he had the truth to share and wasn't interested in other people's ideas. My approach is almost the opposite. I don’t need to shock or dominate. I’m not looking for disciples or enemies. I only try to describe, as clearly as possible, what shows up in experience.
In that sense, the medium is as important as the message. The loop language I use is meant to strip away performance and mystique. I want the description itself to do the work, without needing the force of personality to carry it.
So yes, there’s a kinship in the rejection of self and transcendence. But where UG turned it into theater, I leave it bare.
After reading this essay, I couldn’t help wondering how Nisargadatta, Peter Brown, and Angelo Dilullo would respond if you were in dialogue with them, so I asked Chat GPT to speculate.
Here’s the response, in case you’re interested. I found it very helpful.
ChatGPT:
That’s a fascinating question. Before offering speculative reconstructions, I want to emphasize that what follows is a “what they might say,” not a claim that any of them would say exactly this. We only have hints from their styles, emphases, and teachings to guide us. With that caveat, here’s how Nisargadatta, Peter Brown, and Angelo DiLullo might respond (or at least gesture) in relation to Saltzman’s critique of “direct experience”:
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Sketch of Saltzman’s position (very briefly)
From what is available, Saltzman’s essay “The Myth of Direct Experience” contends roughly that the idea of a pure, uninterpreted, unmediated direct experience is misleading or impossible. He invokes Hegel: perception is always mediated, conceptual, contextual. There is no “getting behind the veil” to a raw, pristine experience that lies prior to all interpretation. In his own view (per his other writings), he emphasizes not-knowing, skepticism about metaphysical certainty, embracing impermanence and uncertainty, and the dissolution of spiritual dogma.
Saltzman thus pushes back on naïve realism or “experience as it is” metaphysics, and he tends to deconstruct beliefs rather than affirm a ground beyond layers of interpretation.
So the question is: from their own vantage points, how would the three respond to that objection—would they accept, deny, nuance, or subvert it?
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What Nisargadatta Maharaj might say
Nisargadatta often spoke out of a very direct, uncompromising first-person standpoint. His teaching frequently cuts through intellectual positions to the immediacy of “I am.” That said, he also recognized that language, mind, concepts, and the listener’s conditioning pose obstacles.
Here is a plausible “response” modeled on his style:
“You speak of ‘myth’ of direct experience, but direct experience is not a myth for the one who abides in Reality. It is only myth for those who treat experience as a thing, a concept, a projection.
The mind always overlays, projects, names — you are correct to say that these layers obscure. But the seeing which is prior to mind does not need to be “unmediated” in your conceptual way; it simply is.
The approach is: persist in the sense ‘I am’, distrust the mind, go beyond. The direct experience of being, knowing, loving is what lies beyond the mind.
When mind quiets, the raw sense of “I am” remains (though that phrase is already a label). In that state, you see that “experience” cannot be separated from the seer; there is no duality between experience and experiencer.
So in a way, yes — the word “direct” is misused by the mind. But do not throw away pointing: walk your own process until the “myth” reveals its emptiness and the actuality shines through.”
Key elements of Nisargadatta’s likely response:
• He would not defend a naïve, uncritical notion of experience; rather, he would expose the problem of treating “experience” as something separate.
• He would push the seeker to abide in the sense of “I am,” to dis-identify from mind and its contents.
• He would hold that the “direct experience” is real — for the one who realizes it — but that all our ordinary notions of “directness” are contaminated by conceptuality.
Thus he would probably say: your critique is partly right (about the veil of mind), but the way through is not to abandon pointing to directness, but to see how direct experience is not what you think it is.
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What Peter Brown might say
Peter Brown is a modern teacher in the nonduality / yoga-of-radiant-presence lineage. His articulation tends toward integrating the absolute and the relative, pointing to how the immediate concrete being (one’s experiential field) is not separate from the absolute. (See references to his “Yoga of Radiant Presence.”)
His response might be more subtle and dialectical:
“Saltzman correctly reminds us that all experience is seen through the lens of conditioning, concepts, context. No one experiences ‘pure’ phenomenon divorced from the matrix of mind and body.
But that does not negate the possibility of recognition — not of a conceptual ‘direct experience,’ but of a openness in which the absolute is recognized as exactly this experience. In my teaching I often say: your field of experience is the absolute, if seen without the filters.
Thus the contention that there is no direct experience is true if you mean a conceptual, uninterpreted object. But there is a recognitive immediacy in which the distinction between experience and experiencer collapses.
Rather than deny direct experience, I would refine it: what can be known directly is not an object but the immediacy of awareness itself. The path, then, is inquiry and pointing to that immediacy until the hybrid experience–concept boundary falls away.”
So Brown might neither fully accept Saltzman’s denial nor mount a dogmatic defense of “pure experience,” but rather offer a middle way: direct experience is not a raw, objectified datum, but a revelatory recognition in which the absolute is disclosed as the experience. His emphasis would likely be on transformation and recognition, not metaphysical argument.
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What Angelo DiLullo might say
Angelo DiLullo is a contemporary nonduality teacher who often seeks a balanced approach between spiritual insight and psychological subtlety. Given his interest in inquiry pointers and realisation vs experience distinctions (as seen in his blog) , as well as interviews where he speaks of pointing through language toward nondual insights , here’s a plausible response from him:
“Saltzman is doing us a service by pulling our feet back down to earth — reminding us that we are always in concepts, always interpreting, always mediated. That’s exactly what inquiry needs to address.
But the notion ‘there is no direct experience’ as a blanket statement can also be a block — a defensive structure of doubt. If you swing too far the other way, you deny what is actually present.
In practice, the question is: can you taste immediacy? Can you stay with what is before thinking arises? Not as a metaphysical claim, but as a lived experiment. See how far you can go without collapsing back into judgment.
If you resist pointing, you fall into an endless skepticism. If you assume direct experience as a pure object, you fall into ideology. The way is between — sustained inquiry, openness, and the willingness to let your own experience (with its filterings) serve as the laboratory.
So: yes, the mind mediates. But do not let that negate pointing altogether. Keep asking: what is this? What sees? What is presence before all labels? Let the myth of “pure” and the myth of “no” both be undermined by direct looking.”
In his style, DiLullo might emphasize:
• The practical: “taste it yourself,” don’t depend only on arguments.
• A middle path: skepticism and pointing, held together.
• The role of inquiry: dissolving both extremes (denial and affirmation) through direct investigation.
“What appears is not “reality” at all—only a species-specific simulation.” I see what you mean. But isn’t that simulation and the senses that power it also part of nature? So could you say it’s reality being reality?
My point was that what appears to us—this simulation shaped by our senses, nervous system, and evolutionary pressures—is not necessarily what is, but only a version of it. A filtered rendering. Useful for survival, but not a mirror.
So yes, the simulation is part of nature, but that doesn’t make it reality in any final sense. It just means we’re embedded in the same process we’re trying to perceive.
Yes, I think we agree. but is there any separation between the senses as part of reality and what they are perceiving. The separation is man made and cognitive, within the simulation you speak of.
This is fascinating I’ve never heard this delineation before. What leads you to think it is structural rather than cognitive? Is it because senses and sensations are unique parts of the universe / “reality”?
It’s structural because perception is not passive reception—it’s construction. The senses don’t deliver raw reality. They organize, filter, and translate input according to the constraints of a particular organism.
What we experience is a rendering, not what’s “out there” in any final sense. The nervous system doesn't just receive data—it shapes it. That shaping isn’t added later by thought or culture. It’s built in.
So the separation isn’t conceptual. It’s what allows experience to appear at all. Without that mediation, there is no perception—only undifferentiated input, which no organism could survive.
I’m genuinely curious and would love to hear your deeper reflections. What animated the baby we were before the emergence of a sense of self or personal memory? When the sense of self does arise, is it the arrival of consciousness—or a collapse into separation from a more expansive awareness? Your analysis seems grounded in left-brain logic. But what about right-brain knowing—egoless intuition, felt wholeness, and primary perception? And what about insights from quantum physics, where it’s suggested that conscious attention brings the world into being—and before that, there is no fixed world? Are we constructing a worldview based solely on naturalism? Or is there room for a deeper dimension that can’t be seen, but can be intuited? I’m not trying to argue or prove anything—I’m genuinely seeking your own felt wisdom, beyond concepts.
Yes, I am sensitive to saying to others, “I know the truth, and it is one consciousness”. That said, humans by their nature seek understanding, and we are left with doing our best. I say often “knowing in a different way.” True, I don’t quite know what that means, but it includes a feeling that is right OUTSIDE the use of words, not at arrived at through thinking, etc. A theory, at best? And within the context of doing my best. You state, “No one can prove this beyond doubt, but as a working stance, it fits ordinary observation”, and yet you of course discuss how we cannot rely upon anything - everything is filtered, interpreted, etc., which I believe to a degree is true. But your positions are a bit ‘old school’ within accepting the paradigm that everything is made of ‘matter’ (physical) and that consciousness arises from that. The deeper scientists go (think Hadron Collider) the definition of matter becomes more illusive. Enjoyed this article, and to use a phrase coined by Freyja Theaker here on Substack, I try not to be a complete “non-dual absolutist”.
I understand the caution you describe. Claiming “I know the truth” turns a description into a doctrine, and I have no interest in doctrine. What I do is closer to what you say about “knowing in a different way”—except I would strip away the connotation of a special faculty. Experience includes thought, feeling, word, and silence. None is final, and none stands outside the loop.
As for matter and consciousness, I don’t hold a metaphysical position. I describe what I see: experience arises, filtered and interpreted, and the self appears as part of that arising. Whether one calls the basis “matter,” “consciousness,” or “quantum uncertainty” seems to me a matter of taste. None of those terms reaches what is happening. They are models, and all models fray at the edges.
That’s why I emphasize the ordinary, not the absolute. Ordinary observation shows us a field with no owner. The danger lies not in theory, but in absolutizing one—whether materialist or non-dual. The moment a stance hardens into “the truth,” the circuit collapses into certainty.
This is so on-point about the risk of making "oneness," or some form of philosophical idealism, into another, subtler, metaphysical handhold for conceptual grasping. Another common move is believing in solipsism.
But then you assert a different, albeit more scientifically aligned claim -- that naturalism is true, or that experience is not an illusion. You see through some metaphysical viewpoints, but keep others?
If you're honest, naturalism is useful as a presupposition that encourages systematic, peer-critiqued research into the natural sciences and the network of conditioned phenomena. But it's surely not true. Similarly, solipsism is obviously false, yet it points to something essential about experience that is not easily seen from most conceptual vantage points. And again, life may not be an illusion, but it's also not solid or truly existent, or whatever.
All our conceptual designations, systems, and especially metaphysical structures, are but a light patina of thought stuff that grows on the surface of our phenomenal experience, sometimes pointing us helpfully but more often blocking out our access to infinite variation of phenomenal existence. That patina is also a part of what's happening, but it can never remotely capture the whole of what's happening.
What is the movement that tries to show the limits of reality, as they are perceived, to the mind-body organism, as if refinement is required for some purpose unknown to us? The universe expands faster than previously believed and here we are tangled up in all these mental games. Something within seems to seek truth, or even a reasonable explanation, as a survival response.
Sometimes I wonder why I even read someone else’s stuff on topics like these. You have a thing for cutting straight to the bone with things. No detours and stories. I appreciate that. Hope all is well
Your posts describing the 'self' as loops have been profoundly helpful. Earth always revolved around the Sun, but before that was seen, there were endless efforts to explain celestial movement. The physics didn't change. The 'problem' went away. I've read forever that I'd not 'get it,' but I always thought that meant there was an it to get, only that it was ineffable. Your explanation that nothing in human experience is outside of self, and beyond that well, who knows? And also, who cares. Thanks.
Hi Robert, Great subtitle! It seems everything is about "selling tickets" in one form or another these days, sadly. In any case, I wanted to respond to a few of the notions in what you wrote:
"I see the belief in “Oneness” as a cul-de-sac."
Yes, "oneness" is a dualistic notion posing as a spiritual truth, like a new age proxy for the term "God" more than anything. It is not a notion present in Vedanta, although superficially "non-dual" and "oneness" seem similar.
Non-dual in Vedanta refers to the empirical observation that where there is one, there are many, which is to say that anything closely examined is made up of parts. The only exception is the context in which experience itself occurs, which never becomes objectively knowable even though it is impossible to refute.
"The idea of a single universal consciousness—one essence behind all appearances—is metaphysical theory, not a fact. And there’s no evidence for it."
Vedanta does not posit a "single universal consciousness" (though the idea that it does is common) either, or anything else for that matter. It presents what amounts to an idea that negates the belief in belief altogether, and inserts nothing where belief used to be. You offer much the same in my observation, Robert, albeit perhaps with a different emphasis "post deconstruction" with respect to the experience of being alive that obviously does not disappear along with fundamental beliefs.
There is no "essence behind all appearances" in Vedanta. That idea comes from a longstanding (dualistic) misinterpretation of what is actually said. What is actually said is that there are not two existences, realities, or principles operating here, even though there appear to be.
Thanks, VG--
Hi, thanks for this.
Yes, I know that Vedānta, strictly speaking, doesn’t use the word oneness. That’s a Western gloss, often conflated with Advaita’s “one without a second.” But in practice, many readers of Vedānta (and much of the contemporary nondual scene) do interpret it as pointing to a single universal consciousness behind appearances. That’s the reading I was countering.
Your distinction is a good one: Advaita as negation, not insertion of a new belief. Where I diverge is that I don’t feel the need to adopt even that frame. I don’t see evidence for a context “in which” experience occurs. I only see experience—whatever shows up. That’s as far as I can go. A context may be assumed, but that assumption is dualistic in and of itself. For example, I reject the movie screen as different from the movie analogy.
So perhaps we overlap in the deconstructive gesture, but I stay with phenomena and don’t take the extra step of naming a context beyond them, even as unknowable. For me, there is no “behind.”
Yes, that’s a great subtitle, I agree.
In Vedanta, as you say, the context in which experience occurs is impossible to refute. I agree with Robert that the fact of experience itself doesn’t necessarily mean there is a context. Maybe infinity, but is that a context? ‘Context’ also seems finite.
So then, there’s this thing, even though it can’t be found, yet impossible to refute, from which all types of assumptions, based on what is often called direct experience, arise because humans have a hard time coping with being left hanging. Still, “direct experience” is basically non-conceptual, it is apperception (no perception of it), meaning direct experience can’t be defended or shown in any other way, or provide any kind of evidence except “the negation of the belief in beliefs”. All beliefs. That’s all.
It follows that due to the need for stability, there are tickets to many shows telling one what kind of effort is needed and the ideas and concepts to look for, in their direct experience, to actually know what this context is, and that the knowledge of this promises freedom. As Robert says, “any of these practices, rituals, trainings, psychologies, philosophies, etc. can easily slide into that conviction that there must be something behind it all, a source”. Could be some type of intelligence, who knows. Something beyond our ability to fathom. I would say all conclusions are imagination.
I really like what Robert says in another post “About liberation: for me, it's not a matter of seeking it or wanting it. In a way, it's liberating enough just to stay with what appears. But the deeper cut is this: liberation isn't about getting free--it's what remains when the wanting for freedom falls away".
Thanks Lila, nicely said. I think my follow on reply to Robert's comment addresses many of these points, which I generally agree with, if you'd care to have a look.
You also said "Could be some type of intelligence (re: Source), who knows. Something beyond our ability to fathom. I would say all conclusions are imagination."
This is an "intelligent" statement, as in both "deduced using (logical or illogical) analysis" and conscious as in "made by a conscious being." Therefore, since you personally did not create the evidence used in the analysis, logic, intelligence, or consciousness, and yet those obviously exist, does that not imply a "cause?" And, does that not also imply that the cause is "intelligent," since it (apparently) created a lawful order capable of being analyzed?
If this does make sense, and it is also obvious that whatever I am as a conscious creature/entity is not that cause (source), then it follows that speaking "practically" it behooves me to understand my relationship to that cause. Unless I can genuinely make the statement "I don't care at all what happens," which is of course absurd, then the "staying with what appears" that becomes the case when freedom is no longer sought anywhere else (which really means not at all), is really not any different at all than enjoying my existence with as little self imposed misery as possible.
Thank you, VG. You are making some good points. And I did read your follow-up comment. I spent a lot of time studying with a teacher of traditional Vedanta, so your comments are interesting to me. Yes, I can accept that whatever this fact of experience or Consciousness is, is not different from my and any and all experience. Therefore it cancels out being knowable or unknowable. It just is. Of course I'm curious about this that is here. Caring happens. This can look like anything and everything. Being intimate with the immediacy of it and noticing impermanence and suchness and the awe and wonder of it seems to be prevalent here with me. I am all for enjoying my existence with as little self imposed misery as possible, yes. And too, not all suffering is to be avoided, it can be very illuminating. Thanks for the "intelligent" :) dialogue.
Thanks Lila, Well said, once again! 🙏🏻☀️
I agree with your critique with reference to the "contemporary non-dual scene," I just feel it must be pointed out that this has ZERO to do with traditional Vedanta teachings and the teachers that disseminate it properly.
The part where you "diverge," for example, is not a divergence from traditional Vedanta :). If there is a context "in which" experience occurs (like in the movie screen metaphor when it is taught dualistically, as it almost always is), then the "context" becomes reified and deified as a separate "substance" called Consciousness. That is not Vedanta, which says there is nothing other than Consciousness.
What Consciousness is (in the way Vedanta uses the term) cannot be known by direct experience, referring back to your original post, precisely because "it" (for lack of another term) is not something different than experience, the subject of experience, the "context," or anything else for that matter. It is also not "unknowable," for the same exact reasons.
There is no behind in Vedanta, nor is there anywhere else. After the "deconstructive gesture" (love that) there is nowhere to go. I think we converge there too (?). Thereafter, since we do not drop dead after this deconstruction, we can comment or not on what way of looking at what "remains" (a poor word but what to do?) works best for us. THAT part is where we seem to differ in some ways, though very much not in others.
Always a pleasure, Robert. Thank you.
Always a pleasure here too.
I do understand the distinction you’re making between what you see as authentic Vedānta and the contemporary nondual scene. My point isn’t to conflate them. It’s that even in classical Advaita teaching, the analogies themselves — gold and ornaments, screen and movie — already lean toward positing a “one substance” behind appearances. That’s what makes the popular misreading so easy.
Śaṅkara’s commentaries are full of that imagery. You can call it “not a substance” if you like, but the metaphors function precisely as if it were — they’re pedagogical devices meant to undercut multiplicity by pointing to an unchanging “something” beneath. That’s why, when the teaching travels West, it turns into “Oneness” so quickly.
Where I differ from both the pop-nondual scene and your version of Vedānta is simple: I don’t assert or imply a context, even an unnameable one. I only stay with what appears. As I argued in the Hegel piece, there is no “direct experience” outside language and concept — so to treat “Consciousness” as a ground behind phenomena is just another projection.
So yes, perhaps we converge in the deconstructive gesture. But when the metaphors turn back into an implied ground, I drop them. That’s all.
Only ideologues believe they have a direct experience of truth which means they are closed to the unknowable mystery of being which they find terrifying.
I do love that subtitle Robert. I don't know all the Buddhist words and different teachings/dogma. I do favour your idea that direct experience is a myth. It explains for me why trying to 'relive a fantastic experience' leaves me feeling disappointed. If direct experience represented 'truth', it stands to reason that what I experienced the first time could be identically replicated? I'm yet successful with this experiment because my perceptions have changed, my feelings have shifted, my memories have altered.
Perhaps then, this 'oneness' term applies to me as a sole entity. The world 'according to me' is as truthful as I may hope for, albeit a recursive illusion. What shows up for me is all there is. Beyond that, well, I don't know.
Hey Robert...yes.
This piece certainly resonates with my current view of things - eloquent and incisive as usual.
Thanks bro. 😄
I appreciate this dialogue -and so much of what you write in general- for a specific reason. I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home. I left it in my early 20's. But it has taken me a long time after that to realize how automatically I can accept, as fact, spiritual ideas that sound (feel) great and even seem to operate from apparent logic, but ultimately don't.
As well, in reading your work I've seen how untrusting I can be of my own, simple experience. Also, how attendance to simple, everyday experience can seem "not spiritual enough". The time I've missed just experiencing my life can be sad and burdensome to me, but the realization is still invaluably worth it.
I don't find any debate with your descriptions, Robert, just a refreshing and intelligent simplicity. An obvious-ness. What I do often find myself wondering about are your occasional mentions of self-hypnotism. Here, you've rightly said "No one gets behind the veil, though many sell tickets". Do they sell tickets so easily because people wish for the hypnotism of "I can experience from behind the veil!"? What is self-hypnotism, and how does one protect themselves from it?
If you don't find this particularly relevant to this thread, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on self-hypnotism, perhaps in another context. It's relevant to me, this person who values not buying unnecessary tickets. Thanks, Robert.
Hi Kate,
Yes. The “tickets” sell because people want exactly that: the suggestion that there’s a point of view behind the veil, a secret place from which life can be observed or controlled. That suggestion is powerful—almost narcotic—because it flatters the self with the promise of special access. But that secret place is a projection.
Self-hypnotism is just that: mistaking your own projection for revelation. The feeling of certainty becomes its own proof, and you convince yourself you’ve touched what no one else can see. From there, it spreads outward. Some preach because they are true believers, honestly convinced of their own discovery. Others imagine they are helping—passing on what feels like a gift. And yes, some know it’s smoke, but they sell it anyway, because it’s lucrative or gratifying to have power over others. In every case, the mechanism is the same: the loop tells itself a story and takes it as fact.
How to protect yourself? I don’t think there’s a method. It’s more like a habit of suspicion—of noticing when a claim rests on “special access,” on a promise of behindness. Whenever the pitch says “step past the veil,” you can be fairly sure it’s the veil talking.
The habit of suspicion is its own safeguard: every time you hear a promise of what’s behind, remember—behindness is the oldest trick of the loop.
Thanks, Robert. This describes well what I experienced growing up, looking around in church. Self-certainty, which is a very potent kind of emotional hit.
Unfortunately, I was young, so I wanted to believe the adults were right and I wanted to believe, by proximity to them, I had special access too. Fortunately, I have found a great adult relationship with skepticism and I've found it a helpful litmus test of sorts.
I keep coming back to your books and blog because you take an approach that doesn't insult my intelligence. Also, I know the smell of something being sold and that odor is not detectable here. Your words are fresh, and you seem to have a fealty toward reality.
Onward.
Robert this seems to tie-in with your explanation of how loops work:
“Things change / Stuff happens” works almost like a bridge between Madhyamaka and PCT (Perceptual Control Theory).
1. In Madhyamaka terms
Things change: Everything is dependently arisen, in flux, without fixed essence.
Stuff happens: What we experience are appearances playing out according to conditions — causes and effects unfolding.
If I don’t cling to them as mine or me, they don’t bind me.
Seeing this: my attachment softens (no permanent thing to grab), my aversion softens (no permanent enemy to fight), and my ignorance lessens (I stop believing in fixed essences).
2. In PCT (Perceptual Control Theory) terms
Things change: Disturbances are always happening (the environment shifts, people act differently, the wind blows).
Stuff happens: The control system (me, you, any living system) responds by correcting errors — adjusting perception back toward the reference level.
Life is not about controlling the world, but about continuously adjusting in relationship with it.
If I understand this, I don’t take disturbances personally. They’re just “stuff happening,” and the system naturally rebalances.
3. The Spiritual & Psychological Benefit
When I deeply see things change / stuff happens, I don’t need to freeze life into how I want it.
That loosens attachment (I don’t demand permanence),
aversion (I don’t fight reality as if it were an enemy),
ignorance (I no longer mistake flux for solidity).
Both Madhyamaka and PCT show that the flow self-corrects — reality itself is a dance of adjustments, not a battlefield to be won.
A daily way to use this:
When something disturbs you — the soup is burned, someone criticizes you, the schedule shifts — silently say:
“Things change. Stuff happens.”
Then notice: the system (your heart, mind, body, community) begins its own rebalancing.
Hi Andrew,
Yes, the parallels you’re drawing are sharp and well stated. My hesitation is only with that last part about “using it.” That phrasing already presumes a user—someone outside the process, taking up a method and applying it for a result. From where I stand, that recreates the very illusion both Madhyamaka and my loop framing are meant to dissolve.
What actually happens is simpler and stranger. The loop adjusts, perceptions shift, attachment softens, aversion loosens—all without a manager behind the scenes. To say “I use this teaching” is like saying “the whirlpool steers the water.” The language feels natural, but it smuggles in a chooser where there is only choosing happening.
This is why I tend to resist talk of “practices” or “techniques” that promise liberation. They often reintroduce the agent they’re trying to expose. It’s not that practices are bad; they may set the conditions for insight. But the seeing itself isn’t something “done” by a self. It’s the loop catching itself in motion.
And even “effortless practice” can be misleading, because it still frames the matter as practice. The more precise way to put it, at least from my angle, is that sometimes the turbulence folds back on itself and, for a moment, recognizes the pattern. No practitioner required.
There just seems to be this conclusion that we can't actually do anything to rebalance or adjust to errors and I just don't think that's true. I know there's no "doer" but that doesn't mean there can't be improvements we can't make...we make corrections(improvements) a million times a day.
How you're clarifying it is helpful, thank you Robert.
The system makes corrections/improvements I should've said lol...this whole thing is sneaky.
Robert, what you say comes close (as I see it) to what UG Krishnamurthi had to say about the illusory nature of the self.
Have you read him? He did not write anything himsef. What exists are compilations of his talks with numerous people over his lifetime and a couple of biographies.
* Btw this man is not to be confused with his famous namesake - J Krishnamurthi - who was a guru of sorts and quite well known internationally. It so happens that they also knew each other.
On internet Archive - archive.org - there is a free pdf and an audio file of one of UGK's earliest books "Mind is a Myth". I would love to hear your thoughts on this when you get the time to take a look at it.
Thanks as always ~
Hi Tejas,
Yes, people often compare me with UG Krishnamurti. I’ve read some of his talks and seen him on video. There is overlap in the content: both of us describe the self as illusory, a kind of construct without essence, and both resist turning that into a metaphysical concept or a path.
But the differences matter too. UG’s style was abrasive, confrontational, and deliberately disruptive—interrupting, provoking, hogging the stage. Perhaps that was his way of dramatizing the point, or maybe he felt that he had the truth to share and wasn't interested in other people's ideas. My approach is almost the opposite. I don’t need to shock or dominate. I’m not looking for disciples or enemies. I only try to describe, as clearly as possible, what shows up in experience.
In that sense, the medium is as important as the message. The loop language I use is meant to strip away performance and mystique. I want the description itself to do the work, without needing the force of personality to carry it.
So yes, there’s a kinship in the rejection of self and transcendence. But where UG turned it into theater, I leave it bare.
🙏 :)
After reading this essay, I couldn’t help wondering how Nisargadatta, Peter Brown, and Angelo Dilullo would respond if you were in dialogue with them, so I asked Chat GPT to speculate.
Here’s the response, in case you’re interested. I found it very helpful.
ChatGPT:
That’s a fascinating question. Before offering speculative reconstructions, I want to emphasize that what follows is a “what they might say,” not a claim that any of them would say exactly this. We only have hints from their styles, emphases, and teachings to guide us. With that caveat, here’s how Nisargadatta, Peter Brown, and Angelo DiLullo might respond (or at least gesture) in relation to Saltzman’s critique of “direct experience”:
⸻
Sketch of Saltzman’s position (very briefly)
From what is available, Saltzman’s essay “The Myth of Direct Experience” contends roughly that the idea of a pure, uninterpreted, unmediated direct experience is misleading or impossible. He invokes Hegel: perception is always mediated, conceptual, contextual. There is no “getting behind the veil” to a raw, pristine experience that lies prior to all interpretation. In his own view (per his other writings), he emphasizes not-knowing, skepticism about metaphysical certainty, embracing impermanence and uncertainty, and the dissolution of spiritual dogma.
Saltzman thus pushes back on naïve realism or “experience as it is” metaphysics, and he tends to deconstruct beliefs rather than affirm a ground beyond layers of interpretation.
So the question is: from their own vantage points, how would the three respond to that objection—would they accept, deny, nuance, or subvert it?
⸻
What Nisargadatta Maharaj might say
Nisargadatta often spoke out of a very direct, uncompromising first-person standpoint. His teaching frequently cuts through intellectual positions to the immediacy of “I am.” That said, he also recognized that language, mind, concepts, and the listener’s conditioning pose obstacles.
Here is a plausible “response” modeled on his style:
“You speak of ‘myth’ of direct experience, but direct experience is not a myth for the one who abides in Reality. It is only myth for those who treat experience as a thing, a concept, a projection.
The mind always overlays, projects, names — you are correct to say that these layers obscure. But the seeing which is prior to mind does not need to be “unmediated” in your conceptual way; it simply is.
The approach is: persist in the sense ‘I am’, distrust the mind, go beyond. The direct experience of being, knowing, loving is what lies beyond the mind.
When mind quiets, the raw sense of “I am” remains (though that phrase is already a label). In that state, you see that “experience” cannot be separated from the seer; there is no duality between experience and experiencer.
So in a way, yes — the word “direct” is misused by the mind. But do not throw away pointing: walk your own process until the “myth” reveals its emptiness and the actuality shines through.”
Key elements of Nisargadatta’s likely response:
• He would not defend a naïve, uncritical notion of experience; rather, he would expose the problem of treating “experience” as something separate.
• He would push the seeker to abide in the sense of “I am,” to dis-identify from mind and its contents.
• He would hold that the “direct experience” is real — for the one who realizes it — but that all our ordinary notions of “directness” are contaminated by conceptuality.
Thus he would probably say: your critique is partly right (about the veil of mind), but the way through is not to abandon pointing to directness, but to see how direct experience is not what you think it is.
⸻
What Peter Brown might say
Peter Brown is a modern teacher in the nonduality / yoga-of-radiant-presence lineage. His articulation tends toward integrating the absolute and the relative, pointing to how the immediate concrete being (one’s experiential field) is not separate from the absolute. (See references to his “Yoga of Radiant Presence.”)
His response might be more subtle and dialectical:
“Saltzman correctly reminds us that all experience is seen through the lens of conditioning, concepts, context. No one experiences ‘pure’ phenomenon divorced from the matrix of mind and body.
But that does not negate the possibility of recognition — not of a conceptual ‘direct experience,’ but of a openness in which the absolute is recognized as exactly this experience. In my teaching I often say: your field of experience is the absolute, if seen without the filters.
Thus the contention that there is no direct experience is true if you mean a conceptual, uninterpreted object. But there is a recognitive immediacy in which the distinction between experience and experiencer collapses.
Rather than deny direct experience, I would refine it: what can be known directly is not an object but the immediacy of awareness itself. The path, then, is inquiry and pointing to that immediacy until the hybrid experience–concept boundary falls away.”
So Brown might neither fully accept Saltzman’s denial nor mount a dogmatic defense of “pure experience,” but rather offer a middle way: direct experience is not a raw, objectified datum, but a revelatory recognition in which the absolute is disclosed as the experience. His emphasis would likely be on transformation and recognition, not metaphysical argument.
⸻
What Angelo DiLullo might say
Angelo DiLullo is a contemporary nonduality teacher who often seeks a balanced approach between spiritual insight and psychological subtlety. Given his interest in inquiry pointers and realisation vs experience distinctions (as seen in his blog) , as well as interviews where he speaks of pointing through language toward nondual insights , here’s a plausible response from him:
“Saltzman is doing us a service by pulling our feet back down to earth — reminding us that we are always in concepts, always interpreting, always mediated. That’s exactly what inquiry needs to address.
But the notion ‘there is no direct experience’ as a blanket statement can also be a block — a defensive structure of doubt. If you swing too far the other way, you deny what is actually present.
In practice, the question is: can you taste immediacy? Can you stay with what is before thinking arises? Not as a metaphysical claim, but as a lived experiment. See how far you can go without collapsing back into judgment.
If you resist pointing, you fall into an endless skepticism. If you assume direct experience as a pure object, you fall into ideology. The way is between — sustained inquiry, openness, and the willingness to let your own experience (with its filterings) serve as the laboratory.
So: yes, the mind mediates. But do not let that negate pointing altogether. Keep asking: what is this? What sees? What is presence before all labels? Let the myth of “pure” and the myth of “no” both be undermined by direct looking.”
In his style, DiLullo might emphasize:
• The practical: “taste it yourself,” don’t depend only on arguments.
• A middle path: skepticism and pointing, held together.
• The role of inquiry: dissolving both extremes (denial and affirmation) through direct investigation.
“What appears is not “reality” at all—only a species-specific simulation.” I see what you mean. But isn’t that simulation and the senses that power it also part of nature? So could you say it’s reality being reality?
Hi, Ben—
That depends on what you mean by “reality.”
My point was that what appears to us—this simulation shaped by our senses, nervous system, and evolutionary pressures—is not necessarily what is, but only a version of it. A filtered rendering. Useful for survival, but not a mirror.
So yes, the simulation is part of nature, but that doesn’t make it reality in any final sense. It just means we’re embedded in the same process we’re trying to perceive.
Yes, I think we agree. but is there any separation between the senses as part of reality and what they are perceiving. The separation is man made and cognitive, within the simulation you speak of.
Ben— I don’t think the separation is human-made. It’s not something added by thought. It’s structural.
We don’t know what the senses are perceiving. We only have perception itself. That’s not a philosophical position—it’s a basic limitation.
Whatever “reality” might be, we never contact it directly. We’re always inside the rendering. The separation isn’t cognitive. It’s inherent.
This is fascinating I’ve never heard this delineation before. What leads you to think it is structural rather than cognitive? Is it because senses and sensations are unique parts of the universe / “reality”?
Ben—
It’s structural because perception is not passive reception—it’s construction. The senses don’t deliver raw reality. They organize, filter, and translate input according to the constraints of a particular organism.
What we experience is a rendering, not what’s “out there” in any final sense. The nervous system doesn't just receive data—it shapes it. That shaping isn’t added later by thought or culture. It’s built in.
So the separation isn’t conceptual. It’s what allows experience to appear at all. Without that mediation, there is no perception—only undifferentiated input, which no organism could survive.
Thank you for that explanation. Really interesting.
I’m genuinely curious and would love to hear your deeper reflections. What animated the baby we were before the emergence of a sense of self or personal memory? When the sense of self does arise, is it the arrival of consciousness—or a collapse into separation from a more expansive awareness? Your analysis seems grounded in left-brain logic. But what about right-brain knowing—egoless intuition, felt wholeness, and primary perception? And what about insights from quantum physics, where it’s suggested that conscious attention brings the world into being—and before that, there is no fixed world? Are we constructing a worldview based solely on naturalism? Or is there room for a deeper dimension that can’t be seen, but can be intuited? I’m not trying to argue or prove anything—I’m genuinely seeking your own felt wisdom, beyond concepts.
Yes, I am sensitive to saying to others, “I know the truth, and it is one consciousness”. That said, humans by their nature seek understanding, and we are left with doing our best. I say often “knowing in a different way.” True, I don’t quite know what that means, but it includes a feeling that is right OUTSIDE the use of words, not at arrived at through thinking, etc. A theory, at best? And within the context of doing my best. You state, “No one can prove this beyond doubt, but as a working stance, it fits ordinary observation”, and yet you of course discuss how we cannot rely upon anything - everything is filtered, interpreted, etc., which I believe to a degree is true. But your positions are a bit ‘old school’ within accepting the paradigm that everything is made of ‘matter’ (physical) and that consciousness arises from that. The deeper scientists go (think Hadron Collider) the definition of matter becomes more illusive. Enjoyed this article, and to use a phrase coined by Freyja Theaker here on Substack, I try not to be a complete “non-dual absolutist”.
Thank you, Dean.
I understand the caution you describe. Claiming “I know the truth” turns a description into a doctrine, and I have no interest in doctrine. What I do is closer to what you say about “knowing in a different way”—except I would strip away the connotation of a special faculty. Experience includes thought, feeling, word, and silence. None is final, and none stands outside the loop.
As for matter and consciousness, I don’t hold a metaphysical position. I describe what I see: experience arises, filtered and interpreted, and the self appears as part of that arising. Whether one calls the basis “matter,” “consciousness,” or “quantum uncertainty” seems to me a matter of taste. None of those terms reaches what is happening. They are models, and all models fray at the edges.
That’s why I emphasize the ordinary, not the absolute. Ordinary observation shows us a field with no owner. The danger lies not in theory, but in absolutizing one—whether materialist or non-dual. The moment a stance hardens into “the truth,” the circuit collapses into certainty.
Yes. I confess, part of my ‘search’ comes from a desire for certainty. Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I often take a kind of comfort from Shakespeare: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose".
---J.B.S. Haldane in "Possible Worlds," 1927
Ha! Love it!
This is so on-point about the risk of making "oneness," or some form of philosophical idealism, into another, subtler, metaphysical handhold for conceptual grasping. Another common move is believing in solipsism.
But then you assert a different, albeit more scientifically aligned claim -- that naturalism is true, or that experience is not an illusion. You see through some metaphysical viewpoints, but keep others?
If you're honest, naturalism is useful as a presupposition that encourages systematic, peer-critiqued research into the natural sciences and the network of conditioned phenomena. But it's surely not true. Similarly, solipsism is obviously false, yet it points to something essential about experience that is not easily seen from most conceptual vantage points. And again, life may not be an illusion, but it's also not solid or truly existent, or whatever.
All our conceptual designations, systems, and especially metaphysical structures, are but a light patina of thought stuff that grows on the surface of our phenomenal experience, sometimes pointing us helpfully but more often blocking out our access to infinite variation of phenomenal existence. That patina is also a part of what's happening, but it can never remotely capture the whole of what's happening.
I didn't say that naturalism is true. I have no idea what is true on that level and no one else does either.
Thank you this interesting article. It seems to have a lot of resonance here with this paper. Shared should it be of interest. Warm wishes, https://www.academia.edu/1067319/The_Two_Truths_Controversy_in_China_and_Chih_Is_Threefold_Truth_Concept_Buddhism_Religion_Lotus_Sutra_Tien_Tai_Tendai_
What is the movement that tries to show the limits of reality, as they are perceived, to the mind-body organism, as if refinement is required for some purpose unknown to us? The universe expands faster than previously believed and here we are tangled up in all these mental games. Something within seems to seek truth, or even a reasonable explanation, as a survival response.