What You always wanted to Know

I read an interesting quote from Annette Nibley (one of my favorite advaita teachers. Her site is http://whatneverchanges.com .)

She writes,"Believe this: if a book or personality is wildly popular with the public, it is full of junk ideas that appeal to egos and sell more books."

Why are some teachers more popular than others? Why has non-duality been less popular than say yoga or the secret or ...(pick Oprah's favorite guru this week).

Is it what Annette says? To be popular it must appeal to the ego, the ever striving, never satisfied false identity.

Here's metaphor I thought up. No claim for originality, but I can't remember if I ever heard or read this before.

Imagine a bowl. Firstly, an empty bowl. Then fill it with the world and all the objects of perception. Then add all the objects of conception. Add some sensory experiences like smells and taste and touch. For spice, some subtle emotions, maybe even love.

Now some of the objects in this bowl is your idea and feel of you. There's an arm, there's some hair, a brain and kidney, a tip of the nose. There's a memory of years past and hopes for the future. There's a feeling of fullness after a Thanksgiving meal. There's a heartache when you lose someone you love. The richness of a life, of everybody's life is there in bowl.

When sleep comes, the bowl is emptied to be filled again with a dream life.
And then the dream life is emptied from the bowl, to be filled with a waking life again.

As I'm sure you've already guessed, the bowl is what some call Awareness, the Self, Consciousness, etc.

And you are the bowl. The mistake is to think you are just some of the objects in the bowl, instead of being the bowl.

There is no person.

I understand, but do I have free will or not?

There is no person.

OK, but how do I find this out?

There is no person.

This pointer doesn't help me.

There is no person.

I think we need better pointers.

There is no person.

How will this message help more people.

There is no person.

Who's writing this post?

There is no person.

This non-duality bullshit doesn't work for me.

There is no person.

How do you know?

There is no person.

Are you enlightened?

There is no person.

Are you going to keep saying the same thing?

There is no person.

Should  I just do nothing?

There is no person.

Is this the answer to all my questions?

There is no person.

You're crazy!

There is no person.

What are we waiting for?

One of the great disclaimers in Non-duality is that what I'm telling you are "just" pointers; not the truth, not an accurate description, not a perfect recipe, not not not. I looked up the definition of pointer and the one that seemed to apply was hint or suggestion. So the teachers are hinting and suggesting what the hell they're talking about. Now they are have good excuses for why they can't just say the truth and can't describe what they are "pointing" to, but it all sounds very fishy. I notice that the heavies like Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi, never use the pointer excuse for why you can't understand what they are talking about; at least not from what I've read.

There seems to be a lot of fishy concepts going around non-duality. When a teacher says you are one without second and she is talking to you, her actions contradict her words. If all is one, wouldn't you just not say anything, thereby being a little more consistent. They all have answers for this, but not really persuasive ones. And then Ramana says he communicates in silence. If I wanted silence, I'd go see a tree or a wall.

I think most of us just hear these concepts, ignore them and move on, waiting for a concept that makes some sense. We pick and choose what interests us and believe and just chuck the rest.

After all, they're just pointers.

What pointers drive you crazy?