Category: Mind

Walking the Middle Path: A Daily Guiding Note for Peace


At 75+, with a fulfilled life behind me and a peaceful present, I was advised by my relative Sam, a student of Advaita, to forget the world, ignore mind and heart, and simply live in awareness. Instead of renouncing life entirely, I now follow a middle path. Each day I care for my body, enjoy family and friends lightly, and watch desires without clinging. Morning quietude, small acts of kindness, and evening reflection keep me steady. Life’s forms may rise and fall like pots of clay, but peace rests in the awareness that is never broken.

Beyond Meditation: Ashtavakra and Advaita’s Deeper Call


In the Ashtavakra Gītā, two seemingly opposite statements puzzle many: “The practice of meditation keeps one in bondage” (1.15) and “When a weak man gives up meditation he falls prey to whims and desires” (18.75). Advaita Vedānta resolves this by distinguishing between dhyāna (technique-based meditation) and nididhyāsana (natural abidance in Self). For the immature seeker, meditation steadies the mind. For the mature knower, clinging to meditation sustains duality. Liberation is not attained by practice but by knowledge, effortlessly lived.

A Journey from Worldly Noise to the Quiet of Consciousness


I no longer seek guidance from heart or mind, for both belong to the restless play of duality. Instead, I turn inward, where Advaita Vedanta reveals the true relief of emptiness: the Self as pure awareness, untouched by sorrow or delight. Solitude is not misanthropy but clarity—a freedom from humoring the world’s illusions. To abide in stillness is to realize that the knower of light and darkness is itself eternal.

Beyond Words: Silence as the Highest Expression of Truth


Ramana Maharshi declared, “The only language able to express the whole truth is silence.” In Advaita Vedanta, the Self is beyond knowledge and ignorance, beyond light and darkness. Words divide, but silence holds unity. Ramana’s presence itself was a teaching—those who sat with him often felt peace beyond explanation. Silence is not absence but fullness: the stillness in which the Self shines without obstruction. To abide in this silence is to realize that truth is not something to be reached but what we already are—pure being, ever free. Explore Ramana Maharshi’s teaching that silence is the highest expression of truth in Advaita Vedanta, where words fail but being alone remains.

Hard Problem of Matter & Hard Problem of Consciousness


The “hard problem of matter” asks: what is matter in itself, beyond equations and interactions? Physics describes how particles and fields behave, but not their intrinsic nature. Similarly, the “hard problem of consciousness” asks: why does brain activity produce subjective experience? Both expose a gap between scientific description and lived reality. Across traditions—Vedanta, Buddhism, Western panpsychism, Daoism, and modern physics—the puzzle is the same: are matter and mind two distinct substances, or two faces of the same reality? Exploring these perspectives reveals how ancient wisdom and modern science converge on this profound mystery of existence.