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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 17 2013 : 12:50:46 PM
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Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening
Gary Weber
After 35 years of spiritual practices, Gary was doing his daily asana practice combined with self-inquiry and the I-thought (identification with body-mind) just permanently dissolved, leading to abiding non-dual realization.
I'm working through this book at present, but the first thing that strikes me is a similarity in attitude to AYP: the book is practical, down-to-earth, highly user-friendly, explaining how to do relational self-inquiry, and aiming at the integration of non-dual yoga asanas (doing asanas at the same time as self-inquiry, inquiring into the body etc), pranayama, chanting/mantras, meditation, affirmation, meditative inquiry, surrender and sattvic diet as a systematic means to permanent non-dual awakening.
He discusses the practices versus no practices "debate", strongly coming out in favor of practices, and he integrates his background as a scientist in looking at topics in neuroscience like neuroplasticity and how they present a strong case for use of practices in awakening, and speculating about the potential neurobiological changes that occur as a result of awakening and practices. He has a pretty fair questioning skepticism of advice coming from gurus such as Poonjaji, Tony Parsons and Stephen Harrison who tended towards claiming practices are useless (despite each one personally having done many years of rigorous and intensive practices before their awakening took place).
Here we have a 'spiritual scientist' in the tradition of AYP, taking what works, leaving what doesn't.
He doesn't cover ecstatic conductivity or kundalini in the detail that AYP does, the leaning here is slightly more towards non-dual inquiry/meditation approach, rather than the energy stimulating stuff. However, he has made mention of pranayama, which IME is one of the most useful parts of the puzzle for accelerated spiritual awakening.
I think the book is very good, and worth checking out. He's recently made it so you can download it for free from scribd (google the book name and there's a link on his blog) or you can buy online from Amazon. It's nice to have a new and pragmatic voice on the advaita scene, as there's a lot of mumbo jumbo people are passing off under the advaita label these days. |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Aug 17 2013 12:53:50 PM |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Aug 17 2013 : 8:39:11 PM
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Thanks for the rec.
I've also come across teachers that advocate the no practice approach, and I don't think it's helpful to most aspirants. Maybe a handful of people out of millions are equipped to become enlightened without a practice. |
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whippoorwill
USA
450 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2013 : 9:55:09 PM
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I'm paging through it on-line. So far, so good. 
I'm curious about one thing, though. On page 2, he asks the reader to be aware of their thoughts for a few moments and throw them into one of three buckets - "thoughts about the past," "thoughts, sensations about now," and "thoughts about the future." And I was wondering, where does mental music fit in?
I have music playing in my head nearly all the time. It's rare that I don't. There are those moments of absolute stillness, moments where there are thoughts, moments where I'm playing music, and moments when there's music playing in my head. I'd say the time spent in mental music outweighs the other waking mental activity categories by quite a bit. Most of the time the mental music consists of songs I know well and enjoy. Sometimes it consists of musical "doodling," but not as often.
Anyways, what bucket would you toss the "mental music" into?
All the best!!
--Liz |
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whippoorwill
USA
450 Posts |
Posted - Aug 18 2013 : 10:11:27 PM
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| I guess if I were to answer my own question, I would say that the mental music belongs in the "past" bucket. The present has its own soundtrack. |
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tonightsthenight
846 Posts |
Posted - Aug 19 2013 : 3:14:06 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by whippoorwill
I'm paging through it on-line. So far, so good.
I'm curious about one thing, though. On page 2, he asks the reader to be aware of their thoughts for a few moments and throw them into one of three buckets - "thoughts about the past," "thoughts, sensations about now," and "thoughts about the future." And I was wondering, where does mental music fit in?
I have music playing in my head nearly all the time. It's rare that I don't. There are those moments of absolute stillness, moments where there are thoughts, moments where I'm playing music, and moments when there's music playing in my head. I'd say the time spent in mental music outweighs the other waking mental activity categories by quite a bit. Most of the time the mental music consists of songs I know well and enjoy. Sometimes it consists of musical "doodling," but not as often.
Anyways, what bucket would you toss the "mental music" into?
All the best!!
--Liz
Haha me too!
I wouldn't classify it as any of them. That music is just the mind creating when it isn't busy building stories or discriminating information. |
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jonesboy
USA
594 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2013 : 12:47:44 PM
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I am really liking this book. A lot of different tools to use. For instance, as you breath in count your steps and as you breath out count your steps. Simple but it does help the chatter stay away.
I don't do much asana but his routine of using the breath with the eyes closed and trying to do it without thought or to use it for inquiry was new to me. I am going to give it a try!
Thank you for sharing Josh. |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2013 : 4:51:41 PM
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| No worries Jonesboy! I'm very happy for you to enjoy it, I found it a practical, useful book and the asanas w/inquiry have been a wonderful part of my daily routine. |
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Happiness Beyond Thought: Practical Guide to Awake
