Awakening to the Dream (Leo Hartong)
The Ultimate Neo-Advaita Vedanta Text
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Awakening to the Dream” by Leo Hartong.]
"Awakening to the Dream" is the ultimate neo-Advaita book. And to serious students and practitioners of real Advaita, whether in the form of Advaita Vedanta, Zen, or Dzogchen, neo-Advaita is a farce - mere talking-school philosophy that convinces the ignorant, deluded, and naive that spiritual practice is unnecessary because one is always already pure Awareness, the true Self (or Buddha-nature). In reality, without intense and protracted sadhana, true spiritual awakening is impossible.
I am familiar with almost every source the author quotes to bolster his argument that no spiritual effort is necessary because one cannot become what one already is: pure Awareness, the Self. And almost every source the author quotes (out of context, of course) also emphasizes the need for sadhana, serious practice. But the author knows that considerable coin can be made by selling the "get spiritual quick" idea, which is just a creative spinoff of the "get rich quick" one.
The neo-Advaita movement probably began about thirty-five years ago when Ramesh Balsekar, the clearly un-Self-realized translator for the iconic Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, began peddling the nonsense in the U.S. Balsekar, a retired banker and an astute businessman, realized that selling the "icing" (Self-realization) without the "cake" (serious spiritual practice) to Westerners was quite lucrative. Over time, others jumped on the bandwagon, and "Awakening to the Dream" is just another product of this movement.
In step with virtually everyone who writes on neo-Advaita or real Advaita, the author quotes India's greatest twentieth-century sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi: "It is the inner consciousness by which he [God] is unceasingly revealing his existence. This divine upadesa (instruction) is always going on naturally in everyone."
But the author himself, unlike Ramana Maharshi and yours truly, has not realized the truth of this statement, because if he had, he'd know that this revelation corresponds with tangibly-felt heart-awakening, and that this "heart"- awakening, as Ramana Maharshi emphasizes, is experienced just to the right of the center of one's chest via a force-current between the "heart" and the crown. (See the book "Sri Ramana Gita" for details.) But the author, ignorantly, claims that the "heart" that awakened beings talk about refers to the right hemisphere of the brain (which is associated with the intellect).
The author claims "the ego is an illusion." No it's not; it's an activity, the activity of avoiding a connection to Divine Power and allowing it to, as Ramana Maharshi puts it, "unceasingly reveal" Itself. But the author doesn't understand this because he is clearly still in the grip of his "illusory ego" and doesn't want to do the spiritual work to transcend it. So he became a member of the "talking school," the guys who talk the talk, but don't walk the (spiritual) walk.
One of the author's heroes is the late, great Zen scholar Alan Watts, and he quotes Watts in order to push his neo-Advaita point of view: "There was a young man who said: `Though it seems that I know that I know, What I would like to see, is the I that knows me, When I know, that I know, that I know.'"
Not long before he died, Watts, speaking of Adi Da (then Franklin Jones), said: "I have been waiting for an Avatar all my life, and now he has come." Adi Da's teaching is about intense effort and stages in order to become enlightened. Watts knew that it was one thing to talk about always already being a Buddha, and another to actually being a Buddha.
In an attempt to illustrate that there is no need to do spiritual work because the mind cannot be found when one looks for it, the author quotes a famous exchange between the legendary Zen Master Bodhidharma and his disciple:
"Hui-k'o: My mind is not at peace. Please Master, pacify it for me.
Bodhidharma: Bring me your mind and I will pacify it for you.
Hui-k'o: When I look for it I cannot find it.
Bodhidharma: There, I have pacified your mind!"
Bodhidharma practiced intense wall-gazing for eight years before he "woke up" and was free of his mind; and his disciples likewise practiced protracted intense "siting," or meditation. But the author makes it a point not to mention this inconvenient fact because it would spoil his bogus argument that you are always already enlightened.
The author writes: "Enlightenment is not something difficult and remote, attainable only by an elite few." Au contraire, it is. Until one seriously engages real spiritual life, which the author hasn't done, one can't comprehend how difficult and challenging it is. If there's been a single Heart Master in the Advaita Vedanta, Zen, or Tibetan Buddhist traditions since Ramana Maharshi died in 1950, I'm not aware of him. I do not believe that "gurus" such as J. Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, Ramesh Balsekar, Suzuki Roshi, Chogyam Trungpa, and Jean Klein (whom I followed for a time) cut the Heart-knot and woke up from "the dream."
In summary, if superficial, “talking-school” neo-Advaita floats your boat, then this is a book you might enjoy. But if you’re interested in serious non-dual spiritual teachings, then look elsewhere for Advaita Dharma.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Awakening to the Dream” by Leo Hartong.]
"Awakening to the Dream" is the ultimate neo-Advaita book. And to serious students and practitioners of real Advaita, whether in the form of Advaita Vedanta, Zen, or Dzogchen, neo-Advaita is a farce - mere talking-school philosophy that convinces the ignorant, deluded, and naive that spiritual practice is unnecessary because one is always already pure Awareness, the true Self (or Buddha-nature). In reality, without intense and protracted sadhana, true spiritual awakening is impossible.
I am familiar with almost every source the author quotes to bolster his argument that no spiritual effort is necessary because one cannot become what one already is: pure Awareness, the Self. And almost every source the author quotes (out of context, of course) also emphasizes the need for sadhana, serious practice. But the author knows that considerable coin can be made by selling the "get spiritual quick" idea, which is just a creative spinoff of the "get rich quick" one.
The neo-Advaita movement probably began about thirty-five years ago when Ramesh Balsekar, the clearly un-Self-realized translator for the iconic Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, began peddling the nonsense in the U.S. Balsekar, a retired banker and an astute businessman, realized that selling the "icing" (Self-realization) without the "cake" (serious spiritual practice) to Westerners was quite lucrative. Over time, others jumped on the bandwagon, and "Awakening to the Dream" is just another product of this movement.
In step with virtually everyone who writes on neo-Advaita or real Advaita, the author quotes India's greatest twentieth-century sage, Sri Ramana Maharshi: "It is the inner consciousness by which he [God] is unceasingly revealing his existence. This divine upadesa (instruction) is always going on naturally in everyone."
But the author himself, unlike Ramana Maharshi and yours truly, has not realized the truth of this statement, because if he had, he'd know that this revelation corresponds with tangibly-felt heart-awakening, and that this "heart"- awakening, as Ramana Maharshi emphasizes, is experienced just to the right of the center of one's chest via a force-current between the "heart" and the crown. (See the book "Sri Ramana Gita" for details.) But the author, ignorantly, claims that the "heart" that awakened beings talk about refers to the right hemisphere of the brain (which is associated with the intellect).
The author claims "the ego is an illusion." No it's not; it's an activity, the activity of avoiding a connection to Divine Power and allowing it to, as Ramana Maharshi puts it, "unceasingly reveal" Itself. But the author doesn't understand this because he is clearly still in the grip of his "illusory ego" and doesn't want to do the spiritual work to transcend it. So he became a member of the "talking school," the guys who talk the talk, but don't walk the (spiritual) walk.
One of the author's heroes is the late, great Zen scholar Alan Watts, and he quotes Watts in order to push his neo-Advaita point of view: "There was a young man who said: `Though it seems that I know that I know, What I would like to see, is the I that knows me, When I know, that I know, that I know.'"
Not long before he died, Watts, speaking of Adi Da (then Franklin Jones), said: "I have been waiting for an Avatar all my life, and now he has come." Adi Da's teaching is about intense effort and stages in order to become enlightened. Watts knew that it was one thing to talk about always already being a Buddha, and another to actually being a Buddha.
In an attempt to illustrate that there is no need to do spiritual work because the mind cannot be found when one looks for it, the author quotes a famous exchange between the legendary Zen Master Bodhidharma and his disciple:
"Hui-k'o: My mind is not at peace. Please Master, pacify it for me.
Bodhidharma: Bring me your mind and I will pacify it for you.
Hui-k'o: When I look for it I cannot find it.
Bodhidharma: There, I have pacified your mind!"
Bodhidharma practiced intense wall-gazing for eight years before he "woke up" and was free of his mind; and his disciples likewise practiced protracted intense "siting," or meditation. But the author makes it a point not to mention this inconvenient fact because it would spoil his bogus argument that you are always already enlightened.
The author writes: "Enlightenment is not something difficult and remote, attainable only by an elite few." Au contraire, it is. Until one seriously engages real spiritual life, which the author hasn't done, one can't comprehend how difficult and challenging it is. If there's been a single Heart Master in the Advaita Vedanta, Zen, or Tibetan Buddhist traditions since Ramana Maharshi died in 1950, I'm not aware of him. I do not believe that "gurus" such as J. Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, Ramesh Balsekar, Suzuki Roshi, Chogyam Trungpa, and Jean Klein (whom I followed for a time) cut the Heart-knot and woke up from "the dream."
In summary, if superficial, “talking-school” neo-Advaita floats your boat, then this is a book you might enjoy. But if you’re interested in serious non-dual spiritual teachings, then look elsewhere for Advaita Dharma.
