Awakening to the Natural State (John Wheeler)
Awakening to Neo-Advaita Vedanta Nonsense
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) Of “Awakening to the Natural State” by John Wheeler.]
I recently wrote an Amazon review of “Awakening to the Dream, by Leo Hartong, and “Awakening to the Natural State,” by John Wheeler is just more of the same neo-Advaita Vedanta nonsense.
The first part of the book consists of dialogues between Wheeler and his spiritual teacher Sailor Bob, and the second part is a collection of dialogues between Wheeler and his students. The central message in these dialogues is that there is no need for meditation, Satsang, or Transmission from a guru, because you are always already the Self, pure Awareness. Whereas the iconic Indian sage Ramana Maharshi taught Self-enquiry as a specific technique, Sailor Bob tells Wheeler, “It is a mistake to turn Self-enquiry into a technique to practice.” Wheeler, an agreeable student, gets Sailor Bob’s neo-Advaita message. He responds: “I really see that this is not a process; it just takes a simple moment of seeing.”
After his meetings with Sailor Bob, Wheeler becomes a spiritual teacher himself and parrots Sailor Bob’s neo-Advaita message. He informs his students: “You do not need to practice to be what you are… Nothing prevents [this Truth] from being lived now… Liberation (if there is any!) consists in discovering that you have never been bound.”
If you study Zen, you will see the exact same message incessantly repeated: nobody binds you, and once you stop binding, or contracting, yourself, you will naturally awaken to your Buddha (or Self)-nature. But unlike Wheeler and Sailor Bob, the Zen masters had to practice years of intense zazen (meditation) before permanently obviating the habit-pattern of self-contracting. And if you study Tibetan Dzogchen, which also teaches that one’s True nature is timeless Awareness, you will see that all of their gurus insist that protracted practice, serious sadhana, is necessary for one to become stable in the non-state of intrinsic, naked Awareness. But the neo-Advaita “gurus such as Sailor Bob and John Wheeler tell you that Self-realization is a breeze, that, in the words of Sailor Bob, “you “just need to notice your ever-present awareness.”
If superficial “talking school” neo-Advaita is your thing, then you may appreciate this book. But if you’re serious about Enlightenment and realize the need for real spiritual practice, then check out the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Robert Adams, Kashmir Shaivism, Daism, and Dzogchen.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) Of “Awakening to the Natural State” by John Wheeler.]
I recently wrote an Amazon review of “Awakening to the Dream, by Leo Hartong, and “Awakening to the Natural State,” by John Wheeler is just more of the same neo-Advaita Vedanta nonsense.
The first part of the book consists of dialogues between Wheeler and his spiritual teacher Sailor Bob, and the second part is a collection of dialogues between Wheeler and his students. The central message in these dialogues is that there is no need for meditation, Satsang, or Transmission from a guru, because you are always already the Self, pure Awareness. Whereas the iconic Indian sage Ramana Maharshi taught Self-enquiry as a specific technique, Sailor Bob tells Wheeler, “It is a mistake to turn Self-enquiry into a technique to practice.” Wheeler, an agreeable student, gets Sailor Bob’s neo-Advaita message. He responds: “I really see that this is not a process; it just takes a simple moment of seeing.”
After his meetings with Sailor Bob, Wheeler becomes a spiritual teacher himself and parrots Sailor Bob’s neo-Advaita message. He informs his students: “You do not need to practice to be what you are… Nothing prevents [this Truth] from being lived now… Liberation (if there is any!) consists in discovering that you have never been bound.”
If you study Zen, you will see the exact same message incessantly repeated: nobody binds you, and once you stop binding, or contracting, yourself, you will naturally awaken to your Buddha (or Self)-nature. But unlike Wheeler and Sailor Bob, the Zen masters had to practice years of intense zazen (meditation) before permanently obviating the habit-pattern of self-contracting. And if you study Tibetan Dzogchen, which also teaches that one’s True nature is timeless Awareness, you will see that all of their gurus insist that protracted practice, serious sadhana, is necessary for one to become stable in the non-state of intrinsic, naked Awareness. But the neo-Advaita “gurus such as Sailor Bob and John Wheeler tell you that Self-realization is a breeze, that, in the words of Sailor Bob, “you “just need to notice your ever-present awareness.”
If superficial “talking school” neo-Advaita is your thing, then you may appreciate this book. But if you’re serious about Enlightenment and realize the need for real spiritual practice, then check out the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Robert Adams, Kashmir Shaivism, Daism, and Dzogchen.
