Simply Notice (Peter Francis Dziuban)
Simply Fogsville
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Simply Notice: Clear Awareness is the Key to Happiness, Love and Freedom” by Peter Francis Dziuban.]
Three doors down from the Twilight Zone is Fogsville, where the author of “Simply Notice” lives. Fogsville is where reality becomes unreality, where everything you you thought was true becomes untrue. Where superficial Neo-Advaita Vedanta intersects New Age nonsense is where you will find Fogsville. How will you find it? Simple; just read this book.
The author claims he has spent 40 years studying the field of consciousness. I likewise have spent 40 years immersed in this field, and in this time I have become an expert in Pali, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism; Hindu Raja Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, and Kashmir Shaivism; Christian Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Daism. I have read over 2,000 books on consciousness and spirituality, and “Simply Notice” is simply the most fogged-out spiritual text I have ever encountered. There is so much balderdash in this book, I could write an entire text deconstructing it. The challenge for me is to delimit my review, to decide what to deconstruct.
The first part of the book repeats, in various ways, the neo-Advaia Vedanta “mantra” that our True Nature is timeless, spaceless Awareness, and that by simple effortless noticing, this can quickly and easily be discoved. This is nonsense. Although, as the author points out, the Kingdom of God is within you, this Kingdom cannot be accessed without your being Baptized, or Initiated, by the Holy Spirit, which is the same Light-Energy as Hindu Shakti and the Buddhist Sambhogakaya. Five sheaths cover the Soul, or Son, or Self, and the only Way to the Self, one’s True Nature, is by dissolving the fifth and final sheath—the Holy Spirit, or Shakti, or Sambhogaya—by merging your consciousness (or soul) with it. When one’s individual soul, or self, merges with the fifth and final sheath, universal Spirit, then, and only then, can one awaken as a Seer, or Witness--timeless, spaceless Awareness, the I AM Self.
The author refers to the I AM as the “Divine Self,” but has no idea what “Divine” means. The Di-vine pertains to the two “vines” of Being-- Consciousness and Spirit (or Light-Energy). Until these two vines are united in one’s soul (located two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest), one cannot experience Divine Being. The Hindu formula Sat (or Being) = Siva (Consciousness)-Shakti (Light-Energy) confirms this. Un-Initiated neo-Advaitans like the author don’t talk about this because they know nothing about Spirit and the en-Light-enment, or divinization, process that culminates in Divine Self-realization.
The author jouneys more than a few tokes over the line when his discourse transitions from ontology to epistemology. Here are some of his statements regarding reality (with my rebuttals in parentheses).
“There aren’t mere sensations of a day and also something separate called a day. Sensations are the day.” (Unbeknownst to the author, a day, 24 hours, one rotation of the earth, takes place whether or not you sense it.)
“The so-called world is only sensations, perceptions, nothing more... Sensations are the world.” (Scientific instruments independent of our senses verify the independent reality of the world. The tree makes a sound when it falls even if no one is there to hear it.)
“Nothing is physically separate from anything else.” (I try to tell my dog that, but he still treats me as a separate object. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the neighbor’s dog.)
“All that we think is real is an illusion.” (That means this book, a product of thoughts, is also an illusion, which means it cannot lead you to Reality, and therefore is a waste of your illusory money. By the way, if the author really believes his credit cards are an illusion, then the least he can do is give me unlimited access to them, because surely he won’t miss his unreal money.)
“The illusion is the way the human senses—mostly sight and touch—make the everyday world appear.” (This means that seeing is no longer believing, and that your eyes will make this illusory review appear real.)
In summary, this book is so far from reality, I can’t even begin to fathom how twenty three of the twenty four reviews it’s received are five star ones. Oh, well, it must be an illusion, and as soon as I can figure out how to stop my eyes from making these unreal reviews appear real, I’m sure they’ll disappear... Hey, can anyone give me directions from Fogsville back to the Twilight Zone? I want to see if I can get Rod Serling to do a TV series based on the ideas in this book.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “Simply Notice: Clear Awareness is the Key to Happiness, Love and Freedom” by Peter Francis Dziuban.]
Three doors down from the Twilight Zone is Fogsville, where the author of “Simply Notice” lives. Fogsville is where reality becomes unreality, where everything you you thought was true becomes untrue. Where superficial Neo-Advaita Vedanta intersects New Age nonsense is where you will find Fogsville. How will you find it? Simple; just read this book.
The author claims he has spent 40 years studying the field of consciousness. I likewise have spent 40 years immersed in this field, and in this time I have become an expert in Pali, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism; Hindu Raja Yoga, Advaita Vedanta, and Kashmir Shaivism; Christian Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Daism. I have read over 2,000 books on consciousness and spirituality, and “Simply Notice” is simply the most fogged-out spiritual text I have ever encountered. There is so much balderdash in this book, I could write an entire text deconstructing it. The challenge for me is to delimit my review, to decide what to deconstruct.
The first part of the book repeats, in various ways, the neo-Advaia Vedanta “mantra” that our True Nature is timeless, spaceless Awareness, and that by simple effortless noticing, this can quickly and easily be discoved. This is nonsense. Although, as the author points out, the Kingdom of God is within you, this Kingdom cannot be accessed without your being Baptized, or Initiated, by the Holy Spirit, which is the same Light-Energy as Hindu Shakti and the Buddhist Sambhogakaya. Five sheaths cover the Soul, or Son, or Self, and the only Way to the Self, one’s True Nature, is by dissolving the fifth and final sheath—the Holy Spirit, or Shakti, or Sambhogaya—by merging your consciousness (or soul) with it. When one’s individual soul, or self, merges with the fifth and final sheath, universal Spirit, then, and only then, can one awaken as a Seer, or Witness--timeless, spaceless Awareness, the I AM Self.
The author refers to the I AM as the “Divine Self,” but has no idea what “Divine” means. The Di-vine pertains to the two “vines” of Being-- Consciousness and Spirit (or Light-Energy). Until these two vines are united in one’s soul (located two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest), one cannot experience Divine Being. The Hindu formula Sat (or Being) = Siva (Consciousness)-Shakti (Light-Energy) confirms this. Un-Initiated neo-Advaitans like the author don’t talk about this because they know nothing about Spirit and the en-Light-enment, or divinization, process that culminates in Divine Self-realization.
The author jouneys more than a few tokes over the line when his discourse transitions from ontology to epistemology. Here are some of his statements regarding reality (with my rebuttals in parentheses).
“There aren’t mere sensations of a day and also something separate called a day. Sensations are the day.” (Unbeknownst to the author, a day, 24 hours, one rotation of the earth, takes place whether or not you sense it.)
“The so-called world is only sensations, perceptions, nothing more... Sensations are the world.” (Scientific instruments independent of our senses verify the independent reality of the world. The tree makes a sound when it falls even if no one is there to hear it.)
“Nothing is physically separate from anything else.” (I try to tell my dog that, but he still treats me as a separate object. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the neighbor’s dog.)
“All that we think is real is an illusion.” (That means this book, a product of thoughts, is also an illusion, which means it cannot lead you to Reality, and therefore is a waste of your illusory money. By the way, if the author really believes his credit cards are an illusion, then the least he can do is give me unlimited access to them, because surely he won’t miss his unreal money.)
“The illusion is the way the human senses—mostly sight and touch—make the everyday world appear.” (This means that seeing is no longer believing, and that your eyes will make this illusory review appear real.)
In summary, this book is so far from reality, I can’t even begin to fathom how twenty three of the twenty four reviews it’s received are five star ones. Oh, well, it must be an illusion, and as soon as I can figure out how to stop my eyes from making these unreal reviews appear real, I’m sure they’ll disappear... Hey, can anyone give me directions from Fogsville back to the Twilight Zone? I want to see if I can get Rod Serling to do a TV series based on the ideas in this book.
