The Transparency of Things
Dumbed-down Daism Meets Dry, Lifeless Advaita Vedanta
[My 3-star Amazon review (May 30, 2013) of “The Transparency of Things: The Nature of Experience” by Rupert Spira and Peter Russell.]
When I started reading this book, I was initially impressed with it--which is saying a lot, because after forty years of practicing, studying, and teaching esoteric spirituality, very little I read nowadays impresses me. But by the time I had finished it, my opinion of it had lessened considerably.
What impressed me initially was Spira’s deep grasp of Advaita Vedanta and his seeming “upgrade” of its (exclusive-reductive) philosophy by integrating it with portions of Daism and Tibetan Dzogchen/Mahamudra. Although Spira doesn’t mention Adi Da’s Daism and Tibetan Dzogchen/Mahamudra by name, anyone who has studied these traditions will recognize his “expropriation” of them. Also, as an author myself, I was impressed with his Spira’s writing ability. The man writes clearly, concisely, and euphonically.
As I moved through the book, however, I began to see Spira’s limitations as both a writer and a thinker. Although Spira, a wordsmith, writes seamlesly, his writings over the course of the book became a circumscribed drone. By the end of the book I was tired of his repetitive philosophical considerations of consciousness, the ‘I,’ and epistemology. What started out as promising discourse never developed further or deeper. Instead, it was the same dry, pedantic arguments over and over in slightly varied contexts.
Prior to reading this book, I had “subjected” myself to Greg Goode’s two books, “Direct Awareness” and “Standing as Awareness” (see my Amazon review), and I was glad to be done with Goode’s obsession with Advaita epistemology (which I don’t embrace); then I moved on to Spira’s book, only to be subjected to more of the same (although not to the extent of Goode’s books). When you read Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaja, or Adyashanti, the emphasis is on ontology, on waking up as Being, not on epistemology; but Advaita “head-trippers,” such as Goode and Spira, seem to delight in considering the relation between cognition and conventional reality.
A major weakness of this book is its lack of “verticality.” For instance, even though Spira periodically apes Adi Da’s Dharma relative to Consciousness, he totally ignores it relative to Energy (Shakti, or Spirit). Spira is all Siva—but Truth is Siva-Shakti, not just static Awareness. Moreover, unlike Adi Da and Ramana Maharshi, he never ventures into esoteric anatomy, ignoring deep subjects like the function of the Heart and the Amrita Nadi in the Self-realization process.
To illustrate the limitations of a Siva-only Dharma, consider Spira’s statement,”What it is that brings about this Self-recognition [Self-realization] is a mystery.” Unbeknownst to Spira, it’s not a mystery: Shakti, Divine Power, the Higher Kundalini, severs the Heart-knot, the final mortal coil, and unites with contracted Siva (the human soul) in the Heart-center (the Hridayam, not the anahata heart chakra), facilitating his (or its) its en-Light-enment, or Self-recognition. Few Advaitans understand that the relationship between Siva (Consciousness) and Shakti (Light-Energy) is dyadic, not dual. And until more of them understand this, Advaitans such as Spira will continue to produce dry, juiceless philosophy texts.
[My 3-star Amazon review (May 30, 2013) of “The Transparency of Things: The Nature of Experience” by Rupert Spira and Peter Russell.]
When I started reading this book, I was initially impressed with it--which is saying a lot, because after forty years of practicing, studying, and teaching esoteric spirituality, very little I read nowadays impresses me. But by the time I had finished it, my opinion of it had lessened considerably.
What impressed me initially was Spira’s deep grasp of Advaita Vedanta and his seeming “upgrade” of its (exclusive-reductive) philosophy by integrating it with portions of Daism and Tibetan Dzogchen/Mahamudra. Although Spira doesn’t mention Adi Da’s Daism and Tibetan Dzogchen/Mahamudra by name, anyone who has studied these traditions will recognize his “expropriation” of them. Also, as an author myself, I was impressed with his Spira’s writing ability. The man writes clearly, concisely, and euphonically.
As I moved through the book, however, I began to see Spira’s limitations as both a writer and a thinker. Although Spira, a wordsmith, writes seamlesly, his writings over the course of the book became a circumscribed drone. By the end of the book I was tired of his repetitive philosophical considerations of consciousness, the ‘I,’ and epistemology. What started out as promising discourse never developed further or deeper. Instead, it was the same dry, pedantic arguments over and over in slightly varied contexts.
Prior to reading this book, I had “subjected” myself to Greg Goode’s two books, “Direct Awareness” and “Standing as Awareness” (see my Amazon review), and I was glad to be done with Goode’s obsession with Advaita epistemology (which I don’t embrace); then I moved on to Spira’s book, only to be subjected to more of the same (although not to the extent of Goode’s books). When you read Ramana Maharshi, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaja, or Adyashanti, the emphasis is on ontology, on waking up as Being, not on epistemology; but Advaita “head-trippers,” such as Goode and Spira, seem to delight in considering the relation between cognition and conventional reality.
A major weakness of this book is its lack of “verticality.” For instance, even though Spira periodically apes Adi Da’s Dharma relative to Consciousness, he totally ignores it relative to Energy (Shakti, or Spirit). Spira is all Siva—but Truth is Siva-Shakti, not just static Awareness. Moreover, unlike Adi Da and Ramana Maharshi, he never ventures into esoteric anatomy, ignoring deep subjects like the function of the Heart and the Amrita Nadi in the Self-realization process.
To illustrate the limitations of a Siva-only Dharma, consider Spira’s statement,”What it is that brings about this Self-recognition [Self-realization] is a mystery.” Unbeknownst to Spira, it’s not a mystery: Shakti, Divine Power, the Higher Kundalini, severs the Heart-knot, the final mortal coil, and unites with contracted Siva (the human soul) in the Heart-center (the Hridayam, not the anahata heart chakra), facilitating his (or its) its en-Light-enment, or Self-recognition. Few Advaitans understand that the relationship between Siva (Consciousness) and Shakti (Light-Energy) is dyadic, not dual. And until more of them understand this, Advaitans such as Spira will continue to produce dry, juiceless philosophy texts.
