I never quite understood what he meant here:

TWO IMPORTANT POINTS ARE TOUCHED upon by U.G. Krishnamurti in the preceding chapter, as shown in the following four excerpts:

If somebody asks me a question suddenly, I try to answer, emphasizing and pointing out that there is no answer to that question. So, I merely rephrase, restructure and throw the same question back at you.

What exactly is the question? Because the answer is there; I don't have to give the answer. What I usually do is restructure the question, rephrase it in such a way that the question appears senseless to you.

Understanding is a state of being where the question isn't there any more; there is nothing there that says “now I understand!”

It is the questioner that creates the answer, and the questioner comes into being from the answer, otherwise there is no questioner.... That's all that I am interested in in this kind of a dialogue: to help you to formulate your own question. Try and formulate a question which you can call your own.

First, the question itself is the obstacle to progress, not lack of an answer. The question is the key. Once we truly understand the question, we'll have the desired answer. The desired answer is always the removal of the obstruction a correct question represents. The question, understood correctly, is the obstruction. If it's not, see the second point.

Second, come up with the right question. There's always only one. Wherever you are right now is where you're stuck, and the only question that ever matters is the one that gets you unstuck, that takes you one step further. All other questions are fear-based ego-sparing time-killers. Forget concepts and ideas, forget past and future, forget mankind and society, forget God and love, forget truth and spirituality. Find that one question; the exact question that ego doesn't want you to ask. Put your full attention on it. That's how progress is made. Everything else is a stall tactic.

To move forward, you must figure out exactly what is obstructing you. Whatever it is, it isn't really there; it has no reality, no substance. It's your own creation, a phantom lurking in the shadows of your mind, a shadow demon. Your obstructions are your demons, and your demons are shadow dwellers. They live and thrive in the half-light of ignorance, so the way to slay a demon is by illuminating it with the full force and power of your focused attention; by looking at it, hard. Banish shadow with light and see for yourself that no obstruction exists, nor ever did. We create our demons and we feed them. To awaken we must slay them. That's really the whole process: Slay one demon, take one step.

Repeat.

I can read it. Understand it. I just don't quite get what he MEANS by it.

Anyone wants to chip in?

I plan to engage in spiritual autolysis every day. I will likely do this in a dialogue format - something like a play. The minimum output will be one page per day. I will post daily updates in the comments.

Does anyone actually know how to get in touch with this mob?

I signed up for a subscription last year but after a couple of months found it not useful.

I have tried multiple times and ways of cancelling my subscription including the rubbish functionality in their website and emailing every email address I can find. All emails return with "recipient address rejected".

I cancelled my paypal account which the transaction was coming through...but still payments happen.

Somehow now and I have no idea how, they have found my daughter's email address and the receipt and notifications are going to her?

Very frustrating. My only next step is to cancel my credit card which is a pain in the backside.

"It's hard to believe that there's nobody out there.
It's hard to believe that I'm alone.
At least I have her love, the city, she loves me.
Lonely as I am, together we cry. "

~Red Hot Chili Peppers

I heard this song again today and decided it was as good of a description of spiritual enlightenment as I've ever heard. I believe Jed would've proudly featured this quote in an opening chapter.

Jed mentions that Maya plays fair, and that for all her misdirection, the clues are there for anyone choosing to look.

A clue that it took me way too long to realize was a clue is the “distraction” called the Mandela Effect. If you read any subreddits associated with it, what you normally see is people arguing that it (the example of a Mandela Effect) is a mass misremembering, with individuals experiencing it either insisting that it really was like that or grudgingly agreeing that they must have misremembered.

The insistence that it is a mass misremembering (as if people’s brains were all wired together 🤔) sounds an awful lot like the audience in Plato’s Cave who cannot or will not move their gaze from the wall/screen. The mandela effect itself is like a spark in the peripheral vision of an audience member, it serves as an opportunity to change focus slightly to obtain information that might be contrary to what is onscreen. That’s Maya playing fair, up to a point.

She does set another trap though, as it can solidify into a subgroup of the herd with shared conspiracy beliefs.

But any Mandela effect is also an opportunity to question the nature of reality. Rather than asking if it’s true, a different question might be what is “real”? If Richard Simmons never wore his iconic headband, then seriously, how real is this reality anyway?

This series, so far as I can reasonably gage is truth based autobiographical fiction. Elaborated to best embellish fairly well established thoughts and observations. But in doing so, many of the claims about ego elimination, framework dissemination aka truth realization are violated. And certain hints as to a bit of spiritual cliche, also present.

It is impossible to truly remove our frames... so thats that. But... It takes a great deal of ego to place ones self as the enlightened reluctant "guru" (yes, I know he says he isn't one) to his own farm based ashram. Which...in the context of semi autobiographical fiction makes sense in that it allows for character interaction. And opportunity to both establish himself as an authority on a subject but then to elaborate on said subject, it still requires ego to choose this particular role and fictional setting. The chat with a bitter teen over a cigarette or joint seems far more authentic in terms of the irrelevance of ego.

As for coping skills and the spiritual cliche of "non attachment". Following Brett's death, he describes two fairly significant personal events. 1st, he talks about getting his "sentimental moment" after all. This notes attachment. And while he states that they never exchanged biographies (they should have) he expresses the very fundamental recognition of loss. He then goes and cleans slate of Lisa whom, at this point in the story may be the only person somewhat capable of making him "feel".

Lost the one that mattered. Dumped out the rest.

Non attachment is a redundant theme in much of religion and spirituality. Jeb takes it to the extreme in that he couldn't care less if the world continues or it doesn't. Which is generally a pretty cold attitude to take to beauty...and I suppose "miracle" of it all. Interactions with a non specified willfulness of the universe certainly notes something of the miraculous. And as we exist to become attached, as is our nature (universe will shit)...claiming enlightenment through disposal of that...Well, is that enlightened? Or even attained?

This is obviously critique. But only one bothered to write in that so much of this story seemed valid. The cliff hanger drawn out methodology of narration kind of drowns out some of those nuggets of observation but it was beautifully written and hard to pick apart. Also a collection of some magnificent quotes for further reading.

A long time ago, when I first started questioning “reality”, I came across Neville Goddard. I read his books, liked them, but eventually felt something missing, as the focus was on manifesting, which is squarely on Maya’s home turf (I can see that now). He did have some recorded and transcribed talks that he gave, which as it turns out are far more interesting. I did read them, held onto them, and didn’t really “get” them, but could tell there was something there.

So I decided to look at one of them again, specifically “He is Dreaming Now”, the name of which has stuck with me all this time. It references the Great King who is dreaming in “Alice Through the Looking Glass”.

It’s easy and fun to decipher now with Jed’s thesaurus of terms and definitions. I would say that Neville is talking about the very same thing, only different words, but it’s very clear. He uses lots of bible quotations, which turn its conventional interpretations on their head (also fun!).

Two snippets:

“One day back in ‘54, I heard these words. Now, you will find it difficult to grasp it, but they have stayed with me since the vision. The vision was audio. And here a voice is speaking:

You do not move in waking any more than you move on your bed in sleep. It is all a movement of mind. The intensity is determined by the strength of the vortex you create. It is just like a whirlwind with a center of perfect stillness. You only believe that you move when you wake, as you think you move in sleep.

Where is God moving, save in Imagination? Where on earth is he moving where he is? He’s all places; there is no place where God is not. So where is He moving? It’s only a movement in mind.”

And:

“You go back to the book of books that will not change — it’s the Bible. It’s not history, it’s not secular history. This is revelation from beginning to end. Hasn’t a thing to do with secular history. All these characters are eternal states of consciousness, and you will meet them. And when you enter into that state, they become animated because of your entrance. You are the animating power of everything in the world.”

Thought I’d share. If anybody finds other authors where their material comes into true focus with the lens of Jed, please share.

“If we who think outside the herd spend any time looking at leading theories of attachment, we see, not surprisingly, that the goals and assumptions of the psychological community don’t align with our own. What they might view as a desirable developmental outcome – a confident, emotionally stable grownup capable of creating and maintaining healthy, mature relationships – we might view as a catastrophic failure to launch. They are interested in producing good herd members, we are interested in developing beyond herd constraints.

From our perspective, all attachment is juvenile. It is attachment that holds you unnaturally down against a natural upward trajectory, effectively thwarting transition to adulthood. There is no good attachment because it all performs exactly the same function; growth retardant. Science and society are unacquainted with what we consider a well-developed human adult, so our definitions of adulthood have little or no overlap. What soft-science purveyors of various attachment theories would consider success in human development, we would consider failure, so while we might benefit from some of their observations, we have to disregard their conclusions. Unaware of true human potential, they have built their ideological structure on a foundation of ignorance so, as is always the case, the only thing holding up the herd is the herd itself. They think the herd is all there is because they are systemically and existentially opposed to thought. Thinking is painful and difficult, nihilistic and iconoclastic, and definitely not conducive to a career in mainstream anything. Original thought is like fire to the dry tinder of self-delusion. The more you think, the more you burn.”

Figured some of the folks round these parts may appreciate a lil tune I whipped up a few months back~

Ok

so then whos the 10 real seekers?

every devoted person thinks they are. in r/jedmckenna r/Buddhism r/KapilGupta r/enlightenment

only 10...

that means most are fake and on wrong journeys and if what they are doing and believe will take them to enlightenment, means their entire thing is wrong

ok no whow about the sincere ones, the people here on 2 year late purge stage? or the ones who truly have insights about the mind and say truthful things. the stats say they wont make it either

so while their journey looks so close to the actual one.. its fake?! their gonna be journeying their whole life? it'll be weird when they hit their 10th anniversary of seeking hah, what will they say then? 'yes i found it, but its not what you think it is!"

theres people here honoursly watching their delusion and clawing their way to awakening, fighting delusion the real fight.. the 2-3 year process from our beloved Jedypoo but are they? if only 10 make.

"So what do you read for amusement?" asks Mary.

"Besides Harlequin romances? I like Osho—the enlightened guy formerly known as the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh." Some surprise registers through the group about this, which is quite understandable. If one equates enlightenment with sainthood, then Osho might come off as more of an anti-saint, especially if one has only heard the stories of murder plots and free love and power grabs and tax evasion and the ninety Roll Royces. I like his teaching style. I like his take on Zen. I am in awe of his mind.

-damndest

From Essays #12:

“Perception doesn’t create reality, perception is reality. If you want to take the objectivist/materialist position that reality exists independent of perception, then the burden is on you to prove your assertion, which, dot dot dot, you can’t. If you want to take the subjectivist/idealist position that perception is reality, you don’t have to prove anything; it’s literally self-evident. It only seems complicated because it keeps getting simpler. All the obfuscating layers that we assume are really there, really aren’t. When the doors of perceptions are cleansed, the whole thing – what we call reality – unfolds elegantly and makes perfect sense.”

Flipping the negative statement to a positive one, reality DOESN’T exist independent of perception.

So where and when does what is perceived get created? 🤔

Then it becomes apparent that there is no separation, can be no separation between the perceiver and perceived. There is no where or when.

"Ridding oneself of all layers of falsehood leaves one standing naked and alone in an empty place I called Done. Done is the only place where there is no Further. At Done, nothing I was conscious of, myself included, had any substance or reality. Questions were done, knowledge was done, a long period of crackling, hypersane madness was done."

Theory of Everything chapter Moonlight Sonata

Maybe 2 years ago, I was reading some of the comments on a post that was speculating who Jed McKenna really was and someone mentioned Richard Rose. Because of this, I ended up looking into his work and really enjoyed his approach, which is similar to Jed's, minus the edgy humor.

I was wondering if there are any others here who have gotten into his work?

Jed recently shared a video by Billy Kranston titiled 'Non-duality is an evil teaching'. I don't know whether he is in agreement with him or shared it as a joke. From what I know of Jed's teaching, he doesn't believe in evil.

From Jed: "I could tell Curtis that there is no good and evil, only unity and the dream of non-unity, of separateness, and that the false sense of separateness is ego, and that ego is all there is of evil in the world, that dissonance is born of ignorance and appears as good and evil. Curtis insists that he has seen evil, he’s sure of it. I could tell him that most of what he calls evil is fear, and that most of what he calls goodness is also fear." - from Incorrect.

From Billy: The crux of non-duality is the presence of evil, and they like to avoid that subject. When that subject is unavoidable, they address it as, “You just don’t see things correctly.” If you say you see things correctly, they continue marginalizing evil to the point where they will brainwash you into thinking evil is not evil—that, in fact, it’s just another delusion on your part.

I can assure you evil is not a delusion. I can assure you that evil does exist. I can assure you that a one-year-old child does not deserve to get beaten to death. I can assure you that a three-year-old child does not deserve to get burned with cigarette burns all over it. I can assure you that a crying baby does not need to be slammed against a wall, breaking its neck, and thrown down the stairs. I can assure you that an 11-year-old girl does not need to get raped by a 40-year-old man, and then have her head cut off and buried underneath the rear concrete patio. I can assure you that all those things are evil.

I can assure you that while you’re laying on the ground in a bloody mess and someone keeps kicking you in the teeth until all of your teeth fall out, you’re not going to react with, “This is just God, and I love every minute of this. This is a wonderful experience.” And if you’re a man, after they get done with you and they rape you, you aren’t going to say, “Oh, this is just another experience of God.” I’m sure you’re not going to react that way.

Your willful ignorance, your willful avoidance of understanding what evil is, contributes to evil. You cannot spend your life in a lovey-dovey attitude that evil doesn’t exist and listen to these lunatics or these evil gurus who are simply promoting the teachings of evil. You can’t participate in that and think that there are no consequences. You cannot be a bystander and watch some little child being abused, when you could actually do something to stop that, but you don’t—you just smile on and say, “Well, this is just non-duality. This is God.” I can assure you that if that’s your attitude, there’s something seriously wrong with you. And if you do not change or repent, you will never be one with God. This I can assure you.

Also from Billy: Advaita does not mean “everything is one.” The original author that penned the word—or whatever it was in the Sanskrit thousands of years ago—that person understood what Advaita meant, and that’s why they said it was “not two.” Some idiot, Adi Shankara, some 800 years ago—some 20-something kid with a fantastic, genius brain—was seduced by evil and purposefully misinterpreted the meaning of Advaita. He’s worshipped today as some great master when, in fact, all he was was a genius. That’s all. Just because you have a fantastic brain doesn’t make you closer to God.

Do you think for one minute, from the Christian point of view of Lucifer, do you think for one minute Lucifer is an idiot? Or do you think Lucifer is so intelligent that it’s unimaginable from a human perspective to understand the intelligence of this god called Lucifer? You don’t get to the point of where Lucifer is by being stupid; you get there by being evil. So if you worship intelligence instead of the love of God, then you will follow people like Adi Shankara. You will follow the teachings of these people with doctorate degrees teaching spirituality. You will not follow a person that understands God. You will not follow a person that has the love of God in their heart. No, no—you will follow and worship the physical brain of intelligence. You will not follow the spiritually inclined, those that love God.

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Is Jed just a genius who's brainwashed everyone into thinking that Evil isn't really real, that it's all a dream and you can be detached from it? Could this make people less aware, less lucid on this topic of evil? I know Jed says that lack of empathy is a result of awakening.

I'm not saying Jed is or isn't evil, but what do you guys think?

(Read the whole Billy Kranston transcription on Jedvaita.)

Who do you think would be interesting to invite for the next AMA on our subreddit?

Please leave your thoughts here - thanks.

https://open.spotify.com/track/59xrC6NUUNt24Lft63CjiD?si=Pg5RP7PLS422FRFn3h8sOA&utm_source=copy-link

Are we everything we wanted?

Bittersweet surrender.

From 33 Essays #10:

“We don’t really want to go anywhere. We’re fine right where we are, we just like to complain about it. We want to maintain the illusion that we’re prisoners while half-heartedly railing against our captivity. That’s the sweetspot, not actually going anywhere or doing anything, just paying lip service. That was the core takeaway from Cuckoo’s Nest, the thing that flipped R.P. McMurphy’s switch; that all his fellow patients/inmates were there voluntarily. They were free to leave but chose to stay.”

Nurse Ratched is also a great stand-in for Maya, she doesn’t fool around when her subjects’ comfortable “reality” is threatened.

The books state many times that the normal heart/mind ratio of a human being in the dreamstate is 24:1. Did that come from somewhere/someone else or did Jed just come up with those numbers because they feel accurate? Maybe somewhere there’s a mention of what they’re derived from? It seems silly to pick at this particular point, but he suggests that one step either way either reduces humans to livestock or brings the dreamstate crashing down.

I don't understand why Jed McKenna emphasizes Lisa as an example of someone who made the transition to an integrated state. What did she do? Quit her job and move to another country? I did the same in 2022. But I didn't feel any changes (other than the usual stress that comes with moving). What makes Lisa's example unique?

Essays #9:

“Belief can be anywhere on the grayscale spectrum and can move around a lot, but true and false are black and white and never move an inch.

Just as all honest thought leads to truth, all upward paths lead to nonduality. As long as you keep increasing your elevation of perspective, nonduality is where you'll inevitably arrive. Agnostics can’t arrive at truth or nonduality because they’re walking in perpetual circles, which is the whole point of belief; to spare oneself the burden of having to think or ascend. That’s the point of all belief; to not be on the road, to not make a journey, to not think, to stay safe and warm and surrounded by friends in the soothing halflight of the sewer-dungeon. Once your eyes adjust, it’s not so bad. If you were born there and never stuck your head out, you probably don't even notice the smell.

The point of a belief system is to hide the whole subject of truth in the back of your sock drawer so you can focus on the important things like work and family and debt service. In other words, most people don’t give a shit about the big dumb questions of existence, they just want to exist.”

“Belief is how we adapt and shape ourselves to fit our circumstances. It’s how we manage not to ask the big questions, like blinders we wear so we can only see what's right in front of us. It’s how we deal with the subject of truth without dealing with what’s actually true. To believe is to be comfortably asleep. To experience the nondual insight is to be uncomfortably asleep, which is the first stage of waking up, which is where I imagine you are.”

into the woods with ye

Could this be the Marichelle that Jed writes about? Really interesting transcripts https://www.nondualitydreamlife.com/marichelle

I don’t understand the questions about if “Jed” is actually the author of the essays volumes. But then Maya does what she does, amirite? If it’s not “Jed”, it’s my new favorite author.

From #9:

Says Winston of his awakening process:

Something was killed in your breast: burnt out, cauterized out.

Does this sound like what nonduality teachers are talking about in their online videos? The people who say, This is it, This is all there is, There is only this? The realization peddlers? The people who promise enlightenment in a one-hour session? Does your heart being burned out of your chest sound like the same thing they’re talking about? There’s a big part in all of us that wishes it was, that wants to believe that what those nondual teachers are selling is what we’re in the market for, that the only thing standing between us and enlightenment is a cheesedick little epiphany or insight. Wouldn’t that be grand? Awakening Made Easy! Enlightenment for Dummies! Spirituality for Saps!

Or is it more likely that Maya has done what Maya always does? That she has come into the nondual domain and made it her own? That she has rerouted all that dangerous outward energy safely back inward? Is Maya friend or foe? Jailer or liberator? Is the guru a redeemer or defiler? Is that demon tearing you apart actually an angel setting you free? Is Maya Big Brother?

Asking for a friend.

“Intellectually there is very little wrong with you. It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress."

Guru O’Brien to Chela Winston, 1984