Was thinking of unicorns the other day—curious, in particular, about whether their one horn was also called a “unicorn.” It made sense to me that this would be the case, but I wasn’t certain, so set off to explore … A few Googles later, here’s what I had learned: The root of the word unicorn is the Latin adjective unicornis (having one horn)—from uni (one) and cornus (horn). The horn …
Advaita Vedanta
Two Moons
Imagine … that it’s midnight, midsummer. A full moon hovers overhead, resplendent amidst an ocean of stars, bathing the warm air and shadowy objects (houses, trees, grass, humans) in its soft light. Now, for reasons unknown, you decide to press down hard with your fingers on your eyeballs—until your vision distorts: until what you see overhead are two moons instead of one. Which Is Real? With …
Absolute Certainty & Perpetual Transformation
To begin this essay—the latest in a series exploring certainty—let’s recall some questions lingering from a previous post, having to do with the relationship between phenomenal appearances and Awareness, in terms of their certainty: * Is it actually necessary that appearances are less certain than the Awareness within which they arise and dissolve? Is there no scenario in which they are, say, …
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Practice Notes: The Serenity Prayer
There’s this thing called the serenity prayer, which you may already be familiar with. It was penned, originally, by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and goes like this: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Eckhart & The Dalai Lama, too There’s something about this that I’ve always liked. …
All Names Are the Names of Consciousness
Neither Inside nor Outside An exploration of the relationship between existence, Consciousness and Reality—compliments of Atmananda Krishna Menon ... 52. What Are Name and Form? And How to Transcend Them? Being attracted by the existence aspect of the Absolute everywhere, we start to examine what it is and immediately utilize our senses to do the job. The senses at once project their own …
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The Nature & Object Of Perception
This Q & A compliments of Atmananda Krishna Menon: What is the nature and object of perception? A Jnyanin [Sage] perceives the Absolute, diversified as objects. Ignorant men, identifying themselves with the gross body, perceive gross objects. Others, standing as mind, perceive only subtle objects. Jnyanins, standing as Consciousness, perceive only Consciousness. * …