This Is It: The Nature of Oneness

Rating:
Summary: Underlying Assumption
Review: Jan's book on consciousness, like Tony Parson's and Eckhart Tolle's, takes a leap of faith in assuming consciousness is located in your brain or head. Many cultures, when asked where there consiousness is located, would point to their heart. Maybe Jan never found himself and therefore concluded that he is a No Body, because he only searched in his head. (Declaring that you are a phantom or nobody is declaring that your are something). Also, Jan's beliefs (even though he denies having beliefs) refuse to accept personal responsbility for thoughts and actions. His case is because consciousness is living through him, he has no choice over his actions or power over his immediate surroundings. The book is a fascinating read however, but the reader must exerscize discernment and think for thereself. And for a book about non dualism, Jan is pretty black and white.

Rating:
Summary: amazing
Review: This book points to the divine and limitless nature of everything that is. It goes one where other books stop. And puts in perspective all spiritual rules once and forever. Nice interviews, especially those with Tony Parsons and Eckhart Tolle. An original and indispensible addition to the spiritual library!

Rating:
Summary: OK as far as it goes
Review: This is on the radical fringe of the neo-advaita scene. Absolute take-no-prisoners "everything-is-total-illusion-and-that's-just-fine-there's-absolutely-nothing-to-be-done-about-it".

For a book about non-dualism, it has a strangely two-pronged flavor.

First, it is making the general and expected points: No need to do anything, you are already enlightened (except that you don't exist and enlightenment is meaningless to begin with), etc.

Second, it has a definite under-edge of Non-Dual community infighting. At times, it has a strangely catty, insider tone. I feel it is written not so much for the general person just trying to figure things out, but for a specific narrow sub-readership of people who are very experienced shoppers in the spiritual supermarket, even or especially people who've been around the non-dual track a few times. These are the people that the author wants to reach, and get them to 'stop seeking'.
Though of course, even 'stop seeking' is "doing" something, or having a kind of program, and therefore unacceptable. Except that of course EVERYTHING is acceptable because it is all illusory anyway.

I say that this author (and his interviewees) are on the far edge of current non-dual thought in that other stars like Byron Katie still offer a kind of goal (cessation of mental suffering) and a sort of problem-solving method (4 questions) to advance that program. Or for example Gangaji is supposedly pure advaita but she subtly asserts the reality of various distinctions, such as guru v. seeker; a more lovely Satsang space v. a less-lovely one; a community of friends pursuing the goal or teachings together (as though that would help it along); etc.

But the authors of "This Is It" are uncompromising and will have none-of-the-above. EVERYTHING is equally fake (or real, but in any case meaningless) and there's absolutely NOTHING to be done about it... except the reader is still left with the feeling that s/he as a regular gal/guy hasn't quite 'got it' (but no, no, there's NOTHING to GET, dumbkoff!) and ... you still don't really understand (that there's NOTHING to UNDERSTAND, you dork!) ... that's the flavor of it.

Interesting in a way.

However, this tough-man macho version of neo-advaita makes constant use of analogies like "All the sand castles on a beach appear separate but since they are actually all made of sand there's no difference among them and they are all the same thing - namely, sand". Or similar images of water, characters in a movie on the screen all being made of the light projected from the booth, etc.

This reductionist argument is logically erroneous, in that identity of material is not absolute identity. Different individual sand castles represent different information vectors and have different entropic coding potential. They differ absolutely, at the level of information structure. Admittedly these differences in entropic coding potential are non-physical in some sense, and hard to quantify without a context, but they are real, though subtle. It is an odd and unexpectedly materialistic argument - the assertion that material identity equals absolute identity. Anyway, the only actual identity these authors can accept is equal emptiness or equally distributed 'Light' or 'Unicity'.

Of course the authors would say that comments such as mine above are just the mind (small egoic mind) trying to FIGURE IT OUT, which is completely IMPOSSIBLE anyway. And there's nothing to figure out.

However, suffering does seem to remain, no matter what. They are explicit on this point - suffering is fine, it is just more flickers on the screen. But while I'm not a Buddhist, I do accept the practical Buddhist goal of an end of suffering.

These guys have zero interest in that, because 'goal' implies 'time' which of course is utter illusion, furthermore they don't want to make quality judgements over experience. To them seeking an end to suffering (personal or universal) is merely a cat chasing his tail.

So it is truly a completely empty and meaningless teaching, a "difference which makes no difference". For all I know, it may be the simple truth. But "I" (??) suspect otherwise, because this random theory of meaningless "arising" of phenomena and experience does not account for the consistency of physical and psychological effects experienced by human beings.

But the authors would say that my small mind (which doesn't exist) is just playing stupid small-mind games. Which is ok, it's all fine as it is.


Rating:
Summary: Confusing and badly worded
Review: Whilst the author seems to write as best he can from a non-duel perspective, the words he uses are confusing and often sound contradictory! My advise, if the non-dual perspective appeals to you, save your money and buy either Loe Hartongs book, Awakening to the Dream, any of Tony Parsons works, or Nathan Gill's new book Already awake. All are strictly non-dual and are much clearer, in my opinion, than this text.