Stephen

“When it comes to the teachingless teachings, you have to take your business to Zen and Advaita, being careful to avoid the tourist traps where you can unwittingly walk in circles for years or lifetimes. For instance, Ramana Maharshi prescribed the use of the inquiry “Who am I?” to be used relentlessly as an auger for drilling down through all the layers of ego and delusion. But this process of self-inquiry has itself become mired in layers of ego and delusion; repackaged for mass consumption. Ramana’s students have become teachers, and their students have become teachers, and the diamond at the core—the process of self-inquiry—has become the cheese in a dozen bait-and-switch operations. Those lured in by the simplicity and directness of self-inquiry are sucked into a morass of teachers and teachings, gurus and babble, ego and delusion, from which they are not likely to soon emerge. Five words: Ask yourself “Who am I?” Five words that render all other words—including those of Ramana Maharshi—superfluous. Five words that need no explanation, no amplification, no elucidation. Five words that bestow upon the recipient self-reliance and self-determination. But a complete spiritual teaching that fits on a matchbook cover is not what anyone really wants. No fame, fortune and following for the giver, no wiggle room for the receiver. And by what mechanism does such a simple thing as self-inquiry get mangled and bloated beyond all recognition? Ego. Always ego. The”
― Jed McKenna, Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

“He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

“By the way, Doctor, I shall want your co-operation.” “I shall be delighted.” “You don’t mind breaking the law?” “Not in the least.” “Nor running a chance of arrest?” “Not in a good cause.” “Oh, the cause is excellent!” “Then I am your man.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection

“Deep down, our minds yearn to make sense of our world. We do this by naming things, creating stories, and using storytelling to explain how everything fits together – from societal norms to who we are and how we relate to our environment. This is what Storr calls the theory of control. The stories we craft about ourselves and the world based on our deeply held beliefs are often flawed.”
― Mahmoud Rasmi, Philosophy for Business Leaders: Asking Questions, Navigating Uncertainty, and the Quest for Meaning