What a morning! As usual, I was up early, made coffee and began reading. And now I feel strongly compelled to write, mostly to myself, capturing some thoughts that I do not want to lose.
I began with The Complex Feeling of Being by the Canadian, Layman Pascal. For a long time I have intended to write an essay about nonduality but never got around to it. Now Layman has expressed some of my thoughts far better than I ever could have.
…I have included a new, very personal, audio article that transcends, includes & complicates some of Ken Wilber’s work.
This is audacious and I love it. Personally, I am more interested in those who stand on the shoulders of giants than the giants themselves. I am more interested in Layman Pascal than Ken Wilber.
I grew up around yogis, mystics and philosophers who claimed there is an underlying blissful consciousness that is our eternal true nature… However… that could all be bullshit.
I am wary of all who claim to know with certainty what our true nature is.
I am so impressed by this feeling, especially when it surges in intensity, that I do want to honor it with every kind of superlative title. Supreme. Timeless. Authentic. Divine. Fundamental. Yet I also want to be honest. And honestly, these kinds of words come to mind a little too quickly and seem to have their origin in the notoriously dubious evaluation systems of traditional and modern metaphysics.
I love radical honesty.
Most nondualists are wildly incontinent spiritual reductionists. I call them spiritual reductionists because they think of their nondual experience as being down at the bottom of reality. In their mind, it is the realest thing because it is the oldest and most basic thing. And I call them wildly incontinent because — like a leaky bladder — they do not like to contain their thinking. It expands and gets away from them.
I think Layman will get more than a little pushback. I could say a lot more about this article but I want to move on. Perhaps I will be able to have a difficult conversation about this with some trusted friends.
And for the record, I have never had a nondual experience but I am convinced that such experiences are very real, powerful and life-changing for some.
Scrolling through my Substack Inbox, I next read The dark lord of Silicon Valley by Carole Cadwalladr.
There’s one key rule to remember when considering all things Thiel: never underestimate him. He’s a master chess player who thinks strategically and long term. One of his most famous acts - destroying the media site, Gawker, was planned over years. JD Vance, the vice president, is a wholly owned Peter Thiel project that has been 15 years in the making. He first met Thiel when a student and he owes his entire career, first in finance and then politics, to him.
I am very concerned that Trump will not finish his second term, allowing JD Vance to become President. The USA, and the world, will probably breathe a sigh of relief when Trump finally goes away. Vance will probably be worse.
From the outside, DOGE’s work with the US government and Peter Thiel’s agenda and increasing involvement appear to be one and the same although the personal relationship between Thiel and Musk, that goes back decades, is anything but straightforward… Who knows what the deal between these two galaxy-sized egos is now. But don’t rule anything out.
Next up was Soulprint, written by my friend Simon Divecha, who also has things to say about nondual experiences.
We transform through bridging physical and inner action. What’s needed now is to speed it up:
To feel what it is like to create this future now.
To embody the paradigm shift IPBES represents.
To act from these up-levelled states of being.
I am a regular reader of Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson.
Republican cuts to government programs are a dramatic reworking of America’s traditional evidence-based government that works to improve the lives of a majority of Americans. They are replacing that government with an ideologically driven system that concentrates wealth and power in a few hands and denies that the government has a role to play in protecting Americans.
Charlie Angus asks What's a Canadian? and gives us an inspiring answer.
Canadians do have an aggressive side, and that comes out in times of war and in sports.
When the going gets tough, we don’t back down.
Trump thought we were chumps, pushovers, but what MAGA learned with the boycott is that when push comes to shove, Canadians will quickly turn from “I'm sorry” to:
“You'll be sorry.”
Elbows up. Gloves off.
I read a Note posted by Scott Britton with my elbows up and gloves off.
It seems like everyone is talking about a meta-crisis.
What if we reframed it as a metamorphosis?
This feels like escapism to me.
This seems like exactly what we’re experiencing as a species. Ecological instability. Institutional collapse. Spiritual disconnection. These aren’t just signs of decay, but also early indications that something new is trying to be born.
I hold the birth of something new as a possibility that gives me hope. But I am also noticing the rise of True Believers in a metamorphosis, a wonderful narrative that sells very well. I also hold the reality that every civilization except one has collapsed.
The breakdown is the beginning of the reorganization.
Or, perhaps, the breakdown is the beginning of the end.
I don't think reframing what's happening as a metamorphosis will make the challenges go away.
But I do think it's much more empowering way to relate to everything.
I think it can also be disempowering, a form of spiritual bypassing, avoiding facing nihilism.
Hi John. Nice to glimpse some of the bits that were salient for you.
Ha, excellent John and thanks for the Layman piece, glorious. I'm reminded of Sean Esjbörn-Hargens framing of non-dual and the varieties of this: currently at 31 flavours, 3 major categories, 4 meta entry points, 3 classifications through which this all could be primarily experienced and...
Well, very aligned with the call Layman is making (albeit from a different starting point):
"remaining open to opposite possible descriptions that we create the conditions under we can begin to actually think clearly and newly about this uniquely enticing form of experience."
Short version: treat it as true AND treat it lightly, what else is true too?
And a practical usefulness of all of this? For me it helps host spaces of knowing nothing while simultaneously serving from wisdom... Always useful ;-)