1. Gaining the easy confidence to express the fact “I am ordinary immortal non-dual Awareness” and not the body,” doesn’t depend on non-dual epiphanies, a careful examination of ordinary everyday experiences will suffice. If you don’t know that you are ordinary non-dual Awareness, and you want to be happy, you need Self knowledge.
2. Any kind of knowledge, spiritual or material, doesn’t happen on its own. It requires a means. Just as your ears are a legitimate means of knowledge for sounds and your eyes are a valid means of knowledge for colors, shapes and forms, Vedanta is a proven means of Self knowledge. It is thousands of years old and hasn’t changed in since its inception because it works. It does not teach worldly knowledge; the senses and mind are enough for that. It teaches Self knowledge, which makes living in the realm of the senses joyful.
3. Just as we trust our eyes despite the illusory appearance of things, we need to trust Vedanta despite the fact that what we experience with our senses and mind, we need to provisionally trust Vedanta when it says that what I experience is not different from me, the conscious experiencing entity, myself. That there are not two things, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding is the most provocative counterintuitive contention of Vedanta. Vedanta says reality is non-dual existence shining as ordinary awareness, my Self.
4. Silence, in the presence of a teacher like Ramana or as a meditation practice, isn’t a means of knowledge. Ignorance of myself as ordinary awareness is not removed by the presence of silence. Silence, another name for awareness, is present when physical and mental noise are present and absent.
5. A teacher is required for Vedanta to work but respect for a teacher doesn’t mean unconditionally accepting the statements of the teacher and the teaching without a rigorous inquiry. Vedanta teachers respect doubts and provide reasonable answers.
6. Don’t surrender your intellect in the name of devotion to your teacher or in light of experiences that contradict the teachings. Vedanta is counterintuitive because it teaches non-duality, which is the experiential default of everyone; we were all born ignorant of the whole and complete Self.
7. God created the intellect so that we can understand non-duality. Dismissing the intellect because you believe duality is “wrong” is not intelligent. Once you understand the relationship between duality and non-duality, you need the intellect to navigate the ocean of illusion that your apparent self experiences from birth to death. Sometimes it is appropriate to think dualistically, sometimes non-dually. At other times you can let the intellect dissolve into awareness. Transcending the intellect is futile because you…ordinary awareness…are always beyond it.
8. Samadhi brought about by concentrating and stilling the intellect may yield Self knowledge, but it will disappear as soon as concentrated absorption in the silence ends. You can’t concentrate on one thing forever.
9. All knowledge, material or spiritual, occurs in the intellect. Ignorance also occurs in the intellect. You need to know the difference between knowledge and ignorance. If you do, you are free, because you will never choose ignorance because it causes suffering, whereas Self knowledge produces bliss.
10. Self-realization is Self-knowledge—understanding the “ever-present, ever-evident I” is non-dual consciousness, not a mystic experience.
11. Desires aren’t inherently evil; demonizing them is. Desire is essential for pursuing Self-knowledge viz. liberation. Desires that don’t cause you to break dharma are fine. Nothing is created without desire. Evil…injury to yourself and others…is caused by immaturity aka ignorance of your benign unborn whole and complete ordinary aware-full Self.
12. Enlightenment isn’t a destination attained by following a path; it is reclaiming our disowned nature by exposing the mind/intellect to Vedanta, the science of Self . What’s disowned due to Self ignorance must be claimed through Self knowledge, not action. Action reinforces ignorance. It does not remove it.
13. Dismissing Self knowledge because knowledge is “merely intellectual” is a mistaken “merely intellectual” conclusion based on the idea that thinking and awareness are in different orders of the one non-dual reality. Life is a both/and, not an either/or.
14. Any means of knowledge that reveals that the ever-present I is whole and complete is Vedanta. The word Vedanta simply means “the knowledge that ends the quest for new experiences and new knowledge, which does not imply that new experiences and new knowledge are undesirable or unenjoyable.
15. A skilled Vedanta teacher can convey the message directly to a prepared seeker, which does not imply that every Vedanta teacher is skilled. Vedanta teaches freedom, not Vedanta.
