A very good friend of mine was acknowledged as a living exemplar of Vedanta, and was a mystery to the people who knew him as such because he was both a Westerner and came to the principles of that philosophy, notably non dualism, as a result of his own interior work. He was also regularly approached by many in several of the Christian faiths, including ours, and including very scholarly Jesuits. Someone renowned in the Church, whose name I am not at liberty to reveal, was a house guest of his for abut a week and found him to be man of profound insight. This person’s private secretary went so far as to say “We have found St. John Chrysostom!”
It was only later, despite many authors he shared with us of that stream, that I discovered that he could legitimately be called a proponent of Advaita, or non dualism. It seems that this philosophy, as lived and therefrom spoken by my friend, is not acceptable to the Church despite the obvious fact that many Catholics who sought his counsel came away with answers that dissolved their conundrums an theological impasses. From a point of theological tradition, I can understand that. From a practical standpoint I cannot. There is no denying efficacy, as far as I can tell.
But that is all prologue, and even what follows is a diversion, as the fundamental nature of his teachings derive from experience, not from dogma. And precious few would follow the mentally rigorous practice that would have one arrive at that experience, even though as far as I can tell, it is one congruent with something I have heard of as being practiced by some Saints and ok with the Church. Imo, some of the Greats of the Church for whom I have a particular affection, were adept, very adept, at this practice, at least from the stacks of “Lives of…” that I’ve read.
But in bald an meaningless intellectual terms, the fundmental premise of non dualism is that Consciousness as a, or more properly the, Principle of Life, is the root of awareness which is the “container” of ideas and thoughts, and indeed as far as being persons, the entirety of our perceptions of the Universe. Within Consciousness, all arises and dissipates, only Consciousness being Real. What we consider materially “real” is yet, despite appearances and experiences, transitory and therefor in the context of Consciousness fundamentally illusory. It is the discontinuity of the feeling and Knowledge of the dependency of awareness on Consciousness that constitutes human ignorance and the illusory condition of taking humans as persons to be discreet in essence, though certainly they are in form, though stemming altogether form the Source of Creation, each and every one. Experientially recognizing this dependency and primary pre-existing relationship with Source of God constitutes salvation, as well as the root of morality, as one would not harm their own self, which in Essence, or soul, that “other” actually is.
This system also accounts for Christology and psyche-ology in its root sense, in a rather unique and wonderful way which makes it as well congruent with passages found in both the Old and New Testaments, as well as the interior meaning of other traditions. That would include what at least one stream considers to be esoteric Christianity or Catholicism, (NOT Gnosticism). But there is no way I’m going to go into that on here, however congruent it may actually be with Catholicism, because it will not, to the casual or tyro thinker in this matter, seem even nearly so. But such is the world of words in the face of mystic realization.
I hope that adds something to your quest. If, surprisingly, it piques your interest, Grannymh, I will be glad to supply you with some pertinent titles, both ancient and contemporary. I look forward to reading what else appears as paradigms due to your very interesting question. Thanks for asking!
