[Advaita-l] New members

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

Will Deyl
---------

My name is Will, a Canadian in my early-mid thirties. Although I have held
beliefs that could be considered very similar to those of Advaita Vedanta
for quite a few years, in the past 2 years my interest in the subject has
been becoming increasingly intense, more and more as time passes with no
sign of stopping.

I am a recovering addict (IV opioids primarily, stimulants, alcohol - pretty
much any substances were an issue), and for 17 years I struggled trying to
attain reliable sobriety. I managed to get a few weeks here, a few months
there, and a couple of times a year or so clean and sober; however, I was
always aware in the back of my mind that there was a tiny attachment which I
could not become free of. I knew in my heart that that attachment would
ultimately lead to another relapse, and this prevented me from being able to
develop reliable recovery, and also led to becoming incomprehensibly more
discouraged upon every failure.

The end of this era was started when I was given a copy of a  modern
translation of the Yoga Vasistha. This finally fanned the nearly
extinguished remaining spark within me into a flame, and I started looking
into Advaita Vedanta proper. Around this time I experienced a non-dual
epiphany - it happened in a flash, and I do not know if using the word
“experience” properly refers to what happened, but I was sitting and
thinking about existence - the universe, and despite the fact that it cannot
be possible to imagine, I tried to imagine as if there never was a universe
— in a sense, tried to imagine never having existed in the first place in a
way that includes an inability to be imagining it at the moment which I was
attempting to. I “experienced” the something-ness of nothingness, if that
makes sense. I was the unmanifested itself.

Since that experience, I have been meditating more and more. A year ago, if
I could manage to meditate for 30 minutes, I felt like it was an achievement
to have done so for so long. These days, I have been meditating for at the
very least 90 minutes a day, and some days 4 or more hours, and my
meditation throughout the day that I do not designate time for is starting
to work.

My pursuit of the goal has brought about reliable recovery, and it is doing
quite a bit more. I look forward to continuing to learn more. More recently,
I have very much enjoyed Drg Drsya Viveka, Vivekachudamani, and
Aparokshanubhuti.

I look forward to reading your posts - and I hope that mine will have a
positive affect on those who read. Thank you all.


Abhishek Prasad
---------------

I love spirituality so much ... I love reading books on Non duality.
Please do help me on this spiritual path so that I can be able to know or be
Advait.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>