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Already Awake

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Nathan Gill's book, Already Awake, was mind blowing in a
beautiful, subtle life changing way. So much of what is termed Advaita and non-dual teaching (which I have been steeped in now for over 4 years) has an elitist aspect that directs people to follow various prescriptions to get somewhere, purportedly to what is real, beyond the illusions of ego. Previously, I was wholeheartedly into this approach. Nathan's book so clearly depicts what is so glaringly obvious, that if one is even in the least open to the fact that there can be no movement toward or away from what is, then a deep seeing is just about unavoidable. Ego identified or not, "awakeness" is not something distant and rare, but is all that is. This book puts this realization in the most simple and direct manner. There is not a trace of elitism or self-aggrandizement, whatsoever. There is a real, warm, open invitation to just see the obvious and to celebrate everything as the expression of the divine by the divine as the divine. Nothing and no one is excluded. So many teachings seem to place themselves above the so-called "ordinary" people. Nathan does anything but this with his words. The expression that comes through him is simply the humble beloved embracing, being all and everyone and everything and being no-thing and no one. I fell in love with what is, as it is, as I am and seem to be. This is miraculous and my gratitude is endless.

For even the most seasoned Advaita traveler, Nathan's book may be considered the 'end of the road'. With beautiful simplicity he puts to rest the hidden duality that seems to reside within even the most profound expressions of non-duality. This allows spiritual seeking with all of it's inherent suffering to come to an end in a truly effortless way.
Nathan's book is clear, simple and profoundly complete. I consider it to be the highest expression of non-duality available in print.

Already Awake book is the clearest exposition of pure Advaita I've read..Nathan point's out that all prescriptions for escape from the drama of separation actually serve as its reinforcement.What is right now is perfection,and when this is recognized the seeking for the marvellous or for the blissfulness end. If you feel at all drawn to this awakening, I can't imagine a clearer way to be introduced.
Mr Beyong

This outstanding title by Nathan Gill is by far the clearest, most direct and to-the-point book on non-dualism I have ever encountered. (I've read many).

Very engaging and completely without "spiritual" jargon. Simple, down to earth. Accessible, even for those who may not be familiar with the subject matter.

A true gem in the realm of advaitist literature.

After reading all of Tony Parsons' books, Leo Hartong, Uumani, Jeff Foster, Joan Tollifson, 'Sailor' Bob Adamson, Wayne Liquorman, Ramesh S. Balsekar, Nisargadatta Maharaj to name but a few, I wondered if I really needed to read yet another book. But although I've heard Nathan speak before and read these books, this book of dialogs is incredible. It gives the seeking `mind' nothing!!!!!!!!! Every time a questioner assumes that there is something to get or that this has anything to do with the person 'they' think they are, Nathan consistently and relentlessly rips the rug right from under their feet. Time and time again we are told there is already no-one there, it's just an idea of an 'I', just an appearance, appearing in WHAT you are, present awareness!
After reading this book there maybe no need for the question 'when will 'I' get it' the question just seems stupid and redundant!! And if this is seen, it undermines the memorization with the story of a 'me'. Highly, highly recommended is Jeff Fosters `Beyond Awakening' they are both timeless classics!

I don't know dear reader if you realize, as I painfully do now, that being half-awake is a far worse state to be in than being completely asleep and that half-truths are far more misleading and damaging than total untruths. Why this is so, I needn't explain because I assume that you are an intelligent person.

ALREADY AWAKE by British author Nathan Gill, former disciple of self-proclaimed divine avatar Adi Da Samraj and follower of British Nothingness "communicator" Tony Parsons, is in my opinion just that: a collection of half-truths by someone who is only half-awake, but thinks he's got it, that this is it and there is nothing else. But before I go into the content of the book, let me say a few words about form.

ALREADY AWAKE is a short book expounding the theory and practice of neo-advaita, a modern offshoot of the age-old advaita or non-dualistic school of so-called "Hinduism". It is a teaching that basically dismisses the diversity we see in the world as a mere divine mirage, thereby denying the existence of the individual not only at the psychological level, but also at the metaphysical level.

The 159 pages of ALREADY AWAKE take longer to read than the gospel of neo-advaitist parson Tony Parsons AS IT IS because here there is reading matter on all pages, not just an empty page on the left with some more or less illuminating sayings on the right. The form in which the "doctrine" is set forth is mainly that of a series of real dialogues, but there is a short, continuous text by Nathan at the beginning of the book. Called "Clarity", it can be read for free on his Democratic Spirituality Ring website nathangill.com. If you are new to neo-advaita, it might be good to check that first.

What you will read then is basically transcripts of conversations with real people. One assumes that there has been a careful selection of what to print because all the dialogues run smoothly and no substantial challenges are offered, which can hardly reflect the actual situation.

The language, thank Already Present Wakefulness, is quite limpid and jargon-free. You won't have to fight here with obscure neologisms ending in -ness and there isn't the annoying repetitive drumming of negative formulas one finds in Tony Parsons' writings and talks. Briefly, if you want to understand what neo-advaita is all about, this is certainly to place to start. But in my view, there is no need to read more books after that because there is nothing more neo-advaitists can tell you. I also doubt whether what they say is really worth listening to. Of course, what can also happen is that you may become enlightened as a result of reading this book...

This could happen because not all that is being said here is false.

What is absolutely true here is that only the present, life happening, is true and liberating, that thinking mesmerizes us, that seeking enlightenment and practicing meditation techniques is a self-deceptive game and that the subject-object distinction that characterizes all our understanding processes has no ultimate value. That is absolutely true and thank Nameless Clarity for telling us that! This is also the core message of many teachers of the past, of whom I consider Jiddu Krishnamurti to be one of the most enlightening.

Unfortunately, this is not the only thing Oneness is saying in ALREADY AWAKE.

The problem begins (and in a sense ends) with the title of the book itself: ALREADY awake, a notion that comes directly out of the teachings of Adi Da Samraj. Any intelligent person will recognize that words like "already", "not yet", "always", "now", etc. are all closely related to psychological time, time as imagined by the mind. These words are part and parcel of the mesmerizing process of thinking, what Nathan calls "the story". Therefore the very title of this book betrays a lack of wakefulness and clarity, a shoddiness in the use of language.

But it couldn't be otherwise because neo-advaita is itself a product of thought. It is a belief system like all the other ideologies, philosophies and religions that keep people entertained. The core error is contained in the oft-repeated assertion that everything IS (already!) Oneness and that illusion is just Oneness playing games with Itself. IOW, these "teachers" don't recognize that oneness unrecognized is quite a different thing from Oneness recognized. For them, to be awake or asleep is exactly the same thing, but they don't realize that this view invalidates all their teaching activity.

A natural consequence of this doctrine is that Oneness is seen as essentially static, ALREADY perfect, like a huge still picture with random content. Oneness is not going anywhere, it is a cosmic robot wih no purpose. The trick is to see it and enjoy the joke. What neo-advaitists don't see is that Oneness is not ALREADY perfect and therefore static, but for ever moving toward greater Oneness, which is the same thing as saying that it is oriented toward greater LOVE, for the song of Oneness is LOVE. Therefore WILL and active COMPASSION need to be reintroduced into the system: let us send tents and food to Africa, not just enjoy a beer at the local pub, Nathan!

Let the reader understand the following: it is wrong to think that there are veils or obstacles there that prevent us from becoming awakened. Such an idea inevitably creates conflict, violence, for ever frustrated seeking and restlessness. It also naturally creates the "I". The "I" is nothing more than an illusory entity whose whole purpose, whose very essence is a desperate fight to overcome "what is", seen as an obstacle or a transition to something else. This deceptive way is the way of most religions and ideologies in our present world. It is the stimulating way of the Warrior.

But it is equally wrong to claim that the obstacles have ALREADY been removed and will NEVER be there NO MATTER what one does. This is the neo-advaitist error, one that invites the seeker to go to sleep for ever if truth is not realized "instantly". This error stems among other things from a shoddy use of the present tense, which leads neo-advaitists to inadvertently and continually engage in what Nathan in a different context calls "an (undue)extension into past and future". Present tense in English points both to something happening and constantly changing, the very stuff of Life itself with its countless possibilities, of which Awakening is one, AND to imaginary time, what are called "general truths".

Neo-advaitist teachers seem to be pointing to both things simultaneously, which enables them to say that everything one may do is just "divinely appropriate" and can't be avoided anyway, which is a nice way of restating good old Oriental fatalism or Calvinistic predestination (without God, hell and devil of course!).

All this is thought playing its usual games of self-deception based on time (imaginary time). This "ALREADY" thing is a total negation of the Unknown. This is the chloroformed way of the tired and lazy Bourgeois.

From the wrong assumtion that one is "ALREADY awake" and that everything IS Oneness arise many other errors, not the least of which is to think that the life of an awakened person needn't be different from that of an unawakened one. What is being promised is just a sense of greater ease, less tension and grasping. In other words, what is being presented as Awakening is a purely individual and subjective experience of relaxation, coupled with a conceptual aloofness from what happens within and outside the so-called "character", which is then conceptually recognized as "mere play".

In this comforting theatrical view of the "pointless" world, which blantantly implies a duality of play versus spectator and of appearance versus reality, there occurs a complete divorce between seeing and doing. Contemplation and action are no longer one, action in the world being looked down upon. One can live a very disharmonious life full of strife and problems, and still claim to liberated because "all there is is ALREADY oneness". A rapist can be a self-conscious saint. Moral relativism has found its ultimate justification.

Another error is the infuriating confusion between the "character" and the living individual. We ALREADY know that for neo-advaitism all the diversity in the world is superficial, a mere "appearance". Only Oneness is real. There are no people out there, there is only the SUPER-NON-entity called "One".

The confusion here is to think that because the ego is indeed a mental construct of very limited significance, a transient contractile point in consciousness, that which underlies the ego must be a negation, a "nobody", which naturally leads to the idea that there is only one (non)person in the whole Universe, namely the "One". I say that this is an unproven inference, one that in fact makes genuine compassion impossible, for how could there be love for mere "characters"?

There could be individuals who are not separate and ego-centered. As Krishnamurti liked to say, "individual" means un-divided. For those who are interested, this is what German philosopher Leibniz called "monads", spiritual beings endowed with the wholeness, immortality and indivisibility of the Supreme Monad "God". That is what we are but goes unrecognized. We either think we are separate individuals, or "parts" of the Whole or, like neo-advaitists, nobodies and therefore ALREADY the Whole ("I am Oneness/God!"). All of these hypotheses may be absolutely wrong. If you find Leibniz too hard to understand, a good place to look for a powerful pointer to our real identity is the Christian concept of the Trinity (but you needn't become a Christian): three and yet one, one and yet three.

Finally let me point out what seems at first sight a minor problem: Clarity claims in this book that thoughts arise directly out of Nothingness and that their origin is a total mystery. The point seems to be that mind is not an entity but a spontaneous and unconnected arising of "mental balloons" for which only unfathomable and unaccountable Oneness is responsible. The difficulty here is that if this were true "my" thoughts should be a mixture of all of mankind's thoughts and that each of us should be a random polyglot. Clearly, thoughts don't arise out of Pure Nothingness, but out of an individual memory, which reasserts itself all the time as long as there is no real wakefulness. It is important to see why this absurdity should appear in the doctrine: the aim is to persuade you that you ALREADY are nobody, that you ALREADY are in the state of egolessness and absolute anonymity, which means that whatever thought or desire arises is Oneness manifesting. See the danger?

In conclusion, let me say that what one finds here seems to be one of the most deceptive petty bourgeois messages of cheap hope and comfort the world has ever heard. It beats Christianity and Buddhism by a long way by giving unattentive and gullible people a quick way of getting rid of guilt and agitation, ready-made and endless justifications for anything they may do and the promise that at death Liberation happens automatically regardless of one's actions.

As antidotes to all the spurious "democratic spirituality" of neo-advaita, I recommend the following authors while reminding the reader that they too have their own limitations and dangers:

Jiddu Krishnamurti. "The First and Last Freedom" is the best place to start, then read his wonderful "Commentaries on Living" and if you can get get hold of the book, read by all means his "Journal". Here you will find all the truths of neo-advaita without its apathetic mood and apolitical and amoral ideology.

If you are a Christian or have Christian leanings, read "Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, "Behold the Spirit" by Alan Watts (one of my favorite authors!) or "The Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence. On ego and egolessness, read "The Reenchantment of the World" by Morris Berman.

Or just put down all the books and be a light unto yourself. For me, the truth is between "ALREADY NO veils to be lifted " and "YET MORE veils to be lifted". Be free of time and thinking by seeing how they arise.

Thank you for your kind attention.

"The All must return to the One
The One must return to the All."
(Zen aphorism)

A reviewer above, Northern Light, is critical of the approach of the so called "neo-advaitists" like Nathan Gill.

What the neo-advaitists have to say is hardly 'neo' at all, except that they put into modern idiom what has been said for centuries or longer. There really is very little that can be said without muddying up the waters, so I give this book five stars for pages 13-26 called "Clarity" which puts things about as simply and clearly as I have ever read. It's just about all you'll ever need to read on the subject. These words should act as a balm for many confused seekers. The rest of the book is fine and reads much like books by Hartong, Renz, Adamson, Wheeler, Parsons, et al.

Non duality is difficult at best to understand, but Nathan is really good at it, and NEVER contradicts himself. That is refreshing.

Nathan cuts through all the spiritual bull, and delivers a clear and uncompromising message. He never falters from the bottom line of non-duality, and for this I can only thank him. It clears up much confusion.