Customer Reviews

Being: the bottom line

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Nathan Gill is quite simply the most consistant, non wavering, "never steps on his own toes" author one could find on this subject. He never gets off track. It seems as if most other authors on this subject tell us that "There is nothing you can do to "attain" this state, but just do this or do that and you might make it" or they tell is that even though there is "no one home", we torpedo "ourselves" by seeking. That sounds non sequitor to me. I digress. Nathan is clear and relatively easy to understand. "if you understand the subject at all"

If you've really had enough of seeking, this is the book for you. With precision and clarity Nathan Gill devalues the whole business of liberation, awakening, enlightenment, to reveal simply what is. If there's a 'me' around, that's OK. If there's not a 'me' around, that's OK too. It's not necessarily blissful, it's not necessarily pleasant - but what a relief.

A stunningly clear book on non-duality.... the mystery put into clear words, to stop the mind in its tracks! I am grateful for such a clear expression of this.!!!!.. both me and my wife agree on this one

Being is a great word. Awareness and oneness (also good words) have more of a thing-ness about them, but being evokes BE-ing, alive-ness. This book is about the expression of being, of THIS alive-ness that is already the case.

'Being: the bottom line' is comprised of one to one dialogues (forty) compiled from meetings and correspondence. Nathan's approach is earthy, direct and precise; free from jargon and posturing. Throughout the book Nathan demonstrates that he is well equipped (and unafraid) to tackle some of the deeper and more complex themes that arise - but always with a lightness of touch and an ability to cut through any temptation towards metaphysical meandering.

It's these factors of directness and depth (an approach which Nathan shares with his colleague, Leo Hartong) which help to give the book it's authentic and timeless quality.

If there is a strong and sincere appetite for a really, really good spiritual book, with just the right mix of satisfying little anecdotes and all the very best quotations from the treasure of inherited spiritual wisdom to serve as a guidebook for the truly dedicated seeker... pass this one by. It will do nothing to satisfy that hunger. If on the other hand, there is some readiness for pure pointing and only pointing, if there is a lack of interest in stories, goals and `attainments', if there is the simple readiness for what is naturally so, well then, attention has at last come to the right place.

Nathan Gill is the name attaching to this purest, most direct of pointing to the naked facts of existence. His is a communication uniquely lacking the fleshy tidbits and stories the mind's teeth are accustomed to sinking into. And being so distilled and denuded of the typical satisfactions characters seek, his books tend to invite, as can be seen from some delightfully impassioned negative reviews, a rejecting response by disappointed minds that came seeking what they have been seeking.

Such will not work with this author. As nothing could provide what already is the case, he is not offering the seeker what has been sought. Instead, seeking and seeker are recognized as figments, nothing more than erroneous, unfounded assumptions. The ego game and drama of seeking is (pick a metaphor) overturned, deflated, burnt up in the clear seeing of what arises `within' awareness. There is no room for stories and directions, no need for speculation or other mind-play; and this is what is at once so distasteful and alluring to the mind when the implications are becoming clear. Mind is being written out of the script, and the drama is melting into nothingness. This `spiritual path' does not fit with the conceptual model of how the journey is supposed to unfold, but it no longer matters, as the model is not being revised, it is evaporating.

The division of opinion on this book and this style of pointing will always reflect the basic movement of `mind at large'. Rejection of it reflects the mind's rejection of its own nonexistence (obviously a nonsensical notion on its face). It reveals the basic persistence of attachment to mind and all its trappings: thoughts and fears, achievement, reward, shame and suffering. It reveals the basic attachment to the drama of life as a character in the theater of mind. At bottom it comes to a Matrix-like choice without a chooser, between the red or blue pill. One ensures the continued entrancement of life as a character in the drama, experiencing all the thrills `n spills it entails, the other, awakening to what is.

In the Matrix, one member of the resistance chooses to go back into the dream life rather than bear the severe and dreary struggle for freedom. This is a good metaphor for attachment to the comforts, familiarity and juiciness of life as an ego. A pointing that does not offer these comforts, the promised rewards, the familiar goals and expectations, one that does not feel like or resemble the traditional others, cannot be true. So says the ego. In fact however, this is the very essence this book's clarity. It is the gem not recognized by eyes occluded with preferences and expectations.

Meditating, having a constant practice, is certainly difficult for the restless Western mentality. So when after some years of (lukewarm) sadhana the goal apparently is as far away as ever, there really is two ways to go. Either to look critically as one's own motivation and unrealistic ideals (realizing it might take yaers and yaers and even lives and lives). Or give up and dismiss the whole idea. Nathan Gill is an eloquent and stubbornn spokesman for the last view.

For some who claims there's no 'I' he comes across as a ridiciuosly arrogant person who - alongside his mentor Tony Parsons and a couple of other extreme advaitins - alone knows the absolute Truth. And who dismisses all other before him and around him. According to Gill all the beautiful mystics, seers, visionaries, both East and west, are nothing but deluded fools, misguiding humanity. A view that sounds rather like Richard Dawkins and other radical atheist.

No Light, no Love, no Bliss, no chakras opening, no kundalini rising, no Compassion, nothing but an intellectual/mental recognition of Oneness and a relaxing into 'What Is'. However valuable that may be, he reminds me of someone starting for the peak of the Himalyas, stopping at the first given plateau, claiming that's it and vehemently denying that the top even exist.

Good for anyone looking for intellectual support for dropping their search. For serious seekers just a barren cul-de-sac.

This book possibly expresses the author's thoughts, even understanding, with some accuracy. But to someone who is not already familiar with the point-of-view being expressed it is totally useless. It is easy enough to claim some sort of affiliation with Ramana Maharshi, but presenting the view of reality that Ramana enjoyed, described and promoted is a different matter altogether. This writer seems to relish riddle mongering. He assumes an air of authority, of greatly superior wisdom and insight, but anyone accustomed to reading the prose of genuine essayists, like George Orwell, for example, will find this writing similar to an act of sexual intercourse where one of the participants is entirely imaginary.