Advaita is the traditional and
stepwise teaching of nonduality.
If you’re looking for a brief
book about Advaita that you can
fall in love with, get
Dissolved.
Dissolved is a
delightful-to-hold-in-your-hands,
attractively designed 90 page
book. It is a dialogue between a
seeker and a sage.
Dissolved is a gently told
Advaita: a study of mind; a
question of illusion; an
enquiry, “Who am I?”; a
surrender to the Guru, to the
Self; a dialogue on spontaneous
action, pre-determination,
fearlessness.
This is an easily received
Advaita, too: a questioning of
the world of duality and
reactivity; a confession of
living in the world when
established in the Self; an
addressing of pain and sorrow.
Dissolved is a practical Advaita:
impermanence; the nature of
happiness; renunciation, diet,
helping out the world, alcohol
and drugs; all these topics
enter the dialogue and are
crisply addressed.
Dissolved is a full Advaita: in
the end there is the dissolution
into Self through surrender to
the Guru and via self-enquiry.
Dissolved is filled with stories
and metaphors, some of which you
may have heard and all of which
are heard freshly once again.
In the following fragment, the
Guru plays the role of seeker
and the seeker Vivek plays the
role of Guru; this is done to
test Vivek’s knowledge, or
perhaps the reader’s knowledge,
or perhaps it is a pure
demonstration of the play of
Self:
Guru Ji: But still how can [the
Self-realized being] meet
people, who give him hatred and
abuses, with love?
Vivek: What happens when one
throws a stone in the ocean?
Guru Ji: Water gets splashed.
Vivek: Does the ocean splash
back stones in return? No. The
ocean only has water to give. No
matter what you throw it, it
will only throw water back.
Similarly, a Self-realized being
is an ocean of love. He has only
love to share. No matter what
you throw in, you will only get
love. There is nothing else in
there.
Guru Ji: Still … How is this
possible? I know, you will say
they don’t see anything separate
from them, they see only the
Self, etc., etc.
As the dynamic between Vivek and
Guru Ji plays out, the reader
eventually joins to make a
trinity. Sometimes the reader
takes the attitude of seeker,
sometimes the sage. In this way,
the reader eventually becomes
another character, merging with,
dissolving into Guru Ji and
Vivek, so that all three
characters become one.
In the beginning, the seeker
Vivek asks his Guru for help in
understanding who he is. In the
end, there is dissolution into
the Self, into consciousness.
Dissolved, therefore, is a
full-cycle, concise version of
the teaching of Advaita.
Whether the reader dissolves
into Vivek and Guru Ji, or
dissolves into Self, or sits
back with a cup of tea and
dissolves a spoonful of sugar
into it, this book serves up
many levels of rewards.
Perhaps you are seeking a
beginning education in Advaita,
or further practice of
self-inquiry, or maybe you only
want to enjoy the dialogue, the
stories within, the story at
large, the teaching, the
expression. In only 90 pages of
gentle dialogue, poetry, and
storytelling, Dissolved offers
all this, all you could and
could not imagine.
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