Happy New Year. Here's my gift of Joan Tollifson.

In a few hours it will be 2024 here in Oregon.

Of  course, in one sense tomorrow is just another day, another rotation of Earth on its axis. But we humans have come up with the calendar, so in another sense tomorrow is the beginning of a brand new year.

At any rate, I want to express how grateful I am that in 2023 not only was I able to write a Church of the Churchless post every other day (on the other days I tend to my HinesSight and Salem Political Snark blogs), but that my posts were enriched by the comments left on them by visitors to this blog.

I've learned a lot from those comments. I've been entertained by those comments. I've gotten recommendations for books and videos from those comments. And of course, since I'm human (what else could I be?), I've been irritated by comments that I disagree with.

Just as there's no doubt that my blog posts have irritated people also. Hey, if we're alive, we're prone to irritations. That's part of the nature of life -- unless, of course, someone subscribes to a idealized vision of what life is all about where perfection is possible, a vision I heartily disagree with.

Which gets me to my New Year's gift, courtesy of Sam Harris' Waking Up app. 

Recently I started listening to an interview Harris did with Joan Tollifson. After listening to an hour of it, with 45 minutes left to go, I really like her style. She's one of the most natural and unaffected spiritual practitioners I've ever come across. 

Tollifson gets into some fascinating discussions with Harris, who I also like a lot. But Tollifson is even more non-dogmatic that Harris is, being unafraid to puncture assumptions that Harris accepts quite uncritically.

Today I enjoyed her take on the notion that Harris promulgates that awareness, or consciousness, is like the open sky in which everything appears. Tollifson gently but firmly said that while she's enjoyed this conception of awareness, her problem with it is that open awareness can become one more thing that a spiritual seeker is supposed to aspire to, and Tollifson doesn't like aspirations.

So what does she like? Well, take a look at her web site.

There's a lot of material there to peruse, particularly in the Outpourings section, where each of those links points to a fairly lengthy writing. I've ordered one of her books to see if I like her written words as much as I'm enjoying listening to her spoken words.

Sure, almost certainly I'll get irritated by stuff Tollifson says, but like I said, that comes with being human. And from what I can tell, Tollifson is all about being fully human, flaws and all. Here's what's on her home page, which will give you a feel for her approach to spirituality. I like her approach.

We habitually search for special experiences, for certainty and something to grasp. But in holding on to nothing at all, there is an immense openness and freedom.

We can doubt all our ideas about what this is and what we are, but not the bare actuality of present experiencing and being here, present and aware. This presence has no inside or outside, and there is nowhere it is not. It appears like ever-changing kaleidoscopic Rorschach blots that the pattern-seeking mind is always reifying and interpreting—labeling them, putting them into categories, weaving narratives around them—and presto, the apparently solid and fractured world appears. But how solid and divided up is it really?

The beauty we see, the love we feel is in the listening presence that we are. We imagine we are something small and separate, a character in a movie, and we identify as the voice in our head, the thoughts posing as “me.” But can this mirage-like thinker behind the thoughts actually be found, and is presence-awareness divided up or encapsulated? A person is like a waving of the ocean—a movement inseparable from the whole.

What is offered here invites firsthand exploration and direct discovery, not belief or dogma. There is no finish-line, no formula, no method, only this one bottomless moment, this aliveness, Here-Now, just as it is.  

Comments

[Ron E.]

Joan Tollifson. Sounds the sort of writer I could read, in fact I checked out her outpourings section and came across this straight away: - “And remember—and this is critical, there is no such “thing” as awareness or consciousness or presence or attention or Here-Now. These are words, labels, conceptual abstractions that we use to point out certain aspects of the (actually undivided, seamless) living reali-ty. What such words point to is not a concept, but once we start talking about this living reality and using words, it’s important not to mistake the pointers (the words or the maps) for the territory and the different aspects of the territory that they help us to notice. There is no actual boundary between consciousness and awareness, or between self and not-self, or between inside and outside. No such “things” actually exist.”

And also, she posted these quotes from other writers: -

“Enlightenment is not something removed from you, a particular thing you have to get. It’s not some-thing to get an idea of or to figure out. In fact, it can’t be figured out. Nor is enlightenment some-thing hard to experience. You’re experiencing it right now, though you may be ignoring the experi-ence.” –Steve Hagen

“Having never left the house you are looking for the way home.” –Nisargadatta Maharaj

All grist to the mill for me so will have some new year reading to do.

Thanks and Happy New year all.

[Appreciative Reader]

Cool website.

The "Outpourings" section looks very promising! Quickly browsed through a couple of those essays, for now. Bookmarked for later on.

[Kranvir]

Happy New Year Brian and team

My new year resolution, is to continue to EXPOSE the snakey evil like Gurinder Singh Dhillon and his satantic cult RSSB.

Remember the first of his satanic mantra is Jot Nirunjan , literally translated as light of kaal/satan/lucifer.

[Appreciative Reader]

Read some more of her "Outpourings".

They make for interesting and enjoyable light reading. I don't know, yet, if they lead to anything beyond just light interesting reading, if they stand up to close scrutiny and yield any actual worth beyond merely the light interesting reading part: but regardless, I'm enjoying reading them, and will return for more later.

[Ron E.]

Have just read Joan’s first piece in her ‘outpourings’ section; - ‘How Simple Can This Be?’ where she encapsulates the ‘here and now’, enlightenment, how thought creates the self, non-duality and more. I am impressed in that her writing cuts through the hype of these topics while avoiding much of the mysteries that surround these subjects. If the rest of her ‘outpourings’ maintain similar no-frills clarity then I shall continue reading with interest

Her message is ultimately that of simplicity, although for anyone unfamiliar with such a ‘this is it’ approach may perhaps find it irrelevant. Also, I don’t think that her style/message will find much ground with those who approach them from a set religious or spiritual way of thinking or, to put it frankly, from a position which accepts the type of thinking that creates conceptual images of who/what one is as factual.

An excellent 'New Year' post Brian.

[Trez]

To Expose and Help Humanity to overcome the evil ways of Kaal in the year ahead and also That Loser Baba Gurinder Singh Dhilion and his Radha Soami Cult.

So that the god loving souls go back home instead of Gurinder Singh Dhilions Hell in the inner realms

Wake up before the evil Donkey Dhilion Baba takes your soul, by initiation of the Devil and the inner light of him too

Here's A Happy New year to all