Resources

These are sources that I have found useful for information and other perspectives on A Course in Miracles, Non-Duality, as well as concepts and practices that aid in clearing the mind of the barriers that inhibit awakening.  It has been my experience that finding and immersing one’s self in a single practice, at least until you have fully internalized it, is more effective than bouncing from one path to another.  External differences in language and focus often lead to greater confusion.  However, learning to see the commonalities in all true paths brings greater insight into your own.

A Course in Miracles

Teachings of David Hoffmeister – David teaches one of the purest non-dual understandings of the Course.  Here are three extensive sets of audio and transcriptions of his teaching:  Laying the Foundation

Advaita Vedanta

The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi – One of the great realized teachers of modern India.  His teachings had a profound influence on me when I was just beginning my own search.  Like many of these teachers, he did not write himself, but others copied or recorded their spoken teachings and Q&A with those who came to hear him.  Here’s a collection of the works on him on Amazon.

 The Teachings of Nisargadatta – Another of the most widely respected teachers of Advaita Vedanta.  His best known book (again recorded and transcribed by others) I AM That. While this was a more recent find for me, I find it one of the purest non-dual teachings I’ve read.  Highly recommended for the serious student. May need some preliminary work to fully appreciate.

 Ram Das/Richard Alpert – Be Here Now – I bought this seminal book shortly after it was published, and was perhaps my first serious introduction to non-dual teaching, and had a huge influence on me.  I met him one time when he was speaking in the Triangle, along with the Christian Mystic Priest who gave me the name David (another story).  When we walked up to him, he seemed to immediately recognize her and they fell into each other’s arms, though she swore to me later they had never met. 

Christian Mysticism

Evelyn Underhill – Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness – Widely regarded as the essential book on Christian Mysticism, it was written more than a century ago, and is still in print.  I have read this book more than once, having done a book study of it some years ago with some of my advanced students, and going through the book word for word.  While Christian Mysticism is seldom spoken of in mainline churches, it is, as with all the world’s great spiritual traditions, the very root and core of the Christian faith. 

Underhill goes through the history of Christian Mysticism, from the earliest days of the church, through the great mystics of the middle ages, and into the 19^th Century (the book being written in the first decade of the 20^th).

This core of the “contemplative life” was kept alive in monasteries and independent schools of Christianity, even while the public church was increasingly aligned with the culture, politics, and even the wars of nations in which it appeared.  While these teachings have been continuously available outside the monastic tradition in small schools and books, they have been so outside the western Christian culture that they have seldom been well known to the general public.

When Eastern spiritual traditions began to spread in the west in mid-20^th Century, they seemed uniquely Eastern, so that when more non-dual/mystical Christian teachings such as the Unity School of Christianity, and later Unity Churches, as well as A Course in Miracles began to appear, they seemed more Eastern than Western.  Underhill’s works bring greater understanding of the common heritage of all the world’s great spiritual traditions.