The Triune Self – A Beautiful Read

Doesn’t matter if you’re done, faking it, or you’ve given up–this book,  The Triune Self, Confessions of a Ruthless Seer, by Mike Singer, is worth a read. Worth reinvesting any time you’d be spending doing anything else. It is a joy and a thump-to-the-chest kind of read.

Perhaps you might, out of habit, respond–“There’s nobody out there,” or “I already get that,” or some such equivocation like, “Another spiritual book? Really?” Yes, really. Something about these words truly pierces to the heart of the matter, and I mean that almost literally. There’s something about Mike…

Such a totally and unflinchingly honest and earnest reflection. It might bring joy, or it might scare the ever-livin’ spiritual pants off of you. Perhaps a more suitable subtitle would be, “The Reluctant Sage,” though my guess is Mr. Snider might quibble with the “sage” handle.

Here are a few quotes, though I hesitate to parse it out ineptly, when the whole speaks for itself:

On life:

“I find the whole of it is benevolent imagination any way you cut it, no matter how crooked it appears.”

On effort, non-effort, pointing:

“It means nothing to those who have their most essential nature pointed out to them if they haven’t struggled for its recognition.”

On self:

“He seems to be more interested in his objectified universe than he is in the mysterious wonder that registers it.”

On the spiritual marketplace:

“All the theatrical drama that enshrouds this obvious and simple Truth we all are, pissed me off when I finally came to See.”

 The Kindle version is available here.  I cannot remember the last time I bought a book, or even how I landed on this listing, but for whatever reason, I downloaded the sample and when it ended, I just wanted to keep reading. And though I don’t seem to have much spare change these days, if there was an audio version, I’d probably buy that as well, just to hear Mr. Snyder sing it. It’s what we’re here for.

Context: Many Teacups for Sipping Sweetness

il_340x270.478965392_iar6In a prior post, I wrote, the “seeing becomes the teaching,” meaning that what is experienced goes beyond any teaching. Experience here, is the thing–not the context, the words, the method, or the framework. We can read Wu Hsin, the Bible, Adyashanti, Nisargadatta, or any contemporary teacher, and what we have is context, the shell around the kernel. All of this, as experienced, is outside of and in many ways, limited by, context.

What is the experience of watching a radiant sunset? Of spending time in play and foolishness with children? Of reading a finely-crafted poem? The intoxicating smell of lilacs? These are the true pointers. In fact, they are not even pointers, but the experience of–what seems to be something other than self, but is nothing but Self, knowing ItSelf.

Words may point to this, but too often the mind, or the me gets involved, a context is created and appended to, and the experience is overlooked. The experience of knowing the words, not understanding, but being in that place where something is touched, where any sense of division falls away, if only for the moment:  Seek no further. Continue reading