The Primitive Square Roots of Unity

Despite traditions to the contrary, there simply cannot be true jnana without true bhakti, there cannot be the ultimate understanding without the ultimate surrender. Certain personalities will try to avoid one or the other under the guise of some higher wisdom, but always at the cost of wholeness.

There is a tradition that jnana is the higher path because the bhakta relies on a belief in someone or something to be devoted to, whereas the jnani knows there are neither. But true bhakti knows no object; and the true jnani knows nothing.

Jnana and bhakti, knowledge and devotion, understanding and surrender, inseeing and outpouring, mind and heart, cannot be divided or opposed; because they are the same.

~David Carse from 'Perfect Brilliant Stillness'

I Go, You Go, We All Go for Ego

Adyashanti says that spirituality is a surrender game. Certainly eradicating the ego and all its resultant suffering is. There are two chief ways of doing so.

The first involves some worship of a higher power, so that your self is humbled to a greater cause or being. The ego is ultimately sacrificed on that altar.

The second involves an intellectual quest, an investigation really, into the nature of the self. In so doing, the ego is discovered to be an illusion.

In both ways, the ego is surrendered. In the former, it is killed. In the latter, it never existed.

Still, they are radically different in their worldview. In worship, there is a Creation. In self inquiry, there is, at most, a dream. Beyond that, Nothingness.

Call me Ishmael. Call me Quantum Spirit.