References
Paradoxically, [the] most subtle and most profound aspect is also [the] simplest and [the] easiest. The absolute depth… the most subtle, most profound aspect of reality itself… is simply:
THIS…
This — that’s right here. That’s the… absolute depth of it…
The mark of Realization is you can stop there.
The mark of being a very advanced yogi is you can almost stop there.
The mark of being a… lesser yogi is: “Yeah, but what about…?”
-Peter Brown
Here are some of my go-to recommendations for seekers wanting to “get to the punchline” without the copious falderal found in the traditions. Hope they are of interest and help! Here are some links if you want to jump to a particular entry:
John Wheeler
John Wheeler (not to be confused with the physicist, John Wheeler: 1911-2008) was a former “student” of ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson (who was, in turn, a former student of Nisargadatta Maharaj). Although he spent more than 30 years ardently seeking “The Answer,” it wasn’t until he met Adamson in 2003 that he found what he was looking for. After that pivotal encounter, he spent about 10 years publicly writing and speaking. He tirelessly pointed to the “Fundamental Nature” with astonishing lucidity and alacrity. About a decade ago Wheeler stepped out of the public light entirely; he pulled down his website and retired to a private life without any public comment, as far as I know. His books and interviews remain online and his work speaks for itself. I presume he stepped out of public life because he had simply said all that he thought needed to be said.
Wheeler felt that Nisargadatta Maharaj did understand what all this was about, but he failed to “get the message” from the written accounts of Maharaj’s speaking. This resonated deeply with me because I felt both compelled and deeply confused by what both Maharaj and Ramana Maharshi spoke about. Maharaj passed away before Wheeler could meet him. That was what precipitated Wheeler seeking out Adamson.
I believe Wheeler said in an interview that Maharaj was Adamson’s “Last Teacher” and that Adamson was Wheeler’s “Last Teacher.” Following that line, Wheeler is my “Last Teacher.” It was the work of Wheeler that introduced me to Adamson, although by that point I already had all the answers I needed.
Thankfully an anonymous editor has expended a lot of effort to compile all the work of John Wheeler that is still available at a free WordPress website here:
johnwheelernonduality.wordpress.com/
I highly recommend anyone new to his work to start with his book You Were Never Born, which can be found, along with all his other books, here.
There are multiple YouTube interviews and podcasts with him still available. My favorites are his conversations with the late Charlie Hayes, links to which can be found here.
I will likely never meet Wheeler. I understand the need for privacy. But words could never contain the gratitude I feel for him. While I “crossed the threshold” in isolation, I was left mute to encourage anyone else along the path. I simply could not find the words to speak. In my “dumbness” I stumbled across Wheeler’s work; then a “miracle” ensued. John Wheeler gave me the ability to speak about these matters. And I know for a fact that more than one person is now living a life free of suffering because I steered them to Wheeler’s work. Much love, and thank you, John.
‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson
[03/03/2025: I was shocked to receive the sad news of the passing of ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson yesterday. He “shuffled off this mortal coil” on February 6, 2025. It would be impossible to count the number of lives freed from suffering that precipitated out of his work and love. The man will be sorely missed, but hopefully his work will remain a doorway to liberation for others for countless generations to come.
I only emailed him a couple of times; he was a wonderful, warm human being. He didn’t hesitate to answer my questions and he offered encouragement to me to “keep pointing.” I didn’t write more to him because he was so busy, and I didn’t want to be a distraction. Now I feel I may have missed an irreplaceable opportunity. Such is the way of these things. Love to you, Bob, and your family. Via con Dios.]
‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson studied under Nisargadatta Maharaj from 1976-1977. Sri Nisargadatta helped Mr. Adamson to “get to the bottom of things” conclusively. After Adamson returned to his home in Melbourne, he began speaking to others about the “fundamental nature” and started his own style of “pointing.” For more than 40 years Adamson helped point seekers out to “the home they never left;” that is: the very nature of their being.
He uncompromisingly pointed to the fundamental in a secular, western style stripped of all spiritual/traditional artifice. Further, he refused to inject his own commentary/pedagogy on top of this direct pointing — virtually unheard of in today’s world of “spiritual influencers” (who are almost universally focused on “building their brand”). There was/is virtually no teacher that I am aware of that approached these matters with the untrammeled clarity that Adamson brought to the fore.
His website is still maintained at: sailorbobadamson.com
Peter Brown
Peter Brown (1950-2022) was a contemporary of John Wheeler in more ways than one. Not only were they both teaching an uncompromising perspective of the fundamental nature of reality at the same time, they both lived at worked in the Bay Area. I have come across no evidence that they ever met or were aware of each others’ work. But there are many striking similarities in what they put forward publicly.
But, as variety is the spice of life, their differences are very enjoyable to marinate in. Wheeler simply said what he had to say, then “stepped away from the microphone.” Brown reminds me a lot of Alan Watts in some ways. They both were supremely endowed with “the gift of gab.” Brown spoke effectively right up to his death in 2022 even though the act of speaking was obviously becoming very difficult for him. He shall be missed.
Unlike the two teachers above, Brown would frequently weave in examples from science and mathematics to underscore his points; a boon to nerd types like me. And he had an understated yet pervasive sense of humor that imbued his talks with a delicious levity.
His ample gift of loquacity makes parsing through his work fairly challenging, although there is now a tool to aid in the search (details below)! The most approachable “digest” of his work has been produced by The Nonduality Podcast on YouTube. Here is the first installment of their voluminous series An Introduction to the Yoga of Radiant Presence.
The quote at the top of the page comes from [0:48:14] in episode 28 of that series (found here).
Brown’s friends still keep his website running at: theopendoorway.org
Brown wrote four books. To date I’ve read two; I own them and absolutly love them.
The first is The Yoga of Radiant Presence. This is an incredible book that not only lays out some excellent conceptual frameworks for understanding what yoga (Brown uses “yoga” to indicate what I mean by “investigation” or “inquiry”) is and why we do it, but there is a section on actually practicing. I often get the question: “But how do I investigate?” Answering that is not my forte’, so this much is a much-needed gem!
The second book I’ve read is The Yoga of Radiant Presence Revealed in the Gospel of Thomas. The subject matter is somewhat arcane; the thesis is that Jesus was a realized yogi and his discussions of “The Father, The Kingdom,” and so one were his parlance for a universal, nondual insight. Consequently the text is dense, so it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The density of Brown’s writing has the upside of brevity. You may need to read a sentence a few times. But he’ll say in one sentence what others say in 10.
On his website there is a link to an LLM AI interface that is linked under the heading “Ask AI Peter.” While I despise the idea of asking an LLM about anything esoteric (future essay topic), this AI feature is a unique opportunity for gleaning information about Peter’s teaching that isn’t available anywhere else. Following the previous link will lead you to the AI prompt page and you will be required to set up an account (requires only an email address). You can simply ask the AI for the dates of the audio recordings where Peter discusses the topic of interest to you. The LLM should give you a curated list, and you can get the desired discourses “from the horses mouth” by browsing through the linked “Audio” archives on the website here. This librarian-esque capacity of an LLM is a far more useful (and authentic) way to get information than asking an unconscious, unintelligent mechanism to paraphrase a wise human.
The idea of talking to LLMs about spiritual matters reminds me of John Wheeler paraphrasing and idea from an Indian philosophical tradition: “Even a parrot can be taught to say: “Tat tvam asi.”
Roger Castillo
Roger Castillo was a student of Ramesh Balsekar; and Balsekar was a student of and translator for Nisargadatta Maharaj. There seems to be a trend here…
Ramesh Balsekar1, unlike Bob Adamson, was enamored of the Advaita Vedanta traditions specifically and, after his realization of the “fundamental nature,” developed his own pedagogy (arguably) along those traditional lines. Castillo “got to the bottom of things” under Ramesh. Castillo then began his own teaching career (I believe) in 2015. He borrows extensively from Ramesh’s pedagogy.
While my mind thrives in the pointing-stripped-of-tradition vein, some seekers can find that off-putting. John Wheeler once emphatically said: “All religions are bullshit!” I wholeheartedly agree with him. Yet some people may find that degree of directness uncomfortable. This is where Castillo shines.
He beautifully weaves instruction and pointing out through more traditional contextualization. I am turned off by the word “god,” which Castillo uses frequently. But many are drawn towards it. This is why we need as many realized teachers/commentators as we can get. There are as many points-of-view as there are people out there. It’s impossible for one person to deeply reach everybody.
In spite of his more traditional didactic approach, Castillo is perfectly clear that all concepts are ultimately false. He presents them as conceptual “stepping stones” that can lead a seeker into the unknown, rather than the “cliff diving” approach (my preferred method) of the teachers above. Again, variety is the spice of life.
Roger Castillo has an extensive YouTube channel here. And his “Being Lived” website can be found here: rogercastillo.org.
Self-Investigation.org
My friend Jesse Starks runs and curates a wonderful, multifaceted website dedicated to opening the door to and encouraging the self-investigation of the average person. It is the opposite of programmatic; it embraces approaches to investigation from a wide variety of perspectives. These include scientific investigation, traditional approaches, conversations with others on the investigation journey, internet culture, and more.
They are currently requesting volunteers for free membership that would lead to an online forum as well as investigation website projects and review opportunities:
https://self-investigation.org/membership/
I have had the pleasure of conversing with Jesse many times and will maintain links to any recorded mutual conversations that he publishes. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read on OpenSourceAwakening please check these conversations out!
My Story and Extended Discussion of the Seeking Journey
Urban Guru Cafe’
A nonduality podcast from yesteryear. A quintessential Oldie-but-Goodie. The sheer breadth of contemporary teachers interviewed on this podcast is stunning:
Unfortunately there really isn’t a search engine to find episodes featuring specific teachers. They do have a categorized “blogroll” for the teachers; but no UI to get at the information. I just use an online search engine to pull up one episode featuring the person I’m interested in. If you go to that episode page you will find the person’s name hyperlinked to the appropriate blogroll entry. Click on their name and all the episodes featuring that speaker will be listed.
After having dabbled in listening to Castillo on and off for about two years, I only recently heard about the controversy surrounding his teacher, Balsekar. Given the sharp criticisms he received — specifically in regards to alleged financial and sexual misconduct with students — I’m surprised there was no mention of this on Wikipedia. He also has received criticism from some Advaitans as being “neo-Advaita;” specifically that his philosophy was nihilistic/fatalistic and amoral.
I do find Balsekar’s insistence on “destiny” and “God’s will” to be doctrinaire, and it does seem he could have used them to justify doing what people might judge as bad. But he did afford other people the freedom to disagree with him. Further, there is copious dogmatism and tedious moralizing coming from his critics that I strongly disagree with as well. Balsekar undercut that, which I appreciate. However, I certainly don’t appreciate someone causing harm to others. I certainly would NOT endorse a “do what you feel like” morality if it included an “…even if it will cause suffering for others” clause.
What surprises me is, for all the brouhaha that seems to have erupted over Balsekar in 2005, I have yet to find a any concrete allegations of misconduct; only anecdotal reports and hearsay. Did Balsekar behave badly? Did he do things that caused others to suffer? It seems unlikely such accusations could happen if things were totally on the up-and-up — in other words, the old “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” argument. But what can we be certain about? I’m not in a position to formulate any conclusions at this point.
In my opinion, while there’s no excuse for a teacher to cause harm to another, I still try to let the words of the teacher speak for themselves. Do they hold water? Do they ring true? Alan Watts was far from a moral lighthouse, but he never moralized at anyone and never advocated anyone act the way he did. In a similar spirit, Balsekar insisted: do what you like; which is exactly what he did, for good or ill. You are free to disagree with that, of course! But you have to admit he was living with literal integrity; as in there was no contradiction between what he taught and what he did. So we must judge the message on it’s own (de)merits. I’ve often said awakening is an amoral process. It’s up to each practitioner to develop their own moral code. Morality-by-fiat is, in my opinion, immoral (and also usually ineffective). If a teacher says “everything is okay,” then your disagreement with such a positions is also okay — so stick to your (moral) guns!
At the end of the day, his former students are not him. They speak their own words and convey wisdom as seems good to them. Castillo words make a lot of sense to me, and he conveys them in a clear and unpretentious matter. I’ve greatly enjoyed listening to him, and have never detected anything amiss, let alone approaching “red flags” in him or his work. I hope the reader who is interested can find value there as well.