God is Nothingness (Andre Doshim Halaw)
A Book Worth Nothing
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “God is Nothingness: Awakening to Absolute Non-Being†by Andre Doshim Halaw.]
According to the author of this book, Andre Doshim Halaw, “God is Nothingness… silence.†This is an absurd notion. First off, something, meaning creation, cannot come from nothing; it is an impossibility. Secondly, silence is a derivative quality, not an ontological primary or ultimate. Before there can be silence, there must be some thing or ‘Thing’ (or Being) that is silent. But Halaw, stumping for a dead God, an impossible Zero, asserts that God, or Nothingness “is not intelligent, willful, or alive.â€
Halaw writes, “The worst things we can do with Nothingness is to reify it.†But that’s exactly what Halaw does throughout this text. For instance, he writes, “Nothingness can be experienced in between the spaces in our consciousness… it is directly apprehensible.†First off, it is impossible to experience nothing, or Nothingness; humans can only experience something, or some ‘Thing.’ Second, the idea of experiencing Nothingness objectifies it by reducing to a transcendental or ineffable “It†that one’s consciousness can perceive or apperceive. This philosophical error is called the “reification of zero,†which means attributing ontological status to a non-existent.
Halaw is so intellectually and philosophically challenged, he doesn’t even pick up on his own egregious contradictions, which riddle this book. He writes, “Nothingness needs to be negated, transcended, and emptied, so as to avoid reifying it into a golden calf.†If he had a philosophical clue, he’d recognize that negating and emptying Nothingness is simply another form of reifying it. To attempt to negate, transcend, or empty ‘something’ (in this case Nothingness) is to implicitly reify, and thus objectify, it.
Halaw’s writing is so slipshod and contradiction-riddled. I could write a tome deconstructing his intellectual flotsam -- and if someone offers me a pretty penny, I will gladly do so. But since this is just a review, I can only scratch the surface when it comes to undermining the nonstop philosophical prattle that he peddles.
Halaw, a Zen Buddhist priest, puts his own twist on the Heart Sutra when he writes, “Form is Nothingness, Nothingness is form.†Modern science refutes this notion and informs us that all material forms are reducible to that which is irreducible: energy. Simply put, both Halaw and the Heart Sutra, an overrated ancient Mahayana Buddhist scripture, are wrong: it is energy, and not nothingness or emptiness, to which form is ultimately equivalent.
According to Halaw, “Nothingness, or Non-being, functions as the basis of being… it is fecund and dynamic.†But it must be “stupid†or Mind-less, because, if you re-read the first paragraph of my review, you’ll see that Halaw asserts that it is dead and “not intelligent.†So if we are to buy what Halaw preaches, we are left with a dead God that is an unintelligent Non-being, or Nothingness, but yet somehow is dynamic and fecund. Only a fool would buy a God like that.
Perhaps the worst thing about Halaw is his intellectual dishonesty. If you read this book, you’ll see that he “name-drops†sages such as Huang Po, Shankara, and Ramana Maharshi in such a manner so as to make it appear they support his thesis of Nothingness, or Non-being, as the Absolute. And this is not the case. In fact, these sages identify Being, not Non-being, as the Absolute.
Huang Po, in “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po†by John Blofeld, describes the realization of the Absolute thus: “The realization of the One Mind may come after a shorter or longer period of time. But whether you transcend conceptual thought by a longer or shorter period of time, the result is a state of BEING.â€
Shankara, in accordance with the Advaita Vedanta philosophy he consolidated, and in diametrical opposition to Nagarjuna’s emptiness-apotheosizing Madhyamika, describes the Absolute universally as Brahman (or Divine Being) and immanently as Atman (or Self). This hardly equates to the Nothingness that Halaw pushes.
In debates across India, Shankara destroyed Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika Buddhism, effectively kicking it out of India. Halaw, conveniently, fails to mention this fact, and, laughably, describes Nagarjuna as an “unrivalled philosopher, but even more impressively, he used logic to demolish both logic and delusion.†Actually, Nagarjuna, like Halaw himself, specialized in illogic, not logic. For more insight into both Nagarjuna’s and Halaw’s illogic, I suggest the book “Buddhist Illogic: A Critical Analysis of Nagarjuna’s Arguments†by Avi Sion.
Regarding Ramana Maharshi, Halaw writes, “Ramana Maharshi spoke of the Self, which of course is nothing but Nothingness.†In “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi,†Ramana describes the Self thus: “The best definition of the Self is that ‘I am that I AM. It is only Being, but different from the real and unreal; it is Knowledge, but different from knowledge and ignorance. It is simply Being.â€
Halaw writes: “Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest sages who ever lived, famously instructed a student to ‘Go back the way you came’ (Osborne 60). He was pointing to the great Nothingness that precedes all of life entirely, the experience of universal Non-being that we all unconsciously are and long for.â€
Contrary to what Halaw writes, Ramana Maharshi never pointed to Nothingness as the irreducible Subtratum, or Absolute. He specifically states that this Substratum that precedes life is the Self, is Being, is Sat-Chit-Ananda.
I could go on and on deconstructing Halaw’s quasi-nihilistic apophaticism and flaming apotheosis of Nothingness, or Non-being, but I’m sure you get the picture by now. So at this point I’ll simply summarize my opinion of the book: It is worth exactly what I paid for it at Kindle Unlimited -- Nothing.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “God is Nothingness: Awakening to Absolute Non-Being†by Andre Doshim Halaw.]
According to the author of this book, Andre Doshim Halaw, “God is Nothingness… silence.†This is an absurd notion. First off, something, meaning creation, cannot come from nothing; it is an impossibility. Secondly, silence is a derivative quality, not an ontological primary or ultimate. Before there can be silence, there must be some thing or ‘Thing’ (or Being) that is silent. But Halaw, stumping for a dead God, an impossible Zero, asserts that God, or Nothingness “is not intelligent, willful, or alive.â€
Halaw writes, “The worst things we can do with Nothingness is to reify it.†But that’s exactly what Halaw does throughout this text. For instance, he writes, “Nothingness can be experienced in between the spaces in our consciousness… it is directly apprehensible.†First off, it is impossible to experience nothing, or Nothingness; humans can only experience something, or some ‘Thing.’ Second, the idea of experiencing Nothingness objectifies it by reducing to a transcendental or ineffable “It†that one’s consciousness can perceive or apperceive. This philosophical error is called the “reification of zero,†which means attributing ontological status to a non-existent.
Halaw is so intellectually and philosophically challenged, he doesn’t even pick up on his own egregious contradictions, which riddle this book. He writes, “Nothingness needs to be negated, transcended, and emptied, so as to avoid reifying it into a golden calf.†If he had a philosophical clue, he’d recognize that negating and emptying Nothingness is simply another form of reifying it. To attempt to negate, transcend, or empty ‘something’ (in this case Nothingness) is to implicitly reify, and thus objectify, it.
Halaw’s writing is so slipshod and contradiction-riddled. I could write a tome deconstructing his intellectual flotsam -- and if someone offers me a pretty penny, I will gladly do so. But since this is just a review, I can only scratch the surface when it comes to undermining the nonstop philosophical prattle that he peddles.
Halaw, a Zen Buddhist priest, puts his own twist on the Heart Sutra when he writes, “Form is Nothingness, Nothingness is form.†Modern science refutes this notion and informs us that all material forms are reducible to that which is irreducible: energy. Simply put, both Halaw and the Heart Sutra, an overrated ancient Mahayana Buddhist scripture, are wrong: it is energy, and not nothingness or emptiness, to which form is ultimately equivalent.
According to Halaw, “Nothingness, or Non-being, functions as the basis of being… it is fecund and dynamic.†But it must be “stupid†or Mind-less, because, if you re-read the first paragraph of my review, you’ll see that Halaw asserts that it is dead and “not intelligent.†So if we are to buy what Halaw preaches, we are left with a dead God that is an unintelligent Non-being, or Nothingness, but yet somehow is dynamic and fecund. Only a fool would buy a God like that.
Perhaps the worst thing about Halaw is his intellectual dishonesty. If you read this book, you’ll see that he “name-drops†sages such as Huang Po, Shankara, and Ramana Maharshi in such a manner so as to make it appear they support his thesis of Nothingness, or Non-being, as the Absolute. And this is not the case. In fact, these sages identify Being, not Non-being, as the Absolute.
Huang Po, in “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po†by John Blofeld, describes the realization of the Absolute thus: “The realization of the One Mind may come after a shorter or longer period of time. But whether you transcend conceptual thought by a longer or shorter period of time, the result is a state of BEING.â€
Shankara, in accordance with the Advaita Vedanta philosophy he consolidated, and in diametrical opposition to Nagarjuna’s emptiness-apotheosizing Madhyamika, describes the Absolute universally as Brahman (or Divine Being) and immanently as Atman (or Self). This hardly equates to the Nothingness that Halaw pushes.
In debates across India, Shankara destroyed Nagarjuna’s Madhyamika Buddhism, effectively kicking it out of India. Halaw, conveniently, fails to mention this fact, and, laughably, describes Nagarjuna as an “unrivalled philosopher, but even more impressively, he used logic to demolish both logic and delusion.†Actually, Nagarjuna, like Halaw himself, specialized in illogic, not logic. For more insight into both Nagarjuna’s and Halaw’s illogic, I suggest the book “Buddhist Illogic: A Critical Analysis of Nagarjuna’s Arguments†by Avi Sion.
Regarding Ramana Maharshi, Halaw writes, “Ramana Maharshi spoke of the Self, which of course is nothing but Nothingness.†In “Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi,†Ramana describes the Self thus: “The best definition of the Self is that ‘I am that I AM. It is only Being, but different from the real and unreal; it is Knowledge, but different from knowledge and ignorance. It is simply Being.â€
Halaw writes: “Sri Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest sages who ever lived, famously instructed a student to ‘Go back the way you came’ (Osborne 60). He was pointing to the great Nothingness that precedes all of life entirely, the experience of universal Non-being that we all unconsciously are and long for.â€
Contrary to what Halaw writes, Ramana Maharshi never pointed to Nothingness as the irreducible Subtratum, or Absolute. He specifically states that this Substratum that precedes life is the Self, is Being, is Sat-Chit-Ananda.
I could go on and on deconstructing Halaw’s quasi-nihilistic apophaticism and flaming apotheosis of Nothingness, or Non-being, but I’m sure you get the picture by now. So at this point I’ll simply summarize my opinion of the book: It is worth exactly what I paid for it at Kindle Unlimited -- Nothing.
