Electrical Living (South of the Border)

June 20, 2014
A couple of months ago, I moved from San Diego, California to Tijuana. Mexico, directly across the border from San Diego—and I couldn’t be happier. Not only is my rent (on a 2-bedroom condo on the beach) about 1/3 of the cost it would be in San Diego, but I just like it here more, because I find the U.S. boring, sterile, puritanical, and cookie-cutter. Between the politically correct, secular-humanist Neo-Marxist liberal fascists, (epitomized by President Berserk Obozo and “it takes a village” Mrs. Bubba Clinton) on one side and the ultra-moralistic “the earth is 6,000 years old” Bible-banging neocon fascists (think Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum) on the other, living in the U.S. is like living between a rock and a hard place.

The U.S. is a good place to make money, but after you make it, it’s a good place to leave if you want to escape the Rat Race and the Insanity. I lived in the Philippines (the PI) for a year in (2010), and I loved it there, too. Like Mexico, The PI feels more human than the ultra-plastic U.S.

I wish I would have given up my U.S. citizenship many years ago, before I got ripped-off for a half-million big ones by the IRS (Infernal Rip-off Shit-fuckers), the non-Federal collection agency for the non-Federal “Federal” Reserve, a front for the private Banking Cartel, the biggest  counterfeiting operation in history.… Read the full article

Indra’s Net

June 13, 2014
This is a recent Amazon review of mine of Indra's Net : Defending Hinduism's Philosophical Unity, by Rajiv Malhotra.  I've reposted my review here because I think the author's arguments, though limited to Hinduism in his book, pertain to the Progressive Globalism that is "flattening" the world -- and I am opposed to this liberal-fascist takeover of the world.   

I was inititially attracted to this book because I recently began working on a Buddadharma text and need to bone up on Indra’s Net because of its central role in Hua Yen Buddhism. I wanted to get a nuanced Hindu perspective— with Brahman, and not emptiness, as the noumenal foundation of the Net—and this book provided it, to a limited extent. However, because this book is essentially about “defending Hinduism’s philosophical unity,” it did not deeply consider the Vedic view of Indra’s Net versus the Buddhist.

What this book does, however, is deeply consider how modern and post-modern intellectual forces in the West are conspiring to de-legitimize Hinduism as a genuine and coherent religion. And according to Malhotra, the reason they do this is “to protect Western hegemony.”… Read the full article

A Change of Mind

June 6, 2014

I am currently editing my forthcoming novel—“Kill Jesus”—in conjunction with a professional editor, and when I’m done with this task, I will resume work on my next book-- “Integral Buddhism.” I had thought that my next book would be one on meditation, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve been reading a lot of Buddhism books lately—and finding fault with all of them—and this has motivated me to right away write my own book on the subject. Barring unforseen circumstances, “Integral Buddhism” will be available about a year from now.

I’ve written several pages of a book on meditation, but my heart is not into this project. I’ll eventually write not just one, but at least a few, books on meditation, but not right now. I actually have plans for four separate books on meditation, but the fact that my mind keeps dwelling on ideas for a Buddhism book convinced me to write this book first.… Read the full article

Enlightened Spiritual Masters?

May 30, 2014
When spiritual guru Andrew Cohen, author of “Evolutionary Enlightenment: A New Path to Spiritual Awakening,” was asked if he was fully Enlightened, his response was to the effect: “It is politically incorrect to answer that question.”

Andrew Cohen, of course, is not spiritually Enlightened, nor is his Integral bud, Ken Wilber, perhaps the most overrated philosopher since Immanuel Kant. But this begs the question: Are there any fully Enlightened living gurus?

None whom I’m aware of. I read spiritual book after spiritual book, and I can’t find a single living guru or teacher who really impresses me—except myself, and I’m not fully Enlightened.

Even though I’m not fully Enlightened, I’ve “cracked the cosmic code,” and know what it’s all about, spiritually speaking. So I qualify as a sage-like teacher, but not as a sage-like guru. And as sage-like teacher, I know the signs to look for that would identify someone as a truly En-light-ened guru, a true Heart Master.

In my estimation, there has been just one teaching-writing guru since Ramana Maharshi who was/is fully Enlightened—the nefarious and much-maligned Adi Da Samraj (1939-2008). … Read the full article

Lost in the Amazon Jungle

May 23, 2014
I have received numerous emails from Amazon.com book review readers who find my (180, and counting) reviews helpful and entertaining.

Then why is my current Amazon reviewer rating a dismal 735,000? Two reasons, in my opinion: 1) I make plenty of enemies with my no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is reviews, hence my reviews get peppered with a  shitload of “not helpful” clicks, which is reflected in my unimpressive 57  percent positive votes. 2) Until a few months ago, my reviewer rating hovered around 40,000, but when I posted a veritable barrage of one-star reviews of neo-Advaita Vedanta texts, my rating suddenly plummeted to an astronomical 21,000,000.  What happened? My guess is that Amazon’s reviewer-rating algorithm rewards five-star reviews and punishes one-star reviews; so ”bad boy” me got his ass “spanked” by Amazon. When I recently posted a few four-star and five-star reviews, Amazon “rewarded” me by upping my rating to 735,000.

If you find my Amazon reviews of spiritual books helpful, please do not hesitate to click the “helpful” button, because if my rating is higher, more readers are likely to find out about my reviews.… Read the full article

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