"jamie wrote:

I am so put off by a major chunk of what I hear said about vedanta, buddhism, christianity, Islam and Gnosticism etc in the west and new age circles that I rather tend to just not talk about it with many people, because the don't get it, and resort to popular cliches like "namaste" and "it's all one!" while inserting the latest cultural suppository Jehova is handing out Razz ..please don't burn me yet!"

All is irrefutably one... and this is neither New Age nor Neo-Advaitan belief... it is quintessential reality on it's own terms. Here I feel that we are both speaking the same language. Moreover, It is what it is."

There is a difference between sincerity, and tacky cliches. I don't know what else to say about that..and sure that upsets people...people can call me a pessimist if it feels right. But honestly, this is just how I feel. I would rather not have people just walk around willy dilly saying these cereal box slogans without a real frame of context for such statements. It comes off as inauthentic. Nen said in an interview, "the next person who says we are all one Im going to punch in the face"..and I guess that sums it up.

This reality is not an illusion. It is real. You are here to testify this. A state of mystical union does not cancel out the relevance of this reality of cause and effect, even if the cause remains present within the effect, and vice versa.

...and so while I agree with you, that is it all one, I think that there is an often ignored other side to that coin...and I believe that much of the dialogue we engage in today on the subject is born, in part out of only partially understood and appropriated eastern ideas.

I have grown very weary of people who just claim it's all one, and use that as a spiritual backbone to lean on.