You know how sometimes you read a review on Amazon, and you think to yourself "that was really cool, this guy should write a book himself!". I wish I'd written it myself, it's just so nicely done. Anyway, here it is, and the book he's referring to is called "As It Is".
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By Scott Meredith.
This book is the classic and still best-of-breed presentation of what I call the "Third Option". What is the Third Option? Third of what I see as 3 broad choices for "What the frik is really going ON here??"
Option 1 (Cold World): This is the scientific/materialist worldview in its purest form. That means that there is no meaning, nothing but mindless DNA chemicals endlessly attempting to convert all available matter and energy (such as can be scrounged in the universal near vacuum) into pointless copies of themselves, forever. See Dawkins "The Selfish Gene" for a good explication, but all modern sci/tech is based on this idea.
Option 2 (Hot World): This is the entire grab-bag of BOTH traditional religion AND all "New Age" systems of any kind. It might seem strange to lump traditional religion together with New Age stuff given they are so often at each other's throats, but in fact they share identical premises: that there is or could be a transcendent "meaning" to human or biological existence, further that there are gradations of meaning and purity and power and value and so on ... so that a task of vertical ascent is laid out for us in all cases (pass the collection plate). It is true that the specifics of all these meaning-construction systems contradict one another, they share an over-arching commitment to a transcendent value system and gradations of achievement/progress vs degeneration/perdition as a core logical structure. In short, duality all the way down.
Option 3: (Non World): Pure non-dualism/Advaita. tracing back to ancient Indian scripture, but pioneered in modern times by Ramana Maharishi (died 1953). Now I finally get to this Parsons' book, where I find "As It Is" to be both a pioneering statement of "neo-Advaita" (Advaita stripped lean and mean for Western consumption) and probably still best-of-breed explication of the core idea. The core idea is distinguished most clearly in opposition to Option 2 above. NeoA holds that there is no meaning, there is no personal identity, there is no progress, there is no time, there is no enlightenment and no ignorance. There is nowhere to stand, nothing to do, and nobody to do it anyway even if there were. If that makes sense, ha ha! Anyway the point is that we are situated kind of like the recent cool movie "Open Water" where two divers are left stranded in the middle of the ocean by their support boat, leaving them to just ... float there in the open ocean... nothing to stand on or cling to ... nothing to do... nowhere they can go... no way to call for rescue... and things just ... happen ... (such as being eaten by sharks, hee hee). Anyway that's the feel of the purest NeoA, as best exemplified by Parson's teachings (or, non-teachings). This book is the best, shortest, clearest, least-BS presentation of this view. It should be clear how different this is from Option 2. What about Option 1? Well, it seems strange to say it given the radically distinct cultural origins of these two worldviews, but in a weird way the NeoA cosmology (if such it can be called) is actually very reminiscent of the purely coldest sci/tech world. No "meaning" in either case. No possible "progress" (teleological fantasy in evolution). We are just Dust in the Wind. However, Parsons does allude here and there to a background field of unconditional love into which the false meaning-structures and personality-structures ultimately collapse, so that could be point of difference with respect to Option 1. He doesn't make that big a deal of that aspect however.
There are the very broad, overly broad I guess, pigeon holes into which I find I can cleanly dump pretty much whatever loony new or old explanation of the world that comes down the pike.
So given the above (which you might view as pure bullspit, ask me if I care!) you got to step up to the window and place your bets. It could be "important" (sorry!) how you choose, because if you go with Option 1 or Option 3, there is no morality, and you have zero moral responsibility. Furthermore with those options you don't have to worry about improving yourself, your mind, body, or soul because it just ain't gonna signify. This is in a way, as Parsons points out, quite a relief.
On the other hand. after a lifetime of social mind control that what we do matters and that we matter, or the accepted view most of us have of ourselves that we do actually exist as "individuals" I could see the NeoA thing could be very hard for many people to swallow. Or I guess I should play word games here and say, hard for the small-i egoic mind to swallow, blabitty blah blah blah.
Anyway this book is a must-read if you want to spend the very least time possible time acquiring pretty much a perfect understanding of the terms of the NeoA thing (short of actual "awakening").
Overall it is a uniquely soothing book to read, whether "true" or not. Somehow less grating and less attitude/arrogance than the many many other new Western NeoA books now popping up like mushrooms after an autumn rain.