Aware Wolf

You might like Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated. If you feel you must. My POV is that goal-directed meditation practice, trying to go to some next level, is a carrot. Maps are largely bullshit. Different systems have different maps. I believe a wrong map is, or can be, worse than no map at all. With no map, you're careful and you take what happens as it is. With a map, you've got an overlay to put your experience. You're also primed to have the expected experience. Be careful with maps. Don't get too attached to them. Instead, I'd recommend that you try to explore a spiritual unit. If you're into meditation, why not follow the instructions of the Buddha, the maestro of meditation -- and practice the Satipatthana, a direct path to liberation? My brief advice here is to check out Bhikkhu Analayo's trilogy on the Satipatthana, especially his guide to practice. See on Youtube Analayo's guided meditations on the Satipatthana. Find Joseph Goldstein's multipart series on the Satipatthana (podcasts or Youtube). I also recommend combining Metta practice, Equanimity. and Mindfulness of Breathing with Satipatthana. If you're adventurous and have got foundations down, you might explore Jhana practice, but beware of all the myths and misinformation out there concerning Jhana practice. I like Rob Burbea's lectures on Jhana on dharmaseed dot org. I have detailed guides, I largely wrote for myself on these, that I can send you later if you decide to explore this,

I like you and I like what you have to say. My POV Is that we're not required to be compassionate all the time in all situations. Should we as Leo Gura demands, love Hitler? I don't see it. If someone is delusional -- are we not allowed to call this out? Is there a place for whistleblowers? The people who called out gurus and teachers for bad behavior are heroes -- why should you put the fault on them for not being completely "fair". Jeezus. Hitler did build the autobahns, I hear ya. The Internet is a huge marketplace of ideas and opinions. Maybe some are more concerned with Truth than compassion. Maybe some are more concerned with telling a good story. But good luck in your fight to bring compassion to those like Leo Gura, who doesn't really need it, and if you asked him about your support, if he answered you at all, would probably laugh. There's a ton of work for you on this, last I checked, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit and most social media are critical, which for you seems to mean, unfair and not being compassionate. You like philosophy and I am reminded of Karl Popper who spoke of the benefits of criticism and an open society. Authoritarian regimes limit criticism. And so there's little opportunity to self-correct. If we insult the dictator, we're not being fair are we? Are we being compassionate to criticize Putin? Hmm.

@Joseph Maynor Fairness for what purpose ? If Leo Gura was on trail, and I was on the jury for let's say his contributing to suicide -- I would try my utmost to be fair. If I was writing a case study of Actualized and Leo, I might endeavor to be fair and 100% accurate as I could. I'd ask Leo if he wanted to give input. However, if I was writing a personal review of Leo Gura and Actualized, I'd feel free to vent and express my opinion. I might call Leo a pseudo-intellectual and chucklefuck and his followers simps. It's not the blind leading the blind to criticize Leo. People have written of their experience and their opinion. Am I blind for pointing out Leo's errors? Am I blind for saying Leo often authoratively lectures on subjects he knows little about and are outside his wheelhouse? Am I blind for posting Leo's obnoxious remarks on Pickup & women and how women smell like fish? I don't see it that way. If someone posts something about myriad issues on a forum, I'm not concerned with 100% fairness at all. It's an opportunity to opinionize in an informal way. Are movie reviews "fair"? What would a "fair" movie review even look like? What's wrong with someone expressing whether they liked the movie or not? Red Letter Media does some hilarious reviews where they roast movies and series. Is it fair? That's the wrong question to ask. It's not designed to be fair. Leo, like a movie, is fair game, it's not required for the movie producers and directors to be given a chance to respond. Finally, if this thread isn't to your liking, perhaps look elsewhere. Seriously, why waste your time? If it's done for you, it's done.

Leo Gura is a public figure. This is a forum. It's not a New York Times article that requires sources and vetting. One of the prime movers in taking Keith Raniere of NXIVM to justice was a tabloid style website called the Frank Report by someone who had a grudge against Raniere. If someone posts here about Charles Manson and Heaven's Gate -- it would be ridiculous to adhere to good faith communication and some overly liberal view of fairness. "Some people say Charles Manson was a devil -- other's say he's literally Man's Son. Maybe the Truth is somewhere in between. What is Truth?" Are we being fair to Charles Manson and Marshall Applewhite? /s Who cares? What's been interesting to me is the number of people who Leo has adversely affected. This thread has been useful for this and letting people vent and also to put Leo's teachings and actions under the microscope.

@Lester Retsel Good catch. Agree. Ya. Confused. I pity the interviewer. i wouldn't have the patience.

I was a lurker on Actualized briefly. It felt toxic. It felt dirty. I could tell it was affecting me. I deleted Actualized forum windows on my computer and felt better. Sometimes the posts are about one-upmanship, peacocking, the blind leading the blind, and both an echo chamber and people looking to foster discussion by believing that means finding something to criticize. If someone is suicidal, a post recommending spiral dynamics, or a new form of meditation, picking up a member of the opposite sex, or just a post saying stop being a victiim -- is shit. What these people need is to get off the Internet and see a therapist. Of course forum participation is required on the spiritual path because all great masters have been active forum members on their path. Ramana, Nisargadatta, Dilgo Khyentse, the Buddha. /s JK. If something is unbeneficial on the path (for you), consider not doing it. We don't live in a perfect world. Sometimes there might not be a good option. If you hate the piling on in forums and the toxicity, I'd recommend an in-person sangha. People are different, more polite, in person. If this isn't an option, look for zoom meetups, or try communicating with some dharma friends. Surround yourself with healthy options. Eschew the unhealthy ones. If you continue to practice unbeneficial practices and go on mini-rants, to me it's like a obese unhealthy person who hates McDonalds and their unhealthy choices but continues to go to McDonalds and go on rants. "Stop going to McDonalds. Go to health food places. Try vegetarian places. Make your own meals." "How dare you say I shouldn't go to McDonalds. Fat people have every right to go to McDonalds. To say fat people shouldn't go to McDonalds is exclusionary, discriminatory, and bullying. Fat people need a safe space everywhere and McDonalds is everywhere. McDonald's coffee is great, in taste tests it often outranks Starbucks and it's far cheaper." Sigh. A forum is a forum. It can be a poor substitute for community. It is not therapy. If you're being traumatized by online activity, try an Internet break. Seek out someone who you can talk to, perhaps a professional. The bad thing about my post is that I feel it is totally useless and won't be taken well, that I'm belittling a person's experiences, their fears and concerns. I regret this.

Books by Jack Miles are superb and should be on your reading list by god, with his books: God: A Biography, which won a Pulitzer Prize and Christ: The Life of God in Crisis, which was a New York Times Notable Book. Both books by Miles I loved and it's a pleasure to be able to recommend them and let people know about them. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote Living Buddha, Living Christ. Thomas Merton has some good books. Checkout Merton's The Wisdom of the Desert and his Course in Desert Spirituality. Bart Ehrman and Karen Armstrong are good authors and have written on many topics. Choose a book of theirs that interests you. I like Ehrman’s Jesus, Interrupted. John Shelby Spong is an innovative and radical Christian thinker. The middle ages book The Cloud of Unknowing is interesting. It's thin but profound. Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism is a challenging esoteric Christian book. If you called the Christian Mystics like Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, and the Desert Fathers some other name besides Christian, it might be all good, even for those turned off by mainstream Christianity. Meister Eckhart can sound very close to Zen in fact. See the documentary, Ai-Un (on Amazon Prime), about the Jesuit Father Hugo Lassalle who was a pioneer in bridging Christianity and Zen. Father Lassalle was a big influence in Bodhizendo's Father Ama Samy's path. Father Samy has written very fine books. Try Zen: The Wayless Way and Zen: Awakening to your Original Face. Sometimes Westerners ask how or if Buddhism is compatible with Christianity and they ponder it and maybe they write a blog post on it. As if they are discovering the issues for the first time. That's cute. Father Ama Samy has been dealing with these questions and issues for decades. He literally lives it being a Zen master and a Jesuit Priest. He has written extensively on it. You can see for yourself in his books.

There's multiple ways to approach this. There's multiple posts here. One is, Do you want to always feel good? ALWAYS? -- wouldn't this be a zonked out drugged out zombie like state? A happy zombie, but still a zombie. There's people that go to horror movies to feel scared, and tragedies. I like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- and it's sad at the end when Randall P McMurphy dies. Or is it? Is being happy all the time doable? WIthout drugs? Why forsake a drug approach -- if you could take a drug that would make you happy all the time with no side effects -- would you? This sounds like a plot to a science fiction movie, one that all too readily might turn into a horror. There's another movie, Equilibrium where citizens are forced to take a drug that stabilizes their mood. The Dalai Lama isn't happy all the time. He tries to meet with every Tibetan refugee. Many times they have sad or harrowing stories. He gets tears in his eyes. He's said to be Avalokitshvara, the avatar of compassion. You're not your thoughts. You're not the good feeling. You're not the bad feeling. You're what's prior. As Rupert says,, you're the movie screen upon which it all plays out. Can you stop it from playing out? Can you will yourself to be happy? Can you schedule, oh I'll wake up and first I'll have contentment until coffee, then Bliss, then Joy, then some Rapture. Then lunch. I like the mantra, "Whatever can happen to a human being, can happen to me, and I accept the reality of this." I like Equanimity. I think Equanimity is more doable. It encompasses all human emotions. Once, I felt depression arise. But I didn't feel bad about it all. I was okay with the depression. Not unhappy with it. And i wondered, can it be depression if you don't feel depressed? Then I think later that night, I went to the bathroom, and I had loose bowels. And I wondered, maybe that's it, a mind-body connection. I felt a bit off, a bit blah, maybe lack of energy because of the loose bowels and food not converting to energy efficiently. It's complicated.

'I die and I do not die' -- this is my vision of self in death and beyond. I have written about this in many places and have given one chapter on this in the book, Zen is Eternal Life. Some zen masters will hold that in zen there is no death; this is supposed to be known simply in consciousness as presence; or, that in zen vision your life is eternal, death is only an illusion. Some will hold life and death are nondual, you die every minute and come back to life every minute. Hence, death is death, and life is life. Some will accept rebirth, that after death you take birth into many lives endlessly. Some will hold that in death your self and energy are transformed into the many living things like plants or animals, or even clouds and rains and so on. Some will aver that there is no self literally, the self is only an illusion. And so on and on. For me, learn to live well, learn to love and care; learn to accept joys and sufferings, ups and downs. As regard what happens after one's physical death, we do not know, it is a mystery. But it is no nihilism, no eternalism. You live only once; cherish this one life and live this one life in faith and hope; in freedom, joy, and caring. And learn to love the living and also the earth. Your life is enveloped in the mystery. Not only in death you enter into the mystery, your whole life is lived in the invisible presence of the mystery. We do not know where we come from, we do not know where we go. The entire universe is mystery; even matter is mystery, life is mystery, consciousness is above all a great mystery. Our life is shrouded in mystery; and paradoxically we are the mystery, the mystery of Emptiness. Emptiness that is Mystery, Mystery that is graciousness. -- Father Ama Samy. Koan seminar handout from future book 2019. I liked this from the series Midnight Mass

If we're already enlightened, like the sutras say, then why do we suffer still? Why do we need to practice? This is the question that inspired Dogen to go to China and search out the answer. I like Seung Sahn's Zen Circle: We see @Mandy is pointing out 270 Attachment to Freedom. This is 2+2=5. Valleys are Mountains, Mountains are Valleys. Some people like Jim Newman orArianna Reflects teach at 180, attachment to Emptiness.

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA!" -- Dr. Peter Venkman

@Arug Oel Well said. I enjoyed this exchange of views.

Good point. The last religious conversation I remember having was from Jehovah's Witnesses who came by. I think it's the politicians that are the real problem with religious type legislation, ordinary people -- not so much. Oh so his maps were correct for you. That's interesting. So ... how far did you get? There's a lot of maps out there. Culadasa's people think they're correct, Ken Wilbur has a model and maps. Sadhguru has levels of consciousness, Keith Raniere of NXIVM has levels, Scientology has levels. Heaven's Gate suicided so they could exit to the next level. Everyone of these have people that say they are correct and THE TRUTH. I think awakening experiences are often concept bound. Yoga people have a yoga awakening. Zen people have kensho. Shamans get visits from spirit animals. If one likes Ingram, one may indeed find oneself going through Ingram's maps. It's too bad he emphasizes a Dark Night of the Soul so much because if someone is expecting that -- they may well get it. I found Ingram's maps convoluted and confused. They're often word salad. Venerable of Vivekananda who is of the same lineage as Ingram claims, says Ingram does a disservice to meditators who frequently self-evaluate their meditation according to Ingram's book and his map. Ingram himself warns in the 2nd edition for his fanboys to cease being "map spouting brats" (and whose fault is this?). Venerable Vivekananda has been running a dharma center for decades. So ya, he has a ton of experience. To say that objectively he must be wrong to disagree with Daniel Ingram ... -- I don't know what to say. There's many other things I can criticize about Ingram's book, but one thing I am in disbelief over is Ingram's use of ordinary and trivial life experiences, including dreams, as evidence of high attainment. Let’s look at his story about his vision of green mushy demon-like creatures! Now, if this happened to me, I'd be reluctant, almost embarrassed, to bring it up to my teacher in a private retreat interview--much less detail it as an Insight in a book! It's trivial and pretty much textbook Makyo (illusion). Ingram instead sees how everything is both green mushy demons and fully enlightened Buddhas at the same time and labels it an Insight. But it's nothing any crazed meth-head couldn't mumble at me walking down the street: Hey You! Green mush demons -- and fairies! This isn’t an isolated incident. Let’s play a game -- I’ll give the Daniel dream or experience and you guess the Insight knowledge Daniel obtained: 1) a dream of a witch zapping things with her wand; 2) A dream of being a Gerbil on a wheel and seeing God; 3) Being on a hike, legs tired, shoulders hunched. It’s funny. Here’s a guy, a MD, so he’s obviously educated. He writes a book that’s readable enough. He delves into meditation maps and stages with technical fury. Yet, he gives the most juvenile responses for his Insight Experiences. What is this, a joke? You saw a witch? Little green men? Fairies? No joke -- Ingram gives watching TV as leading to high equanimity. This type of stuff drives legit teachers a bit batty. If one decides to claim any attainment based on Daniel Ingram's book -- legitimate dharma teachers will either laugh or eye you as being a possible problem. Daniel Ingram students have a poor reputation at dharma centers. It's like someone bringing up Leo Gura as their guru and a top philosophical mind. It's a reverse barometer. Fanboys of THE METHOD (mostly Ingram, Gura, and Culadasa) are often resilient towards instruction. They have trouble following directions and even center rules. Afterall, Ingram is an Arahant -- and who is this modest no-name dharma teacher to contradict what Ingram says? There's also a problem when the meditation teacher tells the student that they really are not such a high level of attainment. Often, they get upset or angry, so I'm told. Maybe if he was a psychiatrist that might be true. But Ingram is an emergency room doctor. Say, aren't doctors supposed to have an over-size ego? Check. Naw. I do lucid dreaming. It's very do able. A month of practice and you're lucid dreaming and one can manipulate stuff. Maybe I'm a arahant-wizard like Daniel! It's funny, on the Guru Viking podcast Daniel has lamented that most people who contact him believing that they are a high stage of attainment are wrong. This is just like Leo Gura. Their own path to God or Arahantship was pretty easy. Modest amounts of time (Ingram achieved Arahantship in only 8 months with the longest retreat only 27 days). Ingram counts his dreams as evidence of passing high Buddhist insight stages. Leo boffs 5 MEO DMT and achieves God level consciousness. So other people can do the same right, that's the take-away. I mean why not? Why aren't there any other God Level consciousness on Actualized Org? But NOOOO -- Leo and Daniel will tell you that you're wrong, most likely deluded, "your awakening" is incomplete. Ther'es only room for Leo and Daniel at the top. Or like Leo with Connor Murphy (who was like Leo 2.0) -- Leo recognized the absurdity in others. Himself, not so much really.

Speak more about the dizziness, how severe is it ? How do you feel about the shift? What are you doing when you meditate? What you might do, if you'd like to experiment or if this shift in POV is disturbing is try a modified bodyscan meditation. Meditate on your mouth, try a half Buddha smile. What does this feel like. Hands. Feel energy. Feel compassion. Hands to help others. Heart chakra. Feel metta and love. Shoulders. Relax. Equanimity. Forehead - Third Eye. Make your mind like the sky. You can modify this, add to it as you like.

Not as easily with an organized system. It would seem that way, but in my experience, and I live in the Bible belt, Neo Advaitins still come out way, way ahead. Of Daniel Ingram, tons. He's delusional. He gets a ton of things wrong. He's careless with facts. He's like a Leo Gura but for Buddhist audience. for Ingram, see what Bhikkhu Analayo, a very well regarded Theravadan monk and scholar, writes about Ingram and his claims and maps, in a 2020 article (available online). It's a wicked takedown: These (Ingram’s) assertions lack a grounding in reality and appear to be simply the result of the author being misled by his own obsession with maps into constructing fictitious meditative attainments and then needing to find ways to authenticate them. Daniel Ingram is of course free to call any experience he has by whatever name he wishes, be this an insight knowledge or a level of awakening. The point is only that the conclusions he presents pertain entirely to the realm of his own imagination; they have no value outside of it. The main problem here is that his rather strong claims are unfortunately taken seriously by some scholars and practitioners. -- Analayo Just critiquing the book cover of Ingram's Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (or MCTB), the book cover (first edition), By Daniel Ingram, Arahant, M.D. I don't see how having an M.D. degree contributes to a dharma book anymore than about anything else. Also one of the primary Buddhist insights is indeed not-self. Someone should understand Anatta well, but here's an arahant, putting a pompous title THE ARAHANT front and center, with MD. Ego, much? And there's no evidence for such an exxagerated claim. None at all. Daniel claims that a Mahasi Sayadaw teacher vetted him, but the teacher in question now denies this. Daniel in a Guru Viking says, well, it was like his teacher said after Daniel gave a meditation report "Well, there's arahants who are only arahants on retreat." To Daniel Ingram, this is evidence that the teacher is subtly saying Daniel is an arahant. This is how Burmese hint at it. Nope. I think it's Daniel delusion that anytime someone uses Arahant in a sentence, Daniel think it applies to him. Also, what the monk said is just general wisdom and a caution. Sometimes people have wonderful retreat experiences but it all falls away in the real world. True. If it's an organization, there's barriers to attainment claims. I don't know much about Magick. Daniel Ingram proclaims himself a master of magick. He gives in an interview with Guru Viking youtube that he is a wizard and has battled other wizards. He says it's like World of Warcraft, with a boss phase. He also gives as evidence that in a dream, he made a rock disappear in his hand. In a dream. Okayy.

If someone asks me : "Aware Wolf, I've just started a new job. My employer offers matching funds for a 401K. However I have 20K worth of credit card debt with a high interest rate. Should I put money into the 401K or payoff credit cards? If I put money in the 401K what funds are good?" There are good answers here, and bad answers, and then there's nondual answers and platitudes: THERE IS NO SELF. MONEY IS A CONSTRUCT. MONEY DOESN'T BUY YOU HAPPINESS. MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. ESCHEW THE WORLD OF GREED. NOTICE THAT FUNDS ARE JUST A THOUGHT. scenario: Oh! There's a snake! Is that snake poisonous? There's good answers and bad answers here. "Yes!" -- when the snake is indeed poisonous (GOOD ANSWER) "No!" when it is (BAD ANSWER) NONDUAL ANSWER THERE IS NO SNAKE. ASK YOURSELF WHO IS ASKING THE QUESTION. The Grammar Nazi Answer: "No, it's probably not poisonous. It *may* indeed be venomous. Remember, if you bite it and you die -- it's poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it's venomous."

This is a bold statement. But I like it. It's very ponderable. Not that I don't entirely disagree. There's charlatans and obnoxious people in all religions, but the most obnoxious and annoying people I've found, by far, are the Neo Advaitins. If you go into a traditional religion, let's take an example, Theravada Buddhism, there's often monks and teachers who are legit, there's not so many dangerous areas where people get lost. Perhaps Jhana practice, there's a lot of bullshit, myths, and delusion concerning Jhana claims (See Daniel Ingram, Frank Yang, Delson Armstrong) I also wouldn't say it's nondualism per se -- it's Neo Advaita view of nondualism. If you study Advaita Vedanta, you've got a structure, a teacher, and a system that hopefully doesn't let you fall into traps or ditches. The thing with Neo Advaita, is that one can take a few nondual books, read them, and then proclaim one is awakened. This can't really happen, at least not easily, with Theravada. Sure, Daniel Ingram, Yang, and other Internet Arahants claim to be Arahants -- but they get a lot of blowback too and there's no legitimate Theravada teachers that support their claims. I think Magick also is a system that can lead people to overestimate their attainments though I know nothing about Magick except that one could read Crowley and few others and then claim to be a Master of Magick -- and who's going to say you're wrong? Neo Advaita often rejects teachers and authority. They can have a nondual experience and then they're free to interpret this experience on their own. Leo Gura interprets it as solipisism. A nondual YouTube nondualist "A" said there's no self, no thing -- not even illusion. So it's nihilism.

WHO IS ASKING THE QUESTION? Oh sorry. The relationship of compassion to suffering? I dunno, perhaps as a motivation to alieve suffering? Or a POV that sees compassion as a beneficial response to suffering? As a philosophy, that a kinder world is a better world? I don't see where you're going with this.

Do you remember the The Office "THATS WHAT SHE SAID" I wait until the perfect time to pounce on nondual friends with "There is no self" where it will be maximally annoying, inappropriate, and funny. "I was traumatized because I was sexually abused from the ages of 8-11 by a family member and then recently i lost my job, ended a longterm relationship, and now my cat is sick with feline AIDS. I feel so lost." THERE IS NO SELF! THERE IS NO ONE TO ABUSE! ASK YOURSELF WHO IS IT THAT LOST THEIR JOB! CATS SUCK. WORDS ARE MERELY POINTERS. Hilarious.

Are they bears though ? I think they are. They seem like bears. They're not people.

I love this video. Sometimes when my friend answers with a nondual platitude like "There's no self" when I ask about 'what happens to the enlightened mind during food poisoning?' or should I go to Ecuador and do Ayahuasca -- I tell them not to nondual bear me. There's also a part II and I like the quote in that , "so there's crap arising in oneness...."

Naw man Tarkin was pretty cool. There's Internet rumours that Jar Jar Binks was really a sith lord. So I'd say then it's Jar Jar.

Thank you. Most teachers I an just listen to and enjoy. Then there's teachers I yell stuff at the screen. This is Leo. "I've got the perfect model for enlightenment for you" No. The whole moth analogy doesn't work for me. The moths are DELUDEED by the lamp because they evolved to follow the moon at night. The moths aren't trying to get to a lamp. They don't know what a lamp is. Lamp equals death for tons of moths. The moths out in darkness, are not the unlucky ones, as Leo says. They are in fact, the lucky ones. The moths won't get nowhere nice following a lamp. Maybe Leo Gura and other Internet Arahants like Daniel ingram, Frank Yang, Bentinho Massaro are lamps of delusion in this metaphor. "It's going to happen by magic" No, again, This is so bad, it's not even wrong, There is no lamp. There is no window, There is no Gate. "The moth is the Light...." wtf .... how? How are moths the light? A moth is a moth. Is Leo using a metaphor within a metaphor?? FFS I could go on. I could probably write an essay here. But I"d have to watch it more than once. Why bother? There's parts that are okay here, but also trivialities, and nondual platitudes. There's contradictions as when Leo says "There's no way to get there", yet he says "Self Inquiry" is the way to get there.

I want to be happy. I want to be feel good all the time. How do i make this happen? But not in a bad way, not in a spiritual bypassing sort of way, no creepy Monkey's Paw sort of way. What happens to the enlightened mind during food poisoning? Altheimer's? What happens to the enlightened mind when their beloved dog dies? A lama once told a group I was in "We all want to be happy." Did you ever see the Seinfeld episode "Serenity Now!" -- George learns the mantra "Serenity Now" and says it during stressful times. It's supposed to transport you to peace and calm. It doesn't work. At the end of the episode George is screaming "Serenity Now" in traffic. Well, I don't. That's fool's gold to me. That's not going to happen. I'm not sure if it's even healthy or human. Everything changes. What I'd prefer is to dwell in equanimity. Equanimity is THE shit. It's the meta state that allows for change and other states. I recommend Equanimity. However, I didn't say anything to the lama because ya, sure for teaching purposes, teaching people how to have more happiness in their life is great. Carry on.

I haven't read this entire thread, but what's the moth metaphor ? I googled, but no good clear hits. For books/resources/teachers etc -- it depends on what you want and where you're at. But for a lot of nondualists, you can't go wrong with Ramana and Nisargadatta. Take a look at Samaneri Jayasara Youtube Channel which has a large collection of audio readings from great masters from great wisdom traditions. Simply superb. I don't think there a better collection of direct pointing out instructions and pointers to the Absolute elsewhere that I"ve seen. For modern teachers, I like to listen to Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Ram Das.