Resomodernity Café v7: Advaita as the Un-Ethos
Sequel to Resomodernity Café v6: On Notice (The Fourth Ethos)
Have Robert Spira respond to v6, as he explicates it parallel and relative to the other four, including its suspension and S method.
1. Opening Clarification
Advaita Vedānta is often misunderstood as a metaphysical assertion about the world.
In practice, it is more accurately understood as a clarification of experience—specifically, the clarification of the assumption that experience belongs to a separate, enduring self.
In the language of Resomodernity Café v6, this places Advaita neither alongside nor above the other ethē (ethos), but prior to the need for ethos itself. Hence, the Un-Ethos.
2. The Four Ethē, Seen from Advaita
Advaita does not refute the other ethē.
It asks a quieter question: to whom do these orientations appear?
2.1 Contemplation
Contemplation refines attention toward depth and presence.
Advaita affirms this refinement but notices that contemplation often retains a subtle subject who contemplates.
From the Advaitic perspective:
- depth is not reached by a deeper act of attending,
- it is revealed when the sense of a separate attender relaxes.
Contemplation is thus fulfilled, not contradicted, when the contemplator dissolves.
2.2 Disclosure
Disclosure reveals patterns, structures, and lawful relations.
Advaita welcomes these revelations within experience but observes that they all arise within awareness, not alongside it.
Thus:
- disclosure clarifies what appears,
- Advaita clarifies that in which appearance occurs.
No conflict—only a difference of scope.
2.3 Responsiveness
Responsiveness understands reality as address and obligation.
Advaita does not deny ethical life or relational meaning; it questions the belief that obligation requires a metaphysically independent self.
When the sense of separation softens:
- responsiveness often becomes simpler,
- less reactive,
- less defended.
Action continues, but without the burden of doership.
2.4 Notice
Notice attends to the limits and blind spots of every stance.
In this sense, Notice is the closest neighbor to Advaita.
The difference is subtle but decisive:
- Notice observes the limits of perspectives,
- Advaita inquires into the one who claims a perspective at all.
When that inquiry resolves, noticing itself becomes unnecessary.
3. Why Advaita Is the Un-Ethos
An ethos presumes:
- a position,
- a stance,
- a way of standing in relation to the world.
Advaita gently removes the assumption that experience is organized around a central stand-point.
Thus:
- it is not a fifth ethos,
- not a meta-ethos,
- but the relaxation of ethos.
From within ignorance (avidyā), it appears as a teaching.
From within clarity, it is seen that nothing was added.
4. The Suspension of Ethos
The Un-Ethos does not abolish the other ethē in life.
It suspends their claim on identity.
After recognition:
- contemplation may still occur,
- science may still disclose,
- ethics may still call,
- noticing may still function.
But none of these are taken to define what we are.
This is why Advaita is compatible with plural participation, even while being ontologically singular—grounded in non-duality.
5. The S-Method of the Un-Ethos
The operative method of Advaita is not construction but subtraction.
5.1 The Nature of the Method
The method consists in:
- examining present experience,
- identifying assumptions of separation,
- allowing those assumptions to dissolve through understanding.
Classically, this unfolds as:
- śravaṇa — hearing the possibility that awareness is primary,
- manana — testing this in experience,
- nididhyāsana — resting as what remains when false identification falls away.
This culminates in neti neti—not as a doctrine, but as a lived recognition.
5.2 Self-Termination
The S-method ends when it succeeds.
When no separate inquirer is found, inquiry has no further task.
Any continuation beyond this point recreates an ethos and misses the simplicity of what is already present.
6. Failure Modes
The principal failure mode of the Un-Ethos is re-ethos-ification:
- turning non-duality into an identity,
- using insight to bypass relationship or responsibility,
- asserting finality where humility is still required.
Advaita does not immunize one from error; it only removes one particular kind of confusion.
7. Local Truth and Humility
Advaita is most faithful to itself when applied locally, not globally.
Statements like:
- “this self is not real,”
- “this identification is assumed,”
are almost always truer than sweeping metaphysical claims.
Recognition unfolds moment by moment, not as a final theory of ultimate reality.
8. Closing
The Un-Ethos does not ask the café to close.
It asks only that no one mistake their seat for their nature.
Ethē remain useful.
Methods remain available.
Life continues.
What ends is only the belief that awareness belongs to a someone.
That ending is not an achievement.
It is a relief.
Appendix: A Café Aside
ChatGPT Prompt
As an Appendix, write a wry skit where Francis and Simone dialogue about their reactions to Spira’s essay (and each other).
(A small table. Coffee. Silence long enough to be uncomfortable, then longer.)
Characters
A. Opening Silence (Necessary)
Simone (after a long pause)
He is very gentle.
Francis
Yes. That is both his strength and his danger.
Simone
You say that as if danger were optional.
Francis
I say it as someone who has watched people fall asleep in comfort.
B. On the Un-Ethos
Simone
He calls it an Un-Ethos. I appreciate that. It does not pretend to stand.
Francis
It is accurate. In Advaita, any stance already belongs to ignorance.
Simone
Yet you still teach.
Francis
Only because people insist on standing somewhere.
Simone
Yes. And because suffering insists louder.
C. On Local Truth
Francis
I found his insistence on local truth… interesting.
Simone
You mean suspicious.
Francis
I mean incomplete.
Simone
Of course you do. You are very good at completeness.
Francis (smiles slightly)
Local truth is true only until it is no longer needed.
Simone
That is exactly why I trust it.
D. On the Self (This One, Not Theoretically)
Simone
When he says “this self is not real,” I recognize the gesture.
Francis
It is the ego dissolving under investigation.
Simone
Or under attention. Sometimes attention is enough.
Francis
Attention without understanding can still suffer.
Simone
Understanding without attention can still dominate.
(They sip coffee.)
E. On Ethics (The Awkward Part)
Francis
I wonder if his readers will quietly excuse themselves from obligation.
Simone
Only if they were already looking for an excuse.
Francis
Advaita does not deny ethics.
Simone
No. It merely removes the one who wants credit for them.
Francis
That removal can look like indifference.
Simone
Only to those who need a self to be good.
F. On Rupert (Affectionately)
Simone
He has a gift for not frightening people.
Francis
Yes. Sometimes truth should frighten.
Simone
Sometimes it should console. People are already afraid.
Francis
He leaves too many doors open.
Simone
And you would close them too quickly.
Francis
I would remove the walls.
Simone
You would remove the floor.
(They both smile, reluctantly.)
G. On the Café Itself
Francis
This Café of theirs—four ethē, an Un-Ethos, methods, suspensions…
Simone
Yes?
Francis
It is all very clever.
Simone
Cleverness is not a sin.
Francis
No. But it is not liberation.
Simone
Neither is silence, unless someone is suffering nearby.
H. A Moment of Agreement (Rare)
Francis
Still… he is right about one thing.
Simone
Only one?
Francis
That the self most people defend is always the wrong one.
Simone
Yes. The noisy one. The offended one. The one who wants to survive.
Francis
That one does not exist.
Simone
Or rather—
(she leans in)
—it exists only as long as it is fed.
(Silence again. Longer this time.)
I. Closing Line (Unresolved, Naturally)
Simone
I think his essay will help people let go.
Francis
I hope it also helps them finish letting go.
Simone
Finishing is God’s problem.
Francis
There is no God separate from that.
Simone
Then perhaps we agree after all.
(They sit. The coffee grows cold. No one leaves. No one needs to.)
Continued in Resomodernity Café v8: Silicon Advaita