when we use foils and over-against approaches it helps us deepen both our understanding of others as well as our own

self-understanding BUT, if that is all we do, we will miss the opportunity to describe a reality, or even ourselves, on its/our own terms, which is a great aspiration for all sorts of reasons nondual entered the english language b/c of translations of eastern literature and got reinforced by philosophical positions over against cartesian subjectobject splits; buddhism, like, philosophy of mind talk, seems more epistemological than ontological; advaita also focuses on epistemic reality but gets more explicitly ontological, monistic BUT it's got that parsing of transcendental, pragmatic and apparent, which DOES leave room for a personal god & devotion carefully disambiguated, at least on a vague level, i suspect that many eastern and western traditions (which aren't monolithic but have many schools) would not be wholly inconsistent with panentheism, albeit a pan- vs panen- parsing would still be an indispensable distinction otherwise, i think that nonduality has WAY more to do, east and west, w/epistemology than ontology ontologically, i prefer to say unitary vs unitive, intraobjective vs intersubjective but, to the extent that epistemology models ontology, the trending approach, east and west, is to interpret csc naturalistically and the soul along with it, so nonduality does have ontological implications vis a vis the relationship of mind to matter BUT that does not necessarily speak to the ontological distinction between created and creator, it only asserts an ontological monism for all of created reality not all of reality when additional ontological realms are suggested for created reality, causal disjunction questions beg re how the different realms would interact; of course the same types of questions beg when drawing absolute ontological distinctions between created and uncreated realities, hence, i eschew root metaphors and embrace vagueness what the nondual epistemic approach suggests, really, is nothing essentially ontological, then, other than that reality is more dynamic than static, more process than substance the no self description and even maya make much more sense to me as epistemological realities not ontological conclusions; our illusion is not absolute, only partial; it would be more appropriate to simply say that our grasp of reality is fallible; we do not deny, necessarily, the empirical and practical realities of self, other realities, or even god but we do deny our ability to make wholly successful descriptions of certain realities (not just god but self! as imago dei!) in addition to what we know are, indeed, otherwise, very successful references to such causes (again, self, god, other realities w/unfathomable depth dimensions like sacraments, spiritual gifts) as can be inferred from their effects, effects which are proper, in fact, to no other known or robustly describable causes hence referenced via heuristic (still in negotiation) and dogmatic (non-negotiated) concepts rather than semiotic (non-negotiable) and theoretic (negotiated) concepts 1

rather than kicking against the lingo goad, i have found it more helpful to engage the prevailing lexicon (grabbing the attention of interested parties, incl heresy hunters) while introducing what i hope are helpful neologisms, like unitary and intraobjective, ontologically; i also like rohr's epistemological distinction between problem-solving and contemplative approaches to reality vis a vis dualistic & nondual as it captures the subject-object cleavage vs subjectobject union more concretely i'd imagine that a great many practical consequences ensue precisely from an impoverished anthropology as results from the types of category errors that ensue when epistemic virtue is lacking, something discernible in our positivistic and philosophic horizons before we even make our interpretive leaps metaphysically or theologically, hence the danger of kw's interdisciplinary conflations religions have been a strange admixture of faith, morals, metaphysics, epistemology and anthropology but their essence, in my view, is a faith as takes an existential stance toward ultimate reality, whether theistic, nontheistic or atheistic - this should be the focal point of nonstablishment & free exercise vis a vis the state morals, metaphysics, epistemology and anthropology are all descriptivenormative or positivistic-philosophic concerns, all transparent to human reason w/o the benefit of special revelation and we can discern epistemic virtue of these horizons it's too problematical otherwise adjudicating the practical successes and failures of what are essentially faith-related stances both b/c they have been so intertwined w/positivistic and philosophic stances that are accidentals to the faith and b/c, as chesterton cautions, like pxnty, how much has faith been truly tried and found wanting vs not really tried at all? ergo, we best evaluate each faith's saints and mystics and hagiography, those who've gone deeply and who've married exoteric and esoteric, like the sufis, etc