Beyond vision : going blind, inner seeing, and the nature of the self / Allan Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Allan, 1943- author.

Contributor:

Class of 1932 Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blind.

Vision.

Philosophy.

Canada.

Jones, Allan, 1943-.

Jones, Allan.

Vedanta.

Advaita.

Self-realization--Religious aspects--Hinduism.

Self-realization.

Self (Philosophy).

Vision--Philosophy.

Diplomats--Canada--Biography.

Diplomats.

Blind--Canada--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xv, 311 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2018.

Summary:

"How does a young man who is losing his eyesight go about shaping a life? Such a dilemma is the stuff of "pathography," a dreary genre of literature that emphasizes suffering and loss. This literary convention and the misconceptions that fuel it are challenged by Allan Jones in his autobiography, Beyond Vision - Going Blind, Inner Seeing, and the Nature of the Self. Jones was Canada's first blind diplomat, and his vivid account of life and work in Tokyo, New Delhi and Ottawa is a testament to the blind person's native capacity for innovation and practical adjustment. But the deeper message of Beyond Vision is more radical and consequential: the self - the real self that is normally veiled - does not go blind. The deep self stands entirely apart from the experience of sightedness or blindness, as a centre of stable equanimity. This is what the author discovered through his study and assimilation of Indian Vedantic philosophy. Jones briefly describes the basic features of Advaita Vedanta, and identifies startling findings of contemporary science that are consonant with the Advaitic view of world and self. He then outlines practical applications of Advaita, for example the mindfulness practice that allowed him to retain his white cane mobility skills despite chronic and untreatable spinal and muscular pain. Beyond Vision is an intimate, many-sided personal and family biography. But the dominant feature of this book is the way the world changed out of all recognition, with the author as its fascinated explorer and laborialist."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Claiming the Terrain 3

1 Can the Self Go Blind? 3

2 Finding a Path 10

3 Making Sense of the Pathfinder 12

4 Where We Are Heading 16

Chapter 1 A Sheer White Cliff Face 22

1 How Things Began to Go Missing 22

2 The Flight from the Truth 28

3 Inner Acknowledgment 32

4 Taking My Prognosis on Tour 37

Chapter 2 The Functionary and His Mask 51

1 Eyeing the Foreign Service and Angling for Tokyo 51

2 Down from the Plateau 62

3 Three Faces of the RP Identity 70

4 Trying to Catch Hold of Myself 77

Chapter 3 India, the Visual Conundrum, and Letting Go 82

1 The New Delhi Sensorium 82

2 Disentanglement from Images 94

3 A Set of Mogul Pictures 98

4 Regarding Facelessness 108

Chapter 4 Vedanta, the Ego, and the Flesh 113

1 Re-enter Shiva 113

2 The Coils of the Ego 121

3 Factor X: The Centripetal Pull of the Body 126

Chapter 5 Into the Pre-Visual Centre 133

1 Skirting the Edge 133

2 Just by Walking 139

3 Factor Y: The Return of the Repressed 147

4 A Burst of Openness 157

5 Looking for My Others 165

Chapter 6 Vision, Science, and the World-Illusion 172

1 Three Unconventional Perspectives on Seeing 172

2 Inside the Mall: Reality or Appearance? 181

3 The Great Light of Consciousness 192

Chapter 7 Learning to Live An Ancient Teaching 202

1 Taking It in and Letting It Work 202

2 Spiritual Practice as Stress Management 213

3 The Subtle Arts of Equimindedness 223

Chapter 8 The Challenge of Integration 237

1 Factor Z, at Long Last 237

2 Interzone, Phantasmagoria, Ownership 246

3 Ordinary Life as I Find It 264

Chapter 9 Opening Up 279

1 A Humane Transition 279

2 A Final Affirmation of the Sensory World 287.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Class of 1932 Fund.

Other Format:

Jones, Allan, 1943-, author. Beyond vision.

ISBN:

9780773552852

0773552855

OCLC:

1038410866