The First Person Perspective and Beyond: Commentary on Almaas

In this commentary, we engage with Almaas’s contribution from the perspective of phenomenology and its idea of a ‘minimal self’. We attempt to clarify Almaas’s claims about ‘phenomenological givens’ and ‘non-dual’, ‘pure consciousness’, and then show how they might be reconciled with phenomenological approaches to consciousness and self. We conclude by briefly indicating some of the ways a comparative analysis of this sort is mutually beneficial.