Kind regards to you, too. I'm impressed by your intellectual rigor and the way you've navigated the intricate web of spiritual, philosophical, and cognitive perspectives. Ah, the joy of dissecting every concept, weighing each word, turning thoughts inside out and right-side up again. Sounds like an exhilarating ride, doesn't it?

Menus and Meals: Let's address your comment about mistaking "the menu for the meal." You say it's an unfounded conclusion. I'd say it's not a conclusion but a pointer. Concepts, even the concept of non-duality, are simply tools or maps. Maps can guide you to the destination, but they aren't the destination itself. Trust me, you can philosophize about food until you're blue in the face, but it won't fill your stomach. Sometimes the finger pointing at the moon is mistaken for the moon. And sometimes the finger gets offended that it's not the moon.

Certainty and Doubt: Your thoughts on the 'kernel of doubt' that persists until our last breath resonate with me. In fact, I'd say that this very doubt is a vital part of the journey, but it's also part of the illusion. The intellect wants certainty, a rock to stand on, but what if the rock itself is floating in an endless sea? Absolute certainty, in terms of intellect, is a red herring. True realization exists beyond the realm of doubt or certainty. In non-duality, the dichotomy collapses. There's no one there to be certain or doubtful.

Orthodox Views and Historical Figures: The concerns you've articulated about Siddhartha and other metaphysical perspectives are valid when viewed from the mind's lens. But spirituality isn't a debate club where the best argument wins. You talk about ‘inescapable conclusions about what that 'experience' should be.' But what if any conclusion is just another concept, another meal on the menu?

Intuition and Beliefs: I appreciate your point about intuition and belief. Intuition isn't infallible. Yet, I don't 'believe' in non-duality; I directly experience it. And it's not something that happens within this dimension; it's the substrate upon which all dimensions float. To ask what makes it the case is like asking water to define wetness.

So why sit on the fence when you can go through it? You're right to say that the one thing to be cautious of is that knowledge stumbled upon is just as likely to be false as it is true. But here's the twist: when you stop stumbling upon knowledge and start living in direct experience, the game changes. The paradox of non-duality is that it's so damn simple that the mind can't grasp it. Like trying to bite your own teeth. Yet it's closer to you than your own breath.

I encourage you to keep looking, by all means. Looking implies a future revelation, another conceptual menu item. Yet what you seek is already here, devoid of any qualities that can be conceptualized, trivialized, or otherwise itemized.

Let's both continue to explore these matters, you from your scholarly vantage point and me from my experiential one. Who knows? We might just bump into each other somewhere beyond the words.

Warm wishes. 😂