29 March 2013

Has the Neo-Advaita fad peaked?



Everywhere you go on Facebook, the neo-Advaita and Zen-like postings and gurus are still going strong, emphasizing being in the Now, which is a concept, emptiness (also referred to as Void), no separate self (whatever that means), and that self and Self are merely concepts, but nowness is not.

Wherever I go and post anything about the experience of small self or Big Self, God and the divine, I am in conflict with those who extol “ordinary mind” which is absent self, ego, or I-ness.

These neos, and neo-like posters, and they are legion, can be very caustic, like John Troy or Robert Salzman, or avoid dialogue between the “Selfers,” like me, and current Tantric and devotional Advaita teachers like David Spero, or Jan Esmann, and the older generation of shakti-gurus like Muktananda.

Recently, Stephen Bodian, who Robert Salzman cites as supporting his own ordinary mind and newness teachings, posted on his FB page about empty mind and staying in the now.

I commented asking if he wanted to start a dialogue between the selfers, like myself, who after 20-30 years of abiding in the now, empty mind, the void, or have dwelled in the witness state for long periods, and then have experienced something new, explosively: the arising of a sense of self as a personal, body-mind, and also the experience of the divine, of God as Other, who appears to me, the small  self, and in a sense destroys the small self by infusing it with the divine, with bliss, love, surrender, with ecstasies and energies.
You see, the selfers feel the emptiness gets filled with somethingness, presence, energies and aliveness.  This led Muktananda to say, “I have come alive” (from nonbeing, emptiness, the unmanifest state.
Stephen’s response was, “I have no comment Ed.  Thanks for sharing your view.") Then someone else added two comments about those who are Bhaktas, and start or finish their paths with somethingness rather than emptiness, such as Nisargadatta and Shankara.  Stephen sort of sarcastically replied with a “show me” response to the other commenter, Stuart Sovatsky.
Then Stephen commented he had not expected his post to result in a philosophical debate.
I responded it is more than a philosophical debate, we are talking about two fundamentally different approaches to spirituality, that of Jnana and emptiness, the Now, and that of the Self, of fullness, bliss and ecstasy, love and surrender. We are talking of spiritual experiences, not of philosophical concepts.
With that, Stephen Bodian took the thread down.  He does not want to dialogue.
John Troy and Salzman on the other hand are far more belligerent, just frankly denying the Self exists, and that anyone who perceives a self is deluded and narcissistic BECAUSE THEY DO NOT EXPERIENCE A SELF. They have a storyline from which they do not deviate.  Self does not exist separate from objects in nowness.  In nowness there is only oneness.
Yet, in these emptiness people, you will find very little expression of love or even talk of affect at all except as objects that arise and pass away.  As Sasaki Roshi told me, “There is no love in Zen.”  You will also find little about love in the neos.  It is all about the joy of being in the present. There is no talk in them of surrender or service or of passionate love.
So, the next time you puruse a neo FB guru of the neo Advaita Nowness persuasion, see what part love, surrender, devotion, and the divine play in their worldview. Very little.  Non-dualists have a hard time dealing with love that is dualistic, and may talk about some ideal sense of love, like love without some quality they think love should not have, like neediness or erotic desire, but you can feel in them the lack of juice.  They are kind of dried up and angry because they really don’t accept their own humanity.
I think the neo fad has passed its peak.  Some of the FB neo gurus are even talking about the fad passing.  Thank God!! Now we can get back to God and bliss, rather than just peacefulness and self-acceptance.

11 comments:

  1. "Thank God!! Now we can get back to God and bliss, rather than just peacefulness and self-acceptance" - I'm with you on that Edji!

    Can't say I've made the full journey - but that's my deepest intuition and insight.

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  2. Ed, I am really curious about your opinion on David Spero and Jan Esmann.

    I hold them in the highest regard, especially Jan.

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  3. Right there with you Ed. By the way, here are three of the greatest spiritual songs of all time. I listen to these and feel God's presence.

    ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnDm3qr1Knk



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqjBAJx4ZA&list=RD02z59EVHU8MjI



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltRwmgYEUr8&list=RD02z59EVHU8MjI

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  4. I like both David and Jan. They know both emptiness and the fullness of Self and shakti. I don't much care for David['s book because of all the Hindu terms, and much of the abstractness. However, the energies he talks about are exactly present in our own Sangha and Satsangs. These are a living experience then for both he and I and our Sanghas.

    I love the experiential parts of Jan's book Lovebliss, but think his discourse suggests a linearity of discrete milestones on the way to Lovebliss. However, he too talks about emptiness which means he has "mastered" both the jnana-type experiences such as found in Advaita, Zen, and Dozchen, but also the feminine path of Shakti and Bhakti.

    I feel maybe together, like Shanara, we can add devotion to real Advaita.

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    1. In my humble opinion, true Devotion (borderless Love) is the natural outcome of the realization that Nirvana and Samsara; or Shiva and Shakti; or the Self and the I am; or the Manifest and the Unmanifest; or the Stillness and the Activity; or the Absolute and Consciousness, or whatever labels you choose to use, are identical.

      Maybe this is what Tantra, is in it's fullest meaning: That Self Realization and the dance of life are completely, one hundred percent compatible with each other.

      This has been no small seeing for me. I am more and more inclined to leave my self alone...to leave the body/mind flow alone...to realize that I cannot put an end to the identification or see the illusory nature of this primal ignorance known as Iness or I Am by illiminating the individual things that are identified with...but by returning the attention again and again back to the sense of presence...to be devoted to that...and let what happens happen.

      Fighting objects of identification or trying to fix or alter them in any way is a waste of time, an infinite trap for the one who longs for the Self.




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  5. We all understand that the world and everything that the human mind/body experiences is duality.
    If one has not found a way to contact the "I AM" or consciousness then thats where they stay and that's all good and well. Somehow though the belief in form has no control over what happens here.
    All human emotions exist at this level in their fullness as the form. Here we love, hate, laugh, cry in whatever way the world mind throws at us. These emotions and thoughts control our lives and beingness only because we are attached to our identity as a human being.

    When we go beyond the mind into non-duality there exists the real/unexplainable. If one has been blessed to transcend the mind/body there is a totally different kingdom which is very different from this world.
    Here the emotions and thoughts have no power in ones life anymore. They are seen for what they are and dissolved.
    From this space human love, human emotions and thoughts do not play a part in everyday life. Something else takes over when transcendence takes place which could also be described as love, peace, joy but are at a different more omnipresent sense. It is not at a level of the personal, it is all encompassing and includes everyone and everything in this universe. You just are.

    If one chooses to return to the mind and live out human love and emotions, that's okay too but it is not easy to climb up again to transcend these human frailties. This may not lead to total transcendence because the forces of the world are very strong in an individual who does this and they go back and forth, back and forth without ever attaining complete transcendence however some may transcend totally by doing this, who knows?

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    Replies
    1. no, i don't understand.
      so we go into non-duality, but then there is duality, isn't it in itself a duality already? and then there are 'we' who choose to go to duality or non-duality, isn't it a triality?
      so many concepts :(
      Love washes everything.

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    2. Anonymous, you said, "If one chooses to return to the mind and live out human love and emotions, that's okay too but it is not easy to climb up again to transcend these human frailties."

      What are you talking about? If the identification mechanism, the I'ness is no longer there...there is no one, not even a conceptual someone to return to the mind and live out human love and emotions.

      @ Arvydas...and yes, so many concepts...Even the concept that there are so many concepts. We gather new concepts on a daily basis...and can spend eons dropping and gathering, dropping and gathering....There is something more primal to get at than just dropping concepts....this is where the power of the Nisargadatta Gita can be most felt.

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  6. Many of the so called (cold) teachers doesn't realy go beyond, but stuck at the concepts of absolute, para brahman, void, etc, if they realy did they transform to an ocean of love. Love for all and one. It is so easy to proclaim concepts. If that it then better go to Rome. So I continue living a live, my live, not according anybody's concept. For the first and last concept is ... Be authentic, don't be a fool and love as much as you can.

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  7. This has been no small seeing for me. I am more and more inclined to leave my self alone...to leave the body/mind flow alone...to realize that I cannot put an end to the identification or see the illusory nature of this primal ignorance known as Iness or I Am by illiminating the individual things that are identified with...but by returning the attention again and again back to the sense of presence...to be devoted to that...and let what happens happen.

    Fighting objects of identification or trying to fix or alter them in any way is a waste of time, an infinite trap for the one who longs for the Self.

    Thank a lot Lila ! These words are resounding very much for me ...
    Love
    sylviane

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  8. Neo-advaita gurus and followers do not seem to understand that Moksha is NOT an experience. How can any experience be sat since all experiences, by definition, are transient (unless these fools have devised a way of staying in samadhi for ever).

    Also Advaita Vedanta teachers, who come from a traditional teacher-disciple lineage, understand why both bhakti and knowledge are important. The most original Advaitin, Shankara, wrote beautiful devotional songs for lord Shiva.

    It is sad to see how these neo fools have utterly distorted some of the most systematic and beautiful teachings about life, love, and self-knowledge.

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