There is no ego, only a collective of learned behaviors and functional skills

     Francis Bennett has a current post on Facebook in response to the curse of neo-adavaitins who deny any identity at all and announce they are completely free. He states that if their finger or arm were cut off, they would become immediately aware of what he calls the functional ego. I agree with Francis that the neo-advaitins are all wet with their very incomplete spiritual development, but differ with him about using the term "functional ego," because that guarantees that someone will then jumpt to the conclusion that such an entity exists, when really we are really talking about a series of learned ways of functioning. This is a collective, however integrated, of behaviors and processes, not a single entity.

      More, such a functional entity is not really an entity. The individual goes through developmental processes of learning how to walk and run, think and abstract, learn languages. arithmetic, passes through libidinal stages, Kleinian developmental stages, which after mastered, pass out of awareness.

      There is no ego, only learned and developed behaviors, a collective of integrated learned skills and behaviors. So Gurudatta and the other neo-advaitins are no longer aware of the developmental problems presented to the toddler or young adult, like courting, sex, etc., but they also have not yet seen or felt, or experienced the Self.

      They just function having experienced the emptiness of words and concepts, and because they are no longer aware of developmental problems associated with the body, they feel they have no identity. They are "perfectly" functioning as they are. In Gurudatta's case, he is a perfectly functioning sociopath who has rejected morality and ethics as impediments to his hedonism.

      There is NOTHING DEVELOPED OR SPIRITUAL IN NEO-ADVAITA.

      They have stopped far short of Self or God realization living just short of the final developmental hurdle of knowing God, Christ, and Self.