Be careful with Neo-Advaita trap

[Someone here]

The modern schools of Neo-Advaita and teachers like Jim Newman and Tony Paraons and Anna Brown etc have taken the seductive and popular vision of”“you are not the body”, “you are already enlightened and there is nothing to do” ,"there is no you " and have made this information available as a conceptual teaching. This conceptual teaching is like a religion or thought system which has value but very very limted imo.

A pitfall with Neo-Advaita  is that meditation is either ignored or seen as unnecessary and perhaps even avoided. “How could there be a person who would meditate?”, “why should I meditate when I’m already enlightened?”, “If I am not the doer how could I meditate?”.

This has nothing to do with actual awakening.  So be aware of these so called neo advaita "non-teachers " out there like those that I mentioned above because It's very trendy these days in nondual content that you find in YouTube and elsewhere. 

[Inliytened1]

@Someone here very good post I hope your words are heeded.

[Someone here]

@Inliytened1

Thanks man. 

It's a philosophy born out of fear from the inevitable truth of reality. You can observe this for yourself by looking at the lives of people who turned to Advaita (and who became 'teachers’) of this dogmatic religion. (Where the denial they're caught up in, will make them say things like “there is no 'me’, no 'lives’, no 'mind’” and more of this type of escapist nonsense.)

[Inliytened1]

10 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Inliytened1

Thanks man. 

It's a philosophy born out of fear from the inevitable truth of reality. You can observe this for yourself by looking at the lives of people who turned to Advaita (and who became 'teachers’) of this dogmatic religion. (Where the denial they're caught up in, will make them say things like “there is no 'me’, no 'lives’, no 'mind’” and more of this type of escapist nonsense.)

@Someone here thats a really good way to put it...for them it became a religion.  They took a nugget - from actual enlightenment- that the self is an illusion- and ran with it instead of actually realizing no self directly and dying.  Many of these folks will poo poo mysticism which is true spirituality.  And they will say there is no one to die or to have mystical experiences- which is the irony in it all because then they miss out on God.   I don't want to demonize but as you said this is an awful trap to fall prey to.  Oh and nice profile pic ?

Edited September 19, 2022 by Inliytened1

[Hojo]

@Someone here I see these people and so many copycats on youtube and they all say the exact same thing and talk in the exact same way. I dont know if they are grifting but I kinda feel that way. Like ive seen 20 or so of them and they act and talk like clones like very base level repetitions there is no one to act no one to do no doer bullshit. I keep asking myself if there is any substance in their videos but I do not see any and it seems they dont even know what they are talking about. I think they are raising a Neo-Advaita clone army.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Hojo

[RickyFitts]

Yep, it can all too easily become just another form of fundamentalism. Just another set of beliefs for people to hide behind, rather than do the hard yards of spiritual practice - a complete cop-out.

[r0ckyreed]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

A pitfall with Neo-Advaita  is that meditation is either ignored or seen as unnecessary and perhaps even avoided. “How could there be a person who would meditate?”, “why should I meditate when I’m already enlightened?”, “If I am not the doer how could I meditate?”.

Sounds a lot like Nahm and other Neo-Advaitans. 

[r0ckyreed]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

This has nothing to do with actual awakening.  So be aware of these so called neo advaita "non-teachers " out there like those that I mentioned above because It's very trendy these days in nondual content that you find in YouTube and elsewhere. 

What is an actual awakening? How do you know what an awakening is? You don’t. I don’t.

What is the point of a teacher if you are already awake? A teacher is nothing more than to serve as an inspiration to get you to investigate reality, awaken, and teach yourself.

The best teacher is yourself. You cannot awaken without turning to yourself.

[Inliytened1]

4 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

Sounds a lot like Nahm and other Neo-Advaitans. 

I don't think nahm was against meditation or psychedelics.  I think he did both. So  I wouldn't put him in this category but I do question his awakenings because he really got caught up in the dogma of it all...like really bad.  

Edited September 19, 2022 by Inliytened1

[Leo Gura]

It's group-think. As is Buddhism.

It's funny how the group-think trap of religion just repeats itself within nonduality at a higher level.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Hello from Russia]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's group-think. As it Buddhism.

It's funny how the group-think trap of religion just repeats itself within nonduality at a higher level.

Meh, dude. I studied like 20 religions/spiritual traditions or probably even more than that. They are all group-think as fuck, I wonder if there is any tradition that is not like this

[Someone here]

 

Here is some neo advaita stuff and where they get confused imo:

1)True, there's nothing to do. The problem is there is *some* work we have to do to our ways of looking to see that there's nothing to do lol.

2) There are no words to teach it. Important to note here that I would NOT say there is nothing to teach. The problem is there are no words for it. The words can only point our looking  in the right direction. Once we finally see it there's nothing else to do but keep seeing it. 

3) We need to define what the "it" is we are seeing. Lets say "it" is the full realization of impermanence, there only being right now, the inseparable nature of emptiness and form and it's dependent arising which means there is no self and all suffering ceases. In that case, sure, once you see it all there is is to keep seeing it. 

But here is where effort and gradually deepening realization comes in. We may only recognize bits and pieces at first. Like at first we might notice we are not our thoughts, then see that all things arise in consciousness, then we see they arise automatically, then we deepen that realization and see consciousness is empty too and dependently arising with all the automatic things, then we might see all the parts that make up the whole and how they aren't separate. We understand it to be not one, not many. There's only the passing manifested experiencing.

The problem I see a lot with neoadvaita is with the *nothing to do* attitude. They recognize the Absolute, the emptiness, the void that precedes all things and is free of relativity.  Then they think that's the end. There is nothing else to do. In doing so they solidify it and dismiss all that comes out of it. Not realizing all that comes out of it is NOT seperate from experience, NOT separate from the Absolute. What could we know about the Absolute *Un*conditioned if we had no Conditioned? They're the same.

As Nisargadatta Maharaj says "As the Absolute, there is no Absolute"
And, so, identifying with the emptiness/Absolute as a "thing" leads to "Nothing to do, no one to teach." They fail to see the conditioned and unconditioned/relative and infinite as one in the same arising .

if it was *nothing* why do they go around "teaching" it lol. They are teaching that there's nothing to teach. It's literally still a teaching. If it was nothing why live at all? 

Having the freedom to see things as empty of flavor or quality that can cause suffering isn't "nothing."

And they actually may very well be talking about the same thing but their ability (or lack of) to articulate it, by saying there's no teaching, makes it sound as if they got stuck identifying with emptiness as a reified ground of being. 

Alternatively some will identify as a Self with capital S. A God consciousness. This would be more accurate .

[Kshantivadin]

3 hours ago, Hojo said:

@Someone here I see these people and so many copycats on youtube and they all say the exact same thing and talk in the exact same way. I dont know if they are grifting but I kinda feel that way. Like ive seen 20 or so of them and they act and talk like clones like very base level repetitions there is no one to act no one to do no doer bullshit. I keep asking myself if there is any substance in their videos but I do not see any and it seems they dont even know what they are talking about. I think they are raising a Neo-Advaita clone army.

But there is literally no doer? Please challenge me on this. I firmly believe this and I think anybody with years of meditation experience would come to the same conclusion. Do not confuse the self with the Self.

[SOUL]

The 'it's a trap' trap is one of the most insidious traps of them all since it supposes that there is someone and there is a trap and that someone can get caught in it....so I wouldn't suggest there is anyone in that sort of trap.

[RMQualtrough]

It's because it's true.

But they don't give a fuck about "teaching" people or w.e. most people don't. Ruper Spira cares, you can tell the contrast. Buddha seemed to care also. People who care try to use metaphors and imagery to meet people at their level and guide them. Not just sit there using loft words and phrasing to sound "spiritual".

[Gidiot]

Maybe I’m confused but I can’t fathom how there is a prescription in reality when every single mystic including leo, sadh, Osho, says it’s purposeless and meaningless. If it’s purposeless and meaningless then the reality is there are no shoulds, oughts, and needs to anything. 
you can’t say it’s meaningless and purposeless and then say well you need to realize god or do a practice. 

this seems quite obvious to me but I could be wrong

 

[Leo Gura]

Nobody ever said you need to realize God.

Stay asleep if you like.

Consciousness is not something you do because you have to, but because you love it.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Leo Gura

[BipolarGrowth]

Conceptual teachings are trash unless they are used as boats to get to the other side of the river where the actual perceptual shifts occur. So many people get fooled into thinking they know what they’re talking about because they have conceptual understanding and a few to a few dozen peak experiences related to them. I used to be one of those people. It takes hundreds of peak experiences and ultimately a radical change in one’s baseline range of consciousness to know much about any of this nonduality stuff. 

@Leo Gura well said. Edit: this response to Leo was referring to the post immediately above mine. The idea that Leo teaches how to get out of group think but Buddhism doesn’t also show that is pretty damn hilarious. Go check out the Diamond Sutra. It’s literally called “the diamond that cuts through illusion.” Understanding what’s talked about in that text will cut through the illusion of the concrete existence of yourself, the Buddha and other beings. 

Leo will talk bad about Buddhism until he actually gets highly proficient at it and sees the power of those practices, if that ever happens. A Buddhist is not the person you go to to see how well 5-MeO works, and Leo is not the person you go to to see how well Buddhism works. 

 

Edited September 20, 2022 by BipolarGrowth

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Nobody ever said you need to realize God.

Stay asleep if you like.

Consciousness is not something you do because you have to, but because you love it.

But Leo..isn't enlightenment the purpose of life?  I mean what else is there to do after you.  get your survival needs  handled?

I guess If you are still seeing life as a means to an end, then the answer is ‘yes’… Enlightenment is the ultimate purpose of life. This is not really the correct answer but the best and useful answer that I can give you right now.

People are usually conditioned to think anything as a journey from point A  point B. The thoughts like ‘I want to become rich’, ‘I want to become famous’, ‘I want others to think I am smart’ etc stem from this conditioning. There is always a feeling of lack and people are seeking something to destroy the feeling of lack. This makes people to always look forward to the future.

But the truth is, nothing that you do, know or experience will destroy this feeling of lack, the feeling of ‘not enough’… It only causes an endless cycle of accumulating wealth, knowledge and experiences. This accumulation is never ending and the feeling of lack will be still there, no matter what you do. Only through awakening cam you realise the inherent value of being instead of doing and achieving. 

[axiom]

@Someone here Life is already life, with or without you. No one needs to awaken. Awakening can seem to happen, and it can seem to eliminate suffering. But whether it happens or not is not important. 

Real awakening is totally ordinary.

Ironically, having started this thread, everything you say about the feeling of lack has only one answer - the absence of self.

Edited September 20, 2022 by axiom