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No self-compassion in self-negation

5/27/2022

2 Comments

 
Why is it so hard to find pointers towards self-compassion in most modern non-dual circles? Because they are founded on denying the self that you'd be showing compassion towards, of course, and on putting  the "impersonal" on a pedestal while condemning and stigmatizing those who perceive and value any degree of individual selfhood  as delusional idiots. Of course self-compassion would sound like a joke in this case, even heresy. This kind of self-rejecting pseudo non-duality seeks to divide and conquer - carving out the sense of a personal self and smashing it to pieces. Of course there's no room for self-compassion here. But there's an abundance of it in non-dual views that perceive the universe, god/absolute as expressing itself as the manifest world, including the real experience of being a person with painful emotional experiences worthy of compassion, not damnation. A view in which the personal and universal, the transcendent and immanent, are entangled lovers, two sides of the same coin of a reality in which the manifest world and personal sphere aren't bull-dozed by a stand-alone "absolute" or placed below it on a hierarchical non-dual totem pole.  Aggression towards the self that automatically negates relationship has no space for the self-compassion that is needed to hold space for the wounded parts of our selves, and collective shadow, with kindness, instead of dropping them like non-existent hot potatoes beneath the floorboards of faux- enlightened consciousness. We need more people to speak up about teachings that call themselves non-dual yet split us and pit us against ourselves. If everyone on earth has a spiritual awakening today, it won't make the world a better place unless they wake up and grow up, which means taking responsibility for healing ourselves and helping one another heal too. We can't do that unless we believe in our own essential validity, and that we ourselves are worthy of our own love.
2 Comments
Lucas Koinegg
5/28/2022 10:58:22 am

There definitely is a fair share of individuals who find solice in the hardcore neo-adveitan teachings. And if thats the right way for them, then fine. I personally was just never, ever, ever drawn to Neo-Vedanta because it just seemed to have all of those pathologies baked in, especially absolute disclaims of enlightenment and then subsequent infallibility.

If you frame someone like Jesus as a western mystic, who (propably) was at a similar level as a Buddha for example, then its quiet intersting to notice that his teachings are very different to the n0-self approaches taught in theravada buddhism or vedic philosophy. This issue doesnt end there but goes even deeper - I mean, just look at the Kaballah, Sufi-Traditions, Taoism, Tibetan Buddhism, Shamanism....

The question is - why?
There definitely is a interpretative aspect to all non-dual experiences and enlightenement claims. As a westener, I find it immensly important to not negate the self but to include psychological dynamics like self-compassion and shadow-work into the play. Everything else is, on a larger scale, pathological and a social deterrant.

I dont get why this is so easily overlooked in those circles. Most "students" dont get enlightened - thats just a fact, and it doenst really matter which teacher is doing the teaching. What some then end up with is a roughcasted dissolution of their psychological self which will make them even more fucked up and unable to live a decent life than before. '

Much love

Reply
Jessica
5/28/2022 12:40:43 pm

Your insights are so very poignant and accurate!

"Everything else is, on a larger scale, pathological and a social deterant."

Part of why this is ignored I believe, is because so many who come to it are in such unbearable suffering that the promise of radical liberation from oneself packaged as "spiritual" is so enticing. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Of course it's ignored by the "teachers" because they wouldn't sell quite as many books if they mentioned the psychological disaster that many will meet with after the liberating highs. It seems to me in hindsight like a "healer" who does a great job healing your leg, for example, and then stabs you in the other one!

Honestly, most of these people are drug dealers, and it's one of the most potent non-drug induced highs around. Someone described his neo-advaita days as "the numinous narcotic that almost destroyed my life." couldn't have said it better myself!

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  • Home
  • Conversations
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  • Topics
    • Neo-Advaita/Modern Non-duality
    • Uniduality >
      • What is it?
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    • Spiritual Emergency >
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    • Spiritual Bypassing
    • in defense of the ego
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