My initial calling has been to de-mystify neo-advaita and radical non-dualism, to help people understand the complexities of why and how so many people experience profound relief from suffering but eventually end up seriously harmed by the loss of their basic sense of self and validity as an person in the world. In de-mystifying my own experience of this, I continue to see more layers of the greater context that surrounds it, what's led to it and continues to contribute to it's popularity, so that I can help people avoid it, break out of it with alternate ways to understand the real experiences they've been having in ways that affirms their humanity and reality in a new light.
While also helped, countless people are harmed by modern appropriations of "no-self" teachings taken out of context, and while this phenomenon is complex, many things are clear, including the fact that being negatively impacted by them is not something fringe or minor, but widespread and severe. To truly understand what's going on, we need more people who followed these teachings to the "end of their world," to describe their first-hand experience of what it feels like to disappear from your own life in a most extraordinary way, how this and immersion in the metaphysics, truth claims, and value judgments the teachings promote distort your perspective on everything, and what eventually makes it a trap that leaves people desperate to feel human again and to simply live a fully connected, engaged, human life. We need to hear from those who have been there (to nowhere!), because for most discerning people, neo-advaitic seems absurd, but it's utterly convincing when you actually go to what it's doggedly pointing you towards - a real experience of what feels like your own non-existence and the real shattering and falling away of not just identification with, but belief in the reality of what makes us individuals, and ultimately what makes us human beings.
People who have experienced all of the promises and pitfalls, the insidious toxicity, ego bashing, degridation, the authoritarianism, the spiritual bypassing, spiritual ego, gaslighting, re-enactments of CPTSD abuse dynamics, profound isolation, soul loss, and so much more. People who were once part of a truly bizarre and dangerous quasi-cult that still shocks those of us who find our way out of it, that we ever fell into it. We need to hear from those of us who have dedicated ourselves to understanding the dynamics at play.
We need them to help us understand why it's so urgent to steer people away from these messages, help them out of it, and what it at stake, especially for this next generation.
While also helped, countless people are harmed by modern appropriations of "no-self" teachings taken out of context, and while this phenomenon is complex, many things are clear, including the fact that being negatively impacted by them is not something fringe or minor, but widespread and severe. To truly understand what's going on, we need more people who followed these teachings to the "end of their world," to describe their first-hand experience of what it feels like to disappear from your own life in a most extraordinary way, how this and immersion in the metaphysics, truth claims, and value judgments the teachings promote distort your perspective on everything, and what eventually makes it a trap that leaves people desperate to feel human again and to simply live a fully connected, engaged, human life. We need to hear from those who have been there (to nowhere!), because for most discerning people, neo-advaitic seems absurd, but it's utterly convincing when you actually go to what it's doggedly pointing you towards - a real experience of what feels like your own non-existence and the real shattering and falling away of not just identification with, but belief in the reality of what makes us individuals, and ultimately what makes us human beings.
People who have experienced all of the promises and pitfalls, the insidious toxicity, ego bashing, degridation, the authoritarianism, the spiritual bypassing, spiritual ego, gaslighting, re-enactments of CPTSD abuse dynamics, profound isolation, soul loss, and so much more. People who were once part of a truly bizarre and dangerous quasi-cult that still shocks those of us who find our way out of it, that we ever fell into it. We need to hear from those of us who have dedicated ourselves to understanding the dynamics at play.
We need them to help us understand why it's so urgent to steer people away from these messages, help them out of it, and what it at stake, especially for this next generation.