From "one, not two" to one and two. From either/or to both/and.
From non-dual to uni-dual
From transcendence to transimmanence
From non-dual to uni-dual
From transcendence to transimmanence
Dear Friend,
I'm so happy you're here, because this site exists for an important reason - to spread awareness about and help others avoid, navigate, and recover from the dangerous pitfalls of Neo-Advaita's version of non-duality which spells out doom for the human mind, body and soul. Even though these teachings do begin with offering a radical sense of liberation from our human suffering, and some of them can lead to truly positive transformation, they take the quest to minimize suffering too far, to the point that many people eventually realize they've made "a deal with the devil" because for all the freedom they've gained, they've had to pay the price of becoming a shell of a person sucked into a bleak void of nihilism, apathy, meaninglessness and alienation. Too many precious souls are snuffed out and lives are destroyed by a spiritual path that teaches you that your life would be better off without you in it.
I hope you'll join me in my journey of recovery from the hellish reality my years of immersion in Neo-Advaita culminated in, which left me on a quest to find out if there's a way to understand and experience "non-duality" that supports rather than deteriorates human flourishing, and could help me revive and heal my mangled sense of self, and re-solidify reality itself. I'm eager to share the non-dual paradigm shift that has been evolving my experience of non-dual reality in the most profound of ways, and how we might take the best and leave behind the worst of non-dual enlightenment traditions as we move forward into a oneness of diversity that celebrates divine humanity including all of it's darkness and light.
So yes, I've created this website to share the insights I've gleaned throughout what I think of as a journey beyond myself and back again, in which exploring self-transcendence through modern non-dual teachings detonated my familiar sense of self and reality, and turned the world as I knew it upside down and inside out in the best and worst of ways. Venturing out beyond consensual reality, beyond all certainty, particularity and borders of selfhood, I spent the last decade on a both bittersweet and blessed roller-coaster rid, soaring to the highest of transcendent heights, plummeting to the lowest of lows of soul loss and spiritual emergency, and dizzyingly whiplashing between the two, delivering me right back where I started with a fresh set of eyes to perceive the miracle of the mundane, and a heart open to experience the immanence of the divine. All of this has shaped my passion to be a resource and to commune with others traversing the dazzling, daunting, and utterly transformative terrain of spiritual emergence.
While there's much more to it than this, it's a place to share my musings and inquiries as I explore the trajectory of my spiritual emergence path, with a special focus on my evolving understanding of non-duality, my transition from reductionist non-duality to trans-immanence, and how it can serve the highest collective good, while pointing out the dangerous pitfalls of misguided non-dual teachings that urgently need our attention. I'm especially interested right now in what Tim Freke describes as "making a shift from an ancient spiritual psychology/philosophy to a modern one that keeps all of the depth of experience, but allows us to relate to the universe in a new way that opens up entirely new possibilities, and is fundamentally positive about the human journey."
I focus more on the journey down the mountain back to the valley, rather than up the mountain, and paying special focus to the pitfalls on the way up that made it especially difficult to make that return journey. You'll find no lack of people who will tell you how to get up "the mountain" of self-transcendence, but far fewer who talk about coming down. In fact, many of the upward guides don't talk about this because they either don't believe you should come down and/or they themselves haven't yet done it and you can't teach what you don't know! (Be careful who you choose to let guide you up a mountain. Be especially careful to make sure they lay out the return path before you head up, otherwise you may end up stranded, and consider this: a bird that cannot land is no less trapped than a bird that cannot fly. The bird that cannot fly is stuck on the ground, and the bird that cannot land is imprisoned in the sky.)
Some of the big questions I want us to explore right now are how....
To shift from an ancient spiritual psychology to a modern spiritual psychology that keeps all of the deep experience, but allows us to relate to the universe in a new way that opens up entirely new possibilities, and is fundamentally positive about the human journey...?" (Tim Freke)
Take the best and leave behind the worst of Eastern enlightenment traditions, as we build the above?
Become aware of the potential role we can play in the evolution of a self-realizing universe?
Balance being and becoming?
Evolve our unconsciously conditioned, habitual egos into conscious ones who create their lived experience more intentionally?
Help steer people away from the "insta-enlightenment" movement, and radically imbalanced non-dual philosophies like Neo-Advaita, that are so common in today's spiritual marketplace?
Get more teachers to frame ego dissolution in a way that is more likely to result in greater, not deteriorated mental health?
Minimize de-personalization in stages of ego dissolution and the falling away of a familiar sense of identity?
Navigate processes of spiritual bardo and of re-birth?
Navigate the fine line (and sometimes overlap) between "the mystic and the psychotic"? Existential awe and existential terror?
Normalize "mysticism," make it more accessible, conducive to human flourishing, and compatible with life in modern society? (What is a mystic!? Simply, "the mystic is driven by a love for the divine and a passionate desire to make direct contact with the mystery of being!")
Infuse both/and non-duality, i.e. uni-duality or trans-immanence into healing frameworks and fields like Positive Psychology to support the evolution of human flourishing?
Help others have the first-hand experience of being an expression of the universe in relationship with itself?
I do want to say that nobody has a monopoly on the truth. What I share here are my perspectives on what is true, they are my current truths, revelations and opinions based on my subjective experience. That said, while we’ll always be influenced by the perspectives of others, I support everyone in forming their own opinions, coming to their own conclusions, and I encourage you to always question things. For me, truth is always evolving. With that, I reserve the right to revise, update, and change my opinions as I grow, and I make a commitment to accept and admit when I feel that I’ve been wrong about something. I hope you’ll join me in making that same commitment!
Lastly, I hope you'll find that what unfolds here reflects both compassion and critical thinking, as while balancing them may be one of our greatest challenges, my deepest wisdom knows that a fusion of the two makes the most trustworthy compass.
I hope you'll join me in my journey of recovery from the hellish reality my years of immersion in Neo-Advaita culminated in, which left me on a quest to find out if there's a way to understand and experience "non-duality" that supports rather than deteriorates human flourishing, and could help me revive and heal my mangled sense of self, and re-solidify reality itself. I'm eager to share the non-dual paradigm shift that has been evolving my experience of non-dual reality in the most profound of ways, and how we might take the best and leave behind the worst of non-dual enlightenment traditions as we move forward into a oneness of diversity that celebrates divine humanity including all of it's darkness and light.
So yes, I've created this website to share the insights I've gleaned throughout what I think of as a journey beyond myself and back again, in which exploring self-transcendence through modern non-dual teachings detonated my familiar sense of self and reality, and turned the world as I knew it upside down and inside out in the best and worst of ways. Venturing out beyond consensual reality, beyond all certainty, particularity and borders of selfhood, I spent the last decade on a both bittersweet and blessed roller-coaster rid, soaring to the highest of transcendent heights, plummeting to the lowest of lows of soul loss and spiritual emergency, and dizzyingly whiplashing between the two, delivering me right back where I started with a fresh set of eyes to perceive the miracle of the mundane, and a heart open to experience the immanence of the divine. All of this has shaped my passion to be a resource and to commune with others traversing the dazzling, daunting, and utterly transformative terrain of spiritual emergence.
While there's much more to it than this, it's a place to share my musings and inquiries as I explore the trajectory of my spiritual emergence path, with a special focus on my evolving understanding of non-duality, my transition from reductionist non-duality to trans-immanence, and how it can serve the highest collective good, while pointing out the dangerous pitfalls of misguided non-dual teachings that urgently need our attention. I'm especially interested right now in what Tim Freke describes as "making a shift from an ancient spiritual psychology/philosophy to a modern one that keeps all of the depth of experience, but allows us to relate to the universe in a new way that opens up entirely new possibilities, and is fundamentally positive about the human journey."
I focus more on the journey down the mountain back to the valley, rather than up the mountain, and paying special focus to the pitfalls on the way up that made it especially difficult to make that return journey. You'll find no lack of people who will tell you how to get up "the mountain" of self-transcendence, but far fewer who talk about coming down. In fact, many of the upward guides don't talk about this because they either don't believe you should come down and/or they themselves haven't yet done it and you can't teach what you don't know! (Be careful who you choose to let guide you up a mountain. Be especially careful to make sure they lay out the return path before you head up, otherwise you may end up stranded, and consider this: a bird that cannot land is no less trapped than a bird that cannot fly. The bird that cannot fly is stuck on the ground, and the bird that cannot land is imprisoned in the sky.)
Some of the big questions I want us to explore right now are how....
To shift from an ancient spiritual psychology to a modern spiritual psychology that keeps all of the deep experience, but allows us to relate to the universe in a new way that opens up entirely new possibilities, and is fundamentally positive about the human journey...?" (Tim Freke)
Take the best and leave behind the worst of Eastern enlightenment traditions, as we build the above?
Become aware of the potential role we can play in the evolution of a self-realizing universe?
Balance being and becoming?
Evolve our unconsciously conditioned, habitual egos into conscious ones who create their lived experience more intentionally?
Help steer people away from the "insta-enlightenment" movement, and radically imbalanced non-dual philosophies like Neo-Advaita, that are so common in today's spiritual marketplace?
Get more teachers to frame ego dissolution in a way that is more likely to result in greater, not deteriorated mental health?
Minimize de-personalization in stages of ego dissolution and the falling away of a familiar sense of identity?
Navigate processes of spiritual bardo and of re-birth?
Navigate the fine line (and sometimes overlap) between "the mystic and the psychotic"? Existential awe and existential terror?
Normalize "mysticism," make it more accessible, conducive to human flourishing, and compatible with life in modern society? (What is a mystic!? Simply, "the mystic is driven by a love for the divine and a passionate desire to make direct contact with the mystery of being!")
Infuse both/and non-duality, i.e. uni-duality or trans-immanence into healing frameworks and fields like Positive Psychology to support the evolution of human flourishing?
Help others have the first-hand experience of being an expression of the universe in relationship with itself?
I do want to say that nobody has a monopoly on the truth. What I share here are my perspectives on what is true, they are my current truths, revelations and opinions based on my subjective experience. That said, while we’ll always be influenced by the perspectives of others, I support everyone in forming their own opinions, coming to their own conclusions, and I encourage you to always question things. For me, truth is always evolving. With that, I reserve the right to revise, update, and change my opinions as I grow, and I make a commitment to accept and admit when I feel that I’ve been wrong about something. I hope you’ll join me in making that same commitment!
Lastly, I hope you'll find that what unfolds here reflects both compassion and critical thinking, as while balancing them may be one of our greatest challenges, my deepest wisdom knows that a fusion of the two makes the most trustworthy compass.
*Header art by Joan Sonnenberg
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