Thanks for posting and for Richard for putting his personal story out there. My own feeling on Neo Advaita especially since the proliferation of new teachers on the net, is that some people do not understand that it is a belief system like any other idealogy and does encourage you to see things in certain ways. We are all individuals but we start from different places have different levels of understanding etc and this my way is the right and only way to see the ultimate truth, gives cause for concern . Thanks for all you do.
40:44 “the loss of the self does not necessarily lead to a sense of awe and wonder, but rather a sense of awe and wonder can open up a curiosity that the self is not what we think it is.” Yes! We’ve all had the experience of “losing myself” in a fascinating book, yet no one thinks that the problem is that your belief in a “self” is preventing your full appreciation of other books. That would be entirely backwards. Watch Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk: My Stroke of Insight to understand how critical the sense of a separate self existing in space and time with concepts and language and cause and effect is to our very survival. The self or ego isn’t the problem. The problem is spending your life unquestioningly trying to satisfy the insatiable ego. That is dukkha. Jill’s new book, Whole Brain Living, discusses how to integrate the logical and demanding self into a well-rounded balanced life.
Great chat! Very interesting to me because I very much feel the positionality of the tony parsons types which does not resonate at all here and actually feels like a conceptual fixation on one particular experience. At the same time seeing the falseness of the self-image that lived in my thoughts 20 years ago was by far the most profound experience of my life which serves me to this day and continues to unfold. I think there can be a lot of confusion about "no self" and i think it's more accurate to say that any self-image is not what you *are*. There is something here right now in the present tense that is aware of whatever my body/mind is perceiving but if I make any picture in my mind of what I am, that is an abstraction that exists in thought, it's not the actual thing that's sitting here, and I would immediately feel the ungroundedness of that experience. For me this is clear and always rights my ship every time. I totally understand however that that step is not the right step for everyone at every time and that it can be terribly misunderstood. And I agree that the proliferation on youtube of the new nondual dead enders is seriously dicey and I greatly appreciate you bringing out this perspective. In fact, listening to this chat gave me another nuance of insight today on this strange undefinable existence! So thank you both!
Thanks for engaging, and I'm so happy to hear that you found this valuable! I used to hold a similar perspective on the self, however now my view is that self-image, along with our bodies, our personalities, conscious and unconscious ego are all *parts* of what we are, but none on their own are the totality. I also now relate to what's aware, as our entire let's say mind-body system, I see it kind of like an ecosystem that is greater than the sum of it's parts, and has the ability to be aware of itself, of it's thoughts, feelings etc., rather than there being a separated out awareness that = what we really are. I get how what you describe is effective and helpful for you/what your goal with it is. It was like that for me for awhile too, but ended up leading to some really imbalanced, unhealthy and even damaging fragmentation (partly from an either/or view that I am the background but not the foreground, I am the awareness, but not what awareness is aware of/the personal is the false self and impersonal the "True" self, etc.) and also left me socially, relationally handicapped partly because I'd wiped out my sense of self so dramatically, there was no one here left to relate/be in relationship with. So yeah, it went from something that felt 1000% only positive, to something that became totally de-humanizing. I know that I went really extreme and not everyone does that, but what I did do exactly what I was taught from the "non-dual" teachers I followed. I so appreciate you sharing here, and it's inspiring to know that we're reaching people!
@@thegloriousbothand Thanks for articulating your experience, I think we are not saying something that different! I don't view awareness as the whole thing or the "true self" either, when I say "what is here" I mean the totality of experience/experiencer in any particular moment. For me this yields a totally different perception/experience/perspective of everything than the perception from the point of view of what I would call my conditioned "sense of self" which is a point of view that I can see arise or not arise. From the totality view I can see the profound limitations and tendency towards interpretive illusion of that limited point of view, and that's what is so helpful to see for me so that I am no longer automatically at the mercy of that limited view. Not to just flat out deny it but to be able to consider the situation from a more open and I would say wiser view, in my personal experience. So much profound learning and healing has came from being able to see that personal pov from an unconditionally loving "totality" view, so to speak. Maybe the key point here is I don't mean to deny the personality or the life/journey of the individual manifestation at all, just being able to see around the singular point of view of it to an open unattached view I find to be probably the most useful thing I've ever learned in life. Don't know if this makes it more or less in conflict with your view 😂but it's fun to chat about it!
I can’t wait to listen! Jessica, I’ve been wondering for a while if you’ve ever come across Krishnamurti’s teachings? For me, they’ve been life changing. I’m sure he’s discussing the same end as these “non-dual” teachers, but I’ve never heard of anyone experiencing real, damaging pitfalls from his teachings.
hello! I'm familiar with him, yes. I was into him a bit awhile ago. I don't mean to say that he has nothing to offer, but I will say that I've heard him cited by some of the folks who have connected with me after feeling those damages...and I do know that many of the current teachers who people harmed are influenced by have been influenced by Krishnamurti. What I've found is that it's not just about specific teachers, but the fall-out and impact of self and world negating (or along some lines of illusorizing/trivializing/denying etc.) spirituality, as many of the let's say "adverse effects" people experience from the deconstructive radical shifts in sense of self and reality seem to be par for the course in my experience, and people being blindsided by them - which for me leads to my biggest concern being indiscriminate dissemination - as in, promoting it in a blanketed way, without full disclosures of the risks involved, commonly experienced adverse effects, and support resources fully in place. I think of it a bit like psychedelic facilitation where the importance of considering set & setting (some kind of assessment of one's personal circumstances, mental health, etc.) including preparation for the fall-out, and integration support is tantamount. Thank you for engaging here! You might find this an insightful piece of research called "Losing Oneself: Persistent Nonduality, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Mental Health, and Memory"www.proquest.com/openview/d9819f5f1eaca55e0a340395c2831cc5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
@@thegloriousbothand That's a great answer! Krishnamurti gave out his teachings like stocks. I was lucky to get the right message at the right time, so it worked out for me. But I can see the possibility of getting into pitfalls. Unfortunately, he like a lot of the greats, is dead, so you can't ask them about issues on the path. I think a lot of people who cite him as an "influence" have misunderstood his teachings. He isn't really a "nondualist." I've only seen him mention "duality" in maybe one or two of his hundreds of hours of talks. I don't think he'd be keen on the RUclips McVaita Vedanta movement online.
Thanks for posting and for Richard for putting his personal story out there. My own feeling on Neo Advaita especially since the proliferation of new teachers on the net, is that some people do not understand that it is a belief system like any other idealogy and does encourage you to see things in certain ways. We are all individuals but we start from different places have different levels of understanding etc and this my way is the right and only way to see the ultimate truth, gives cause for concern . Thanks for all you do.
40:44 “the loss of the self does not necessarily lead to a sense of awe and wonder, but rather a sense of awe and wonder can open up a curiosity that the self is not what we think it is.”
Yes! We’ve all had the experience of “losing myself” in a fascinating book, yet no one thinks that the problem is that your belief in a “self” is preventing your full appreciation of other books. That would be entirely backwards.
Watch Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk: My Stroke of Insight to understand how critical the sense of a separate self existing in space and time with concepts and language and cause and effect is to our very survival. The self or ego isn’t the problem. The problem is spending your life unquestioningly trying to satisfy the insatiable ego. That is dukkha. Jill’s new book, Whole Brain Living, discusses how to integrate the logical and demanding self into a well-rounded balanced life.
Great chat! Very interesting to me because I very much feel the positionality of the tony parsons types which does not resonate at all here and actually feels like a conceptual fixation on one particular experience. At the same time seeing the falseness of the self-image that lived in my thoughts 20 years ago was by far the most profound experience of my life which serves me to this day and continues to unfold. I think there can be a lot of confusion about "no self" and i think it's more accurate to say that any self-image is not what you *are*. There is something here right now in the present tense that is aware of whatever my body/mind is perceiving but if I make any picture in my mind of what I am, that is an abstraction that exists in thought, it's not the actual thing that's sitting here, and I would immediately feel the ungroundedness of that experience. For me this is clear and always rights my ship every time. I totally understand however that that step is not the right step for everyone at every time and that it can be terribly misunderstood. And I agree that the proliferation on youtube of the new nondual dead enders is seriously dicey and I greatly appreciate you bringing out this perspective. In fact, listening to this chat gave me another nuance of insight today on this strange undefinable existence! So thank you both!
Thanks for engaging, and I'm so happy to hear that you found this valuable! I used to hold a similar perspective on the self, however now my view is that self-image, along with our bodies, our personalities, conscious and unconscious ego are all *parts* of what we are, but none on their own are the totality. I also now relate to what's aware, as our entire let's say mind-body system, I see it kind of like an ecosystem that is greater than the sum of it's parts, and has the ability to be aware of itself, of it's thoughts, feelings etc., rather than there being a separated out awareness that = what we really are. I get how what you describe is effective and helpful for you/what your goal with it is. It was like that for me for awhile too, but ended up leading to some really imbalanced, unhealthy and even damaging fragmentation (partly from an either/or view that I am the background but not the foreground, I am the awareness, but not what awareness is aware of/the personal is the false self and impersonal the "True" self, etc.) and also left me socially, relationally handicapped partly because I'd wiped out my sense of self so dramatically, there was no one here left to relate/be in relationship with. So yeah, it went from something that felt 1000% only positive, to something that became totally de-humanizing. I know that I went really extreme and not everyone does that, but what I did do exactly what I was taught from the "non-dual" teachers I followed. I so appreciate you sharing here, and it's inspiring to know that we're reaching people!
@@thegloriousbothand Thanks for articulating your experience, I think we are not saying something that different! I don't view awareness as the whole thing or the "true self" either, when I say "what is here" I mean the totality of experience/experiencer in any particular moment. For me this yields a totally different perception/experience/perspective of everything than the perception from the point of view of what I would call my conditioned "sense of self" which is a point of view that I can see arise or not arise. From the totality view I can see the profound limitations and tendency towards interpretive illusion of that limited point of view, and that's what is so helpful to see for me so that I am no longer automatically at the mercy of that limited view. Not to just flat out deny it but to be able to consider the situation from a more open and I would say wiser view, in my personal experience. So much profound learning and healing has came from being able to see that personal pov from an unconditionally loving "totality" view, so to speak. Maybe the key point here is I don't mean to deny the personality or the life/journey of the individual manifestation at all, just being able to see around the singular point of view of it to an open unattached view I find to be probably the most useful thing I've ever learned in life. Don't know if this makes it more or less in conflict with your view 😂but it's fun to chat about it!
I can’t wait to listen!
Jessica, I’ve been wondering for a while if you’ve ever come across Krishnamurti’s teachings? For me, they’ve been life changing. I’m sure he’s discussing the same end as these “non-dual” teachers, but I’ve never heard of anyone experiencing real, damaging pitfalls from his teachings.
hello! I'm familiar with him, yes. I was into him a bit awhile ago. I don't mean to say that he has nothing to offer, but I will say that I've heard him cited by some of the folks who have connected with me after feeling those damages...and I do know that many of the current teachers who people harmed are influenced by have been influenced by Krishnamurti. What I've found is that it's not just about specific teachers, but the fall-out and impact of self and world negating (or along some lines of illusorizing/trivializing/denying etc.) spirituality, as many of the let's say "adverse effects" people experience from the deconstructive radical shifts in sense of self and reality seem to be par for the course in my experience, and people being blindsided by them - which for me leads to my biggest concern being indiscriminate dissemination - as in, promoting it in a blanketed way, without full disclosures of the risks involved, commonly experienced adverse effects, and support resources fully in place. I think of it a bit like psychedelic facilitation where the importance of considering set & setting (some kind of assessment of one's personal circumstances, mental health, etc.) including preparation for the fall-out, and integration support is tantamount. Thank you for engaging here! You might find this an insightful piece of research called "Losing Oneself: Persistent Nonduality, Depersonalization, Dissociation, Mental Health, and Memory"www.proquest.com/openview/d9819f5f1eaca55e0a340395c2831cc5/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
@@thegloriousbothand That's a great answer! Krishnamurti gave out his teachings like stocks. I was lucky to get the right message at the right time, so it worked out for me. But I can see the possibility of getting into pitfalls. Unfortunately, he like a lot of the greats, is dead, so you can't ask them about issues on the path. I think a lot of people who cite him as an "influence" have misunderstood his teachings. He isn't really a "nondualist." I've only seen him mention "duality" in maybe one or two of his hundreds of hours of talks. I don't think he'd be keen on the RUclips McVaita Vedanta movement online.