...These things, when they pour down or come in,
present themselves with a great force, a vivid sense of inspiration or
illumination, much sensation of light and joy, an impression of widening
and power. The sadhak feels himself freed from the normal limits,
projected into a wonderful new world of experience, filled and enlarged
and exalted;what comes associates itself, besides, with his aspirations,
ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfillment and yogic siddhi; it is
represented even as itself that realisation and fulfillment. Very easily
he is carried away by the splendour and the rush, and thinks that he
has realised more than he has truly done, something final or at least
something sovereignly true. At this stage the necessary knowledge and
experience are usually lacking which would tell him that this is only a
very uncertain and mixed beginning; he may not realise at once that he
is still in the cosmic Ignorance, not in the cosmic Truth, much less in
the Transcendental Truth, and that whatever formative or dynamic
idea-truths may have come down into him are partial only and yet further
diminished by their presentation to him by a still mixed consciousness.
He may fail to realise also that if he rushes to apply what he is
realising or receiving as if it were something definitive, he may either
fall into confusion and error or else get shut up in some partial
formation in which there may be an element of spiritual Truth but it is
likely to be outweighted by more dubious mental and vital accretions
that deform it altogether.
These words by the Indian sage Sri Aurobindo, refer to what he called
the Intermediate Zone, a dangerous and misleading transitional
spiritual and pseudo-spiritual region between the ordinary consciousness
of the outer being and True Realisation.
Although written in 1932 as cautionary words for his disciples, they are more relevant and important today than they were then.
It seems that every other day another self-proclaimed
'enlightened' teacher of Neo-Advaita appears on the scene. These
Neo-Advaita guru's have reduced thousands of years of Advaita teachings
into the spiritual equivalent of McDonald's junk food. No longer is it
necessary for the spiritual student to engage in self-inquiry or inner
work on oneself. Now all that is necessary to 'realize the Self' is a
constant repetitive denial of one's own identity and the (pseudo)
'understanding' that the ego and all and everything else that happens in
the universe (essence and belief systems included) is 'simply an
illusion'. Everything 'just happens, there is no path, no cause', so
consequently there is absolutely nothing to do.
It's really simple, just like it was for Shankara, Buddha, Ramana
Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Rumi and the relatively few others who
are generally agreed to have been enlightened.
What? Wait a minute, I don't recall that it was easy for the
above mentioned Masters. Didn't they spend years, and sometimes entire
lifetimes meditating, engaged in self-inquiry and inner work? Oh yeah,
they did. And this is the problem that exists now, because the
Neo-Avaita movement claims lineage from and history from Advaita, but
advocates none of the work. In fact they continue to espouse that it is
simply not necessary. Merde!
No real work on oneself is necessary, only a constant repetitive
denial of one's identity and the 'understanding' that the ego and all
(and everything) that happens (essence and belief systems included) is
'just an illusion'. Everything ‘just happens, there is no path’, so
there is nothing to do.
Occasionally these self proclaimed 'enlightened or awakened
masters' even believe themselves to be superior or more advanced than
their own teachers. For example Tony Parsons has declared that Ramana
Maharshi was obviously still living from duality and Andrew Cohen has
said that his guru Poonjaji was not enlightened – in other words both
Maharshi and Poonjaji were asleep and Parsons and Cohen are awake. Yeah,
right!
In addition to Parsons and Cohen, the best known English speaking
Neo-Advaitin gurus also include Eckhart Tolle and Ramesh Balsekar.
Meanwhile there are hundreds of others in Europe, the United States and
Australia.
And they all have one thing in common, they declare that they
have realized the Self, and awakened to their true nature. And of course
they all want to teach (and in some cases) prey upon Neo-Advaita adepts
in search of their own liberation. In the process these Neo-Avaitins
have bastardized and twisted the original tenets and practice of Advaita
until it is no longer recognizable except by the most discerning of
adepts. Unfortunately it appears that most adepts are not able to
discern the differences between Advaita and Neo-Advaita. Perhaps this
will help.
The Path of Advaita according to Shankara
For the purposes of this article, presented below is a very short
summary of the pre-requisites needed by a seeker before achieving
Self-Realization or Liberation (as specified by Shankara in his
Vivekachudamani - The Crest Jewel of Discrimination translated into
Tamil by Ramana Maharshi and from Tamil into English by Sir Arthur
Osborne).
In order to be qualified for enquiry into the Self,
a man must have a powerful intellect and ability to seize the essential
and reject the inessential besides the various qualities enumerated in
the scriptures. What are these? He must be able to discriminate between
the real and the unreal. He must have an unattached mind. He must
ardently desire liberation. And he must be tireless in practice Only
such one is qualified to enquire into Brahman. The qualifications are
enumerated as follows:
1. Discrimination between the real and the unreal.
2. Disinclination to enjoy the fruit's of one's actions.
3. The six virtues of tranquility, self-control, withdrawal, forbearance, faith, and concentration of the Self.
4. Intense yearning for liberation.
The aspirant must indeed have these qualities in
order to attain abidance in the Self; without them there can be no
realization of the Truth.
This then is the simplified version of Shankara's instructions for truth realization.
The Neo-Advaita Shellgame
Contrast this with what is necessary according to Neo-Advaita. Which
is nothing. Absolutely nothing is necessary except for a strategy of
denial. Neo-Advaita teachers simply declare or fool themselves into
believing that their identity/ego doesn't exist, in fact, that nothing
really exists and everything is simply an illusion.
This can easily done by anyone, just give it a try and you’ll
see. Take a few minutes now and start rebuffing everything you perceive,
everything that comes up in yourself, including yourself. If and when
you do this regularly, you may find yourself getting hooked by the
fundamental Neo-Advaita trickery. Of course there is also a bit of
cheating necessary. You need to be ready and willing to deny values and
ethics and if you are ready and willing to cheat yourself then you’re
ready to be enlightened the Neo-Advaita way.
Having integrated Neo-Advaita will bring up the joy of a constant
feeling of superiority. You will also be rewarded with the feeling of
constant rightness and will never be proven wrong anymore no matter what
you say or do. Simply because nothing is real – all is illusion. Who
is there to be wrong? Merde !
Traditional Advaita says that the ego is an illusion. The
‘Satsang Prophets’ emphasize this as THE starting point, completely
omitting that this realization may only occur at the end of years of
self-inquiry and work on oneself (and not necessarily with any
certainty). Once this premise is understood and the self-cheating is
engaged, one obtains a constant very pleasant feeling of superiority and
invulnerability. This is what they regard as being the ultimate
accomplishment and they believe that it is the same as that lived and
taught by Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj and even Shankara,
although in reality it’s nothing but the Neo-Advaita version of
nihilism. (If this is what you’re looking for Parsons, Tolle, Balsekar
and their cohorts are a good choice for teachers.)
Giving satsang allows them the opportunity to meet obedient and
easily hypnotized listeners to whom they can teach what apparently is so
easy to understand: 'Everything is just an illusion.'
Below are other common features of these teachers:
1. "Uncomfortable" questions are evaded. The evasion strategy is easy
because in the background there is a safe haven: neither I nor the other
exist.
2. Essence - Essential Value is seen on the same level as identity: as being non-existent.
3. An attitude of
utter arrogance/vanity (How can I be wrong? The one who can be wrong
doesn't exist, only those who still believe that there is anything other
than illusion are wrong).
4. Total absence of humility ("who cares?") and ethics.
The result is mind-f_____g at it's purest - spiced with some borrowed and misunderstood Advaita wisdom.
A real seeker is one who has the desire, commitment and talent to
'make' it. But it's difficult for me to say if a real seeker
automatically has the discrimination to avoid falling into the
Neo-Advaita trap. There may be a question of destiny, luck and/or grace
involved.
Some adepts who have difficulties in switching off the
self-delusion have ended up in mental hospitals (paranoid syndrome),
others have had the courage to jump to the teacher role and give satsang
which gives their 'non-existent' ego the recognition and food for
continued survival.
Life becomes a play between 'enlightened' nihilistics or between a
self-declared nihilist and an ignorant fool who just serves as
'confirmation-that-I'm-right' food. As this is so obvious, there seems
to be a kind of collective self-hypnosis that is happening on a
relatively large scale.
Neo-Advaitins tend to evade inquiring questions because these
types of questions challenge their axiom 'that they don't exist and
everything is an illusion.' Instead they use words that disguise: “How
can I be wrong since I don't exist as a separate 'I'? Therefore I am
always right.
This
all occurs not as a result of work on themselves but as a starting
point of all that is (re)presented. Of course, at a certain point, one
needs to cheat oneself in order to do this. When cheating oneself any
and all sincerity towards oneself is eliminated. This cheating arises
when it comes time to deny the humanness, what Jesus meant with “the son
of god” and what Meister Eckhart said when he referred to the
“Gottesgeburt im Menschen”, “the birth of God within man”.
Through constant repeated self hypnosis (telling yourself that
everything ‘just happens’, only ‘here and now’ exists, you then slip
into a 'super-identity' based on overall denial of ego/identity. Sadhana
is an unnecessary burden because the one who does this has simply not
understood that all is illusion, even work on oneself (so "why care?").
Instead of considering the realization that everything is just an
illusion as the result of years of inquiry and guided work on yourself,
just take it as starting point, an axiom, a self-evident truth. Once
this self-generated ruse is accomplished you will automatically come to
the conclusion that self-enquiry (Ramana Maharshi) or work on oneself
(Gurdjieff) or a guru (Nisargadatta Maharaj) are just illusionary
un-necessities.
If you feel offended by what has been written:
Either you need to become a bit more tricky in denying your own and the
author’s existence (isn’t everything just an illusion?). Or you’re not
yet completely hooked by the Neo-Advaita game and you might want to
reconsider if this is the direction you want to take.
I offer to you the following dialog from Nisargadatta Maharaj...
Nisargadatta:
“To go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. You
cannot leave a mess behind and go beyond. He who seeks Liberation must
examine his mind by his own efforts, and once the mind is purified by
such introspection Liberation is obtained and appears obvious and
natural.”
Q: "Then why are sadhanas prescribed?"
Nisargadatta:
"Freedom to do what one likes is really bondage, while being free to do what one must, what is right, is real freedom."
Q: "How can the absolute be the result of a process?"
Nisargadatta: "You are right, the relative cannot result in the
absolute. But the relative can block the absolute, just as the
non-churning of the cream may prevent butter from separating. It is
the real that creates the urge; the inner prompts the outer and the
outer responds in interest and effort." "You seem to want instant
insight, forgetting that the instant is always preceded by a long
preparation. The fruit falls suddenly, but the ripening takes time."
"The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false. To
destroy the false, you must question your most inveterate beliefs."
POSTSCRIPT
So by now, since you have chosen to read this through to end, I
suppose that you might be asking yourself, “Why should I listen to you?
Who the hell are you anyway?” And the answer is that you shouldn't
listen me. Anymore than you should listen to Eckhart Tolle or Tony
Parsons. At least not without truly listening to yourself. What you can
do is search into the very depths of yourself, not taking someone
else's (anyone else's word) for anything. Instead listen to your heart
and seek a teacher who teaches you how to eliminate the unnecessary
burdens and who at the same time promotes the blossoming of your essence
(your essential value), your divine nature, the best of the best that
resides in the core of your (and his) humility.
If you have found this article useful, interesting, stimulating,
controversial or you just like to 'stir the pot', submit and/or post it
to the appropriate websites, forums and newsgroups; perhaps you and I
together can play a small part in awakening a few people from the
Neo-Advaita trance.
-- Author unknown
********************************
A questo link trovate la traduzione dell'articolo di cui sopra effettuata da Google traduttore
A questo link si può leggere online e/o scaricare in pdf la traduzione in italiano del libro "Il Sentiero di Sri Ramana"
"In queste straordinarie memorie di Radhanath Swami ondeggia un arazzo multicolore
fatto di avventura, misticismo e amore. I lettori seguono Richard Slavin
dalle periferie di Chicago fino alle grotte sull'Himalaya, mentre si
trasforma da giovane alla ricerca di risposte in guida spirituale di
fama mondiale. "Ritorno a casa" è l'intima descrizione di un percorso
verso l'autoconsapevolezza e anche uno sguardo penetrante nel cuore di
varie tradizioni mistiche e nelle sfide che ogni anima deve affrontare
nel cammino verso l'armonia interiore e l'unione con il Divino.
Attraverso pericoli mortali, la guida di yogi elevati e anni di viaggi
nei luoghi di pellegrinaggio, Radhanath Swami alla fine raggiunge il
cuore più intimo della cultura mistica dell'India e trova l'amore che
stava cercando. Una storia narrata con raro candore che immerge il lettore in un viaggio che allo stesso tempo è coinvolgente, divertente e commovente."
