Why Is The Western Nonduality Scene So Nuts?

And what is one supposed to do with Nondual teachings?

If one should have the (mis)fortune to stumble into the current online Western Nonduality scene one might be forgiven for thinking one had stumbled into a cantankerous madhouse.

On one side one would find sanctimonious and battle-ready defenders of one formulation of Nondual truth or another. On the far opposite side one will find critics of Nonduality who claim it’s all bullshit, and dangerous bullshit at that. In the middle one will find a lot of ratiocination and debate, punctured here and there by someone who actually seems to be a mature and humble practitioner of a Nondual lineage trying to be civil and helpful (and likely for a short time before they realize logging off the computer is preferable).

What is this all about?

Well, for starters, what is Nonduality?

The most prevalent forms of Nonduality in the West consist in a cluster of spiritual practices and truth claims which are based in Advaita Vedanta, an Indian spiritual tradition which was formulated around 1200 years ago by the ascetic yogi-philosopher Shankara (8th century CE), but which has older roots and has gone on to evolve many different elaborations and modifications in various Indian spiritual lineages since then.

Advaita Vedanta claimed to be the highest realization of the Vedic tradition— Vedanta, or the “end/goal of the Vedas (ancient revealed spiritual texts passed down by Brahmin priests).” Vedanta is based in the Upanishads, esoteric texts passed down by said Brahmins.

There are different interpretations of Vedanta, and one of them is Advaita, which means “not-two” or “nondual.” It claims that the ultimate reality and substance of both the cosmos and the individual is one, brahman, which means something like “the power that makes everything be/the divine ground/the one substance/the ultimate reality/the ground of Being.” According to Advaita, only Brahman is real, and particular objects are illusory (qua their particularness). The ground of all objects and their reality is Brahman, and the ground of the self is Atman, the Self, which is nondual with Brahman.

It is key to know two things about this tradition:

1) This is not chiefly an abstract philosophical claim or school of thought; the claim is that the nondual Reality can be directly experienced and verified by the individual; and

2) this is an esoteric doctrine, not a popular one. Popular Brahmanism was polytheistic and focused on rituals and customs, and its evolute, Hinduism, in its many forms, is generally focused on devotional religion, morality, good works, community festivals, etc. The various forms of Advaita are taken seriously by the few, and these few have generally grown up practicing the exoteric form of one Hindu lineage or another. Many adepts of Advaita also continue in these exoteric practices after claiming to realize the truth of Advaita. The advaitic teachings in their various forms were considered both advanced and dangerous, since they are associated with questioning exoteric moral doctrines, claims and worldviews.

Enter the 20th century Westerners. Since the early 20th century many went to India in search of its wisdom, and some of these discovered Indian gurus who emphasized a direct plunge into the truth of Advaita. Some still emphasized the exoteric (like Ramana Maharshi) and some didn’t, like Nisargadatta Maharaj, Shri Atmananda Menon, and Papaji. For full disclosure, I myself have practiced (or practiced non-practice) in the lineages of Jean Klein and Papaji.

Those westerners who, rightly or wrongly, felt they had experientially verified the truth of Advaita, often came back and attempted to teach a direct plunge into Advaita to other Westerners. Some of these I personally admire, like Jean Klein and his lineal descendants Francis Lucille and Rupert Spira, who teach a stripped down, light on the lingo, westernized version of Advaita based on what appears to be serious personal realization and a lot of thought and care.

Others, like several of Papaji’s students, have jumped into the self-proclaimed-Guru business and set up organizations and lineages plagued by problems (Mooji, Gangaji and Andrew Cohen come to mind). It is also true that Papaji’s Belgian lover and the mother of one of his children, Ganga Mira, has been teaching in a low key way for years, now based in Portugal, based on what appears to be deep realization and pure motivations.

But I digress. My point is that western students have been teaching Advaita in the West for 50 years or so with mixed results, and generally with the method of teaching the highest esoteric nondual teachings as a popular, immediately available approach for anyone, directed at people who may or may not have any meditative or yogic training, ethical discipline, or religious experience.

Now there may be benefits to teaching this way versus the traditional way. I’m not here to pick on westerners or modern approaches to the teaching. I just want to offer two observations about why the Nondual scene in the West, as it exists now, can often be pretty bananas. By bananas what I mean is that the online spaces associated with it are pervaded by fierce argumentation, confused and confusing bickering over language and right doctrine, attacks on lineages and teachers, various forms of trolling, and dubious claims to enlightenment, as well as claims that enlightenment doesn’t exist or the entire Advaita tradition in all of its offshoots is a form of mental sickness.

None of this is what would expect from folks trying to transcend the illusion of plurality, go beyond thoughts and words, transcend ego-focused mentality, and live in untrammeled peace and freedom¹.

Before I make my two observations I should acknowledge that to a certain extent this is just how online forums work. One can find similar behaviour on Buddhist forums or Wiccan forums or any other forum lacking in a really good communal ethic or moderator.

Yet I think the mishigas in Nonduality forums has a particular flavour which results from two confusions:

1) a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of verbal claims about nondual truth; and

2) the lack of ethical standards, or shared exoteric practices.

The latter is easier to discuss, so I’ll explain it first: modern Advaita, or “neo-Advaita” eschews customs, religious practices, or ethical commitments in favor of a direct plunge into Nondual reality, which of course is already here and does not, technically speaking require any practice (in the usual way we conceive of practice) to reach.

The realization of Advaita is in fact reached either by doing less— and ultimately by doing nothing at all— or by direct, radical shifts in perception, usually provoked by the words of a teacher.

A focus on practices, or a belief that one needs to do or become something in order to realize the Nondual truth, can interfere with realization, so these teachers and students avoid practices. This is despite the fact that Indian teachers most often did engage in these practices prior to their realization, and sometimes even afterwards.

So, there is no discipline or ethics taught in most Western Nondual communities, and this can hardly be expected to promote good interpersonal behaviour. As directly available as realization is, it usually takes years (or lifetimes) to realize this, and what does one do in the meantime? Avoid discipline and ethics on principle and think this is getting one somewhere?

Does that sound like a good idea?

The second issue in some Western Nondual communities is a misunderstanding about how Nondual truth claims are used in those traditions which focus on the realization of Nonduality. It is true that in India there were and are philosophers who argue about Nondual truth claims and try to construct coherent ontologies and cosmologies out of them. Yet in the Yogic Nondual communities, words are not used to create a worldview, but to trigger a direct realization beyond all world views (yet one which will, of course, have to then be made sense of within the worldview of the practitioner).

My point is that both the practitioners and critics of Nonduality often start on the wrong foot, which is the view that Nondual truth claims should be analyzed and debated logically like you would a claim of Hegel or Hume.

Not so. For example, Nisargadatta once said, “I am nothing.”

Is that so? Then who is speaking, sir? I’ve never heard “nothing” say anything.

Further, what exactly did he say there? Did he say “I” am nothing? So something (I) is nothing? This is gibberish, no?

Also, didn’t he say that I “am” nothing? But isn’t “am” an assertion of existence, of being? But how can we assert the being of something which is nothing?

We can clearly see here that literally every single word of this short sentence of Nisargadatta’s is utter nonsense.

Guru-babble.

Yet it isn’t, is it? Nisargadatta was speaking out of a profound inner experience, and his words at times triggered profound and transformative experiences in his listeners.

I would argue that a more “philosophical” translation of what Nisargadatta said might be “The self-image that occurs in my mind is false. It is ephemeral, misleading, and does not capture what I really am. I do not take my self-image, or my ego, seriously since having this profound experience of the nondual reality which is my true being.”

That is not what he said, though. He looked some seeker in the eye and said, “I am nothing.” Did he convey what he meant in that moment? Who knows?

Maybe, though.

Was it conveyed to some who read his words translated into English and printed in book form across the seas? Maybe. Does it yield its inner meaning and significance when analyzed in the abstract as a truth claim or philosophical statement, a belief which we might or might not find convincing and adopt?

No.

Nondual teachings of the kind I am discussing have a lot in common with the radical western occult community of Chaos Magic. Chaos Magicians are interested in the way the believing mind can shape reality, or tap into its forces, and so they experiment with taking on different practices and beliefs as tools.

When a Chaos Magician does a ritual based on elemental correspondences from Cornelius Agrippa’s 16th century Three Books On Occult Philosophy, they are not doing so because they think that they possess the correct, objective magical relations between the four elements, the planets of the zodiac, and earthly herbs (or whatever).

They are doing so because they like the aesthetic of Agrippa and find that doing the ritual that way works. It works in the same way that a Pentecostal talking to the Holy Spirit is given true prophecies, or a Hindu worshipping Ganesha is given inspiration, or meditating on the sigil of Mercury brings a financial windfall. In some way engaging in these ritual and devotional activities taps into the forces of mind and cosmos, and the exact language and beliefs involved are secondary, and in some cases even entirely optional².

Similarly, most Indian Nondual teachers such as Ramana Maharshi were not primarily considered with working out what was true and consistent in words. They were interested in working out which words could provoke their listeners to have the same experience they had. Words were also not the only thing they used- both Ramana Maharshi and Papaji felt that they could accomplish more by direct, non-verbal transmission, for example. Ramana felt people learned more by just sitting with him in silence.

So when what we could call “nondual language”, or what is often called “pointers” are used for anything except experimentally transforming one’s own perception, they are being misused.

If one is using it to build a conceptual structure, or an identity, or to show off how smart one is, or as a punching bag, one is misusing it, or at least, not using it as intended.

In the end it is just a tool which points beyond itself. Made into a weapon to bludgeon others, or a platform to stand a little taller than someone else, or an explanation of reality, one is putting it to uses which either betray its purpose or which just don’t work very well.

Nondual teachings are meant to point towards awakening to a direct experience of Brahman, the ground of being, and are just a tool. If they are not working, one should do something else that makes one happy or free. If one doesn’t like them as a tool or thinks they are nonsense, one should certainly put them down and find another tool one likes better. That’s all, folks.

Don’t waste your one wild and precious life.

“We tend always to translate too rigidly what we can conceive or know of the Absolute into the terms of our own particular relativity. We affirm the One and Identical by passionately discriminating and asserting the egoism of our own opinions and partial experiences against the opinions and partial experiences of others. It is wiser to wait, to learn, to grow, and since we are obliged for the sake of our self-perfection to speak of these things which no human speech can express, to search for the widest, the most flexible, the most catholic [i.e. universal] affirmation possible and found on it the largest and most comprehensive harmony.”

(Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p.34)

Photo by Kássia Melo

1. As for people who dedicate their time to destroying Advaita or rescuing people from it, this at least as indicative of mental illness as Advaita could ever be.

2. I know that many people here will think these various practices accomplish nothing at all except for hoodwinking those who practice them. I don’t think whether or not that’s true affects the point I’m making here, but I will say at this point I’ve had too many experiences of these types of things working in ways suggestive of psychic or spirit forces of some kind to care what my materialist “true believer” friends think. If being a staunch materialist works for you, have at it.