The Scam of Nonduality

The Myth of Non-Duality

So let’s talk about the myth and scam of non-duality spiritual awakening. 

The major myth and scam of non-dual spiritual awakening is essentially this: in the beginning, when you’re on the spiritual path, ego and personality are out here, out front, and awareness—the essence, your true self—is way buried back here. So the process of spiritual awakening is essentially this: a flip occurs so that now awareness and your true self are here, and ego/personality is back here. This is the actual truth of what happens during spiritual awakening.

But what many people falsely believe—and the unintentional scam of many of these types of teachers—is that this happens: that ego goes away. That’s not true. That is absolutely not true. So I sat with many of these teachers; I hung out with many of them.

Teachers and Personal Insight

I want to be clear here. I want to share with you some of the teachers in this group so you know the category I’m talking about. This is not all of them, but this is a short list I put together: Adyashanti, Arjuna Ardagh, Andrew Cohen, Gangaji, Lee Lozowick, Eckhart Tolle, Mooji, Ken Wilber, Rupert Spira, Lisa Cairns, Jeff Foster, and the sort of father of them all, Papaji—or Poonjaji.

So I hung out with many teachers in this non-dual, Neo-Advaita/Vedanta group, and over a course of about 15 years, it served me very well. But it took overcoming this scam and this myth about spiritual awakening to actually have it benefit me. I was depressed, and my depression went away. I was feeling very separate, isolated, not okay here in this world, and then I understood who I really was and was healed, and was no longer depressed. I no longer felt isolated; I no longer felt separate from the world and existence. But my ego is still here. It’s absolutely still here. Ask my wife. Ask my son.

The Role of the Ego

And what the scam and myth is in these teachings is that you are led to believe—and again, this is unintentional or unconscious; it’s just bad teaching—is that, again, when you’re starting out, ego’s here, awareness is back here, that this happens, and then the myth is that the ego drops away and goes away. But it doesn’t. Ego stays here, okay? And it just kind of comes and goes. It kind of comes and goes, but it’s always—you need ego. You need ego to decide whether or not it’s a good thing to cross the road when there’s heavy traffic. You need ego to pay the bills. You need ego to eat nutritional food all day long. There’s nothing wrong with ego. As a matter of fact, one of the hallmarks of the awakened state is that you become okay with ego. You aren’t fighting it anymore. You see it as a utensil and as a utility.

But along with it, basically what I’m saying is that you’re not free—absolutely free—from suffering. It’s an impossibility. You’ve still got this physical body; you’ve still got emotions; you’ve still got a mind, and all that shit’s imperfect. Trust me, as you well know. So when ego is still in place, all of that’s going to be there. That’s part of the myth.

Suffering and Awakening

To paraphrase Scott Kiloby in his article, non-duality and realizing who you are is a very life-changing and profound thing, and I attest to that. It is. But as he also said, it is not the answer to the end of all suffering, and I agree with that as well.

So that’s part of what many individuals are kept locked in a cage by, and it prevents further growth in these non-dual teachings and circles, because they have this idea of what it should be like. They have this perfect idea of what it should be like. And one of the most common myths is that you’re just going to—like, if you just listen enough to Rupert Spira, Rupert Spira’s intellectual argument, enough—you’re going to just, “Oh, aha, I got it now. Oh yeah, of course, that’s who I am,” and now, “Oh, everything is light and beautiful, and I’m free of all suffering because I know exactly who I am, and I am that, I am that.” And it’s—you ain’t that. You’re more. You’re the sloppy, wild, and crazy roller-coaster ride of life. Sure, you wake up to who you are. There is truth to that. Sure, you find out a fundamental part of who you are. There is truth to that. But that does not exempt you from the pains and sorrows and ups and downs of life.

So that is the myth: getting rid of that wildly inaccurate, crazy-assed, fictional non-dual pink elephant in the room is a must. You have to let that go, because then that allows you to see—here’s this very important point—it allows you to green-light your own spiritual awakening, including your flaws, including your limitations. It allows room in spiritual awakening for your flaws and limitations, and your not-so-shiny parts. It includes—you see—your shadow and your wounds and your hurts and your pains. If you can allow that to happen, then the absolute profound and amazing thing of the switch happening can happen to you.

Accepting Your Humanity

Indeed, there is awakening. I went through it myself. I had this moment where I was reading an article online, and I just had this final thought of, “Oh, there is—oh, I get it. There is no self. There is no I. There’s no high self. There’s no low self.” And it’s like I just kind of snapped out of it. But it wasn’t a complete and utter black-and-white aha moment. I really had to sit with it for a little while, and I noticed—what I mostly noticed was that this sense of anxiety and separation and depression was completely gone.

And then, because I had worked my way through the myth and the scam of non-duality—the myth and scam of spiritual awakening—I realized, “Oh, this is what spiritual awakening is.” It’s not this grandiose enlightenment thing that is so often sold—definitely in India, but unfortunately, and I think unintentionally, is sold through all the non-dual teachers that are running around and have been running around in America since the mid-90s. And again, those teachers that I listed—there’s nothing wrong. Every teacher is a musician, and all music is valid. Some of those musicians are like Bruce Springsteens and rock stars, and other musicians are just local jazz musicians or local bluegrass musicians. But they’re all musicians, and they all have great points, and they all have good songs. They don’t have bad songs.

So I wish for you that you really come to terms with this myth and scam and include that in your work. Include that in your teaching. It will profoundly help you. It’ll allow you to make strides. It’ll really allow you to include your own imperfections in your own spiritual badass knowing-thyself awakening. I hope this has helped you, and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.