"There Must Be Some Way Out Of Here"

It’s interesting that many have chosen to escape from their experience of the world by seeking to dissolve that experience through neo-Advaitsist concepts.

I'm sure we can all agree that the experience of living is often very painful, so the ego-self has devised a complicated, but ingenious, method of escape through concepts that point to non-conceptuality and non-identity. The non-dualistic platitudes of "oneness" are poetically expressed in a herculean effort to resolve the paradox of the one and the many and this is performed simply by fallaciously denying the many.

You cannot transcend the 'transcender' and even if you do, the interpretation of transcendence proves the interpreter still believes it 'self' as “real.” In the game of non-duality the outcome, or goal, is a self which conceptualizes itself as null and void.

Forget the world, forget others, forget you and only through identifying with your newly discovered narrative of non-identification will you escape the hell of living. If the 'self' is a made up concept, so is the concept of 'no-self' that the 'self' makes. Even Ken Wilber, the "integralist" protege of Adi Da Samraj, advocates exapnding the self before erasing.

Ahh…but if such concepts give you comfort, who am I to protest.

Now you can detach from suffering and pain because, well... “you” don’t exist. Such is the sad dissociation of non-dualism. But there is a lightness in their step because this theoretical foundation, that their ego-self has adopted, gives them hope (although "hope" is obviously denied and merely 'arises'). Now the ego-self can claim joy in no longer being an ego-self, but of course, as 'no-self,' joy must be denied as well.

Yet, the ego is not a very good liar, especially when developing itself through deconstruction.

Non-dualism is a method of spiritual bypassing resulting in disengagement, dissociation and denial. The emotions are blunted by concepts that define dissociation. Nevertheless, upon close inspection we find that they are NOT dissociated by any means and their rigid attachment to a dogmatic ideology is clearly apparent for all to see.

However, many contend that detaching from identity results in a greater identity in your engagement with the world. But, make no mistake there is always an 'engager,' whether that be "real" or an imaginary construct, is beside the point, since how do we define "real."

To be real or not to be real, that is the question.

But "who" is it that speaks of non-identity? Have you no self, no history, no story to represent the speaker? Then how are we to engage? Obviously we cannot, since the dissociated can only engage in their non-associations, which is no engagement at all.

In the manifest world such dissociation and derealization is deemed "sociopathic," but for the teacher of the non-dual it is taught to be truth.

Of course, the moment words are used, the ego sneaks out, regardless of the effort to non-identify with the “arising” self and oh, how they must teach and the pride in that role is apparent. But "who" is it that teaches and "who" learns "what"? What credibility reinforces "your" message? So it is, after all, a paradox that their “pointers” only confuse. But they rigidly stick to the script, passed down for centuries, that “points” to the moon, but is not the moon and, of course, although they point, there is no one pointing.

Employing concepts to ingenuously dissolve concepts, they are an elite group of intellectuals!

But how do you know you’re not an ego-self? Who or what makes such an interpretation? It "arises," is all they can say and because the revered and austere ancient "masters" have said it, how can it not be true. Their austere philosophy is legitimized by the past and, make no mistake, once words describe 'experience' you are philosophizing. This is how egos revere the past in the realization that ego-self can never detach itself from a past, even if the past they adopt claims that there is no past and that they have transcended time.

Concepts piled atop concepts, the non-dual attached 'self' is often the most conceptual in its rigid formulaic philosophical perspective. Why seek to identify as non-dual if not from a fear of experiencing the dual? But they believe they have found the exit door to truth. In non-duality we can make a pretty pink picture of hell by no longer calling it "hell" simply because it all merely "arises" and can have no effect.

But a rose by any other name still "arises" a rose.

Non-dual is nothing. It does not engage, nor does it disengage. It is not the "arising" of experiences that engages you, but your relationship to what arises and this they attempt to dissolve. Between the doing and the doer, the thinker and the thought, the experience and the experiencer, is the ground of being and there you ARE in the relating, down in the existential trenches...and this is good.

The ego-self is an intellectual dynamo and, because it has never been at home in its experience of “being-in-the-world,” it constructs magnificently complex theoretical prognostications in an attempt to increase its comfort. These serious theories (and they take their theories very seriously) serve to increase its comfort by attempting to remove it entirely from its experience of a world, while claiming that such dissociation intensifies experience. But for "who"? Everyone? Nope, just the practitioner of the non-dual. Silly human!

The problem with this conceptual dissection is that in order to remove the ‘self’ from it’s experience of a world, the ‘self’ must be equally eradicated, because the ‘self’ cannot perform in the infinite drama without a supporting cast (which includes the body, world and others).

But what is an ego-self but a process of continuously changing performances interpreted in ways to insure it “exists.” This structural constructivism is infinite and has no finite outcome while, clearly, "non-duality" is an outcome. Have you achieved your non-duality today!

The non-dualist is extremely goal oriented.

Therefore, if the ego-self wishes to escape its nasty, uncomfortable world, it must escape itself as well. It does this by attempting to collapse itself as a concept of the mind. In fact, to do this it must conceptually annihilate the mind entirely (bad mind, bad! Sit, stay!)

With no mind there can be no ego-self to make interpretations of its own experiences. Now experiences simply “arise” in awareness, but the ego-self must deny ownership of these experiences, simply because now it doesn’t exist to itself, since "who is it that experiences." However, prior to this theoretical incorporation, the ego-self ‘allowed’ itself to experience itself as existing, it just doesn’t 'allow' it anymore.

Yet, notice how “to allow” is a verb signifying action. But "who" is acting? Such is the active dis-action of the non-dualist on a quest for the coveted title of guru in denial that this is the goal. But it must be, since the only practical value the non-dualist can provide a weary world is being a non-dual teacher. I'm sure the suffering masses are thankful for that!

Thus, in one fell swoop the ego-self annihilates its own conceptual history, because without a past to identify with, the ego-self must vanish. Yippee! There is no "I" and "I" am finally free! But "who" interprets freedom?

Now it will respond to experiences simply through the emancipation proclamation “WHO is it that experiences.” This simple claim, repeated ad nauseam, works to convince itself that it is not “real,” even against any and all experiences to the contrary. Yet, make no mistake, what you attempt to deny is automatically reinforced and magnified exponentially and this is an undeniable law of being. Being is experienced through your relationship in extension, whether what you extend is 'self' or 'no-self.'

The non-dual self, or no-self, becomes a mighty self-contained world unto itself.

Yet, the ego-self realizes that this could be construed (by others, because the non-identified "self" still somehow seems to 'identify' others who must be taught the truth) as an attempt to escape the world, so it ingeniously decides that rather than escape the world, which would only reinforce separation, it becomes ‘one’ with the world.

"Oneness" is the idol of this dogma, but this does not negate it as "dogma.'

The problem they deny is that ego boundaries cannot be turned on and off at will and, make no mistake, in order for us to have a relationship there must be boundaries between your ‘self’ and mine for us to realize that boundaries can be infinitely payed with and thereby ignored. But the non-dualist needs boundaries too, for if there were no boundaries to differentiate between us, who would be student and who teacher? Note how, for non-dualism, the roles of teacher-student seem never to dissolve.

Hmmm....it seems that be non-dualist there must be dualism for which to apply oneself against in contrasting opposition and the non-dualist lives through that contrast.

Therefore, the only real relationship the non-dual ideology insures will continue, is that there must be a teacher and a student. That relationship must endure, while all others are subsumed into nothingness.

I’ve met many non-dualists who have become completely disengaged from the world in an attempt to extract some sense of egoic comfort out of their experience of a world. They live in a self-imposed solitary confinement that borders on solipsistic self-absorption. Obviously, their relationships are strained since who wants to hear “who is it that is angry?” all the time, even when, undeniably their whole persona is physically quivering in rage. Yet, in the “arising” of emotion, it is dissociated from as part of a ‘self’ that simply does not exist.

However, clearly for the non-dualist the ‘self’ does exist, no matter their claims to the contrary, because I’ve never met folks more rigidly committed to a dogma.

Well... maybe the Christians are a bit more dogmatic. But at least they don't deny they are the innocent ones entrusted with the task of judging and persecuting the guilty.

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.

(Dylan & Hendrix)

mikeS