More on Adi Da and NPD

Yesterday's post on Adi Da and NPD got a good comment from Kang. It brings up some issues I've thought about in this area since yesterday, so I'll use it as an opportunity to expand ont he points I've made.

kang wrote:
Hi BY,

I'm wondering if the NPD diagnosis is really a meaningful criticism of the guy in this context. If you admit he's an advanced yogi and a genius, that automatically puts him in a category beyond conventional judgement, doesn't it? Not that I'm defending him. But what I really quesiton is these other assertions -- yogi, genius, guru.

If these are valid, then certainly there will always be some people who will overlook the behavioral depravities. We can grant that these are terrible and repulsive. All right, but that's not why anyone serious develops an interest in the whole Adidam thing. For those reasons I wouldn't go there nor recommend that anyone else should.

But if you admit there is some kind of extraordinary cream-filled core to this muffin, you leave open the door that some will be drawn in. Of course, we can find value in even negative experiences, but legitimately, is there really any kind of unique advantage to be found there?

Kang,

My reply:

I'm trying my best not to be political about this (meaning goal-oriented). In other words, I'm just trying to present and explore the truth to the best of my ability, regardless of the political consequences. If some people interpret what I say as suggesting that there is a "cream-filled core" to Adidam, and then join up as a result, I can't help that. I simply find the thought of adjusting my assessment of Adi Da and his group to engineer some kind of result, such as people not joining, repulsive. It's just the flip side of what Adidam itself does in trying to lure people into Adidam by presenting a manufactured, packaged image of Da.

Personally, I wouldn't say that what is creamy and delicious about Adidam is at its core. There's probably a better argument to be made that it is just a sugar-frosty coating that hides a rotten core. I could be wrong, of course, but I would suggest that denying that there is anything creamy and delicious about Adi Da is absurd and contrary to the simple factual experience of so many who have passed through Adidam, including me. It reminds me of the anti-drug propagandists who get up in arms when someone talks about how fucking amazing and pleasurable so many illegal drugs are. Some TV personality in England recently raised a big ruckus in an interview when he admitted to having used ecstasy once years ago, and saying it was just fantastic. Many people lamblasted him for giving the wrong impression to our youth, who might try ecstasy based on his admission. This is a tacit proposition that lying is better for the public good than telling the truth. It's a proposition I reject, especially in regard to Adidam.

I've previously compared Adidam to heroin, in that it can feel incredibly good, but it can easily lead to addiction, degradation of one's faculties, and a general degeneration of the being. One doesn't lick heroin by pretending it doesn't feel great. One has to understand that part of its danger is that it really does feel great. And one also has to be honest about the facts of drugs. Heroin, for example, in its pure pharmaceutical form, is actually less dangerous and debillitating than alcohol, the commonly accepted and promoted legal drug of choice in our country. Medical doctors will admit, if pressed, that it's much healthier to be addicted to pharmaceutical heroin than it is to alcohol. Not that this makes heroin an overall positive, but it helps put criticism of it into perspective. There are many things in our society which are negative, and some of them get promoted while others get made into scapegoats.

I'm not interested in scapegoating Adi Da, in other words, by pretending that everything about him is terrible and pathetic. That would actually help his cause, in that people like yzy who encounter Adi Da and find some very positive spiritual aspects to him will see then that the critics of Da are lying, just as anti-drug propagandists are found out to be lying by those who actually try many illegal drugs, and both end up losing credibility. It's more important to understand the complexity of people like Da than it is to paint everything about him with a negative brush.

As for the NPD diagnosis, I think it is meaningful in understanding Adi Da's basic problems and why they are not only personal, but systemic throughout his teaching and community. I don't think that even if Adi Da is assessed to be a great yogi and a genius that it puts him beyond conventional categories of judgement. To use the most extreme example, isn't it obvious that Hitler was a genius, and perhaps even a yogi of a kind? He certainly displayed the most incredible political and diplomatic skills of the 20th century, and had an amazing power to inspire and motivate people in a manner than Adi Da can't even approach. I hardly think any sane person would argue that Hitler's genius puts him beyond conventional categories of judgement. Clearly, Hitler is one of the great poster boys for NPD, and despite his genius, his incredible narcissism essentially defined his character, his actions, and the uses he put his genius to.

The whole notion that genius and people of great ability, even great spiritual ability, can't be judged "conventionally", is a huge part of the delusion these exceptional NPD types not only create, but actively take advantage of. Understanding the dynamics of NPD goes a long way towards exploding this myth by seeing how the narcissistic personality creates this "special" category for himself, and thus feels justified in using other, lesser beings as objects in his great game of self-aggrandizing accomplishment.

Take Napoleon for example. A lay term for NPD is the "Napoleonic complex", and we all know of crazy people who fantasize that they are Napoleon. Most are pathetic dysfunctional people who in no way had Napoleon's genius or talent. But what of Napoleon himself? Does the fact that Napoleon was a genius with tremendous talent, ability, and accomplishment make him any less an example of NPD? I think not. I think it's pretty obvious that Napoleon suffered immensely from NPD, and that he just happened to possess the genius and talent to actually accomplish an incredible amount. He wasn't fantasizing that he was the Emporer of France, but that achievement was a part of his NPD fantasy nonetheless, simply realized. And then, of course, tragically undone by his own NPD self-aggrandizement. This is a man who led 600,000 of his countrymen to their deaths in the invasion of Russia (and untold numbers of Russians) and yet who showed no remorse for their deaths at all, only for his own tragic fall. They were just props and bit players in his NPD drama.

And a similar pattern holds true for Adi Da. He's not capable of the kinds of achievements of Hitler or a Napoleon, but in the small pond of Adidam he is an even bigger fish, at least in his own mind, and in the minds of most of his followers. He has no conscience about using those followers as cannon-fodder in advancing his own personal star-power drama, and no remorse about any "collateral damage" suffered. His NPD is not excused by his genius and talent, it is merely the guiding principle behind its use.

That is the real answer to the "creamy core" issue, at least as far as I can see. Talent and genius are really peripheral to life's core matters. The tragedy of the NPD character is that he has made these peripheral matters of primary importance in his life, and ignored what really matters - love, truth, happiness, kindness. The NPD character epitomizes the hollowness of not only spiritual seeking, but spiritual attainment. They gain the whole world, at least in their own minds, but they have lost their soul in the process. And that is what I would criticize most about Adi Da and Adidam - they have lost their souls in the effort to become the "greatest of all time", or followers thereof.

I'm sure you can think of other examples of "great" figures with NPD. Artists like Gaugin or Picasso come to mind. One cannot deny their genius, their talent, and their acheivements, but as human beings, they suffered immensely from narcissistic problems. I don't know if they'd meet the full criteria for NPD, but clearly they were in the ballpark. Should we judge Gaugin any less of an asshole because he was such a talented painter? Likewise, should we judge him any less talented a painter because he was such an asshole? I think the notion that greatness or foulness in one category should affect our ability to judge in another category is a false idea. We can judge Gaugin as both a great painter and an asshole, and leave it at that.

Similarly, I think we can judge Adi Da's teachings and yogic ability on their own merits and demerits, and judge his character on its own merits and demerits as well. I see no problem judging him a yogic powerhouse and a flawed genius, and at the same time assessing him as afflicted with NPD. Neither tell the full story of the man, but both are true enough to be said. Now many judge even his yogic abilities and mental and artistic abilities on a rather low, even dark, scale. I can't necessarily argue with that. But even so, so many of us have experienced so much greatness and beauty in him that it's just not that simple for us to utterly condemn the man. In that sense, he really is a tragic figure. Like Napoleon, many had pinned their hopes on Adi Da as a potentially great and liberating figure. That he disappointed is not merely the result of chance and circumstance, or of the principle that "power corrupts", but of an underlying character problem that I think is well described in the NPD phenomena.

Most NPD geniuses end up as tragic figures, even when they accomplish a great deal. They often die sad and alone. I think it is an illusion that they cannot be judged as NPD simply because they were also geniuses of a kind. Great mental ability, even great spiritual insight and understanding, are simply not enough on their own. There must also be penetration of the core ego-illusion, or there is great danger of narcissistic inflation into the NPD dead end. Many people have a hard time seeing their charismatic genius heroes as suffering from something as basic as NPD, but they suffer from common colds and diarrhea and heart attacks like the rest of us, why not NPD?

One of the tragic problems in a group like Adidam is that people imagine that someone who seems as smart or accomplished as Adi Da couldn't possibly suffer from NPD. Similar problems arise around Ken Wilber, say, who some seem to think also suffers from NPD. Similarly with Andrew Cohen, Bonder, and others of that ilk. Spiritual seeking tends to attract people with latent or overt NPD, and the temptation to declare oneself enlightened, or the greatest of enlightened beings, is a powerful temptation to the NPD character. So spiritual groups tend to attract NPD types, and those with the most powerful NPD personaes tend to rise to the top and end up as Gurus.

Not that all spiritual Gurus are NPD types, by all means, but the problem seems to exist at virtually every level of spirituality and religion, just as it does in the arts and politics and business. Wherever there is the capacity to inflate the ego and create a potent self-image, narcissists will flock to the scene and try to rise up the ladder. And so we all need to be well-informed and aware of the phenmomena, both in ourselves and others, and not be fooled by it.

As for Adi Da, I think it's important to understand the precise nature of his depravities. They are not random and unfocused. In Adidam of course he is considered to be guided by "Crazy Wisdom", an inexplicable form of skillful means which defies all conventional categories - or so it is claimed. For a long time I accepted this and even argued this. But at a certain point I began to question just how wise and just how skillful his means were. Then I began to notice that there was a specific pattern to his "craziness", that it obeyed an internal logic that was not unconventional at all, but deadeningly conventional. In short, his "craziness" falls very precisely into the NPD pattern, not into some pattern of Divine God-intoxication. Why should that be? Is God-Realization a form of NPD? If one accepts Adi Da as the ultimate example of God-Realization, it would appear so. But I think it's far more likely that Da is just an example of someone with NPD who has tried to scale the heights of spiritual attainment, and even gotten quite far, but fallen tragically short, and destroyed himself in the process.

This is really a very old story, but it keeps repeating itself over and over again, in every time and place. And yet human beings such as ourselves are so surprised to see it happen each time that they try to come up with some mystical explanation that subverts common sense and human frailty. I think we have to understand that even genius and talent are not sufficient to protect us from the ravages of narcissism. We need to accept our vulnerability to narcissism, both form within and without, and be humbled by that.

The problem with the true NPD character, as yzy pointed out, is that they will never seek treatment. They will never even acknowledge their problem. Instead, they will always project their problem onto those around them. Hence, there really doesn't seem to be any hope for Adi Da. He cannot face up to his problems, but instead blames everything around him, even the whole world, for his own failure to communicate. Not everyone is curable. Many psychopathologies simply have no solution. We need to be aware of that also, and deal with such people without fantasizing that they will change or evolve into something better. For years I stayed on in Adidam in the hope that things would change, that Adi Da would change, that the community would change. It was a vain hope based on my own misunderstanding of the nature of the problem Recognizing the nature of NPD and recognizing it in Adi Da and his community helped me to see that my only real choice was to leave and start over on my own with a more serious understanding of narcissism than is taught within Adidam. Not easy, to be sure, but far preferable to the alternative.

Adi Da and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A reader has made a lengthy comment on the discussion from the previous post that I thought was deserving of a full reply. Here's the comment in full, followed by my reply:

Dear Conrad,

I am wondering whether you realized the seriousness of your accusation against Adi Da and Adidam. If Adidam is indeed a congregation consisting mostly of narcissists and co-narcissists, then it would be a living hell indeed. Anybody with any sense of normalcy will not be able to survive there for any length of time. If I take your accusations as being true then I have to infer that you must be a very bad case co-narcissist to be able to hang in there for so long.

Narcissism occurs at the rate of 1 in a hundred, so it is not as common as you made it. I am serious when I said that it is almost impossible to recover from narcissism; it amounts to a minor miracle. If you have any doubts, please consider the following references:
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http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/beyond.html
Narcissists are generally not candidates for conventional analytical treatment, since psychological analysis is a dialogue and narcissism is a soliloquy. Because of narcissists' incapacity for genuine relationship, their treatment tends to be of the "Band-Aid" variety that deals with specific acute difficulties, such as depression, which can be treated with drugs. Part of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the conviction is that "I'm okay, it's everybody else who's not okay," so narcissists rarely seek treatment voluntarily. Some wait until they are in such bad shape that they require hospitalization. Because narcissists' self-image is so scanty and fragile, they depend on the reflection of themselves in others' perception to be aware of themselves; sometimes it is really as if these people do not have bodies, have no real material existence. Therefore, social isolation, such as comes following the loss of a job, the failure of a marriage, or the alienation of friends and family, has swift and terrible effects on narcissists. Their thinking quickly deteriorates into chaotic incoherency and disorganization. For this reason, when they do receive treatment, the therapists' first order of business is to restore and fortify the narcissists' ego defenses -- i.e., the therapist must help the narcissist recover the habitual grandiose and self-obsessed self-image. When reasonably recovered, the narcissist usually leaves therapy before any work can be done on the underlying personality disorder.

http://mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=479&cn=8
If possible, long-term individual psychotherapy is the treatment of choice for those with narcissistic personality disorder because it helps to establish a strong therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient. Yet, even within this framework, expectations should focus on small changes in personality traits as opposed to expecting large changes as being possible…

http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/narc.htm
… many individuals with NPD will come for treatment only under considerable duress... but once the pressure is removed or the pain of the event lessened, these individuals usually leave treatment without any desire to change essential characterological attributes. Sperry & Carlson (1993, p. 320) note that most individuals with NPD come into treatment with the goal of having their narcissistic wounds soothed rather than seeking change.
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So have you changed your assessments that Adidam are not a bunch of narcissist after all, just a bunch of mediocre people with some dumb ideas? But how dumb do you have to be to take 30 years to let go of some silly ideas?

I am more inclined to believe that you are not that dumb, as in taking 30 years to let go of a bunch of silly ideas, that you are not a narcissist either but neither is Adi Da. It does look to me that there is something else going on that kept you there for so long. I find it impossible to get past your anger and inconsistencies to really know whether it is the case.

Spiritual practice/community is difficult – past, present and for the foreseeable future. Putting a bunch of people who otherwise would have nothing to do with each other together, heaps on the spiritual demand, stirs up the samskara (purifications) a bit, and you have a pressure cooker, a killing field. There is no comfort zone – either one moves forward on or drop out. Many dramas will get played out in the process.

The Sixth Patriarch having to run for his life after his master passed him the lineage in secret was a notable example from the past. I have also seen the worst of humanity displayed in a couple current day communities that I know quite intimately.

I would expect a level of bullshit and immaturity happening amongst the Adidam community. In fact I am almost seeing one happening right before my eyes in your exchanges with Victoria. Two ex-devotees tearing each other apart without mercy, one defending her ex-guru, one criticizing. I can imagine how the scenes were when both of you were devotees. Perhaps you have never considered that you could be a contributing factor to the ugliness?

The real question to me is whether there are any maturing devotees. And that is probably not so easy to ascertain from a distance.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t have any personal agenda against you. I am only using you as a sounding board in my probe for the truth about Adidam. You were chosen because you are currently the loudest anti-Adi Da voice.

I am not sure whether you realized how intertwined you are with Adi Da with your 30 years involvements, being his court astrologer, and once the most outspoken defender etc. Whatever bad things you have to say about Adi Da reflects equally badly on yourself. Saniel Bonder and Ken Wilber are on the same boat as you, and that is probably why both choose to say very little about their ex-guru publicly. There may be some wisdom that you can learn from them.

Lastly – I am impressed with Adi Da not merely because of the philosophical depth. I am more impressed with the stillness and equanimity in which he sits and conducts himself. It portrays someone who has mastered of the body rather than someone who lead a life of gross indulgences. The most impressive of all is the amount of silence – I got a distinct impression that silence is the real communications and words are rather inconsequential interruptions. There is much to investigate, that all I can say now.

I think I have pretty much come to an end in my excursion in your forum. I wish you all the best in your future undertakings.

yzy

This is my reply to yzy:

Dear yzy,

There's a lot to respond to in your post. I'll try to be thorough. If you have further comments or questions, I'd be glad to respond as needed.

First let me say that I'm not interested in insulting you or Adi Da or anyone associated with Adidam, such as Victoria from the last post. I'm sorry you see me as someone out for blood, and I would ask you to reconsider that assessment of me, but if you can't, so be it. I'm interested in getting at the truth of the matter of Adidam, just as you are. If some people find the truth to be intolerable, that simply can't be helped. If I am wrong about Adidam, then God help me by pointing out where and how I am wrong. But if I am right, then God help you and others involved in Adidam face up to that truth. My basic assumption through all this is that truth is not insulting, and so if we try to stick to the truth, we will be incapable of insulting one another. I sense that you are cognizant of subtleties involved in this kind of exchange, and for what it's worth I don't mind being used as a sounding board if that is how you wish to proceed.

I've said this dozens of times before, but it bears repeating: I'm not interested in dissuading anyone from joining or staying in Adidam. To the contrary, to those who have a strong attraction to Adi Da, by all means go right ahead and join, and give it your best shot. But those who join Adidam should be aware of the realities of Adidam, its cultic limitations, and its peculiar, problematic aspects. Likewise, people should be aware of the positive aspects of Adidam, and place them in context. I certainly wouldn't be the first to point out what is positive in Adidam, but I wouldn't be the last either. As you mention, I was involved with Adidam for the better part of 30 years, and I wouldn't have done so if there hadn't been plenty of positives to have kept me around.

As for Adi Da being an impressive figure, I second the opinion. I have never met a more impressive person in my life – not that I've met a great many exceptional people. Unlike some critics of Adi Da, I don't try to make him out to be an ordinary fraud or psychotic. I think it's clear that he has exceptional yogic and spiritual qualities, as well as genius-level intelligence, and remarkable insight into people and events. What I would argue is that none of that is incompatible with my assessment of him as a narcissist.

Your description of narcissism lacks an appreciation of both the wide variance within clinical narcissism and the breadth of the phenomena on a personal and cultural level in our day and age. You mention that clinical narcissism (NPD) is rare, about 1 in 100. I've heard estimates of between 1-3 in 100, but even at the lower end, NPD is not really all that rare. However, I in no way am suggesting that Adi Da is a typical, 1 in 100 narcissist. Many narcissists, as you suggest, are rather pathetic people with tremendous difficulties in life and relationships. But there exist quite a number of what might be called “high-functioning” narcissists who have exceptional abilities, charisma, and talent, who often rise very high in the social order, and who do not appear to the casual observer to be clincial narcissists. They may be actors, politicians, artists, businessmen, doctors, lawyers or scientists of the highest caliber and achieve great success and recognition in their field. And yet they are often brought down by their own narcissistic character, negating so much of what they have achieved. Or not – many manage to get through life without their narcissism being revealed beyond the small sphere of their immediate associates. This, I would suggest, would be the case with Adi Da if not for those who have spoken out about the realities of his own life and character.

Likewise, you misunderstand what I mean when I describe Adidam as filled with co-dependent personalities. I do not mean that Adidam is filled to bursting with clinical cases of NPD. Not only would that be highly unlikely (and a hell on earth) it simply wouldn't last. People with true NPD simply can't tolerate being surrounded by too many other people with NPD – the competition for attention would be too vicious and intolerable. Instead, NPD people tend to surround themselves with willing co-dependent types who will support and serve their own narcissism. Such co-dependency is a form of narcissism, to be sure, but not of the classic variety. It is sometimes called “compensating narcissism.” Authoritarian organizations tend to be filled with compensating narcissists who sublimate their own will and identity to the leader's will and persona. They live for and through the leader. They may even seem to be selfless and altruistic individuals, self-sacrificing and devoted to a cause and a purpose outside themselves, but in reality they are simply playing out another aspect of the narcissistic fantasy.

Which brings up a larger point about narcissism, which is that while clinical NPD is relatively rare, narcissistic personality problems are virtually epidemic in our time and culture. Alexander Lowen, who was one of the earliest psychiatrists to recognize and treat common narcissistic personality disorders (read his “Narcissism: Denial of the True Self” for a great short introduction to his work on the subject), suggested that while in Freud's time and culture most people who came to psychiatrists for help were suffering from neurotic disorders, in our age the most common ailments people suffer from are related to narcissistic issues. So while most of Freud's theories and techniques were built on the observation of neuroses, psychiatry in our age and culture, according to Lowen, needs to develop theories and methods for treating narcissism – not just of the NPD variety, which remains rare, but of the more common variety.

When I describe Adidam as riddled with narcissism, I am speaking of it in all these respects: an exceptional, high-functioning NPD Guru, a loyal, bureaucratic following of compensating narcissists, and a horde of people struggling with ordinary issues of narcissism and co-dependency. Sprinkled through Adidam are an assortment of genuine NPD characters, in far higher proportions than you would find in the general population, but using the masks of religious authority to hide their disorder. Nonetheless, they remain the exception rather than the rule, and yet they function to manage and organize the commonplace narcissists and co-dependents who populate Adidam.

I would further suggest that all these varieties of narcissists are commonly attracted to religious and spiritual groups, especially those which foster authoritarian and absolutist beliefs. Adidam is far from unique in that respect. One could point to any number of both mainstream and “cult” religious movements as being similarly riddled with narcissists, though I hardly think that excuses Adidam in any way. The fact that Adidam is purportedly lead by an enlightened being, and that it teaches the way to become enlightened oneself, in no way guarantees that it is free of narcissistic exploitation and conflict. In fact, I would argue that movements that aspire to enlightenment or which make such claims are more likely to have narcissistic issues than groups with more mundane aspirations.

Now, you are right that accusing Adi Da of having NPD is a serious charge. I don't make it lightly. I don't even make it out of disrespect, the way one might accuse someone we don't like of being “psycho”. What I mean is that I don't see any other way of accurately describing Adi Da's personality issues, or of explaining the peculiar dynamics of his relationships, his organization, and his spiritual legacy. So let's get down to the basics of that charge, using the basic criteria for recognizing NPD, as described in Wikipedia (which seems to correspond well to every other source I've seen, including DSM-IV):

At least five of the following are necessary for a diagnosis [of Narcissistic Personality Disorder]:

1.has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2.is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3.believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people
4.requires excessive admiration
5.strong sense of entitlement
6.takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7.lacks empathy
8.is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her.
9.arrogant affect

Now, I don't know how much you know about Adi Da, but it should be fairly obvious to anyone with just a bit of experience in Adidam, or knowledge thereof, to see that Adi Da fits not just five of these criteria, but all nine, and not just to some borderline degree, but in spades, in excess of virtually any possible way of looking at the matter. I've spoken to Daists about this, and the best defense they can come up with is that sure, the criteria seem to fit, but since Adi Da is without any ego, none of these personal characteristics of his can amount to narcissism. If you buy that argument, good luck to you in Adidam.

If you need some background on these criteria, let me fill in just a little bit of detail. One could go on and on about it, but I don't want to stand accused of piling on.

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance

If you've read The Dawn Horse Testament, you perhaps have some idea of just how grandiose Adi Da's sense of his own importance is. In short, he believes himself to be THE most important being ever to have been born, not just in our time and place, but in all times, in all places, in the entire universe, in all the billions of years it has existed. He doesn't just mean this figuratively, but literally. His “bodily human form” as he calls it, is the most perfect manifestation of the Divine that has ever appeared, and is the sole means for the complete liberation of all beings, in all times and places, forever. There will never be another being as important as him, no realizer more important, no Vehicle of the Divine as significant. If one has any doubt about how important Adi Da thinks he is, count the number of capitalized words in The Dawn Horse Testament. One wonders if it is even possible for anyone, anywhere, to fulfill this criteria for NPD more fully and perfectly than Adi Da.

2.is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

Adi Da has spent years and years obsessing about the vast successes that he not only insists his “Work” will achieve, but which he demands on a daily and hourly basis. In every area of his life, he fantasizes about ridiculous levels of adulation, respect, power, wealth, sexual satisfaction, personal achievement, artistic creation, on and on. For years he fantasized about the rich and famous coming to him and working with him not only to advance Adidam's position in the world, but to work with him on creative projects of his own devising. For example, he has fantasized for years about making movies with the most famous and successful people in Hollywood, from Jim Carrey to Michael Jackson to Steven Spielberg. He compiled a set of “movie ideas” that he wanted brought to these people, and he expected them to not only embrace him as his Guru, but to embrace him as a creative genius and moviemaker. I worked with him on this “project” at one time, and he personally asked me to approach Steven Spielberg to work with him on these movie ideas of his. (I politely declined). These were not just idle fantasies, he spent years trying to get devotees to develop contacts in the movie industry, trying to work there way up through the network to these top guys.

Likewise, he has fantasized being recognized as the greatest artist of our time, and of any time, and the greatest photographer, the greatest painter, the greatest writer - and the greatest spiritual realizer, of course. You cannot imagine how obsessive he has been about this, how many hours and hours of notes he has given about how import it is that everyone in the world recognize and adore him, and you cannot imagine his rage and disappointment at the ongoing “failure” of his devotees and the whole world to properly recognize and support him.

3. Believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by other special people

Adi Da argues that he is the most “special” person in the world, utterly unique in all of time and space, in all of human and cosmic history. He even uses the word 'Unique”, full capitalized, over and over and over again to describe himself, or should I say, “Himself”. How many people not living in insane asylums actually refer to themselves as “Myself” over and over again, or speak the way Adi Da does about himself?

4.requires excessive admiration

We've covered this a bit, but let's just repeat that Adi Da repeatedly says that without the ongoing devotion and gifts of his devotees, he will literally die. His demand for devotional recognition and praise is simply so over the top one just can't deny it. His anger and rage over the slightest lapse in devotion, his inability to accept even the mildest of criticism, and his total denial that he is even capable of error make this category easy to check off.

5.strong sense of entitlement

Adi Da clearly feels entitled to virtually anything he desires. The entire organization of Adidam essentially exists to fulfill Adi Da's personal wants and desires, and in his view this is not only justified, but is the way for all being to realize perfect enlightenment. Since his wants and desires are the wants and desires of the Divine Person, and since the Divine Person wants only the enlightenment of all beings, fulfilling Adi Da's wants and desires leads to the enlightenment of all beings. The logic is perfect, no? Specifically, this means that if Adi Da wants something badly, he gets it, or he throws a tantrum and threatens to leave, to go into isolation, to disrupt everyone's life until it is given him. A few years ago he went to Yosemite Park, and he liked it so much he said the federal government should just give it to him as his own personal sanctuary residence. He's said that the world should give him $50 billion dollars just to build a series of “pleasure domes” for him to live in, the most fantastic palaces every built, merely to compensate him for the great work he is doing for the sake of all beings. On a more practical level, Adi simply demands the finest in food, sex, art, clothing, personal possessions, furnishings, photographic equipment, cars, housing, hotel accommodations, vacation outings, you name it, he gets it.

6.takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

Where does the money come from for all these things? Adi Da ran a series of fund-raisers to collect money to buy Disney Art and paperweights, raising about $5,000,000 over 2-3 years. People were encouraged to cash in their IRAs, their retirement accounts, borrow on their credit cards, etc., all to finance his fascination for useless collectibles. He deliberately told people to drink as much as it took during these fundraisers in order to facilitate their decision-making, telling people to keep drinking until it they had given enough for his latest purchases. And that's just one example of a pattern of using and abusing people over the decades. I can't tell you how many people have been used and abused and then discarded when they were no longer useful to Adi Da. When his original wife, Nina, was going through a very difficult time, after having supported him for years, both financially and emotionally, and after he just cut her off, she was invited to spend a bit of time with him, and asked if he would take her back into his inner circle. His response? He told her, “Nina, you don't understand. I don't need you anymore.” And that was that.

7.lacks empathy

Again, the examples are too numerous to choose from. My favorite is how he treated the devotees who lived on the island in Fiji. He was upset about the budget for the island eating into his swiss bank account, so he personally took control of the island's budget. He cut the food budget for the residents down to the bone, to about 60 cents per day per person. Things got so bad the residents began stealing food from the retreatants who came from the mainland. People developed malnutrition, serious health problems, dental problems, etc. Meanwhile, Adi Da had a personal chef and staff with a budget of thousands of dollars a month to prepare his own gourmet meals of lobster bisque and the fanciest foods they could get their hands on. At no time did Adi Da show any sign of empathy for those devotees who were literally starving right nearby.

Of course, I would not say that Adi Da lacks empathy entirely. He simply seems to exercise it only when it offers him some advantage. As a general personality characteristic, it seems absent.

8.is often envious or believes others are envious of him or her.

Adi Da's primary criticism of how devotees relate to him is that they all suffer from what he calls the “Oedipal complex”, which in his view means that they are all in competition with him, trying to outdo him, replace him, and “be his equal”. He has a compulsion to knock down any man around who shows too much competence, ability, intelligence or maturity. He seems not to care how much this costs Adidam, requires that no one represent anything that might remotely be seen as competition to his own authority and power. This is the report I get from those who have actually worked in and managed his personal sphere, and everything I've seen around him supports these reports.

9.arrogant affect

Well, what can I say? Judge for yourself. I'm a fairly arrogant guy myself, but to be honest, I've never met anyone who could match Adi Da in this category.

So, there you have. A perfect nine out of nine. I really have a hard time imagining how anyone could seriously contest the assessment of Adi Da as suffering from NPD based on these criteria. If you think differently, I'd like to hear about it.

I thought it interesting that you would comment:

“Part of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is the conviction is that "I'm okay, it's everybody else who's not okay," so narcissists rarely seek treatment voluntarily. Some wait until they are in such bad shape that they require hospitalization.”

Of course, this fits Adi Da to a “T”. He insists that everything that has ever gone wrong in Adidam is the fault of others, of devotees, of the world, everyone but himself. He has never, ever, accepted responsibility for anything that has gone wrong. However, he has taken credit for anything and everything that has done right, regardless of whether he had anything directly to do with it. If things go right, it is his Grace. If things go wrong, it is the fault of devotees obstructing his Grace. So Adi Da's basic message when anythign goes remotely wrong is always “I'm okay, everyone else isn't.

“Because narcissists' self-image is so scanty and fragile, they depend on the reflection of themselves in others' perception to be aware of themselves; sometimes it is really as if these people do not have bodies, have no real material existence.”

Adi Da also repeatedly goes through crises where he says that his connection to this world, and his own body, is so tenuous that he can drift away at any time. The only corrective for this is personal devotion and pleasuring of his body-mind. Let your imagination run wild as to what that comes down to. He has had numerous panic attacks brought on by feelings of failure and collapse. He was on numerous anti-depressants for years. He has had drug and alchohol addictions for decades. Make of that what you will, but it all fits in perfectly with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.

The big question which I grappled with for a long time, and which you will have to grapple with if you join Adidam, is how all these obvious signs of severe NPD could coincide with someone who is also clearly a brilliant spiritual savant of a kind. For that, I have no fully convincing explanation to offer you. Many people have their theories, and I could float a few myself, but in the end they are rather beside the point. The point is the fact that these NPD problems clearly exist, and have a huge effect on everyone in Adidam. They will have an effect on you also, so you should take that into account when joining. Be aware that if you criticize Adi Da for any of these things, or ask too many questions about these matters, you will be labeled a heretic, as I was. You will have to choose whether to ignore these matters or leave Adidam. That's basically the deal.

As for how negatively these matters reflect on me, I offer no excuses, and I accept complete responsibility for my own involvement in Adidam. One of the most insightful criticisms I ever came across came from Poonja Swami, whom I began to read after leaving Adidam. When asked about deceitful and fraudulent Gurus, he said that there were no bad Gurus, there were only bad devotees. This is the opposite, of course, of what most critics of Gurus think. Personally, I think it is exactly true, in that without bad devotees there can be no bad Gurus. By that, I mean that a bad devotee is one who is not interested in truth for its own sake, but only for what he can get for himself. And my involvement in Adidam, to the degree that it was a negative experience, is a comment on my own corrupt desiring for something other than Truth. If I had truly been interested in Truth, I wouldn't have become so distracted by the inanities of Adidam. If there were no bad devotees, there would be no Adidam, therefore. He would have no one to abuse. So it is bad devotees who make bad Gurus. This isn't a way of excusing bad Gurus, or exploitive people altogether, but it is the only sane way I can see to approach the matter of one's own bad spiritual experiences with Gurus, communities, etc.

The primal delusion we face is our own delusion, ultimately, and so it is a bit beside the point to dwell endlessly on the tragi-comedic faults of Gurus like Adi Da. You asked, and I'm willing to describe these things as honestly as I can, but I can't pretend I much care anymore. My advice to you isn't really about Adi Da himself, but about your own search for truth. What matters is not who your teacher is, or what practices you engage, but how earnest and true you are in the midst of it all. If you have a karma to be involved with Adi Da, or with some other cultic Guru, then maybe it's what you need to do, as I certainly felt being involved with Adidam all those years was what I needed to do. But ultimately it doesn't really matter whether you join or not. It just matters that you come to the point of being truly honest with yourself and dealing with yourself directly and truthfully. For me, it seems that I needed to be involved with Adidam for almost three decades to get the point. If that reflects badly on me, so be it. I'm not bitching. In fact, I'm happy just to get this far. I have had to wrestle with my own narcissism, my own demons, and I'm glad to have made as much progress as I have. What's important to me about Adidam is not that I've left it, but that I no longer feel the need for it, or for any similar involvement. Without that need, how can I be exploited? So a whole level of fear and uncertainty has left me. It wasn't really a question of my involvement in Adidam. That was just a symptom of a problem I had not been willing to face up to. The real questions were always about me. And so they will always be.
I hope this has been useful to you. If you have any further questions, I'm happy to answer them. Adi Da's status as an NPD may be controversial within Adidam, but it seems fairly uncontested outside of that sphere. But again, it isn't really the most important issue. You may want to ask yourself why you are attracted to a Guru who has such obvious NPD characteristics, as I finally had to. Better late than never, but better sooner than later, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, thanks for the civilized discussion.

Conrad

Another County Hear From

Here's one woman's response to my blog:

Why waste time with all this bullshit, Conrad? You had a Guru once who is as True as they come. That he was/is a difficult man of undeniable complexity and contradiction does not make his Realization less than True. All the condescending remarks you make about Adi Da-or anyone else who makes such remarks-are just a sign of immaturity and immersion in your own self-importance. Like Ken W, your are angry that some actual Great Realizer didn't coddle you along. You guys all work so hard to prove with words and books and websites just how smart you are and how wrong God was to not see it.[Whether that is Adi Da, Papaji, Sri Lakshmana or the God in your dreams at night.] I don't need a PhD to see the charade... it is visible for all to see via the interminable lengths to which you go to defend your personal beliefs and ideas. Not just you, Conrad, but all the middle-aged ex-devotees of someone or other, who seem to NEED to express themselves on the internet. It's tragic that you are not bored with it all yet. I remember when you first came to the Community...you were rather innocently self-possessed then...young and overly impressed with your own intellectual intelligence. [Like a lot of guys were at the time.] You aren't so young now, nor is there anything remotely innocent about your self-possession. These forums are just another form of porn, Conrad. It's like jerking off in public again and again. Because there is no shame and no recognition of the Beloved--just an endless driven search for release. All of you guys just wagging your dicks at one another, pretending to be tolerant and forgiving. I'd rather see a good fist-fight. It would be far more honest and real considering where you are really at. You failed. You failed to REALLY fall in Love with God. You failed to go beyond your own tendencies...all the ones that keep you painfully identified with a personal self. You still espouse them vociferously in your writings. No one is really going to understand you, Conrad. No one really cares. I don't say this to be mean...it is simply the truth. The One you seek is on the other side of everything you are now commited to doing to justify your life and existence. All of these words and endless diatribes are just a symptom of your illness...ALL OF YOU, who go on and on, living in your heads but blah-bla-blahing about your hearts. You are all angry and insulted that God did not somehow recognize little old you and give you The Great Gift. You pretend humility...bull-shit again. If life had truly made you a humble man, you would not be wasting your time writing all this crap and think that quoting some Realizer, whom you never met,legitimizes your dumb ideas. Instead, you would be giving everything you've got to stoking the fire of your love for God. Even if it was only a little bit...a baby-step as it were. You would not care that the fire burns your precious personal identity. You would see that it is not the world that humiliates you, but that the real humiliation comes from watching the years go by and still refusing to let go of all the endless thinking and posturing. It's your own pain that keeps you going here and this blog epitomizes evrything you do to keep from feeling that pain. IT IS NOT THE TRUTH. You can write yourself into the grave, IT WILL NEVER BE THE TRUTH!!! You cling mightily to the very tendencies that prevent you from seeing this machine of suffering from the other side of the fence. I have not been a formal devotee of Adi Da's for 15 yrs...and yet the spiritual relationship never ended. It only got stronger over the years. He gave me Everything...again and again and again...he showed me what love is. He showed me that even the greatest blisses must be sacrificed in love. He showed me the great secret of being ordinary. The Fire still burns...I ain't done cookin yet. But I can tell you, you must find the joy in the utter ruination of all that you identify with as Conrad. There is such a freedom in just that much. It is not the final Realization, but it is the beginning of real sadhana and Self-respect. It is also a release from all the spriritual romanticism that has grown out of the ready availability of esoteric teachings in our generation. Stop all the mental masturbation. Figure out why you gave up the real fight. Good luck.

Love from another Victoria

I don't know who this woman is. I recall a Victoria from times past in Adidam, but never knew her well, and never formed an opinion of her. (My wife is named Victoria, so she's aware of that much about me). There's not much to say in response, except that this is an example of how the experience of having been in Adidam can twist a person in knots that they can't get out of without lashing at others. What's interesting to me is that someone who had actually stayed in Adidam would be very unlikely to respond with such hostility to my blog writings. But someone who had left Adidam, and yet remained a devotee - in their own mind at least - is often carrying powerful internal tensions and contradictions within themselves that burst out when they come across criticism of Adi Da.

There's a small but significant number of people like Victoria, who have left Adidam for all kinds of reasons that they may not be able to face up to, but who persist in thinking of Adi Da as their Guru, and they often react more strongly to criticism of Adi Da than actual members of Adidam. Why is this? My guess is that they have simply suppressed their own reactions to Adi Da, and Adidam, and cannot face up to why they left, but compensated for those reactions by becoming, in their own minds at least, the strongest advocates of Adidam. Joe Blanchete over at the Daism forum is a good example of this type. These people simply cannot face up to the fact that they left their Guru, they cannot face their own feelings of betrayal, their own negative response to Adi Da and Adidam, and so it all comes rushing out when someone criticizes Adi Da in any way.

Victoria's reaction is strange. Her primary motive seems to be to get me to shut up, to stop saying anything about Adi Da. Why the suppressive response? It's fairly obvious that she has been suppressing her own feelings about Adidam for a very long time, and she wants to enforce that on others as well. It's natural that she wouldn't much like my blog, but the intense reaction suggests that it hit a nerve in her, in her own negative feelings about Adidam that she's somehow been keeping beneath the surface all these years. She doesn't say why she left Adidam, but clearly there must have been something negative about the experience. What else could explain why she stays away from someone she loves and considers her Guru? Obviously she is deeply conflicted about Adidam, because everyone who's been in Adidam knows that Adi Da does not give permission for people to leave, and does not acknowledge anyone who leaves as his devotee. He only acknowledges formally practicing members of Adidam as his devotees. So Victoria is not his devotee, even if she likes to think of herself as one. She has to cope every day with the knowledge that her Guru feels that she has betrayed him, more deeply than I have even, since I no longer consider him my Guru. It's one thing for someone like me to leave and criticize, it's quite another for a loyal devotee like Victoria to do the same. And that creates a terrible tension in a person that can't abide encountering anything which might bring the conflict to the surface. Hence, massive suppression, not just of oneself, but of others as well.

What this kind of conflict does to a person is not pretty. Victoria thinks my tolerance and compassion are false and studied, so I won't try to offer my sympathies to her. But clearly she is in need of help and a place to open up and talk freely about her experience in Adidam, why she left, why she stays gone, and what her conflict with Adi Da is all about. This probably isn't the right place for that, but if she wants to give it a try, I'm open to it.

This is an example of the kind of harm many people who have been involved with Adidam suffer from. Much of it is unnecessary and can be resolved fairly easily by simply talking openly about it all, rather than suppressing these feelings. People do, even 15 years after leaving, suffer guilt, pain, hostility, and all sorts of suppressed emotions which they don't feel free to confess, so they project them onto convenient targets such as this blog. I know her criticism of me isn't personal, it's not even about me actually, it's about her own relationship to Adi Da. She's not got things right with him, or with herself. She has an idea of Adi Da in her mind that doesn't match up to the Adi Da who is actually alive and whom she once had a relationship with. Something about the Adi Da in her mind is very precious to her, and represents her own "God" as it were. She needs to know that I am not criticizing the God in her mind, but the man and the life she left long ago for reasons of her own choosing. The God in her mind is not Adi Da, though she continues to make that association. The God in her mind may be a much better God than Adi Da has been in life even, I don't criticize the God she has made Adi Da out to be. I simply criticize the man who has tried to make a God of himself, and used that God to gain a hold on people's minds. Obviously he gained a hold on Victoria's mind that even 15 years later still retains its grip. She should free herself from that grip on her mind, and let her mind be free of it all - for her own sake, not for me or any other "hostile" ex-devotees.

Unless Victoria chooses to return to Adidam, she really ought to just let go of Adi Da and let herself be free of his imposition on her mind. At least I think she'd be better off that way. Obviously she has tried to develop a spiritual life on her own, and the image of Adi Da is only an obstruction at this point, one she could be free of simply by recognizing it as a relic of her past, not a reality of her present. As Da himself once said, once you recognize something as garbage, you have no choice by to throw it away, and everything the Guru gives you is garbage. So Victoria's problem is simply that she doesn't recognize her attachment to this image of Adi Da as garbage, but continues to hold onto it even 15 years after the fact. What a heavy burden to carry around. Wouldn't she feel so much lighter without that load on her shoulders? People do become attached to their suffering, however, and it's not always so easy to let it go. It's understandable that she needs to vent, even at me. But it's even more important that she recognize that it's not me she's angry at. It's someone much closer to her heart.

Da Prophecies

A reader wrote a comment below somewhere (I don't know where exactly; blogger emails me all comments, but it doesn't tell me what post they were made under - it could be from a post written some time ago):

George Feurstein has updated his classic work 'Holy madness'recently (2006). The chapter on Adi Da has been revised significantly. The author mentions the so called 'Lopez Island Event' which occured in the Year 2000. According to him Da had prophesised that the world would acknowledge him in the year 2000. As a result of this, Da suffered a mental breakdown around April 2000 due to high level of anxiety. Yet I have never seen this prophesy in any of the Dawn Horse produced books/articles prior to yr 2000. I wonder if this is a myth propagated by disgruntled ex devotees. Where is the proof that Da actually made this prophesy?

I couldn't point you to any "proof" that Adi Da ever made this prophecy. It certainly wasn't published in the literature anywhere. But only a small fraction of what Adi Da has ever said has been published. I certainly heard from his kanyas that he made such a prediction, and as his "court astrologer" I was asked whether I saw something like this in his chart. I said that no, I didn't see any corroboration in his astrological chart for this sort of thing, and obviously it never happened. I'm not sure when the prediction was actually made, or what the exact wording of it was. One fallback position Da always takes in relation to such things is that he claims most of his work is invisible, and will only make a manifest appearance much, much later. So I would gather that when he didn't become world famous in 2000 that he pointed to the Lopez event, which he claimed represented the most important "event" in the history of the universe, as being the basis for his "world fame" that will eventually make its appearance. He has of course said suchthings before. Back in early 1974 he claimed that he was transforming himsef, the community, the world, and the entire cosmos in a way that would change everything forever, and it would culiminate in July of 1974. Of course nothing much happened then, but he claimed that it was like the "Dawn Horse" dream of his - that the essential work had now been done, and the appearance of that work would occur somewhere down the line. We are all still waiting.

George might know more about this prediction. My sense was that it was originally made long before 2000, and had become something of a legend in the community by then. So if you want to know more of the specifics, I'd suggest you ask him. But no, my basic understanding is that it was not something invented by disgruntled ex-devotees to embarrass Da. He has a long history of making predictions that don't actually come true, except in his own interior sense of reality. Much room for cognitive dissonance to operate there. There's not much need to invent things to embarrass Da - he has provided virtually endless material for such things from the beginning of his teachings, and even before.

Note: SOory about the lack of posting of late, particularly regarding Andy Smith's piece. Just overloaded with things to do. Will get to it soon. Like Da's prophecies, I've already written it in my mind, it just has to manifest. World fame will inevitably follow.

Still Here, Still Thinking of You

To those few out there who've been checking in, my apologies at the light blogging of late. I've just been very busy of late. But I've been thinking of lots of things I want to write about. In particular, I want to make a response to Andy Smith's long paper on non-dualism and developmentalism over at Integral World that is in part based on ideas I've presented here and at the Wilber Forum. I'd like to write a long paper, but the more I think about it, the longer it becomes, and thus the harder to begin. So instead I think I will just begin posting a series of bits and pieces that can perhaps later be assembled into a longer paper for Integral World. Maybe it never gets that far, but at least the ideas get addressed. Smith's paper is worth a good response in any case, and the issues he brings up are menaingful to me - particularly the issue of what constitutes non-dualism. I intend to give both a rational and a "visionary" response that gives a fuller context for how I see these things. Hope I can begin this tommorrow. If not, very soon at least. Thanks for bearing with me.

The Ongoing War Between Dualism and Non-dualism

I don't know if anyone has been following my long dialog with friend about non-dualism. Most of it has been going on in the comments section of my posts, and though I've occasionally brought some of my replies to the top as a full posting, most of them have taken place down below. It's gotten pretty heated at times, and I thought it had cooled down a bit, until I got his most recent reply to my last set of comments. I decided to make a pretty lengthy reply this time, and I must admit I kind of blew off some steam in the process. Nothing Wyatt Earpish, mind you, but I did get a little strong. I thought I'd post it up here on the top, in part to show my rough side, but also because it does get into some fairly important issues in regard to non-dualism.

Because I can't easily link to individual comments, I'll post Friend's comments first, and then my own. If you want to see the thread, go to this post, and look at both the comments section and the previous links. If you just want to skip down to my reply, it's at the end of the indented paragraphs.

Friend's last comment to me:

I think this last post of yours is either a sign of a distracted mind or a slippery one, perhaps both. Perhaps its slippery because it's distracted and I wouldn't be surprised because you obviously have a lot on your plate at the moment and I think it may all be more than you can handle.

As a result, you seem to be sort of cruising in auto-pilot to a fair degree at least in this reply to me. But it's sort of interesting to see how your mind operates at the automatic level. For one thing its modus operandi is more obvious. First it denies, then it rationalizes. Usually you at least consider what has been said at a bit more depth and so the response is more sophisticated than this last, relatively thoughtless post. Here I se you as basically sidestepping my points in sort of a slippery non-substantive manner.

Secondly, your unexamined assumptions are more obvious. Some of them make me shiver.

I'll take your last one as my first example of this. You misrepresent my position and then argue against that. You have a serious misunderstanding of my position if, after all this time conversing, you actually think I'm trying to "affirm the reality of duality" or "imply that the lower notion of experience and duality is actually true and real". Far from it. I assume you must be thoughtlessly arguing with some straw man there, probably a composite of other people you have been arguing with, or you are just on auto-pilot.

My point with Ramana's quote is twofold. The first is that it demonstrates that it is not necessary to eradicate the relative world in order for realization to be the case. Ramana said that it was only necessary to point out the unreality of the conditional world to seekers who had lost sight of themselves. Once they had realized their status as conscious being they then understood their correct relationship to the world.

Ramana: “When a man forgets that he is a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why? Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman.”

So it is clearly not necessary to eradicate the world to see reality. You are just using that condition as an excuse to hang on to duality yourself.

The second point is that Ramana actually does mean that he has no preferences, or there are no preferences, while you do express very clear and sharp preferences continuously, again with particular regard to the presence of what you insist on calling duality. Your avoidance of these points is another instance of what I mean by your slipperiness in this post.

I am not the one insisting on the reality of duality as you suggest. Quite the opposite. If you would just look a little more closely you'll see that it's actually you who are insisting on the reality of duality and that that is what is supposedly preventing your realization, according to your own assessment.

I am in total agreement with Ramana's endorsement of the vedantic principle of Ajata Vada, which has to do with the absence of causality regarding "Being". It is a great insight. The only real difference between us on this point is that you seem to see it as only a theory, or perhaps just a remote future attainment while I see it as present actuality. Here you leap on the word "now" and try to rationalize the whole idea away as some complicated issue while simply avoiding the actual point of my comment, another reason I refer to your replies in this post as slippery.

My point again is that you cannot claim to be pursuing such things as "...unconditional freedom, which is what desire really wants." or say, "I don't see that desire can be quenched any other way than to fall into unconditional happiness." and yet remain entirely conditional in your stance, as you do continuously. That is a dualistic position. That's the point that I am asking you to face and not simply ignore it. Can you even see that this might be a possibility? You constantly assume that what you call duality prevents or belies your enlightenment. So who believes in the reality of duality or the conditional world? Clearly it’s you and not me as you suggest. I hope you’ll stop projecting your vision onto me and then criticizing me for what you yourself espouse.

Other assumptions of yours that make me shiver are:

“Only the source, the source of the “I”-thought, is infinite. And that is not found in our present situation.”

- The notion that our source is missing, that we are separated from our source, is a typical atheistic assumption. I know this because I was once an atheist too. Even if you don’t consider yourself an atheist now, this assumption is a hangover from that period of your life. You need to allow yourself to see that this ‘missingness’ is simply a learned and arbitrary, unwarranted and unnecessary assumption. It is not true.

“We can't find ourselves in this present situation either….”

-We can only not find our subjective self objectively. No one has any problem finding themselves subjectively, and not as an entity of course, or a thought or an image, since those would still be objective, but as totally obvious conscious being (and not A conscious being, nor any entity BTW).

“Where we actually are is not known to us. This is not a good thing”

- There is no “where”. Place is a relative concept. In the absolute, Being is its own place, as well as its own time.

“When realizers talk this way, there are not talking about “our present situation”, they are talking about a transcendental present, not merely the present moment in time, but the now that is beyond time”.

- The now that is beyond time is the present moment to which I am referring. But this present moment in time is not actually separate from that, as you seem to want to insist.

“We can only experience a part of whatever there is, and we can't ever demonstrate that it is infinite at all.”

- Infinity is part of our present situation even in the conditional world. I know you know the sky never ends. That’s real infinity. The two aspects of reality infuse every aspect of existence: the unlimited and the limited, the time-bound and the eternal, the relative and the absolute, the objective and the subjective, the changeable and the unchanging, multiplicity and singularity, and so on. They are all the case at the same time. They do not deny or nullify each other as you keep wanting to insist. It’s not one or the other. This is infinity, literally.

“… desire wants what is infinite, what is real, what is transcendental. It's problem is that it cannot perceive the transcendental and infinite…”

- The transcendental, the absolute, is not objective or relative so it cannot be perceived objectively. That is the only ‘problem’. But that does not mean that what is infinite, real and transcendental is somehow missing or unavailable That is again another unwarranted assumption based on thinking that the absolute should appear in relative terms. Desire is rooted in the assumption or insistence that the real is presently missing. But the real is not missing at all. It simply is not defined, and cannot be identified in what is limited and conditional, even though people casually do assume so on an everyday basis (And please note, I do not assume that.) No one has a problem realizing reality. People generally make the mistake of thinking that the absolute should be objective or relative like everything else they know. Once one gets over that misunderstanding there is no problem.

If you understand what I am saying here you’ll see that, overall, there is actually very little difference between your position and mine. You are hardly alone in arguing for “higher notion of unity” as you say. It’s no wonder you continue to misrepresent my position if you still don’t understand this. It would help this conversation considerably if you would.

The only difference is that you are saying non-duality is not presently the case while I am pointing out that it already is. And that is the all the difference between us in a nutshell. That’s the reason I refer to your present position as one of duality and that’s what I was asking you to confront in yourself in my last post and what I consider you to have missed or sidestepped in your reply. You say this is not that. I say this is that, and not in any theoretical, conceptual sense, but actually so. I am not merely trying to make you wrong. I am just trying to demonstrate to you that nothing really stands between you and enlightenment as you seem to insist. Unless this is the non-dual, there is no non-dual. This is that. Any other fixed position is nothing but an insistence on duality.

And now my reply to Friend:


Friend,

No need to slipslide into insults and accusations - but since you have, I may get a litle direct and personal with you. If I misunderstand you, it's not intentional. Many of your statements are not clear at all, and self-contradictory, and I am limited in my ability to infer what you mean from what you say. I'm sure in your own mind you see no contradictions are inconsistencies, but that's the problem. You seem to have trouble seeing yourself from other people's point of view, and instead simply dismiss and say derogatory things about points of view, such as mine, that disagree with yours. I hardly find that a sign of your being in a state of genuine knowledge of the Self and having brought your search to an end. I'm not trying to be insulting, but you seem to have a fair number of rather ordinary social problems and are getting rather emotionally reactive here, in the way that these things often get on the internet. Not that there's anything terribly wrong there, it just doesn't seem like you actually live what you preach, or have really understood what you claim to understand. I don't mind that you haven't realized the Self, but I do mind that you put me down in a rather insipid way as being someone who is purely dualistic and who therefore couldn't possibly understand your arguments, unless of course I think the way you think, and then I will be fine.

As for my last post, I think it was fine. It doesn't misrepresent my views and it's not slippery, but quite clear. Implying that I can't handle this conversation is not the kind of thing someone who is awake to their true being would say, it's a kind of passive-aggressive insult, don't you think? Accusing me of operating on automatic, while you can deftly observe me from the position of true being, is a very sophomoric and ad hominem way of arguing, not worthy of you or the non-dual rhetoric you espouse. It's pretty dualistic if you ask me. You accuse me of not recognizing “this” as Divine and Infinite, and yet you treat me like a very finite and unenlightened nabob. How is that? Am I not part of “this”?

You accuse me of denying, and then rationalizing, but give no examples. I don't see any in my post. Please point them out to me. It's not good manners to accuse someone of such things without providing justification. You seem to be sinking into personal insults, which is a sign of a failed argument, and certainly not a sign of living the non-dual life as you claim to be. Quite honestly, I think you have simply run out of arguments, and are reduced to insults and bald assertions like “this is that” which mean nothing more than a kindergardener saying “is so”. When pressed, you merely say that unless I agree with you that “this is that”, I am just stuck in duality and defending duality. I disagree. I have put forth a lot of very sound and grounded arguments why “this” is not “that”, arguments that are found in the traditions of realizers around the world, and you simply ignore them and accuse me of ignorance and a fixation on unenlightenment. That is your presumption about me, and it has nothing to do with how I actually live or think. You don't seem to care that many non-dual teachings contradict you, I suppose you think they are all stuck in duality also.

“You misrepresent my position and then argue against that. You have a serious misunderstanding of my position if, after all this time conversing, you actually think I'm trying to "affirm the reality of duality" or "imply that the lower notion of experience and duality is actually true and real". Far from it. I assume you must be thoughtlessly arguing with some straw man there, probably a composite of other people you have been arguing with, or you are just on auto-pilot.”

If you examine my post a little more carefully, I simply said that if you were using Ramana's quote to affirm the reality of duality, then you were using it wrongly. Now you assert that you were not using it for that purpose. Fine. But later on you not only assert “this is that”, but, “This is infinity, literally” This is precisely what I mean by asserting the reality of duality, that this dualistic world, as it is, is actually infinite and non-dual. So I'm not misinterpreting you at all. You literally believe that this world is literally non-dual and infinite. You give the false rationale that the sky is infinite. But of course it isn't. As anyone with a little education knows, the universe has only been around for about 13 billion years, not an infinite length of time, and according to Einstein's theory of relativity, a beam of light shooting into the sky will curve through the entire universe and come back from the opposite direction, in about 13 billion years (or would that be 26 billion years, I'm not sure?).

In any case, the sky is very big, but not infinite. Nothing in this universe is infinite, it is all finite, every last drop of it. Give me one example of any “thing” in this universe that is infinite. You won't be able to. So then, how can this finite world be infinite? It can't be, certainly not in any sense that exists within this world. It can only be infinite in a sense that does not exist in this world itself, that sees that this world is not reality, but only a dualistic reduction of reality to a limited and finite illusion. The infinite and eternal nature of the Self is not found in this world, where everything is finite, changing, and mortal. You are mortal, my friend, even if you think you have achieved some kind of eternal consciousness. You haven't. What you have understood will die and be scattered to the winds, because it is finite knowledge, not infinite and eternal and unending knowledge. I think that ought to be obvious. That it is not obvious to you may simply be due to the same cause that you think the sky is infinite – a lack of understanding of the details of these matters.

You simply like the idea, the concept, that ”this is that”. You haven't realized it, you haven't worked it through, you simply feel some basic sense that it's true, and that's enough for you. You see no need to actually examine this idea critically. Instead you just attack anyone who suggests you might be wrong. That's how the ego responds to criticism, not how non-dual being responds. So are you the ego arguing with me, or non-dual being? Or is your view that since “this is that”, your ego is actually non-dual being, and so it's okay, that your egoic reactions are just more non-dual being doing its thing? In other words, do you have any sense of conscience that tells you when you are being an egoic ass, and when you are being self-surrendering, or do you just think its all one non-dual being? I'm being a bit facetious here, but that's where you seem to be heading with this. If you are going to make me and my personae an element of this argument, then you have to make yours an element also. So what's with you for real? Are you free of egoity and dualism or not?

“My point with Ramana's quote is twofold. The first is that it demonstrates that it is not necessary to eradicate the relative world in order for realization to be the case.”

I never claimed that it was necessary to eradicate the relative world in order for realization to be the case. I did say that it was necessary to eradicate the dualistic mind, and that if the dualistic mind was eradicated, the world would vanish also, since the world is dependent upon the dualistic mind for its existence. Without the mind, there is no world, no this or that, no identity, no difference at all. Nothing is seen, nothing is perceived, because the one who previously perceived is gone. Without a perceiving mind, how can there be a world perceived? So no effort is needed to eradicate the world. One only needs to eradicate the mind, the dualistic ego which creates worlds and places and pretends to percieve them and see them as God even, as non-dual even, all of which is just the mind playing tricks with itself. The end of such tricks ends the whole game of the ego that perceives a world.

You argue as if the world exists outside of the mind, as if there really is some infinite dimension to this world that makes it non-dual, and that when the mind is gone, then we see the world as non-dual also. I argue otherwise, that without the mind there is no world to see, and no perceiver to see it. Who is it who sees the world as infinite when the Self is realized? The Self isn't a being in the world, who perceives the world, just more clearly. When the snake is gone and the rope is seen, there is no one to see it. The snake is the world itself, the mind, the fragmentation of reality into self and world. When that fragmentation vanishes, there is no self or world. The Self is not the Witness. That, again, is just a way of understanding the direction of Self-Realization, not the actual nature of the Self. The Self witnesses nothing, experiences nothing. It is only from the point of view of dualism that we speak of things that way, because it gives us some way to relate to these matters. And similarly with Ramana's quote. He is not describing the actual state of the realizer, that is indescribable. He is only describing how the jnani relates to others within the viewpoint of the dualistic mind. As you acknowledge, the Ajata Vada is his real perspective.

“Ramana said that it was only necessary to point out the unreality of the conditional world to seekers who had lost sight of themselves. Once they had realized their status as conscious being they then understood their correct relationship to the world.”

Ramana did stress the unreality of the world to seekers, but not because they were too immature to see the world as real. He said that it was unreal because it was a creation of mind, but he cautioned that people shouldn't try to adopt that as an attitude towards life in any kind of practical sense. Instead, he said they should find out the truth of this for themselves through self-enquiry. He pointed out that the world was not the Self, and that one should direct attention to the self-position, not outwards into the world. Still, in discussing self-enquiry in the context of everything else, he would clearly point out that the world was unreal. He never said that once anyone had “realized their status as conscious being” that they would understand their true relationship to the world, and see it as real. He never spoke about any “realization of conscious being” at all. That is your concept, and your teaching, not Ramana's. He spoke of Self-realization, and clearly stated that in Self-realization the jnani transcends any notion of having a relationship to the world. The world is seen as the Self, and the Self has no relationship to the Self, it is the Self. He not only sees no differences, he sees no world. He sees that nothing is happening at all, and never has happened. I refer you to the quote I posted in this recent post from Lakshmana Swami, one of Ramana's realized devotees.

Now, the point you make that is valid is that Ramana felt it was important to seekers to know that the world was an illusion, that dualistic object-consciousness was false, and that one should direct attention to the true self, rather than to the false world. Since I am a seeker, it is of course fully appropriate for me to see the world as an illusion, and to deepen that sense through self-enquiry. Even you here admit that this is good advice. So why then do you constantly berate me for affirming this, when it is exactly what someone like me should be affirming? I understand the argument about whether the jnani sees the dualistic world as real or not is contentious, but there really should be no contentiousness about whether I, a seeker, should see the world as unreal.

As you here freely admit, Ramana felt that it was important for seekers to see the world as unreal. Well, that's me. And yet you constantly decry that I don't see that “this is that”, and tell me I am clinging to unenlightenment by doing so. This seems completely contradictory, and evidence that you are confused and disturbed by this notion, rather than living in the clear certainty of "conscious being". If you really were speaking from “conscious being” to me, wouldn't you likewise encourage me to see the world as an illusion in order to faciitate my realization of “conscious being”, so that I could then see the true, non-dual nature of the world as you do? Well, the problem is obvious. You don't really see the non-dual nature of the world or reality. You simply have a concept about it in your mind, and you cling to that concept, and defend that concept, and berate anyone who contradicts that concept. If you knew yourself to be the Self, you wouldn't feel threatened by my assertions that the world is unreal, and you would even encourage me to take that all the way to realization. But instead you do the opposite.

Let's look at a few things Ramana said about this:

M. Only that which lies beyond name and form is Reality.
____________________

Q. What is reality?

M. Reality must always be real It is not with names and forms. That which underlies these is the Reality. It underlies limitations, being itself limitless. It is not bound. It underlies unrealities, itself being real. Reality is that which is, It is as it is. It transcends speech, beyond the expressions, e.g., existence, non-existence, etc.
_____________________

Q. I understand the concept of unity in variety, but do not realize it.

M. Because you are in variety, you say you understand unity – that you have flashes, etc., remember things, etc.,; you consider this variety to be real. On the other hand, Unity is the reality, and variety is false. The variety must go before unity reveals itself – its reality. It is always real. It does not send flashes of its being in this false variety. One the contrary, variety obstructs the truth.
_____________________

Q. Is the seen world real?

M. It is true in the same degree as the seer. Subject, object and perception form the triad. There is a reality beyond these three. These appear and disappear, whereas the truth is eternal.

Q. These three are only temporal?

M. Yes, if one recognizes the Self these will be found to be non-existent even in temporal matters, inseparate from the Self; and they will be going on at the same time.
_____________________

M. Where are you, that you ask these questions? Are you in the world, or is the world within you? You must admit that the world is not perceived in your sleep although you cannot deny your existence then. The world appears when you wake up. So where is it? Clearly the world is your thoughts. Thoughts are your projections. The “I” is first created and then the world. The world is created by the “I” which in turn rises up from the Self. The riddle of the creation of the world is thus solved if you solve the creation of the “I”. So I say, find your Self.

Again, does the world come and ask you “Why do “I” exist? How was “I” created?” It is you who ask the question. The questioner must establish the relationship between the world and himself. He must admit that the world is his own imagination. Who imagines it? Let him find the “I” and then the Self.

Moreover, all the scientific and theological explanations do not harmonize. The diversities in such theories clearly show the uselessness of seeking such explanations. Such explanations are purely mental or intellectual and nothing more. Still, all of them are true according to the standpoint of the individual. There is no creation in the state of realization. When one sees the world, one does not see oneself. When one sees the Self, the world is not seen. So see the Self and realize that there has been no creation.

I think these instructions are fairly clear about the nature of the world. Yes, when the Self is realized, only Brahman is seen, but that is only a figure of speech. There is no “I” to see Brahman, and no Brahman to be seen. There is only Brahman. This paradoxical state could be said to be consistent with the statement “Brahman is the world”, but we must face up to the reality that is a statement which destroys the very concept of a “world”. And not just this world, but any world which could be seen. If the world is Brahman, it is infinite. Clearly the world we see is not infinite, nor is any world that could be seen, so it is not “this” world that is Brahman. The world that is seen in realization is a Brahman World, an infinite world, a world without any limitation or karma or aspects - clearly not “this” world. Everything about such a world is infinite. There is nothing “in” it that is finite, since every part of Brahman is also Brahman, and thus infinite. The table in front of me is not infinite. It is not a “part” of Brahman, because everything in Brahman is infinite. What I see as a table is just a projection of my dualistic mind. If I were realized, I would not see a table, I would see infinity. Though using the word “see” would of course be contradictory, because there is no seer, seeing, or seen in Brahman.

In other words, you are operating under false concepts, based on your presumption that you have resolved the issue of your Self, and that your search has come to an end. You see “this” as “that”, but who sees "this"? The ego does. Your ego has simply latched onto ideas of non-dualism and created a personal reality out of them. It holds onto those ideas in the face of all opposition. This is what the ego does. We should all be aware of this. You think you have no ego, no belief in a personal self. But who thinks this, who knows this? The ego does. You cling to the notion that the world is real because your ego needs the world to be real in order to protect itself. That is the whole point of projecting a world around us. It is a protective measure for the ego. And the ego simply will not let go of the world. Instead, it divinizes the world if it can, it eternalizes it, it says “this world is that”. This is the trap you are in. I don't think I can state it any more clearly. If you cannot begin to suspect yourself of this error, I probably can't do anything more for you.

Ramana: “When a man forgets that he is a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why? Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole universe as Brahman.”

Friend: “So it is clearly not necessary to eradicate the world to see reality. You are just using that condition as an excuse to hang on to duality yourself.”

I never said that one has to eradicate the world, only the mind. Ramana clearly states that in realization the jnani knows nothing other than the Self. But again, this view of the world as Brahman is not the Ajata Vada, it is simply a paradox of dualistic language. There is no one there to see the world as Brahman, so how can the jnani view the world at all, even as Brahman? In saying that the world is Brahman, you are stressing the “world” side of the equation. I say Ramana is stressing the “Brahman” side of the equation, such that the meaning here is that there is no world, only Brahman.

“The second point is that Ramana actually does mean that he has no preferences, or there are no preferences, while you do express very clear and sharp preferences continuously, again with particular regard to the presence of what you insist on calling duality. Your avoidance of these points is another instance of what I mean by your slipperiness in this post.”

Of course I have preferences. I'm not realized. I have no problem expressing my preferences. I don't feel the need to hide my preferences in order to pretend that I have no search, or have resolved the issue of self. I haven't avoided these points one bit. I've been very clear in stating that I see duality all the time, and yet also intuit something about the non-dual nature of reality. I just don't equate this world with non-duality, as you do, nor do I think that is an error. I actually think it is a virtue to not equate this world with non-duality. I think it is a vice of yours to do the opposite, to equate this dualistic world with non-duality. I think it not only leads you into error, it is a symptom of an even bigger error on your part – that of taking your own spiritual state to be non-dual consciousness.

“I am not the one insisting on the reality of duality as you suggest. Quite the opposite. If you would just look a little more closely you'll see that it's actually you who are insisting on the reality of duality and that that is what is supposedly preventing your realization, according to your own assessment.”

You are the one who is insisting that “this is that”. You claim that this dualistic world is, in reality, infinite and real. I do not insist that duality is real. I do not see “duality” as something “out there” which “prevents” my realization. Duality is simply the nature of non-realization. It neither causes nor is caused by non-realization. In reality, there is no duality, no self and no world, no seer, no seen, and no seeing. What is preventing my realization? My ego, that's all. My conviction that I am this “I”. This is not inflicted upon me from without. It is me. There is no cause. There is simply ignorance. I don't know where you came up with these ideas about what I think, but it wasn't from me.

“I am in total agreement with Ramana's endorsement of the vedantic principle of Ajata Vada, which has to do with the absence of causality regarding "Being".

Apparently you are not in total agreement with the Ajata Vada, which is far more than a notion that causality is absent from “Being”. It is the doctrine of no-creation, no world, no self, that only Self exists, that no world was ever created, and no jivas, no “beings” at all. As Papaji summarized it, "Nothing Ever Happened".

“It is a great insight. The only real difference between us on this point is that you seem to see it as only a theory, or perhaps just a remote future attainment while I see it as present actuality.”

But you don't actually see it as your present reality, you only conceive of it that way, and then only in an abbreviated form it seems that only negates causality. I conceive of the Ajata Vada as the nature of reality, but not something I see directly and truly. I have had glimpses of this, but I cannot say that it is what I know. I understand that it is not an attainment, but the way things are. As Ramana says, sadhana is not about attaining reality, it is about removing ignorance. So no, I don't see things the way you presume I do. Nor do you see things the way you presume you do. And frankly, that is pretty obvious from the way you are conducting yourself. It's very clear that you are egoic like all the rest of us, and are just posing as a realizer of “conscious being” for reasons that I wouldn't imagine I'll ever know the answer to.

“Here you leap on the word "now" and try to rationalize the whole idea away as some complicated issue while simply avoiding the actual point of my comment, another reason I refer to your replies in this post as slippery.”

No, I don't. I simply try to make it clear that this issue isn't so simple as you would like to make it out to be. It is you who refer to the “now” as “this”, and yet also claim that “this is that” and “this is literally infinite”, when literally it is not, but is literally finite in every observable respect. That's what I call slippery and avoiding responsibility for what you say. I also make it clear that “now” can refer to a transcendental view, but when it does, it doesn't refer to “this” at all, which exists in time and space, and is not transcendental in nature, but finite and conditional. The word I focus on is not even “now”, but your phrase “the present situation”, which I think clearly refers to this conditional appearance, since “situation” is clearly a reference to both appearances and conditions. I didn't choose that phrase, you did, and I think it accurately reflects what you mean, even if you always go back and try to redefine everything you say in transcendentalist terms, as if you are Adi Da adding capital letters to all your words. That's what I call slippery and evasive. You never actually say something that definitively reflects your views, but always find some way to weasel out of it if I call you on it. To this day, I don't even know what your real position is, because you evade responsibility for the words you use and the references you make.

“My point again is that you cannot claim to be pursuing such things as "...unconditional freedom, which is what desire really wants." or say, "I don't see that desire can be quenched any other way than to fall into unconditional happiness." and yet remain entirely conditional in your stance, as you do continuously. That is a dualistic position. That's the point that I am asking you to face and not simply ignore it.”

Is that actually the point of all your posts? Your point is that I am entirely conditional in my stance? Are you really sure about that? Entirely conditional? That's a pretty extreme statement. You might have a case if you said that I am being partially conditional in my stance, or not understanding the true nature of non-dualism and unconditional reality, but entirely conditional? You are just freaking out of your mind, friend. This is the equivalent of a Christian announcing that I am utterly possessed by the Devil, and that's the reason I don't understand how right you are. Well of course we have so much conflict. You, the guy who claims to see that “this is that”, that this is infinite, that everything is unconditional, somehow see me as entirely stuck in conditional views. What kind of bullshit is that? Am I the only aspect of “this” that is not “that”? You certainly seem to think so. Now, I'd suggest that is a dualistic position, and it's yours, not mine. What is it about me that makes it impossible for you to see me as even just a teensy weensy bit awake to the non-dual? It couldn't be your ego, could it?

“Can you even see that this might be a possibility?”

No, not really. I don't see that anyone can be entirely dualistic. I don't see you that way. I just think you are deluded to some degree. Not totally deluded, not entirely dualistic, just partially so. Like me. You just seem more attached than I am to a self-image of being free of all that.

“You constantly assume that what you call duality prevents or belies your enlightenment.”

I have never said that at all. That's your interpretation of what I say. I have never used the word “prevent” in that context that I am aware of. So you are just making things up. Dualism doesn't prevent enlightenment, it is unenlightenment. The notion that there is no such thing as unenlightenment is identical to the notion that there is no duality, that there is no world, no creation, no conditional existence at all. The world does not prevent our enlightenment, because there is no world. We are already enlightened, because there is no world, no mind, no self to prevent it. But as long as we think there is a world, a mind, and a self, we will not know this. It is not those things which prevent us from being enlightened, but only our belief in them, just as our belief in the snake prevents us from seeing the rope. The snake does not prevent us from seeing the rope, because there is no snake.

“So who believes in the reality of duality or the conditional world? Clearly it’s you and not me as you suggest.”

Wrong. We both believe in the reality of duality or the conditional world. I am questioning my beliefs, I admit that I have been enmeshed in samsara and am questioning my way out of those beliefs, but you have tried to solve the situation by pretending that you no longer believe in duality, and instead see the non-dual nature of everything. This simply doesn't work. It hasn't made you enlightened, and it never will. Its just your mind telling you your search is over so it can stay safe and unthreatened. The difference between you and me is that I question and doubt my own beliefs, but you don't. You simply affirm and defend them.

“I hope you’ll stop projecting your vision onto me and then criticizing me for what you yourself espouse.”

Practice what you preach, friend! Stop trying to slip out of what you say by claiming that you actually said something else.

“Other assumptions of yours that make me shiver are:”

First, it's very creepy that you “shiver” at what I say. And this is not egoic on your part?

BY: “Only the source, the source of the “I”-thought, is infinite. And that is not found in our present situation.”

Friend: "The notion that our source is missing, that we are separated from our source, is a typical atheistic assumption. I know this because I was once an atheist too.

That's called projecting, Friend. Just because you thought certain things when you were an athiest doesn't mean that's what I'm basing my views on. What's really weird about your analysis here is that I of course don't say in the above quote, or anywhere else in my posts, that our source is missing from this “transcendental now” if you will. I merely say that it isn't in “our present situation.” The difference is that “present situation” refers to this conditional appearance, which is devoid of the source. That doesn't mean the source is missing at all, it merely means you are looking for it in the wrong place if you look for it in the present situation. We are not in this present situation, we merely observe it. Our source is found in the witness, not in the situation we observe. So it is not missing at all, it is only that we look for it outward, in the world of objects, conditions, and situations. So when I say the Beloved is not in this world, I do not mean that the Beloved is missing, as much as you insist that I do. I have denied this at every opportunity, and you continue to assert it, in complete bad faith. I explain clearly that the Beloved is transcendentally present, but not present in the world, except as the Goddess Power, which is the Guru. Even the Guru is not in the world, but is the Self-Power in the heart.

“Even if you don’t consider yourself an atheist now, this assumption is a hangover from that period of your life. You need to allow yourself to see that this ‘missingness’ is simply a learned and arbitrary, unwarranted and unnecessary assumption. It is not true.”

To the degree that athiests see the world as lacking God, they are right, more right than religious believers. I was an athiest until I first glimpsed the transcendental nature of consciousness at the age of 12. I never became a religious believer, and doubt I ever will. The athiest is at least honest in not presuming a God that does not exist within the conditional worlds. God only exists in the transcendence of the mind, and the worlds which mind creates. That isn't an athiestic view, that's a reality view. That you seem incapable of grasping that doesn't say much for your supposed realization of conscious being.

“We can only not find our subjective self objectively. No one has any problem finding themselves subjectively, and not as an entity of course, or a thought or an image, since those would still be objective, but as totally obvious conscious being (and not A conscious being, nor any entity BTW).

Pardon me, but I think everyone who is not a completely realized jnani is having trouble finding themselves. You seem to be having more trouble than most. Yes, everyone knows they are conscious, and that seems to be the extent of your knowledge of yourself. But very few know who they are. You certainly don't, regardless of what you imagine. Most people don't delude themselves into thinking that simply being aware that they are conscious is some kind of transcendent realization of non-duality. It takes a particularly deranged kind of mind to imagine that. Most people are much humbler than that, and freely admit they don't ultimately know who they are. Hell, even I'm at least that humble.

“There is no “where”. Place is a relative concept. In the absolute, Being is its own place, as well as its own time.”

Yes there is a “where” in transcendental realization. It's called the Heart. If you don't know the Heart, you don't know where you are. Ramana always described realization as being seated in the Heart. How come you don't know this?

“The now that is beyond time is the present moment to which I am referring.”

No it isn't. You have already said that what you are referring to is this world, where the sky is. The sky exists in time and space. The world exists in time and space. And all these exist only in mind. All of that is conditional, is dualistic in nature. The sky does not exist outside of time and space. It exists within it, and in a limited fashion.

“But this present moment in time is not actually separate from that, as you seem to want to insist.”

It isn't separate from it, because it doesn't even exist. It is simply mind, concept, thought. This present moment in time can't be separate, because it can't be found. Try to nail it down as a thing. Not there. Unknown. Mystery is all one can say about it, even conditionally. And notice how now you are talking about this present moment in time, not beyond time. Are you saying that both are unconditional? How can time be unconditional? It can't, because it isn't. Time is the epitome of conditions. It keeps everything past and future separate from the now.

“- Infinity is part of our present situation even in the conditional world. I know you know the sky never ends. That’s real infinity.”

As mentioned above, this is pure blandersdash. The sky does end. It goes in circles. The universe is finite. Big, but finite. There is no real infinity in this world, just some very large numbers. But every large number is still an infinite distance away from infinity. It's all the same, in other words, from the point of view of infinity.

“The two aspects of reality infuse every aspect of existence: the unlimited and the limited, the time-bound and the eternal, the relative and the absolute, the objective and the subjective, the changeable and the unchanging, multiplicity and singularity, and so on.

Then you are saying that reality is dualistic! If there are two aspects to reality, that is a dualistic view of reality, or more properly, the view that reality is dual in nature. This is what I have been trying to point out to you since the beginning. You aren't a non-dualist at all, you are a dualist. You are Dvaitist, not Advaitist. No big deal. There's a long and respectable tradition for dualism in Vedanta and elsewhere. I don't see why you don't embrace it, since that is how you see the world. You cling to non-dualism for reasons I can't begin to fathom, but I think it has something to do with egoic pride. Dvaitists have always debated Advaitists, often with arguments similar to your own, but they don't pretend to be non-dualists, and accuse non-dualists of being dualists. That's what so fucking crazy about your arguments. You believe there are two aspects to reality, and yet you believe that this is the true non-dual view of reality. Could you be any slipperier than that? I don't think it's possible. Not even I could top that.

What you are saying is the epitome of the dualist view: that even the unlimited coexists with the limited. That both exist and are real aspects of one reality. You might as well throw in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Religion is full of dualistic views of reality, that try to combine the infinite and the finite. That's what makes them dualistic. Non-dual views don't try to make that marriage. They argue that there is only One, not two. If you don't like that approach, you should consider yourself a dualist, and stop trying to make non-dualism fit your dualistic view. Oppose non-dualism outright. At least then we would each openly know where we stand and could carry on a meaningful argument, rather being in this absurd position of having you, who do not even believe in non-dualism, but actively believe in its opposite, acting as if you are the protector of the true non-dualist view. Gives me whiplash, know what I mean?

“They are all the case at the same time. They do not deny or nullify each other as you keep wanting to insist. It’s not one or the other. This is infinity, literally.”

Yes, you are a dualist, literally. Your literal belief in all this makes you a dualist. Your literal refusal to see the contradictions in your arguments makes you a dualist. Your belief that you are not a dualist makes you a dualist. Dualism and non-dualism can't literally be the case at the same time. This is true even definitionally. You have not met the burden of proof necessary to show otherwise. You have not offered any proof at all, just assertions that it is so. If it were literally true that this is infinity, wouldn't all us literal-minded people see it? All we'd have to do is look at something, and we'd see infinity. So it must not literally be infinity.

“- The transcendental, the absolute, is not objective or relative so it cannot be perceived objectively.”

Wait, but you said this is literally infinity. If it is not objectively infinity, then in what way is it infinity? The world is full of objects, and nothing more. If you take away objectivity, you take away the entire world. What's left that is literally infinite? If only the transcendental is infinite, then what about "this"? You said this was infinite. Now you are going back on that?

“But that does not mean that what is infinite, real and transcendental is somehow missing or unavailable”

Okay, but where is it? Is it literally in this world, this world that you say is literally infinite? If so, where? If not, why not, and where is it?

“That is again another unwarranted assumption based on thinking that the absolute should appear in relative terms.”

I never said the absolute should appear in relative terms. I said the exact opposite, that it never appears in relative terms. It is you who say that this is literally infinite, is "that". Which side of this argument are you on?

“Desire is rooted in the assumption or insistence that the real is presently missing.”

I can agree with that. But as I said, the problem is that desire thinks the real is missing precisely because it is looking in the world for it, where it is not to be found. Desire must turn towards its source, the self, and find what it seeks there. That is where the infinite is finally to be located, not in the world. Desire will find that the real is present if it only looks for it in the right place.

“If you understand what I am saying here you’ll see that, overall, there is actually very little difference between your position and mine.”

What?!?!? If you can see that there is very little difference between our positions, then what the fuck was all the bullshit about me being entirely situated in a conditional stance? And what was your entire rabid argument against me about? I for one think there really is a big difference between us. You are essentially presenting a dualistic view of reality as being composed of two aspects, the dual and the non-dual, while I am saying that it is not, that the dual is an illusion, and the non-dual is reality. I think that's a major difference, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise. Nothing to spill one's tea over, to be sure, but a major discrepancy all the same.

“You are hardly alone in arguing for “higher notion of unity” as you say. It’s no wonder you continue to misrepresent my position if you still don’t understand this. It would help this conversation considerably if you would.”

I think you've done a remarkable job of misrepresenting yourself all by yourself. You hardly need my help. You are not arguing for a higher notion of unity, you are arguing for a higher notion of duality. That's where we differ. I am arguing for non-duality, and you don't seem to comprehend what it means, and how it differs from duality, even your “higher notion” of duality. You think that by including non-duality in your notion of duality, you have achieved a higher form of unity. This is false. All you have done is debauch non-duality, and make it duality's lapdog. Bugt non-duality will have no part of your efforts. Non-dualism stands Alone. It admits no second.

“The only difference is that you are saying non-duality is not presently the case while I am pointing out that it already is.”

No, I am pointing out that what is already the case is not found in what is merely the case. What is merely the case in the present, by which we mean “this”, is not non-dual. What is non-dual is not found in “this”, but only in what already is. “This” is not already here. It is only here in time and space, in this present moment. It was not here a moment ago, and it won't be here a moment later. It will have changed. What already is, does not change. It does not appear, and it does not disappear. It isn't even an “it”. It is not absent in the midst of appearances, but it is not present in them either. It is transcendental in nature.

“And that is the all the difference between us in a nutshell.”

Yes, it is. You do not comprehend the distinction between what already is, and what is merely and presently the case. You think they are the same. I don't. Viva le differance!

“That’s the reason I refer to your present position as one of duality and that’s what I was asking you to confront in yourself in my last post and what I consider you to have missed or sidestepped in your reply.”

I hope I have made myself more clear this time around. I have tried not to sidestep anything, and I hope you will not either.

“You say this is not that. I say this is that, and not in any theoretical, conceptual sense, but actually so.”

Yes, you have made that very clear. I still don't believe that you have made any convincing arguments that this is so. Nor do I see any evidence that you have actually seen or realized this spiritually, or in any but a conceptually based manner. You have simply become a fundamentalist preacher of this message, without examining or questioning yourself, and seem impervious to questioning from others. I see little difference between you and a fundamentalist Christian parading his views of the Trinity around the block. You have a quick dismissal of all arguments, and no real arguments for yourself, just assertions of personal certainty. This does not come over very well, contrary to what you may think. It comes off as very egoic in nature, and it pisses me off, as I'm sure you can tell.

“I am not merely trying to make you wrong. I am just trying to demonstrate to you that nothing really stands between you and enlightenment as you seem to insist. Unless this is the non-dual, there is no non-dual. This is that. Any other fixed position is nothing but an insistence on duality.”

You are doing a very poor job of helping me to see what you want me to see. All you are doing is preaching and proselytizing, and that doesn't work. You have to step off your pedestal of certainty and pious understanding, and get real. Stop telling me there is nothing standing between me and enlightenment until you yourself are enlightened and can demonstrate that non-separation in this conversation at the very least. All you are doing is insisting that you know reality, and I am a sinner who is insisting on living an unenlightened existence. You dress it up in pious messages, but it comes down to the same obnoxious stance that all well-meaning fundamentalists take. Your insistance that “any other fixed position is nothing but an insistence on duality” is precisely the way fumdamentalists think. They imagine that any viewpoint other than their own must be “fixed”, and it must be false. Have you no insight into how fixed and false your own views are?

I'm afraid not. Unless you can show some sliver of self-questioning, I think this dialog is virtually at an end. I can't waste my time trying to crack a fundamentalist egg. It's been good to get down to this point at least, but if you want to go further, I 'm going to need to see some sign of vulnerability on your part, some openness to the possibility that you are at least a little bit wrong, rather than my coming round to your view that I am entirely conditional in my stance. As I've said, I have plenty of dualism left in me, I make no bones about it. How about you? Can you admit the same, and explain how?