When Radical Nondualists Train You to DENY/ENJOY ABUSE
Posted by:
granejim
()
Date: June 27, 2023 05:21AM
PLEASE SHARE EVIDENCE of ANY incidents similar to what I share!
The dialogue excerpt at the end of this post confirms one of my biggest fears, and a lesser-known fact, which is that world-denying nondual teachings ARE being used to deny the reality of violence and abuse, which enables/perpetuates it, gaslights/shames real victims, and puts REAL PEOPLE at REAL RISK of REAL HARM including death.
I felt it deserves to start a new thread about teachers/gurus/etc. teach people to use radical nondual teachings including the "NOTHING IS HAPPENING" ideology that undermine the reality (or "ultimate" reality) of the world to undermine the reality of, feel un-phased by, and in the case of this example, even ENJOY abuse and violence.
I know there are threads here about people like Mooji and Byron Katie, but I want to bring to light that this is bigger than just a few high-profile teachers, or their idiosyncracies, and is a feature in a lot of radical/semi-radical nondualism today
The excerpt I'm sharing, is from a dialogue between Jac O'Keefe, "spiritual teacher" and somehow the director of ASI (association for spiritual integrity) and her participant at her satsang.
In this excerpt, a woman at Jacs' satsang brings up a case of physical abuse to challenge Jacs' radical teaching on a shift in consciousness in which you will be able to enjoy any situation no matter how bad it seems, by not judging/naming/describing it and seeing it's not happening at all.
This would be the cue for the spiritual teacher, Jac, to show that even hardline nondual teachers at least draw the line at physical abuse when it comes to what they apply "nothing is happening" teachings to ...to say that no, of course abuse is a serious outlier that these teachings should NEVER be applied to trivializing, de-realizing, or enjoying, but instead, she goes full throttle ahead, teaching her how to apply the "it's not happening" scenario to a violent incident in order to be unphased by it, and yes, even enjoy it....
THE INTERACTION
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18u9l1QSv4WIfYT8B3hT9YgYQ3UYuwwEVsgHQvJu9Tv8/edit#heading=h.okbr0mxwkjc3
Q: A couple of months ago I got pushed around a little bit, and it was the first time that I got pushed physically. I can't say that I enjoyed that experience.
Jac: But as soon as you go into the description of an experience, what's active in your brain is "I like, I dislike," because you've gone in to the qualitative, quantitative, and the description, so you're activating the part of you that's going to have a reaction to the specific experience. That's a step away, a big step away, from the essence of experience itself.
Q: Can you say that again?
Jac: Yes. As soon as your brain has activated the naming, labeling mechanism, that says, "being physically pushed around is not comfortable, I didn't like it," we're in the component that has manifested the experience with particulars, there's details.
Q: So is it a neutral experience?
Jac: No. It's an experience that's not named. As soon as an experience is named we're going to be liking it or disliking it. It's about tasting the essence of experience itself before it becomes a story.
Q: Say that again.
Jac: It's about engaging with experience itself, the essence, the nature, the pure nature of experience itself before it becomes describable, nameable.
Q: Before it is judged.
Jac: Even before that, because it has to be named to be judged.
Q: So if we talk about it in any way it's bullshit?
Jac: Yes, and then there's a you and something happened to you, and of course you liked it or you didn't like it, of course that's valid there in that realm, but your mind is manifesting that story, that scenario, as an experience that's happening to a personal individual woman, that's you. That's when the show is fully running and the personal I is running, and there's a hard experience and suffering happens there. But to live from a place of where experience only is tasted in its true nature, it's not denying the particulars of it, it's an entirely different way to engage with life.
Q: And it's not neutral? I want to say neutral, that experience, but is there another way to express it?
Jac: It's actually nicer than neutral, it's actually enjoyed. Regardless of the experience, the story of the experience isn't active so it doesn't touch you. It's actually not real, it actually hasn't appeared in manifestation. our way of engaging with it is through the nature of experience itself, and we can only enjoy experience then. You know that connection point between pure experience and your capacity to engage with pure experience, is always with enjoyment. But as soon as we leave it and it becomes story, and if there's something traumatic happening we'll create story, because some self protective mechanism will run the flight or fight and everything around creating the story and how to be safe. Not a good place to start, but it's possible. It's possible that even something like that can happen, and if you've trained your system to enjoy experience it won't touch you, because it actually doesn't show up, it actually doesn't happen it's the nothing is happening scenario.
Q: So in the world I'm playing as a character, but nothing is really happening.
Jac: That's for sure.
-------
This SHOULD have been the cue for the spiritual teacher, Jac, to show that even hardline nondual or whatever world-negating teachers at least draw the line at physical abuse when it comes to what they apply "nothing is happening" teachings to ...to say that no, of course abuse is a serious outlier that these teachings should NEVER be applied to trivializing, de-realizing, or enjoying, but instead, she goes full throttle ahead, teaching her how to apply the "it's not happening" scenario to a violent incident in order to be unphased by it, and yes, even enjoy it....instead
It's a haunting exchange that reveals a shrouded facet of the dark underbelly of spiritual bypassing, near and dear to me because I stumbled into it, in which 1) real victims of real abuse have find a short-term powerful anaesthetic to cope with psychological and physical violence/abuse in self and world-negating nondual spirituality, in which you can (as I did) literally feel untouched, unphased by anything that is happening, even abuse and its' effects by experiencing it as merely an illusion, and oneself as amorphous, that which is beyond form, beyond sound, beyond content, nameless, changeless, beyond the beatings, beyond the intrusions, the anguish, the pain, shouting, degradation, a paradise of "nothing is happening" "I am not my body" "there is nobody here" "I am THAT, not THIS" etc. This was my experience in the past, yes.
and
2) then take on a position of influence, as a spiritual guide, to teach other abuse victims how to use this same dissociative avoidance coping tactic, wrapped as the revelation of Ultimate Truth, instead of how to stand up for themselves, love themselves, discern safety from danger, get intervention support, get OUT and away from abusive situations and people, and not let the abusers get away with carrying out more abuse, by speaking out and saying THIS IS HAPPENING, AND IT IS NOT OKAY. Rather than empowering them to feel an illusion of invulnerability only to later realize all of the bruises and wounds are right there, fresh, and real as ever, possibly years later. IT WAS HAPPENING, AND IT WASN'T OKAY, but some deeply wounded individuals shared an alluring, esoteric, magic wand of a "perception shift" that helped them get by, survive, get through the unspeakable, the beatings, the rapes, etc. But they are ensuring more victims, and more abuse WILL BE HAPPENING and continue happening.
and in this case... 3) have the audacity to serve as director of an organization for spiritual integrity. [www.spiritual-integrity.org]
**HOW WE CAN HELP!! PLEASE SHARE EVIDENCE of ANY incidents in which a nondual teacher/guru/etc. uses self/world denying nondual ideology to undermine the reality of psychological/physical violence, train people to be unphased by it or at its' worst, to enjoy it :(
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2023 05:28AM by granejim.
The dialogue excerpt at the end of this post confirms one of my biggest fears, and a lesser-known fact, which is that world-denying nondual teachings ARE being used to deny the reality of violence and abuse, which enables/perpetuates it, gaslights/shames real victims, and puts REAL PEOPLE at REAL RISK of REAL HARM including death.
I felt it deserves to start a new thread about teachers/gurus/etc. teach people to use radical nondual teachings including the "NOTHING IS HAPPENING" ideology that undermine the reality (or "ultimate" reality) of the world to undermine the reality of, feel un-phased by, and in the case of this example, even ENJOY abuse and violence.
I know there are threads here about people like Mooji and Byron Katie, but I want to bring to light that this is bigger than just a few high-profile teachers, or their idiosyncracies, and is a feature in a lot of radical/semi-radical nondualism today
The excerpt I'm sharing, is from a dialogue between Jac O'Keefe, "spiritual teacher" and somehow the director of ASI (association for spiritual integrity) and her participant at her satsang.
In this excerpt, a woman at Jacs' satsang brings up a case of physical abuse to challenge Jacs' radical teaching on a shift in consciousness in which you will be able to enjoy any situation no matter how bad it seems, by not judging/naming/describing it and seeing it's not happening at all.
This would be the cue for the spiritual teacher, Jac, to show that even hardline nondual teachers at least draw the line at physical abuse when it comes to what they apply "nothing is happening" teachings to ...to say that no, of course abuse is a serious outlier that these teachings should NEVER be applied to trivializing, de-realizing, or enjoying, but instead, she goes full throttle ahead, teaching her how to apply the "it's not happening" scenario to a violent incident in order to be unphased by it, and yes, even enjoy it....
THE INTERACTION
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18u9l1QSv4WIfYT8B3hT9YgYQ3UYuwwEVsgHQvJu9Tv8/edit#heading=h.okbr0mxwkjc3
Q: A couple of months ago I got pushed around a little bit, and it was the first time that I got pushed physically. I can't say that I enjoyed that experience.
Jac: But as soon as you go into the description of an experience, what's active in your brain is "I like, I dislike," because you've gone in to the qualitative, quantitative, and the description, so you're activating the part of you that's going to have a reaction to the specific experience. That's a step away, a big step away, from the essence of experience itself.
Q: Can you say that again?
Jac: Yes. As soon as your brain has activated the naming, labeling mechanism, that says, "being physically pushed around is not comfortable, I didn't like it," we're in the component that has manifested the experience with particulars, there's details.
Q: So is it a neutral experience?
Jac: No. It's an experience that's not named. As soon as an experience is named we're going to be liking it or disliking it. It's about tasting the essence of experience itself before it becomes a story.
Q: Say that again.
Jac: It's about engaging with experience itself, the essence, the nature, the pure nature of experience itself before it becomes describable, nameable.
Q: Before it is judged.
Jac: Even before that, because it has to be named to be judged.
Q: So if we talk about it in any way it's bullshit?
Jac: Yes, and then there's a you and something happened to you, and of course you liked it or you didn't like it, of course that's valid there in that realm, but your mind is manifesting that story, that scenario, as an experience that's happening to a personal individual woman, that's you. That's when the show is fully running and the personal I is running, and there's a hard experience and suffering happens there. But to live from a place of where experience only is tasted in its true nature, it's not denying the particulars of it, it's an entirely different way to engage with life.
Q: And it's not neutral? I want to say neutral, that experience, but is there another way to express it?
Jac: It's actually nicer than neutral, it's actually enjoyed. Regardless of the experience, the story of the experience isn't active so it doesn't touch you. It's actually not real, it actually hasn't appeared in manifestation. our way of engaging with it is through the nature of experience itself, and we can only enjoy experience then. You know that connection point between pure experience and your capacity to engage with pure experience, is always with enjoyment. But as soon as we leave it and it becomes story, and if there's something traumatic happening we'll create story, because some self protective mechanism will run the flight or fight and everything around creating the story and how to be safe. Not a good place to start, but it's possible. It's possible that even something like that can happen, and if you've trained your system to enjoy experience it won't touch you, because it actually doesn't show up, it actually doesn't happen it's the nothing is happening scenario.
Q: So in the world I'm playing as a character, but nothing is really happening.
Jac: That's for sure.
-------
This SHOULD have been the cue for the spiritual teacher, Jac, to show that even hardline nondual or whatever world-negating teachers at least draw the line at physical abuse when it comes to what they apply "nothing is happening" teachings to ...to say that no, of course abuse is a serious outlier that these teachings should NEVER be applied to trivializing, de-realizing, or enjoying, but instead, she goes full throttle ahead, teaching her how to apply the "it's not happening" scenario to a violent incident in order to be unphased by it, and yes, even enjoy it....instead
It's a haunting exchange that reveals a shrouded facet of the dark underbelly of spiritual bypassing, near and dear to me because I stumbled into it, in which 1) real victims of real abuse have find a short-term powerful anaesthetic to cope with psychological and physical violence/abuse in self and world-negating nondual spirituality, in which you can (as I did) literally feel untouched, unphased by anything that is happening, even abuse and its' effects by experiencing it as merely an illusion, and oneself as amorphous, that which is beyond form, beyond sound, beyond content, nameless, changeless, beyond the beatings, beyond the intrusions, the anguish, the pain, shouting, degradation, a paradise of "nothing is happening" "I am not my body" "there is nobody here" "I am THAT, not THIS" etc. This was my experience in the past, yes.
and
2) then take on a position of influence, as a spiritual guide, to teach other abuse victims how to use this same dissociative avoidance coping tactic, wrapped as the revelation of Ultimate Truth, instead of how to stand up for themselves, love themselves, discern safety from danger, get intervention support, get OUT and away from abusive situations and people, and not let the abusers get away with carrying out more abuse, by speaking out and saying THIS IS HAPPENING, AND IT IS NOT OKAY. Rather than empowering them to feel an illusion of invulnerability only to later realize all of the bruises and wounds are right there, fresh, and real as ever, possibly years later. IT WAS HAPPENING, AND IT WASN'T OKAY, but some deeply wounded individuals shared an alluring, esoteric, magic wand of a "perception shift" that helped them get by, survive, get through the unspeakable, the beatings, the rapes, etc. But they are ensuring more victims, and more abuse WILL BE HAPPENING and continue happening.
and in this case... 3) have the audacity to serve as director of an organization for spiritual integrity. [www.spiritual-integrity.org]
**HOW WE CAN HELP!! PLEASE SHARE EVIDENCE of ANY incidents in which a nondual teacher/guru/etc. uses self/world denying nondual ideology to undermine the reality of psychological/physical violence, train people to be unphased by it or at its' worst, to enjoy it :(
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2023 05:28AM by granejim.
Re: When Radical Nondualists Train You to DENY/ENJOY ABUSE
Posted by:
Leslie Read
()
Date: August 03, 2023 12:51PM
Thank you for bringing attention to some of the existential *flaws* of non-duality.
Awakening to the fact of Wholeness, in *NO* way, guarantees the embodiment of the Universal Law of Integrity and Honesty.
It’s a danger to equate “non-duality” with Spirituality and Spiritual Principle.
When ’non-duality’ is the bedrock of spirituality the following abomination of Spiritual Principle can (easily) happen:
[integrityintruth.com]
[integrityintruth.com]
Thanks again...
Warmly,
-Leslie Read
www.IntegrityInTruth.com
Awakening to the fact of Wholeness, in *NO* way, guarantees the embodiment of the Universal Law of Integrity and Honesty.
It’s a danger to equate “non-duality” with Spirituality and Spiritual Principle.
When ’non-duality’ is the bedrock of spirituality the following abomination of Spiritual Principle can (easily) happen:
[integrityintruth.com]
[integrityintruth.com]
Thanks again...
Warmly,
-Leslie Read
www.IntegrityInTruth.com
Re: When Radical Nondualists Train You to DENY/ENJOY ABUSE
Posted by:
Leslie Read
()
Date: August 12, 2023 05:19AM
Hello...
Denial is an active ingredient in all radical non-duality. It's the very thing that allows for abuse to go on, unhindered...UNLESS what makes a stink about it! Which I am glad to see (finally) happening.
With regard to Jac and the utter smokescreen of the ASI:
[integrityintruth.com]
And with regard to denialism and ND'ity:
[integrityintruth.com]
AND Ajata (nothing ever happens)
ttps://integrityintruth.com/ajata-and-the-wide-open-door-to-abuse/
Continue calling out where such hypocrisy occurs at the expense of our Humanness.
Warmly,
-Leslie Read
www.Integrityintruth.com
Denial is an active ingredient in all radical non-duality. It's the very thing that allows for abuse to go on, unhindered...UNLESS what makes a stink about it! Which I am glad to see (finally) happening.
With regard to Jac and the utter smokescreen of the ASI:
[integrityintruth.com]
And with regard to denialism and ND'ity:
[integrityintruth.com]
AND Ajata (nothing ever happens)
ttps://integrityintruth.com/ajata-and-the-wide-open-door-to-abuse/
Continue calling out where such hypocrisy occurs at the expense of our Humanness.
Warmly,
-Leslie Read
www.Integrityintruth.com
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