This is a satsang requested by a friend who read the article
below on this website:http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/aziz2.html
Hi Michael,
In response to your request I made
comments at relevant points throughout this article.
The Dangers of Pseudo Advaita now
proceeds:
We would like to express our concern
regarding the recent phenomenon of 'satsang-culture' which in our opinion has
impoverished seriously the Orignial Spirit of
Advaita. These days many individuals, who have very little or no knowledge at
all about the Process of Awakening, feel qualified to give satsang and lead
other souls on the Path. Enlightenment has become very cheap these days. Nobody
actually really knows what is the meaning of this term
as it virtually means everything and nothing. Nowadays, it is sufficient to say
'I am Awakened' in order to give satsang.
Because of the unverifiable nature of
Enlightenment, this term has been much manipulated. Satsang has been
Americanized. In an average satsang-gathering everybody is laughing, showinsg signs of euphoric and unauthentic joy, while the
teacher tries to look like he or she is in a bliss.
Just like a TV show. Very few actually meditate. Why to meditate if we are
already all Awakened?
But Is this
really Advaita? Is Advaita a poor repetition of a several slogans like 'There
is nobody there,' 'You are That,' You are already
Awakened' or 'There is no Path', etc.? Has this anything to do with teaching of
great masters like N. Maharaj or Sri Ramana Maharishi ?
Ramana sat in caves for 20 years before he could be really complete. In his
presence disciples had to meditate for months and years before they could
receive from him the glimpse of the Self.
Ram: Up to this point I agree almost
completely with what the article is saying .
It is true that New Millennium is a
time of global awakening. But this awakening is mostly partial and relative to
the level of most people's unconsciousness. It was Jesus who said that there
would be a time when many false teachers will teach in the name of Light. It
seems to be happening now. Many of these teachers are not necessarily 'bad
people' but simply unqualified and lost, in truth. They have believed too
quickly in the thought 'I am now ready to teach!'
It seems that the pauper-isation of satsang culture began after the death of Poonjaji. Many of his followers started to claim that Poonjaji approved their 'Awakening.' It seems that they
just took him too literally. It is an Advaita custom to say 'you are already
Awakened.' This is however more a teaching device than a reflection of reality.
And even if some of his disciples had a glimpse of Awakening, Poonjaji knew very well that in most cases neither it was
permanent nor the final state.
Ram: If Poonjaji
was just mouthing the advaita cliché 'You are already enlightened' and
knew full well that his students were taking it wrongly then he was certainly a
poor teacher. In fact I don't believe that this was true. I think that Poonjaji didn't know the distinction between experience and
knowledge and that he promoted the experiential view of enlightenment. The
basis for my opinion is second-hand information from scores of Punjaji devotess with whom I came
in contact in Tiruvannamalai after his death, all of whom were unfamilar with the identity view, i.e
enlightenment as jnanam. Also it seems rather strange that the Neo-satsang
gurus that the Papaji satsang spawned do not make the
experience/knowledge distinction…all teach the experiential view. One
wonders how familar Punjaji
actually was with Ramana's and Shankara's view
(quoted below) in spite of his claim that Ramana was his guru.
It is not our intention to suggest
that nobody reaches Enlightenment. We just wish to make it clear (similar as to
what is found to be said in ENLIGHTENMENT: CAN YOU DO IT? )
that Complete Enlightenment and Understanding of its nature is still an extremely
rare phenomenon on the planet earth, which a plane of low evolution. And
equally important, we wish to emphasize that a partial or pre-mature experience
of awakening does not qualify one at all to take a role of a Self-realised being.
Ram: There is no ‘role' a Self
realized being should take. Self-Realization means that one is free of all
roles. However, perhaps what is meant is that Self realization as such does not
qualify one to teach ‘enlightenment,' an opinion that I share.
Enlightenment is not as cheap. Many
seekers seem to be unaware of a very simple fact that there are actually many
levels of Self-realization as exemplified in the Eight Jhana
States , the Wu Keng Chuan
(Five Degrees of Tozan) and the Five Varieties of Zen . There is an enormous
difference between initial Awakening such as say Kensho
and the actual State of
Ram: This is a difficult article to
criticize because it is well intentioned but the writer is caught in the
experiential view of enlightenment. He doesn't make a distinction between Self
realization and enlightenment. He holds the yogic or experiential view…as
did Papaji.
Note the word ‘attainment' in the last sentence above. You could
argue the gaining knowledge is an attainment but I do not believe this is not
what is meant.
He should read Ramana's introduction
to Sankara's Vivekachoodamani
in the book by Motilal Banarsidas
entitled Ramana, Sankara and the Forty Verses. On page
13 Ramana says, “By jnana or spiritual knowledge alone is this bliss (the
Self) to be realized and jnana is achieved through vichara or steady inquiry.
In order to learn this method of enquiry one should seek the grace of a
guru.” I don't know how much clearer this could be. You go to a guru to
learn how to think clearly about who you are, not to establish yourself in some
high state. You learn to think clearly so you can get rid of your Self
ignorance.
If you read on Ramana, quoting Sankara and talking about nirvikalpa samadhi says,
“This (samadhi) readily and spontaneously yields that direct, immediate,
unobstructed and universal perception of Brahman which is at once knowledge and
experience and which transcends time and space.”
Here Ramana is saying, as does Sankara and the Upanishads, that samadhi (experience) is
not the goal. It is just one of the means that leads to jnanam. In this
situation the knowledge arises simultaneously with the experience. But this is
not the end of it…unless the mind is prepared by inquiry. If it isn't the
experiencer will try to cling to the experience and disregard the knowledge and
when the samadhi ends the ‘enlightenment' ends. If the mind is sattvic
and the person is armed with the direct knowledge ‘I am the Self' he or
she can retain this knowledge and it will root out the ignorant view, “I
am the experiencer of the Self” which is just another limited dualistic
identity. Knowledge is independent of experience. This is why it is called
moksha. It serves no matter what the experience. Experience, however, is
completely fickle…it is never the same. So if you tie enlightenment to
experience you are going to end up frustrated.
If samadhi, which is a state of
mind, were enlightenment, it would persist once enlightenment happened. But it
is clear from observation that the enlightened experience the all sorts of
states of mind both prior to and after enlightenment.
It is a shame we have to use words
but there is no way around it. Even the word enlightenment is flawed because it
has the connotation of an experience. The gaining of knowledge is a very subtle
experience but it is an experience that does not need to repeat itself over and
over…once it is firm. Nor does it require ‘maintenance.' Thus
jnanam alone is liberation. An example of hard and fast knowledge would be your
name. Once you learn it you learn it. There is no need to sit around
experiencing yourself each and every minute so you can verify the knowledge of
who you are. The experience of the Self is going on all the time because all
experience is the Self. The only problem is that people don't know what the
Self is…they imagine that it is a particular experience, struggle for it
and then become depressed when they realize that that discrete experiences never
last. We are starting to witness a number of Neo-Advaita satsang gurus quitting
teaching…perhaps because they are beginning to realize that what they
thought was enlightenment wasn't enlightenment at all. No one really knows why
anybody does anything but I believe that many Neo-Advaita people, including the
gurus, are well-intentioned sincere people. Such people have a basic integrity,
an ‘inner voice' that won't allow them to delude themselves forever. The
experiential view of enlightenment is very seductive and exhilarating…at
least at first. But ignorance is very powerful and subtle and it will survive
nearly every epiphany. So after the honeymoon period the vasanas slowly take
their toll and the problems that were submerged in the sea of enlightenment
exhilaration begin to surface once again. You can hide your problems from
others…particularly those who are not discriminating, who ‘believe
in' you, but you can't hide your problems from yourself. There is a story they
tell in
One day a temple beggar won the
lottery and was rich beyond his wildest dreams. He moved up in society and was
well-respected. A few years later he was invited to a big wedding in the
temple. He arrived late… just as celebrants were coming out of the
temple. As you know it is customary for worshippers to give alms to the poor
people who cluster around the temples. The wedding party was very affluent and
very happy and immediately began distributing money. The millionaire got caught
up in the excitement, joined the crowd of beggars and thrust out his hand for a
few rupees! It seems he had forgotten who he was.
We would like to suggest not to rush
too fast with announcing oneself 'Awakened,' and to rush even less with the
idea of giving satsang. In Zen tradition one had to wait 10 to 20 years after
Enlightenment before one could guide others. These days we hear about
individuals who give satsang the next day after their uncertain Awakening!
Ram: I agree with this.
We would like to clarify, for the
sake of general knowledge, that there are actually several levels of expansion
beyond the mind. There are three basic types of Inner Expansion:
Ram: At this point the writer is in
over his head so to speak. “Levels of expansion beyond
the mind?” The Self is beyond the mind and there are no levels in
the Self. All ‘levels' are in the mind. ‘Levels' is another
experience oriented world. The problem with this ‘levels' idea is that it
is true within Maya but it does not address the issue of the relationship
between these levels and moksha, which is the goal. And, as you can see later
he is going to have problem with the ‘maintenance' or
‘stabilization' idea. How do you ‘maintain' yourself at a certain
level so you can move on to the next? Who is going to maintain what? This
‘levels' argument is for doers, people who are too rajasic to let go of
action and inquire into why they are caught up in the achievement game. If they
understood that moksha is jnanam they would have a way to evaluate their
experiences and get free of them. The problem with this achievement oriented
view is that after you have worked on yourself for a long time and achieved a
high state of consciousness you are so attached to your achievements and so
proud of yourself that you will be extremely reluctant to throw it all away for
your true nature as a nobody, a non-doer.
1) Awakening to Pure Awareness (the
State of
2) Awakening to the
3) Awakening of the Heart (expansion
into the Divine).
In each of these levels there are
three stages: Shift into a state, Stabilisation and
Integration.
Ram: Here is a good example of what
I'm talking about. ‘Shift' means move. ‘Stabilize' means do
something.
For instance, many satsang-teachers
do not experience the same state outside of teaching.
Ram: Here you have this person's
view of enlightenment in a nutshell. He says ‘experience the same state'
outside teaching. Even if someone
does ‘experience the state' outside teaching they are still in Maya and
not enlightened.
This is because they are not
established permanently in the state they have attained. For that reason, they
can have a deep state
Ram: ‘There is a shallow
state?” Here you have again the classic duality. There is a person and
there is a state that that person is ‘in.' In reality, if there are any
states, that is if we accept the reality of Maya, then all states are
‘within' the scope of Awareness, the Self, but you, the Self, is not
‘in' any state.
During satasng,
but when they leave the satsang-room, they return back to ordinary
consciousness. In such a case only conscious cultivation of the particular
state can allow one to establish it permanently. However, if one does not
believe in actual process of Awakening, how can one consciously cultivate
anything? One does not even know that one is in a State. Here we see the
importance of correct understanding. If one just follows in a dogmatic and unimaginative
way the Advaita idea that 'I am already That,' how can
one cultivate anything?
We recommend to all students and
teachers of Advaita to be more critical. Follow Advaita, if you wish but know
that Reality is simply much more rich than any linear
philosophy, with Advaita included. The Practical Advaita and the Theoretical
Advaita are very different. In the Theoretical Advaita, the Self is the only
reality, there is no Path and we are all already awakened. But Practical
Advaita knows that there is a long way to go before the truth of these
statements can become our living truth.
Ramji: I agree with this distinction
between theory and practice. I also agree with the idea that seekers should
develop their critical faculties. Most of the people in the spiritual world are
actually religious types prone to belief. They are not capable of independent
thought. Like hungry fish they swallow the whole story the gurus cook up hook,
line and sinker…even when it obviously contradicts common sense.
Although you can't blame them, the
people who went to Papaji were Westerners who were
coming from Rajneesh and were completely confused. Rajneesh skillfully mixed
his beliefs and opinions with the truth so that only a very discriminating
knowledgeable person could separate them. On top of that he taught by precept,
not by example, so that his devotees were quite conditioned to the idea that
there was no connection between enlightenment and lifestyle. To be frank most
of them were looking for the next party. Papaji was was not a successful teacher in
We would like also to create a few
practical anti-pseudo-advaita statements: 'You are not Awakened
unless you Awaken!' 'You are not That, unless you
reach unity with Universal I AM!' 'There is no Path but only for those who Completed it!' 'There is nobody here, but only when somebody
has dissolved! Until that time you are simply a suffering somebody who only
tries to believe in being no one or entertains oneself by giving 'satsang.'
Ramji: This is a clever idea. The
last sentence is good: “Until that time you are simply a suffering
somebody who only tries to believe in being no one or entertains oneself by
giving 'satsang.'” I'd add another, “Have your spiritual
experiences but seek understanding.”
Finally, I can't resist calling your
attention to the article's use of language to describe enlightenment. The first
sentence conflates enlightenment with awakening. Awakening is an ego
experience, one that comes and goes. People 'experience' awakening and then
they go back to sleep and then they become addicted to satsang because it re-awakens
them. The second sentence formulates enlightenment as an experiential journey.
It posits enlightenment as 'reaching unity with the Universal I AM.' How one
'reaches' it if one is it, I'm not sure... unless one understands the
'reaching' as the removal of ignorance about the nature of the Self. The third
sentence is a good example of another enlightenment myth: that the ego has to
'dissolve.' Just as what awakens will go back to sleep because awakening takes
place in the dream of Maya, what dissolves will reconstitute itself. This is
why enlightenment does not happen in spite of numerous epiphanies. The
'enlightenment experience is just another vasana caught in time.