What is Neo-Advaita?
Exoterically the word Vedanta refers
to the knowledge contained in the texts that are at the end of each Veda. These texts are called Upanishads. The fundamental idea of the Upanishads
is that reality is non-dual (advaita)
Awareness and that the ultimate goal of human life is the realization of the
non-dual Self. The realization of
the Self is called moksha or liberation.
Vedanta is a Sanskrit compound. ‘Veda’ means knowledge and ‘anta’
means end. So esoterically Vedanta
is the knowledge that ends the quest for knowledge. What is it, the Upanishad says, that
‘knowing which, everything is known?’ The realization
that the ‘I’ is whole and complete actionless Awareness ends the
quest for the meaning of life because it destroys the belief that the self is
limited, inadequate, incomplete and separate, a notion that is commonly called
duality. Duality is a
problem because it causes people to seek lasting happiness though the enjoyment
of impermanent objects, a quest that always ends in disappointment and
disillusionment.
A long teaching tradition has
developed over the last three thousand years based on Upanishadic
ideas. This teaching tradition is
also known as Vedanta. But to
convey the precise meaning of Vedanta the word ‘pramana’ needs to
be added. A pramana is a means of
knowledge. All knowledge takes
place with the aid of some means.
Sense objects require sense organs to be known. The knowledge of ideas depends on an
intellect. But since the Self
is not an object, the senses and the mind cannot know it. But Vedanta can reveal it by using ideas
and logic to remove one’s ignorance about it, delivering direct Self
knowledge.
As Vedanta evolved over time it
became a very attractive means of knowledge as great sages added their
commentaries and contributions to the literature. At some point in its long history enough
apparent doctrinal differences concerning the nature of reality appeared that
Vedanta seemed to be disintegrating into several ‘schools of
thought.’ These apparently
conflicting views do not compromise Vedanta as long as it is taken as a means
of knowledge because the purpose of any teaching is to remove Self
ignorance. And because different
minds formulate Self ignorance differently, an idea that may reveal the Self to
one person may not reveal it to another.
But many people who are not interested in liberation and are not
qualified for it are nonetheless attracted to Vedanta for intellectual reasons
because it is a very beautiful and profound body of literature. In
Vedanta is not a philosophy or a
school of thought because it is not the contention of an individual or a group
of individuals. Philosophies are
subject to negation and correction because they are invariably speculations,
imaginations, beliefs and opinions of an individual or a small group of
individuals…which means they are always subject to error or irrelevancy
because they do not serve a fundamental human need, in this case the need be
free of limitation. Where is
existentialism today? Vedanta has
thrived for several thousand years precisely because it is not a personal
philosophy.
Vedanta is called
‘shruti.’ Shruti
literally means ‘heard.’
Its teachings are meant to be ‘heard’ from someone who has
been freed by them and who can skillfully wield them to help the qualified
aspirant remove his or her ignorance. But ‘shruti’ has a
more general meaning too. It means
revealed unauthored truth that has passed the test of time. In other words the essence
of Vedanta, the teachings that remove Self ignorance, do not change because they
effectively do what they are intended to do. Nobody is pressing for a new improved
eye, since the eyes do all they need to do. So in this sense Vedanta, like the Sanskrit
its mantras are formulated in, is a perfected body of knowledge. Nothing needs to be added to it, no
timely modifications are necessary to help it adapt to recent times. But this has not stopped people from
making of it what they want.
In approximately the last one
hundred years Vedanta has suffered an apparent change largely as a result of
the teachings of Vivekananda around the turn of the twentieth century. Its basic function as a means of Self
knowledge became confused with the doctrines of Yoga because Vivekananda who
had a profound influence on the West’s understanding of Vedanta (probably
unintentionally) reduced it to ‘jnana’ (knowledge) yoga, one of the
many branches of Yoga. In fact,
Yoga has traditionally been considered a subset of Vedanta, its purpose being
to aid in the preparation of the mind to receive the teachings of
non-duality. Before Yoga sullied
the pure teachings of Vedanta enlightenment was considered to be the removal of
ignorance about the nature of the Self.
But with the ascendancy of the Yoga teachings enlightenment came to be
considered a ‘permanent experience of the Self’ in contrast to the
mundane experiences of everyday life, which it obviously can’t be if this
is a non-dual reality as the Upanishads claim. It can’t be a permanent experience
first, because there is no such thing as a permanent experience and second, it
can’t be an experience in a non-dual reality because the subject object
distinction necessary for experience is missing in a non-dual reality. If this is true then the quest for a permanent
enlightenment experience is pointless and what is needed, as traditional
Vedanta says, is the knowledge of reality since the craving for experience,
including the experience of the Self, is Maya, the consequence of seeing
oneself as a doer who is separate from reality. Or to put it another way, trying
to get out of Maya experientially is not ever going to happen because Maya is
unreal. How can one be ‘in
Maya’ in the first place if Maya is only an apparent reality? The only way out of Maya is to see that
Maya, the belief in duality, is only in the mind and to destroy it with the
knowledge of reality. In any case,
the experiential notion of enlightenment has been the dominant view for the
last one hundred years, although it goes back to the Yoga sutras of
Patanjali. This Vedantic evolution
has been labeled ‘modern’ Vedanta, an oxymoron if ever there was
one.
By and large the wave of
‘export gurus’ that inundated the West in the Sixties peddled
Modern Vedanta with considerable success.
Then in the Eighties the Western spiritual world became reacquainted
with Ramana Maharshi, a sage in the Vedic tradition who had achieved
international recognition around the middle of the century but who had been all
but forgotten since his death in the Fifties. Ramana was not a traditional Vedantic
sage but he realized the non-dual nature of the Self and taught both Vedanta
and Yoga. Self inquiry, which many
Neo-Adviatins believe to be his invention, is as old as the Vedas itself. The rediscovery of Ramana roughly
coincided with the rise of ‘Neo-Advaita.’ Neo-Advaita is basically a
‘satsang’ based ‘movement’ that has very little in
common with either traditional Vedanta or modern Vedanta or even its
inspiration, Ramana…except the doctrine of non-duality. Neo-Advaita is so abstracted from its
Vedantic roots that I recently met a person who had been
‘empowered’ to give satsang who did not know that the word satsang
was a Sanskrit compound meaning ‘keeping the company of reality.’
It is a typically American hybrid, although Europe, particularly
Perhaps the best way to approach
Neo-Advaita is not by what it teaches as by what it doesn’t, because
taken at face value many of the teachings are quite reasonable although they
owe more to modern than to traditional Vedanta. Probably the most obvious omission is the
notion of adikara, the qualifications necessary for enlightenment. Neo-Advaita is burdened with an
understandably democratic ethos, the idea being that anyone who walks into a
satsang off the street can gain instant enlightenment. Traditional Vedanta completely disagrees
with this notion and insists that a person be discriminating, dispassionate,
calm of mind, and endowed with a ‘burning’ desire for liberation
along with other secondary qualifications like devotion, faith, perseverance
and so on. In other words it
requires a mature adult with a one-pointed desire to know the Self. The reason for this insistence is based
on the fact that enlightenment takes place in the mind. Therefore the mind must be capable of
grasping and retaining the knowledge “I am limitless Awareness and not
this body mind.” The
retention and assimilation of this knowledge will necessarily destroy
one’s tendencies (vasanas) to seek for happiness in the world, so the
qualified aspirant has to have come to the hard and fast conclusion that
nothing in the world can bring lasting satisfaction before he or she exposes
his or her mind to Vedanta. This is what Vedanta calls maturity.
To my knowledge no Neo-Advaita
satsang teacher espouses this view.
The reason is obvious: he or she would have virtually no disciples. Neo-Advaita seems to be more about emotionally
wounded middle-class people looking for an alternative spiritual lifestyle, one
that offers a sense of ‘community.’ The word ‘sanga’ means
a company of like minded souls. Far
from the idea of relying on the Self to supply all one’s needs from
within most satsangis believe that enlightenment will help them gain the
worldly things that have so far eluded them, particularly love. And it is clear from the behavior of
most of the teachers of Neo-Advaita who have ‘got it’ that their
Self knowledge has in no way diminished their lust for fame, wealth, power and
pleasure.
Traditional Vedanta does not reject
any person who is sincerely trying to solve the existential riddle. So, if a person has a strong
desire for liberation he or she might wish to develop the qualifications. The lifestyle that prepares the mind is
called ‘sadhana,’ the ‘means of attainment’ in Vedic
culture. Yoga is a traditional
Vedantic sadhana because its disciplines prepare the mind for
enlightenment. Even modern
Vedanta, with its emphasis on Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Raja Yoga, is sadhana
based. Yogas are by definition
sadhanas made for doers.
Sadhana is evolutionary because the mind is a very conservative
instrument and much extroverted by the pressure of the vasanas. So progress is incremental. It is not uncommon that many years are
required to produce a clear, quiet balanced mind…depending on the nature
of the vasana load.
Neo-Advaita does not endorse
sadhana. Again, the reason is
obvious. Most who are attracted to
Neo-Advaita are children of the modern age looking for instant gratification. Hard work is out of the question. The idea promoted by the teachers of
Neo-Advaita is that at any moment you can ‘wake up’ and ‘get
it.’ All you have to do is
‘surrender’ and pay attention.
If you don’t get it today you can come to the next satang and
maybe you will hit the jackpot tomorrow.
A second argument against sadhana is that it strengthens one’s
sense of doership. It is true that,
lacking the right understanding, one can develop a sense of spiritual doership
to replace one’s sense of worldly doership. But this idea is promoted in the
Neo-Advaita scene to make it easier to attract followers, not for a legitimate
spiritual reason.
It would be impossible to
underestimate the importance of Karma Yoga in the Vedic tradition. In fact the Bhagavad Gita, which has the
status of an Upanishad as a scripture on liberation, devotes many verses to the
practice. Karma Yoga is an attitude
that one takes with respect to one’s actions and the results of
one’s actions. It is based on
the understanding that a person has every right to act in this world with the
idea of getting a certain result but that the result is not under the control
of the doer of the action. The
result is a consequence of the appropriateness and timeliness of the action and
the nature of the field in which the action happens. In religious terms it is up to the
‘grace of God.’ Or, in
New Age terms, ‘the universe.’
Because the results of one’s actions are not up to the doer,
whatever result, positive or negative, comes should be gladly accepted as a
‘gift’ from God.
Because it is the identification of the doer with the action and its
result that produces binding vasanas, the Karma Yoga attitude reduces the
vasana load and eventually causes the attention to turn inward and meditate on
the Self. A mind that has operated
with the Karma Yoga understanding for a long time becomes peaceful, pure, and
rock solid. It takes pleasure in
itself and is indifferent to the temporary joys that come from the senses and
their objects. A mind prepared by
Karma Yoga is ideally suited to receive and assimilate the teachings of
Vedanta.
Most Modern Vedanta teachers teach a
perverted self-serving version of Karma Yoga that has no basis in the Vedanta
scriptures. According to them Karma
Yoga is ‘selfless service.’
It is under the guise of this doctrine that ashrams, religions and
spiritual movements of all sorts exploit the labor of unsuspecting seekers to
build their satsangs and institutions.
On the wall of the kitchen of a large ashram of one of the Eighties
richest and most famous export gurus was a sign reading. “One hour of washing dishes burns
up one lifetime of karma.”
Karma Yoga is not taught in the
Neo-Advaita world because its teachers define enlightenment in terms of an
experience of the Self that comes ‘by Grace’ or as a result of
‘transmission’ from a guru, experiences that do not require a
prepared mind. And it is also not
taught because it requires patience and diligence, qualities not in evidence in
people seeking instant enlightenment.
Karma Yoga requires continuous monitoring of one’s motivations and
reactions to events and the willingness to change one’s attitude when
observation reveals it to be vasana producing. It requires great awareness and
diligence because the vasanas continually divert one’s attention away
from Self observation. And, as is
the case with any spiritual practices, change is incremental and gradual.
The Neo-Advaita movement owes a
considerable debt of gratitude to the teachings of Bhagawan
Rajneesh who rechristened himself as Osho when his
bad karma became unbearable.
Rajneesh perverted the tantric concept that the essence of every
experience is Awareness. Tantra is
a very broad concept that applies to every conceivable kind of experience and
insists that its practitioners enjoy the same qualifications as those
practicing Vedanta sadhana. But
Rajneesh focused his attention on the sexual aspect, not that much focusing was
required, and opened wide the gates of tantra to tens
of thousands of immature disaffected Western hedonists with his brilliant
concept ‘Zorba the Buddha.’ Zorba the
Greek was the literary creation of a Greek writer Nikas
Kazanzaksis.
Zorba was not a bad guy but was he
emotional! He was the original
party animal: lusty and enthusiastic in his pursuit of pleasure. As is well known the Buddha was a holy
ascetic. By wedding the two ideas
he provided a clever ‘spiritual’ justification for the unrestrained
pursuit of pleasure in the name of spiritual growth. Wags not unfairly called his sadhana the
‘fuck your way to God’ path.
I was once told in all seriousness by a devotee that Osho
‘’gave us permission to do what society forbids us to
do.” When he died thousands
of his disciples gravitated to a relatively unknown guru, HWL Poonja aka Papaji,
who was considerably more Vedic in his orientation and taught enlightenment as
an experience of non-duality. A
number of them ‘woke up’ and began what is now called Neo-Advaita. It seems the only practice
encouraged by Neo-Advaita teachers is satsang and ‘the celebration of
life’ which dovetails with the mindless hippie philosophy that so many
Neo-Adviatins adhere to: if it feels good, do it.
In contrast, traditional Vedanta and
modern Vedanta are firmly rooted in the primary spiritual idea of the Vedic age:
yagna. A yagna is a sacrifice. The members of a community bring
offerings, a small portion of which are symbolically offered into the
sacrificial fire. The remainder of the yagna is distributed to the less
fortunate members of the community.
Sacrifice plays a central role in Vedanta sadhana, the idea being that
as far as the ego and its desires are concerned you cannot have your cake and
eat it too. The vasanas that
extrovert the mind need to be sacrificed for the sake of a quiet mind, one
capable of meditating on the Self, reflecting on the non-dual teachings and
assimilating the knowledge.
Traditional Vedanta deals with the
vasanas by insisting that the seeker practice Vedika
Dharma. Vedika
Dharmas are the rules of conduct set out in the karmic portion of the Vedas
that govern all aspect of human behavior.
Following Vedika Dharma is considered a sacred
duty. Indian society today is
closely tied to its Vedic roots and is a duty orientated society. Modern Vedanta adheres to Vedika Dharma and the Yogic idea of vasana exhaustion
through the practice of samadhi, surrender to God, and other practices. When a person takes a duty-oriented
approach to life the vasanas produced are non-binding and therefore are not an
impediment to Self realization. When a person practices karma yoga and
surrender to God the binding vasanas are neutralized. But when neither of these ideas are
operating and there are no teachings concerning the relationship between the
pursuit of ‘kamya karmas,’
desire-prompted activities, and the production of binding vasanas is it any
wonder that whatever non-dual experiences are acquired in satsang quickly
vanish with the appearance of the next binding vasana? This is why the Neo-Advaita world is
little more than thousands of people, including the teachers, who have had
scores of non-dual experiences but who at the end of the day are still
prisoners of their vasanas.
Ramana Maharshi, who had a profound
experience of the Self at the tender age of seventeen, understood the wisdom of
sadhana in so far as he sat in meditation on the Self in caves for twenty years
after he was ‘awakened.’
Had he been a Neo-Advaitin he would have
immediately advertised satsang and begun instantly enlightening devotees. But he had the wisdom to understand that
his epiphany was not the end of it.
Had it been he could have returned home, ate this mother’s iddlies and played cricket like any normal seventeen year
old Tamil. But in line with the
traditional teachings of Shankara he ‘practiced knowledge’ until
such time as all the vasanas were reduced to ashes in the fire of Self
knowledge (jnanam).
Another essential component of any
valid spiritual path Vedic or otherwise is bhakti, devotion to God or the
Self. Ramana, the shining icon of
the Neo-Advaitins, gave devotion to God equal status with Self inquiry as a
spiritual path because devotion to God functions in the same way as Karma Yoga;
it exhausts vasanas by breaking down the concept of doership. “Not my will, but thine.”
It also teaches that God, not the ego, is the dispenser of the fruits of
one’s actions. But
Neo-Advaita sees devotion to God as ‘duality’ and has nothing to do
with it. This shunning of the
devotional aspect of life is based on ignorance of the value of devotion as one
of the primary requirements for Self realization. In fact ‘dvaita’ works just
as well as ‘advaita’ in preparing the mind for Self realization
because the Self functions through one’s chosen symbol to bring the
necessary qualities into full flower.
Some schools of Neo-Advaita
subscribe to the notion that enlightenment can be transmitted in some subtle
experiential way via the physical proximity of a master. Traditional Advaita disagrees with this
view for the reason that ignorance is deeply entrenched in the aspirant’s
thinking and that it is only by deep refection on the teachings that the
ultimate assimilation of the knowledge is achieved. This assimilation is often called
‘full’ or ‘complete’ enlightenment. The ‘transmission’ fantasy
fits nicely into the Neo-Advaitic conception of easy
enlightenment as it does away with the need for serious sadhana. One need do nothing more that sit in the
presence of a master and presto-chango!...one wakes up for good. If this were true, however, the tens of
thousands who sit at the feet of enlightened masters everywhere would be
enlightened.
Another half-baked idea that has
gained currency in the Neo-Advaita world is the notion of
‘awakening.’ While
sleep and waking are reasonable metaphors to describe the states of Self
ignorance and Self knowledge, Neo-Advaita assigns to them an experiential
meaning that it not justified. Just
as anything that lives, dies, anything that wakes, sleeps. The Self never sleep or awakens. This ‘waking up’ and
‘going back to sleep’…all of which takes place in the waking
state incidentally…is a consequence of the play of the gunas in the
mind. When the mind is sattvic, the
reflection of the Self in it causes the individual to wake up to the Self, but
when rajas or tamas reappear, as they inevitably do, the mind is clouded over
and the experience of the reflection of the Self in the mind is lost i.e. the
mind ‘sleeps.’ Until
the rajasic and tamasic vasanas are purified one is condemned to a frustrating
cycle of waking and sleeping.
In the Twentieth Century psychology
came of age in the West. It has
left the confines of the therapist’s office and entered popular
culture. Much of the energy
in Neo-Advaita satangs is devoted to pop Neo-Advaita psychology which is
nothing more than an attempt to apply advaitic
concepts to the ego and its dysfunctional patterns. Vedanta sadhana assumes a healthy
ego. The qualifications for
enlightenment that are presented in Shankara’s Vivekachoodamani might be profitably thought of as the
qualities of a mature healthy ego.
Traditional Vedanta begins where the ego leaves off by revealing the
nature of the impersonal Self though its teachings. One need not kill or destroy the ego, as
many Neo-Advaita teachers claim, but one should embrace through understanding a
greater or ‘universal’ Self.
This Self is not in opposition to the ego but provides the Awareness
that allows the ego to function.
Finally, the reason Vedanta has
survived as a viable means of knowledge is not due to its doctrines alone but
to the application of a sophisticated method of teaching. Many realize their non-dual nature but
are incapable of teaching non-duality because they lack a viable method. The Neo-Advaita statements to ‘Be
the space for the thoughts’ or ‘Be what you are” are not
skillful teachings because a non-dual teaching of identity is being delivered
in experiential language. Such
teachings give the impression that something can be done to achieve Awareness
and that Self realization can come about through an act of will. In traditional Advaita not only should
the teacher have realized his or her identity as the Self in such a way that he
or she never re-identifies with the ego (the belief that the ‘I’ is
limited) but he or she should be able to wield the means of knowledge
skillfully.
Many Neo-Advaita satsang teachers
use a picture of Ramana lend legitimacy and gravitas to their satsangs and
promote one of Ramana’s favorite ideas, that ‘silence’ is
somehow the ultimate teaching.
While understanding the nature of the Self in ‘silence’
apparently finishes the sadhana of a very few qualified sadaks,
silence is not superior to the skillful use of words in bringing about
enlightenment. This is so because
silence is in harmony, not in conflict, with Self ignorance…as it is with
everything. One can sit in silence
without instruction for lifetimes and never realize that one is the silence,
meaning limitless Awareness.
Knowledge, however, which is the result of Vedanta pramana, destroys
Self ignorance like light destroys darkness. Additionally no experience, including
the experience of silence, can change one’s thinking patterns. An experience of non-duality may
temporarily suspend thought or increase one’s resolve to see oneself as
limitless Awareness but the notion that the ‘I’ is limited,
inadequate, incomplete and separate is hard wired. It is only by diligent practice of the
knowledge ‘I am limitless awareness and not this body mind’ that
the mind’s understanding of reality gets in line with the nature of the
Self.
Why are binding vasanas such a major
problem for anyone seeking enlightenment?
Because they disturb the mind to such a degree that one’s contact
with the Self as it reflects in the mind is broken. It is meditation on the reflection of
the Self in the mind that allows the intellect to investigate the Self and gain
the knowledge ‘I am the Self’ that breaks down the subject-object
distinction and ends one’s sense of duality. I was informed recently by a friend who
has considerable knowledge of the Neo-Advaita satsang world that we have now
entered into the ‘Post-Neo Advaita’ period. Not surprisingly Neo-Advaita has not
lived up to its promise as a quick and easy means of liberation and people are
now looking for the next most incredible path to enlightenment. And you will be happy to know that it
seems their prayers have been answered by the appearance of the “Kalki
Avatar’ who, for the modest fee of $5,500 and twenty one days of your
time will lay his divine hands on your cranium and rewire your nervous system,
read brain, so that you become fully enlightened. Evidently his promise is thinning the
ranks of the Neo-Advaitins who, in typically Western fashion, are always
looking for the most efficient shortcut to limitless bliss.
Does Neo-Advaita have any redeeming
virtues? In non-dual reality
everything somehow eventually serves to reveal the Self. Just as kindergarten is a prerequisite
for grade school, people seeking enlightenment need to start somewhere and
Neo-Advaita, imperfect as it is as a vehicle for spiritual practice or Self
realization, provides entry-level access to the idea of non-duality. Finally, because Neo-Advaita is more
sanga than sat (the Self) it serves to satisfy to some degree the emotional
needs of its disaffected followers.
Because it does serve a need it will probably continue in some form or
other for the foreseeable future but will probably remain as a lifestyle fad
unless it investigates its roots and discovers the wisdom of the Vedas.