The other day I was exchanging voice messages with my friend @socraticmthd. He has a lot of experience in spiritual practices of many kinds, and is very knowledgeable when it comes to different religions, too. We scratched the topic of non-duality, something that I wasn’t familiar with, so he explained it to me – and I hope I repeat correctly.
A dual state of mind is what we’re all experiencing, that the I is separated from the you, the rest of the universe. Oneness or non-duality is a very high goal of Buddhism and many other spiritual practices and refers to being one with everything else, not feeling a difference between the I and the you (and with that everything in the literal sense) anymore. It’s something that very few achieve after decades of incredibly intense spiritual practice.
As many things that have interesting traditions, non-duality seems to have become a mass production, too, if one can believe the many, many new age gurus who achieved enlightenment by smoking pot while taking a dump. Or who meditated for more than 30min yesterday and suddenly felt one with the universe, and especially with you, hot young chick with the colorful shirt and hair that smells like weed. Isn’t it great to live in a world full of enlightened people?
It tells me two things about society. One is what @SocraticMthd said in one of the messages:
Everybody wants the highest path. Everybody wants the highest teaching without recognizing that most of us just aren’t ready for it.
We’re still in the achievement society. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine, let’s compare and see who’s better. Instead of showing self-esteem and being able to say “Well, I can’t do that now, I’ll start at the level I’m at and work my way up”, most people want to start at the top. But nobody will applaud you for that. In the age of superficiality we’re in, arrogance and fake self-confidence (okay, fake humbleness as well) bring you more admiration than true self-assessment. And when being superficial, it’s admiration you want. Not self-improvement, but the applause for it.
Walk in the park for the sake of walking the park.
Not to improve your productivity, nor to impress a girl or boy you like with your “being in the moment” attitude. And then there’s the other side – if we’re not successful enough in the game of self-exploitation, if we’re just not good enough, not productive enough, not destructive enough, what then?
Being enlightened is easy.
Just read a few books, learn the vocabulary, repeat some platitudes and say that you felt the oneness while meditating against the white wall for 24h two days ago, while in reality you were eating stale kale chips in your bed watching “Eat Pray Love” and “7 years in Tibet”. Now, you’re something special. Nobody can tell you that you weren’t feeling it, because nobody can tell you how to feel. And for emergencies: the heretics are just jealous and evil to begin with. A Guru was born, and an Ego was saved.
But thinking a little further, there’s more to it than just the superficiality. There’s our subconsciousness trying to push us towards something that is not there, and the “Not being there” is the point.
We’re so incredibly lonely.
Superficiality has taken away social connections from us. Real social connections. We’re fragmented as a society, as communities, every time into smaller fragments, concentration more and more on the ego. Real connections take time and energy, and we need that to achieve more, to be more productive.
But we’re still social creatures.
We try not to be, be tough and power through, but we want to be "one". We want to have those deep connections with more, with everyone. We crave it. What if the sudden inflation of non-dualist minds is not arrogance, but the subconsciousness weighing in? When the need for connection is so high, the loneliness on a deeper level so extreme, we feel the connection with everyone because we need to feel it.
We’re scamming ourselves.
It’s easy to fall into it. The longing for connection is real, and as we are losing the capacity to create those connections, we have to imagine them. Most scams work with that, creating a bond that was never there, faking it, playing with the need for it. It's cruel to do so, and at the same time it's very "us", very "humane" as the state of society we're in. Also:
Well, parts of that had me laughing out loud (literally, not figuratively). Beyond that, though, I'm glad the conversation was as valuable for you as it was for me. I was talking to a client who said he's really good at recognizing whether team members are A, B, or C players. Very few people would admit they see there teams like that. Because WE'RE ALL ENTITLED TO BE A PLAYERS - in anything we do, in work, in relationships - so why not in the spiritual world? WE'RE ENTITLED TO FOLLOW THE HIGHEST PATH. ENTITLED TO HAVE THE GREATEST GURU. Rather than, as you said, admitting where we are, admitting our limitations, and doing the best we can to improve. I posted this, from the appalling Tony Robbins, on another platform - and was roundly attacked because of how he's "helping people." But it's the same mindset. The fantasy that we can be anything we wish, do anything we wish - instead of being realistic about who we are and what we can do - doesn't built achievement (spiritual or otherwise) - it makes that achievement impossible.
So glad that you commenting! Your comments and insights would be a great addition to the platform, if it ever works out.
One point that is missing: If everyone can achieve everything, than there is no achievement anymore. It's normal, and required to even be perceived as a "normal" human being.
To quote the great line from The Incredibles, "If every one is special, then no one is."
A case could be made that that is the goal. An undifferentiated mass of mediocrity pretending to be a mass of high achievers.
In my opinion, we are players in this world and most people are not given the opportunity to quickly advance spiritually. Everyone plays the game at their own level, but the laws of the game are the same for everyone.
Exactly. Yet, some need to pretend that they're faster, better, than the rest.
And this is often visible. The best, I would say the more experienced and not the best, do not need to prove anything to others. Share experience and learn with the help of those who share their experience with you. Learn to see in every day the fabric of the Universe and yourself woven into this fabric.
That's a good point. Those who achieved, don't have the need to prove it to others as they made it out of the superficiality.
This hit harder than expected. I found myself laughing at the "pot while taking a dump" line but by the time I reached the part about loneliness, I felt it deeper. You're right - we're not just chasing enlightenment anymore, we're chasing connection . And when genuine connection feels out of reach, we start faking it, to others and to ourselves.
To answer your closing question - "If scams are so cruel, why is it socially acceptable to scam ourselves?" - I think it's because self-deception is easier than self-confrontation. It's safer. It gives us the illusion of depth or progress without the vulnerability real change requires. And in a society obsessed with appearance and productivity, performance often gets more praise than authenticity. So we keep the illusion going because admiting we're lost, lonely or just not there yet feels like failure
Maybe the real tragedy isn't the rise of fake gurus but the fact that we've become too afraid or exhausted to sit with our own humanness. So we scam ourselves, not always out of arrogance but oftenn out of longing. And somehow, that makes it both sad and deeply human
"Walk in the park for the sake of walking the park"
That line's going to stay with me
A lot of that is reflections that I found while recovering from the burn-out. And the more I think, the less connected I am - the deeper you go down the rabbit hole, the less people will understand you. You will not be able to maintain superficial friendships anymore. It's Plato's cave - once you're out, there's no sense in going back in and watch shadow gods with the rest of who used to be your crowd.
But the ones who do accompany you on that journey, that will be real.