ADVAITA VEDANTA
INTERVIEW NDM: I saw some very interesting comments on your website. Would you like to answer some questions on this? Beginning this sort of general question below, then take it from there. The following question was submitted by Stuart Sovatsky, PHD Q; Vedanta, Taoism, Buddhism, Judeo-Christian Gnosticism, Mystical Sufism, all laud transcendence of duality and desire, verified by transcendence of sexual activity, from the Buddha to the Dalai Lama and millions of others in India over the millennia. Has modern non-dualism created something new where sex and desire are not transcended? And is this a higher state than what Buddha and founder of Advaita Vedanta, Adi Shankara, taught to monks and lay people and lived personally?
Mel Patrick: If I understood correctly your question, you want to know if the so-called gurus, teachers, facilitators and egomaniacs of Neo Pseudo Advaita have a higher teaching than Buddha and Shankaracharya. I guess it’s a very good joke. Who could have the idea to compare Ramana Maharshi with Charlie Chaplin?
A more interesting question about celibacy and spiritual disciplines in general would be : “Do you have the choice?” If you have a true Guru, do you have the choice to follow his or her teaching? If you have a Guru, you are his or her disciple, and in this case, you don’t have the choice to say “no” to his or her teaching otherwise this is not your Guru and consequently, it’s better for you to stop losing your time with a teaching which obviously doesn't concern you.
And an even more interesting question would be : “Is free will a fact in your life?” Did you really decide to have a spiritual quest and how you are going to live it in order to free yourself from the insanity of the mind, its illusions, sufferings and perpetual dissatisfaction? Did you choose the people and events that gradually brought you to spirituality? Did you choose the time and space of your birth? Your parents and teachers? Your culture? Everything that created the present situation in which you are living? What did you really choose? Your self-importance which makes you believing that you have the choice?
Without a knowledge which defines the context, spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical questions have no meaning. And this is one of the main problems of “modern non-dualism” or Neo Advaita which is not a spiritual system based on knowledge and practice, but on the pretensions of a teacher who is supposed to know everything about the path of liberation by virtue of his or her enlightenment which is nothing more than a short-lived spiritual experience assimilated to Self-realization for the sake of business and marketing.
What the neo advaita gurus are doing in the West is absolutely insane. They
are creating a "new myth", a pretty paradoxical term, and selling it as the
quintessence of spirituality and individualism, nothing else that a pure
ego-trip, and they have the nerve to claim as this super hypocrite and very
cunning Eckhart Tolle "My ego has dissolved". That's the most incredible
antimony I ever heard in my life. And the most amazing is that nobody
notices the insanity of such statement, even not professional psychologists
or psychiatrists with a Ph.D. What's going on in the world?
This new spirituality is nevertheless a very interesting sociological phenomenon to study which shows without any doubt that people are really scared, more in the West than anywhere else of course because they have much more to loose, especially the middle class. And they have very good reasons for freaking out because the end of a civilization and the beginning of a new one is quite scary. It's facing the unknown, precisely what the ego doesn't like and want. So it's easy to understand why the Self is so difficult to realize and why the experience of pure consciousness is almost impossible, apart from sometimes a glimpse, what the neo jokes call an awakening and soon or late the liberation. I hope to have made myself clear enough about New Age Evolutionary Advaita and answer to your question and take it easy with strict disciplines as celibacy.
NDM:
Was your Guru Swami Girdanandaji connected to Swami Tapovan by the way?
Mel Patrick: Concerning my Guru Swami Girdanandaji, I
cannot tell you if he has ever been in relation with Swami Tapovan. I don't
think so. He was from Bengal and came in Uttarkashi only some 20 years
before I met him, years after Swami Tapovan passed away. Swamiji was a very
special and strange being, sometimes very human with a big heart, but
sometimes absolutely not, more like a supernatural being until his very end,
and I don't know if he had a Guru. As a matter of fact, I know almost
nothing about him. But he stays in my heart forever and that's the point
with a True Guru, a Sat Guru.
NDM: Swami Sivananda says that:
“ The Jivanmukta roams about happily in this world as he is free from the three kinds of fevers.
He is free from all sorts of attachment and Vasanas. He is absolutely free from Raga-Dvesha. (Attraction and repulsion) He is established in right conduct. He is full of virtuous qualities. He does not feel: I am the actor, I am the enjoyer. He has a very large heart.”
Can one also be a jivanmukta and not be free from Raga-Dvesha. (Attraction and repulsion) or not established in right conduct, or having virtuous qualities?
Mel Patrick :I would tell you that I’m not a Jivanmukta and not qualified to judge how a Jivanmukta should live. But I think like most of the people who study spirituality that a Guru who pretends to be liberated or not should have a decent life because he or she chooses willy-nilly to incarnate as a spiritual teacher an example for others. I just mean a decent and respectful life without being bound to become a saint which has never been the aim of any Yoga, path of liberation and spirituality. And if this guru really pretends to be liberated, I hope that he or she is liberated at least from moral corruption otherwise what’s the point of spiritual teachings? Only liberation?
Why an example of decency for others? I think it’s probably because sensible people prefer to have spiritual guides who teach how to live in a civilized world with civilized people and not in a jungle of hypocrisy, greed and debauchery leading soon or late to violence and decline. So to your question about Jivanmukta, liberation and right conduct, I suggest you to contact experts as David Bingham and Richard Sylvester who certainly have a much more elaborated point of view on the subject (experts according Iain McNay and his very compassionate wife from the website “Conscious TV”). And if you wish to listen to one of the most ludicrous speech in the history of spirituality about liberation, a hilarious masterpiece of self-conceit and a true work of art well known at present in many spiritual circles not affiliated to Neo Advaita, don’t miss the interview of these 2 experts plus Tim Freke in the middle who desperately tries to moderate the arrogance and stupidity of his 2 colleagues:
http://conscious.tv/nonduality.html?bcpid=45947084001&bclid=1610663950&bctid=719320223001 http://conscious.tv/nonduality.html?bcpid=45947084001&bclid=1610663950&bctid=719503650001
And if you need more, a real scoop for your magazine, you should also ask your question to Tony Parsons. He knows more about spirituality according his sayings during Satsangs available on YouTube than anyone else since the beginning of humankind. To sum up his teaching, he’s the only one (and no one according his own words) who understood everything about liberation and he has absolutely no problem to even ridicule the teaching of Ramana Maharshi wearing Langoti (diaper according Mr. Parsons with his very sophisticated humor). But please don’t denounce this kind of buffoon in your magazine because as you know, today everybody must be so ‘Shanti Shanti’ and politically correct and positive and nice and kind and good that at the end, nobody cares about anything and would even dare to have personal opinions which could conflict with the present trend. And what a trend! Non duality in the West is now nothing more than a pathetic entertainment and a sad business of existential misery, a perfect by-product of consumer society. Concerning Swami Sivananda and his own liberation, you should read the first book of UG Krishnamurti, “The mystique of enlightenment”, just to know what UG thinks about. But I guess you already read it and don’t need any more commentary on this peculiar subject. And whatever you understood about his liberation, it doesn’t change that Swami Sivananda did teach all his life a very classic Yoga and traditional Vedanta in his books and talks. NDM: Do you mean where UG talks about Swami Sivananda eating the mango pickles? Mel Patrick: Yes it was about the pickles.NDM: What do you mean by a "true guru". What makes one true or false. Do you mean belonging to a traditional lineage, sampradaya of some kind?
Mel Patrick : The Sanskrit word ‘Guru’ has a very clear definition in Vedanta already explained in the website “Advaita Minima”, a word defined by Atmanishta and Śrotriya or Dharmasastri. And the concept ‘a fake or false guru’, ken-guru or kangaroo (with a big pocket very convenient to put a lot of money which is the only purpose of any businesses like Neo Advaita) has also lengthy explanations in the same website. Please enjoy yourself reading them or don’t like many people who have realized that their Neo Satsang gurus are nothing more than jokes and the Shakitpata they speak so much about and which is supposed to liberate their disciples is still a bigger joke.You who have a website about non duality should understand a detail that nobody dares to speak about on the web because not so positive for the image of this new form of disposable cheap spirituality. Many people are very disappointed with the interpretation of Advaita and Vedanta in the West today and I’m speaking of people like directors of publishing house for instance who were even specialized in spirituality long before the advent of this kind of New Age. Please don’t forget that Advaita Vedanta is a very well known matter in Western intelligentsia since the end of the XIX century. Neo Advaita better known as non duality in the West started only 25 years ago or so and with only self-proclaimed gurus mainly followers of Papaji and Osho. What a significant coincidence as Carl Jung would say, but who is going to inquire into the signification of it? No one of course, let’s be positive and nice and great and compassionate with these egomaniac teachers who are even not able to make the difference between solipsism and Self inquiry.
NDM: When you talk about free will.
"And an even more interesting question would be : “Is free will a fact in your life?” Did you really decide to have a spiritual quest and how you are going to live it in order to free yourself from the insanity of the mind, its illusions, sufferings and perpetual dissatisfaction? "
Are you saying that there is no "free will" per se? That someone has no volition at all? Can you please clarify this?
Mel Patrick : I didn’t mean that there is or there is no free will. I only think that whatever you choose to believe in, it always will be a point of view and never the view itself, the truth if you prefer, because truth about free will, fate and freedom as philosophical concepts cannot really be understood. Nobody truly knows how life and the mind work although since birth, we all are living our life with a mind quite able to reflect upon its own working. A more interesting question, if I may, would be: “Can we conceive a new spirituality for the West without the foundation of a traditional spiritual knowledge as Neo Advaita tries to introduce in our culture?” because breaking the bridge with every tradition under the pretext that we, in the West, are more advanced, more civilized, more intelligent, more educated, more enlightened and with more knowledge, as gurus of ‘Evolutionary Spirituality’ claim and probably try their best to believe in order to have (guess what?) a positive attitude in their positive business of positive spirituality, is not a solution, but a door opened to charlatanism.I don’t mean that spirituality should be institutionalized like religions, but it should keep some common sense and obvious rules, a Dharma. And that also should be the purpose of magazines and websites like yours. If it’s not people specialized in spirituality like you seem willing to be, who is going to inform others of the stupidity of spirituality without the foundation of a Dharma (a basic ethic), a philosophical system and a set of spiritual practices? What’s the value of a so-called teaching coming from hypocrites who make no distinction between liberation (Self-realization, Atmanishta, Moksha, Turya, etc.) and an ordinary spiritual experience (an awakening, a Samadhi or Satori as Japanese would call it), no distinction only in order to pretend that they are liberated after their experience? Satya, truthfulness, is a concept which doesn’t seem to concern the teachers of modern non duality because everyone pretends in one way or another to be liberated. No kidding? Liberated from their ego and obsessed with their personality and personal life. What a joke! No wonder why they speak so much about themselves during interviews. Beyond their short-lived mystical experience, their pretensions and their self-importance, they have nothing to speak about, no teaching, no ethic, no knowledge, no method, no practice, nothing. They are only selling their fake liberation to innocent people and using discreetly some concepts of Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism as their own without paying any respect to the spiritual heritage and true origin of these concepts. And what’s about the various abuses of many liberated gurus, but liberated of what exactly? What do you sincerely think about spiritual teachers who only advertise for their business of Satsang, CDs, DVDs, webinars and so on? And what’s about those who need to have sex with the lovely disciples coming in their spiritual center, get drunk when they party, uses drugs like heroin and cocaine, and why not Prozac just to keep a relative psychological balance in their orgasmic enlightenment? The left hand of God and Crazy wisdom seem to be a very easy pretext for ‘false gurus’ to indulge themselves in their narcissism and perversity. No doubt, it’s all about a great liberation… of only psychos. And I don’t mean that a true Guru cannot get married and have a good and decent life like most of the people in the world wish for. But with these crazy ‘liberated’ gurus who are the first to cause harm to the rebirth of spirituality in the West, it doesn’t seem anymore possible to enjoy the pleasures of being alive without losing any sense of morality and falling into the extreme. If spiritual seekers don’t understand the meaning of ‘middle way’, a state of balance and moderation, or Dharma, the natural order that you can find everywhere in nature, they will understand the suffering of an unbalance state of mind without any explanation. And this is what spirituality tries to prevent.
END OF INTERVIEW
For any questions concerning the writings of the website “Advaita Minima”, please contact the author Mel Patrick at: [email protected] |
