Chapter 3
Let’s Get Serious
“If one is serious about going back home, back to Godhead, he must consider the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead the summum bonum and chief aim of life. If he is a father instructing his sons, a spiritual master instructing his disciples, or a king instructing his citizens, he must instruct them as I have advised. Without being angry, he should continue giving instructions, even if his disciple, son or citizen is sometimes unable to follow his order. Ignorant people who engage in pious and impious activities should be engaged in devotional service by all means. They should always avoid fruitive activity. If one puts into the bondage of karmic activity his disciple, son or citizen who is bereft of transcendental vision, how will one profit? It is like leading a blind man to a dark well and causing him to fall in. ” (Srimad Bhagavat Purana, Canto 5 The Creative Impetus, Chapter 5 Lord Rsabhadeva’s Teachings to His Sons, Text 15)
Neo-Advaita vs. Classic-Advaita
Adyashanti openly admits that he is an unconventional “not-spiritual” teacher who disdains the rigors of formal Zen practice. He is too immature to be philosophical and he has no interest in even trying to understand the distinctions between Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism. He is so egocentrically rebellious he even mocks some of the foolish things taught by competing Neo-Advaita scammers although there is little difference to what he says. Yet the letter I got from his sycophant disciple claimed that he teaches “Brahman realisation (sic).”
Only someone who doesn’t know what the symptoms of Brahman realization are would make such an ignorant statement. It is quite obvious that Adyashanti is simply making things up as he goes along and uses a well-practiced combination of humiliation, hypnosis, hyperbole and histrionics to mislead his comfortably numb audience into thinking that he has his own hot line to the “truth.” Those of us who are smart enough not to accept kool-aid from kids posing as monks know he is just selling fool’s gold to those too naïve to recognize it.
“If you think you know Brahman well, then your knowledge is very meager. If you think you can identify Brahman’s form from among the demigods, indeed you know but little.” (Sri Kena Upanisad (2.1) – Srimad Bhagavat Purana 10.87.30p)
Adyashanti has apparently convinced at least one of his followers to believe he is a master of Brahman realization. However individuals looking for genuine spiritual guidance need only read what the symptoms are of those who achieved perfection via the Non-dual path to realize that Adya is either shamelessly bluffing or suffering from a serious case of the Messiah complex.
Here is the process one must follow to reach Brahman realization the way it is outlined in the Bhagavad-gita, the bona fide authority on this subject.
One must:
…cease all material activities
…renounce all material desires
…be free from all forms of sense gratification and furtive actions
…residence in a secluded place
…rigorously control one’s mind
…be free from all desires and feelings of possessiveness
…sit properly (on kusa grass, deerskin, soft cloth in a properly elevated place)
…fix the mind on one point
…hold the body neck and head in a straight line
…stare steadily at the tip of the nose
…with an un-agitated subdued mind
…devoid of all fear
…completely free from any thought of sex
…focused completely on God within the heart.
(Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 6 Dhyana Yoga, Text 10-14)
When the great Pandava dynasty warrior prince Arjuna heard this he immediately conceded:
“Arjuna said: O Madhusudana, the system of yoga which You have summarized appears impractical and unendurable to me, for the mind is restless and unsteady, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, O Krishna, and to subdue it, I think, is more difficult than controlling the wind. (Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 6 Dhyana Yoga, Text 33-34)
However 5,000 years later this little prince of San Francisco has convinced people to believe that he succeeded where Arjuna could not! What makes this particularly egregious is that Adyashanti is not only incapable of this type of rigorous self-discipline, he completely bastardizes the whole process by preaching that there is no reason for anyone to do so. This confirms that in his customized version of enlightenment there is absolutely no connection between sense control and spiritual maturity. Of course that makes perfect sense from where he sits,.. it’s just not good for business!
It’s all very Simple… NOT!
One of the most misleading things Adyashanti promotes is that the Non-dual path is “Very simple.” If that were true then Arjuna would have not said it “… is more difficult than controlling the wind.” So we can conclude that presenting it as “Simple” Adya either really doesn’t know what he is talking about, or he is again using deceptive marketing tactics to lure an audience of sloths into his “anything goes” version of enlightenment. In this way Adya’s whole organization functions like a modern version of the old Catholic indulgence tax and that was quite a racket! The rich paid large fees/indulgences to the priests in exchange for the reassurance that as long as they continued to do so, their place in heaven would be guaranteed!
Adya collects his fees via seminars then babbles on about forgetting everything. His congregation in turn mindlessly bobs their head up and down on cue and everyone plays along assuming that it all makes sense even though they can’t really explain it themselves. It might all sound elegant, but it’s actually a dangerous example of the “Kings New Clothes” which in clinical psychology is referred to as “Group Think.” His clan operates under the assumption that everyone else seems to understand what’s going on and can extract useful meaning from brainteasers like:
“In the end it’s all very simple. Either we give ourselves to Silence or we don’t.” (Adyashanti)
Oh I get it! Just Be! Wow! That’s Profound!
Reprogram your brain into believing that there is nothing meaningful to do and then you are FREE to wallow in your own ignorance galore! Don’t get all worked up about anything in the illusion the dualists refer to as life, especially the concept that you exist or can actually do something divinely inspired. Remember you are not a human Doing… You are a human Being! (Cute.)
The real travesty here is that while all the bona fide Buddhist masters are constantly stressing the importance about becoming mindful… Adya is encouraging everyone to become mindless!
So Adya makes it all sound very simple… and everyone nods affirmatively, but if you listen closely to his audience when THEY speak… it’s clear they aren’t sure about anything.
Mortified and Confused
Kali Yuga is characterized by reckless cheating and a population with an under-developed intelligence and we are well into it. It is therefore not surprising that many people are so willing to embrace what amounts to no more than just one individual’s speculative musing as profound realizations. Yet if we objectively observe the impact Adyashanti has on people they seem to be more preoccupied with just surviving life, not actually living it with gusto.
Sorting through all the gobbley-gook on Adyashanti’s web site is so excruciating I do not recommend that anyone attempt to make sense out of it. However I have found this one example to illustrate the caliber of student that Adya attracts and how inane his response is to her question: “What’s being asked of us?” This is a very simple and straight forward question. Let’s see if Adya can provide a simple coherent answer.
The guest begins the dialogue with:
“We are approaching the end of life as we know it…” (Where did she get that idea from?) Then she eventually inquires: “What is being asked of us?” Adya immediately deflects this query and then speaks a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about transformation for the next 13 minutes without ever getting close to answering the question! The Miss America beauty candidates can do better then this!
At 7:50 minutes in, we can hear how uncertain the guest is by the sound of her voice. She openly confesses that she is confused: “I don’t know what I am saying… I’m groping here.”
Adya: Transformation rarely happens when there is any sense of tomorrow… when tomorrow runs out….
Guest: Is there some… do you have a sense of some kind of reflection and what’s happening?
Adya: Can you explain that?
Guest: umm… not really, umm,… ahh.. I’m thinking… some sort of deductive reasoning… if it’s all one… I don’t know what I am saying here. That there is a heartfulness in what’s…in this eminent catastrophe… there is a heartfulness in it… that there is something that we are not separate from that is responding… that’s part of us… I don’t…I’m just groping here.
Adya: That’s just what you feel inside yourself. You feel that.
Guest: That we’re not separate…
Adya: That’s right…
Guest: It’s a response…
Adya: That’s right…
Guest: …it’s a heartfelt response
None of this dialogue really amounts to anything which is exactly the message Adya wants to convey. The rest of the clip consists of our unorthodox monk rambling on with what amounts to little more than traditional cognitive therapy. He pontificates about how suffering leads to growth and how we must all face death etc. Adya pedantically refers to this process as “Amazing”, but none of it is really that extraordinary for those not captivated by this hypnotic Zen travesty.
What can be said to a person who believes that there is no difference between right or wrong and that everything is just occurring without any reason?
“There is no more need to discriminate with the mind between what seems to be the right thing or the wrong thing to do…You are operating by the flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of intelligence. You don’t need to intellectually discriminate anymore because the Tao discriminates without discriminating; it knows without knowing; it moves without moving. There is no sense of being enlightened or unenlightened. Since there is no self, there is nothing to be enlightened or unenlightened. (Adyashanti, Radical Emptiness)
Translation:
Do whatever the hell you like and don’t worry about anything. Profound! I’ll drink to that!
Confusion, uncertainty, moroseness, depression, apathy, resignation, and doubt etc. all typically characterize much of what occurs when Non-dualists attempt to wrap words around what they conclude is the indescribable “Oneness.” There is no bliss. No prasadam. No kirtan. No Deity. No Krishna katah. No real satisfaction. Just a lot of mind-warping muddling, meandering and maladroit malapropism. But ohh,… you can live like a slob, not pay your debts, mooch off the government, and smoke pot all day if you want to as long as you are present to the immediate now,.. now,.. now.
Those trapped in Adyashanti’s aphasia have virtually exiled themselves from even being able to consider the possibility that the Gita has a much better model for explaining the mysteries that he can only pontificate about. If one of his disciples were to consider exploring what was written in a “silly” book written a very long time ago about the god called Krishna, they would be socially excommunicated by the followers who remain enamored with their own flawless divinity.
Gita Clarity
Yet the clarity of the Gita remains unsurpassed. Krishna clearly confers that Non-dualists will have difficulty communicating. In fact he says everything they attempt to do will be very “Troublesome.”
“For those whose minds are attached to the un-manifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied. ” (Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 12 Devotional Service, Text 5)
Krishna also informs us that unlike the morose Advaita path, the Bhakti path is very satisfying and blissful.
“The thoughts of My pure devotees dwell in Me, their lives are fully devoted to My service, and they derive great satisfaction and bliss from always enlightening one another and conversing about Me.” (Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 10 The Opulence of the Absolute, Text 9)
Adyashanti doesn’t want anyone to notice how much his disciples are struggling to understand what he says or how gloomy they are. Many of his followers no-doubt go home telling themselves that their investment in his psycho-babble was worth it. We can only wonder how many of his followers even stop to consider that they are victims of the intended “Confirmation Bias” which is the payoff for all the advertising tricks we have already identified.
“One of the important mechanisms of advertising is to insert an evaluative hypothesis into the mind of the perceiver (e.g., the car handles exceptionally well). Or: (Adyashanti is a qualified teacher I can trust). If the potential consumer entertains the hypothesis he or she is more likely to confirm it in a subsequent test drive of the car as compared to those not exposed to the ad (and the hypothesis). So confirmatory bias works in prospect as well as retrospect. Of course, confirmatory bias can lead to sub-optimal decision-making.” (James Fisher, Marketing Consultant and teacher at John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University)
There is nothing mystical or spiritual about any of this. Adya’s followers are classical victims of “Sub-Optional Decision Making.” I.e. : They are so determined to have a happy outcome after investing in his Advaita-follies performance that it is beyond their ability to grasp the possibility that he may just be a fast-talking pseudo-Zen con man.
End Chapter 3: Exposing Adyashanti’s Ruse – Let’s Get Serious