Neo-Spirituality & Non-Duality - Why it doesn't help

[Ramasta9]

Hey All, dear reflections, or illusions... whatever floats thy boat... Lets be real here? I wish to share something I feel is important.

I have been on and off the online world for many years now, often due to change of lifestyle, but other times due to how twisted and distorted the online spiritual and non-dual community has become, like a bunch of overgrown weeds entangled in their own mess, no offense, but we need to do some spiritual gardening.

I see people on the path who are waking up, or may have been for some time, but often are struggling to ground and integrate and stabilize the energy into form, into a practice, into a balance of discipline and flow, so they seek help online, which often is met by very ungrounded energies, otherworldly and non-supportive responses, that only speak in 'absolutes', especially the neo-non-dualists, and especially on these types of forums.

What people need is something tangible, something they can touch, feel, taste, smell and connect to, like a tree, or an animal, something more "alive" than these non-dualist/neo-spiritual purely conceptual responses of 'absolutes', to assist in the stabilization of the enlightened~energy, into the earth, into the (human experience), into the form(yes illusion, we know), because this is simply the dance we are playing right now, so why deny it altogether? At the end of the day, even the illusion is (part-of) the Truth, otherwise why not be silent altogether, why are you online on these forums at all?

You are partaking in the dance shouting: "there is no dance", the life of the party you are !

Now lets get down to the main issues. Here are some of the things I have been observing and seeing.

The Main Problems in Modern Neo-Spirituality / Non-Duality

Mental Awakening Without Embodiment

People talk about oneness, emptiness, or "no-self", but their body, emotions, and relationships remain untouched. Awakening becomes an "idea" instead of a lived truth. Core issue: Mental realization without somatic integration. Result: dissociation dressed as enlightenment, subtle validation-seeking, and reactivity.

Spiritual Bypass & Emotional Evasion

Philosophy becomes a shield against pain, trauma, or personal responsibility. Instead of meeting grief, fear, or conflict, one declares, "Who is there to feel it?" Core issue: Using emptiness to avoid Embodiment. Result: Emotional numbness, loss of empathy, and disconnection from real tenderness.

Ego Rebranding as "No One"

The ego doesn’t die; it dresses itself in void-talk: "I am no one, and I see that." Subtly, pride, superiority, and defensiveness remain.
Core issue: identification with the role of "the awakened one." Result: Spiritual arrogance, hierarchy, and inability to self-reflect.

Disembodiment & Aversion to the Human Story

True awakening roots deeply in body, relationships, and sensation. Many modern teachings ignore these, seeing humanity, individuality, and emotion as obstacles rather than expressions of consciousness. Core issue: Avoidance of lived human experience. Result: abstract, cold, and alienated realization.

Parrot Syndrome & Language Loops

Teachings are repeated without direct understanding. Phrases like "there is no self" are mimicked endlessly, echo chambers form, and language collapses communication. Core issue: Borrowed wisdom without integration. Result: shallow realization, circular arguments, and disconnection from others.

Loss of Love, Heart, and Relationship

Modern non-duality often sidelines compassion, intimacy, and humility, reducing reality to a flat, impersonal awareness.
Core issue: Heartlessness in practice. Result: Truth becomes a blade; realization remains abstract.

Commercialization & Loss of Lineage

Spirituality is packaged, branded, and sold, often disconnected from ethics, guidance, and disciplined practice.
Core issue: Profit-driven or ungrounded spiritual practice. Result: shallow realizations, psychological imbalance, and spiritual materialism.

Devaluing the Relative World

The absolute is pursued at the expense of form, relationships, creativity, and ethics. When the world is dismissed as a "dream," compassion dies. Core issue: splitting Absolute from Relative. Result: nihilism, alienation, and superiority complexes.

Hyper-Identification With Emptiness

Some reduce all experience to "illusion" or "projection", deny relational reality, or display defensive superiority as detachment.
Core issue: Rigid conceptual reduction of life. Result: coldness, conceptual arrogance, and communication collapse.

And so… such responses and conversations online often have no true ground, no place where realization has truly landed in being. We’ve all heard these things before. They often don’t help because they are ungrounded; they simply won’t land, as the teachers themselves haven’t landed back on earth. 

If you want something to land in the hearts of souls, you must first have stabilized and grounded what you are preaching. It must be in your very bones and essence, not just a mental realization or borrowed wisdom from what you heard or read online. The mind thinks it knows, yet understanding remains a mystery.

The middle way is about integrating your humanity, being a friend who can relate, and offering support to all. Responses that only "perform" rather than "converse" come from void consciousness, where emptiness denies compassion. True teaching arises from embodied awareness, where emptiness and compassion coexist.

Yes, ontologically, it is correct: there is no separate self; the world is an illusion. Yet existentially, it can be distorted if it ignores the lived reality of experience.

If you truly want to help someone, put your hands, feet, and head on the ground first, remember the earth on which you stand.

Real spirituality is not about transcending humanity; it is about sanctifying it. Awakening is not an escape from form; it is intimacy with form so complete that separation dissolves naturally. Enlightenment is about all-inclusiveness: you include the mosquito in your meditation, not try to meditate it away.

Real Awakening flowers through the heart, not just the mind. When love and emptiness meet, truth finally breathes.

And when emptiness flowers into love, the world is realized as the beloved.

 

 

Edited 16 hours ago by Ramasta9

[Joshe]

Hey look - actual wisdom! Nice post. It will mostly fall on deaf ears. Lol. 

These unhealthy relationships to reality you speak of are stubborn coping mechanisms that can’t be reasoned out of without sufficient courage and openness. The older we grow, the harder it becomes for us to accept that we’ve been clinging to delusion, which formed and persisted because we desperately needed it to cope with our reality. To accept this requires extraordinary courage and maybe even more demanding, depth of insight. 

Even if not well received with this community, it’s a much needed message in general. Thanks for taking the time. 

Edited 16 hours ago by Joshe

[Ramasta9]

Thank you @Joshe I agree, it is my pleasure and service. It is the hearts expression that plant the seeds that eventually change the world.

May we all find greater union, peace and love within ourselves, and may we carry it through our examples, not only our words 🙏

[Malkom]

That's all true. I also noticed one more thing. Many people talk about "emptiness" or "non-duality" or "nothingness"... Forgetting the most important aspect—they don't know Love. Although I personally am extremely skeptical when someone talks about love in spiritual movements, because they are too primitive, there is a grain of truth, albeit only vaguely.

[Malkom]

And they talk about "emptiness" and that everything is empty, as if they're experiencing derealization and depersonalization, which is a mentally unhealthy topic. After all, even if you take psychedelics, it's to become healthy, if we're talking about the true purpose of psychedelics, and not to cripple yourself. 

A digression. Emptiness in the context of Nonduality is Potential, Limitless Potential, without content, as if pregnant with existence. This is not emptiness in the conventional understanding of the mind.

[Salvijus]

Those are all good points but reason doesn't work on those who are stuck into those nonduality traps. They aren't intellectually honest enough to listen to any of your reasoning, nor do they have good reasoning to begin with often. That's why they are stuck there to begin with. They need an exorcism, if you ask me, lol. You have to bypass their mind and go straight into their hearts with your energy. That's the language of love. And love is the ultimate authority. They will either won't be able to be in love's presence and will run away, or they will convert. Both are fine. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Salvijus

[Ramasta9]

4 hours ago, Salvijus said:

Those are all good points but reason doesn't work on those who are stuck into those nonduality traps. They aren't intellectually honest enough to listen to any of your reasoning, nor do they have good reasoning to begin with often. That's why they are stuck there to begin with. They need an exorcism, if you ask me, lol. You have to bypass their mind and go straight into their hearts with your energy. That's the language of love. And love is the ultimate authority. They will either won't be able to be in love's presence and will run away, or they will convert. Both are fine. 

Well said. I have noticed this, and its far more challenging to reach them through an online platform, but in presence, yes, they either run away or tears come, they release, they embrace, the aliveness of nature and of life itself. I seen a few transformations in person and its one of the most beautiful things to witness. While online its often an endless back and forth, cause the energy is not there to be felt. The return to earth, here and now.

[Ninja_pig]

Yes! Spirituality is about embracing every aspect of the human experience. We can't be trying to throw out things that are distasteful to our own philosophies. We must live in the present, in the real world. Spirituality is about connecting to who we are, not deprecating our humanity.

A master will be aware of every emotion and every mental happening and love it. They will enjoy the ride. They will dance to the symphony of life.

[Someone here]

9 hours ago, Ramasta9 said:

otherwise why not be silent altogether, why are you online on these forums at all?

Actually I'm thinking of taking on a vow of silence and just disappear in some dark room doing for extended  periods of time . There is infinite joy in sitting alone in silence if your other basic needs are met and you won't feel bored by sitting alone. 

What I have come to realize is that I'm getting lost in conceptual maze. Looking and searching and trying to crack my head over impossible existential questions.  But why should I do that ? What's the point ?to what avail? Why not just sit alone in a cozy cushion until I disappear into deep sleep and nirvana where everything is perfect and nothing is lacking  and the questions disappear?

[Malkom]

@Someone here

17 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Actually I'm thinking of taking on a vow of silence and just disappear in some dark room doing for extended periods of time . There is infinite joy in sitting alone in silence if your other basic needs are met and you won't feel bored by sitting alone.

What I have come to realize is that I'm getting lost in conceptual maze. Looking and searching and trying to crack my head over impossible existential questions. But why should I do that ? What's the point ?to what avail? Why not just sit alone in a cozy cushion until I disappear into deep sleep and nirvana where everything is perfect and nothing is lacking and the questions disappear?

Being alone. Reminded me of that one guide on how to become a genius. Yeah, it's a bit clickbait, a bit of a joke. But there's some truth to it. What's the difference between a genius and you or me, for example? A genius has less junk in their head. Imagine, metaphorically, that your mind is a room, and in it, an orchestra is playing, a rock band is playing, in another, people are chatting, in a third, they're sorting things out, and somewhere... somewhere, a little mouse is squealing, but you won't hear it—that mouse is a bright idea. The point is, don't beat your head against a problem or question (which usually happens to some people), but simplify it and solve it or find an answer (simplify without sacrificing meaning, don't oversimplify). You just need to get rid of the information junk. If some nonsense comes into your head, just... POOF.

[Dodo]

@Ramasta9 you have to specify where AI was used in your reply as per forum rules

[Dodo]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Actually I'm thinking of taking on a vow of silence and just disappear in some dark room doing for extended  periods of time . There is infinite joy in sitting alone in silence if your other basic needs are met and you won't feel bored by sitting alone. 

What I have come to realize is that I'm getting lost in conceptual maze. Looking and searching and trying to crack my head over impossible existential questions.  But why should I do that ? What's the point ?to what avail? Why not just sit alone in a cozy cushion until I disappear into deep sleep and nirvana where everything is perfect and nothing is lacking  and the questions disappear?

What if you miss Someone here 🤔 what if God loves Someone here

[Someone here]

@Dodo hi old friend. How is life recently? 

[Dodo]

2 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Dodo hi old friend. How is life recently? 

Life situation? Crap. Thats what makes me work more on noticing the knowing within which the pain and crap arises, so spiritual-wise im doing better than ever. 

My body is bound by injuries yet consciousness is free as ever.

[Someone here]

4 hours ago, Dodo said:

Life situation? Crap. Thats what makes me work more on noticing the knowing within which the pain and crap arises, so spiritual-wise im doing better than ever. 

My body is bound by injuries yet consciousness is free as ever.

You're basically saying your body is going through hell but the immaterial metaphysical Cosciousness that is observing the body is untouched?  Aren't you creating a duality between Consciousness and body ? I hear Robert Adams making the same mistake by saying you are the screen not the movie .you Are both the screen and the movie .you are both Consciousness and body . So please seek help if you need some on the practical level . Don't fall into spiritual bypassing trap .

 

[Dodo]

1 minute ago, Someone here said:

You're basically saying your body is going through hell but the immaterial metaphysical Cosciousness that is observing the body is untouched?  Aren't you creating a duality between Consciousness and body ? I hear Robert Adams making the same mistake by saying you are the screen not the movie .you Are both the screen and the movie .you are both Consciousness and body . So please seek help if you need some on the practical level . Don't fall into spiritual bypassing trap .

 

I received quite a lot of help naturally, i recently got discharged from hospital... can barely walk, but getting along. This metaphor with screen and movie is perfect.

Things happen way outside of the human control, have to just let it be. I could've easily died, but going through the pain of recovery instead. I'm not trying to make a story out of it, but noticing the screen out of which even this is made, so that I am not creating any mental suffering. 

Using the pain as base metal that I turn into gold (pain into consciousness/knowing) as Eckhart Tolle put it once, if I am not mistaken.