The Greg Goode Wisdom

[Guest guest]

This was wonderful and helpful, especially as a description of the

vicissitudes of fear and bafflement that can fling us about! Thanks to Greg

for writing and Harsha for posting.

 

Often off the wall,

Holly

[Guest guest]

>From Greg Goode:

 

In my experience, the freeze and fear in some seekers come from the

understanding they have of nondualism. They see this teaching and the

notion of realization/enlightenment as some kind of super-state, to be held

onto forever. Sort of the mother of all objects. Some people, like a

friend of mine named Satya, want enlightenment so as to solve personal

problems such as relationship or career issues. Satya works in television

in a technical job, but really wants a singing career and a boyfriend. So

she began to go hear advaita teachers. I've talked to her for over a year

about this viewpoint, and once she stopped looking to improve the furniture

of her life, she stopped going to satsang and is actually happier and

actually closer to achieving those goals than I've ever seen her.

 

 

When some people hear that nondualism is not a state of mind or emotions, or

that the Peace/Bliss are not emotional or phenomenal objects that protect

the entity forever, it gets scary. There is no place to stand, which is

exactly what the teaching points to. Some seekers cannot understand the

teaching unless they understand it as a psychological state. Believing it

is a state makes some people very jittery, like a stock trader trying to

keep up with the market. But hearing that it is not a state makes it

incomprehensible and scary, insecure. So the learners revert back to the

more comfortable understanding, hoping their vigilance will maintain the

bliss forever. Hence the freeze-up.

 

 

You can't blame the seekers for this kind of approach to nondualism. Many

of the **teachers themselves** explain it just like this, even if their

rhetoric is sophisticated enough to say that it is beyond the mind, not an

object, etc. There are teachers who say that you relax into the Peace and

then always maintain vigilance to stay in the Peace, or that you must

maintain constant recognition that you are Consciousness, and then the

Ananda aspect will be yours forever. It gives the basic idea of a

problem-free psychological entity being cradled in the arms of bliss

forever. I call this the Cotton Candy or Marshmallow Fluff teaching of

non-dualism. No wonder the students vacillate!! Some people are on a

wonderful high when the satsang is in session, but they don't make it to the

parking lot before the separation anxiety sets in, feeling that they've

already lost IT.

 

 

In fact, many of the Cotton Candy advaita teachers themselves vacillate, go

through swings of mood, philosophy and teaching emphases. Several

well-known teachers who visit NYC have their own issues of romantic

relationships, money, inter-teacher rivalries (who has more followers?),

etc. You can notice from satsang to satsang if you look closely, that when

things are looking up personally for these teachers, their teaching is at

its marshmallow-y best. It's All Love, I See Myself in You as we both lock

eyes and Rest in the Vastness. And yet these same teachers might visit

again 6 months later, with money problems, or a few of their satsang

engagements canceled on them, or someone broke up with them. Their teaching

flip-flops, and instead of It's All Vastness, they teach a lot of what

amounts to improving the personality or ethical development. They will

offer unsolicited relationship advice to couples, or come late to satsang,

look depressed when they get there, and pick people out of the audience to

make personality observations about. But next time the flip will flop back

again, and it's back to transmitting the wonderful Gift that their Teacher

Transmitted to them.

 

 

It's all perfect teaching for its time and place, however. It is

wonderfully illuminating and comforting for some listeners. And when it is

no longer fulfilling or doesn't make sense, they gravitate to other

teachings/teachers.

 

Sorry so long!!

 

With love,

 

--Greg