Jeff Brown and Gavriel Strauss discuss "spiritual bypassing" and "the demonised ego"...

What do you folks think? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHIhBzpBkbU

So are they saying nirvana is bad, and they've found the one true way for all humanity to follow ?

Why are they calling unity consciousness faux unity consciousness ? Surely it's defined by how it's experienced, and if it's experienced as unity then that's enough - whether it fits in with someone's global political vision or not ?

It seems a bit like saying that hunger is a faux hunger if it's not a hunger for organic lettuce grown in a workers coop. Nothing wrong with organic lettuce grown in worker's coop - in fact it would be my preferred choice, but I wouldn't say hunger was fake just because of the politics of sating it.  I also wouldn't expect someone who knows nothing of pesticides or worker's rights to take that preferred choice.

What it sounds like is claiming spiritual experience in support of a partisan political world view - in this case feminist eco-spirituality, whereas for others it might be one of the old religions such as Islam, or shamanism, or capitalism - or whatever people find themselves converting to.

Maybe in the future people will be saying - "well, the unity that those feminist eco-spiritualists sold us was a faux unity, merely a dissociation from"... [insert favourite political philosophy here].

No ?

[sorry about late edits]

Yes, I think they are, rather arrogantly, saying that they know how everyone else should live. And Nirvana is akin to a drug. 

And I quite agree with you that it is enough. 

I'll say more when I have time. Thanks for your response Stickman3.

Much love
​​​​​​​Elizabeth 

Ah thanks. I think it's fair to say that gurus are fallible though, and are people of their time and culture, and culture is moving on and leaving a lot of people behind. So there will be clashes and emotional contests in all that. We live in baffling times in which people in a space station can look down on jungles in which other people live in the stone age, and everything in between. You've got hundreds of social models to choose from yet only one real life to lead. Who's not going to be confused ?

I think also the guys in the video have at least given it all some serious thought and probably have some useful observations.

Looking at his thing here I can see where he's coming from. I never fancied following people who change their names to something Indian, or put on different dress - always seemed like a cultural transformation as much as a spiritual one, and asking for a cultural clash. Jeans and T-shirt and being called Dave or Mary  is fine. But Dave, Mary, jeans - they all can signify their own cultural viewpoints and prejudices, in the end it starts to looks quite arbitrary what people wear and call themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBEtgaai4Y4&t=52s

Do these guys have a kind of primitivist viewpoint in which we left behind our natural integrated enlightenment millenia ago, or loss of some sort of matriarchy ? They do seem to talk as if we're a fallen species that needs redemption in order to bring about a healed world in which righteousness is restored, which sounds a bit messianic, so when they talk about honouring our stories I'm wondering if the underlying story being honoured is basically the biblical one, with added therapy ?

....from The Cloud of Unknowing, 14th century christian mysticism.... not the first time this bone has been chewed :-)

HERE BEGINNETH THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
How that yet unto this day all actives complain of contemplatives as Martha did of Mary. Of the which complaining ignorance is the cause.AND right as Martha complained then on Mary her sister, right so yet unto this day all actives complain of contemplatives.

...and then....

HERE BEGINNETH THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER
A short excusation of him that made this book teaching how all contemplatives should have all actives fully excused of their complaining words and deeds.

:-)

Hi Stickman3,

When I read your post, I immediately thought of the supposed interplay between the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine. I first read about it in one of David Deida's books. Can't be bothered looking through my bookshelves at the moment, but I did manage to find this:

http://www.thessasophia.com/masculine-feminine-and-the-unification-of-emptiness-and-form/

Much love
​​​​​​​Elizabeth 

Well thanks. I would be interested to know what you feel about DhO being mostly male. And, for that matter, all the founders of religions being male - buddhism included. Was that just a sign of the times of when the religions started - did the divine only pop up for men, or did men just monopolise the quill and the parchment ? Did it take a man to get a message across in those tough times, or is it just that men need their egos moderating the most ? What's going on with all that ?

Hi Stickman3,
I did not know that DhO is mostly male, but it doesn't really surprise me as contemplative practice seems to be something that men are more interested in. Women tend to want to move around in their bodies and experience Life. Maybe it is because we produce Life from our bodies. We are also, maybe (or I might be talking shit), more likely to deliberately "save" or "reconstitute" our egos after a Non-Dual Awakening. 
I think men just monopolised the quill and the parchment. Cro magnon religions were all about "The Mother of All Life" as is evidenced by the figurines left behind.
Women looked after the children and the home. They did not need to know how to read and write. Only the very wealthy educated their daughters in literacy and numeracy. History was written by men, for men, about men. 
I don't think men need their egos moderating "the most". There was a time, not so long ago, where they thought they were superior to women and would not even allow them to vote. But, in any event, the contents of ego are not really relevant to contemplative practice. It's ALL just Consciousness "playing roles" - although not to Jeff Brown. Don't get me wrong, I think "Enlightened egos" are a drag - "Gurus" piss me off the most. And most of them are, I hate to say it, men. But expressions of the Divine Masculine are no better or worse than expressions of the Divine Feminine.  
Much love
Elizabeth 

Well, it seems mostly male, and it might be a good thing - I don't know, I hesitate to delve...
People read an awful lot into those figurines, but there's a lot of variation in them, and many possible interpretations.
But I can't think of any female historians of the ancient world, whereas a few men spring to mind (Josephus, Herodotus, Strabo, all of the Bible writers - we know that's had multiple hatchet jobs done on it. Probably most of the Buddhist texts are written by men, though I wouldn't really know). Quite a few Christian mystical texts have been by women.
thank you,
Stickman3

Thinking about Brown's frustration with Ram Dass, do we know if Ram Dass (or any of the other's in the firing line) was neurotypical or not ? That is, what if what is being called spiritual bypassing isn't some sort of moral cowardice in failing to face emotions and be a proper person, but rather a reflection of a personality that doesn't deal with emotions in a typical way - and never will? If advanced practice brings a marked reduction in emotionality I can see how that might be confused with an unemotional baseline personality. I can also see how a guru might deny the validty of disciple's emotions and set out a rigid routine of a path, if they (skirting round the issue of ever-changing appropriate phrasing) are not neurotypical, let's say.
I can also see how buddhist texts, written by monastics retreating from the world into a parallel world of strict behavioural codes and predictable routines, might wind up being long lists of things - the ten this, the 15 categories of that... etc.

Hi Stickman3,
Yes, I agree that we cannot tell much from the figurines. I am an avid reader of the Earth Children series by Jean M. Aule and she did an awful lot of research into those books. But, on the other hand, they are fiction. Maybe her, and my, imagination got carried away. I'm no expert, so I cannot comment further.
The Christian mystical texts written by women did not, unsurprisingly, make it into the Bible, thanks to the Romans in 331 AD. I have no time for the New Testament or Christianity. It makes no sense. 
Thanks for your comments 
Much love
Elizabeth 

Hi again Stickman3,
Maybe Ram Dass fried his brain by taking too many drugs? LOL. 
I think that Brown isn't just talking about bypassing negative emotions. His method is designed to fully embody the BODY and BE a PERSON, with everything that entails. I don't know whether that is a backward step or not. I still haven't decided. There is certainly acting as a person going on here. And the attachment to thoughts comes and goes which doesn't bother me. I know what Non-Duality is through direct experience. I just don't quite know yet what it is not, if that makes sense.
When there is emotional distress here, it is sometimes obvious that it is simply another PLAY of THE DIVINE. I don't think it's necessarily "bypassing" to take that attitude because it is TRUTH. The ULTIMATE or ABSOLUTE TRUTH is NOT-TWO. "Body/minds" is DUALITY, which is only Relative Truth. 
Much love
Elizabeth 

I don't know if that's absolute truth or not, or really what our man Brown is talking about. I suspect not many people do. You know there's this deliberate and laboured way of talking people sometimes adopt when they feel the world doesn't understand something vital that it needs to really know, and should reorder itself accordingly, but it refuses to. Heard it in the video. I thought the body work stuff sounded interesting though.

I understand what Brown is talking about because I am a member of his Facebook group "Grounded Spirituality". I thought the bodywork sounded interesting too. But Brown suggested to me in an email recently that I work with a woman in the US who does "hands-on" stuff and woo-woo shit (my words) remotely during Covid. I live in NZ. I thought "Nah, I'll have a transpersonal psychologist a few suburbs over thanks". I think Brown is a little too dogmatic and dictatorial in his views. He has some very strongly held opinions about a lot of things. It's not Either/Or. It's Both and Neither... and Beyond Both and Neither. But THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH is still NOT-TWO (ALL CONSCIOUSNESS). I KNOW that EXPERIENTIALLY. It's OBVIOUS. Thanks for your comments Stickman3.   

Much love
Elizabeth