When 'non-dual' awakening teachers mislead seekers by omitting hidden costs
An ethical void in the new-age enlightenment movement demands a reckoning.
“I sometimes wonder whether this awakening game would be so popular if people really knew what it entails. Do folks realize they will lose everything…?” - A prominent ‘non-dual’ ‘awakening’ guide
Selling Enlightenment Without Disclosure of the Hidden costs is Dangerously Misleading
This pattern is the norm, not the exception among those promoting, teaching, and marketing “liberation via self-negation” - it’s led to widespread harm and it’s time for teachers to take accountability.
As an example of this disturbingly reckless practice comes from within neo-advaita and the ‘direct path’ movement - in specific, an telling admission from a prominent teacher who sells ‘non-dual’ awakening courses on his website that most people who seek out these self-negating awakening paths do not know what they’re getting themselves into, and likely wouldn’t choose to if they knew the gravity of the hidden costs/what they stand to lose.
“I sometimes wonder whether this awakening game would be so popular if people really knew what it entails. Do folks realize they will lose everything…?”
As I see it, such a statement is akin to a doctor writing in their blog on the website where they extol the benefits of a supposed panacea, such as an antidepressant or wellness regimen (and advertise paid facilitation for it)—that they doubt as many people would take the treatment if they fully understood the gravity of the side effects. Of course, if a doctor promoted a treatment without consistently disclosing the risks, we’d call that unethical. Yet, in the realm of self-negating ‘nondual’ awakening/instant enlightenment teachings, this failure of consistent disclose goes unchecked.
Increasing widespread reports of devastating, unexpected effects from following decontextualized Eastern teachings to dissolve their sense of self for the promise of ending suffering, make this lack of transparency extremely concerning. These methods of abruptly altering one’s sense of self/reality are indiscriminately promoted to vulnerable individuals without proper warnings, the consequences are often dire. Given the sheer volume of people exposed to such teachings, there must be a reckoning among those who position themselves as guides. Like doctors, these guides claim to offer relief from suffering. However, the “cure” they promote—enlightenment—is regularly advertised as a one-size-fits-all solution while over-glorifying panacea-like benefits while omitting or downplaying the gravity of what people stand to lose, and the adverse effects.
What’s Missing: Ethical Disclosure and Compassionate Car
Notice what did not accompany this teacher’s flippant acknowledgement that people are regularly misled by the promises of enlightenment— an ethical, compassionate response to having discovered this phenomenon. An ethical response would be calling on guides to make sure people are not misled, refraining from over-glorifying the benefits, and consistently disclosing the costs/risks in a non-pressuring, non-judgmental manner. A compassionate response would be the desire to help ensure that individuals they’re guiding understand the full gravity of what, as he says, they will lose - the hidden costs.
Instead, the prevailing attitude among ‘non-dual’ awakening guides is regularly derogatory, dismissive, and often downright callous. What I’ve seen time and again is that when individuals express regret, or struggle after adopting these teachings, is that they’re labeled as things like “not ready” or weak in someway, oft-repeating the line that “this path isn’t for feint of heart.” I’ve found many guide’s allegiance to their ideology, and often what I’d describe as proselytizing takes precedence over a genuine concern for the well-being of their students.
The ‘Direct’ Path: Danger in Omitting Preparation
A particular conflict arises with teachers of so-called “direct paths” (known within the traditions they originate it as the most advanced and risky/dangerous) who promote their methods as requiring no preparation. While this may sound appealing, it bypasses critical considerations of safety. Even if the view is that people don’t need any sort of prerequesites such as prior experience with things like meditation, or cultivating a regulated state of mind, etc. students ought to be prepared for the fall-out.
I once raised concerns about this issue in a reply to the above teacher’s blog post, only to see my comment deleted. Rather than addressing these valid concerns, the teacher’s platform continued to emphasize predominantly utopian outcomes—unshakable peace, causeless joy, boundless serenity—without giving proper weight to the risks involved.
It’s one thing to be unaware that people don’t understand the gravity of the path you’re promoting. It’s another to know it, acknowledge it, and yet continue to obscure the risks until it’s too late.
A Call for Accountability
While some of these guides sporadically acknowledge the risks, these disclosures are often framed as tests of strength or commitment, with messages like “How much are you willing to risk for freedom!?,” implying people should prove how badly they’re suffering by how much they’re willing to not hesitate and consider the fall-out. This rhetoric preys on the vulnerability of those in crisis, many of whom seek these teachings out of desperation for immediate relief from unbearable suffering, and as the above teacher acknowledges, often have no idea what they are getting to.
Stories of regret and immense suffering from following these teachings abound. Everything from severe disorientation, to disocciation, periods of disfunction, impaired social functioning, job loss, family issues, memory problems, etc. There are even growing accounts of people becoming suicidal and even taking their lives once they realize what they’ve lost - whether it’s all motivation, meaning, ability to smoothly functioning, relationships, etc. Many who followed these teachings report losing far more than they anticipated, in a way that devastates them and destroys their lives in an unwanted way.
As one individual shared: “I never would have pursued this if I’d known I’d lose my sense of engagement as a mom—my motivation, my interests, everything.”
A Path Forward: Learning from Other Fields
There are ethical models that can be followed for guidance. Psychedelic facilitation, for example, similarly ushers people into radically altered states of non-consensus consciousness, and disruptions to one’s familiar sense of self, and emphasizes the importance of set and setting, informed consent, preparation, and integration support. Similarly, many meditation retreat centers and guides, having reviewed budding research on adverse effects, now disclose potential adverse effects beforehand and ensure trained facilitators are on hand to assist participants.
Towards a More Ethical Approach
It’s time for a serious reckoning in the ‘non-dual’ teaching community. Promoting self-negating ‘enlightenment’ as a panacea without full disclosure of the risks is not just irresponsible—it’s unethical. Guides must take responsibility for the fallout their teachings can cause, provide clear and balanced information, and prioritize the well-being of their students above all else.
This will give folks a chance to make a fully informed choice about following radically life-altering methods, and teachings with commonly known grave risks, to thoughtfully weigh the cost/benefit ratio, and if choosing to proceed, be better prepared for the fall-out so as not to be blind-sided by unexpected losses and harmful side effects.
The Quote
This is no difference IMO than a doctor writing in his blog on the website where he glorifies the panacea-like benefits of an anti-depressant drug, vitamins, or wellbeing regimen, and advertises paid facilitation of them, that he bets as many people wouldn’t take/buy them if they had a chance to fully review and understand the gravity of the side effects. If a doctor doesn’t consistently disclose such side effects, we’d call that unethical this failure to disclose them among ND guides promoting risky spiritual teachings/reality-altering methods, it goes unchecked. Given the prevalence of people reporting unexpected troubling side effects from these teachings, the ubiquity of their indiscriminate dissemination without proper disclosure, and the massive volume of people exposed to it, there needs to be a serious reckoning among those who set themselves up as ND guides who, like doctors, promote helping people alleviate suffering, in this case a radical panacea/cure-all called ‘enlightenment.’
{sidenote: proper means BEFORE the person is ushering onto the path, given the methods for inducing the reality-altering shift that leads to the side effects, no pressure and no judgment.)
Notice what’s NOT being said - which would be the ethical, compassionate response to discovering this phenomenon: calling on guides to not over-glorify the positives and fully dislose, in a non-pressuring or judgmental way, what exactly people stand to lose, the full gravity of costs one will pay by following their ‘awakening’ teachings, to make sure that people don’t end up regretting their decision to implement the guide’s solution/suffering treatment plan, to take measures to ensure that they aren’t being misled and are fully on board and prepared for the fall-out. Instead, the message/attitude in this post echoes that of the typical self-appointed ND awakening guide, who flippantly, callously, portray people who regret going down a self-negating path out to be “not tough enough” or too “feint of heart,” rather than taking it to heart in an empathic, compassionate, caring way that makes them stop to reflect on the role they play in misleading people into not knowing what to expect and the gravity of what is at stake by going down this extreme path.
{sidenote - there’s a conflict here when one is teaching a “direct path” since they promote these teachings as having no need for preparation, touting that as a boon, but hey, how about simply being prepared, to the extent that it is possible, for the fall-out - a safety plan, etc.}
I wrote something to this effects in a reply and soon saw that it had been deleted.
And instead of doing X, even after announcing that people are following their teachings without understanding the extreme repercussions of what they lead to, they continue to advertise/promise predominantly utopian, panacea-like outcomes, over-hyping / choosing only to focus on the potentially emancipatory effects (unshakeable peace, causeless joy, boundless serenity, etc.), without proper disclosure of risks up front, perpetuating an imbalanced set of expectations of what’s likely to occur. It’s one thing if you don’t know that people don’t understand the gravity, and what they stand to lose from what you’re promoting to them, it’s another to know it, announce you know it, and continue keeping people in the dark until it’s too late.
This pattern in ND is practically a staple feature of the new-age ND teaching scene, rather than an anomaly. Guides ubiquitously will make sporadic acknowledgements of the grave sacrifices, risks, serious and dangerous adverse effects (that, to make matters hairier, are often described by them as features of the path and/or signs of progress!), the dark side etc. but ubiquitously framing these disclosures of the riskiness and pitfalls, they put it as a test of one’s strength/commitment to freedom/of how badly they’re suffering by how much they’re willing to sacrifice without second thought. It’s always the sooner the better, now, now, now. Take the leap in THIS moment. It’s depicted that those who want what’s being promised/offered will be willing to give everything for it, right now. It’s not hard to see the manipulation and exploitation in this, especially given the known level of vulnerability and immense suffering of people who are drawn to these teachings, and simultaneously who the guides advertise them to as a solution for it - i.e. people in crisis, in unbearable suffering simply wanting immediate relief.
Many don’t know that there are so many people who say they never would have followed these teachings/guides if they’d known precisely what S.B. writes in his post - the extent of what they’d have to give up/lose. E writes “I never would’ve if I knew that I’d lose my sense of engagement as a mom.” That I’d lose my motivation, interests, etc.
Last: I hope the raises awareness about a major issue in ND, and offers a sense of a more ethical, responsible, and simply caring way forward. Models to look at for ethical/safety protocols and standard of care are those of psychedelic facilitation with its close consideration of set & setting, increasing protocols for disclosing adverse effects of meditation before retreats, having professional psychological support at events, etc. etc.
Sidenote: Went for support and instead of empathy and care for my safety in a precariously unstable crisis from similar teachings, my concerns were written off, and I felt he had a greater allegiance to his dogmatic ideology than to some basic common sense principles about how to support people in ungrounded states, and genuinely caring about and the dangerous places it can take people to.