Devotion to the Unknown

I’ve begun to witness a phenomenon amongst spiritual circles here in the west. and I know I am not the only one.

It’s so easy to hold onto concepts as a solid truth in teachings, when in fact the journey takes us far beyond any conceptual understandings and experiences. What begins to happen to us- as an instrument of consciousness- far exceeds the limitations of mind.

Yet the teachings of Neo-Advaita have taken their hold here in the West, and many people are attracted to this “high and direct path to realization.” The primary core of this teaching is that there is “no self” to be realized and that you are already That. Students of Neo-Advaita teachers hear these teachings and apply their intellectual understandings to them and imagine what “no-self” would feel like. This is a great example of staying in the “known.” There is no devotion to the Unknown, and so they are hanging onto what they think they know. They then begin to deny their self any individuation, which may lead to dysfunction and disempowerment.

The examples that I have seen also lead to a kind of dried-up despondency. People stop being interested in spirituality because they are no longer inspired by the Unknown but are instead holding onto an illusion. The denial of self and journey may lead to repression which causes all kinds of weird things to happen.

Many years ago Adya told me that he could see I had completely lost my personal self. I found that interesting but because I can’t hold onto anything (due to no personal self), I continued on. I forgot about it. I did not make it into a teaching (that I can remember). After a number of years I had a conversation with another teacher whom I respected, and she talked about her loss of self. I tried to grapple with that and apply my own experience to it, and for a very short time I believed that a loss of self was some sort of landmark on the journey. Thankfully Amma kept me on track, and I let that concept go.

Now this concept has become widely accepted as an achievement of sorts. I just had a conversation with a few knowledgeable people about this. I have been concerned about this as I am seeing more and more people get confused and misled. We all agreed that this is an issue. But it is not my job to talk people out of their beliefs. My job is to keep evolving myself, and to see where this goes.

My first awakening in my 20’s was a huge shift in identity from the separate self into an impersonal Cosmic Self. It was an enormous shift that catapulted me into spiritual bliss and inspiration. But it was only the beginning. These shifts kept happening over the decades, but they were always the same; separate self into Cosmic Self. One aspect of separation was shifted from that identity into the impersonal aspect of Self. There was never ever a time that Self was not present. Ever.

What has kept this occurring over and over again is my devotion to Cosmic Self, as the great Unknown. I give myself to the Unknown again and again. I am never ever trying to project some kind of spiritual teaching onto it- because that would be the known. If we apply the known to the Unknown, we will stay in the known- we will not be able to get beyond the self that knows.

People that claim no self are staying in the known. And because they are doing this, they are not able to access the deep energetic principle that brings about radical transformation. They are not able to get beyond themselves. We need to get beyond everything we know from our past to keep accessing this principle. This is the energy we want to access- as it is the means to go into the Unknown, as the unknowable.