What is Neo-Advaita?

Exoterically the word Vedanta refers to the

knowledge contained in the texts that are
at the end of each Veda. These texts are
called Upanishads. The fundamental idea
of the Upanishads is that reality is non-dual
(advaita) Awareness and that the ultimate
goal of human life is the realization of the
non-dual Self. The realization of the Self is
called moksha or liberation.

Vedanta is a Sanskrit compound. ‘Veda’

means knowledge and ‘anta’ means end.
So esoterically Vedanta is the knowledge
that ends the quest for knowledge. What is
it, the Upanishad says, that ‘knowing
which, everything is known?’ The
realization that the ‘I’ is whole and
complete actionless Awareness ends the
quest for the meaning of life because it
destroys the belief that the self is limited,
inadequate, incomplete and separate, a
notion that is commonly called duality.
Duality is a problem because it causes
people to seek lasting happiness though
the enjoyment of impermanent objects, a
quest that always ends in disappointment
and disillusionment.

A long teaching tradition has developed

over the last three thousand years based
on Upanishadic ideas. This teaching
tradition is also known as Vedanta. But to
convey the precise meaning of Vedanta the
word ‘pramana’ needs to be added. A
pramana is a means of knowledge. All
knowledge takes place with the aid of
some means. Sense objects require sense
organs to be known. The knowledge of
ideas depends on an intellect. But since
the Self is not an object, the senses and
the mind cannot know it. But Vedanta can
reveal it by using ideas and logic to remove
one’s ignorance about it, delivering direct
Self knowledge.

As Vedanta evolved over time it became a

very attractive means of knowledge as
great sages added their commentaries and
contributions to the literature. At some
point in its long history enough apparent
doctrinal differences concerning the nature
of reality appeared that Vedanta seemed to
be disintegrating into several ‘schools of
thought.’ These apparently conflicting
views do not compromise Vedanta as long
as it is taken as a means of knowledge
because the purpose of any teaching is to
remove Self ignorance. And because
different minds formulate Self ignorance
differently, an idea that may reveal the Self
to one person may not reveal it to another.
But many people who are not interested in
liberation and are not qualified for it are
nonetheless attracted to Vedanta for
intellectual reasons because it is a very
beautiful and profound body of literature.
In India these people are known as
pundits. The pundit class by and large
takes Vedanta as a philosophy and views
the emphasis on different doctrines as
‘schools of thought’ or sects. But in its
original sense advaita is not an adjective
used to modify a particular school of
Vedanta but an adjective indicating the
nature of Awareness, the Self.

Vedanta is not a philosophy or a school of

thought because it is not the contention of
an individual or a group of individuals.
Philosophies are subject to negation and
correction because they are invariably
speculations, imaginations, beliefs and
opinions of an individual or a small group of
individuals…which means they are always
subject to error or irrelevancy because they
do not serve a fundamental human need,
in this case the need be free of limitation.
Where is existentialism today? Vedanta
has thrived for several thousand years
precisely because it is not a personal
philosophy.

Vedanta is called ‘shruti.’ Shruti literally

means ‘heard.’ Its teachings are meant to
be ‘heard’ from someone who has been
freed by them and who can skillfully wield
them to help the qualified aspirant remove
his or her ignorance. But ‘shruti’ has a
more general meaning too. It means
revealed unauthored truth that has passed
the test of time. In other words the
essence of Vedanta, the teachings that
remove Self ignorance, do not change
because they effectively do what they are
intended to do. Nobody is pressing for a
new improved eye, since the eyes do all
they need to do. So in this sense Vedanta,
like the Sanskrit its mantras are formulated
in, is a perfected body of knowledge.
Nothing needs to be added to it, no timely
modifications are necessary to help it adapt
to recent times. But this has not stopped
people from making of it what they want.

In approximately the last one hundred

years Vedanta has suffered an apparent
change largely as a result of the teachings
of Vivekananda around the turn of the
twentieth century. Its basic function as a
means of Self knowledge became
confused with the doctrines of Yoga
because Vivekananda who had a profound
influence on the West’s understanding of
Vedanta (probably unintentionally) reduced
it to ‘jnana’ (knowledge) yoga, one of the
many branches of Yoga. In fact, Yoga has
traditionally been considered a subset of
Vedanta, its purpose being to aid in the
preparation of the mind to receive the
teachings of non-duality. Before Yoga
sullied the pure teachings of Vedanta
enlightenment was considered to be the
removal of ignorance about the nature of
the Self. But with the ascendancy of the
Yoga teachings enlightenment came to be
considered a ‘permanent experience of the
Self’ in contrast to the mundane
experiences of everyday life, which it
obviously can’t be if this is a non-dual
reality as the Upanishads claim. It can’t be
a permanent experience first, because
there is no such thing as a permanent
experience and second, it can’t be an
experience in a non-dual reality because
the subject object distinction necessary for
experience is missing in a non-dual reality.
If this is true then the quest for a
permanent enlightenment experience is
pointless and what is needed, as traditional
Vedanta says, is the knowledge of reality
since the craving for experience, including
the experience of the Self, is Maya, the
consequence of seeing oneself as a doer
who is separate from reality. Or to put it
another way, trying to get out of Maya
experientially is not ever going to happen
because Maya is unreal. How can one be
‘in Maya’ in the first place if Maya is only an
apparent reality? The only way out of
Maya is to see that Maya, the belief in
duality, is only in the mind and to destroy it
with the knowledge of reality. In any case,
the experiential notion of enlightenment
has been the dominant view for the last
one hundred years, although it goes back
to the Yoga sutras of Patanjali. This
Vedantic evolution has been labeled
‘modern’ Vedanta, an oxymoron if ever
there was one.

By and large the wave of ‘export gurus’ that

inundated the West in the Sixties peddled
Modern Vedanta with considerable
success. Then in the Eighties the Western
spiritual world became reacquainted with
Ramana Maharshi, a sage in the Vedic
tradition who had achieved international
recognition around the middle of the
century but who had been all but forgotten
since his death in the Fifties. Ramana was
not a traditional Vedantic sage but he
realized the non-dual nature of the Self and
taught both Vedanta and Yoga. Self
inquiry, which many Neo-Adviatins believe
to be his invention, is as old as the Vedas
itself. The rediscovery of Ramana roughly
coincided with the rise of ‘Neo-Advaita.’
Neo-Advaita is basically a ‘satsang’ based
‘movement’ that has very little in common
with either traditional Vedanta or modern
Vedanta or even its inspiration, Ramana…
except the doctrine of non-duality. Neo-
Advaita is so abstracted from its Vedantic
roots that I recently met a person who had
been ‘empowered’ to give satsang who did
not know that the word satsang was a
Sanskrit compound meaning ‘keeping the
company of reality.’ It is a typically
American hybrid, although Europe,
particularly Germany, has become its
capital. It would not be unfair to compare it
to a beautiful period house purchased by a
rich yuppie couple who had it completely
gutted and then proudly installed all the
latest modern conveniences. In the end all
that remains of the original is the lovely
advaitic façade.

Perhaps the best way to approach Neo-

Advaita is not by what it teaches as by
what it doesn’t, because taken at face
value many of the teachings are quite
reasonable although they owe more to
modern than to traditional Vedanta.
Probably the most obvious omission is the
notion of adikara, the qualifications
necessary for enlightenment. Neo-Advaita
is burdened with an understandably
democratic ethos, the idea being that
anyone who walks into a satsang off the
street can gain instant enlightenment.
Traditional Vedanta completely disagrees
with this notion and insists that a person be
discriminating, dispassionate, calm of
mind, and endowed with a ‘burning’ desire
for liberation along with other secondary
qualifications like devotion, faith,
perseverance and so on. In other words it
requires a mature adult with a one-pointed
desire to know the Self. The reason for
this insistence is based on the fact that
enlightenment takes place in the mind.
Therefore the mind must be capable of
grasping and retaining the knowledge “I am
limitless Awareness and not this body
mind.” The retention and assimilation of
this knowledge will necessarily destroy
one’s tendencies (vasanas) to seek for
happiness in the world, so the qualified
aspirant has to have come to the hard and
fast conclusion that nothing in the world
can bring lasting satisfaction before he or
she exposes his or her mind to Vedanta.
This is what Vedanta calls maturity.

To my knowledge no Neo-Advaita satsang

teacher espouses this view. The reason is
obvious: he or she would have virtually no
disciples. Neo-Advaita seems to be more
about emotionally wounded middle-class
people looking for an alternative spiritual
lifestyle, one that offers a sense of
‘community.’ The word ‘sanga’ means a
company of like minded souls. Far from
the idea of relying on the Self to supply all
one’s needs from within most satsangis
believe that enlightenment will help them
gain the worldly things that have so far
eluded them, particularly love. And it is
clear from the behavior of most of the
teachers of Neo-Advaita who have ‘got it’
that their Self knowledge has in no way
diminished their lust for fame, wealth,
power and pleasure.

Traditional Vedanta does not reject any

person who is sincerely trying to solve the
existential riddle. So, if a person has a
strong desire for liberation he or she might
wish to develop the qualifications. The
lifestyle that prepares the mind is called
‘sadhana,’ the ‘means of attainment’ in
Vedic culture. Yoga is a traditional
Vedantic sadhana because its disciplines
prepare the mind for enlightenment. Even
modern Vedanta, with its emphasis on
Karma, Bhakti, Jnana and Raja Yoga, is
sadhana based. Yogas are by definition
sadhanas made for doers. Sadhana is
evolutionary because the mind is a very
conservative instrument and much
extroverted by the pressure of the
vasanas. So progress is incremental. It is
not uncommon that many years are
required to produce a clear, quiet balanced
mind…depending on the nature of the
vasana load.

Neo-Advaita does not endorse sadhana.

Again, the reason is obvious. Most who
are attracted to Neo-Advaita are children of
the modern age looking for instant
gratification. Hard work is out of the
question. The idea promoted by the
teachers of Neo-Advaita is that at any
moment you can ‘wake up’ and ‘get it.’ All
you have to do is ‘surrender’ and pay
attention. If you don’t get it today you can
come to the next satang and maybe you
will hit the jackpot tomorrow. A second
argument against sadhana is that it
strengthens one’s sense of doership. It is
true that, lacking the right understanding,
one can develop a sense of spiritual
doership to replace one’s sense of worldly
doership. But this idea is promoted in the
Neo-Advaita scene to make it easier to
attract followers, not for a legitimate
spiritual reason.

It would be impossible to underestimate the

importance of Karma Yoga in the Vedic
tradition. In fact the Bhagavad Gita, which
has the status of an Upanishad as a
scripture on liberation, devotes many
verses to the practice. Karma Yoga is an
attitude that one takes with respect to one’s
actions and the results of one’s actions. It
is based on the understanding that a
person has every right to act in this world
with the idea of getting a certain result but
that the result is not under the control of
the doer of the action. The result is a
consequence of the appropriateness and
timeliness of the action and the nature of
the field in which the action happens. In
religious terms it is up to the ‘grace of
God.’ Or, in New Age terms, ‘the
universe.’ Because the results of one’s
actions are not up to the doer, whatever
result, positive or negative, comes should
be gladly accepted as a ‘gift’ from God.
Because it is the identification of the doer
with the action and its result that produces
binding vasanas, the Karma Yoga attitude
reduces the vasana load and eventually
causes the attention to turn inward and
meditate on the Self. A mind that has
operated with the Karma Yoga
understanding for a long time becomes
peaceful, pure, and rock solid. It takes
pleasure in itself and is indifferent to the
temporary joys that come from the senses
and their objects. A mind prepared by
Karma Yoga is ideally suited to receive and
assimilate the teachings of Vedanta.

Most Modern Vedanta teachers teach a

perverted self-serving version of Karma
Yoga that has no basis in the Vedanta
scriptures. According to them Karma Yoga
is ‘selfless service.’ It is under the guise of
this doctrine that ashrams, religions and
spiritual movements of all sorts exploit the
labor of unsuspecting seekers to build their
satsangs and institutions. On the wall of
the kitchen of a large ashram of one of the
Eighties richest and most famous export
gurus was a sign reading. “One hour of
washing dishes burns up one lifetime of
karma.”

Karma Yoga is not taught in the Neo-

Advaita world because its teachers define
enlightenment in terms of an experience of
the Self that comes ‘by Grace’ or as a
result of ‘transmission’ from a guru,
experiences that do not require a prepared
mind. And it is also not taught because it
requires patience and diligence, qualities
not in evidence in people seeking instant
enlightenment. Karma Yoga requires
continuous monitoring of one’s motivations
and reactions to events and the willingness
to change one’s attitude when observation
reveals it to be vasana producing. It
requires great awareness and diligence
because the vasanas continually divert
one’s attention away from Self
observation. And, as is the case with any
spiritual practices, change is incremental
and gradual.
The Neo-Advaita movement owes a
considerable debt of gratitude to the
teachings of Bhagawan Rajneesh who
rechristened himself as Osho when his bad
karma became unbearable. Rajneesh
perverted the tantric concept that the
essence of every experience is
Awareness. Tantra is a very broad
concept that applies to every conceivable
kind of experience and insists that its
practitioners enjoy the same qualifications
as those practicing Vedanta sadhana. But
Rajneesh focused his attention on the
sexual aspect, not that much focusing was
required, and opened wide the gates of
tantra to tens of thousands of immature
disaffected Western hedonists with his
brilliant concept ‘Zorba the Buddha.’ Zorba
the Greek was the literary creation of a
Greek writer Nikas Kazanzaksis. Zorba
was not a bad guy but was he emotional!
He was the original party animal: lusty and
enthusiastic in his pursuit of pleasure. As
is well known the Buddha was a holy
ascetic. By wedding the two ideas he
provided a clever ‘spiritual’ justification for
the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure in the
name of spiritual growth. Wags not unfairly
called his sadhana the ‘fuck your way to
God’ path. I was once told in all
seriousness by a devotee that Osho ‘’gave
us permission to do what society forbids us
to do.” When he died thousands of his
disciples gravitated to a relatively unknown
guru, HWL Poonja aka Papaji, who was
considerably more Vedic in his orientation
and taught enlightenment as an experience
of non-duality. A number of them ‘woke up’
and began what is now called Neo-
Advaita. It seems the only practice
encouraged by Neo-Advaita teachers is
satsang and ‘the celebration of life’ which
dovetails with the mindless hippie
philosophy that so many Neo-Adviatins
adhere to: if it feels good, do it.

In contrast, traditional Vedanta and modern

Vedanta are firmly rooted in the primary
spiritual idea of the Vedic age: yagna. A
yagna is a sacrifice. The members of a
community bring offerings, a small portion
of which are symbolically offered into the
sacrificial fire. The remainder of the yagna
is distributed to the less fortunate members
of the community. Sacrifice plays a central
role in Vedanta sadhana, the idea being
that as far as the ego and its desires are
concerned you cannot have your cake and
eat it too. The vasanas that extrovert the
mind need to be sacrificed for the sake of a
quiet mind, one capable of meditating on
the Self, reflecting on the non-dual
teachings and assimilating the
knowledge.

Traditional Vedanta deals with the vasanas

by insisting that the seeker practice Vedika
Dharma. Vedika Dharmas are the rules of
conduct set out in the karmic portion of the
Vedas that govern all aspect of human
behavior. Following Vedika Dharma is
considered a sacred duty. Indian society
today is closely tied to its Vedic roots and
is a duty orientated society. Modern
Vedanta adheres to Vedika Dharma and
the Yogic idea of vasana exhaustion
through the practice of samadhi, surrender
to God, and other practices. When a
person takes a duty-oriented approach to
life the vasanas produced are non-binding
and therefore are not an impediment to
Self realization. When a person practices
karma yoga and surrender to God the
binding vasanas are neutralized. But when
neither of these ideas are operating and
there are no teachings concerning the
relationship between the pursuit of ‘kamya
karmas,’ desire-prompted activities, and
the production of binding vasanas is it any
wonder that whatever non-dual
experiences are acquired in satsang
quickly vanish with the appearance of the
next binding vasana? This is why the Neo-
Advaita world is little more than thousands
of people, including the teachers, who have
had scores of non-dual experiences but
who at the end of the day are still prisoners
of their vasanas.

Ramana Maharshi, who had a profound

experience of the Self at the tender age of
seventeen, understood the wisdom of
sadhana in so far as he sat in meditation
on the Self in caves for twenty years after
he was ‘awakened.’ Had he been a Neo-
Advaitin he would have immediately
advertised satsang and begun instantly
enlightening devotees. But he had the
wisdom to understand that his epiphany
was not the end of it. Had it been he could
have returned home, ate this mother’s
iddlies and played cricket like any normal
seventeen year old Tamil. But in line with
the traditional teachings of Shankara he
‘practiced knowledge’ until such time as all
the vasanas were reduced to ashes in the
fire of Self knowledge (jnanam).
Another essential component of any valid
spiritual path Vedic or otherwise is bhakti,
devotion to God or the Self. Ramana, the
shining icon of the Neo-Advaitins, gave
devotion to God equal status with Self
inquiry as a spiritual path because devotion
to God functions in the same way as
Karma Yoga; it exhausts vasanas by
breaking down the concept of doership.
“Not my will, but thine.” It also teaches that
God, not the ego, is the dispenser of the
fruits of one’s actions. But Neo-Advaita
sees devotion to God as ‘duality’ and has
nothing to do with it. This shunning of the
devotional aspect of life is based on
ignorance of the value of devotion as one
of the primary requirements for Self
realization. In fact ‘dvaita’ works just as
well as ‘advaita’ in preparing the mind for
Self realization because the Self functions
through one’s chosen symbol to bring the
necessary qualities into full flower.

Some schools of Neo-Advaita subscribe to

the notion that enlightenment can be
transmitted in some subtle experiential way
via the physical proximity of a master.
Traditional Advaita disagrees with this view
for the reason that ignorance is deeply
entrenched in the aspirant’s thinking and
that it is only by deep refection on the
teachings that the ultimate assimilation of
the knowledge is achieved. This
assimilation is often called ‘full’ or
‘complete’ enlightenment. The
‘transmission’ fantasy fits nicely into the
Neo-Advaitic conception of easy
enlightenment as it does away with the
need for serious sadhana. One need do
nothing more that sit in the presence of a
master and presto-chango!...one wakes up
for good. If this were true, however, the
tens of thousands who sit at the feet of
enlightened masters everywhere would be
enlightened.

Another half-baked idea that has gained

currency in the Neo-Advaita world is the
notion of ‘awakening.’ While sleep and
waking are reasonable metaphors to
describe the states of Self ignorance and
Self knowledge, Neo-Advaita assigns to
them an experiential meaning that it not
justified. Just as anything that lives, dies,
anything that wakes, sleeps. The Self
never sleep or awakens. This ‘waking up’
and ‘going back to sleep’…all of which
takes place in the waking state
incidentally…is a consequence of the play
of the gunas in the mind. When the mind is
sattvic, the reflection of the Self in it causes
the individual to wake up to the Self, but
when rajas or tamas reappear, as they
inevitably do, the mind is clouded over and
the experience of the reflection of the Self
in the mind is lost i.e. the mind ‘sleeps.’
Until the rajasic and tamasic vasanas are
purified one is condemned to a frustrating
cycle of waking and sleeping.

In the Twentieth Century psychology came

of age in the West. It has left the confines
of the therapist’s office and entered popular
culture. Much of the energy in Neo-
Advaita satangs is devoted to pop Neo-
Advaita psychology which is nothing more
than an attempt to apply advaitic concepts
to the ego and its dysfunctional patterns.
Vedanta sadhana assumes a healthy ego.
The qualifications for enlightenment that
are presented in Shankara’s
Vivekachoodamani might be profitably
thought of as the qualities of a mature
healthy ego. Traditional Vedanta begins
where the ego leaves off by revealing the
nature of the impersonal Self though its
teachings. One need not kill or destroy the
ego, as many Neo-Advaita teachers claim,
but one should embrace through
understanding a greater or ‘universal’ Self.
This Self is not in opposition to the ego but
provides the Awareness that allows the
ego to function.

Finally, the reason Vedanta has survived

as a viable means of knowledge is not due
to its doctrines alone but to the application
of a sophisticated method of teaching.
Many realize their non-dual nature but are
incapable of teaching non-duality because
they lack a viable method. The Neo-
Advaita statements to ‘Be the space for the
thoughts’ or ‘Be what you are” are not
skillful teachings because a non-dual
teaching of identity is being delivered in
experiential language. Such teachings
give the impression that something can be
done to achieve Awareness and that Self
realization can come about through an act
of will. In traditional Advaita not only
should the teacher have realized his or her
identity as the Self in such a way that he or
she never re-identifies with the ego (the
belief that the ‘I’ is limited) but he or she
should be able to wield the means of
knowledge skillfully.
Many Neo-Advaita satsang teachers use a
picture of Ramana lend legitimacy and
gravitas to their satsangs and promote one
of Ramana’s favorite ideas, that ‘silence’ is
somehow the ultimate teaching. While
understanding the nature of the Self in
‘silence’ apparently finishes the sadhana of
a very few qualified sadaks, silence is not
superior to the skillful use of words in
bringing about enlightenment. This is so
because silence is in harmony, not in
conflict, with Self ignorance…as it is with
everything. One can sit in silence without
instruction for lifetimes and never realize
that one is the silence, meaning limitless
Awareness. Knowledge, however, which is
the result of Vedanta pramana, destroys
Self ignorance like light destroys darkness.
Additionally no experience, including the
experience of silence, can change one’s
thinking patterns. An experience of non-
duality may temporarily suspend thought or
increase one’s resolve to see oneself as
limitless Awareness but the notion that the
‘I’ is limited, inadequate, incomplete and
separate is hard wired. It is only by diligent
practice of the knowledge ‘I am limitless
awareness and not this body mind’ that the
mind’s understanding of reality gets in line
with the nature of the Self.

Why are binding vasanas such a major

problem for anyone seeking
enlightenment? Because they disturb the
mind to such a degree that one’s contact
with the Self as it reflects in the mind is
broken. It is meditation on the reflection of
the Self in the mind that allows the intellect
to investigate the Self and gain the
knowledge ‘I am the Self’ that breaks down
the subject-object distinction and ends
one’s sense of duality. I was informed
recently by a friend who has considerable
knowledge of the Neo-Advaita satsang
world that we have now entered into the
‘Post-Neo Advaita’ period. Not surprisingly
Neo-Advaita has not lived up to its promise
as a quick and easy means of liberation
and people are now looking for the next
most incredible path to enlightenment. And
you will be happy to know that it seems
their prayers have been answered by the
appearance of the “Kalki Avatar’ who, for
the modest fee of $5,500 and twenty one
days of your time will lay his divine hands
on your cranium and rewire your nervous
system, read brain, so that you become
fully enlightened. Evidently his promise is
thinning the ranks of the Neo-Advaitins
who, in typically Western fashion, are
always looking for the most efficient
shortcut to limitless bliss.

Does Neo-Advaita have any redeeming

virtues? In non-dual reality everything
somehow eventually serves to reveal the
Self. Just as kindergarten is a prerequisite
for grade school, people seeking
enlightenment need to start somewhere
and Neo-Advaita, imperfect as it is as a
vehicle for spiritual practice or Self
realization, provides entry-level access to
the idea of non-duality. Finally, because
Neo-Advaita is more sanga than sat (the
Self) it serves to satisfy to some degree the
emotional needs of its disaffected
followers. Because it does serve a need it
will probably continue in some form or
other for the foreseeable future but will
probably remain as a lifestyle fad unless it
investigates its roots and discovers the
wisdom of the Vedas.