In just about every layer of society we see the dramatic effects of lying.
This, of course, is not new.
The actual effect-of-lies has been recorded in all arenas and levels of society: personal, political, economic and religious history throughout millennia.
From the devastating lies of the Nazi era, to the very public accounts of Watergate and Bill Clinton’s trysts with Monica Lewinsky, to the deliberately hidden dangers of tobacco smoking and of monetized pharmaceuticals to the so-called sciences and the halls-of-The Vatican.
…and currently, the most famous, on-going deception of the ‘big lie’ of a ‘stolen election’…which could, ultimately be the end of Democracy.
The one arena I would have thought would have been free of such a scourge of deception would have been in the teachings of non-duality…and their teachers and organizations.
I was gravely wrong.
The lies were with regard to how the brothers relayed their relationship with each other and their reasons behind splitting up their teachings. The story painted was one of an animosity…a supposed ‘disdain’ they took all the way to the legal courts in Santa Cruz. They painted quite the picture. If anyone has ever witnessed Nome and Russell in a Satsang this ruse would be evident.
While these deceptions originated with my former teachers Nome and Russell Smith at SAT in Santa Cruz, CA the lies were greatly supported by Candace O’Denver (who was, then forming Great Freedom with Russell Smith) and to Adyashanti and Gangaji …and many in their close circles at Open Gate.
To the best of my ability the ‘purpose’ (if one can say there is a purpose to lying) of these lies was to ‘wake up as many people as possible’ (This was a standard excuse in the non-dual community) and to form what would, then, become the bulk of the non-dual community.
In the roll-out of these lies their falsity was utterly obvious.
If anyone had ever seen Nome and Russell in a Satsang the love between the two is apparent.
Yet…I gave the lies a ‘pass’ as I bought into the notion that it was for the ‘benefit of all.’
“When we presume to lie for the benefit of others, we have decided that we are the best judges of how much they should understand about their own lives—about how they appear, their reputations, or their prospects in the world.”
~Sam Harris, Lying
There came a time when the lies at SAT were so prevalent that, at one Satsang, I wondered how-on-earth these brothers could keep track of all their lies.
In all honesty, and not through an arrogance, I found it hard to understand how everyone was buying into the deceptive narratives that were being espoused by Nome and Russell. I expressed this shock to my friend Karin who would travel from Norway several times a year…who I felt might have been open to hearing of these lies…but she resisted hearing it.
The Guru-can-do-no-harm was, and is, a deeply held spiritual concept.
Ultimately, and solely because of seeing through the lies, I was asked to leave SAT.
This was after 20 years of devoted dedication in which 3-generations of my family were involved.
In order to preserve the ‘integrity’ of the lies Nome, Russell Smith, Candace O’Denver, and Adyashanti foisted their own karma on these shoulders…and the shoulders of my family…to ensure their lies would never become public knowledge. The absolute protection of these lies was further secured by silencing, under threat, and isolating me. The complicated controls were further bolstered by Nome’s use of siddis (occult powers) which, ultimately, made certain that it would be impossible to report on as the occult is nigh unproveable.
Nome was certainly counting on the complexity of this story, the hidden nature and the air-tight complicity of the non-dual community.
While all of this sounds like the description of a paranoid person (which is understood) the main audience I am addressing are the non-dual teachers who not only partook of this scheme but who, later, were/are involved in the collusion, complicity and, ultimately, the lies.
Those teachers cover a very large swath in the non-dual community.
Those teachers know I’m telling the truth.
The following is a letter to the ‘Association for Spiritual Integrity’ (ASI) who were also part of covering for this web of deception…basically a smokescreen for accountability: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hga3c7zpo1v973j/ASI%20Letter%2003%3A06%3A23.pdf?dl=0
The dramatic effects of those lies?
In the prophetic words of Aile Shebar what occurred in this life was akin to being ‘buried alive.’
That is an accurate description.
The internal threat at being silenced shook my entire system to the core after which I could only communicate via emojis for several years following that existential shock. The taking of one’s voice, the use of over-speak when speaking with those who are actively covering for these teachers, and the dark methods for control…were only part of the very real taking-of-a-life.
Another accurate description was that of a ‘Soul murder.’
The following movies accurately depict the actual feeling of what it was like to be silenced, under deep internal threat, for a decade: Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Lives of Others and Ondine.
Because the potential of this voice could cause harm to several multi-million-dollar organizations and teachers, the threat to silence me, of necessity, had to be significant.
Effectively this life was taken…
While this example of the effect…and spread…of lies is truly extreme it is, none-the-less, accurate as to the utter devastation caused by lying.
Thank you for witnessing a return to my voice…❦
Warmly,
-Leslie@ integrityintruth.com
