Patriarchal Neti-Neti: The Ultimate Tragedy of Dissociation & Spiritual Bypassing…

enabling abuse & control-over-others

From the very beginning, I was never down with ANY delineation of real-and-unreal, inside-and-outside… nor the elimination of such as: “you’re not the body, senses or mind;” the world is unreal; nothing-ever-happens (ajata) etc.

⚛️ Ajata and the wide-open-door-to-abuse: https://integrityintruth.com/ajata-and-the-wide-open-door-to-abuse/

WHY?

Firstly, it’s untrue.

Secondly, exactly who draws the line between real-and-unreal? And where do they draw it??

Thirdly, and perhaps the most important: in eliminating the body-senses-world you are eliminating the most efficacious routes to your true nature!!

As soon as anything is separated out from the Whole we are already skating-on-thin-ice. This is especially so if the renunciation is done at the bequest of spiritual leaders, as was the case in the ancient advaitic practice of renunciation known as Neti-Neti. This wholesale-elimination practice was adopted by many in the neo-Advaita space of contemporary non-duality…opening WIDE-the-door for harm, abuse and control-over-others.

Additionally, this wholesale renunciation led to sweeping judgements-of-others…literally, anyone who fell ‘outside’ the norms of such a rigid world-view. After 2 decades+ in such a dogmatic teaching I still, to this day, find myself pulling back from certain situations or thoughts or people as though some invisible line-in-the-sand exists…anywhere.

⚛️ Denial and the Duality-of-Non-duality: https://integrityintruth.com/denial-the-duality-of-non-duality/

In the early days following my arrival at SAT (The Society of Abidance in Truth, Santa Cruz, CA) I was encouraged to renounce my family. (read that again!)

Historically, and with certain spiritual traditions, teachers have manipulated families-of-seekers in order to achieve certain spiritual goals.

In the early 90’s, renunciation and the path-of-siddas, became a ‘thing’ at SAT and the discourses were largely centered on the renunciation of everything…everything. The world, your body/senses/mind were ALL entirely “unreal.” And while the real meaning of “unreal” was understood to mean “not separate” it never-the-less led to the dangerous hypocrisy of the split-mind.

During one Satsang I raised my hand and asked point-blank: “Are we truly meant to be automatons??” My question was dismissed.

That teaching dismissed the very thing — our body – which is, ultimately, the most efficacious portal to Presence and transcendence (if transcendence is your goal). This transcendence-addicted approach was largely equated with spiritual evolution. Is true awakening really marked by transcendent states pervaded with bypassing, dissociation and spiritual materialism?

Is that what awakening is??

In an early private with Nome, I asked about this need to dismiss the entirety of our experience as “unreal” and stating how that did not resonate with my prior experience as a young girl. Surprisingly, Nome’s answer to me was “You must have renounced in a prior lifetime.” (From then on this devoted heart relied on the inner teaching and silence which was vastly different than what was being presented in the public talks. I would, later, be the scapegoat for those outer teachings that I never believed in).

⚛️ The Scapegoat Phenomenon…Involving Sensitive Souls and Empaths: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-scapegoat-phenomenon

⚛️ The Mystery of Past Lives: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-mystery-of-past-lives)

Nome’s answer certainly rang true, yet his current teaching should have been my indication that this was never meant to be my path where, ever since my childhood, everything was included. From a naturally devoted heart (likely from prior lifetimes) I would enter states of what is now commonly called ‘flow’ and ‘bliss.’ Yet, from the beginning, Nome was touted as the only ‘awake’ teacher in this country…and there was a deep heart connection from which his internal communication flowed.

Additionally, and as Russ pointed out, this renunciate approach was successfully taught within an airtight insularity that is often found in cults. While I believe this was never overtly felt by the members of SAT that control was/is very much the case. In SO many, if not ALL, ways…this deliberate separation can harm one for life.

No doubt the wholesale rejection-of-everything would spiritually justify Nome’s decision to, later, place an “auric block” in my field restricting relations – primarily intimate relationships – ensuring his lies and deceptions would never become public knowledge. That occult move would affect every area of this life: mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, financial – everything.

(Unmarried Woman by Wojtek Kowalski who does paintings from an ‘internal need.’This was the feeling of when an ‘auric block’ was deliberately placed in my field to prevent relations, primarily intimate ones, and the devastating effects on every.single.area.of this life…ALL because those teachers felt justified due to this un-natural separating-out from the Divine Order and the bypassing of such.)

While many of us never heard of the other contemporary non-dual teachers, as we were told Nome was the only realized teacher, when the mention of U. G. Krishnamurti came up Russ chimed-in with “How many people actually realize with such a non-teaching as Krishnamurti’s??”

U.G. was the Indian “anti-guru.”

Only recently, I watched a video where Facebook friend David Solomon, who was close to U.G. Krisnamurti, discussed U.G.’s basic approach in this way: “I don’t see UG as ever suggesting that we should ‘throw anything out.’ He was about accepting the world and ourselves exactly as we are…and in doing that, Life takes over and blossoms in its own natural Way. One’s own Life and what grows around that.

UG was not only staunchly promoting that everyone be themselves but recognizing all of Life around us has a right to be what IT is too. And to accept the Wisdom of our bodies, and accept the Wisdom of the natural world.”

It had always been my deep feeling that our body and, hence, the world was the most efficacious route to Freedom. So, it followed that all the talk of the body…the senses…and the world being unreal dragged any process of integration out for years, and, often, decades.

Not only was neti-neti inefficient and out-dated, it revealed so much of the utter hypocrisy of what radical non-duality actually is: the undeniable duality of non-duality.

⚛️ The Existential Danger of Radical Non-Duality: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-existential-danger-of-radical

“You know being around someone whose main objective in life was to NOT falsify himself…and doing his darndest to prevent us from doing that to ourselves. That’s just a Blessing… there is no explanation… I can’t imagine being any luckier than that.” ~David Solomon

Both the Krishnamurtis were against “A Way.” Every person had their own way.

The ‘way’ was about taking what comes one’s way in stride.

⚛️ The Case for Ultimate Independence:  https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-case-for-ultimate-independence

As Humans we live in this world…on this planet. Who, exactly, would draw any line and where would they draw it?

Jeff Brown said it fairly succinctly…and with a pardon for ALL the necessary f**k bombs…

Pamela Wilson (in the landmark book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Spet. 28, 2007, by Rita Robinson) stated: “Not ‘neti-neti’ but ‘YES-i-YES-i’ ” A succinct statement revealing the subverted feminine-half of the spiritual journey and bringing it down to earth to embrace ALL of what it means to be Human. ❦

It’s my feeling that, at this point in our spiritual evolution, we are moving definitively away from any patriarchal paradigm and, perhaps, any need for an external teacher…and most certainly, away from the dogmatic approaches of many of them.

⚛️ The Ultimate Demise of Fundamentalist Spirituality…The Arrogance of Superiority: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-demise-of-fundamentalist

There is no doubt that this life was/is arguably one of most disturbingly and existentially harmed (aside from the insidious accounts of sexual abuse seen in cults such as the Osho cult) not only by my immediate teachers but by the sweeping collusion in the non-dual space by teachers looking to protect their meal-ticket of teaching.

⚛️ The following short recording (22 min.) details the occult controls over 4-generations of my family to which Rick Archer (Buddha at the Gas Pump) suggested I just ‘walk away’ primarily because he was covering for Adya’s brand: https://www.dropbox.com/…/Recording%208B%20…

For my Astro-nerd friends, perhaps this will be signified by the momentous move of Neptune into Aries for the 1st time in 160 years, where it will stay until 2039 and where it will conjunct Saturn at the very beginning of the entire zodiacal wheel…something that hasn’t happened for over 9,000 years…THIS is the day I am typing this.

☯️ everything is already Whole and One

☯️ No need to separate anything out or figure out what, when, and where, how, to separate it out.

☯️ …or worse, be told WHAT to separate out (recently I was told that ‘activism’ isn’t holy!)

If we cannot actively stand-up for our most cherished values, how can we really call ourselves “spiritual?”

Thank you for following my work (and it has been work) in digging myself out from having been silenced (under a death threat)…and way more…at the hands of non-dual teachers.

Warmly,

-Leslie @integrityintruth.com ❦

⚛️ Integrity in Truth:  https://www.integrityintruth.com

⚛️ And on Substack: https://substack.com/@leslieread/posts

I wish I had written the following poem…posted by Glenna Erickson Bain on FaceBook:

It’s All Real…All of it. 🌷

~A Poem by Jordan Bates

Family, friends, animals, people, bodies, Earth, music, art, trees, soil, sun.

It’s Real.

It’s not an illusion.

God is not “generating an illusion of a world.”

No, God is being the world.

The world is the literal concrete Body and Heart of God.

It’s all Real.

Non-duality can so easily be used as a means of hiding from this Realness.

By writing the world off as “illusion,” the throbbing, gushing Heart of the world is kept at arm’s length.

By repeatedly asserting that “it’s all unreal,” “it’s all meaningless,” “there’s no one here,” “there is no body,” “there is no world”…

A subtle closed-off-ness can be allowed to persist.

By dismissing this universe as a mere “hologram” or “video game” or “theatrical production” or “movie appearing on the projection screen of consciousness”…

The soft animal-body of this cuddly life can be unconsciously rejected.

One can secretly block oneself from really-truly-deeply-viscerally noticing that the One Poem is written in flesh and bone.

When bones break, it doesn’t feel like a simple reformatting of pixels in a hologram.

When parents weep over the dead body of an innocent child, only a voice of confusion and coldness would ask them why they are grieving the loss of an imaginary character.

They’re grieving the loss of God.

A once-in-existence expression of God.

They’re Real, and their grief is Real.

When they grieve, God grieves.

When we suffer, God suffers.

When we are tortured, God is tortured.

When we are burned at the stake, God is burned at the stake.

When we are raped, God is raped.

When we die a slow and frightening death in a hospital on a ventilator, God dies this same slow and frightening death.

God is not “hiding in the Absolute” in perpetual non-attached, pain-free peace.

No, God is our attachment.

God is our pain.

God is our fear.

And God is also Absolute peace.

God feels it all, for God is all of it.

All of it.

It’s all Real.

True enlightenment is not to escape the human experience.

It is to arrive fully in the human experience.

To land fully on Earth, with a wide-open heart, ready to feel it all and respond wisely and compassionately.

To dig one’s feet into the ancient soil of our Mother, feel her pulsing heartbeat, and know She is Real.

Know She is God.

Know that her children are God.

Know that you are here to Serve Her.

By being exactly who you are.

Living true.

Fully, bravely, with an open heart.

Amen. 🙏

Carl Jung: Individuation

….and the Empath’s Road Back to Their Authentic Self

“When someone’s shadow is reflected back through another person’s clear perception, the unconscious mind has two choices: integrate the shadow or attack the mirror. Jung documented this pattern repeatedly in his clinical work. The person who sees clearly gets blamed for creating the problems they’re merely observing.“ ~Carl Jung

This creates what Jung called the scapegoat phenomenon.

The Scapegoat Phenomenon courtesy Bing Images

In the case here…I was merely observing the lies-and-deceptions of non-dual teachers, which I was giving-a-pass to in the name of spiritual ‘evolution’ and ‘Freedom’ when, later, non-dual teachers would make the agreed-upon decision…across the FULL non-dual teaching spectrum (including Nome, Russell Smith, Candace O’Denver, Adyashanti, Gangaji, Jeannie Zandi and many others)…to place the ENTIRETY of the burden for their lies-and-deceptions on these shoulders…and the shoulders of my family.

That criminal decision made it virtually impossible for me to be myself. Some called it a ‘Soul murder’ akin to being ‘buried alive.’

“Individuation is the courage to be oneself.” ~Carl Jung

“Highly perceptive individuals often become the designated problem in every group they enter, not because they cause problems, but because they reveal problems that already exist in the collective unconscious. Jung observed: “The bearer of superior perception becomes the repository for all that the group cannot consciously acknowledge about itself. This pattern explains why these individuals don’t just feel misunderstood, they feel systematically targeted by a force they can’t rationally explain.” -Carl Jung

In the most recent months of my healing journey, I began to piece-back-together the “Soul fragmentation” that was a result of having been silenced (under a death threat) and isolated at the hands of non-dual teachers. When those teachers made their decision to scapegoat me I was silenced (under a death threat) for a decade+…to ensure those lies would never never become public knowledge. This criminality has been described as a ‘Soul murder’ akin to being ‘buried alive.’ Those are absolutely accurate descriptions of the feeling of what occurred here. There has been zero accountability and no one who said “this is not right.”

It would be the Jungian teachings…along with the understanding of Evolutionary Astrology which Jung, also, intuitively understood and adhered to… that provided some of the deepest-and-clearest answers as to “why?”

⚛️ The Mystery of Past Lives:  https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-mystery-of-past-lives

“What really happens when you, finally…perhaps after lifetimes…begin to love yourself?”

According to Carl Jung, self-love is not a mindset or a motivational habit. It is a psychological transformation that restructures your entire relational world. You no longer accept certain behaviors; you establish boundaries where, before, there were none AND this new energy frequency repels some people/things/situations and newly attracts others who are more in alignment with your current, evolved vibrational energy.

As is often-the-case, an unexpected catalyst arrived in this life…one that would ultimately demand my own self-respect and self-love.

In this life, individuation would be unexpectedly-and-intensely catalyzed through a connection with a man I was deeply attracted to. This man was very adept at tantra: in this case, a tantra used for emotional manipulation (one could call that ‘toxic tantra’ – a deeply controlling drug-like sexual method that, I intuited, was directed by Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear, during this man’s visit to Ashland). It turned out this was a man who also knew of my former teachers and of what occurred at their hands. With the connection to this man those teachers were hoping for a sexual awakening’ upon which they would, then, restore my estranged family which Nome had restricted. (In certain cultures and spiritual traditions, the manipulation of families was often used to force certain spiritual outcomes.)

Obviously this man was not being forthcoming-and-honest with me about the connection with those teachers…or anything else in his life.

That betrayal ultimately forced-my-hand and re-organized the entirety of how I looked at myself, my world, my truth and The Universe.

In this profound sense, that man was an evolutionary catalyst and ultimate Blessing in this life.

Up until this point, I had been led to believe, especially in the non-dual teachings I was involved with for over 20+ years, that to deny oneself is the way to spiritual freedom. The standard ego-diminishment approach of radical, transcendent-addicted non-duality.

No doubt that radical approach to transcendent awakening can work (depending on what you consider ‘awake’) especially in an airtight, insular environment where there has been an establishment of “complete trust.” I saw this approach be successful with a handful of friends who, then, looked horrified as they could, finally, see what I had been forced to hold for years.

For many years, I felt that my trust and devotion was, certainly, strong enough to withstand such a complete ‘erasure.’

That was until that trust would be completely betrayed beginning with the ‘character assassination’ and numerous instances that culminated in Russ stating (in a taped session) that “we had to pick someone” indicating that I would be sidelined out of “Sudden Awakening” as I would be, ultimately, at SAT several years later. This sidelining was ALL due to seeing through the lies of these teachers.

⚛️ Character Assassination: https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/character-assassination/

⚛️ The Existential Danger of Radical Non-Duality: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-existential-danger-of-radical

The connection with this catalyst man forced the unspoken ultimatum of a profound Love…but only if I would continue to:

– betray myself

– betray my family and

– betray the truth of a situation.

It was a betrayal SO UTTERLY COMPLETE: asking me to uphold the lies of non-dual teachers…to succumb to the very real occult (via siddis) manipulation of my family and to uphold a patriarchal, transcendent teaching that I no longer believed in as being the liberating teaching. All of those, together, was something I could NOT do.

It would take me many months of back-and-forth and for my conscious understanding to seep down in to exactly what my Soul was demanding. I was intensely attracted to this man and was, at that point, emotionally starved from the existential restriction of an ‘auric block’ which restricted all relations, primarily intimate relationships, for obvious reasons.

Over the following months, noticeably beginning around June of 2025, I began to see the actual play of this unconscious attachment…and how my connection to this man was being weaponized by non-dual teachers to ensure their lies and deceptions would never become public knowledge. My former teachers, no doubt, felt my empathic over-giving, people-pleasing nature would continue in her self-betrayal…especially as I had been blocked and surveilled (via ‘auric block’ and ‘psychic implant’) from relations, primarily intimate ones, for over a decade…a block that would affect every single area of my life: mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, familial etc.

It was the connection with this man, who touted his own self-love…as any proud Leo is apt to do (!)…that began to catalyze my own journey of self-love, self-respect and, ultimately, back to myself. Slowly, I stopped negotiating my own self-worth for access-to-love and I stopped bargaining my unconsciously devalued-self and began to return to my own inner authority. Belonging, no matter who or what it’s to would never require you to betray yourself.

Finally, I stopped negotiating my self-worth for this man’s access.

When I finally decided “no more”…this man said “I don’t know if I should be glad or sad for you.” That was as close as he would ever get to being honest with me.

When I was forced, under threat for more than a decade, to be the “holder” for the lies and deceptions of non-dual teachers it became impossible to “become who I truly was.”

Any belonging that asks us to betray ourselves is not true belonging.”~Brene Brown

Self-betrayal is the empath’s learned survival strategy and mechanism. This was, absolutely acknowledged by Nome…indeed, he would rely on my compliance to ensure the corruption in the non-dual space would never become public knowledge.

The empath learns to bargain their Soul and soften their boundaries in order to become acceptable.

This was definitely reinforced in the non-dual path…as it is in many traditions.

“Boundaries are an act of selfishness” and “Victims are violent people.” ~Byron Katie

An interesting memory came up when I was contemplating this aspect of the empath: I remember exactly the moment of recognition by Nome, in the middle of a talk, when he acknowledged, in silence, the ‘spiritual’ aspect of my own propensity of over-giving, akin to the martyr complex in Catholicism. It was a moment of understanding regarding the mutual symbiotic relationship between the empath and the controlling doctrine involving lies and deceptions of this teacher.

It was about people who see everything others miss, and why this ability destroys them. In his clinical practice, Jung documented patients with what he called “differentiated perception.” Individuals who could read micro-expressions, sense hidden emotions, and perceive psychological patterns that escaped everyone else. They saw through social masks, detected lies instantly, and felt the unconscious tensions in every room. Jung called this discovery “dangerous” because these people consistently ended up isolated, exhausted, and unable to maintain normal relationships. ~Carl Jung

People began to disappear as I was growing into myself. Deep inside I knew this was/is no mistake. I could feel the profound inner re-alignment under way. For the first time in this life…and no doubt lifetimes…I was beginning to feel like myself. There would be the felt snapshots-of-perception when, interiorly, everything fell into alignment. This was a new sensation. As this Self began to become the center of my psyche, relationships…and everything else not in that same frequency…began to reorganize naturally. This feels to be the ongoing process of lifetime(s).

…a LONG time!

Thank you for following this journey of a Soul reclaiming herself. No doubt this is the path of many sensitive beings.

As I grow in my own process I will add posts of the Wisdom of Carl Jung as it pertains to the empath and the process of individuation. There are, currently, many videos that beautifully capture and animate the teachings of Carl Jung…especially regarding the psychology of the empath and the, oftentimes, arduous road to individuation and the role of the healed empath.

A couple examples:

“The empathic individuals inability to forgive emotional deception isn’t weakness. Jung would call it the Wisdom of the integrated Self… the ultimate act of psychological integrity.”

⚛️ “The one emotional mistake super empaths never forgive”… https://youtu.be/bOQzQiT15CY

⚛️ Why Empaths Who Stop Caring Become the Most Dangerous of All…(it’s never that we ‘stop’ caring!) yet this is a powerful video: https://youtu.be/xwALbIQayX4

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss an aspect of your own journey.

Warmly,

-Leslie@integrityintruth.com

⚛️ And on substack: https://substack.com/@leslieread/posts

Next up: The False Sense of Belonging…and other aspects, links and videos pertaining to Carl Jung and the liberating process of individuation.