Transcendence isn’t Awakening.

It’s Escapism…and the area with zero accountability.

The purely, transcendent teachings of radical non-duality ultimately results, and rests, in ‘ajata’ or ‘nothing ever happens.’ It is in this state of being — of ajata — which forms the airtight teaching giving the self-sealing permission for any action to lack accountability. While on the absolute level, ajata is an actuality. In our Human lives, this is deeply and highly problematic…and flawed when it comes to the potentiality of natural ‘error’ in Human actions.

Many years ago, I was beginning to realize the exact measure of the existential weight that had been forced upon me when I was made the ‘fall guy’ for the deceptions of non-dual teachers. It was around that time, when there was an intense non-resistance to ‘what is,’ that there was the experience that ‘nothing ever happened.’

Simultaneous to that experience was a threshold insight into a profound internal resolution with Nome (my former teacher) who had caused great harm to myself and my family due being made the ‘fall guy’ for their own actions. (actions agreed upon by teachers on the non-dual space).

I deeply wanted to see how all that harm had never ‘really occurred’…harm that has been described as akin to being “buried alive.”

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

That profound non-resistance was well before I learned of the ‘auric block’ for purposes of relational control and ‘psychic implant’ for purposes of extreme violative surveillance and the deliberate separation of my family. After learning of those violations, non-resistance to what IS – or surrender – became impossible.

⚛️ When Spiritual Surrender is Actual Poison: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/when-spiritual-surrender-is-actual

Yet ajata is an extremely dangerous understanding without equal ‘weight’ given to the fact of our precious Humanity… and of the sacred responsibility of living in a Human form.

We are now seeing this in the current, and unfolding, story of Bentinho Massaro and his view of ajata without the FULL consideration and respect for our Humanity. (Around 2010, Bentinho had been sent to replace a spiritual community…SAT…which I was asked to leave due to my knowledge of the lies, deceptions and connections of Nome, Russell Smith and Candace O’Denver…who goes by numerous aliases.)

Myself and Bentinho

The demonstrative avoidance, or downright negation, of our Humanity as demonstrated by true radical Advaita leaves wide-the-door for actual harm that is, more often than not, condoned…or the very least, covered up, as in the case of this life.

⚛️ The Unseen Use of Spiritual Power (Siddis) for Control-Over-Others…in Contemporary Non-dual Teachings: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-unseen-use-of-spiritual-power


As a young girl I was involved in the formless, Mystical, aspects of Catholicism. This connection to The Christ was, undoubtedly, from multiple prior lifetimes.

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

Mystical experiences came naturally, with no pre-meditated practice of any kind. A natural, deep devotion to The Christ would manifest as states of what are now commonly referred to as ‘flow’ and ‘bliss.’

At that age, I had no idea about those descriptive words.

At some point, shortly after my confirmation (strikingly, my confirmation Saint of choice was Joan of Arc) I realized the church relied too much on a ‘fundamentalism’ (again, a term I did not have as a young girl) and which none of my experiences relied upon.

I ended up leaving the church by the time I was 10 or 11.

Years later, I became involved in the teachings of radical non-duality as taught by Nome and Russell Smith at SAT (the Society of Abidance in Truth).

Nome was touted as the “only” awake teacher in this country. The entire set-up at SAT only strengthened the notion of a seeker or a person separate from God/Source/Being, whatever word you choose to use.

Nome couched liberation (or awakening) in a minefield of avoidance commonly known as neti-neti: a process of the negation of everything…essentially mimicking a radical renunciation for purposes of transcendence.

There was so much avoidance that I actually raised my hand one day in ‘satsang’ and asked “Are we truly meant to be automatons??”

Of course, my question was brushed away…

⚛️ Patriarchal Neti-Neti: The Ultimate Tragedy of Dissociation & Spiritual Bypassing: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/patriarchal-neti-neti-the-ultimate

If transcendence is what one wants, fine. But don’t call it awakening or, even more so, enlightenment! Use transcendence to avoid this world. Use it to avoid your emotions. Use it to avoid everything in life that one might come in contact with. One may even use it to avoid taking responsibility for one’s own actions.

But that avoidance will have karmic repercussions where there has been harm.

The avoidance of responsibility was clearly in play when I was subjected to the extreme Gurdgieffian technique of isolation – actual criminality — during ‘The Compression Years”…years of isolation in which Adyashanti, and others, in partnership with my formers teachers, condoned.

⚛️ The ‘Compression Years’…of isolation and deliberate silencing (under a death threat) at the hands of non-dual teachers…in which Adyashanti played a key role: https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/the-compression-years-2013-2015/

Recently, on May 29th, I received 4 phone calls…in rapid succession… from a long-time SAT member who was one of the very first I met around 1989.

I did not answer any of these calls.

The gist of the 1st call was that “There is really only one way out of the insanity of this world, and that is to transcend it.” He, perhaps rightfully, used the word ‘insanity.’

That call was immediately followed by another where he said “I regret having used the word insanity. There’s God’s goodness that permeates this life for sure.”

Who are drawn to teachings of transcendence? Those who want to escape? Those who are afraid of their emotions (also considered ‘unreal’)? Those afraid of responsibility? Those who are afraid of connection? Those who are afraid of death?

Jeff Brown has some choice words for the transcendent addicted:

F**k ‘heightened’ consciousness – we aren’t birds. F**k transcendence addiction masquerading as evolution. F**k ‘non-duality’ that conveniently removes everything uncomfortable from the unified field. F**k ‘enlightenment’ without integrity. F**k patriarchal detachment models presented as ‘the’ royal road to the ‘Kingdom’ of God – what about the Queendom? (Our only hope). F**k ‘The New Earth’ as described by dissociative and disembodied pain bypassers. F**k  the yoga industry that feigns awareness it does not hold. F**k vertical spirituality that ignores what is happening before our very eyes. F**k  the bullshit soulebrities who don’t give a shit about humanity. F**k the guru who imagine himself realized. F**k the New Cage movement and it’s trail of lies. F**k any version of spirituality that doesn’t serve Humanity. F**k the story bashers. F**k victim bashers. F**k  the bloody spiritual lie. Embrace Enrealment before it’s too f**king late.

The ‘enlightenment without integrity’ one in Jeff’s list hits close to home. Everything… absolutely everything… about the spiritual teaching of radical non-duality was used to gaslight me in to silence.

What occurred in this life at the hands of radical non-dual teachers, alone, is enough to entirely reveal the hypocrisy of transcendent teachings.

If consciousness was the only thing that exists…if ‘nothing ever happened’…why would such existential controls have been placed over this life? Why would I have been silenced and isolated?

As Robert Saltzman recently wrote in his Substack entitled: “What’s Wrong With Nonduality: Inside the fortress of certainty”Yet the communities it generates are populated, to a striking degree, by people whose self-image is among the most defended one is likely to encounter.”  So much for transcendence.

This is a healing journey, and there’s no greater healing than being heard. Thank you for following my work and for being here…❣️

~Leslie on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/leslieread and at Integrity in Truth: Integrityintruth.com

The Ultimate Demise of Fundamentalist Spirituality…

The Arrogance of Superiority

Hands-down, one of the stickiest issues for me in leaving the cult of radical non-duality was the one of superiority…and of barely being able to tolerate ‘others’ who were not anywhere near a similar path. The notion that we were the “chosen ones” had not only been a very large part of the unseen, subtle indoctrination but one that was, quite literally, embedded in my bones over the course of my 20+ years at SAT (The Society of Abidance in Truth). This dynamic was not only endemic to this cult but is seen playing out, similarly, in much larger cults, such as the Osho cult. While certainly not stated out loud, it was deeply implied that we were ‘The Chosen Ones’…Narcissism at its height.

⚛️ The Cult of Radical Non-Duality: http://: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-non-duality

One of the biggest…and most fraught…downfalls of such arrogance is that this worldview lays the perfect ground for the justification of lies-and-deceptions. The fact that Nome and Russell Smith were/are serial liars is well-known in the non-dual community. The entire set-up of the organizations at Nome and Sasvati’s SAT (Society of Abidance in Truth), Russell Smith and Helga Schleiter-Smith’s “Way of Sudden Awakening” and Candace O’Denver and Russell Smith’s “Great Freedom/Balanced View” were/are ALL based on lies, deceptions and emotional manipulations of their followers.

These types of tactics are, in no way, confined to these teachers but are part of a broad-based aspect of functioning within many fundamentalist groups. The fact that these groups were/are “non-dual” is NO exception to this destructive and coercive dynamic.

One of the truly sad aspects, within my own experience, is knowing that there are, still, people at SAT who are subject to this arrogance of manipulation…some who are the very people Nome set-out to help: the Indians. Questions during Satsang by those who have ‘awakened’ (according to Nome’s definition) are staged-and-repeated by those same people.

To this day non-duality is hailed as the equivalent to the Teachings of The Christ and The Buddha whose teachings involved so much more than mere non-duality. There is a very definitive sense of right-and-wrong and ethical standards.

Many non-dual teachers, such as Leonard Jacobson, actually advertise their programs on this false equivalency to the Teachings of The Christ…as did Nome and Russell Smith. I had to point out to Leonard on one such thread that The Christ nor The Buddha would have ever given a pass to such actions as described in this letter: ⚛️ ASI LETTER (Assoc. for Spiritual ‘Integrity’) 03/06/2023 at the end of which is a link to a short recording (22 min.) detailing the occult controls over 4-generations of my family… to which Rick Archer said to just “walk away”…https://www.dropbox.com/s/hga3c7zpo1v973j/ASI%20Letter%2003%3A06%3A23.pdf?dl=0&e=1&fbclid=IwAR2hNCDCiHgzRQrXqce9WFFH5vgHGHoGlda3PUlGKT2n1qMuoFfoMadMbvs

The HUMAN side of this is that 4-generations of my family were involved in the fallout from the sweeping deceptions of these teachers. We’ve all seen that one can be awake to Wholeness and yet that, in no way, means one is free from shadow or is somehow a balanced and decent human.

When there is the arrogance of superiority there is no room for discussion.

Non-duality has LONG had within its approach the trap of just another superiority view of “spirituality/being-ness.” Any “superior” approach, whether it’s Christian, non-dual, Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim, atheist, etc. has already chosen a slippery slope practice, and invites the opportunity for exploitation, control, judgement, and exclusion. If one hasn’t processed and cleared out their subconscious “psychological basement” of cultural, religious, and familial fear-based and limiting beliefs, one will be susceptible to being controlled or capable of being controlled by a variety of “monsters” in various religious, monastic, or political garb.” ~Judith Froemming

While I absolutely agree with Judith’s statement there are many who become entangled due to the unseen-and-controlling mis-use of siddis (occult powers) which so easily mimic The Divine. This was most certainly the case at SAT. One could have cleared out their “psychological basement” all they want and still get entangled with these unseen forces.

Mere non-duality is just that: it is wholeness. In the words of FaceBook friend Kim Rome referring to my description of ‘awake’ non-dual teachers she responded : “They are not awake. They are living in a transcendent reality that is marked by spiritual materialism and bypassing.”
The depth of this statement is deeply profound.

⚛️ The Rush to Transcendence…and the existential consequences: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/the-rush-to-transcendence

In many, if not ALL, ways…the teaching of non-duality is a teaching on self-betrayal.

In the Universal, on-going, law of as-above-so-below we are seeing play-out the arrogant superiority of fundamentalist, white Christian nationalism. So-much-so that the crosses being worn by all those in the Trump administration are beginning to burn-the-skin of those who wear them with the growing reveal of criminality, in many forms, but in a form most heinous: the cover-up of global child sex trafficking. Possibly the largest cover-up in the world of sex crime. ALL this emanating from the white, fundamentalist Christianity as spelled-out, in its entirety, in the document: Project 2025 and carried out by the man-behind-the-curtain and architect of the diabolical family separations: Stephen Miller. (link below).

⚛️https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

⚛️ A Message on Our Core Values: https://leslieread.substack.com/p/a-message-on-our-core-values

As with all forms of superiority this, too, will crumble under its own weight…as we are beginning to see with our own eyes.

Thank you for following my work. 🙏

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. ❣️🌷

Warmly,

-Leslie@ integrityintruth.com

⚛️ www.integrityintruth.com

⚛️ https://leslieread.substack.com/publish/posts/publish


The statement below accurately sums up the absolutist teachings of Nome, dismissing our Humanity as essentially unreal, where ANY action…even actions of criminality…will be covered-for by the fundamentalism of his teachings…until they aren’t!

The Rush to Transcendence…

About a decade+ into intense practice at SAT…and coming fresh off a retreat…I was going down-the-stairs to the basement dungeon where I packaged up book orders. I was beyond worried with how-on-earth I was going to do all the tasks that kept piling up. 

I was SO worried by the time I got down the stairs that I truly felt I would have a heart attack. 

Right then-and-there, I concentrated on the task in front of me and I instantly expanded out as pure Space…out to Pluto (and beyond) and became omni-present…I was the rock outside-the-door etc.

Shortly thereafter Nome calls the bookstore desk-phone and says “See? That wasn’t so hard!”

Unfortunately the story went downhill thereafter and I was segregated-out (via ‘character assassination’  ⚛️ https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/character-assassination/ ) for knowing too much about the brothers…until, ultimately, I had to be asked to leave lest the Indians catch wind of what the brothers had done by way of concocting a very elaborate story. 

Shortly before leaving SAT for good, after a Sunday Satsang and during the final mediation, that glimpse of space was experienced again…this time through a simple and naturally focused attention. Nome immediately looked at me as though I was, somehow, supposed to ‘grab’ that state and plunge into enlightenment! 

My feeling, in the moment, was that it felt as though all the teachers were on some kind of “race-to-the-finish-line’ and that they would do anything to ensure people “wake up.” 

Nome was greatly influenced by Osho/Rajneesh and, in many of the less-sordid ways, patterned SAT after Osho’s teaching and organization. 

David Solomon who was with Osho in Pune and Eastern Oregon and later had a close connection with UG Krishnamurti, talked about Osho’s Rajneeshpuram “experiment to provoke God” in a similar vein:

“I believe (Gurdjieffian) devices were used by him to possibly awaken a few at the expense of the many. About that I’ve been very vocal myself. Real crimes against humanity were committed in an effort to bring about “the New Man.” No bueno.” (Emphasis added).

As with everything hidden, we are now seeing some of the more sordid aspects emerge with the now-grown children who were victims of neglect and sexual abuse during Rajneesh puram times finally speak out.

The salient and prophetic words of Ken Wilber here are very apt:

“Unless you are on a path that includes not only ‘waking up’…but ’growing-up’ AND ‘cleaning-up’…all 3-in-one package…you are going to get f**ked!! You WILL end up in a bad, bad way because one of these is going to go sour. That is THE major, unfortunate, path that the majority of people end up taking… and they end up wasting a life.” Samadhi does not, of course, address (ANY) shadow elements…in some cases it makes it *worse* as there is pure dis-identification.”

⚛️ The Existential Dangers of Pure Dis-Identification: https://integrityintruth.com/the-existential-dangers-of-pure-dis-identification/

No doubt what has occurred in this life is arguably one of more horrific and existentially harmful examples of the harm that can occur when non-dual teachers have not done their own internal work. While this situation does not include the typical breaches of integrity commonly known as sexual manipulations (and is, most certainly, not making light of such) this particular situation is far more pervasive, insidious, systemic and disturbing (of Integrity) in its use of over-arching lies, deceptions, cronyism involving collusion and coercion and the extreme misuse of high-level siddis (occult powers).

This is, sadly, the case before adequate inner work.

The rush to transcendence…

The following is an example (albeit extreme) of what can happen when teachers do not acknowledge and confront their own shadow(s):

⚛️ The ‘Compression Years’…of deliberate isolation and silencing (under threat)…in which Adyashanti played a key role: https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/the-compression-years-2013-2015/

⚛️ Coffee Lane and the many engaging in sweeping deception: https://integrityintruth.com/clarification-of-videos/coffee-lane-and-the-two-years-prior-to-moving-to-portland-december-2015-july-2018-%e2%9c%be/

⚛️ The systemic deception and collusion within the non-dual community: https://integrityintruth.com/systemic-collusion-in-the…/

⚛️ The systemic deception and collusion within the non-dual community: https://integrityintruth.com/systemic-collusion-in-the…/

⚛️ Paul Selig’s message that this ‘was not intentional to me’ yet the existential controls were most definitely intentional to me…and my family: https://integrityintruth.com/clarif…/the-move-to-portland/

⚛️ Letter to the ASI (Association for Spiritual ‘Integrity’): https://www.dropbox.com/s/hga3c7zpo1v973j/ASI%20Letter%2003%3A06%3A23.pdf?dl=0&e=1&fbclid=IwAR2hNCDCiHgzRQrXqce9WFFH5vgHGHoGlda3PUlGKT2n1qMuoFfoMadMbvs

Thank you for following my work. ❦

Please feel free to contact me should you have anything to share related to this content or any questions: ⚛️ Leslie@integrityintruth.com