Here's a bit of a mix....clearly, to some degree, an example of the pitfalls of misinterpreting/conceptualizing Nondual pointers, but it also sounds as both these people at one point likely did encounter a Nondual 'brown-bear or two'....(so called "extreme" Nonduality teachings that eschew and deny the relative)...it IS very interesting how mind though will often hear the pointer "personal self is a temporal appearance," and take that to mean that personal self
should be eschewed and denied.
A few comments from the comment section;
Bingo!!!
Both of them clearly had personal expectations about how realizing Oneness would impact their experience and when not only did that not happen but instead, experientially, personally, things went to shit in terms of their feelings states, they lashed out to find fault with Nonduality teachings instead of inquiring into those judgments/expectations.
Guaranteed, what Christopherstroeck meant by "the experience is real," and what thegloriousbothand meant, are worlds apart.
Um..yeah...Right there is the issue. That which is absent in SR is not "the person." The person/body/mind (me character complete with all it's senses, etc.) continues to appear, it's simply no longer mistaken to be the fundamental locus of seeing/awareness.
And the idea that there could even be an "experience" of a personal absence is very silly, but it's an honest mistake for sure in seekers to see things that way.
This epitomizes what it means to gain a mere conceptual grasp of Nonduality, replacing old ideas with new ones that evoke feelings of relief. Again, the idea one could find himself "trapped within the boundlessness," is a clear indicator that the pointer "boundlessness" was conceptualized...gobbled up....was grossly misconctrued by mind to indicate a feeling 'state' of being personally unmoored....emotionally empty. That is not what the Nonduality pointer "boundlessness" is pointing to, obviously.
He states this perfectly. There is a vast difference between an abiding shift in seeing that "en-lightens" all experiential, relative experiential content, vs. holding to an idea in mind that says; Life isn't real...all of what is happening...all of what appears is "not real/trivial."
While it is true that often in awakening, niggling issues that prior to, had captured mind and emotions deeply, are then revealed to be rather trivial, blanket assignation of triviality to ALL experience, is not what it means to be liberated from the appearing world.
This is such a common misconception when it comes to seekers trying to understand Nonduality pointers.
It's not the Truth itself though that does that...it's mind's erroneous belief that it's lit upon the Truth, when in actuality, it's got hold of a mere conceptualization of it. The conceptualized version of "Oneness" is worlds apart from the realization of Oneness/seeing through of separation.
Unless there is a radical shift in primary locus of seeing, that's all that can happen....mind takes pointers and tries to make sense of them. What it arrives at will always fall short of where the pointer is actually pointing.
Oh..boy...
If the idea that you are both separate from the world and all that is AND one with it, invokes highly positive feelings, of course that it so much better in terms of relative experiential content, than holding to an idea that goes hand in hand with ongoing, deeply discordant feelings, but my advice to someone whose happiness is still very much tied to a particular ideology is....keep digging and inquiring within....see if you cannot find a sense of contentment that is not dependent upon any idea at all....this is where I would advise meditation practice to quiet the mind....to watch for that silence space within which all thoughts/ideas spontaneously arise.
That's where unconditional peace lies. (all sorts of concessions to mind here of course, but I've never been against speaking to seekers where they sit).
