On my search for more and more efficient therapeutical methods I had to experience that a lot of methods were not working sufficiently enough for me. Just like many people who were frustrated by suffering, I started meditating in 2013. First I was practicing Buddhism and became part of a Theravada-community for a couple of years. In 2016 I came across the teachings of Advaita-Vedanta.
Advaita-Vedanta means “The Teaching of Non-Duality”. This thousands-of-years-old teaching became famous again in the 20th century through the sage Ramana Maharshi. He became popular through his simple meditation technique of self-inquiry, which worked with the only question: “Who am I?”
Many of his students have brought self-inquiry into the world and developed it further. The goal of the spiritual practice is to increase the understanding of our existence and trust only our personal experience and perception. There are no moralistic expectations, beliefs or cultural elements like in religions. In fact the goal is the essence of all religions: Unity with god, also called awakening or enlightenment. This is the dissolution of the ego-illusion, the perception that our consciousness is not resulting from the body, but rather the body and our ego are an appearance within consciousness and we are essentially only that consciousness.
Typically this inner change of perspective leads to significant changes in our life – sometimes more on the emotional level, sometimes also on the outside. Mostly, awakening experiences aren’t lasting or final, but appear again and again and more and more often. It is then part of the spiritual practice to notice how re-identification happens and how we veil the perception of our true self.
Here the therapeutic and spiritual approach meet as re-identification often happens through emotional triggers which are the result of unsolved trauma. Generally the ego can be seen as the sum of trauma survival strategies.
The non-duality teachers which influenced me significantly are Rupert Spira, Christian Meyer and Eli-Jaxon Bear.
In the course of my 5 Pillars of Trauma Healing I recommend explicitly to find a meditation technique which suits you. If you are open for it, I also advice you to find a spiritual practice.
I like to express a little warning that often in the course of a student-teacher-relationship people often subconsciously reenact a child-parent-relationship (and in some spiritual communities this seems explicitly intended). Nevertheless, the wisdom and knowledge which some teachers convey is so healing that it can support us on our healing path. I recommend to you to listen to different teachers on YouTube and see where you feel resonance: Rupert Spira, Gangaji, Eli-Jaxon Bear, Mooji, Loch Kelly, Adyashanti, Sam Harris – the list of non-duality teachers out there is long.