Non-Duality Is Not a State: The Shadow Side of Non-Dual Transmission in the Energy Activation Field
- Sigrid Brelid
- May 26
- 4 min read
There’s a growing misunderstanding in the spiritual world, especially in the world of Kundalini activation and life force activation. Non-duality is being spoken of as if it’s something you can get. A state to attain. A badge to wear. A peak moment that makes you a teacher.
Non-duality is not a state. It is not bliss. It is not love and light. It is not something that comes and goes, because anything that comes and goes is not what you are.
Yes, there are moments, often in deep energy work, where people touch something vast. Walls collapse. The ego softens. Something opens. And for a moment or extended periods, we may feel unity, spaciousness, pure presence.
But these are glimpses. They are invitations, not destinations.
To live from non-dual awareness is not to chase that state again and again. It is to begin recognizing the part of you that was already here before it, and remains after it. That which is aware of bliss, and also aware of fear. That which witnesses both light and shadow without being either.
And this embodiment does not arrive through a weekend, or a certificate, or a new title. It arrives quietly. Over time. Through stillness. Through presence. Through meeting what is.
When we confuse temporary spiritual highs with realization, we begin to chase perfection. We start avoiding our humanness, suppressing what feels dark or messy. We call that non-dual, but it is only spiritual bypass in disguise.
And it becomes dangerous, because when we deny our shadows, they don’t disappear. They go underground. They fester, distort, and eventually leak through our actions, our teachings, our field.
And now, it has become a trend. Something that sells. It is loud. It is performative. It’s almost ironic... this teaching that points us back to our true nature is being turned into a concept marketed and monetized. We take the most natural, eternal part of ourselves and package it into something to promote. We try to sell what we already are.
I am not denying that this process, this path of energy work and inner transformation, can support the embodiment of non-dual awareness. It truly can. But the way it is being done in many spaces right now is not for growth. It is for the likes. It is for recognition. It is for the performance of awakening, not the depth of it.
Another danger of bypassed or misunderstood non-duality is that it can separate us from our hearts. When it becomes a concept rather than a lived truth, we may start to disconnect from others. Empathy dissolves. We call it detachment, but it is often a defense. The mind says everything is one, but the body is closed. We stop feeling. We stop caring. And slowly, without realizing it, we lose touch with the intimacy of being human.
Non-duality should not create apathy. It brings you closer. It opens you to the suffering of the world without being consumed by it. It softens the walls between self and other. It births compassion, not indifference.
Integration doesn’t reject any part of you. It meets all of it. Not conceptually, but intimately. Moment by moment.
“When you stop trying to get more of what you don’t really need, which is what you think you want, you can begin to get what you really need, which you already have.”— Adyashanti
I’ve had students come to me specifically asking for non-dual sessions, even though that’s not something I resonate with as a label anymore. Because the truth is, if that awareness is meant to unfold, it already comes through in my sessions, when someone is ready. But because they expected something specific, something named, something they had heard about from other trainings or teachers, they felt disappointed when I didn’t frame it that way. So I did the sessions anyway. I gave them what they asked for. And just like in the other immersions they had attended, they still didn’t “get it.”
Later, during a longer training, I didn’t mention non-duality at all. We spoke about being with what is. We drank tea in silence. We practiced presence. There was no goal, no peak state to reach, no pressure to become anything. And what happened? Slowly, gently, something began to shift. Their awareness deepened. Not as a sudden blast of realization, but as something steady, quiet, and profoundly real. It came not because they were trying to grasp it, but because they finally stopped trying.
And maybe that’s the secret. You don’t get it. Or, maybe more accurately, you lose what was in the way. And what’s left is what was always there.
And I want to say this too, because I meet many sincere students who feel ashamed for not “getting it.” They’ve sat in sessions, read the words, tried to grasp the teachings, and because they didn’t reach some non-dual state, they think something is wrong with them. That they're the only ones not getting it. But nothing is wrong. The more we try to get what cannot be gotten, the more we block ourselves. Because non-duality isn’t something we achieve. It’s the gentle unraveling of what was never separate to begin with. When we turn it into a performance, when teachers pretend they have “arrived,” it creates harm. It creates pressure. And it leaves the most sensitive, the most honest, feeling like they have failed. But you are not failing. This path unfolds on its own terms, in its own timing. You cannot force it. You can only become still enough to let it find you.
This is the real path. It is not always blissful. It is not always light. But it is how we integrate and realize our wholeness without leaving anything out.
