Side Effects of Enlightenment – Especially as a Spiritual Teacher

Spiritual events such as Enlightenment or God‑Realization are two profound inner shifts that transform you completely and permanently. They change the seat of your being and the way you perceive yourself, others, the world, and the Divine — forever.

They bring many wonderful things with them. Love. Peace. Vastness. Depth. Wisdom. Compassion. Clarity. The end of seeking.

But they also have their side effects.

In this text, I will offer both a general overview of the topic based on my current understanding, as well as draw some personal conclusions.

I am very aware that this phenomenon is by no means specific to me or the worldview and path of life I represent (InDivinality and EnLovenment). And precisely because of that, I would be delighted if this text finds both spiritual and emotional seekers and spiritual teachers, so that we can enter into a productive exchange about it.

In my view, the challenges and side effects of spiritual inner shifts are still spoken about far too little in public. With this text, I would like to make a small contribution toward opening a dialogue — or at least inspiring personal reflection, feeling, and contemplation.

Idealization | Savior‑Fantasy | Abdication of Responsibility in the Context of Spiritual Guidance

Spiritual events like Enlightenment or God‑Realization almost inevitably lead to idealization of the spiritual teacher/facilitator by students/facilitants — so how can we deal with this in a meaningful way?

Dear spiritual seekers, perhaps you recognize yourself (in part) here?

You meet your teacher, and something in you is deeply moved. Your heart, your soul says yes. Something in you resonates intuitively.

You begin the process with enthusiasm, and slowly it creeps in: you start placing your teacher on a pedestal. Maybe it simply feels like love and deep resonance. But could it be that it has slipped into adoration? Are you attaching hope to your teacher? Hope for what exactly? Salvation? Maybe even rescue?

Could it be that you are projecting your own essence onto your teacher “out there”; declaring their (perceived) state both the ultimate and simultaneously the unattainable?

And if you look more closely: are you perhaps hiding behind this because deep down you are convinced that you could never reach “that place” anyway? Could it even be that this conviction serves some parts of you as an excuse to continue acting from old patterns of making yourself too small or too big, to avoid bringing your soul‑gifts into the world, and to remain in childhood wounds and patterns, in the strategies of your Strategic Self, in your shadow, and in your 3D conditioning?

Have you ever caught yourself handing over your authority to your teacher? This can go seemingly well many times, when you follow suggestions or impulses that genuinely help you move forward. But what if the outcome isn’t to your liking? Could it be that you then secretly (or even openly) want to hold your teacher responsible for it? Perhaps overlooking that, if you’re honest, you didn’t actually follow the suggestion exactly as it was given and meant — but instead carried it out (likely without any ill intent, likely from unconscious patterns) with an “in‑order‑to” agenda, overlaid with your own themes? With an agenda from your Strategic Self (maybe you call it ego)? Perhaps even with shadow material influencing your actions — material you might then prefer to attribute to your teacher?

Could it be that the pedestal you placed your teacher on sometimes quietly or loudly flips — and you no longer project the savior onto them, but the devil?

Have you ever used the teachings or worldview of your teacher as a weapon toward other students, friends, or family? Or carried it like a shield in front of you? Have you admonished, shamed, or corrected others with it? Or silently devalued them inside yourself because they “haven’t understood the truth yet” or “aren’t living it properly”?

Don’t worry — you’re not alone in this! In my view, all these phenomena arise from childhood wounds, and they can be worked with. The first important step is that you take responsibility for them from now on.

Because this dynamic is so widespread, I believe it’s time we take a much closer look together and try to bring constructive movement into this millennia‑old pattern.

Dear colleagues, has it been similar for you:

That you couldn’t recognize the idealization from your beloved students/facilitants for a long time because, since your Enlightenment, there simply is no higher or lower?

From my experience, it is precisely part of Enlightenment to see the Essence in everyone — that Essence from which everything arises. You do not experience yourself as “more Essence” than others, and therefore not as higher, better, further, or more enlightened.

That others find you “amazing” is understandable on one hand (because the Divine itself finds everything amazing), yet over time it becomes vaguely strange when you notice that they seem to find you “more amazing” than others — and more amazing than themselves.

So what to do when this slowly dawns on you? Simply addressing it, in my experience, only bears limited fruit. It is all too often nodded off with a dreamy smile, while the underlying dynamic doesn’t actually change.

I wish for myself, for us, and for those we work with, that we find emotive, energetic, spiritual, verbal, and pragmatic ways to keep spiritual seekers anchored in healthy responsibility. For this, I consider it essential that we hold ourselves accountable — ensuring that we do not remain fused with NonSelf/DivineSelf, but instead offer human valences of contact, bringing ourselves into the relationship as authentically as possible, with all our human strengths and weaknesses, needs and boundaries.

This seems to me a foundation for preventing idealization, responsibility‑outsourcing, savior fantasies, or the handing over of authority — because we are directly experienceable in our human (!) vulnerability, instead of “coming from God/NonDuality/the Ultimate,” which can appear deceptively similar due to the ultimate openness, but is not the same at all. Neither within us, nor in contact.

Essential Questions for Spiritual Seekers & Emotio‑Spiritual Facilitants

While of course part of the responsibility in the encounter lies with the spiritual teacher/facilitator, you — dear adults seeking emotional and/or spiritual help, guidance, and support — are equally called to hold yourselves in full responsibility and to examine your relationship to your personal moment‑truth.

Here are some questions that can serve as orientation:

1. Am I standing firmly enough in my own truth that I won’t later say, “But my guru said…”?
2. Do I hold my truth in an open hand rather than a fist, so that feedback, questions, and impulses from my facilitator can truly land in me and transform me in a healing way?
3. Does the worldview or spiritual path I’m on genuinely resonate with me in depth, or do I mainly feel good in the “field” of my teacher?
   Can I apply the worldview meaningfully, sustainably, and across all areas of my life on my own — and does it help me make deeper sense of myself? Or is it less about the worldview and more about “bathing” in the warmth, love, wisdom, vastness, and depth of my facilitator?
   The latter may be a critical sign that Inner Children are driving too much of the motivation for the process. This is not necessarily a problem if it is clearly communicated and appropriately integrated — but be aware that in nondual paradigms, devotional worldviews, or 4D/5D frameworks, there is no designated place for Inner Children. If you are primarily on such a path, you may need additional support specifically for the needs and longings of your Inner Children, so they do not confuse your spiritual journey.
4. How exactly does the guidance of the person I authorize support me? Do I have suggestions or constructive feedback for how the guidance could deepen for me personally?

   It is always helpful to bring your personal needs into an emotio‑spiritual process.

5. What do I want to move within myself — and what am I willing to question, change, give up… and what not?

6. How exactly do I avoid taking responsibility — or do parts of me even refuse to do so?
   Am I overly eager, obedient, compliant “on the surface,” while contributing nothing substantial underneath?
   Do I get tangled in confusion, fog, vagueness — not knowing what I want or what to say when I speak with my teacher?Do I leave it mostly to them to figure out what’s going on and how they can help me?
   Do parts of me perhaps even enjoy sabotaging any deeper progress?
   Am I often fused with resistance, anger, maybe even aggression — mostly “anti,” unable or unwilling to hold that appropriately, while expecting my facilitator to somehow find an entrance to my heart without me contributing anything essential?

7. How do I take responsibility for what I discover about myself in this process — and how do I ensure in my daily life that both my light and my shadow are held and integrated by me with respect and love?

Toxic and Productive Ways of Relating to Emotio‑Spiritual Guidance

Many people, out of their wounds, tend to outsource responsibility while simultaneously letting nothing truly in. This is a toxic and paralyzing combination in which no real change or healing is possible — and in the worst case, harmful dynamics and outcomes can develop.

In contrast, entering deeply in self‑authority and allowing yourself to be genuinely touched opens the door to sustainable inner shifts, to defragmentation, essencing, spiritual awakening, integration, and wholeness.

For this inner orientation, every adult is solely responsible.

And I say this as a spiritual teacher and facilitator not to shift responsibility onto you, but on the contrary: because I want to address you in your greatness and wholeness.

Insights & Realizations from My Personal Experience of Facilitating Emotio‑Spiritual Processes

I personally began facilitating under supervision in 2003, and since early 2006 I have been doing so independently. I carry many moving, deeply touching, astonishing, and heart‑wrenching memories from the past 22 years. Joyful and humorous ones, deeply nourishing and magical ones. Challenging and stirring ones, moments and processes flooded with love and clearly held by the Divine.

It is a profound experience and a great honor to facilitate people — sometimes over many years — and to witness how they become more and more themselves, and how this unfolds in their lives.

That is the predominant overall flavor when I look back over these 22 years.

There are, however, also some specific moments, encounters, and dynamics that remain in my memory as more traumatic, unsettling, and painful. Not in the sense that I feel like a victim of them. Rather, they call me to look at what my part may have been in each case, and how I can move the underlying theme.

Looking back, I would say that my greatest challenge as a facilitator and teacher for many years was the issue of over‑responsibility. This has roots both in my childhood and in past lives. I began working on it at age 13, and to this day I continue to dive into deeper layers to bring it into a balanced place.

I would also say in hindsight that for several years after my two spiritual shifts, I was more or less fused with NonSelf and DivineSelf. I can’t even say identified, because part of NonSelf is precisely that you have no identification with anything at all; that you are blind to yourself. You are simply naked as what you are — in light as in shadow, in love as in fear.

Emotional, Energetic & Verbal Violence in the Spiritual Scene

When over‑responsibility and DivineSelf meet, one’s own human vulnerability becomes almost unreachable — or worse: inappropriate.

After my nondual Enlightenment, it lived in me as an unconscious self‑evident truth that with the “space” and “capacity” and the love and wisdom that opened through it, I was practically obligated to be available for everything.

To be open to everything, to hold space for everything; to always go along with everything from the place of the Divine, to answer everything, mirror everything, give space, time, and energy to everything. To give too many chances and always find yet another angle of deepening to offer.

A few people misread this blind spot in me so severely that they seemed to assume they themselves needed to contribute almost nothing to their process. It appeared to live in them that it was primarily my job to move their theme, while they needed to do little more than show up. There I clearly failed — or was at that time simply not capable — of making the distribution of responsibility clear.

Ultimately, the inability after my Enlightenment to feel my human emotions, needs, and boundaries — and to bring them into contact — even led, for a period of time, to situations in which emotional, energetic, and verbal violence from a few (thankfully very few) facilitants toward me and/or other group participants arose. And I was “open” to it, because it felt important that this aspect of the person be allowed to surface.

In doing so, I not only asked too much of myself, but also of the corresponding groups/seminars, and I did not set boundaries or consequences in time. Looking back, I am deeply sorry — for myself, for the other participants, and also for the people who could not hold themselves and whom I therefore did not serve in the best possible way.

Feeling personal emotions, sensing needs and boundaries, and expressing them — these are not strengths of people shortly after Enlightenment. I try to hold this with understanding and gentleness toward myself, while also holding myself accountable.

It is important to note that, to my recollection, none of the other participants present ever inhabited their self‑responsibility enough to address such situations or set a personal boundary. Something like: “This goes too far for me personally — could we find a different way of handling situations like this?” or something similar.

Of course, the primary responsibility lies with the seminar leader — that is clear. But every participant is naturally responsible for themselves, their well‑being, their integrity, and also for the overall group dynamic. A personal boundary at such a moment can help negotiate together what is appropriate and where individual needs and limits lie.

I observe that this is still far too rare in spiritual circles. On one hand, this is likely because spiritual teachers are too often fused with the “God‑Seat” and ask too few psychodynamic questions. On the other hand, many participants chronically and collectively hand over their responsibility to the teacher.

It is now widely known that numerous spiritual teachers regularly have angry or otherwise emotionally questionable outbursts during events or satsangs, then attribute them to the nondual — and no one says anything, because apparently this is considered normal among the enlightened.

I myself never had such outbursts, but I did allow outbursts from facilitants to take up too much space and time.

You, dear seekers, are truly called to not leave responsibility solely with your teacher/facilitator. Otherwise, you keep yourselves in dependency, in a lack of self‑authority, and in the worst case even in the feeling of being “a helpless victim.” It is essential to find your self‑authority here and to stand up for your needs and boundaries.

For this, you may need to risk losing the relationship with your teacher or your community if such a point cannot be negotiated.

I have learned from this to no longer allow emotio‑energetic, verbal, and of course no physical violence; in InDivinality we have now found wonderful ways for everything that lives inside to come to light and be felt — while being held in full responsibility by the person themselves.

A key part of this is that in Heart Dialogue we place great emphasis on cultivating awareness of the impact we each have on others, and taking responsibility for our part — including allowing ourselves to feel deeply how it affects us to evoke certain things in others, both the beautiful and the difficult.

It is one of the foundational assumptions in InDivinality that everyone is responsible for their own unconscious — and therefore for their emotions and reactions, themes and challenges, projections, triggers, and shadow. It strengthens people far more in their own greatness and healing movements and awakening shifts when they are respectfully but consistently returned to this responsibility, rather than being overly “picked up” within it.

Likewise, every person is encouraged to actively make transparent what is alive in them, how they feel, and where their boundaries lie — instead of staying silent, sugarcoating things to “fit in” or “be loved,” or swallowing what is going on inside.

These experiences have also trained me to ask far more questions than to offer answers or teachings.

Taking Darkness Seriously Helps Us Find Respectful and Appropriate Ways of Facilitating— and Helps Us Recognize God‑Projections Early

I don’t know how it is for you, dear colleagues, when it comes to the topic of “darkness,” but personally I suspect that not taking “darkness” seriously enough is a common side effect among people who are relatively fresh in God‑Realization and have not yet sufficiently integrated that experience into their human self.

By “darkness,” I don’t mean anything essentially evil, but rather souls who are still entangled in inner — and therefore also outer — war scenarios. This can show up directly in this world (3D) or on a soul level in the denser realms of the astral world (lower 4D). As long as parts of us are still entangled in war, betrayal, power, righteousness, winning, missionizing, competition, or revenge, this will inevitably be reflected in our lives.

I assume that every soul, at some point in its soul‑journey, has moved through this kind of darkness — until we eventually bring our participation in it to completion and digest it internally. Some of us have already done this, others are actively in the process, and for others this chapter will remain open for a while. We can see the effects and proportions of this very clearly on our planet.

From the perspective of the Divine, darkness is real, but far less real than love. This is exactly how it lived in me — for many years, stubbornly and consistently. And accordingly, this is how I facilitated.

This does not mean that I couldn’t recognize darkness. I was able to name and address it accurately quite early in my work. But a protective part in me — one I was unaware of for many years — stubbornly held onto the belief that no soul could truly mean to remain in darkness permanently and sustainably.

At least, this part assumed that every person, with goodwill, love of truth, and a desire for healing, would relate to the dark part within themselves. But when someone is still deeply entangled in darkness, this is obviously not the case — and perhaps simply not possible at that point in their soul‑journey.

This mixture of blindness and false conviction in me led to a dynamic where I could confront people very clearly with their darkness — and this clear mirroring was fundamentally good, because those individuals were able to get to know themselves deeply, held in a “container” that was always carried by Ultimate Love, no matter how ugly the (darkness) content became. From a place of: you are already forgiven. From: I see your Essence, even when you doubt that you are made of love.

But!

To the degree that I did not take it seriously on a human level, I did not hold these people accountable. They may have been aware of their patterns (more or less, depending on what suited them in the moment — which is a typical symptom of being deeply entangled in darkness), but there was no appropriate human boundary, and certainly no consequence when responsibility was not taken in a meaningful and sustainable way. When unpleasant, boundary‑crossing, inappropriate, or violent behavior kept happening. When no real, deep change was in sight, even though it sometimes looked like it for a while.

To the degree that I “came from the Divine” instead of from my humanity (with the Divine “behind” me), I made myself available for these people to get to know and reflect their darkness — but I also made myself available for them to repeatedly pour it over me and others. What I did not make myself available for was setting human, appropriate boundaries.

Yet this would have been healing in two ways:

1. it would have drawn a necessary boundary and created meaningful distance, and

2. it would have made it clear to the person that their conflict — which appears interpersonal — is actually primarily internal, and secondarily a conflict with the Divine/Ultimate.

Only there can the conflict be resolved. As experienced facilitators, we can certainly point the way — but I no longer consider it helpful to personally serve as the contact surface for it.

This is a deeper and more specialized context for what I described earlier about emotio‑energetic violence.

I have learned to take it seriously — on a human level — when I feel uncomfortable with someone as a person/woman, when someone frightens me, or when I experience someone as inappropriate, untrustworthy, or not in their self‑responsibility. It has become a taboo for me to “remain in the Divine” or “come from the Divine” in such situations.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that when someone first casts me as the savior from all suffering and then declares me the cause of all their problems, there is almost certainly a God‑projection at play — and it does not help to make myself available for that.

A significant percentage of projections that spiritual seekers place on teachers/facilitators are actually issues that relate primarily to the Divine — but are transferred onto the facilitator.

This is an extremely delicate situation, and sometimes ending the facilitation is the only helpful and sensible measure when repeated addressing of the issue cannot move it.

Coming Too Radically From Divine Love Can Overwhelm People

My God‑Realization in particular led to a permanent, deep experience of innocence, love, and goodness in myself and in everyone else — regardless of how someone behaved on a human level, or how unworthy or inadequate they felt.

This had especially challenging effects in my practice during shadow work.

Shadow, for me, is everything unconscious. The psychologically and emotionally repressed and suppressed. The unintegrated. What we project onto others — in the good and the bad. Ungrounded soul‑gifts. Unembodied essence. And also the darkness described above, which for many souls is still part of the shadow.

When someone authorized me — or explicitly asked me — to work with their shadow (I never did it without authorization), I approached it with full enthusiasm, a sense of adventure, and the deep knowing that we were essentially excavating a treasure.

Most of my facilitants could take this in, digest it emotionally, and integrate it in a healing way. A few made it seem as though they could — but apparently the integration did not occur as it appeared externally or as they claimed.

Not many nondual teachers work proactively with psychological/soul shadow, because it belongs to the personal self, which in nondual worldviews is considered irrelevant. But perhaps you, dear colleague, can still translate this into your own work if you think of dynamics or situations in which you “came from the Ultimate” and overwhelmed your counterpart on a human‑personal level.

I believe it is truly important that we understand how difficult it can be for our facilitants to grasp and sort out that from the perspective of Divine Being, shadow is fundamentally no problem at all — while from the perspective of the personal, wounded self, shadow can be terrifying and shame‑laden.

After Enlightenment/God‑Realization, we know — without question — that through the eyes of the Ultimate, there is absolutely nothing to fear: no shadow too dark, no abyss too deep, no “sin” unforgivable. But for people without God‑Realization/Enlightenment or without a deeply anchored sense of innate personal goodness, this can be overwhelming.

Thus, coming too radically from Ultimate Love and seeing Essence first in others — instead of meeting them primarily in human valences — can strongly challenge and confuse people. Especially when — as is the case for many — there is a confusing mixture in them: they may appear powerful, dominant, even threatening or aggressive at the contact surface, or strongly resistant, projecting, lashing out, or withdrawing into fog and becoming unreachable… while simultaneously experiencing themselves primarily as victims, helpless, unjustly treated, unworthy, or fusing with enemy images — with little access to their Essence and goodness.

I have fundamentally changed the method and the place from which we now approach a soul‑shadow, and since then I have not had a single negative, frightening, boundary‑crossing, or otherwise inappropriate encounter with facilitants who were actively working with a shadow part. It is now self‑evident that they themselves are responsible for the feelings and reactions of their part, and that they — as SoulSelf — provide the contact surface.

This shift has fundamentally changed the way shadow work unfolds in my practice. It has become natural that each person holds their own emotional and energetic reactions, and that they — as SoulSelf — are the one who meets their shadow at the contact surface. This has created a level of clarity, safety, and empowerment that was not possible before.

I have also learned from all of this to look more closely, at the very beginning of working with someone, at what their motivations are for wanting to embrace and walk InDivinality as Dharma and as a life path — and whether they currently have the inner capacity for it. Since I have often experienced that people hear such a statement as if I were declaring some individuals “less equal,” I want to be absolutely clear that this is not what it is about. It comes from attentiveness and care for where an individual currently stands on their soul‑journey. And it may simply be the case that some people first need a deep, more conventional psychotherapy to stabilize before they can walk a path that involves profound deconstruction of their StrategicSelf.

Likewise, it is best to have both feet firmly on the ground before you venture into the astral realms. You need a solid experience of your most healed, realized, essenced self before you embark on a path that helps you lose your sense of self. Ideally, you already have a deep relationship with your healing personal will and your individual love before you set out to discover, in depth, who the Divine is in essence.

I would personally like to encourage you, dear colleagues, to be more attentive in discerning whom you work with. I know of cases where people experiencing psychosis were “supported in waking up,” and afterward were far worse off than before. I have also heard of extremely psychologically fragile individuals being encouraged to undergo sterilization because it supposedly leads to enlightenment more quickly.

Yes, every adult is responsible for themselves.

But this is also about how comfortable and aligned we feel with the person in front of us. And honestly: working with people who are in a diffuse kind of distress — for which they currently cannot or will not take responsibility — rarely feels resonant or satisfying for us either, does it? We can feel that what we want to offer, and are capable of offering, cannot truly be received; it doesn’t really land; it doesn’t move what it could move.

What if we are not “too enlightened” to take this human preference seriously — out of love for our humanity and our love for people?

Finally...

In closing, I want to say that if my spiritually unintegrated shifts over those years caused unpleasant experiences in some individuals — and they certainly also caused much beauty and healing — I am personally deeply sorry for that.

At the same time, it is my truth that this is the first time for all of us on our soul‑journey that we are attempting to unite the personal‑human, the eternal‑soulful, the NonSelf, and the ultimate divine essence of love in a single form. That each of us stumbles and occasionally runs headfirst into a tree is simply part of the nature of this undertaking. I personally could not integrate it any faster or deeper than it happened, and the consequences were the themes I have described above.

In the last two to five years, something fundamental has shifted and transformed — in me personally, in the foundational orientation of InDivinality, and in the way I facilitate. And I am enormously glad, grateful, and relieved about that.

I hope you were able to take something from my personal reflections and my overarching conclusions and suggestions — whether you read them more from the perspective of someone being facilitated or from that of a spiritual teacher.

I am very curious how this lands in you and would be delighted to receive a comment or an email. Perhaps a fruitful exchange will even emerge.

And by the way, I am also happy to offer supervision, even if you hold a different worldview.

County Sligo, Ireland, 21|12|2025

Much Love, Iona