[2] It is part of a larger religious current called immediatism by Arthur Versluis,[3][web 2] which has its roots in both western and eastern spirituality.
[17] Popular interest in Indian religions goes as far back as the early 19th century, and was stimulated by the American Transcendentalists[3] and the Theosophical Society.
[20] Stimulated by Arthur Osborne, in the 1960s Bhagawat Singh actively started to spread Ramana Maharshi's teachings in the USA.
[2][21] Poonja, better known as Papaji, "told, inferred, or allowed hundreds of individuals to believe they were fully enlightened simply because they'd had one, or many, powerful experiences of awakening.
[14] According to Lucas, Ramana Maharshi was the greatest modern proponent of Advaita Vedanta, well known for emphasizing the enquiry of the question "Who am I?"
It has pervaded the western understanding of Asian religions, and can be found in Swami Vivekananda and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's Neo-Vedanta, but also in the works of D.T.
[25] It can also be found in the Theosophical Society, and the contemporary New Age culture, with influences like Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception, and writers like Ken Wilber.
[26][note 3] Gregg Lahood also mentions Neo-Advaita as an ingredient of "cosmological hybridization, a process in which spiritual paradises are bound together",[28] as exemplified in American Transcendentalism, New Age, transpersonal psychology and the works of Ken Wilber are examples:[29] Brown and Leledaki place this "hybridization" in a "structurationist" approach,[30] pointing out that this is an "invented tradition", which is a response to a novel situation, although it claims a continuity with a "historic past", which is "largely facticious.
[36] "Immediatism" refers to "a religious assertion of spontaneous, direct, unmediated spiritual insight into reality (typically with little or no prior training), which some term 'enlightenment'.
"[web 2] Although immediatism has its roots in European culture and history[37] as far back as Platonism,[38] and also includes Perennialism,[39] Versluis points to Ralph Waldo Emerson as its key ancestor,[37] who "emphasized the possibility of immediate, direct spiritual knowledge and power.
"[38] Neo-Advaita has been called a "controversial movement,"[web 6][40] and has been criticized,[6][7][note 5][8] for its emphasis on insight alone, omitting the preparatory practices.
[web 10] According to Caplan, traditional Advaita Vedanta takes years of practice, which is quite different from the neo-Advaita claims.
He then traveled as a wandering monk for two years visiting many shrines, temples, and teachers across India, until he recognized there was no difference in his beingness no matter where he was.