Zandtao considers bypassing as the avoidance of egos. That clearly is not a good thing because then there is separation – we are not integrated, integrated in ourselves nor integrated as Unity - Interbeing.
Can such avoidance ever be skilful? Do we ever use bypassing in a useful or beneficial way? Quite simply, the answer is yes. Let us consider a new seeker beginning meditation. How much trauma does that seeker have? How many egos? Suppose in the first meditation, all traumas and egos came out; the seeker might blow up. Good practice for meditation advisers is to always be available, a bespoke process for individual seekers are better to avoid the arising of intense trauma. What happens to the egos that are not immediately released in meditation? Do they go away?  Of course not, they usually come back and hit you later, they can remain hidden and cause shadow issues..
What we can legitimately say is that our inner guides have bypassed egos for good purpose – to deal with more urgent trauma (egos). In such a situation bypassing as controlled by the inner guide is beneficial. Quite naturally with a sound practice the inner guide comes back to these egos and releases them. For zandtao this process of releasing egos is ongoing and never-ending. It appears to zandtao that despite autonomy and the development of tathata and the 5 Dhamma comrades - mindfulness/sati, love/karuna, wisdom/panna, concentration/samadhi and embodiment/sampajanna, there are still egos. These egos might have always resided or they might be newly residing, whichever they need to be found and released.
As we follow our paths autonomy brings us peace, and in that peace through our practice we can continue to release egos – increasing peace. So even in autonomy we have bypassed egos, it is important for seekers to be mindful that there has been bypassing and to be constantly practicing to find the egos that the inner guide has let us previously bypass – in order to release them.
When is this bypassing going to be a problem? When it stops being skilful ie when for some egoic reason it seems to the seeker that it stops being beneficial to avoid egos. This might occur if the seeker stops with their practice; hence we have the warnings of the diamond sutra.
Zandtao can conceive of a time when there is an end to ego, and that is in the state of enlightenment. Enlightenment is something zandtao does not usually discuss because he does not understand it. Zandtao tries to follow his path and do the best he can:-
But what if a seeker consider they have attained enlightenment. It would seem to zandtao that such an enlightened being would not consider looking for egos because they are enlightened - a zandtao speculation. That would seem reasonable for an enlightened being to do - again zandtao speculation.
But what if a seeker considers themselves enlightened when they are not? There would be egos that have been bypassed, and because they consider they are already enlightened they will not be looking for them so they are going to increase. Such would be a serious danger of bypassing. If such a seeker considers themselves enlightened, it is likely that this “enlightened being” would have followers, and these followers would be at risk from their unenlightened leader. Unfortunately such a person is likely to have the charisma of enlightenment (false enlightenment), and the followers might well accept the advice of such a leader. That might well lead to the worse aspects of bypassing that we have heard of – sexual exploitation.
There might be other implications of this falsely-perceived enlightenment – less harmful to others but damaging to Gaia and humanity. For zandtao spiritual bypassing is concerned with the avoidance of egos, and so is something that all seekers need to be aware of. Bypassing can arise for skilful reasons as described above, and our insight through our inner guides needs to be mindful that there could be bypassing. However zandtao believes that spiritual bypassing is usually considered as the up-the-mountains separation that gives solitude a bad rep. It is zandtao’s approach that seekers need some solitude at times in their lives, such solitude can indeed help the seeker deal with the unskilful bypassing of egos. But if a seeker chooses to spend time in solitude, then that is unlikely to be nature’s plan for that seeker’s path. Nature’s collective path concerns the harmony of people living together and with nature. If a seeker becomes aware of their path then embodying that path is likely to be with people in society given the preponderance of patriarchy rather than up a mountain developing jhanas; perhaps this aspect of bypassing is what Nicola is so critical of as transcendence.
Zandtao has a proviso, and that is Eckhart’s 2nd mystery – conscious evolution of consciousness. Zandtao’s embodiment is limited because of his age, and considers spiritual evolution amongst the aged could be appropriately applied through conscious evolution.
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