What
is Nonduality - Nondualism - Advaita?
Jerry Katz, editorEncylopedia Britannica article
Traditional
Various
authors and teachers
Brief
Explications
Lengthier
Explications
From What
Is Enlightenment magazine
From 'A Brief History of Everything', by Ken Wilber
Secondary
Nondualism and Ultimate Nondualism of Da Free John
Meeting
the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists and the Art
of the Self, by Anne Carolyn Klein
The
Rotten Root, by Drew Hempel
Advaita
Vedanta web site FAQ
The following
material is take from The Basket of Tolerance, Version
dated June 10, 1991.
Secondary
Nondualism and Ultimate Nondualism of Da Free John (aka
Da Avabhasa, Adi Da, etc.)
First it is
necessary to understand the seven stages of life:
The Seven
Stages of Life
Stage One --
Individuation. The first stage of life is a process of
individuation, or of becoming identified with the
physical body in the waking state. In this stage, one
gradually adapts functionally to physical existence and
eventualy achieves a basic sense of individual autonomy,
or of personal independence from the mother and from all
others.
Stage Two
-- Socialization. The second stage of life is a process
of socialization, or social exploration or growth in
relationships. In this stage, the individual adapts to
the emotional-sexual, or feeling dimension of the being
and achieves basic integration of that dimension with the
physical body.
Stage Three
-- Integration. The third stage of life is a process of
integration as a fully differentiated or autonomous,
sexual and social human character. In this stage, one
adapts to and develops the verbal mind, the faculty of
discriminative intelligence, and the will. And one
achieves basic adult integration of body, emotion, and
mind in the context of the bodily-based point of view.
Although the first
three stages of life are the necessary foundation of all
human development, the point of view of the first three
stages of life represents an error, or limitation, in
Consciousness, because it is based in identification with
the body (rather than identification with our True or
Divine Self-Nature.)
Because of mankind's
generally weak or incomplete adaptation in the first
three stages, it is extremely rare for individuals to
pass into the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, or the
seventh stage of life. Though experiences of the states
of consciousness of the advanced and the ultimate stages
of life may occur for anyone, mere experience does not
constitute stable Realization of that stage (which
requires stable responsibility for the processes of that
stage).
Whereas the first three
stages of life develop in three periods of roughly seven
years each, the duration of the advanced and the ultimate
stages of life cannot be predicted, since that duration
depends on many factors, including the force of the
individual's impulse to growth and self-transcendence and
the stages of life taught and realized by his or her
teachers and tradition.
Stage Four
-- Spiritualization. The fourth stage of life is the
transitional stage between the gross, bodily-based point
of view of the first three stages of life and the subtle,
psychic point of view of the fifth stage of life.
In the fourth stage of
life, the gross, or bodily-based personality of the first
three stages of life is harmonized and converted to love
through devotional reception of and surrender to the
Spiritual Force (also called "Holy Spirit" or
"Shakti") of the Divine Reality. ... Communion
with this Spiritual Force becomes naturally felt and
expressed as service and devotion to the Divine... . As
the fourth stage of life advances, the individual enters
into the more mystical processes that are fully developed
in the fifth stage of life.
...the common error of
the fourth stage of life is the tendency to prolong the
first three stages of life, and the patterns of
un-happiness that are egoically associated with the first
three stages of life. This tendency takes the form of a
fixed idea of God and the personal self as eternally
separate from one another, thereby making the fourth
stage of life into a never-ending search for God and a
never-ending appeal to God for intimacy, relief, and
self-satisfaction.
Stage Five
-- Higher Spiritual Evolution. In the fifth stage of
life, existence is viewed from the point of view of the
higher mind, or psyche, which is the subtle dimension of
the being beyond the gross, verbal-conceptual mind, and
above, or prior to, the processes of the gross body. The
traditional orientation of the fifth stage of life is
toward renunciation of gross bodily existence in the
phenomenal world, is some cases through asceticism.
Traditionally, the
fifth stage of life is the stage of mysticism and the
Yogas or contemplative and practical exercises) that
attune one to the Divine Spiritual Reality through the
psychic point of view of the higher brain and nervous
system. Thus, the fifth stage of life is awakened and
developed through the contemplative, Spiritual ascent of
attention and the energy of one's being into the subtle
or psychic dimension and processes of the being.
Traditionally, the ultimate achievement of the fifth
stage of life is absorption in mystical Unionn with the
Divine, which in the Yogic traditions is called
"nirvikalpa samadhi" (formless ecstasy).
...the error of the
fifth stage of life is the tendency to seek and cling to
subtle objects and states as if they were Ultimate
God-Realization (or, in the case of fifth stage
conditional nirvikalpa samadhi, the tendency to seek and
cling to conditional transcendence of these objects and
states).
Stage Six
-- Awakening to the Transcendental Self. In the sixth
stage of life, one's characteristic view of existence is
not based in identification with the body-mind or even
with the subtle mind (or psyche). Rather, it is based in
identification with the apparently independent
Consciousness, or essential self, exclusive of th
ephenomena of the body-mind and the world. In this stage,
one renounces all identification with body or mind and
lives and acts from the position and the domain of
Consciousness, as the Transcendental Witness of the
body-mind and all psycho-physical phenomena. The sixth
stage of life will most likely include (perhaps even
frequently) the experience of Jnana Samadhi, or temporary
or conditional Realization of the Divine Self.
The error of the sixth
stage...is the tendency to hold on to the position of
Consciousness as if it were a reality separate from
Spirit-Energy and the conditional world. It is the
tendency to hold on to the inherent love-bliss of
Consciousness by strategically excluding all awareness
of...conditional objects and states. Jnana Samadhi,
because it is associated with an accompanying effor that
excludes all conditional objects and staes, is an
expression of this sixth stage error.
Stage Seven
-- Divine Enlightenment. The seventh stage of life is
Perfect Freedom, inherently Transcending every kind of
conditional, limited, or individual point of view. All
conditions are divinely recognized as merely apparent
modifications of the Love-Bliss-Radiant Consciousness in
which all conditional forms or events arise and pass
away.
Thus, in the seventh
stage of life, the Realizer enjoys Sahaj Samadhi, or
continuous permanent, inherently perfect identification
with Divine Being or Happiness Itself, and he or she
experiences no "radical" or fundamental
difference between Divine Consciousness and body, psyche,
separate or separative self, or any and all
psych-physical states and conditions.
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Secondary Nondualism
First, two terms have to be defined:
Purusha: The Self, the Absolute, pure
consciousness. The witness observing the changes taking
place in Prakriti.
Prakriti: the primal matter of which the
universe consists. By its proximity to purusha, it
creates the mind, the world of appearances.
According to this point of view
-- Secondary Nondualism -- there is no inherently
independent and separate Purusha, but the totality of
existence is only Prakriti (or a beginningless and
endless continuum of causes and effects, or, in effect,
modifications of Prakriti, or of "energy
itself"). Therefore, according to this point of
view, Prakriti (or "energy itself") appears
only as ephemeral changes preceded and followed by
equally ephemeral changes, until (by the process of
observation, insight, and self-pacification) the inherent
(or original, or Nirvanic) state of Prakriti is realized.
(However, there is an ultimate
paradox necessarily associated with this orientation, or
point of view, for if the realization of the original or
Nirvanic state of Prakriti, or of "energy
itself", is in fact achieved, how can that
realization be differentiated from, or otherwise be
presumed to be other than, or not identical to, Absolute
Consciousness itself?)
In any case, this point of view
and Process...is traditionally associated with the sixth
stage of life, and such great sixth stage schools as have
appeared within the traditions of Buddhism and Taoism.
Ultimate Nondualism
According to this point of view, there is (in
Truth) no Prakriti, but the totality of existence is only
Purusha. Therefore, from this point of view, this
"Ultimate Absolute" (or this non-conditional,
and, as such, inherently perfect, and perfectly
subjective reality) must, first of all, be understood
(and directly intuited) to be actual and then perfectly
or utterly affirmed (by direct identification with
Consciousness Itself).
And this point of view and
process (which may follow upon, or be uncovered by, the
point of view and process of Secondary Non-dualism) is
the second (and final, and Principal) nondual possible
point of view and process traditionally (and inherently)
associated with the sixth stage of life (and such great
sixth stage schools as have appeared in the form of the
traditions of Advaitism, and also, secondarily, or with
less directness, within the schools of some varieties of
Buddhism, especially within the Mahayana and Vajrayana
traditions, and, but with even less directness, within
some of the schools of Taoism).
Indeed, this point of view and
process is (when most perfectly realized) the "point
of view" (and ultimate perfect process) that
establishes and characterizes even the seventh stage of
life.
The "Self-Abiding"
discipline of Ultimate Non-dualism achieves
self-transcendence (or renunciation of body and mind),
but by the ultimate and most direct means of perfectly
subjective Self-Abiding, whereas Secondary Non-dualism
seeks Ultimate Non-duality by the conditional means of
either asceticism or self-pacification. However, it is
also generally the case in actual practice that the real
process of Self-Abiding (or direct and profound
identification with consciousness itself, prior to body
and mind) begins or develops only after, or in the course
of, degress of practice (previous to the sixth stage of
life, or otherwise in the context of the sixth stage of
life) wherein either ascetical or self-pacifying
disciplines are engaged until identification with the
body and the mind is sufficiently released to stably
allow the direct approach of unconditional identification
with consciousness itself.
Utter self-purification or utter
self-pacification is not possible, and, in any case, it
is not itself God-Realization (or the realization of
Truth Itself, or Reality Itself). Therefore, the limits
of (or the search associated with) the moderate and
necessary orientation toward self-renunciation must
eventually be understood, and even the motive of
self-renunciation must then (in the context of the sixth
stage of life) be replaced (or transcended, or perfectly
fulfilled) by the ultimate process of Native
Identification with the inherently perfect and perfectly
subjective (and, ultimately, Divine), Non-Dual (or
Absolute), Self-Existing, and Self-Radiant Truth, or
Reality Itself, which is Existence (or Being) Itself,
Consciousness Itself, and Happiness (or Love-Bliss)
Itself. And, in the course of this ultimate Process,
God-Realization Itself (or the Unqualified, or Absolute,
Realization of Truth Itself, or Inherently Perfect
Reality Itself) is made Perfectly possible by Divine
Grace.
For more on Da Free John,
or, Adi Da, explore the DaBase
website. It is
richly informative. Yes, Adi Da is a very controversial
figure that few, if any, in the nonduality mainstream
acknowlege these days.
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