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#3760 - Tuesday, December 29,
2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
A couple of blog entries from people describing nonduality. For a list of over a hundred blogs based in nonduality, please visit http://nonduality.com/blogs.htm
http://garyswordsofwisdom.blogspot.com/2009/12/so-what-does-nondualism-mean.html
Hold an arbitary object in front of you,
such as a pencil. Are you a pencil? The answer would seem
blatantly obvious - of course not. Everything in your experience
and understanding tells you that the idea is preposterous. When
however you look further into exactly what a pencil is and what
you are, deeply disturbing questions arise about the fundamental
nature of everything.
I have explored this question and reached a startling conclusion.
I am not the first to reach it, in fact countless millions have
over millennia. It is no less shocking to any mind brought up in
Western culture. There is no doubt in my awareness that
everything I am aware of is actually one thing. All that is
within awareness is one universal consciousness. This is at first
impossible to grasp, meaningless twaddle to common experience,
but there is one very good model by which you may understand -
that of the dream.
Consider a dream. When you are having a particularly vivid dream,
it seems very real at the time. It provokes real emotions that
carry into consciousness. For example when you wake from a
nightmare, you can wake up feeling terrified. And yet what was
the whole experience made of? What were the true nature of the
other people and objects in your dream? Clearly they were all
simply your consciousness, as separate and physical as they may
have felt.
In the same way, whilst apparently wide awake, what are you
experiencing right now? On the most fundamental physical level,
energy is simply changing form. It is YOUR MIND that is turning
it into the experience that you call "your life". What
you think is happening is actually far removed from true reality
as much as the dreamworld is from the conscious world. This true
reality is nondualism, the acceptance that all
things are actually one universal consciousness.
As shocking as the implications are, to embrace this truth makes
very little immediate impact on your life, any more than waking
"reality" affects a dream. You still experience the
dream until you wake. In the same way, knowing what you truly are
does not stop you experiencing life. What you will get in time is
relief, total peace of mind, that no life experience can take
from you. If that is attractive, maybe you should explore
further. For those who like logical/scientific argument, follow
this link for an excellent
beginner's explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8AXmJdmzfM&feature=related
http://www.kennethmadden.ie/?p=1016
Understanding is of no importance when it
comes to Non- Duality. The word Advaita (meaning Not Two, I use
Advaita and Non-Duality interchangeably) points to something that
is totally beyond understanding. It is a very interesting subject
(and the equivalent of watching paint dry for many, if not most),
but getting your teeth into it and understanding it and being
able to discuss and describe it in an intellectual or intelligent
manner is of no relevance what so ever. There are many who are
claiming to be liberated and have an enormous intellectual grasp
of the topic and clearly there is still a personal agenda,
clearly they are still offering something to the individual. The
language used is very similar to other uncompromising messages
(e.g. there is no one, this is it etc) but there is still
something on offer to the individual and the ‘teacher-
student’ game is played out, even though the teacher is
claiming not to be one.
Non-duality or Advaita then becomes the last refuge of the
individual who is under threat. It is fodder for the mind. It
becomes the new, best concept in town as it were. There can be a
certain clarity that it brings which eases the search for the
individual in the sense that it is seen that there is nothing
that can be done. That is not liberation however, understanding
that there is no separate individual is not liberation as there
is (apparently) a separate individual left who understands that.
Understanding is seen as king when in fact it has nothing to do
with what is in fact being sought. Understanding simply arises in
being, is it just another apparent happening. It is of course
married to ignorance or confusion. One is dependent on the other
for existence.
What is being pointed to has no room for the concept of duality
or non-duality/Advaita. It has no room, no space for concept. It
is so immediately THIS and so simply and obviously what IS that
the Duality - Non Duality debate has as much significance as a
leaf scattering along cold concrete. Wholeness arises as confused
message and wholeness arises as a clear message.
The juicy sweetness, the boundless freedom of everything, the
unconditional love that is This is speaking to you always and is
totally beyond understanding. It is already what is, already
this. What is being sought is already what is. So simple, so
open, so ordinary and also totally beyond any effort to describe
its beauty.
Amazing.