Non-duality
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Where are you? You may give an answer describing where your body is located, like, "I'm sat on a chair in my garden," "I'm in Liverpool," or "I'm on holiday in Florida." But that's not really where you are. That's where the sense of the human body is in relation to the rest of the world. It's far from exact. You could give precise coordinates of where your human body is, and indeed the body could be located from those accepted coordinates. But that's not really where you are.
You are not the body. You perceive the body. You perceive the world through the senses of the body. You also perceive thoughts, which are assumed to belong to the body. Well, the thoughts have assumed they are the body. It is thinking that identifies with the body that we perceive and through whose senses the world is perceived. Thinking thinks, "This is me." But it's wrong. You are not what thoughts think you are. Truly the body is not totally separated form from the world - no man is an island. There are no clear points where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. The body is an indivisible 'part' of the whole. So it's only a vague assertion of thought in identifying with something that isn't really defined.
There is a 'deeper' you that perceives the body, perceives thinking, and perceives the sense of identity with the body. Some may feel that they have a soul, but that is more like thoughts thinking that the body has a soul. It would be less inaccurate to say that the soul has a body. Where is the soul? We cannot say. The soul is assumed to be a spiritual identity that incarnates in the human body. Is it really in the body? We cannot say.
The most accurate that we could say is, "I am here." As soon as we try to describe where 'here' is we drift into inaccurate speculation. We can confidently say, "I am always here." But truly here is nowhere and everywhere. Everywhere you go you are here, but the real you never goes anywhere. That 'deeper' you is aware being. You are and you are aware that you are. This awareness is 'who' you are. It is not an identity as such. Awareness is what perceives the sense of identity coming and going. It is Awareness that remains when the body wakes and sleeps, comes to life and fades away. Awareness perceives the passing of life and death, whilst remaining in the natural state of Being. It is Awareness that perceives the passing of time and change from its unchanging timelessness.
You, me, everyone, all that is, is Awareness. Nothing is ever perceived outside of Awareness. Human conscious and unconscious states are perceived in Awareness. All fluctuations of the world rise and fall in the ever-present Awareness. Where is this Awareness that we are? All we can say is that it is Here. It is not relative to any other. There are no others. There is nothing beyond Awareness. It has no depth or distance. It is infinite and formless. The world moves within Awareness. Without Awareness the world cannot appear.
So know that you are not the body, nor even a soul that comes and goes. You perceive the comings and goings of the world. You are the Awareness that is the heart and whole of the world. You are Here Now, the timeless alert presence that perceives the fluctuating activity within the unchanging stillness of Aware Being.
Recognise that it is Stillness that perceives relative stillness and motion. It is Peace that perceives relative peace and conflict. It is the Dimensionless that perceives relative closeness and distance. It is the Timeless that perceives relative beginnings and ends.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
The idea of 'me' is an imposter. It's not the real you. It's a notion that I am this body. It's a notion that I am here in the world, that I am something distinct and separate from the rest of the world. But that's not true.
You are not separate from the world. It's a flawed idea. How? Well, there's no distinct point where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. We may casually see the tips of the fingers and believe that is where that part of the body ends. We may feel the feet as they touch a soft carpet, walk on grass, or slide on some socks. There is a sense of where the feet end and where the rest of the world begins. But it's not strictly correct.
There may seem to be a firm outer layer to the body that we call skin, but the skin isn't permanent. It is continually changing. It is continually replaced as the outer layer joins the environment. The skin is continually flaking away from the layer that seems to separate the body from the world, and then it is no longer the body. We could say that the outer layer of the body is continually replaced as it becomes "not the body".
So what seems to be a defining layer where the body is separate from the rest of the world is really indefinite. Really nothing is separate from the world. The world is always whole and complete. It is the mind that has the idea of separation and division. It is the mind that labels this and that as separate parts of an indivisible world.
What do we do about this? We recognise that the ideas of me that have shaped human life are flawed, and we allow this clearer understanding to permeate through the human world. Who can be our enemy when there is really no separation? Why should we argue and fight when truly we are one? This recognition breaks down the barriers that the human psyche has formed. These mental barriers seem to prevent us from being naturally as we are, at peace and at one.
Of course, really there is no 'us'. There is no real me and you. It is one infinite indivisible Being appearing as many. The peace and Oneness of Being remains timelessly as it is, whilst appearing to be and not to be.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
How to convey that the world is not made of many things? There is a general human assumption that there are many things in the universe and we can give them names, like stars, planets, mountains, buildings, plants, animals, people etc. These may be useful terms, and it may be useful to see and understand the world in this way, but it's not accurate.
The limits that we assume define these objects don't stand up to close scrutiny. For instance, we know the sun to be a star and we can understand the qualities of a star and the phases it will go through. We give stars different names dependent on their mass and evolutionary stage. Currently the sun is classed as a G2V type star, and in time it is expected to become a Red Giant, then later a White Dwarf, then a Black Dwarf. These are names given to different stages of stellar evolution.
But we can't give exact moments when the sun changes from one stage to another, because the change is gradual. All change is gradual. Even sudden change can be seen to be gradual if examined closely. There is no flip switch of change. Even a flip switch for a light involves time for the electric current to flow. It's not really Off-On, it's Off flowing to On. It's an important point. Reality may seem to be dualistic and based on opposites, but really there is a flow of change, a continuum. But that's for another article.
Let's focus back on what we define as the sun. We generally see the circular ball of fire in the sky and think, "That's the sun!" But the sun isn't wholly defined by its visible circular edges. In fact its circular edges are constantly flowing and changing, dipping and rising, and sometimes flaring out. From a distant it may seem perfectly round, but we know that this is not really the case. The sun is a flowing ball of energy. And not only that, it is an expulsion of energy. Animal and plant life on this planet are dependent on the energy from the sun. We can't say at what point the sun's rays are no longer the sun. They are a quality of the sun. A quality that interacts with all it reaches. Similarly, when we see a distant star at night, we see its light, which is its quality that stretches across the universe. Its light is not truly separate from it.
So you see, we imagine that we know things, but if we look closely we find that we cannot truly define them. The same applies to the human body. It is continually in a process of change and interaction with the environment. We can't define where the energy absorbed from the sun, from the air, from drinks and food, becomes the body. It is a continual process of change, structured temporarily as a seemingly finite form.
But the sun and the body are not finite forms. They have no limits. It is the same with all things. To use a less animated example, take a wooden chair. We know what it is, but when did it become a wooden chair? When the fourth leg was added? When its back was added? And at what point were they finally added? Is it when the final turn of a screw happens, that it is then a chair. No. And when does it cease to be a chair? Once some of its parts are removed or once all parts are removed? Once the final screw is released? No. Ultimately, our idea of what a wooden chair is is vague, and it is the same for all objects.
What we've done here is analyse our assumption that things are really what we think they are. We've examined the general human assumption that things are really separate defined things, and found that they are not. Our labelling of things is useful but not as accurate as believed to be. It's good to step back and recognise that assumptions are not necessarily accurate. Really what this all points to is infinity. Nothing can be define because the nature of reality is infinite.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Okay, this is going to be perhaps a more advanced Non-Duality exploration. The basic understanding is that there is only One, an Infinite One, which is really no number, there is no true separation of things in the world, there is no separate identity, and our true nature is That Which Is, the Infinite One Being or Beingness, Pure Consciousness or Aware Being. Recognition of this infinite indivisible oneness, or the dropping of the notion of separation and division, is Enlightenment or Self Realisation.
This Pure Consciousness or Aware Being in which the world appears (as everything appears in consciousness) is formless, complete, content, timeless, dimensionless, unmoving and unchanging. The world of motion and change that appears within the Changeless is known to be an illusory appearance, a play of change, and has been called Maya or Lila. So form and change are illusory. Reality is dimensionless stillness, complete and content.
We can go further in the understanding of Maya. The world that appears seems to have fallen out of the Singularity of Being. Where once, timelessly, there was no appearance of the world, there now seems to be an appearance of time and space, ever changing and moving. The Singularity is not broken, yet the world appears as if it did break, was divided, causing ripples of interaction and fluctuations between opposites. This world of opposites appears as a division of the timeless and formless Singularity, stretching out in time and space.
So this is the nature of the universe, an interplay of opposites (or 'The World of Opposites' as I call it) that seems to have appeared from the primordial Singularity. In Taoism this is described as the opposite forces of Yin and Yang arising within the oneness of the Supreme Ultimate. The appearance is not really 'from' the Singularity. The Singularity remains. So the world appears in the Singularity. It appears in the Pure Consciousness. There is no true division of Consciousness into what it is and what it is not. It's all Consciousness always.
Now to take this to a deeper level, so to speak. If Reality is formless and there is nothing other than this, how does the form of the world appear? The answer must be that it does not really appear... This seems to go against our observation, but it can be understood. Where does this form of the world begin or end? It doesn't. The apparently separate forms are not separate, so there are not numerous forms. We could say the universe is one form flowing through different appearances or expressions. Consider it like one continuous piece of string making many different shapes or forms, rather than many separate pieces of string making separate forms.
So the world appearing is not separate from the one in whom it appears. We usually consider the world as a subject-object appearance, but it is more like Awareness being aware of itself, or Consciousness knowing itself. There are not forms separate from the seeing or knowing of them. We could call it one form, but it is not just form. The one form is 'part of' the formless knowing of it. So the form and the formless are one. The form and the perceiving of it is like the stretching of Aware Being into the subject-object relationship of knower-knowing-known.
Aware Being, which is timelessly self-aware, seems to stretch itself apart in what we call space and time, and sees itself within itself. But the substance of 'form' (or what appears) is nothing other than the formless in which it appears. The form only seems to be 'solid' or dense because there is an apparent restriction, and restriction prevents it from being seen through. Yet the restriction or solidity of anything is only relative. Form cannot be wholly restrictive. The shapes and forms that are seen are not true shapes and forms. They only appear to be forms. They only seem to restrict awareness.
The forms that are seen are made of consciousness. Everything is consciousness. There is only consciousness. So there are no forms. Only formless, unseen Consciousness.