David Hall's Non-Duality Blog
My name's David Hall. I'm the creator of this web site and its content. I live in Wales in the UK.
I developed the Celtic design software KnotWorker, I create electronic music as Goldcup7, and I've written books on spirituality and non duality.
Hope you enjoy this Non Duality blog. New blogs are added on Fridays.
Please use the Contact page if you have any questions or would like me to discuss a topic.
- Category: Non-duality
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Imagine circles drawn on a sheet of paper. Each circle seems to have its own centre. But truly the heart of each circle is the whole paper. The circles do not truly limit the paper.
It is similar for every being. The heart of every being is the whole. It is not that every being is conscious, but rather every being has a hollow centre that is Consciousness itself. Truly there are not many beings. There is only the appearance of many beings.
Maybe a better analogy would be to imagine circles chiselled in a smooth piece of stone. The circles are made of stone and appear to have their own stone centres. But there is only the stone. This is how beings appear in Consciousness. There is only formless Consciousness, but formations appear within Consciousness, made of Consciousness, appearing to contain Consciousness. The forms (in our case human beings) can look for Consciousness within them but they find there is no inside or outside of Consciousness: there is only Consciousness. This is Self Realisation or Enlightenment - the realisation of one's true nature as infinite without division or separation.
The heart of your being is the whole. You are not a separate being. You are not conscious within the human form. You are Consciousness itself, within which the human form appears. It is the same Consciousness that seems to be at the heart of all beings, yet it is the whole.
There is only an appearance of inside and outside within Infinite Consciousness. Consciousness has no duality or multiplicity. There is only What Is.
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
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The Yin and Yang symbol originated from Chinese philosophy, which stated that there was an Undifferentiated Oneness (Taiji, the Supreme Ultimate) prior to the appearance of the opposing forces of duality. It's a symbol commonly used in Taoism. There are a lot of similarities with Taoism and Non-Duality. But here I'm going to look at Yin and Yang from the Non-Duality perspective.
It might seem odd for someone reading for the first time that the Yin and Yang symbol relates to an Undifferentiated Oneness. They are opposites, right? So what's that got to do with Oneness. Well, in Non-Duality we recognise that the world appears as an interplay of opposites, but this is illusory in nature. The True Reality (or I could say, the Supreme Ultimate Reality) is Infinite Indivisible Oneness.
The Yin and Yang symbol shows the interplay of opposites enclosed in a circle. The circle represents the infinite oneness. I realise that my books have been about this all along. In the books I explain about The World of Opposites and The Law of Opposites, but I also point out that the Reality is not two. The Reality is the Infinite One. I liken Reality to an Infinite Singularity, the original unmanifest state of being. This sounds a lot like the Undifferentiated Oneness of Taiji, the Supreme Ultimate.
The Yin and Yang symbol (called Taijitu) is a wonderful visualisation of the interacting, flowing forces of the world. The opposites appear as a clear reflection of each other, light and darkness. The opposing forces flow in unison, from one to the other, and one cannot appear without the other appearing. There is an underlying sense that these opposites remain as one.
As I've explained elsewhere, The World of Opposites is an appearance of separation within the Infinite Singularity of Being. It's as if the Infinite Undifferentiated Singularity exploded into a world of opposites, what is like it and what is not like it, what is and what is not. That really seems to be a natural way to make the invisible Oneness visible - by use of opposites or reflection. It seems that what first appears is 'what is' against 'what is not'. Imagine a point of light appearing in the darkness. The point is 'what is' and the darkness is 'what is not'. A duality seems to be created, and this basic duality can combine to form the complex World of Opposites that we experience. It might seem like a huge leap, but imagine how video games have developed from the basic 1 and 0. A world of complex interactions can be developed from this basic dichotomy.
It may seem like a dichotomy - a splitting into two opposites - but it's not really. You see, the Oneness is still here. The Infinite Singularity cannot really be divided in two. It is timeless and unchanging. There is no space or time in the primordial Singularity. So when space and time appear they appear within this Infinite One. This is where we reach over to Hindu philosophy, and the Upanishads, that teach that the Ultimate Reality is our own Aware Being. This Infinite One is who we are. There is none other than the Infinite One. It is the Infinite Consciousness that experiences the world as an interplay of opposites.
Our true nature is not a conflicting or interacting of opposites. We are truly beyond the appearance of the world. The Infinite One cannot truly see itself. Only by aid of reflection and opposites can the Infinite One experience itself as limited forms. The Formless perceives forms. The Changeless perceives change. Yet there is no outside or inside of Infinite Consciousness. The play of separation of opposites appears within the Infinite One, the Ultimate Reality, Pure Consciousness.
- Category: The Human Experience
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The world isn't meant to be easy. Human life isn't supposed to be all wonderful. Don't expect life to be kind to you. You're not necessarily going to succeed in what you want to do and get what you want. That may sound harsh, but sometimes people expect that life should be good, fun and full of happiness. But that's not the case. There may be some fun times and some happiness, but there will certainly be some trouble. Let's understand why.
The simple answer is this: humanity is mixed up. There is a general human sense that, "I am this human being, these are my things, and I'm focused on myself and my life." If we live a lie like that, or rather if we live by a mistaken belief like that, the world is going to challenge us. If I believe that I am a human then problems occur, because it's a mistake. Humans are not really defined and limited, and that's not who we are. At the core of all humans, and for that matter all apparently separate beings, there is a Oneness. One Consciousness. We are that One Infinite Consciousness, not many different beings - that is the illusory play of form in formless Consciousness.
When this error of identification takes hold, when Infinite Consciousness is drawn into the belief of being a limited being, it creates an imbalance. It's like we've fallen out of unity and got caught up in a world of opposing forces. Then there needs to be a rebalancing. We need to be shaken out of it, effectively. That means that life is going to be tough, until we get to the point of realising that something is wrong here.
Humanity is caught up in this clashing of identity - I am this, that belongs to me, you are nothing to do with me, you offend me, I will win. The root of all evil is not money, it is the delusion of separate identity. A limited being defends its limits, imposes its limits on others, and encroaches on others' limits. That's where all the clashing comes from in this human experience.
There have been enough human experiences for us to confidently say that it's normal for human life to have problems. What can we do about this? Accept it. There's no point fighting against the world. The world is this rocking, rolling wave of forces clashing sometimes and quietening sometimes. That's the world, but that's not you. You are not in this rocking, rolling world. You are the still Infinite One Consciousness, within which the world appears.
In truth you have not fallen out of unity into the world of opposites. You remain as you are, the Infinite One, beyond time and space. The human experience is the play of the human world, experiencing limitation, clashing, distancing, the push and pull, the joys and sorrows. Know it is not you. You are unbroken by the appearance of the separate world. Your infinite nature remains unblemished by what seems to come and go.
- Category: The Universe
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It's useful to imagine a singularity. Really, I should say the Singularity, as there can only be one singularity. You can't have many singularities floating around, overlapping or bumping edges, because there are no edges to a singularity. The Singularity has no beginnings or ends, no inside or outside. It is formless, indivisible and dimensionless. Let go of the notions of time and space - they don't exist in the Singularity. There is no space or distance, no time or change. The Singularity is complete in its perfect, still, untainted nature.
Now, let's recognise what we're talking about here. This Singularity I've asked you to imagine is what was before the universe began. It's what was before time and space appeared. So really there is no 'was' about it. It's timeless. Confusion arises about this and we wonder, "How can something exist before time began?" The answer is that time is illusory. There is no 'before' time, because time only seems to appear. All we ever know is right now.
But let's continue imagining the Singularity. We're talking about the Singularity that gives rise to the apparent multiplicity of the universe here. Imagine it like a seed, completely contained and unexpressed. The opposing forces that will come into play in the universe are unexpressed, and we could consider that they are cancelled out, although really they've not split open yet.
We need to go further in understanding the nature of this Singularity. It is this Singularity that gives rise to the life of the universe. But life doesn't appear by chance. Life is the nature of existence or being. This Singularity is Life itself. The Singularity is alive before time begins. In the Singularity, this 'alive' means nothing. It just is what it is. It is only from our human perspective of conceptualising what seems to be either alive or not alive, that we can understand the Singularity as being Life itself, pure unexpressed Life.
What happens next? Well, there isn't a next. There only seems to be a next. It only seems that the Singularity burst forth into an expression of multiplicity. The universe seems to have appeared from out of the Nothing of the Singularity, dividing in two, splitting and reuniting, multiplying across the universe. This is the appearance of distance and change that we call space and time. The universe appears in the Singularity as if the Singularity opens up into a multiplicity and closes again, much like the opening and closing of a flower through the day. The universe continues to express the moment of creation right now.
It seems as if the Singularity divides itself and experiences separation and imbalance. It would be expected that the end of time and space will be the reuniting and rebalancing of the universe into the Singularity again. It's useful to understand this, because it's the reason for human life as we know it on planet Earth. But it's not strictly true, unless you recognise that the universe only seems to happen. The Singularity is right here now. It never went anywhere. It never broke. It never split. The Singularity does not change. Distance and change are illusory. There is nowhere other than the Singularity and there is no change in the timeless Singularity.
The conclusion is that there is no universe. There is only the Singularity. What we call the universe is a play of separation and limitation within the indivisible, unlimited Singularity. We must conclude then another aspect of the Singularity: that it has the ability to imagine. Not only is the Singularity alive, but it can imagine and create an illusory universe within itself.
You may think that it's not too dissimilar to the human mind, and you'd be right. The human mind is a natural development in the evolution of the illusory universe, expressing the unexpressed nature and origin of the universe. It's a development of becoming self expressing, creative, and self aware. The Singularity is alive and aware. It is the Heart of Awareness. From the perspective of the universe and beings in the universe, the Singularity shines like the heart of awareness in each being, the Being of all beings, the Heart of all hearts, the Self of all Selves. Although there is nothing other than the Singularity, the world appears as a division or stretching of the Singularity into what is close to it and what is far from it. The Singularity then appears to be the light of life at the heart of all beings. Pure Conscious Awareness.
But truly the Singularity encompasses all space and time. In the heart it is the whole. There is no far or near. There is no past or future. There is only the Pure Consciousness of the Singularity.
- Category: The Human Experience
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It's a common human experience to feel incomplete. We may not realise it, but the search for fun, for love, for happiness, for excitement, for spiritual enlightenment, comes from the sense of being incomplete. In some ways it's a natural sense of feeling incomplete. If ever a being considers itself to be limited, then it feels it is less than the whole. And that's not right. Something will seem to be missing.
It's this wholeness that people seek. Wholeness is the true natural state. But human development at this stage of evolution causes it to feel limited, separate, lacking, wanting, and needing. From the physical perspective the interaction with the environment is necessary: humans need to breathe in air, drink liquids, eat solid food, and also do the opposite - expel solids, liquids and gases. That is part of human nature, of being a flowing quality of the planet. That in itself is fine. But human intelligence has developed further than other animals. Human intelligence has developed to become self aware. But this self awareness isn't accurate. Human self awareness concludes, "I am this body." But really the body isn't limited in this way - it is a flowing quality of the planet. The body isn't really limited and separate from the planet.
So here we have the development of human intelligence concluding that it is a limited being and there are other beings with limits. This limited human is inevitably incomplete. It will never be satisfied, trying to hold onto things, trying to seek happiness, looking for love and excitement, or spiritual enlightenment. The limited human being will not be satisfied, because the limited being is not an accurate identification. The world is unlimited, appearing as if there are limits. It is this appearance of the world that has fooled humanity. But it's all part of developing awareness.
There is no limited human. There is only the infinite What Is, Pure Consciousness. Its nature is as a singularity, without beginnings or ends, without want or need, complete, content, perfect peace.
The development of human awareness is an expression and blossoming of Consciousness in the world. It's not that the human being develops a higher awareness or consciousness level. It is rather that the errors and mistaken views of the human mind are lessened, revealing more and more the Pure Consciousness that is the true infinite nature of being.
How do we bring about this feeling of being complete? Really it's about letting go of the feeling of being incomplete, letting go of the sense of being limited. The recognition needs to dawn that I am not a limited being and I am not this body. Then should come a 'practising' of just being Awareness, without form, without attachment to this or that, acceptance without controlling, just simply being. This resting in the pure nature of just Being dissolves the sense of being a limited separate self, and the true nature of complete contentment comes through into the human experience.
This is usually a gradual process. It's called Enlightenment or Self-Realisation. It's simply the letting go of the erroneous belief of separation and limitation, and being as you are.