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: Spiritual Practice
- Hits: 1267
The practice of remaining present during activity is a practice of no-practice. Meaning that one recognises one's stillness whilst activity happens. Stillness in activity. But how do we do this non-doing?
A good example is driving a car. If you don't drive you can tweak this example, as it works with catching a bus, a train, a plane, or a boat. Within the activity of the world there arises in us a desire or intention to make a journey. It's not really that we decide it. It may be noticed that there is a decision making process, but this is part of the flow of the world. In Non-Duality we are not the flow of the world per se. We witness the apparent flow of the world. We witness the formation of the plan to travel. It may be to go shopping, to meet up with someone, to go to work etc. The reason doesn't matter for this example. The important point is that we are aware of the development of this reason. We are not this decision making activity. We perceive it from a point of stillness and non-action.
The reason to move and travel flows naturally from the activity of the world. It influences the mind activity and the body activity. We witness the movement of the body, directed by the mind, which in turn is directed by the worldly factors that led to making this journey. The body gets in the car. The driving of the car is fairly automatic, in that practice has made it reasonably effortless. The body has been trained to drive through practice and repetition. We witness the driving of the car. Remaining present means that we don't identify as the active mind or body during this process. We witness this. We are the Stillness that perceives the apparent motion of the mind, the body, the car and the world.
Whilst driving there may be times when the car behind gets too close, the car in front drives too slowly, a car speeds past dangerously, a call pulls out in front, or we get stuck in traffic. At these times the mind may start to complain, and the body may verbalise this. This is often a habitual reaction. The mind maybe gets anxious about the car behind or arriving late, or annoyed at bad drivers. But, remaining present, we witness this. We are not the mind or this mental activity. Indeed we are not the mind activity or the body activity. We are not going anywhere. We, Consciousness, do not travel. We don't drive. We don't think. We are aware, and awareness requires no activity. The thinking, the driving, the moving, appears within Consciousness.
So the practice in this driving scenario is to not get caught up in the mind activity, the body activity or even the car and travelling activity. It is to remain as the Stillness, the Awareness or Consciousness in which this mind activity and apparent travelling is perceived. We can never go anywhere. You've never been anywhere other than where you are. It may appear that the body travels from here to there, but we, Consciousness, do not travel. Travel and all motion or activity appears within Consciousness.
We don't need to practise to be still and aware. Our nature is Unmoving Awareness. We don't need to do anything to be what we are, and in truth we can't do anything. We may say we walk somewhere or drive somewhere, but Consciousness does not walk or drive. The walking and driving appears to happen within Consciousness. So the shift is from identifying with the activity of the world. There needs to be a withdrawal from latching onto thoughts and believing that we are doing the activity. The non-practice of Presence is in just being as we are, not identifying with the activity of what seems to happen. Remaining Here whilst the world seems in perpetual motion.
It is similar to recognising that the sun doesn't spin around the Earth. It is the sun that remains as it is, whilst the Earth spins around and around. We are like that still centre around which the world spins. But more accurately we are neither the centre nor the outer limits. We are the Limitless that appears to have a centre and outer limits. We are the Infinite Consciousness in which this play of limitation and motion appears from the perspective of a central point of view.
It is not us, Consciousness, that practises being the Still Awareness. That is our nature. It is the mind, or the mind activity that attempts this practice. But mind cannot achieve Stillness. Mind is itself activity. Yet when the mind withdraws from identifying and returns to the Stillness it is found that there is no mind. There is no activity. There is only an appearance of activity. Stillness is here all along.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 1267
The aim of spiritual seeking is often enlightenment. With Non-Duality the aim, once one understands the teaching, is to realise the non-dual nature, to achieve Liberation, Enlightenment or Self Realisation. There are lots of questions about this, sometimes about the fear of totally letting go of everything. Let's consider that.
Certainly, for Self-Realisation there is a need to let go of everything. The other terms mean the same really, Liberation, Enlightenment, Moksha, Nirvana, etc. They all point to that recognition of Reality as it is. That Reality is without limits or division. So the person we think we are is not who we really are. Spiritually minded people, of course, would recognise that they're not the human body. Some may believe that they are a soul.
The soul is and isn't accepted in Non-Duality. It is accepted as being part of the play of Maya, the illusion that is the appearance of the world. There is the material dense world that humans live in, and there is the finer, hidden world of souls and the spiritual realm. This includes the development of the soul, incarnating in human form, getting caught in the wheel of Samsara, the endless round of rebirth. The soul lives life after life after life, learning, making mistakes, getting tangled up in karma. But in Non-Duality this is seen as the play of the Infinite One Being seeming to become many, but not really.
We could consider souls as sparks of divine spirit. But that's not strictly true. They're not really sparks of the divine spirit released into the world. The world is the Divine Spirit, only appearing to be less like or more like the divine. Just as the human body isn't really limited, neither is the soul. There really is no divide in the Infinite One. What seems to divide the Infinite One is also the Infinite One - the space and the substance are the Infinite One.
So we can say the soul seems to be limited but really isn't. It takes on human form and experiences human life. That's what's happening here. The human world is heavy and dense. Dark clouds loom over it sometimes. Humanity is limited by the hardened physical limitations of matter and the hardened mental limitations of the human mind. The human mind develops a pointed sense of itself as a separate individual in a competitive world. This is the opposite of Reality, which is selfless and limitless, whole and complete. But the human experience allows a lot of possibilities. Personalities develop. There is a great variety in the One. All humans are different and express their particular developmental experiences as well as the influence of the soul.
The release of the soul from the endless round of rebirth comes when the soul's attachment to matter and form is dissolved. This comes about when the sense of being a separate self is released. It is the Self-Realisation that there is no self. It is Nirvana, the extinguishing of the sense of being a separate self. It is Liberation, freedom from the bondage of illusory limitation. When this Enlightenment occurs, when the sense of being a separate self is no more, there is no subjugation to karma. It is clear that not only is the body unlimited, the mind and the soul are unlimited. This means that there is no body, no mind, no soul. There is only What Is. This What Is is here right now. It is only the sense and belief of limitation that makes it seem otherwise. But that is the development of humanity in this time.
So when Self-Realisation occurs, it doesn't mean that the world ceases to exist, being sucked back into the Singularity. The Singularity is always timelessly here. Nothing changes, only the sense of being a separate self is nowhere to be found. The human in which this realisation occurs does not identify as a human, a mind, a soul, or anything. It just is. Yet the human life continues. The Awakened Human (for want of a better expression) still has its personality but without the person. It has its flow and role in the human world, as momentum has always been active in it anyway. The human life changes in a way that it is no longer guided by the selfish aims of a separate self. There is no ego in the Awakened Human, so the human life flows naturally with the way of What Is.
Similarly with the soul. It doesn't mean that the soul is dissolved upon Self-Realisation. The soul flows with the spiritual nature of the universe in further play and adventure, in the Divine Play of Multiplicity.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 1231
Humanity, and indeed planet Earth, is on a path of spiritual evolution. Life forms on the planet don't just randomly evolve. There is an underlying directive force in the universe, firstly a push towards outer limits, then a returning inwards to the limitless. This is all spread across a vast expanse of space and time.
Life on planet Earth appears at the far end of the spectrum of density. By density, I mean density of spirit. What we call matter is more like an appearance of limited, separated, dense spirit. It is the far end of the vibrational universe, where forms become more separate, dense, seemingly more limited, and less interactive and flowing. So life forms on planet Earth appear of a denser, solidified nature. Yet they are evolving to become freer, less limited and less dense. The natural interaction of forms at this far end of density is to be hardened and clashing, less collaborative and more competitive. Hence the survival of the fittest. Seemingly separate life forms compete against each other.
Nevertheless, animals on planet Earth are highly developed life forms. They've evolved, and they're evolving towards increased intelligence and awareness. Animals just see the world as it is. They've not progressed to the stage where humans are at yet. Humans have reached the stage where we can think about the world, label things, define things, and understand cognitively how the world works. I'm reminded of the 'Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil' mentioned in Genesis in the Bible. It's where humanity has moved on from the basic animal nature to thinking, gaining knowledge, and gaining self awareness, a recognition that 'I am this body'. In some ways it can seem like a step back, out of the blissful unaware state, into thinking, worrying, and seeing the challenges and difficulties of 'me and the world'. At this stage the ego develops - the mind's sense of being a separate being, defending its borders, strengthening its position, and asserting its importance. This ego nature rules the human world. It's an evolutionary step forward, but certainly not the culmination of evolution.
The next step for humanity is to develop this 'self awareness' further. For all humanity's confidence in its sense of being right, all its knowledge and conceptualising is inaccurate. Its sense of self is misplaced. Its sense of right and wrong, good and evil, is a separating of the world. The sense of separation, of me and the world, is flawed. Truly there is no separation. This appearance in planet Earth of many different life forms is illusory. It leads humanity to believe that separation is real and the ego is right. But it's not. These many life forms can also be considered as one planet expressing itself in seemingly many ways. There comes a change of perspective. A deeper understanding, that there is not 'me and the world'. There is only this.
As self awareness continues to develop, it turns inwards. It turns from seeing the world of many separate forms. It turns from the difficulties of competing against the world. It turns to a recognition of the underlying Oneness of what appears to be a multiplicity. As the ego nature continues its development it is recognised that the greatest ego is not the one that dominates and wins, it is the one that surrenders itself in service to the whole. The greatest ego gives up itself, reduces its sense of importance, lets go of its belongings and ideals, to bring peace to the world. In religious terms this can be recognised in the sacrifice of Jesus, giving up his life to save others. It's a move towards dropping the limits and defenses of the ego, in favour of the Oneness of the whole.
This next stage of evolution is in letting go of the limits that seem to define. Recognising that limits are illusory. There is only One Infinite Being, expressed as many beings and non-beings. What Is is expressed as what is and what is not. But truly there is only What Is. Humanity evolves to a point of enlightenment, where the separate individual, the ego, is seen to be false, and the Oneness of What Is is realised.
- Category: The Universe
- Hits: 1239
The world appears as a division/reflection of the Infinite Indivisible One. There appears to be the opposites 'alive' and 'not alive', 'conscious' and 'not conscious'. It is as though the Primordial Pure Conscious Being split in two, to show what it is and what it isn't. This is a play of separation, of reflection and contrast, an expression of the inexpressible Infinite One by means of its opposites.
The world doesn't have a beginning or an end, only an appearance of beginnings and ends. The truth is Infinity, and limitations can only be illusory or imaginary. It's much like a dream. In a dream there is you, other people or animals, and the world in which the dream happens. But it is all the dreamer. The dream seems to split into you and a world. But really there is no splitting, and the division is imagined.
Back to the real world. Well, it's not really real. It's an expression of the Real. Nevertheless, there is a realness about this world. The realness is the Consciousness in which it appears. The world appears to have a contrast of conscious beings and non-conscious objects, alive beings and not-alive objects. This all appears within Consciousness. Consciousness is Life itself. It allows the appearance of opposites within its indivisible infinite oneness.
In this planet apparently non-living forms (elements etc.) have combined and interacted. They've been called the building blocks of life. It seems that these buildings blocks have combined and interacted to an extent that living conscious beings have been formed, namely animals and humans. There is a path of evolution from barely animate, to animated, to intelligently animated, or as we call them, alive and conscious beings. This sense of difference of what is alive and not-alive seems quite obvious to us, but if you look closely it's difficult to find the divide. The reason for this is that there is no divide between alive and not-alive. There is only Life.
This seeming dichotomy of Life into alive and not-alive cannot be perceived without the permanent Life that you are. This flow of alive and not-alive appears within the absolute life of Consciousness. It is by Consciousness that it is perceived, and it is in Consciousness, made of Consciousness.
It's worth mentioning here that it's not that the elements and forms come to life and become conscious beings. Really, life and consciousness is timelessly here. The life that the human body has is Consciousness. The consciousness that the human body seems to have is this Consciousness that is the background to the appearance of the world. Imagine Consciousness like a perfect sheet of paper, then different creatures are drawn on the paper. The real substance of the creatures is the underlying paper. The drawn beings don't come to life, yet at the heart of their being there is pure Life. This pure Life is expressed in the world of opposites as a coming and going, a rising and falling, what we call 'coming to life' and 'losing life'. It is all Pure Life expressed through a world of opposites.
It is the same Consciousness that is the heart and life of all beings. The beings/creatures/humans/animals are like pockets of perception in the world. These pockets of perception are the means by which Infinite Consciousness perceives the expression of itself. Like the dream analogy, the world is Infinite Consciousness perceiving itself through the illusory separation of the subject perceiving objects. For example, your human self perceiving the world around it is really Infinite Consciousness appearing to separate into the human and the world it perceives. It's all One. There is no beginning or end to the world. It is Infinite Consciousness.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 1228
It may seem that the spiritual journey is a long one, or indeed a never-ending story. Well, it is and it isn't. It can seem like there's a lot to learn. Some people practise meditation all their life and feel they never reach the goal, so to speak. The goal for meditation and other spiritual practices is often Enlightenment. There can develop a frustration for the spiritual seeker, that they have been meditating for many years, they have changed their diet, they have studied the enlightened masters, but they still haven't become enlightened.
The problem is that the seeker never will become enlightened. True Enlightenment, Self-Realisation, Nirvana or Liberation, is the loss of the seeker. Self-Realisation is the recognition that there is no seeker and there never was a seeker - there is only What Is. This realisation is more like the dropping away of identity, the sense of limitation and separation, whereby what really is is revealed to have been always as it is. This Infinite Reality is not something objective that can be found. Searching for it is an error. Trying to achieve it is flawed. Yet we search and try, because the seeker feels a need to be complete, to achieve enlightenment, oneness or happiness.
This Infinite Reality, the revealing of which is called Enlightenment, is never hidden. The seeker develops as a sense of being a limited being that longs for wholeness. Wholeness is the natural state, but when there is a sense of being limited it feels that we have fallen from the blissful state and we need to find it again. Not only is this evident in spiritual seeking, but in all humanity's search for happiness. Humanity's sense of separate identity gives rise to the sense of being incomplete. Being an individual and being separate from the whole are two sides of the same coin. But it's a mistake. There are no limits or divisions in the Whole.
Enlightenment, Self-Realisation, Nirvana or Liberation, is the dropping of the belief and sense of there being limits. The seeker will remain dissatisfied until its sense of being a limited being is dropped. So in Liberation there is no seeker. The seeker never was. Who achieves this self-realisation when the realisation is that there is no limited self?
Nobody achieves it. It is a recognition of Nothingness. Well, it's not even a recognition. It's just the natural Beingness without the clouding of the human sense of identity and limitation. It's the end of the ego, the end of the identity, the end of the person. That can sound bleak. It is a death of sorts. It's not something that people generally want to hear or accept. Who wants to hear that the person they think they are isn't real, and in fact they are Nothing?
But it's not really bleak. This dropping of identity and limitation is Freedom. It is Liberation. Truly you have no limits, to the extent that there is no 'you' or 'me' or 'them'. There is only What Is. But while we still seek to find it we chase our own tail. It doesn't mean we have to stop meditating or start acting in a free way, doing what we want, because it makes no difference. It means that the answer is here already whatever seems to happen.
It helps to know that you are not the limited being that was assumed to be limited. It helps to know that it isn't a world of 'me' and 'them'. There is just What Is. Knowing this, why not live that way? Of course, it's not really you that does this or that, or chooses this way or that way, or even you that assumed you were limited. You are none of this. Are you the seeker? No. The apparent seeker is perceived. The sense of being frustrated is perceived. The sense of feeling incomplete is perceived. The realisation that there is no 'me' is the end of frustration and feeling incomplete. But it doesn't happen to anyone. It just is. Reality just is. It can't be found by looking for it. It's here already.