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.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
There is a peace that never ends. If we are searching for peace, why would we settle for anything less? A temporary peace isn't the answer. But as well as never ending, Permanent Peace is without a beginning. Permanent Peace is the simple basic nature of Being. It's right here now.
If it's right here now, then why don't we feel it? Because it's not a feeling. It's not something that can be felt. It is beyond subtle. Permanent Peace is unmoving, unchanging and always here, so it can't be perceived. It's like looking at perfectly clear glass - it can't be seen. Permanent Peace is the pure clarity of Being. But how can that help us with all the incidents, difficulties, clashes and drama in our lives?
It helps to know that that Peace is always here. It's what is always here. Troubles come and go. Incidents happen here and there. It is from the place of Peace that all this coming and going is perceived. It is where we are looking from. It is the still centre around which the world of motion revolves. It helps to be reminded of this. It helps to turn the mind from its troubles and remind it that there is a Heart of Peace in which this all seems to happen.
Knowing that this imperceivable Peace is always here and is our true, unchanging nature, is a useful pointer to turn the mind from being caught up in the difficulties and drama of the world. We are not the difficulties and drama. It's all perceived from a placeless place of Peace. This knowledge can turn the mind inwards to its source, the source of all life and perception. The mind becomes tired of being caught up in the sway, being rocked this way and that by the vagaries of the world. The mind seeks some peace. There are temporary times of relative peace, and these are fine and natural. It's like a wave of motion, with quiet phases and busy phases, peaceful phases and active phases. This is the flow of opposites in the world.
But the Permanent Peace discussed here is beyond the flow of opposites that the world appears to be. The Permanent Peace is the stillness of the unmanifest Singularity. It is the point before time and space appeared. It is timeless and spaceless. It doesn't move or change. Yet within the Singularity of blissful peace and oneness, the world of change and diversity appears. This world of motion doesn't obliterate the Singularity. It doesn't end the Singularity. It doesn't temporarily displace it even. The timeless Singularity spans all space and time. The Permanent Peace remains throughout the appearance and disappearance of the world.
There is no place and no time in which the Permanent Peace is not. All there really is is Permanent Peace, though it may appear to be broken and shattered. The message here is: do not be fooled by what appears to be; know that Peace, Oneness and Life are the nature of all existence.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Has anyone ever really seen you or heard you? If it is assumed you are the body, a limited human form, then this will seem an absurd question - of course people have seen you and heard you speak. But if it is recognised that you are not the human body, and the real you has a spiritual nature, then it shouldn't seem such an odd question. Even then, when it is known that I am not the body, the mind still associates with the body. So it's useful to shake the tree, as they say.
Nobody has ever seen you. You have no form. You are that in which the form appears and disappears. Nobody has ever heard you. You don't have a voice. You don't make a sound. You are the stillness in which sounds appear and disappear. You don't have arms and legs, a head and a brain. That's the human body. It is the body that is seen and heard, felt and known. You are not the apparently limited form.
We think of the human body as being made of matter. But matter isn't really what it appears to be. The solidity of the human body is only relative. Our usual understanding of 'solidity' is something stable, unchanging and impervious - nothing can get through it. But there is no substance that is truly stable, unchanging and impervious. Solid matter is not truly solid. It's only relatively solid compared to other levels of solidity. For example, ice is only relatively more solid and stable than water. Ice is not truly stable, but it appears more stable than its more fluid form.
The human body is only relatively stable. We know this. It is continually changing. It's not perceptible that the body changes within an hour, but the nails are slowly growing, hair is slowly growing, skin is slowly being replaced, air is entering the body system. The body is not a closed system that remains stable. So even if we did identify as the human body, we couldn't really say where its limits are. Although the body seems to be autonomous within the planet, it is really made of the planet substance and is continually flowing and changing with the planet.
It's quite a shift for the mind to turn from identifying as a human. Recognising the spiritual nature of oneself brings in another consideration. Is not the substance that the body is made of, namely matter, just a form of condensed spirit, as ice is a form of condensed water? And if it is thought that I am a soul, isn't the soul also unlimited in a similar way to how the body is unlimited? The soul would be one with its environment also, and not really a solid, limited unchanging form. And if there are no limits, then there cannot truly be many souls.
Some may argue against this in defence of the soul, and that's fine. It is a way of understanding how the spiritual world works: souls take on human form and experience life as a human on planet Earth. That's fine and a useful understanding. But if we closely examine it, it will be found that there are no limits to anything. Humans only appear separate by the air or space between them, yet they continually interact with the air and space. So humans aren't really separate from anything. They are more like interactive, flowing, evolving, forms that only appear dense, limited or solid relative to the environment in which they appear and of which they are made. It is similar with souls also.
The message here is that we are not human and we are not souls. There are no real limits between the human forms or soul forms. Our true nature is unlimited. The universe's true nature is unlimited. There is only What Is, the Infinite One appearing as though it is many. What seems to separate the many is nothing other than the Infinite One that is the substance of all.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Practice
A lot of people go through life not really questioning reality, life and the universe. That's fine. But humanity is evolving. Evolving to an increased awareness. There's has been a movement from animal nature to thinking. Thinking has developed and allows the human mind to consider mental concepts about the universe. Further still, thinking can also question what it is to be.
So the human mind progresses, developing theories and ideas about the world and humanity's place in it. Theories develop. Religions rise up. Spirituality is considered. Many people find themselves becoming interested in reality, life and the universe. People become spiritual seekers. They seek to find the answers to life's mysteries. They seek to find truth, the truth about the nature of reality, the universe and their place in it.
There are lots of answers out there. But the ardent seeker will come to realise that answers don't satisfy. We can accept answers and live our life by them, but that's not the true answer. The true answer for the seeker is in realising who the seeker is. We call it awakening, enlightenment, nirvana, and self realisation. What this really means is the unveiling of the mystery of being. What is this mystery? Well, if I tell it then that answer still won't satisfy. The real answer is in clearly knowing being. Being aware of being aware.
There are many ways to this Self Realisation. The many are one. Letting go of beliefs, ideas, theories and concepts will reveal what is always here. Surrendering to God, who is the Heart of Being, will give up all attachments and reveal that the nature of God is always present, and nothing else is needed; there is nothing else. Self Enquiry, or the seeking of the nature of 'I', will bring the seeker to find that there is no separate seeker, and what is sought is here all along.
So this is the goal of the spiritual seeker. The culmination of the seeker's search is in finding that there is no seeker. There is only This. We can call it God, What Is, The Self, Infinite Consciousness etc. It is the sense of being separate from This that gives rise to the seeking. The separate being seeks fulfilment, completion, peace. That peace and completion is in the dropping of the sense of separation. It is then that the Fullness of Life is realised, right here now.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Are the concepts 'right' and 'wrong' subjective? Well, the simple answer is yes. But a more telling answer is yes and no. Humanity has a subjective view of what is right and wrong, but this is influenced by a higher purpose or higher understanding of the nature of Truth. What is right is closest to Truth/Reality. What is wrong is further away. But the reality is that there is nothing other than Truth/Reality, so what appears to be wrong or untrue is not what it seems.
That may take some explaining. When it's understood that Reality is a Singularity, then what appears to be separate, divided or in opposition is understood to be incorrect or unreal. So opposites are useful, but not correct. There are no real opposites, only the Singularity seeming to be divided into what is like it and what is not like it. For example, a shining star in space expresses the life, light and clarity of the Singularity in contrast to the lifeless darkness around it. Yet it is all still the Singularity.
So it is with right and wrong. This is the appearance of what is like the Singularity and what is unlike the Singularity. What Is appears as what is and what is not. But the opposites are themselves inaccurate. There is only ever What Is. So even though 'right' appears closest to Truth and 'wrong' seems to be further away, they are both nothing other than Truth. The unreal and the untrue cannot exist, only conceptually.
Although things in the world may appear to be right and wrong, it is only from a narrowed perspective that this apparent duality is observed. The whole, complete picture is that there is never anything wrong. There is only Truth, Rightness and Reality. It is the same with all apparent opposites. Good and bad, alive and dead, love and hate, clarity and confusion, near and far, peace and war, freedom and restriction, one and many - these are all expressions of what is like the Singularity and what is unlike it. Yet there is only ever the Singularity. No matter how many there appear to be, there is only ever One.
We can go a step further with Rightness. Although 'right' is closer to Truth than 'wrong', pure Rightness is just What Is. It's neither right nor wrong really. We only know the quality of Rightness from the contrast of its opposite. Rightness, Truth, Reality, Love, Clarity, Complete, One, Unlimited are the basic qualities of just being. So there is a point to be made that they are not qualities at all.