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
Awareness is the natural state of being. It requires no effort to be aware. Being aware is not an add-on to who we are. Being Aware is the natural state of pure clarity before add-ons appear.
We are aware of perceptions and sensations. We are aware of seeing, hearing, and so on. We are aware of emotions, feelings, and thinking. We, Awareness, perceive this.
When our eyesight starts to fail, we are aware of the failing eyesight. Awareness remains unaffected by the perceiving of the failing eyesight. When eyesight goes or we close our eyes, we are aware of the lack of light perception. It requires no effort. The eyes may focus on objects, the ears may tune in to specific sounds, but Awareness remains aware as it is. Awareness perceives the focusing or tuning in without effort.
When the body becomes ill, lethargic and achy, Awareness perceives the ill feeling and achiness. When the body becomes sleepy, Awareness perceives the sleepiness. Awareness doesn't become ill or sleepy.
When the mind becomes depressed or anxious, Awareness perceives the depression and anxiety. When the mind dreams or becomes deluded, Awareness perceives the dreams and delusions. Awareness remains simply aware throughout the human experience of sensations and perceptions.
When the mind is actively thinking, daydreaming, or meditating, Awareness perceives this without effort. Awareness doesn't think actively or daydream. It doesn't meditate or need to reach some exalted state of mind. Awareness remains timelessly peaceful without effort, throughout the activity of the mind, body and world.
The mind, body and world appear within the effortless Awareness. It is where we are perceiving from. It is the core nature of being - Aware Being. It is the natural state of Nothingness. The knowing Nothingness. The alive Nothingness in which the world of things appears. Formless, serene Beingness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Much is spoken about in Eastern and New Age spirituality regarding Awareness and Consciousness. But what really is it?
I use Awareness and Consciousness synonymously, so when I talk of Awareness here I also mean Consciousness. Awareness is like the page on which words appear, the canvas on which a painting appears, or the screen on which a movie appears. It is that in which all appearances appear. Awareness itself doesn't appear, but we know of Awareness by the fact of perception. Nothing can appear without the awareness of it. To use another simile, it's like knowing it's windy out by the sight of the tree branches moving.
Consider perceptions: sounds, sights, tastes, smells, and touches all appear in Awareness. Yes, they are facilitated through the human experience or perspective, through the human senses. But they appear in the same 'place', right here. That's not the whole picture. Human emotions are felt, as well as bodily sensations. Thoughts are also perceived, along with a sense of identity. This is all perceived in one 'place'. That 'place' we can call Awareness.
We are Awareness. There is one Awareness, and in this all apparently separate perspectives appear. It could be said that I can't see what others see, so we must be separate. But there is a focal point in Awareness, where the world is perceived form a human perspective, and human thought activity calls this 'me'. It's not really a separate me, it's just the assumption that human thought makes. I am not what is perceived.
This leads to another understanding of Awareness, another reason why we can't perceive it. The eye cannot see the eye. Awareness can never perceive itself. As well as being formless, pure clarity, Awareness couldn't possibly be the object of Awareness. This doesn't mean that Awareness can't be self aware. Awareness being aware means that it is self aware. What appears is a poor reflection of the formless nature of Awareness, yet nothing is known other than Awareness.
All is perceived by Awareness, in Awareness, made of Awareness. There are no true limits that separate out the subject and the object, the seer and the seen. There is just seeing, just Awareness. What looks to be far away in the distance is perceived right here. Sounds that are heard in the distance are heard right here. 'Over there' can never be perceived. Awareness is Here and Now, and it is in this timeless 'place' that space and time appear. Awareness and what appears in Awareness are one. It is all Awareness. What appears is by aid of reflection, so the world appears to be the opposite of unseen Awareness, yet there is always only Awareness. There is an appearance of duality - seer and seen - but it's true nature is Non-Duality, or Infinite Oneness.
This is why it would be wrong to say I am a human, I am male or female, I am short or tall, or I am a soul. It's perhaps more accurate to say I am the universe. There are no true limits that divide. Awareness is everything, yet nothing. The Whole is undivided. It may appear divided, but it remains infinitely One. Just as a movie on the screen appears to have many shapes and forms, depth and distance, yet it is singular. Just as a painting may appear to have different people, animals, and objects, yet it is just one painting.
Being aware requires no effort. It is the natural state. It is uncreated, timeless and formless. Awareness has no qualities. All appearances seem to come and go within its timeless formless nature.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
We often have a sense of greater and smaller, and in spirituality this can be that some people or beings are spiritually more advanced than us and some could be considered less advanced. For example, some people may have a guru that they consider spiritually advanced, and in that sense worth following and listening to. They may see others who appear to have no spiritual outlook on life and naturally consider them to be less spiritually advanced.
What do we mean by 'spiritually advanced'? We may mean more in touch with the spiritual side of life, more in touch with God or the divine, or more aware of the infinite nature of being. Some people may be considered more spiritual because they go to church, a mosque or temple more often than others. But spiritually advanced implies that they are more in touch with the spiritual realms beyond what we see as the material, physical world.
It may also be considered that there are beings more spiritually advanced than humans. That is very likely. Earth's profusion of life forms does not appear by chance alone. As I've explained elsewhere, chance is based on order. There is an orderly randomness. And there is an underlying energy in the universe, which we could call a spiritual energy. It is this energy that forms stars, planets and life forms within planets. So Earth will not be the only planet in the universe that has developed a profusion of life forms. It's likely also that similar life forms have evolved on other planets, or indeed in other realms. The pattern of 'many from one' is expressed throughout the universe, so it is inevitable that life forms arise having a central body and limbs that extend outwards from the body. In other words, humanoid life forms are to be expected, with legs, arms, head, fingers and toes.
So with the likelihood of other planets like Earth in the universe, that means there are probably beings further along the evolutionary path than humans. It is likely there are beings physically, technically, mentally and spiritually more advanced than humans, just as there are animals on this planet less advanced in those ways.
We're talking here about spiritually advanced humans and non-human intelligent beings. Some may say that their consciousness is more advanced, and there is something in that. But there is an important developmental leap. This leap is from the apparently finite to the infinite. What the spiritually advanced being realises is that the world and its own being are not finite. The spiritually advanced being is not limited by any form it may seem to take. It is a freeing of the mental limits of identity.
When we see a spiritually advanced being, we see a life form, but that is not who they are. When they see you they do not see you as a life form. They see the One Infinite Being. All that they know, see and experience is the One Infinite Being. There is no other being. So it is the same for you. Mentally there may be a labelling and conceptualising of separate life forms, but there is no real separation. All that you ever see, know or experience is the One Infinite Being. The difference in the spiritual development is the recognition of Oneness. Mentally identifying the world as separate gives rise to selfish urges and the need to survive and to feel content and complete.
Spiritual advancement is in the dropping of this sense of separation, and becoming the selfless being that we are. It doesn't mean that we feel whole or complete. It's not a feeling, as such. Rather it is more that the feelings of being incomplete dissolve and the natural state of completeness and freedom is revealed. This is then expressed more clearly through the advanced spiritual life form.
So, an important thing to recognise here is that although we may see a spiritually advanced being and wish to be more like them, they are none other than our own being, the Infinite One Being. Equally, those that may appear less spiritually advanced are also our own being. Any spiritual development, great or small, is less than our innate Beingness. All spiritual development, and indeed the whole expression of the universe, including the more subtle realms, is a play of evolution and development within the Great Infinite One Being, who remains timelessly complete.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
The human senses are like limitations of Awareness. It is as if Awareness is restricted and only certain ranges of perception can come through. Imagine Pure Awareness that knows all: it would be like Pure Light or total imperceivable clarity. But then consider that this is masked or covered and pin holes are poked through the covering to allow limited light to come through. It is like this with hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, and so on.
So it's not that the senses develop by chance, but rather that there is an apparent limitation of Awareness, clouding or preventing clear knowing, and within this small holes appear that allow limited perception. It is like the refraction of light from white light into the colours within its spectrum. The pure light seems to divide into different forms or frequencies of light, which seem to be less than it, but are the expanded totality of it.
That's how the universe works. It's the seeming expansion of One into many. The One is never truly divided, but it can appear divided. In fact the One cannot appear. Only when the One appears divided can it seem to appear at all. Consider again white light: it is imperceptible until it is reflected and refracted into colour. This is the pattern of the universe right here. The universe appears by the division of One into one and others. It is then, when there is a distance or apparent separation, that one can see the universe. Otherwise the universe is contained in itself as a Singularity. Indeed it is still contained in itself as a Singularity, whether it appears divided or not.
It is a play of separation. Awareness or Knowing or Consciousness seems to divide itself into a perceiver perceiving the perceived. Subject and object seem separated by the connection between them. One seems to divide into one knowing many. Awareness seems to divide into methods of knowing, which in the human experience are the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and so on. More senses can develop during evolution, as further pin-holes of perception open. These senses allow a fuller picture of the universe.
But let's not overlook that the universe is Awareness perceiving itself. The evolution of perception then is the uncovering of the apparent limitations imposed upon Awareness, to eventually reveal the full complete clarity of Awareness itself. Pure Awareness can be considered as pure unending light. The end of the universe is in the complete clarity of All Knowing Being, where there is actually no perception of form, yet complete knowing of being. The universe will seem to transform into the all-knowing clarity of Awareness.
This might seem bleak to humans, and sound like the end of all life. But really Awareness is Life itself. In the universe Life seems to be divided into life and the lifeless, and a range or spectrum between these. Again, it is Awareness appearing to divide itself - into what it is and seemingly what it isn't. Life is the ever-present constant throughout the appearance and disappearance of the universe. The culmination of the universe is not in its destruction but in its completion and apparent return to Oneness, the Fullness of Life.
But the universe is always whole and complete. It just seems to be divided and needing to go through expansion and contraction to return to its original state. It's always One. The division is only an appearance within its timeless Oneness. Similarly with perception, Awareness is always present within the seemingly divided senses of perception. It is Awareness that knows the senses of perception. Awareness is that in which the perceiver, perceiving and perceived are perceived.
There is never really anything outside of Awareness. It remains always imperceptibly present. Yet Awareness can be known by the act of being able to know. What that means is that Awareness is Self-Aware, by the fact that it knows it knows. Awareness is aware of being aware. I know, therefore I know I am.