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
Stillness is fascinating. Things seem to be still around us - the ground, buildings, our furniture, parked cars, mountains, and so on. A lot of things just seem to stay where they are, completely still. But that's only how it seems.
Really, the ground, the buildings, our furniture, and so on, are part of a spinning planet. The stillness we perceive is only relative. The base of the planet appears still relative to us. The sun seems to spin around the planet from our relative viewpoint, but we know that it is the planet spinning around the sun. It is the sun that stays still. Well, not really. The sun, the planet, and the rest of our solar system are swirling in a spiral galaxy, which is also on the move.
Everything in the universe is moving. Any apparent stillness is not true stillness. It is an illusion of stillness. But there is a True Stillness that cannot be perceived. True Stillness is the heart of the universe, the heart of perception, the still centre of the world of motion and change.
Movement and stillness are the opposites that we perceive. Together they express and reflect the true nature of reality. The opposite of Stillness allows it to be perceived. Motion is the means by which we can know stillness, yet it is not the true stillness. The illusion of stillness is the best that True Stillness can be expressed.
Let's understand what I mean by True Stillness. Imagine a complete singularity, formless, invisible, indivisible, without time or space, without change, without movement. No things, but complete. No beginnings or ends. Infiniteness. This singularity is truly and perfectly still. It's still beyond any comparison. It's unmanifest stillness. There's no change in it and there's nowhere for it to go. There's nowhere inside it or outside it. This is what I mean by True Stillness.
It is this True Stillness that the world is expressing through the medium of opposites. From the timeless Here and Now the world of space and time appears as a dispersion through reflection (like how a rainbow appears by the dispersion of white light through a prism). True Stillness is then expressed as the appearance of motion and stillness (or indeed the spectrum of motion). In this way we experience the nature of the Singularity via this appearance of opposites. This Singularity, the True Stillness, remains as it is. It is the one and only being. We are the Infinite One.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Awareness of limitation does not mean limitation of awareness. Within Awareness the perception of limitation is experienced. That means that through the senses of seeing, hearing, touch etc. an appearance of a limited world is experienced within the infinite nature of our being, Awareness. Although there may be an identification with the body, where there is a sense 'I am this person', this identification is also experienced in Awareness. From the human perspective Awareness is that deeper essence of being, the heart of perception if you like.
Awareness is boundless and formless. Within Awareness the sense of identity as a person is experienced, the thoughts in the mind are perceived, and the emotions are felt. Through the senses of seeing, hearing and so on, the body and the world are known. The sense of identity may seem limited. Thinking appears to be of an airy yet limited form. The human body seems to be limited, although science tells us that no solid matter is impervious. We also know that the body is always changing. The skin is in a constant flow of change. So although there seem to be limits to the body, they cannot truly and accurately be defined.
Nevertheless we perceive the sense of a limited identity and a limited body. We also perceive the world as limited. The mind can single out objects, plants, animals and people, and we name them as if they are limited separate things or entities. Again, this sense of limitation is not accurate. All plants, animals and human forms are flowing expressions of the planet and are not separate from the planet. Even 'solid' rock is not a limited fixed form. Everything moves and flows within the planet, or rather the planet is a moving flowing expression. Some forms may appear to move more slowly than others, but they move nonetheless. The planet is an expression of movement, change and variety within a singularity.
We digress somewhat from Awareness by focusing on these forms. It is focusing that seems to single them out and place imaginary limits on them. Ultimately our experience of the world as limited with limited forms is experienced in Infinite Awareness.
The Sandy Beach analogy might help to explain how Infinite Awareness is the heart of all localised perceptions whilst being the boundless whole. Consider a flat sandy beach. We can draw circles in the sand to represent people. Each circle represents the person and their centre of perception, so the centre of each circle is where they experience the mind, the emotions and the seeing, hearing, smelling etc.
So we draw a lot of circles in the sand. If we now step back and look at this scene we see a plain sandy beach with many circles representing people. Each 'person' is made of sand. Each person's outer limit is seen, yet made of sand. Each person has an inside, yet this is also sand. It is all sand, with the appearance of many limited forms.
This is how it is with Awareness. There is nothing other than Awareness. Yet Awareness can appear as limits within itself. It can appear as many different limited forms, but it is always Infinite Awareness. The heart of each 'person' is Infinite Awareness. The Awareness does not become limited by the seemingly limited forms that appear in the world. The apparent limits appear within Infinite Awareness.
Just like the sand is the centre of all the circles, so is Infinite Awareness the centre of all people. Being infinite, there is nothing other than it. It pervades all people and all forms. Forms may appear limited and separate, yet they are within Infinite Awareness. So from the human perspective, Infinite Awareness is the heart or essence of our being, yet it is the whole of our being. Although we experience an apparently limited being we are the one Infinite Awareness.
By letting go of the belief of limits and the identification with being a limited form, we simply are as we are.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
We perceive darkness and light in the world. Light is the clarity of awareness, clear seeing or knowing. Darkness is the clouding of clarity. Yet even the darkest darkness can be perceived. Darkness cannot exist without the perceiving of it. The seer and the seeing of light and darkness are inextricable.
It is in Awareness that we perceive this play of darkness and light. We can consider them as a Continuum of Light, ranging from clear light to obscured light (i.e. darkness). It is in this apparent dispersing of light that the opposite of darkness appears. Darkness is like the fading of light far from the source of light. Yet this is a play of opposites within the singularity of Pure Light.
Pure Clarity is a better term than Pure Light. The light we perceive is the nature of Clarity expressed as clear seeing. What we perceive as light is the nature of our transparent formless being, which is a Singularity, expressed through its apparent dispersion into a play of opposites. Remember, the seer, the seeing and the seen cannot be truly separated.
Let's try and simplify that. Let's say in the beginning there is a timeless infinite Singularity. There is no form. There are no limits. There is no obstruction or confusion. It's nature is Pure Clarity. Then the world appears as if the Singularity is split in two, into opposites like it and unlike it. So from pure Clarity there appears light and darkness. Light pertains to clear unobstructed seeing or knowing. Darkness is the limiting and clouding of clarity. It is through this play of opposites that the nature of the Singularity is expressed. The world, the universe, appears as a dispersion of a Singularity.
The Singularity is Pure Clarity is Pure Awareness. It is never truly dispersed. There is only an appearance of splitting into opposites. The continuum maintains the singularity, although apparently stretched out through time and space. It is in Pure Awareness that the world appears.
Pure Awareness (aka Pure Clarity) is the nature of our being. It is within Pure Awareness that we perceive this play of light and darkness, the interplay of opposites that we call the world. Light and darkness, clarity and confusion play out within our pure awareness of it.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
It Is What It Is: The Singular Theory of Everything is the title of my new book. It’s available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and as a paperback through Amazon. I’ll briefly explain here what this theory of everything is.
Consider the nature of a Singularity. It has no beginning or end, no limits. It is infinite. It is Here and Now – there is no space or time in a singularity. It does not change. There is no other. There is only the unending, undifferentiated oneness. This seems very different to the world we see. An Infinite Singularity cannot be seen. It has no form, and there is no other to look at it.
The world we experience is a World of Opposites. It appears as if it is the opposite of an infinite singularity. It appears as a finite world of many, a world of separation and definition, a world of distance, a world of change and motion. In this world of opposites we experience near and far, hot and cold, life and death, light and dark, truth and lies, love and hate, movement and stillness.
The teaching of Non Duality says that the world is not really defined or separated: there is only one. The limits that we perceive do not hold up to scrutiny. The fingers, hands, arms, and legs we label are not truly defined. They are non-separate elements of the body that we label as if they were separate. Similarly we label plants, animals and people as separate when they are truly non-separate elements of the planet. They rise within the planet, as seemingly distinct forms, and they return to the planet. But all the time they are the planet. The oneness of the universe is never broken.
The Singular Theory of Everything describes how the world appears to be separate but it is not. The Infinite Singularity from which the world seems to have appeared is always here. The apparently finite world appears within the Infinite Singularity and returns to the Infinite Singularity, whilst always being the Infinite Singularity. It seems that the world appears like the colours of the spectrum when dispersed from white light through a prism. It’s as if the Singularity is dispersed into the Continuum of Variety that we call a multiplicity.
This Singularity is not a lifeless thing. It is complete Life. It is Pure Peace. It does not lack or need for anything. The opposites that we experience are like its reflection. So where we experience the opposites of clarity and confusion, these stem from the Pure Clarity of the formless Singularity. The apparent stillness and motion that we experience are reflections of the True Stillness of the Singularity. The separation of opposites that we experience is a reflection of the Oneness of the Singularity, or as I call it, The Infinite One.
Furthermore, this Infinite One seems to be the still centre at the heart of our experience. It is that place in which the world is experienced, Consciousness. Our only experience of the world is in consciousness. The Singularity is Infinite Consciousness experiencing the world as finite forms. In our case as human beings. The heart of the human being and this human experience is the Infinite Singularity, Pure Unblemished Consciousness. This is the true nature of our being, not the mistaken identity that the mind believes in.
The book explores and elaborates this theory further, examining infinity, recognising patterns in the world, considering the spiritual significance of numbers in a singularity, exploring the heart of who you are, considering the mind, the ego, perception and emotions. Along the way there are tips and techniques to move forward in recognising the oneness of life and finding the peace and love that is the heart and whole of who we are.
It Is What It Is: The Singular Theory of Everything is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle and as a paperback from Amazon.
Visit David Hall’s Author Page.