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 Tuesdays and Fridays.
Please use the Contact page if you have any questions or would like me to discuss a topic.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 410
What is Non Attachment? Why is Non Attachment important? The simple answer is that it is our nature to not be attached. But let's explore and understand that better.
Non Attachment, or Detachment, is an important element of Buddhism. The aim is to bring about peace by letting go of attachments to objects, people, thoughts, and feelings. There is good reason for this. The Buddhist tradition focuses on how suffering is experienced due to these attachments. The Buddha became free from suffering and free from attachments, or rather the Buddha realised the true nature which is not attached and is without suffering.
When you recognise that reality is a Singularity it explains this. There is nothing other than the Singularity. So who or what is there to be attached to. That is the realisation of enlightenment, that there is no other. Non Attachment is the way to live in harmony with the true nature of being.
When we live by false concepts of separation, we consider ourself to be separate, and suffering ensues. By feeling attached to people, objects, thoughts or emotions, we strengthen the sense of being separate from them. We seem to get caught in the push and pull off the world.
Our true nature is without limits. There is not truly a border where we end and something else begins. Let go of these attachments and just be. It is the pure nature of our being just to be.
How do we practice this Non Attachment? By letting go. Let go of the importance of objects. Let go of depending on people for happiness. It does not mean that we should reject people and objects. On the contrary, by dropping attachment and boundaries we become more at one. Our interactions with objects, people, feelings and emotions become less selfish. When we let go we loosen the ties that bind. We realise our freedom. The clash between me and others fades. There is only an infinite oneness. It wipes out all boundaries of separation and attachment.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 408
It's a question many have considered: Is there a soul, and if so what is it? Let's start by considering the body. It's generally accepted that the human body is made of matter. I would elaborate further and say that 'matter' is a name for substance. We could call it 'vibrating energy'. I call the vibrating energy of the universe 'spirit'. Then what we call 'matter' is more like the appearance of dense hardened spirit.
There appears to be different levels of vibration throughout the universe. This is really a play of opposites within Infinite Spirit, which allows the appearance of spirit and not spirit (what we call matter). But this play is really a stretching out of spirit to appear close to or far from spirit. But it's all just spirit. So matter is the appearance of dense hardened heavy spirit.
Now we understand that, let's turn to the body again. It's a bundle of vibrating spirit within a dense range of frequencies, we could say. It can be considered that, just as a solid cup can hold liquid water or even gaseous air, the material body can hold lighter spirit. It's probably more accurate to say that the denser human body can be a receptacle for, or a channel for, a higher flowing spirit. This then makes it viable to consider that a higher form of spirit sits within the denser materialised form. We can consider that there is an unseen inner spirit form within the visible material form.
It seems equally acceptable that the hardened material form is more limited than a lighter freer form of spirit. It is conceivable that when the hardened form (the human body) breaks down, the lighter freer spirit is released. This lighter freer bundle of spirit energy we can call 'the soul'. The soul can be considered as the bundle of spirit energy that experiences planet Earth through the human body (or any other material body). Once released from the gravity of the human body, the soul is generally free to withdraw from the density of Earth back to its higher spiritual level.
However, it's also conceivable that the soul may form a bond or deeper attachment with the human experience, and may be drawn back to Earth again to inhabit another human body. As the pattern of rainfall and evaporation shows, and the pattern of waves upon the shore, there can be a circular process of coming and going. Here we are considering reincarnation and the seemingly endless wheel of rebirth.
It can be considered that the soul gains experience and develops by becoming lost in the world of matter. The pull of the material world seems to trap the soul and subjugates the soul. It may seem that the wheel of rebirth is endless, but it is a process of being lost and being found. The soul may, through many human experiences, come to the ultimate realisation. Firstly, it may recognise that it is a soul and not a body. But that is not enough. It must continue the search inwards to find that not only is it not a human form, but it is not a soul form either. Truth is formless, without beginning or end.
This deep realisation is termed nirvana, liberation, enlightenment, or self realisation. It is the deep recognition that the truth is not limited, defined or separate. There is only what is. There never were many souls who go out into the world and animate human forms or other forms. There is only One, an Infinite One. This realisation frees the soul from maya, the illusion of separation and attachment.
Ultimately then, there is no body and there is no soul. There is only What Is.
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
- Hits: 401
In the material world we can find patterns that point to the spiritual. One of those patterns is the Hollow. We find it naturally occurring in plant stems such as bamboo, in bones, in lungs, the cavity of the mouth, cave formations, and at the heart of wind formations such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Humankind also uses the hollow in wind instruments, where the flow of air through a hollow tube with hollow outlets creates sounds of different frequencies. Pipework, containers, bottles and cups, even trains, ships and planes have a hollowness about them. The well-known sacred sound, Om or Aum, refers to the Hollow.
What is the spiritual significance of the Hollow? It hints at the empty space at the heart of the universe, the heart of our being. Buddhists call it emptiness or void. Eckhart Tolle calls it Spaciousness. It is the Sacred Spaciousness at the heart of our being. Our nature is not the apparent outer hardness of the human form. We are the Sacred Spaciousness that perceives the apparent outer form.
Within the Sacred Spaciousness there is no inside our outside. The heart of our being is a complete Singularity. The apparently outside world appears through the use of opposites. So the hollow is expressed as an empty circle, an empty interior with a circular boundary. Without the use of the opposites the Spaciousness cannot be expressed or perceived. You see, the hollow that we can say is the heart of our being has no limits, no boundaries. It is an Infinite One. When considered from the outside material viewpoint we can say it is at the heart of our being. But in the heart there is no inside or outside.
It is the Singularity that seems to be the heart of the world, yet it is not limited by the world. It is not devoid of life. It is pure, complete life, by which the opposites of life and death are known. Ultimately it is within the Singularity that this interplay of opposites, of inside and outside, alive and not alive, stillness and motion, plays out.
All sentient beings have this same centre. There is only one Infinite Singularity. It is the heart of the world of many, the heart of the world of opposites. We are not the play of opposites. We are the Sacred Spaciousness.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 403
It may be accepted as normal, but it's worth noting that human life can seem dull, boring and dreary. For many people life is a suffering, a heavy, dark experience, where death is something to look forward to. This is the experience of life at the far edge of separateness.
This isn't what life really is, but here we experience the dense weightiness, sluggishness and dullness that is the expression of life at the far end of the Spectrum of Life. The human experience is one of feeling the weight of the world. It is the hardened dense world of matter. It weighs us down, slows us down, and gets us down.
This is the human experience of life. It is not the only way that life can be experienced, and even within humanity there is a range of experiences of life. There is a fresher, dynamic, more vibrant experience of life. Most people have occasional glimpses of it. Many people chase after it, looking for those experiences that bring out the feeling of freshness, fun and excitement. It's difficult to maintain that freshness, as human life soon sinks back to its average state.
This is how it is for humanity. But it won't stay like this. Humanity can and will change. There are higher states of life to reach, and we can bring that about in our human experience of life now and in the development of humanity. We are looking for a freer, fresher, dynamic sense of life. This is not the truth of life, but it is closer to the truth than feeling restricted, dull and weighed down. The truth is Pure Life, which is totally free, without restriction, and totally fresh without age or deterioration. It is the timeless state of Now, or the Fullness of Life. The Fullness of Life is complete oneness, without lack, without confusion, heaviness or restriction.
It is through the Way of Oneness that we can find the Fullness of Life that is here right now. It is from the state of unlimited being that we perceive this human experience. It is necessary to withdraw from identifying as human, and to recognise that we are perceiving the human experience. As we look deeper to the Heart of Oneness we find that life is more alive. We change our focus from the weighty world of matter to the fresh spiritual weightless sense of being.
We are not matter. We are not human. We perceive this human experience with all its ups and downs. We perceive this human experience as if it were far away from the Fullness of Life. But the Fullness of Life is right here, where we are perceiving from.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 398
What's happening with you right now? You may be sitting at home, out on a bus, a boat, a train, a plane, reading this. At least that's what you assume you are doing. Truly you are not doing anything. Nothing is happening to you. You are not reading. You are not thinking. You are not sitting or walking. You are not doing anything.
Surely that's not true. It depends on who you think you are. If you think you are a human being then you assume you are reading, thinking, sitting, walking, and so on, and the things of life happen to you. Even if you understand that you are not really a human being, you were not born and you will not die, you possibly still identify with the body at some level. So we say I'm reading, I'm thinking, I'm walking etc.
But we aren't the human body, so a re-evaluation is needed to shake out the assumption that we are doing these things and things are happening to us. Truly we are the Awareness witnessing what happens from the perspective of a human being. Things are not happening to us. They merely flow through Awareness like birds, clouds and planes floating through the sky. They come and go.
So what's happening with you right now? Nothing. You remain perfectly at peace, unmoving, and unchanging. The world of motion and change flows by within your infinite stillness. From this point of stillness you perceive the human experience: the childhood experiences, growing up, heartache, sadness, happiness, success, failure, days and nights, waking, sleeping, travelling. But it's not you. You are the heart of this experience, the life that effortlessly animates the world from this viewpoint. The heart of this experience is the same heart of all experiences. All beings have the same heart of stillness, like the central hub of the wheel of life. There is One Awareness that perceives itself as the world from many different perspectives.
The pointer here is to let go of identification with the changing human form, and rest as the perfect peace at the heart of the being. That is your unchanging pure nature. If something moves or changes it is not you. If you can perceive it, it is not you. You are right here and now, the peaceful Awareness within which the world appears and disappears. You perceive the coming and going of thoughts, the rising and falling of breath, the growing and fading of forms, the rising and falling of the sun, the world appearing and the world fading away. You are always here, the unchanging timeless being, complete love, pure life, perfect peace.