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: Non-duality
- Hits: 129
Where are you? You may give an answer describing where your body is located, like, "I'm sat on a chair in my garden," "I'm in Liverpool," or "I'm on holiday in Florida." But that's not really where you are. That's where the sense of the human body is in relation to the rest of the world. It's far from exact. You could give precise coordinates of where your human body is, and indeed the body could be located from those accepted coordinates. But that's not really where you are.
You are not the body. You perceive the body. You perceive the world through the senses of the body. You also perceive thoughts, which are assumed to belong to the body. Well, the thoughts have assumed they are the body. It is thinking that identifies with the body that we perceive and through whose senses the world is perceived. Thinking thinks, "This is me." But it's wrong. You are not what thoughts think you are. Truly the body is not totally separated form from the world - no man is an island. There are no clear points where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. The body is an indivisible 'part' of the whole. So it's only a vague assertion of thought in identifying with something that isn't really defined.
There is a 'deeper' you that perceives the body, perceives thinking, and perceives the sense of identity with the body. Some may feel that they have a soul, but that is more like thoughts thinking that the body has a soul. It would be less inaccurate to say that the soul has a body. Where is the soul? We cannot say. The soul is assumed to be a spiritual identity that incarnates in the human body. Is it really in the body? We cannot say.
The most accurate that we could say is, "I am here." As soon as we try to describe where 'here' is we drift into inaccurate speculation. We can confidently say, "I am always here." But truly here is nowhere and everywhere. Everywhere you go you are here, but the real you never goes anywhere. That 'deeper' you is aware being. You are and you are aware that you are. This awareness is 'who' you are. It is not an identity as such. Awareness is what perceives the sense of identity coming and going. It is Awareness that remains when the body wakes and sleeps, comes to life and fades away. Awareness perceives the passing of life and death, whilst remaining in the natural state of Being. It is Awareness that perceives the passing of time and change from its unchanging timelessness.
You, me, everyone, all that is, is Awareness. Nothing is ever perceived outside of Awareness. Human conscious and unconscious states are perceived in Awareness. All fluctuations of the world rise and fall in the ever-present Awareness. Where is this Awareness that we are? All we can say is that it is Here. It is not relative to any other. There are no others. There is nothing beyond Awareness. It has no depth or distance. It is infinite and formless. The world moves within Awareness. Without Awareness the world cannot appear.
So know that you are not the body, nor even a soul that comes and goes. You perceive the comings and goings of the world. You are the Awareness that is the heart and whole of the world. You are Here Now, the timeless alert presence that perceives the fluctuating activity within the unchanging stillness of Aware Being.
Recognise that it is Stillness that perceives relative stillness and motion. It is Peace that perceives relative peace and conflict. It is the Dimensionless that perceives relative closeness and distance. It is the Timeless that perceives relative beginnings and ends.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 128
Let's consider Truth. There is Absolute Truth and there is relative truth. Relative truth is what we're used to. It's where we say, "Today is Tuesday," and it is a Tuesday. Or we say, "Four plus three equals seven." Those statements seem to be true enough, but they are dependent on other information being true. "Today is Tuesday" is dependent on a shared understanding of what "today" means and what "Tuesday" means. For a German speaker today might be Dienstag. For someone on the other side of the world our today could be their yesterday or tomorrow. It sounds silly, but the point is that it's not wholly true.
In fact, nothing can be said is wholly true. Anything that can be said or thought is at best relatively true, or at worst relatively false. One of the reasons behind this is that nothing can be truly and accurately defined. All the words we use are at least slightly vague. We cannot say with precise accuracy where "today" begins and ends. In fact "today" is a made-up reference to a span of 24 hours, which are themselves human made divisions of time. Time is not truly divided into hours or days. These are terms that we share an understanding of, and they are only then relatively true.
We can go further and recognise that relative truth is not the truth. It is not true truth. Nothing that can be thought or said is true. Thoughts, words, ideas and theories are useful but never true. Truth itself cannot be expressed. This means Absolute Truth. What is Absolute Truth? Absolute Truth is reality. What does that mean? It means that Absolute Truth is right here all along, no matter what falsehoods are expressed. Absolute Truth is the unchanging constant reality. Truth is Reality.
I cannot write what Truth really is. I can only write what it is like or not like. I can write that reality is a singularity, that there is no division of things. But that is only to correct a human misunderstanding that reality is divided into things. The statement isn't wholly accurate, because it depends on relative ideas and a sense of "division" and "things", which it denies. We understand what a "singularity" is by reference to what it is not. Again, as mentioned elsewhere, we use the negative or reflective term to indicate reality. Just as the term Non-Duality refers to the non-existence of duality (separation or division).
You see, we cannot directly describe an infinite indivisible reality. We have to refer to what it is not. This is a strange one, as what it is not does not exist. But human thinking has assumed that the reflective qualities are real. Human thinking assumes that relative truths are real truths. Better, perhaps, to recognise that Absolute Truth is inexpressible but evident in all that seems to be expressed, and that words, ideas and theories cover a spectrum of untruths that in a sense are closer to or further from Absolute Truth.
Let's break that down. Absolute Truth is inexpressible. The world is an expression of it, and is not other than it, yet it cannot wholly and accurately represent Truth. Any expression of Truth is less than it, yet exists within it. Truth allows the expression of untruths. All words, ideas and theories are not wholly True. They can point to Truth more or less closely. For instance, "Love is All" points closely to Truth, whereas "Hate is All" is far from the Truth. (Love is an expression of the Oneness of Reality, whilst hate is its reflection, expressing division.)
So we have Absolute Truth as the measure of all things that are not the truth. How does this help? Well, we know that no matter what thoughts think, they are not accurate. Why should we pay so much attention to thoughts when they are never really accurate anyway? Truth is silent and unspoken, always here, often overlooked. This reminds us to respect the silent stillness that is here. It encourages us to turn towards Truth and Stillness rather than get caught up in the drama of thinking and the world. It reminds us that we are not right and others wrong - all ideas are wrong. Just being, in silence and stillness, is closer to Truth than anything that can be said.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 112
It's generally assumed that the universe is limited and that individuals are limited. It is considered that the universe has a beginning and an end in time and space. It's also thought that we are individual beings with beginnings and endings. How can I put this? It's just not true, and there really has never been any valid evidence to say it is true. Let's explore it and see what the evidence shows.
No-one has ever found the beginning or end of time or space. It is generally accepted that the universe appeared from a singularity, bursting forth into expression, outwards from this centre. It is this bursting forth that is space and time itself. Before time and space the singularity was in a spaceless place timelessly. Only when the explosion of the universe happened could it be later said that it began there. But we can't really say when it began, because there was no time before, then there suddenly seemed to be time. Similarly with space, in the singularity there was no reference of separation and distance, so there was no space before space suddenly seemed to appear.
Really, if we consider the beginning of the universe we find that space begins in the infinite and time begins in the timeless, which means that the universe has no beginning or end. Similarly, if we look towards the end of the universe, space can only come to an end in the infinite, and time can only come to an end in the timeless. Where are the limits we have assumed were there? They cannot be found. If there were limits to the universe then that would mean there was something other or outside the universe limiting it. But when we consider that the universe includes everything, then there can't be anything else.
If we look at our individual limits, generally humans assume they are limited by the body, and anything that is not the human body is not them. But there are no fixed limits to the human body. The outer layer or skin isn't really separate from the environment. The skin is constantly being replaced by new skin as the old skin flakes off into the environment. Air flows into and out of the body. Food and liquids come into the body and go out. Really the body is a constantly changing appearance of a life form made of and within the planet. The body is never really separate from the planet, so the body is never really limited.
So our ideas of limitation are flawed. There is no limitation. That means there is no 'me'. What we think we are is not really who we are. We cannot be defined. We are nothing other than what the universe is. There is no real outside or inside of 'me'. Although there are thoughts that we are the thinker and the body, and everything else is outside us, that's not true. Thoughts are perceived but there is no limited individual that perceives them. Thoughts of being limited or not are perceived. The sense of identity is perceived, but there is no true identity, because identity means separation from what it is not, and that doesn't happen because there are no true limits that divide.
So where does this leave us and the universe? We are the universe. There are no others. There is only This. It means we can drop the old beliefs of limitation and live freely. Although there may appear to be limitations, we know that limitations are only make believe. We have no beginning or end. We have no restriction. We are freedom itself. The full recognition of this we call Liberation, Moksha or Enlightenment, where the sense of separate identity is cast aside and we are as we are.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 114
Why not allow your human self to become a vessel of Love and Peace? It's the highest achievement for humanity. The reason it is the highest is because Love and Peace is reality. You could say it's the Way, the Truth and the Light. It surely is.- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 112
When I was about 20 years old I started to have an interest in spirituality. I had read a bit about eastern philosophy and wondered how karma could work. Then it occurred to me: it is the law of opposites. I had never thought about a law of opposites before, but suddenly things started to make sense. Actions must be balanced out with opposite actions because of the Law of Opposites.
I started to see that this Law of Opposites was everywhere. The world seems to be an imbalance of opposites, flowing this way then that way. Rain falls down then evaporates back up into the clouds. We breath out then in. Waves ripple with peaks and troughs. The tide comes in and goes out. People make friends then go their separate ways. We have periods of peace followed by periods of turbulence. The sun seems to rise then fall. And on it goes, in a neverending cycle. It's everywhere.
And it made sense that that is how karma works. We do something bad then it gets balanced out by the opposite, with something bad happening to us. We help someone out, then someone helps us out. It makes sense when understood from the perspective of a universal Law of Opposites. But then why is there a Law of Opposites?
The simple answer is: because balance must be maintained in the universe. It's not a must because some powerful God decided it should be. It's a must because the true nature of the universe is perfect Balance. The universe is a perfect singularity. It seems to have fallen out of balance, creating the Law of Opposites as it divided the singularity into polar opposites (what it is like and what it is not like). Truly the universe is the total sum of all opposites, but it appears from the human perspective to be in a state of temporary imbalance. Without this appearance of imbalance nothing can appear in a singularity. Without this apparent division into opposites the universe cannot be seen. What we see as a universe is a perfectly 'balanced' or complete whole Singularity seemingly split into a world of opposites and separation through time and space.
It goes like this: for a singularity to be seen it must have contrast, so it seems to have divided into what it is and what it isn't. But really there can never be what isn't. This division into opposites only seems to happen. It's always What Is. But this play of opposites expands and appears as how we see the universe now, with life and death, peace and war, love and hate, breathing out and breathing in. It's an apparent state of imbalance that is either pushing away from balance or returning to balance. The push and pull is inevitable. It becomes what we call karma, where actions create reactions, what is done must be undone.
It wouldn't be possible for the Singularity to seem to explode into a world that never returned back to the Singularity. The Singularity will always be maintained. It is time and space that seems to separate it, but these must return to the Singularity that they never left.
That's the background and the reason for what we call karma. But there's more. Eastern philosophy says that karma can be overcome. We can break free from karma and the endless wheel of rebirth. We can be free of the Law of Opposites by recognising that it is not real. The Law of Opposites is a play of separation with the Singularity. We are the Singularity. We are not an individual being stuck in the play of time and space forever. We are That in which time and space appears. We are That Singularity that plays at being separate individuals whilst remaining infinitely One.
Ultimately we do not need to be concerned about karma or good versus evil. The universe will balance out once it has finished playing. Or we can recognise that is in perfect balance right here and now. There is no good or evil. No doing or undoing. We are not a doer of actions. Actions only seem to happen. We are not a thinker of thoughts. Thoughts only seem to happen. The Singularity, which we are, remains timelessly perfect, whole and content. We are That.