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: The Human Experience
- Hits: 544
Let's take it that you already understand and accept that the world is non dual, i.e. there is only One. The limits and divisions that appear, and which the mind labels, are not true. The One is an Infinite Singularity. I call it The Infinite One. It is the one being expressed as the apparent multiplicity of the universe. This recognition of the reality of Oneness helps us to understand the human condition.
Humans general consider themselves to be the body. They may feel that they 'have a soul', which still means they are looking at spirituality from the aspect of being a body that owns a soul. This identification with the body is effectively the formless taking on form and believing itself to be the form. That's not what we are. This limitation and identity as the body rules the human world. That is, most human lives and the largescale decisions made by humanity come from this view of being limited separate beings.
Selfishness arises from this sense of being a limited separate self. Suffering arises. Lack, need, desire, sadness, loneliness, and despair arise because of this sense of being incomplete. Anger, envy, hate and blame arise because of the sense of me and them. All of humanity's problems come from the sense of being a separate self. The separate self is the root of all human suffering. But it's not true.
The mind has this sense of being separate, yet the truth is a Singularity. There is only infinite oneness. There is not truly a separate me and them, no more than ripples on a pond are separated. It is all the pond.
Recognising this sense of separation and the reality of Oneness can bring about a change. Peace is the nature of oneness. It is the heart of being, the still centre that encompasses all. Recognising oneness and living in the way of oneness can bring about a change in the human experience and humanity as a whole. There needs to come a recognition that the heart of our being is complete, peace, love and harmony. This sense of oneness dispels suffering, sadness, loneliness, despair, anger, hate and blame.
If we want an end to suffering we need to let go of the separate self. We need to live in the way of oneness, acknowledging the oneness of life. We need to allow the sense of oneness to spread through human life. We do this by letting go of holding on. We reclaim freedom by letting go. Let go of the limits that bind you, the attachments that define you, and the identity that hides you. Let the real you shine through. Allow the still, peaceful centre to be unrestricted. Allow the peace and love that is the heart of your being be unbounded.
You are the Infinite One, without limits. You are peace, love and harmony. Make it your life's work to be as you are.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 542
When you recognise that there is only one, one infinite being that is expressed through many forms, it's generally important then to live in line with that understanding. I call it The Way of Oneness.
It takes some time and effort to change from the old way of living to the new way of living in line with oneness. If that's where you're at, you'll know that it's not easy to always see the world as one. Sometimes things frustrate us. Sometimes people frustrate us. Sometimes we are frustrated with our own sense of individual self. But with some effort it improves.
The trick is to let go of otherness. There really are no others. There is only what is. Our old way of thinking was that the world, people and animals, were others. They were separate from how we saw ourself. It was us and the world of others. Now we want to let go of those old notions because we recognise there is only Oneness. But the ego is stubborn and wants to hold onto things. We have to practise letting go.
So work at letting go of the idea of 'me and them'. See that your human perspective and other human perspectives are allowed to appear different. Here's a useful list to help you on your way to a deepening oneness:
- Recognise selfishness and let it go, in favour of natural selflessness.
- Be kind to others, even if they may be unkind to you.
- Accept the world as it is, and don't seek to control it.
- Drop the attachment to objects, that you may have thought were yours.
- Drop the attachment to thoughts, that you may have thought were yours.
- See distance and change as the play of the world.
- Rest in the Here and Now that is your natural state.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 531
We are not troubled by thoughts. We perceive troubled thoughts. Rest in Awareness, in the clear knowing, without identifying and without attaching to thoughts and the body.
There are times when thinking seems to get the better of us. We might try to calm the mind, but it even fights against that. We know that a calm mind is a good thing. We know that's how we should be. But sometimes the mind gets tangled up in trouble.
It may be that the mind starts dwelling on something that happened. It may be that the mind has negative thoughts about someone, maybe even our own self. It may be we are trying to meditate, and thoughts keep butting in and we fight back, trying to calm this troublesome thinking. And then we get frustrated that we can't stop it, and it all seems difficult.
But none of this is who we are. This is the mind tangling with itself, with its sense of self. Just as a torchlight cannot shine directly on itself, so we cannot objectively perceive our being. What we can perceive can never be what we are.
We are the Awareness that perceives these thoughts. We perceive the troublesome thoughts, and we perceive the sense of self that is unhappy with them. We perceive the struggle to stop thoughts and we perceive the sense of frustration when this is difficult. Truly we are the witnessing of this.
So what do we do about troublesome thoughts and the sense of self that we perceive. We do not do. Let them be. Do not get caught in the belief that you are there trying to do something about the thoughts. Who is it that is unhappy? Not you. You simply witness whatever appears within.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 536
I used to find it difficult to reconcile God's being as pure light. The light and darkness we perceive in the world is part of the play of opposites. Darkness can be considered as far from God and light as closest to God. God then is Pure Light without darkness.
But how can God (aka Consciousness, the Self, Brahman, the Infinite One) be a Pure Light without end. If we consider the light that we perceive, then there would be no darkness. Light without end cannot allow darkness to appear. This seemed to be a problem, and it's similar in some ways to the question of evil: how can God, being Pure Light and Love, allow evil to continue in the world. There is an answer to this: darkness and evil do not appear. There is only God.
That needs some explanation, as most people will have experienced darkness and evil. The light of God is Pure Clarity. It is a perfect, pure nothingness. Darkness can only seem to appear by the clouding of this clarity. But the clouding is itself God. So it is not really clouding, it is still God.
Similarly with evil, there is only God. If God harms God, is that evil? We can call it evil if we want, but really there is only God. Both darkness and evil seem to be God far removed from the true nature of God. This is how the world appears, by the 'breaking of the body of God' into apparently separate opposites. God's Light only seems to be separated into light and darkness. God's Love only seems to be separated into love and hate.
Darkness is still light, only seeming to be separated and distant from God. Evil is still the quality of love, only seeming to be separated and distant from God. The world is created through the appearance of the separating of God's Infinite Oneness.
Similarly, we think of ourselves as separate and distant from God. But God is infinite and omnipresent. None are outside God. It only seems that the world is separate from God. In truth God pervades the world. God is Consciousness, seemingly at the heart of our being, yet truly the whole of our being. There is only the Infinite One.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 529
Is it possible to be aware of anything outside of consciousness? If we close our eyes and focus attention on the body we can sense where our feet are, where our hands are etc. There is a sense of vibration. There's not a clearly defined boundary of the body. It's a vague sense of vibration here and there.
Still with our eyes closed we can focus on sounds. Sound can also be understood as vibration we can sense. It is the same with all senses - they can be considered as the detection of vibration, change or fluctuation, at different levels that we can call frequencies. For example the sense of taste is the detection of subtle interaction between the taste buds and the food making contact.
All this sense perception happens within consciousness. If we close our eyes and focus on our feet we experience the subtle vibration that we think of as the feet. But let's take away the label of feet. Really there is the experience of a subtle vibration. This vibration is within consciousness. All sensations, and indeed our whole world experience, are vibrations or fluctuations within consciousness. Okay, so consciousness is another label. It is that in which and by which we know.
The pointer here is that what we consider as our body and the world outside is all a vibration or fluctuation within consciousness. Nothing is outside consciousness. It is consciousness that knows the body and world, and it is consciousness that the body and world appear within as vibrations of the one substance of consciousness.
The whirlpools, waves and currents of the ocean are all fluctuations of the ocean. It is the same with the world and consciousness. The world is a fluctuation within consciousness, and there is nothing other than or outside of consciousness.
It is this Consciousness that seems to be the heart of all experiences and all experiencers. It seems to be the heart of all conscious beings. It is One heart. Yet it is the whole. It seems to be the heart when we still hold a concept of inside and outside. But when this is dropped there is only What Is. It is this one Being that is known as Consciousness, God, the Self, Brahman, the Infinite One.