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: 594
All that we know is in consciousness. Nobody has ever known anything that is outside of consciousness. The sound of a car going past is picked up through the perception of hearing and is known within consciousness. The visible perception of the world is, via seeing, known in consciousness. The feel of material in our hands is known in consciousness. The smell of freshly cut grass is known in consciousness.
The physical pain we feel when we stub our toe or have backache is known in consciousness. The emotional pain we feel when we lose someone close, and indeed the love we feel when we embrace someone close, is all known in consciousness.
Everything comes down to consciousness. Even the sight of a distant star is known and experienced right here in consciousness. Thoughts in the mind are known in consciousness. Dreams during sleep are known and experienced in consciousness.
The point here is that all your experiences and everything you can ever know is known in consciousness. You've never experienced anything outside of consciousness. You may think that the sound of a bang is far away, or the moon in the sky is a tremendous distance away. But your experience of it is right here in consciousness.
Therefore there is no truth that we can be sure of outside of consciousness, and there is no firm evidence that anything exists outside of consciousness. It's impossible to even attempt to find the outside of consciousness. We could try some experiments, but the experiments would only appear to be done outside of consciousness. Our whole perception of them would be within consciousness. So who can say where consciousness ends?
You may feel that you are a human and consciousness is in your mind. But there are flaws with that. Can you truly see yourself? Can the eye see the eye? Can one see one's self? Consciousness is aware of the believing in the mind, the seeing through the eyes, and the body and world perceived through the body's senses. The human body is a changing, flowing appearance within consciousness. The body is not as solid as it appears.
You may feel that you are not conscious of what someone else thinks, so there is a limit to consciousness. It would be more accurate to say there is the appearance of limitation, and solidification, in consciousness. The dense world of matter is the appearance of solidified consciousness. It can only be experienced in consciousness and made of consciousness, yet it appears solid. Though subtler still, the mind appears also as a condensing or separating of consciousness into the apparently separate limited mind.
Thus the world of matter and mind appear as the condensed levels of consciousness within consciousness, made of consciousness. One Infinite Consciousness appears as many minds within many bodies in a world of varying degrees of density of form. With the density comes the stronger sense of limits and separation, yet it is all consciousness.
The term 'Consciousness' is a name for the basic ingredient of existence. We could equally call it Awareness, Spirit, God, The Infinite One, or I Am That I Am.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 517
There is a core point of our being that is pure stillness. It is from that point of unchanging stillness that the world of change is experienced. When attention is focused on and caught up in the dynamic world we overlook that still silent point of being. If we don't notice it, how do we find it again?
The root to that true stillness is through the sense, "I am." Search who it is that experiences the world. Some think they are the human body. Some think they are a soul in a human body. But look deeper. Look for that point from which everything is perceived. We need to go deeper than thoughts. Thoughts and thinking are perceived. Who is it that perceives thinking?
Whether there are wild uncontrollable thoughts or gentle peaceful thoughts, there is still a deeper point that perceives them. Thoughts form an identity of, "This is me! Here I am!" But it is a mistaken identity, where thinking holds onto the human form. It is a sense of identity that changes. We perceive this changing identity and the thinking from a deeper level, from a point of changeless being.
Look for that true stillness that is the placeless place and timeless time, here and now. Although from the human perspective it is at the heart of our being, like the hub of the wheel of life, when it is found and recognised it will be known to be both the heart and the whole. It is the stillness within which the world of change appears. All things come and go within the timeless stillness of being. There is not truly a heart of being. There is only being. There is only perfect, peaceful stillness. It is within this still awareness of being that the world plays out its dynamic expression, like a movie on the still permanent screen.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 490
Where do I begin? Where do I end? I know that the body has no clear limits. It is always changing. If I look closely at its supposed limits I find there are none. The body is like a flowing quality of the planet. It comes from the planet, interacts with the planet, and returns to the planet, all the while remaining as a quality of the planet. Its apparent limits are not true.
I see this body without limits. I also perceive the mind. I perceive thought in the form of words, sounds and images, like internal perceptions of the mind. These also have no limits. They appear in the mind and disappear in the mind. Yet they are not inside me. I perceive them.
I also perceive the sense of identity. I perceive the mind talking to itself, thinking about me, my and mine. But that's not me. Sometimes it feels that it's me. Sometimes I observe it, so it cannot be me. If I can see a supposed identity of me, then who am I witnessing this?
Is it the same me that observes the mind thinking about me? I ascertain that I do not perceive a me thinking about me. I perceive the workings of the mind, thoughts that think they are me, thinking that identifies as a limited separate being. I perceive this.
Where and who am I, if not this false identity that is perceived? I perceive the changing mind, body and world. I am not that. I perceive the windmills of the mind. I am like the still point around which the windmill turns. I am here. There is nowhere that I can perceive that I am except here. Wherever it seems I go, I am here. I perceive the change of time. I am now.
I am the point of here and now around which the windmill of the mind and world turns. Yet I am not a point. I am no space, no time. I am formless perceiving form. I am.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 512
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.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 489
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.