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 Universe
- Hits: 1195
Eckhart Tolle famously wrote about The Power of Now. Let's look at the Power of Here. Essentially Here and Now are the same, just considered from different perspectives.
Wherever you go you are Here. You could go on a climb to get to the peak of a hill or mountain, and when you get there you are still Here. Wherever you go you still have a sense of being Here. Yes, you can say you're at the top of a mountain, you're on a boat in the sea, you're on a beach, you're flying in a plane, or relaxing at home. That's the world in which the body lives. But you're not the body. You are the presence right here, and it's not possible to be anywhere other than where you are.
The world gives us an experience of being somewhere other than here, but it's a play of space, depth and distance within our Infinite Hereness. Truly all space appears Here. We never experience anywhere other than here. If we look to a distant hill, bridge, building, or even a distant star, we perceive it right here. The three dimensions of space are experienced right here in spaceless Consciousness.
This understanding can help us to become centred. There's no real centre, of course, but when we believe that we have gone out into the world and become a lost soul, we can find our way home by returning to the centre of stillness within the appearance of the world. What that means is that we can remind ourself that we are not lost, we are not confused, we are not a human being trying to cope in a vast world. We are simply Here.
We can observe thoughts that seem to be in front of us, but they appear within us. The space of the world seems to go out from our Centre of Awareness. But rather the thoughts, body and the world appear within Awareness right Here.
So rest right Here, as you are. If you find yourself becoming entangled in thoughts, return yourself right Here where you observe thoughts. If you find yourself believing you are the body caught up in problems, return yourself right Here. Here is the placeless place of our shared being. It has no dimensions. It does not get lost or drawn out. You remain perfectly as you are right Here.
Here is the presence of our being. The dimensions of the world seem to stretch out from Here. But Here has no depth. It is infinite. All space is Here. All time is Here. All space and time is Here and Now.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 1195
It's human nature to fill the space. If there's a lull in conversation or a silence when we're with someone, the human urge is to say something, anything. If we have some spare time, we wonder what we're going to do, how we're going to spend that time. How will we fill the space in our time? Also in our homes, it's easy to fill them up with things. We're always filling the space.
It seems unusual to sit with someone in silence, doing nothing. It feels okay if we're on our phones or reading books, but not just sitting there. Even on our own the mind keeps active with thoughts. We find something to do. If not we feel bored and the mind complains that there's nothing to do.
This is where the spiritual practice of just being comes in. It's not what the mind wants. It's afraid of the nothingness. But the nothingness is our spiritual saviour. The nothingness is the prefect peace of our true being. We truly are the stillness, the silence, the peace, the emptiness, the spaciousness, the nothingness. Our true nature is the core stillness that allows movement. We are the invisible nothingness that allows the apparent visible everything. We are the permanent full emptiness that animates the changing world.
This emptiness scares the human self, so it fills the space with things. The human self distracts itself from the silence, the emptiness, the peace. At least until it gets to a point of looking for that peace, looking for the quiet. Then the human self seeks quiet places and quiet times to sit and be at peace. Maybe the human self meditates. Maybe the mind relaxes a little.
Sometimes it seems that more work needs to be done to reach that placeless place of peace. We need to recognise that the mind's impulse is to avoid it.
Sit back and just be. Let go of thinking and doing, and be as you are. You are not the human who is afraid of silence and emptiness. You are the Perfect Peace of Stillness.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1176
Imagine circles drawn on a sheet of paper. Each circle seems to have its own centre. But truly the heart of each circle is the whole paper. The circles do not truly limit the paper.
It is similar for every being. The heart of every being is the whole. It is not that every being is conscious, but rather every being has a hollow centre that is Consciousness itself. Truly there are not many beings. There is only the appearance of many beings.
Maybe a better analogy would be to imagine circles chiselled in a smooth piece of stone. The circles are made of stone and appear to have their own stone centres. But there is only the stone. This is how beings appear in Consciousness. There is only formless Consciousness, but formations appear within Consciousness, made of Consciousness, appearing to contain Consciousness. The forms (in our case human beings) can look for Consciousness within them but they find there is no inside or outside of Consciousness: there is only Consciousness. This is Self Realisation or Enlightenment - the realisation of one's true nature as infinite without division or separation.
The heart of your being is the whole. You are not a separate being. You are not conscious within the human form. You are Consciousness itself, within which the human form appears. It is the same Consciousness that seems to be at the heart of all beings, yet it is the whole.
There is only an appearance of inside and outside within Infinite Consciousness. Consciousness has no duality or multiplicity. There is only What Is.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1178
There are many teachers of non-duality, including the world itself. But let's look here at the difference between those that say there is nothing that can be done and those that say there is something that can be done. If you look into Non-Duality enough you will encounter teachers who say that there are practices that can be done to reach self-realisation, and some who say that you can't do anything because your true nature is self realised already.
The latter is perhaps the most truthful. A core teaching of Non-Duality is that the separate self cannot achieve enlightenment or self-realisation. This may sound strange to some, but the reason is simple: there is no separate self. Separation is illusory. The sense of being a separate self is a mistake in the mind. The identity of oneself as a human separate from other humans is flawed. Your true nature is the formless Awareness of the human experience.
So, as much as human longing is for happiness due to the sense of separation and being incomplete, this is more of a muddle in the mind. The unhappiness arises due to the mistaken identity as a separate being. The true Self is the selfless self, which is complete, infinite, formless, without separation or division. It is the true Self seemingly at the heart of all apparently separate selves.
But humans are driven by this sense of being separate. We compete against and clash with 'others', we seek happiness, we have wants and needs, we are always incomplete. Even spiritually seeking enlightenment is an expression of this search for happiness, peace and wholeness. But the separate self cannot achieve it. True Peace is already here. True Peace is the nature of our timeless being. So the teachers who say that people can do nothing to achieve it are right. It is like trying to be yourself. You are yourself already. There is nothing to do. And, in fact, your true nature does not do. All actions and movement, space and time, are illusory. The True Self is unchanging, beyond concepts of space, time, distance and movement.
This high level of Non-Duality teaching does not help most people. It may for some bring about a leap from searching to self-realisation, where suddenly the illusory sense of being a separate self is shattered, and Awareness is as it is. But for many people there is no immediate satisfaction in this knowledge. Knowledge will not satisfy. People still want practices. People still feel the need for something to be achieved. It is for this reason that many Non-Duality teachers give practices and guidance for seekers to 'reach' self-realisation.
Are practices necessary? Well, yes and no. If they seem necessary and the spiritual urge rises in a person then they will be or seem necessary. Will they achieve enlightenment? Well, yes and no. If a person feels the need to reach enlightenment then spiritual practices may be the way to get there. But it should be recognised that 'there' is right here, right now. There is nowhere to get to. Enlightenment or self-realisation is not experienced by the illusory person, it is the underlying nature of what is.
Self-realisation is the core of the apparently separate world. It seems to be the Oneness at the heart of the separate being. But there is no separate being or world. There is only self aware Oneness. If a human feels the need to turn inwards and seek its true identity, then it will do so. The sense of separation will always seek unity or oneness, which consumes the illusion of separateness.
- Category: The Universe
- Hits: 1172
This is a tough one for people and the mind to grasp or accept: nothing ever happens. But it can be explained to a degree. We must start by recognising that the nature of Being, the nature of Reality, is an Infinite Singularity.
The world that is perceived as moving and changing appears within the Infinite Singularity, and it seems as if the Singularity has exploded into different perceivable forms. I call it The World of Motion, because everything is moving, relatively speaking. Even things that appear to be still (like houses, mountains, tables and chairs etc.) are moving, as the universe swirls in its expansion and contraction. You see, it's also a World of Opposites interacting. Or so it seems.
Consider an Infinite Singularity. There is no inside or outside of it. There is nothing other than it. There is no distance or division in it. There are no dimensions to it. It cannot go somewhere else. It cannot move at all. Movement doesn't exist in it. It cannot change. Change doesn't exist in it. It is formless and invisible. It is pure clarity and unblemished perfection, although there is no-one to see it and call it this. In fact it really has no qualities. The descriptive words I've used here are plucked from a world of duality and opposites, where comparisons can be made. But an Infinite Singularity has no comparisons, as there is nothing other than it.
This Infinite Singularity is the unseen reality of the illusory world. The world appears as if the Singularity has been split in two and multiplied exponentially to form a multiplicity. Points of perception arise within this multiplicity, human beings, where we can look at the world as if it is the Singularity in separation. The Singularity is able to perceive itself in terms of duality, and concepts of opposites. It is from this standpoint that a human being can say, "Reality is a Singularity, and separation is illusory."
So the World of Opposites / Motion appears, and it seems that things happen, things are done, activity goes on between the opposite poles of beginning and end. But this is illusory. The Singularity is not broken in two. A multiplicity is not formed. There is never a separation in the Singularity, only an appearance of separation and illusion. The Singularity remains as it is. All the motion in the universe goes nowhere. It all seems to happen right here in the Singularity. Time seems to span out between the beginning and the end of the universe, but it is all right now in the Singularity.
The Singularity does not have space and time. It is Here and Now. There is no real movement or change. Nothing ever happens. There is a Law of Opposites that applies in the world that seems to appear, because even in the illusory appearance the Singularity must be maintained. That is, whatever is done in space and time must be undone. Space may appear to stretch out, but it must also stretch back in. The world may appear from a singularity, but it must return to a singularity. Whatever happens must unhappen. Its opposite must counter it to restore the balance of the singularity.
The Singularity is never out of balance, of course, and nothing is ever done. Yet the world appears as if something is happening, so it necessarily must unhappen. This happening and unhappening is commensurate with space and time. So space and time is the appearance of the unfurling and refurling of the Singularity.
If this is difficult to grasp at first, recognise that in a dream nothing ever happens. Dream images may appear and disappear. Distances may be travelled but you never go anywhere. It is similar with the universe but with a more formal structure. What happens within the unfurling and refurling of the universe has infinite possibilities, but it must all be counterbalanced by the nature of opposites.