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.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
Many people interested in the spiritual side of life may seek Enlightenment. It is the Self-Realisation, Liberation, Moksha or Nirvana, in which Reality is clearly known. It is the end of suffering and the end of ignorance. Yet it is not something that can be found. Why is this?
Anything that can be found must be temporary. It must be something that wasn't found previously and will in time be lost again. Anything expected to last forever, eternally, cannot be something that was missing. Eternity has no beginning or end. Nothing that has a beginning can be without end.
The Enlightenment that is sought is here all along. Liberation or Freedom is right here. Self-Realisation is right here. That's what 'enlightened beings' say. And they're right. Enlightenment is never found. It is here all along. But why isn't this ever-present Self-Realisation realised?
Self-Realisation is the removal of ignorance (or Avidya). Well, when ignorance is removed Self-Realisation is revealed to be ever-present. Ignorance in this sense means the misunderstanding of the mind, or indeed any form of understanding in the mind. If the mind thinks it has it then it's wrong. If the mind thinks it knows what reality is, then that knowledge, no matter how accurate it seems to be, will never be wholly accurate. With the dropping of all knowledge comes the clarity or Pure Knowing, which we call Enlightenment or Self-Realisation. It is like the silence that underlies all sound, the stillness that remains throughout the appearance of movement.
So now it is known that Self-Realisation is our natural 'state' of being, what can we do to reveal this. We need to get to the root of who 'we' are. That is part of the 'ignorance' - the belief that separation is real and that 'I' am someone trying to reveal my true nature. Truly there is nothing to be done to be as we are. But the ignorance of the mind seems to prevent this clarity of Knowing. Ramana Maharshi taught that Self Enquiry was the surest method to uproot ignorance. Self Enquiry is seeking out "Who Am I?" It doesn't mean repeating the phrase. Rather it is the deepest searching and questioning.
It is the mind activity that does this search to find out who 'I' am. It will root out the false sense of 'I' that is the flagpole of ignorance. Once the root of false identity is removed as the cause of ignorance, then the true nature of the Infinite Indivisible Self is revealed. Enlightenment, Liberation and Self-Realisation is revealed to be timelessly present, without beginning or end.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: God
Let's consider God's omniscience, or all-knowing awareness. It may generally be assumed by people who believe in God, that God is all-knowing, that nothing is hidden from God and that God knows all things. We can understand this more closely.
In Non-Duality God is understood as the One Infinite Being. There are no beings other than God. What we assume to be a multitude of beings and a vast world of separate shapes and forms is nothing other than the One Infinite Indivisible Being. The apparently separate beings may seem to be close to God or far from God, but truly God is without end and it's not possible to be outside of God. The world appears as a contrast of what is like God and what is unlike God. This contrast of opposites is God's expression of God's Singular Self. God is formless, shapeless, so any expression of God is not complete and accurate as God. Yet there is nothing other than God. God is the complete Whole, the entirety of What Is.
It follows then that God does not know every thing. God does not know 'things'. God does not know division and separation, because these are not real. God's wholeness is never divided; it only appears to be divided. We could say that God is indeed All-Knowing, as God is Pure Knowing of all that is. And all that is is God. God does not know others, because there are no others.
So it would be a mistake to consider that God knows arithmetic, because God does not see a multiplicity as humans imagine it. This may at first seem controversial, but God does not see a division of the Infinite One into many. God knows only infinity. Knowing infinity just means Knowing, not knowing this and that. God's nature is Knowing, or Awareness, or Consciousness. We use these terms to indicate the core nature of intelligent being.
God's Being is the Heart of all seemingly separate beings, and the Heart is the Whole. So resting in this God Knowing or God Consciousness does not mean that all things are known. Rather it is known that there are no things, or to be more accurate, Nothing is known. Knowledge is an addition to the Clear Knowing or Pure Awareness of God. So it's not that one resting in God Consciousness will know how to fix a car engine, how to successfully cook a lasagne, or how to solve a complex mathematical equation. That knowledge is based in the human mind or mental activity. However, resting in Pure Awareness can bring a clarity to the mental activity, which can make the human mind more in tune with the workings of the apparent universe.
So God does not know every thing, but we could say God knows Everything. There are not many things. There is nothing other than Everything. There is nothing other than God.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
It seems useful to consider what these terms really mean, or really are: mind, thoughts and consciousness. They mean different things to different people, but from the Non-Duality perspective we can be fairly clear as to what they are. So here goes.
Let's start with thoughts. We can say they are words or images that appear in the mind, but they can also be 'sounds'. Thoughts can be tunes we hear 'in our head'. Thoughts can be word structures or sentences with meaning. They can be a conversation 'in our mind'. Thoughts can be images - we can picture a flower, for example, or sometimes images just appear with no apparent reason. When drifting off to sleep there can be initial images or scenes of things happening. And when in sleep, dreams themselves are thoughts that take on a stronger visual and experiential element.
It could be said that thoughts mimic what is perceived through the senses. Thoughts can be like sounds, images or sensations. And in dreams they can mimic or use elements experienced in daily life. It's useful to consider thoughts as mental activity. It's impossible to frame where a thought begins and ends.
So then to the mind. Well, the mind is mental activity. In a way 'mind' is only something when thoughts are active. Without thought, where is the mind? It has no physical location anyway. But when thoughts cease there is no mind, as mind is what we call mental activity, which is what thoughts are.
On then to consciousness. In common usage consciousness means being awake. But in Non-Duality the terms Consciousness and Awareness can be used to refer to the ever-present state of Being. You may have heard of Sat-Chit-Ananda, which means something like Being-Consciousness-Bliss. It is the Advaita Vedanta term that describes the singular nature of reality as Peaceful Aware Being. It is this natural core condition of existence in which the universe is perceived. That means it is in Consciousness or Aware Being that the mind, the body and the world are perceived.
Strictly speaking there isn't a mind, body or world. There is only one infinite indivisible presence, and that is Aware Being. Within Consciousness or Aware Being the apparent focal point of a world is perceived. But the world itself is nothing other than Aware Being when perceived through this localised point of perspective of the human experience. It should be noted that there is a reflection of sorts, where Aware Being perceives itself as a world. You can see the similarities with a dream, in which the mind perceives itself as a world.
Anyhow, Consciousness is what is right here now. It's not that you are conscious. The human can be described as awake or asleep, but there is Consciousness in which the states of awake and asleep appear. When asleep, Consciousness is aware of the inner mental activity. In deep sleep the mental activity stops and focus withdraws from the senses. Consciousness isn't aware of anything then, but it's still aware.
Consciousness doesn't need something to be aware of, and in fact there is nothing other than Consciousness. Consciousness is always aware of itself, no matter what appears; it's all Consciousness. Aware Being is Self-Aware, or Self-Realised, to use the enlightenment term.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
It's difficult to find peace in the world. By nature the universe is continually moving and changing. If a peace is found then it's only a temporary peace. However, there is a Permanent Peace. It's not something to be found, but it's at the heart of all the searching. Permanent Peace is timelessly present whilst the world spins around. In the world it is like the still centre, and this pattern repeats throughout the universe - a still centre at the heart of movement and change. We see it in the strong trunk of a tree, from which the branches grow outwards. It's in the swirl of water going down a plughole, and the eye of the hurricane as it whirls around. It's in the opening and closing of a flower and the seeming stillness of our view from planet Earth as the stars and planets move round.
These pockets of peace that we perceive aren't wholly accurate. Planet Earth isn't really still. Nothing in the world of movement and change remains still. It's just that they can seem still or they can represent stillness temporarily. Yet there is a True Stillness. It is this True Stillness from which and in which this world of motion is perceived. True Stillness is beyond time and space. Time and space appear within its timeless spacelessness. It's an infinite indivisible Singularity. It's always Here and Now.
Eckhart Tolle often mentions Presence or Being Present in his talks. He sometimes mentions The Present Moment. It's not really a moment in time, of course. He is referring to the timeless Now. This Presence is the true nature of all things. It is That in which time and space seem to stretch out. All the while, Presence is right Here, Now. It is the pure, perfect peace. It's not made of anything. Presence wasn't created. It is timeless and formless. It's an unshakeable Singularity. It cannot be moved or harmed. It cannot be broken or split in two. It is the true nature of the seemingly ever-moving world.
Presence has no beginning or end, no inside or outside. How do we know it's here? Because we know. The very fact of being aware tells us that we are here. We are the Aware Presence that is here. It's not that because there is a human there is Presence. The human is perceived because of Presence. Presence comes first. Well, it would be more accurate to say Presence is timelessly present, before any appearance of first and last. It reminds one of the Bible quote (John 1:8), "Before Abraham was, I am." It means that before the world appeared, Being was present. We can think of it like this: before the universe began, Presence was all that there was; but there was no time, no past or present tense, just Presence, Now. So Presence was before any appearance of beginning. It remains as it is throughout all apparent time and change, and is all that there is once time seems to come to an end.
It's difficult to understand it if one is firmly rooted in the notion of time as reality. The problem is that time isn't reality. Presence is Reality. That's why the question of what was before the beginning doesn't seem to make sense. There is no beginning, or end. There is only the timeless Now/Presence/Peace, and in this the world of time and space whirls around.