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: Non-duality
The idea of 'me' is an imposter. It's not the real you. It's a notion that I am this body. It's a notion that I am here in the world, that I am something distinct and separate from the rest of the world. But that's not true.
You are not separate from the world. It's a flawed idea. How? Well, there's no distinct point where the body ends and the rest of the world begins. We may casually see the tips of the fingers and believe that is where that part of the body ends. We may feel the feet as they touch a soft carpet, walk on grass, or slide on some socks. There is a sense of where the feet end and where the rest of the world begins. But it's not strictly correct.
There may seem to be a firm outer layer to the body that we call skin, but the skin isn't permanent. It is continually changing. It is continually replaced as the outer layer joins the environment. The skin is continually flaking away from the layer that seems to separate the body from the world, and then it is no longer the body. We could say that the outer layer of the body is continually replaced as it becomes "not the body".
So what seems to be a defining layer where the body is separate from the rest of the world is really indefinite. Really nothing is separate from the world. The world is always whole and complete. It is the mind that has the idea of separation and division. It is the mind that labels this and that as separate parts of an indivisible world.
What do we do about this? We recognise that the ideas of me that have shaped human life are flawed, and we allow this clearer understanding to permeate through the human world. Who can be our enemy when there is really no separation? Why should we argue and fight when truly we are one? This recognition breaks down the barriers that the human psyche has formed. These mental barriers seem to prevent us from being naturally as we are, at peace and at one.
Of course, really there is no 'us'. There is no real me and you. It is one infinite indivisible Being appearing as many. The peace and Oneness of Being remains timelessly as it is, whilst appearing to be and not to be.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Part of this human experience, as I call it, is the experience of loss. We may lose someone close to us or we may lose a job, a house, or even have objects that were important to us lost or stolen. This loss can sometimes have a devastating emotional impact on us. Losing one's purpose if made redundant from a job can be very difficult to cope with, and it is a longer lasting sense of loss when we lose a loved one. It may be that they passed away, they chose to separate from us, or they are temporarily away from us due to work or other commitments. This separation increases the human feeling of loss.
The aim here is to understand what is happening with this experience of loss. It's hoped that this understanding will make the loss more bearable, as we recognise the inevitability of loss and the underlying completeness that remains but is overlooked.
So why must we experience loss? If asked whether we would like to lose those we love, the job we enjoy, the roof over our head, or those objects that have become important in our human lives, we would overwhelmingly say, "No!" But there is a certain inevitability about it - things in the world seem to come and go. Nothing lasts forever. Loss is inevitable. Loss is continually happening, as the apparent beings, objects and activities of the world come and go. The nature of the world we perceive is continual change.
In Non-Duality we may call this appearance of the world Maya or Lila, which means that it is illusory or not what it seems. In Non-Duality it is recognised that the universe cannot come and go anywhere. It is always Here. The universe or What Is cannot become something else. It doesn't really change. It only appears to change. This appearance of change is a reflection of the true nature of reality, which is timeless, formless, unchanging, and unmoving. The appearance of loss and gain in the world is itself illusory, as nothing is ever gained or lost. It only seems that way because of the appearance of change.
The universe of What Is remains timelessly complete. It doesn't really separate and divide. The world appears as if opposites have been created and they ebb and flow, separating and returning to each other, in the search for unity, wholeness and completeness. This is the play of duality that we call Maya. This is the apparent world of opposites that gives rise to the human experience of gain and loss.
Humanity has a sense of being separate from the whole. Humans generally need company, or they need to have space from company. It's all about separation and wholeness. When someone we love leaves us we feel bereft: there is an empty gap where once there was a sense of oneness. We feel we have lost them. We miss their company and how they made us feel more complete. This is part of human life in the world of change. There's no getting away from this, as nothing that appears in the universe will last. What appears must disappear. It is the Law of Opposites that allows this world to appear within the Wholeness of the Singularity.
Truly the Wholeness of the Singularity is always here, throughout the appearance of gain and loss. Where it may seem that those we love have gone, they have not. They are always Here, as we are always Here. There is truly nowhere other than Here. The appearance of separate individuals is the Singularity itself playing at being separate. Truly, all who you love, like, or dislike, are one, and you are that one also. There is no other. We are the Singularity. We are the Beingness that allows the appearance of separation whilst remaining whole.
Look differently at this apparent world of change, and know that it speaks of the unseen unchanging Wholeness that is always Here. Gain and loss seem to take place on the surface of life, but at the core is a whole, complete Oneness, and we are That.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Practice
It requires no effort to make no noise, or at least in theory it shouldn't require effort. In theory it should also require no effort to be still. And no effort should be needed just to be aware. But the world is topsy-turvy. It seems that we need to exert effort to do nothing, to be still and to remain alert. If you consider meditation, a common aim is to do nothing, to remain alert, still and steady. Really this should require no effort, but it can seem like hard work trying to keep still for a length of time.
Truly it doesn't require any effort to be still. The nature of being is perfect stillness and clarity. It requires no effort just to be. But when there is identity with the body it seems that 'we' need to do something to reach this natural state of effortless enlightenment. It seems to require effort to keep the body quiet, still and alert. The body is so used to moving about, making noise, being distracted and falling asleep. The aim in meditation then is to bring some peace to the body-mind. Even when the body sits still and comfortable the mind will wander.
But all this apparent movement, activity and change is okay. That's how the world appears. It doesn't change the nature of being, which remains unmoving and alert. Being doesn't move about when the body goes for a run or travels in a plane. Being is placeless and timeless. It has no location. Its stillness is effortless. It's not something that we can reach. It's where we would be reaching from, and it is where we are reaching through. It cannot be grasped, in the same way that silence cannot be heard.
So this is why enlightenment is effortless. Enlightenment is the natural state of aware being. It is right here now. It is Aware Being that is the heart and whole of all experience. It seems to be at the heart, but within the heart it is the whole, because it has no form and no limits. Imagine a sheet of paper with many circles drawn on it. Each apparently separate entity is like the circles, and the heart of each circle is the whole paper in which the circles appear. Beingness is shared by all seemingly limited separate beings, and it is in the heart that we find the limitless Being that pervades all.
Take this insight with you into meditation and into daily life, knowing that you are already That. What the body-mind does or thinks is not you. You remain timelessly effortlessly as you are throughout the appearance and disappearance of the world. You don't talk and walk. You don't fall asleep. You perceive the movement from the eternal place of Stillness, Aware Being.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
There is a theory that this planet is a simulation. I'm no expert on this theory, but we can examine and explore it from a Non-Duality perspective. The theory goes something like this: the planet is a simulation or virtual reality, which is controlled by possibly hostile beings. Some may say it is like in The Matrix movie, where we are trapped in a virtual world believing it to be real, whilst our real selves are in a form of trance state, where other beings control 'the matrix' and harvest energy from us.
Certainly, what we perceive is not what it appears to be. We could look further and further out to space and find no end. We could look deeper and deeper into the atomic realm and find no end there either. No beginnings or ends can be found in this world. Solid walls aren't really as solid and impervious as they seem. They are made of porous atoms. The firm ground that we walk on is not really firm. It is always moving, shifting slowly and spinning through space.
So it's right to question the nature of reality, because reality is not what it appears to be and it's not what people generally consider it to be. Humanity has a general belief that there are limits to things, that things begin and end, and that things can be defined. But that's not really the case. Walls aren't impervious. The sky doesn't end. A rainbow isn't really divided into seven colours - it's the mind that divides it.
In some ways we could say that yes, this world is a simulation, because there is a magical quality to Nothing appearing as Everything. This world that we perceive is amazing, when we understand that the reality is an unmanifest infinite indivisible Singularity. How does a timeless, dimensionless Singularity explode into a multiplicity through time and space? The answer is that it doesn't. It only seems to. This apparent world of opposites and motion is a simulation of multiplicity within the indivisible Singularity.
So do we accept the simulation theory? Not exactly. There is a flaw. The flaw is that there are no 'other' beings besides the great Beingness of the Singularity in which the world appears. We are not in a simulation. The simulation is in us. The seeming world of opposites appears within the Singularity, which we are. We aren't human, and we aren't some other being on the other side of this world. There are not many beings. Multiplicity is the illusion of the world. The Singularity is the reality. Let's say, for instance, that we broke out of the trance state of the illusion of this world, and we saw (like Neo in The Matrix) that the world was a very different place, who's to say that that isn't also a simulation. One could fall through endless simulations trying to find reality.
But the Reality is right here. There is no 'over there'. There is no other place. There is no place. Only Here Now. Distance, time and movement are the illusion within the unmanifest Singularity right Here Now. You never go anywhere, as there is nowhere outside of you. There is not you and something else, only This. You are This. We are This. This has no limits. You can never be trapped. There can only be a simulation of being trapped - an experience of being limited. That is the human experience - the notion of being limited and separate from others. It's the ego trap. But the ego isn't really the being it thinks it is. It's a complex bundle of thought that forms the notion of being limited and being trapped.
The Singularity (who we really are, and all there really is) seems to experience limitation and separation through this simulation of multiplicity. Humanity can indeed break free from the ego trap and the limitation of the simulation. It is done through revealing that there are no limits and there is no separation, and allowing this recognition to permeate through and dispel the ego delusion.