Non-duality
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Are you tall or short? Thin or wide? You are none of these. People may be relatively tall or short, thin or wide, but that's not who we really are. If you believe you are the body then you may describe yourself in these dualistic and relative terms, but generally if you have some spiritual insight you will know that you are not the body. So you should know and consider that you are neither tall nor short, thin nor wide.
The dimensions of the world in which the human form lives do not apply to our true nature. Truly we have no dimensions. Consider that. There is nowhere that is far from you or near to you. There is nothing that is outside you or within you. There is no-one separate from you or apart from you. What appears to be near or far, tall or short, thin or wide, is right here. Our experience of the world is right here. We experience the sense of depth, height and width, but we experience this right here.
Most people have seen a movie projected on a cinema screen. On the screen we can see tall mountains in the distance, faces close up, wide buildings and narrow streets that taper off into the distance. But this distance and size we see isn't real. It's an illusion of depth, width and height upon the flat screen.
The world appears in a similar way within the dimensionless nature of Awareness. Awareness is our formless unseen being within which the world of forms appears. The sense of depth, width and height reaches out from an apparent centre of awareness. There seems to be a centre from which we perceive the world's depth and distance. The centre is right here, from where we perceive. But it is not truly a centre. In the centre of being, the centre of awareness, it can be found that there is no depth or distance, and therefore no centre. There is only What Is, our formless, dimensionless being.
It is our formless, dimensionless being that allows the appearance of forms and dimensions from an apparent centre of awareness, like an explosion of dimension from an infinite core. The world of depth and dimensions is an illusory appearance within the formless, infinite Awareness or Consciousness, that is the reality of our being.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
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.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Where do you place your centre of identity? Many people place it right in the human body they experience. In other words their identity is with the body. They identify as human. Many believe they are human beings, going about their human lives whilst they can. Even those who believe they are a soul still identify as human for much of that human experience.
It's a slightly complicated but important thing to recognise. If your centre of identity is in the human body, you will be engrossed in the activities of the body. But if you believe you are a soul, why on earth would you place your centre of identity in the body? Well, that's just the way it is sometimes. We can have knowledge, understanding and beliefs that we are not the body, but our centre of identity is still right there in the body, making things confusing.
If I believe I am a soul and I've placed my centre of identity in the body then I need to do something about that to reclaim my centre, so to speak. If, following the Non Duality teaching, I believe I am neither the body nor the soul, but I am the Beingness, Presence, Awareness, What Is, then I also need to reclaim my centre.
We need to start recognising the errors that we routinely accept. We talk of 'I' as if I'm the body. We talk of 'mine' as if something belongs to this body. We talk of 'we' as if we are doing the talking. You see, that's the problem - are we really identifying with the body? It's the body that talks about being the body. But it's the mind that coordinates this talk based on the mind's beliefs.
Are we the mind then? Should we place our centre of identity in the mind? If we withdraw our centre of identity from the body, the next stop is the mind. It is indeed in the mind that the sense of identity is found to be constructed, although its focus is in the body. We can withdraw the centre of identity to the mind, but the mind still identifies with the body somewhat. The mind still thinks, "I'm going to do this or that. I don't like this. I don't like that." And it's all attached to the body, as if the mind is the body.
We need to go deeper still. We need to ask: who is it that witnesses this centre of identity? This sense of identity is observed or witnessed. These thoughts and thought forms that focus around identifying as a human being are witnessed by someone. So we look deeper into the centre of this identity. We withdraw identity from being a human and recognise that we witness this human experience. We withdraw identity deeper still and recognise that we witness the sense of identity and thoughts in the mind. We withdraw deeper still, to where we are looking from, to the witnessing of the sense of separate individuality. Then we let it go.
This is akin to returning to the heart of the universe. We turn inwards to where everything came from. We go back to the centre. We turn from the world of separate things and go back to the singularity, the oneness of being. It is not too dissimilar to finding the heart of a storm. It is a hollow centre. A centre of the Infinite Singularity.
For those who understand and accept Non Duality, we know that there is not truly a centre. There's not a true identity, but we still need to root it out, by searching for it. Intellectual knowledge of it is not enough. If there is some illusory identity then we need to look for its centre. We look for its core or heart. And in looking we find that there is a hollow centre, or indeed no centre. There is a centre of infiniteness. Our true identity is infinite, without limit or form. Our true identity is no-identity. We are not this or that. We are Pure Beingness. The full emptiness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
If there is One Infinite Consciousness why can't we know other people's thoughts? Some people may find it difficult to accept that there is One Consciousness. We perceive a world of differences. There are many people with different beliefs, languages, cultures, ethnicities, fashions and interests. We all seem to have our own mind, think our own thoughts and make our own choices. How can I be the same consciousness as all those other people? I don't know their thoughts. Surely I would know all thoughts if I was the same consciousness.
Let's understand this better. I could say that in my mind I experience my thoughts, images and dreams. However, I'm already limiting my mind there. It would be more accurate to say that in my mind I experience thoughts, images, dreams, feelings, perceptions, the body and the world. It would be fair to say that all my experience is in my mind. I don't experience anything of the world outside my mind. Even my sense of inside my mind and outside my mind is actually all in my mind. The mind only seems to be inside the denser human form. So where does my mind end?
Truly we cannot find a limit to the mind. I can close my eyes and reach out indefinitely in the mind without finding a limit. Even the perception of the universe I experience in my mind when I look up at the sky on a clear night has no end. We will search forever trying to find true limits.
Is this mind then the same as Infinite Consciousness? Yes, but we call it the mind when it has a sense and belief of being limited and separate. It's not really 'my' mind, and really there is no mind. There is only Infinite Consciousness. But Infinite Consciousness cannot know a multitude. It cannot know many. The human experience allows Infinite Consciousness to seemingly focus and limit itself to perceive itself as a being in a world of many. Our dream experience is a smaller representation of this, where we experience our mind through the activities of a being in a dream world. The sense of limits in the dream world are weaker but it's not unusual to meet a character in the dream world and not know what they are thinking. Yet the dream is wholly the mind. In a dream my character, the other characters and the places I go to are all the mind.
This world that we experience then is wholly Infinite Consciousness appearing to be limited and separate. The apparently limited mind is like a mini Consciousness, with similar qualities. What happens in the mind is that thought forms develop a sense and belief of separation, limitation and identity. If we truly let go or dispel these false senses and beliefs of limitation, the mind sinks back into its true nature of Infinite Consciousness. This is what we call Nirvana, Moksha, Self Realisation, or Enlightenment.
This doesn't mean then that an Enlightened One can hear all thoughts or indeed know all things. The thoughts, the being and the world only appear by Consciousness focusing and condensing. When Self Realisation occurs it is a withdrawing of focus and a letting go of limits. As mentioned earlier, Infinite Consciousness cannot know the many. Although Infinite Consciousness is at the heart of all experiences, the experiences of the many beings belong in the apparently separate world, not in the Awareness of Pure Being. As far as Infinite Consciousness is concerned, there is not a world, there are not many people, nothing happens, and there is no space or time.
So it is not that Infinite Consciousness knows all things. Infinite Consciousness knows only itself. Although it is the essence of intelligence it does not know many things, because 'many things' is not the reality. Infinite Consciousness is the reality and the peak of knowing. It is the Pure Clarity of Being. It is our core nature, self knowing and knowing no other.