Non-duality
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Most people would acknowledge that they are connected to the universe. From a human perspective we eat, drink and breathe, which is a flow of connectedness with the environment. We gain energy from this and absorb energy from the sun. This energy is used in our environment, so it's fair to say the human body is connected to the world.
Many people don't even consider this connection with the world. It doesn't occur to them or doesn't interest them. Some people, generally spiritually minded people, think about their connection to the world, or to the whole. Sometimes they feel connected to the whole or they strive to feel more connected. Some people may openly say they are connected to the whole.
The problem with being or feeling connected is that it implies we are separate. Connectedness relies on a subject-object relationship, where we feel that we are connected to the whole. The subject, me, feels connected to the object, the whole. Whenever we say that something or someone is connected it also implies that they are a separate thing or person. So although connected and separate seem like opposites, nothing can be connected without being separate.
It is a failure of words to be able to describe something as being 'part of' something else, when it's not a separate part. For example, it's not strictly correct to say my hand is part of my body, or to say my hand is connected to my body, because the hand isn't a separate 'part'. It's just the body, and we label a slightly vague area of the body as a 'hand'. The flaw lies in this inability to truly define anything.
So to say, "I am connected to the universe," means there is a separate 'I' who is linked to a separate universe. The statement will be inaccurate. So instead of saying, "I am connected with the whole," it would be more accurate (but still not truly accurate) to say, "I am the whole."
We can consider the sense or feeling of connectedness as a Spectrum of Separation, with feeling most closely connected at one end and seemingly unconnected at the far end of the Spectrum of Separation. But this is all a play of opposites. There is no connectedness and there is no separation. The opposite terms fool us. There is only What Is.
For spiritual progression it seems that a leap from dualistic terms to the nondual is needed. We need to leap from the close end of the Spectrum of Separation, where we feel most closely at one with the whole, to where we are the whole, where there is no division in What Is. This is the spiritual aim of Oneness. It is not where the separate self 'me' feels at one with the world, it is where there is neither separate self nor the world. There is only What Is. It is the absence of the illusory sense of separation. Non-Duality.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Following from Shakespeare's famous quote from Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question," let's consider what it means to be, to exist, to be alive, and whether we can ever not be. Being is the core of our nature. I say 'the core' because that helps us to understand it better, but truly it is the whole of our nature. It is what we are, but it seems that it is at the heart of who we are. The reason for this is that Being becomes clothed with identity.
That needs some explanation. Say we start off as just Being. Our primordial self is Pure Being. We are just what is, without any objective qualities. Without form. Without beginning or end. Imagine then that from Being, or as it's sometimes termed, Isness, there developed the sense 'I'. This 'I' is linked with Being, so the sense 'I am' appears. Next the 'I am' sense reaches out and attaches to form. To cut a long story short, we reach the point where we identify with dense forms, such as the human body, and we feel that I am a man or I am a mother, or I am a doctor, or I am an insecure office worker and I have lots of problems in my life. This is the human experience of identity and how it can tangle us up into all sorts of problems, beliefs and associations. The identity develops and attaches to the things of the world. However, the source of Beingness is always here. Underneath the clothing of human identity and association is the pure naked Beingness that is our true nature.
Our Beingness is never lost. It only seems to be hidden because of the focus of attention away from our being to the changing forms of the world. Our being is unchanging and imperceivable. It is imperceivable in the same way that we cannot see our eyes. We may look at them in a mirror, but that is only a reflection of where we are looking from. Our being is self aware. We are self aware. But we cannot see our formless nature. Instead the world appears as a reflection of our formless nature. The unchanging stillness of our being perceives the changing world of motion.
Is it possible to not be? Well, Being is what we are. It is formless and boundless, so it is a shared Being. We are the same Being, the Infinite One Being. So we cannot not be. But there is a sense of our nature being emptiness, a full emptiness, a complete emptiness. Our Being can be called Nothingness, because it has no objective qualities. Yet we can understand its 'qualities' through the reflection of the world. You see, the world is a play of opposites that reflects the singular nature of Being. Where we experience love and hate in the world it reflects our true nature of Pure Love. Where we experience gain and loss in the world it reflects our true nature of Content Completeness. Where we experience alive and not alive in the world it reflects our true nature of Pure Unending Life.
What this means is that although our nature can be described as Nothingness, where it could be said that we do not exist, what we know as the highest qualities in the world point to the unmanifest nature of our being. We are Pure Love, Pure Life, Pure Clarity, Pure Consciousness, Pure Stillness, Pure Being. Yet this is imperceivable until the mirror of the world appears before us and reflects back aspects of our unmanifest nature. The world always appears less than what we are, because we are complete in our unmanifest state. Call it Being or Not Being, Completeness or Emptiness, we are as we are.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Stillness is fascinating. Things seem to be still around us - the ground, buildings, our furniture, parked cars, mountains, and so on. A lot of things just seem to stay where they are, completely still. But that's only how it seems.
Really, the ground, the buildings, our furniture, and so on, are part of a spinning planet. The stillness we perceive is only relative. The base of the planet appears still relative to us. The sun seems to spin around the planet from our relative viewpoint, but we know that it is the planet spinning around the sun. It is the sun that stays still. Well, not really. The sun, the planet, and the rest of our solar system are swirling in a spiral galaxy, which is also on the move.
Everything in the universe is moving. Any apparent stillness is not true stillness. It is an illusion of stillness. But there is a True Stillness that cannot be perceived. True Stillness is the heart of the universe, the heart of perception, the still centre of the world of motion and change.
Movement and stillness are the opposites that we perceive. Together they express and reflect the true nature of reality. The opposite of Stillness allows it to be perceived. Motion is the means by which we can know stillness, yet it is not the true stillness. The illusion of stillness is the best that True Stillness can be expressed.
Let's understand what I mean by True Stillness. Imagine a complete singularity, formless, invisible, indivisible, without time or space, without change, without movement. No things, but complete. No beginnings or ends. Infiniteness. This singularity is truly and perfectly still. It's still beyond any comparison. It's unmanifest stillness. There's no change in it and there's nowhere for it to go. There's nowhere inside it or outside it. This is what I mean by True Stillness.
It is this True Stillness that the world is expressing through the medium of opposites. From the timeless Here and Now the world of space and time appears as a dispersion through reflection (like how a rainbow appears by the dispersion of white light through a prism). True Stillness is then expressed as the appearance of motion and stillness (or indeed the spectrum of motion). In this way we experience the nature of the Singularity via this appearance of opposites. This Singularity, the True Stillness, remains as it is. It is the one and only being. We are the Infinite One.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
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.