The Human Experience
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
The human experience of love is a closeness and togetherness. It's a warm feeling of being so close to someone that it brings happiness and joy to be around them. But what is love really, and why is it so important?
Love is Oneness, Completeness, Wholeness. When we feel love from the human perspective we tap into this oneness and completeness. To understand this, it helps to understand the human condition. Humanity has evolved in a world of competition and survival of the fittest. Through this competitive world humans have developed a deeply ingrained sense of separation. The general human experience is one of feeling separate from others, at odds with others, and getting along with some humans but not others. Through this experience of separation we encounter love and hate. Well, I call it the Continuum of Love.
The Continuum of Love is the range of love from the highest selfless love for others, through feelings of love for those close, through feelings of friendship, through feelings of indifference, to dislike, and to hate at the far end of the Continuum of Love. It's a whole range of the experience of love. Kind of. It's not the whole complete Love, which is not a love for others, but rather Love In Itself. Not love of these or those. Just Love, without the sense of separation. Love is Oneness.
You see, the sense of separation is key to understanding love. The sense of separation isn't accurate. Truly, no matter how many there seem to be, there is only ever One, an Infinite One. It is this Oneness that is Pure Love. Oneness is Complete and Whole. It is the natural state of Being. When humans feel love, it is a temporary dropping of the ingrained sense of separation, which allows the natural, true state of Love to come through. The closeness of human love is felt when there is a reduction in this sense of separation.
Most humans prefer love and unity to hate and separation, but some get so caught up in the sense of separation that the hate dominates. It is the sense of separation from others that gives rise to these feelings of closeness and distance. The closer people are to Oneness, the greater the feeling of love. When seemingly further away from Oneness, the feelings of distance, separation and difference can lead to hostility, competition and hate. But even in the physical sense there is a drive towards unity. Humans seek to have sexual relationships, where there is a physical union of sorts. The higher seeking is to have an emotional union with another, which we call "in love". And there is a higher love still, with the love and compassion for all humans and all creatures. This is a love that is closer to Pure Love.
Pure Love is that natural state of Oneness, without the sense of separation from others. We can call it Love, Joy, Peace, Wholeness, Oneness, Being, or God. It is the same One. It is the same One that all spiritual seekers seek. But it is right here. It is no distance. What prevents the natural state from being evident in the human experience is the ingrained notion of separation. So the theory is that all we need do is drop the notion of separation, and Love will be permanently experienced.
This is Enlightenment. There are numerous ways to 'reach' Oneness, though, of course, it cannot be reached, because we are already no distance from it. We are Oneness. But the notion of separation needs to be dropped for it to be revealed in the human experience. So in the human experience we can practice Oneness, by letting go of feelings of hate and dislike. If we aim for love and kindness to others, then it brings the human closer to Oneness. Then the leap from being close to being One seems a shorter leap. Ultimately the sense of 'others' needs to be dropped. There are no others. There is no separation. The separation is only in the human mind. But the mind can be 'untrained' so that the sense of separation is released.
So, even at a simple level, bringing love and kindness into the daily life can lead each human experience closer to revealing the true nature of Oneness that is right here. Then ultimately the sense of being separate must be dissolved in the Oneness of Love.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
In a novel we usually read about a main character, their experiences and adventures, and interactions with other characters. There is a spiritual Non-Duality analogy here. The novel is like the human experience perceived by and in Consciousness.
The story of the character and its adventures in the novel only come to light when the book is read. Before that it is dormant. There are words in a book that aren't being read. But when we read the book it comes to life. We follow the adventures of the main character and we learn about its world and the other characters in it. If our attention is withdrawn from the book it no longer plays out the story.
So it is with human life and the human experience, as I call it. Each human life only plays out becomes of the Life that illuminates and animates it. We are the Life, not the human being. We are that in which the human story is brought to life. We are the Awareness or Consciousness in which the human experience plays out its story. We perceive the human life, right through its sense of identity and personality, its thinking, its feelings and activities. We are the witness of this. Well, to put it less inaccurately, we are the Witnessing of the human experience.
Without the Witnessing there is no story, there is no human life, no animals, buildings, oceans, planets, stars. Everything that is known or experienced from the human perspective appears in Consciousness. Consciousness is Aware Beingness. That means that the nature of being, or existing, is intelligent awareness. It is One Aware Being that perceives all. It is like the reader of the novel. Without Aware Being nothing is perceived - effectively the universe is dormant, closed up.
So what does that mean for humanity? It means that my true nature, your true nature, all humanity's true nature, is not what we see but where we are seeing from. I don't just mean what we see with the eyes. What the eyes see is known by the mind. What ears hear is known by the mind. What the body feels is known by the mind. What knows the mind? What perceives the thoughts? It is this Witnessing that the novel analogy points to. It removes us from being caught up in the never-ending story, and brings us back to where we are looking from. It brings us to the unshakeable reality of Aware Being.
So why not say it is the Witness? Sometimes it's helpful to describe Aware Being as the Witness, but this can imply that the Witness is a distinct being with its own identity. But Aware Being is endless. It's not really a Being, but more a Beingness. It's just What Is. That's why Witnessing is less inaccurate. I say 'less inaccurate' because no words or theories can be wholly accurate. There is a flaw in language and any attempt to express Formless Reality. Aware Being is formless Awareness, a knowing or intelligence prior to knowledge of things. We could say it is Nothing, but it is also Everything.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
The human mind likes to categorise the world. It likes to put limits on things. In doing that it gets caught up in the belief that the world is limited and limitations are real. We feel that there must be beginnings and ends to things. We feel that there is cause and effect, question and answer, start and finish, seeking and finding. It's time to shake off that mistaken viewpoint. The world is infinite.
Although we may conceptualise causes and effects, truly the cause doesn't begin, and the effect doesn't end. We could say that an effect of something is brought about by a cause, and that the cause comes from a series of causes and effects chained together. But truly there is just an unending flow. What from one point of view can be considered a cause can also be considered to be an effect. So although it's useful to consider causes and effects, it is not strictly true. It is more like the flow of a sine wave, where we can label peaks and troughs of the wave, but really it is a continually flowing wave.
This applies to the whole of the world. The world is a never-ending story. Although the universe may seem to explode into activity and ultimately return to stillness, its beginnings and ends are in infinity. The universe appears out of the infinite, remains in the infinite, and returns to the infinite. Really the universe doesn't go anywhere. It is the appearance of going somewhere and returning back to where it always is.
But the human mind doesn't really think like that. It likes to have limits on things. Thinking works dualistically in a Non-Duality. That means that thinking works with objects, this and that, where the real nature of the world is This. The real nature of the world is an infinite indivisible Singularity, whereas thinking can only process in terms of distinct and separate things. So thinking inevitably assume limits on things.
We have thoughts that if we achieve something then we will be happy, or if we find the answer to an important question then that will suffice, or there is a peace that we can find. This may be how thinking works, but experience says otherwise. Really, we know that there is no magic thing that we can achieve that will bring a lasting happiness, and that answers usually prompt more questions. The good news is that the peace that we will never find is right here now. Searching for peace is like trying to find silence by calling out for it. Only when we stop the searching and accept what is, will the peace that is right here become evident.
The never-ending story of infinity doesn't have an end or a beginning, but the reality is the permanent peace and stillness that remains throughout the story of searching and struggling. The answer isn't out there, it's right here. The message here is to recognise that limitation isn't an accurate way of describing or understanding the universe or yourself. There are no limits. The Truth can't be found because it is right here already. If we drop the limitations that the human mind imposes on the world, then the peaceful truth of being just as it is will be revealed. There isn't a this and that, a here and there, a beginning and an end, a cause and an effect. There is just What Is.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Suffering is a common human experience. It's part of human life. But we would rather it wasn't. We would rather not suffer. We would rather have a happy, fun or peaceful life. So why does suffering happen and how can we end suffering?
From the Non-Duality understanding, suffering can be seen as a wakeup call. This world of separate individuality, where we feel and believe that we are a separate being in a world of separation, is not really what it seems or what we have believed it to be. We are not a separate being in a world of many separate beings. Separation is a play within the Oneness of Reality.
Planet Earth shows this play of many whilst being one. The many different humans, plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, minerals and so on, are really the one planet expressing itself as many. This apparent division of One into many means some kind of limitation. The further we seem to be from Oneness, the stronger the barriers between us. Strong barriers lead to clashing and fighting. Planet Earth appears as a world of strong barriers separating life forms from each other. It inevitably leads to clashing and competing. Animals, plants and humans fight for supremacy and survival on this planet, due to the apparently strong barriers of separation. This leads to pain and suffering.
So it is separation that causes suffering. A world of separate beings with hardened barriers between them leads to suffering. In the case of humans, this suffering happens on physical, emotional and mental levels. Physical pain is experienced when bones are broken, the body is infected, or there is disease etc. Emotional suffering comes from the separation of strong relationships or the clashing of relationships. Mental suffering comes from mental illness and/or the psychological difficulties of being a separate individual coping with the world.
Self Enquiry is a practice in Non-Duality that in simple terms goes like this: find the one who thinks they are a separate being. I am neither the body, the emotions, nor the mental activity. I perceive all of this. I cannot be what I perceive. It is mental activity that asks, "Why am I suffering?" But who is this 'I'? Who is the one who suffers. There are no real limits that define where the body begins and ends. There are no real limits in the human mind. It is the mind or mental activity that builds up a sense of identity and limits. It is this vague identity that claims it is suffering. Identity means separation, and separation means suffering.
So then we conclude that it is the assumed separate identity that gives rise to suffering, and it is suffering that shakes the assumed separate being from the complacency of its mistaken belief. The end of separate identity then is the end of suffering. In Buddhist terms this is Enlightenment. The end of suffering comes when the separate identity vanishes. Nirvana is when the ego is extinguished. It doesn't mean that the body doesn't experience pain thereafter. The body still lives in a world of apparent separation and clashing. But the Oneness of Being shines through, extinguishing the mental activity of identity, bringing the natural state of stillness, oneness and peace where the mind previously experienced hurt, suffering and turmoil.
It is Oneness that brings the end of suffering. Oneness is here right now. We need only let go of the strong belief of separation and individual identity. It is a sacrifice of sorts, sacrificing the ego for the Whole, the death of the small self and the awakening to the reality of the Infinite One Self. There is nothing other than the Infinite One Self. Nothing can harm it. It remains timelessly as it is. We are That.