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: Spiritual Practice
The Indian sage Sri Ramana Maharshi taught how the paths of Vichara (Self Enquiry) and Bhakti (Surrender) lead to the same realisation of the Self. Let's understand this and see how these seemingly separate paths are not two. (This is about Non-Duality, of course.)
Self Enquiry is the practice of seeking 'Who am I?' It's not about just asking that over and over. It is about getting to the root of who we are. We have an assumption of who we are. Primarily there is an identification with the body: the mind thinks, "I am this body." As the mind develops it can reach a greater understanding about the spiritual nature of reality. The mind reaches a recognition that we are not the body. We can then come to think that we are a soul that inhabits the body and outlives the body. But we are not to stop at that understanding. There is a deeper recognition.
The practice of Self Enquiry is for the mind to analyse its ideas of who it is and look to the root where these ideas are perceived. The ideas of identity are not who we really are. We perceive the mind activity and ideas. Who is it that perceives? From that premise we can go deeper into the non-thinking recognition of self awareness. Ultimately the mind's idea of being a separate individual (whether a body or a soul) is dissolved in the clarity of the unlimited Self. The unlimited Self is all that there is. It is not separate or divided from others. There are no others. There is only This, complete and content. It's what we call Being-Consciousness-Bliss.
The practice of Surrender is one of surrendering oneself to God. This could be in selfless service and prayer, always giving, with kindness, peace and love. Traditionally in India this would have been in service to a guru, but really it is service to God, or service to the whole. God is the Whole. It is not to serve some and dismiss some others. It is a surrender of all selfish urges and attachments to this or that. It is the surrender of boundaries between 'me' and 'them' and 'God'. There really are no boundaries, but the physical practice of surrender assists the breaking down of mental barriers and boundaries that are believed to be real. Ultimately in Surrender the mental ideas of 'me' and 'mine' dissolve. Leaving what? Just What Is.
So you see, the path of Self Enquiry leads to the dissolving of identity through knowing, and the path of Surrender leads to the dissolving of identity through selflessness. The two paths are one. They are paths for the mind's idea of identity to choose, though each is the same practice of dissolving the selfish self. This dissolving of the mental notion of being a selfish limited self unveils the freedom of the true Selfless Self. This is the true nature of who we are, yet there is no 'who' about it. The True Self is no self. The way of selfishness is the opposite of Truth, and the True Self is not limited or defined as this or that.
There is no true identity, because identity requires otherness. Identity and otherness are the reflection of Truth. The Truth of Unlimited Undivided Oneness. We are That.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
We've all heard of cause and effect. People often talk of it and state how one thing causes another thing to happen. It's generally accepted to be the way of the world: something makes something else happen. But it's not really how it seems.
There isn't really a cause that makes an effect happen. That's just a useful (but inevitably inaccurate) way of describing how the world works. What I mean is that there isn't a divide between a 'cause' and an 'effect'. There isn't one thing then another thing. There also isn't a knock-on effect, where a cause brings an effect which then becomes the cause for another effect, and so on. That's not really what is happening. That's just a way of understanding or describing what is happening.
So what is really happening? There is an appearance of flowing change. The continual flow of change isn't really divided into causes and effects. Just as time isn't really divided into seconds and space isn't divided into centimetres. We use those terms to describe the world, but they are human made and not real in themselves. We don't really perceive one thing that causes an effect to happen. We perceive what seems to happen.
Let's look at an example. Consider a dog barking and a cat running away. It's fair to say that the dog barking causes the cat to run away. That makes sense. But it's not wholly accurate. We could say that the cat makes a noise, which causes the dog to see the cat, which causes the dog to bark, the cat hears the barking and this causes the cat to flee. So we could say the cat hearing the bark is the cause of the cat running away. But we're just picking at other points that aren't really discrete points. More accurately this is a flow of activity without any true dividing points. There are no true distinct points that are causes or effects.
We can go a bit deeper and consider the cause of the universe. It's accepted by many that the universe was created or caused by the Big Bang, where a singularity exploded into activity. But, although this is a good theory, there is a problem with it. If we assume that causes are real, then what caused the first cause? Ultimately we can say that the singularity has no cause. It wasn't created. The singularity is prior to the appearance of time and space. It is formless and without change. But then what caused the explosion and the beginning of time and space?
The Non-Duality answer to this is that there was no explosion, the singularity remains intact. The universe only seems to explode from a singularity into a multiplicity. All the while the universe, or What Is, remains complete as it is. This ties in with the recognition that there is no 'cause and effect'. There is only the appearance of flowing change within the content completeness of the singularity.
Any cause we attribute to an effect will not be wholly accurate. Better to drop the idea of cause and effect and look to the greater understanding that there is no separation or multiplicity, no beginnings or ends. The universe is a complete undivided singularity. It appears to flow with change, but it is always complete in itself.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
When I was about 20 years old I started to have an interest in spirituality. I had read a bit about eastern philosophy and wondered how karma could work. Then it occurred to me: it is the law of opposites. I had never thought about a law of opposites before, but suddenly things started to make sense. Actions must be balanced out with opposite actions because of the Law of Opposites.
I started to see that this Law of Opposites was everywhere. The world seems to be an imbalance of opposites, flowing this way then that way. Rain falls down then evaporates back up into the clouds. We breath out then in. Waves ripple with peaks and troughs. The tide comes in and goes out. People make friends then go their separate ways. We have periods of peace followed by periods of turbulence. The sun seems to rise then fall. And on it goes, in a neverending cycle. It's everywhere.
And it made sense that that is how karma works. We do something bad then it gets balanced out by the opposite, with something bad happening to us. We help someone out, then someone helps us out. It makes sense when understood from the perspective of a universal Law of Opposites. But then why is there a Law of Opposites?
The simple answer is: because balance must be maintained in the universe. It's not a must because some powerful God decided it should be. It's a must because the true nature of the universe is perfect Balance. The universe is a perfect singularity. It seems to have fallen out of balance, creating the Law of Opposites as it divided the singularity into polar opposites (what it is like and what it is not like). Truly the universe is the total sum of all opposites, but it appears from the human perspective to be in a state of temporary imbalance. Without this appearance of imbalance nothing can appear in a singularity. Without this apparent division into opposites the universe cannot be seen. What we see as a universe is a perfectly 'balanced' or complete whole Singularity seemingly split into a world of opposites and separation through time and space.
It goes like this: for a singularity to be seen it must have contrast, so it seems to have divided into what it is and what it isn't. But really there can never be what isn't. This division into opposites only seems to happen. It's always What Is. But this play of opposites expands and appears as how we see the universe now, with life and death, peace and war, love and hate, breathing out and breathing in. It's an apparent state of imbalance that is either pushing away from balance or returning to balance. The push and pull is inevitable. It becomes what we call karma, where actions create reactions, what is done must be undone.
It wouldn't be possible for the Singularity to seem to explode into a world that never returned back to the Singularity. The Singularity will always be maintained. It is time and space that seems to separate it, but these must return to the Singularity that they never left.
That's the background and the reason for what we call karma. But there's more. Eastern philosophy says that karma can be overcome. We can break free from karma and the endless wheel of rebirth. We can be free of the Law of Opposites by recognising that it is not real. The Law of Opposites is a play of separation with the Singularity. We are the Singularity. We are not an individual being stuck in the play of time and space forever. We are That in which time and space appears. We are That Singularity that plays at being separate individuals whilst remaining infinitely One.
Ultimately we do not need to be concerned about karma or good versus evil. The universe will balance out once it has finished playing. Or we can recognise that is in perfect balance right here and now. There is no good or evil. No doing or undoing. We are not a doer of actions. Actions only seem to happen. We are not a thinker of thoughts. Thoughts only seem to happen. The Singularity, which we are, remains timelessly perfect, whole and content. We are That.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
Bifurcation is a universal pattern where one divides into two. It stems (pun intended) from the 'initial' appearance of division, where the singularity splits into two. We have a theory of The Big Bang, where the singularity exploded from one into many. We don't necessarily think of it as one splitting into two, but the splitting into two would be the start of the explosion, which then multiplied.
An obvious example of bifurcation is a tree. A tree has many branches where the trunk bifurcates and a branch goes out from the main one. This extra branch repeats the pattern and bifurcates, forming another branch, and so on. The pattern can also be seen in leaves where the midrib of a leaf bifurcates to form the veins of the leaf. Bifurcation is further evident in the evolution of the human body, where the limbs have 'branched' outwards from the main torso, and where fingers and toes have developed from the limbs.
The structure of veins in the human body also shows this pattern of bifurcation. Not only that, but each birth of a child demonstrates the pattern. From procreative union, where two people unite, an 'offshoot' develops. If we look at a family tree, we see the pattern of bifurcation, where a 'source' couple have a child that grows to adulthood, unites with another, then has another child, and so on, creating a complex branch of diversity.
Recognising this universal pattern, it should be no surprise that planets other than Earth should form creatures in the same manner. In other words, it should be no surprise that planets can develop creatures or life forms, and these life forms would follow the pattern of bifurcation. Humans have two arms and two legs because of the universal pattern of bifurcation. That doesn't mean that life forms from other planets will necessarily have the same, but there is a good chance that multiple legs and appendages develop. So, just because there are reports of 'alien' beings or Non-Human Intelligence that have two arms, two legs, fingers and toes, it doesn't mean that they must be related to human beings or necessarily from this planet. Rather, their life forms show the pattern of bifurcation and evolution throughout the apparent universe.
Bifurcation is the universal pattern of division and multiplication. One divides into two. Each of the two can then divide again, creating four, and so on. From this pattern the whole universe of diversity is created. Kind of.
Why kind of? Well, the division into two is a play of division and not a true division. The One Singularity from which the universe seems to have expanded and diversified remains complete. The One doesn't really become many different ones. It only seems to do that with the play of division. A tree doesn't really have many different branches. 'Branches' is an idea or term that helps us describe what we see in the tree. But the tree is simply the tree. We have given names to what seem to us to be parts of the tree, but they are not truly separate parts.
The tree is a small-scale example of the whole universe. The division of the universe is only conceptual. In reality the Singularity of the universe remains timelessly as it is.