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
Imagine a projector screen and projected upon it is the moving image of water. The water could be a turbulent ocean scene of rocking and rolling waves, rising up and crashing down. It could a flowing river, with swirling eddies, as it flows outwards then inwards to and from the sea. It could be a calm pond scene, tranquil, with only a hint of the breeze blowing across the surface.
Although we may view these scenes and consider them to be different types of water, either relatively still, flowing or turbulent, it makes no difference to the screen. The screen remains unchanged whilst these different scenes may appear on it. Furthermore, there could be any kind of scene projected upon the screen, such as a forest fire, erupting volcano, or exploding bomb. The screen is just fine.
This is how it is with Consciousness. The moving, changing world appears within Consciousness. The world comes and goes, and Consciousness remains as it is. We may experience terrible events or beautiful scenery, but Consciousness remains as it is. We may consider that terrible events can have lasting psychological effects, and this is the case. But it doesn't change Consciousness. The mind or mental activity is also perceived to come and go in Consciousness.
What this means is that there is a deeper layer than the perception of the world and a deeper layer than the perception of mental activity. There is a core or supposed centre of perception which is not perceived, but is naturally perceiving. That is Consciousness. So we can rest assured that despite what may happen in the world or in the mind, the heart of our being is Clear Calm Consciousness.
Well, it's not really the heart of our being. It is all there is. It only seems that Consciousness is at the heart. Truly there is only Consciousness. Consciousness is our being. To use another analogy: consider Consciousness like a blank sheet of paper and upon it are drawn many circles. It may seem then that each circle has its own centre of consciousness. It could also even be considered that the heart of each circle is the shared Consciousness. So when we get to the heart of our being there is One Consciousness. Yet, as good as that is, it's not wholly accurate. Better to say that there is only One Consciousness Being, there only seems to be many beings, and there is nothing other than this One Consciousness.
So how does this help? Well, when times are tough, as they will be, we can know that we are unharmed. We can see that there is nothing other than the Consciousness that we are. We can recognise errors of thinking that lead to entanglement and suffering. We are not that which appears. We are that in which all appears. We are not a body, a mind or a soul. These are all names for movements within Consciousness. We are formless Consciousness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
You've probably heard of Collective Consciousness or Shared Consciousness. What does it mean and is it real?
Collective Consciousness refers to a wider consciousness that is shared by a group of seemingly separate beings. The seemingly separate beings have their own point of consciousness or awareness within the collective. The individual consciousness is like the crest of a wave. It is at the forefront, but there is a great depth behind it, so to speak, the collective consciousness.
Understood this way, we can see that the individual consciousness isn't really individual. It is a focused point of the collective. It's worth sharing the sheet of paper analogy again, as it shows how the seemingly individual points of consciousness work. Consider a perfectly clear sheet of paper, which we can understand as Consciousness. Consider then that numerous circles are drawn on the sheet and represent multiple perspectives or points of awareness. We may then consider that each circle or point of awareness has a core consciousness of its own. But really its own consciousness, if it were to turn and look at it, is the one consciousness of the whole sheet of paper. Each apparent centre of each circle of awareness is the same one consciousness. We can say it's at the centre of each circle of awareness, but it's not really the centre. The Consciousness is the whole sheet.
So that is considering Consciousness as a whole. It's a way of understanding the nature of Consciousness in which many seemingly separate conscious or aware beings appear. They are not truly separate, although their circle of appearance may make them seem different to each other. Seemingly at the heart of each apparently separate being is the One Consciousness. I use the terms 'seemingly' and 'apparently' because that's not really how it is. There is just One Consciousness. Not really many beings.
So the One Consciousness is like the Supreme Collective within which the multitudinous points of awareness appear. And this example branches out through the play of the universe, like a tree branches out. There are clusters of points of awareness from one branch and clusters from another, and so on, and so on. It is in this way that the pattern of many from one multiplies through the appearance of points of awareness or seemingly separate beings. Each 'branch' stems from a collective point. So the collective consciousness of one group is shared and seemingly separate from other groups. Yet all groups stem ultimately from the same One Consciousness, like great branches reaching outwards from the main trunk of the tree.
When people gather under a certain heading or group there develops a shared consciousness where seemingly separate individuals within the group begin to co-ordinate with the whole group and work as one or with the same purpose. This could be a family or a football team, a business or a nation. Admittedly, there isn't always cohesion in a family, football team, or even a business or nation. This is a play within the world of opposites, so there is always imbalance. There will be those in tune and those not in tune, and they will clash. That's a simplified way of putting it. It would be more accurate to say that those within a collective are more or less in tune, so there will be a variety within the collective. The collective is not static. It will rock and interact within itself and with other collectives that are like it but different.
Here are humans, rocked in the sway of the human collective consciousness, pushed and pulled by the collective of the nation, the collective of the family, the sports team, and so on, and flowing with the collective of the evolution of humanity.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
People might ask, "Are you a glass half full person, or half empty?" This, of course, refers to whether you have a negative or positive outlook on life. When a glass is half filled with a drink, do you focus on there being an amount of drink there, or do focus on there being an amount missing? Really, the glass is neither half full nor half empty.
Why so? To see the glass as half full or empty is to mistake air for nothingness. It belies a way of looking at the world that is dualistic or divided. Truly the glass is always full, even when it's empty. Well, it's never empty. It only appears empty because air is invisible. But invisible isn't nothing. Air isn't nothing. Whether the glass has liquid and gas in it, or only liquid, or only gas, doesn't really matter. It's always full of something.
So that can be a game changer. It can change the way we view the world. Suddenly we see the unseen. The focus isn't on this and not that. The focus takes in the whole picture. In effect, we can move from being negative or positive to just viewing it as it is. We change from dualistic thinking to non-dualistic or holistic awareness.
Let's take a more useful example than glass with liquid and gas in it. How about when plans for meeting up with someone get cancelled? Some may see this as negative, in that something that was supposed to happen doesn't happen. Some may see it as positive, in that it frees them up for something else to happen. The Non-Dualistic way is that it is neither negative nor positive. It just is what it is. It's not that something doesn't happen. Something is always happening in the world, even when it seems that there's nothing going on. The planet continues to spin its swirling path through space. But we don't really notice that.
If we go back to the glass being full, half full or empty, there is a further step of recognition. It's what we might consider as the Zen way of looking at it. There is no glass.
How so? Can it be true that there is no glass? Yes. Truly 'the glass' cannot be defined. The glass is something like a solid form that can hold liquids and gases. But it's all vibrating energy, just at different densities. The glass may seem to be more solid that air, but it's not completely solid. Its apparent solidity is temporary and dependent on environmental conditions. At certain temperatures its solidity will turn to liquid and then to gas. And we know that although objects may seem fixed and permanent, this is only a relative appearance of permanence. All form in the universe is changing. It's just that some forms change more slowly than others. Although, to be more accurate there aren't really many forms. There isn't really a glass and water and air. It is all a flow of vibrating energy that the mind gives temporary labels to.
So there is no glass, only the temporary appearance of a substance standing out from the rest of the substance. That substance we can call Consciousness. It is Consciousness in which the apparent solids, liquids and gases are known. The glass that we know is only ever known in Consciousness, made of Consciousness, known by Consciousness.
It is all Consciousness. Consciousness is always full. Full of Everything, whilst its sum total is Nothing. Full and empty don't really apply to the Singularity of it. It just is what it is. It is for this reason that the apparent duality of the world can be understood to be a Non-Duality, then Non-Duality can be known to be just What Is.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
Does extraterrestrial life exist? It's a simple question but with a lot to elaborate on.
The simple answer is yes, but what does that mean? It means there are life forms elsewhere in the physical universe. This is inevitable. Planet Earth isn't a one-off fluke. Yes, it is unique, as is each seemingly separate life form within the planet. Unique but conforming to a pattern. There are patterns in life that show the underlying forces that create the universe. Planet Earth shows how life forms can develop from simple cells to complex interflowing systems that we call animals.
As a child I used to wonder why we weren't spherical, as it was the simplest perfect shape. Well, the spherical cell is where evolution begins. It then branches out, following the universal pattern of many from one. As well as cells multiplying and spreading, they unite and develop. So we see throughout this planet a pattern of life forms that have a core body with limbs that go outwards from the core. It's easily seen in trees, flowers, spiders, birds, mammals and humans. 'Many from One' is a universal pattern.
So it's inevitable that this universal pattern finds expression on other planets in the immense universe, of which Planet Earth is like a tiny speck. It's inevitable not only that life forms develop on other planets that have developed suitable environments, but also that the life forms may have a similar appearance to those on Earth.
It's worth mentioning what "life" is here. Generally we mean "life" to be the appearance of independent movement or expression. We may say that a flower is alive because it grows, it opens up, it turns towards the sunlight, it fades and dies. It is similar with animals and humans. Rocks, on the other hand, aren't considered to be alive, as they seem to have no individual movement or expression. It's a useful way of looking at life, but it's not really accurate. Another way to look at it is that Life is this, the whole world, the whole universe as an expression of Life itself or Being or Consciousness. From that perspective Life is everywhere.
But let's get back to the extra-terrestrial question. Putting aside the view of what life is, what the question tends to mean is: Are there other intelligent beings in the universe besides humans? We know that many animals are intelligent, but the question is really asking if there are life forms from elsewhere in the universe that are as intelligent as humans or more so. Again, the simple answer is yes. The development of intelligence isn't wholly by chance. As mentioned above, there is an underlying force in the universe that moves, changes and develops the appearance of the world. It is this force that causes life forms to rise up, interact and improve. Life forms are the expression of an intelligent life force that inspires evolution, from the simple to the complex, to the simple again. This will not only happen in one place in the vast universe. It is happening at many places all at once, at different rates and at different stages.
Then to another extension of the extra-terrestrial question: Does extra-terrestrial life visit Earth? Evidence would suggest the answer is yes. Currently in the US there is a disclosure process happening, whereby government, air force and navy whistleblowers have come forward to say that Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) is real and here on this planet, with accounts from credible witnesses of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) or UFO encounters, crash retrieval, reverse engineering of crafts, and recovered NHI bodies. The key term here is NHI, as it's not clear whether the lifeforms are from this planet, from other planets, or from other dimensions or realms not normally perceived by the human senses. The term 'alien' or indeed 'extra-terrestrial' may not be accurate enough. And it seems likely there are multiple species of NHI in and around the planet.
It may also be that these NHIs have lived on this planet for a long time, mostly in secret. Underwater sightings have been reported and UAPs have been observed to transition between air and water. As only a very small percentage of Earth's oceans has been explored by humans, there's a lot of space to hide in if you have the technology. How long would a being or species from another planet need to live on this planet before they are considered no longer alien? 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? 1000 years? There is no true dividing point.
There is a perspective in which any life form that arrives on Planet Earth and integrates with the planet becomes 'part of' the planet. In other words, if a being eats the food of the planet, drinks the water of the planet, breathes the air, develops in the planet's environment, and expels wastes that are recycled into the environment, then they are part of Planet Earth now.