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: The Human Experience
Thoughts are not always a problem, but sometimes they can seem like they are. It may be that we can't stop thinking about something that worries or troubles us, or we just can't stop thinking at all and we want a break from it. Let's look at what it means to be free from thoughts and thinking, and how to achieve that.
Here's where I have to say that we can't stop thinking. Thinking happens by itself. If you've ever tried to stop thinking you'll have probably found that there is a brief cessation, then thinking starts up again. But we can raise our understanding of what is happening with thinking and move away from being a victim of negative or incessant thought.
What actually happens when we feel we have become frustrated with thoughts and they just won't stop is that thinking has created an idea of itself, and it is this mental sense of identity that becomes frustrated with all its mental activity. The frustration is itself mental activity, and the one frustrated is mental activity. Attempting to stop this mental activity is also mental activity. Mental activity can't actively stop itself, because that's just more mental activity. So the sense of being the one who is frustrated, the frustration, and the thoughts at which the frustration is aimed, are all the flow of the same mental activity. It's mental activity that separates itself out into, "Me annoyed about thinking."
The important point here is to recognise that we are not the thinking. That means we are not the worrying thoughts, the frustrated thoughts, the pleasant thoughts, or any mental activity. We perceive all of this. We perceive the flow of thoughts, we perceive the frustration or annoyed thoughts, and we perceive the sense of there being a 'me' who is troubled by this. So, to overcome being troubled by thoughts, and to be free from thinking, there needs to develop the awareness that we are not the thoughts, they don't trouble us anyway, and the 'one' who is troubled is also perceived. It's not that we perceive a being or entity or human that is troubled. The root of it is that we perceive the egoic sense of a 'me' that is troubled. But if we really look for who that is it can't be found. It is a 'me' made out of imagination. It is a sense of 'me' that is formed by mental activity.
This 'me' becomes entangled and frustrated by its own mental activity. It wants to stop it and achieve some freedom from distressing thoughts, and maybe it goes on to seek freedom from all thoughts, to attain the highest peace. But it's all mental activity itself. We are the untainted witness of all this thinking. Our nature is Perfect Peace. We are never the one who is troubled. The core of Being is formless, timeless and unchanging. We are Freedom itself. We have no limits. It is only mental activity that imagines there are limits and it finds itself trapped by its own thinking.
So the answer to be free from thoughts is to let them go. To be free we need to detach. This isn't strictly true, as we are Freedom already and always. There is nothing that we need to do. Remember, it is only mental activity that seeks freedom. For the mental activity to find freedom it needs to let go of itself. We are never attached to this. We are never limited. By withdrawing attention and attachment to thinking, not being entangled in it, the mental activity naturally untangles itself and finds the freedom that is always here. The mental activity needs to give up its sense of 'me' and allow the clarity of unbounded peace to just be as it is.
The practice (for the mental activity) is to let go of its belief of identity, to see and assimilate the recognition that the 'thinker' is itself a thought, and both the thinker and thinking are perceived by our True Being.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
There is a peace that never ends. If we are searching for peace, why would we settle for anything less? A temporary peace isn't the answer. But as well as never ending, Permanent Peace is without a beginning. Permanent Peace is the simple basic nature of Being. It's right here now.
If it's right here now, then why don't we feel it? Because it's not a feeling. It's not something that can be felt. It is beyond subtle. Permanent Peace is unmoving, unchanging and always here, so it can't be perceived. It's like looking at perfectly clear glass - it can't be seen. Permanent Peace is the pure clarity of Being. But how can that help us with all the incidents, difficulties, clashes and drama in our lives?
It helps to know that that Peace is always here. It's what is always here. Troubles come and go. Incidents happen here and there. It is from the place of Peace that all this coming and going is perceived. It is where we are looking from. It is the still centre around which the world of motion revolves. It helps to be reminded of this. It helps to turn the mind from its troubles and remind it that there is a Heart of Peace in which this all seems to happen.
Knowing that this imperceivable Peace is always here and is our true, unchanging nature, is a useful pointer to turn the mind from being caught up in the difficulties and drama of the world. We are not the difficulties and drama. It's all perceived from a placeless place of Peace. This knowledge can turn the mind inwards to its source, the source of all life and perception. The mind becomes tired of being caught up in the sway, being rocked this way and that by the vagaries of the world. The mind seeks some peace. There are temporary times of relative peace, and these are fine and natural. It's like a wave of motion, with quiet phases and busy phases, peaceful phases and active phases. This is the flow of opposites in the world.
But the Permanent Peace discussed here is beyond the flow of opposites that the world appears to be. The Permanent Peace is the stillness of the unmanifest Singularity. It is the point before time and space appeared. It is timeless and spaceless. It doesn't move or change. Yet within the Singularity of blissful peace and oneness, the world of change and diversity appears. This world of motion doesn't obliterate the Singularity. It doesn't end the Singularity. It doesn't temporarily displace it even. The timeless Singularity spans all space and time. The Permanent Peace remains throughout the appearance and disappearance of the world.
There is no place and no time in which the Permanent Peace is not. All there really is is Permanent Peace, though it may appear to be broken and shattered. The message here is: do not be fooled by what appears to be; know that Peace, Oneness and Life are the nature of all existence.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Has anyone ever really seen you or heard you? If it is assumed you are the body, a limited human form, then this will seem an absurd question - of course people have seen you and heard you speak. But if it is recognised that you are not the human body, and the real you has a spiritual nature, then it shouldn't seem such an odd question. Even then, when it is known that I am not the body, the mind still associates with the body. So it's useful to shake the tree, as they say.
Nobody has ever seen you. You have no form. You are that in which the form appears and disappears. Nobody has ever heard you. You don't have a voice. You don't make a sound. You are the stillness in which sounds appear and disappear. You don't have arms and legs, a head and a brain. That's the human body. It is the body that is seen and heard, felt and known. You are not the apparently limited form.
We think of the human body as being made of matter. But matter isn't really what it appears to be. The solidity of the human body is only relative. Our usual understanding of 'solidity' is something stable, unchanging and impervious - nothing can get through it. But there is no substance that is truly stable, unchanging and impervious. Solid matter is not truly solid. It's only relatively solid compared to other levels of solidity. For example, ice is only relatively more solid and stable than water. Ice is not truly stable, but it appears more stable than its more fluid form.
The human body is only relatively stable. We know this. It is continually changing. It's not perceptible that the body changes within an hour, but the nails are slowly growing, hair is slowly growing, skin is slowly being replaced, air is entering the body system. The body is not a closed system that remains stable. So even if we did identify as the human body, we couldn't really say where its limits are. Although the body seems to be autonomous within the planet, it is really made of the planet substance and is continually flowing and changing with the planet.
It's quite a shift for the mind to turn from identifying as a human. Recognising the spiritual nature of oneself brings in another consideration. Is not the substance that the body is made of, namely matter, just a form of condensed spirit, as ice is a form of condensed water? And if it is thought that I am a soul, isn't the soul also unlimited in a similar way to how the body is unlimited? The soul would be one with its environment also, and not really a solid, limited unchanging form. And if there are no limits, then there cannot truly be many souls.
Some may argue against this in defence of the soul, and that's fine. It is a way of understanding how the spiritual world works: souls take on human form and experience life as a human on planet Earth. That's fine and a useful understanding. But if we closely examine it, it will be found that there are no limits to anything. Humans only appear separate by the air or space between them, yet they continually interact with the air and space. So humans aren't really separate from anything. They are more like interactive, flowing, evolving, forms that only appear dense, limited or solid relative to the environment in which they appear and of which they are made. It is similar with souls also.
The message here is that we are not human and we are not souls. There are no real limits between the human forms or soul forms. Our true nature is unlimited. The universe's true nature is unlimited. There is only What Is, the Infinite One appearing as though it is many. What seems to separate the many is nothing other than the Infinite One that is the substance of all.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Practice
A lot of people go through life not really questioning reality, life and the universe. That's fine. But humanity is evolving. Evolving to an increased awareness. There's has been a movement from animal nature to thinking. Thinking has developed and allows the human mind to consider mental concepts about the universe. Further still, thinking can also question what it is to be.
So the human mind progresses, developing theories and ideas about the world and humanity's place in it. Theories develop. Religions rise up. Spirituality is considered. Many people find themselves becoming interested in reality, life and the universe. People become spiritual seekers. They seek to find the answers to life's mysteries. They seek to find truth, the truth about the nature of reality, the universe and their place in it.
There are lots of answers out there. But the ardent seeker will come to realise that answers don't satisfy. We can accept answers and live our life by them, but that's not the true answer. The true answer for the seeker is in realising who the seeker is. We call it awakening, enlightenment, nirvana, and self realisation. What this really means is the unveiling of the mystery of being. What is this mystery? Well, if I tell it then that answer still won't satisfy. The real answer is in clearly knowing being. Being aware of being aware.
There are many ways to this Self Realisation. The many are one. Letting go of beliefs, ideas, theories and concepts will reveal what is always here. Surrendering to God, who is the Heart of Being, will give up all attachments and reveal that the nature of God is always present, and nothing else is needed; there is nothing else. Self Enquiry, or the seeking of the nature of 'I', will bring the seeker to find that there is no separate seeker, and what is sought is here all along.
So this is the goal of the spiritual seeker. The culmination of the seeker's search is in finding that there is no seeker. There is only This. We can call it God, What Is, The Self, Infinite Consciousness etc. It is the sense of being separate from This that gives rise to the seeking. The separate being seeks fulfilment, completion, peace. That peace and completion is in the dropping of the sense of separation. It is then that the Fullness of Life is realised, right here now.