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
You may have heard the terms 'the witness state', 'being the witness' or 'perceiving as the witness' being used with regards to spirituality and Non-Duality. It's useful to understand what this really means.
From where you are right now, you may see a room or buildings, fields or hills in the distance. Maybe a river, a sea, clear sky or clouds, maybe the sun, the moon or stars. There is a sense that 'I am here and I see that there'. You may hear sounds. Maybe cars, people talking, birds singing, or an aeroplane flying overhead. There is the sense that 'I hear sounds'. These perhaps are the main two senses, but there are other senses where we may feel that 'I experience that' - maybe a taste or the texture of clothing. It's the world of perceptions, and we have the sense that 'I am perceiving this'.
As well as the usual senses, we also perceive thoughts. Sometimes it seems that thoughts 'have a mind of their own'. They ramble on from one topic to the next. Other times it seems that we are intentionally thinking about something, like planning an event, deciding what we need to buy or say, or thinking about something that interests us. Either way we feel that 'I am thinking thoughts'.
We also experience emotions, such as sadness and anger, joy and relief. There is a sense that 'I am happy' or 'I am sad'. We feel sensations like aches and pains. There is a sense that 'I have a headache', for example. But in Non-Duality we like to know what is happening here more clearly. We like to know who is this 'I' that experiences these perceptions, sensations and feelings. Who am I?
From the Non-Duality understanding, we are not what we can see. The eye cannot see the eye, and I cannot perceive I. In everyday life we talk of 'I' as if I am a human being. But in Non-Duality there is no true limitation of any form. The human body has no true beginnings or ends by which it can be accurately defined. That's not who we really are. All that we can say for sure is that I know I exist. I see the body and the world. I hear sound and feel pain. I notice thoughts and thinking.
In Non-Duality we are the Witnessing of all perception, feeling and sensation. Some call it Awareness or Consciousness. We are Knowing. Saying we are 'The Witness' is less accurate than 'Witnessing', as 'The Witness' implies an identity. Identity requires definition and limitation, but Reality is limitless.
So there is a practice of 'Witnessing', or 'Being the Witness' if that feels more comfortable. It means not identifying with what is perceived and not getting caught up in the experience. It's observing the mind, the body and the world, witnessing thoughts, perceptions and sensations, without attachment to them. This is more in line with limitless reality than 'I am this form and I do these actions'. What is perceived is not the perceiver. Actions that are done are not done by the perceiver, they are witnessed.
This practice of 'Witnessing' is the untangling of attachment with forms. Moving from the sense of 'I am sad' or even 'I am happy', 'I am well' or 'I am in pain', to the witnessing of the feelings of sadness or joy, wellness or pain, without identification with them. The one who witnesses is not what is witnessed. This practice is about recognising that our permanent unseen presence is not something that is observed in the world of changing forms. Our permanent unseen presence is where we are perceiving from.
Seemingly paradoxically, to remove the false identification with limited form, we need to separate ourself from this. We need to step back and see that we are not a separate limited form. However, it is to be further recognised then that this world of changing form is not separate from who we are. All form, thoughts, humans, animals, buildings, mountains, rivers, planets, stars, appear in the Consciousness that we are. The error is in the belief that we are a limited form that comes and goes. The Reality is that we are timelessly Here. We are Unlimited Formless Consciousness and all forms appear in Consciousness, made of Consciousness, known by Consciousness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
In spirituality circles you may hear of Maya or Illusion. It refers to the illusory nature of the world. So what's so illusory about it?
The term 'Maya' comes from Indian philosophy and means illusion or magic. It generally refers to the appearance of the changing universe from and in the Unchanging Reality. The illusion is that there is a world that seems to move and change, whilst Reality is unmoving and unchanging. There appear to be many limited forms but the Reality is a formless Infinite Indivisible One.
Is the world really an illusion? Well, yes and no. The illusion is that the world appears to be other than the Divine Reality. The world appears to be something it is not. There can be nothing other than the Infinite One, so what appears to be other than the Infinite One is illusory. So, is there an illusion or isn't there? The illusion is that there is an illusion. There is only Reality.
This may sound confusing. It needs an example. The traditional example is of the snake and the rope. From a distance there appears to be a snake in the road. This is illusory, because on closer inspection it is found to be just a harmless piece of rope. So the 'illusion' is really a mistaken understanding. The rope appeared to be something it wasn't. The rope didn't really change its appearance to become a snake. It was simply as it was. There was really no illusion, just a mistaken understanding.
And so it is with the world and Reality. From a seemingly limited perspective the world seems to move and change, and have many limited forms that come into being and disappear again. It is the seemingly limited perspective that projects this view of the world. The world appears as if it is a reflection of the Unseen Unchanging Formless Reality. There appears to be a play of opposites that makes What Is appear to be what it is not. The Permanent Reality appears to be changing, but it remains the same.
This is the human experience - a seemingly limited experience of Reality. The human experience allows the Unseen Infinite One to be seen. Well, kind of, although whatever is seen will always be less than the Whole, seemingly limited. The human experience allows an appearance of many, of me and other, of beginnings and ends, here and there, now and then. It appears that the Infinite One is divided into many. There appears to be a me and what is not me. This is the illusion of the world, that there can appear to be something other than the Infinite One. But it doesn't really happen.
The Great Illusion is this play of opposites that allows countless experiences within the One. The One cannot be divided, but it can appear to be divided. Just as the rope can't become a snake, but it can appear to be a snake if the perspective is skewed, if clear seeing and knowing is seemingly limited. The Great Illusion is that I am this and not that, when there is truly no division in Reality. I do not really become this or that. It can only seem that I am this or that. Reality remains as it is. The illusion is in the mistaken perspective.
The Great Revelation then is that it is what it is. There is nothing other than Reality. There are not really many forms. There is no separation or division of the Whole. The Singularity of Reality remains timelessly as it is. Reality is qualityless though of the Highest Quality. There only seems to be less than the Whole. The world of opposites that seems resplendent with division, incompleteness and imperfection is truly the Complete Perfect Oneness of the Whole.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
It's useful to consider this: Does the universe really change? Does the universe ever become something other than what it is? By 'universe' I don't mean one universe out of many different universes, as some may theorise. I mean the Whole.
Certainly the universe appears as though it is continually changing, but there is something that remains unchanged. The universe can't really become something other than what it is. It is neither more nor less than what it always is. There is nothing from which the universe can gain, and nothing to which the universe can lose, because there is nothing else.
It seems that the universe is changelessly changing. Even from the human perspective, the Earth and other planets spin around the Sun, clouds come and go, temperatures rise and fall, plants grow and fade, animals multiply and roam around the planet. Even when we are unaware of any noticeable movement we know that there is always change. The body breathes, food is digested, skin cells die and are replaced, right now. I hesitate to say 'every moment' because there are not really many moments. It's the appearance of continual flowing change in the Now.
The universe appears to be moving continually, but where can it go? Does the universe ever go anywhere other than where it always is? Since the universe contains all, there is nothing beyond it. So the universe cannot really be said to move somewhere else. There isn't somewhere else, although movement appears to happen within the universe. Even 'within' isn't accurate, as the universe has no limits to be within. There is really neither insider nor outside the universe. There is just What Is.
From the human perspective this moving, changing universe is observed from an unmoving, unchanging point. The body may move around in the world, but this movement is observed. No matter where you seem to go, you are always Here. No matter how the universe seems to change it is always perceived Now, and it can never be anything other than what it is.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
It seems a strange question: was the universe created? It's generally assumed that the universe was created, whether it's believed that God created the universe or the universe exploded from a Big Bang. How could it not be created? Here we have a universe with stars and planets, and planet Earth with humans, animals, plants, and so on. Something must have made this happen...
The problem with creation is that it implies there is a cause. It implies cause and effect. But cause and effect are only conceptual terms for what seems to happen in the world. It's a useful model, but not wholly accurate. It would be more accurate to say that there is continual consequential change. It's not that one 'thing' causes something to happen, then that other 'thing' causes another 'thing', and on and on. There are not really any discrete or separate 'things'. So the terms 'cause' and 'effect' have an assumption of defined, limited, separate 'things'. The real experience is that there is not one then another then another. It's more that the universe unravels or unfolds continually.
There may appear to be lulls in the flow of change, but these are temporary and ultimately also part of the change. Any appearance of no change is illusory. There is only ever a pretence of stillness in the universe. Just as we may assume that cars parked out in the street are still, whilst really they are spinning through space on a planet that never stops spinning and moving.
We can assume that this appearance of the universe as change and movement came from a point of no change or movement. We can assume that the apparent universe did appear from nothing, yes. But it would be a full, complete Nothing - an unmanifest Singularity, from which everything appeared and in which it appears. An unmanifest Singularity has no time or space. It has no limits. So the creation of the universe is the appearance from this complete unmanifest Nothingness. What caused the appearance of the universe? That's the question.
Cause and effect are already questionable, so can we consider that nothing caused the appearance of the universe? Well, possibly, as what appears appears out of Nothing and in Nothing. Also, there is no appearance without the witnessing of it. Effectively, no seen without the seer. The seen and the seer arise simultaneously - what appears and the witness of this appear simultaneously. The universe and I appear simultaneously. The Singularity seems to divide into the knower knowing the known. It doesn't really divide, because the Singularity is always maintained.
It's difficult to accept that the universe only appears once there is one to witness it. It's generally accepted that the universe appeared long before it created beings that could perceive it. But all we can reasonably say is that the universe that I perceive seems to have existed before I perceived it. But by 'I' we mean the human being. The human being is part of the universe. Is there a possibility that the universe was perceived by that which created it or in which it was created?
So we come full circle to the question of whether the universe was created? Well, what exists is here timelessly, uncreated. Existence itself, or Being, is permanently timeless and formless. This is the universe. The visible or perceivable universe of forms that seems to appear in time and space is like an expression or reflection of Timeless Dimensionless Being. The universe isn't created or destroyed, it only appears to be created and destroyed within the permanence of Being.
That sounds like a complicated answer. The simple answer is that Being is the nature of the universe. It just is.