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
In a previous article it was discussed how evil appears in the world. Let's take a brief look at this again and consider the laws that maintain balance in the universe. Essentially evil appears in the world of opposites as the reflection of the formless Singularity. It can be considered that the world appears as an interplay of opposites, as a separation of the formless Singularity, the Infinite One Being. As the world 'materialises' far from the source, it appears as a hardened, limited, separated multiplicity of forms - the opposite of the Infinite One Singularity.
The ego develops far from the Singularity as the sense of 'I am this, not that', a limited sense of self separate from others. The extreme of the ego is what we call 'evil', where it is so hardened and isolated, and has such a strong sense of its own identity different to the world that evil actions are the outcome. The evil ego is the opposite of the Infinite One Being, imagining itself as separate from others, far from the goodness and peace of the Oneness of Being.
This evil ego and indeed all egos are illusory. They are a mistaken sense of identity within the Singularity of Being. There are not many beings, just one infinite Being. But the world appears through the method of this reflection into opposites. When one of these apparently separate beings realises its true nature there is no longer a sense of separate self. This is what we call enlightenment, where the apparently separate self is extinguished (nirvana) and the pure Infinite Being is effectively realised, although here all along.
You have likely heard of Karma. This arises as a consequence of actions from the Law of Opposites. The Law of Opposites is the universal law that is naturally active in the world, as the world appears by this method of reflection and separation into opposites. The Law of Opposites ensures balance in the universe. What appears must disappear. What is done must be undone. This happens naturally due to the reality of the Singularity, which can never be broken. The Singularity can only appear to be broken in two, and if this is done it will inevitably be undone, as the reality is maintained. It may be that through the appearance of space and time the Unchanging Formless Being appears as changing form, but this must be resolved with the closure of space and time back into the Singularity from which it appears to have come.
In practical terms for humanity and the evolution of souls this means that actions must be undone. This is what we call Karma. Any separation caused by a soul in its human form must be resolved or cancelled out. Any harm to the Oneness must be resolved. Any division in the One must be mended. For the soul that means that any harmful actions that caused division between itself and the world must be undone. The soul must mend this separation of the One. The soul must return to the Oneness from whence it came, and in so doing put the wrongs right. Karma.
That is the play of the world of opposites anyhow. But the underlying reality is the timeless Singularity. There are not multiple souls that go out and get lost far from the Oneness of God. There is only the Oneness of God. This is why it is said that in self-realisation or enlightenment the soul is freed from karma. From the perspective of the soul it returns to the heart of Oneness and resolves the separation it caused. From the perspective of Oneness there never was a soul and there never was separation. The world is a play of opposites in the Infinite One Being.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spirituality
The forms on this planet, the formation of the planet and the formation of stars and this apparent 'material' universe don't just happen by chance. There is an underlying unseen spiritual energy that gives rise to these forms. The Eastern images of the dragon give a good impression of what this living energy force is. It's like a dragon that coils and releases, gives heat and cools down, condensing and expanding, flowing with undulating vibrancy. It links well with the Yin and Yang symbol, as the play of opposites is its power. It is like an alive energy force flowing into the 'material' world and receding, in repeating waves.
Let's start with this planet. The condensation of matter is the condensing of spiritual energy into an apparently hardened more defined form, where this alive spiritual energy slows. Matter is effectively spiritual energy condensed. This alive free energy becomes condensed to a more limited, dull, hardened, rocklike form. But there continues to be expressions of variation in this energy. We see this as the range of density through the traditional elements of earth, water, air and fire.
This vibrant alive energy continues to influence forms on the planet, evolving them from the basic to the advanced. Patterns appear in nature because of this underlying force. Branches reach out and multiply. Leaves unfurl. Flowers open and close. Animals form, ranging from dense cold-like forms, such as the alligator that needs to bask in the sun to get energy from that fiery source, to the hot-blooded, supple, vibrant mammals, such as the cheetah. These animal forms are full of this unseen energy, and are effectively expressions of this underlying spiritual energy that creates them.
This undulating spiritual force animates the flow of the universe, giving rise to the ebb and flow of nature, the separating and uniting of opposites, the condensing and unfurling, spiral patterns, and the pattern of many opening from one and returning to one.
What is the source of this spiritual force? It is the secret egg from which it came. The mystery of the Yin and Yang symbol is that they are timelessly one. This force of interacting opposites is a play within the Oneness of What Is. What is this 'What Is'? It is that in which all this is experienced - Consciousness. Nothing is known outside of Consciousness. Consciousness is the same as spirit. The energy and life of spirit is the aliveness of Consciousness. The spiritual force of fluctuating opposites arises as the reflection of the Oneness of Consciousness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
Human senses of perception are highly complex. They've evolved to get to this point. Let's look at the root of perception in order to gain a better understanding of its nature.
The human eye is a complex mechanism that picks out a range of frequencies within the electromagnetic spectrum and returns this to the brain, which in turn formulates the image that we see. There's a lot going on in this complex process, so it will help if we go back to the basics of perception. Perception, whether it is seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and so on, is founded on the interaction of vibration. When we see something, the eye picks up the vibrating frequency of light and sends that signal to the brain. With hearing, the ear picks up the vibrating frequency of air waves and sends that to the brain. Touch is the detection of contact between surfaces, for example the finger touching stone or the finger touching a petal - there is a sense of texture and solidity that distinguishes the vibrational solidity of a surface.
We could say that perception is an interaction, with the perceiver perceiving what is perceived. But it's not really clear cut and defined in that way. The interaction is fluid. For example, if a bell rings, the vibrating metal of the bell causes the air around it to vibrate. The vibration in the air waves is like a chain reaction causing adjacent air to vibrate. When the vibration in the air waves reaches the ear it is funnelled into the ear canal and vibrates the ear drum. The vibrating signal continues through tiny bones and through the cochlea to auditory nerves that take the signal to the brain. It sounds complex when we break it down like that, but essentially it is the flow of vibration.
We may describe different objects in this flow of vibration, but we could describe the objects themselves as vibrating atoms. We could go deeper and describe the atoms as vibrating energy. When you analyse it the world is a vibrating flow of energy. This vibrating flow of energy conforms to the appearance of opposites, so that we can describe a perceiver perceiving what is perceived, the subject sensing the object. But this conceptualising of the subject sensing the object is the human mind's view of what is happening. The mind thinks, "I can hear the bell." But basically energy is flowing. There is no beginning or end to the flow of energy. It keeps on flowing. No really defined cause or effect, just a continual flow of change.
So what we arrive at here is a recognition that there's not really a subject perceiving an object. The subject and object are only separated conceptually. There isn't a listener hearing sounds. There is a flowing vibration of energy. Our egos might insist this is not the case, and the ego will come up with reasons why it has a real defined existence. The ego will state, "I am the one hearing sounds and perceiving perceptions." But the ego itself is a flow of energy that isn't really defined and separated from the world.
What about Awareness? Elsewhere in these articles it's stated how Awareness is the nature of being - it's all there really is. How does this flow of energy relate to Awareness? The flow of energy that we call the world appears within Awareness, made of Awareness. It is not that Awareness is aware of the subject and object, the person and the perceived. Awareness is simply the nature of being and within it this flow of energy is perceived. It is the mind that conceptualises the sense of subject and object.
It may seem that Awareness is the heart of the subject, but truly there is no subject. This expression of separation of the subject and object and the interaction between them appears as though Awareness has separated itself out, but truly it never becomes separated. The sense of a perceiver, perceiving and the perceived appear within Awareness.
It's as if the flow of energy that is the world is a complex fluctuation of opposites within the simple unchanging singularity of Awareness.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
Considering order and chaos gives us a useful glimpse into the nature of reality. The world seems to flow with an appearance of both order and chaos. By 'chaos' I mean the opposite of orderliness, which we can describe as randomness, where things happen by chance. For example, a tree grows according to the orderly 'pattern' stored in the seed, but chaos applies in the formation of the tree, giving rise to its uniqueness. So no two trees are the same. They follow a pattern (order) but there is chance (chaos) in where and how the branches grow.
Let's consider emptying a pencil case onto a table. If we tip up the case and let the stationery fall out it lands on the table in a chaotic fashion, with pens, pencils, rulers, erasers and so on scattered randomly. So there appears a scene of orderly objects scattered chaotically. It appears chaotic but there is an argument that the chaotic scattering is actually orderly. That is, the objects fall according to gravity and a complex array of forces applying to each object as they fall. These forces are the orderly forces of nature. The appearance of randomness is then not so random, but determined by natural forces. Similarly, the branches of a tree grow according to its orderly plan and the forces of nature, including gravity, the wind, the sun and other environmental factors.
It can be considered that Chaos is merely a play of order, where order creates the appearance of chaos, similar to how numbers are 'randomly' generated in a computer game. Random number generation in computer games often uses a 'seed' number, which can be taken from the computer's clock time and fed it into a complex algorithm to produce apparently random numbers that can trigger events in the game. So it's not really random. Other things can be used for the 'seed' number, such as the fluctuating electrical power supply, and that brings a more chaotic element to the randomness. But it could be argued that the power supply fluctuates in an orderly manner, according to nature's laws.
So is Chaos real? There is a scientific view that quantum physics is completely random, that there are random fluctuations in the quantum realm that are not orderly and give rise to randomness in the world. Or maybe it is just another appearance of randomness that will be found to have an orderly source.
From the Non Dual perspective there is not this play of order and chaos. There is only an appearance of opposites in separation, just as there is only an appearance of 'order and chaos'. The Reality is that there is only One, an Infinite One without division, form or limitation. In itself the One can be considered as complete order, as there is no confusion or randomness in simply being. It is an Order beyond the sense of 'order and chaos'.