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.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1695
Awareness of limitation does not mean limitation of awareness. Within Awareness the perception of limitation is experienced. That means that through the senses of seeing, hearing, touch etc. an appearance of a limited world is experienced within the infinite nature of our being, Awareness. Although there may be an identification with the body, where there is a sense 'I am this person', this identification is also experienced in Awareness. From the human perspective Awareness is that deeper essence of being, the heart of perception if you like.
Awareness is boundless and formless. Within Awareness the sense of identity as a person is experienced, the thoughts in the mind are perceived, and the emotions are felt. Through the senses of seeing, hearing and so on, the body and the world are known. The sense of identity may seem limited. Thinking appears to be of an airy yet limited form. The human body seems to be limited, although science tells us that no solid matter is impervious. We also know that the body is always changing. The skin is in a constant flow of change. So although there seem to be limits to the body, they cannot truly and accurately be defined.
Nevertheless we perceive the sense of a limited identity and a limited body. We also perceive the world as limited. The mind can single out objects, plants, animals and people, and we name them as if they are limited separate things or entities. Again, this sense of limitation is not accurate. All plants, animals and human forms are flowing expressions of the planet and are not separate from the planet. Even 'solid' rock is not a limited fixed form. Everything moves and flows within the planet, or rather the planet is a moving flowing expression. Some forms may appear to move more slowly than others, but they move nonetheless. The planet is an expression of movement, change and variety within a singularity.
We digress somewhat from Awareness by focusing on these forms. It is focusing that seems to single them out and place imaginary limits on them. Ultimately our experience of the world as limited with limited forms is experienced in Infinite Awareness.
The Sandy Beach analogy might help to explain how Infinite Awareness is the heart of all localised perceptions whilst being the boundless whole. Consider a flat sandy beach. We can draw circles in the sand to represent people. Each circle represents the person and their centre of perception, so the centre of each circle is where they experience the mind, the emotions and the seeing, hearing, smelling etc.
So we draw a lot of circles in the sand. If we now step back and look at this scene we see a plain sandy beach with many circles representing people. Each 'person' is made of sand. Each person's outer limit is seen, yet made of sand. Each person has an inside, yet this is also sand. It is all sand, with the appearance of many limited forms.
This is how it is with Awareness. There is nothing other than Awareness. Yet Awareness can appear as limits within itself. It can appear as many different limited forms, but it is always Infinite Awareness. The heart of each 'person' is Infinite Awareness. The Awareness does not become limited by the seemingly limited forms that appear in the world. The apparent limits appear within Infinite Awareness.
Just like the sand is the centre of all the circles, so is Infinite Awareness the centre of all people. Being infinite, there is nothing other than it. It pervades all people and all forms. Forms may appear limited and separate, yet they are within Infinite Awareness. So from the human perspective, Infinite Awareness is the heart or essence of our being, yet it is the whole of our being. Although we experience an apparently limited being we are the one Infinite Awareness.
By letting go of the belief of limits and the identification with being a limited form, we simply are as we are.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1676
Where do I begin? Where do I end? I know that the body has no clear limits. It is always changing. If I look closely at its supposed limits I find there are none. The body is like a flowing quality of the planet. It comes from the planet, interacts with the planet, and returns to the planet, all the while remaining as a quality of the planet. Its apparent limits are not true.
I see this body without limits. I also perceive the mind. I perceive thought in the form of words, sounds and images, like internal perceptions of the mind. These also have no limits. They appear in the mind and disappear in the mind. Yet they are not inside me. I perceive them.
I also perceive the sense of identity. I perceive the mind talking to itself, thinking about me, my and mine. But that's not me. Sometimes it feels that it's me. Sometimes I observe it, so it cannot be me. If I can see a supposed identity of me, then who am I witnessing this?
Is it the same me that observes the mind thinking about me? I ascertain that I do not perceive a me thinking about me. I perceive the workings of the mind, thoughts that think they are me, thinking that identifies as a limited separate being. I perceive this.
Where and who am I, if not this false identity that is perceived? I perceive the changing mind, body and world. I am not that. I perceive the windmills of the mind. I am like the still point around which the windmill turns. I am here. There is nowhere that I can perceive that I am except here. Wherever it seems I go, I am here. I perceive the change of time. I am now.
I am the point of here and now around which the windmill of the mind and world turns. Yet I am not a point. I am no space, no time. I am formless perceiving form. I am.
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
- Hits: 1632
In the material world we can find patterns that point to the spiritual. One of those patterns is the Hollow. We find it naturally occurring in plant stems such as bamboo, in bones, in lungs, the cavity of the mouth, cave formations, and at the heart of wind formations such as hurricanes and tornadoes. Humankind also uses the hollow in wind instruments, where the flow of air through a hollow tube with hollow outlets creates sounds of different frequencies. Pipework, containers, bottles and cups, even trains, ships and planes have a hollowness about them. The well-known sacred sound, Om or Aum, refers to the Hollow.
What is the spiritual significance of the Hollow? It hints at the empty space at the heart of the universe, the heart of our being. Buddhists call it emptiness or void. Eckhart Tolle calls it Spaciousness. It is the Sacred Spaciousness at the heart of our being. Our nature is not the apparent outer hardness of the human form. We are the Sacred Spaciousness that perceives the apparent outer form.
Within the Sacred Spaciousness there is no inside our outside. The heart of our being is a complete Singularity. The apparently outside world appears through the use of opposites. So the hollow is expressed as an empty circle, an empty interior with a circular boundary. Without the use of the opposites the Spaciousness cannot be expressed or perceived. You see, the hollow that we can say is the heart of our being has no limits, no boundaries. It is an Infinite One. When considered from the outside material viewpoint we can say it is at the heart of our being. But in the heart there is no inside or outside.
It is the Singularity that seems to be the heart of the world, yet it is not limited by the world. It is not devoid of life. It is pure, complete life, by which the opposites of life and death are known. Ultimately it is within the Singularity that this interplay of opposites, of inside and outside, alive and not alive, stillness and motion, plays out.
All sentient beings have this same centre. There is only one Infinite Singularity. It is the heart of the world of many, the heart of the world of opposites. We are not the play of opposites. We are the Sacred Spaciousness.
- Category: The Universe
- Hits: 1676
Most people know of the Big Bang Theory, where the universe that we see now, this multiplicity, was once a singularity. It's postulated that the singularity exploded, creating the universe from the interaction of forces that created the elements that make up the matter of the universe. Planet Earth and all creatures are formed from the stuff of stars, and all can be traced back to the singularity. It has been observed that the universe continues to expand from the force of the Big Bang.
I'm certainly not going to say that this theory is completely wrong, although I would say that no theory is completely right. The reason that no theory can be completely right is that it is a theory, and a theory is an expression with words and concepts attempting to describe something that is not of words and concepts. The words and concepts are at best a step down from the reality of what the theory is attempting to describe. So I would say it should be accepted that no theory is perfect. There is a spectrum of accuracy, from near perfect to far from perfect. But the True Perfection is inexpressible.
So, as long as we accept theories as not being wholly true, they can still be very useful. Let's examine the Big Bang a little. It seems to make sense, and the evidence is there to show that there was outwards motion from a super event. If it is assumed that space and time appeared from the singularity, then it can be accepted that there was no 'before' the Big Bang, as the singularity was timeless. The splitting of the singularity created space and time. But we need to explore the nature of the singularity more.
We can imagine a singularity. There are no separate things. There is no space or distance. No past or future. No division or definition of form. Just one imperceivable substance that has no beginning or end. We know a singularity has no beginning or end because otherwise there would be something other than it by which it was limited, and then we're no longer talking about a singularity. We could even say that the substance of the singularity is no substance. We can imagine that the singularity contained the potential for the universe, the potential for when the Big Bang happened and the potential for all change that happens thereafter.
(It is perhaps for another article to consider how the seed of the singularity is scattered, and continues to scatter further seeds that develop from the potential stored in the seed. This, after all, is the pattern that nature on this planet continues to demonstrate.)
It's very difficult to imagine how this perfectly stable complete singularity split and exploded to become the multiplicity we see now. But there is a simple answer: the singularity did not split. An infinite singularity cannot be divided. At best it can only appear to be divided. This multiplicity that we see as the universe is the appearance of division within the singularity. Remember, the singularity is beyond time and space - it was before time began, it remains, and it will be as it is at the end of time. The singularity does not (and cannot) change.
You won't find the singularity here or there. It is beyond space. It has no dimension. The best we can say is that it is just here and now. The singularity remains whilst the explosive expanding universe appears within its field of infinity. We can go a step further in understanding how this seems to happen. We can say that the universe that appears is like the stretching out of the singularity into a multiplicity. This stretching does not divide the singularity. It merely creates an illusory sense of distance and separation, whilst remaining undivided. Just as the rainbow appears as an undivided flow of colour variation from white light.
Opposing forces, balance, imbalance, and the interplay of opposites appear because the apparent multiplicity must total zero. That is, the singularity remains intact, so any force must have an equal but opposite force to counter the seeming imbalance. What goes out must come in. Where the universe expands it must contract, albeit across the span of time. It is the appearance of time and space that is the imbalance and rebalance of the universe.
There is a sense with the Big Bang Theory that there was a point where the Big Bang happened and the universe has expanded outwards from there. This may appear to be the case, but if one were to trace the origin of the universe one would arrive at the singularity. At the point of the singularity there would be no inside or outside. The singularity can only be considered from outside of it. But within the singularity there is no outside or inside. Hence the singularity remains 'everywhere' yet nowhere. It has no space, yet space appears within it.
Hopefully that helps to understand the nature of the Singularity a little. It's hugely important to humanity. We are not separate parts of the Singularity. There is only the Singularity appearing as a multiplicity. Not just the animals and humans, but in fact every 'thing'. There are no 'things' of course. There is only the Singularity.
From the human perspective the Singularity can be considered to be at the heart of our being. Consciousness is all that we know. All human experience is within Consciousness. The universe is only ever experienced within Consciousness. We can consider then that the Singularity is at the heart of our conscious being. It is that point in us that does not change. It is the very essence of life that produces the appearance of what is alive and what is not alive, whilst Pure Life remains throughout. We are that. There is only Pure Life. We are the Oneness of all that is. We are complete. It seems to be at the heart of our being, but when we find that core point there is no inside or outside. The illusory sense of division and separation will fall away. The clarity of the Infinite One will shine.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1624
Most people would acknowledge that they are connected to the universe. From a human perspective we eat, drink and breathe, which is a flow of connectedness with the environment. We gain energy from this and absorb energy from the sun. This energy is used in our environment, so it's fair to say the human body is connected to the world.
Many people don't even consider this connection with the world. It doesn't occur to them or doesn't interest them. Some people, generally spiritually minded people, think about their connection to the world, or to the whole. Sometimes they feel connected to the whole or they strive to feel more connected. Some people may openly say they are connected to the whole.
The problem with being or feeling connected is that it implies we are separate. Connectedness relies on a subject-object relationship, where we feel that we are connected to the whole. The subject, me, feels connected to the object, the whole. Whenever we say that something or someone is connected it also implies that they are a separate thing or person. So although connected and separate seem like opposites, nothing can be connected without being separate.
It is a failure of words to be able to describe something as being 'part of' something else, when it's not a separate part. For example, it's not strictly correct to say my hand is part of my body, or to say my hand is connected to my body, because the hand isn't a separate 'part'. It's just the body, and we label a slightly vague area of the body as a 'hand'. The flaw lies in this inability to truly define anything.
So to say, "I am connected to the universe," means there is a separate 'I' who is linked to a separate universe. The statement will be inaccurate. So instead of saying, "I am connected with the whole," it would be more accurate (but still not truly accurate) to say, "I am the whole."
We can consider the sense or feeling of connectedness as a Spectrum of Separation, with feeling most closely connected at one end and seemingly unconnected at the far end of the Spectrum of Separation. But this is all a play of opposites. There is no connectedness and there is no separation. The opposite terms fool us. There is only What Is.
For spiritual progression it seems that a leap from dualistic terms to the nondual is needed. We need to leap from the close end of the Spectrum of Separation, where we feel most closely at one with the whole, to where we are the whole, where there is no division in What Is. This is the spiritual aim of Oneness. It is not where the separate self 'me' feels at one with the world, it is where there is neither separate self nor the world. There is only What Is. It is the absence of the illusory sense of separation. Non-Duality.