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: The Human Experience
- Hits: 1351
Acceptance is an important spiritual practice. In returning to a state of oneness it is necessary to accept what comes and accept what goes. Acceptance is our true nature.
It is natural to accept what is and not to yearn for what was or what could be. But it doesn't seem natural because the human experience is one of holding on to what we've got, losing those we love and care about, being disappointed by life, and having difficult times that we'd rather not have. It's common to hope for something, to want a better life, and to not want to lose people and things that are important to us. But the world won't satisfy our wants and needs. The world is always changing and moving on, and presenting us with challenges.
We can feel cheated by other people or organisations, taken advantage of, neglected, misled, or mistreated. We raise complaints. We blame others. It dwells in the mind. We tell people about how badly we've been treated. Some people hold onto these feelings all their life. Admittedly, there are times when complaints should be raised, and injustices heard and dealt with. But there is a time when we need to accept what is. Even during this raising of the issue, it needs to be accepted that this is how the world is.
It can be hard for people to accept when they lose someone close. Maybe they have died, or they moved away. It can be devastating and difficult to come to terms with. But for spiritual progression we need to accept this. We need to accept that that's just the way it is. It doesn't help to fight against the universe, to hold onto what's gone, or to wish for life to get better. Life may get better, but it may get worse again. Many people choose this way of life, longing and losing, and that's fine. But if your aim is spiritual progression then that's not really the way for you.
Acceptance is about letting life just be. It's going to just be anyway, so why fight it? Let go of holding on. Let the world flow. But know that you are not flowing. You are the stillness that perceives the flow of the world. In truth you cannot really hold on. The holding on is an imaginary sensation in the mind. Let it go. If your human experience involves difficulties and challenges let this come and go. Know that you are the witnessing of this.
You are not the human who longs and loses. You are the Still Centre, from the human perspective. You are complete. You are perfect. You are pure peace and love. I'm not just saying nice words here to pick you up. This is the nature of your infinite being. Your true nature is found at the heart of your being. But when it is found it is known to be an infinite oneness. It does not need or want. It is perfect peace. Through the practice of acceptance and letting go, our attention sinks naturally into this state of oneness that is complete and content. It is holding on that holds us back.
Laugh when you stub your toe. That's life. It's the sort of thing that happens. Accept it when people move on. That's the way of the world. I don't mean for you to be emotionless. Accept the emotions. If you cry, let the crying happen. Accept it all. If your bus is delayed, smile and accept it. If the traffic slows to a halt, smile and let it be. If you forget something, it's okay. Humans aren't perfect. Mistakes will happen.
In fact the world cannot be perfect. You are the perfect peace and stillness. You are the singularity that experiences the world of opposites, with its ups and downs, highs and lows, happiness and sadness. The world is a reflection of your perfection. Acceptance is your natural state. Accept the world and be as you are. Perfect peace is the nature of your being.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1350
What's happening with you right now? You may be sitting at home, out on a bus, a boat, a train, a plane, reading this. At least that's what you assume you are doing. Truly you are not doing anything. Nothing is happening to you. You are not reading. You are not thinking. You are not sitting or walking. You are not doing anything.
Surely that's not true. It depends on who you think you are. If you think you are a human being then you assume you are reading, thinking, sitting, walking, and so on, and the things of life happen to you. Even if you understand that you are not really a human being, you were not born and you will not die, you possibly still identify with the body at some level. So we say I'm reading, I'm thinking, I'm walking etc.
But we aren't the human body, so a re-evaluation is needed to shake out the assumption that we are doing these things and things are happening to us. Truly we are the Awareness witnessing what happens from the perspective of a human being. Things are not happening to us. They merely flow through Awareness like birds, clouds and planes floating through the sky. They come and go.
So what's happening with you right now? Nothing. You remain perfectly at peace, unmoving, and unchanging. The world of motion and change flows by within your infinite stillness. From this point of stillness you perceive the human experience: the childhood experiences, growing up, heartache, sadness, happiness, success, failure, days and nights, waking, sleeping, travelling. But it's not you. You are the heart of this experience, the life that effortlessly animates the world from this viewpoint. The heart of this experience is the same heart of all experiences. All beings have the same heart of stillness, like the central hub of the wheel of life. There is One Awareness that perceives itself as the world from many different perspectives.
The pointer here is to let go of identification with the changing human form, and rest as the perfect peace at the heart of the being. That is your unchanging pure nature. If something moves or changes it is not you. If you can perceive it, it is not you. You are right here and now, the peaceful Awareness within which the world appears and disappears. You perceive the coming and going of thoughts, the rising and falling of breath, the growing and fading of forms, the rising and falling of the sun, the world appearing and the world fading away. You are always here, the unchanging timeless being, complete love, pure life, perfect peace.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1347
The ego is the sense and belief of being a separate self, being a human separate from the rest of the world. The ego forms in the mind as a child develops, where the mind thinks that this body is me and these things are mine. Often as the ego grows, it develops its sense of separate self by belonging to a group and embracing that identity, or being distanced from a group, which also strengthens its sense of identity.
In human society identity is super important. We identify with our gender, ethnicity, nationality, political view, or religion. But truly none of this is who we are. The ego isn't real. The ego is a mistaken identity assumed in the mind.
Just because the mind perceives the human experience and identifies as a human, with a human history, it doesn't mean it's true. And just because the mind also holds on to objects and calls them mine, it doesn't mean they really belong to it. We need to go deeper than the mind to find the truth.
Truly we are Consciousness perceiving human experiences. We perceive the mind, the ego identity, the thoughts, the human feelings and sensations, and the perceptions. We perceive the ego identity saying I am this, these are mine, and I did that. We perceive the ego assuming identity and assuming separation is real. Separation isn't real. There is only One. There are no separate objects, and there are no separate identities who own them. It is all a play of separation.
Recognition of this understanding leads the ego to a deeper understanding of reality. As the truth dawns, the ego fades. Its ways of selfishness are no longer relevant. The phantom ego effectively disappears, but it was never a real thing anyhow. This realisation will come to the soul, to the human and to humanity. Humanity will in time awaken to the realisation of not being separate. Its spiritual development will bring it to the realisation of Oneness.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1348
The world appears as a flow of continual movement and change. Where stillness appears in the world it is illusory. For example, if you're sat at home on a sofa or on a bed, sat on a bench in a park, or even if you're sat on a train, there is a sense of stability and stillness. But the stillness of the sofa, the bed, the bench or the seat on the train, is illusory. It is a relative stillness. The seat on the train is relatively still in relation to the train, as it maintains its steady motion with the train. The sofa is relatively still in relation to the Earth, whilst the planet spins around. The Earth is continually spinning and swirling through the universe, and the universe is in continual motion.
This illusion of stillness in the world of motion is merely a play of opposites. What we see in the world is a reflection of the truth. Stillness is the reality, and motion is the illusion. But I don't mean the stillness that you can see. True Stillness is an infinite Singularity that has no form, no outside, no inside, no distance and no change. It is Stillness beyond any appearance of stillness, beyond space and time.
The appearance of The World of Opposites is the way in which the Singularity becomes visible. So the illusory world appears as the opposites motion and stillness, where motion is the opposite of the Singularity and stillness is its likeness. Yet the appearance of the world of opposites is itself the opposite of the Oneness of the Singularity. Hence the stillness that appears is not true stillness.
It is in this way that space and time appear as the opposite of the unseen Singularity that has no form, location, separation or change. This World of Opposites or the World of Motion is wholly illusory, yet infused with the reality of the Singularity. Space seems to stretch out indefinitely within the Hereness of the Singularity. Time appears to stretch out within the Nowness of the Singularity.
Distance and change appear within the Here and Now of the Singularity. So the illusion or maya of the world is itself illusory. There is only Reality. The illusion is held by the belief of space and time over the truth of the Singularity. Where is this Singularity, this True Stillness? It is right Here and Now. Wherever you may seem to go, however you may seem to have changed, you remain here and now as the True Stillness witnessing the world of movement and change.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 1345
Let's take it that you already understand and accept that the world is non dual, i.e. there is only One. The limits and divisions that appear, and which the mind labels, are not true. The One is an Infinite Singularity. I call it The Infinite One. It is the one being expressed as the apparent multiplicity of the universe. This recognition of the reality of Oneness helps us to understand the human condition.
Humans generally consider themselves to be the body. They may feel that they 'have a soul', which still means they are looking at spirituality from the aspect of being a body that owns a soul. This identification with the body is effectively the formless taking on form and believing itself to be the form. That's not what we are. This limitation and identity as the body rules the human world. That is, most human lives and the largescale decisions made by humanity come from this view of being limited separate beings.
Selfishness arises from this sense of being a limited separate self. Suffering arises. Lack, need, desire, sadness, loneliness, and despair arise because of this sense of being incomplete. Anger, envy, hate and blame arise because of the sense of me and them. All of humanity's problems come from the sense of being a separate self. The separate self is the root of all human suffering. But it's not true.
The mind has this sense of being separate, yet the truth is a Singularity. There is only infinite oneness. There is not truly a separate me and them, no more than ripples on a pond are separated. It is all the pond.
Recognising this sense of separation and the reality of Oneness can bring about a change. Peace is the nature of oneness. It is the heart of being, the still centre that encompasses all. Recognising oneness and living in the way of oneness can bring about a change in the human experience and humanity as a whole. There needs to come a recognition that the heart of our being is complete, peace, love and harmony. This sense of oneness dispels suffering, sadness, loneliness, despair, anger, hate and blame.
If we want an end to suffering we need to let go of the separate self. We need to live in the way of oneness, acknowledging the oneness of life. We need to allow the sense of oneness to spread through human life. We do this by letting go of holding on. We reclaim freedom by letting go. Let go of the limits that bind you, the attachments that define you, and the identity that hides you. Let the real you shine through. Allow the still, peaceful centre to be unrestricted. Allow the peace and love that is the heart of your being be unbounded.
You are the Infinite One, without limits. You are peace, love and harmony. Make it your life's work to be as you are.