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: 1332
Is it possible to be aware of anything outside of consciousness? If we close our eyes and focus attention on the body we can sense where our feet are, where our hands are etc. There is a sense of vibration. There's not a clearly defined boundary of the body. It's a vague sense of vibration here and there.
Still with our eyes closed we can focus on sounds. Sound can also be understood as vibration we can sense. It is the same with all senses - they can be considered as the detection of vibration, change or fluctuation, at different levels that we can call frequencies. For example the sense of taste is the detection of subtle interaction between the taste buds and the food making contact.
All this sense perception happens within consciousness. If we close our eyes and focus on our feet we experience the subtle vibration that we think of as the feet. But let's take away the label of feet. Really there is the experience of a subtle vibration. This vibration is within consciousness. All sensations, and indeed our whole world experience, are vibrations or fluctuations within consciousness. Okay, so consciousness is another label. It is that in which and by which we know.
The pointer here is that what we consider as our body and the world outside is all a vibration or fluctuation within consciousness. Nothing is outside consciousness. It is consciousness that knows the body and world, and it is consciousness that the body and world appear within as vibrations of the one substance of consciousness.
The whirlpools, waves and currents of the ocean are all fluctuations of the ocean. It is the same with the world and consciousness. The world is a fluctuation within consciousness, and there is nothing other than or outside of consciousness.
It is this Consciousness that seems to be the heart of all experiences and all experiencers. It seems to be the heart of all conscious beings. It is One heart. Yet it is the whole. It seems to be the heart when we still hold a concept of inside and outside. But when this is dropped there is only What Is. It is this one Being that is known as Consciousness, God, the Self, Brahman, the Infinite One.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 1327
When you recognise that there is only one, one infinite being that is expressed through many forms, it's generally important then to live in line with that understanding. I call it The Way of Oneness.
It takes some time and effort to change from the old way of living to the new way of living in line with oneness. If that's where you're at, you'll know that it's not easy to always see the world as one. Sometimes things frustrate us. Sometimes people frustrate us. Sometimes we are frustrated with our own sense of individual self. But with some effort it improves.
The trick is to let go of otherness. There really are no others. There is only what is. Our old way of thinking was that the world, people and animals, were others. They were separate from how we saw ourself. It was us and the world of others. Now we want to let go of those old notions because we recognise there is only Oneness. But the ego is stubborn and wants to hold onto things. We have to practise letting go.
So work at letting go of the idea of 'me and them'. See that your human perspective and other human perspectives are allowed to appear different. Here's a useful list to help you on your way to a deepening oneness:
- Recognise selfishness and let it go, in favour of natural selflessness.
- Be kind to others, even if they may be unkind to you.
- Accept the world as it is, and don't seek to control it.
- Drop the attachment to objects, that you may have thought were yours.
- Drop the attachment to thoughts, that you may have thought were yours.
- See distance and change as the play of the world.
- Rest in the Here and Now that is your natural state.
- Category: Non-duality
- Hits: 1324
Stillness is fascinating. Things seem to be still around us - the ground, buildings, our furniture, parked cars, mountains, and so on. A lot of things just seem to stay where they are, completely still. But that's only how it seems.
Really, the ground, the buildings, our furniture, and so on, are part of a spinning planet. The stillness we perceive is only relative. The base of the planet appears still relative to us. The sun seems to spin around the planet from our relative viewpoint, but we know that it is the planet spinning around the sun. It is the sun that stays still. Well, not really. The sun, the planet, and the rest of our solar system are swirling in a spiral galaxy, which is also on the move.
Everything in the universe is moving. Any apparent stillness is not true stillness. It is an illusion of stillness. But there is a True Stillness that cannot be perceived. True Stillness is the heart of the universe, the heart of perception, the still centre of the world of motion and change.
Movement and stillness are the opposites that we perceive. Together they express and reflect the true nature of reality. The opposite of Stillness allows it to be perceived. Motion is the means by which we can know stillness, yet it is not the true stillness. The illusion of stillness is the best that True Stillness can be expressed.
Let's understand what I mean by True Stillness. Imagine a complete singularity, formless, invisible, indivisible, without time or space, without change, without movement. No things, but complete. No beginnings or ends. Infiniteness. This singularity is truly and perfectly still. It's still beyond any comparison. It's unmanifest stillness. There's no change in it and there's nowhere for it to go. There's nowhere inside it or outside it. This is what I mean by True Stillness.
It is this True Stillness that the world is expressing through the medium of opposites. From the timeless Here and Now the world of space and time appears as a dispersion through reflection (like how a rainbow appears by the dispersion of white light through a prism). True Stillness is then expressed as the appearance of motion and stillness (or indeed the spectrum of motion). In this way we experience the nature of the Singularity via this appearance of opposites. This Singularity, the True Stillness, remains as it is. It is the one and only being. We are the Infinite One.
- Category: The Human Experience
- Hits: 1325
We are not troubled by thoughts. We perceive troubled thoughts. Rest in Awareness, in the clear knowing, without identifying and without attaching to thoughts and the body.
There are times when thinking seems to get the better of us. We might try to calm the mind, but it even fights against that. We know that a calm mind is a good thing. We know that's how we should be. But sometimes the mind gets tangled up in trouble.
It may be that the mind starts dwelling on something that happened. It may be that the mind has negative thoughts about someone, maybe even our own self. It may be we are trying to meditate, and thoughts keep butting in and we fight back, trying to calm this troublesome thinking. And then we get frustrated that we can't stop it, and it all seems difficult.
But none of this is who we are. This is the mind tangling with itself, with its sense of self. Just as a torchlight cannot shine directly on itself, so we cannot objectively perceive our being. What we can perceive can never be what we are.
We are the Awareness that perceives these thoughts. We perceive the troublesome thoughts, and we perceive the sense of self that is unhappy with them. We perceive the struggle to stop thoughts and we perceive the sense of frustration when this is difficult. Truly we are the witnessing of this.
So what do we do about troublesome thoughts and the sense of self that we perceive? We do not do. Let them be. Do not get caught in the belief that you are there trying to do something about the thoughts. Who is it that is unhappy? Not you. You simply witness whatever appears within.
- Category: Spirituality
- Hits: 1319
It's a question many have considered: Is there a soul, and if so what is it? Let's start by considering the body. It's generally accepted that the human body is made of matter. I would elaborate further and say that 'matter' is a name for substance. We could call it 'vibrating energy'. I call the vibrating energy of the universe 'spirit'. Then what we call 'matter' is more like the appearance of dense hardened spirit.
There appears to be different levels of vibration throughout the universe. This is really a play of opposites within Infinite Spirit, which allows the appearance of spirit and not spirit (what we call matter). But this play is really a stretching out of spirit to appear close to or far from spirit. But it's all just spirit. So matter is the appearance of dense hardened heavy spirit.
Now we understand that, let's turn to the body again. It's a bundle of vibrating spirit within a dense range of frequencies, we could say. It can be considered that, just as a solid cup can hold liquid water or even gaseous air, the material body can hold lighter spirit. It's probably more accurate to say that the denser human body can be a receptacle for, or a channel for, a higher flowing spirit. This then makes it viable to consider that a higher form of spirit sits within the denser materialised form. We can consider that there is an unseen inner spirit form within the visible material form.
It seems equally acceptable that the hardened material form is more limited than a lighter freer form of spirit. It is conceivable that when the hardened form (the human body) breaks down, the lighter freer spirit is released. This lighter freer bundle of spirit energy we can call 'the soul'. The soul can be considered as the bundle of spirit energy that experiences planet Earth through the human body (or any other material body). Once released from the gravity of the human body, the soul is generally free to withdraw from the density of Earth back to its higher spiritual level.
However, it's also conceivable that the soul may form a bond or deeper attachment with the human experience, and may be drawn back to Earth again to inhabit another human body. As the pattern of rainfall and evaporation shows, and the pattern of waves upon the shore, there can be a circular process of coming and going. Here we are considering reincarnation and the seemingly endless wheel of rebirth.
It can be considered that the soul gains experience and develops by becoming lost in the world of matter. The pull of the material world seems to trap the soul and subjugates the soul. It may seem that the wheel of rebirth is endless, but it is a process of being lost and being found. The soul may, through many human experiences, come to the ultimate realisation. Firstly, it may recognise that it is a soul and not a body. But that is not enough. It must continue the search inwards to find that not only is it not a human form, but it is not a soul form either. Truth is formless, without beginning or end.
This deep realisation is termed nirvana, liberation, enlightenment, or self realisation. It is the deep recognition that the truth is not limited, defined or separate. There is only what is. There never were many souls who go out into the world and animate human forms or other forms. There is only One, an Infinite One. This realisation frees the soul from maya, the illusion of separation and attachment.
Ultimately then, there is no body and there is no soul. There is only What Is.