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
Humanity allows the ego to be in control. In control of everyday decisions. In control of how each human life pans out. In control of lives, relationships, towns, countries, human society and the planet. The ego is in charge. The ego is the dictator of human life. Or so it thinks.
The ego is the sense of 'me', the separate identity. 'Me' as an individual separate from others. There is also the collective ego, a group identity separate from others, where we identify as 'we' or 'us' and different to 'them'. This sense of separation forms into an identity, a strong held belief that I or we are separate and different from others. The stronger this identity develops, the more distant its sense of separation is from 'others'. The stronger the sense of ego is, the more it will be at odds with 'others' and the world. The stronger the ego, the more difficult life becomes.
The strong ego isn't just the boasting self-conceited ego. It's also the self-deprecating ego, the one that feels it is less than others. Either way, it's a distancing from others. The sense of separation. The ego boosts its idea of separation and difference in order to maintain its sense of self and identity. It can do this by putting others down or inflating its own sense of superiority. It can also criticise itself and dwell in a sense of inferiority. It all amounts to the same thing: the ego distances itself from others in order to increase its sense of identity. It's in these ways that the ego becomes controlling.
The ego seeks to control, to maintain and improve its individual identity. Life must be the way it wants it. People must act the way it wants them to. This will usually fail and cause all sorts of problems, but the ego criticises and blames either itself or others for this. So it still boosts its sense of identity separate from others.
Not only does this happen on a personal level, in our human lives and relationships. It happens in work life, where strong egos make their way up the ranks to strengthen their sense of identity, power and control. It happens in family life, community life and political life, where strong egos can get themselves into positions of power. The ego can then control and dictate over many 'others'.
With collective egos groups will clash with each other. For example, gangs fight other gangs to maintain the boundaries of their territory, fans of sports teams can develop a strong dislike of others, companies sometimes compete ruthlessly against similar companies, countries seek to battle other countries or take them over. This is all the play of the ego.
But the ego isn't real. The sense of identity is flawed. It's a false identity. There are no true boundaries to any identity. The countries have no true boundaries. The companies, sports teams and gangs are only divided in the human mind. These seeming divisions are not natural and take effort to maintain. Similarly with our human forms. The human body isn't separate from the planet, or indeed the universe as a whole. The limits of the human body can't really be found. This division of the world is purely intellectual, not factual.
So the point here is to recognise that the ego wants to rule the world. It wants to rule human life, from daily activities and decisions to worldly affairs. What can 'we' do about it? Well, this apparent dictator is never really in control. It just thinks it is. Really it is for the dictator itself to turn itself in. The ego will bring about the end of the ego. This is the path of Self Realisation. The ego goes out into the world seeking something, maybe happiness. But it will only find it when it recognises its mistake of assuming it's someone separate from the world.
The end of the ego is in the dissolving of its sense of separate identity. Ultimately the ego needs to give itself up, stop trying to control, stop blaming others, stop thinking it's separate. Love and kindness to others, putting others first, is a step in that direction. But ultimately there must be no sense of 'me and others'. That is Self Realisation: that there is only an Infinite Indivisible One.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Universe
The world appears as a state of disharmony. It's as if the natural unmanifest state of Oneness, a Singularity, has fallen out of unity and harmony into what now appears as a fluctuating world of disharmony. In today's scientific world view, it's as if the Big Bang blew apart the peace and harmony of the unmanifest Singularity.
It's a useful way to understand the world. It's like a state of chaos. But there is some order to it. The disharmony hints at a state of harmony that can't really be known. The Oneness of a Singularity, in other words Total Harmony, cannot really be perceived. But we can understand what Pure Harmony is by seeing what it isn't. This world of disharmony fluctuates and swings between opposites. Things can seem to be more in harmony or more in disharmony. As I've explained elsewhere, we can understand it as a Continuum of Disharmony, ranging from very little disharmony to great disharmony. This 'very little disharmony' is usually what we term as harmony. But it can't be a true harmony. It's just disharmony that is more harmonious.
You see, disharmony is the falling out of equilibrium, the falling out of unity or oneness. That's how the world appears. Without this apparent separation from the Singularity it would be impossible for one to perceive something. There needs to be a sense of separation between the subject and object for someone to perceive something. That utilisation of the appearance of separation, which gives rise to the appearance of the universe, has a seeming downside in that it disturbs the peace and harmony of the Singularity.
What that means is: the creation of the world is the creation of disharmony. Disharmony is inevitable in the world because it is the cause of the world. Chaos will inevitably appear. So we'd do well not to expect life to play out simply and calmly. There will be periods of relative calm and relative disruption. That's life. Human life, anyway.
Now to the important bit. Disharmony is just a play. The Singularity of Pure Harmony is never destroyed. It doesn't fall out of harmony in order to create the world. There only appears to be a world of disharmony. The Truth is that Pure Harmony is timelessly here. Prior to the appearance of the world and disharmony, Pure Harmony is. It is within the Singularity that the seeming division of the singularity appears. In other words, the world of disharmony isn't really created, it's just a play within the Infinite Peace and Harmony of the Singularity.
You are not someone who sees the world. There is only the totality of the world, whether it may appear to be blown apart or not. There is only an appearance of a turbulent life, with ups and downs. You remain as you are, as the world seems to fall into chaos and come back again. You are unchanged by the changing appearance of the world. Nothing is gained. Nothing is lost. It only appears to happen.
Infinite Peace and Stillness is your true nature and the nature of all as One.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
Can the Infinite be understood intellectually? Some may say it's impossible. But it is possible to have a limited understanding of the Infinite intellectually. We can understand the Infinite in finite terms, but we can't understand anything in infinite terms - there are no infinite terms. Even the word 'Infinite' uses the term 'finite'. We say it is not finite. It is un-limited. It is un-bounded. It is in-divisible.
Our whole intellectual understanding and knowledge base is founded on finite terms. We use measurements for time, distance, weight, energy etc. These measurements intellectually divide up the indivisible. Time isn't really made of segments. Time is the continual flow of change. But intellectually we measure it in segments of second, minutes, days, years etc. Similarly with distance. Distance isn't really split into segments of metres, miles, kilometres etc. These finite measures are used by the human mind to understand portions of infinity.
What we have is an infinite world being understood in finite terms. These finite terms can be useful but never truly accurate. Humanity can develop a great intellectual understanding of the universe in finite terms, and that's useful, but it needs to be recognised that it will never be wholly accurate. Any theory about the universe, reality and existence will be inaccurate. It's just that some are less inaccurate than others. Knowledge is seemingly limited.
There is a difference between knowledge and knowing that may be overlooked. We may have knowledge about how to make a spaghetti bolognese, but there is a knowing of this knowledge. The knowing of knowledge is the same knowing of feelings, sensations and perceptions. When a bird is seen to fly past, a car is heard driving by, or a train of thought flows by, these are known in the same way that knowledge is known. There is a Knowing. This Knowing, in Non-Duality terms, is Aware Being. It is the Awareness or Consciousness in which the world is perceived. It is the Formless that perceives form.
It is this Infinite Knowing in which the apparently finite knowledge of the infinite appears. Nothing is truly finite. All seemingly finite things appear in the Indivisible Infinite. Time is not divided. Space is not divided. Forms flow continually from this to that, without ever truly being divided into this or that. We have knowledge in finite terms, but the Truth is Infinite.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
The world appears as a reflection of Reality. The common appearance of reflections in the world makes it a pattern or expression of that which can't be perceived. Reflections appear on the flat surfaces of water or smooth objects, such as glass, polished obsidian, or our commonplace mirrors. Reflections occur in the processing of the visible image in the eye, the echo of sounds off walls, light bouncing off surfaces, and in many human inventions such as radar and x-ray imaging.
Reflections appear as opposites or inverted copies of an original. They may appear more or less accurate depending on the pureness or smoothness of the surface they appear in. They're never absolutely perfect, as they can’t truly be the original. The reflection appears as an inverted inferior copy of the original.
Another pattern I've written about is 'the hollow'. It's commonly found in the world and expresses the infinite empty completeness of Reality. Reflection can be considered in a similar vein. The pattern of reflection expresses the nature of the world as a reflection of Reality.
It would be a mistake to think that 'the world is a reflection of me'. That's not it. The world is what appears or is perceived. That incudes thinking and the sense of identity or 'me'. These are perceived and are part of the world that appears.
This all appears as a reflection of that which cannot be seen or known. The world appears as a multiplicity of many separate things. Some things are alive, some not. This is a reflection of Reality, which is pure infinite indivisible Life. Reality isn't seen, as there is not really a separate one seeing something else. There is no real subject-seeing-object divide.
Humans can't really see themselves, only reflections of themselves. The eye can't see the eye. The Infinite One Being can't see itself. All the Infinite One can do to kind of see itself is to use the appearance of reflection and separation. So there appear beings and a world. It's all the Infinite One expressing itself by aid of reflection, separation and opposites.
The world appears imperfect, reflecting the Perfection of Reality. The world appears to continually move and change, reflecting the Unchanging Stillness of Reality. The world appears as separate forms, reflecting the Formless Indivisible Singularity of Reality.
But the world isn't really imperfect. It doesn't really move and change. There aren't really separate forms. Although the appearance of the world seems to be a reflection of Reality, there can never really be anything other than Reality. There is only ever the Infinite One.