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: Non-duality
We perceive darkness and light in the world. Light is the clarity of awareness, clear seeing or knowing. Darkness is the clouding of clarity. Yet even the darkest darkness can be perceived. Darkness cannot exist without the perceiving of it. The seer and the seeing of light and darkness are inextricable.
It is in Awareness that we perceive this play of darkness and light. We can consider them as a Continuum of Light, ranging from clear light to obscured light (i.e. darkness). It is in this apparent dispersing of light that the opposite of darkness appears. Darkness is like the fading of light far from the source of light. Yet this is a play of opposites within the singularity of Pure Light.
Pure Clarity is a better term than Pure Light. The light we perceive is the nature of Clarity expressed as clear seeing. What we perceive as light is the nature of our transparent formless being, which is a Singularity, expressed through its apparent dispersion into a play of opposites. Remember, the seer, the seeing and the seen cannot be truly separated.
Let's try and simplify that. Let's say in the beginning there is a timeless infinite Singularity. There is no form. There are no limits. There is no obstruction or confusion. It's nature is Pure Clarity. Then the world appears as if the Singularity is split in two, into opposites like it and unlike it. So from pure Clarity there appears light and darkness. Light pertains to clear unobstructed seeing or knowing. Darkness is the limiting and clouding of clarity. It is through this play of opposites that the nature of the Singularity is expressed. The world, the universe, appears as a dispersion of a Singularity.
The Singularity is Pure Clarity is Pure Awareness. It is never truly dispersed. There is only an appearance of splitting into opposites. The continuum maintains the singularity, although apparently stretched out through time and space. It is in Pure Awareness that the world appears.
Pure Awareness (aka Pure Clarity) is the nature of our being. It is within Pure Awareness that we perceive this play of light and darkness, the interplay of opposites that we call the world. Light and darkness, clarity and confusion play out within our pure awareness of it.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Non-duality
It Is What It Is: The Singular Theory of Everything is the title of my new book. It’s available as an Amazon Kindle eBook and as a paperback through Amazon. I’ll briefly explain here what this theory of everything is.
Consider the nature of a Singularity. It has no beginning or end, no limits. It is infinite. It is Here and Now – there is no space or time in a singularity. It does not change. There is no other. There is only the unending, undifferentiated oneness. This seems very different to the world we see. An Infinite Singularity cannot be seen. It has no form, and there is no other to look at it.
The world we experience is a World of Opposites. It appears as if it is the opposite of an infinite singularity. It appears as a finite world of many, a world of separation and definition, a world of distance, a world of change and motion. In this world of opposites we experience near and far, hot and cold, life and death, light and dark, truth and lies, love and hate, movement and stillness.
The teaching of Non Duality says that the world is not really defined or separated: there is only one. The limits that we perceive do not hold up to scrutiny. The fingers, hands, arms, and legs we label are not truly defined. They are non-separate elements of the body that we label as if they were separate. Similarly we label plants, animals and people as separate when they are truly non-separate elements of the planet. They rise within the planet, as seemingly distinct forms, and they return to the planet. But all the time they are the planet. The oneness of the universe is never broken.
The Singular Theory of Everything describes how the world appears to be separate but it is not. The Infinite Singularity from which the world seems to have appeared is always here. The apparently finite world appears within the Infinite Singularity and returns to the Infinite Singularity, whilst always being the Infinite Singularity. It seems that the world appears like the colours of the spectrum when dispersed from white light through a prism. It’s as if the Singularity is dispersed into the Continuum of Variety that we call a multiplicity.
This Singularity is not a lifeless thing. It is complete Life. It is Pure Peace. It does not lack or need for anything. The opposites that we experience are like its reflection. So where we experience the opposites of clarity and confusion, these stem from the Pure Clarity of the formless Singularity. The apparent stillness and motion that we experience are reflections of the True Stillness of the Singularity. The separation of opposites that we experience is a reflection of the Oneness of the Singularity, or as I call it, The Infinite One.
Furthermore, this Infinite One seems to be the still centre at the heart of our experience. It is that place in which the world is experienced, Consciousness. Our only experience of the world is in consciousness. The Singularity is Infinite Consciousness experiencing the world as finite forms. In our case as human beings. The heart of the human being and this human experience is the Infinite Singularity, Pure Unblemished Consciousness. This is the true nature of our being, not the mistaken identity that the mind believes in.
The book explores and elaborates this theory further, examining infinity, recognising patterns in the world, considering the spiritual significance of numbers in a singularity, exploring the heart of who you are, considering the mind, the ego, perception and emotions. Along the way there are tips and techniques to move forward in recognising the oneness of life and finding the peace and love that is the heart and whole of who we are.
It Is What It Is: The Singular Theory of Everything is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle and as a paperback from Amazon.
Visit David Hall’s Author Page.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: The Human Experience
It's important to understand the ego and its influence in each human life and humanity as a whole. The ego is the sense and belief of being a separate self, an entity separate from others. The ego grows from the mind's identification with the human form. The stronger the ego, the more it is identified with the human form and its sense of importance in and against the world. The extreme ego has a hardened mental shell that protects itself from others and distances itself from others. It clashes with others, often other egos with hardened mental shells. We are talking here of a clenched fists, angry, hateful, destructive ego, narcissistic and sadistic. It sounds harsh, but that's the extreme of the ego. It will cause misery and suffering to others wherever it goes.
Human history has seen this kind of ego dominate others and enrol others in its egotistic aims. We should be cautious of giving power to ego dominated people, yet it continues to happen. Sometimes people see a person with a strong ego as charismatic, and that may be the case, as it can often present as a distinctive personality with a certain charm and flair. A good lesson to learn is to recognise the ego when you see it, and to know its pitfalls.
Recognising the ego in others can also lead us to recognising the ego in us. Ultimately we experience the body, the perceptions, the feelings, the thoughts, and the identity within the mind. We experience the ego identity. It is not who we are. It is more like the opposite of who we are. The ego is the sense of separate self. Our true nature is the infinite and undivided selfless self. The ego is incomplete. It needs and wants. Our true nature is complete, without need or want.
The ego is the phantom ego, the mistaken identity, the great pretender, the false king. It is a bundle of thought forms that cling to its imagined identity with the human body. We perceive this. We are the Awareness that perceives the play of the ego and the world. It is through this sense of identity that we perceive the world.
What do we do about this pesky ego? There are things that we can do to lessen its control (it loves to control). Recognising that you are not the thoughts is a good starting place. See that the thoughts that arise are perceived by you but not thought by you. When thoughts about 'me' and 'mine' and 'others' run along, step back and know that you are perceiving them. Recognise that there are no limits to anything. There are no things. There are no limits that define who you are.
There are also practical actions that can be taken:
Peace - be at peace. Allow peace to permeate through the mind, the ego, the body, and to others and the world. You are the peace at the heart of being. You are unshakeable stillness. You cannot stop the motion of the world, but you can recognise the peace and stillness of your being. This allows peace to permeate through the human nature in its contact with others.
Acceptance - accept the mind, the ego, the body, others and the world. Let it be. Don't get caught up in it. It's okay for the world to be as it is. Know that you are unaffected by the ego's problems. This acceptance and realisation brings a centring of your being. It helps withdraw the mistaken sense and belief of identity and ego.
Love - be the love that you are. Allow love, the highest love, to shine through the mind and the ego, out into the world. Show kindness to others. Be selfless and caring and non-judgemental. Help where you can. But know that you are not the doer. You are not a body, ego or mind. This expression of love and kindness comes from the heart of your being and shines through the human form, bringing light into the world.
- Written by David Hall
- Category: Spiritual Symbols and Patterns
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.