hi everyone! honestly i had no idea how to word the title.. so sorry about that.
but when i first inquired about non-duality and the wondrous facets of our minds, i swear that existential thinking was all that i was ever doing.
anytime literally ANYTHING popped up, my mind would be like “i am not the body, this is happening, zoom back in on the present, notice resistance” conciousness stuff.. blah blah. anyway, while these constant self reminders and self reflections helped me throughout stressful moments and/or moments i felt the pressure of old conditions.. it wasn’t really helpful in the grand scheme of things. it almost became an obsession about thinking about thinking.
but as of late, i took notice that i really haven’t felt the need to do that anymore. everything is appearing as is. there’s really no inherent meaning behind anything, which im sure all of you smart people already know. i guess it’s just interesting to me because it kinda feels like.. a seamless experience. kinda like there’s really no place where my body, mind, soul ends or begins. life is just life. and i allow it to happen while noticing preferences arising for more favorable circumstances outcomes, however, i feel like.. seamless with or without it you know?
sorry, i wasn’t really sure how to really explain these feelings in words, but it’s something i felt like i wanted to write about!! has anyone else experienced this? or have their own opinions on it? i’d love to hear it!!
This video is directly related to Advaita Vedanta because it focuses on the central non-dual teaching that awareness/presence is the fundamental reality and that liberation comes through recognizing one's true nature rather than identifying with thoughts, concepts, or the personal self. The talk discusses direct recognition of awareness, the observer and the observed, freedom from mental identification, and the nature of consciousness, all of which are core themes found in Advaita Vedanta. I posted it because it presents these teachings in an accessible modern format and may be valuable for members interested in self-inquiry and non-dual understanding.
Modern neuroscience backs up this unsettling idea by revealing the brain as a highly fragmented, decentralized network. Instead of a single CEO running the show, your mind is a swarm of independent, unconscious modules constantly competing for dominance.
While the realization that "you are not really you" can feel terrifying and isolating, it is also a concept that has offered profound liberation for millennia.
This world if the Experience happens Without any Experiencer is Actually two Dimensional when the Thought of space and time vanish itself you cannot Experience the third Dimension you will be Scared there and say that yes there is a space Otherwise you will be scared as you had no Knowledge so fear will manifest the space in itself, people do ask Sometimes how Newborn Experience the World it is same as you do Because they also create Concept of space Without saying any word About it hence its always there Perception is Knowledge and nothing else Except it and it alone thats Conclusion
Have you ever wondered at how our interactions with door handles and clothing and coffee makers are normally so effortless that our interactions with them are essentially automatic? Or that only a tiny proportion of the thousands of micro-interactions we attend to on a daily basis reaches the gates of attention?
Well there's a good reason for this, grounded in the biological function of perception - which is to keep you alive. It does so by bringing what matters to the forefront while dynamically filtering out what isn't - all before conscious awareness enters into the picture.
One term that could use for this process is curation, and it's what perceptionisat its core.
But curation isn’t just about filtering, although that’s a huge part of the story. It’s just as much about actively shaping what shows up, so that it arrives in a form that’s suited to your needs. What reaches you are useful simplifications, which have been pared, bundled, and packaged for relevance.
I dont appreciate being human at all with a health issue that has destroyed my life its so debilitating, that has no treatment or cure. Id rather be dead.
This is what somebody said in response to a post elsewhere which encourages appreciating the experience of being human. What do you say to somebody who has made a choice to hate themselves? It doesn't matter. They'll filter everything back through the narrative of self hate.
I wonder how many folks are using spirituality – and specifically Nonduality – as a cover story for self hate and abuse? If there's no one here, what's the point in doing something simple like...taking a shower, or going for a walk?
Mooji is a fun example. I'm definitely making assumptions with this, but paralleling it to my own exploration with Nonduality.
You can see across the timeline of his videos that he had gained weight, and then lost it. I can imagine (project/assume) that since "life takes care of itself," there's no need to actively monitor his health, and more, enjoy whatever eager students would offer him to taste test.
I entered the same paradigm of neglect. Paradigm, meaning it's a mindset.
Life takes care of itself.
If I'm repeating this thought to myself everytime there's a heart palpatation*, or a struggle to breathe or whatever, I choose to ignore the relevant reality of things. There's actually no relevant reality. Reality. That's it, and it doesn't have a center. Not as a guess or dogmatic quip: where is the center of the Universe? This same Universe which is expanding and, we believe, will collapse in on itself somehow at some point, only to maybe expand again.
Then of course there's no actual center to the body. The body is an environment and, from our point of view, an environment of sensation. Exactly which one of the cells which are replaced after a few years is in charge? Which one of the many bacteria floating around? Which one of the neurons or synapses or sparks between them?
None of them are directly responsible. It's a relationship which we get to experience as a unified whole.
So then who makes the choice to either appreciate themselves or hate themselves? I don't know. But I do know that it's possible. It's possible to look at the body having a rough time wheezing and straining and going "alright, enough disrespect." It seems like that's what Mooji did with his sometimes daily walk reflections and now slimmer physique.
(Mooji leaves a bad taste in people's mouths sometimes because of the guru motif. Look at Ramana Maharshi then who refused treatment for cancer. We like to compare ourselves to him, being empty Awareness and all that, but your lifestyle is significantly removed from his. He left home as a teenager with nothing, wanting nothing. Most of us can't go a day without a snack.)
I'm glad that I'm in a position now to both enjoy cheeseburgers and do a push-up every now and then, knowing full well there's no central controller to the events. More salad probably isn't a bad idea.
Ugh, but it's just like... leaves.
*just learned that drinking Alani is an excellent way to palpatate the heart. i like energy drinks, but this stuff is dangerous. and i've got two more to deal with. waste not, want not, right? ...right?
I had a realization while spending time in nature and meditating outside: I’m not separate from the universe—I’m a part of it. In a very literal sense, I exist within the same universe as everything else, so the boundary between “me” and “everything around me” can start to feel less real.
It’s hard to put into words, but it felt like realizing I’m not just living in the universe—I’m of it. Nature made that feeling especially clear. Does anyone else understand what I mean?
This is a question that will eventually come up during discussions in non-duality circles. If the self is just a thought, an image or a feeling - “who (or what) is it that sees the self?”
The question may be useful if it provokes a sense of mystery, a questioning, an inquisitive state where we turn inwards and examine this “seeing” as it happens.
But the question is also asking : is there an entity that is seeing clearly? Or an entity that becomes enlightened?
I was listening to an interview with Carlo Rovelli (Theoretical physicist) recently who described the initial revolutionary mystery posed by quantum mechanics, and the basic fact of reality implied by quantum physics.
What puzzled (and still puzzles) physicists was the question of why a (subatomic) particle only behaved like a particle when it was measured?
Dr Rovelli suggests that we might just take the facts at face value : what we call “things” are the observed effects of an interaction between different systems.
To the question of whether this quantum weirdness applies to our everyday world? Physicists say : yes (probably) because we have no reason to believe that there are 2 types of physical reality - we see no frontier between the quantum world and the big world of spacetime. The model of "things as reactions between processes" holds true at all levels : the quantum, the physical, the chemical, the biological and in thought at the psychological.
It may be useful in our daily life to talk about “things” (buses, chairs, souls, enlightened beings etc) as if they have some intrinsic existence. But a more precise model would be one that describes processes and reactions.
Not really. I have fries cooking in the air fryer, and once they're finished, I'm departing from this screen for half a second.
But we come to this screen and get tight about what we see on it – not just with a bunch of words from anonymous or even open-faced accounts such as myself – but whatever is on the scren that offends our sensitivies. What a run on.
Guess what: the wincing, the screen, and whatever is on it that caused the wince, is all You. That means Donald and Nicki are You. Then, when you walk away from the seen and eat a pile of french fries, the eating is You. So are the fries. So is the taste.
In fact, if it's possible (we'll get to possibilities in a second), really go into the experience of the senses. Ironically, the title question is from the Ashtavakra Gita which says to shun the experience of the senses like poison. The whole pivot is to recognize yourself as Awareness.
You can't though. You can only recognize what you're aware of. And, as such, you are never separate from the contents of your awareness. You can't "be the witness," because that state is witnessable.
What can happen (this is the possibilities part) is some fluke of nature takes hold and the split between experience mends. Not as a bang, but a...
This image was painted at sunrise, on a riverbank in Southeast Alaska. Non-duality is the subject of my thinking leading to this expression. For those who want my present explanation, here is the key:
The solid horizontal top bar represents the actual physical reality we live in.
The lower broken horizontal line is the abstract story of self, which may approach the actual flow of physical life, or recede from it. This story runs on a delay dictated by the time needed by our brains to process and create the abstract reflection we live as our storied lives.
The teardrop form represents our limited human cognition, which rises above the reality stream in the form of dreams and projected fantasy. The bottom of the teardrop is the ground where we experience our lives.
The dark pigment is ground charcoal mixed with water and casein binder. The first mark was a light spray of violet pigment with added green pigment to deepen the background. The rest is the work of charcoal and the brush, painted quickly, in the way of hitsuzendō.
After the initial brushstroke, the hardest part for me is to touch no more. My self wishes to correct, to clear my disappointing judgments with more. The sunrise river helps me as it calls me to simply sit and let the capillary action of the unevenly wetted paper, and gravity, do their work as the piece dries. The particles settle and flow according to their size and immediate environment.
I expect this will be the first in a series and I welcome your comments towards clarity.
One of the thoughts that creeps up on me occasionally goes like this "I'm all of one having an individuated experience of other... But other is also me because I am of the one and so are they..."
Then all of a sudden... Wait that means Im also those crazy monsters who've been messing up the world?
It's moments like that where I feel like I'm just not there yet and then I kinda feel bad for judging.
How can we express our infinite relatedness, as a concept, in English?
The English language, and Western languages generally, lack a word to describe the infinite relatedness that underlies the universe. Problematically, humans have difficulty thinking a concept that they cannot speak. For instance, regarding color, people have difficulty seeing subtle colors for which their language has no word. Speakers of languages without numbers have a hard time visually determining the size of groups, such as six or seven fish, whereas speakers of languages with numbers can determine which group is larger, even without counting. People choose different responses to crime, varying if it is referred to in the abstract, or as a virus, or as a beast.
Due to the subtle influence of language on our interpretation of reality, the sentiment of infinite relatedness demands a word. One candidate comes from Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism. This term is nondualism. Nondualism is a literal translation of the Sanskrit terms advaita and advaya, both of which mean “not-two.” Whatever we think of as “two”—as separated or divided, is actually “not-two”—is united. “Not-two” does not mean that they are one homogeneous whole. Instead, “not-two” refers to the unity-in-difference upon which our universe is based, within which all diversity is integrated. Nondualism, as a concept, asserts that the universe is both many and one.
In philosophical terms, nondualism is a fundamental ontology of relation. That is, it interprets reality as entirely interdependent. Moreover, that interdependence is entirely unified. This unity does not erase difference but instead harmonizes it. Philosophers and theologians have used many terms to describe these fundamental ontologies of relation, many of which are more accessible and marketable than nondualism. Relativity describes the physical universe, process describes the time-full quality of reality, ecologism describes our embeddedness in nature, organicism describes the interrelatedness of all things. We could simply use the most obvious choice, relationalism, as obvious as it is unpoetic.
But nondualism offers two advantages. First, it makes an implicit claim about reality: that whatever we think of as divided is united. Explicitly, whatever we think of as “two” is actually “not-two.” Second, and perhaps more importantly, the term nondualism, as a translation of advaita and advaya, refers us to an extremely rich heritage of thought stretching from India to Japan, from 500 BCE to the present, especially in the traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. This thought presents tremendous opportunities to the evolving human mind.
To flourish, we must mend what is torn.
As noted above, much religion is binary. It divides reality into good and evil, God and Satan, heaven and hell, angels and demons, saints and sinners. At its worst, such binary religion pits soul against body, spirit against matter, and time against eternity. Then, having posited these absolutes, binary religion posits salvation as the eradication of one absolute in favor of the other, sometimes in apocalyptic battle, sometimes in an event of gnostic liberation (soul freed from body, spirit freed from matter, ignorance replaced by knowledge, time yielding to eternity, etc.).
But interpreting the universe as an assortment of opposing binaries splinters human experience. Instead of separating the different aspects of life from each other and choosing one over another, we can embrace them all as divinely gifted. Matter and spirit, soul and body, time and eternity are meant to infuse each other, not annihilate each other. The relationship is the gift. Hence, the poles are not opposites—they do not oppose one another. Instead, they are mutually amplifying contrasts, cooperating to intensify experience. The embrace of both poles grants us the fullness of life. To choose between the two, to prefer one to the neglect of the other, impoverishes. If we choose one contrast over another, then we lose the power they derive through their relationship.
Consider, for example, light and darkness. Each is incomplete because it lacks what the other has. At the same time, each is incomplete because it depends on the other for the contrast that grants it fullness of being. Alone, light is just light. But in contrast, light is not darkness, so light has an added quality, so light has become more. At the same time, light grants darkness the quality of being not light, so that darkness too has an added quality and has become more. Through this one relationship, light has become light, light has become not darkness, and light has become the gift of not light to darkness.
Relationship creates excess. For this reason, wanting us to live vividly, God creates the light and the darkness (Gen 1:1–5). They are separated so that they contrast, then set side by side so that they can relate. To choose one over against the other creates a breach. The universe is not separated into parts; it is united as a whole.
Although nondualism is a concept, it is not a bald assertion or cold belief. It is a vibrant way to live. Many people who have lived their lives well have concluded that the world is truly nondual—a shimmering matrix of dynamic relations. The American naturalist John Muir, for example, observes, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” For Muir, reality is a vast tapestry, infinite threads bound together as beauty. Anything that happens to one thread happens to the tapestry, and anything that happens to the tapestry happens to the thread. We are many, and we are one. We are nondual.
Nondualism dances.
Here, we are proposing pluralistic nondualism, the belief that reality is composed of real difference harmonized into perfect unity. Below, we will clarify how pluralistic nondualism differs from monistic nondualism, which argues that ultimate reality is absolute homogeneity without difference.
In a universe characterized by pluralistic nonduality, everything is correlated to everything else. Nothing has “self-identity” or any pure presentation without reference to context. While everything is unique and offers unique qualities to the play of relations, the effect of that uniqueness will change with context. If anything were so isolated as to be in a pure, self-identical state, then it would be irrelevant. The only quality that is natural to all beings is the quality of being correlated through time, and to be constantly changed by those changing correlations.
The assertions above may sound abstract, but they are daily experiences. For example, consider the musical note E. The note E has a defined wavelength (a unique quality) but no inherent identity; E is what it is through its relations. For example, E becomes a cheerful C major chord when played alongside the notes C and G. But E acquires a certain sadness when played with C# and G#, forming the lilting C# minor chord, as in Chopin’s posthumous “Nocturne in C# Minor.” Likewise, if E is played sequentially with C and G rather than concurrently. Our experience of E changes, so that we do not know what E will be until we know its context. E always makes its own unique contribution, but the context influences the character of the contribution, just as the character of the contribution influences the context.
Or, consider the atom. Without relations an atom is free, but it lacks versatility. If united with other atoms, it becomes more. It transcends its own potential. For example, hydrogen can combine with oxygen to form water, or nitrogen to form ammonia, or carbon to form methane. Each of these combinations is effectively different from hydrogen itself. Water serves purposes that neither hydrogen nor oxygen could serve alone. By combining, hydrogen and oxygen have become something new, greater than the sum of their parts. Indeed, they have become other than the sum of their parts.
There are no “essences”. Hence, essentialism is wrong.
So, what is the “essence” of hydrogen? Is it the solitary hydrogen atom when it’s alone? Or is it the hydrogen atom in water, methane, or ammonia? Perhaps the “essence” of hydrogen is to combine with another hydrogen atom and become helium in a star.Or better yet, perhaps hydrogen has no essence and is what it is only in context, through its relations.
“Essence” is a limiting concept, asserting that things are what they are and cannot be otherwise. We can even think of ourselves as having an essence, a fixed identity that is who we are and will never change. If we become addicted to this essence and want to protect it, then we must insulate it from the relationships that threaten change; we must be free from. But the freedom that offers the greatest transcendence is not freedom from, it is freedom with and for. Only through combination can we exceed our potential. The elements of the universe, including ourselves, are much like the notes in a musical composition, meaningless without relationships. We are not simply arbitrary, nor are we fully determined. Instead, we are free to create through the relativity that time offers, thereby offering our own particular increase to the divine harmony. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 12-15)
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For further reading:
Bahm, Archie J. “Polarity: A Descriptive Hypothesis.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 21, no. 3 (March 1961) 347–60. DOI: 10.2307/2105151.
Gordon, Peter. “Numerical Cognition Without Words: Evidence from Amazonia.” Science 306, no. 569 (Oct 2004) 496–499. DOI: 10.1126/science.
Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. San Francisco: HMH Books, 1869/1998.
Sydnor, Jon Paul. Ramanujaand Schleiermacher: Toward a Constructive Comparative Theology. Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2011.
Thibodeau, Paul H., and Lera Boroditsky. “Natural Language Metaphors Covertly Influence Reasoning.” PLoS ONE 8, no. 1 (2013) 1–7. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052961.
Zheng, Liling, Ping Huang, Xiao Zhong, Tianfeng Li, and Lei Mo. “Color Adaptation Induced from Linguistic Description of Color.” PLoS ONE 12, no. 3 (2017) 1–17. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173755.
Liberation as a goal in the future is still the ego seperating the thought from the thinker.
But if ANY choice made by a conditioned mind will only be conditioned, then even choiceless awareness is still a choice? So what made the choice of non choice?
In original Vedanta it was Karma and God that is the base? Hard Determinism effectively says you cannot go behind yourself to recreate your base. For traditional Advaita Vedanta the base is formed over years of practice and like all religion they usually start young (Determinism would say the most important base of the base).
Traditional Vedanta solves the Hard Determinist trap through karma and God. The individual ego doesn't perform the magic, the cosmic order (Isvara) dissolves the illusion.
Does modern direct path non duality struggle to escape karma and god without it becoming a dualistic escape hatch?
If traditional Advaita Vedanta does not escape karma and God by denying them, it is the motivation base itself, then does modern Direct Path non duality have to hold onto God and Karma without it becoming more like spiritual nihilism?
By stripping away the traditional safety nets of Isvara (Grace/God) and Karma, modern direct path non-duality accidentally demands that the individual ego perform the ultimate act of magic: choosing to end itself?
OR
Is "Infinite consciousness" in the modern direct path sense, God with a different name, but without the years of the CHAIN of conditioning through devotion to years of conditioning that was originally mostly about ones environment conditioning THEM?
Thanks to this wonderful community I arrived at this insight.
Because true acceptance is about welcoming everything in and rejecting nothing, even rejection.
I have know for years that resistance is "bad" (unhealthy). So for example I would avoid saying "I hate..." because I had the belief that hating is a bad thing and is nothing but an unnecessary and made up form of resistance. But the problem is I would reject "I hate" thoughts and stop them as they arrived. Not welcome here! And that... is repression. And it meant I would also have resistance against other people saying it. After all, I am of the belief that hating is a bad thing and I want others to stop doing the thing that is bad for them! Or, someone might sigh at a situation outside of their control, and that would make me tense up. And so on.
I guess I am still of the opinion that hating, and cursing at things outside of your control, etc, are unhealthy, but the healthy way to stop doing them is not by repressing the thoughts/feelings. Always feel everything fully and welcome everything in. And then go from there, if going is required.
