What Is NonDuality

The term Non-duality is used in two different ways. First is the spiritual sense derived from the Indian tradition of Advaita which concerns the absolute essence of all phenomena. Second is the everyday sense of we are all one, transcending differences, etc. Both are valuable leading to greater care and respect. And both can easily become just concepts. We need to have nonduality be a reality in our lives, to embody it, and this comes not through understanding but through consistent practice.

Transcript

So what I decided to start talking about today,

We start off with,

Is the whole topic of non-duality.

Because it's really in the last sort of five,

Ten years,

It's become a real buzzword in spiritual circles.

I mean like all the teachers now claim to be non-dual,

Not all of them,

But so many teachers claim to be non-dual teachers.

And then a lot of people talking about non-duality in a sort of much more everyday sense of the word.

And so there's a lot of confusion.

So I wanted to start off really talking about what is and is not non-duality in the spiritual sense,

But also what it is in the everyday sense.

Because I think this is where the confusion comes,

Because we use it in an everyday sense and think we're talking about in the spiritual sense.

So the everyday sense of non-duality is when we do people talk about,

You know,

We are all one,

We are all one human race,

Or you know,

There's inner and outer,

You know,

Interact with each other,

Or the inner reflects the outer,

That sort of non-duality.

Or non-duality in terms of non-binary,

People use it to that sense with male,

Female,

Or racist,

Race context,

That sort of thing.

So that's the sort of the everyday sense of non-duality,

Which I hear a lot.

And people talk about,

You know,

This is a non,

This is non-duality,

This is a non-dual world,

Etc.

And I'm sure you've all heard those sorts of ideas being talked about.

And then there's the stricter spiritual sense.

Well,

It's really the original sense of non-duality of how it came into parlance in recent years.

And that comes from the Vedanta,

The Indian Vedantic tradition,

Where it's the word is Advaita,

It's a philosophy in that tradition,

Advaita.

And that literally means the R in front of a word in Sanskrit means not,

And Dvaita means dual.

It's about DVAITA,

So you can see the DV,

The DVA,

The DUA,

You can see how our word in English has come through the Sanskrit probably through Latin and things to Advaita.

So strictly translated as not two,

But it doesn't mean just one.

This is the important thing.

Really,

I like the translation,

It means not just two.

And the best illustration I know of what it means in the spiritual sense comes from the Chandogya Upanishad in India,

Which was one of the early Upanishads.

But it's the first clear exposition of the spiritual teaching of non-duality that I have come across.

And it's really clear what it's saying.

And in this Upanishad,

There's a teacher whose name is Uddalaka Aruna,

But don't worry about that.

And he's got a son called Svetakitu.

And his son,

He sent off his son as a teenager to go and study somewhere.

And he studies all these different things that you could study at the time,

Whether it was sort of astrology,

The mathematics,

The rituals,

The farming,

Whatever it was that was taught in those times.

We're talking two and a half thousand years ago.

And eventually,

The son comes home and all proud himself.

He's been to school,

He's learned everything from the best teachers.

And so he's full of himself.

And his father says to him,

But did they teach you about that which knows all that you know?

And he says,

What?

He said,

Yes.

He says that,

That which knows the unknowable,

That unknowable,

Which knows everything that is known.

And he says,

No.

And the son then says,

Please tell me,

Sir,

They're very respectful of their fathers in those days.

And so the teacher,

He then proceeds to give a whole series of analogies.

And the one I like the best is the one about a clay pot.

And he says,

You see here,

These different pots,

These different clay pots.

He said that they're all made of clay.

And they are all different.

Each pot is different.

There's a diversity of pots.

They're different in their shape,

Their size.

Each one is an individual pot.

And so he's saying there is duality.

Duality better translated as diversity.

There is diversity of pots.

And yet,

They're all made of clay.

And then he says,

But from the clay's point of view,

This is what's important.

He says,

The clay isn't changed in becoming a pot.

The clay doesn't change.

It's not affected by the individual potness,

The individual shape and color or anything of any individual pot.

The clay is unaffected by the potness.

And the clay is ever present.

And it's unchanged.

It is the essence of the pots.

And so this is the point he's making.

There is an unchanging essence to everything.

He's using the analogy of clay pot.

But he's saying there is diversity,

There is duality,

And there is this underlying essence.

And then he finishes this particular teaching as he finishes all of them.

Well,

This one he says,

You know,

By knowing one lump of clay,

You know,

The essence of all things made of clay.

And then the line with which he finishes each of these analogies he uses,

He says,

That being,

Which is the subtlest level of everything,

That art thou.

And that in Sanskrit is tat tvam asi,

Which is probably a phrase you've often heard,

Or may have heard,

Tat tvam asi.

It means that art thou.

What he's saying is,

What you are,

Ultimately you,

Is that essence,

Which is the essence of everything.

So that's the sort of the spiritual side of non-duality.

It's saying that there is an inner essence to us all.

He doesn't actually say what it is.

It's interesting.

He doesn't say what it is.

He's pointing to it,

As in these teachings.

As soon as you say what it is,

Give a name to it,

You're actually making a thing out of it.

But he's obviously referring to,

Once he refers to the self,

The knower,

To consciousness,

To being aware that is the essence behind everything that we know.

So that's the key point,

That it's not,

There is just oneness.

There is duality,

Diversity is very,

Very real.

And it's an and,

There is,

It's not just two,

And there is a oneness there.

And this is similar,

Reflects an idea which you find in many different spiritual teachings,

Not just Indian teachings,

Of the idea of there's the absolute and the relative.

The relative is the world we experience.

It's the ever-changing world of form.

In Sanskrit,

It's often talked about name and form.

It's the diversity of the world we experience.

I mean,

The trees I'm seeing,

The wind,

The rain,

Is that whatever I'm seeing around me and hearing.

But also the diversity of my inner experience,

The thoughts that come and go,

The feelings,

They're all part of what is called the relative world.

The absolute,

In most teachings,

Is referring to that which never changes.

The absolute is the unchanging aspect to experience.

And the unchanging aspect is the fact that,

Put in various ways,

I am aware is one way of approaching it.

There is this sense of being,

This sense of presence,

That is always there.

Whatever I'm experiencing,

It is happening,

It is an activity in my awareness.

So that's the absolute in most teachings.

We label it I,

That being aware,

Often we label it I.

That is how we talk about the fact of being aware.

And as we've mentioned in previous talks,

When you actually look for the I,

When you look for what am I,

That sort of inner quest,

Who am I,

Or as I like to put it,

What am I,

Ultimately you don't find anything.

You just find thoughts,

Ideas,

Experiences,

Images,

Whatever.

If you like,

You find relative representations in the mind.

But it's really by doing that quest,

Inner inquiry,

Just beginning to notice that beyond all that all is just,

Beyond all of that,

Is just the being aware.

And so that's the non-duality in the spiritual sense.

In the everyday sense,

It's really a non-duality in the relative.

They're taking the relative world of name and form,

Of all that is happening,

The world,

The people,

The animals,

And saying there is a non-duality here.

We are all interconnected.

There's a oneness there.

And I would like to say that it's not that the non-duality in the everyday sense is invalid.

It isn't.

There's a lot to it,

There's a lot of value.

It leads us to be more caring,

Respectful of others.

It takes us out of ourselves as being separate individuals.

But the danger is,

Actually with both of these,

Both with the everyday sense of non-duality and with the stricter spiritual sense of non-duality,

The danger is that it becomes just another idea,

Another concept.

And the important thing is,

Ultimately,

It shouldn't be just something we understand,

But we should know it in the sense of living it,

Embodying it.

And so when I say it just becomes another concept,

People say,

Oh yes,

In the relative sense,

We are all one,

We're all one human race,

Etc.

And it's a nice idea,

A good idea,

A valuable idea,

An important idea.

But it remains just a nice idea.

And we go on living our lives in our little ego capsules,

Etc.

With this idea,

We talk to people about everything being one or connected or whatever it is.

And it's the same with the spiritual concept of non-duality.

Often it remains just a concept.

People will listen to various spiritual teachers,

Non-dual teachers,

And there's,

As I say,

Plenty of them around.

They listen to them,

And they get the understanding that,

You know,

Behind everything I experience,

Behind all that is ultimately this sense of beingness,

Consciousness,

Whatever you want to call it,

The absolute,

The inner essence.

They get the understanding of it,

But they're not actually living it.

And so that's why,

As many have said,

Is that the important thing is the practice,

The meditations that lead us not just to understanding,

But lead us beyond the understanding to actually knowing it in our own self.

And the understanding is,

It can be really important because it can be a framework for the practice,

A context.

It can also be a motivation.

It can be an understanding to practice.

But it isn't.

It isn't actually it.

And so the non-dual practice,

Non-dual meditations,

Are basically practices which allow us to step back in one way or another from the relative world of experience,

Not just the experience in the outer world,

All that we're experiencing there,

But stepping back from the inner world of experience,

Our thoughts and feelings of stepping back and coming back to really noticing what is it that's there,

That's always present.

And that is the practice.

So it's one of not trying to get anywhere or have any particular experience.

Whereas many used to like relative practices of meditation are about getting somewhere,

Having something happen,

Achieving something.

The non-dual practices are more about just letting go of everything and noticing that question of what am I or what do we mean by I?

When we say I,

What is I referring to?

I know Rupert Spiro puts it,

Which I like,

Is what does the word I actually refer to in your own experience?

And that is really,

It's really important this that one begins to embody it,

Begin to live it in a sense and begin to.

And I'd like to point out,

Particularly those who know me,

I am not a fully enlightened,

Half enlightened,

Awakened being at all.

I'm not beaking out of it like some teachers,

But I have through my own practice,

Meditation over the years,

Dropped into these places from time to time,

Tasted them,

Sat in them for a while and just,

And know from that,

The value,

The real value of being able to come from this place in our world,

Where we are free,

If you like,

Free from the ego mind.

The ego mind is the mind that takes us out into the world of doing,

Of trying to achieve things in order to be happy,

To be at peace.

Whereas when you drop into,

The best way I put it is like coming home,

When we drop into coming home,

We find we are at peace,

We are at ease.

And there's a lovingness there.

Because when we're caught up in the ego mind,

We're sort of,

We're caught up in thinking,

Worry,

Planning,

Judgment,

All of that stuff.

It sort of veils the natural lovingness of the heart.

So when we do drop into that,

And begin to connect with that more in our daily life,

It begins to change how we interact with the world.

It's not that we try to do things differently.

But as one teacher put it,

There is just spontaneous right action,

Because the action is coming from within us from our own being rather than from the ego mind trying to work out what is right,

What is wrong,

Etc.

That is useful at times,

As I've said before,

But it's also important to be coming out where we can just from our own being.

And there's a lovely line I know some of you know from the Bhagavad Gita,

Another Indian teaching,

Where it says,

The line is established in yoga,

Perform action.

And that doesn't mean you're sitting in some yoga position,

Go out and do action,

Of course not.

It doesn't mean that at all.

Yoga,

It's interesting,

The root of yoga is actually to unite.

And people sometimes think of it yoga is uniting with something,

Uniting with God,

Uniting with spirit,

Uniting with.

I see it much more as the inner,

The inner unity established in the inner unity,

Which means established in the essence that is there behind all our experience or within which all our experience occurs,

Established in that essence,

Which is being consciousness.

From there,

Go out and perform action.

That's what it means.

And so this is,

This is the real value of it,

That we actually changes how we go out into the world,

We can go out with more love,

With more wisdom,

And we can begin to interact with the world in ways in which the world,

In which we're called to,

Rather than ways of saying which the ego dictates that we should do.

And the other,

I think,

Important value of this,

And it leads to the same as I mentioned,

The sort of more everyday sense of non-duality leads to action with more care and respect.

So does the actual spiritual embodiment of it.

Because talking about that sense of,

You know,

Whatever,

Whatever,

Call it home,

That essence,

Whatever it is,

How it is for me,

When I drop into that stillness,

That's a good way to put just that inner stillness,

Must be,

I think,

How it is for you and everybody else,

Because there's no,

When the mind is still,

There's nothing to identify with as me anymore.

There's just this sense,

This deep sense of me-ness presence that's always been there.

But because there's no form to it,

Then it must be the same for each and every one of us.

So in that sense,

I,

You know,

I know you deep down,

I know what it's like for everybody deep,

Deep down.

I don't know any,

You know,

I can get some idea of individuals,

Those I know a little bit from how you are,

Interaction,

What you say.

But,

You know,

Most people are sort of half invisible,

99% invisible to us.

But deep down,

Deep down,

We are all the same,

We're all that same sense of being that same sense of home.

And so that is something that actually unites us all is that that inner,

That inner being.

And it's something that we all,

We all want to return to,

I think it's the fundamental motivation for each and every one of us is to want to come back to,

Come back to that ease,

That peace,

That stillness,

That lovingness.

It's what we're all looking for.

It's what I've other times talked about just that and natural state of mind.

So when we recognize that is what we all want,

Then we can begin to act with more care and compassion and respect for other people.

And it's really about,

I've talked this before,

Caring for another person's inner well-being,

We can be fairly,

Fairly good about caring for people's outer well-being,

You know,

Can I help you with this?

Do you need help?

Can I do this?

Supporting other people.

The inner care is about caring for how another person feels inside.

And there's another line from Buddha,

Which I really like,

Purported to be,

Who knows,

One of his definitions of right speech.

To me,

This is really about caring.

He says,

Whatever you say to someone,

Can you say it in such a way that they feel good upon hearing it?

I would actually expand that from saying,

However you interact with another person,

Can you interact in such a way that they feel good upon the interaction?

They don't feel hurt,

They don't feel attacked.

And that comes just from this deep recognition that deep down,

We are all that same essence and deep down,

We all want exactly the same thing.

So I think I've been talking long enough,

I think I'll pause there.

We can come into questions in a minute.

I'd just like to just take us through a short meditation that will just take us into just being in this state for a little while.

And I'll begin the meditations as I have done previously.

Just asking everybody to just close your eyes,

Forget looking at the screen for the moment.

Just in your own time,

Just taking a few deeper breaths out.

Just allows the body to relax.

It's also just a sign to your being that everything's okay.

You can relax.

Right now,

There's nothing you need to take care of.

Nowhere you need to go.

Nothing you need to do.

And as you do,

You begin to notice more of the present moment.

My voice,

Maybe other sounds around you,

Sensations in the body,

But for this,

Not focusing on anything in particular.

I know some meditations,

They want you to focus on things.

In this,

It's more the opposite from focusing.

So much of our time we're focusing,

It's like our attention is zoomed in on something.

This practice,

I think it more is zooming out.

And it's noticing how it is generally to be here.

And the attention will flit around from one experience to another,

Some sounds,

Some sounds,

Some sounds.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

And it's just noticing how it is to be here.

Some sounds,

Some sensation in the body.

And to some thoughts that are going through your mind.

And as always,

In this sort of practice,

When we noticed we become engaged in some thought,

Some thought sort of captured our attention,

And we've gone off because it's interesting or something.

When you notice that's happening,

When you notice you've been caught up in some thought,

We just make that choice not to follow it any further.

And when we choose not to follow it,

Just the present re-emerges.

And we choose not to follow the thought,

We just again notice,

Ah,

Here I am,

Sitting here with this more open,

Expansive,

Zoomed out awareness.

As you do this,

Probably noticing greater sense of ease,

Relaxation,

Letting go.

As I said,

Not trying to do anything or get anywhere,

But just in a very gentle way,

Noticing how it is to be here.

Noticing any sense of ease,

Quietness,

Stillness.

I often like to just allow a smile,

An inner smile to be there,

Just as a way of just noticing,

Recognizing.

It actually feels nice to begin to settle down like this.

And then that sense of I,

That's always there in the background,

Often not noticed,

That I,

The I that is experiencing this meditation,

The different experiences,

The ease,

The I that knows the smiling.

Just noticing that background sense of I,

That background sense of I that's always there.

And how it is for you.

As we just,

We come home,

Come home to our own beingness.

That unchanging,

Ever-present sense.

Our own essence.

I will just continue sitting here for another minute or so.

And as always,

When you notice you,

You know,

Wandered off,

As you will do,

Just gently coming back,

Coming back,

Noticing the sitting here,

The being here.

A sense of more relaxation as you come back away from the thought.

And just coming back to noticing you,

Just observing,

Aware of it all.

That you that's always there.

And now we just gently return from the meditation.

As always,

I suggest you just come out gently.

Don't rush out.

You know,

To begin with,

You might want to just gently flex your fingers or toes,

Little movement.

When you're ready,

Just slowly opening the eyes,

But no,

Don't just open them suddenly.

What I like to do is just open them a tiny bit,

Just allow a little bit of light in.

So just gently come back.

And that's important,

Not just so it's not too much of a shock,

But also that way we begin to bring more of that quality of the meditation back with us.

Reviews

This was a beautiful explanation of nonduality. I lofed the analogy of the clay pots abd the way you applied it to our sameness/oneness even with our apparent differences. Thank you.

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