The Quantum View of Realization

In this talk A. H. Almaas challenges the prevailing non-dualistic view of realization when it considers dualistic experience as due to the individual’s delusion of separateness. By challenging this ancient and common view that the ordinary world is an illusion, he takes us to a wider view of reality, a view that recognizes nondual realization as only one way enlightenment can happen. He uses the language of quantum theory to present a view of reality that is more mysterious and indeterminate than either duality or non-duality. Our ordinary world is also acknowledged as real, but not as the only way reality can be. A new kind of freedom becomes possible, which is the freedom of view, not just of experience.

Presentation from a teaching Almaas has given at an all school retreat Asilomar, August 2017

Transcript

The Diamond Approach offers an immense and precise body of knowledge about the nature of reality and the process of spiritual realization.

And now a talk from Hamid Ali,

A.

H.

Elmas,

The founder of The Diamond Approach.

As I said,

Many of you know or have heard that in this teaching we have what we call the Four Turnings.

Each turning bringing about different ways of experiencing with its own realization.

So the first turning is where most people are and where the path unfolds for some years.

That's the turning where we learn about our issues,

Our patterns of images,

Qualities of presence,

Discover presence,

Discover soul,

Its characteristics,

Properties,

All the way to the personalization of the soul and its self-realization as a point.

So there is realization in the first turning when we become the point of light and presence and recognize that is what we are.

We are a timeless presence that lives and expresses itself as a personal essence in the everyday world.

But we also know this path that the moment you learn the experience of realization where you don't just experience presence,

That you experience it as what you are,

Which we call realization.

That tend to bring about the boundless dimensions that our realization is not only a realization of presence but that presence is unbounded and boundless and then the pursuing of that will result in what we call non-dual realization where we are the vast expanse through nature where everything,

All forms,

All phenomena are simply formation within this formless goodness.

Formations and expressions display manifestation,

Emanation,

Different ways of saying of this vast expanse of this true nature which has no boundaries and limitation and perfect and good and full of light and love and goodness and is ever-effulging as the various conditions of the world.

And there is a non-dual condition,

Everything is beautiful,

Everything is luminous and shiny and transparent,

A little different depending on which dimension happens to be the expanse you are experiencing.

Dimension is presence,

Everything is fullness of presence and the whole world and the knowingness that is implicit in the presence.

And if we are a non-conceptual awareness everything is simply a display of the potentialities of this awareness.

If we are the absolute dimension then everything appears as the luminosity of the mystery.

And we are the vastness,

Everything is beautiful and shiny and everybody is shiny and that brings a great deal of love and appreciation and freedom,

Sense of freedom and non-dual especially because we are being the true nature,

There is no suffering.

True nature doesn't have suffering as one of its properties.

And we also see from the non-dual that if we start looking at things from the perspective of a separate self we lose that experience of non-dual vastness and oneness of everything.

So from the non-dual it appears that the ordinary world with its dualistic way of experiencing is due to us believing and identifying with being a separate individual,

A separate self.

In other words from the perspective of non-dual realization which we have been working with the last few meetings the ordinary world,

What's called the conventional world or the dualistic world is due to a cognitive error,

It is due to beliefs and ideas,

It is due to delusion and it can be seen from the non-dual as not true,

It's simply a mistaken view of reality.

And the mistaken view of reality is the belief that we are a separate individual,

Everybody is a separate individual and there are separate discrete objects in the world hurtling through space the way most people see them.

So from the non-dual perspective the way everybody sees things,

Most people see things is really a distortion of how reality is because the non-dual we see which means that now we know how things really are,

That is the way everything is,

Everything is simply true nature or a form of true nature manifesting some of its potential.

And everything is luminous,

Transparent and glistening with light and a goodness that is inherent to it.

And of course when you know that you want to live in that place,

You want to live in this place of goodness,

Luminosity because there is freedom and even though there is physical suffering,

The physical suffering is small in comparison to the blissfulness of the vastness.

We are the vastness,

Any pain is a little thing,

The surface phenomena.

That is what we see from the second turning,

The second turning view is that the first turning view is not the way things are,

It is due to not recognizing that the vastness is the nature of everything,

That true nature is the nature of everything which makes everything a display or creation or expression of this goodness.

That is how things appear in the way and the path as we move from the first to the second turning and how we look from the second turning to the first turning,

That is how things look.

And that is the view of most non-dual teachings.

Whether eastern or western,

The view is the non-dual is the way things are and the ordinary or conventional or dualistic world is we are looking through some kind of veils of ideas,

Beliefs and ignorance,

Hence ignorance is the main thing that makes people stay in the dualistic world and if we are free from that ignorance we will be in the non-dual which is the true condition of things.

And that the true nature is the primordial truth that eternally so.

That really underlies the dualistic view but we don't perceive it because we are looking through layers and layers of veils of belief,

Ideas and conditioning concepts and images.

Now there are several points I want to bring out here because we want to move on to the other turnings and it is important here that we recognize how things appear from non-dual because we have been working with it and many people have been experiencing this vastness and freedom with it and beauty and love and the goodness and when we feel we are not there we think we are not getting it right,

We should be there,

Now non-dual is where it is at.

If you listen to most spiritual teachers these days around the world,

Most spiritual books that is what you hear,

The non-dual is where it is at and that is how things appear from the non-dual.

When we are experiencing the non-dual we feel certain this is reality because it feels so real and so much more real than how things felt when we were in the dualistic or the dualistic world.

But I want to bring in a few questions here,

In the non-dual there is this immense ocean of light,

Power,

Energy,

Love,

Goodness and it is infinite,

Boundless and infinite in its light and its intelligence and its goodness and then you think if you take the view that it is a cognitive error then one little puny person's idea in their mind turns all of that,

All that immensity of light and power and goodness into this cold physical world devoid of love and the only light it has is the light of the stars and the sun with lots of strife and trouble and discrete objects all the way from meteors to planets to people to atoms and all that in the world of discreteness appears,

All of it appears because in somebody's mind they have this idea that they are a separate individual.

That is actually the view of non-dual teaching but you think really all that immensity can all vanish because this little deluded individual has some belief in their mind,

It deletes the whole immensity of light and goodness,

It disappears and you don't see it and it leaves only the outer outline of the non-dual because the world appears as the outer surface of the non-dual,

The world continues to appear but appears as the external outermost radiance of the light of true nature of the vastness,

Still the light,

Still the vastness but it is the outer most of it,

There is the inner subtle qualities and forms but the outer most form is the physical which is where most people live.

So the first thing is to see suppose that that is true that just by you having a little belief in your head you turn God into those separate suffering people.

God with his immensity or the Brahman with its vastness or the Dharmakaya with his eternity,

Turn it into this little world called Samsara,

Turn Nirvana into Samsara just by one thought in your mind and you think wow that's magic.

Don't you think that's magic?

I mean how powerful a human being or human mind can be just by having one idea in one's mind about being a separate individual,

Things are separate,

It deletes all the heavens,

All the spiritual realities,

All the glory,

All the power,

All the light,

All the goodness and what's left is the outer most layer,

The crust,

Left devoid of its ground that is the vastness of true nature.

I think well really it's amazing if you think about it that way that is one way of seeing magic,

Some of us might think it's black magic but it is amazing magic anyway,

Black or no black.

Of course that doesn't mean that when you are not experiencing the non-dual you're deluded,

It means about 99.

9999% of the human race are deluded and actually people who are realizing the non-dual that's exactly what they believe that all people are asleep,

Deluded,

Don't know what the hell is going on,

They don't know what things are,

How reality is,

They're all off,

They're all off their rockers.

In my 40 years or so of teaching I've come across many individuals who when they hear of that they don't believe it,

They say how can that be,

How can reality be really goodness,

Look at the trouble all around you,

Where is the goodness and you tell them well because you deluded that's why you don't see it,

They say what?

You mean the hurricane that killed 10,

000 people the other week and all these devastation happen,

Earthquakes and all of that,

All that because of my delusion or somebody's delusion,

Doesn't make sense.

In other words for a western mind especially if you're good at critical thinking the logic doesn't hold and scientifically,

Statistically impossible because our science takes statistics only few people think that way,

That statistically trivial number to use it for truth.

But assuming it is true I'm saying if it is true it is an amazing truth,

I mean it is the most magical thing we've discussed so far,

How you could turn all the heavens into this miserable earthly existence,

With its diseases,

With its violence,

With its mortality,

With its brutality,

With its primitiveness,

With all of that,

Amazing,

I mean how can you turn the pure goodness that Plato talked about,

All good and the doctors say Konto Zankpo is the true reality,

That is the primordial truth,

The truth that is always so independent of our belief,

It is always like that,

We just don't see it because of some concept in our minds.

Of course the magic here is that those concepts have some kind of power that even the primordial light doesn't have,

That even the immensity of enlightened true nature can't be constrained,

Can't be changed around,

What is a little slight trick of the hand,

It's just one thought in your mind,

One belief and the gods are deleted.

That is an amazing magic,

But what I know as I said many people don't buy it and some people are mad to hear that,

They say that doesn't make sense,

It's inhuman,

Some people just make them at least cynical and I think our secular scientific community tend to be very suspicious spiritually for many reasons,

I think this is one reason,

When you say everything is consciousness,

Everything is goodness but they don't see that,

The experiment don't show it and everybody seem to agree with them,

They say what are you talking about,

Of course they don't believe you.

And even though you can prove to them there are miracles that happen and all of that,

But statistically those miracles are trivial in scientific terms,

When you consider all that happens to people,

All the people,

6 billion people all throughout history and those few miracles that happen around the world,

They are oddities that don't need to be considered by science.

Not only that,

If you look at the ordinary world,

If it is an illusion,

An illusion,

An error,

How come it is so self consistent.

Our world,

The physical world that people live in,

The ordinary world is actually run by physical laws,

Phenomena obeys physical laws that science have discovered,

It is lawful,

It behaves according to true natural laws,

Law of gravity,

Law of electromagnetism,

All the forces that are in nature and also all the science that is known,

Biology,

Neuroscience and psychology,

They are all studying all this immensity of things,

The planets,

The galaxies,

The stars,

The human beings,

The animals,

The mountains,

The ocean,

The atoms,

Their cells,

Their neurons,

Their electrons,

All of this is a delusion.

When you think of it,

It is the whole universe of experience and of reality that most people experience most of the time.

So you think how is this delusion turned out to be abiding by such universal laws of science that we keep discovering more of them.

Of course if you are in an undual place,

Everything is really how things appear,

It is not what the reality is and it actually looks like that from the undual.

So if you have only the dualistic perspective and the non-dual perspective,

You don't have other way to look at it.

One of them has to be wrong.

So either the non-dual is wrong,

The scientists believe,

It is just somebody's imagination,

Or the dualistic is wrong according to the non-dual master which is people are deluded.

As I said,

The Western teachings have gotten around that by having what is called the great shape of being,

That reality has levels,

Planes of being,

So that there is the ordinary world with its usual comforters and comers and hubbub is just one of the worlds.

It is the lowest rung of the ladder,

But it is,

That's the way it is.

And if you are monotheistic,

That's how God made it.

And then above it there are other worlds,

The more higher you go,

The more divine and pure and until you get to the purest,

Well there is a pure goodness,

Pure love and light,

Just like the non-duals.

And if you stand from there,

You can see the whole world,

The ordinary world from that place appears as ephemeral,

The way the non-dual teaching perspective will take it,

Will look from the highest level,

The levels of oneness and unity will appear as ephemeral and it is really made out of light and love.

But you have to be over there,

That level,

If you come back in a journey of descent,

If you come back to the physical world,

You come to the world of limitation.

And that is how Kashmirish has now taken it,

That the origin,

The source of Shiva is unconstrained,

Unlimited and Shiva then constrains itself little by little,

Limits itself first through Shakti,

Its creative power,

Then the world of unity,

Then the world of oneness,

Then the world goes on through a quite actually detailed account of many levels until we get to the physical world the way most people see it.

And sees that as basically a limitation,

God limits itself until it becomes this.

So it's not anybody's delusion.

Non-dualist teaching like Vedanta and the Buddhists tend to think it's the individual delusion which I mentioned before and I just said today is an amazing magic,

If it's true individual can do that but the non-dual view also as I mentioned has a little contradiction in it which is the non-dual means there are no separate beings,

It's all one unified beingness.

So where's this one person who has the wrong idea?

There isn't one like that.

And actually Buddha mentioned that,

Sakyamuni Buddha I mean,

Not the second or third Buddha,

Where he said in one of the sutras,

Buddhist atlas are those who un-elaborate all sentient beings.

He says that and then the next sentence he says,

But if you believe there are sentient beings you are not a Buddhist atva.

But both of them together,

As far as I know he doesn't go on and elaborate and there are commentaries I'm sure by different masters to explain what does that mean,

You know,

So the two statements are contradictory.

He didn't like to get into metaphysics,

That's what they say,

He just wanted direct experience.

So the little he said he thought better just practice,

Get into your practice and you will be liberated and it is true,

For many actually if you get into practice you will be liberated and we see it in the dualistic perspective,

If you practice you get into the non-dual and non-dual seems to be the liberation,

That is the truth.

So which one do we take,

Do we take the non-dual perspective,

The Eastern or do you think the Western makes more sense and some sense is more logically consistent than the many levels,

Although metaphysically when you study it many levels has its own issues.

And as I said the Western perspective is hierarchical,

Jacob ladder and ascent and descent,

I mean Kabbalah goes to the extent of saying that God created the creation imperfect,

Intentionally so that souls perfect it by their own evolution,

That is the Kabbalistic perspective how things are,

They don't say it's an illusion,

They say no that's how it is but you can make it perfect by realizing yourself,

Connecting yourself to the origin,

To the truth of the divine.

For Western leaning people the critical thing is that sounds sort of more believable than the Advaita or the Buddha's perspective of non-duality where it's either truth or delusion,

Here at least it gives you different perspective,

Different views from different level.

In the diamond approach for about decade or two our view was the non-dual view as of realization and I remember we were in that condition for decade or two where the absolute awareness and everything is luminosity that is the realization,

That is the truth and obvious from it that separateness and discreteness is due to beliefs in the mind.

This did not get questioned until we got to the third turning,

The third turning which was not anticipated,

Was not expected because nobody talks about it or most people don't talk about it,

It's very difficult to find a place where to talk about it,

Where we started experiencing realization which is as free as the non-dual,

As miraculous except it was not non-dual,

We called it unilocal,

Unilocal realization where the understanding of emptiness is,

The way I discovered,

If you really explore it,

It will take you to that truth because emptiness has no space and time,

Hence no distance and no duration.

We will discuss that at some point but the point I'm bringing here is this whole new view that is not non-dual and not dual,

It's completely different,

Different from what most teachings say is how things are,

Non-duality is not the final word,

Not the only liberated view,

Unilocality is a liberated view but it's different from the non-dual and different from it's free from the dual and it is not non-dual,

It's neither dual nor non-dual actually.

And I just turned out one needs to have a third view to be able to answer the question I've been asking about how can a puny little mind turn the whole universe into this cold world and that doesn't happen until we get to the fourth turning,

The fourth turning revealing even other views,

Other ways of realization than the unilocal and the non-dual,

Other ways of experiencing true nature,

The expanse of true nature in such a way that is pure,

That is good and all of that but it's non-dual and not unilocal and not dual.

And so the arising of many views plus the studying of many teachings recognizing that even the non-dual teachings are different in terms of what they take to be the expanse,

What is the expanse of true nature,

They are different in how they define it and how they experience it turns out,

It wasn't just how they define it,

It's not like they talk about it differently,

They actually experience it differently.

And seeing that each one of them is correct,

Each one of them in their view,

They are true,

They are liberated,

There is freedom,

There is goodness although the ultimate is different for each one of them and when you get to the unilocal the question of ultimate falls away and when you get to the fourth turning there are many ultimates and you can have realization that have nothing to do with ultimate.

And in the fourth turning we develop what's called the view of totality,

You've probably heard of that,

Which means the view that does not have to take a particular view but free to take any view.

The view that allows many views to be true,

To be reality.

It allows the non dual,

It allows the various kinds of non dual,

It allows the unilocal,

It allows the other kind of realization that are in the fourth turning.

And so from the perspective of the fourth turning the ordinary world view turns out to be just one of the views,

One of the ways true nature or true being manifests itself.

One of the ways true being manifests itself is the non dual,

That's obvious,

And the non dual is obvious in the unilocal.

And the other realization in the fourth turning,

Some of them are obvious,

Some of them are not obvious,

Where true nature fits in.

But one of the things that becomes clear in the fourth turning that the conventional or dualistic view is just one way reality,

It is also true nature,

It is also being,

What else can it be?

If it is not the expression of being,

What is the expression of?

And to say it's the expression of one particular,

You know,

Individuals have this consensus that reality is discrete and discontinuous and that they perceive it that way,

Turns out to be not completely true,

It gives the individual more power than they actually have,

While the power resides in being,

Just as we see the non dual.

So from the perspective of the view of totality where we also have a term for being called total being,

Because total being can manifest itself not just as being the way it's understood in non dual realization,

As infinite vastness,

But being the way it manifests in the unilocal realization in the third turning and other ways in the fourth turning,

And total being includes all of them,

All of these ways of being,

And we see that total being can manifest itself as in an un dual way,

Can manifest in unilocal way,

Can manifest itself in other ways,

But also can manifest itself in the dualistic or the way that most people know.

And the way it manifests the dualistic world,

Part of the dualistic world is that people have dualistic ideas,

Because that is the way that world is manifesting,

Being is manifesting that world as dualistic,

So of course people have dualistic ideas,

What else would they have?

If total being is manifesting non dual reality,

Of course people will have non dual way of looking at things,

That is part of the non dual world,

The same thing in the unilocal,

They'll have unilocal ways and thoughts about reality.

So everything is consistent,

So taking one view and judging the other one as wrong,

Turns out to be prejudice and sectarianism,

And which can amount to fundamentalism,

So you can have non dual fundamentalism,

You can have unilocal fundamentalism,

And of course you can have dualistic fundamentalism.

So it turns out that from the perspective of the fourth turning,

The problem is not believing that the dualistic world is real,

It's believing that the dualistic world is the only way reality can be.

And allowing oneself to feel that this is one way it can be,

Gives you the freedom,

Gives total being the freedom to manifest itself in other ways,

Like non dual way,

Unilocal way,

Non conditioned way,

Which is one of the realizations of fault turning.

And there are many other ways,

Like in the non dual realization,

One of the realizations that you see it in many,

Especially in the Eastern tradition,

When one is enlightened,

The experience is everything is enlightened,

Buddha said that actually,

When he is enlightened he realizes everything is enlightened,

Everybody is enlightened,

The fact of it is not true.

His experience is that everybody is enlightened,

Other people didn't feel that way.

His students were not enlightened,

Although he experienced everybody is enlightened.

And then a lot of realization is everything as it is when meditation brings awakening you realize everything is awakened.

That is the experience who is awakened and it's easy to see everything is awakened,

You're looking from that perspective,

But you cannot take that and impose it on the guy who is meditating next to you,

Because they might be experiencing something different.

They might be experiencing unilocal,

Non dual,

Or experiencing non dual different from you.

You might be experiencing non dual as an empty,

Non clarity,

While the one next to you is experiencing non dual as a non dual fullness of presence.

While most of the people sitting around meditating experience things in a dualistic way.

And some of them are quite happy actually,

Because they're being their presence and being the point of true nature.

So because there is realization in the conventional,

In the dualistic world.

The realization as we talked about,

We work at it,

The pearl and the point.

Because you can feel free,

You're timeless,

You're eternal,

And you live in the ordinary world.

But the moment you have that freedom of the point that makes it possible to move to other places like the non dual.

And if you move to the non dual,

But not take the view of the non dual as the true view.

Because each realization has its view,

Its way of looking at things.

The dual view has its view,

Which is the ego view.

The non dual view has a non dual view.

And in fact,

The non dual teaching says you have to have the view.

The view is important,

And it's true,

It's very important to have the view,

Because that is how you sustain your non dual realization.

But what happens if you don't keep that view?

Because somebody says you have to let go of your view.

And that's why I think some of the great masters of non duality already know about unilocality.

They just don't talk about it.

It's not in the text much.

It's not emphasized.

And some Zen masters already talked about it.

Some of the Kawhans refer to it.

But what I'm trying to get to is how do we look at why different people experience different things?

Or what does it mean that total being can manifest reality differently?

What does that mean?

That is when the metaphor of quantum theory becomes very useful.

We come to what we call the quantum theory of realization.

Meaning total being is like the quantum way of the universe.

It has many possibilities,

Infinite possibilities it can be.

When you do a certain experiment,

You see reality a certain way.

Before you make the measurement,

Physicists tell you you don't know.

You can't say what reality is.

You can't say whether there's an electron there or not,

How fast it is or not.

You can't say until you make the measurement.

So the observer is very significant into precipitating what reality is.

And so they say that's what Einstein did like.

He said well,

God doesn't throw dice.

Because he said no,

There's reality,

You either see it or not.

Quantum physicists say no,

Reality is the way you observe it.

It depends on the observer.

Relative to the observer.

But in quantum theory,

The observer has become more and more important since the beginning of the 20th century.

Until now,

They're starting asking what is the observer,

How is it related to consciousness.

That's why they're quantum theorists who are developing theories about consciousness.

Because the observer is consciousness and what this consciousness is and all of that.

But in quantum theory,

The observer is what determines what reality is.

Reality is unknown until you experience it.

Basically.

When you experience it,

That brings reality to manifest itself in a certain way.

So it depends on the observer.

But from the perspective of total being in the quantum theory of realization,

It does not depend on the observer because that would make the observer have much more power than even a non-dualist belief.

It is total being that manifests itself differently through the eyes of different individuals.

Through the conscious of different individuals.

So total being is,

Just like a non-dual realization,

Total being is the true nature that is manifesting everything including the individuals and their experience at any time.

One can manifest individual experiencing duality or can manifest individual experiencing non-duality or can manifest individual experiencing unilocality or other ways of experiencing the world.

If you think about it,

If you are a non-dual kind of person,

You will notice even in a non-dual world,

The world of duality does not completely disappear.

The ordinary view of reality continues even through non-duality.

All non-dual teachers have to consider the dualistic world.

They live in it.

Their experience has in the non-dual view more dominance.

It informs their being,

Their attitude,

Their action.

However,

They have to contend with the fact their bodies,

Even though reality is timeless,

True nature is timeless,

Their bodies are growing old and getting sick and they need doctors.

If you are pure light,

Why do you need doctors?

You can heal yourself right away.

You don't even get sick.

Light doesn't get sick.

Just like electrons don't get sick.

So,

The physical world or the conventional world has a truth that survives in the non-dual realization and survives actually in all other realization.

That's why it is the basis of all views of reality.

It is the way you always start.

And that's why even though you can be in non-dual world,

You still have responsibility because as long as the dualistic world has some reality in your experience,

You have a responsibility.

You have to clean up your own dog's shit.

That's your responsibility,

Not the state.

And it's not God.

You have to do it yourself.

What does that mean yourself?

Because there's no self.

You see,

Non-dualists can be turned into nuts if you ask them that question.

They say,

Oh,

It's just in your mind.

Yeah?

Just leave the shit there.

You'll get a ticket.

You might even go to jail.

And now just tell me it's all in your mind.

But if you really recognize the quantum view of realization,

First of all,

What it does,

It removes the hierarchy of the Western view.

Yes,

There is the physical world.

There is the divine world.

There's heaven,

The non-dual,

The inner local.

But there are different ways total being manifests itself through one particular soul or another,

Which makes the soul important,

Which the non-dual teaching tends to make it sort of not important because you experience yourself as a vastness.

You're not the soul all the time.

So the non-dual teaching tend to think of the soul as an illusion,

A temporary illusion.

And I tend to,

When I talk to the non-dual teacher,

I said,

Why does God need a lie for God to express itself?

Why doesn't he make itself deluded in order to be an individual walking on earth?

Why can't it just be God and walking on earth?

So the quantum view,

Although it's very difficult to really adopt because it's very challenging,

Means things are completely fluid.

You cannot say this is the way things are.

There are many ways that the way things are.

If you look at the Zen masters,

When they say,

I'm seeing suchness the way things are,

If you really send those masters to 60 minutes,

Have them being grilled,

You'll find out they're talking about different things.

They're really,

When they say the way things are,

They're not exactly saying the same thing.

There are many ways the way things are.

The way things are in a dualistic world is a certain way.

The way things are in a non-dual world is a certain way.

And there are many ways actually in the non-dual world.

In the unilocal way,

The way things are different.

In other realizations,

The way things are are different.

So there are many ways that the way things can be.

And they're all real,

They're all true,

Because that is how reality is manifesting them.

This is not the same thing as most postmodern philosophy.

Some people,

Some thinking,

Say,

Well,

Postmodern philosophy says there is no truth.

Everybody is just your belief and your upbringing or your race or your history,

Whatever.

So it makes truth relativistic.

But truth relativistic is dependent on the person.

Not the postmodern philosophy view.

Here I'm not saying the view is dependent on the person's history.

I'm saying no.

The total being in its vastness and immensity is manifesting you and the way you're experiencing the world.

And that is the truth at that moment.

So your reality is not a post-truth reality.

It is the truth of your reality.

And that is the basis of our practice of inquiry.

You find out where you are and find out what is the truth about it.

So the practice of finding where you are and simply inquiring into it is valid in all realizations.

It doesn't matter where you are.

You're a non-dual,

Dual,

Unilocal,

All kinds of whatever it is,

You just find where you are,

See the truth of it,

And keep investigating.

Because if you keep practicing,

Total being will manifest other ways of being.

That becomes the life of liberation.

So liberation in the fourth turning is not just the liberation of the non-dual.

Because the non-dual feels free and liberated.

The true nature is vastness,

Is completely immaculate and free.

But here in the fourth turning,

Freedom has another meaning beside the freedom of true nature.

The freedom for reality to manifest itself whichever way it is appropriate for it,

Whichever way it does.

So we have another degree of freedom that is not available to anyone who adhere to any one particular view.

Your freedom is freedom of view.

You're free from view.

You don't have to have any view.

Because of that you can have any view.

But your reality manifest has this view,

You have that.

But you're not attached to it.

It could change the next day and you're in a different reality,

A different world.

And also reality as such,

It can manifest mixed views at the same time.

That's why the non-dual always have to deal with the dualistic world and its troubles.

Because it manifests both the main terrains of the dualistic world within the dualistic world.

So basically I rehabilitated for you your ordinary world.

It's not your fault.

It's not your fault that you have dualistic thoughts.

That is the way it is in that world.

However,

You have the responsibility.

If you work on it and see how your thoughts are just one way of seeing reality,

You can experience reality in a different way and you can be free from the suffering of the dualistic world.

Because duality has its suffering and non-duality has less of that suffering.

When you get to the fourth turning,

There are realizations where the question of suffering is irrelevant.

Suffering,

What's that?

So in this exercise,

I will go in groups of three,

A monologue of 15 minutes.

You want to see which of you you tend to believe and live by.

Is this the dualistic?

The non-dual?

Unilocal?

Or others?

Which view seems to be dominant and whether you have some freedom of going between different views,

Which are different ways of experiencing things.

So you want to see basically the measure of your freedom of view.

Have you been able to be free from the dualistic view enough to experience non-dual?

Have you been free enough from the non-dual to experience unilocal?

Have you been free enough from unilocal to experience other ways?

And are you free enough that you don't care which view you're in?

In fact,

The masses of any view get to that,

They all get to that bit,

It doesn't matter.

Just don't harm anybody,

Don't bother them,

Live your life,

It doesn't matter what your view is.

It all is reality.

So 15 minutes for each person exploring your view of reality and which one you tend to adhere to,

Not just think and live.

Because you might think of the non-dual but live dualistically.

Which one tends to be most dominant and whether your life includes other views.

And that way you see how elastic is your consciousness.

Here I'm not talking about brain plasticity,

I'm talking about consciousness plasticity.

We have brain plasticity,

Neuroscience has,

And fourth turning has consciousness plasticity.

If you're dualistic,

Your consciousness is not that plastic.

If you're only non-dual,

Your consciousness is not that plastic.

It's freer than the dual but still you cannot go to the unilocal.

If you're only unilocal,

You can't experience the non-dual.

You're missing out a lot.

See the view of the fourth turning is similar,

Reminds me of Don Juan's way of looking at things.

Remember Castaneda's Don Juan when he talks about the different bands of reality and you can go in one band or another and each band has its different way of experiencing things and most people live in the band of reason,

Which is the dualistic world.

And he hits Castaneda in his bag every once in a while,

Sends him to another band,

He experiences things differently.

So it is similar to that but it's a different way,

It's not a yaki Indian saying it.

But you know,

I like,

I always liked Don Juan,

Now I know why I like him so much.

Reviews

Amazing! And so helpful in understanding…thank you!

This was fascinating. I almost have up on the talk because I got a sense this was way above my head. I'm glad I continued to listen. I am definitely going to look further into the diamond approach. Great talk! Thank you!

Very interesting!!Thank you very much!!!

Thank you for this talk, for bringing a difficult topic to more understanding.

Insightful, interesting and fun. I will listen to this talk many times...