Do people that have achieved nonduality have social needs?

Originally Posted by movingalways

...for the nondual realized, thoughts and actions are absolute...

How can a thing that is transient be absolute? For instance yesterday I was unhappy and today I'm happy.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

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The nondual state of samadhi is another matter. I believe there are several types of samadhi.

The non-dual does not have several different types. It is not relative to anything else, or, even itself, and it does not have any likeness unto it.

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

There is no way to exit Samadhi simply because no one is there. If there was, it would be duality. Yet, through an unknown mechanism, we ‘return’ to body consciousness.

Well, you exited samadhi, so, samadhi is a duality. But there is still value in that experience, at the very least it serves for navigational clarity.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

How can a thing that is transient be absolute? For instance yesterday I was unhappy and today I'm happy.

It doesn't have to be, because it simply isn't absolute/non-dual.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

I believe there are several types of samadhi. ... There is no way to exit Samadhi simply because no one is there. If there was, it would be duality. Yet, through an unknown mechanism, we ‘return’ to body consciousness.

Indeed, there are several types of samadhi in Yoga. A brief description can be found at https://chopra.com/articles/the-3-levels-of-samadhi

Buddhism has its own categories of samadhi which I have never really investigated so I don't know how they compare.

Ramana Maharshi sums it up: "Holding on to the supreme state is Samadhi. When it is with effort due to mental disturbances, it is Savikalpa. When these disturbances are absent, it is Nirvikalpa. Remaining permanently in the primal state without effort is Sahaja."

We exit samadhi because we cannot maintain our consciousness in the supreme state. Normally this means that we return to our pre-samadhi state of awareness. Sahaja samadhi is the return to body consciousness without losing the state of unity, so we see the Self everywhere even while going about our daily activities. This is an effortless unchanging state.

Do social needs remain? We can enjoy the company of others but their presence or absence makes no difference to the Self.

Peace

[Unseeking Seeker]

Yes, iamthat, that’s how it is.

On a more basic level, we can take pure love to be nonduality. The subject melds with the object, totally releasing ego conditioning, releasing bondage from our compulsive thinking syndrome.

At the physical level, if the partners be in in love, the act of love making itself is an entwinement of dissolving into the ecstasy continuum. So, within those moments, it’s a singularity. The caveat is that we speak of love, not lust.

The void of polarity interchange at each half breath pause is a singularity. Of course it’s but a flicker but what is meditation too then, other than stretching that moment of action before release, poised thus in suspended animation in an aspect of childlike wonderment?

I've read that before, back in time, people were more reliant on each other for pure survival while today we can survive with less or not at all and that this shift has made some less social while others still have that need in their genes, all depending of course.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by iamthat

without losing the state of unity,

Well you gained it, so it's not non duality.
What you can gain, you can lose also.

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

On a more basic level, we can take pure love to be nonduality.

Using the word 'pure' as a prefix to separate it is the ego's differentiated consciousness. According to Advaita Vedanta non-Duality is "Not two." "Pure" Love at least implies there's two, but non-Duality 'collapses' the distance between consciousness and the 'objects' of consciousness.

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

Well you gained it, so it's not non duality.

Beer and popcorn for you. You're buying.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

Well you gained it, so it's not non duality.
What you can gain, you can lose also.

It is not a case of gaining something which we did not already have.

It is the realisation of our true nature and being able to retain that conscious awareness of the limitless Self while engaged in everyday physical life.

This realisation is not so much a gaining but more a letting go of our identification with limited existence.

Peace