What is non duality?

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

I find this difficult to understand. Could you explain further?
What do you term energy?

Energy is the basis of the material world and so it comes into the realms of science. Energy is your braincells whizzing away inside your skull and you become conscious of that. Energy is what you are physically, consciousness is what you are beyond the physical.

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

However, I find that it all happens within consciousness. As existence has all the ways of coming to know itself. I would then say that consciousness is that existence.

Try thinking of it in terms of what you become conscious of, that takes the mind one step 'away' from itself. Ib time you become conscious that you are conscious.

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

But there is still some notion of duality in the idea of consciousness. Consciousness perceiving itself. Experiencing its own awareness. It's as non-dual as I can conceive.

Duality and non-duality are constructs of the mind. You also have to consider how the mind perceives duality, separation is implicit there and non exists. Think instead of aspects of the whole, that's a step in the right direction. Think of it as a feedback loop.

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

Because my logical mind says, there is the dreamer and the dream.

The dreamer is the dream and the experienced is the experiencer and the observed is the observer.

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

I cannot seem to become aware of my own awareness.

Yes you can, but the awareness you're looking for is beyond the mind. Once you get that out of the way it makes more sense.
"When we lose our minds we come to our senses."
Alan Watts.

But it requires some deliberately ability to focus consistent upon my own awareness to expand the realisation of my own awareness of my own awareness. [/quote] let it go and allow it its own existence and expression.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

I always say I wanna know my self. But if I don't know who I am, how can I even know if I want to know myself or not?
I guess I am myself, no attainment necessery. But to attain the consciously realised knowing of myself and attain the conscious realisation of my self and my own true being and my conscious knowing of it or realisation of it....

I think we can speak from two angles or directions. From one there is no self to know. As "one" with Reality-as-is it is "empty", forever new, radical freedom - responding to the changing circumstances. This, I think , is what Yun-men meant when he was asked what were the teachings of a whole lifetime and answered "An appropriate statement".

From the other angle the "teachings" and our learning never stop. They too are a becoming. Dogen calls this the Circle.of the Way.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by Matty

I have been wondering what could non duality possibly be. Yet alone that there is some concept of non duality that there is a section devoted to it.

Many people on this forum equate non-duality with oneness or wholeness, while they disregard, ignore, negate or think duality as a negative or pit non-duality against duality, when non-duality and duality combined is oneness/wholeness and makes the whole.

Nature, form ect are all aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness, thus are individual but not separate aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness.

[Miss Hepburn]

Letting this group know,
2-3 sentences in quotes only, as Admin has asked for months now.
We are beginning to just delete the post of those that know this, but ignore the Admins.
Nothing personal.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by MikeS80

Many people on this forum equate non-duality with oneness or wholeness, while they disregard, ignore, negate or think duality as a negative or pit non-duality against duality, when non-duality and duality combined is oneness/wholeness and makes the whole.

Nature, form ect are all aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness, thus are individual but not separate aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness.

One of the best comments I have read, thank you.

Originally Posted by MikeS80

Many people on this forum equate non-duality with oneness or wholeness, while they disregard, ignore, negate or think duality as a negative or pit non-duality against duality,

It begins when people become Spiritual Beings. And not many seem to have figured out that non-Duality is Duality. Negative doesn't actually mean negative, it means 'don't like'.

Originally Posted by MikeS80

when non-duality and duality combined is oneness/wholeness and makes the whole.

Gotta put in a advert for Triplex Unity here, and five-dimensional thinking. Duality and so-called non-Duality are subsets.

Originally Posted by MikeS80

Nature, form ect are all aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness, thus are individual but not separate aspects of the formless/oneness/wholeness.

I would say manifestations of the formless/oneness/wholeness. Both Spiritually and scientifically Spirituality has it backwards; we didn't start at the ground up and we're not 'ascending', and science says that the base is an 8D matrix, not a 3D one.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Yes you can, but the awareness you're looking for is beyond the mind. Once you get that out of the way it makes more sense.

Thanks, this makes sense. Because I have exeprienced it that way in the past. It is very different in frequency (if it is a frequency at all) compared to physical reality. Far higher in frequency and thus more subtle or precise maybe or perceived to be more stable from a physical point of view.

Many people call it silence or empty spaciousness or non-physical containment/container. Or that silence and empty spaciousness and "nothingness" is a way to realise pure consciousness or source consciousness.

I experienced in the past my consciousness to be pure and unaffected by anything "negative" in my life. And that it stays in that high pure positive place of being/frequency.

Nowadays if I focus on my awareness/consciousness, I just experience what seems like a "lack of awareness" and falling asleep. Losing awareness of physical and entering some deep sleep / dream. Which is still nice. It feels good. But it would be nice if I could acces my pure consciousness, more consciously. Maybe I need to meditate differently or learn how to meditate more specifically and in more detailed understanding of what I am doing/need to do or want to actually be doing.

As most often simply being aware of the awareness is a good enough reference, it seems.

[Ewwerrin]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

science says that the base is an 8D matrix, not a 3D one.

We are in 4d right. That does seem related to 8d.

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

As good here as anywhere else....

Please take it as read that "IMHO" precedes all........

Non-duality is not that all "is one" but rather, better, is "not two".

The latter, "not two" is better in as much as being negative. It strips rather than accumulates perceptions and thoughts.

Yet both "definitions" are words, ultimately inadequate for capturing Reality-as-is. Truth can be lived but not thought. Which is one reason why Buddhism speaks of the Middle Way - this not a position between two extremes but a no-position that transcends both.

A "no-position" that should never be reified, is not a set course or path that can be known in advance, but is ever-new; the "appropriate statement" of Yun-men, appropriate for one moment, the "eternal now" - and then is gone. As life, a becoming, is one with our own becoming. Everything is always new under the sun.

For this we need faith, a letting-go, or "effortlessness", or "wu wei", or "love God and do what we will" - many names or phrases. Always letting go; not that there is anything to let go of (Words are always inadequate)

The path to such a state of selflessness has no door, no sign-posts. There is no gate or key. I can only speak of Grace, of gift. Such is my own faith, this born of experience. Some may speak of just "one way", but as Meister Eckhart has said:- "Those who know/worship God in just one way end with the way rather than God." "Seek and you shall find" I suppose is as good an instruction as any, but I've always preferred a sense of being chosen rather than of choosing. Why did I "seek"?

Back to all "is one" or "not two". Dogen, the 13th century zen master, spoke of realising non-duality within duality. As I see it, he too was seeking the Middle Way, which is truly neither "all is one" nor "not two". Nor inbetween.

To finish (sighs of relief all around) Basically I'm just a Pure Land bombu, a "foolish being" incapable of working out my own "enlightenment" (or whatever anyone wants to call it) My faith is in Infinite Compassion, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Potential (not necessarily in that order, they tend to inter-relate) It works for me - if "works" is a suitable word for my often stumbling progress, or regress. Sometimes I simply do not know where the healing comes from. I've found myself with this "faith" (I know no other name to call it). I see no reason to challenge it. Why am I here on this forum? I find posting therapeutic at the moment. Maybe partly it is "faith seeking understanding", AKA seeking greater clarity of mind. Most of the time I'm simply talking to myself.

As I read recently:-

"May true Dharma continue. No blame. Be kind. Love everything."

Thank you.

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Non-duality is not that all "is one" but rather, better, is "not two". The latter, "not two" is better in as much as being negative.

The Hindu non-dualists negate through discernment (vivekas), but that's only the first step.

Two Steps to the Not-Two: Swami Sarvapriyananda https://youtu.be/kPdsAPlK2Js

The teaching is given in two steps—first, the well known 'neti, neti' 'not this, not this' leading to the realization of our spiritual nature and second, seeing that this newly discovered spiritual nature is nondual. Clarity about both steps is necessary to realize nonduality (Advaita).