Nonduality and Nonexistence

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by redsox87

Hi everyone! New to the forums. Feeling a little confused and lost at the moment so hopefully you can provide some clarity and/or guidance. Here’s my conundrum:

All in all, there is only nonduality “one hand clapping “. THIS. This is apparent because I’m sitting here typing on my phone, I can enjoy a beer, a bird is flying outside, cars are driving on the highway etc (I.E “experiences are happening “ even though they are unreal as separate experiences).

I get confused and lost often because the idea comes up- what if individual consciousness never arose, what if there was just infinite blackness without experience forever from the very beginning? How could nonduality be “known “ if those words could never be uttered? If there was no experience and no consciousness how could even nonduality be the base truth? How can we say this isn’t absolute non existence? Hoping you have some guidance because this point always trips me up and makes me feel lost and upset. It makes me feel like nonduality could have had some alternative- this causes my mind not to be at rest.

What makes the most logical sense is that non-duality, duality, the physical universe and everything in the physical universe, the ego/I-subconscious mind-physical body etc etc are all aspects of god/our creator and I think god/our creator is infinite nature/absolute nonexistence expressing and experiencing itself as existence. Thus consciousness/awareness could be a tool/instrument that god/our creator, which is nature/nonexistence uses to be aware of existing/experiencing itself.

Originally Posted by redsox87

Hi everyone! New to the forums. Feeling a little confused and lost at the moment so hopefully you can provide some clarity and/or guidance. Here’s my conundrum:

All in all, there is only nonduality “one hand clapping “. THIS. This is apparent because I’m sitting here typing on my phone, I can enjoy a beer, a bird is flying outside, cars are driving on the highway etc (I.E “experiences are happening “ even though they are unreal as separate experiences).

I get confused and lost often because the idea comes up- what if individual consciousness never arose, what if there was just infinite blackness without experience forever from the very beginning? How could nonduality be “known “ if those words could never be uttered? If there was no experience and no consciousness how could even nonduality be the base truth? How can we say this isn’t absolute non existence? Hoping you have some guidance because this point always trips me up and makes me feel lost and upset. It makes me feel like nonduality could have had some alternative- this causes my mind not to be at rest.

Non-duality is just a concept made by man and although it has no manifestation in reality people still find a way to believe in it and make sense of it .

All is not 1 and obviously we are in duality because that's the glue that holds all of this together.
Contusness is a fairly new fenomina and should not be branded with the label of "god"
To help put it into perspective let's look at reality for an eco of this shall we?

Man is the only animal that is "awakened " or "self conscious " whatever you would like to call it and yet look at the world mankind is also the only animal that is destroying the world as we seem to not be able to coexist with nature unlike all the other animals on this planet.

And s deeper eco would be the human body (micro/ macrocosm) and you as awareness can at best be aware and do 3 maybe 4 things at the same time however your body is doing hundreds of thousands of different things every moment of your life without you even realizing 99% of it so only about less then 1% of you is the YOU that you call you while the thing keeping you alive is unconcious and makes up the majority of you and likewise the all Creator is not contusness it is unconsciousness the one thing we cannot be aware of or see or experience or measure or count or quantifying anyway or ever actually talk about and at best we can just talk around the idea of what unconsciousness is .

Originally Posted by MAYA EL

Non-duality is just a concept made by man and although it has no manifestation in reality people still find a way to believe in it and make sense of it .

Yet some of the more brilliant scientific minds of the 20th century, some of the founders of quantum mechanics, were not hostile to non-dualism and were interested in Vedantic philosophy.

Then there's electroweak theory. What we perceive as two separate and unique forces, electromagnetism and the nuclear weak force, are in fact one single force at high enough energy levels. Out of two comes one. Beyond that is GUT and then TOE.

Perhaps what spirituality labels pure awareness - existence, consciousness, bliss - is the same thing science labels the unified field.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by MAYA EL

Non-duality is just a concept made by man and although it has no manifestation in reality people still find a way to believe in it and make sense of it .

All is not 1 and obviously we are in duality because that's the glue that holds all of this together.
Contusness is a fairly new fenomina and should not be branded with the label of "god"
To help put it into perspective let's look at reality for an eco of this shall we?

Man is the only animal that is "awakened " or "self conscious " whatever you would like to call it and yet look at the world mankind is also the only animal that is destroying the world as we seem to not be able to coexist with nature unlike all the other animals on this planet.

And s deeper eco would be the human body (micro/ macrocosm) and you as awareness can at best be aware and do 3 maybe 4 things at the same time however your body is doing hundreds of thousands of different things every moment of your life without you even realizing 99% of it so only about less then 1% of you is the YOU that you call you while the thing keeping you alive is unconcious and makes up the majority of you and likewise the all Creator is not contusness it is unconsciousness the one thing we cannot be aware of or see or experience or measure or count or quantifying anyway or ever actually talk about and at best we can just talk around the idea of what unconsciousness is .

Duality is also a concept made by man. Concepts are a useful tool when used in conjunction with logic, reason, common sense and intuition. You are able to see duality and non-duality when you are open to them as concrete facts inside your head, thus duality and non-duality are truths. What is the point of you accepting Duality while you reject non-duality?

[Unseeking Seeker]

***

Insights may be obtained to satisfy an open mind ... listening to non-dual exponents like Rupert Spira, Sarvapriya Nanda, Christopher Wallis etc. Books such as The Triadic heart of Shiva, Ashtavakra Gita and other similar works offer plausible hypothesis ... or NDE cases documented, channelled messages etc ...

Finally relevant truth being direct inward experience or realisation ourselves.

***

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

***

Insights may be obtained to satisfy an open mind ... listening to non-dual exponents like Rupert Spira, Sarvapriya Nanda, Christopher Wallis etc. Books such as The Triadic heart of Shiva, Ashtavakra Gita and other similar works offer plausible hypothesis ... or NDE cases documented, channelled messages etc ...

Finally relevant truth being direct inward experience or realisation ourselves.

***

The challenge with truth is that people's truth is based on their beliefs, which has nothing to do with truth, this mentally and emotionally manipulates and conditions their minds, which gives them dream/fantasy views/perceptions of the universe/god/reality. Ultimately it comes down to being conditioned and manipulated by society with everyone believing in scarcity, lack, fear, values, good vs bad and positive vs negative. All this creates and is connected to scarcity vs abundance. This belief in scarcity creates lack and the fear of lack and guilt. Many spiritual gurus/teachers danced around this fact but none came out and directly said it, It makes you wonder why that is. I am working on a post that goes deeper in depth on this subject. I learned this from myself as I was mentally and emotionally manipulated and conditioned and controlled like any other human. The biggest challenge for me was overcoming the feeling of being guilty. I carried guilt about little things everywhere I went and I was not conscious of 99% of that guilt. I do not talk about this in a negative or conspiratorial way. I think the purpose of the emotional and mental manipulation/conditioning is for us to learn from, then move on with our lives.

Originally Posted by MikeS80

The challenge with truth is that people's truth is based on their beliefs, which has nothing to do with truth, this mentally and emotionally manipulates and conditions their minds, which gives them dream/fantasy views/perceptions of the universe/god/reality. Ultimately it comes down to being conditioned and manipulated by society with everyone believing in scarcity, lack, fear, values, good vs bad and positive vs negative. All this creates and is connected to scarcity vs abundance. This belief in scarcity creates lack and the fear of lack and guilt. Many spiritual gurus/teachers danced around this fact but none came out and directly said it, It makes you wonder why that is. I am working on a post that goes deeper in depth on this subject. I learned this from myself as I was mentally and emotionally manipulated and conditioned and controlled like any other human. The biggest challenge for me was overcoming the feeling of being guilty. I carried guilt about little things everywhere I went and I was not conscious of 99% of that guilt. I do not talk about this in a negative or conspiratorial way. I think the purpose of the emotional and mental manipulation/conditioning is for us to learn from, then move on with our lives.

Of what concern is any of that to the Atman? Point being if this is your focus it's a distraction. Misdirection. It's ego's agenda.

https://youtu.be/P14cRV-m6ZY

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Of what concern is any of that to the Atman? Point being if this is your focus it's a distraction. Misdirection. It's ego's agenda.

https://youtu.be/P14cRV-m6ZY

Your point is mute because as I said, That is for us to learn from then move on.

Originally Posted by MikeS80

Your point is mute because as I said, That is for us to learn from then move on.

My point is not moot. Non-dualism teaches that we are the Atman and Atman is beyond all those things you listed. They never touch it and can never touch it.

In other words none of that laundry list in your post is a challenge or concern to the Atman. It is only a challenge and concern to the body-mind and that would be ego.

By the way, isn't your truth based on your "...beliefs, which has nothing to do with truth, this mentally and emotionally manipulates and conditions their minds, which gives them dream/fantasy views/perceptions of the universe/god/reality. ". Why are you above what you lay at everyone else's feet?

This goes to a point I've previously made that relying solely on what you discover within your own mind is a recipe for ego manipulating the result. That's why it's a wise thing to not discard thousands of years of deep insight, wisdom and robust philosophical and metaphyscal debate and the resulting religious and spiritual traditions that developed and refined.

[MikeS80]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

My point is not moot. Non-dualism teaches that we are the Atman and Atman is beyond all those things you listed. They never touch it and can never touch it.

In other words none of that laundry list in your post is a challenge or concern to the Atman. It is only a challenge and concern to the body-mind and that would be ego.

By the way, isn't your truth based on your "...beliefs, which has nothing to do with truth, this mentally and emotionally manipulates and conditions their minds, which gives them dream/fantasy views/perceptions of the universe/god/reality. ". Why are you above what you lay at everyone else's feet?

This goes to a point I've previously made that relying solely on what you discover within your own mind is a recipe for ego manipulating the result. That's why it's a wise thing to not discard thousands of years of deep insight, wisdom and robust philosophical and metaphyscal debate and the resulting religious and spiritual traditions that developed and refined.

Yes, your point is moot because I did not say that it was a challenge to Atman, it is obviously not a challenge to atman. I was obviously saying it is a challenge to the ego. Good job turning the context of my post around a full 360 degrees.