Non-duality 1. Misunderstanding non-duality
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- Non-duality is a challenging topic, and it doesn't help that some supposedly non-dual teachings are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what non-duality means. This is exemplified in the saying: Only Brahman is real, the world is an illusion. This statement is dualistic and has led to enormous amounts of suffering and confusion for spiritual seekers. Yet there is no duality in reality, only in the mind of human beings.
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We have to experience the world, in order to learn and understand it, and our places in it - through this we gain context. To ignore your reality does not allow learning....without learning and understanding we gain nothing.
Kim's reasoning is absolutely brilliant!
🐻🌹❤ Kim is da Best!
I enjoy the knew fashion like appearance of non-duality and it's a totally understandable appearance of life's principle of making balance ; in this world of division and separation ( we can blow up the planet ) , searching for unity is natural in the context we live in .
It’s common sense- you might have a flash non-duality experience but thats not enlightenment - it’s a give to keep you going on road of aspiration of life of merits and honesty - Tim is cool and humble - cheers Chris
Thanks 😊.
I'm just learning about these things but I sometimes see it through the lens of Christianity. Adam and Eve began to leave the garden when they in a sense divided the whole into parts. Using language they gave names to the animals and the plants as individual things. They saw themselves as separate from each other, man and woman. They recognized their feelings as internal such as the anxiety and fear felt in the presence of a snake. They convinced themselves that there was something wrong and needed to be fixed and it was conceptual knowledge that would help them. So they ate that fruit. They created their own world built out of dualities.
From an experiential point of view we can say before "the first man and woman" our human ancestors lived a non-dual existence. Nothing was separate from anything else. There was no self or anything to be internal vs external. Everything, all action we can say, was simply a swirling of the cosmic pot. Experience arose on its own in awareness and left on its own. The experience of will to act was like everything else and not separate from other types of experience.
Once our ancestors developed language is when they developed concepts that were needed for duality and there was no going back after that. Here, there. This, that. Night, day. Me, you. And on and on and on. It's not long before we have the idea of possessions, money and even murder. All of this is detailed in Genesis of the Christian Bible. Or is known as the ancient and pre-history of early humans and the beginnings of civilizations in our history books.
The story of the Tower of Babel I think is a good metaphor for our modern situation. The Tower is made bigger and taller and more complex by sharing and building upon the conceptual knowledge of many of us working together. The goal is to build our way to heaven. We always seem to be a few steps away though and think if we keep adding to it we will eventually get there. I don't think there's anything wrong with knowledge and the technology that we build with that knowledge but it is similar to the Tower. Ok, we tell ourselves, now we have all this fancy stuff and medicine and civilization so now we can be happy right? Well no because there's all these problems that were created when we made this stuff so we have to fix those first. Then we set out to fix them. We make the computers faster and the internet bigger and all our amenities more comfortable and convenient. But somehow we find ourselves back at square one. We feel the same anxiety and fear that we've always felt. We even have nostalgia for the way things used to be because "it was simpler" back then. We worry about the future and no matter what we do or buy and no matter how tall we make our own Tower we always seem to be some distance away from Heaven.
It's because we can't build our way to heaven! Conceptual knowledge is a part of the whole. No matter how we put the parts together, not even if we break it down into smaller pieces and come up with advanced scientific knowledge and models we can't create "the whole" from any of the parts. The whole is already right here where it's always been. Adam and Eve weren't forced out of the garden they conceived themselves out of it the moment they thought something was wrong that needed a conceptual fix. Because it didn't fix anything, it just created more perceived problems and along with it the entire world was born and is what it is today.
So from that perspective I would say what exactly did Brahman make when we say he made the world? Did he make conceptual knowledge? Did he make marriage for instance? Where is the substance of marriage? Is there anything to point to except for the conceptual stories we have about it in our heads. Are we supposed to find something special in our conceptual world? Or are we just not supposed to shake things up too much because then we'd be living in a third world as opposed to a first world country as you say. Is the complexity of the world Brahmans or is it of our own making?
I like your analogy. I heard Mooji describe the garden of eden as obtaining an ability to judge. I.e., to know good & evil is to judge what is good & evil. A & E had perfect bliss without this ability. God said they would die if they obtained this ability. But, apparently god didn't mean physical death, but death of enlightenment or being present without the egoic, judging mind(?). After being tempted to be like god, A & E (and the rest) suffered. All from judging. (Labelling, defining, explaining, teasing out how many angles dance on the head of a pin. Instead of just existing as-is, being in control.).
The problem with non-duality, even the phrase is that people in duality will see it as in opposition to duality... You have to step outside the mind as a consciousness to become conscious of being beyond duality to begin to dissolve elements of duality in the mind. Otherwise by identifying with elements of duality you will try to resolve elements of duality via looking at them via dualistic elements. In other words, you cannot use duality to get out of duality, that's why you need some one who is beyond duality to show you the way out of your mental prison of duality. You need Living Christ.
Once you are in duality you cannot recall what is like not to be in duality and since you are in duality you cannot imagine non-duality because everything you think is in duality...
I love Kim, fun God spark ♥
Experiencing non-duality can be a problem for some people. They will insist that it's literally non-dual (as if they've disappeared, only their presence remains). But, an experience implies an experiencer. That, by definition is dualistic. It's like endlessly chasing one's own tail trying to say "it's not me; it's not my tail." Who's saying that?
That's what I've seen. The flaw starts with the assumption that "non-duality" (no self) is literal, and then using a lot of self to make that work. The experience is real, there is something behind the thinker which can be called the observer. And, there's something behind the observer (pure presence?) which can't be observed without being the observer. It's experienced. But, that implies an experiencer. It's just one level above. We can arbitarily say the lower levels (thinker, observer) are dualistic in nature, the presence isn't dual by comparison. But, when we say it's _literally_ not dual, we're not being honest (we ignore the experiencer, pretend it doesn't exist, and cling to a literalism that doesn't exist).
Brahman is the truth, un interpreted by the mind. Maya is the mind(the world), the illusional interpretation of the world. To overcome the world, is to see past the illusion of one’s own mind(not the literal overcoming and running away from the world). Thoughts are the illusion, all maya is an illusion created by the minds interpreting what it is incapable of seeing. Brahman is the truth that can only be experienced by the silence of the mind. We can only be the truth but we can never know and understand the truth(Brahman). But truth is undeniably what we are whether we know it or even understand it. Nonduality does NOT make sense, because “making sense” is of the mind which is the creator of the illusion. To overcome the world, one only has to overcome one’s own mind. Simple, but not so easy.
I am not sure I understand your concern with this statement. The term « Illusion » does not mean that it « doesn’t exist ». It means that it is not, and cannot be « fully perceived » by the human mind. Bernardo Kastrup calls it navigating with onboard instruments in the night. Hoffman says that we use a user-friendly interface to stay alive in a world so complex, that trying to understand its processes would endanger our capacity to survive in it.
I have talked to people that claim they have felt nonduality and what they describe sound like an illusion.
We here to enjoy and live in awareness and celebrate the joy of your temporary manifest body and the magic creation full of life forms - every niche of physical existence is full of life’s beautiful billions of life forms -
‘in us, on us, around us’ - you have to consume life forms which exist or existed, to retain your own life and to enjoy your physical temporary self - entropy will dissolve all forms -
we’ve in the greatest party in universe - the aspiration to be aware is all that is required
love to all
Your explaining is clear but I don't see opposites with other teachings or teachers I know ! An other point : the FAR EASTERN viewpoints , scriptures , about the non-phenomenal invisible aspects of creation , wether they came from India , China , Japan etc had " surprisingly " very sophisticated understandings about the material , visible , tangible aspects of life as expressed for example in medecine , astronomy , mathematics , matter , etc...amongst whom modern ANALYTICAL science is starting only now to discover what they already exposed . Why ? because for them there was no SEPARATION between the phenomenal and the non - material worlds , they were HOLISTIC , the investigation into the " spiritual " and the mundane was seen AT THE CORE as an undivided SCIENCE , not as a belief system type .The Polarity and how it manifests was understood !
but doesn't it seem that the question about creation is a child of dualistic thinking? the idea that if there is a creation, there is a creator? It's a catnip question.
Kim may mention in the next video what ill mention now, ...i havent watched the second video.
So the reason im putting my take on this video is that i see where my take may help with this point as to why god would have us in a dual world that he created....
If we look at Adam and Eve and the tree of the "knowledge" of duality or the tree of good and evil witch by its nature is dual ....
And adam and eve made in the image of god as spirits that are told all god asks is to pls not eat of this tree ...or in otherwards pls do not take on the "knowledge" of all things dual....or thy shall shurly die......so the serpent being of the dual "knowledge" deceives eve telling her a story about how she will know what its like to be like a god...bla bla bla...so eve takes the bait and then adam takes aswell....then instantly adam and eve see them selves and this begines the illusion ....they are still one with god but they are in a hipnotic state due to accepting out of a "desire" to know ....
So now within illusion there is the duality ....the veil ...delusion...ignorence...
So now that they have an illusional body that also has a brain ....
This is where "knowledge" comes into play ......remember god asked Adam that was hiding in the bushes....why are you hiding and adam replied becouse i am naked ...god asked adam who told you that you were naked ....
Adam wasent told he was naked he assumed out of thought ....out of his new found "I" dentity ...
I Adam.......god told them now that they have done this women will bare children in pain and man will sweat by his brow when working....
So therefore they shall have children .....now here's an interesting point....there children are born with the five senses ....therefore will expereance by birth pain and suffering...inherited due to adam and eve.....so right from the get go our children are tought all of there parents concepts and will beleave in them .....
But the beauty of god is still with us in that we have never keft god no he left us....we are still pure awareness and alwsys will be...
God is as "I AM" and he is within us as "IAM" the illusions are only beleaved in concepts of the tree that holds these concepts that eve desired to know.......once in this knowledge our "i" sense develops and we see a self that is seperate but it is only an illusion of a self....
All concepts are of duality ...hot, cold, good , bad, etc, etc....
All we need to do is look within to that I AM self and just stay aware of our.... IAM....remember the kingdom of heavin is within us.....look to our pure awareness that has never left us and that awearness is us....we are that IAM that IAM...
Self inquire .....who am I......
To whom do these thoughts arise ...to me...who am i....
This i is just a concept asking itself the question ..who am i...and becouse this "I" is only an illusion it will search for itself but cannot find its own self becouse it does not exist....bring this i down into the heart and let it go into love...
Love desolves all illusions.....
Now you are free ....once lost but now found....God sent his son jesus that we may have a path back home ....he concured the serpent of the tree of the illusion of birth and death.......
Even as we as spirit can seem lost in illusion we are not......
When seemingly in this illusion remember its gods creation therefore he is the doer ....we can see this when we stop our thoughts and just be aware of god as the doer of all things ...🙏🏼
The father within us doith thy works as Jesus has stated ...
Peace and love to all....🙏🏼😌
The verse is "Braham Satyam Jagat Mithya jivo Brahmaiva na paraha" is the gist of upanishad by Shankara. Meaning Brahman is real (substratum) , the world is mithya (Here Mithya does not mean real or unreal/false), and Jiva is not different from Brahman. In Vedanta, there are three different realities. With due respect, a traditional advaita vedantin can interpret it correctly. Otherwise it looks like a biased interpretation. The paradox is while talking about the fundamental misunderstanding of nonduality, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the verse quoted here.
Is non-duality the same as Oneness in the other religious traditions?
It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s just that different traditions use their own pointings.
If you can't think you way to grasping something it probably does not exist. There are some things that are vastly complex and therefore difficult to understand but non-duality is not one of them. Since you must think to know the term non-duality how can you know it exists without thinking about it?
I exist and I am not in your mental box. God exist beyond your mind and any mind... you only experiencing your mind, nothing else. your mind is subjective. Non duality is a concept given for the mind, but its not reality of mind hence you cannot grasp it with the mind, with the consciousness that thinks dualistically, you cannot think your way beyond duality using duality - its a dead end. That's why its difficult to understand because it cannot be understood. You cannot think by thinking and think you know thinking.
Since you are not the mind, but consciousness, you can experience reality of non-duality beyond mind. And then once you had such experience you can begging freeing your mind from duality instead of trying to use dualistic mind to free itself from dualistic mind.
Once you in duality you cannot recall what is like not to be in duality and since you are in duality you cannot imagine non-duality because everything you think is in duality...
_"If you can't think you way to grasping something it probably does not exist."_ I don't know. For example, scientists are increasingly theorizing the presence of 10 or 11 dimensions that would be necessary for what they observe (in the quantum world) to operate or exist. They can't fully grasp what is. But, that doesn't mean the quantum world doesn't exist.
I like to imagine a 2-dimensional world where there would be no up/down (no round; no spheres). It would be impossible for such beings to conceptualize 3 dimensions. You could even bend their plane into a circle. They'd return to where the started from, and be completely unable to conceive how that works (bend it into a mobious strip & they'd be walking on the back side of their plane without even knowing it). That's just one dimension above. Imagine 7-8 above our 3?
IMO, a lot of debate on religion, philosophy, non-duality, etc. are like the old story of blind men touching different parts of an elephant, describing different things (not knowing what an elephant is). I think the non-dual experience is real, but everyone goes wrong trying to expain what it is (or force it into a literalism which obviously doesn't exist. I.e., if you experience something, there is an experiencer. That's dualistic by definition. Then begins the debates about definitions when it could be part of the 10-11 dimensions above us and not definable. It's just what we can experience in our mortal form when we don't predicate our mortal experience upon thoughts about what it is, or even no thought about what it is. There's thinker, observer of thinker, and then no observer -- just being, experiencing being. To me, that's not as literally non-dual as some make it out to be. It can be profound and beyond this world. But, it's still being experienced by me, the mortal 3D incarnation with all its limitations. Like how a lightbulb can illuminate a room, but not the electricity that powers it.).
Brahman is real, the world is unreal. It means the world appears as if having existence but infact it doesn't exist. You think you are seeing the world, but it is brahman that you are really seeing. It was always brahman, the world never really came to be. Just because people misunderstand this and try to "get away from the world" doesn't mean the sentence is wrong.