Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2224
-
This issue
features a dialogue between Faithe and Jerry that took place on
the newly re-opened Nonduality Salon list. The
purpose of the list is to discuss nondual perspectives. That's
what the dialogue is about. You may join the list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NondualitySalon
There's also a
photograph by Al Larus which was submitted to
Nonduality Salon
--Jerry
Photo by Al
Larus. More photos of this style here: http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/solitude.htm
On
Nondual Perspectives
Dialogue
on Nonduality Salon
Dear Jerry,
I have yet to
see a concise
generally
accepted definition
of what
constitutes nonduality.
If the term is
not definable, or
unknown, then
how are we
to offer
nondual perspectives?
I would
appreciate a definition
of this
term that we can use
on this forum.
In asking for
a definition, it is
not with the
intent to debate
what you
offer, but
to use it as a
guideline in
determining
whether something
I want to
share meets the
general
criteria.
Right now, I
do not have a
clue what
constitutes a
"nondual
perspective".
Thank you,
Faithe
---------------------------------
Dear Faithe,
Yes,
"Nondual perspective" should be defined. Here's what I
wrote and I welcome comments:
"Having a nondual perspective means
being grounded in the understanding of the nondual nature of
reality and bringing it to what you do."
You'll recognize a nondual perspective
when you sense that someone is doing their work from the
awareness of their true nature and they have a very clear
knowledge of what that is. They're stabilized at that place. You
can see it in their terminology and you can recognize it in their
values. There are some examples below.
What does nonduality or 'nondual nature
of reality' mean?
Lots of ways of defining nonduality. I'll
give one. Nonduality means 'not two', nonseparateness. When
we speak, we speak from a disposition. There are two basic
dispositions: one from the place of oneness or "I Am"
or Truth, Consciousness, God, Reality, whatever you want to call.
The second is the disposition from the
Absolute, which is where the direct experience people come from.
People like Tony Parsons or U.G. Krishnamurti. They say there is
no God, consciousness or whatever you claim to be. They're coming
from nothingness, the Absolute. From that point of view there
isn't even nonseparateness. There's nothing and no one. That's
the 'real' nonduality. That's true Advaita. But no one can get
it. You can't do anything to get it. There's no getting and no
one to do the getting.
But we can get the nonduality that
pertains to God, consciousness, truth, reality. We can get
it through intention, inquiry, surrender, and different
means. We can taste it and know it as our true nature, as the
truth of who we are.
A big problem on email lists is that you
sometimes have two people speaking to each other, one from one
disposition and the other from the other disposition.
What follows is a parade of nondual
perspectives. You'll recognize the names of some authors. These
are people grounded in nondual nature of reality and bringing
that to their work. That's done by them in a natural way.
Whatever they do they would bring that to their work. These
people are coming from the disposition of "I Am,"
truth, reality, enlightenment, realization, awakening. You'll see
some of those terms, and others, used in the quotations below.
I'm not saying these people as individuals are limited to coming
from that disposition, only in their setting forth of their
perspective.
Now with the perspectives of religion,
particularly Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Judaism, Sufism, and
Christianity, you'll see expression from the disposition of the
Absolute. It's important to recognize the difference between
the two dispositions.
Nonduality and
Education:
Awareness doesn’t need more
information. It needs only enough information. This intelligence,
the quality that mediates information into wisdom, is seldom
referenced in school. If we do not include awareness in what we
convey to our children, then aren’t we teaching them to be
unconscious and to be consumers of an endless stream of pointless
information and products? –Steven Harrison
Nonduality and Art:
A mature creative life, which has
discovered its source, finds it is linked to everything.
When we are able to tap this source and link the illumined
threads, we no longer want to live our creative lives separate
from it. A creation that does not have the residual glow of its
source can, at best, only sound a deathly rattle – however
impressive that rattle may be. –Jerry Wennstrom
Nonduality and Aikido:
[Aikido], The Art of Peace,
begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the
Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body
that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow.
You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner
divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in
your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter. –Morihei
Ueshiba
Nonduality and Cinema:
"Who were you that I
lived with, walked with? The brother, the friend? Strife and
love, darkness and light--are they the workings of one mind,
features of the same face? Oh my soul. Let me be in you now. Look
out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things
shining." –The Thin Red Line
Nonduality and Music:
To a Hip-Hopper the cipher (or
cypher) represents the womb, an urban placenta that gives birth
to emcees and beatboxers through the sharing of spiritual
energies, transferred around and through a cosmic circle of
combined rhythms. It is the training ground for those who aspire
to reach the heights of the greatest emcees, a soapbox for the
believers in a higher mode of expression and communication, a
forum for those who wish to just enjoy in an
individual-collective experience, or a combination of all three.
The cipher embodies the sacred principles and dynamics of
relationship found in and between all things, even if the
practitioner is not cognizant of the subtle events taking place. –Justin
Miles
Nonduality and Haiku:
Nonduality and Farming:
That this realization in itself has great
value does not mean that any special value is attached to me. I
remain a simple man, just an old crow, so to speak. To the casual
observer I may seem either humble or arrogant. I tell the young
people up in my orchard again and again not to try to imitate me,
and it really angers me if there is someone who does not take
this advice to heart. I ask, instead, that they simply live in
nature and apply themselves to their daily work. No, there is
nothing special about me, but what I have glimpsed is vastly
important.
–Masanobu Fukuoka
Nonduality and Western Philosophy:
Proving
the nondual nature of reality is not an overall goal for Western
philosophy. A few philosophers have created nondual
metaphysical theories; and others have argued against metaphysics
altogether. But most philosophers who dissolve or dismiss
dualities are not nondualists. The dualities left in the
dust by these writers are merely casualties of their other
work. In fact, the cleverest and most persuasive arguments
tend to come from the works focused on narrower issues.
These arguments can be very helpful in the course of one’s
nondual inquiry. As the old-time news editors used to say,
“We can use it!” –Greg Goode
Nonduality and Psychotherapy:
Are awakening psychotherapists in the
same lineage as the Buddha or
Nonduality and Religion:
Advaita Vedanta: “The essence
and the whole of Vedanta is this Knowledge, this supreme
Knowledge: that I am by nature the formless, all-pervasive Self.”
Buddhism: “If anyone listens
to this discourse and is neither filled with alarm nor awe nor
dread, be it known that such a one is of remarkable achievement.”
Sufism: “...if
you know yourself without being, not trying to become nothing,
you will know your Lord. If you think that to know Allah depends
on your ridding yourself of yourself, then you are guilty of
attributing partners to Him – the only unforgivable sin
– because you are claiming that there is another existence
besides Him, the All-Existent: that there is a you and a
He.”
Judaism: “Do not attribute
duality to God. Let God be solely God. If you suppose that Ein
Sof emanates until a certain point, and that from that point on
is outside of it, you have dualized. God forbid! Realize, rather,
that Ein Sof exists in each existent. Do not say, ‘This is a
stone and not God.’ God forbid! Rather, all existence is
God, and the stone is a thing pervaded by divinity.”
Christianity:
“The truth of the body, then, is the revelation that
Christ is all that is manifest of God or all that is manifest of
the unmanifest Father. Self or consciousness does not reveal this
and cannot know it. In the ‘smile’ there was no knower
or one who smiles, nor was there anyone or anything to smile at
or to know; there was just the smile, the ‘knowing’
that is beyond knower and known.”
Native American Tradition: “We
believe profoundly in silence – the sign of a perfect
equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body,
mind, and spirit. Those who can preserve their selfhood ever calm
and unshaken by the storms of existence – not a leaf, as it
were, astir on the tree; not a ripple upon the shining pool
– those, in the mind of the person of nature, possess the
ideal attitude and conduct of life.”
Taoism:
Evince the plainness of
undyed silk,
Embrace the simplicity of
the unhewn log;
Lessen selfishness,
Diminish desires;
Abolish learning
Faithe comments:
You name two dispositons in paragraph
one, the first coming from the I AM, etc., the second from the
Absolute. Are not Disposition one & two concepts as well? Is
not "concept" needed in any discussion?
You also mention that nonduality is
"nonseparateness". Nonseparateness from what? I
keep reading about all this suffering by people caused by the
idea of separateness...I do not understand that.
You use the term "reality".
This word also seems to carry a lot of baggage with it. What is
"reality" as you are using it? It would help if you
could give me an example of the "duality of reality"
contrasted with "nonduality of reality".
Thanks again.
Faithe
---------------------------------------------
Hi Faithe,
The two dispositions are concepts as
well. I want to give a little more description to show their
difference. The "I Am" place is about unity or the
unitive state. People use terminology such as Source, Presence,
Being, suchness, Buddha Nature, Eckhart Tolle speaks of
"vastness of being."
The so-called "I Am"
disposition is about practice, transformation, right diet,
success, meditation. It’s about everything that populates
the spirituality mainstream. It’s about leaving the
spirituality mainstream and going into solitude. It’s about
everything you do, even if it is being totally alone and
authentic. It is everything you can be and know and all
universes, past, present, and future, and quantum theory. It is
about self-realization, enlightenment, emptiness, and everything
it is possible to learn, know, and talk about. It's about this
discussion of the two dispostions.
Although the “I Am”
is the right place to come from while living in the world; and
while it is takes extreme attention to stably reside as “I
Am,” and few do stably reside there, the “I Am” is
still some entity, some thing, some being or presence.
The profound teaching from
the I Am disposition is given by Nisargadatta Maharaj
in this example:
"Hold onto the sense of 'I
am' to the exclusion of everything else. When thus the mind
becomes completely silent, it shines with a new light and
vibrates with new knowledge. It all comes spontaneously, you need
only hold on to the 'I am'."
and Ramana Maharshi:
It is important for one who is
established in his Self to see that he does not swerve in the
least from this one-pointed absorption. While swerving from his
true nature he may see before him bright effulgences, etc., or
hear unusual sounds or regard as real the visions of gods
appearing within or outside himself. He should not be deceived by
these and forget himself.
Here's Nisargadatta
speaking some more from the "I Am" disposition:
“To know what you are,”
says Nisargadatta Maharaj, “you must first investigate and
know what you are not. And to know what you are not you must
watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily
go with the basic fact: 'I am'. ... Separate consistently and
perseveringly the 'I am' from 'this' or 'that', and try to feel
what it means to be, just to be, without being
'this' or 'that'.”
While the "I
Am" place is about the understanding of the Self / I Am
/ being / vastness, the Absolute place is about their falling
away. In the following confession by Christian contemplative
Bernadette Roberts, the falling away is described, and the
two dispositions are further explained. Notice how she uses
the terms being, source, ground of experience, unitive state to
refer to the "I Am" place or disposition:
The no-self event is first and
foremost the falling away of the divine center, the source
and ground of the experience of 'life,' 'being,' energy and a
great deal more. ... it happens in great stillness and is
not an experience. No event could be less spectacular or more
momentous. In the strict sense this event is not a milestone of
the journey; instead, it is the true end or ending of the
journey. The events beyond this line are not meant for this world
and have nothing to do with it; no-self or no-consciousness is
not the true human condition, nor is the dimension beyond self
comparable to the unitive state. What characterizes the unitive
state is the love, charity and compassion of egoless giving and
living, but what characterizes the no-self condition is knowledge
of ultimate Truth as it lies beyond all self; this is its sole
purpose, revelation and concern. While the unitive state is
indeed man’s true mature state in this world, the no-self
condition is not compatible or even integrable with the human
condition.
Da Free John has spoken of the
two dispositions in terms of secondary and ultimate nondualism.
You can read about it here: http://www.nonduality.com/whatis6.htm (scroll
down).
Jed McKenna is one of the few to
speak plainly of the two dispositions. He calls the "I
Am" dispostion Human Adulthood and he says people can
achieve that. The Absolute disposition he calls Enlightenment.
If this list is going to talk
about nondual perspectives, the two dispositions, I feel, are
important to get straight. It's conceptual and it has some use in
talking about nonduality and in understanding what people are
saying.
Your other questions I'll
respond to in a separate mailing. I invite others to chime in.
Jerry