Reality is “non-dual.” This means that, although life appears dualistically, there really are “not two.” Life is not made up of independently existing things or experiences. Life is undivided, inseparable. This inseparability is often misunderstood. It is not a mystical experience. To reduce non-duality to a single, isolated, separate experience is actually duality.
Although experiences can happen where a person feels a moment of overwhelming non-separation as all thoughts fall away, non-duality or inseparability is not about having an experience. Intense mystical experiences are certainly no guarantee of an ongoing recognition of inseparability. Many people do not report an intense experience of Oneness. Instead, for them, the recognition of inseparability is much more subtle and sometimes even gradual. This is an important point because these experiences are often overemphasized, where the mind continues to reference back to the memory of the experience instead of recognizing present awareness as his real identity. Or in the case where a person has not had a Oneness experience, the tendency may be to seek such an experience in the future, mistaking the experience with non-duality.
Present awareness is the space in which memories of past insights and thoughts of future goals appear and disappear inseparably. Continuously referencing a past experience is perfect fuel for the simulated self. This self is always looking to the past for a sense of identity. Continuously emphasizing past experiences of any kind, including Oneness experiences, is perfect ego food. It exaggerates memories (i.e., thoughts) of a prior occurrence rather than the simple recognition of present awareness, which is where real freedom, love, peace, and compassion lie. If you have been exaggerating prior experiences, simply notice that those experiences have now been reduced only to memories, which are thoughts, and those thoughts are appearing inseparably within present awareness right now. Similarly if you have never had a Oneness experience and you are looking for such an experience in the future, see that your future experience is only a mental image, a thought, appearing in present awareness right now. That seeing goes a long way in no longer fueling the separate self that lives in a story of time.
Emphasizing past or future experiences can create an addict-like mentality. Just as the addict seeks to recreate past highs or to find the next “future” high or the “ultimate high,” the seeker seeks experiences. Treating non-duality like an experience reduces it to a thing which the self believes it has or doesn’t have. The separate self then goes looking for more of its drug, feeling separate from whatever it is seeking. This is a misperception of what non-duality is all about. It is a present realization of inseparability, not an experience that you have had or that you are going to have.
As stated in the chapter on experiences, Oneness experiences can be enjoyed. Great insight can be revealed in those experiences. Yet, like all experiences, Oneness experiences come and go within awareness. It is freeing to see that all experiences are equal appearances of awareness. We see that our freedom is not conditioned or wrapped up in any single experience. Awareness, which is ever present, permeates every experience. In the recognition of ever present awareness, our freedom is always available regardless of whether we are experiencing Oneness or simply driving to work.
It can be helpful to see awareness much like pure, formless, noboundary space. Awareness is like the pure space of the present moment. Within this space all appearances (i.e., forms) come and go. The space remains stable and unchanging. The appearances, however, come and go. We often use this kind of pointing in Living Realization. However, don’t take the words too literally. They are only pointing. Reality is “not two.” Therefore, there really is no division between awareness and the appearances within awareness, between formlessness and form, between space and things, between consciousness and its content.
Many report incredible freedom through the recognition of formless awareness. They see through the sense of separation inherent in lodging identity in appearances (i.e., identifying with thoughts, emotions, states, sensations, and experiences). By noticing that each appearance that makes up the simulated separate self merely comes and goes within formless awareness, it becomes clear that our identity cannot be found in these fleeting appearances. This leaves us with the recognition that our real identity is like formless awareness. It is transparent and empty.
However, a common trap is coming to believe in a new dividing line, a new sense of separation between awareness, on the one hand, and appearances on the other hand. This can result in a subtle belief system in which one begins denying appearances. Only the separate self or personal will would have an agenda to deny or vilify anything, including appearances.
Because of the real freedom recognized in present awareness, there can become this subtle desire to escape the world, to view life as something that passes by, totally separate and apart from the awareness that sees it pass by. This can result in a sense of detachment or even nihilism on the extreme end.
This can also be taken to an arrogant place, as the ego settles into a new sense of separation. Its new home is still an idea. It is the idea that awareness is our identity. When we make awareness into an idea only, the dualistic mind is in charge again. Because thought only operates in dualism, it creates a line between awareness and appearances. Appearances are considered separate, other things “out there” to be avoided, denied, or pushed away. This is often not seen. It is a subtle, hidden belief system that one mistakes for non-duality. If appearances are inseparable from awareness, then to deny or vilify appearances would be to deny or vilify awareness itself. Denying appearances leaves out the fullness of life in all its diversity in favor of a state in which one prefers the experience of not thinking and not feeling anything. That is denial. After years of personal seeking or suffering, the tendency to want to escape the world is quite natural. It’s also a trap. Non-duality is not about denying the world or escaping from it.
Awareness is not an idea. It is the pure, actual space of the present moment in which the entire world of appearances comes and goes. As it is recognized that awareness itself is not a thing or an idea, and that it is like actual no-boundary, empty, pure space, it is seen that space has no agenda to deny or push any appearance away. Everything is an inseparable appearance of this space. There is no way to separate awareness from what appears within awareness. Therefore, it is only the thought-based simulated self (i.e., “personal will”) that believes it can or should push things away or create dividing lines between me v. you, us v. them, and awareness vs. appearances.
This separateness between awareness and appearances can create a strong shadow as the mind associates formlessness as its identity, thereby shadow-boxing anyone and anything that represents form, appearance, story, or intellect. Rather than simply seeing the empty nature of all concepts, we begin denying of concepts. We turn away from stories including the stories of our friends and family members and other relationships and the millions of other stories that make up our world including philosophy, science, religion, politics, culture, art and others. The world of separate things is really a world of concepts. In denying concepts, we deny the world. The old non-dual saying that “the world is illusory” is not about denying anything. “Illusory” doesn’t mean bad. It means that what we take to be an independently existing world (including separately existing things) is actually an inseparable appearance of awareness itself.
Non-separation is love. To see oneself as merely empty awareness separate and apart from the world of things, stories, art, culture, science, friends, and family is detachment and separation, not love. As the great Indian sage Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, “Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.” Living Realization arose from this desire to close this illusory split, to welcome not only the recognition of the nothingness of awareness but also the inseparable everything-ness of the world. Living Realization is the recognition of both emptiness and form and the fact that we can never pull these two things apart because they are fundamentally inseparable. They are “not two.”
When we hear of non-duality or inseparability, the mind often conjures up an image of some special mystical state in which the world turns into one homogenized gunk. Inseparability is not a situation in which diverse elements like tables, atoms, space, bananas, thoughts, buildings, emotions, and lamps seem to blend into one homogenized, uniform mixture in which textures, lines, and colors are no longer differentiated. Although conceptual boundary lines are seen through in non-dual realization, surfaces, textures, lines, colors, and other elements of differentiation remain. It is the conceptual overlay that is placed over reality that is seen through as not real.