Please explain your perception of nonduality
In a word, Nisargadatta. An extraordinary man if ever there was one.
I've been searching for answers since I was about 15 and have sat at the feet of some great teachers, J. Krishnamurti being one of them, Eckhart Tolle another. But I struggled to make sense of it all until I picked up "I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta", after which it just clicked into place. No great flash of illumination in my case, just a gradually deepening understanding thanks to the pointers of Nisargadatta and a few others who've come to see life in a radically different way and call it nonduality, or advaita (not-two).
The thing is, when you stop and think about it, we live in a conceptual universe. We look out and we name things, and we conceptualise and create belief systems. The mind has created a dualistic world of separation and opposites that we ordinarily accept as "reality". "I" am supposedly separate from "you" and unfortunately many believe this gives us license to exploit and abuse each other and the planet, which is also supposedly separate from us.
Drop all concepts and what's left? Just what is, not even an "I", which is the "primary concept".
So if, from a nondual perspective, "I" am nothing more than a concept, a mental construction, what's beyond this non-existant "I", what's beyond concepts, beyond words? Certainly nothing that can be named or conceptualised, but for the sake of conversation Nisargadatta called it "THAT", or the "Absolute". "Oneness" comes close, but it's too much of a concept and is often misused. "God" is still more of a misused concept.
A more immediate way of looking at it is to ponder/meditate on that which you were before you were born. Do you have a sense of there being something unchanging in you, something that's other than time, space and matter? Sometimes I'm shocked when I look in the mirror and see the reflection of this ageing human who really doesn't seem to have much to do with this true sense of who I am. Some teachers point to this through the concepts of "presence" and "awareness", Nisargadatta's student 'Sailor' Bob Adamson being one of them.
Of course, none of this provides a get out clause from ordinary everyday living. The rent still has to be paid and food put on the table. Nisargadatta supported his family by selling cigarettes in Bombay (no wonder he died of throat cancer). But there's relief that the incessant search for meaning has come to an end. And the fear of death has diminished with the realisation that it's nothing more than the dropping away of a story or a dream, leaving that-which-is-beyond-description.
I've been searching for answers since I was about 15 and have sat at the feet of some great teachers, J. Krishnamurti being one of them, Eckhart Tolle another. But I struggled to make sense of it all until I picked up "I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta", after which it just clicked into place. No great flash of illumination in my case, just a gradually deepening understanding thanks to the pointers of Nisargadatta and a few others who've come to see life in a radically different way and call it nonduality, or advaita (not-two).
The thing is, when you stop and think about it, we live in a conceptual universe. We look out and we name things, and we conceptualise and create belief systems. The mind has created a dualistic world of separation and opposites that we ordinarily accept as "reality". "I" am supposedly separate from "you" and unfortunately many believe this gives us license to exploit and abuse each other and the planet, which is also supposedly separate from us.
Drop all concepts and what's left? Just what is, not even an "I", which is the "primary concept".
So if, from a nondual perspective, "I" am nothing more than a concept, a mental construction, what's beyond this non-existant "I", what's beyond concepts, beyond words? Certainly nothing that can be named or conceptualised, but for the sake of conversation Nisargadatta called it "THAT", or the "Absolute". "Oneness" comes close, but it's too much of a concept and is often misused. "God" is still more of a misused concept.
A more immediate way of looking at it is to ponder/meditate on that which you were before you were born. Do you have a sense of there being something unchanging in you, something that's other than time, space and matter? Sometimes I'm shocked when I look in the mirror and see the reflection of this ageing human who really doesn't seem to have much to do with this true sense of who I am. Some teachers point to this through the concepts of "presence" and "awareness", Nisargadatta's student 'Sailor' Bob Adamson being one of them.
Of course, none of this provides a get out clause from ordinary everyday living. The rent still has to be paid and food put on the table. Nisargadatta supported his family by selling cigarettes in Bombay (no wonder he died of throat cancer). But there's relief that the incessant search for meaning has come to an end. And the fear of death has diminished with the realisation that it's nothing more than the dropping away of a story or a dream, leaving that-which-is-beyond-description.
