Nonduality: The Wholeness of Experience

A talk by Randall Friend on the essential qualities for the pathless path of self-realisation and discerning the nondual nature of reality.  http://avastu0.blogspot.com

Paul Dobson and nondual therapist explore the truth of infinite non-separation once again in this episode of the nonduality podcast. We typically think of ourselves as people aware of other people and things: “I am a finite individual in a world of other individuals experiencing separate finite phenomena, none of which are me.” Said simply, “I am aware.” With an enlightening shift of appreciation, we might come to recognise ourselves, not as limited entities who own awareness, but awareness itself: “I am the unbounded context of experiencing within which phenomena come and go.” Or essentially, “I am awareness itself aware of all that arises.” But this is still not the whole truth because there is a hint of duality. As our awakefulness unfolds and deepens, we eventually find that this interminable awareness, or experiencing, that we are is the very essence of each passing experience. There is no thing that isn’t this wakeful presence. Indeed, there are no things whatsoever. The subject-object story collapses. Now, our clarified conviction becomes: “I am seamless and infinite experiencing and every experience within me is nothing but me.” Said simply, “I am awareness appearing as all.” Our site: https://nisargayoga.org Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library

We feel that our unquestioned and inherited beliefs are evidence. The question is, what is evidential? What is factual? What is actual? Dive into those beliefs. And actually, you'll find nothing but the absolute. We're coming back to a very simple way of looking at phenomena, asking ‘What is the nature or anything?’, going on direct investigation. We're not throwing out our assumptions, we're simply seeing if those assumptions have any empirical basis in experience. If find yourself lost in suffering, stuck in your interpretations, you’re overlooking the immediate light of experiencing or nondual awareness itself. That light is fact, and it’s our rock. It’s the ground and the lifeblood of all we know. Our site: https://nisargayoga.org/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Paul Dobson and Nic Higham talk about the nondual realisation that we are timeless infinity knowing ourselves through the temporary imagined play of duality. We assume we are subjects in relationship with other limited subjects and objects. But upon close investigation, we find that all we know is unlimited knowing, experiencing or awareness itself. I don’t know of an object, but only knowing. I don’t experience you, another, but only myself, experiencing. And we find experiencing to be seamless and unbounded. All we know of any apparent thing is the obvious awareness that is all things. We can admit, with considerable ease, that we don’t really know the ‘why’ or ‘how’ of anything. But knowing itself is irrefutable. Our site: https://nisargayoga.org/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Randall Friend speaks about Vedanta, a "nondual" tradition of self-inquiry from Hinduism. Randall’s site is: http://avastu0.blogspot.com/ Randall describes Vedanta as: similar in many ways to other nondual traditions like Zen or Dzogchen Buddhism, Taoism, Christian Mysticism (Gnosticism) and Sufism from Islam.  Advaita is a "sect" or branch of Vedanta which says that there is a singularity of reality, a "Oneness" or one essence underlying all that appears to be. Advaita means - not-two. This is not a path, not a practice. Advaita is a direct description of reality as it is. Vedanta means - the end of the Vedas - the end of all knowledge - unlearning - not-knowing. Through investigation into the nature of Reality, called "self-knowledge" - the seeker comes to the realization of the nondual nature of Reality. Advaita Vedanta does not seek to impart a new set of beliefs, but to rip the rug out from under all beliefs, all assumptions, including the assumption that there is an individual entity or person who exists, who was born and will later die. In the direct recognition of Reality as it is, the seeker falls away as the root or foundation of all false translations. Our problem is that we feel limited, we feel isolated and small, temporary, insignificant.  Therefore we seek to fill that hole with either things from a material standpoint or states from a spiritual standpoint. Yet it is this inherent feeling of limitation from which we cannot escape.  My belief about myself is that I AM limited, therefore to seek the limitless is always quite frustrating.  If my belief about myself is true, if I am in fact limited, if reality is in fact made up of separate existences, then spirituality really is a fantasy.  This means that bondage and suffering is the truth of existence. Yet there is another possibility.  That possibility is that I was never limited to begin with, reality was never made up of separate existences.  If that is the case, then the only problem is my own ignorance of myself, ignorance of the truth of reality as whole.  That ignorance can only be corrected by knowledge of myself, of reality as it truly is.  Vedanta is a means of knowledge to know myself.

Nondual therapist speaks with co-host Paul Dobson in this episode of The Nonduality Podcast. You seek that which you believe is not already present. You fight that which you believe shouldn't be present. In this cycle of grasping and aversion, you are trying to get out of this moment because it seems unacceptable. Despite appearances, what is this moment, really, but the one reality you seek? When this is recognised, there's an opening into what already is and what you have always been. Knowing that reality is all, we stop getting into arguments with its unfoldment, with the inevitably and actuality of life's expressions. Reality is a perfection that embraces our ideas of both perfection and imperfection. Reality, therefore, transcends all ideas about perfection and imperfection. Life is free to express in every possible way; everything is the shining forth of itself. It's infinitely pregnant with possibility. All we are ever seeing is the actualisation of all these possibilities. What is arising, precisely? When you investigate, do you find anything other than aliveness, beingness or consciousness? Without referring to any memories or notions, what is the nature of anything present? The nature of every transient occurrence is the one eternal life we all are. In this sense, any arising can serve as a way into the heart of reality. Even the things that we habitually deem as unacceptable serve as a portal into this truth. Our site: https://nisargayoga.org/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

This is just a really quick message to say there's no podcast this week. But we've collated a load of highlights from this year's episodes into an hour and 20-minute long documentary, and that's over on YouTube. Enjoy and we'll be back next week.  Here's the link: https://youtu.be/xt7V8Vb7uC0 Thanks to Scott Buckley as ever for the awesome music: scottbuckley.com.au/library

Nonduality can seem decidedly obscure, abstract and complicated, but the truth to which the word points is absolutely simple and accessible. Experientially, Nonduality is about returning to the absolute simplicity of 'what is' before the mind starts breaking up the present moment and complicating it. The truth is that the mind has added dividing lines where there aren’t any, and this is relatively straightforward to recognise. The human mode involves judging, comparing, rejecting and accepting. This contributes to the perception of duality. The perfect, seamless, whole we call life seems to get split apart into infinite amounts of segments. But no matter how many ways the mind attempts to split life, it is always one and its expressions are therefore equal. So we can deeply question what anything is, to look beyond our habitual assumptions. What is the nature of the countless appearances of life, if not life itself? In the spiritual search (and indeed in any search, ultimately), we're seeking reality beyond limitation, beyond conceptual storytelling. There's only nondual reality being itself and expressing itself through illusory duality. There's only the one life seemingly losing itself through thought, and finding itself through realising the basic nature of thought.  Nonduality author and nondual therapist Nic Higham's website: https://nisargayoga.org/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Paul Dobson speaks with nonduality author John Astin. This is part 2. There's a certainty of something being here; the presence is quite certain. What it is, however, is entirely uncertain. What we're looking for is here. Presence is already here before we ever start to look for it. Before we ever do some practice to get ourselves into it, reality is here, inexplicably. It’s this explosion of life, we, as an individual that imagines ourselves somehow seeking the presence of reality, seeking to get ourselves more connected with it, more present to it, there is the presence of reality showing up as everything that is already the case. The presence doesn't need to be achieved or cultivated. This moment is the achievement of presence. You and I, whatever we imagine ourselves to be, are none other than the cosmos itself. This absolutely seamless whole that has no pieces or parts. There's not anything to grasp hold of, to manipulate, to accept or reject. There's not anything that could either represent a benefit or a threat, because they are not separate things. There's just seamlessness. That's the peace that passeth understanding. Everything is the movement of this liberated ocean of existence. Every experience is a doorway into infinity because everything is made of infinity; the absolute unfathomable energy of the universe. John Astin's site: https://www.johnastin.com/mediaOur site: http://nisargayoga.com/  Music: Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Paul Dobson speaks with nonduality author John Astin.  We have language and concepts to describe the myriad things we experience, including ourselves. But the inquiry in the exploration of nonduality is: let's start with present experience. What is life experientially? What is the actual experience of this moment? That's all we can actually investigate - what's actually here. After all, it can't be denied that something's present, actual and palpable. What is it that we're experiencing when we describe any element of life or existence?   There's really no answer to these questions, ultimately. But it's powerful to see that we don't arrive at a final conclusion when we feel our way into what's here, what's present. What's actually palpably here is just here, with no precedent. And so, in a sense, that which is present is without context. It's free of any prior knowledge framework to contextualise it; the starting point is 'This.'   It’s really fun and illuminating to come back to the barebones actuality of this instant, of this explosion of reality. It's a state of constant becoming and opening. But it actually never quite becomes anything definite because this emerging doesn't stop. And it's astonishing to just feel into the expressions of life this way, including what we take ourselves to be. Our beingness is alive and always flowing. So how could we define anything that we call ourselves? We can't grasp this self-sense because there's not something solid or fixed to hold. Just look and see: the ways we categorise people, places, and things is a nice fantasy, but it's not an actuality.  John Astin's site: https://www.johnastin.com/mediaOur site: http://nisargayoga.com/  Music: Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/