Nonduality: The Wholeness of Experience

Paul Dobson and nondual therapist Nic Higham talk more about nonduality.  You are the light of experiencing or awareness. Are you not experiencing or aware? You are conscious and your consciousness enlightens each expression of itself. It illuminates the known; this seamless display of experience, expressions of the same light that you are. Everything is enlightened and enlivened by your experiencing. So you're already enlightened, in that sense. It's not like you have to attain experiencing or awareness. What else is there? This awareness is what you are and it’s full of potential - absolutely brimming, overflowing with possibility. This awareness is freedom. There's nothing to cultivate. There's nothing to do or undo. Presence is always what is regardless of what's going on, despite what is present. We cover presence over with thinking and interpreting and overlook the presence of awareness. But even distraction occurs within presence. So there's nothing but presence. It turns out that all our ideas about life, all our interpretations can't be verified ultimately. But we can be certain that all appears from and within the one, seamless experiencing that we are. Nic’s site: http://nisargayoga.com/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Here's another episode of the nonduality podcast. What is nonduality? What is life? Who am I?  Our usual orientation is one of being a separate limited ego entity within a boundless universe, feeling very small and powerless, always craving a deep connection with the entirety of what is. We seek a way to heal an imagined divide through clinging and pushing away certain experiences.    There’s another way: waking up to the reality of non-grasping. In truth, reality does not grasp nor reject any manifestation of itself.    As the great nondual commentators have always said, you are open and undivided awareness - reality itself - and within you, as the great meditator, are many objects of meditation which are nothing but you. Rather than trying to accept and accommodate you can simply notice the actuality of your existing ungrasping nature. There’s nothing to remove or include. Nirvana, or freedom, already is, but you've tricked yourself into thinking that you're not this unbounded awareness.    If you investigate the quality of your direct experience, you’ll find that it’s saying nothing but “This”. Like the sky it's open and completely ungraspable, yet it appears tangible and split up. It’s an ever-moving river, always shifting, always changing, completely fresh and new, while utterly constant and dependable.    Nonduality author and nondual therapist  Nic Higham's website: https://nisargayoga.org/  Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Nonduality author and therapist Nic Higham speaks with co-host Paul Dobson about all things nonduality.    In his book, I Am That, Nisargadatta Maharaj says: "No thing in existence has a particular cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the universe being what it is. When the source and ground of everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle fundamentally and totally free. Every event is the effect and the expression of the whole and is in fundamental harmony with the whole. Reality is simple — all is one, harmony is the eternal law. The law of balance reigns supreme."   https://nisargayoga.org/  Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Here’s part two of Paul’s conversation with nonduality author and teacher John Astin.   Our primary idea is of being separate from the whole of reality. We imagine we exist as independent creatures like waves imagining they are separate from the sea.   We’re searching to feel at home. Our habitual instinct, however, tells us, “This moment isn’t home. It doesn’t look or feel like my idea of home. I’m going to do all these spiritual practices and inquiries and I’m going to find home.” In actual fact, there is only home. Home is reality; it’s the reality of home.  We are the expression of some indivisible ocean of existence. Conceptually we can conceive of distinct objects, but experientially we don’t actually experience separation. We only ever experience experience itself and experience doesn’t have boundaries.  We can see if our unquestioned ideas have an empirical basis in experience. When we explore with care the field of experience, we discover the nature of life and find that it doesn’t collapse into definitions. We find that life is not actually divided in any way, and we realise this fact by simply looking here and now within the unlimited field of what is.   There’s the possibility of a relaxing of the search for something else, for answers, for solutions to apparent problems. Real equanimity is in the discovery that there’s only equanimity.   The wave-like movements of the mind are being moved by the ocean of reality. The one reality is moving all waves, each manifestation of itself. Everything is that totality. We are never not at home. We are the home we seek.   Our site: https://nisargayoga.org Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Paul Dobson speaks with nonduality author and teacher John Astin.    If we want to find wholeness, we have to look somewhere other than within our habitual perception of distinction and differentiation. We have to discover the nature of all beyond characterisation.    There’s always a relentless constancy, a fact of beingness, of the existence of everything no matter the descriptions. This immediate actuality is where we discover the totality that shines forth as what we characterise in different ways. The totality is that which is inclusive of everything.     What we call the interpreting mind that seems to split and divide and turn the totality into seeming pieces, is actually the same totality. It’s the fundamental basis of everything and it gives rise to this moment, including any dualistic conceptualising.    There's a beauty in ‘what is’ even when the present moment feels difficult. That beauty is transcendental, and it doesn't have an opposite. It's a beauty that's inclusive of all things because it is all things. There's nothing else but that, the one reality. It's an unthinkable energy that’s bursting forth as each instant and it’s unthinkably intelligent. It’s the pure presence of this radical open-ended, unstoppable, embrace of apparent multiplicity.     What we think of as our little isolated separate ego-self, is absolutely none other than the boundless absolute reality. That's what we are.   John’s site: https://www.johnastin.com/  Our site: https://nisargayoga.org/  Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Here's another episode of The Nonduality Podcast with author and nondual therapist Nic Higham and co-podcaster Paul Dobson.   If there is a non-dual all-encompassing reality, it must be here and now, no matter how this moment seems. If this profound truth is recognised, that there's one reality expressing itself unconditionally as all, the search ends. Though it may not comply with our fantasies, reality is life as it is. This exploration of nonduality is not about reaching a specific state but acknowledging the obvious.   We could call this recognition 'spiritual awakening', 'self-realisation', 'enlightenment', or simply being, living and experiencing life. We are already deeply familiar and engaged with a capacity of natural experiencing in which flows a seamless and indivisible flow of experiences that are made of what we are. What else can we be other than the actuality of experiencing? The fact that reality can be anything is the most profound expression of love and freedom.  While it's true that reality is nondual, it seems as if it's split up into an infinite amount of separate experiences. In this sense, it is both one and many, yet neither of these configurations. We can't make any absolute conclusions about life; we can't pin it down, no matter how convenient that would be. We, therefore, find ourselves in an open-ended exploration of experiencing, nakedly with what is, always aligned what the indefinable suchness of reality.   http://nisargayoga.com/ Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Joan Tollifson discusses the acceptance of this moment and the recognition of wholeness in non-dual understanding. They explore the uncontrollable nature of life, the importance of being present with feelings and sensations, and the misconceptions of the 'no doer' philosophy. They also share personal experiences with addiction, discuss the limitations of fixed opinions, and emphasize the significance of open exploration in spiritual discussions. Additionally, they delve into the connection between pain and bliss, highlighting how everything is made of the same substance and is a manifestation of presence or consciousness.

In this episode, Paul Dobson is joined again by John Astin. Episode #39. Paul speaks with John Astin again. We live in a world in which there appears to be great certainty about everything, all the things we've grown accustomed to knowing the meaning of. The presumed objects and events of the world, and the world itself, often have the whiff of incompleteness, and we have a sense of lack. That's one perspective - duality - the perspective of separate phenomena. Yet, if we enter into any phenomena and explore its nature, we never arrive at a final conclusion. There can be a recognition that life is beyond comprehension, and therefore, free of problems. In this episode of The Nonduality Podcast, John Astin reminds us that Reality is nondual and free of definition. There's not some greener grass on the other side. There is only the One Life somehow being here, now, and appearing as this moment. Everything is That, no matter how things look. All is that boundless, seamless, indivisible, infinity of existence. Available on all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/nonduality-podcast Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

Paul Dobson and nondual therapist Nic Higham talk about the radical inclusivity of effortless experiencing.  There is one infinite, indescribable, inconceivable reality, and we are that. This reality is full of nothing but itself and absolutely in love with itself. Incredibly, through the human perspective, we seem to have condensed ourselves down to tiny little stick figure ideas about ourselves. Our unquestioned beliefs often convince us. Consequently, we feel limited,  we suffer, and we seek the end of seeking. As people, we know the reality that we are through the play of opposites, which are never absolute and always relative. Our forgetfulness is like forgetting the sun is present while the moon eclipses it. The truth is, reality is forever appearing and responding to itself through seemingly different,  dualistic forms. However, we forget the boundless context within which everything appears. While this is often our experience, it is possible to realise that no appearance can truly limit us, that no one expression is our entirety. Nor are we composites of thoughts, feelings and senses. We can recognise that nothing is out of place, for whatever is here is simply the inevitable actuality of life. As life, we can hold and contain it all, no matter how things may seem on the surface. We are free from the temporary and the relative because they don't define us ultimately. Simultaneously, every appearance is equally permitted to arise since there is nothing but reality. In this exploration of the non-dual nature of life, we're not trying to redefine anything or to reach a philosophical or spiritual conclusion, but seeing if our existing definitions and conclusions are valid through deep inquiry and investigation. For this, we need only look within our direct experience and discern that which is most certain, truthful and dependable.  Nic Higham's website: https://nisargayoga.org/  Music by Scott Buckley - https://www.scottbuckley.com.au/library/

A guided nonduality meditation and inquiry with nondual therapist Nic Higham https://nisargayoga.org/