Why is there duality?
The concept of duality is needed to create the illusion of experience. You are not body. You are formless. Formless you is of course unable to ‘do’ anything. The concept of duality creates the illusion of experience by creating a body in a world with which you may identify as yourself.
This gives you the ability to impress that you are a separate person living a life, with a family, a job, friends, maybe wife or husband, and possibly kids.
You are formless, and in reality cannot be divided. However the concept of duality allows you to appear as many and imagine many things. Giving the formless, attribute-less, Presence the ability to imagine a form based existence.
Without duality, you would just be eternal, formless, everything and nothing, the unmanifest which is the background of all manifestation. Which you are anyway, but with duality you are able to appear as if you are not.
If freewill does not exist according to non-duality, then how can someone hope to change bad habits or take charge of their life’s circumstances? Is it all up to “grace”?
Ultimately there is no doer and no deed. The illusion of experience and the existence of a world with you in it is due to the concept that you are a body. All body based experiences, all body based knowledge, and all body based relations, are untrue. They occur within the bubble of illusion or the “consciousness”.
Everything that is ever known, done or experienced occurs within consciousness. This is why it is widely understood that there is no doer and there are no deeds.
The questions arise when their is a strong belief in being a body form and an egoistic desire to give meaning, or reality, to the forms existence. The form itself is a conglomeration of the five elements and is a lump of goo which grows by feeding and watering it. Formless Presence within the body, believing it is the body, takes on the illusion of experience with the thought ‘I am experiencing’.
This same process is mirrored in a dream. Let this deeply penetrate, as it holds the key to the reality within.
All of this is the most highest truth that can be discovered while experiencing the illusion of separation in the body based existence. Now you know yourself, where previously you did not, and you desire for this knowingness to continue. Because the first time that you know you exist is in form, you believe wrongly that you will cease to exist without it.
Now the best kept secret. Yes, you are formless, timeless, their is no experience, no experiencer, nothing has ever happened, nothing will ever happen. When this form you are holding to experience can no longer sustain Presence (so called death) the experience of body based existence will be no more, but you still very much will Be.
Enjoy. Be Happy, Happy, Happy. If you make a mistake, it is not the end of the world, after all the entire world is illusion. Be kind to everyone, after all they are your very own Self. Don’t struggle, don’t worry. Do the very best you are able with what you are able as the moment arises. When the moment passes, simply let it go. Nothing is happening, nothing has ever happened, nothing will ever happen.
The day your body can no longer sustain the Presence That You Are, take it off as an old sweater and cease experiencing.
Every night and day, the impression of sleeping, waking and ‘I exist’, cycles and you do not call it death, nor do you fear going to sleep.
This same process is mirrored in a dream. Let this deeply penetrate, as it holds the key to the reality within.
Jai Sadguru!
What happens to the small self’s worldly problems after enlightenment?
Enlightenment is the dissolution of the concept ‘I am a body’ which automatically dissolves the concept of separation or ‘small self’ and ‘world’.
This body you are holding with the label that you have been called since knowing of your existence, is only an instrument. Whatever is happening to it is observed with this deep understanding.
The recognition of true formless reality that can not be separated destroys the thought process that creates the concept of worldly problems. It is a one man show for your entertainment, and you are the one to whom the scenes appear and disappear.
Unborn children sharing concepts about the beginning of the creation of illusion.
You are formless. God, Brahman, Paramatman, are body based concepts used to describe your formlessness, that can not be labeled or described. Prior to the knowledge of body, world, etc. you did not know anything as there was nothing other to know.
The entire world in which all of this debate and all of these scriptures and all of these concepts have appeared, is untrue, as it has never actually been. The unborn children sharing concepts about the beginning of the creation of illusion do not agree as to the exact way in which the non-existent occurrence has occurred.
The entire worldly existence and the illusion of experience has occurred within the bubble of illusion (which has been labeled consciousness) and is nothing but a long dream impressed through the incorrect notion, ‘I am somebody.’ You are no body, you are everybody, because That is all there Is.
Except formless you, nothing is there. There is no world, no life, no living, no religion, no understanding, no nothing.You are prior to every experience. Even this experience of existence which spontaneously created the illusion of duality, you and something to be known. ‘I exist’. You did not know your existence as their is in reality nothing other that can be known, after knowing your existence you started to know so many things. Everything that is known is untrue. The knower is Ultimate.
Using the concept of duality through the consciousness you are able to know your true formless nature as it manifests as a sense of Presence using the body form.That is all you can do to unwind the illusion that appears so real to you, causing the belief in duality and the illusion of experience.Just remember, you are not, were not, and can never be a body. The illusion of experience brought about by the concept of being a body is untrue.
All the scriptures, all the Master’s, and your own sense of Presence are consistently hammering this Truth Home
Jai Sadguru!
What does non-duality teach us?
Ha. No Teacher, No student, No Master, No Disciple, Nothing except You. No other. Not as you appear to be, and nothing you can perceive or see.
Just you as you are, prior to any knowing That You Are.
As soon as you know you are, the illusion of experience is created through the concept of duality.
You understand perfectly, before the concept of understanding arises in the mind which creates spontaneously the thought ‘I understand’.
What does this question ‘who am I’ really mean?
That nothing able to be found can be ‘I’. This ‘I’ is no where to be found, as you are in fact the finder. You are the source. Everything other than yourself cannot be you, you are the knower of all that is known, you cannot know yourself only that which you are not.
You discover you are not body, mind, ego, intellect or personality, as all these can be known. You are the knower, or more correctly the faculty of knowing, the potentiality of all that Is.
Why is enlightenment so hard, elusive and, seemingly, only for the very few?
When did you come across with this concept of ‘enlightenment’? ‘Enlightenment is simply the dissolution of the false concept of separation impressed by the belief in being a body, in a world, having experiences.
You are formless. You can use this body form which you are not, to directly experience your true formless nature while in the body based illusory existence.
You are formless prior to this body experience. You are formless after this body experience, and you are formless now. This body based experience is completely false, as you are not a body form. This body is in you, not you in it. And even that is not quite accurate as we are speaking about the unborn child and trying to determine it’s origins.
The word ‘illusion’ gets thrown around a lot. Everyone states ‘Oh, this is an illusion’ However we skip past the fact that illusion is a term for that which is not.
The deer can not satisfy it’s thirst from the lake in the mirage. We say it is mirage as it is the body based human tendency to label things. Nothing is real. Nothing is illusion. There is nothing except formless you.
You are prior to every experience, even this experience ‘I am’ or ‘I exist’ had to appear to you, who very much existed, without the knowledge of existence or any form at all.
What is the logic behind all practices that exist to attain enlightenment? Why would those practices work, what do they do to you?
You must do all these practices so that you will be exhausted and give them up. All of these practices are inviting the attention of the formlessness that is observing the body being used for practices and the process of seeking. Once the attention is invited, that is all that can be done, as then the Ultimate non-doer begins to observe the futility of doing.
Be Still and Know I Am God.
What am I? I can’t be thoughts and emotions, they happen on their own. Am I awareness? I don’t feel trapped in my body, I feel as though there’s nothing there to be trapped.
Any answer will not satisfy the mind. Only by direct experience will the question and the questioner dissolve. Sit quietly and observe the center of observation. Where does this one that sees that you are not all of these appearances reside? Concentrate on the center of concentration itself.
You have some background and intellectual understanding, now this needs to be realized through direct experience. Know yourself in a real sense. Books, lectures etc are good in the beginning, continuing with outside impressions will only impress the spiritual ego. ‘I have spiritual knowledge’.
Sit with yourself, you are the source of every answer and every questioner, of everything.
If nobody knows for sure what happens after death, then how can enlightened people claim that consciousness is eternal?
Their is a Presence, which you will experience, if you seek to know Truth while in this body based existence. This Presence, when attention is directed towards, will reveal all of the secrets.
In Christianity it is labeled Holy Spirit. Some call it Presence of God. It is the Peace that passeth understanding that is spoken about Biblicaly. The Atman, Consciousness, etc.
Whatever name you chose to call it. It is open and available in this moment. If you concentrate on That Presence instead of on other things, including yourself. You will discover That Presence is eternal, formless, timeless.
When this Presence is sought out, you will truly Understand and Know.
What is TRUST? Some call it Faith. Is there a difference between the two? What is it that we trust in when we are talking about trust. Also, is the biblical saying “…faith of a mustard seed…” talking about trust?
In my own experience with Trust and Faith. It was at first in a concept. I heard the concept that there was God. In the particular circumstances manifesting in my life at that time, I needed desperately to surrender to whatever concept of God I may have had, a plea for help.
This plea for help than manifested as earnestness to seek and do the will of this concept of God that was forming through experience. Worship and Devotion began to grow spontaneously the more the desire to seek and know God’s will became single pointed.
This single pointed Devotion and Worship through the concept of surrender of all that was not pleasing to this ever expanding concept of God, which was now felt as a Presence.
This concept of God as this growing sense of Presence through the pure Love, Devotion and Worship of this Presence by paying attention only to this Presence and not to anything else, even myself. I believe this is what is conceptualized in scripture as the ‘mustard seed’ and also the parable of the seeds being sown.
This Presence seemed to expand the more Devotion, Worship and Love were directed towards it inwardly. When occurrences happened in the seeming outside world, the attention would dive into Presence, even if at that moment it was only the size of a dime.
Faith became knowing, and Trust became Absolute.
How do spiritually enlightened beings communicate with loved ones who no longer inhabit human bodies but still exist in the theta universe?
Attention on Presence. The source of all life past, present or future. Everything that has ever appeared to live has been birthed by Presence. Holding attention on the Presence within your body is the closest you can be to the Presence that at one time held the body of a loved one.
Does awakening to non-duality or enlightenment lead to ethical nihilism, i.e., do moral values lose all meaning?
Every question is just a doubt about your formlessness. You are not body. You are formless. Enlightenment is the body based term to describe the realization of this simple truth. As you no longer are deluded into believing you are an individual your actions will automatically be unselfish, since you will truly understand their is only formless you.
You will no longer operate from the egoistic point of separation: ‘I’ and ‘You’. Therefore gathering or acquiring more for the ‘I’ than ‘You’ or fear of losing something ‘I’ to ‘You’ will dissolve into laughter.
The concept of separation impressed through the thoughts ‘I am a body’ will no longer birth other thoughts about this body which you know you are not.
Except formless you, there is nothing.
A question I receive often personally: I have glimpsed Truth… many times.. and yet it’s not “abiding”! This is frustrating. Why does it not stick here (for me)? You are welcome to share your input. I’m certain it will be helpful.
Even a glimpse of truth obliterates the false. Like lighting a torch in a dark room. Their is still a holding on of the false identification with being a body. Continue remaining with yourself, absence of any concepts about what this Self is.
If you have begun to sense the Presence on which the illusion appears ‘truth’ just know that everything that appears on this formless Presence is illusion. Including this idea of a ‘me’ that is separate from the Presence.
You are not body. You are formless. Their is only a slight misidentification that because you are able to sense the ‘truth’ or the feeling of Presence using the body form, that you are that body form. You are not body. Their is nothing except formless you.
If the truth that you discovered is a concept or experience, then please disregard everything that has been said. If their is still a concept of the experience of truth, then the illusory entity labeled with your name has not yet been observed as an object within yourself.
More meditation and time spent in inquiry or investigation is required to get rid of that illusory idea of truth before you can accept the above.
And of course the final, final, is that since you are not body, all of the body based experiences and body based knowledge, are untrue, as they were not known prior to the knowing of the body which caused all of the confusion to begin with.