The gurus of nonduality are blowing your mind
Nonduality is an idea that the mind cannot grasp. It has become a popular term and is thrown around a lot by New Age gurus and conference presenters. It is spoken of with a pretense of wisdom and understanding. But even to speak is to be in duality.
In fact, there is something called the Science and Nonduality conference that “honors and nurtures the exploration and experience of nonduality as a pathway to greater wisdom and wellbeing.” Herein lies the rub: Nonduality cannot be a pathway, and it cannot be wisdom or wellbeing. This is because all of these things require duality to experience and to happen. While the Science and Nonduality association of thinkers and scientists (featuring Deepak Chopra and others) is quite interesting, uplifting, and helpful to many, the moniker “nonduality” is not apropos in the least.
Everything in existence is dualistic
Speaking, thinking, language, the body, everything you sense, experiences, and all ideas and memories are in duality. Without duality there can be no knowledge, time, movement, phenomena, experiences, or action. There is the experience and the experiencer. In between is the experiencing. The experiencing does not require a mind to identify with it as an experiencer, but make no mistake that there is still duality going on once the person inserts his personhood — image-making — into the mix.
Nonduality is a stateless state (Amrut Laya), and even that description smacks of duality. The world as we know it is only knowable by way of complements, conflicts, contradictions, shapes, movement, time, space, and opposites. Prior to this is a silent stillness that is nondual. But it’s impossible to describe or know. So who knows it? Who experiences it? How can we even say that such a thing exists, because to exist requires duality: There is existence opposed to nonexistence. See the problem here? The moment you begin to describe it you are back in duality. So what is the sense of talking about it?
The silent stillness
At the depths of who we are is silent stillness, but HOW we know this cannot be known or explained. There is no process for “getting to this,” because we are already this. Jiddu Krishnamurti repeatedly said, “Truth is a pathless land.” You don’t obtain or attain it; it is always present yet hidden by ignorance alone. It is like the space in a glass of water: Pour out the water and the space still exists. Move the glass to another location and the space where the glass once was still exists without movement, where it has always been. Ideas, action, creation, and destruction does not affect the space. It is like a movie screen with all of the action and characters upon it. When there is a fire on the screen, the screen itself is not burnt. When there is a flood, the screen does not get wet. The screen goes unnoticed as consciousness is distracted by all the goings-on. If you want to know the silent stillness then just stop being distracted.
Noduality presents a paradox, and the mind does not do well with paradoxes, because it is entirely dependent on duality in order to operate.
Grab a blanky and take a nap
If you want the nondual, then go to sleep and do not dream. Just sleep deeply without dreams, thoughts, memories, emotions, feelings, presence of the body, or ideas so that the mind is completely gone. Nothing happens and nothing is known. Is this nonduality? If it is, let it be and do not talk about it or try to recall or analyze it, because to do so is to engage in dualism. Or, much more difficult for most, you can simply stop being the “me” as you take in the world. This way you are not projecting the fragmented sense of self into the picture.
