Defining and describing non-duality

[guest_of_logic]

This post is directed mostly to David, and, to a lesser extent, Dan, but I hope that everybody else feels free to answer too. Recently, David has made a point of claiming that not just myself, but Alex too, are "deaf to non-duality"; his new-found favourite phrase seems to be "immersed in non-duality". On another forum, Dan made a point of claiming that I don't understand non-duality. For all this, though, I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be anywhere to be found a clear description of what the house philosophers actually mean by non-duality, so I'm starting this thread as a place for the notion to be clarified and discussed. If anyone knows of any existing sources describing the house philosophy's understanding of non-duality, then please feel free to link to or otherwise share them here.

I'm not out looking for an argument or a debate in this thread (although if that happens naturally then so be it) - this is more about getting people's focussed perspectives and clarification on a notion that's being referred to a lot these days on this forum.

With that introduction out of the way, here are my questions:

How do you define non-duality?
How do you describe non-duality in detail?
How do you argue for non-duality?
What are the implications of non-duality, in general and for the way that you live/approach your life?
If there's anything else that you'd like to say on this topic, then please go ahead.

[skipair]

Laird, until you start looking at yourself and your own beliefs instead of other people and theirs, you'll miss 100% of the entire point. When will you stop spending time trying to nitpick other's words? When will you be interested in real philosophy?

[Blair]

Laird asks How do you define non-duality? = Laird asks How do you define non-duality?
Laird asks How do you describe non-duality in detail? = Laird asks How do you describe non-duality in detail?
Laird asks How do you argue for non-duality? = Laird asks How do you argue for non-duality?
Laird asks What are the implications of non-duality, in general and for the way that you live/approach your life? = Laird asks What are the implications of non-duality, in general and for the way that you live/approach your life?

You are affirming A=A, (and non-duality) every step of the way. Unwittingly of course.

[David Quinn]

This post is directed mostly to David, and, to a lesser extent, Dan, but I hope that everybody else feels free to answer too. Recently, David has made a point of claiming that not just myself, but Alex too, are "deaf to non-duality"; his new-found favourite phrase seems to be "immersed in non-duality". On another forum, Dan made a point of claiming that I don't understand non-duality. For all this, though, I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be anywhere to be found a clear description of what the house philosophers actually mean by non-duality, so I'm starting this thread as a place for the notion to be clarified and discussed. If anyone knows of any existing sources describing the house philosophy's understanding of non-duality, then please feel free to link to or otherwise share them here.

I'm not out looking for an argument or a debate in this thread (although if that happens naturally then so be it) - this is more about getting people's focussed perspectives and clarification on a notion that's being referred to a lot these days on this forum.

With that introduction out of the way, here are my questions:

How do you define non-duality?
How do you describe non-duality in detail?
How do you argue for non-duality?
What are the implications of non-duality, in general and for the way that you live/approach your life?
If there's anything else that you'd like to say on this topic, then please go ahead.

This entire forum is based in non-duality. Ever since this forum has been created, and genius-l before that, I have talked about little else. Most of my posts point directly at the nature of non-duality and its amazing wisdom. If you haven't been able to understand these posts in all the years you have been here, then what makes you think that you'll suddenly start understanding them now?

For example, I could say ...

It is what is found when one abandons all things and becomes immersed in the fundamental nature of the All.

It is the perfect freedom of our non-existence.

It is the absolute nature of our subjectivity.

It is the pure spontaneity of our timelessness.

It is all things, and yet no thing.

It is what can never be escaped.

It is unborn, beyond time, the source of all creation.

It is the magic of God.

It is the never-ending Tao.

..... but how will it help you? I am pointing directly and unambiguously at non-duality when I say these things. I can't point any more directly at it, I assure you, so the next step is up to you. You either rouse yourself in the determination to wake up and see it for yourself, or you don't.

Skip made a good response. You're still trying to treat the whole matter as a kind of Western academic issue, which has the effect of removing your own self, your own subjectivity, from the equation. But non-duality cannot be understood in this way. One has to bring the whole of oneself into the matter. The understanding of non-duality is a living, breathing, awesome understanding that demands everything from you. The moment you try to confine it to an objective, academic, lifeless box in the imagination, in that very moment you crush all possibility of knowing it.

It's clear from your general behaviour that there are large areas inside you that you don't want to probe or touch or otherwise bring to the surface, neither publicly, nor in your own mind. Yet that is precisely what is limiting you in regards to understanding non-duality. It is what is causing you to split your mind into Western academic mode and various other emotional protective modes, thus creating the barriers that prevent spiritual understanding from arising.

-

[Diebert van Rhijn]

How do you define non-duality?
How do you describe non-duality in detail?
How do you argue for non-duality?

One image that could help is to picture a white perfectly even surface with as only other presence a tiny black dot. Realize that by removing the black dot, you wouldn't be able to picture 'white surface' unless one introduces shadows, seams, edges, etc. Put the black dot back and the white surface becomes obvious. Remove the black dot and the whiteness becomes "everything". Did it even exist? How would one argue for the perfect surface?

[Ryan Rudolph]

I agree with David.

Understanding non-duality is not an academic entertainment.

It involves stripping, jettisoning and negating everything within the brain that cause the persistence of dualistic cognition. It can be very painful to rid the mind of delusion because with every delusion is a certain amount of emotional investment. That investment is the self that needs to be transcended.

It involves a rigorous and devoted questioning of all the underlying assumptions of what the self is, what "you" are, and everything that you associate and identity with as part of the "self".

All the fantasy scripts constantly playing in your mind, all the cognitive games, the imaginative nonsense, the fears, the desires, the identifications with outside things as part of the self, the escapes, the habits one is unconscious of, all these things can possibly give rise to a brain that is divided from reality. A brain that has no relationship with the absolute because it is lost in its own personal life scripts, its own petty and trivial pursuits, it never touches the infinite...

all that is part of the package of grasping non-duality.

[jupiviv]

To understand non-duality you must go beyond non-duality. So thinking non-dualistically won't help you to understand it.

[cousinbasil]

To understand non-duality you must go beyond non-duality. So thinking non-dualistically won't help you to understand it.

It might, jupviv. I believe thinking dualistically and - to the extent which one can - nondualistcally can produce some valuable insights concerning dualism itself. This must be the case or else progress would be impossible. I believe Dan and others here have demonstrated that it is entirely possible to dualistically construct a scaffold or apparatus from which one's attempts at understanding the nondual nature of Reality can be made. The oft-quoted A=A is after all a dualistic statement, is it not?

[jupiviv]

The nature of Reality can be viewed both dualistically and non-dualistically, or even trialistically or quadralistically. But it is *specifically* neither of those things. Look at my thread about the proof of God's existence.

[cousinbasil]

The nature of Reality can be viewed both dualistically and non-dualistically, or even trialistically or quadralistically. But it is *specifically* neither of those things. Look at my thread about the proof of God's existence.

There are a lot of threads that go there at GF - please link me to what you think I should read.

[jupiviv]

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5719

[Ryan Rudolph]

jupiviv wrote:

To understand non-duality you must go beyond non-duality. So thinking non-dualistically won't help you to understand it.

This statement doesn't make much sense to me, and to write such a short statement without further explanation is irresponsible and pointless. Why bother? you are wasting everyone's time.

By definition, you cannot go beyond a non-dual way of perceiving or thinking, that is the correct form of perception. And you can only get there by analyzing how dualistic cognition works, as that exposes ones own unconscious modes of dualistic cognition.

Moreover, the major part of non-dualistic thinking is merely being able to describe how people delude themselves with dualistic thinking, that is the major component. The other is merely a logical foundation, which is mostly hardwired into consciousness anyhow.

The essence of the absolute is through an understanding of what blocks and hinders the emergence of the absolute within the mind.

[jufa]

To this writer, speaking of non-duality is no more than speculation. Why? Because when one has stepped into that which eliminates their Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personalities and no longer indulge in humanistic thought, they can no longer enter into the non-existing space of dualism or nothingness because they realize they are the One of Existence and cannot divide into two.

Never give power to anything person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Ataraxia]

It is the absolute nature of our subjectivity.

-

I like this extract by U.G Krishnamurti.


The natural state is one in which thinking and life are not two things but one. It is not an intellectual state. It is more like a state of feeling, although I use the word feeling in a different sense than that in which you use the word. It is a state of not seeking. Man is always seeking something—money, power, sex, love, mystical experience, truth, enlightenment—and it is this seeking which keeps him out of his natural state. And although I am in a natural state, I cannot help someone else, because it is my particular natural state, not another's.

So don't listen to me or anybody. Listening to other people is what you've been doing all your life. It's the cause of your unhappiness. You are unique. There is no reason for your wanting to be like another chap. You can't be like him anyway. This wanting—wanting to listen, wanting to understand, wanting to be like such-and-such an individual—has come about because society is interested in creating a perfect man, but there is no such thing as a perfect man. All we can do is be ourselves and no one can help you be that.

You keep listening to someone, it makes no difference whom. And you keep hoping that somehow, tomorrow or the next day, by listening more and more, you will get off the merry-go-round. You listen to your parents and teachers tell you to be good and dutiful and not be angry and so on and that doesn't do any good so you go and learn meditation. You find someone in the holy business and you fall for it. Or perhaps he touches you and you see some light or God-knows-what and you hope he will help you experience enlightenment, but he cannot help you. I do not know if you see the utter helplessness of the situation and how, if anyone thinks he can help you, he will inevitably mislead you. And the less phony he is, the more powerful he is. The more enlightened he is, the more misery and mischief he will create for you.

Life as such has no beginning and no end. It is a beginningless and endless movement and you are only an expression of it. You are conscious of yourself through thought, by which I mean not just conscious thought but that conditioning which transforms the life that passes through you into feelings, into pleasure and pain. And this thought is not yours. It is what you have learned from others. It is second-hand. It belongs to everybody. You belong to everybody. When you accept nature, everything falls into its own rhythm. There is nothing to control and nothing to ask. You don't have to do a thing. You are finished.

[David Quinn]

Yep, he certainly had his moments.

-

[Carmel]

serendipity...

nice piece, thanks Ataraxia. :)

[Ataraxia]

No worries.

It comes from a book that really opened my eyes up - it is mainly just a list of aphorisms: The Natural State

U.G is great value from my perspective. He is the anti-religious religious guy.

[jufa]

Man was not born to cry tells it all. I've said this to say all that happens in the world of matter to the man of flesh is abnormal and believed to be supernatural. Neither has anything to do with God, religion, theism, theology, witchcraft, atheism, philosophy, or any isms man interpret from his dual personality, for normality/abnormality or supernatural/natural has nothing to do with the singularity or thought nor the dualism of plurality of man's thinking.

When flowing through the eye of Spirit Comprehension, all is whole, perfect, complete, and pure even the the minds and dual understanding of man. When one has gone through the human mind to get beyond the mind and has been Ordained in the Fire of the cooling water of their Spirit, where their are no gods of the intellect, nor graven images of word pictures the intellect has produced and find supposed power and might from, then one is capable of comprehending all that takes place and occur anywhere does so "by my Spirit saith the Lord of host,"

It is abnormal to be sick, to be without anything, to not be able to have good friend, and a loving relationship, and to die, in the sense of death as we preceive death. It is normal to be well, to have abundance, to have perfect relationships, to let you light shine, to know, and acknowledge you are in the presence of God always because it is the truth of reality.

How can I say these things? I can say them because every form you are aware of in this word came into being because of you. You are the maker of forms, of circumstances, conditions, and situation in your world, and those forms are liken unto the mind you possess. Come out of your creation, and you come out of the world of dualism; of living from a split personality, and you will stop being the observed, and become the observer.

This means that at some point, you must stop listening to people, and put down the book(s), and step out upon the levels of the wisdom and understanding which is in you and you have brought to front. God is a living God, and this means God's Word is a living Word, which translate into your having to live God, and live Him unconditionally.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength = jufa

http://theillusionofgod.com

http://groups.yahoo.com/OpenUp_Yourmind

http://myspace.com/theoriginaljufa

[guest_of_logic]

The responses so far have all been pretty vague. Prince proclaims his pet equation without explaining how it relates to non-duality; David asserts that the entire forum is based on non-duality, and trots out a few short sentences that purportedly describe it, but dodges the request for a definition, a description and arguments by claiming that this is treating the matter as a "Western academic issue" whereas according to him "non-duality cannot be understood in this way"; Diebert mentions something about a contrasting black dot on an all-white even surface, but fails to explain the relevance of the analogy; Ryan mentions "jettisoning ... dualistic cognition" but fails to define dualistic cognition; jupiviv tersely declares that to understand non-duality one must transcend it, implying that he has done so but failing to elaborate on what he means.

David asks me, "If you haven't been able to understand these posts in all the years you have been here, then what makes you think that you'll suddenly start understanding them now?"

It's not my understanding of past posts that's lacking, rather the lack is of your definition and description of non-duality. Based on your post, it seems that you use the term "non-duality" either as a synonym for another term as I use it, "the house philosophy", or perhaps as meaning, "that which the house philosophy describes".

I'd like you to explain more clearly why you use that term, though. It's composed of two semantic components, which surely are not arbitrary. Dictionary.com defines "duality" as "the state or quality of being two or in two parts; dichotomy". So, semantically, the term is a negation of the state or quality of being two or in two parts. Could you clarify how this relates to your usage of the term? You could comment, for example, on what it is whose two parts are being negated - what those two parts are and why you negate that there are indeed two. At least superficially, these semantics have not much to do with the descriptive sentences that you trotted out in your previous post.

[guest_of_logic]

Oh, and Skip: my philosophy is implicit in the way that I approach the philosophy of others, and I don't think that my approach is fairly described as nitpicking. "Real philosophy": I think I do that already, it's possibly just that I take more consideration of the world of empirical phenomenon, or at least those which I've experienced, than you do.

[Kelly Jones]

Laird,

Dualism means existence by contrast. E.g. a tree defined in contrast to its environment, and everything else it is not. Things are dualistic, because they exist in that relative way.

Clear enough definition for you?

Nondualism is the absence of contrast. It doesn't have existence relative to, in contrast with, or dependency on, anything else.


.

[Kunga]

How do you define non-duality?
How do you describe non-duality in detail?
How do you argue for non-duality?
What are the implications of non-duality, in general and for the way that you live/approach your life?
If there's anything else that you'd like to say on this topic, then please go ahead.






non-duality is like your body...there are seamingly separate parts...but they function as a whole
everything is interconnected....everything in the Universe....we are what makes IT up

there is no duality (that's the illusion)
this is one organism (THE UNIVERSE)
WE ARE EXPLORING OURSELF

we are talking to ourself
we are killing ourself
we are condemming ourself
we are banning ourself
everything in the universe makes up the body that is ours.

it's hard to grasp
i act as an individual
we each have a function like the heart in our body has a function
i haven't quite comprehended it all
but this is how i honestly see it
and it's only logical to me that this is the truth.

[cousinbasil]

Laird,

Dualism means existence by contrast. E.g. a tree defined in contrast to its environment, and everything else it is not. Things are dualistic, because they exist in that relative way.

Clear enough definition for you?

Nondualism is the absence of contrast. It doesn't have existence relative to, in contrast with, or dependency on, anything else.


.

Which makes it and those philosophically attached to it like dogs chasing their tails.

If all the machinations of philosophical discourse yield the output that there is no meaning because none is required, then isn't the resulting philosophy meaningless itself? Why is everybody wasting time on this forum?

I think the very meaning of this forum is to display in excruciating detail the limits of philosophical discourse. We have an intricate atlas of culs -de-sac.

Keep making left turns.

[jufa]

Laird, you are not looking for definition from those in this thread, you are looking to pinpoint others logic as irrational to your, or paint them into a corner so you can say I told you so.

Why do I say this, because you have done the same thing you accuse others of doing, which is you have ignored their post of definition and explanation, as well as mine which will question you concerning your logic. jufa has given you a definition with explanation, why have you ignored?

"You are only as good as you come up against" - jufa

remember that.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[jupiviv]

@Ryan Rudolph, I didn't elaborate because what I said was logically sufficient. To understand anything you must be not that thing, and that is what I meant by transcending non-duality - to understand non-dualistic thinking you must transcend it.

Your statement that non-dualism is the correct form of perception is incorrect because it contradicts itself.