Non duality has emerged from the Sanskrit Advaita, and it means not two. In simple words, it defines oneness. It is the human experience of singleness with all things. You can take it as a sense of connection to and individuality with the whole universe.
You must be thinking, what is non duality, right? Non duality is intimacy with all things. In such an experience, the sense of being a seer or witness of things disappears completely. Rather, you feel yourself to be whatever thing you are observing. You do not see the river; you are the river. You do not hear a chirp; you are the chirp.
Here, awareness is no more forked between you (a person) who experiences and the thing that you experience. The point is, there is just pure experience, and there is no division. It is the experience of connection that you can take as the essence of nonduality.
A Popular Philosophy
‘Non-Duality’ is a specific philosophy, and it is related to Eastern philosophy and religion. You know this is a concept that privileges the mental over the physical.
It is the claim that consciousness is the only reality and that all other things, including the physical world, emerge from consciousness.
Religion and Non duality
There are different religions like Hinduism and Buddhism that have non duality ideas at the center of their belief systems. You know the other religions and philosophies encompass at least a division related to a non dual view.
It might surprise you that even the indigenous cultures and shamanism speak of such a world view. Since non duality is at the center of human experience, most people get around speaking of it at some point.
However, there was a single place in the world wherein culture turned out to be entirely fascinated by ideas about non duality and techniques for accomplishing non dual awareness. And it was in the Indian subcontinent.
Indian culture turned out to be strongly concentrated on non duality, and you can very well see it from the spiritual terms used for it. In Hindu contexts, non duality is known as Advaita, and that exactly means not -two-ness. It is the basis of the English word non duality.
Generally, Hindu non duality includes oneness and identity with God, so it is based on divinity.
If you take it in the Buddhist tradition, non duality is known as no-self, which is emptiness or rigpa. The theories of Buddha Nature and Tathagatagarbha do discuss why non duality is there or what it means. But you know, unlike Hinduism, it is non-deity-based, and it means not related to God.
The point is, all human cultures across the world have experienced and defined non duality and non dual experience. But you know, it was only ancient India that turned out to be mainly concentrated on it.
Different Ways to Look at Non duality
If you look at it in a way, once you have experienced it, it proves that it’s real, at least to your satisfaction, because it is happening to you.
The point is, in case you have an intensely spiritual experience of oneness with all things that completely transform your life and alters your interactions with everyone else, you should not care if it is real in any scientific sense or not. This is surely real enough in the ways that matter. You need not think about what is non duality when you are experiencing it in your life.
However, then there is one more way you can look at it. It is how the awareness regarding non duality comes into existence.
The usual understanding of non duality in a spiritual context is simple; it is the real, true view of ultimate reality. Since everything is formed up of consciousness, to witness that everything is one in awareness is to witness ultimate reality.
Hence, the point is non duality has the potential to change your life, and you can embrace it for your good.
Should You Take Non Duality as Ultimate Reality?
In most religious descriptions of non duality, it has been defined as the ultimate reality. In simple words, the extent to which you interact with non dual awareness is the degree to which you interact with God, the Universe, and Everything.
If you simplify this, it means everything is consciousness. But now you must be thinking if it is true? Well, any declaration about ultimate reality is non-testable by definition. It simply means that nobody can demonstrate if non duality is the ultimate reality, or it is the consciousness that is everything.
No matter how extensively you believe it to be true or believe it to be an imagination, there is factually no way of testing, demonstrating, or knowing if you are right.
0 Comments