Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy?

[Bindi]

Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy? Is there some overwhelming proof beyond intellectual assertion? Is it only a Vedantic philosophy, or is it also asserted in Buddhism, Daoism, New ageism? Is it practical to even contemplate when we are physical beings with physical limits? 

[Lost in Translation]

Here is a short (7 minute) video by Dr. Robert Saltzman, Psychologist and author, about the nature of the present moment. I think it is worth watching.

 

 

[voidisyinyang]

41 minutes ago, Bindi said:

Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy? Is there some overwhelming proof beyond intellectual assertion? Is it only a Vedantic philosophy, or is it also asserted in Buddhism, Daoism, New ageism? Is it practical to even contemplate when we are physical beings with physical limits? 

http://www.davidloy.org/

Quote

His dissertation was published by Yale University Press as Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy.

I read this book back in 2000 or 2001.

I would say the problem with a Westernized nondualism is to see nondualism as a "static" or spatial "state."

So I kept studying this issue and realized that Daoism is based on what Ramana Maharshi called the "three in one unity" - from the three gunas. That's the oldest philosophy of INdia - the "three gunas."

So actually what unifies nondualism is from music theory since all human cultures use the "three in one" unity from music - with the emotions as the gateway to nondualism and music as the language of emotions. All human cultures use the Octave, Perfect fifth and Perfect Fifth as 1:2:3:4.

Western civilization went against this though - instead using symmetric logic. So this is why the Western nondualism seem projects a symmetric static "spatial" definition of nondualism - thereby still not really understanding what "not-two" really means.

Although there is a deeper level of Western philosophy that does understand it - although it's rare. A good example is - what's his name - well there's a few people (Harald Atmanspacher, Eddie Oshins, Stephen Rosen) but I won't get into that right now.

http://www.davidloy.org/downloads/Loy_Nonduality.pdf

So there's the whole book as a pdf - enjoy.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

In my opinion, non-duality is just another philosophy. There are no evidences beyond intellectual assertion.

But... it's proven that we can contemplate all sort of beliefs and -to some extent- turn them into our personal reality: science has been forced to accept this fact that requires special attention with anomalies like the placebo effect.

 

The consequences are that, if we feel that our beliefs must be proven to be an accurate understanding of reality, we're forced to produce (1) consistent and (2) objectively measurable results that (3) reflect and prove the underpinnings of our philosophy.

 

The vedantic philosopher has generally a decent control over his placebo-producing biological system and, by adopting a definite set of beliefs, he achieves a state of psychological detachment from the turn of events (which is active when physical pain is not involved and the reptilian brain is not dominant).

Detachment is a condition that produces a pleasant sense of balance and feelings of being in control.

 

Thus, the experienced vedantic  philosopher can generate wiithin himself a (1) consistent and (2) objectively measurable sense of detachment, but that doesn't prove that his understanding of reality is correct. It just proves that attachment is triggered by reality and non-attachment can be achieved by training the mind into living in a fantasy world.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Cheshire Cat

[lifeforce]

7 hours ago, Bindi said:

Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy? Is there some overwhelming proof beyond intellectual assertion? Is it only a Vedantic philosophy, or is it also asserted in Buddhism, Daoism, New ageism? Is it practical to even contemplate when we are physical beings with physical limits? 

 

I was on the fence, like yourself, despite practicing from non-dual traditions such as Daoism, Buddhism, Advaita Self-Inquiry and Sufism.

Then I read these two books, put into practice their methods, and it has completely convinced me that there is only One.

 

First I read this, which orientated me with the Tantrik world :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tantra-Illuminated-Philosophy-Practice-Tradition/dp/0989761304/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534499616&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=tantra+illuminated

and then this, which swept away any lingering doubts.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Recognition-Sutras-Illuminating-000-year-old-masterpiece/dp/098976138X/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1534499616&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=tantra+illuminated&dpPl=1&dpID=51NE3p09B9L&ref=plSrch

 

[lifeforce]

I should add that after I experienced recognition, I now see things through a non dual Tantrik lens, that ALL spiritual practices are equally valid.

 

As one desires to approach the Lord, so the Lord will approach the aspirant. (bhag. gita 4.11)

Edited August 17, 2018 by lifeforce

[Marblehead]

I hold that non-duality is a state of mind.

 

All things are not really One even though they emerge from the same source (the Mystery).

 

But when we live with our environment instead of just in our environment we become a bit closer to non-duality.

 

 In dreams, I think, we can experience non-duality but when we wake up consciousness returns to duality.

 

But then, I have experienced non-duality while awake even though it didn't last very long so I cannot negate the possibility of some people being able to spend more time in non-duality than I have.

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Marblehead

[rideforever]

Advaita is a practice.

 

Through merging repeatedly with the source-of-consciousness you create a bridge.
Over time your identity transforms from human-ego-identity to the bridge, and therefore you live merged with the source.

 

Westerners when they came to India they saw some guys doing bendy exercise and thought that is "Yoga" and went back to the US to monetize it.   But it is not Yoga, in fact most yogis are just meditators.

 

Likewise when Westerners saw the sign on the ashram saying "Advaita", they didn't bother to go in and sit with the master for 5 years, they just go on the plane back to California and started selling it as a new great idea.  
Great ideas are wonderful things to sell, because you don't have to do any work, and your customers don't have to do any work, and you can go nowhere together and pretend you are alive.   Then some money changes hands and you go home happy.

 

Meanwhile back inside the Advaita Ashram students are absorbing the energies of the source with the light of their teacher.   As they meditate they become one as a practice, merging deeply and more deeply with the unfathomable source.   And reach liberation.

 

In California the ape people are very bendy and wear spandex, and make dollars.

 

 

[Marblehead]

2 minutes ago, rideforever said:

In California the ape people are very bendy and wear spandex, and make dollars.

That's not all they do in California.  There's a lot of really weird stuff happening in California.

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

It is a personal choice we can live in conflict and allow the rational intellectual mind to run our lives or we can do the work and allow the divine spirit child in us to live not only a joyful life now but also solve life and death this brings great joy and sets our priorities in life in order. What was important while our mind is in duality mode and causes so many issues and problems vanishes to dust.

 

So the question is our choice.

[rideforever]

1 minute ago, Marblehead said:

That's not all they do in California.  There's a lot of really weird stuff happening in California.

 

No sh** it used to be called the Barbary Coast, which isn't a complement.

Anyway what really weird stuff is happening there ????

Let's gawk.

[Marblehead]

2 minutes ago, rideforever said:

Anyway what really weird stuff is happening there ????

Let's gawk.

I'd rather not in this thread.  There is still a lot of potential for further discussions of non-duality.

 

[Bindi]

23 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

It is a personal choice we can live in conflict and allow the rational intellectual mind to run our lives or we can do the work and allow the divine spirit child in us to live not only a joyful life now but also solve life and death this brings great joy and sets our priorities in life in order. What was important while our mind is in duality mode and causes so many issues and problems vanishes to dust.

 

So the question is our choice.

 

I'm all for nurturing the divine spirit child in us, but I was informed by dwai that this was still duality because the spirit or soul has an identity separate from the One still. As far as I have understood an immortal being exists in duality. 

[Fa Xin]

My experience is that it's a paradox. It is "both and" - not "either or."  There's no need to exclude duality, or anything for that matter.  Duality is part of it, too.

 

 

 

 

[3bob]

the Soul of the soul is non-dual, thus all souls have Soul in common, (right under our noses) realizing that ends lonesomeness, grief, sorrow, death...for the Soul is not held by any of those thus when soul reaches that home instead of mental identification with a particular form which has conditions of suffering to along with it then Freedom dawns for us as souls that were caught on a roller coaster or merry go round of identifications.  Then soul can rightly say with the inspired pointer of,  "Om Tat Sat..."

Edited August 17, 2018 by 3bob

[voidisyinyang]

3 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

I'm all for nurturing the divine spirit child in us, but I was informed by dwai that this was still duality because the spirit or soul has an identity separate from the One still. As far as I have understood an immortal being exists in duality. 

Bindi - this is a fascinating issue. The Yang Shen, from what I can determine, is created from what Zhong Gong calls "The Golden Key" as again, Master Zhang Hongbao, calls it "superluminal yin matter." So this is my experience as well from meditation. You start having precognition more - which is one of the 5 spiritual powers. But the sixth power, the "divine mirror" means that your physical body has to be pulverized or evaporated by the golden light. The Yang Qi is actually "virtual photons" from the future. This is corroborated by quantum biology - I have done the research. Even physicists now are "capturing" virtual photons in the lab.

 

O.K. so the point being that if we call Yuan Qi nondualism - Qi is created by the process of Shen (fire) under Jing (water) to create Steam (qi). That's the OLDEST definition of Qi - as I detail in my free training pdf - Idiot's Guide - https://www.docdroid.net/VERjba1/voidisyinyangblogspotcom-the-idiots-guide-to-taoist-alchemy-qigong-enlightenment-neidan-nei-kung-neigong-training-for-males.pdf

or

https://www.pdf-archive.com/2017/04/10/idiot-s-guide-to-taoist-alchemy/

So nondualism actually means, as physicist Louis de Broglie realized, there are "two" times - one from the future and one from the past. The future time literally "guides" the present - as a harmonization with the past. This happens through virtual photons. Physics calls it EPR=ER. This is not "woo woo" - Nobel Physicist Gerard 't Hooft says we live within 5D micro black holes since light has relativistic mass.

 

The problem is that "external" measurements are limited to defining time as a spatial measurement! So this is why Yan Xin, qigong master, calls qigong the "highest technology of all technologies" or quantum biology can verify this truth of quantum entanglement nonlocality "guiding" reality for animals and life - but can NOT replicate it in the "lab" as an external "off the shelf" technology. Of course the singularity science types are trying to do this with quantum computing but disregard the Entropy effects of Western civilization.

 

So the Western "enlightenment" guru types try to impose Nonduality as some kind of "static" singularity based on geometry. But this is a left-brain dominant definition - just as Ramana maharshi is commonly misunderstood by the Western "enlightenment" guru types. The Self is NOT light, but rather an "ether" or relativistic mass of light, when light is "turned around" (due to noncommutative spacetime phase as the 5th dimension).

 

So we can approach this from science, from nonwestern cultures, but unless the ecological crisis is included - then we can not properly understand nondualism. So even a nonwestern spiritual master can achieve all the spiritual powers (minus the actual Golden Yang Shen body beyond the physical body being pulverized) - such masters can still "indulge" in Western fancies of cruise ships, or rolls royces, etc. - destroying Ecology.

 

So in the end the physical body gets pulverized and a "new" golden immortal body is created - but this new body has as its spiritual ego the Yuan Qi itself which is a totally impersonal process of matter creation from MASS, as noncommutative spacetime (the 5th dimension). So energy is turned into matter but the mass stays the same (in 4D spacetime) while with capturing virtual photons as the Golden yang shen immortal body - you have to rely on capturing virtual photons, from the future, as a relativistic spacetime conversion of matter (energy) into mass.

 

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

4 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

I'm all for nurturing the divine spirit child in us, but I was informed by dwai that this was still duality because the spirit or soul has an identity separate from the One still. As far as I have understood an immortal being exists in duality. 

Well I am not from that camp. In nature and if we use nature as our teacher we can see that two opposites complete each other and not oppose. So the only thing that can be in duality is the mind. When yin and yang reconcile their differences new life is born this is the true divine nature of humanity.

 

Immortal beings live in and out of duality both together as a unified whole. The unified mind can comprehend this  it is natural and we are nature and all things that have form is also us in nature.

 

As soon as one is immortal they are also not immortal if not conscious of such things there is joy with out the mental clutter. When we apply the teachings in everyday life it is not mental clutter any more with or without a body.

[voidisyinyang]

Quote

it would be like taking a snap-shot, looking at the snap-shot, keeping it steady while I was breathing. I could then keep my focus on something for an extended period of time. All I had to do was wait and the energy would shift on its own.

This is how Jim Nance, qigong master http://guidingqi.com describes the process of nondualism - he calls it Empty Action or something like that. So in Daoist alchemy it's called "movement in Non-doing" as the Yuan Shen.

Western science calls it "noncommutative phase" but this is high level science - most scientists are not even aware of it. haha. I studied science for 10 years after my "enlightenment experience" to track down the science.

There is "yuan Qi" within the Yuan Shen but the body's energy has to be harmonized via the yuan jing as well.

Jim Nance had to meditate 12 hours a day for years to achieve this level and then he went on sabbatical alone for advanced meditation for months, to achieve the big Heart awakening beyond death.

So he told me at first he used to heal with his mind and that a person could be a qigong master with their mind, but this limits the healing energy. Instead the Emptiness has to do the healing - so he had to learn this after he was already a qigong master. So he is the only "Level 2 qigong master" that Chunyi Lin has as a student.

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

see things as empty. when we say thing is this or that it is our mind that attaches thoughts to thing. Thing has no thought so if you want to stare at a chair see it as a tree becoming a chair and watch the chair vanish into dust. chair is a stagnate thought it is not alive with all of the changes.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Wu Ming Jen

[Limahong]

9 minutes ago, Wu Ming Jen said:

see things as empty. when we say thing is this or that it is our mind that attaches thoughts to thing. Thing has no thought so if you want to stare at a chair see it as a tree becoming a chair and watch the chair vanish into dust. chair is a stagnate thought it is not alive with all of the changes.

 

Hi Wu Ming Jen,

 

I have stated oft time that sometimes I exist as an apple tree.

When I put myself in that mode - I see apples (not see things as empty).

 

 

Good night.

 

- Anand

 

[steve]

16 hours ago, Bindi said:

Is non-duality actually a fundamental truth, or just another philosophy? Is there some overwhelming proof beyond intellectual assertion? Is it only a Vedantic philosophy, or is it also asserted in Buddhism, Daoism, New ageism? Is it practical to even contemplate when we are physical beings with physical limits? 

 

In my view, non-duality is not a philosophy or intellectual assertion.

It is certainly impractical and generally unhelpful to contemplate.

When experienced directly it carries a depth of certainty that is unshakable, whether or not it is a fundamental truth.

[Marblehead]

In my experience it was just an experience.  There was nothing to do except "be".  So I suppose that it is valid to say that it is not philosophical or intellectual.

 

[rideforever]

I am sure you have noticed that you have a separate body.
When you go take a sh**, how many people are in there with you ?
Or is it just you ?
Maybe it's okay to take a sh** on your own.
Or would you prefer that mommy non-duality brings everyone in with you.
Is it okay to exist ... or just too much responsibility.
Back to your iPhone.

 

It's a good thing for existence that a band of scruffy monkeys is going to fix it when existence makes the error of giving them their own lives.

Scruffy man monkeys always "fixing" something with their "ideas" and sit there gawking whilst it crumbles into the sea, again.

 

You can return to non-duality with the source-of-you, but if you want to be non-dual with scruffy monkeys, please go here  https://tinder.com/?lang=en-GB

 

 

[Marblehead]

Nope.  I have only one body and its not separate from my brain.  That's good, I think.

 

The monkey pic - that is the sign language telling the one it is looking at that I am subordinate to you.  Please don't hit me.

 

[Limahong]

2 minutes ago, steve said:

In my view, non-duality is not a philosophy or intellectual assertion.

It is certainly impractical and generally unhelpful to contemplate.

When experienced directly it carries a depth of certainty that is unshakable, whether or not it is a fundamental truth.

 

Hi steve,

 

As an apple tree I don't know what is non-duality - philosophically or intellectually.

 

Granny is unstoppable when she shakes my tree. Why?

 

She has a depth of certainty and has tested the fundamental truth many times - she gets her apples.

 

 

Good night.

 

- Anand