Is Non Duality The End of The Spiritual Journey?
by Stephen Williamson
I was a spiritual seeker who came across non duality. Reading the books and listening to speakers on non duality, it seemed that in all the speakers and authors there was a revolutionary moment when they ‘got it’, when non duality ceased to be an intellectual theory and became a reality.
Then one day I too ‘got it’. There was no self, no separateness, no doer. My state was recognized by one of the leading speakers on non duality in the UK. I had joined the elite few who no longer sought awakening, but were actually awake! I felt important.
As I adjusted to my new state I began to observe in myself and others an inconsistency. I got to know many non duality speakers. Whilst some of these speakers claimed to come from a space of no self, their actions seemed to come from the self. Character traits of self-importance, ambition and indignation, usually associated with the ego, were seen. This indicated a lack of freedom rather than the liberation they talked about when speaking. If I challenged this, I was told that importance appears, ambition appears, but it has been experienced by no one because there is no one, the self does not exist.
Amparo (Pic Natalya Madolora)
I was not too sure about this. All I could do was investigate and reflect on my own experience. I came across writings on Tibetan Buddhism where non duality is regarded as a stage along the way to full enlightenment. This resonated with me. I had previously thought that non duality was “the end of the spiritual journey“. It was the top of the spiritual mountain. No where else to go.
I now see that my coming to non duality was the end of one journey called spiritual seeking —but it was the beginning of another. What is the nature of this journey? It is the integration of the non dual perspective into every day life. I do feel insecurity, ambition, self importance and all the other effects of the appearance of a separate self. But, as the process of integration continues, these characteristics have less and less hold on me.
What is this process?
It is the development of non-discriminating, non dual awareness from moment to moment. It is resting in the emptiness of being from where all the thought and feeling energy of the mind ceases to have importance. This is done without effort. It arises spontaneously, but not all the time.
Is there anything that I can do?
Yes I can get out of the away, allow the process to happen, not get entangled in the illusion of reality that the mind creates.
A year or two ago I started a blog called What is Non Duality? to explore the non duality perspective. I have recently started another one entitled LifeField, which looks at why we get caught up in separateness, how to see non duality, and what to do with that realization.
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Stephen Williamson is from England. He spent many years as a spiritual seeker. He was a Theosophist and member of the Esoteric School before spending time in India studying under various spiritual teachers in search of the truth about enlightenment. He later became interested in self-development but found himself asking the question: “Is there a self that needs developing?”
This led him to non duality because it seemed to answer the question. After understanding non duality he made the video What is Non Duality? starring Tony Parsons [and others] which has been seen by over 30,000 people on You Tube (you can watch this video in our player on right hand side – ed). Stephen lives a quiet life in Lancashire, England. So far, he does not teach or speak formally on non duality.
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Matthew,
Your blog is fantastic!!Absolutely!!! Well done.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the main header pic! That’s what first caught my attention. It’s down to earth, beautiful, classy, pure and simple -yet sophisticated in such an arty way -both the picture and the text accompanying it!
You are doing such a great service with your site – the most beautiful one I’ve yet seen (and such rich content)!!
Much Love from your Maren
August 22, 2010 at 1:50 am
Nice post from Stephen Williamson,
I identify with where he finds himself (thinking originally that the awakening to Presence was the end), now I am one of the awakened ones; only to find that there still seems to be a person here experiencing anxiety, anger, longing, etc.
It starts to be seen (at least from here) that letting life move at its own pace and direction seems to be the only real possibility.
Take care and stay in touch,
Chick
August 22, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Hi Chick,
A rather “iconoclastic” sort of rant below:
Enlightenment and non-duality subjects are the most maddening, insane, intangible Chinese- box-like trips anyone can ever get into.
Having been through so much of it, I now see that there is no awakening to presence – the only presence there is, is you, just as you are now and always have been – regardless of what you may be thinking or feeling.
What’s the problem with the sense of being a person? You are consciousness experiencing itself as a person. There is nothing in the experience of personhood which imprisons or makes you (consciousness) unfree, qualified or “descended” anyway.
Consciousness loves being a person – that’s why we HAVE people..
Look into everything you are as a person right now – you’re still always just “you” – consciousness – whatever qualities or tendencies you may find – there’s no bondage, no problem at all in it…
If you want to change a part of your manifestation – simply consciously work to change it.
If you feel desires, why is that a problem? Follow them or don’t! If you feel anxiety, anger, etc, why not, as consciousness, using conscious mental investigation, seek to see and understand what’s causing those states and emotions, how they arise?
Do that, and you’ll unlock and dissolve whatever “problems” appear real, and you’ll also find that THERE IS NO PROBLEM – you’re consciousness, consciously and creatively free.
The mind and conscious use of the mind are no problem – the mind is the extremely powerful and non-limiting tool of consciousness itself – meaning YOU, the simple you (exactly as you are now) to whom I am writing.
You speak of letting life move… Does that preclude YOU initiating something, desiring something, pursuing something you may want to create? Do you imagine that some bogeyman called “the ego” would actually be the evil genius behind that? Are you leaving it to “life” because you have no faith, no confidence at all in any sense of your OWN direction? Is there any “life” which is a more primary universal principle than YOU – consciousness, always just there, exactly like right now?
“Non-duality” is just an ordinary little fact about the common nature of everything (consciousness)- but the whole POINT of this universe is to be FREELY part of the PLAY.
Rant over; thank you for your time…
August 24, 2010 at 5:04 am
Hi,
A couple of years ago I experienced a fairly “classic” non-dual awakening in which it became apparent that I and the universe were absolutely one – there was (and is, essentially) “no other.”
However, now – some other kinds of “realizations” having occurred – my experience and understanding is that non-duality is a state/perception of only an aspect of an integrated manifest whole. “Enlightenment” is the most delusive and intangible subject in the world, essentially, I see now, because it doesn’t exist. “You are consciousness” is just a sheer, never absent “unattainable” fact under all circumstances anyway. I believe that many spiritual searches and “realizations” are products of the failure to consciously apply the mind as understanding to one’s life and apparent problems.
Experience teaches me that “non-duality” as an assumed entire life-basis often expresses itself as an abandonment of initiative and responsibility… however, it’s time for dinner, so no more now!
August 23, 2010 at 1:19 am
…but oftentimes people are only talking about themselves.
Did you abandon initiative and responsibility?
It seems that casting a wide net by saying, essentially, “enlightenment shows up as that in every case” doesn’t reference the fact that it was presumably a personal experience for you.
At one point, did you feel like you were caught in a transcendental “stuck-ness” -where life was pushed away?
If so, would you share? or how did you “see” out of that? Many might benefit from hearing it.
If there was a “stuck-ness” for you, it may have been just a phase, but one should not confuse that phase with enlightenment or even nonduality, would you agree?
August 24, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I don’t have time to reply properly at the moment, but I will.
Suffice to say for the meantime that I believe the whole enlightenment non-duality preoccupation is inherently and irretrievably “stuck” because it is, in effect, “waiting” for some change, some insight, some “egoless” state or vantage point to emerge.
There is, however, nothing WHATSOEVER to be realized that is not true of us this very moment, all we need do is understand what is motivating the whole “spiritual” search itself.
What is the way out of being stuck? To look into what the damned “apparent” stuckness really consists of!
We are NOT stuck – beyond our ideas, there is nothing there at all.
“Stuckness” may often manifest as an amorphous, suspended kind of “double-bind” – a rather formless sort of “hanging around,” an endless “process” in which one is terribly dedicated, perhaps, to a “truth” which is somehow always as yet not entirely revealed.
Perhaps “life” or “the universe” is assigned the responsibility for revealing that truth.
It can’t, it’s too late… the truth is always already the case…
This stuckness is (while understandable) a wholly unnecessary, voluntary, performed activity.
One is oneself – consciousness – already always anyway. Seeking, spiritual conceptualizations, paths, preoccupations with enlightenment or “non-duality” are secondary, false and delusive; one was, is, and always will be consciousness, quite irreducibly – just as is the case right now for everyone reading these words, without changing or adding A THING.
Above all, how about we start to consciously LIVE this, create and play?
That is the POINT of this entire game!
August 25, 2010 at 10:38 am
I’ve noticed the same thing, Geoff. Really the problem doesn’t seem to be that nonduality is made as a life basis, the problem comes from generalizations about life or nonduality being a certain way, when really people are only talking about personal experience. Not everyone experiences lack of initiative and responsibility. If some of these posts and other comments, even TEACHINGS, were expressed from a personal standpoint, using “I” language, like “I experienced a lack of responsibility,” it wouldn’t cast such a wide net. Then we could learn from each others experience without making broad generalizations that what happened for “me” somehow applies to everyone else in every situation. People are only talking about themselves.
Ezra
August 25, 2010 at 7:26 am
Having said that, Lee’s comments are so needed and so appreciated here. Certain teachers now are talking about BEING a person “in the end,” that nonduality really is about LIFE and life is a play. I’m a character. Otherwise, nonduality becomes an abstract concept.
So I was wondering Lee, you said that you saw through separation. This means that at some point, your identity did shift from being a separate person to something else. That seemed to be necessary in order for you to have this “later” seeing that the person is consciousness.
Are you saying that people should abandon the pursuit of nondual realization? I don’t think you are saying that.
It would be like riding a boat to the other shore, realizing that you are already there, on that shore, and always were, and that frees you. But would you turn around to all the others who want to reach the shore and say, “Turn around. It’s no big deal. Just be a person with all your seeking and suffering!”
To me, that would be a HUGE oversimplication
Ezra
August 25, 2010 at 7:30 am
Please understand that some of my assertions
above (re initiative, responsibility, etc) lack supportive detail, subtlety, acknowledgement of exceptions, etc.
Because of the amount of time I have available and this format, I am just dashing things down and “quoting myself out of context,” so to speak. As such, innumerable potential criticisms of what I said are (and will continue to be) valid and justifiable.
The bits that I haven’t said complete the picture – for me – but the outward communications are sometimes just “some of the bricks in the wall.”
I did have a “classic” complete seeing-through-separation experience, but this, in itself, does not give a complete understanding of the integrated nature of manifest being and the simplicity of consciousness.
I DO say, emphatically (and this will “rip a few nighties,” as they say): abandon all “pursuit” of non-dual realization! That which you pursue, you will NEVER attain, because what you seek is merely an ill-defined projection of the mind.
The truth is not sought; it is now, exactly “as is.”
This is not a “huge simplification…”
I can however, suggest what you do instead (of
pursuing non-dual realization).
First of all, let me draw your attention to what you MAY have felt when I suggested we abandon the pursuit of non-duality. Did it (in essence) have a structure anything like “but if we abandon that pursuit, where does that leave us? – back with the same old conflicts, benighted, identified with transient illusions, desires, a false “I,” apparently separated, suffering, failing to realize our true state?
If you feel that anything like that would be the case, then that’s rather interesting in itself, isn’t it?
I haven’t much time right now, but here is what I recommend: Imagine for a moment that you were A-OK already,(you are) that you were inherently and inescapably “complete,” free, in a perfect “position,” so to speak (nothing “essential” to realize or seek).
Now, taking that as read, “import” that consciousness into wherever you actually find yourself now in thought, in feeling, in contradiction, befuddlement, external circumstance – the entire present array of your existence, and say:
“I’m going to go from NOW; If disturbance or
confusion arises, I’ll seek to see it, UNDERSTAND it as best I can, as I move along.
I’m going to allow all that arises in me – desires, fears, nameless intellectual, spiritual or existential double binds and suspensions, etc – whatever – and I’m going to bring to FULLY CONSCIOUS ATTENTION the unresolved questions, spiritual or other confusions and conflicts I may have.
Insofar as they seem to matter, I’ll live with (and even pose more of) these questions as need be, and see what answers arise. As far as I can, I’d like to understand whether my spiritual and other ideas are necessarily true at all.”
In this way, LIVE, and consciously understand
your own game thoroughly; if you truly do so, you will see, even very early in the game (even right now) that YOU are always already conscious freedom itself – the mind, personality, body, your apparent “differentiatedness” are all perfectly integrated and coexistent with, and in, consciousness …there is NO problem, nothing to be feared in any of it.
“Non-duality” is just a little fact about you; it DOES NOT invalidate, falsify or make “illusory” any of the magnificent
fully-immersed-yet-totally-free PLAY of the
universe.
“Differences”(the full experience of variety) are unaffected by non-duality!
And THAT – is all you, (whoever’s reading) just as you are now …even when you think otherwise.
So, there you go…
August 26, 2010 at 7:54 am
Oh, Ezra, I should have added – the problem is somewhat more complex in that the others are all standing on the shore with you already, insisting they’re back in the damned boat!
August 26, 2010 at 8:10 am