Non-duality is simply this: observer and observed are one

There's a lot of stuff written and said about non-duality. I've both partaken of it and spewed out my own in various blog posts. For example, see here, here, here, and here.

After reading a bunch of neuroscience books, Sam Harris' "Waking Up," and several books by Moller De La Rouviere, the simple truth of non-duality is finally sinking into my non-dual mind.

Which, like yours, also has been, is now, and forever will be non-dual.

Meaning, undivided into an observer and what is observed. Or awareness and objects of awareness. Or consciousness and contents of consciousness. 

In short, there is no self.

No soul. No person sitting inside our head and watching what is being experienced. This is Neuroscience 101. Also Genuine Spirituality 101. (See "Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self."

So when non-dual authors and speakers blab on about how there is nothing to do or become in order to realize the truth of non-duality, they're right. In fact, they're so right, they shouldn't be charging for this oh-so-obvious insight.

It's like saying, "Nothing needs to be done to realize the truth of gravity." OK, no argument there.

Gravity is a physical fact, a law of nature. So is non-duality. The human brain isn't divided dualistically. Again, there is no detached observer inside the head who is observing experience. Experience and the experiencer are a single entity: the brain doing its thing as what we call "mind."  

I've begun to lean toward the attitude that, contrary to what Harris and De La Rouviere say in their books, it isn't necessary to engage in meditation practices aimed at a direct intuitive experience of non-duality. I talked about this some in a post about Harris' "Waking Up."

When I look at the Sun set or rise, I still have the sensation that it is moving, while the Earth stands still. However, science tells me this is an illusion. I believe science. My mental image is of the Earth orbiting the Sun. It is only my eyes which deceive me.

Likewise, I don't believe that I have a self or soul. I haven't for quite a while. Yet I still feel like I am looking out at the world in the same way as a rider looks out from his position astride a horse: in control, separate from body.

What I'm unsure about is whether it is really necessary to engage in all of the meditative work Harris considers to be necessary to lessen one's feeling of being a self or soul. If this is such a good thing, then why shouldn't I also labor at trying to experience the Earth moving at "sunset" rather than the Sun going down?

...Harris is big on meditation. I think that thinking is another way: understanding the reasons why a self or soul almost certainly doesn't exist can lead to an intuitive experience of selflessness. 

Why not?

Again, after I understand that the Earth revolves around the Sun, I won't look upon a sunrise or sunset in the same way. Eventually that cognitive understanding may morph into an experiential realization of Earth moving and Sun staying still.

Buddhist meditation -- Harris favors the Dzogchen variety -- surely is a proven way of experiencing more fully the reality of no-self. Simply living life with eyes wide open is another way. I doubt that sitting at the feet of a Dzogchen master is necessary to realize there is no self or soul inside my head.

Looking over some of my previous posts about non-duality, I was struck by how closely what a Zen master said mirrors modern understanding of how the brain works. His reference to a "self" really means our individuality as a separate body/mind -- not a Self distinct from physicality.

This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing.

This is the way actual life experience is. However, if we use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking.

...What Buddhism is concerned about is not something abstract, but the very concrete and actual reality of life. All beings exist through life experience of the self.

...That which experiences and that which is experienced cannot be divided into two. This reality that cannot be differentiated into two is called dharma or mind, and it is the meaning of the expression "dharma and mind are one reality."

Therefore, we cannot say that we appear on the world's stage when we are born, and leave it when we die. We were born with this world in which we live out our lives as life experience. We live with this whole world. When we die, our whole world will die with us also.

...Dharma is the reality of life, and each and every one of us is living out absolute life, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. We live out the self that is only the self. No one can become a different person. In a sense, from birth to death, we are completely alone.

Even if you think that you have good friends, family, or a loving wife, the fact is that your wife can never be you. You and your wife have different dreams and think differently.

We sometimes say that we know everything about an intimate friend, but that is really just something that we have thought up. It is impossible to really understand another person. In this sense, every one of us is living out the self that is only the self, and living out the present that is only the present. This is an absolute truth.

David Lane recently made a short film narrated by his wife which does a nice job of comparing the sense of "self" to a symphony conductor who only appears after the orchestra is harmoniously playing. Have a look:

 

Comments

[cc]

It seems that the sun rises and sets because we don't perceive the earth's rotation - we experience the effect. Similarly, we experience the overall effect of consciousness (the illusion of being its conductor) and not the actual process.

But knowing this doesn't change the way consciousness experiences itself and the earth's rotation. It isn't until you actually feel the earth moving that you feel yourself slipping the bonds of personal identity, being no more than a conscious entity on a rotating planet.

[Brian Hines]

cc, yes. The question is... how does one "actually feel the earth moving"? (In a non-sexual sense.)

For me, factual knowledge seems to prepare the way for experiential understanding.

Like I said, it would be difficult to ever look at a sunset and really feel that the Earth was moving without knowing intellectually that the Earth orbits the Sun.

Likewise, a solid knowledge of modern neuroscience can be the foundation for experientially having the feeling of no-self. So long as a belief in an enduring self or soul persists, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that this feeling ever would burst into lasting awareness.

[cc]

Yes, it's impossible to actually feel the rotation of the earth (http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=665), so one can only assume that it's moving. But it isn't enough to assume that my sense of self-as-the-center-of-consciousness is delusional. Consciousness must expose, experience, and acknowledge this delusion if it is to be free of it. Yet having persisted in this delusion for so long, the difference between experience and the experiencer is as assumed as the rotation of the earth. That is, it either can't be experienced, or the experience just hasn't occurred.

This is why enlightenment, awakening, liberation, etc., are such a big deal: realization can't occur if the mind is determined that it should. This is because the mind wants to change to what it should be, but no change can occur until the mind isn't so sure.

[moongoes]

I asume that consiousness is between me and me or you and you.
Awakening maybe occurs when it is realized that already Is. So by letting go is not just that..it is imo a great effort to acheive that.
It is just like jazz you cannot just go and flip a solo you need countless riffs scales and chords to practice so you can be fit to improvise and be able to forget all the scales and chords And let go..peace

[cc]

It is just like jazz you cannot just go and flip a solo you need countless riffs scales and chords to practice so you can be fit to improvise and be able to forget all the scales and chords And let go

This is the notion of the spiritual adept. Don't believe it. Realizing the truth about the self is not at all like learning to master a musical instrument; it's not a matter of achievement, but of observation.

[Karatasian]

You can eliminate the inner homunculus from your awareness, but you haven't eliminated the awareness from your awareness.

No-self is not nondual, because it has a dual in all-self.

[Karatasian]

"Gravity is a physical fact, a law of nature."

So gravity is a thing?

No it's not a thing you can touch, .or which has a specific location,

So it's nothing?

No, it's not nothing...you can feel it, and it makes things move..

You're confusing me now..its like there's a Thing theory of gravity,and a not-a-Thing theory of gravity, and they are somehow the same, which they obviously cant be...

[Azizananda]

It can be like jazz; and like jazz played "outside" of the harmonic structure, this truth and beauty will not be understood by many.

[vinny]

Experience of self & material universe is the most fundamental experience any human being can testify. We cannot circumvent experience by rationalization, it would as psychotic as a schizophrenic declaring his own world governed by his own wishful rules. There's an endeavour by Ishwar Puri formerly a rssb initiate on human awareness a non cultist approach to explore human awareness by scientific approach , the same approach we use to make innovations in material universe. There are many videos on youtube, people cutting across all faiths are appreciating his succinct scientific approach except the perfect living master rhetoric which seems absurdly contradictory to his scientific gospel.

[Kevin]

We know God when we knoweth not. William Wordsworth. There is no duality, Neti,Neti, ( not this, not that) ONLY when there is no thought.

Problem is giving up the thought process, the figuring out, the anal-ysing, the mentating, the mind wants to know what is unknowable.

Give up, give up, give up. That simple. No need for anything. Just notice. Breathe , go into the body, see without judgement. Not easy, huh. No bloody wonder. Mr Thought wants to know. It can't be so simple. I am somebody bright. Complicate it. And so the agony perpetuates. Until unto dust thou shall return. Hah hah hah.

[observer]

And yet, when the observer is truly experienced it feels like someone else outside of oneself, another self who is me and knows me better than I know this self... so many questions and they will never be answered because the mind is constant in its trickery... so, forever the question, who am I?

[777]

Like I said, it would be difficult to ever look at a sunset and really feel that the Earth was moving without knowing intellectually that the Earth orbits the Sun.

Likewise, a solid knowledge of the sweet 24/7 sweet sweet sound that You are
in the same way as you know where your hair is

777

ps
This is not preaching
This is saying like "You have a mouth, . . EAT !"

[Lukas]

Harris is misrepresenting the teachings.

http://www.integralworld.net/powers17.html

[Rodrigo]

What a load of bollocks

[Greg Wilson]

Why do you call your blog a church?

[Brian Hines]

It's a non-religious "church." I was talking with some friends way back in 2004, and blurted out "There should be a Church of the Churchless." Meaning, a place for people who don't subscribe to any form of religion, yet still want to pursue answers to deep questions about life, reality, existence, the meaning of it all. When I decided to start this blog, the name appealed to me.

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

A duality is anything that will bare false witness to Truth. Lo, the mind is an agent of Kal (Shaytaan) and Satan's nature is to oppose the Light.

"And recall that Moses said to his people, “O my people, you have done wrong to yourselves by worshiping the calf. So repent to your Maker, and kill your egos." Koran (Itani) 2/54

Notwithstanding, a true guide/adept can shed a beacon on the Path to help slay this Leviathan.

[Robert Steele]

Wisdom only comes in the absence of ideas.

The problem is that communication requires ideas.

To communicate then seems to require that one be hesitant, tentative and very careful in the presentation of ideas as wisdom indicates they need constant updating and/or culling to remain at all connected to reality.