What is Nonduality?

Imagine you have climbed up to a peak of a mountain in the middle of the Himalayas and you stand there overlooking the vastness of the sky and snowy capped mountain ranges all around you in all directions. Look straight ahead and see the breadth of the mountains and blue sky. Look to your left and see more mountains. Look to the right. Look behind you. Look above you and witness the limitless blue sky. Look below you and experience the solidness of the mountain you are standing on. Again, let your awareness expand in all directions. The front, back, sides, above, and below - feel the range of your awareness go on forever. Now just allow this awareness to relax and become of aware of everything at once in a general way, not focusing on anything specific. But just taking the view of everything at the same time in a soft 360° gaze. Like the camera of your eyes goes panoramic. Just the vastness of space and all the snowy capped mountains with the bright blue sky as the background. Feel your heart and this vastness at the same time. From this view, you feel this oneness with the vastness of the sky, the snow peaks, and the mountain below your feet, feeling rooted downwards to infinity. Just oneness with everything...

...as the warmth of sunlight touches your face.

...as the cool brisk air brushes across your body.

...as you experience the majesty and awe of this moment.

Now transport this experience to your current moment. Become aware of everything around you in the room. Take it in all at once just like you did on the mountain peak. Follow the flow of the oneness. Stay here for 30 seconds.¹

This experience and metaphor points to the first level of nonduality - a conceptual understanding and feeling of oneness.

Nonduality is understood differently in the various spiritual traditions and not everyone agrees with each other. If you google nonduality, you will most likely come to references from the Vedanta or Advaita tradition. In my perception, their understanding is limited to the earlier recognition levels of nonduality such as nonlocality, formlessness, the groundless ground, etc. They don't speak to embodiment. Although these teachings offer an initial map, they are incomplete, and I believe Tibetan Buddhism offers more discernment around the recognition. And even further, I believe Integral Spirituality offers more distinctions. I fall in this latter camp while training for 30 years in the traditional understandings. The traditional understandings don't include developmental psychology, especially how ego development interfaces with nonduality. In addition, they don't include the worldly achievement aspect. So my understanding stems from these sources as well as my soul lineage, the evolution of learnings of my soul from previous incarnations.²

In addition to the visualization exercise above overlooking on top of a mountain peak, metaphors can also help in grasping an intuitive understanding of nonduality:

Blue sky and the clouds. Nonduality is like the vast blue sky. It is made of space and there are various phenomenon that pass thru it such as the clouds. The clouds are your thoughts, emotions, sense of "I", and outward appearances. They come and go in this space. If you feel more deeply into the clouds and other phenomenon, you will experience how they are made of space, like they are empty of substance. Just put your hand thru this cloud. It is transparent, not having any intrinsic existence. This aspect is also true for all other phenomenon. Take on the perspective that all external and internal phenomenon are also space and this space is taking form and this form changes over time. They come and go. Be the space of this sky and clouds and realize oneness of all of existence.

The mirror and its reflections. Nonduality is like a clear mirror. A mirror reflects whatever is in front of it. If an apple is in front of it, an apple appears. Now see a flower. Or the contents of the room you are in now. Or a beautiful landscape of nature. This mirror beholds all these phenomenon, but they are only reflections. If you look closely and feel into these reflections in the mirror, you realize they are empty appearances and have no substance. Like a mirage. The mirror is also clear like space. Take the perspective that you and your body are this clear mirror and it extends infinitely in all directions from your body. Inside and outside. Experience the reflections. Be this mirror and realize the oneness of all of existence.

Ocean and waves. Nonduality is like an ocean and its waves. You are on a surf board paddling in the ocean and you sit up and witness the movements of this water. It moves up and down and see this pattern go on for miles. You see waves. Sometimes the wave goes a little higher and the tip extends out into white water and crashes down on the water below it. As you witness all these movements, you realize these waves are just expressions of a pulse that moves through the ocean. The waves and the ocean are not different. They are one living organism moving by a pulse. Immerse yourself into this ocean and become it. Take on this somatic perspective. This ocean extends infinitely in all directions. Feel the pulse running through and creating movements. Feel the dance of this ocean with its waves. Be this ocean and realize the oneness of all of existence.

The sun and sky. Nonduality is like the sun in the sky. Look up to a clear blue sky at the height of day and experience the warmth of the sun radiating on your face and chest. Experience the vastness of the sky with this beautiful warmth and light at the middle of it. This sun represents the eternal heart presence that exists at the center and omnipresence of nonduality. It is filled with unconditional love and joy. It is always shining these rays of love and light to all. Now take on the somatic perspective of the sky and sun. Become the sky. Experience how it extends what seems like infinity in all directions. Enter this awareness and become space. Now add the sun in the center of this experience and realize you are love radiating these rays of warmth and light to all of existence. Be this sun and sky and realize this oneness.

As you might experience and intuit from above, nonduality is this pure intimacy with all of life and at the heart of it is love. This love that moves you to serve all beings from the vision of your purpose (article coming soon) and with the gifts that pour from your genius.

When a visionary leader begins to recognize nonduality inherent in all of reality, they are granted access to its powers and these powers allow their leadership to catalyze a quality of impact and bestow a range of blessings to the circle of beings they are serving. Blessings that effect transformation, change, and results in their life. For example, with a moment to moment recognition, they exhibit tremendous presence and thru this presence, when they speak and lead, their audience will experience a transmission of their message that is not only cognitive, but somatic and felt in a very deep way in their hearts. They walk away from this transmission that becomes unforgettable. Your message and gift gets impregnated into their soul. Which also causes a transformation in their life. They change their actions that was creating undesirable results to actions that create more from their highest version of self. And then they share this love with others causing a person to person thread that will continue in the world as a ripple. All this beauty happens because of this recognition and embodiment.

The above is only a conceptual and at best an intuitive experiential understanding of nonduality. It is kindergarten. There are levels to this recognition that bring someone into more of a true understanding that is beyond concepts and experiences. Read Levels of Nonduality for a deeper exploration.

NOTES -

¹ Some possibilities can happen at this point. Either someone loses the experience because they start to focus their attention on something specific within the whole. They could also think they are in it and they are not. Or finally, they are in it in a surface way experientially, but it is conceptual, and they have developed some spiritual pride and think this is all what nonduality is. Even with the neo-Advaitins who have a deeper recognition, I have witnessed this subtle elevated confidence. All of these happenings are normal and thus why it is important to have a keen-eye teacher to help you with discernment. As a general rule that I apply myself and invite others to - never think you have arrived. Whatever experience or level of recognition you are at, always remember there is another. And even if you turn into a ball of light and resurrect, never stop your training and having an open curiosity of what THIS is...

I adhere to the Integral Spirituality definition of enlightenment. See Appendix 2, pg 235 in this book for more info and how it relates to what I speak to here.

² Soul lineage: I have understandings and intuitions that stem from nothing of this lifetime, especially as it pertains to realization and how the human interfaces with it. And my only explanation is they came from the learnings of previous incarnations. This also has been verified by other teachers of mine who have the psychic capacity to see these past lifetimes. I don't like to speak about these specific incarnations that they have shared with me because I have not been able to verify it myself as I don't have access yet to that aspect of my soul field. Rahob Rinpoche shared with me in 2018 in a private interview that this psychic capacity will come more online as I complete the last stages of Togal, an advanced course in Dzogchen.