Let's begin this conversation with the most basic question a human being can ask.
Who are you?
This question is so essential to being human that it is written across the doorway at the entrance of the Temple of Delphi in Greece.
So as I ask you that question,
What is your experience?
Where does your mind go?
What's here before thought,
Before identity?
Non-duality points you back to that,
To consciousness itself as the true basis of all reality.
And that consciousness is fundamentally whole and complete.
There is nothing missing in pure awareness or pure consciousness.
When I was 16 years old I had the book The Tao Te Ching,
Which is essentially,
The Tao is an Eastern formulation of non-duality.
And I would read passages within The Tao Te Ching,
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.
And this very simple line is a pointing into non-duality.
That ultimate truth is beyond concepts,
Beyond words,
And can only be directly known.
And while I pondered and read that throughout my teenage and 20 years and even into my 30s,
I was never able to move that understanding out of the realm of concepts and into my direct experience.
So the essence of non-duality is a pointing to our infinite eternal nature.
We could call it the divine,
We could call it God,
You could put many different names on it,
But it is still the same one truth that there is no separation in the ultimate universe between ourselves and the divine.
That we are already that,
That we are already whole,
Perfect,
And complete as we are.
That's the truth.
And the non-dual approach to meditation takes a different form,
Shall we say,
Than traditional mindfulness as has been taught through,
Say,
A focus on the breath or a focus on a candle.
And it's not to say that this approach is wrong in any way,
And this tradition,
The traditions that teach meditation this way,
Have a long and beautiful history and will lead the meditator into the same place as more direct practices of a non-dual approach to meditation.
When I was exposed to these non-dual approaches to meditation that you find in actually many different traditions,
Advaita,
For example,
Is essentially a non-dual approach,
As is Mahamudra and Dzogchen in the Tibetan traditions.
The one that I studied was the Tibetan practices of Mahamudra and Dzogchen.
And I just want to contrast this approach here for you to say that what this approach,
A non-dual approach to meditation,
Does is take you directly through pointings or glimpses to this understanding of your true nature as essentially whole,
Complete,
And not separate from all reality.
The great Indian non-dual sage Nisargadatta Maharaj said,
Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
And between the two my life moves.
So non-dual approaches to meditation bring this beautiful understanding out of the realm of concept and into the realm of direct experience.
For myself personally,
I had tried the other more traditional mindfulness approaches for many years,
And they never were able to help me shift into into this,
Into what I would call a more upgraded way of being in the world.
It's like an upgraded operating system where we've been operating at human being 1.
0 with this sense of a small separate self pretty firmly rooted in our being,
And we upgrade to feeling more connected and flowing with all of life.
And so the practices that I share and teach are meant to help shift you out of that 1.
0 human being experience.
So I hope this is helpful,
And I will continue to share just very simple talks about these ideas and my experience to help ground these practices in in real life,
Remembering that ultimately meditation is not a state we're going for,
But a lived experience that is calm,
Peaceful,
And ultimately much more joyful way of being in the world.
And it is the essence of who and what you are.
