Non-duality is easy to turn into an idea. The mind hears words like boundlessness, formlessness, or non-separation and immediately begins trying to imagine what those words describe.
But imagining it is already something different.
The difficulty is not simply that non-duality is mysterious or hard to explain. Language itself works by creating distinctions, shapes, locations, subjects, and objects. Yet the recognition being pointed to is prior to that structuring.
And when that recognition is direct, it is not vague. Paradoxically, what cannot be adequately captured in thought can be extraordinarily obvious.
Non-Duality as Boundlessness and Formlessness
Here is yet another attempt to describe non-duality.
By non-duality, I mean the direct insight of boundlessness and formlessness.
As I’ve said before, language simply isn’t designed to describe this.
It’s also important to say that the realization of non-duality is not an experience.
That may sound like splitting hairs or playing with words. But paradoxically, experientially, or in the direct recognition of it, it is clear that the experiencer-experience split is not there.
Again, that could sound academic, but it isn’t.
It’s very direct and very obvious.
The Remarkable Directness of Non-Duality
It is the directness that is remarkable.
When that directness is seen as it actually is, when the directness is registering in the way it actually is, there is no structured dimensionality.
There is no structured dimensionality.
Paradoxically, that doesn’t mean you can’t conventionally point to something and say:
“That’s a tree.”
“That’s a cat.”
“That’s over there, and I’m over here.”
The conventional behaviors and the conventional register are still available.
But they are seen very, very clearly to be nothing but an overlay.
The overlay is laid over that which has no actual structure.
The Conceptual Overlay Gives Reality a Shape
There was a comedy bit I watched the other day that said essentially something like, “God is the name for the blanket you place over reality to give it a shape.”
That is a little bit like what I’m pointing to when I use the word overlay.
The overlay gives reality a shape that makes it functional.
You can recognize this conceptually through a kind of inquiry process. You can recognize it through deconstruction, through simply noticing very clearly what is happening, or even through an understanding of neurophysiology and the functioning of the nervous system.
You can learn that.
But learning that is not the same thing as realizing it.
Understanding Non-Duality Is Not the Same as Realizing It
The realization of it is directly registering it all the time.
When it is directly registered, you can see that even though there is something draped over it, there is no it being draped over.
It doesn’t have a shape.
It doesn’t have a shape without the mind trying to shape it in order to make it functional.
It doesn’t have form without the mind adding form and making it seem formed.
That may sound ridiculous.
It probably does.
But in the immediate recognition, it’s obvious.
Why Thought Cannot Capture Non-Duality
So what is it like?
How could I tell you what it’s like?
I know it is impossible to tell you what it is like in such a way that you can understand it through thoughts.
It’s impossible.
It simply cannot be done.
I can’t understand it through thoughts either.
The thought mechanism does not work for this.
But that doesn’t mean there is no appearance of it.
There is an appearance.
It doesn’t have an actual structure. It doesn’t have a form that you can find, but it does have an appearance.
It is appearing.
And when trying to describe that appearance, the descriptions will almost always be shaped more by negative descriptions than positive ones.
It is about what is not there.
That is why boundlessness is a pretty good word for it.
But it isn’t just boundlessness.
It’s shapelessness.
It’s distancelessness.
Distancelessness Is Not a Singularity
Here is one reason the mind cannot get hold of this.
If I say there is no distance, the mind can probably only do something like this:
“Oh, so you’re saying it’s a singularity. It’s a tiny point that has no dimension.”
No.
That is not what I’m saying.
That would itself be a kind of dimension. It would at least be a place or a location.
This isn’t even that.
It isn’t even a location.
It’s almost as if, when you negate far enough, the negation flips on its head and becomes a kind of affirmation. It becomes positive.
And the positive nature of it is that it is also everywhere.
Non-Duality in an Ordinary Trip to the Store
One way I might talk about this is through something completely ordinary.
I was walking through a store about fifteen minutes ago.
Conventionally, there are some people walking over there. I’m walking here. There are flowers over here. There’s food over there.
But the simultaneous registering is something like this:
I’m in the flowers.
I’m feeling the flowers in this body.
This body is walking over there in those people, and those people are walking here as this body.
It is all happening simultaneously.
And it isn’t hard to track.
That is one of the interesting things about this.
It isn’t as though it has separate parts that the mind has to track:
“There’s that part, this part, and this part.”
It’s more like it knows itself immediately.
It is self-knowing, or self-obvious.
It is internally consistent somehow.
One part is every part, and every single part is all the parts simultaneously.
Non-Duality Registers as Total Intimacy
The non-separation registers as total intimacy.
It registers as nothing apart.
There is no over there apart from over here.
At the same time, there can be an over there and an over here, but neither is independent of the other.
They are interpenetrated.
This is also true of the senses.
The physical felt sense is also registering as the spaciousness itself.
It is registering as sound.
And sound is registering as felt.
There is a synesthetic quality to it as well.
Qualities Intrinsic to Non-Duality
There are also qualities that don’t have as much to do with the non-spacious nature, the non-formed nature, or the boundless nature, but they seem intrinsic to it.
One of them I already mentioned.
It’s intimacy.
Before mentioning the others, though, I wouldn’t necessarily say to go looking for these qualities.
If you simply resonate with what I’m saying, maybe it will give you a sense of what I’m talking about.
But if you try too literally to look for these qualities, the search itself may become too forceful or too cerebral.
The Freshness and Newness of Direct Recognition
Another quality is a kind of newness.
It is always new.
Always new.
It’s fresh.
For me, it has a quality reminiscent of being very, very young. Almost like something I experienced when I was so young that perhaps I hadn’t developed a self yet.
I don’t really know.
But there is a very sweet quality to it.
It’s almost like an ancient wisdom, but it is fresh.
The mind has a way of turning things into familiarity very quickly.
What is the saying?
Familiarity breeds contempt?
The mind very quickly turns things into the familiar.
This doesn’t have the weight of the mentally familiar.
It is familiar in a completely different way.
And at the same time, it is deeply mysterious.
It’s fresh.
It Is Only Coming Into Being Right Now
It is as if it is coming into being right now.
And I might not even say as if.
I think it actually is coming into being right now.
Right now.
There is only right now, and it is only coming into being right now.
And because there is only right now, it never even really fully comes into being.
It is an appearance.
There is that freshness to it.
The Lightness of Non-Dual Recognition
It also feels very light.
Even though it includes the somatic sense, the felt sense, it feels very light.
Almost like floating or flying a little bit.
And this is where I always feel inclined to say something to anyone listening.
You can easily hear what I’m saying and think it sounds far-fetched.
It may sound very far outside your experience.
But it isn’t.
Non-Duality Is Already in Your Experience
You rediscover something that is already in your experience.
It’s already there.
The overlay is simply getting so much of your attention.
Why do I point that out?
Because it leads to something many people don’t want to hear, and something some people would disagree with.
Some teachers disagree with this.
What gets in the way is shadow material.
Why I Emphasize Shadow Work
That’s why I always emphasize shadow work.
It isn’t just because shadow work makes you a nicer person, a happier person, or a more relaxed person.
It’s because it actually makes those deeper insights more accessible.
The shadow material is what keeps distracting attention into the mind, into thought, and into the overlays over and over and over.
That is why I emphasize shadow work so much.
Recognizing Non-Dual Realization in Someone Else
Earlier today, I got off a call with somebody who realized non-duality.
It was so joyful just to listen to her describe it.
The way she described it was different from the way I describe it, but it was completely obvious.
And it was very obvious that when it came on, it wasn’t going away.
She was seeing, experiencing, registering reality, however you want to say it, very directly.
As directly as it gets.
And just watching her speak about it, you could see the wonder.
I love that.
I love when that happens.
And it is available to anyone.
Non-Duality and the Necessity of Doing the Work
It is available.
But you’ve got to do shadow work.
You’re going to have to do some work.
Simply telling yourself there is no one to do it, and staying with what some people call non-duality, doesn’t really lead to this from what I’ve seen.
Not reliably.
So yes, it’s here.
It’s already in your experience.
But the overlay comes in very quickly.
The filters are persistent.
Calming the Filters
So you calm the filters down.
You look into the reasons those filters have become something you identify with, whether that is trauma, emotional pain, repression, or whatever else is there.
And that begins to unwind it.
That clear seeing calms the system down.
When the system calms down, it becomes more curious.
It becomes more willing to see the subtle and to live the subtle.
And at some point, that direct registering becomes ongoing.
It becomes your ongoing experience.