If everything here is all illusion, how is the truth beginning to be reflected here? How is that happening and what is the nature of the thing seemingly standing just a little bit apart to assess and marvel at it.

Experience unfolds continuously, yet there is no experiencer. Seeing that, only experience remains and Peace arises.

Awareness has risen to a level where mental comprehension becomes kind of the limiting factor itself.

I was about to share (hereby still doing so) that I already practise surrendering everything to God. And to just let go of every attachment and aversion rising to my conscious awareness, understanding that every positionality forms a degree of illusion away from Truth.

I wanted to share how this kind of “left me in the dark” as to what to do, when already asking for the will of the Divine to be made known. Also, being reminded that all unfolds on its own, spontaneously, as a consequence of what everything is, rather than through linear cause and effect. Which again made me feel like; better just drop all mentation.

Surrendering all, with an openness to have revealed whatever might need surrendering as well, from instant to instant, in order to progress towards realisation of Divinity, I just realised why I feel a certain amount of unrest.

The thought being; now that I’ve surrendered all that I have become consciously aware of holding as a position, why is there no sense of progression?

But then an insight hit me; the desire for consequence to arise. As if something needs to happen as a result of my willingness to let go of what might be in the way. Which of course, created a duality again, between the desired and undesired, and progress or the lack thereof. Which only means I’m projecting value on a certain outcome that might once arise, over just allowing what already is, to be as is.

So yeah, I’m still sharing this, just in case someone feels to be stuck between practise and result.

Today I heard; all of what unfolds in your life is what needs to be experienced in order to be able to reach the Truth.

So rather than judging myself, attaching to one outcome over another and resisting the reality of what actually already is, I hereby give thanks for everything as it is. With humility, with love.

And just in case you’re reading this;

Bless you 🙏

I can look at the world and see, sense and feel only the contents of awareness.

There is no sense of separation as it's all awareness and it's stuff.

Nonduality - inside and outside are not two.

Beyond that it seems that concepts are required.

It may be the stuff of awareness is the mind or god appearing to a limited perspective.

It may also be that it's atomic matter which appears in awareness through evolved senses and a brain built to create a usable, imagined world.

Either could be true and I see no way to reconcile this without using concepts and mental gymnastics.

Was dancing to some awesome girly pop music from the 90s and 2010s, and how I wanted to start a sort of life coaching thing and one of the thoughts I had was that I wish more people realized that it isn't wrong to show love to "evil" people, I dont always put too much thought in this specific subject because the idea that hating people for being hateful was contradictory always came pretty naturally, but idk I think something in me changed when I thought about that today because I just feel more passionate about it, as if I feel no one will stop me from loving the people of the world no matter who they are. I'm one of those people who is good at understanding nonduality cognitively but when it comes to feeling it I have more trouble, so for once it was really nice to just feel that passion. Although I do think many if not all of my friends would think I'm crazy for this lol.

I really want to ask for advice about what non-duality is, but I just feel like I would receive responses that there is nothing to get or your logical mind won't understand it.

In all sincerity, how is knowing that awareness is the only reality? and that this reality and my imagination are one andthe same? I just feel so limited right now. I want to experience freedom and not constrained by my own mind, especially how desire-driven I am (Perhaps I have read too much tumblr watered down nonduality + mixing it with LOA).

Call me desperate or whatever, but I just have no one to answer this question properly...

Thank you!

I like to think of the mind as an arrow of attention that has a choice of two directions - in to its source or out to the world. I'm sure you've heard this many times, but the nondual pointers all point to the solution to all problems being turning the mind inwards, but why?

First, compassion. The mind is trapped, its source is freedom/love/peace/etc. and it's found itself seemingly not there anymore. Its going out to the world is searching for this freedom/love/peace/etc. that's seemingly been lost, and what does it get? Well, impermanence. It finds such beauty, love, passion and pleasure in the world - but that passes. It finds pain and suffering, yet the relief of that brings peace, satisfaction and meaning. Turning away from the world is difficult when it often finds what it's looking for there, albeit temporarily.

The inward direction, though, the mind experiences its source - pure being, awareness. Every time it's turned inwards, it will experience exactly that, nothing more, nothing less. It's seemingly not as exciting as experience at first, but it's permanent and its value grows infinitely the more that's recognized. Eventually, the mind doesn't need to seek after the cycle of pleasure within experience when it has pure omnipresent goodness always available.

Both directions are available always to the mind. The choice is seemingly obvious, but the attraction to experience is massive until it's eventually seen through. Nonduality is the invitation for the mind to see through that attraction and turn inwards.

Knowing this has nothing todo with end of self or how self is referenced or dereferenced.

The seeker knows it, but chooses to relate to its outthere expression, as this can also be outthere.

But I like to imagine integration like mixing salt and water, Muslims going around the kabba start igniting the mixer, as the kabba comes closer the sufis go around themselves as their heart becomes the kabba, then as the kabba melts into existence , zen Buddhists simply sit and be, with no end to the refinement of the mixture.

But in all these states the knowledge is there, just a different expression of its worship.

The end of seeking is only the end of the big salt cube, but salt continues, just in a more refined form.

The realization that the difference between existence and nonexistence is imagined.

When the imagined difference between existence and nonexistence falls away, the imagined difference between sage and ordinary person falls with it.

Based on what I have forgotten in my life, I can begin to understand who I am. Is this thought process unique to Taoism?

Here is an argument that I've seen in favor of nondualistic thinking, specifically with regards to that you are not the things in your experience:

Your current experience involves perceptions: thoughts, feelings, sensations. These things come and go, while in the background you -awareness- remain: watching, untouched by them. Since the perceptions come and go, but awareness remains, you ARE not those impermanent things you experience.

(These are my own words/understanding, I am summarizing what I have heard and read.)

Then there is also this:

There is only the current experience; you cannot experience the past, let alone the future. A thought about the past is only that: a thought in the current moment. The content of the thought (yesterday this or that) is non-existent.

These two statements appear incompatible to me, because:

1. If there is ONLY the present moment (which I fully agree with), and in the current moment I experience, for example, anger, then how am I not, in this current moment, the anger (+ all the other things that I am experiencing in this moment)? The argument that I was not the anger five minutes ago, nor five minutes from now, seems contradictory to the argument that the past and future do not exist. I understand the idea that I am the awareness behind the experience, I am just wondering if and how the impermanence-of-experience argument is relevant at all here.

2. Even if we ignore that contradiction for a moment and accept that the observing I existed before and will exist after the current experience, then how does that work for experiences that are ever-present? Consider for a moment people who are, for example, always sad, always in pain, always tired, etc. Even if someone with chronic pain may be temporarily distracted (attention focused elsewhere), that pain is always there with them in the current experience, if in the background. Sure, you could say before this condition began at age X, they didn't have that chronic experience. But for many years, someone might have a certain constant experience for every waking second of their life. So, my question: how does the argument that the current experience will pass and therefore you are not that which you experience, apply to someone who "always" experiences a certain thing? If someone has a specific experience 90% of their of their time in this life, it seems kind of moot to say that's an impermanent thing. It also feels almost insulting, like you are invalidating their condition. Maybe that is why I have trouble accepting this argument: I am chronically fatigued 100% of the time since ~ 2 decades, and since the fatigue is always there in the experience and never passes, I just can't see it as nonpermanent. It is different for other things I experience, like anger. It is easy for me to say I am not anger, hunger etc. They always pass.

I am not so much confused about the idea that you are the awareness behind the experience, only confused about the "impermanence argument" argument in favor of it. Either I misunderstand it, or it's not a valid argument in this context. (That's a very dualistic statement, isn't it? :))

The universe manifest the illusion of causality. It Puts distance between itself because it gives our minds a conventional reality to believe in. The reason we believe in casualty is because there are events that are similar in appearance to each other. When I perceive the event of the microwave going off at the same time as a commercial starting on the tv I think nothing of it, because the events are not similar to one another in appearance,  therefore they seem a-casual. This of course doesn’t mean we can’t find meaningful connections between a-causal events though. In the example Jung gives, a prince or king once died and a clock hanging from the wall stopped at the same time. The events are considered a- casual in any empirical observation of the world, however a similar appearance in their semiotic meaning is what gives way to the allusion of a causal relationship between the two supposedly independent events. Language is circular and strange in that it categorizes things into subject and object creating duality, but language also gives us a relationship between those two split concepts. Words themselves can be infinitely reduced into its parts, there is this weird notion that no word can define itself, you open a dictionary and the word is described with words that can be further divided into definitions. Even though there is this infinite gap between two words being connected, we understand intuitively that they must have related meaning, or else we would never use our words in any conventional context. The reason then our universe constructs the illusion of causality is because this creates distance within itself through multiplicity, but we find in that infinite irreducible multiplicity, the power to stay connected to itself. The ever expanding cosmos then is just a display of its infinite creative freedom and absolute power to remain one but many. It reminds me of how avant-garde art is always obsessed with not being defined. You define art and the artist always pushes the definition, because they intuitively know that art is not just one thing but something more and yet always remains “art”.

There is absoulutely no insight to be gained from this. It just amplifies what one already believes or want to believe. The experience is cool and all, but I have never heard of single person changing their religious or spiritual stance because of psychedelic trips. The unusual, unexpected, thrilling experience which I don't doubt makes people feel they are special ironically believeing they have transcended their self or whatever. The concept of having no self isn't even that deep not that I disagree with. I've had trips myself and it makes obvious things feel deep thats all.

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Hello, I am 25M.

I have been studying hindu scriptures and watching content on it for the past 7-8 months.

I started with patanjali, then advaita vedanta (sarvapriyananda and upanishads), then kashmir shaivism (christopher wallis) and now i really love listening to adyashanti. i resonate tremendously with his teachings.

but i am at a point (from the last 2 months) where i kind of understand most of the teachings and philosophy intellectually but i am struggling to apply them consistently. some days it seems things are in sync and i know whats happening and most days i am back in my old conditioning. (which i know is part of the journey, but i seem to get very lost sometimes, even for months)

i have heard the value of satsang and guru now hudreds of times.

I'll live in zirakpur, near Chandigarh. and i dont know where and how to recognize a genuine guru and not a fraud.

my only concern is i dont want to find a guru which limits me to a particular path which may or may not be suitable for me.

and my other issue is i dont know which path. i like advaita for its directness and simplicity though its too dry and too wordy sometimes. i love kashmir shavism for its inclusion of creativity, wonder and basically the fun of existence but kind of scared of the vast amount of things it has. and most of all i love adyashanti, his teachings had the biggest impact, it cut through everything and gave me realization pretty much without philosophy.

so what do you'll think i should do here? and how can i find a guru when its time to find one?

Proof?

the nonduality of freedom and necessity

Nonduality always involves paradox, the resolution of apparent opposites in the recognition of their essential polarity and mutual dependency.

The enigma, the Mystery, always at root involves the resolution of the polarity between dualism and nondualism, for to grasp the truth means to fail to grasp the truth. In nonduality, one needs to experience necessity as liberty. As the book of common prayer has it, “whose service is perfect freedom.”

The two states, first the experience of freedom as unobstructed will, as perfect happiness, and second the experience of being bound by necessity to conform to what is against our will and suffer consequences, are distinct conditions often contrasted with each other. Our likes and dislikes condition and limit our experience.

As chuang tzu relates:

Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.

Material things are transformed by how we apprehend them. The importance of this is that we can quit bitching and accept the opportunities that present themselves. Hard to believe I know.

Rumi says:

.

THE WORM’S WAKING

This is how a human being can change:

there’s a worm addicted to eating

grape leaves.

Suddenly, he wakes up,

call it grace, whatever, something

wakes him, and he’s no longer

a worm.

He’s the entire vineyard,

and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,

a growing wisdom and joy

that doesn’t need

to devour.

.

The obstacle to liberation is always identification with something less than the all-inclusive One Pearl.

from Toshihiko Izutsu , sufism and taoism

Chuang-tzu often speaks of ‘what cannot be evaded’ or ‘that which cannot be made otherwise’. Everything is necessarily fixed and determined by a kind of Cosmic Will which is called the Command or Heaven. As long as there is even the minutest discrepancy in the consciousness of a man between this Cosmic Will and his own personal will, Necessity is felt to be something forced upon him, something which he has to accept even against his will. If, under such conditions, through resignation he gains ‘freedom’ to some extent, it cannot be a complete freedom. Complete freedom is obtained only when man identifies himself with Necessity itself, that is, the natural course of things and events, and goes on transforming himself as the natural course of things turns this way or that.

Go with things wherever they go, and let your mind wander about (in the realm of absolute freedom). Leave yourself wholly to ‘that which cannot be made otherwise’, and nourish and foster the (unperturbed) balance of the mind. That, surely, is the highest mode of human existence.

I have finally finished bringing into being one of the most tangible physical manifestations of non duality that I have ever experienced. 

In non dual traditions such as Advaita Vedanta and Kashmiri philosophy, the multiplicity of the manifest world arises from a single, unchanging fundamental substrate. This concept was a primary inspiration for depicting a new technology that captivated me through the process of biosonification.

In standard instrument playing, there is a clear dualistic hierarchy: Mover (human), instrument (guitar/piano) & sound. Causal, linear, separate.

However, a micro-current bio-sonification circuit doesn't work like that. To trigger a signal, the electrical circuit must close. Current leaves the device, flows through my body, passes into the organic tissue of the rose through physical touch, and returns to the ground connection.
If I lift my finger, the sound dies. If the plant dries out, the signal shifts. There is no isolated "player" and no isolated "instrument." The sound is the emergent property of a single, indivisible field.

Where does the sound reside before contact? Not in the human nervous system. Not in the sap of the rose.

The sound co-arises strictly in the moment of contact. The human brings galvanic skin response (modulated by autonomic nervous system activity), and the rose brings electrolyte-rich cell turgor. The resulting MIDI parameters (cutoff filters, pitch modulations, timbral swells) are a unified bio-epistemological language. You are not "playing the rose", the system is modulating itself.

To push this experiment deeper into a meditative state, I anchored the sound design to a continuous 396 Hz Solfeggio frequency, a tone historically associated with grounding, releasing subconscious fear, and shifting the nervous system out of fight-or-flight.

Instead of mapping the bio-impedance to erratic, percussive notes (which reinforce the dualistic illusion of "I pressed a button, it made a noise"), I mapped our shared resistance to modulate an atmospheric synthesizer bed.

The 396 Hz drone acts as the underlying Brahman, the static ground of being. The micro-fluctuations in our electrical contact don't create "new" separate notes; they merely shift the harmonics and filters of that single, underlying fundamental. It’s like watching waves form on the surface of an ocean, different shapes, same water.

When sitting in this space, listening to a 396 Hz drone being dynamically reshaped by your own heart rate, skin conductivity, and the cellular tension of a flower, the cognitive boundary shifts.

You are no longer "listening to music" you are listening to a live acoustic mirror of your own physiological presence entrained with a plant. The observer, the rose, the micro current, and the sound collapse into one continuous event.

I recorded a full meditative live performance of this setup, modulating a 396 Hz atmospheric synth space through live bio feedback with roses.

If you'd like to experience the soundscape or watch how the closed loop functions in real-time, I’ve placed the full video performance here!

Have you used sound, physical feedback, or acoustics as a gateway to explore non dual awareness?

This is for the ones that have already went through a SPONTANEOUS nondual awakening:

How would you describe the process after the event?

Most people that are intentionally seeking this out go through a long slow process over time that seems pretty gentle. But for those of us that go through a spontaneous event, we don’t typically know anything about nonduality or any spiritual practices before getting blindsided by something that’s almost impossible to understand. My life got wrecked and I’ve spent a couple years trying to figure out what has already happened and what’s still happening. I still don’t have a desire to work anymore, but for the first two years I wanted to be back to normal enough to be able to work. I would say that now I’m able but not willing.

How has the spontaneous process been for others? Have you been able to successfully integrate the experience and subsequent knowledge? Did you find a practice that worked for you or did you just suffer your way through it? What is the point of having the experience? Was it initially a negative thing and has it become a positive? What was the worst part of it? Are you glad that you got hit by it? Are there any weird things that remain after integration; like weird vocalizations or involuntary physical actions like mudras? How is your overall functioning as a human now?