I think with the advent of the internet, the overall scenario has indeed changed. If we think of it, some centuries ago, anyone interested in non-duality would have to search a living “teacher”, for most did not read or write. Till a few years ago, one had the option of reading books. But with internet, and mainly these forums, there is this opportunity to participate actively in a dynamic that was unavailable before. Where would I meet others to discuss these matters just a few years ago? Where would I be able to look more deeply into the hidden nature of the sense of ego that is revealed in these exchanges?
So…. this “new” environment certainly must make some difference. Or perhaps none, if it only leads to more entertainment to escape from the implosion.
-geo-
The Feminist (Women’s) Movement changed consciousness even though many influenced by it didn’t bother to study academic papers or to read the significant books or attend meetings. The message of the Feminist Movement about equal rights hit home on everyday fronts: voting, pregnancy, the workplace, relationships, lifestyles, politics, ecology. The Feminist Movement is a model for giving structure to the nonduality movement, as far as looking at it in waves and describing each wave and looking at the movement in terms of scope, social change, and effects on religion, science, and other disciplines.
I see the Feminist, Eco-Feminist, and Nonduality Movements as merging more fully. But it would be helpful to define the Nonduality Movement so that it can more easily fit into these other movements. Ken Wilber has somewhat of a movement going with the Integral Institute and the Integral way of looking at things.
A person could ride the Nonduality Movement on the backs of Intergral Theory, or quantum theory, or neo-advaita, or Sufism, or as a Catholic monk, or as a new ager, or as nothing. Primarily, the message of nonduality becomes known, accepted, debated, refined, altered, and then one lives life with a deep and serious valuing of that message which can be worded in different ways.
My objective is to declare that there is a Nonduality Movement and to begin to describe it. People can see it, especially those who have been on the internet for a few years.
If I were creating a panel discussion on the topic of the Nonduality Movement, who would people like to see on it?
In these times, both traditional and neo-Advaita exist in the matrix known as the new nonduality and they spread throughout the matrix thus creating what I call The Nonduality Movement.
The New Nonduality is in fact The Nonduality Movement. It is a matrix made up of every field of human endeavor. What moves through it, thus creating it, is the teaching of nonduality (usually along with a form of the word nonduality).
The word “nonduality” or one of its forms — nondual, nondualism, nondualistic, nondualist — serves as a marker revealing the movement.
I was interviewed a few days ago by a woman who, in preparation for the interview, googled “nonduality.” She told me that she thought there would very little about the topic and that it wouldn’t be hard to prepare. However, she was overwhelmed by the choices. I told her it wasn’t always like that. Had she done the search more than ten years ago, the pickings would have been too slim to prepare for such an interview.
Comparing the search engine results for the word nonduality now and yesterday, it is clear that the teaching of nonduality has “moved.” It has diffused.
My eyes these days are on The Nonduality Movement in Western culture. We have seen the movement happen on the Internet. It began in its most direct form in the latter part of the 19th Century, which is when we find the first uses of the forms of the word nonduality. Prior to the Internet, there were many gurus and teachings that have advanced nondual teachings, yet one couldn’t say for sure that there was ever a Nonduality Movement during those decades.
We are in the midst of The Nonduality Movement. It means that the teaching of nonduality, in one form or another, through its diffusion, propagation, circulation, is finding everyone who is open minded about human potential and about who they truly are and why they are alive. That audience consists of the spiritual mainstream and everyone else who questions what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and what is behind what they are doing.
My thoughts are somewhat scattered on this topic, however they are coming forth as blog entires. Perhaps they’ll be made more coherent in the near future.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “movement” as “A course or series of actions and endeavours on the part of a group of people working towards a shared goal.”
I don’t think a movement has to be as intentional and organized as the OED implies. For example, while the anti Vietnam War movement was intentional and organized, the Beat Movement was about freedom and being in the moment, rather than intent and organization. However, the Beat Movement was more of a meta-movement since it informed other movements, including the anti Vietnam War movement. This is from the Wikipedia article on the Beat Generation:
…the Beat Generation phenomenon itself has had a huge influence on Western Culture more broadly. In many ways, the Beats can be taken as the first subculture (here meaning a cultural subdivision on lifestyle/political grounds, rather than on any obvious difference in ethnic or religious backgrounds). During the very conformist post-World War II era they were one of the forces engaged in a questioning of traditional values which produced a break with the mainstream culture that to this day people react to – or against. The Beats produced a great deal of interest in lifestyle experimentation (notably in regards to sex and drugs); and they had a large intellectual effect in encouraging the questioning of authority (a force behind the anti-war movement); and many of them were very active in popularizing interest in Zen Buddhism in the West.
In 1982, Ginsberg published a summary of “the essential effects” of the Beat Generation [35]:
* Spiritual liberation, sexual “revolution” or “liberation,” i.e., gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women’s liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.
* Liberation of the world from censorship.
* Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.
* The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians influenced in the later fifties and sixties by Beat generation poets’ and writers’ works.
* The spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the notion of a “Fresh Planet.”
* Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in writings of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac.
* Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spengler) a “second religiousness” developing within an advanced civilization.
* Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.
* Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road: “The Earth is an Indian thing.”
The Nonduality Movement is associated with promoting those values, though it is beyond promoting any values at all. Therefore, the Nonduality Movement is even more of a meta-movement than the Beat Movement. The Nonduality Movement is also more accessible than the Beat Movement was. It’s not defined by a handful of people, by coolness or being “in,” or by a literature, a music, a political stance, a lifestyle, or by a style of any sort, or by anything I’ve yet to identify. It is admitted not only that nonduality cannot be defined, but that it does not exist. Yet there is a movement founded in nonduality.
Where and how can the Nonduality Movement be identified? I’ll consider that and other questions in future blog entries.
Back in 2000, when nonduality was still wild and full of juice, we published Nonduality Salon Magazine. It only had two issues, which you can access here:
Just as we would have expected the sun to rise, we thought this baby would be born. But one of the four agreements says, “Don’t make assumptions.” Well, I’m sorry, but I think you can assume that two weeks prior to one’s due date, positive check-ups along the way, and nothing wrong being done, I’m sure it’s okay to assume the baby would have been born.
In my best friend’s case it didn’t happen. Two weeks before the due date, a placental abruption cut off nutrients and oxygen from the life within. The child could not be saved. He looked perfectly normal. A whole baby. With no heartbeat, he was baptized. He lay with his mother. His face was touched.
You only get two visitors at a time like this, heartbreak and love. At the funeral yesterday they walked in like two giants. The religious service was beautiful and scripted. However, those two giants took the form of the father who delivered a eulogy broken and holy at once as the small casket lay beside him with a small wreath upon it and a lit candle at the front. Here is the eulogy:
The Life of Baby Cohen
We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of our beautiful baby boy, Cohen Anthony Weaver. Baby Cohen was an unexpected pleasure to us when we first knew of his presence. We had our lives turned upside down while we accepted the new addition to our busy lives. As we waited for his arrival we were surprised by an early change to his schedule.
Baby Cohen arrived two weeks early but to our dismay he had already passed away before we could see his birth. After deliver of our baby boy, we knew then that although he would not see the light of day or feel the warmth of his surroundings, we have to have faith and believe that he saw the light of God and the warmth of His love.
As we held our baby boy, knowing he had passed on, we grieved in our own way. I held his little body, so silent, so still. I told our son I loved him and kissed him on his cheek. I sobbed as my wife also did and I said good-bye to our son. My wife held his little hand and kissed his cheek and felt the exact same love as when our little girl was born. She too said her goodbye.
I wanted so much to gaze upon his own eyes, as they are the mirror to his soul. That was not to be. He was destined for greater and better things beyond our comprehension. We accept his passing although we grieve for him in a way that words can’t express.
My wife and I would like to express our desire for all of us to follow our dreams and enjoy life to the fullest, for our little boy can do neither.
Baby Cohen, may you fly high to the Angels above, where in heaven your spirit will be free and forever with God and His love.
In closing, your mother and I want you to know that you will be forever loved, always missed, and never forgotten. You will remain in our hearts eternally. May you rest in eternal peace with the warmth of God’s love surrounding you always. Good-Bye my son, baby Cohen. We love you.
~ ~ ~
The requested song was “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen:
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Now maybe there’s a god above
As for me all I ever learned from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not some pilgrim who’s claimed to see the light
It’s a cold and it’s a very broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But listen love is not some kind of victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Now remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove she was moving too
And every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to [name of city where he is performing] fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing, nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
When my friend woke up the morning after the funeral, the radio alarm went off, the local station at once broadcast the song by Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah.
The following are excerpts from responses to the question, What is nonduality? They are found on Volume 3 of the DVD set:
What Is Nonduality?
Peter Russell, Author, Philosopher:
Nonduality … means the universe is not dual, there is one common essence to the universe. … Science is nondual. It’s basic philosophy is that there is a unified field, a oneness which we are approaching. In spiritual circles … the nonduality is where the essence is awareness … consciousness … a different sort of nonduality … both of them see the fundamental nature of things, the oneness behind everything.
Thomas Ray, Professor of Zoology and Computer Science, University of Oklahoma:
Nonduality involves absence of self or sense of self and the feeling of oneness or unity with everything, with the universe. I’ve believed that nonduality is just the plain truth. The universe is one thing and we’re all part of the universe and that it isn’t nonduality that needs explanation, it’s duality that needs explanation. In fact, there is a mental organ that produces duality, just one. Without the activity of that mental organ, we would experience nonduality as the normal state.
Shaikh Kabir Helminski, Author, Sufi teacher:
The way we see it in the Sufi tradition is that — particularly for mystic consciousness — we understand that everything is rooted in the divine. Everything is unified in a field of oneness. Practically speaking what that means is that my consciousness, my love, my will, my generosity if I have any, my capacity for forgiveness, all of these have their attributes in the source of the divine. … This nonduality has a kind of quality to it … that is deeply personal as well as cosmic and impersonal because we realize the human being is the ripened fruit of that nonduality. The nonduality doesn’t cancel our human individuality. … We don’t make a big deal about nonduality because we know and trust that everything comes from God. The God that we’re talking about is subtle and integral to this whole creation. … Poetry suggests it. We communicate more through poetry than through abstract theory.
John Prendergast, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology, CIIS
Nonduality, for me, points to the basic absence of difference between self and other, between subject and object, between perceiver and perceived. When the Buddha said form is emptiness and emptiness is form, this is statement of nondual perception. When nothing looks out and sees that it’s everything, this is the experience of nonduality. The apparent division between self and other is seen through. … The reality of the seamless wholeness nature of reality reveals itself. … It’s a deep understanding and knowing that there is essentially no separation.
Olga Louchakova, Director, Neurophenomenology Research Center, ITP Prof.:
Nonduality is the certain perspective on self and consciousness which makes one to experience being and consciousness as undivided and nonseparate from every other consciousness which can be perceived initially as different. It’s the experience of consciousness as being undivided, experience of your own being as being connected with the rest of the universe, and being one with the rest of the universe even though you may not have the perception of the whole universe at the moment. Most importantly, the experience of nonduality is the experience of authenticity, of authentic, unlimited, nonconstricted being, experience of being yourself, experience of living life with no fear.
Tim Freke, Scholar, Author, Stand up Philosopher:
My experience is that fundamentally reality is characterized by polarity. For me it’s not nondual or dual. It’s both at the same time. … Polarity is opposites, but they can only exist together. … They’re two and one at the same time. The paradox of our predicament is that it’s two and one at the same time. I see no reason to prejudice one over the other. In fact, I see a necessity to be conscious of both. What I’ve looked for is an image that can capture that experience. For me the image is lucid living, which is a state comparable to lucid dreaming, only now. … On the one hand I am Tim … I’m actually so individual that I inhabit this unique point in space and time and no one else can or ever will inhabit it. Then there’s the discovery of this deeper nature, the subject itself, not the object, the “I”, that which is witnessing this, and if I go deeply into that now it is a vast spaciousness in which all this is arising just like in a dream. And those two exist together, so “here” it’s all one, “here” it’s all separate. Which is true? They’re both true.
The following are excerpts from responses to the question, What is nonduality? They are found on Volume 2 of the DVD set:
What Is Nonduality?
Francis Lucille, nonduality teacher
The definition for nonduailty would be that there is one single reality. We all have the knowledge that we are conscious and that consciousness is real. That which hears the words is consciousness. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt. …The world is only a concept which is inferred from perceptions. Perceptions are mind stuff. … Consciousness is the reality of our experience. If there is only one reality … the reality of all minds must be the same. That is the fundamental understanding of nonduality.
Robert Dittler, Abbot/Bishop, White Robed Monks of St. Benedict
[Silence. The video shows him smiling, shrugging, nodding, being.]
Jeremy Hayward, teacher of meditation, science, and Buddhism with Shambhala Buddhism
Literally what we’re talking about is the non-distinction of nonduality of I and other primarily … distinctions come from the conceptual mind that divides the world into this and that and the primary one is the distinction between me and you, me and that, me, me. That’s duality. It becomes a problem when we forget there is no me. … There’s just a flow of energy and awareness and then something pops up and says, “ME” and that’s starts duality. But duality and nonduality are two sides of the same coin. You can’t separate one from the other, you have to see the whole thing, which is duality and nonduality together.
Jeff Foster, nonduality teacher
I really don’t know what nonduality is anymore. Years ago I could have told you a lot about nonduality. The word nonduality is just a pointer. It points to life as it’s happening and the possibility that we’re not separate from life. The moment you talk about nonduality you kind of missed the point. … The moment you talk about it you’ve made it into something separate from something else … which is completely dualistic. So what is nonduality. I guess the answer is there when the question isn’t, somehow.
Nahid Angha, Co-director of the International Association of Sufism
The question of nonduality has been the concern of human beings since the beginning of civilization, because we want to see if there is any essence to all that there is. … What is nonduality when we see around ourselves duality? Is there any essence to [duality]? … In Sufism we come to the metaphor of raindrop and ocean. When it falls into the ocean it realizes that it is the ocean. So unless we find that reality within our own selves, then duality remains.
Bernard Baars, The Neurosciences Institute of San Diego
Nonduality in Sanskrit … is the theory that one can perceive the world in a completely unified fashion. … Nondualism is said to be the ultimate state that one may arrive at, after many years or perhaps very quickly.
The following are excerpts from responses to the question, What is nonduality? They are found on Volume 1 of the DVD set:
What Is Nonduality?
Peter Fenner:
I can’t give you a definition of it because there’s nothing to define. That’s the definition. It’s the one and only thing that can be defined, in a way, by its absence. The nondual awareness: we can’t say what it is, we can’t say where it is. In fact, it’s going beyond existence and non-existence. That’s what it means to be nondual. If we say it exists, that’s in contrast to it not existing, that’s not nondual. If we say it does not exist, that’s in contrast to it existing. So here you can already feel that we’re way beyond the mind. The mind does not know what we’re talking about. … I don’t know what I’m talking about at this point, and that is one of the ways we can point to nondual awareness.
Stephen Wolinksy:
There’s no such thing as nonduality … Nonduality is just a word, it’s a pointer. But once you have nonduality, you have duality. So the question is, is there such a thing as nonduality prior to the word nonduality?
Rupert Spira:
Nonduality as the phrase implies, literally means not two. There are not two things. It makes reference to the presumption deeply embedded in all cultures, that experience is divided into two things, one, a knower, and two, the known. … The term duality makes reference to these two apparent things, a knowing subject, which is considered to be this body, or in this body, and a known object — other, person, world — which is considered to be outside myself and separate from myself. The term nonduality indicates the true nature of our experience, which, if we make a deep exploration of our actual experience, we find there are not these two things. There is just one. … not two. … That leaves what there is truly, completely open, unnamed, untouched, but yet absolutely present in every experience.
Vijay Kapoor:
Nonduality would be not the absence of duality. It is something which transcends duality. … In our experience we have youth, we have old age, we having the waking state, dream state, we have lots of different dualities, male, female… What we find is the very basic consciousness has no duality. It is independent of time. … Consciousness has no dependence whatsoever. … The very content of duality does not have duality.
Rabbi Hoffman:
If you name it you’ve already changed it. Our basic idea about nonduality is … an infinite light with no end that has no differentiation in it, no light or dark, no positive or negative, … or any of these dualities. … We don’t supress any question. We pray our questions. Our doubts are very holy. Out of a good question comes a lot of thinking. … The question is, “What motivated the creation of the universe?” Because there was no room in this nonduality for the so-called narcissistic ego that could choose to rebel against the nonduality and assert its individuality selfishly against the nonduality. This is the puzzle of Torah. We start from there then we go on to celebrate the existence of both. What we’re interested in is the conversation between the duality, or the left brain thinking — the “I” that strategizes — and the right side, which feels part of a unity without any differentiation. How do you give way to both sides and create a conversation between the two? What we believe is that G-d is the name of the one that cannot be named. How do you create G-d as the oscillating tension between the two that exist in the conversation. My operant metaphor for that is somebody walking a tightrope.
Just as we would have expected the sun to rise, we thought this baby would be born. But one of the four agreements says, “Don’t make assumptions.” Well, I’m sorry, but I think you can assume that two weeks prior to one’s due date, positive check-ups along the way, and nothing wrong being done, I’m sure it’s okay to assume the baby would have been born.
In my best friend’s case it didn’t happen. Two weeks before the due date, a placental abruption cut off nutrients and oxygen from the life within. The child could not be saved. He looked perfectly normal. A whole baby. With no heartbeat, he was baptized. He lay with his mother. His face was touched.
You only get two visitors at a time like this, heartbreak and love. At the funeral yesterday they walked in like two giants. The religious service was beautiful and scripted. However, those two giants took the form of the father who delivered a eulogy broken and holy at once as the small casket lay beside him with a small wreath upon it and a lit candle at the front.
The requested song was “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen:
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Now maybe there’s a god above
As for me all I ever learned from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And it’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not some pilgrim who’s claimed to see the light
It’s a cold and it’s a very broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
But listen love is not some kind of victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
Now remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove she was moving too
And every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I learned to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to [name of city where he is performing] fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing, nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
When my friend woke up the morning after the funeral, the radio alarm went off, the local station at once broadcast the song by Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah.
