Going Deeper into Nonduality

I would like to follow up on a previous post titled “3 Practices to Experience Nonduality” and dive just a bit deeper into the vast ocean of being that is all things. Deeper into this profound realization as we understand our true nature as existence itself, and offer a practice to help experience this great truth.

The Experience of Nonduality

The experience of nonduality is an experience that comes with the realization that all of existence is one inseparable whole, and that our sense of separation from this whole is essentially an illusion. I as a separate entity do not exist. Not really. This ego believes it exists as a separate entity. Yet, the belief in the self as a separate ego/entity is ultimately absurd. It’s just as absurd as looking at a tree and thinking that the trunk, the limbs, the leaves, the roots, and the bark are all separate from the “tree” itself. All of these “things” are simply the tree! They aren’t separate from it. They aren’t even “things”. They are what make up what we have given the name “tree”. If there were no such “things” as trunks, limbs, leaves, roots, or bark, there would be no tree at all! (By the way, giving a “name” is a very significant detail of the creation of illusion.)

Someone may say, “Well, I can break a limb off from the tree. There, it’s separate!” You can also lose an arm from your body; does this mean that your arm is a separate part from “you”? You may be tempted to think so, simply because it isn’t a “vital organ”. Would “you” be “you” without an arm? You may believe so. But, it is entirely possible to imagine a scenario where someone might remove your lungs. Does this mean that your lungs are separate parts of you? Would “you” be “you” without your lungs? The question evokes a different perspective when it involves what we believe to be and have given the label “vital organ”. But, where do your “vital organs” begin and end? How do we define a vital organ?

Galactic Vital Organs

Just as we cannot live without lungs, so we cannot live without the sun. Does this not make the sun a kind of vital organ? What about the air that goes into the lungs? Isn’t it just as vital as the lungs themselves? What are lungs without air to breathe? What about the relatively massive Milky Way Galaxy? Isn’t it just as vital to the sun as the sun is to us? The black hole at the center of our galaxy is why there is our galaxy at all! Doesn’t this make the Milky Way Galaxy with its black hole just as much a vital organ as our lungs? And we could go on and on.

So, then, what defines “us”? What defines “us” is clearly much more than what is inside our supposed boundary of skin. It’s much more than this idea of a little ego in an incomprehensibly vast universe that makes up a separate environment that houses “me”.

Your Original Face

You see, this entire universe, and whatever else might be “outside” of it, is one inseparable whole, from the tiniest quantum particles to the largest imaginable multiverses. It’s one organic whole. When we know this, we can finally come to the place of taking off the illusory mask of the ego, and seeing our true face, which is none other than the face of existence itself!

This is the pointing of the Zen koan that asks, “What is your original face before you were born?” Who are you, in other words, when the distinction between subject and object dissolves? Before the ego arises? When there’s the realization that there’s only the ocean of being, and that you’re it?

When you feel so small, just a tiny microscopic blip on a “pale blue dot” in an unfathomably enormous abyss, this is merely the trick of the ego. The grand illusion.

The real you is the entire, unfathomably enormous and infinite existence itself. This is your true identity beyond all identities. This means that you’re not just “little ol’ me in a vast human sea”. You are actually the entire human sea! You aren’t an insignificant crumb suspended on a lonely “pale blue dot”. Not the real you! The real you is the pale blue dot and the light beam in which it seems to be suspended. You are all that exists. The whole, nondual ….this (there really is no name for it!).

Hidden Behind Clouds

This original face that you are seems to be hidden. Hidden by thoughts, fears, worries, anxieties, pleasures, pains, people, jobs, and pursuits of all kinds. Hidden like the blue sky covered in black and white clouds. Passing cloud after passing cloud keeps us fooled into believing we are just a little ego drowning in a sea of chaos. If we have a proper understanding of who we are, the face ever so often peers through and we remember. Sometimes in between the clouds we get a chance to catch our breath and exclaim, “Aha! I remember! I remember who am!”

Now, as helpful as this is, at some point you come to realize that the clouds are not separate entities either! As the sky you contain all clouds that pass before you. They are you in that they are part of the whole, and you are the whole, which obviously includes all clouds as well. The trouble comes when the ego believes that one’s true identity is the mask along with all of its clouds, and that its identity stops there. It separates itself from the whole as if on a deserted island in the sea. But, when the mask is removed, what is recognized is the true identity as the entire happening of the island, the sea, the sky, the clouds, and all unseen lands that possibly exist elsewhere in the sea. You’re all that exists, along with its content, including the illusion of the separate ego. Your true identity transcends beyond it all to include it all.

The real you includes the ego that has believed itself to be separate and cut off from the world around it. The real you includes all egos and their beliefs of separation. The real you includes the trees, the air, the sun, the galaxies, and all that exists. The real you is all there is!

See the Tree For All That It Is

I’ll end here with a practice.

Be intentional about going out and looking at a tree. While looking at the tree ask yourself, “Where does the tree begin and where does it end?” Is the tree simply the trunk, or the limbs, or the leaves, or the bark, or the roots? The so-called “tree” is the whole of it, isn’t it?

What are roots apart from the soil? See the soil. Touch it and touch what you call the “tree”. The tree and the soil aren’t separate things independent of each other. They are together a single “happening”. A “tree-soil” perhaps. And, what are leaves without the air? So now we have this word “tree” that has been extended to include the soil and the air.

Now, the air is just as vital to us as it is to the tree. By the air we are joined to the tree as a single happening, simultaneously breathing in and out together as one organic process. Realize the inseparability of “you”, the “air”, and the “tree”. The tree is no less you than your arm or the air or the soil or the sun. So either the word “tree” has extended to include “you”, or “you” have extended to include the “tree”. Whichever you prefer, it’s one and the same. Now, just as you touched the “soil” and the “tree” and recognized them as one process, now touch the “tree”, feel the “air”, and recognize your true self as the one complete process. Touch the “tree” and realize that it is in truth you.

Don’t stop with the tree. You can go through this process with any”thing” you wish. Remove the mask of the ego and see that it is all inseparably the real you.

You as all of existence.

Share With Me Your Experience

If you were able to go through this practice and experience your true nature as all that exists, this inseparable, nondual existence, I’d love to hear about it! Comment below or use the form to email me directly.