(21) LIVING HERE: Nonduality – A Revelation Of The Obvious, In Action.
I had a thought when I was three
Since then I’ve been dreaming I was me.
Nonduality is a kind of revelation of the obvious. Like real love, which can only be truly known in its verb form – loving – nonduality can only really be known by its action. In an ultimate sense, it can and must be approached not by dissecting the conception or even the perception of it so much as the effect it has on our daily living.
That is what Nondualityliving.com is all about: “Discovering what it’s like to serve truth in everyday aware living”. And what interests me the most now is how this realization shows up, not so much how it turns our body/mind “self” up-side-down and back-to-front in its necessary and destructive aspects, but more about its heart renewing and constructive qualities… how all that looks, moves, feels and yes…dances!
So let’s explore this subtle action; this living of reality that’s seemingly re-born out of the “non-dual” realization that we are “not two” but One.
A CONSTANT CRAVING
I don’t know about you, but (almost) all of this life I used to call “mine” I spent in constant craving. Wishing, hoping and coping, and even, God knows, praying, that things should be, would be, could be, other than they actually are. My resistance to reality as it is – and the suffering that fight produced – reduced the personal “me” to ashes. At the end of the day, the scoreboard read: James 0, Reality 10! But – and here’s the blessing part! – from the ashes, there arose, Phoenix – like, a new, impersonal being that was full of a Great Curiosity. I discovered that the only thing I really, really, ever needed to know was “the truth.”
A GREAT CURIOUSITY
“What is going on here?” was the question I put to everyone and everything I encountered as I wondered and wandered from Canada to Europe to America in my urgent search. I tried every which way to somehow gain the requisite knowledge I lacked, to “know the truth” about the strange new world this profound inner vision was presenting.
HITTING ‘REDIRECT’
Now let’s fast forward about thirty years. Posing the question “what is the action of nonduality?” to my Self here and now, I find this: almost all that I thought I was has fallen away. That’s what the action of nonduality produces – the complete renovation of life-as-we-knew-it, starting from the removal of a self- center and moving on out into an almost totally renewed relationship with life and the living of it.
“Nonduality” in its lived expression, is not a spiritual thing so much as it is the simple and instant recognition of reality and the profound realignment that – like its “realization” – simply occurs without our efforts. The mind’s invented fears fall away. Personal desires become irrelevant when they conflict with what is happening. They are replaced by a simple, solid, indwelling harmony and hereness – a flowing akin to the gentle music of a flute. There’s a vast spaciousness too, accompanied by a vital, dynamic, joy-in-being! There’s a practical, breathing, authentic, living-among-the-living quality to it. Yes, and plenty of paradox too!
WHAT HAPPENED?
One thing I can say about it is that, after years of drifting like a rudderless and leaky ship farther and farther from the sight of my homeland –Reality- I could no longer keep the whole, heavy, mind-constructed ship afloat. That rusted burden called “Me” received an alarming SOS – an old fashioned yellow telegram from Source which read:
Coastal fog STOP Ship on rocks STOP must abandon hope STOP
As Grace would have it, despite the disaster, this time the message was received – “STOP!”
Indeed, “nirvana” is the cessation of believing all our thoughts about reality – the willingness to abandon the ego-ship and to simply be…and that is about as much as I will say here for now, except to add that, in truth, we live and have our being only and always in this “nonduality”, this magical and mysterious here/now.
Please don’t complicate it with the mind and its egoic seeking. And if and when you do – STOP!
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Editor’s Note: I would like to thank my NDL subscribers and readers for their interest and to ask for your continued patience! I’m not much of a techie, and for some months I have been having trouble with the comments and subscription side of NDL. Although it seems all subscriptions are “active”, in the event that you’ve tried to submit a comment, and not had it posted, please send it directly to me at nondualityliving@gmail.com I will confirm receipt and take the appropriate action, such as posting it on NDL.
I’ll be back to you here when these issues are resolved! Thanks, friends, and be well! James
