Exploring Non-Duality

Can you really separate the two? Where do you draw the line? Have you ever had a sensory experience without awareness? Have you ever experienced awareness without a sensory experience? There is no line, no way that we can separate sensory experience from awareness. We must therefore conclude that awareness and sensory experience are in fact the

everything you are perceiving, right now, including that fabricated sense of a “center” of consciousness, is an output of your mind

Anecdotally, though, people experienced in non-dual states tend to report:

• Less emotional activation

• A greater sense of sacredness

• More absorption in surroundings

• A heightened sense of interconnectedness

• Less preoccupation with neurotic thoughts

• More available feelings of meaning and purpose

it’s possible that you’ve already had a non-dual experience, and you just didn’t recognize it as such. Lots of people spontaneously have moments of mystical connection and then don’t systematically investigate it, or don’t return to it for one or another reason.

My sense, based on personal experience and observing others, is that you taking to the practice depends on your ability to catch a glimpse of non-duality. Try it out, and if you don’t experience an opening in any way after some exploration, I advise to return to a “bottom up” approach, with my usual recommendation being Vipassana practice as it’s

One of the most widely respected non-dual teachers today is Adyashanti, who originally studied Zen formally but began to teach more direct path style after his awakening. Adyashanti recommends trying out the inquiry “what am I?”, which I found to land better than Ramana’s “who am I?”. The word “who” can tend to evoke dimensions of identity, which

The Headless Way is a really fun and funny set of pointing out instructions with an Alice in Wonderland aesthetic, which feel very different from traditional meditation stuff. There’s a great Headless Way course on the Waking Up app.

If everything you’re perceiving is a cinematic production optimized for utility, then when you look at this page, you’re not really seeing a raw report of the light hitting your eyes, you are seeing what’s coming out of your mind. Therefore, everything you perceive as “the world” is a perception of your model of the world, which is to say, you.