Infinity in the palm of your hand

NON-DUALITY IN A NUTSHELL

If you are looking for God, since God is omnipresent, He must be here, now.
If you are looking for true Reality, since Reality is all that exists, it must be
here, now.
If you are looking for your true Self, since you are here, your Self too must be
here, now.
Whatever word you choose for ‘That’, you may not see It, you may not know
what It is, but for sure It must be here, now.
So, no need to achieve a future goal by way of a progressive practice in time,
since you are never apart from It.

How many steps does it take, to get ‘here’?

How long does it take, to reach ‘now’?
How much effort is required, to become oneself?

The Sanskrit word advaita means ‘non-duality’ and points to the simple fact
that in reality separation does not exist: there are differences, endless differences, but
no actual separation.
‘Non-duality’ does not even mean ‘monism’. Indeed, monism affirms unity and
negates multiplicity: in other words, it excludes pluralism, whereas non-duality never
excludes anything at all.
Non-duality embraces everything: the one and the many, being and becoming,
identity and difference, the personal and the impersonal, the absolute and the
contingent, harmony and conflict, pleasure and pain, life and death.
This revolutionary perspective - that is often evoked by both the enlightened
experiences of many spiritual traditions and some ‘holistic’ developments of
advanced contemporary science - resists any attempt to describe it by thinking,
because the way language works is intrinsically ‘dualistic’.

LANGUAGE, THOUGHT AND DUALITY

Through language, our thought assigns specific names to various aspects of this
huge, indivisible process which we call ‘universe’, giving rise to the perception of
many different forms. Through names and concepts, perception organizes sense data
in patterns that we recognize as separate objects (houses, cars, trees, and so forth).

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 According to western Constructivism, every experience is an interpretation of
bare sense data through language, so that we cannot perceive what we haven’t a word
for.
Moreover, all that is perceived through different names appears as a
fragmented set of discrete entities. In the field of linguistics, Benjamin Whorf wrote:

We say “See that wave”. [...] But without the projection of language no one
ever saw a single wave. [...] Scientists, as well as all, unknowingly project the
linguistic patterns of a particular type of language upon the universe, and SEE
them there, rendered visible on the very face of nature. [...]
Segmentation of nature is an aspect of grammar. [...] We cut up and
organize the spread and flow of events as we do, largely because, through our
mother language, we are parties to an agreement to do so, not because nature itself
is segmented in exactly that way for all to see [...] We dissect nature along lines
laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from
the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in
the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of
impressions which has to be organized by our minds – and this means largely by
the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts
and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement
to organize it in this way – an agreement that holds throughout our speech
community and is codified in the patterns of our language.[...]
We are constantly reading into nature fictional acting entities, simply
because our verbs must have substantives in front of them. We have to say [...] “A
light flashed”, setting up an actor, [...] “light”, to perform what we call an action,
“to flash”. Yet the flashing and the light are one and the same! [...] By these more
or less distinctive terms we ascribe a semifictious isolation to parts of experience.
English terms, like “sky, hill, swamp”, persuade us to regard some elusive aspect
of nature’s endless variety as a distinct THING. [...] Thus English and similar
tongues lead us to think of the universe as a collection of rather distinct objects
and events corresponding to words.1

In Indian thought, the ancient precursor of this constructivistic perspective is

the concept of nāma-rūpa. Nāma means ‘name’ and rūpa means ‘perceptible form’.
They are joined together in one compound word just to emphasize that we can only
perceive a form through a name.
No name, no form.
Many names, many forms.
So the perception of a multiplicity of separate entities comes from language.
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says:

Now, all this universe was then undifferentiated. It became differentiated by

name and form: it was known by such and such a name and such and such a form.
Thus to this day this universe is differentiated by name and form; so it is said. "He
has such a name and such a form." [...] He who meditates on one or another of Its
aspects does not know, for It is then incomplete: the Self is separated from Its
totality by being associated with a single characteristic. The Self alone is to be
1
B.J. Whorf, Language, Thought, and Reality, (ed. J.B. Carrol), M.I.T. Press, Cambridge 1956, pp. 262-263.
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 meditated upon, for in It all these become unified. Of all these, this Self alone
should be known, for one knows all these through It, just as one may find an
animal which is lost through its footprints.2

Later on, Śaṅkara and advaita-vedānta mantained that the illusory perception of
multiplicity arises by superimposing past concepts (stocked in memory) on ‘what is’
now, in such a way that the indivisible Whole appears as a mass of discrete entities
limited by their names: superimposition (adhyāsa) and limitation (upādhi) through
words and concepts are the origin of māyā’s illusion of separatedness.

As an example, a rose seems completely different and separate from garbage or

from a thorny branch.
Nevertheless, that which we call ‘rose’ was in fact a thorny branch fifteen days
ago and in another fifteen days will be garbage.
A rose even seems separate from water, from the earth, from the clouds and
from the sun, and yet it is literally made of the nourishment absorbed from the earth,
the water sprinkled from the clouds and the light of the sun which warms it.
‘Rose’, ‘branch’, ‘garbage’, ‘water’, ‘earth’, ‘cloud’, ‘sun’ are only different
names assigned time and again to one, indivisible process that we call ‘universe’,
where no particular form can be isolated from the Whole just as in a river no single
eddy can be separated from the current’s overall motion.
Even our own bodies are nothing more than a continuous flow of water, food,
air and solar heat, which passing through us becomes ‘us’, so that it is impossible to
strictly separate the ‘interior’ from the ‘exterior’.
Therefore each word is like a ‘frame’ that traces a conventional as well as
arbitrary edge around some aspect of the Whole, differentiating an ‘inside’ as
opposed to an ‘outside’ and thus creating the illusion that a specific form (for
example the ‘rose’) is independent and separate from all other forms identified by
different names (‘cloud’, ‘branch’, ‘earth’, ‘garbage’, ‘water’, ‘sun’ and so forth).

Moreover, names are static, incapable of capturing actual movement, just like
photography, which is obliged, for example, to show a running man by means of
many different images of men frozen in motion.
And thus, after creating an illusory multiplicity of fixed and separate entities
through language, we mistake this inadequate description of reality for reality itself,
whereas the universe is just one formless process which appears as an amazing
expanse of different, but not separate aspects.
Furthermore, as a limited aspect of the Whole, thought cannot ‘com-prehend’
It, just like a room cannot contain the entire building to which it belongs.
So, in order to express the non-dual view, a non-conventional use of language
(be it through concepts or images) is needed, that is more inclined to hint than to
describe it: in the end, any wording must collapse, if one really wants to see - just
2
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad I.4.7. - The Principal Upanishads (ed. and trans. S. Nikhilananda), Dover Publications,
Mineola (New York) 2003, p. 91.
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as, in order to see the moon, one needs to stop looking at the finger that is pointing at
it.
Language is indeed too limited to describe the absolute (brahman), therefore it
must restrict itself to naming only what the absolute is not, by way of cross-
negations. If I say ‘one’ it excludes ‘multiplicity’, if I say ‘being’ it excludes
‘becoming’, if I say ‘universal’ it excludes the ‘particular’, but true non-dual Reality,
in its unfathomable vastness, does not exclude anything at all: it is the constant
‘bottomless ground’ that manifests as the variety of everything - just as the huge
ocean surfaces as manifold waves, but at the same time reaches unfathomable depths
beneath and beyond them . So I can only say: "Neither one nor many, neither being
nor becoming, neither known nor unknown" and so on.

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SUBJECT/OBJECT POLARITY

According to non-duality, reality is regarded as an indivisible whole, while the

perception of separate entities is just a mental construct without any cogent
ontological foundation (including the idea of an individual ‘ego’ dwelling ‘within’ a
single body/mind).
On the other hand, consciousness as such - not to be confused with its specific
‘contents’ (like perceptions, sensations or thoughts) - is a basic principle which
cannot be consistently explained as the end result of any physical or mental cause,
since no ‘explanation’ nor ‘cause’ could appear without consciousness already being
there as a precondition. So consciousness is an irreducible actuality prior to any
perception, sensation or thought. Its evidence is doubtless, for at any time anybody
can verify with absolute certainty (through one’s own direct experience) that he/she
exists and is aware.
Therefore, since all phenomena can be perceived, explored or explained if and
only if consciousness is already there, it is impossible to regard consciousness as the
end product of any other phenomenon without bumping into an epistemological
paradox.
To some extent, even the simple act of thinking about consciousness (which is
not an object), by involving words that are always ‘object-oriented’, unavoidably
engenders a misrepresentation of it as an object.
However, to say that consciousness cannot be known as an object (since it is
the knowing subject) does not mean that subject and object are two separate things,
because both of them entail each other and appear always together in experience.
For example, one single experience can be defined either as ‘hearing’ (if
described in terms of the subject who hears something), or as ‘sound’ (if described in
terms of the object heard). However, in the actual experience of hearing, one cannot
establish a precise boundary where sound ends ‘out there’ and hearing begins ‘in
here’: in fact, there is just one, immediate experience and only later on, in order to

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describe it, the thinking mind says "I heard a sound", creating a deceptive
subject/object duality.
So the ‘boundary line’ that splits experience into two apparent ‘halves’ (subject
and object) is not ‘out there’, but only in our minds: the terms ‘consciousness’ and
‘world’ are just two different descriptions of one and the same indivisible experience
(respectively in terms of the ‘first’ or of the ‘third’ person), while the alleged
separation between ‘subject’ and ‘object’ appears rather as an illusory mental
construct, just like ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’ are only two different words for the same
slope, depending which way one is going. E. Schrödinger expresses this
revolutionary idea as follows:

The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived.
Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have
broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this
barrier does not exist.3

As a matter of fact, we can safely rely on experience itself, but as soon as we

begin to reflect on it, we must never forget that, due to its own intrinsic limitations,
thought is to be regarded only as an unfit tool to understand consciousness.
Just as an eye can see everything but itself, so consciousness is the very source
that sheds light on any cognition, but it cannot perceive itself: here lies the deep
mystery of its objectless nature.

ATTENTION AND AWARENESS

According to the view of non-duality, the term ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’

is not to be confused with ‘attention’.
The word ‘attention’ comes from the Latin ad-tendere (to tend to), which
implies a tension towards an object to be reached, and in this sense it is quite different
from awareness.
Awareness is the boundless cognizant space where all perceptions appear and
disappear.
Attention is the name we give to the awareness of a single perception.
Attention is particular, awareness is global.
Attention is an imaginary narrowing of awareness through the channels of
sense organs and conceptual thought, such that, in order to perceive something, it
must ignore everything else. For example, in visual perception attention can see the
figure only in contrast with the background, that goes unnoticed.

So we read the words and ignore the page.

We see the movie and forget the screen.
In short, we miss the forest for the trees.
3
E. Schroedinger, What is Life?, Cambridge University Press, London 1969, p. 137
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 On the contrary, the light of awareness encompasses everything.
Actually the narrowing of awareness into attention is only imaginary, because
awareness, like space, is boundless.
An analogy can help us to understand this point.
When you look at your room, your visual field is wide open. If a piece of paper
with a small central hole is interposed before your eyes, you can see only a small
portion of the room through the hole, whence you get the impression that your visual
field has been dramatically narrowed. But actually it remains wide open just as
before, because it includes non only what is seen through the hole, but also the entire
surface of the paper in front of your eyes. However, since you can see only a
fragment of the room at the moment, a narrowing of your visual field seems quite
apparent, though deceptive.
Similarly, awareness can be equated to the overall visual field that
encompasses both the paper and the hole, while attention is like the illusory
narrowing of sight just into what appears through the hole.

Attention can only be focused on a single fragment of reality at a time, so it

must shift serially from one point to another, giving rise to the dualistic perception of
many discrete entities.
Awareness is global and motionless, so it encompasses any movement,
including every shift of attention.
In order to see the difference between attention and awareness, you can try the
following experiment.
Gaze upon the door handle in your room: there are both attention (= your eyes
are exclusively focused on it) and awareness (= your consciousness is present).
Now turn your eyes towards the window handle: again, while gazing upon it,
there are both attention and awareness.
While shifting your glance from the door handle to the window handle, were
you conscious and awake?
Yes, of course.
So, during that short time span, there was awareness (= you were present and
alert) without attention (= your eyes were not focusing on any specific spot).
Thus there can be awareness without attention, while no attention is possible
without awareness.

Attention is irregular and discontinuous, awareness is constant.

Attention must select its object, awareness is choiceless.
Attention implies effort, awareness is effortless.

Unlike attention, awareness

cannot be practiced, because it is spontaneous,
cannot be stabilized, because it is steady,

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 cannot be expanded, because it is boundless,
cannot be deepened, because it is bottomless,
cannot be developed, because it is already complete.
It is just like endless space.
.
Awareness is ever present: if there is concentration, we are aware of it; if there
is distraction, we are aware of it as well.
As Leo Harthong says:

No matter where you turn the spotlight of your attention, the floodlight of
awareness is already there.4

When a dancer is spotlighted on the stage, we actually see both the dancer and
the light, yet the emphasis is laid only on the dancer, while the light goes unnoticed,
though no dancer would appear without it.
Similarly, attention emphasizes only the perceived object, neglecting the light
of awareness.

‘I AM’: THE SENSE OF BEING

Every single experience points directly to its ever present background: the very
source of attention itself, that is the undeniable fact that we exist and are aware
(being-awareness).
Let me ask you a simple question: “Right now, are you sure that you exist?”
After a short pause, the answer will be “Yes”, beyond any doubt.
Both the question and the answer were thoughts, but in the short gap between
them (that occurred in order to verify directly whether you are present or not) the
undeniable evidence of your being became immediately apparent.
Did you need to ponder on it, or rather was the evidence of being already there,
before any thought?
The sense of being (which the mind translates into the words “I am”) is the
precondition for everything to appear: if first of all I am not here, then no perception,
no sensation, no action, no thought can be experienced.
If you were not already present, how could you even think at all?
The very fact that your being is intuitively evident, proves not only that you
exist, but also that you are aware, otherwise your being would be unknown.
In fact, if I ask you: “Right now, are you aware?”, you’ll answer with a
doubtless “Yes, I am”.
Again, your answer is a thought, but as such it is a consequence of a checking
up prior to your thought. Did you need to think about it, or was the evidence of being
aware already there, before any thought?

4
L. Hartong, Awakening to the Dream, Non-Duality Press, Salisbury 2007, p. 84.
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 This elementary, preliminary non-conceptual awareness - namely, the pure and
simple fact of being aware, independently from what one is aware of - is the basic
essence of consciousness.

So, whenever we ask ourselves “Do I exist? Am I aware?”, we can

immediately ascertain that the answer is “Yes”. During that instantaneous intuitive
inspection, our being-awareness arises not as an object to be known, but as a self-
evident fact that, like light, does not need to be illuminated, because it shines of its
own.
This sense of being is prior to the appearance of anything else as an undeniable
actuality: even in order to negate it, one must first be there.

Is being-awareness something that you have, or rather something that you are?
Could you ever exist apart from being-awareness?
And besides, could you ever experience two ‘myselves’ at the same time?
Not at all, there is always only one ‘me’ at a time, which is the same as being-
awareness.
Therefore, if I am only one self and I am being-awareness, then being and
awareness cannot be two separate things, but just two aspects of the same identity, or
rather two different ways to describe it.
Consequently, consciousness cannot be aware of ‘being’ as an object, because,
in order to do so, there should be two different things - consciousness (namely the
knowing subject) and being (namely the known object) -, while they are just two
aspects of the same thing. You can’t see your own backside by spinning, however
quickly!
Someone could object: “But I am clearly conscious of my existence!”.
This is not entirely correct: one can be aware only of the thought “I exist”,
which is not the actual being, but rather its translation into a mental object made of
words, i.e. a mere content of consciousness.
Being-awareness is not knowable as an object: it shines as a self-evident
actuality. This immediate aware presence is the very ground and precondition of any
specific content that arises in experience: in other words, consciousness as being-
awareness - i.e. the very root of our identity - is prior to the appearance of anything
else. We cannot avoid even for one single moment the existing and being aware,
since we do not ‘have’ existence-awareness: we are it. The sense of being or
consciousness as such is a too simple and immediate evidence for the thought to
grasp: it is a non-conceptual awareness.

This basic awareness is at the root itself of our ‘I-experience’, but nevertheless
it cannot properly be regarded as ‘personal’, due to the fact that we use the term ‘I’ as
a pointer to very different aspects of our experience.
For example, when we say “I am tall, fat, sick, old” and so on, the term ‘I’
clearly refers to the physical body.

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 When we say “I am sad, happy, anxious, intelligent” and so on, the term ‘I’
refers to the mind.
At the same time, the term ‘I’ is always referring to the ‘first person’ subject
of experience, i.e. consciousness.
These three different meanings of the term ‘I’ cannot be confused with one
another or compacted into one single entity, because all bodily sensations and all
mental thoughts are mere contents of consciousness, namely objects the
consciousness is aware of as a subject.
Therefore, since we usually employ the term ‘I’ to mean our ‘personality’,
which is made up of recurring mental patterns that are mere contents of awareness, it
would not be correct to equate tout court consciousness to the ‘I’. Consequently, the
basic consciousness, or presence, does not exactly correspond to the ‘I’, to the ‘me’.
We may in fact agree that it appears as a subjective experience, but this does not
necessarily mean that I can call it ‘my’ consciousness, since it cannot be confused
with the objects which it is aware of.

Being-awareness is not personal and not localized in space and time, since both
space and time (as well as the entire universe) appear to, in and as it. It is the
common essence of our identity, but it needs to reflect itself on each single body in
order to become the actual feeling of being that the mind translates into the sentence
“I am”.
However, we can check that even the sense of being comes and goes: for
example, when we are in a faint or in deep sleep, we don’t know that we are, albeit
we obviously continue to be present as well.
But since any change can be perceived only by virtue of a changeless
background, who or what notices the coming and going of the sense of being?
This ultimate Presence is the bottomless Ground of everything, the unknown
Source of awareness itself, so perfectly whole, full and non-dual, that it has no need
whatsoever to divide Itself in two (‘being’ and ‘awareness of being’).
As an example, let us imagine that being-awareness is like electricity, which is
invisible and circulates everywhere. When it passes through a bulb (i.e. a single
body-mind organism), it becomes visible as light (the feeling of being, i.e. the ‘I am’
experience), that allows the bulb itself and everything else in the room (the universe)
to be seen.
When the bulb turns off (deep dreamless sleep) or burns out (death), its light
(i.e. ‘I am’ as the individual feeling of being) dissolves, but its essence (electricity)
goes on circulating everywhere.
The unknowable Source of being-awareness is so complete and non-dual, that
it does not need to say “I am” in order to be Itself. Since It is upstream of thought
and language, those limited aspects of the Whole cannot truly understand It.
It is an ineffable mystery.

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 Both the words ‘mystery’ and ‘mysticism’ come from the indo-european root
mu- (= ‘to shut one’s mouth’, whence the term ‘mute’): in the presence of What
outreaches mind’s understanding, the only response is silence, wonder and awe.
Beyond any possible explanation - and following the example of Tony
Parson’s words - we could only say:

the Unknown appears as the known,

Being appears as becoming,
the Changeless appears as change,
Oneness appears as multiplicity,
the Self appears as individual egos,
the Boundless appears as the limited.

THE DANCE OF LIFE

Hypnotized as we are by the illusory idea of being only a tiny fragment

separated from the Whole - and therefore hounded by a deep sense of lack that
prompts us to pursue a completeness that always eludes us - in our everyday
existence we ceaselessly go after external goals: the next salary, the next mate, the
next vacation, the next career advancement, the next house, and so on.
But the universe, as a whole, where does it go to?
How does it move, if there are no objectives out of itself?
The only possible answer is that the Whole ‘dances’ or ‘plays’, because this
sort of action has no goal outside of itself: one does it only for the pleasure of doing
it.
While dancing, one does not move to go somewhere else, but rather for just
the pleasure of moving.
While dancing, one is always here, now.

At every moment, you can realize that you are not a separate individual, but
rather the dance of the Whole. Thus every ordinary action in daily life, instead of
running anxiously after future goals, becomes the pulsating rhythm of the cosmic
play, a graceful movement of the endless dance of Being.
When one’s anxious acquisitiveness - always projected toward future goals
to lessen a constant feeling of incompleteness - gives way to the spontaneous,
impersonal flow of the most simple daily gestures viewed as pure steps of the great
dance of Life, then there is no need whatsoever to seek a far and inaccessible
‘transcendence’, nor to oppose what is ‘sacred’ with what is ‘profane’, because
through each most ordinary act of daily life the still light of the Absolute is always
vividly radiating.

And that is Beauty.

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 As William Blake wrote in his inspired Auguries of Innocence:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

What is the relationship between the absolute and the contingent, between
being and becoming, between unity and multiplicity?
We could equally ask: what is the relationship between the dancer and the
dance?
On the one hand, they are just one and the same being, as an indivisible whole.
On the other hand, there are some differences:
The dancer exists without the dance, while the dance cannot occur without the
dancer.
The dancer knows the dance, whereas the dance cannot know the dancer.
The dancer is always one and the same, while the dance consists of manifold,
ever changing forms.
The dance is nothing but the dancer’s activity, just as the waves, though
inseparable from the ocean, are only a temporary expression of its overall movement
and can never reach its abysmal depths.

Thus we are the dance of the universe, which observes itself through our eyes
with speechless wonder.
That being the case, teaching people how to become what they already are
would be as arrogant and fool as teaching waves how to become water.
Moreover, as we have seen, any attempt to understand this mystery through
concepts and words is doomed to fail.

Why then to speak at all about what cannot be described?

We could equally ask:

Why do we sing under the shower?

Why do we gaze at the starry night sky?
Why do we dance?

These actions happen quite spontaneously, not in order to reach some future
goal, but just for the fun of it: they have no purpose whatsoever beyond themselves.

And that’s how Life is!

Life is too vast, too exuberant, too rich, to be confined within the boundaries of
one specific goal.
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 Life is not a process that occurs in time: it is an endless explosion.

Likewise, this communication doesn’t aim at understanding or teaching any

truth, let alone at describing the mystery of what we really are: it is just a play of
words and concepts, performed only for the fun of it.
We don’t need to understand the mystery of the Unknown, simply because we
are It.
Actually, in one’s direct and immediate experience (as it naturally unfolds in
the boundless, cognizant space of awareness), sense data, thoughts, perceptions,
attention, separation, self-identity, suffering, the dualistic stance and even the idea of
non-duality, all of them are just ephemeral phenomena arising and passing away in
and as the wildly free aliveness of the Unknown.

Nisargadatta Maharaj skillfully expressed the very core of this realization by

just few brilliant sentences:

I do not negate the world.

I see it as appearing in consciousness,
which is the totality of the known
in the immensity of the Unknown.5

5
Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That, Part 1 (trans. M. Frydman), Chetana, Bombay 1973, p. 17.
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