The title of this piece defines a topic that interests many as we make our way into 2023. I used to struggle much in creating a bridge between these two ways of exploring the nature of reality but after contemplating it for many moons, I’m confident they’re both working in tandem towards the same results.
Both having played a significant role in my development, each time paving the road for higher application. The value of one can’t be replaced by the value of the other and it’s that simple if you can hold the tension between the two.
I strongly believe they are both intrinsic to our spiritual development at this time. An over-standing of this has been shown by observing how they have helped me take that next and necessary leap forwards at pivotal moments on my journey.
Had I denied the value of either I don’t think I could have transcended those particular moments of ignorance and crises to bring about greater balance and personal ascension.
Within the historical trenches of spiritual philosophy you’ll find no one’s been able to reconcile them into one coherent path. Often, those that have tried simply surrendered to one path or the other as their final conclusion.
“The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image (Indra’s Net), mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mututal intercausality.” heartspace.org
Non-duality has many branches of understanding. Eastern verses Western being two in particular. I’ve always agreed with Indra’s Net theory and the Mirror Like Nature of the Mind. Yet, I also tend towards the understanding that mind exists outside of thought. The world existed before I arrived and the world will be here after I’ve gone. The only difference being the way in which I am inter-related to it.
The idea that nothing exists outside of what our minds can conceive would only seem reasonable if everyone were to be thinking the same things. To believe that it is possible to assist everyone in transcending their subjective distortions of reality is a heroic aim but an unlikely one in this lifetime.
The fact that duality is one of the laws of this reality clearly defines what is possible. Which I hope we can all agree upon. It also points to the value of our subjective capacities to aim for the highest of personal ascension while also understanding that there will always be opposing forces in the world, not just within, that will attempt at limiting our growth and development.
The fact is, if the city of Tokyo was bombed tomorrow we would all experience it in our own way. Yet, still something that has happened independent of whether or not we are aware of it. Despite the effects being unseen, they would trickle down the pipeline of causality. Steeping their way out into the branches of the great world tree. Eventually touching us in one way, shape or form. Whether that’d be economically, energetically or otherwise.
Similarly we can look to the monks that came out of the monasteries in 2021, only to realized that the whole world had been in lock down for almost a year. For a certain amount of time they were protected from what was happening beyond their subjective lenses but eventually all things meet again. The subjective meets the intersubjective, which both meet the objective world, again and again and again. This is how the web of Wyrd is continuously braided.
Within Panpsychism there is an understanding that all inanimate objects have consciousness. We can clearly see they all appear different and have different functions. We can boil down the particles and atoms that they are made of but the idea that they are all one unified force at their core has no impact on our experience of them as separate individual objects. This goes the same for all sentient beings, living and non-living.
If we completely transcend all the layers that make up who we are and come to the absolute truth of our infinite selves, we simultaneously become humans that have lost their capacity to affect change in this world.
We know this from stories of people’s awakenings. It takes time to reintegrate these experiences. During this process we become more malleable to external forces trying to change us from within collective environments. We’re simply not present enough in the material plane during those peak moments of loss of identity. To go to those places is to gain clarity but to come back and integrate is to turn that clarity into will power and action.
Yes there are some that will dedicate their whole lives transcending the body and if everyone were to do it simultaneously we’d ascend globally. What we need to remember is that not everyone wants to do that. Thus why it’s important that we equally honour the path of the warriors who are maintaining the balance on the other end of the scale by increasing awareness of why we have not ascended from harsher forms of duality such as war to begin with. Also looking to understand exactly what it is that is holding us back from freedom.
Yes there are moments when being in the absolute truth that we all are emanating from the same source can provide us with the right amount of nourishment and strength to make us less vulnerable to opposing forces imposing their inverted ideas upon us. Through non-dual practices we can transcend internal impulses towards lust, greed, hate and envy that prevent us from doing the Great Work.
There are certain layers that we ought to transcend. Conditioning, trauma, post-modern nihilistic thinking. There are other layers that we should definitely stay grounded in, such as the things that make us organic human beings in the world. To be silent is to become complicit. We want to transcend the false egos while simultaneously building up a health one based in right sight of what will maintain our longevity as healthy humans.
To incorrectly understand the right application of non-dualism within our experience is akin to not caring if someone comes into your home and shoots you. Simply saying “you are just an illusion, or another aspect of myself, so go ahead and kill me, I am you anyway.” Let’s not forget that some of our greatest spiritual leaders whom have died for peace have also killed. If not in self-defence, as a last resort to saving innocent lives.
The healthy ego will stand up and say “no you will not harm myself or my children”, then will go off and use non-duality teachings to transcend the experience of victimization from living in a world where there are sick people harming innocent ones.
Non dualism may too often predispose us to turning a blind eye, this is where its application plays out negatively in the world. It has to be coupled and grounded in combination with other esoteric teachings that balance us out and keep us from disassociating and becoming ignorant of our responsibilities.
We can’t see the facts clearly until we’ve done enough work on the subjective self to understand where it is we are fooling ourselves into believing the many lies we are being fed. Many of the esoteric paths teach us to continue studying the nature of reality so that we may eventually overcome the subjective belief systems which may be causing us to stay ignorant.
We can not simply accept at face value what is taught to us in our institutions whether that be religious, educational, governmental, health or media. The process of uncovering how we’ve been conditioned into believing anything we’re told is a painful process that will require much self-love and compassion to keep going.
If we don’t know what the problems are, we can’t create the solutions and similarly we can’t create the solutions if we stay fixated on the problems. Both have their place and value in the evolutionary process. I go out into the world and observe what’s there, then I look to see where my personal subjective lenses are causing me to see the world in a distorted way. I look to change the ways I’m thinking about what I see based upon the process of continually questioning what I believe it is to be true. It requires actual time in study, research, contemplation and meditation.
When those moments of cognitive dissonance become over powering I retreat into practices that allow me to surrender into absolute oneness with the miracle that is life. I return to the mundane and practical, “chop wood and carry water”. Afterwards, I may again return to what I’ve learned and integrate it with a greater capacity.
I look to see what I can change in the world to create less suffering for others in the long game, this requires that I share authentically what I am uncovering with the knowing that it may be painful for others to hear. That I may have some details wrong. That it may cause them suffering. That I may lose friends and family’ support.
When we are not seeking to harm anyone we can rest assured that the pain and suffering that might come of it is based in our genuine desire to know the truth. Truth and love are interchangeable when it comes to the most important things in life. To grow towards something better is never an easy path. It takes great courage to turn and face the truth of what is being uncovered both within and without.
When I walk for an hour along the Atlantic coast I see millions of little pieces of plastic, whether plastic bottles or fishing line, broken pieces of toys, broken pieces of human-made items. After a while of contemplation I start picking some of the pieces up to carry them to a garbage to disposed of them away from the oceanic wild life.
Perhaps someone might think, “I’m vegan, it will not affect me directly.” This type of myopic reasoning might make it longer for someone to go from subjectivity into the greater long game of humanity. To a place where they realize their responsibly in at least spending some moments picking up these pieces while they are receiving the oceans tremendous healing powers.
As we try and clearly observe our world we pay closer attention to what is right in front of us. We begin to understand that there are things happening that are not subjective interpretations, they are simply facts that must be faced if we are to begin the arduous task of aligning our lives towards bio-regenesis for the future of humanity on the planet.
We can all begin by trying to facing our conditioning and the beliefs we hold within that prevent us from seeing the plastic in the waters. Some people are so kind in nature the first belief structure they need to transcend is their denial of systemic corruption and how they are supporting it. Just because you live in a place where you don’t see violence in the streets doesn’t mean you’re not a slave to forces that don’t have your best interest in mind.
It doesn’t make you a “bad” person to talk about the negative things happening in the world. Let me ask you this, “How much do you want to subjectively transcend within to liberate yourself as well as those you love?”
Life in 2023 will likely continue pushing us out of subjective internal drama states of lust, greed, hate and envy, to increasingly make us available for the greater and greater challenges ahead.
I don’t believe any of us should force adapt ourselves to an unhealthy environment. Instead I seek to change the conditions that created the unhealthy environment to begin with. I seek to liberate myself and precisely because I am a unique expression of the infinite source, as I do so, I liberate others in the process.
The esoteric path is one that pushes us to uncover the ultimate truth of how nature works. It’s a path that will reveal all the layers of double speak that have veiled humanity from learning about our true nature and history. It unmasks how the corporations became the unelected gods of the 21st Century. Why they are increasingly seeking to make us less human and more artificially crafted. Gods that aim to rule our every day lives, our most personal identities, experiences, preferences and understandings of the world.
Cover Art: Artist Unknown
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