Cherrypicking

Be clear on this. No one individual, philosophy, guide-book, guru or religion has all the answers to your life. If there was one such universal source of truth (and many claim they have it - at one time so did I) there would be just one philosophy of life and we'd all be following it, rather than the myriad of beliefs past and present that people have followed to varying degrees of success. However much the Dalai Lama is a wonderful advert for Tibetan Buddhism, Richard Dawkins a powerful advocate of rationalist atheism, Mother Theresa a stunning example of Christianity, none of these great figures are YOU in your situation with your experience.

I was once a champion of Nicene Creed Trinitarian Christianity as the source of all truth, and the answer to all your problems. Now I advocate non-dualism as truth, the reality of a single consciousness, but do not ask me the answer to your problems. Ask me to tell you where the answer to your problem can be found and you may find my answer unsatisfying - it is found within you.

So how do you find answers within you? And why haven't you found the answers already? It is the destiny of many lives not to even begin this journey. Some take as read that the conclusions they have drawn is reality, and simply do their best to fit into it. Some never get the chance to even consider such questions as circumstances either end their life beforehand or force them to focus on simple survival. Others are forced by the prevailing majority view to accept one philosophy on pain of death or suffering. Sometimes there is only one belief you hear of that everyone accepts unchallenged.

Only a precious few are free enough, have time enough and sufficient access to the world's accumulated wisdom to be in a position to undertake the journey to true-self discovery. It is a journey you must make alone. Not being where you are, my guidance is inevitably limited.

Advice however is plentiful. In every philosophy, even those rooted in hatred, there is at least one useful nugget of helpful advice. Just by having access to the world-wide web, an infinite source of helpful advice from every philosophy can have application to your unique life. Out there is a vast goldmine of suggestions.

I have learned to cherrypick. No one voice or scripture has the credibility in my eyes to tell me how to live my life. However, many voices have great truth to offer me. As I travel my own path, unique to me, I go on gathering, sifting, comparing subjective truths. Only those that fit me, than ring true with my experience do I need to absorb. As my experience changes, some wisdom gets discarded, new truths are absorbed.

And so I am now no witness, no evangelist for any one way, any one path, any single great truth. I am however a proliferator and sharer of advice. It is fun, a joy a pleasure, to discover that advice I passed on helped another. That is why I do it. I love seeing what I do make a difference.

But to carry on doing that, I myself need to carry on learning and listening. Only in weakness and imperfection can we experience uniqueness. We all came from perfection, to perfection we will return, and be one once more. With all eternity to be perfect and one, I am happy to experience uniqueness for a time, and bring assistance and comfort to those finding it a struggle.

A Nondualist Creed

Note the indefinite article here! This is "A" creed. It is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive, only helpful, a selection of consequences of there being one single consciousness. If it helps you as well as me then blessing is magnified.

1. You can know all truth by knowing yourself
2. Everything is actually occurring within you
3. You can see how it all really is by right thinking, feeling acting and being
4. You are already what you seek to be.
5. Suffering is eliminated by eliminating your illusion of separation
6. All your experience is a blessing or a lesson.
7. You exist in many dimensions
8. The Universe thinks through you
9. Evil is not an enemy, but a shadow cast by fear
10. Life and death are both consciousness in flux
11. Time is an illusion by which we delineate events – there is only now
12. Your fulfilment is derived not from the outcome but your contribution.
13. Your experience will correspond to your attitude
14. Everything is a single consciousness
15. Your purpose is to create

The Phone That Never Rang

Ever sat waiting for the phone to ring? The door to be knocked on? Frustrating isn't it? No one likes their fate to be determined by others.

So why let it?

You're going to tell me that you can't do anything. Not so! What you mean is that you cannot achieve a desired objective if the phone doesn't ring. That may well be so. However your objective is only one of an infinity of possible objectives within an infinity of circumstances.

Destiny is like shares - your experience can go up as well as down! Ups and downs are of course a part of life. The experience we call life is a myriad of opposites: good and bad, rich and impoverished, boring and interesting, sad and happy. Now my point is this:

Let us assume for the sake of argument that your life contains 50% good bits and 50% "bad" bits, which really means "bits that were not wanted". If your life is all about the good bits, does that not mean you only get half a life, the other half being worthless? Wouldn't it be better if the "bad" half was also rich and fertile in blessing? Would that not add up to a whole lifetime of blessing as opposed to half a lifetime?

Now let's return to that phone. It's not rung, and the door wasn't knocked. Looks like you're not going to the ball. What are you going to do? Sit and cry all evening? Slash your wrists? Get angry and bitter? There are plenty of folks who would do one or all of these. But maybe there's an alternative.

You have been catapaulted by destiny into a new reality, that doesn't have the ball in it. Just imagine for a moment that you never even KNEW about the ball, that there never WAS a ball. Now look around you. Don't seem so bad now? The reality is that there is no real difference between the reality of a world with no ball and the one where the ball is there but out of reach. The difference is only what your mind is focused on. In a world with no ball, you'd just make plans with what was there. Why not do the same in the world where what you thought you were going to get didn't materialise?

Let's get to the punchline here. Right now, where you are, if you are not in physical pain, cold, thirsty or starving, you are no better or worse than anybody. Simply close your eyes and notice what you can sense. It is exactly the same as the richest of the rich. Your sense of worth and accomplishment comes from making a difference where you are. If you are in major league or minor league, your joy comes from accomplishing something from what you have where you are. If you drop from the major league to the minor league, this principle does not change.

It's great to be able to carve out a new reality for yourself - by all means go for it if you can, but you may find yourself in a reality you were knda hopin' wouldn't be the case. If that's you, try this: assume there never was a ball - it was a dream you have just woken from. If it was a dream, you would say "Oh it was a dream. Shame, I was enjoying that. Now, what have I got to do today?"

The whole point of your life experience is just that - to experience life. It isn't about winning and losing, that was always a dreadful lie. It's about making a difference, the joy of creating and changing. The place and the way you do that was chosen before your birth. Waste time mourning that which isn't there and you might have to repeat the lesson!

I don't want to repeat the lesson - that's kinda boring. The parts of this life experience that I did not choose, (or at least my ego didn't choose) I will carry right on doing that which I'd do in the "good" bits - making a difference.

So what does nondualism mean?

Hold an arbitary object in front of you, such as a pencil. Are you a pencil? The answer would seem blatantly obvious - of course not. Everything in your experience and understanding tells you that the idea is preposterous. When however you look further into exactly what a pencil is and what you are, deeply disturbing questions arise about the fundamental nature of everything.

I have explored this question and reached a startling conclusion. I am not the first to reach it, in fact countless millions have over millennia. It is no less shocking to any mind brought up in Western culture. There is no doubt in my awareness that everything I am aware of is actually one thing. All that is within awareness is one universal consciousness.

This is at first impossible to grasp, meaningless twaddle to common experience, but there is one very good model by which you may understand - that of the dream. Consider a dream. When you are having a particularly vivid dream, it seems very real at the time. It provokes real emotions that carry into consciousness. For example when you wake from a nightmare, you can wake up feeling terrified. And yet what was the whole experience made of? What were the true nature of the other people and objects in your dream?

Clearly they were all simply your consciousness, as separate and physical as they may have felt. In the same way, whilst apparently wide awake, what are you experiencing right now? On the most fundamental physical level, energy is simply changing form. It is YOUR MIND that is turning it into the experience that you call "your life". What you think is happening is actually far removed from true reality as much as the dreamworld is from the conscious world. This true reality is nondualism, the acceptance that all things are actually one universal consciousness.

As shocking as the implications are, to embrace this truth makes very little immediate impact on your life, any more than waking "reality" affects a dream. You still experience the dream until you wake. In the same way, knowing what you truly are does not stop you experiencing life. What you will get in time is relief, total peace of mind, that no life experience can take from you. If that is attractive, maybe you should explore further. For those who like logical/scientific argument, follow this link for an excellent beginner's explanation.

Words of wisdom treasure trove

A bit like "Goal of the Month" - no prize, just pick your favourites.

One day, I woke up knowing that I didn't know. In that moment, I knew.

Enlightenment is practical. You learn by doing it.

After enlightenment, I still got upset and angry, but I have never since been frustrated.

It was meditation that liberated me from my addictions. Why did it succeed when everything else had failed? Because only meditation dealt with the root cause...the way my mind worked.

Enlightenment is like a brain cell realising it's not an amoeba after all.

The "individual" per se does not actually exist, but it is a more convenient term than "a nodal point of the Divine Consciousness"

A rock doesn't have a name to glorify it, but rather as a reference point for the traveller.

"Reality" is a term used by the arrogant to describe their own perception.

Enlightenment is for people who have ever wondered "what exactly is this thing called ME?"

I used to despise the idea of esoteric knowledge for the few. Then I realised that only the few are both ready and willing to receive it.

You're not what you eat, you're why you're eating it.

The time energy and expense wasted and hurt and misery caused by people trying to get their rocks off is very sad, especially when what we all want was inside us all the time.

The meaning of life in five syllables: It's not about me.

As I become more self-aware I have become my own psychologist, exploring and exposing the reasons behind my own irrational behaviour.

Even after you have been cast into darkness, you can still find redemption there.

Insecurity is the inability to distinguish being flawed from being worthless.

I was taught that great insight is worthless without great compassion. I was cut to the heart. This was me. I then resolved that what was not in me by nature I would grow by conscious decision.

Happiness is found not in circumstances, but perception.

The enlightened are no more or less important than anything else.

It is easy to kill someone, that is like crushing a grape. It is impossible to end someone's existence, that is like stabbing the wind.

And to think that all this started from two childhood experiences. Firstly I was shocked and terrified at learning I was mortal, and secondly having gas at the dentist's. Who could have predicted that these two experiences would lead ultimately to enlightenment?

All hurt is born of the fear of hurt.

Only the unimportant gives life any interest.

After enlightenment, I could enjoy the smell without needing the food.

A sign of getting older is that foreplay becomes quite sufficient in itself.

How marvellous to be so different yet walk among the masses indistinct! How the gods must yearn to return to that experience!

How marvellous it is to be liberated from fear! To have this most foulest of demons cast out! Is there any greater relief?

Meditation and the spiritual path is like taking on a diet and exercise regime. For what seems like an age, it is hard work and there is no obvious difference. Then one day you look in the mirror and someone different stares back. Then it gets exciting and you can see changes every day.

I had often heard the phrase "face your fear" without knowing what it meant. For years I had been terrified by demons. They were hideous and threatening and said many unkind hurtful things to me. One day, I gave up trying to fight them off and I simply let them come on to me. They passed right through me and simply carried on their way to hell, leaving me standing in the road, my soul completely unharmed.

Christ came to free you from sin, so why do you discuss sin all day?

The great thing about the spiritual path is that you can enjoy the stairs and know it's not weird.

Enlightenment is for people who are tired of being angry.

A father gently leads a little child by the hand. I am the father and the child.

I finally realised that there was no point. At that moment, I got the point.

There is no profit in a grudge, and even less in revenge.

Do not gaze upward feeling small. Whole worlds exist inside yourself. Be still, and God and the universe will come to you.

You have only a moment to live. In the next moment, you will be somebody else.

Karma is like clear water on a muddy bed. Do not stir it!

I saw tragedy strike one and the rest just carry on, unknowing, indifferent, like nothing happened. This is how it works; one by one they are all replaced, yet they don't ponder this until it's their turn.

This is how mighty empires fall: Firstly, something small stops working properly, but because it still works and it is small, the problem is ignored. Then something else small also stops working properly, and that is ignored too. After a while, nothing works properly. Then the roof caves in.

To pass the time, don't count all the minutes remaining. Instead, bend all your will and concentration on the first minute.

The problem with the spiritual path is that your average canteen conversation becomes unbearably irrelevant.

I have heard it said that inside every fat person is a slim one trying to get out. This is untrue. Inside every fat person is a fat person. Make the fat person inside slim, and he will be out within months.

Enlightenment is practical. You learn by doing it.

After enlightenment, I still got upset and angry, but I have never since been frustrated.

It was meditation that liberated me from my addictions. Why did it succeed when everything else had failed? Because only meditation dealt with the root cause...the way my mind worked.

Enlightenment is like a brain cell realising it's not an amoeba after all.

The "individual" per se does not actually exist, but it is a more convenient term than "a nodal point of the Divine Consciousness"

A rock doesn't have a name to glorify it, but rather as a reference point for the traveller.

"Reality" is a term used by the arrogant to describe their own perception.

Enlightenment is for people who have ever wondered "what exactly is this thing called ME?"

I used to despise the idea of esoteric knowledge for the few. Then I realised that only the few are both ready and willing to receive it.

You're not what you eat, you're why you're eating it.

The time energy and expense wasted and hurt and misery caused by people trying to get their rocks off is very sad, especially when what we all want was inside us all the time.

The meaning of life in five syllables: It's not about me.

As I become more self-aware I have become my own psychologist, exploring and exposing the reasons behind my own irrational behaviour.

Even after you have been cast into darkness, you can still find redemption there.

Insecurity is the inability to distinguish being flawed from being worthless.

I was taught that great insight is worthless without great compassion. I was cut to the heart. This was me. I then resolved that what was not in me by nature I would grow by conscious decision.

Happiness is found not in circumstances, but perception.

The enlightened are no more or less important than anything else.

It is easy to kill someone, that is like crushing a grape. It is impossible to end someone's existence, that is like stabbing the wind.

And to think that all this started from two childhood experiences. Firstly I was shocked and terrified at learning I was mortal, and secondly having gas at the dentist's. Who could have predicted that these two experiences would lead ultimately to enlightenment?

All hurt is born of the fear of hurt. Only the unimportant gives life any interest.

After enlightenment, I could enjoy the smell without needing the food.

A sign of getting older is that foreplay becomes quite sufficient in itself.

How marvellous to be so different yet walk among the masses indistinct! How the gods must yearn to return to that experience!

How marvellous it is to be liberated from fear! To have this most foulest of demons cast out! Is there any greater relief?

Meditation and the spiritual path is like taking on a diet and exercise regime. For what seems like an age, it is hard work and there is no obvious difference. Then one day you look in the mirror and someone different stares back. Then it gets exciting and you can see changes every day.

I had often heard the phrase "face your fear" without knowing what it meant. For years I had been terrified by demons. They were hideous and threatening and said many unkind hurtful things to me. One day, I gave up trying to fight them off and I simply let them come on to me. They passed right through me and simply carried on their way to hell, leaving me standing in the road, my soul completely unharmed.

Christ came to free you from sin, so why do you discuss sin all day?

The great thing about the spiritual path is that you can enjoy the stairs and know it's not weird. Enlightenment is for people who are tired of being angry.

A father gently leads a little child by the hand. I am the father and the child.

I finally realised that there was no point. At that moment, I got the point.

There is no profit in a grudge, and even less in revenge.Do not gaze upward feeling small.

Whole worlds exist inside yourself. Be still, and God and the universe will come to you.

You have only a moment to live. In the next moment, you will be somebody else.

Karma is like clear water on a muddy bed. Do not stir it!

I saw tragedy strike one and the rest just carry on, unknowing, indifferent, like nothing happened. This is how it works; one by one they are all replaced, yet they don't ponder this until it's their turn.

This is how mighty empires fall: Firstly, something small stops working properly, but because it still works and it is small, the problem is ignored. Then something else small also stops working properly, and that is ignored too. After a while, nothing works properly. Then the roof caves in.

To pass the time, don't count all the minutes remaining. Instead, bend all your will and concentration on the first minute.

The problem with the spiritual path is that your average canteen conversation becomes unbearably irrelevant.

I have heard it said that inside every fat person is a slim one trying to get out. This is untrue. Inside every fat person is a fat person. Make the fat person inside slim, and he will be out within months.

More on nondualism

This is a reprint from my blog http://www.garyswordsofwisdom.blogspot.com/

Hold an arbitary object in front of you, such as a pencil. Are you a pencil? The answer would seem blatantly obvious - of course not. Everything in your experience and understanding tells you that the idea is preposterous. When however you look further into exactly what a pencil is and what you are, deeply disturbing questions arise about the fundamental nature of everything. I have explored this question and reached a startling conclusion. I am not the first to reach it, in fact countless millions have over millennia.

It is no less shocking to any mind brought up in Western culture. There is no doubt in my awareness that everything I am aware of is actually one thing. All that is within awareness is one universal consciousness. This is at first impossible to grasp, meaningless twaddle to common experience, but there is one very good model by which you may understand - that of the dream.

Consider a dream. When you are having a particularly vivid dream, it seems very real at the time. It provokes real emotions that carry into consciousness. For example when you wake from a nightmare, you can wake up feeling terrified. And yet what was the whole experience made of? What were the true nature of the other people and objects in your dream? Clearly they were all simply your consciousness, as separate and physical as they may have felt.

In the same way, whilst apparently wide awake, what are you experiencing right now? On the most fundamental physical level, energy is simply changing form. It is YOUR MIND that is turning it into the experience that you call "your life". What you think is happening is actually far removed from true reality as much as the dreamworld is from the conscious world. This true reality is nondualism, the acceptance that all things are actually one universal consciousness.

As shocking as the implications are, to embrace this truth makes very little immediate impact on your life, any more than waking "reality" affects a dream. You still experience the dream until you wake. In the same way, knowing what you truly are does not stop you experiencing life. What you will get in time is relief, total peace of mind, that no life experience can take from you. If that is attractive, maybe you should explore further. For those who like logical/scientific argument, follow this link for an excellent beginner's explanation.

Introduction: About Dharmic Nondualism

NOT FOR PERSONAL ISSUES

This blog is intended as an educational tool, for those from other or no beliefs who want to understand nondualism, and for those who are seeking enlightenment. It is wholly spiritual in focus and whilst touching on practical problems, it is does not deal with personal issues. If you have personal issues and are looking for help and guidance, you should instead follow my blog http://garyswordsofwisdom.blogspot.com - I welcome personal correspondence, so get in touch and I will see if I can help.

This blog will help you by getting to the place that is beyond any issue, where no issue bothers you any longer. However, you may need to tackle personal issues on a lower more practical level before you are ready to embrace higher thought, and I would urge you to do so if it's getting in the way of your life.

STILL LEARNING

While we live on this level of consciousness, we are still learning, in fact that is the whole point of being here. I am not a messianic or angelic being. I feel, I make mistakes, I react wrongly like any other. This is how I learn more. I am a learner helping other learners, showing them what I have learned already. I have only one quality that I can offer as an example - under my surface emotions, I have in my deepest levels of consciousness complete peace of mind. I've found it and you can find it too.

WHAT IS DHARMIC NONDUALISM?

It's my name to describe my path - it is not a new path, people have been treading it for millennia, but the combination of words to describe it is to my knowledge original. You certainly won't find it on Google, and you are free to call it whatever you wish if you're following it too!

Nondualism per se holds that everything is actually one thing, and there is actually no true distinction between anything. The ability to distinguish one thing from another is actually purely a trick pulled on your awareness by your mind to try and make sense of your life experience. What seems blatantly obviously there actually isn't there at all, it's only an illusion that however realistic exits only in your mind - just like the film The Matrix, but don't worry, you're not being kept sedated by a machine - you're creating the illusion yourself.

Sound crazy? Go do your own research and you will find scientists are completely unable to disprove it. In fact, the more you discover about sub-atomic physics, you find it's the most satisfying explanation for what's been commonly observed.

Nondualism itself doesn't require any sort of response - it's only an explanation. You can quite happily go on living just as you have, simply living out the illusion, and there isn't any eternal consequence. Dharmic Nondualism however is a path that leads to fully experiencing reality as it is - a single eternal consciousness. (Dharma literally means "virtuous path".) It is only embarked on by people for whom their experience of reality so far has been frustrating, unfulfilling or disappointing. Like all decisions, it requires an incentive. If you already happy and satisfied, there is no incentive, but for those who want more out of life, there is the exciting and fulfilling possibility of leaving behind what you thought you were to become what you've always been - eternal and universal.

IT'S A PURSUIT, NOT A PROCEDURE

Dharmic Nondualism does not involve taking a set of prescribed steps like a recipe to end up with the finished product. There are many practices which can lead to full enlightenment, but their usefulness depends on the context you find yourself in. You can be guided to the toolshed, but it is up to you to decide which tools suit you, how many to use and how often to use them.

IT'S NOT A RELIGION

The objective is the same as Hinduism and Buddhism, but unlike these or any other religion, you are not being asked to "take as read" any set of beliefs other than one - that all things are a single consciousness. You make your own assumptions along the way, picking up new ones and discarding others as you go along, and any practice that helps you find what you're looking for is allowed. There is no moral code, no "in" or "out" category, no list of "allowed" and "not allowed" things. That said, you will have no choice to construct codes of your own, but they will be your set of codes, ideally suited to you.

THE TRUTH IS IN HERE

Dharmic Nondualism is a path, but it doesn't go anywhere. You see, the truth already lies within you. Everything you need is already there. You path will end up where you started, but in order to see that within yourself, you will have no option but to try things, do things and interact with many seekers and sages before you arrive back at yourself. Some get it very quickly, some like me take a while, (about nine years before I really got it), and some will take a lifetime. No matter, it's all good!

ONCE YOU'VE GOT IT, YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED!

Once you have found peace of mind, once you have reached a level of understanding where nothing bothers you, where you have got it, but you haven't finished! Like a garden, there is always something to learn, something to improve, some new joy to discover. Having become a fully qualified gardener, the gardening never ends, but it is joyous and blissful work. I wish you every blessing as you take this path.

NO ONE WAY AND NO AGREEMENT

You will meet many on this path who think they've discovered the best way. They insist that they've got the short-cut. Some for example think you don't have to do anything at all - just by being absolutely still and silent you will become instantly enlightened. I'm not saying they are wrong, but I certainly am saying this may not work for you. You are more likely to find enlightenment by a long process of finding what it isn't - no matter, it's all good!

MY INFLUENCES

In your journey of discovery, you will meet many fascinating and interesting people. There is no compulsory reading list in Dharmic Nondualism. However, if you are interested, here are those who have deeply influenced me:

SHARON JANIS - A devotee of Siddha Yoga, She started it all off for me with her book SPIRITUALITY FOR DUMMIES, and set me down the path I am now. Her written work is very easy to read.

DEEPAK CHOPRA - Writer of many books on spirituality, particularly unique in that his works are influential in the field of business.

ARIEL BRAVY - Profoundly influential in bringing nondualism to a wide internet audience, his website YOU ARE TRULY LOVED is a great source of inspiration, and if you are up for it, a robust debate and idea exchange on his forums

DR.SUSAN JEFFERS A prolific author of self-help books which have helped me enormously with personal issues. Her original and best book, FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY, liberated me from my biggest obstacles.

CHRIS KROW SUMMERS A Reiki Master who I met whilst training to be a hypnotherapist, he introduced me to traditional Reiki, and its practices helped me make enlightenment a reality. Along with co-founder Susan Hawksley, Chris teaches his own form of Reiki (Lifeforce Reiki) that draws on all the branches of Reiki that originate from the first disciples of founder Usui Mikao. At the time of writing I am a level 2 (okuden) practitioner of this form of Reiki and intend to train as a Master Teacher in 2011. He is based in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.