Nonduality is a modern spiritual term that sourced often in the Eastern schools of Advaita Vedanta. Nonduality literally means “not two”; suggesting that all arises from one inseparable source, which is also the source of ourselves.
While religious teachings tend to spread monotheism or unity of creation as a belief, nonduality seeks freedom from belief structures through direct experience of the unified source. Hence the emphasis in nondual teachings on meditation, self inquiry and experiential surrender, rather than on prayer and supplication to a higher authority or god.
Practitioners active in nonduality do not need to come from any particular teaching, gender, culture, or school of thought. Most are spontaneously awakened, although many have trained in a variety of disciplines of meditation and/or energy work in their process of self-liberation.
A nondualist can be anything from a Jain, to a Catholic, to an Atheist. The unifying factor is the movement beyond all such forms into the inner world – the source of life itself – and the independent recovery of nondual wisdom through experiential inquiry.
Individuality remains as a playful, transient and impermanent fixture, a fleeting and indivisible expression of unity. It is no longer a spell that blinds us.
Nondualists speak of dimensions beyond form – such as the timeless consciousness revealed beyond thought and identity, or the presence of infinite awareness, the unattached, benevolent observer of all experience. As nonduality is experiential, it is also intensely existential, located in the ‘here’ and ‘now’ as entry points to a source of ourselves beyond space and time.
The beautiful paradox of nonduality, is that the deeper we move into the source of who, what and where we are, in the spirit and gut of individuality, the more it becomes apparent that we are not separate but living from one source.
Unity is found at the core of the one individual – behind, beyond and irrespective of all illusions of separation. In this realization, the individual is liberated to take form in attunement with the needs of the whole. Individuality remains as a playful, transient and impermanent fixture, a fleeting and indivisible expression of unity. It is no longer a spell that blinds us.
