Nondualist: A fish who has gone to war with water and whose chief weapon is to deny the sea in which it swims. The assumption is that denial is the most effective way to rid oneself of illusions.
Low expresion: Fundamentalist evangelical missionary nondualists, or 'born again' nondualists.
To the nondualist, reality is ultimately neither physical nor mental. Instead, it is an ineffable state or realization. Nisargadatta Maharaj, when asked how to tell when someone is approaching this nondualistic understanding, commented:
"Even then it is a concept again. But I give you a criterion by which one can sort of judge something. When a stage is reached that one feels deeply that whatever is being done is happening and one has not got anything to do with it, then it becomes such a deep conviction that whatever is happening is not happening really. And that whatever seems to be happening is also an illusion. That may be final. In other words, totally apart from whatever seems to be happening, when one stops thinking that one is living, and gets the feeling that one is being lived, that whatever one is doing one is not doing but one is made to do, then that is a sort of criterion."
The realization that experiential nondualists seek involves a total lack of responsibility for the events and circumstances of their lives and the world around them. In other words, this nondualistic goal is one of utter powerlessness. Latter day nondualists think of themselves as being 'meat puppets.'
The phrase, "one stops thinking that one is living, and gets the feeling that one is being lived, that whatever one is doing one is not doing but one is made to do" is similar to the realization of being 'mechanical' proposed by G. I. Gurdjieff and the various schools that he either started or inspired.
The primary difference between the this nondualist attitude and that of Gurdjieff is that for Gurdjieff a realization of being a powerless automation is a starting point for genuine self-discovery, or perhaps the discovery of a genuine unconditioned self. It is not a stopping point.
See also: Idries Shah, The Commanding Self
A Course in Miracles suggests that all illusory things can be used for awakening. It is simply a matter of re-interpretation through a direct personal connection with spirit.
ACIM has several nondualistic aspects. The dualistic aspects of ACIM predominate, but it is an error to insist upon either to the exclusion of the other.
You see, the apparent schism between dualism and nondualism is itself a dualistic formulation, which many idiological nondualists ignore somehow.
The first way the Course is non-dualistic is to refute the idea that evil exists in eternity as an opposing force to God. There is no devil or power of darkness that is on par with the level of the Godhead. In other words, there is no error so great that it cannot be corrected. Nothing real can be threatened. This, obviously, is contrary to the thinking of many mainstream Christian organizations and individuals, which are inherently and fundamentally dualistic. Sometimes painfully so.
The Course is also nondualistic when it briefly discusses the levels of ultimate reality that is beyond both words and perception, but it doesn't dwell upon it because it has no real practical significance or application to us as we presently think.
We can't get there from here. The Course is not suggesting any escape from the level I am at, whatever that is, directly to the Godhead. The Course specifically talks about correcting error from the bottom up. It is a progressive system of ascending levels. It specifically mentions the level of nightmare, the level of happy dream, the level of real world, and the level of heaven. It is expressed in many different ways. Another is: The totally insane, the partially insane, and the sane. Different levels. Few if any transition directly from totally insane to sane, without passing through the middle ground. Maybe you know of an exception to this.
-oOo-
Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Facebook
1 comment:
Deb: ". . . . .My favorite "non-dualist" writer -- other than the Course which some people are trying to tell me is NOT "non-dualist" – is still J. Krishnamurti. "In the gap between subject and object lies the suffering of all mankind," he wrote. Or as A Course in Miracles explains it: T 16 D 8. Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap which he imagines exists between his selves. . . . "
I don't deny that ACIM has its nondualistic aspects, but they are several. The dualistic aspects of ACIM predominate, but I consider it an error to insist upon either to the exclusion of the other.
You see, the apparent schism between dualism and nondualism is itself a dualistic formulation, which the fundamentalist evangelical missionary nondualists ignore somehow.
The first way the Course is non-dualistic is to refute the idea that evil exists in eternity as an opposing force to God. There is no devil or power of darkness that is on par with the level of the Godhead. In other words, there is no error so great that it cannot be corrected. Nothing real can be threatened. This, obviously, is contrary to the thinking of many mainstream Christian organizations and individuals, which are inherently and fundamentally dualistic. Sometimes painfully so.
The Course is also nondualistic when it briefly discusses the levels of ultimate reality that is beyond both words and perception, but it doesn't dwell upon it because it has no real practical significance or application to us as we presently think.
We can't get there from here. The Course is not suggesting any escape from the level I am at, whatever that is, directly to the Godhead. The Course specifically talks about correcting error from the bottom up. It is a progressive system of ascending levels. It specifically mentions the level of nightmare, the level of happy dream, the level of real world, and the level of heaven. It is expressed in many different ways. Another is: The totally insane, the partially insane, and the sane. Different levels. Few if any transition directly from totally insane to sane, without passing through the middle ground. Maybe you know of an exception to this.
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