You’ll often hear me talk of that odd and much-misunderstood method of encountering the world called ‘Dualism’. It’s odd because when you see how it works, it’s pretty loco. And it’s misunderstood, because most of us are under the mistaken assumption that it’s the only way to encounter the world.
Of course, there is another way, which is what this site is all about. For lack of a more colorful word, I often call it non-dualism.
Most of us, when we venture out on a spiritual path, realize that enlightenment (non-dualism) is the holy grail we’re seeking. So we set off in search of it, and soon find that it’s a near-impossible quest. That’s because seeking non-dualism is fruitless – the very act of seeking requires us to use the dualistic method of encountering the world!
We can hear this, but we don’t listen. We just keep on inventing new ideas about what ‘enlightenment’ is, and trying to slowly build up to enlightenment by cultivating those ideas. We think that enlightenment is a quiet mind, so we spend our time meditating to try to quiet our minds. We think enlightenment is placid emotions, so we spend our time trying to calm our moods. We think enlightenment is perfect peace, so we try to eradicate all aggression and violence from our lives.
These things are all fine. They can even give us the impression that life, or the world, is a little better because of our efforts. But in reality, they are all methods of self-violence which continue to create a conflict-based world all around us. These are very subtle brands of violence, but they are still based on the idea that we must divide the world up into parts, and then attack some parts and promote others.
The key to finding true peace is not to create an idea of enlightenment and then go chase after it. The key is to see things as they are. We can start by paying attention to our usual method of encountering the world, and seeing how it works.
Duelism
Perhaps we should re-name Dualism into ‘Duelism’. And if we’re practicing duelism, let’s call ourselves duelists. The reason? This aptly describes how dualism creates our world-view.
Duelism breaks the world up into parts. No matter that if we examine closely and honestly enough, we can’t find any real divisions! We create all these different parts, and then we have to have relationships between the parts. Already the conflict has begun! Sometimes our parts will get along, and sometimes they won’t. As this idea is expanded, we find ourselves in the midst of the world-view it creates. We find ourselves constantly trying to make life more happy than sad. To get more security than insecurity. To cultivate all the things we think are good in life (peace, money, friends, good meals at restaurants), and to reduce or get rid of all the things we think are bad in life (yucky people, war, self-loathing, cheaters, and cheap chocolate).
Our Divisions
We take our divisions to truly crazy levels. And because we believe our divisions are real, we find ourselves in the position of true insanity – we insist that our imaginary ideas are realities, even though they are only in our imaginations.
For instance, most of us believe that we have dual natures. We feel that we have urges and desires, and that we must resist these temptations. We will even give these different sections names (Id/Ego, Angel/Devil, Animal Me/Civilized Me, Self/Higher Self). With this division in place, and with our belief in its reality, we find ourselves constantly trying to exercise discipline. We want certain things, but we know they aren’t good for us, so we resist as best we can. We fight our impulses, battle with our weight, struggle to stay healthy, try to tame our monkey-mind, and wrestle with our emotions.
If we look clearly, we find that there is only one ‘me’. But in our imagination, we create two or more ‘me’s', and then those different parts must battle for supremacy.
Not only do we think this is sane and normal, but we think it is inevitable. And when we step down a spiritual path, we tend to neglect anything spiritual and instead just make new parts that we can have battles with (balancing our chakras, aligning with our higher selves, or clearing our auras). Same old insane game. We’re just using new game-pieces. Creating divisions where no divisions exist, and then trying to resolve the relationship between those divisions.
Getting Sane
We don’t have to be duelists. It’s a purely optional way of living. Almost everybody else is doing it, so it seems normal (or even inevitable), but it isn’t. In fact, this way of thinking is the sole creator of every human problem that exists in this world, and if we are practicing duelism, we are active contributors to the world’s conflict, even if we’re pretending that we stand for peace. We think the world has problems, and that we have to solve them. But the truth is that the world is just fine, except that we are all actively creating problems every moment of our lives.
Non-dualism gives a simple solution. It asks us to see the world as it is, without applying all our imaginary ideas to break it up and put it into conflict. When we see the world as it is, we see right through the strange ideas we held before, and we cease to become a conflict-creator. Thus we find that the key to peace isn’t to protest and direct our frustration or outrage at others, but rather to discover for ourselves what peace truly is. Then we will understand our own role in creating the world, and will also understand how others are creating their worlds.
Religions, gurus, and even this site offer many tools for re-discovering this ability to see things just as they are. Often, though, they will create an idea of enlightenment for you, and lead you on a wild chase to capture something that can’t be caught.
One of the best things you can do is simply to examine your own mind, and see how it creates your world-view. With careful observation, you’ll begin to see that the whole idea of ‘encountering the world’ doesn’t make any sense at all. You’ll begin to sense your active role in creating your world as you go along. With enough raw observation, things will begin to come clear – you’ll begin to see your mind’s activity with more and more clarity, until you finally see what you mean by ‘your mind’s activity’. It’s when we encounter this – our idea of Selfhood and self-control – that we finally open the door to seeing the world just as it is. Duelism is part of the world, and we also see what dualism is really about. In fact, all of our questions are answered, and we’re left with no doubt, no ideas, and no more confusion regarding life.
Sometimes this path toward non-dualism is called ‘simple’, because it requires no effort on our parts at all. Sometimes it is called ‘nearly impossible’, because we don’t understand what is meant by ‘no effort’, and either find ourselves working really hard to attain ‘no effort’, or dismissing it as a suggestion that we should just be lazy and sit around to wait for it to happen.
I can’t tell you what no effort means, because it’s impossible to explain. But you can examine your own ideas about it, and within those ideas you’ll find the blocks that are putting barriers in your own meditation practice, your search for enlightenment, or your quest for personal peace.
Search, practice, play, explore. Within that, see if you can simply be aware of how your mind dances with each of your actions. Awareness is the key. And though we can even experience conflict as we fight to be aware, in the end we discover the marvelous truth – Awareness is what we’re all up to all the time. It’s the only thing we’re really good at, and the only thing we can actually ever be doing. It is automatic, effortless, and ever-present.
Now, in true duelistic fashion, let’s put on our armor, draw our swords, and go searching for Awareness!
Dear Kenton,
It’s amazing that you wrote this article, because I had recently started the 30 day experiment that Raymond Salas has mentioned in his blog
http://zenchillcom.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-to-discover-your-destiny.html
You’ve always mentiong about pure awareness, and just letting life be as it is, and seeing it for what it is, and removing all our mental filters. I think it’s time to just let go and not interfere with life, nor try to change anything. Manifestation, law of attraction, everything included.
Thanks again for an insightful article.
Rahul
Greetings Rahul,
I followed the link to learn more about this thirty-day experiment. Very interesting! I’d very much like to know what you experience during this time. If you’d be interested in writing it in as a comment here, it could be shared with other readers.
Looking forward to hearing more! =)
Kenton
Using Dualism to find Non-Dualism! Exploration which will ultimately lead to the realization that Awareness is what it’s all about – in fact, all there is.
Kenton, thanks again for your efforts to make simple the essense of a way of looking at life which simply says we should just ‘look’ at life. Instead of getting so wrapped up in searching for answers about life. The answers are there already and we just have to allow them to be.
Awareness of Awareness. We must observe our Self as it is in its completeness. All else is illusion.
-Jerry
Just a note on above comment “time to just let go and not interfere with life, nor try to change anything”. This is probably all and well if you have a relatively uncomplicated life. It sounds selfish, though, if you consider millions of poor people (esp. children) dying of hunger, disease, and oppression. A “no worries” attitude doesn’t sit well with me on that. At least some expression of outrage and intent to make things better for those people would be more in order. We can’t just accept the situation lest it would just keep happening. Everything is not perfect as it is, in this case. What do you think, Kenton?
Greetings sof theo,
I can’t say how Rahul meant the words he used, but I can certainly speak to the situation. And I must start by saying that I’m very glad that you asked this question, as it’s a very important thing to consider. Thank you for posing it. This ‘seeing the world as perfect’ is all and well if we have good lives, but what about those who are suffering greatly?
With non-dualism, it’s important to take things ‘all the way’. If we attempt to selectively apply an idea of perfection, we get ourselves into a nasty trap, and miss the point of non-dualism entirely. It sounds perfectly rational and normal to be outraged about starving children, but what are we engaged in when we do this?
First, we are judging the level of suffering of others. Consider the suffering of a person who has lost a loved one – who has low self-esteem – who is starving to death – who is just realizing they are getting old and will someday die – who is dying of cancer – who is constantly harming others – who has an eating disorder – who is sold into prostitution and slavery – who is just a ‘normal’ person who experiences doubt, frustration, and fear every day. Whose suffering is greatest? Whose suffering is worthy of our attention?
The nature of dualism is that we will make judgments on others’ suffering, but if we look carefully, we’ll find that our judgments have little to do with the actual suffering of other people, but rather with our own ideas of what is good or bad for them (after all, we can never ‘get into the head’ of someone else to accurately assess their suffering — we can only observe and make judgments based on our own assumptions).
By this means we will see any given ‘problem’ only in its chopped-up form. Dualism can never see the whole picture. The problem of starving children isn’t a problem of moving resources around (we already know that doesn’t work – we’ve been doing it for a long time and people are still starving). The problem lies much deeper – within the basic ideas that people hold about other people, about the world, about who deserves what, about which humans are worthwhile and which aren’t. It comes back to the same process of selecting out some people or things who are ‘good’ and others who are ‘bad’.
Ultimately, if we look carefully enough, we come to see that the real problem lies within ourselves, and our own divided, conflict-based view of life. As dualists, we’re all active contributors to all the problems of the world. We begin with inner conflict, and spread it wherever we go. Our basic ideas about life support a system which promotes inequality, injustice, and violence. If we can honestly assess our inner situation, we’ll find that every world-problem has a mirror within us.
It’s easy for us to forget that most of what we call ‘life’ is just a bunch of people playing by rules that they’ve made up. The numbers are so huge that we can think that we’re insignificant, but everyone else is thinking that, too, and almost every one of those people is adopting a mind-set that creates a conflict-based human condition. The result is billions of people who all hold conflict in their hearts, and wage that conflict upon themselves and others. We must ask ourselves if we are contributing to that momentum. Are we actively supporting the problem by spreading more conflict? By dividing up the world in our minds so that we think some people are deserving and others aren’t? By harboring our own self-loathing or inner conflict?
Or are we becoming one of the humans who can see the ‘perfection’ of the world in every moment?
Our dualistic mind-set wants to say that a ‘perfect’ world should be left alone. That we should not work for change. This is simply not true. When we see the world as ‘perfect’, our own actions for change become part of that perfection. The difference is that our actions are born of compassion, love, and inner peace, and not out of conflict. We find that we can actually ‘solve’ the unsolvable problems of human nature. The problem-solving begins with ourselves — starting with the stress, frustration, and anger which most people consider a ‘normal’ part of being human. Devoid of these things, we begin to display to the people around us that life can be perfect without the need for grasping, fighting, and crushing. Seeing that, others begin their own Awakening. It’s then that we begin to see that the only way we will make real, lasting change in this world is to attend to our own Awakening.
Awakening is not about ignoring the problems of this world – it’s about seeing them as they are, and ceasing our practice of giving aspirin to someone who has just had their arm chopped off. This is what is meant by ‘accepting the situation’. With dualism, we say ‘it’s not so bad, let’s give him a pill and hope he gets better’. And we feel better, because we did something. With non-dualism, we see that the arm is chopped off, and that the person is bleeding to death. And seeing that, we attend to the situation as it actually is.
If we look at the world’s problems, and if we look at our own problems, we’ll see how our methods ignore the complete picture and instead attack only the symptoms of the illness, leaving the illness to continue to grow. We send $40.00 a month to help stop the starvation in some third-world country. We take 10 deep breaths or pop a pill to calm our anxiety. We have a drink of alcohol to relax after a hard day. We cut butter out of our diet to because we’re putting on a little too much weight. In all of these cases, we’re taking aspirin for a chopped-off arm. We’re not actually attending to the problem – instead we’re feeding our own feelings of guilt, our low self-esteem, or our ideas of ‘how we should be’. We’ve seen the problem, we’ve fixed it momentarily in our heads, and even though we know it will come right back, we feel good for a little while.
Right now in this world, in this very moment, people are dying of cancer, are starving to death, are being tortured by themselves and by others. Dualism teaches us that we must fight these things, and the result is that we continue to perpetrate a basic violence which guarantees that these things will continue as long as humans exist.
Through Awakening, we not only come to see the perfect beauty in each moment (and thus find ourselves able to truly Live in our last moments of dying by cancer), but we discover the foundation of all human suffering, and from there our actions become clear and effective.
To add a last point which may clarify things, I’d invite you to read the article ‘Everything You Hear About Enlightenment Is A Lie’ in the Life Basics section on this site. This helps us remember that each of these articles is a pointer toward something that can’t adequately be described in words. If we remember this, it will help us realize that these articles aren’t trying to impart knowledge-based learning (such as the idea that action should or should not be taken to solve a problem), but rather are pointing us toward a new way of existing, in which the ‘problems’ of life become negated. Not because we’ve solved them with our efforts, but because we see that our former efforts to solve them were actually contributing to and creating the problems themselves.
Sweetwater,
Kenton
Greetings back, Kenton!
Your response to my comment has blown me away! I really appreciate it and I wish you would re-post it as a stand-alone article or something for the benefit of fellow readers who enjoy your writings despite some apparent confusion or disagreement here and there.
My earlier comment is not inconsistent with what you’ve elaborately explained after all. You have just filled in for me the ‘missing links’ when you clarified how we can see the world as perfect despite all the suffering, how Awareness directs us toward a new existence that does not perpetuate life’s conflicts, and how the best way to go about it all is by starting with ourselves and becoming Aware. Impressive.
It’s so easy to mistake ‘accepting a situation’ for ‘becoming a passive and indifferent observer’ and ‘not calling for any change’, when in fact you mean ‘understanding it fully’ to be then ‘directed toward a clear and effective action which may or may not lead to change’. That’s how I see it now, anyway.
I have always thought that ‘seeing everything as perfect’ is ungrounded in the realities of this world. I know a little better now, thanks for your untiring edification.
Don’t ever get tired of writing, Kenton. You’re up there with the very best.
Hello Jerry,
Thanks for the comment. I especially liked ‘Awareness of Awareness’ — a wonderful use of words to twist our minds into a direct perception. =)
Sweetwater,
Kenton
Dear sof theo,
Well said! I must say again that the sort of question that you asked is so important. As you noted, any ‘description’ of non-dualism is going to contain contrary elements — paradoxes, or suggestions which go against our normal way of thinking. It is so easy to make these descriptions into new ideas, and those ideas have the potential to lead people to rejecting non-dualism, or lead them into attempting to create new behaviors, such as simply ignoring all the ‘problems’ of the world. When I write an article, I am taking a certain ‘slant’, and it’s when someone like yourself comes along and questions the contrary aspects of the slant that the pointing of the article can be clarified for everyone. Without such questions, the article sits ‘as is’, and may miss the mark for many of the readers.
Both you and Albert of urbanmonk.net have asked me to post this as an article, and I think I’ll take your advice. Again, thanks for setting this all into motion! =)
Sweetwater,
Kenton
Greetings Kenton,
Thanks for the awesome explanation that you gave to Sof Theo’s question. I also had similar doubts that Sof Theo has, but I have realised that I can’t change the world. I can only change my perception.
Just last night I saw a documentary on a wildlife channel, that portrayed a journey of an elephant. That particular elephant, was a mother with a 20 month old calf. She was injured in a dominant attack by another herd of elephants. Her leg never healed and one day she was again caught by another herd of elephants, which tried to kill her, but didnt. She eventually never recovered, despite being treated by the documentary makers. Needless to say she died.
Looking at that scene, I couldnt help but feel a deep sense of choking, and sadness. It also reminded me of your previous article “And a deer dies.”, where you explained that we cant really change anything, except our perceptions. We are no one to judge someone else’s suffering.
The misery lies in our minds. And if we carefully observe our minds, we find that every single action in the outer world has a reaction in our minds, and that reaction in our minds, using the plethora of our lifelong beliefs as a basis, causes the misery. I am not qualified enough to comment, as I’m still learning how to cope up with my mental reactions, but the more I try to let go, I realise that I’m getting more and more peaceful. (Though my mind tells me that I’m gonna ruin my life doing this. It has a deep longing to making a stand, you see.)
That is not to say, that I’m becoming indifferent. But more accepting. Osho wrote an article stating that life is a mirror. Everything that we see in our outer world is a reflection of our thoughts.
I feel life is nothing but a paradox, where we create something in the outer world, and use that to create ourselves, and thus create something else. And the cycle continues.
We cant really explain anything, and you are right when you say that all the articles on your site are merely pointers. We just need to wake up, and see life for what it is, just as it is. I just wish it wasn’t so darn difficult, or maybe I’m making it out to be.
Hello Rahul,
Thanks for sharing this with everyone — as each person experiments with their own approaches to these things, it is very helpful to have a few people speak up about their experiences. That way we all gain some insight from the sharing. Appreciated! It would be very interesting to hear about how your mind suggests that you might ruin your life doing this. What is your mind suggesting might be lost (or gained) here? I think this is an important thing you’ve brought up, because people often fear they will lose important elements of their current life (passion, emotion, aspirations), while others decorate awakening up in so many colors that they are sure to miss it and chase the colors instead. I’d love to hear your thoughts sometime! =)
Sweetwater,
Kenton