“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life flows.”
~Nisargadatta Maharaj
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I am fascinated by the intersection of the truth of nondual reality with our experiences as humans in our everyday lives. This is where the spiritual rubber meets the road.
It is a knowing beyond words to realize formless, timeless unity as eternally present. Beyond stillness…beyond silence…the pure Isness of existence…
And then someone annoys you or you’re facing a difficult conversation or a pandemic hits and changes all your plans. What then?
If nondual reality is true, it’s not just present in the blissful experiences of oneness with all. It’s here right now—in this irritated feeling, this disappointment, your reaction to your partner’s anger, loneliness and the longing for connection.
How to live from the truth of reality in these very human moments? This is a powerful question, as it invites us to be as aware as possible of what arises in us in our own direct experience.
And it brings into focus the lens through which we live: our underlying limiting beliefs…and unexplored emotions and triggers from longstanding conditioned patterns.
Sometimes the aliveness in the moment is obvious. We effortlessly feel happiness, delight, gratitude, creativity, and expansion. Without thinking, we see things clearly, a response emanates from us, and we’re generous, caring, and courageously authentic.
This is the free flow of being creating itself in human form…unfiltered and natural.
But when things feel more complex, we’re invited into deeper awareness of our present moment experience and into a process of discernment. How can we navigate what is here in this moment, not from programmed reactivity, but from the fundamental truth of essential unity of all?
Here’s a real-world example. A while ago, I wrote about bringing attention to the comparing mind, which creates a belief in ourselves that we’re lacking something. I received an email from one of our readers telling me she compares herself to others as a strategy to reach her goals. The sense of competition motivates her, and she was asking how to be on this path of realizing oneness while setting and accomplishing goals.
If we approach this question from the belief in separation—that who we are is actually a separate and limited self and not an expression of the singular unifying force—then comparing and competition make sense—and may actually help us to succeed. In this case, “succeed” means to meet our goals (for example, money, recognition, a sense of being “better than,” goals that may boost our sense of self).
But if we know, even conceptually, that the source of all forms is the one abiding vibration of life, then our whole perspective changes. Because there is no “other,” only the one source manifesting in different forms.
Coming from the belief in separation, our goals are self-focused, designed to feed our personal ideas about ourselves. But in the light of truth, they’re an expression of the whole.
Rather than trying to do better than others, we might contemplate how our goals contribute to the interconnected web of life. How do they serve the collective?
And instead of competing, we take in apparent others as no different from ourselves, feeling joy for their successes and wishing for their well-being as well as our own.
We move out of a mindset of limitation and embrace the totality of unlimited potential. We consider action informed by this knowing.
Simply said, we meet everything in love…the fragmented parts of our own inner experience, the pain and humanness of others, the earth, nature, our breath, even the COVID-19 virus…everything…and we move forward from this deepest connection with all.
By its nature, separation creates the other…and the need to protect and control. We all know how that feels.
Consider the radical possibility of seeing everything through the eyes of love. Expand out of the mindset of separation and into the all-encompassing field of clarity and love…where everywhere you look you see yourself. It’s humbling to the personal self and touches the heart endlessly.
How can you bring this perspective to practical everyday situations? There are treasures here just waiting for you…
Armen Shirvanian says
Hey Gail.
Working with the collective is an all-encompassing way to do things. We don’t always have to be competing when we are with the framework instead of opposed to it.
The concept of separation is a losing principle as mentioned here, because it creates a reality that doesn’t exist, and then works to maintain it, making the individual tired in the process. You do a great job of representing to all of us that the entirety is only excluded with a narrow view that breaks down at some point.
It is worthwhile for each of us to look at what we are calling the “other”, and how it is a representation of something we have set aside out of error.
Your message about being “unfiltered and natural” is what people seek out and hope for on internet media, and label as authentic, as the rest gives us a feeling that the person is trying to fool us instead of being with us.
Thanks for bringing this insight to all of us.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Armen!
So sweet to see you here. Thank you so much for writing! Yes, maintaining separation is tiring! I love how you express your experience here.
Thank you for all that you do to help the collective…