Originally a shorter version for someone who has no ideas at all about non-duality, not familiar with the term, yet her inner instincts, deeper calling, or may I say soul, is clearly reorienting her sense of self, over and over, towards what non-duality is all about… Not intellectually, but instead honestly, genuinely, heart-fully…
I’ve seldom had beliefs that I didn’t question as consciousness seems to be so unstable to me. I’ve always questioned things I didn’t know about or understand even as a child and even when I was punished for the audacity of the questions and the answers were “Because I said so!” and “everybody knows that”. Those were answers I couldn’t accept. Always searching for something intangible I couldn’t identify. Something, something….. It was a very slow process. I had no formal religious training although I was told by family to automatically respond to people with “Christian”.
Oh I guess I’ve meditated but unconventionally, I sometimes while lying in bed just before I fall asleep have had unusual experiences such as seeing faces of people I do not recognize which sometimes developed into little tableau of a family picnicking on a grassy field none of which I’ve ever seen before. A friend who had had similar experiences asked if I would speak to them. I’d never thought of it so I did one night and the picnicking family quickly gathered their things and walked away, looking back as if they had heard something strange.
My most memorable trip was when a friend of a friend in the late 60s, early 70s had a friend who had medical grade mescaline from UCLA. It was a turning point for me. I was drinking tea in a styrofoam cup, staring into the bottom and I noticed how the foam bits meshed tightly in the cup and that same pattern carried on over the cup and carried on over my entire vision. I discovered as I walked the neighborhood that everything I saw was connected, animate and inanimate to everything else. It was amazing and all wonder at how it was all really one. That impression has never left me.
Then I had a somewhat normal life but circumstances and coincidences seemed to always direct me onto a different path than I had planned, like I had no control. (ha ha) I always chose the adventure over a traditional life or what I thought was one. And I got stung more than once.
More and more I learned that there is peace in neutrality. Then a friend gave me some CDs of Abraham-Hicks (oh and before that there was “A Course In Miracles” through Marianne Williamson but I had troubles there as it was so Christian and I had no base on which to start). Sufis, Rumi, Tao were on my beside table. However I felt finally on a narrow path that seemed to be a better fit.
Then last year my world fell apart and I had to finally make a decision and became my own advocate. With the aid of my family, I was alone in a new style of living from what I had known for almost 30 years. I was lost and alone (which was good) during a whole year. Just as I was trying to reconstruct my life, I realized my old life was an emotional sham but also that people are basically kind and honest.
What do I do with that information? Well, I started counseling and names such Brene Brown and Gabor Mate were mentioned.
Finally, I heard from you about Rupert Spira and Bernardo Kastrup which leads to the actual inquiry into Non-Dualism and the philosophy behind it. What most intrigued me was these two men are from t different disciplines but have come to a very similar conclusion about non-duality. I’ve always been interested in quantum theories and knew it was the next frontier where we peel back another layer of ignorance to discover new layers of knowledge. And I’m also an artist and often wonder just where my inspiration comes from and the compulsion to create. I don’t think it is just because I’m neurodivergent. I’ve often read of the historical physic ists like Einstein, Schrodinger, etc. have been mystified by their discoveries and see our existence in a mystical unknown or unknowable way.
So when I saw the videos featuring hours of the Rupert and Bernardo discussions, there came a relaxing of my shoulders and gut. There came a sense of an almost silent aha! It lasted for merely a few seconds and all sorts of questions came up that I feel were distractions from an ego that felt threatened and so it begins. I’ll continue as it glimmers in the distance again but it is there and beckons me to find the answers to these questions as an advocate for the child that always questioned.
I picture myself as a conduit, gathering and sending information, experiences, emotion to what I call the greater universe, the Source, the collective unconscious and releasing old hurts, blaming, judging and all that. I feel I’ve worked hard to release my victimhood and feelings for how damaged my parents must have been to traumatize the child they loved. I’m pretty much in neutral as far as that goes now, although those feelings occasionally raise their head if my emotions are running high. Become neutral as I call it and accept people as they are. I have been “neutral” these past months as I came out of the recent trauma I experienced. I felt I had nowhere to go for solace but myself and as I saw the effects of kindness on those who were broken and unaware, good things happened and soul and body started to heal.
What you are saying is so true for me and you explain yourself in a way is clearer and less intimidating than the discussions of philosophers who have their own language in a way. Even as I write about being neutral, there is tension writhing in my body twisting my gut even though I’ve pretty much stopped reading all the political news from popular media (except HCR but I have to leave her and take a deep breath once in a while, before I come back and finish the letter). I am working on just being aware (which sounds to me like an oxymoron lol) acknowledging what comes up in my mind and I know it isn’t true (“but possible” my fears counter.) Once recognized sometimes the trauma is not gone and reappears as part of my old self but different maybe with only the anxiousness and anger but without direction. I recently experienced this in a therapy session when the therapist asked whether my neutrality might be masking unresolved traumas and I said I had met most of them (e.g., my anger at my mother, resentment for not getting the education I was promised) and her response was something like “really?” as she was watching my agitation through my voice and my body. I can see that there will be traps as I begin to practice Awareness but it lures me on with the possibility of peace and happiness in my lifetime and my creativity erupts with new energy and I get lost in the present moment and find it’s been hours.
I would like to continue our discussions in order to clarify and learn more about how live. I sometimes has a vision of just being aware, not talking, or expressing myself for fear I’ll expose a new unidentified trauma, but I think that’s my mind playing games with me.
In response
I’ve seldom had beliefs that I didn’t question as consciousness seems to be so unstable to me. I’ve always questioned things I didn’t know about or understand even as a child and even when I was punished for the audacity of the questions and the answers were “Because I said so!” and “everybody knows that”. Those were answers I couldn’t accept. Always searching for something intangible I couldn’t identify. Something, something….. It was a very slow process. I had no formal religious training although I was told by family to automatically respond to people with “Christian”.
Oh I guess I’ve meditated but unconventionally, I sometimes while lying in bed just before I fall asleep have had unusual experiences such as seeing faces of people I do not recognize which sometimes developed into little tableau of a family picnicking on a grassy field none of which I’ve ever seen before. A friend who had had similar experiences asked if I would speak to them. I’d never thought of it so I did one night and the picnicking family quickly gathered their things and walked away, looking back as if they had heard something strange.
My most memorable trip was when a friend of a friend in the late 60s, early 70s had a friend who had medical grade mescaline from UCLA. It was a turning point for me. I was drinking tea in a styrofoam cup, staring into the bottom and I noticed how the foam bits meshed tightly in the cup and that same pattern carried on over the cup and carried on over my entire vision. I discovered as I walked the neighborhood that everything I saw was connected, animate and inanimate to everything else. It was amazing and all wonder at how it was all really one. That impression has never left me.
Then I had a somewhat normal life but circumstances and coincidences seemed to always direct me onto a different path than I had planned, like I had no control. (ha ha) I always chose the adventure over a traditional life or what I thought was one. And I got stung more than once.
More and more I learned that there is peace in neutrality. Then a friend gave me some CDs of Abraham-Hicks (oh and before that there was “A Course In Miracles” through Marianne Williamson but I had troubles there as it was so Christian and I had no base on which to start). Sufis, Rumi, Tao were on my beside table. However I felt finally on a narrow path that seemed to be a better fit.
Then last year my world fell apart and I had to finally make a decision and became my own advocate. With the aid of my family, I was alone in a new style of living from what I had known for almost 30 years. I was lost and alone (which was good) during a whole year. Just as I was trying to reconstruct my life, I realized my old life was an emotional sham but also that people are basically kind and honest.
What do I do with that information? Well, I started counseling and names such Brene Brown and Gabor Mate were mentioned.
Finally, I heard from you about Rupert Spira and Bernardo Kastrup which leads to the actual inquiry into Non-Dualism and the philosophy behind it. What most intrigued me was these two men are from t different disciplines but have come to a very similar conclusion about non-duality. I’ve always been interested in quantum theories and knew it was the next frontier where we peel back another layer of ignorance to discover new layers of knowledge. And I’m also an artist and often wonder just where my inspiration comes from and the compulsion to create. I don’t think it is just because I’m neurodivergent. I’ve often read of the historical physic ists like Einstein, Schrodinger, etc. have been mystified by their discoveries and see our existence in a mystical unknown or unknowable way.
So when I saw the videos featuring hours of the Rupert and Bernardo discussions, there came a relaxing of my shoulders and gut. There came a sense of an almost silent aha! It lasted for merely a few seconds and all sorts of questions came up that I feel were distractions from an ego that felt threatened and so it begins. I’ll continue as it glimmers in the distance again but it is there and beckons me to find the answers to these questions as an advocate for the child that always questioned.
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I picture myself as a conduit, gathering and sending information, experiences, emotion to what I call the greater universe, the Source, the collective unconscious and releasing old hurts, blaming, judging and all that. I feel I’ve worked hard to release my victimhood and feelings for how damaged my parents must have been to traumatize the child they loved. I’m pretty much in neutral as far as that goes now, although those feelings occasionally raise their head if my emotions are running high. Become neutral as I call it and accept people as they are. I have been “neutral” these past months as I came out of the recent trauma I experienced. I felt I had nowhere to go for solace but myself and as I saw the effects of kindness on those who were broken and unaware, good things happened and soul and body started to heal.
What you are saying is so true for me and you explain yourself in a way is clearer and less intimidating than the discussions of philosophers who have their own language in a way. Even as I write about being neutral, there is tension writhing in my body twisting my gut even though I’ve pretty much stopped reading all the political news from popular media (except HCR but I have to leave her and take a deep breath once in a while, before I come back and finish the letter). I am working on just being aware (which sounds to me like an oxymoron lol) acknowledging what comes up in my mind and I know it isn’t true (“but possible” my fears counter.) Once recognized sometimes the trauma is not gone and reappears as part of my old self but different maybe with only the anxiousness and anger but without direction. I recently experienced this in a therapy session when the therapist asked whether my neutrality might be masking unresolved traumas and I said I had met most of them (e.g., my anger at my mother, resentment for not getting the education I was promised) and her response was something like “really?” as she was watching my agitation through my voice and my body. I can see that there will be traps as I begin to practice Awareness but it lures me on with the possibility of peace and happiness in my lifetime and my creativity erupts with new energy and I get lost in the present moment and find it’s been hours.
I would like to continue our discussions in order to clarify and learn more about how live. I sometimes has a vision of just being aware, not talking, or expressing myself for fear I’ll expose a new unidentified trauma, but I think that’s my mind playing games with me.