Non Duality
This is a blend of several quotes and satsangs about Non-Duality. I include here also a text transcription of a satsang about the topic.
Equal to All
Equal to all. Now here is a conflict of feeling. At one moment you’d feel that you are non‑existent and at the next moment you feel that you are equal to all. The very word that you are equal to all, you are admitting existence, for who is all that you would refer to? So, in this life which is a paradox, one finds oneself sometimes placed in the position when you become totally centered within yourself, when you become integrated, when mind body and spirit functions in oneness, you say to yourself, «I am non‑existent. Something else exists. That which I thought is me is not really me, for I am not this body, I am not this mind, but I am something else.»
So I combine in daily living both the principles that I am not existent yet I am all existence. For without me how can existence ever exist? For that I that I would speak of in thinking those thoughts would be the greater I that I really am ‑‑ eternal, immortal, without beginning and without end ‑‑ for I am always there, I have never been away. I’ve never come from anywhere and there’s no place that I will go to. I just am. Yahweh. I am that I am.
But when the feelings creep up within one of non‑existence it also shows another factor, that the very recognition of the fact that I am not existence, then it could be brought about by a comparison of existence. Now if you compare the two, you’ve got to have a point with which comparisons are done. Then if you do not know existence how can you say you are non‑existence? For one requires the pre… the prerequisite knowledge has to be there to know of non‑existence as well as of existence.
So you are both non‑existence as well as existence. But beyond both you are also, you are also beyond existence and non‑ existence. For non‑existence, as I said a moment ago, is just but the negation of existence. But yet there is a factor which transcends existence and non‑existence. For existence or non‑ existence implies relativity, the relative way of looking at life. For the existence that you know of is perceived by your five senses activated by your mind with its various categories of consciousness, sub‑consciousness, and superconsciousness. And yet what is the reality in this all? Is there any reality in the superconscious mind? Is there a superconscious mind? Is there a sub‑conscious mind and is there a conscious mind?
Now when all these three are brought together and brought to the center of your ego, then it recognizes superconsciousness, the consciousness and the sub‑consciousness. So it is the ego that says that «I am existence». But when you transcend the ego then superconsciousness disappears. Consciousness disappears and all the trappings and workings, the garbage of the sub‑conscious mind, also disappears. For then you are in a totally different existence. And that too you can question, «Is this existence or not?» You are in a different dimension, that would be a better word. And from that dimension all this that you hear and say, touch, smell, all your conceptions of existence, everything around you would seem a dream. So are you awake or are you dreaming?
Now, when you say, » I am existence», you are talking about the dream and the dream exists. But what is the form of the dream in which you exist? Where does that dream come from that tells you that this is a dream and who is the cognizer of the dream? There again you go back to that ego self which, in reality, is non‑existent. So here, the existence of the dream comes from non‑ existence so it would mean that the dream in non‑existent too. For what reality is in the dream?
Dreams are the thought formations, gathered in this lifetime or perhaps other lifetimes, and because of certain happenings today, last week, six months ago, it triggers off a picture in your mind. And the picture it triggers off is a concoction of different experiences interpreted again, and not in its total purity, but filtered through that ego self. So there, existence is found, it is observed. I am dreaming that I am climbing up the Himalayas while I am here in Chicago.
What is the validity of it? Am I really climbing the mountains there or am I not? Now I say to you that you are climbing the Himalayas while even in Chicago. For the entirety of existence is imagination. Now imagination does not need to be false. For the word «imagination» comes from image making and any image you make in your mind is a reality within the concept of the realness of the very image you are building in the mind. So that is why in practical daily life people are so much effected by the images they create in their mind where something so real becomes unreal and something unreal becomes real. I tell someone, a woman, «I love you». What is the reality of that love? What is the reality of that love, for the very cognition of love within me brings that love into non‑existence for the mind could never comprehend the meaning of love.
So we could say that love is not of the mind, but love is an experience. Now if it is an experience we got to have an experiencer. Who is experiencing that experience? There again it is your ego self that experiences that, and the ego self has its own model of what it would perceive to be an experience. The ego self has formulated certain ideas of what love is or what love should be. So the ego self projects that love in saying that «I love you». The ego self tries all the time to compare, compare, compare its past experiences with what is now in the presence. I am in the presence of someone I love deeply. But I have to have a basis to compare that why do I love this person deeply. And that is taking place in the mind all the time, comparisons, comparisons, comparisons, always trying to find a point of reference. And yet, when you do find the point of reference within your sub‑conscious mind and you bring it down to the level of feeling or experience, then who is the experiencer? The non‑existent ego.
So the entire concept of love, real love, actual love, is never comprehended and never experienced by man in his present fragmented state. Therefore, to know love, that is the secret. To become love, that is the secret. To be love, that is the secret. Not to feel. For in feelings emotions are involved and emotions are governed by the ego self.
To think that you love, that still loses its validity because it is governed by the mind. So through meditational practices, through spiritual practices, we become so integrated that we neither feel love, we neither think love, we neither experience love because that would be temporary ‑‑not eternal ‑‑ for as soon as you drop this body that love is dropped. Because it is governed by things that are forever changing. You might feel this today and a different thing tomorrow. You might feel so beautiful and tender today with you beloved one, and tomorrow…? The feelings might change because he or she has been scolding you over something very, very trivial.
So experiencing this love for the moment is not a true
experience. It’s a presumed experience. It’s a superimposition upon your real self, your actual self. So experience, emotions, feelings, and thought, proves the non‑existence of love. Now, what is the true existence of love is to become love, devoid of any conditioning. Where like a flower gives of its fragrance all the time without being conscious of it. For even in experience, feeling, emotions, and thought you require consciousness and love transcends all consciousness. You are love. You are love and that is a realization which exists within itself. It does not require oil in the lamp to keep the flame alive. But it is self‑effulgent and that self‑effulgence is both existence and non‑existence.
So when people are hurt in love, when people are disappointed because ‑‑ I use love as an example, for this is the greatest need of man and man’s ego self: to love and be loved, that is the greatest need. From the ego level. And because it being a need it gives either pleasure or pain. But what I want you to experience, rather «know,» which is a better word than experience, I want you to know the «is‑ness» of love. And in there you would combine existence and non‑existence. You would form a synthesis between the two opposites, for in reality non‑ existence is existence and existence is non‑existence.
This applies to divinity as well. Does the divine exist or does it not exist? This is the question that would bother the minds of agnostics: «Does divinity exist or does it not exist?» He is both. He is non‑existence as well as existence. But the existence only comes along by your perception, and that is where you lack the knowingness of existence. Until then it is non‑ existence.
So it is of no use to reach that realization with any pre‑ conceived ideas. Of no use whatsoever of having conceptions of what God or divinity would be like. If you ask, «What would he be like?» then you would still have to use a point of reference, where there is no reference at all and that non‑reference is the non‑existence; so how could you find existence on the point of that which is non‑existent. Do you see?
So, the path to self‑realization‑‑and even «self» is a very incomplete word. We say a man is self‑realized, what is self? Do we know the self? And if we do not know the self, what right have we to say that «I am self‑realized.» Or what right do we have to say that «I am on the path to self‑realization?»
What I’m trying to point out to you is to get away from all ideas of your self, to get away from all ideas of your existence or your non‑existence. And it is only then when you’re away from these ideas that suddenly you are in the dimension of knowingness. And that thin dividing line where there’s neither existence and there is non‑existence.
This is a totally revolutionary idea: that you do not merge away into existence or non‑existence, but between that invisible line and you land there in that knowingness that «I am» and that «I am» is not dependent upon existence or non‑existence. And that, to use common parlance, is self‑realization. That is awakening. That is when you are awakened.
So these religions, as good as they are, they have served a purpose, and they still do serve a purpose. I encourage all religions, and as I’ve said millions of times, «Let a Christian become a better Christian, a Judaist a better Judaist,» but I’m speaking now to very highly intelligent people, because only they would understand these totally revolutionary ideas that will become household words in the centuries to come. So, practice whatever religion you do want to practice, but remember you got to go beyond all dogmas, all creeds, all rituals, to land up in that fine line that invisible and indivisible line like the day melting into night or the night melting into dawn.
How many times as a child, while I was searching for divinity, did I not sit night after night watching the sun setting and the night coming on; and I wanted to see where the day ends and the night begins. How many hundreds of times have I not sat up in the mornings, wanting to see where night ends and day begins. But I could not see the dividing line. I could not see the dividing line and I only discovered later, after still many, many years of practices in the Himalayas and all over, that that dividing line is of knowingness. I know that this is day and I know that this is night. Yet the day is existent for me here now. On the other side of the globe it is non‑existent. And the same thing applies for night. For me the night is existent here but on the other side of the globe it is non‑existent there, it is daytime there.
And then at last when illumination comes, when the awakening comes, you’re right in the center of either side of existence and non‑existence. And there the mind starts thinking, «How can I put this realization, or this awakening, into words?» And you fail to put it into words. For that ecstasy that lies only between existence and non‑existence is indescribable. I look into the eyes of the woman I love, and there I would find that so‑called middle, the so‑called center of me existing and non‑existing and she existing and non‑existing. And that is love, unconditional, unpremeditated, and just a happening. That split second where we experience the entirety of that which is called eternity. One second. One glimpse. That’s all that’s required.
So man has the potentiality of reaching the highest level. And when I say the highest level it means even beyond the highest level of awareness. For you are in the dimension of non‑ awareness. For if divinity is given the attributes of awareness, then divinity ceases to be divinity for awareness must have qualifications. So, you go on practicing the religions of you forefathers. But remember, dogmas and creeds will only take you to a certain point, not further. And talking of religions, there was this one minister, who was staying at a hotel. And he was walking around one night in the foyer of the hotel. He was in sleep but he was walking around. So the manager comes up to him and says, «Look you can’t do this in this hotel, walk around in the foyer in your pajamas.» So this padre says, «Look I’m a, I am a somnambulist.» So the minister replies, «I don’t care what religion you belong to, but you can’t walk around here like this.»
Somnambulism, how beautiful. To enter the dimension of somnambulism, you are performing all actions and you are not aware of them. What a beautiful state. For to be aware, it can do two things for you. It can either give you pain or pleasure. But to be non‑aware, not unaware, but non‑aware is the state where there’s no pleasure and no pain but total ecstasy existing within itself and without any point of reference. Do you see?
And that is the best way to enjoy. For you are not now enjoying an object or a subject. You are enjoying enjoyment. And that enjoyment is enjoyed by not your ego self or your patternings or your conditionings. But it is self‑existent within itself without requiring any support whatsoever.
So, non‑existence has to have its counterpart of existence. But what we have to find, through spiritual practices, is that invisible line between the two and live on that line, which is eternity. Am I going a bit too deep? Yah. Pardon? Right.
So, what does man want most? He wants everything to be pleasurable for him. He must have everything that is nice, pleasurable. And how does he compare his pleasurableness or the extent of his pleasure, is by the status that he imagines himself, that he should be in or should have. That is why this whole world is topsy‑turvy. Because the very status idea is based upon economics. So more, more, more we want of the things of a mundane level that is so transitory. Momentary pleasure and a hundred moments more of pain because we have experienced that pleasure. I had a beautiful dinner. So if the next day I do not have a good dinner, my mind will go back to yesterday. And because the mind is lead back to yesterday, today’s dinner does not seem nice to me or good to me. And that is pain. So when man goes beyond comparisons or the point of reference, and still further than that, the point of identification, then you live without identity. And when you can live without identity, then you have known all that there is to be known. As the Upanishads would say, and I’ve said this before in some talk, «What is there that can be known, and by knowing which, all else is known?» You see. That line between existence and non‑existence. You see.
Then you enjoy total freedom. You enjoy total freedom because you are bound by neither. You are not bound by existence and you are not bound by non‑existence. You are just it. Just it. Floating away. Divine ecstasy. And it is from that very divine ecstasy that you have come. And manifested yourself as existence and non‑existence because they are two sides of the same coin. When you are asleep, where are you? Is there any factor recognizing that you are asleep. No. You are non‑existent. If there is no factor recognizing, its only when you wake up in the morning and say «Oh, I have slept for eight hours».
So it is a reflection of something that has already past. You are reflecting upon it, «I have been asleep.» But while you were asleep were you conscious that you are in deep sleep? No. And when you are awake, are you truly conscious of your wakefulness? No. People are robots. They function in a robot‑ like fashion. Things are just done automatically. Automatically. A routine a pattern is set and you just follow the pattern all the time. Morning you wake up, you brush you teeth, you have your shower, you get dressed, you go to work. Do the same old things all the time. Selling bales and bales of cloth and material. Right?
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