The vichara that I practice stems from ancient Advaita Vedanta thought. Advaita means “non-dual” and it is the end realization of the mystic vision. Vedanta is a Hindu tradition that means, “the end result of studying the Vedas”, the mystical writings which form much of the basis for the Hindu religion and philosophy. Vedanta by no means has a corner on the non-dual market. There are non-dual teachings in just about all religions and spiritual paths of the world once you look on their more mystical sides.
In the modern stream of spiritual yearning this mystical unitary vision has come under the general heading of non-dual teachings, more or less taken out of their contextual sources and taught (again more or less) as a unique “path.”
One of the things that tickles me about reading, listening too, and speaking with various non-dual teachers is some of the of ticks of behavior they evidence. Here specifically I want to tackle the confusion of a teacher claiming something along the lines of, “there is no separate entity here…”, “no one is talking…”, “there’s just this…” while in the next breath starting a point off with, “in my experience…”, “I would say…”, “I use the term…” What’s going on here? How is a non-entity speaking and making a claim of putting some useful concept in a new way?
The easy answer it that they are all insane. However, in my experience (see what I did there?) they are actually trying to get across something that is very, very useful. The non-dual vision which cannot be spoken but can only be spoken about. Since it can’t be spoken, and since they don’t have another tool to use, they fumble about in the realm of words.
Taking a cue from the Integral Model (which I will do again shortly) I would like to assume that they are all right in what they are saying even if it’s inherently a partial statement of something that can be seen, but not said.
So, what’s going on with these guys and gals when they say, “There is no one talking here, but how I would say it is….”?
To get a grip on this I think there is a very useful distinction from the Integral Model/Movement and especially the branch that deals with spirituality. This is the distinction between the True Self and the Unique Self. Ken Wilber has a great metaphor dealing with this distinction, and it goes a little something like this:
Let’s first assume that there are some people in the world who have seen through the truth of it all. They have had a full blown mystical realization of what is so. They have penetrated the mystery of being as far as it is possible to do so while manifested and been released from the root cause(s) of suffering. Call them Enlightened, Realized, Liberated, Really Cool, whatever you want. If you have ever been exposed to religion or spirituality I am sure you can come up with a half dozen such individuals. Got your list? Here’s mine: Teresa of Avila, Ramana Maharshi, Gautama Siddhartha the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, Byron Katie, U.G. Krishnamurti. I could go on, I’m sure you could too, but six will do for this metaphor.
As part of this thought experiment imagine a table with six seats evenly placed about it in a well lit room. On the table are six sketch pads and six quality pens. After you have sat your august guests you place an ashtray you got from a trip to Mexico in the middle of the table and ask the enlightened ones to kindly make a sketch of the ashtray for you.
What happens? These six liberated souls, each completely sunk into and at one with the realization that there are not-two things anywhere to be found produce six unique and distinct and different sketches. Why? Viewpoint. Perspective.
Even though the mystical non-dual visions discloses completely that there is only one true self ever, it expresses and experiences that through a completely unique self, never to be repeated and not like any other self ever.
That is the distinction of the Unique self. It shows simply that paradoxically, and simultaneously there is only one true self seen in the non-dual realization, which discloses itself from and through a radically completely unique perspective.
To paraphrase Strong Bad, “No two people are not the One.”
So, I think that what is going with the crew of non-dual teachers who speak in phrases like, “Once the idea of a separate continuing entity was surrendered, what happened here was….” is this unique/true self thing. It seems to me that as one has this non-dual realization it makes complete sense that one would at the same time give up the sense of being a separate individual while concurrently expressing individuality more freely. Once the unique self is freed from the need to pretend to conform to a culturally held way to be, that unique self will appear to become more so. This explains nicely, I think, the frequent uprising of spiritual bad boys/girls within the various traditions: the zen monk who burns all the commentaries, the Indian farm girl who strips her clothes never to put them back on spending the rest of her life spontaneously creating ecstatic poetry, the Rabbi who bursts out the uselessness of the teaching during a ritual observance of silence, etc.
As a sidebar I think this may have a lot to do with the attraction of going the way of the hermit. To no longer have the pressure of manners of being imposed on one’s self by one’s companions must be very attractive to the unique self as it emerges in full.
As the non-dual vision dawns the seer sheds the lie of being an individual and recognizes in their apparent separateness only a ripple on the ocean of what is, the individuality of this place in reality seeing the lack of separateness anywhere. When that happens the impossibility of plucking anything out of reality becomes a known truth and the seer gets caught in the frustration of being able to see it, but not say it since pointing something out calls for standing apart from it ins some sense. Still, as the Zen teachers would say, “You must say something.” Those whose unique self happens to be a teacher of the non-dual vision continue to speak around what cannot be spoken, trapped in the hilarious circus of words.
Sadly, this often leads to a shadow side of the non-dual vision (there’s a downside for every upside in the apparent world.) Namely, uniqueness can become so powerful when combined with seeing the truth that the person can become convinced that they alone have seen it rightly. In a way, of course that is true. Since what is seen is the true/unique-self, it is radically unique and no one else can see it in the same way. The individuality of reality is not lost when being an individual is. I’ve seen so many non-dual teachers spending time trash-talking others that it’s comical. In some cases they are right and in a way it’s the emergent culture of non-dual teachings selecting out those metaphors, methods and manifestations that aren’t quite up to snuff to push forward the evolution of these teachings. However, sometimes I think (very possibly arrogantly so) that what is happening is these teachers have not come to grips with their unique-true selves.
Personally I don’t see how it is possible to realize the not-two nature of reality without having apparent duality to contrast with it. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons all this is here. Reality required division to explore and discover unification. I once saw in a book of origami, a dollar bill that had been folded into the shape of a man playing a piano. Was it a bill, or a man and a piano, or neither, or both? Were the man and the piano separate, or in presentation only? In a way I think that reality is like that.
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