Today, we’re talking about adding. This is actually very advanced non-dual studies. If you went into a monastery and lived there for years and years, at first, you would start with the regular non-dual exercises. The “Not Two” exercises we talked about in the last video. Not two is a process where you’re erasing all your concepts. Erase everything from your mind, and bring yourself down to a point of zero… so you can stop being addicted by your perceptions.
After, say, a decade or so, and as you’re getting in the advanced class, your teacher would come in one day and say, ‘Well, guys, I got some news for you. All of that’s a lie. None of that ‘doesn’t exist’ stuff is true. Everything exists. You are part of such a vast interconnected reality, that there is nothing that doesn’t exist. See that tree over there? That tree exists. Stop this not-two nonsense. See those cows over in the field? They exist. See those walls? They exist. See yourself? It’s real. Your thoughts? You have a thought… your thoughts are real. You sleep soundly and you have a dream, the dream is actually a real dream. The sky is the sky. Birds flying by are birds flying by. Say you have a vision of something… the vision is a vision, it’s real. You’re real, I’m real.’
And this is a very valid way to approach the nondual state because nothing is separate by itself; everything is so vastly interconnected. Human beings are brilliant. Our minds work really, really well. So if you open up your perceptions and start seeing that everything exists, everything is real, you can’t help but notice how interconnected it all is.
This particular practice is the way a person in a native tribe years and years and years ago would have been raised. ‘Everything’s real. Look at the water. Listen to the beings that are in the water. Listen to what the coyote is telling you. Pay attention to the sky, to grandfather sky and grandmother Earth. Everything exists.’
This fits well into the actual moment of realizing the non-dual state. The way that usually happens is you see this zero, nothing, and then you step back into yourself. Now you know who is looking. You see that that nothingness is the vast interconnected everything of existence.
This is what we usually mean when we talk about the universe. We’re not talking about all the stars floating around; we’re talking about this vast interconnected being of relationship and creation that is everywhere.
It’s possible to step into this totally non-dual state by adding in everything.
There’s a danger to taking this approach, however, because our minds are so conditioned. We are so addicted to wanting power and glory, that we can very easily start believing the fantasies of our minds too much. This is what makes people rise up in self-indulgent, self-importance. This is what makes people declare they are God, or they are a shaman, or they are Jesus himself. So, that’s a big problem.
But if you can see that in yourself then you are a step ahead. Are you feeling self-important? Don’t lie… we all are. Yes! Because self-importance exists. Sometimes I’m it, sometimes you’re it. Sometimes we aren’t. Sometimes we have it under control.
But does self importance exist? Yes, it does. Everything exists.
Everything exists. It’s not just your perceptions that exist.
When you start seeing that you become smaller, not bigger. Especially when you hang around with people… they all exist. And we all know how hanging out with people can be just such a messy deal. You have to deal with everybody’s beliefs, and everybody’s emotions, and everybody’s ideas about everything. Vast!
Even human beings, ourselves, are vast. That is a vast interconnected field of humanity.
You can start erasing your separateness simply by adding everything in. It’s when this separateness is gone that you are not dual. You have entered not dual.
Not Two has to include you; you’re not separate. There is a vast interconnectedness to everything.