Author Archives: Zareen

Flat Earth and Nonduality

Flat Earth and nonduality—you might be thinking, what do those have to do with each other?

Well… lately, I have been talking about nonduality and Native wisdom. I’ve been saying that nonduality didn’t start with Buddha. It didn’t start with Nisargadatta. It didn’t start with Rupert Spira or Adyashanti, or anybody. These people are all describing a state that was already there. Just like Newton didn’t ‘discover’ gravity—he didn’t create gravity; he just found a way to describe it.

The nondual state has always been there. All of these people—Buddha in particular—who have described the state have been misinterpreted. So many stories have grown up around it that the idea of nonduality has turned into a total fiction.

Anything you hear about Nonduality is crazy. What we’ve actually interpreted the nondual state to be is nuts.

As I try to talk to people about it I see their misunderstandings. The belief that it’s a philosophy, a system of thought, rather than a natural state is deeply intrenched. It’s very hard to break through the conceptions to show just how real and ancient the nondual state is.

I’ve realized lately that it’s just like talking to a Christian fundamentalist about evolution. I’m calling it Flat Earth, but it’s the same thing, right? People who believe the world is flat because the Bible doesn’t say it’s round, or people who believe the world was created 6,000 years ago, and refuse to listen to anything different.

This is the same fundamental belief that people studying Eastern mysticism have, almost as if enlightenment was invented when Buddha lived 2,600 years ago. No! Buddha simply discovered a natural state that’s always been there.

We need to get past this “Flat Earth Society” mindset that everyone is stuck in and start looking at reality as if it’s real.

Big concept, right? [Laughter]

We need to realize that the nondual state is the natural human state. There are plenty of people around the world still living in indigenous communities who exist in this natural state. The second we truly realize the truth in that all seeking changes completely. You’re not seeking something in the future, something outside yourself—you’re seeking yourself. And how can you seek yourself? You’re right there!

You’re trying to become fully aware of your humanity, which is always there. The stories implanted in our heads cause us to miss this truth. Once you realize this, everything makes sense.

This is why spiritual teachers instruct students to calm down, relax, sit still, and be silent. When you calm down, relax, sit still, and just be silent, you are your natural self. Even when you’re running around, angry, and your mind’s going crazy, you’re still your natural self—it’s just that you don’t like that version of you.

Coming down into your actual being, you see that you’re only this simple, alive presence. You have a name, that’s you; you have a being, that’s you. When you’re solid in knowing who you are, in a way that you can’t be convinced otherwise, then you can live your life from that state of being. You become a positive contributor to the world rather than the consumer we’ve been trained to be. It becomes much harder to fool you. You begin interacting with people in new ways and bringing new modes of being into the society we live in.

The indigenous truths we still have today are the old way of being human, but we need to modernize it so that it works within today’s society. We don’t have to throw everything away, but we do need to clean up a lot of garbage—just look at the mess we’ve created! That’s a big job, but we’re humans, and we like doing things, figuring things out.

In order to take on this job we have to shed our consumer mentality and the conviction that we don’t know who we are.

The moment you know who you are, you become responsible for everything. And from that place of responsibility, we can act like fully adult human beings, capable of living sustainably with all our relations—with each other, the atmosphere, the water, the four-legged beings, and all the living creatures in the ocean.

Then we can see our connection and start acting as if we’re not on a flat Earth that was created 6,000 years ago. We are on an ancient, beautiful, living Earth, and we are the living Earth, awake, with responsibilities as human beings. This is the new way we’ll start living, rooted in the old understandings of reality.

The Answer to All Nonduality Questions

The answer to all non-duality questions is in one simple statement that I found in Anita Sanchez’s book, The Four Sacred Gifts.

In this book, she very pregnantly points out that feeling separate is very easy to do. It’s very easy to fall into a state of feeling separate, and of course, in our world, you’re taught from day one that you’re separate.

When you’re there, it’s painful. It’s painful and alone. But more important than that, when we’re in this state where we feel separate, we don’t take responsibility for the things that we do. We feel that things just happen to us or around us. We feel to be a victim, and we don’t take responsibility.

That certainly makes sense. When we feel separate then we are not in a state of care of all the things around us. She says that in a native tribe, the Elders would then say, “We are living as if we have no relations.”

And that’s the answer to all non-duality questions right there: you’re living as if you have no relations.

There are so many things in our world that make us feel separate. Like the statement, “You’re born alone, you die alone.” It’s a common sarcastic statements that people like to make, but that’s not true.

When you’re born, there is barely a separation between you and your mother. Your DNA, your molecules are still the same. Your food comes from your mother. You’re constantly being held—well, you should constantly be being held. But more than that, if you think you were born alone then you are acting as if you have no relations.

You might be sitting in your house all by yourself right now, but you’re not. Your house is full of little bugs and tiny bacteria hiding in the corners. Little life beings everywhere.

You can even see it when the sun comes slanting through the window in just a particular way. The sun hits the air and you can see all the molecules of dust flying around.

The air seems invisible, but it is full of so much stuff.

More than likely in your bathroom, there’s bacteria growing all over the place, living beings. Maybe you better go clean that [laughter].

You’re surrounded with life everywhere. There is life all throughout your building; there is life outside your building.

And there’s the past and the present too. Your house didn’t just appear out of nowhere. It was built by people, and if it’s got wood in it, then there’s all the tree beings in your house. If it has metal in it, there’s all the mineral beings in your house.

We are constantly intermeshed with all of our relations. The only thing that matters is whether we notice this or not. This feeling of being by yourself, of being alone even, is simply a projection and an imagination in your mind. You’re acting as if you have no relations.

From the day you are born you have relations. You couldn’t have been born without relations. When we die, we’re surrounded by beings. There are eight billion people, right? Even if you’re all by yourself on a hill, there’s still eight billion people.

There are animals, birds and bees everywhere. There’s the sun being—that’s our relation. What about the air being—that’s our relation. What about the gravity being—that’s our relation.

Then think of all the non-duality questions that we have.

“I’m trying to get rid of my negative thoughts.” You’re acting as if you have no relations. You’re acting as if the only thing that matters is you. The second you start relating with things, the second you start noticing and appreciating your relations, being with your relations, this obsession with your thoughts just goes away.

Question: “Who am I?” Answer: “You’re acting as if you have no relations.” You can’t even ask this question if you are in full relation with everything. You are the singularity interacting with all these things. You’re interlaced with all these things.

Think it through. What are your non-duality questions? Then answer that with, “You’re acting as if you have no relationship.”

The second you put yourself in relation with everything, all non-duality questions go away because duality goes away. We are all who we are—we’re in relation. We’re a moving, breathing, awake being. We are intwined with all the little air molecules twiddling around us at all times, little bugs running through our houses, breezes.

We have rock beings around us everywhere—our house has wall beings and ceiling beings, and there are birds flying around outside my house. It’s a very poignant and human way to say that we’re connected to everything. You’re connected to everything.

Stop turning everything an inanimate object and duality is gone. We are intertwined with billions of life beings, and you are one of them.

All your questions answered, as promised.

Nonduality Explained: Intelligence

Nonduality Explained Intelligence: it’s not your thoughts, it’s not the amount of information you know. There is something deeper that actually grows with wisdom as we live awake lives. That indescribable ‘something’ is intelligence. That is you, actually. You are the one who picks together all the details that come through your thinking mind, and …

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Enlightenment is not Far Away

Enlightenment is not far away in the future. This is one of the biggest misconceptions that people have in searching for nonduality. Searching for the enlightened state, we get the feeling that this is something that’s going to happen to us at some point in the future. When actually, it’s the exact opposite. We just stop doing the things that are causing us to be unenlightened, and Enlightenment is always there. The natural state is always there. You are always there. So, we don’t have to search and go on a path to get there.

The path is always leading away from yourself. The search is always searching away from yourself. The actual being is there already.