Our brains process reality using the same mechanism it uses to create dreams. Stop and feel that in yourself for a minute.
You know what it’s like to be in a dream; you’re lost in the dream, and then you wake up and you’re like, “Whoa, that was weird.” The same mechanism that is processing that dream is what is processing your interpretation of reality.
This is important to know when you’re studying nonduality because what you’re trying to do is step beyond being fixated on the processor. It’s like a computer churning away in your brain and trying to give you a good interpretation of reality, but it’s not reality itself. It’s a reflection. It’s a mirror.
Everything that happens in what we call the mind is this churning of interpretations. It’s useful. That’s why human beings are able to do what we do. It’s also why we get so lost. Once people are stuck in duality, you become fixated on all the things and the objects outside of you, and also fixated on all the thoughts and feelings and things inside of you that aren’t the real deal.
This is why Buddhism is always talking about truth. What is truth? Buddhism says it’s something that’s undefinable, but still there. It’s there but it’s undefinable because the mechanism that we have to define it doesn’t have that ability. Our undivided nature has the ability, not necessarily to understand truth, but to live within it.
Alex Schayer has a good video here on YouTube of nonduality explained visually. He’s got a little chart and he shows what it’s like to be stuck in duality and then what it’s like to be in the nondual state. On the graphic he has for being in the nondual state, there’s lots of things that the person’s seeing, but the actual “you” isn’t there because you’re blended into everything. Once you are operating your mental tool, rather than having the mental tool drive your life, then you can participate in this totally new way in life.
That’s why so many people say that Enlightenment, the non-dual state, is the end of suffering. It’s not because all sensation and all emotions end; it’s because you stop being fixated on that as a thing that defines you. You could as easily say that the enlightened state and the non-dual state is the end of happiness because you stop fixating on the happiness. Who would want to even try that, right?
There’s a certain joy that comes from being free of the self that tries to control you.
The only way you can be aware of the mechanism of the mind is being who is aware of the mechanism, the “you” that is living your life.