If you’re honestly taking up a study of non-duality, which is inquiry into yourself, if you’re honestly searching in yourself and starting to wake up, you will notice lots of paradoxes. Your mind will start opening to the way that things don’t fit together always in a perfectly logical way.
This is because the more you get in touch with who you are, the more you’ll be able to see your mind operating as a tool. It’s a tool that can simulate reality, that can interpret reality, but doesn’t give a clear 100% definition of it at any time.
In fact, the definitions are the problem.
Imagine you’re sitting in a meadow. You’re looking out, and you’re enjoying the meadow in the sun. Maybe there’s a little creek running by. A deer walks slowly by. You’re sitting there and enjoying it without interpreting it in any way. In that momeny you’re using your mind in a particular way.
When you’re using that part of your mind, it has a much more direct line to reality the way that it is. But if you’re sitting there in the meadow and you’re going, “Man, they didn’t do a very good job with the green on that grass,” or, “Man, that sunset needs a little bit more purple,” or if you’re sitting there in the meadow going, “Geez, I wish I could get out of this meadow, this is a horrible being stuck in this meadow,” then you’re seeing fragments of the meadow because that part of your brain can only see the little pieces. It puts labels and stories and emotions onto the pieces.
The vast full process of your brain does a lot better job of seeing reality the way it is. That’s why non-duality is always telling us that what matters is who is seeing this. Knowing who you are, accessing yourself completely, is so important.
Angelo from the Simply Always Awake Channel (I love to watch other channels as well and see how people are describing things. It gives me ideas of better ways to describe it) in his book, “Awake, It’s Your Turn,” says that taking up an investigation into your true nature will lead you directly into a world of paradox. And this is because the more you get in touch with your mind and how it works, the more you see that pieces don’t always fit together.
That’s why Zen stories are so good, because they always end at that moment of paradox where suddenly things don’t make sense.
For instance, here’s a little story of Mulla Nasrudine. He’s the master of paradox.
So… Mulla goes to his doctor, he’s old, and the doctor says, “Mulla, you’re not looking very good. You know, I think it’s kind of near the end. You need to kind start planning. Have you written your will?” And Mulla looks at him and says, “I’m a very, very wealthy man. I have written in my will that the doctor who saves my life gets everything.”
Ha ha!
But then he’s not dead, right? That goes to show how this interpreting part of our mind is not the thing that’s bringing us the full picture of life.
The more you start seeing paradox, the more you’re going to start realizing, “Oh, there is more to life, there’s more to me than my thoughts.” Because who is it who notices that paradox?