Nonduality points out the vicious loop of our brains, of our minds. You can’t find a lie from a lie. In other words… if there’s a basic misunderstanding about what life is, you can’t use that misunderstanding to understand what life is.
I like to look at it in a historical context because that helps clear up how we got in this situation. I firmly believe, and there’s a lot of evidence supporting this belief, that human beings lived for thousands and thousands of years in a state of unity with nature. Unity with nature is also unity with ourselves: nonduality.
It’s obvious with a little simple math.
Evolutionary scientists tell us that human beings have been in our fully evolved state for 80,000 to 990,000 years. It’s a long, long time, and we have great examples of that.
One fascinating thing that happened during that 80,000 to 90,000 years is that a small tribe of people got down to Australia when the oceans were low. Then the oceans rose, and they were isolated from the rest of us and lived down there the whole time… just being themselves. Then suddenly, white man discovered them, right? Called them savages. But really, they lived in a state of what you have to call awesome unity that whole time. They were highly advanced with strategies about how not to become narcissistic, with strategies about how to stay in the natural world, and how to not let the thinking mind talk us into narcissism, into individuality, into not being connected.
This native wisdom is a fabulous, deeply spiritual, deeply scientific philosophy that’s starting to be written about and brought to us.
So we know that human beings are capable of living completely united without this divisive vision that we experience in our heads. Without this internal conflict which we even consider normal.
So when did it happen? It must have happened about 12,000 years ago in places where individualism started happening. People started thinking that the thoughts in their brains are more important than their actual being. On top of this misunderstanding about life then, over that, stories upon stories upon stories built until, now, it’s such a complicated mess that you cannot possibly work through it using language and the mind, because our language is so much a part of the problem with it.
This is what’s so cool about nonduality.
Nonduality says, “Forget about it. Just forget about it. You’re never going to work your way through to the bottom of it.” Buddhists talk about 30 lifetimes, or more, to get enlightened. Might as well be forever! That’s not going to cut it these days, is it? You’re never going to get to the bottom of it.
So Nonduality says to simply accept the fact that all that stuff’s a mess. Accept the fact that getting rid of it is possible only with a complete stop of defining things But that it is doable, and needs to be done.
There’s a “You” down inside the whole mess.
I think we can use Native teachings to start bringing us into a habit of thinking about unity. The more we realize how interconnected we are, the more concepts of division start to lay down by themselves. Spending some time in nature is really, really good. Spending some time just being happy is really, really good. No matter how depressed you are, just let that drop for a little bit. Just be content for a minute and sit there and let things flow. Notice unity. Listen to it. Listen to the things that make sense around you. You’ll find that you can make sense of things without language.
Most important, know that this is a doable thing, and our craziness is not going to get us out of craziness.