The goal of non-duality is to get us to a natural state. I think very often, people think that, we’re trying to get to this blissful, exotic different state of altered consciousness, rather than just allowing the natural state of “human being” consciousness.
It’s my contention that non-duality is about getting to a natural state. And the beauty of non-dual is that very simply it tells us that we don’t know what this might be.
Being a human being is complex because we are not a single individual unit. None of us are. It’s not like you can completely examine yourself outside of your surroundings. Or you can examine one other person as a separate unit and then know everything there is to be about a human being.
We are so intricately entwined with the entire existence, including other human beings, that little pieces of us can’t be pulled out and seen and then known as “this is what a human being is.” So you and I can’t examine ourselves to find out what it would be like to be a natural human being, because we live in a society, an entire world really at this point, that has no idea what a natural human being might be.
Maybe a way to look at it is that our societies are band-aided together. It’s like, over centuries, this problem happens and we put a Band-Aid on it. Then that problem happens and we put a Band-Aid on the Band-Aid. On and on until we’re so fragmented that the original wound, or problem, can’t be seen.
So that feels like it might be a dilemma, that feels like it might be an unsolvable problem, but it’s not, and that’s the beauty of non-duality. Non-duality says you cannot pick apart the pieces, you cannot pull off all of the Band-Aids that have been put on every single wound that you’ve ever had, and that everybody in your society has ever had, and all your ancestors have ever had, and hope to find what this natural human being is.
The details of being unnatural are so incredibly complex that we can’t pick them apart, but being natural is so simple and easy and undivided that we can find it. Not two, non-duality, is simply saying you are not all those things. You are not the Band-Aids covering your wounds, you’re not the wounds, you’re not the thoughts about the Band-Aids, you’re not the thoughts about the wounds, or your friend’s wound, or your mother’s wound, or your society’s wound, or history, or anything like that. You are not those things.
So in the end, it may seem complex if you’re trying to deal with these millions and millions of things unless you simply put them all in one basket. There’s all of that. Drop it all. Drop it all. What do you end up with?
Fortunately Neuroscience has taught us this a little bit. So much of this comes to us from words. If you can understand that every spiritual teacher has to teach with words, you’ll know better how to listen. The words can only go round and around and around and around the issue, trying to bring you to that single point of consciousness that’s you.
So my opinion is that the goal of non-duality is to reach this completely natural state, a completely ordinary state.
And if you accept this contention as at least possible then the quest changes.
What if it’s possible? If it’s possible, then it takes the complication away.