“… A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness …” ~ Albert Einstein

What is meant by the term Non-Duality?

Non-duality is the translation of the Sanskrit word Advaita (a-dvaita). This refers to the ancient Hindu philosophy called Advaita Vedanta, the essence of which is: creation and creator are one (not two).

For thousands of years and in all great cultures this essence has been the deepest universal incentive for people to express their religious feelings, as we know these in many different ways and in varying degrees of comprehensibility.

In this context I recommend you to read my article: Truth Will Set You Free: Time Does Not Exist (Part 1 of 2).

Today so many people are talking about non-duality that it seems that everyone understands that he is ‘united with his creator for ever’. But unfortunately, that´s not the case. Even worse, I have the impression that most of today´s non-dualists believe ‘non-duality’ just to be a philosophy of the ‘fundamental unity of all existence’.

Although not wrong, this is much too simple and misses completely the depth of the message.

Do you really think that the secret of non-duality has been passed on (orally) as spiritual inspiration for thousands of years, only to teach people that ‘all are one?’

What is needed is the realization of the unity of man and his origin (the thought that there is no origin does not hold, because nothing can appear from nothing).

There have always been people who felt the urge to testify and to teach about the ‘Truth’ they had dis-covered. In the ancient days it was the ‘rishis’ (sages of India) who taught about the unity between man and his origin (called Brahman in Hinduism) as later Buddha did (without mentioning a primal cause). Later again it was Jesus Christ who testified that he and his father (God, meaning origin) are one.

In spite of these seers the meaning of their message seems to be lost in our society.

In relation with Christianity in this context, in the article mentioned above I explained this further and I also said: ‘The consequences of the omitting of the incentive for people to realize the timeless themselves are of an importance beyond our comprehension’.

And yes, so it is. I think that the fact that man (‘the world’) is not aware of his oneness with his origin anymore, is in the end the cause of the critical situation our world is in today.

Why???

Why is it so sad that people are not aware of their oneness with their origin

Living without knowing the divine womb where we all came from allows our mind to identify with visible phenomena only, which causes uncertainty (to be or not to be) and thus egoism, the original sin.

As you will understand: the imbalance between selfish and selfless behavior during human history has finally resulted in the vulnerable condition our civilization is in today.

It may look strange that the lack of knowledge of the Absolute (as the source of life) is ultimately the cause of all misery in the world. But it is, because where man has potentially the ability of realizing himself to be created in ‘God`s image’, he stays fundamentally unhappy as long as this spiritual destiny has not been fulfilled. And this exactly is the reason for his endless suffering, foolishness and egoism.

In said article I ‘accused’ Christianity to be responsible for straying from the vision of unity with our creator (discouraging people to think for themselves, denial of the possibility to know ‘God’ etc.).

In relation to this I also said: ‘Where religion should touch a man in the very depth of his being (in the euphoria of experiencing unity with the radiant and inexhaustible source of life) a superficial notion of profound teachings remains.

Not only can this lead to doubt and rejection, but also our deeply hidden ethical consciousness (which wants us to act and to be in harmony with the timeless which has become us) is not or insufficiently touched.’

It would not be difficult to fill an encyclopedia with all the ‘things which went wrong’ because of man´s incompetence to live by their ethical consciousness. Everyone will understand what I mean by this.

The points that I want to make in this context are:

– how to make it understandable that it is indeed non-duality which all people are looking for
– in what way can people come to the realization of their oneness with the Absolute
– the meaning of religion
– looking forward

This exploration continues in Part 2 ( and Parts 3 & 4) … where the author, Hans Meijer, will address the above points and more … so, stay tuned.

We are again honored to share Hans Meijer’s next guest post series. Hans is the author of the book Initiation into Reality – available for purchase on Amazon. For more on Hans’ work, please visit his website Initiation into Reality. This guest post series is authored by (& copyright of) Hans Meijer

Hans will be available for any Q&A and will also address any comments from the visitors/readers.

The text content of this series (without all the images here) was previously published (as a single post) in Science and Nonduality and Awaken.

Images: All images are edited (dimension & logo inserted): 1) Cosmos by geralt, CC0 Public Domain, 2) Time, by JD, CC BY 2.0, 3) Doorway to the Conscious Universe by Kiah Ankoor, CC BY 2.0, 4) Child Suffering by Alexas-Fotos, CC0 Public Domain, 5) Suffering by Jaaaiiro Souza, CC BY 2.0, 6) dreamer by new 1lluminati, CC BY 2.0.

Further Reading...

Primal Cause (God), Existence, & Self Awareness Non-Duality And Its Value For The World, Part 2 of 4 Non-Duality And Its Value For The World, Part 3 of 4 Non-Duality And Its Value For The World, Part 4 of 4 The Need for Renewed Spirituality