Advaita Post 10-04 - You are internally present in all objects...

Year No. 10 04 (March 10, 2009)

'Non-duality is the infinite depth of unity'

Douwe Tiemersma on the borders between 'you' and 'I'

Non-duality, what is that? Once again, Douwe Tiemersma has written an accessible book about it. Non-duality is not-twoness, in Sanskrit a-dvaita. This means the absence of separations. A way of living and a consciousness in which the world - and yourself - can function quite differently. An interview.

By Ewald Wagenaar

In: Koorddanser 26 No 261 (March 2009), pp. 4-5

In various spiritual traditions there is posited a highest conscious-awareness as the origin of everything that is. For many spiritual seekers the heart of their quest is to connect and experience it, to be inspired and from that inspiration to act in their own circumstances. The spiritual direction that focuses on the non-dual awareness arises from the Asian Advaita Vedanta, a tradition that goes back to the ancient Upanishads of the 8th-6th century. Douwe Tiemersma is active in this area (Capricorn, 1945). A modest man. Friendly, quiet, wise and very approachable. His name appears on many agendas in the Netherlands and Belgium. You could call him the advocate of non-dual consciousness.

What is non-duality?

"It refers to a being-experience in which nothing is separated from yourself. This experience naturally arises with relaxation. Then the separations disappear between yourself and other things and other people. Everyone seems to know these experiences. It can be a vague understanding, or also a clear vision of the truth without duality."

Is non-dual consciousness a trick?

"No, it is primarily a way of looking, of seeing. Learning to distinguish the different situations in your life. Work, home, elsewhere, you are always in a different reality. The first step on the path of non-dual awareness is that you learn to look at your own situation without filling it in with prior ideas about reality. You can look at your material possessions this way, but also at your own body. You then notice that you're looking at yourself and that you as observer (partly) merge with the object of your observation. After a while you find that as observer or perceiver you are a more spacious awareness than that which you see and experience."

An example?

"Look at your hand and become aware of your situation. There is then a separation between myself and the hand. The hand is an object, a thing that I see. 'I see my hand'. In this statement 'I' is the subject and 'my hand' the object. With this approach I can, for example, take a splinter from my hand. There is a separation between myself and the hand and the different parts of the hand. But now go within and experience your hand. Try feeling your hand, while you keep your eyes shut. See how your hand feels from the inside-out. Search for internal divisions. Are there separations? Is there a separation in your hand? You can distinguish among different places, but you don't experience a gap. So you experience your entire body as a whole. In your bodily self-being there is no separation. This is a step towards finding that life itself is an sphere of self-being and within it there is no separation."

How far does this sphere of self-being go?

"Try once for yourself. Start with the inner experience of your body. Let your attention go to the right (or left). Beyond your skin. How far can you go outside with your attention without losing your sense of self? Don't include any cognitive picture of yourself, but stay in your feeling self-being. Forward or backwards, up or down. You can confirm that your bodily sphere is infinite, as big as the whole cosmos. As you remain clear from inside-out, that's how it is."

How does that work in dealing with others?

"I have described the V-model in my book. On the one hand there is the object, which is what you see or experience. At a distance is the subject, the one that experiences the object. As with the 'hand' there is an object on one side and the 'I' that sees the hand. Or such as the 'I' that another could see or experience. Now create a diagram, drawing two descending lines, one from the object and one from the subject to where they meet in a point. Then you see a V-shape. In that one point object and subject come together. Halfway down the lines towards the point there is a moment when you in yourself, as subject, come to know what happens internally in the object. You, as subject-awareness, are internally present in all objects. Many objects such as your house and your friends belong to your subject-sphere. The distance between yourself and objects, such as others, becomes increasingly smaller when you're aware of yourself. The difference between 'I' and 'you' blurs and becomes increasingly 'we'. The result is that greater understanding between people arises. More space for each other also provides more joy and enthusiasm. Because unity is experienced."

There is no duality?

"No, there is no real separation. There is only a 'we' without division, unity. Try to experience what the other experiences. Because the more separation, the more suffering there is. The paradox is that all people want to avoid exactly that suffering. We want unity, but we experience duality."

Are we able to understand each other from the inside-out?

"But of course! People are not so very different from one another and the more open you are the more you understand the other. Conflicts resolve by letting separations disappear. You can only begin with yourself. By soberly seeing that we are dependent upon one another. That can only happen if we live the experience of unity, by not just embracing it as a paradigm or thought- concept. Awareness of unity is also there even if the other doesn't want to see it."

Everything revolves around the 'observer' in yourself?

"Yes. You have a point of view and a perspective. The awareness of yourself as an observer can grow. Then you become more aware of an Infinity which is greater than yourself. A kind of 'openness' wherein all your viewpoints dissolve. You fall together with the whole. That reality is not to be contained in words; it is the Groundless Openness. In addition to the non-duality of situations within the big picture of being, is the merging of your highest self (Atman) and the Great (Brahman) as a second meaning of non-duality."

Have you ever had such an experience?

"In the seventies I read Wolter Keers and attended meetings with Jean Klein, the first to bring Advaita to the Netherlands. In the late seventies I went to see Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay. I was in meditation. What happened there is difficult to express in words. As observer, I saw and experienced that 'I' died. Then I recognized myself as part of the Inexpressible. Subject 'I' came together with the object of the Inexpressible. There was no experience-situation any longer, I was part of the Infinite, the Absolute. The mind cannot create something like that, it was beyond-mental. The 'I' dissolves, I experienced it no longer. The 'I-exist' has been dropped. Trust is necessary for that; all 'I'-projections disappear. Afterwards, this sphere of the true open remains, and therefore every situation remains open. While diversity and differences remain, this does not mean that boundaries are drawn. Then there is no separate I or I-action. There comes a doing without doing; things happen of themselves because it must happen. But no longer from the 'I'."

That is the third meaning of non-duality?

"That is the merging of the inexpressible and the world. The things in all areas, including the practical, are done as if automatically in the great openness. It is the flowing of living energy; things are done without anyone behind it. Everything is in motion. Most controlled actions stem from an illusion of 'I want' and 'I think'. That non-dual flow can also be present in companies where they are very open to accept that what comes is what must be."