​

The Dreamstate

The non-dualist idea about the nature of reality is that the entire universe, with all its fascinating laws and patterns, is essentially dreamlike. It exists just as much as the people and places in your dreams at night exist. It perceives itself from the inside through the many conscious beings, like how your left and right hand sense different things but belong to the same body. The whole point of life is merely: experience. Each conscious being, whether they know it or not, is on a quest to figure out this true nature of reality, to update the lens through which they perceive this game from the inside and simply surrender to its natural urges and let life unfold.

 

Not Two ≠ All is One

The word “non-duality” comes from the Sanskit “advaita”, which literally means “not two”. A lazy interpretation that is often made, is that non-duality means “all is one”, but that is not entirely correct. After all, why go through the trouble of calling something not two if you can just call it one? That’s because non-duality also means “all is none”. Which definition applies, depends on the perspective you choose to take – that of the person or that of your supposed impersonal, universal essence.

​

Although it seems trivial to be concerned with such philosophical matters, a whole range of Eastern Wisdom traditions – Zen, Taoism, Dzogchen and various Buddhist and Hindu sects – consider the ability to shift between these two perspectives the greatest of all liberations. They are basically different protocols to obtain that ability.

 

Bi-Focal Perspective

With a window, you can look either through it, look at the reflection or do both at the same time. There is undeniably your personal perception going on, which is different from my perception and that of the other billions of people. That won’t be different when looking from a non-dual lens, but what would change is the idea of absolute selfhood. With a non-dual lens, sometimes referred to as a “bi-focal perspective” it would rather feel as if the same universe is perceiving itself through your eyes and ears as much as through any other eye or ear, the brain included. And when you perceive yourself, the sensation would be as if one set of eyes and ears of the universe would perceive a tiny aspect of itself. It's like when you look through the window and at the same time look at the reflection in the window.

 

Non-Doing ≠ Doing Nothing

Now, suppose this is true, how could you prove it? You can’t. There are interesting arguments that can help you form an opinion about the probability, which you’ll find summarized in the following chapters of this book. But if you need proof, the best you could achieve is that you disprove any claim that anything really exists at all or that there is any plan, set of rules, or meaning at the most fundamental level of existence, until nothing of the sort remains. But why would you? Well, it might be your inclination, but otherwise, there is no reason.

 

All that matters with regard to the quality of life, from a non-dual point of view, is that you figure out a way to let go of the habitual thought process of creating an individual self, often referred to as “waking up from ego identification”. All your other thought processes would carry on, although many change at least slightly, fade out or no longer captivate your conscious attention.

 

You may still act like an individual with selfhood and have preferences and emotions like one, just like how an actor might surrender to playing a character in a stage play. But having a knowing, deep down, that it’s essentially a witnessing of a dream unfolding removes a lot of questions, stress, desires, and suffering. There is then a simultaneous sensation of oneness with billions of unique individuals and the nothingness of the dream without a dreamer. Your mode of perception has become non-conceptual.

​

Non-conceptual awareness

Non-duality is often explained with terminology from spirituality, but it doesn't have to. The a-spiritual way to explain it, is that the ego is a conceptualization of a process. Like how we make an object out of a flame because it's a very constant process (a stream of hot gas). Similarly, non-duality posits that we are a constant process. Maybe that's why it was long ago called a being – a verb and not a noun? Our minds can either process holistically (all the information at once) or conceptually (separate reality into smaller chunks and process these one by one and stick them together). In our modern world, we are mostly stimulated and trained to think conceptually. Non-dual awareness can also be called non-conceptual awareness. The more and longer you aren't conceptualizing, the more the brain gets used to different patterns. At some point, it won't even takes an effort to be awake from the ego illusion.

​​

​​

The Relevance of non-duality

Suppose for a moment that the idea of non-duality is correct. What would you supposedly benefit from perceiving life through a non-dual lens?

1. You would derive your feeling of happiness not from the outcome of events, but from the awareness of being authentic, which feels similar to what we all know as flow

2. In the long run there would be less and less drama in your life, as a surrender to your intuitive drives is considered to be a-karmic

3. Over time, neuroses and trauma-based hypersensitivity will fade as emotional backlogs are processed when they surface and past experiences are reframed through the new lens into memories without the meaning they had before

4. You naturally become more effective in conscious manifesting

5. Habitual compensatory behavior is let go of

6. Clarity about purpose, which is nothing more than a destination in order to have an interesting journey

7. Calmness from spending less time in the conceptual mode of thinking and freedom to shift between the conceptual and non-conceptual modes

8. In the end: no longer a fear of death – a trusting of the universe and the instinctive drives to take care of the timing of death

​​

Here's how a non-dual mental model can look:

​​​