Sunday 11 March 2012

Nonduality Uncertainty Principle


Some teachings propose that reality is a product of mind only and that the physical world does not exist. They seem so certain, but I can't quite resonate with this. Is it necessary to adopt this position in order to become awakened?

You're sitting still with eyes closed. Rain is pounding on the window. There is the hint of a damp metallic smell in the air. The hands tingle. Flickering lights play on the eyelids. The sound of a car... louder and louder. Now fading... gone... just the hiss of rain. Where am I in all this? Well, there is an ache in the shoulder and thoughts and moods flicker and pass. But really, right now, there is just a happening... in which a thought of a me is just another arising. And even saying this is too much.

What is plain and inescapable is that there is 'something' going on. There is something rather than nothing. This something-ness precedes thoughts and ideas - it's the very ground of all manifestations and appearances. And again, this is probably saying too much.

Nonduality by default contains this quality of the ineffable. I like to think of it as the nonduality uncertainty principle. The more we try to pin down the ultimate nature of reality, the more we miss it. By this I mean, the more we try to formulate this inexplicable event, the more we find that we are describing something relative - something that's not IT. We know that it is - that's undeniable - but ultimately we can't grasp it, describe it or formulate it.*



* Our attempts to account for this mysterious somethingness are inevitably based on our limited anthropocentric understandings and imaginings. We paint this inexplicable source in Man's image - our formulas are constructs of a biologically constrained intellect. The ultimate nature of this mysterious principle is by default as forever beyond our true grasp as quantum physics is to an earthworm.