Nonduality road block - Do I need to understand?

[Bill W]

This is my first topic. I did a book review already but am not counting that really. This is the first time I've taken the plunge and worked up the courage to ask a question "in front of the class".

I'm not expecting long answers from people. In the context of this ramble, how would you describe the possible benefits of nonduality philosophy to me Is it correct to call it a philosophy? I'm not looking for people to do my work for me. I'm not being lazy. I'm just stuck in my current level of understanding. 

I'm not sure if I should try and understand nonduality or just let that sleeping dog lie for now. I can't work out whether it's something I should have as a foundation (such as deciding if I buy into it or not), or whether it's something that I should consider later on. 

I really didn't want to ask this. I honestly have tried to read around and use the search function on here. I've read what Nahm has written (via his signature) but I do need to watch the video's in his link. However, from everything I've read online and listened to via YouTube I still can't ascertain what's the benefit to me of (a) understanding nonduality and then possibly (b) buying into it. 

I get like this with self-development. I can obsess a bit too much on things that might be small detail or not relevant to my needs. I fear if I don't try and understand something I am missing out somehow. 

Not sure if you need to know some basics about me, or whether it's irrelevant what my little plans and dreams are.....

For the last few months I've been getting my feet wet with basic Buddhist teachings. I'm also finding parts of the Bible incredibly uplifting, and much more practical than I thought the Bible would be. 

I don't know what I think about God. I'm not sure who God is or how God works. I (think) I believe at the minimum there is some Higher Power relevant and active in my life. I feel like I am looked after and that I am supposed to follow a path. 

With the thoughts I am conscious of, my immediate and primary goal is to manage my general fear, insecurities, to be able to better handle uncertainty, to better manage resentments I hold against people, and to move away from my ego (as I understand my ego to be). To move away from animal instinct behaviour. I want to be cool, calm, and collected. Kind to others. Forget myself. Get outside my own head.

My most cherished values at the moment seem to be around openmindedness and humility. If I can get these right I think other good stuff can manifest, such as compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and resilience. I have all these qualities to a degree, but I want more, and better still, I want these values to be better reflected in my behaviour. 

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, Bill W said:

my immediate and primary goal is to manage my general fear, insecurities, to be able to better handle uncertainty, to better manage resentments I hold against people, and to move away from my ego (as I understand my ego to be). To move away from animal instinct behaviour. I want to be cool, calm, and collected. Kind to others. Forget myself. Get outside my own head.

And how is it you are going to achieve that when all of your fear is grounded in duality?

Nondualty is not an ideology, theory, or even a worldview. It is the very nature of yourself and existence. So long as you are operating from duality, you will never be able to overcome fear, master your emotions, or move away from animal behavior. Nor will you ever be cool, calm, collected, or happy. Because all of that is the foundation of being an separate ego self.

You're not appreciating yet how deep all of your emotional problems go. They are not something you can just solve with a few self-help techniques. To resolve those issues requires that you literally experience your own death because death is what you're running away from.

Nor will you be able to resolves those issues within the materialist paradigm.

The benefit to you of nonduality is that you will experience what it means to live for the very fist time in your life. Everything you've done up to this point was a sick joke. You have never actually lived yet.

The way life works is: you only get what you give.

[robdl]

Conditioning of self-improvement

 

"The religions that we have do not help us to understand that which is the real because they are essentially based, not on the abandonment of the self, but on the improvement, the refinement of the self, which is the continuity of the self in different forms. It is only the very few who break away from society, not the outward trappings of society, but from all the implications of a society which is based on acquisitiveness, on envy, on comparison, competition. 

 

"This society conditions the mind to a particular pattern of thought, the pattern of self-improvement, self-adjustment, self-sacrifice, and only those who are capable of breaking away from all conditioning can discover that which is not measurable by the mind. 

 

"So, everywhere society is conditioning the individual, and this conditioning takes the form of self-improvement, which is really the perpetuation of the 'me', the ego, in different forms. Self-improvement may be gross or it may be very, very refined when it becomes the practice of virtue, goodness, the so-called love of one's neighbor, but essentially it is the continuance of the 'me', which is a product of the conditioning influences of society. 

 

"All your endeavor has gone into becoming something, either here, if you can make it, or if not, in another world; but it is the same urge, the same drive to maintain and continue the self."

 

-Krishnamurti

[Consept]

13 hours ago, Bill W said:

This is my first topic. I did a book review already but am not counting that really. This is the first time I've taken the plunge and worked up the courage to ask a question "in front of the class".

I'm not expecting long answers from people. In the context of this ramble, how would you describe the possible benefits of nonduality philosophy to me Is it correct to call it a philosophy? I'm not looking for people to do my work for me. I'm not being lazy. I'm just stuck in my current level of understanding. 

I'm not sure if I should try and understand nonduality or just let that sleeping dog lie for now. I can't work out whether it's something I should have as a foundation (such as deciding if I buy into it or not), or whether it's something that I should consider later on. 

I really didn't want to ask this. I honestly have tried to read around and use the search function on here. I've read what Nahm has written (via his signature) but I do need to watch the video's in his link. However, from everything I've read online and listened to via YouTube I still can't ascertain what's the benefit to me of (a) understanding nonduality and then possibly (b) buying into it. 

I get like this with self-development. I can obsess a bit too much on things that might be small detail or not relevant to my needs. I fear if I don't try and understand something I am missing out somehow. 

Not sure if you need to know some basics about me, or whether it's irrelevant what my little plans and dreams are.....

For the last few months I've been getting my feet wet with basic Buddhist teachings. I'm also finding parts of the Bible incredibly uplifting, and much more practical than I thought the Bible would be. 

I don't know what I think about God. I'm not sure who God is or how God works. I (think) I believe at the minimum there is some Higher Power relevant and active in my life. I feel like I am looked after and that I am supposed to follow a path. 

With the thoughts I am conscious of, my immediate and primary goal is to manage my general fear, insecurities, to be able to better handle uncertainty, to better manage resentments I hold against people, and to move away from my ego (as I understand my ego to be). To move away from animal instinct behaviour. I want to be cool, calm, and collected. Kind to others. Forget myself. Get outside my own head.

My most cherished values at the moment seem to be around openmindedness and humility. If I can get these right I think other good stuff can manifest, such as compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and resilience. I have all these qualities to a degree, but I want more, and better still, I want these values to be better reflected in my behaviour. 

OK so reading your post I think there are some misunderstandings you have about non-duality, which is to be expected as you're new to the idea of it. First I think you're equating it to other ideologies, as in will this way of thinking help me the person. So you're looking for something to add to the you that you think you are, actually non-duality is a dropping or at least a questioning of the who you are. You are non-dual already, if you think about it you can't be you and also observe 'you', that creates a duality which is not real.

So the journey is more about the realisation of what you're not rather than what you are. So you don't 'get' anything from this but there is freedom from self but no freedom for the self. You think the problem is that your self is not good enough but the real problem is you're attached to your self. 

If you think of the film the matrix, Neo is trapped because he believes himself to be the avatar in the matrix, once he gets out, its not necessarily better but it gives him freedom from what he thought himself to be. He's still him but he just knows he's not the avatar. 

The question is it worth believing in is probably not the right question, but a better question might be is it worth believing you are who you think you are?