Non duality, Seeking and Serving

I am aware that there is nothing separate.
I am aware that we are all ONE.
I am aware that everything I am seeking is within and that seeking can stop because of this.

Knowing these things seems great on the surface, however, as I sit with this in a deep sense, especially when thinking about the cessation of seeking, it leads me to ask:

If there is no need to seek anything, what is the point of offering service to others at all? If realization of the ONE happens with or without our effort, why be of assistance to anyone else to help them “awaken”.

Also, kind of a side thought: Why are so many people who are focused on non dual teaching “dull” or depressed or kind of empty seeming?

Sensible questions.

If it helps, you can think of different levels of consciousness like being different octaves of a piano. So, you can be tuned into oneness at a high level and play melodies up there and, at the same time, that octave can be stridently out of tune lower levels of consciousness, such those which lust or rage.

What then?

One option is simply to tune out the lower pitched “music” and pretend it’s not there. That could certainly lead to dullness because lots of juicy options for fun are neutered.

Another option is to try to tune your instrument before banging away on it. Dedicated service to others (or to self) is a way of doing just that, of attuning your sensibilities to what you feel to be your deepest and your highest goals. It can be seen as a means of creating continuity and some measure of sanity in the artistic construction of your life and consciousness. (A key word above is “dedicated.”)

Just a thought.

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What is the point of even having a goal at all though?

With the non duality teaching that says that because there is only ONE there is no need to seek…for me, this makes the entirety of human life quite pointless. Why have goals or help others awaken or even try to awaken myself when it really will amount to nothing.

Sometimes non duality makes me feel utterly depressed. All of my desires fall away. I have no motivation to do a single thing…because why do anything?

If there is no point in seeking anything, then why even seek to find happiness or joy or peace?

If seeking can be totally given up when I realize who I AM is, what is all of this for?

If there is no seeking, there is no growth right? And if there is no growth, why bother with anything?

Before going further into this, I want to reiterate that, as I read the Confederation materials, you’re doing this exactly as hoped. You’re looking at life, noticing that it’s confusing and painful, and asking, what could be a better approach to all this? The Buddha did the same thing.

The recommendation from our unseen friends, then, is to simply search more deeply inside – as did the Buddha – into the silence. One thing they recommend is to sit and and listen without expecting a direct answer. Just the posture of listening is extremely important, and sometimes intimations do arise. Otherwise, simply listen within the inner stillness.

So, who is teaching this non dualism and what is it they are calling non dualism? Are they independent masters or do they travel around taking money from students? If they are so non dual, why do they bother telling you about it? I’m just wondering.

The non dualism (Advaita Vedanta) I am familiar with comes out of Hinduism, roughly contemporary with Trika (Indian Buddhist), Dzogchen and other such disciplines. I have seen very few Westerners with serious grounding in any such traditions. What I’ve noticed are mainly individuals who hung out with a teacher for a short time, had some interesting experiences and then discovered themselves to be instant experts. So, take that for what it’s worth.

What is non duality? Is it a temporary state that bends you towards inactivity? Is it an underlying constant condition simultaneous with experiences of duality? These are very deep questions which have been discussed for many centuries, so I wouldn’t jump to conclusions about these things with any haste.

Here’s a point of view on your asking, why seek?

Yes, your essence (or soul) is completely aware of its own state of Divine communion, but that’s not enough, it wants to be fully, wholly in tune with that.

I have never seen nor read about a spiritually wise person who feels they have nothing further to refine or to learn. The Ra group continues to learn, for example. Jesus never said, “I am totally perfect, it just doesn’t get any better than me!” Jesus was in resonance with (and in service to) what he called “The Father.” He continued to serve, to learn, to travel on his path. Thus, one continues to seek because this is our nature.

But what do I know? Maybe you’re different? Maybe if you stop seeking now you will never return to it in this or any subsequent lifetime? Maybe you would consider this a good experiment? If you do this, please let me know the outcome. I would be interested to hear about it. I’m not being silly here. You are the experimenter, put your energy where you feel it best belongs.

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Certainly there’s a distinction between wants and needs.
Possibly we initiate evolutionary progression by way of desire. Then in order to evolve, we need experience.
The related paradox seems the only constant is change.

A choice to embrace paradox might precipitate proactive choice pursuing change congruent to desire - running toward a life we create. This may play contrast to running reactively away from an old life destroyed by some other means.

If a golden rule is “treat others like you want to be treated”, a platinum rule may be “treat others how they want to be treated.” In other words, if someone asks you for help, offer them help in ways they want. Then, possibly there’s chance of you asking for help and then you getting help in the way you want.

I don’t follow certain people specifically, so I tend not to remember names well. I listen to many teachings on YouTube from those who use titles for their videos that say “Non-Duality”. But two people I do remember is Rupert Spira and a woman that goes by Suzanne Non-Duality. Both seem very dull, like the love or life is just not in them. They have a very bland emotional state, almost feels like depression to me.

A man who goes by the name “Spiritual Renaissance” on YouTube who talks about non-duality in a different type of way and kind of goes against what other non-dual people talk like…he actually has some personality left. Some spunk and zest for life. Like he actually enjoys life and stuff.

And perhaps I have much to learn about what non-duality actually means. I don’t actually know the answers to the questions you asked here…maybe you could offer a correction if you feel it is necessary???

From my perspective, I see non-duality as the knowing that nothing is separate. All is ONE. All is well. All is perfect. There is no “other”. It seems, at least from what I hear out of the mouths of people I watch on YouTube (I have no real life people to pull from) that non-duality tends to take people down a road where doing anything at all seems kind of pointless. Like there is no reason to seek evolution, or answers or to make any goals because everything is good just the way it is and we all end up awakened in the end anyway, so just experience life as it is.

For me, this triggers some deep roots of anxiety and depression. Like moving into nihilism or something. If there is no forward motion or seeking of anything, why live?

I’m not sure I want to stop seeking…for me, it gives me purpose…meaning…something to look forward to…but at the same time, it’s crazy exhausting! Love hate relationship with it! :laughing:

But when these non-dual people start talking about giving up seeking because there is not point, then I start to lose it mentally.

I am wanting to know that there is some kind of absolute truth in all of this seeking. If there is no point to seeking, then I have no idea what I am going to do because why do anything at all if there is no “goal” so to speak.

If there is a purpose to seeking, then I can feel like life has meaning and that I haven’t been doing all this seeking for nothing…even if it is an eternal goal that never ends it’s still a goal and it feels like forward motion.

Some of these non-dual people claim that they have ceased seeking. That they just live. They just experience life and let things unfold in whatever way it wants to…but they don’t seem happy to me. They don’t seem like they Love life or feel excited about anything…or sad about anything…it’s just a monotonous day over and over again.

And this has been my underlying thought for some time, however, many non-dual teachers seem to avoid talking about evolution and my assumption has been that they don’t beleive that evolution as a soul exists because all is ONE. There is then no need to further change or become “better” so to speak, or to uncover more.

It appears that once a person gives up seeking and enters into the relm of non-duality that there is no need to seek evolution because seeking in general is like a lower form of living to them.

At least this is the way that I am perceiving the teachings of non-duality that I have heard.

Well, if it’s worth anything, here’s my take on this.

What they mean by “seeking” is beginning at “Point A” and moving out into the unknown to find something. When they advise quitting seeking, what they mean is to go more deeply into “Point A,” that is, into your own being. When they say they do not seek, they mean they no longer send their energy outwards and invest it in extrinsic personal or social relationships very much. Mostly, they allow the dynamics of life to come to them. They experience these dynamics as aspects of self dancing around in various patterns.

To you, the outsider, it appears dull because you see no emotional ups and downs, no drama. To the insider, while the drama is reduced, the depth is increased – but this is internal and unseen by you. The depth is about many puzzle pieces of self snapping together in surprising ways, chains of karma coming to conclusions, inimical forces learning to shake hands. This is what a final incarnation in 3D may look like, wrapping up the unfinished business and closing out this chapter of development in peace.

In this way that you have commented, I resonate with that and though I do not live this way 100% yet, it is increasing more and more this way for me as I allow what is to be and as I live more in the moment rather than trying to “do” things or force things

But I’m not sure that many non-duality teachers are actually talking about this.

Below is a portion of a conversation I have been having with someone online who is a non-dual teacher, which gets more to the heart of what I am describing of where they seem to be coming from that I am lost with.

The first reply is their message back to me when I described the feeling of non-duality and ending seeking bringing me to a point of feeling empty and pointless.

…You are a breath away from laughing at all of this. You’ll find out that you never needed to “seek” or try, that the rest of this lifetime will be effortless. The journey that has seemed all work and no play, all concepts and no felt sense, must make way to the felt understanding, resonance. There is too much here for me to do it justice in a comment, but I made a couple videos on loneliness. I did this alone, and I mean ALONE. Sometimes it happens like that. Seems some feedback on that mind stuff would get you really far.

My comment back

Isn’t the desire to seek who we really are part of what helps our soul evolve?

Their final comment

“soul evolving” is still on the level of duality - who we really are does not evolve, doesn’t need to. And, it is realizing that that allows the “soul” to realize what it really is, which is paradoxical. Said another way, seeking is needed until we realize it isn’t. What you are is right here and now staring you in the face, it is the spacious expansion beneath and around the contraction that is absorbing attention.

The last comment back to me is, in general, what I am perceiving from non-dual teachers I’ve seen.

On one level, yes, the soul has ceased evolution…because time doesn’t exist on that level of reality and so everything has already been done while at the same time is currently happening all at the same time.

If every being stopped seeking because we all realized that we are all the same thing, the ONE…wouldn’t that put an end to having any kind of experience at all? Because, don’t our desires which cause seeking cause the creation of new ideas and new experiences to have?

Am I misunderstanding the idea of seeking from a non-dual standpoint?

Deeper into the swamp we go…

That is one way of looking at things – a pretty good one, I would say – and yet it has its problems.

Here, as Earthlings, we cannot know if the soul evolves any more than we can actually know what tomorrow will bring. From where we stand, these things are simply not visible to us. But we can make assumptions and get on with things.

If we assume the soul does not evolve and that you are one with that, you only need to recognize this, then why get out of bed in the morning? Why do these people continue participating in the human drama? If they are so non dual, then why are they here? If evolution of the soul is a dead end, then why continue traveling? This is to say, I agree with your statement somewhere above that this leads to nihilism.

On the other hand, I can see how it might feel to a person that a perceived state of non duality is the final stage of being, but an assumption based upon a perception is simply a guess, it is not a fact.

I also agree with your other statements.

If we stand back, the model which your non dualists present is a telescoped version of the Confederation’s model. The former is compacted and far less articulated (by millions of years of presumed experience). The Confederation runs through seven densities whereas this modern model takes care of it all in a single lifetime.

So, where does this leave you, amigo? Are you sitting on the wayside, trying to piece together the mystery? I hope not. I hope you are turning your inquiries inward and listening, listening in the silence. In my opinion, all this itching and scratching you’re up to has to do with things inside of you which are seeking to emerge. Listen for them.

Remain light hearted about it, don’t become too somber for this reason. When a person is light hearted and in listening mode, then they are liable to hear whatever it is that wishes to emerge. But when we’re in a somber, determined mode, we’re no so liable to hear be attentive to subtleties as the emerge.

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Here’s some additional food for thought from Dec. 18th 2005.

My point in quoting this is that the state or experience of non duality is – or can be viewed as – but a single wrung upon a ladder with additional articulations. That is, consciousness above the animal level can be explored in a variety of directions. Sometimes it is best not to skip ahead, but to enjoy the progression from one level to another. In this manner, one gains the ability to shift from one state to another as the spirit moves you. Or, as Ra puts it, you become the instrument and the Essence of All strikes the tune.

Picture with us, if you will, the creature that you are. You receive this information along your spine, in the physical lines of a system of energy, reception and usage. It is fed infinitely, in an unending supply, by the love and the light of the one Creator.

That light is literally sent down into the heart of the Earth, your mother, who then pours it from the center of the Earth—or you might even say the womb of the Earth—up through the Earth into the soles of your feet, into your body system, so that it is constantly streaming into your energy system at the red-ray level and rising as it will up and out through the top of your head to the gateway to intelligent infinity.

Meanwhile, according to your desire and will and your requests, guidance and teaching is being pulled into your energy system from the top through the violet ray, then the indigo ray, and so forth, until it reaches the blue ray or the green ray, depending upon whether you are using those energies in communication or whether you are using them in healing, basically.

Realize that the point at which those two energies meet is the point at which your kundalini is now focused. If you wish to raise your kundalini you have two things to work on. Firstly, you have the clearing of the lower energies so that you get full creative energy up through the soles of your feet and into your energy body.

Secondly, you are attempting to focus your will, discipline your personality, and call forth the most helpful energies that you can to teach and guide you as you seek the truth.

We thank the ones known as S1 and S2 for this query and would at this time open this meeting to other questions. Is there another query at this time?

B

Earlier you mentioned the rise of kundalini. Could you clarify that?

Q’uo

We are those of Q’uo, my brother, and are aware of your query. That which is rising, or not, is the point of contact between the natural energies available to all within creation and the energy of the creative principle called to the self by individual work.

That point of contact begins, roughly speaking, within that point where the outer courtyard of the heart yields to the inner sanctum. The kundalini cannot be pulled lower than that as information of the creative principle cannot be understood by any energies lower than that of the heart.

However, the point of the kundalini rising, in terms of entities’ desire to progress spiritually, is that as one begins to be able to pull the full energy of that open heart up into work in consciousness, each place to which it is raised opens up vistas of opportunity for various types of work in consciousness, not simply moving upwards as one aiming directly for the Creator, but, in terms of [working] at any level—for instance, in open communication—there is the opportunity to spread out one’s discoveries and one’s services by creating more and more layers of understanding or awareness of subtle energies involved in the sub-density, shall we say , of open communication. Once the kundalini has been pulled from the heart up into the throat, then more articulated work can be done in communication. And this is also true as the kundalini continues to be pulled upwards by seeking and the careful development and discipline of the personality.

May we answer you further, my brother?

B

What aspect of the self is doing the pulling?

Q’uo

We are those of Q’uo, and are aware of your query, my brother. The aspect that pulls the energy forward is desire, or as it is sometimes called, will.

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I think this is a interesting topic.

The experience and contemplation based deduction of oness is a step on the way, while it can lead to stagnation in the physical world if the explanation is applied as dogma, rather than as a reflection in the sea of possible explanatory reflections.

I have been considering and gradually experiencing more emotional embodiment, and I’m leaning towards, that we as souls, are emotional beings with evolving emotional abilities, abilities that the human experience expand.

I believe in the unification of emotion and logic, and as I tend to environmental, my (and others) needs, communicate, write poems, stories and music, I feel like the term “Emotional Logic” is appropriate in how I experience the creative process in facilitating my activities.

Our ability to experience our emotional interconnectedness, gradually becomes boundless, as we synchronise, align and realign, with our collective relationship, and with our eternal origin.
our immortality and mortality in a state of fusion, Playing along and exploring with the dynamics in this frequency, of eternity.

aligning my line of reasoning with emotional sincerity, is an ongoing process. As is, not getting stuck in internal linguistic loops and moving on with my life.
In a dynamic approach it doesn’t need to be all or nothing, you can seek when that feels appropriate for you and you can do something else when it doesn’t :slight_smile:

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This idea of emotional logic reminds me
of the corpus callosum interconnection
between brain hemispheres. Brainwave
tools can help with this, and meditation.

https://eocinstitute.org/meditation/whole_brain_synchronization/

Yes, sound therapy (in many forms) and meditation definitely has its place in the immersion and evolving symbiosis of our emotional and calculating self.
as does our interactions in daily life.

ah, meditation, the moments, where we on some level feel more interested, in being conscious at all, than in all the things, we are conscious of.

There is usually an ebb and flow in that intresset :slight_smile:

edit to clarify my statement about emotional and logical unification in my previous post:

Our biological body is essentially part of its logical environment, as the body that’s channeling aspects of emotional self (and vise versa, its a two way street), becomes accustomed to aligning that channeling with higher emotional sophistication, and manages to keep balance through not making to much of deal out of it, things can start to get really interesting…

would like to point out that i base my statements on my own experience, and they are seldom written in stone, more like in sand that i edit after gaining a deeper emotional understanding or the tide in my mind eventually smoothes it out :stuck_out_tongue: :slight_smile:

in regards to the idea of seeking and not seeking.

I think what we are seeking ‘with’ is a factor that is worth considering.

for example,
How do we experience the tone in our inner voice? Where does it feel like it originates from, and where does it go?
The answer to this is far from static in my experience, and it can be well worth exploring that phenomena.

the same can be applied to our sense of influence, potential, and so on.

I think it’s plausible that we are already fully evolved on some level. Like starting an equation with the desired result, and now we are in the process of living through the ‘problem’ that leads to the final evolution solution, a solution that everything is gravitating towards, from a beginning that was designed to give an as deep and complete origin story as possible.

And the closer we get to the source of evolutionary gravity, the narrower free will, will feel like, as our sense of destiny becomes more apparent in the end game of less and less viable options, in the fleeting season of eternal renewal…
and once we re-embodie our fully evolved self, the sense of free will, re-expands.

I have no idea of the level of truth in this hypothesis, but I felt an emotional expansion while writing it :blush:

“what opens the heart, and stills the mind, is truthfully a sign, pointing in the right direction”

At the risk of exposing my personal dislike (and likely misunderstanding) of non-dual philosophy, I have to agree with you that non-dualism seems to tolerate a degree of passivity and denial of life’s pleasures that does a great disservice to its core wisdom, namely that of Unity. Unity is One, but that doesn’t eliminate the inherent duality of Microcosm/Macrocosm or Subject/Object. Enlightenment isn’t the elimination of the subject but the opposite, the supreme actualization of the subject. How does this actualization come about? Through exercising our Will to Power, Will to Pleasure, and Will to Meaning while maintaining a positive relationship to other selves and the Creator. It is not enough to believe, we must also do. This is where our power and true enlightenment lies. Glory be to the One Infinite Creator.

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Probably the most challenging thing for me.
I am always wanting to know the truth to such a degree that it drives me to the brink of insanity. But I am learning. Even if it is slow.

This is interesting to perceive for me.

I have a tendency to allow my inner “tone” to be one of desperation in knowing what I am seeking and to make sure that I am doing my life “right” which leads me down into the deepest, darkest caves of the mind…sometimes I have a difficult time then navigating my way out.

The core of me feels close to what you are saying.

I feel that we came here to experience duality to whatever extent…whether that be for learning, growth or just for the heck of it. In any case, it is meant to be experienced and then moved out of in some way, otherwise why would it even exist? We, as the ONE created it so it must be there for some reason.

Even though as we realize more and more who we are as the ONE, I feel like, there must always be some level of duality, otherwise there would be no experience, right?

The only way we can perceive an ‘other’ is BECAUSE of duality. That’s my take anyway…but I must admit, sometimes people’s non-dual teachings can get me so wrapped up in the darkness of the mind that I struggle to make sense or meaning out of anything at that point.

Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between following lines of thought into a blind alley and discovering the Source of Love, then communing with it so purely that one becomes absorbed in it? In theory, both are non dual…

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