Hi Priscilla I was the anon in the previous post about non duality and the 3D! I'm so so so sorry if my tone came off rude and crass I did not mean it to sound like that. I'm just rather frustrated at myself for struggling to grasp the concept of non duality.
Some bloggers argued that if one has a choice to give meaning or decision to an appearance, then that just falls back into loa. Others say that you can have the decision to pick an experience. Earlier today I tried to think how these theories worked but then I started to have very nihilistic thoughts and wondered if all the trauma I experienced when I was younger and now was still something that I "picked" to experience. Or if I truly had no free will, then I will not experience what I want to experience. My mind got a headache and I felt like I was dissociating.
At that point I wasn't sure if I should just stick to loa. Which at the same time I felt like if I stuck to loa, then it feels like I'm preventing myself from being free in a sense? Some non-dualists try to say that non duality will "open your eyes" but I feel more disconnected from myself than connected. Idk I just want to hear your opinion and thoughts of what non duality is to clear up my depressing thoughts since you explain things a lot more clearly. You don't have to answer this though! I am aware that you get a lot of asks everyday and I just wanted to clear up the potential misunderstanding that I was being rude in my previous ask.
hi anon!! first of all, no you didn't sound rude at all, don't apologize!! i understand how frustrating this can feel, and i'm happy to help you through it <333
now, again, thinking about what these others bloggers say and trying to understand based on wording is an arduous path that is unnecessary. nonduality isn't hidden behind some door you need a perfect key to unlock. it just is here right now, waiting to be seen.
it's not my place to say whether other bloggers know what they're saying or not because one, idk who you're talking about or what they said, and two, it just doesn't matter. anything anybody says is just another appearance within awareness anyway.
so you said someone said choosing pushes it back down to loa. i think it's more that of course the idea of "choice" makes it sound as if there is something to choose from or for, and of course that is illusory if everything just is. but that doesn't make choosing not real.
what is real? real is just a word. we use it to describe the world around us. we say this is real and what we see in our dreams isn't. but when we're in our dreams it feels very real, even when in hindsight we realize things were wonky and had gaps and inconcsistieencces, or our senses didn't work "right", whatever. but in the moment it felt real. so what's to say it wasn't?
real is a feeling. we decide what is real. i don't say this to push anyone into dissociation or psychosis so stay with me please. what i am trying to say is, think about one of the deepest most simple philosophical questions people have been asking for centuries: what is knowledge? what do we know? how can we prove we know anything? that's just it- we can't. everything is just an idea we are accepting. but. the point is, that doesn't make it not real.
if something feels real, than i say it is real. anyone who is telling you that nonduality is about never thinking as identity, always remembering some doctrine or something, anyone saying that is misleading. nonduality is not a doctrine. it does not have rules or laws. it does not need to be "remembered" constantly. it is just a knowing. a self-seeing. even this idea of nonduality itself is another idea appearing within awareness. it just seems to be the most freeing, fundamental, simplest, "truth" we have the illusory experience of "arriving" at.
when i found nonduality, i had zero concept of what nonduality even was. i had never heard of the words nonduality or advaita vendata. i didn't really use terms like "awareness". i just came to a realization by myself. i had felt for "so long" like i was searching for something, waiting for something, wanting something so strongly it was so visceral and impossible to explain. i felt isolated from the world around me like no one understood what i was feeling. i felt stuck in a loop, with a past self i felt so trapped in and a life that felt constantly stagnant. eventually, i realized that this feeling couldn't stay anymore, i wanted more. i thought about what it was, why that was. why wasn't this enough. why was i feeling something so strongly. i realized it was a trap, in a sense. i was always going to want more if i didn't realize i was already whole as i was. i was always going to feel stuck if i didn't realize i never had been in the first place.
we hear from childhood people say things like "think positive and you'll see life that way", "change your perspective", or "love yourself first" etc, and we think it's all bs because it seems flowery and silly like "okay but that doesn't change the world around me", but then you understand that the world around you doesn't need to change. it always just is. it is always "changing" because it's never really been solid. what does it mean for something to be solid? that's another idea we're presenting and accepting. life is simple in truth, it just is. but it feels incredible nuanced and insane in experience. and that's exactly what makes it so so so beautiful. nonduality is NOT nihilism. it does not point to nihilism.
life isn't about having some realization and then having all the joy sucked out of it. nonduality is freeing. liberating. because you realize you never had anything to be liberated from!!!
loa is an experience within awareness. just like everything else. every single experience is occurring within awareness. because what does an experience indicate? separation. one must experience something other. but separation is an illusion. however, this doesn't make experiences unreal. i'm experiencing speaking to you right now. is that "real"? it is if i say it is and it also isn't if i return to the truth that really nothing is. but it doesn't change the fact that this is what "i" am experiencing right now. no one can tell me i'm not because hello, i am. this is real. for all purposes of life, it is. yes, it's contradicting. because we have one arbitrary word of "real" to explain something that is beyond language.
do you have choices? do you have free will? yes and no. if i have the illusion of having free will or of having choices, isn't it that i basically do? i cannot "escape" the illusion of having free will or choice. i cannot be some metaphysical "pure awareness"; i think some people think of that like i need to be this void, pure godlike thing, beyond space and time, when really, you already are it right now!!! that thing cannot be experienced because when you break it down, it vanishes. imagine that pure awareness as beyond time, everything is right now, only this moment. no separation, everything sits so close it closes in on itself. that's why it's like it "doesn't exist", that's why you are nothingness as much as you are everything. that's also why searching for that, to experience or understand that, is futile. because you are experiencing it right now. this is you experiencing pure awareness. it cannot be experienced without the illusion of separation. you don't need to lose this identity or the realism of life in order to know you are "god".
which then takes me to your trauma. i get it, everyone has a past. i'm not going to tell you that wasn't real. but i will tell you that going by this understanding, it only exists here. now. in the present moment. even when i explained i had the experience of going "so long" feeling stuck, i realized in some present moment that that idea only existed right now. this idea of "so long". if i wanted things to "change" than why was i still holding on to the past? if i wanted things to "change", then why was i still thinking about how it never worked in the past? it doesn't matter. i want it to work now, why am i even "chasing" something if i keep thinking it will only ever be like the past?? that's why you need to just realize, the past was another appearance being created in this moment.
and that leads me to the last thing i want to address. you say you fear thoughts like you thinking you "picked" those awful things to happen. let me ask you right now, do you feel like you did? no. of course not. there is no outside force governing what is. there is also no outside law that says this is how the world works. like i said initially, nonduality is also an idea appearing within awareness, it just happens to be the most simplest idea we can come to. you are the law because you are the only one ever giving illusory meaning to "your" experience.
who is the "i"; i use "i" or "you" interchangeably because there's no reason to separate it by "mind"/"ego"/"identity"/"character"/etc versus "god"/"awareness". it doesn't need to be complicated. understand that there is no logic or consistency here. there just is everything. if you decide you have choice than who is to say you don't? if you decide the past is just something that happened in the past which you did not choose but just is, than that's all it is. you can decide that while also deciding that you do choose other things. there are no rules here. in the same way, if someone else is deciding that every single thing in the past means something and must be psychologized and healed and understood, than isn't that very real to them? the "ultimate truth" cannot really be captured in concepts. there just is everything.
even your mind, the seeming decisions you make, these are all ideas within awareness. this is why people say we don't have free will, because everything can be broken down into being an idea within awareness. however, this is life. life is meant to be lived. that's what i've chosen. we are all one, experiencing different seeming corners of ourself. you are aware of certain "desires" right now. so let those be. again, if i have the illusion of having free will, than who cares. you can have this knowledge and still partake in the illusion. in fact, you should. you can't do anything else any way. you can only ever be. but being doesn't mean being stagnant. do whatever you want, is what it means.
your depressing thoughts you mentioned don't need to be proof of anything, they don't need to be "internalized". they're just more appearances within awareness. there's nothing to clear up, you just realize they're clouds floating. you cannot control them. they just are right now. there's no point in looking to the past trying to understand how to undo it because the past is only constructing itself here. here is all that is.
so can you experience your desires? yes. you can experience anything. this experience is limitless within its illusion of limitation. you are limitless within your illusion of limitation. again, there's no one out there deciding whether or not you can experience your desires.
okay i've wrote so much and it might not be cohesive i apologize. of course it comes down to a very simple idea, but when people try to understand conceptually, or are trying to apply logic and reason to it, it makes it seem impossible to understand or to accept. but the core of it is you are everything, just unconditional everything and nothingness, you just are in this moment, everything just always is. you don't need to fight or try or reach somewhere because you already are everywhere. but of course that kind of language is what confused you. so although this long-winded explanation might have been in vain and overly tedious to explain a simple idea, i hope maybe it could help in some way. but again. lived experience over any teaching. find it your"self". just see what is.
