Nondual Spirituality or Mystical Advaita

Reviewing the history of our sacred traditions, it's clear that nondual spirituality is the highest form of mystical religion. Nonduality holds that ultimately there is only the One Divine Reality (you can call this God, Brahman, Buddhata, Tao, Awareness or whatever you like), with no fundamental separation between God-and-world, God-and-soul, soul-and-world, or soul-and-soul.

On the relative, functional, pragmatic level, we make useful "dualistic" distinctions between I and Thou, him and her, helpful and harmful, justice and injustice, etc., but on the absolute level of WHAT REALLY IS, realized through the most sublimely profound Divine Intuition, we find no separation or alienation, only THIS ONE (NONDUAL) REALITY.

This Absolute Being or Pure Awareness has no "rival reality" that can compete or interfere with or occlude This Supreme Truth.

Hence, anyone who sincerely invokes the timeless self-inquiry, "Who am I?"—will discover the unspeakable wonder and beauty of Who is really here and What we really are: infinite spiritual Awareness or Spirit poignantly associated with (not trapped inside) a finite body-mind-soul or personality. Our Real Nature is Unlimited Being associated with the limited sentient human being.

By Divine Grace, we find, as all true mystics worldwide have found in opening up to nondual spirituality, that Pure Awareness or Spirit, prior to the rise of the egocentric "me," is the transpersonal One transcending yet permeating this personality. This is to awaken from the plight of selfishness to the living God's Self-Fullness. It is to "lose one's life" for Eternal Life, as Jesus invited. Or, as Paul said, to recognize that "in Him [Divine Self] we [persons] live, move and have our being."

In short, THIS One Reality, Self or Awareness is Who We Really Are, intimately right HERE, right NOW. In the Divine Party of One Bliss, we love and celebrate this Self of all.

Humanity's most ancient wisdom text is the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, the "Great Forest Secret Teaching." This remarkable Sanskrit oral scripture from nearly 3,000 years ago in northern India, the first of hundreds of Upanishads and other wisdom texts, was the first scripture ever to clearly reveal the great Divine Truth of nondual spirituality:

"The Âtman (Absolute Self) alone is to be meditated upon, for in It all are one… By It one knows all this…. Whoever knows thus, 'I am Brahman/Reality' becomes this all. Even the gods cannot prevent his becoming thus, for he becomes their Self…. This Divine Self is a world for all beings—gods, seers, ancestors, humans, livestock, and tinier creatures…. All the vital breaths/energies, all worlds, all gods, and all beings spring from this Âtman. Its inner meaning (upanishad) is 'the Real behind the real, or Truth of truth.'… When there is some other thing, then one can see the other, smell… taste… greet… hear… ponder… touch… perceive the other. [But in Self-realization] one becomes the single ocean, the nondual Seer. This is the Brahman Reality…. This is the highest goal, the highest treasure, the highest world, the greatest bliss…. A verse says: 'When all desires dwelling in the heart are banished, then a mortal becomes immortal; he becomes Brahman here (in this life).'… Knowing that immortal Brahman, I am immortal. Those who know the life behind breathing, the eye behind seeing, the ear behind hearing, the mind behind thinking, have realized the ancient, primordial Brahman. With the (intuitive) mind alone must one realize It. In It there's no diversity; one goes from death to death seeing diversity in It. This un-showable, constant Being can be realized as One only. The Self is taintless, beyond space, unborn, vast, and immovable. Let a wise aspirant directly realize this insight, not just reflect on tiresome words."

Nondual spirituality reveals a truly "foundational" Absolute Reality that explodes the post-modernist claim dominating our colleges, universities and halls of academia (and castigated by Huston Smith, Robert Forman, and Ken Wilber), the claim that there is no such Reality, only "cultural conditioning," "wishful thinking," and "language games."

Here we would also briefly mention the serious limitations of the controversial "neo-advaita" or "neo-satsang" movement that has infiltrated much of the USA, Europe, Australia and India the last dozen years (now called "pseudo-advaita" by some persons formerly hailing the advent of neo-advaita). We will have more to say about this in some of the essays linked below.

Neo-advaita, which attempts to articulate nondual spirituality, and often does a very good job of presenting some of the traditional advaita teachings (though usually, it seems, quite ignorant of the specific ancient sources for these teachings), can be fairly summed up by its main teaching: "Call off the search, You are already the Self, no need to seek for It."

Now, traditional Advaita—as articulated by authentic sages from Yajńavalkya to Shankara to Ramana Mahârshi in Hindu Vedânta—along with real nondual spirituality in all our genuine "pure mysticism" traditions, also would have one abandon any neurotic, selfish seeking for a desirable goal-state for "me." But the obvious limitation of neo-advaita is that it tends to completely ignore the "ego-free holy aspiration" for real Divine expression that ensues for the true sages and saints once selfish seeking drops off in initial levels of awakening. Just to merely have "the Understanding" (as some have made a fetish out of it) that "only the Self is Real," or that "Consciousness is all there is" and think that there is nothing more to spirituality than this conceptual understanding and a corresponding "blanked-out" zombification is simply not sufficient for authentic awakening from the selfish "me-dream."

In an analogy given by the awesome holy woman-sage Mâtâ Amritânandamayî (the famous "hugging mother" Amma from Kerala, India—see www.amma.org), we can say that it is certainly true on one level that the little sapling is in some "potential" sense a tree, destined to grow into one if conditions are right. But the sapling is not yet fully functioning and serving as a full-grown tree, capable of providing shade, fruit, flowers, medicinal herbs from its bark, etc. In the same way, all sentient beings truly have the Divine Atma-Self as their real Identity. But are they maturely functioning and fully serving as the Self? Are they really manifesting the Divine virtues of self-sacrificing compassion, generosity, empathy, goodness, kindness, and all-embracing love that we find in the true spiritual masters? Or are they still plagued by egotism in various subtle or not-so-subtle fashion, but rationalizing and justifying all such egocentricity as "God's will"? Recall Jesus' great criterion for genuine spirituality: "By their fruits ye shall know them."

So let us proceed further into this strange, stupendously paradoxical domain of nondual spirituality with the following items:

Our Real Nature --this is one of the most important essays on this entire website, a "one page Upanishad" drafted back in 1990 to yield the quintessential heart of our Great Traditions' Perennial Wisdom onto a single page.

Awaken God-Self! A Message from Awareness to ItSelf --an even shorter, more poetic and whimsical expression of the same quintessential mystic wisdom (I hope the Samurai font shows up on your computer's browser).

Questions & Answers on Nondual Spiritual Awakening --Here are responses to commonly asked questions asked of me over the last two decades in satsang-gatherings, spiritual counseling sessions, and classes. I have also reproduced here some very recent verbatim email interactions with actual correspondents, spiritual aspirants with a healthy range of questions and concerns on how to authentically live a profoundly realized spirituality.

Varieties of Nondual Realization --a free-wheeling survey of what I consider to be the most important 14 domains or aspects of nonduality, all needing to be honored for a fully balanced spirituality.

Nondual Awakening, Its Source and Applications --a four-part paper appearing in a recent book for mental health professionals who have begun to integrate the nondual perspective into their work. That book, Listening from the Heart of Silence: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy, edited by my longtime friend John Prendergast with G. Kenneth Bradford (Paragon House, June 2007), is now available for purchase through amazon.com and other booksellers.

One and Many --another somewhat playful presentation of a long list of terms and concepts from our Great Traditions to usefully and paradoxically distinguish the primordial polarity-within-nonduality, namely, the distinction between the One and many, the Absolute and the relative, the Noumenon and phenomena, Self and selves, Awareness and objects of awareness, Shiva and Shakti, Emptiness and Form (etc.). There is a useful explanation at the bottom of this particular webpage on what it is to live this polarity-within-nonduality.

Freedom from Binding Ego-Tendencies --a clarification of what spiritual liberation or awakening really means, operationally speaking, in its most crucial dimension; an important corrective to our modern era's "neo-Advaitin" over-emphasis on mystical awakening in merely cognitive terms as just a special kind of "knowing" or "understanding."

The Three Simultaneously-True Levels of Nondual Reality --this very useful model allows us to integrate all levels of our experience, the conventional mundane level (e.g., right-wrong, skillful-unskillful, justice-injustice), the epiphanic soulful level ("everything is perfect," all are coming Home to God), and the ultimate or Absolute level ("nothing is really happening," Only GOD-AWARENESS). Not being able to account for all three levels usually produces some kind of spiritual imbalance.

Nondual Wisdom and Devotion --an old paper written in in Fall, 1979 upon entering graduate school at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS, then known as the Cal. Institute of Asian Studies, CIAS). This paper addresses the longstanding dialectic between the spiritual paths of wisdom and devotion, what in Hindu Vedanta tradition are termed the paths (mârgas) of jńâna and bhakti. Clearly, the attention in the mature phases of both paths actually works very much in the same way: intuiting a profound Subject-ive Presence (the "I" that is "You," the "You" that is "I").

--Incidentally, I've uploaded this paper and a few other things at our website in pdf file format. Your computer likely already has Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on it for viewing or printing these PDF files, and will automatically use Acrobat when you click on the link, but if your computer lacks Acrobat, the program can be freely and quickly downloaded at different places on the Internet, starting here.

Philosophy & Psychology, East & West --one more paper from grad school, Winter 1980, a long survey (in PDF format) covering all the Perennial Wisdom traditions save Christianity, addressing the issue of dis-identifying from the false self and awakening to True Identity, beginning with the Hindu traditions and culminating with the Sufi mystic traditions.

This Is All A Dream --yet another old essay written at CIIS (fortunate to win first prize in the 1983 Kern Foundation Essay Contest), presenting the teaching from our Perennial Wisdom Great Traditions that the waking state's manifestation of a world is a wondrous dream. Among other things here are some great quotes from Meher Bâbâ, Nisargadatta Mahârâj, Ramana Mahârshi, Tripura Rahasya, the Yoga Vâsishtha, some favorite Zen and Sufi masters, western philosophers and scientists. The presentation here is from an advaitin viewpoint of "being responsible" within the dream, not a neo-advaitin viewpoint of "irresponsibility."

Jńâneshvar --a very short introduction to the life and work of the amazing 13th century yogi-sage-mystic-poet-philosopher, Sri Jńâneshvar or Jńânadev (c.1275-1296), with exerpts from his letter of friendship to Changadev, one of the most significant gems ever written on God and relationship.

Bhagavân Srî Ramana Mahârshi (1879-1950), Self-Abidance, and the Way of "Who Am I?" --this was for years the principal website on the towering advaita sage of the 20th century, widely beloved as Bhagavân, Lord, seen by many as a Divine Incarnation of wisdom; also a great parabhakta or nondually-oriented devotee of the One Self in all. Ramana is still available to sincere aspirants in visions and dreams, but chiefly available as your very own formless Self! This is a link to Graham Boyd's website. For the now official Sri Ramanasramam website, click here. Two other really excellent and comprehensive websites on Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi are longtime Ramana author and researcher David Godman's Bhagavan, His Life and Teachings and "Ramanamayi" Jane Molnar's Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi . And see a great collection of the Maharshi's wisdom at Teachings of Ramana Mahârshi, Encyclopedic Dictionary by spiritual brother Steve Beckow, who has tirelessly assembled the wisdom of a number of modern-era sages, grouped by topic and arranged alphabetically. Further links for nondual teachings by Râmakrishna, Jiddu Krishnaműrti, and the American sage Franklin Merrell-Wolff, all arranged by Steve, can be accessed here.

Srî Nisargadatta Mahârâj (1897-1981) --Bombay's fiery sage of supremely liberating wisdom, the most renowned teacher of advaita nonduality in India's latter 20th century. Here are several great photos of the Maharaj physical form (truly, he is/was bodiless!), a long inspiring biography (with numerous under-reported facts about the man), several people's accounts of meeting the sage (including my linked page of diary-notes and tape-transcripts), and the Maharaj's extensive teachings, including some devotional lyrics, the free online book I Am the Absolute, and Carrasco's 80 pages of excerpts from the classic text, I Am That: Conversations with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj--thus making this one of the most inclusive and informative pages on Nisargadatta Maharaj on the entire Internet or in print.

Dadaji of Calcutta (c.1910-92) --Ann Mills' generous website on the amazingly mind-blowing, wonderfully heart-opening Dadaji ("Elder Brother") Amiya Roy Chowdhury of Calcutta, with free downloads of books and booklets on this master of nondual devotion and wisdom, a veritable Incarnation of Love whose life abounded with miraculous events, and who deserves to be much more widely known.

Zen Humorous Wisdom Page --for several months this long Zen humor page was linked only through the Spiritual Humor webpage; but it deserves to be linked here for the wonderfully witty and profound nondual wisdom from our ancient friends in the Ch'an tradition in China, Zen in Japan, Son in Korea. And check out those delightfully whimsical Zen paintings!

Bankei Yotaku (1622-93), Zen Master of the “Unborn” --profiles the interesting life and amazingly simple, direct, potent wisdom of one of the most impressive Japanese Zen masters of the last half millennium, widely famed for his direct-intuitive teaching to "stay unborn (fu-sho)!"

Deconstructive Inquiry into Negative Self-Judgments --an insightful and useful expansion, by dear friend John Prendergast, of The Work, famously originated by Byron Katie. This can help anyone, especially therapists and their clients, to release negative self-judgments and open up to the spacious Awareness that is our Real Nature or True Identity.

Inner-Quest.org website --this excellent website run by some advaita friends in France (with ample English section) has a wealth of material on various modern-era jńâni-sages of India, including one of my own mentors, Srî Nisargadatta Mahârâj, as well as Srî Rańjit Mahârâj, Harilal Poonja (Papaji), and many others.

Advaita, ethics, authentic and inauthentic sages --Here are various materials about the controversy that erupted in early 2005 over my old friend Ramesh Balsekar, one of the primary exponents of neo- or pseudo-advaita. This long webpage includes two essays I wrote on the topic of Advaita and ethics and "the 4 kinds of authentic and inauthentic spiritual teachers." These letters could just as easily have been included at our "Healthy Spirituality" section. The same could be said of my and others' detailed critique of Adi Da (Franklin Jones) and critiques of Osho Rajneesh and Bhagavan Kalki and his Deeksha Oneness Movement as well as the very critical response letters about Sathya Sai Baba that I wrote as open communications to his ardent devotees, concerning the documented allegations of his sexual molestation of minors and his other serious violations of Dharma (Virtue, Righteousness). In the cases of Ramesh and these four very problematic "God-men," Âdi Da, Bhagwân Rajneesh/Osho, Bhagavân Kalki, and Sathya Sâî Bâbâ, there is tragic confusion betrayed by them and by their devotees over Real Advaita (which upholds a functional distinction between the "Two truth levels"--Absolute level and conventional-moral level) and pseudo-Advaita (which blurs these two truth-levels for rationalizing unaccountability and excusing dysfunctional, exploitative behavior). Neo-Advaita or Pseudo-Advaita and Real Advaita is an even more extensive clarification of the "two truth levels" and how this is in various ways distorted and prostituted by those in the new-wave camp of contrarian, depersonalizing, apathy promoting, unhealthily absolutizing "pseudo-advaitins" :-) I've added some things here that others have had to say about this rampant "Advaita Disease." I've followed this with a long piece assessing the positive and not-so-positive aspects of the modern-era sage Papaji (Harilal Poonja). This is followed by a critique and discussion of the charging of money that goes on in most neo-advaita circles. The last part of this long web-page features a discussion (with friend Nirmala) of the current and future state of advaita instruction in the West.


Douglas Harding and the Simple Way of No-thing-like Headlessness --a brief introduction to and autobiographical excerpt from a classic text on nondual spiritual realization, On Having No Head, by my old friend, the eminent British mystic Douglas Harding (1909-2007), a rare spiritual genius who freely helped make the realization of Pure Awareness so easily accessible, live-able, and delightful by simply pointing back to the vast, invisible Open No-thingness from which we all see, hear, feel, think and be. Follow the link to the website on Douglas created by Richard Lang at www.headless.org and check out Douglas' amazing "experiments" to see Who You Really Are.

Again, a reminder that a number of our greatest "nondual" sages (Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Jesus [in the Thomas and John Gospels], Meister Eckhart, Bayazid Bistami, Hakim Sana'i, Moshe Cordovero, et al.) are already featured in the Religion and Spirituality section at this website.

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Beyond all complications of the uncomplicated, enjoy being thy Real Self, everywhere and nowhere (NOW-HERE), as everyone and no one but the One...