You’ve read all the Non-Duality books and have been going to non-duality speakers for years. You still have not got this.

Along comes Jenny Upstart who, after a few weeks exposure to non-duality, is walking across Clapham Common one day and, with a blinding flash of awareness, gets it.  She then declares herself a realized and liberated soul and starts to teach all about non-duality.

You are a member of the audience at one of her meetings and put your hand up to ask a question?

“Is there anything I can do to get this?”

Jenny says: “No, there is nothing you can do. There is no you, so there is no you to do or get anything?”

This seems so unfair to you. Why her, and not you? You are the one who has been a spiritual seeker for years and years. Read more

This week I was watching an episode of the television program ‘In Treatment” in which a therapist talks to his clients and also has to deal with problems with his partner. What the program illustrated is how humans hang on to things, and how much suffering happens as a result.

How much do you cling to your:

• Possessions?
• Ideas?
• Emotional issues?
• You sense of importance?
• Beliefs?

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I watched a DVD of  The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra this weekend.  The DVD was a bit commercial for my liking as it appeared to equate spirituality with worldly success. Whilst I have nothing against the commercial world, I do not link success in this sphere as necessarily having anything to do with spirituality.

One phrase that Deepak used did stand out for me. He recommended that our approach to life should be one where we ‘observe and allow.’ If you can do this then you may  see what non-duality is.

Most of the time you do not observe and allow. You get caught up with whatever is happening. Thoughts constantly come into awareness. Events happen to you and you react, usually according to a behaviour pattern formed when you were young. There is also a lot of rejection that goes on:

• I don’t want this
• I don’t like this
• Get me away from this

What happens if you observe what is going on from moment to moment and then, instead of reacting, judging or rejecting, you simply allow what is happening to happen? Read more

Some teachers of  non-duality state that there is nothing that you can do to get what non-duality is. They talk as if awakening is some sort of accident or random event that occurs and then you ‘get’ it. This message can get you down.

By listening to lots of non-duality teachings, and reading books about it, you can come to the intellectual understanding that yes, everything is oneness, there is no separate self, the world that you see is an illusion and so on.  Then the teachings point to some seminal moment, some event (often described as a non-event!) when the teacher got it – and you want it too.

I remember having  a conversation with someone after a meeting  with a non-duality teacher. He said that he, the seeker, was on the outside, and the teacher was on the inside and the two would never meet!  This is the classic duality. He’s got it I haven’t. I am not awake, he is.

Another teacher said that there is nothing anyone can do to get this – but then he stated that on his retreats one or two people do. This implies that attending his retreats is definitely something you can do to have a chance of getting this.

So where do I stand on this?

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