Do You Need To Go to the Extreme?

Imagine yourself high up on Mount Everest. There is a severe storm blowing as you shelter in your tent knowing that many have died on this mountain. This could be your last day on Earth. You are cut off from your family, the local Starbucks, your big screen TV, your friends. You are stripped of all the comforts of civilisation and have little control over what the weather and the mountain will do to you. What is that like? What do you feel?

Maria Coffey in her book Explorers of The Infinite explores the experiences of extreme sports practitioners such as mountaineers, surfers and canoeists. Faced with death they often enter a space where the self appears to diappear. Maria says:

“When the Self disappears, so does doubt and with it the fears and anxieties that inhibit the human potential, both physical and mental. Letting go of the mind can open the way to the seemingly impossible.”

The way that these athletes describe  such moments is similar to how non-dualists talk. There is a letting go of the self and and sense of wholeness or non-separateness. Unlike the non-duality community there is no shared language in which to express their experiences. Many do not talk about what they have been through. In the macho culture of extreme sports, to be a mystic may be thought to be a bit odd to say the least.

People often ask whether there is anything that you can do to get non-duality. Well, you could climb Mount Everest and see what happens. However there is no guarantee that you would have a non-dual experience and you might die, so I would not recommend this course of action. You could try some less dangerous way – jumping out of a plane, surfing a big wave – anything that puts you right up against nature and danger. That certainly would be fun, but again, you may not get any insight into non-duality from this.

I once heard of someone who got it after being near death through food poisoning on an India train. You could try eating a rancid pie. In the search for answers people try lots of strange things -

• fasting
• nude snow bathing
• hallucinogenic plants
• talking to animals and spirit guides
• chakra cleansing
• unnatural breathing

Instead of spiritual practices or putting your body into extreme conditions, why not let go of the whole thing. There is nothing out there. There is nothing to find. You already have it.