I used to be dissatisfied with my life so I became a spiritual seeker. I thought that enlightenment was the missing jigsaw piece that would complete my life. Most spiritual seekers come from a point of dissatisfaction. This can take the form of low self esteem, feeling like an outsider, or somehow knowing that there is something missing from life.

If you become awakened, then the dissatisfaction goes, the spiritual seeker has gone. Now what do you do? Read more

Who owns your life? In the early seventies I ’surrendered my life’ to an Indian Guru who rode around in a Rolls Royce and taught the knowledge of how to be free and liberated.

I remember meeting a fellow devotee in Manchester one evening. “Are you going to Satsang?” he asked.

There was a satsang or spiritual discourse meeting in the centre of town that was designed to attract new converts to the Guru’s way of life.

“No,” I replied, I’m going to the cinema to see a film starring Jimi Hendrix.”

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I watched the Channel 4 program Revelations on Sunday. It was about a group of people attending the Alpha Course over an 8 week period. The course is designed to turn agnostics into Christians. At the Alpha meetings participants are fed nice food by nice people and talked to by a nice smiling vicar who explains what Christianity can do for you. Participants  also join  small discussion groups who explore the meaning of life, and what Christianity is.

Most of the agnostics started out hostile to Christianity, but as the weeks went on, some of them began to get a lot of comfort and support from the course and its leaders.

Religion provides comfort and support for lots of people. Does non duality serve the same function? Read more

Is there a God Spot in the brain and will this cause you to get non-duality?

There are two stories about Jesus. One is from the Christian perspective where Jesus is the Son of God, performs miracles, gets crucified and then rises from the dead. The other version is the Muslim one where Jesus is a prophet amongst many prophets and is no greater than these other prophets.

What causes a Muslim to believe his version and a Christian to believe the other version? Is there some gene or ‘god spot’ in our bodies that causes us to believe?  Read more

I’ve been making an audio recording today where I have been trying to answer the question:

What is Non-Duality?

There is a problem that all non-duality teachers come against. How can you express what is essentially indescribable?

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Do you have to be a saint to awaken?

Many people believe that to awaken you need to be some sort of saint. In preparation for awakening some sort of purification is necessary. You follow rules of conduct in the hope that they will get you closer to enlightenment. Usually these rules involve abstinence:

• No alcohol
• No sex
• No meat
• No going down the pub with your friends
• No wild parties
• No cheating or lying

This is the image of the enlightened person that is portrayed a lot in the East where gurus are seen as holy saints whose morality is beyond reproach. Sometimes these gurus perform questionable acts such as having sex with a devotee, or amassing great  wealth whilst their followers live impoverished lives.

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Is non duality an escape?

This weekend I was reading about the astronauts that went to the moon. Many of them experienced marriage difficulties after they returned. One of the astronaut’s wives decided that to save her marriage she would turn to Jesus and God. As a result, her marriage lasted, whilst amongst the other astronauts there was a high rate of divorce.

This story illustrates how religion can be used as an escape hatch. Things are not going well in your life, you may have financial difficulties, relationship problems, a difficult teenage son going off the rails. In this time of recession job security has gone, you may feel your savings are at risk from collapsing banks, you have lost hope that the politicians can sort it all out. Faced with mounting problems it is understandable that you would want to escape by becoming religious.

Religion promises a better life either soon or after you die. If you follow the rules set down by a religion, your life will get better. Sometimes it does, as in the case of the astronaut’s wife.

There are a multitude of other things to turn to if you want to escape:

• drugs
• alcohol
• sex
• shopping
• gambling
• meditation
• non-duality

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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

What is Non-Duality?

According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the definition of Non-Duality is:

“Nondualism may be viewed as the understanding or belief that dualism or dichotomy are illusory phenomena. Examples of dualisms include self/other, mind/body, male/female, good/evil, active/passive, dualism/nondualism and many others. It is accessible as a belief, theory, condition, as part of a tradition, as a practice, or as the quality of union with reality.”

This is all a bit of a mind full, so let me try to approach this through an analogy.

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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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