"Having realized that I am with, and yet beyond the world, I became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free, I found myself free, unexpectedly, without the least effort. This freedom from desire and fear remained with me since then. Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts become self-fullfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious."
"The person, the "I am this body, this mind, this chain of memories, this bundle of desires and fears" disappears, but something you may call identity remains. It enables me to become a person when required. "
The above selections from the thought of Nisargadatta, a man of profound insight. Although not deliberately discussed in the above selection, his thoughts caused me to reflect on one aspect of the concept of nonduality. Nonduality literally means "not two", and the initial assumption is that nonduality therefore means "one" or "unity". This has been reinforced by similar slogans like "we are all one" and so forth, but this is only correct in a limited fashion.
When something is in unity, or one, that specifically means that there is no distinction between a portion and another portion. Two lumps of clay molded into a single lump would be an excellent example of this. However, the concept of unity itself is based on the assumption of at least the possibility of non-unity as a reference. Consider a mason jar full of air but tightly sealed. The air in the jar is certainly part of the total atmosphere of the earth, but is separate. When the seal is broken, it once more returns to being an undifferentiated part of the total atmosphere despite it's previous specific reference to being the air contained in my mason jar.
This is the sum of our existence. The underlying matrix of reality I call Awareness, and is undifferentiated, infinite, extending without quality in all directions. When we are conceived we are part of that undifferentiated Awareness, but temporarily possess the phenomenal quality of physical existence and the birth of individuality and thought. When the body wears our, we return to the sea of Awareness. Was that sea of Awareness changed by our temporary incarnation? Absolutely not! How can something without qualities change in qualities? Awareness as described above can only be described specifically (in limited fashion) in the negative.
