Active Pause

Many spiritual traditions seek to foster non-duality as a way of being in the world. This contrasts with duality, where we experience things and people as separate and other.

The problem with spiritual teachings is that they tend to express things in such lofty terms that they feel inaccessible to most of us. So, I want to find a down-to-earth experience that helps me relate to non-duality.

I have no trouble with the notion that we usually see things in dualistic terms. A simple experiment shows this very clearly. I raise my arm before my eyes and look at my hand. It appears as something separate and other.

Photo: SP

“I am seeing a hand.” There’s a subject, I, and an object, the hand. Even if I call it “my hand,” it’s like something I own instead of being me.

Early explorations

Most of us explore duality/non-duality with our hands early in life. Infants are fascinated by their hands and feet as if they were external objects like the mobile moving over their crib. Eventually, they realize they can control the movements of the hands and feet. And so, the duality disappears.

So, could it be that the non-duality that spiritual traditions talk about has something in common with the experience of infants noticing that their hands are not separate from them?

A simple experiment

Well, a simple experiment will void this hypothesis. I look at a big stone and try to get it to levitate or move through my intentions. I must face the conclusion that, unlike my hand, the stone is separate from me.

So, maybe we’re not talking here about seeing but sensing. There are moments when our separateness seems to melt into oneness: The experience of love, emotional or physical; swimming in harmony with the water; skiing downhill on a slope that is not overly challenging; lazily lying on the beach when the temperature is just right.

So, can I say that duality is related to seeing and non-duality is related to sensing?

There must be something to that. Sensing is turned inward, whereas seeing is turned outward. Seeing is an efficient skill that allows us to make our way in the world by discriminating between things we want and things we don’t want. It is action-oriented and perfectly adapted to hunting, gathering, building houses, etc.

However, sensing does not always give us that sense of unity.

Different experiences of sensing

There are plenty of times when sensing brings up a sense of separateness and otherness in us, essentially, when we sense danger. For instance, when you sense somebody hovering next to you, the possibility that this might be a hostile presence increases, and your body tightens up.

So, now, we have three different types of experiences.

There’s seeing, which is how we usually function in the world. Seeing things as “other” allows us to find ways to interact with them. If I realize I cannot levitate the stone through the power of my will, I must find a way to create a tool to do it.

There’s sensing danger, a capability that has obvious survival value.

Then, there is sensing safety and the potential for connection. This is when we experience the melting down of our defenses and that wonderful sense of oneness. It also has excellent evolutionary value and represents a big part of what makes us human. 

What does this tell us?

For one, it tells us that there are different ways of interacting with the world.