The illusion of separation was a necessary intelligence.

[Mellowmarsh]

The illusion doesn’t mean separation is non existent, it simply means the illusion was essentially a must for oneness to feel a sense of belonging coupled with the sense of sanity.

Imagine if you woke up one morning to discover that you were the only person on the planet that was alive, and that everyone else had simply vanished out of existence leaving only yourself, alone, completely alone. Imagine that, surely you’d go insane in an instant.

 

That’s why duality had to be, it’s the most intelligent illusion, it couldn’t have been any other way, so relax, because you’re never alone.

 

We’re all going through the same experience. Take comfort in that knowledge. You’re alone and so is everyone else.

[LordFall]

I agree, sexual dimorphism is great.

For a lion to be a lion there must be lionesses

And humans are even more of an apex than Lions. Life is good. 

[Mellowmarsh]

For a chicken to be a chicken there must be an egg. 🥚 

[Adrian colby]

The one is absolute, not relative. The duality that is required to acknowledge aloneness which must first imply ‘other’ and then absence of ‘other’ has not yet occurred.

saying that the absolute would be unbearably lonely is projecting a dualistic psychological state onto a condition in which the distinction for loneliness hasn't yet occurred. 

the absolute is not a ‘thing’. It is infinite. It has no form, no boundary, no distinction and would not recognise itself as anything or alone , only pure existence existing, no thought process. It is one, complete, perfection before it creates ‘alone’ by making distinctions relative to self and other.

when it makes distinctions, you get the ‘appearance’ of a form relative to another form. There are always two or more distinctions in relationship (reality/relativity/relational).

the continued consciousness of the relationship is vital to maintaining perception of unity or the whole. 

take the simplest example of a ‘dot’. You can’t actually perceive a dot in isolation. It is always relative to something else, in this case the surrounding field ( like the white page or background in which the dot occurs) 

In a relative space there is no such thing as an isolated object. The object is always in relationship to something else, even the space in which it is situated. There are always two or more distinctions in a reality. The dot and the background unfold out of each other from an undifferentiated absolute but they are not separate isolated objects. They only exist in relationship to one another and cannot be separate. Like waves in an ocean. They appear like distinct and separate objects  unless you maintain the awareness they are ocean through the unified relationship between them

The illusion of separation occurs when you take something in reality to be an isolated object while not being conscious of the other distinctions against which the object is contrast. 
 

the same happens in polarisation. When you take two aspects of your own mind, form an attachment identity with one and push the other down into your unconscious shadow which you project as an adversary or oppositional status that belongs to what you consider to be ‘not you’. 
 

the same with sexual dimorphism. Everything on a sexual spectrum within the same species diverges from the same undifferentiated initial structure or shared blueprint. All are both male and female in potential within the same body. Which is why there is the possibility of hermaphrodite lions. Differentiation happens along an infinite sliding spectrum.  The polarity or appeaeance of one sex is due to the arbitrary ranges we assign while ignoring the aspects of the opposite polarity within the same body. What we call male or female are simply bodies containing different male:female ratios, not mutually exclusive sexes ( which is not biologically possible otherwise they would not be the same species). the dimorphism of a sexed body mirrors the same emergent mechanism of the universe.

when the two collapse into being one in the same as the self( two intrinsic aspects of the self), that is when you become conscious of unity and transcend polarity

distinctions reveals relationship, whereas separation occurs when the mind abstracts a distinction from its relationships and treats it as self-existing.

 

[Mellowmarsh]

5 hours ago, Adrian colby said:

The one is absolute, not relative. The duality that is required to acknowledge aloneness which must first imply ‘other’ and then absence of ‘other’ has not yet occurred.

saying that the absolute would be unbearably lonely is projecting a dualistic psychological state onto a condition in which the distinction for loneliness hasn't yet occurred. 

the absolute is not a ‘thing’. It is infinite. It has no form, no boundary, no distinction and would not recognise itself as anything or alone , only pure existence existing, no thought process. It is one, complete, perfection before it creates ‘alone’ by making distinctions relative to self and other.

when it makes distinctions, you get the ‘appearance’ of a form relative to another form. There are always two or more distinctions in relationship (reality/relativity/relational).

the continued consciousness of the relationship is vital to maintaining perception of unity or the whole. 

take the simplest example of a ‘dot’. You can’t actually perceive a dot in isolation. It is always relative to something else, in this case the surrounding field ( like the white page or background in which the dot occurs) 

In a relative space there is no such thing as an isolated object. The object is always in relationship to something else, even the space in which it is situated. There are always two or more distinctions in a reality. The dot and the background unfold out of each other from an undifferentiated absolute but they are not separate isolated objects. They only exist in relationship to one another and cannot be separate. Like waves in an ocean. They appear like distinct and separate objects  unless you maintain the awareness they are ocean through the unified relationship between them

The illusion of separation occurs when you take something in reality to be an isolated object while not being conscious of the other distinctions against which the object is contrast. 
 

the same happens in polarisation. When you take two aspects of your own mind, form an attachment identity with one and push the other down into your unconscious shadow which you project as an adversary or oppositional status that belongs to what you consider to be ‘not you’. 
 

the same with sexual dimorphism. Everything on a sexual spectrum within the same species diverges from the same undifferentiated initial structure or shared blueprint. All are both male and female in potential within the same body. Which is why there is the possibility of hermaphrodite lions. Differentiation happens along an infinite sliding spectrum.  The polarity or appeaeance of one sex is due to the arbitrary ranges we assign while ignoring the aspects of the opposite polarity within the same body. What we call male or female are simply bodies containing different male:female ratios, not mutually exclusive sexes ( which is not biologically possible otherwise they would not be the same species). the dimorphism of a sexed body mirrors the same emergent mechanism of the universe.

when the two collapse into being one in the same as the self( two intrinsic aspects of the self), that is when you become conscious of unity and transcend polarity

distinctions reveals relationship, whereas separation occurs when the mind abstracts a distinction from its relationships and treats it as self-existing.

 

All words are descriptive as “something known” in this conception, something is known, and this something knows nothing. That’s the illusion of duality known in the instant knowing arises, one with the knowing. 
One ( absolute ) - ( non dual ) cannot know itself without splitting into (knower and known ) ( subject and object ) duality.
That’s the necessary illusion that must be for any “thing” to be known, albeit illusory, because “ things “ known , know nothing.

[Mellowmarsh]

When “something” is known - “nothing” is known in the exact same instant knowing arises, one with the knowing. 
One with, implies a there’s a duality present. 
 

The only thing known for absolute certain is that there is an awareness of being Aware, one with the knowing in the immediacy knowing arises. ( duality present )

Nothing else is known beyond the immediacy of this immediate aware presence. Everything else is linguistic aka thoughts, all of which are the illusion of maya. 

[Breakingthewall]

On 7/8/2026 at 10:04 AM, Mellowmarsh said:

Imagine if you woke up one morning to discover that you were the only person on the planet that was alive, and that everyone else had simply vanished out of existence leaving only yourself, alone, completely alone. Imagine that, surely you’d go insane in an instant.

You would get insane if you have been programmed by genetics to be a social being from billions of years. If you had been programmed to be alone you will be ok alone. 

 

[Adrian colby]

4 hours ago, Mellowmarsh said:

When “something” is known - “nothing” is known in the exact same instant knowing arises, one with the knowing. 
One with, implies a there’s a duality present. 
 

The only thing known for absolute certain is that there is an awareness of being Aware, one with the knowing in the immediacy knowing arises. ( duality present )

Nothing else is known beyond the immediacy of this immediate aware presence. Everything else is linguistic aka thoughts, all of which are the illusion of maya. 

I don’t disagree that the Absolute cannot know anything prior to distinction, because there is nothing “other” to be known. There is no knower and known yet. But I think you’re conflating the distinction necessary for knowing with the illusion of separation.

The moment the One makes a distinction between knower and known, you don’t get two isolated things. You get relationship ( a unity or ‘oneness’)  Knower only exists as knower relative to what is known, and known only exists as known relative to a knower. They arise together. That is duality as distinction, but it is not separation.

This is why I prefer the word ‘appearance’ to ‘illusion’ when talking about manifestation/reality. Illusion can imply that what appears should be dismissed as unreal( which goes against the point of a reality at all). The forms appear, distinctions appear and relationships appear. The illusion of separation occurs when the mind takes one of those distinctions out of its relational context and conceptualises it as an independently existing object. It stops seeing oneness or unity and falls into the illusion that there is a separation. 

Again, dot on a page. The dot cannot appear as a dot in isolation. It only becomes distinct relative to the field surrounding it. Dot and background arise as distinctions together. Remove every possible contrast, boundary and relationship and “dot” ceases to mean anything. Dot collapses.

the Absolute cannot ‘know’ itself without distinction. It is otherwise ‘being’ not a thing. I would describe distinction as an outward movement ( while we are limited by language to describe an intangible mechanism). it projects itself into its appearances, creating distinction, relationship and therefore something that can be known. And known at increasingly complex degrees inevitably getting lost in an illusion that the knower is exclusively separate. 

But there is also the inverse movement.

When mind turns back inward and begins deconstructing what appeared to be independently existing “things”, it finds relationships within relationships. The more completely the apparent multiplicity is deconstructed, the harder it becomes to locate anything that exists entirely by itself. The illusion wasn’t the appearance of multiplicity; it was taking those appearances to be exclusively separate. Eventually you arrive back at that which cannot itself be made into another isolated object,  not another “thing” among things, but the undifferentiated Absolute from which all the distinctions arose.

So there is an outward movement from one into distinction and an inward movement from distinction back into recognition of unity. Symbolically I represent this as toroidal movement (outward projection and inward reflection.) The movement between what is projected and what is reflected gives rise to knowing-with, consciousness ( from the Latin con-scius … which means ‘with knowing’)

And this is why I disagreed with your original example of the Absolute becoming lonely. Loneliness can only arise after distinction. “Alone” requires self, other, and then the perceived absence of other. A person waking up to discover everyone else has disappeared is already a subject within a differentiated reality. That isn’t the Absolute experiencing Oneness, it is a differentiated self experiencing the absence of other differentiated selves. The Absolute prior to distinction isn’t alone. “Alone” has no meaning there. So I agree that knowing requires duality in the sense of distinction. Where I disagree is treating distinction as separation. Distinction produces relationship. The illusion of separation begins when we perceive the distinctions but lose consciousness of the relationship through which those distinctions exist. We loose sight of unity