Non-Duality does not mean there are no differences

[WelcometoReality]

7 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

Self is non-dual meaning not two. More specifically self is singular. Each self (if there are many) is one self.

Also in this context self refers to awareness.

Non-dual after realization because there no longer appears to be a separate self looking out from the body, rather seeing appears within the self. 

7 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

I do not understand why people say that non-duality means that there aren't differences or contrast within reality.

Oneness does not mean everything is the same. It just means everything is a part of one reality. 

Yeah there are differences but different like waves in an ocean is different waves but the same water.

In essence the banana and computer is the same beneath the appearance of them.

[Shambhu]

9 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

I would say they are a creation of my mind but it seems my mind is capable of creating many different things. Or I could say all of my dreams are different.

@WokeBloke They may all appear different, but they are all the same "mind stuff."  When the mind dreams of a tree, are you suggesting the dream tree is something different from mind?  If yes, then what?  If no, then you admit the mind and the tree are one and the same.

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Personally I don't subscribe to the unchanging reality idea. I admit I could be completely wrong but it seems to me reality is changing and deathless as opposed to unchanging. At the very least it is both changing and unchanging simultaneously.

Change is an illusion that is dependent upon time, but time appears in that which does not change.  

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And I agree the creator can only create from itself but the creator is capable of creating differences. The only thing the creator can't create is another creator.

Here again, the differences are only apparent.

I suggest you take some time and actually contemplate the examples given.  Don't try to make reality conform to your limited perspective.  Be open to seeing what is true from all vantage points.

[peanutspathtotruth]

"Banana" and "computer" are objects you're creating in your mind. You're actively constructing their reality as "things". Without your mind activity, there would not be the belief and therefore not the perception of there being carved out things with names and abstract generalizations ("bananas", "houses").

So without interpretation, there is just experience, just beingness, suchness, THIS very this, isness. That's all. You can't say anything about it, but it certainly is not differentiable from itself. It's one soup, and there is nothing else.

Concepts create differences. And from their perspective, when these are mentally created, these differences are real in this context. But any context is an interpretive layer. This is what Leo wants to teach you, this is what Peter Ralston amazingly teaches you in "The Book of Not Knowing".

Once you see it, it's obvious. You need to leave the mind and honestly observe reality. You're not doing that, you're looking through the filters of your already established mental construct of what all this here is. But you have no idea actually.

[RMQualtrough]

10 hours ago, vladorion said:

They're the same in essence, different in appearance.

That is difference.

[RMQualtrough]

15 minutes ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

"Banana" and "computer" are objects you're creating in your mind. You're actively constructing their reality as "things". Without your mind activity, there would not be the belief and therefore not the perception of there being carved out things with names and abstract generalizations ("bananas", "houses").

So without interpretation, there is just experience, just beingness, suchness, THIS very this, isness. That's all. You can't say anything about it, but it certainly is not differentiable from itself. It's one soup, and there is nothing else.

Concepts create differences. And from their perspective, when these are mentally created, these differences are real in this context. But any context is an interpretive layer. This is what Leo wants to teach you, this is what Peter Ralston amazingly teaches you in "The Book of Not Knowing".

Once you see it, it's obvious. You need to leave the mind and honestly observe reality. You're not doing that, you're looking through the filters of your already established mental construct of what all this here is. But you have no idea actually.

Difference creates difference.

Smoking a bunch of Salvia turns your entire visual field into one 2D flat blob. There are still multiple colors to that incomprehensible blob. That is difference.

Doesn't matter if you interpret X or Y.

[Shambhu]

11 hours ago, vladorion said:

They're the same in essence, different in appearance.

 

23 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

That is difference.

@RMQualtrough  Essence is what it is to be something.  Two things can have the same essence, but be different in appearance.  Two trees share the same essence, "treeness", but they will appear different.

[Nahm]

 

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A computer is not a banana and will never be a banana.

Computer & banana are thoughts which appear and are believed quickly, and it seems like there are separate things, and thus it seems like you are a separate thing which was born and will die.  Thought activity (and therein believing thoughts) slows down meditatively. 

Analogously, there are no computers and bananas in a dream. There is nothing ‘in’ a dream. 

One can not think enough to see reality as it is, as it is the activity of thinking which veils. The thoughts are dream too. 

Nonduality has no meaning in the sense the word doesn’t label or define anything, only points to what “it” is not. 

[Mason Riggle]

It's a strange loop. 

The difference between 'real' and 'apparent' is apparently real.. it appears to be real. 

Differences are 'real' because they are 'imagined' to be.. they 'seem to be'.. they 'appear to be'. 

I've said it 100+ times now... Is this forum 'real' or does it just 'appear to be real'?  What's the difference??? 

Is there a 'real difference' or is it just 'apparent difference'?  What's the difference? 

[peanutspathtotruth]

1 hour ago, RMQualtrough said:

Difference creates difference.

Smoking a bunch of Salvia turns your entire visual field into one 2D flat blob. There are still multiple colors to that incomprehensible blob. That is difference.

Doesn't matter if you interpret X or Y.

No, you say it is difference because it looks that way, because your mind says this is color x, this is color y. Being seemingly in a finite form is already an interpretation, an imagination. Yes, relatively there are differences. But absolutely, there aren't and can't be. It's not even a question because difference/sameness is not even a concept yet. If you don't see this directly, you will keep on pushing on your ingrained beliefs which you never saw through.

Don't get me wrong, difference is not bad. It is an appearance God chooses to experience itself as to explore itself and its beauty. But this appearance(!) of difference happens inside an utterly perfect unity of beingness. At the core, this is all you, all mind, all God, all Love. Again, if you don't see this directly then there is no point in arguing.

[RMQualtrough]

42 minutes ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

No, you say it is difference because it looks that way, because your mind says this is color x, this is color y. Being seemingly in a finite form is already an interpretation, an imagination. Yes, relatively there are differences. But absolutely, there aren't and can't be. It's not even a question because difference/sameness is not even a concept yet. If you don't see this directly, you will keep on pushing on your ingrained beliefs which you never saw through.

Don't get me wrong, difference is not bad. It is an appearance God chooses to experience itself as to explore itself and its beauty. But this appearance(!) of difference happens inside an utterly perfect unity of beingness. At the core, this is all you, all mind, all God, all Love. Again, if you don't see this directly then there is no point in arguing.

Appearance is within reality. Relative stuff is within reality. There is difference... No appearance of difference = nothingness, without even an appearance of somethingness. Nothingness and somethingness is already an appearing difference and is how existence even appears at all point blank.

A baby sees color X and Y the moment it is born. It doesn't even know what color or seeing is. The idea some people have is that if they just stop thinking thoughts and simply experience, magically all contrast vanishes. Not only do they see the truth that "this is all mind", but it just straight up vanishes.

Edited January 14, 2022 by RMQualtrough

[peanutspathtotruth]

5 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

Appearance is within reality.

Of course. Appearance IS reality, there is no difference between reality and appearance. But ultimately, what's actually there is neither difference nor sameness. Oneness comes closest to describing the actuality of reality, but it still implies the duality of oneness<->something that is not oneness (non-duality vs duality). To say "there is difference" is just as false as saying "I am a human". It's simply not true. Thought creates all stories, including the story of this experience. But it's just a story, it's not what's there. Before humanity arrived, there was nothing here to say "oh look, differences exist". No, there was just reality happening. "There is no difference" is not saying there is sameness instead of difference.

Nobody is denying that a fart has a different fragrant quality than a flower, but metaphysically speaking, a line in the sand does not create any real fragments of different things. All this is God, and an apparent difference in God does not create actual different things.

7 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

A baby sees color X and Y the moment it is born. It doesn't even know what color or seeing is.

When a baby is born, there is no self identity which then sees any color. There is just experience, just a unified field of being, just seeing. The content changes, of course, but there is illusion creating the idea of difference yet.

[RMQualtrough]

38 minutes ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

Of course. Appearance IS reality, there is no difference between reality and appearance. But ultimately, what's actually there is neither difference nor sameness. Oneness comes closest to describing the actuality of reality, but it still implies the duality of oneness<->something that is not oneness (non-duality vs duality). To say "there is difference" is just as false as saying "I am a human". It's simply not true. Thought creates all stories, including the story of this experience. But it's just a story, it's not what's there. Before humanity arrived, there was nothing here to say "oh look, differences exist". No, there was just reality happening. "There is no difference" is not saying there is sameness instead of difference.

Nobody is denying that a fart has a different fragrant quality than a flower, but metaphysically speaking, a line in the sand does not create any real fragments of different things. All this is God, and an apparent difference in God does not create actual different things.

When a baby is born, there is no self identity which then sees any color. There is just experience, just a unified field of being, just seeing. The content changes, of course, but there is illusion creating the idea of difference yet.

That is difference... I don't think people's brains, when they read "there is no difference", interpret it as "there is not sameness but multiplicity is of one total being". I think they interpret it to mean sameness.

That is surely what the OP means.

[Tim R]

16 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

A computer is not a banana and will never be a banana.

There is no computer and there is no banana. Those are thoughts. 

Neither sameness nor difference. Saying "the computer and the banana are the same" and saying "the computer and the banana are different" are both founded on the belief in the computer and the banana. 

[peanutspathtotruth]

20 minutes ago, RMQualtrough said:

That is difference... I don't think people's brains, when they read "there is no difference", interpret it as "there is not sameness but multiplicity is of one total being". I think they interpret it to mean sameness.

That is surely what the OP means.

Yes in your mind and from your view it is difference. If it is interpreted that way then that is wrong. Neither sameness nor difference, that's what non duality means - both are true from a certain perspective, but not ultimately. It's very obvious and simple.

[Khan 0]

19 hours ago, WokeBloke said:

I think saying

If you say i think, you have no idea what non duality is. ??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️ Ask yourself first, where is the i who thinks?

Edited January 14, 2022 by Khan 0

[WokeBloke]

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

 

Computer & banana are thoughts which appear and are believed quickly, and it seems like there are separate things, and thus it seems like you are a separate thing which was born and will die.  Thought activity (and therein believing thoughts) slows down meditatively. 

Analogously, there are no computers and bananas in a dream. There is nothing ‘in’ a dream. 

One can not think enough to see reality as it is, as it is the activity of thinking which veils. The thoughts are dream too. 

Nonduality has no meaning in the sense the word doesn’t label or define anything, only points to what “it” is not. 

this isn't about whether everything is separate it's about if there are different things.

Take these two words:

apple and tomato

 

Are these two words the same or diferent?

[Nahm]

@WokeBloke

There is very literally not two, in any way. Thoughts appear & are believed, and so it seems like there is.