Real-World Nonduality

by Greg Goode

  There were further implications, of course. I have a career as a teacher of mathematics. How could I go back to school the following Monday and teach my students something I’d discovered had no basis in objective fact? I’ll tell you how: like I’d always done, that’s how.

  It would have been easy at that point to go on and say that I’d seen through mathematics, that ultimately the whole field was a lie. That it was a house built on sand and I wanted nothing more to do with it. But to say all of that would have been a huge mistake and a mixing of levels. It would, in effect, have been giving credence to the thought that mathematics isn’t true. A statement that is nothing more than a brand new abstract concept. I hadn’t come this far to be tripped up by fresh beliefs masquerading as nondual truths. That thought arises out of and dissolves back into awareness just like any other. I am as free of that statement as I am about thoughts of oranges and arithmetic. The freedom that results from carrying out these inquiries leads to liberation from any such belief.

  Suspending disbelief

  Downstairs from me at school is the English department, where they teach a lot of Shakespeare. If you watch or study the works of the Bard you don’t have to assume that Romeo and Juliet have their own reality outside of the play in order to enjoy the drama. You can get involved in the story without having to believe any of it is true. There is a willing suspension of disbelief. For me it is exactly the same with mathematics.

  I am just as free to teach mathematics now as I was before, but with perhaps a touch more lightness. There is no need to treat mathematics as something inherently true that stands apart from who I am. It isn’t that there is some monolithic entity called mathematics that exists over there while little old me remains over here, the two coming together periodically in order to exasperate teenage students. It’s more the case that teaching situations, squiggly equations on the whiteboard, complex questions, and thoughts about numbers arise out of awareness and dissolve back to where they came from. It isn’t that I even need to treat any of these arisings as self-contained objects. They certainly aren’t separate from who I am.

  The implications for this far exceed mathematics, of course. If no thought ever refers to anything objective then there is never a need to take any thought seriously. This includes all of our beliefs, which are really nothing but thoughts and attitudes taken about other thoughts. Beliefs are just concepts. So if no thought can be verified in direct experience, then no belief can be verified either.

  Most of us live lives that are shaped by our attitudes to the beliefs we hold. Think of some of the many beliefs we entertain in our daily lives each and every day:

  My team is the best.

  There is a god who causes good and bad things to happen.

  What goes around comes around.

  Coffee is bad for you.

  I’m not worthy.

  She is ugly.

  I am fat.

  When you die you are dead, nothing more than that.

  Winter is coming.

  I’ll never get a tune out of this violin.

  That bit when he said he went for an ice cream didn’t really add anything to the narrative, did it?

  These people are taking our jobs.

  Many of the beliefs we hold are fairly neutral, but many can be a source of conflict or suffering, often on a global scale. If my beliefs lead me to think I can persecute other members of society or that I am in some way not good enough, then something is perhaps not quite right. This is where the direct-path enquiry on concepts can also help.

  Remember, the point isn’t to say that thoughts aren’t true. If that was the case then that would mean that the opposite to any belief could be the real truth instead. I could rewrite the list above with the opposite viewpoint and they would still be a set of beliefs with the potential for causing conflict or suffering. No, the point being made here is that a belief makes a claim that it somehow mirrors some situation or state of affairs that exists objectively somewhere “out there.” As this enquiry into thought, both concrete and abstract, shows, this is never the experience.

  Seeing through beliefs

  So perhaps I believe that I am a danger to other vehicles when I drive my car. By inquiring into each part of that particular belief—the existence of something I call “my car,” the me that drives the car, the concept of danger, the objectivity of other vehicles, the question of “when” something happens—I can start to see through such a belief. And when the objectivity of each aspect of the belief is realized to be nothing more than witnessing awareness, then it can be seen that it isn’t that my belief was wide of the mark, but that there was never any mark in the first place. It isn’t that the belief contains elements of truth, or that the truth depends on context, or that I need to put a positive spin on what is being told and fix a wide grin to my face. Nondual enquiry isn’t about self-help and positive thinking; it’s far more powerful and liberating than that. It is seeing that the belief isn’t mirrored in any way in the world “out there” and it is allowed to collapse into awareness. No true or false position needs to be taken.

  I can quite happily interact with my friends and family, my community, my colleagues, and my career without having to get all nondual and say that none of it is real so I don’t have to bother or care. I can entertain all manner of thoughts without having to believe that what they say is ultimately true. I am also free to use thought as a tool in my everyday life without having to try to silence my mind with the attitude that because thoughts are neither true nor false in direct experience then they are useless in practical contexts and should be shunned. That would be just another example of nondual dogma gone wrong. It would also be another pesky concept.

  Back in the park I’d reached a point where I could bring my enquiry to completion. It was as if a weight had been lifted. All around me Saturday afternoon life went on. For me nothing had really changed, but in a way it felt like everything had. I felt a kind of relief and a great deal more spacious. It was as if thoughts and beliefs were passing through me, visiting rather than sticking around. I experimented with a few beliefs that I seemed to have been carrying around with me for many years—I believe that I am a teacher, I’m not great at parallel parking, I’m quite good at the guitar but if I practised more then I would be a hell of a lot better. All of these beliefs seemed to float away. They ceased to have any kind of power.

  With this new-found lightness I packed up my things to return home on a high. There would be no need to treat any belief as either true or false again. And even though I didn’t need to believe that thought, it was certainly liberating.

  35 Tolle, E. (2001) The Power of Now, Yellow Kite 36 Blackadder II, episode 2, “Head,” BBC TV, January 1986 37 See Reading List: The Direct Path: A User Guide, p. 35.

  The Direct Path and Emptiness

  by Sandra Pippa

  “ The case of the direct path and emptiness teachings is an interesting example of two views that overlap to some extent. They appear to have different goals, one awareness, the other Emptiness, and it’s possible to conflate the two goals, which would be a mistake. But both paths lead to liberation from the belief of a separate personal existence, and both use techniques of self-inquiry to get there.”

  From advaita to emptiness teachings

  I’ve known about the direct path for a long time, but I chose not to be a follower when I put my Advaita books on the shelf more than a decade ago. I’d been a devoted student of Vedanta38 for many years but switched to Buddhism and the emptiness teachings,39 a study that changed my life and is still going strong.

  I would eventually get a feel for the direct path, and sort out what it was that made me question absolute values like Sat, Chit, Ananda.40 But I’d need to struggle and I’d need to learn a lot more about what it means to inquire into the nature of things, myself included.

  Why did I turn away from a te
aching I dearly loved to embrace a philosophy that doesn’t even recognize the one true Self? Was this a conscious move or an intuitive decision?

  By intuition people usually mean a sense of knowing something whose source is mysterious. My own take on intuition includes a déjà-vu sense that what’s being experienced is related to something I’d learned long ago but had forgotten. I don’t usually think of a decision as intuitive at the time I make it. Often enough, I only realize that after the fact, sometimes years later.

  Intuition can be alluring and it got hold of me one night back in the 1980s. I went to attend a lecture on philosophy that was being held in a mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I followed the receptionist to a majestic room with a person up front who was speaking about unusual things. The message was that we are all more than just connected: we are the same being. The speaker was talking about the Atman,41 and I was smitten. I left the building starry-eyed that night. Walking on Lexington Avenue to the subway back to Brooklyn was like walking on air.

  I returned again and again to that place and became one among many dedicated students at The School of Practical

  Philosophy. I loved the teaching. The people there became family and we studied and practiced together for years. We read the Gita,42 studied the Upanishads,43 practiced calligraphy, and worked with attention exercises. We came to weekly classes and participated in “service,” attended retreats, and meditated twice daily. All was done with the goal of reconnecting to the source of our true nature: knowledge, truth, and bliss. I’m happy I followed my gut feeling, as what I learned there about nonduality set me on a course I don’t regret.

  Bumps in the road

  That’s not to say that all was well at The School in those days. I found out there were prices to pay for this teaching of liberation. I remember the day the women were each called in for an interview with the head of our New York School. I sat stiff in my small chair, apprehensive before this tall man at his big desk while he asked me personal questions like whether I’d ever had an abortion. He admonished me to always surrender to my husband and “through The School to the Absolute.” The women were taught in classes separate from the men, who were given secret, “higher” teachings that the women weren’t privy to. Women were encouraged to leave careers and stay home with children. One of my best friends, a high-spirited and gifted woman, was getting up daily at 4:00 a.m. to iron her husband’s underwear!

  Why did we put up with that? I admit that back then I wasn’t equipped to challenge the blatant sexist attitudes and behaviors rampant there. I was uncomfortable at times, but mostly I was clueless and content to be reading and studying the ancient scriptures. I trusted those higher up in The School who said that the only way to make progress was to practice more, to work harder, and to keep doing what I was told. I didn’t see that some of the bad feelings and thoughts I had about myself were not just engendered by the patriarchal system, the hierarchy in place in that institution, but were also reinforced by it. Lucky for me a rebel would take up residence next to the softy in my naive heart.

  After I’d been at Philosophy School for several years, a day school was created as instructed by the higher-ups in London so the dream of providing a place where youngsters could grow up with this philosophy could finally come true. We were persuaded to take our children out of the schools they were in and bring them over to the new day school, and that’s what many of us did.

  It seemed like a wonderful opportunity, but there were bumps in the road. One day our drive into Manhattan was slow due to an accident on the highway, and I was nervous that our six-year-old would be late for school. When I walked him into his class, his teacher glared at us and sternly instructed our son to go to the side of the room and wait. I realized my boy was being singled out,and would be punished for being late. Why? Why not welcome an innocent one with a smile? A lot of feelings and ideas came to the surface. I thought about all the times I’d been made to feel miserable there because of a misguided sense of privilege. Hurting my child was the last straw.

  We made our exit shortly after that. I found out later our son was shamed and made to stand alone before the rest of his classmates and explain to them why he was leaving. He cried himself to sleep for weeks. I never quite forgave myself for putting him through that, and I’ll never know if he ever really got over it. It’s been hard to forgive the self-righteous man who took it upon himself to inflict pain on so many, especially little ones, in the name of the glorified Self.

  Searching for the self

  Leaving The School of Practical Philosophy was like moving to a foreign country. There was a rule in place that members weren’t to associate with people who dropped out. We were shunned, we were traitors! Or worse, lost souls. It was a struggle, but there was solace in finding nondual teachings alive and well on the outside. I found the world of satsangs in New York City. It was an exciting time.

  As much as I liked meeting teachers like Francis Lucille and Wayne Liquorman, the frustration I found at Philosophy School accompanied me when I left. I may have had dazzling insights at times, but I could not connect all the way with the teaching, could not access my Self. Neti neti44 was becoming, “not this, not this, thou art that something over there, stretch, reach for it, you can do it!...No wait, it’s right here, so twist around back...”

  Not only that, I kept running into the problem of teachers getting in the way of teaching.

  I encountered a “my way or the highway” mentality more than once or twice at satsangs where the guy at the front of the room clearly enjoyed being revered in the eyes of some at the expense of others.

  But I kept reading. I read books on Zen, books on awareness, book after book. I learned about Sri Atmananda from a friend, and I read through the two soft blue booklets Atma Darshan and Atma Nivriti.45 Here was a different take on a teaching I’d been following and practicing for many years. Maybe I’d finally found the right approach, a systematic way that would straighten things out for me.

  The Middle Way

  Right about the same time I discovered the texts of the great Tibetan interpreters of Buddha and began to have discussions with friends about The Middle Way. One day while reading a book on the emptiness teachings I could practically hear the concept of dependent origination, the understanding that nothing exists independently of other things, sink down and click into place. I felt a chill ripple across my skin. Something powerful and heavenly was at work. It felt like I was engaged to a person I’d known all my life, but on the eve of my wedding I had met someone else, my soulmate.

  The emptiness teachings had a profound effect on my life. The draining effort to understand was replaced with a surprising new way of seeing. It meant that things I take as substantial like my family, my life, even the present moment, are actually wrongly perceived. My tendency to believe in some deep way that all things exist in and of themselves was being replaced by seeing no unique self in any object, idea, or feeling. That understanding applied to my seeking, to my self, and to awareness, too. And it came with a relaxing of the expectation for things to be a certain way. Not only was this a fascinating ancient teaching that made perfect sense, I’d found a springboard into a new world that included experiencing not just philosophy, art, and literature, but also my everyday life in ways that were creative and endless.

  The struggle to understand a way to be at one with myself loosened its grip once the concept of dependent arising settled in. No ultimate essence to be, to see, or to understand. We go looking for an object, or a self, and we find its absence—an absence that still allows a thing to exist, but in what emptiness teachings call a “conventional” way. I came to see conventional existence as incredibly meaningful and precious because that’s all there is. All things depend on other things in order just to be. This connection is crucial but fragile and fleeting. If a rose, a person, or a mountain had ultimate existence in the way we usually think they do, everything would be static. Nothi
ng could unfold, grow, or change.

  You could say that how it came about that I turned away from the awareness teachings and the direct path is all wrapped up in circumstances and timing. There was no conscious decision on my part to leave one teaching and take up another. But looking back, I can see that something about Atmananda and his teachings reminded me of the downside of my days at The School of Practical Philosophy. There was that striking photo of Atmananda Krishna Menon in Atma Darshan, sitting cross-legged, so still, so stern. A beautiful patriarch. One more man looking straight at me telling me what’s what.

  Patriarchal sexism

  My views continue to clarify as to how the past seems to affect the way things unfold. I look at how people treat each other, the privileges they assume. A friend recently sent me a book about two people I’d become acquainted with back in my Philosophy School days. The book is titled The Power Within,46 by Dorine Tolley. It tells the story of Leon MacLaren, a British gentleman who founded our Philosophy School headquartered in England. His teaching derived from Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, then ultimately HH Santananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of the Northern Seat of the four centers for Vedic teaching in India, established by Adi Shankara around 800 A.D.

  Dorine Tolley was years younger than Mr. MacLaren and was his constant companion from the time she was barely 20 years old in 1973 until his death in 1994. Her book is about their lives, their round-the-world trips visiting and managing the various schools opened under Mr. MacLaren’s guidance. His ability to disseminate the perennial teaching to thousands of others is legendary. Dorine saw greatness in Mr. MacLaren, felt it her duty to serve him, and did not want to let him down when he clearly valued her highly and needed her badly. They were not a married couple. Dorine was Mr. MacLaren’s aide, and in the book she portrays herself as someone who cherished and honored the 20 years she spent at the side of this remarkable man.