Five Boats But No Oars
JEFF BUSBY CAMPGROUND, NATCHEZ TRACE, MS—I often talk about Mystical Oneness being a flowing experience from state to state since this is my everyday experience of life (Mortal, Soul, Radiance, Emptiness). In this morning’s Nonduality Highlights, there was an email exchange between Colin Drake and one of his readers discussing how we can’t stay in Pure Awareness (what I call Emptiness) and still function in the world, you have to “flip flop” between states. Drake uses a different vocabulary and a limited number of states (Pure Awareness and… non-Awareness?), but it’s good to see this matter addressed by someone other than myself—even if the dryness of typical nondual-speak makes me want to gag.
Note, when Drake speaks of Nonduality or the Nondual state, he’s talking about what I call Oneness (whereas Mystical Oneness has the additional Divine component).
Drake’s Reader: I have realised that I am unable to stay in a Nondual state if I go about my everyday business in the physical—Dual-world, but I have a knowing awareness that it is there and I can easily just be and see the illusion. So I can “flip flop” between the two. One view is the spiritual and one view is the physical. Is it possible to stay in the “spiritual” all the time and still function in the everyday world of duality?
Drake: Nonduality is not a state, for all states come and go, but a world-view that informs our actions and the way we relate to others and the world. There is actually no division between the spiritual and the physical for all is just consciousness, the former being associated with This when at rest (Pure Awareness) and the latter being identified with this when in motion, or manifesting as cosmic energy of which matter is a form. So there is no need to ‘stay’ in any state as one can never leave That which is (and we are) of which all is a manifestation. It may appear that we need to flip flop but this itself is just a (necessary) illusion caused by consciousness using our mind/bodies as instruments through which it can sense, contemplate, experience, engage with, interact in, enjoy and love its own manifestation. For all engagement and interaction requires (an appearance of) multiplicity, but the knowing (of Pure Awareness) allows this to be enjoyed as the play of consciousness without being deluded by it. Sure there are times when one will ‘nod off’ and temporarily overlook this ‘knowing’ but luckily this invariably leads to mental suffering … a sure sign that we need to wake up again by instantly seeing that this has occurred in Pure Awareness itself!
