Talk:Nondualism

A Course In Miracles wrongly accused of not being nondualistic

The last section of text regarding A Course In Miracles relies on the following statement: "If a philosophy sharply divides reality into two separate sections ... then the philosophy actually teaches a stark and absolute dualism".

This is true. But, A Course In Miracles doesn't divide reality at all. It simply states that the only thing real is God. That which we call reality is only an illusion, or dream, of dualism. The text should be removed in my opinion.

Kireslin (talk) 13:25, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Y Done — goethean ॐ 14:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yoga is inherently nodualistic

Of course, any philosophy or religion with millions of adherents is going to have some variation in what those adherents espouse their religion to mean; however, this compels us to turn to the venerated masters who have defined the subject in question. In this case, we can turn to Patañjali, author of the Yoga Sutras. For an English, Western understanding of this text, I turn to "How to know God: the Yoga aphorisms of Patañjali" By Swami Prabhavananda, Patañjali, Christopher Isherwood. 1953, 1981 The Vedanta Society of Southern California. Firstly the term "Yoga" as explained on pg 15 means "union"; that is to say: "union with God." This is an admittedly dualistic statement. However, the authors realize that their audience is coming from a dualistic understanding of the universe and are learning how to realize this union, thus dissolving the illusion of dualism. The nondualistic goal of the teaching and practice of yoga is explained on page 22: "3. Then man abides in his real nature. ...He knows that he is the Atman...His mistaken belief in himself as a separate, unique individual disappears." http://books.google.com/books?id=90XTo7FtoeUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=yoga+aphorisms+of+patanjali&hl=en&ei=tECJTJ_rNoj0swPhku2eCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CE0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=yoga%20aphorisms%20of%20patanjali&f=false Yendorcire (talk) 20:58, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge to Monism?

I find the distinction from Monism to slight to see William M. Connolley (talk) 19:59, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone add Eckhart Tolle to contemporary

? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.191.144.164 (talk) 13:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Article tags confusing and unclear?

Tags on this article state the the article is confusing and unclear. The concept of nonduality is inherently confusing and unclear. That is the nature of it to begin with. Another tag states that it is also very technical and should be edited to make the article understandable to non-experts. Because of the nature of nonduality, I don't even believe that is possible. Anyone? --JS747 (talk) 17:13, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

First time contributor here. Please excuse anything needing excusing. Below is an attempt to provide a simple explanation of non-duality. I hope it is useful...

Non-duality is a perspective. It is held by the individual. Therefore, what comes next is necessarily an individual’s attempt to communicate an individual’s perspective. Needless to say your mileage may vary. Nevertheless, there are enough examples and evidence from other individuals for one to conclude it is a perspective attainable by others and is more or less the same.

It is a perspective that negates the compulsion or need to pursue questions of a spiritual nature. It might be described as a fundamental separation of ‘ego’ from ‘I’ (this is where the ‘non-dual’ bit originates) followed by an inevitable realization of the true nature of ‘I’. It might further be described as the internalization that any of life’s ‘meaning’ and/or the things that ‘matter’ are choices, and that the ‘chooser’ is ultimately unknowable.

Trying to understand non-duality without its perspective presents its primary challenge. Because it is a perspective it is achieved individualistically. So far it is not ‘teachable’ in any predictably effective way. And like other perspectives either you get it or you don’t and if you don’t, it’s simply not knowable in that moment. As with the color blue, it’s impossible to describe unless you’ve experienced it. But it is nevertheless undeniably real to those that have. Naturally, this phenomenon of ‘individually achieved perspective’ with it’s lack of third part verification leads to endless misinformation, many false positives and critics.

Also see:

• Walt Whitman
• Jed McKenna
• Zen

Infnt.snglrty (talk) 21:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Another first time contributor here.

I think that the tags "Confusing" and "Technical" at the start of the article should be removed because the article does as much as is possible to describe what is actually impossible to describe. There is nothing "individual" about nonduality, and it is not a perspective achieved by any individual.

The realization of the nondual nature of reality is the realization that there are no individuals. It is the realization that consciousness does not exist in the universe, but rather that the universe exists in consciousness/God. This is not something which can be explained, because it seems impossible to the logical mind, this is something which has to be "realized" in spite of the logical mind. It is the realization that consciousness itself is just a word used to conceptualize that in which concepts arise.

All things considered, the article does a very good job indeed of trying to describe nondualism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AllAlive (talk • contribs) 23:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Islam

This part is wrong: "There are a number of different Sufi orders that follow the teachings of particular spiritual masters, but the bond that unites all Sufis is the concept of ego annihilation.." since there are orders not supporting annihilation of ego, like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattari