What is nonduality
The philosophy of Non-Dualism is the point of view that there is one Absolute Reality without a second and that each of us is one with that Reality, just as a wave is one with the ocean. It asserts that experiencing Ultimate Reality is the goal of life. Advaita, another name for Non-Dualism, sees other religions, practices and philosophies as tools that ultimately lead to the direct experience of Absolute Reality.
To discriminate between what is real and what is not real, it is necessary to define what is meant by real and not real. In this philosophy only that which neither changes nor ceases to exist is real. No object or knowledge can be absolutely real if its existence is only temporary. The unreal includes every “thing,” all names and forms, our minds and thoughts, everything. The universe looks real but is not permanent. It is an illusion. We can’t say it exists nor can we say it doesn’t exist. It is neither real nor non-existent. It is magical. It’s a mystery.
Reality is not a thing at all. It is no-thing, nothing. An innocent term for it would be pure spirit, or pure consciousness. It has no parts. If we look for it, we are an eye looking for itself. It is experienced but cannot be described. It is ineffable. This Pure Consciousness is permanent existence, knowledge and bliss and is one with man’s inner self.
When we wake up from a dream the dream world disappears. Non-Dualism teaches that when we wake up to reality this world disappears. The world of thought and matter is a misreading of pure spirit and nothing more. It has a phenomenal or relative existence superimposed upon Absolute Reality by ignorance and remains superimposed until ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of reality, commonly called Spiritual Enlightenment
The above got me thinking about illusion and reality. If illusion is defined as impermanent but the beings and forms of reality change (being that they are made of atoms, break down and rearrange) would it be right to call that an illusion? Or is that painting with too broad of a stroke. From what I see I think that might be going a bit too far. The claim that consciousness is permanent is, to me, unsupported and more of a belief. After all, it’s not like you would know if you were not conscious for you would not be aware of it. And what of things below our awareness (like the subconscious), things that have an influence on us but that we are unaware of? What of the cognitive biases that we share, errors that we are blind to?
There are many unanswered questions to me but overall it seems like the philosophy makes too many assumptions and tries to cover them with “transcendence”.