I’ve been thinking about the fact that while realizing the truth of nonduality we still have to deal with the phenomenal reality we find ourselves in. What I mean by phenomena is everything we take to be ‘us’ and the world we seemingly inhabit as a personal entity.
Nonduality tells us that the phenomenal world is illusory and has no reality of itself. As a Buddhist would say it’s all empty. That is we and our world are transient, nothing stays the same and therefore is not real. What is real is the awareness and beingness that lies behind your mind and personality. Consciousness is the substratum upon which all arises and passes away.
Even after there is an awakening in the individual and reality is seen to be one there is still the presence, illusory of course, of the body/mind organism who is stuck in a dual reality frought with all sorts of suffering.
Now, it would be simple to just say “let go of your illusory self and rest in the pure awareness that witnesses ‘you’ and your issues.” But this isn’t very helpful to a person who is struggling with depression or maybe the loss of a loved one. To jut say its illusion comes off cold and denies the fact of the experience even though it’s transient.
What I have found is that the recognition of nonduality does not deny the ‘you’ as such but rather gives us a new perspective from which to deal with experiences. From the place where it’s all one it becomes easier to look upon our sitiuation as a personal entity with nonattachment and compassion.
We are able to look upon a ‘me’ who is depressed with a loving clarity for its predicament. When I’m down I can see the machinations of my mind feeling sorry for itself. I can recognize the feelings and thoughts of depression are illusory. From that clear seeing I can focus specific practices of enquiry into the nature of the self and even depression becomes an opportunity to transcend my illusory self.
Just as with meditation where the object is not to stop the mind but to transcend it, with any other phenomena we practice to see its transiency. We progress as personal entities on a time tested path of viaragya or dispassion in which eventually we drop the very entity itself. You use your mind to dispatch with your mind!
It is from this perspective we can clearly address our problems. We drop attachments to the outcomes of our actions while taking definite steps to release the ego from its belief in itself. All our experiences are tools to awaken to the oneness of consciouness. Then we can can simply be aware of all that arises and rest with that awareness. Suffering looses its sting and can even become a pleasure.
