Abiding in Nondual Awareness: exploring the further implications of living nonduality

After my first book, Living Nonduality, was published in 2009, I received dozens of e-mails, in addition to some letters, from people all over the U.S. and abroad. In many instances, particular questions or quandaries concerning the subject of enlightenment were expressed. My publisher set up a blog page on my website (livingnonduality org) and the more succinct queries were often responded to there. In other instances, I sent my reply by mail. The monographs printed in this volume include such correspondences with people on nonduality and are an expansion on the material published four years ago; a few of the selections are those for which there wasn’t room in my previous book; and a few others are akin to journal entries. All of them relate to various aspects of nondual realization. Each, in its own way, is a letter to you. Selected from the book as an introduction here: The condition from which all forms appear is from the timeless and unlimited formless presence. This Absolute condition was existent before your particular form arose and will continue to persist after your material form has dis-integrated. It is the source from which the cosmos arose. Your material form, or organism, is a product of this same source, or Intelligence. Your brain is a product of this source. Hence, your thoughts and actions owe their manifestation to this ultimate actuality. Thus, the teachings instruct, “You are not the Doer.” When one recognizes that “all that’s being done, is That doing what it does,” it becomes clear that (from the ultimate standpoint) all which is unfolding is an unprecedented, spontaneous development of the Omnipresent manifesting as, and through, every immediate occurrence. From the vantage point of the Absolute, it makes no difference what occurs, since there is no confinement to a finite consequence. Regardless how the individual organism may evaluate each occurrence, in the final analysis it makes no difference. This nondual perspective of non-attachment is reminded to us each night, in our deepest sleep. We return to a condition of empty awareness in which the self-perception disappears, all relative interests disappear, the world disappears, the cosmos disappears. In that unperturbed awareness, there is an emptiness which is choiceless and in which nothing really matters. For those who realize the implications of the nondual teachings, the fact that ultimately nothing really matters is carried over into one’s waking awareness and daily life. It is also clear that while we are embodied in this material form and continue to function in the relative world, the dualistic perspective (rather than the nondual awareness) is the state of mind which pertains for most persons—who are typically not prepared to hear that their “self” has no meaning in the ultimate sense. It’s probably not surprising that such teachings were once kept secret. However, they’re not secret anymore, and can lead to a life-changing perspective, or Consciousness. === If you have questions about what you read, please see the contact information at the end of the book.