Non-Dual Awareness

¡Hola! Everybody…
Okay,! So yet another expose emerges demonstrating that the current administration misled the nation into going to war with Iraq. The latest bomb thrower is award-winning investigative reporter Ron Susskind, who in his new book, The Way of the World, makes a strong case that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a handwritten document showing Iraq-Al Qaeda links. I’m sure he will make the rounds of the infotainment outlets on cable, TV, and radio.

Is there a person left that doesn’t believe we were hoodwinked into this war? If there is, would someone please point t me to that individual -- I have a bridge to sell them.

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-=[ Non-Dual Awareness, Dreams, & Intuition ]=-
“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
-- Albert Einstein (1879–1955)

Have you ever had the experience of non-dual consciousness? I know, you’re probably going, “Huh?” Let me rephrase: have you ever had the experience of being as one with an object? Have you ever taken a walk and felt deeply your connection to your external environment or nature. Have you ever been so absorbed in a project or activity that time ceased to exist and when you looked up hours passed without you even feeling it?

An Australian bushman will, after “communing” with nature, pack his family up and travel treacherous miles through unforgiving territory to find water. And most of the time, he will be correct.

Ancient sailors would navigate huge distances across uncharted waters using only their “feelings,” water currents, and change in temperature.

How many of us either experienced or heard about a premonition of danger that resulted in saving someone’s life?

That’s what I mean by non-dual awareness. It’s an experience that we rarely study but take for granted. In fact, the little research into this state of mind shows that it has tremendous healing powers and points to an ability of which we have little grasp.

In contrast to scientific opinion, most opinion polls find most Americans believing in intuition, precognition, and the validity of dreams as a source of valid information. Actually, the fact of nonconceptual knowing is so ingrained in popular culture that we take it for granted. Yet we have no educational methodology for developing these abilities. Even those who report having refined these abilities have no way of speaking of this in a way that makes logical sense.

One night, according to my ex-wife, I awoke from sleep and talked to her extensively about a synopsis for a novel I was considering. She told me that I spoke at length and in detail for about forty-five minutes. She also told me that the idea blew her away – in her words, she was utterly shocked by the breadth and range of my thinking on this novel.

The next day when I awoke, she was all excited and asked me when I would start working on the novel had I begun to write anything, could she read any rough drafts. I looked at her as if she grew a third eye. I had no clue as to what she was talking about. She thought I was teasing her, but the fact is that I have no recollection of that conversation. Of course, she didn’t take any freakin’ notes, so there goes any aspirations I had about being the next Stephen King! LOL!

Like my dream, most altered states of consciousness slip away, as one returns to ordinary thinking. What happens is that the peak experience is rationalized or forgotten, but the question still nags “How did that happen?” followed by the wish of, “How can I return to it?”

There are countless stories of non-dual awareness but they all have a common element and that is they were usually accompanied by a deep attentional state or a state of complete absorption. I believe this is where training for intuitive knowledge can begin. Modern science is know begrudgingly acknowledging that meditative states have positive side affects that range from the physical (lowering blood pressure, and stressed-induced diseases) to the psychological (increased focused, lowered depression, increasing states of happiness).

I know that as my meditative practice deepens, I come into closer contact to that part of me that creates, invents, and feels. I’m better able to listen to others without the noise of the incessant internal, judgmental, inner conversation. I’m also able to connect to people that amazes even me.

How about you – have you ever had an experience of non-dual awareness?

Love,

Eddie