Two Possibilities

In spirituality, what we call "nonduality", you are basically seeking wholeness, the lack of separation.  So either wholeness is presently missing, or you just don't know wholeness is already the case.

In the first scenario, wholeness is missing.  If it is missing, what can we do to bring it about?  What action can bring about wholeness?  What force can superglue the universe of separate parts together?  Is that what you mean by wholeness?  A comglomeration of all the parts?  Not really.  You really are searching for the oneness of reality, yes?  So if it's presently divided, spiritual seeking isn't really going to get us anywhere.

The other scenario, really the only other possibility, is that wholeness is already the case only you don't know it.  In this case you take yourself to be an individual part, separate from all other parts, but that really isn't true.  In this case spirituality isn't trying to affect any change on reality but it is a search for truth, for knowledge, for certainty about reality.  It is trying to come to the truth about reality.  In this case, reality is whole.  Therefore spirituality is merely trying to eradicate ignorance about the nature of reality, about the nature of what-you-are, and come to realize that it is already whole and you are that wholeness.

So in the first case reality is split and there really isn't anything we can do about it.  Spirituality is useless as is any other activity in bringing what is inherently divided into oneness.  In this case the search is over because it is found to be a fantasy.

Yet we undertake the search as if we ARE separate and then trying to make it whole.  Do you see the nonsense of that?  The only activity which has any possibility of success is to inquire into the nature of reality, into the nature of your own self.  It isn't a practice to try to change anything - we need not manipulate thoughts or feelings.  It is diving into our ideas and trying to find out how we are coming to take reality as divided, how we are coming to take ourselves as divided - NOT trying to make ourselves whole or make reality whole.

What we call "enlightenment" is simply coming to the certain knowledge that you ARE the whole, not finding a new experience or state but the elimination of ignorance about your true nature.  

Shankara said - ultimately there is no difference between Brahman and Individual Self.  We must inquire into what we believe about ourselves and reality and if we're honest and earnest, most of our concepts will fall away as false - the root concept is the idea of separation.

Blue is not in the sky

It seems we want to make the world different, we want the experience we call "world" to change.  We seek for a while and then wonder why there is still no peace in dealing with the world.

What you call the world is not what it seems.  You have taken what you've learned and that's become your reality.  In other words, you believe there is a world out there, a world you were born into and will die from.  You believe there is a world that you are seeing, a world that is apart from you.  

Some say the world is an illusion but that doesn't mean the world doesn't exist.  Illusion just means it's not as it seems to be.  So what is appearing is not the absolute reality.  That's the real bottom line - it's not that it doesn't exist - it's that it's not as it appears to be.

Appearance is dependent on the mechanism by which we see, hear, taste, touch, smell....  so if one of those senses is defective we won't see the actual correct thing, yes?  So if we can understand that, then we must be able to see that the fact of senses, the fact that we are "knowing the world" through this mechanism called "senses" is already just a relative way of knowing.  A bird sees the sky differently than a human.  An ant sees a rock differently than a frog.  In other words, to the bird the sky might be red.  To the human it's blue.  Is one more right than the other?  No.  Both are relative.  Neither can say it's an absolute seeing.  

In fact the color of the sky is dependent on the eye, not the sky.  The color blue doesn't exist in "sky" but in "mind".  Yes?  It is the reception of the picture of "sky", the translation to raw data by the eye cells then the translation of the brain of that picture which produces "blue".  

In fact the sky isn't even blue - we are seeing blue because of refraction in the atmosphere.  Blue is not in the sky.

So we see blue, however that comes to be, and we say the sky is absolutely blue.  But if we poke around that "truth" we find it's false.  

In the same way, we must look at the world itself and discover that our absolute truths are always just relative.  The world is not as it appears.  Actually, it's more clear to say - reality is NOT WHAT APPEARS, yet it IS what appears also.

So you are seeing the world but what you're seeing isn't the actuality - the appearance of it isn't the actuality - in other words there is no such thing as a rock, a tree, a bird - these are mental concepts - boxes - ideas.  Yet what you're seeing IS the reality itself, what else would it be?

Therefore we must overlook or discard what we take the world as and realize what the world really is, realize what reality really is.  We must realize the relativity of appearance and only settle for absolute reality.

Ironically, you cannot really FIND absolute reality because you ARE that absolute reality.  

There are not two things

There are not two things - you and that which you experience.

There is no you there apart from the experience.  There is no experience there apart from you.

Isn't it always one whole reality?  

Are you ever anything other than this present moment?  Is there a substance or entity experiencing or having a moment, or is your true essence the moment itself and every "thing" going on in it?

Can you actually find something you can call "ME"?  Doesn't that idea automatically create this division, this "two-ness"?  This assertion "I AM" asserts a world that you are not.

Is there a future moment yet to come where you become free, or is this very instant that freedom?

What if the answer you've been seeking has always been in full view, unobstructed, clear as day?  What if this very moment has always been it?  

No matter what the "experience" is - good or bad - it's not about the quality of experience but the fact that there is not actually a division between knower and known.  

You Are Present and Aware

You are there - present.  You know you are present.  You have always been present.  No matter what the experience is, you have been present.

There is a presence - that presence is here now.  It has no particular attributes to speak of - it isn't red or square or soft.  It is just here now.  That's it's attributes.  It's here now.  It's not identifiable or personal - those are given to the body, to feelings, to thoughts, to roles or names or whatever.  That presence is just there regardless of the state of the body or thoughts or feelings or anything else.  

What you call "ME" at the deepest level is just that presence which is always here - that "subjectivity" or subjective presence - it isn't objective - it doesn't appear to get a look at it.  It cannot appear to get a look at it because it is the LOOKING - the knowing - the quality or capacity of knowing.

So we can say that the purely subjective nature of presence is knowing.  That is what you are - right now - that presence is subjective and that really means it is the knowing.  We cannot SEE knowing because seeing is knowing.  We cannot get a look at the knowing because we are looking FOR it with the instrument by which we look, yes?  So the knowing is the purely subjective presence.

That doesn't change - if the sun rises that is known.  If it sets that is known.  Those are two different experiences yet the subjectivity involved in that experience was changeLESS - yes?  The subjectivity or presence or knowing "OF the sunset" - that was the same in both experiences - in fact we really cannot even say that because to say they were the same is to have previously quantified or qualified that presence and then later compared it to the second experience.  We cannot even do that - this is PURE subjectivity - PURE knowing.

So that really means that this presence you know so well, HAS NO CONTENT.  It has nothing to grasp.  It has nothing to contribute objectively to any experience.  It is simply the present knowing or presence of knowing which really is a redundant way of speaking.  The presence IS the knowing.  YOU are the knowing in each experience.  That is your quality no matter what the experience is.

So if there is a stomach ache - you are the knowing OF THAT - the stomach and the pain and the thoughts about it are ALL objective - you know them.  So the body and thoughts are objective.  Right this instant, the body is not what you ARE!  Thoughts are not what you are!  Why? Because that presence is there unchanged while the body and thoughts are objective happenings - experiences.  You are the experiencing OF the body and thoughts - the capacity FOR the experiences we call "body" and "thoughts".

When you were a child, that presence was there - exactly as it is now.  The surroundings have changed - the body has aged - lots of things have changed EXCEPT YOU - YOU remain the same - present and aware.

Notice this - don't try to make it into anything.  Just notice it.  Notice that pure knowing in every experience - notice that it is purely subjective, and then notice that it's YOU.