TIITIOTTIATI 3

The nondual leg of the awakening journey is like climbing Everest in a blizzard; every long-frozen cadaver you pass along the way is a reminder of the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, and your own increasingly likely outcome. Somewhere, thousands of meters below, are the lush green valleys, cities, and societies you left behind to make this insane trek. Other members of your climbing team are just vague shapes, hidden behind masks and bundled in layers of gear. As many as may share this trail of frozen tears, you are completely isolated and on your own. The storm is raging, your odds of summitting are dwindling, every step is its own battle, and somewhere in the back of your mind is the constant reminder that, somehow, for some reason, you asked for this, and, in fact, there’s no place you’d rather be.

Weird, right? Tell me about it. This whole nonduality thing is weird as shit. For starters, reality is knowably not real. How do you wrap your head around that one? But that’s just basecamp stuff, it gets weirder with every upward step. You yourself don’t exist any more than your universe, which must be pretty disappointing. What glorious awakening can await when every step takes you closer to no-self?

Nonduality may seem spirituality-adjacent, but the two are really unrelated. Nonduality is synonymous with a truth-or-bust impulse. That’s how I came at the whole thing, long before I’d heard of advaita or nonduality. I just came to the extinction-level realization that truth must exist, and dedicated myself to finding out what it was (to the total exclusion of any other life-interest, even survival). That’s all nonduality is, except instead of the realization that truth does exist, it’s sparked by the initial nondual insight that two does not exist; that duality is a logical impossibility. That’s what we in the mystery-of-being game call a big fuckin’ deal.

Maybe too big, which is where Maya’s army of spiritual gurus and pop-nonduality teachers come into play. They are the orderlies in Maya’s madhouse who usher you back to bed and make you think it was your idea. It’s like mistaking basecamp for the summit; if you can doublethink your way into it, it’s probably the best solution. 

We are each alone, afloat on the shoreless sea of nothing forever. No amount of aimless paddling shall avail, unless it’s your secret desire to kill time and expend energy without going anywhere. You might think you’ve set a course for Buddhahood or Compassion or Enlightenment or Unconditional Love, but those are just spiritual buzzwords and hollow abstractions. The only visible point in your dreamstate universe by which you can navigate is truth; not that it’s a better way, but that it’s the only way. Any other star by which you navigate is imaginary and does not, in truth, exist. Truth is the only light in your sky; the rest is darkness and hallucination, a mirage conjured into existence by the fear-riddled heart and heart-controlled mind.

Whatever you do or change or become, it’s always strictly a dreamstate phenomenon and does not extend beyond the bookends of your life. Your status in truth is fixed and unchanging, so all this spiritual hooey is just a game we’re playing while we’re here, no better or more important than any other ambition. Once you’re out of here, you’ll be just as enlightened and ignorant as Godmind Alfie because, ultimately, that’s what you are. That’s the truth, for what it’s worth; being unenlightened was always just a dream.

Maybe you don’t like all this crazy truth jazz. Maybe you want some other kind of awakening or enlightenment or spiritual success where you get all the good stuff and none of the bad. Great, now we’re talking about human adulthood, which is a real thing that you can really accomplish and that you’re really meant to do. It’s nothing more than your natural course of human development (had a non-self agenda not been imposed on you by non-self agencies). It lies along the same general heading as truth, but not as far. It starts the same and involves the same death-rebirth transition.

Is there another option? Sure, you can just keep doing what you’re doing, what everyone is doing, which is killing time until time kills you. Don’t scoff, that non-decision decision is the one we all effectively opt for; circular progress, turning in place, creating the illusion of motion while never advancing an inch. Kind of a shame when you think about it, but also kind of not. (We find ourselves in a very tricky situation.)

Your job in this arena is not to defend or attack, but to bear your breast and invite the sword of your foe to pierce your flesh and destroy you utterly. If, however, you’re like virtually all spiritual seekers of all times and places, you’ve subscribed to the myth of becoming. That’s what you’ve been doing all along; becoming what you’re not, but now is the time for the sincere seeker to stop becoming what they’re not and start unbecoming what they are. (Shit, I don’t think I said that right. Just because something sounds zenny and paradoxical doesn’t make it true.)

Hopefully, you’re receiving this message in the spirit intended. You should receive all attacks on your mental-emotional-spiritual self with gratitude. “Bring it on!” should be your battle cry, and a bared breastbone should be your posture of defense. In this game, defeat is victory; we win by losing, and the day is only ours when self is vanquished. Maybe that’s not what you signed up for, maybe you just thumbed through a mindfulness magazine while standing in the grocery checkout line and thought your life could use a little more spiritual dimensionality. Maybe you saw the word nonduality somewhere in that publication, but they weren’t talking about deconstructing reality, just having a nicer time of it. That might explain some lukewarm newcomers, but probably not you, who made it here. Mine is a serious message for serious people, or people who aspire to be serious.

You have a sense of which you’re probably unaware; to wit, you can think. It’s not easy, and is made harder because you probably think you already do think, but if you can get past that bit of vanity, you can open yourself up to everything you ever wanted from your spiritual search, before you got rerouted into Maya’s intentional clusterfuck.

It’s not a whim or an idle fancy that can destroy the universe; it’s thought. That’s your superpower. Mind is the sword that can lay waste to all illusions, but first you must turn it on and crank it up, and maybe spend a few minutes with the user’s manual. Mind is the magic lamp beside the golden door, which is why Maya and her minions are so adamantly opposed to it. Maya’s job is to keep you safely tucked into the herd, no wandering away or going off on your own, which is exactly what a healthy, active mind would have you do, and what you may be doing now.

The journey of awakening entails three segments; out of the herd, up the slope and down the pipe. Somewhere between the out-of-the-herd and up-the-slope part is the party in the parking lot where everyone permanently pauses to hang out and chat and celebrate the modest accomplishment of first-stage, single-step progress. (Granted, that first step is a doozy.)

For many, this parking lot is treated as a destination rather than a trailhead, and no further elevation of perspective is sought or achieved. One has broken ties with the beliefs of one’s upbringing, while enjoying the society of one’s self-selected sub-herd. Here, we can engage in talk and debate, draw imaginary lines, establish false authority, and inflict our freshly minted views on others. The main attraction of such a society is the social aspect; safety in numbers. Others validate you as you validate them, and now everyone is validated without anyone having expressed a valid thought. Pretty neat.

Beyond the parking lot is the trailhead itself. That’s where the going gets tough and the tough get going – alone. No more society, no more false validation, no more singing around the campfire, just a long, painful hauling of one’s ass into one’s highly uncertain future.

I sometimes wonder – if only for a moment – if I shouldn’t go on an offensive rampage against all the asstalkers out there; Maya’s spiritual marketplace certainly provides a target-rich environment. Not only could I go negative, I could do so with great glee and wild abandon. That could become my whole schtick; slicing and dicing all asstalkers all the time. I guess that’s the dark side we’re not supposed to turn to, but I can see the temptation and rationale. The seductive Sirens’ song of the asstalkers is a primary reason, timewide and species-wide, that seekers fail to become finders (but maybe that’s for the best). The problem is that those asstalkers represent distractions for sincere seekers, not obstructions, so by focusing on them, I’d risk becoming one of them. 

In any event, dismantling asstalkers isn’t something I should do for you, but that you should do for yourself. That’s how you learn to wield the sword of mind; by engaging in the bloody slaughter of those above you. I said at one time that, in practicing your mental swordsmanship, you should face off against your spiritual superiors, weakest to strongest, and slice them into luncheon meat. The only way you can know someone isn’t an asstalker is to do everything in your power to destroy them. If that doesn’t work, maybe they’re not such an asstalker after all, or maybe you need to brush up on your swordsmanship. That’s the real value of spiritual teachers; training dummies.

There are big names and major organizations that appropriate the term nonduality for non-nondual purposes, while having laughably little claim to it. The point, for many, is not to confront the unadorned reality of being, as nonduality allows us to do, but to tuck nonduality safely away into a dark cubbyhole where it can’t do any harm, thus allowing a circular, no-progress agenda to prosper uninterrupted.

Nonduality is a shaft of light that threatens to pierce the sleeping mind, but the mind has anti-light defenses that allow it to roll over and go more deeply asleep. That’s the true spiritual agenda; to stay soundly asleep. (If there were such a thing as an effective spiritual technique, Maya would never let you near it.)

Anyone of sound mind can see through major religions and belief systems without great effort. Despite their popularity, they’re goofy, featherweight ideologies. We don’t have to single out any particular religion or belief system; they’re all just shiny soap bubbles, all equally susceptible to the pinprick of the initial nondual insight. Once you start popping bubbles in a dreamstate, where does it end? How do you know when to stop? Next thing you know, there’s nothing left, not even you. Fortunately, popping bubbles and processing the aftermath takes energy, and you only have so much.

Nonduality has become just another spiritual buzzword, the way Zen used to be; just another flavor-of-the-day in a bottomless bucket of New Age swill. When we want to stay asleep and dream we’re waking up, that piercing shaft of nondual light is the enemy, but when we want to break for the surface, it’s our only friend. The power and beauty of nonduality lies in tight focus and rigid adherence. Take that away, sweeten it up and water it down, and it’s no better than any spiritual gimmick meant to sell a few books or get some upward-facing thumbs on a video.

At the very heart of the confusion surrounding nonduality, and empowering the namestealers, is the subtle but ruinous redefining from not-two to all-is-one. From where Maya and ego sit, all-is-one is vastly preferable to not-two. All-is-one lets you claim to be a nondualist, and everyone will believe you because it sounds so wonderful and inclusive; it has that ring of true-ish goodness, like the common thread of all religions, belief systems, and spiritual schools. With that one small adjustment, now it’s not all nothing, it’s all one thing; big difference. Reality is now just as real as it seems, which saves us a lot of headbanging and skinpeeling. 

If you can adopt all-is-one as your meta-belief, everything else magically falls into place and you can claim completion of your journey without ever having moved an inch. Hell, that’s the spiritual jackpot right there. You could literally be a respected teacher in the sewer-dungeon by this time tomorrow simply by espousing an all-is-one doctrine. That’s a message we can all embrace, without disturbing our precious slumber.

Nonduality, on the other hand, has none of that sickly-sweet goodness. It’s divisive and war-like and has no sing-along, follow-the-bouncing-ball component. All-is-one requires little more than checking a box on a form, whereas authentic nonduality is not a belief one subscribes to, but a journey one makes. As always, all the appeal lies with self-deception. The top teachers in spirituality get there and stay there by giving students what they want in a way they can consume and digest while maintaining their place in the herd. Authentic nonduality doesn’t offer that benefit; pop-nonduality does.

There’s no you-versus-them component in any of this; it’s always you-versus-you, which should come as a welcome relief. It means that you’re not subject to the whims of outside agents or agencies, only the capricious machinations of Maya, the intelligence of fear. She’s a mighty foe, but it’s good to know who you’re up against.

TIITIOTTIATI – this is it, there is only this, this is all there is – is just another false narrative in an endless sea of bogus beliefs. Frankly, the entire position eludes me. What is it? There is only what? What is all there is? The only possible answer is Brahman is it, there is only Brahman, Brahman is all there is. Anything else is knowably false. I don’t want to misrepresent a statement I admittedly don’t understand. It has a dopey sort of nondual sound to it, but it represents a stagnant end-point, not the launch-point of a dynamic journey. The common assumption of teachers delivering this message seems to be that, if they just repeat it enough, students will eventually see it for themselves. See what? I don’t know, I don’t see it. To my eye and ear, it seems very much like declaring victory based on a loophole or minor technicality, like saying perception creates reality. Fine, good point, so what? 

This critique is not aimed exclusively at the newcomer teacher who arrives on the scene, makes a few videos, and disappears again. This applies to all spiritual teachers of all times and places. The most a false teacher can do for you is dispel and dissipate your burning urgency; cool your jets. Maybe they can help you become a false teacher yourself; that’s the self-perpetuating nature of ignorance in Maya’s madhouse; the inmates become the trustees.

TIITIOTTIATI seems to lack instruction, direction, and practical application. It’s like a blanket indictment of everything without eliminating any obstacles or increasing one’s elevation of perspective; like stating the bottom line as an established fact, when one has not arrived at it by doing the work, so it remains just another belief. I’ve watched many teachers pound this general theme without understanding what they were saying. They always seem to project the bemused smugness of one who groks something that eludes the rest of us, which only makes them more vexatious.

Authentic awakening is a journey of unbecoming, and allows of no cheats or shortcuts or workarounds. There may be minor insights and epiphanies along the way, and you can certainly know the end from the beginning, but there is still a journey to be made. No one teleports to peak perspective by magic decree or mystic doubletalk. This is where the writing process of spiritual autolysis comes into play. As Thoreau said, “Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.” Apply spiritual autolysis in conjunction with top-down thinking, and the true nature of reality will be laid before your feet like the unconditional surrender of Maya.

Top-down thinking means you’re not searching for truth, which is never hidden; instead, you’re starting with truth and working your way back from there. Truth is the easy part. You don’t have to launch a seek-and-find mission to discover truth, it’s the only star in your sky. Open your eyes, look up, and there it is. In truth, truth is not other than you.

Navigating without truth as your guiding light can never be more than stumbling in darkness and bumbling by feel. The herd is a group of many led by one pair of eyes (or so the herdlings hope). In a circular rut, what’s there to see? We’re eyes-closed, fear-based, halfborn, herdbound human children because that’s what we want to be; sheep in a flock tended by good shepherd Maya. Whither goeth the herd, thou goest also. 

It may be heartwarming and fear-overcoming to be part of a group, but it invariably results in a chronic state of sheeplike befuddlement. Bottom-up thinking is not thinking at all, just as eyes-closed seeing is not seeing at all. When we think bottom-up, we are simply reinforcing emotion-based desires; eternal salvation, unconditional love, a loving God, divine justice, and all this all-is-one malarkey. As soon as we open our eyes – develop the courage to reason originally – the entire dreamstate imaginarium, regardless of how deep and detailed and complex, vanishes in an instant, never to take solid form again. 

If you don’t like the sound of truth, or think it’s a raw deal, I don’t blame you (practically any religious or spiritual fairytale sounds a million times better, as long as you don’t think about it), but truth has the unique distinction of being true, which no belief can claim. How many pathways to truth do we have? Besides truth itself, I know of one; nonduality. And what’s so spiritual about truth or nonduality? I can’t think of a thing.

Redefining not-two as all-is-one is a clever Mayan deflection accomplished by validating the dreamstate universe as true and real, but the only thing that’s true and real is Godmind Alfie. The dreamstate is not true and does not exist. Brahman is true and does exist, and that thou art; the rest is just fairydust and dreamstuff. Self and other can never be more than a dreamstate appearance in the dreaming godmind. In truth, there’s no such thing as life or meaning, and, beyond your inner Alfie-ness, you have no claim to existence (still, being Brahman is a pretty big deal). 

The nondual leg of the awakening journey ends with a swan dive into the void, and continues, if at all, with emergence as a new version of you; still in the dreamstate, still artificial, but a whole different order of being. That’s the caterpillar dream, and I, butterfly, am proof of concept. Butterflies, however, do not exist in truth any more than caterpillars do. Human adults don’t exist in truth any more than human juveniles do. Enlightened people don’t exist in truth any more than unenlightened people do. Whatever bigwig spiritual muckety-muck you care to name did not manage to elevate themselves to a better status because there is no better status. Other people can never be more than background extras in your dramatic dreamstate production. That’s all anyone is to you.

How far does the dreamstate extend in time and space? Is this gig limited to seventy-two years on dreamstate Earth, or does it extend forever in all directions? Past and future don’t exist, here and there don’t exist; it’s always now, and you’re always here. The only thing that changes is the images being projected onto the screen of your private dreamstate cinema, and the 3D glasses through which you view them. Take it for what it’s worth – enjoy it while it lasts.

I know I make it sound a bit grim at times, but this truth stuff is the knock-down, drag-out, rock ‘n’ roll party of your life. You are the man in the arena, and now is the time to stand up and make some vows and draw some uncrossable lines. This is where we declare ourselves and our sovereignty, come what may. This is the great animating contest of being, and you are in it right now as much as anyone ever was. You stand poised for battle on the field of Kurukshetra, Krishna is your charioteer, and the time has come to blow the horn that launches the war that will destroy the universe. It doesn’t get much more swashbuckling than that.

Try to have fun with it.