Universal Nondual Awareness, as understood within some of humanity’s sacred traditions, rests beyond all concepts of mind and thought, as well as every quality and quantity of experience.

While some have always seriously engaged in authentic practices, both formally and spontaneously, merely thinking about nonduality is inherently misleading.

Most discussions about nondualism tend to employ abstract forms of psychological, verbal, emotional, and analytical gymnastics… potentially endless “talking schools” of circles and shapes of mind.

These days, broad searches for nondual wisdom reveal numerous talking heads crafting words about wordless Freedom – earnestly sharing their evolving insights, experiences, and encouragements.

While all of this is based upon people’s genuine intuition, if actual practice is not settled into, considerations of nondualism become another fascination for twisting up the “monkey mind” – yet another form of colonialism, attempting to claim what is beyond the mind as something almost familiar.

For those with serious intentions, there are some Great Masters from whom all of this recently westernised fetishism actually derives.

Three such individuals are:

Sri Ramana Maharshi – taught a simple, age-old practice for self-enquiry

 

.

Sri Anandamayi Ma – naturally emanated a palpable joy, wisdom, and freedom

 

 

.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj – sternly criticised the common intellectualization of nonduality

 

 

 

Unique beings such as these, whose offerings are still readily available, lived mostly silently.

Nonduality was not a concept or idea for them, and, to the extent that words are generally inadequate, they recommended that people should mostly “shut up”!

Their fully embodied radical awareness was free of all concepts, words, and apparent “others”.

And deeper in history lived Sengstan, the mysterious Sages of the Upanishads, Gautama Buddha, Ashtavakra, Gaudapada, Adi Shankara, Lao Tzu, Parmenides, Plotinus, and numerous others.

Therefore, with the obvious existence of authentic Realizers of Nonduality, why bother with the diluted echoings of the orators and prognosticators of the present age?

Instead, directly attending to such actual Wisdom-Sources is much more crucial.

Some others who crow about nonduality encounters appear among the ardent explorers of DMT, LSD, psilocybin, toad (5-MeO-DMT), etc. Various hallucinogens can momentarily cast people into qualities of awareness that appear nondual. But even the most profound psychedelic states are always temporary.

Some chemically induced experiences can be useful tastings of our inherent potentials. At best, they can goad inspired users to embrace a life of deepening practice.

When the Indian Master Neem Karoli Baba twice ingested a handful of LSD, he described its strongest effects as merely temporary experiences of “the lesser lights”.

After a well-known Aghori sadhu inhaled a large toke of toad-flakes, he said that it revealed a “temporary light… but ‘sadhu’ is light [nondual] forever”.

With the guidance of such clarifications from adepts like these, anyone exploring nondual awareness through hallucinogens might consider benefitting from the teachings of genuine Masters, along with the nondual traditions they emerged from.

Most psychonauts (mind-sailors), along with many other fans of nondualism, will hesitate to approach authentic human teachers, perhaps resisting clarification of their self-made theories about reality.

But, by so doing, they might become simplified, more released, and a lot quieter…

Nonduality is a universal awareness.

Animals, plants, and other forms of Earth’s non-human life, from within the depths of their naturally contemplative existence, regularly glide into shades of nonduality.

While innately sensing their natural mortality, they drift spontaneously into awarenesses beyond spatial and bodily consciousness.

For some non-humans, as with some human beings, such release can become perpetual.

The book, Lightning Thunder Cows, more thoroughly considers non-humans’ natural contemplation of nondual awareness.

– Stuart Camps