Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Spring 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Grasse, Ray,  "Suffering and Soul Making on the Mean Streets of Planet Earth" Quest 110:2, pg 35-36

By Ray Grasse

Call the world, if you please, “the Vale of Soul Making,” then you will find out the use of the world.

—John Keats, in a letter to his brother, 1819                               

I had an astrology client who had enjoyed a short-lived career on Broadway many years before, strictly doing bit parts as an extra in various theatrical productions—an office worker in one play, a soldier in another, a street thug in yet another. He never landed a major role in any of those but still valued that period of his life because (in his words) “even the smallest part in those spectacles was an amazing experience. Everyone wanted to get in on the action,” he said.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s not comparable to the situation we experience down here on earth, in terms of souls clamoring to land on this planet and get in on the action—no matter how small or mundane the part.

In fact, there may even be something of particular value in those seemingly small parts that’s quite different from the more extravagant lead roles. Let me explain what I mean.

On a number of occasions, I’ve watched a celebrity interviewed who talks about coming up from humble beginnings, whether that be growing up in poverty, working for years as a dishwasher or waiter, or having survived on the mean streets of Chicago or Detroit. Intriguingly, those celebrities generally seem quite proud of coming from those hard backgrounds and having paid their dues in a way someone raised with a silver spoon in their mouth wouldn’t have experienced.

In some cases, it later comes out that the person exaggerated or even lied about that early “hardship”: in reality they hailed from a perfectly middle-class background. They just wanted everyone to think they rose up from those lowly quarters.

Think about that for a moment.

Why would anyone do that—that is, lie about how bad they had it and how much suffering they endured?

My guess is it’s because there’s a certain belief that dealing with hard circumstances and surviving early struggles builds character or gives one a certain toughness or depth which those who grew up in easier circumstances might not share.

It reminds me of the time as a kid when I watched two older gentlemen discussing their battlefield experiences back in World War II. It was almost as though they were trying to outdo each other with the hardships they endured and were practically bragging about the suffering they’d experienced. (“Yeah, but you should have seen what I went through at the Battle of the Bulge!”)

I find that fascinating. We clearly dislike suffering and try to avoid it at all costs. Yet once we’ve gone through it, we’ll sometimes look back on it with a certain pride at having survived it, wearing it almost like a badge of honor. Like those veterans I overheard as a kid, we might even brag about it when comparing notes with others, with an attitude of one-upmanship: “You think that was bad? You should see what I had to deal with!”

I think this has something to tell us about the role and value of earthly existence itself, in terms of the role it plays in our spiritual evolution.

I’ve sometimes conjured up the image of two angels sitting on a cloud somewhere high up on some astral plane, their harps alongside them. They’re swapping stories about their past sojourns down here on planet earth, comparing notes about what they went through and endured here in these nether regions.

One angel says to the other, “Boy, in my last lifetime I was sick all the time, poverty-stricken and completely deaf to boot, and in the life before that one my parents and I were refugees in a war-torn country. You can’t imagine the hardships we endured.”

The other angel says, “Oh, don’t get me started! I was sold into slavery in my last lifetime and beaten up daily by my master; and a few lifetimes before that one, I was trapped in a house fire during my childhood and suffered third-degree burns all over my body, which plagued me my entire life. So shut your mouth!” They argue back and forth like that, each trying to outdo the other over what they did or didn’t endure during their physical incarnations.

Then another angel comes along, one who has never descended down into an earthly body and thus never experienced either the joys or sorrows of living down here in this pit of physicality. This neophyte angel is a very pure soul, a proverbial babe in the woods (or clouds, as the case may be) but also lacking in a certain awareness, and in turn a certain depth. This angel never had to “leave the garden,” as it were.

The two veteran angels look at each other and roll their eyes over this innocent, who they know is relatively inexperienced and has no idea of what existence is really about, not in its fullness. They also know that there’s something substantially different about their own souls as a result of having spent those thousands or perhaps millions of years down here on earth, a quality not just of depth and complexity but also one of compassion and empathy, which can only come from having suffered and dealt with great struggle and resistance. That’s because the soul grows its spiritual muscles by pushing up against obstacles, against resistance, and contending with “friction.”

That’s one of the subtle messages of the ancient “Hymn of the Pearl.” A passage from the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, it tells the tale of a boy, the “son of the king of kings,” who is sent down into Egypt to retrieve a pearl from a mysterious serpent. While on his mission, he is seduced by Egypt and its ways, and consequently forgets his home country and family. The king sends him a letter to remind him of his past and his royal heritage, at which point he remembers his mission, retrieves the pearl, and returns home.

Symbolically, “Egypt” in that tale signifies worldly, mortal existence itself, in which we can likewise easily become lost—and will forever remain lost until we receive that message from our higher Self reminding us to complete our mission and return home again. Thus our sojourn in this realm is not a waste of time, nor is it meaningless; there is a treasure to be gained from enduring this mortal existence, which is symbolized by the pearl.

That choice of objects by the author (as opposed to a treasure chest or crystal statue, say) is significant, when you consider that a pearl’s beauty arises from the interaction of a rough irritant (like a grain of sand) with the oyster it’s found its way into. In a similar way, one’s soul is in some sense polished as a result of its sojourn through this rough world. That’s not to say that one seeks out suffering, because even the mystics say the wisest option is to learn without it, if at all possible. But as the Buddha himself pointed out, that’s not always possible: suffering is, to some extent, part and parcel of mortal existence, with its rounds of life and death, beginnings and endings.

Let me toss one more idea into the mix to help round out this picture a little more.

One summer between freshman and sophomore year of college, I worked a summer job to earn some money for a trip through Europe, a kind of pilgrimage where I’d visit as many of the major art museums in Europe as I could within a four-week period. I didn’t have much money, so I purchased a Eurail pass, slept on the trains at night, and went from city to city, a new one each day, to study the great masters up close. The chief focal points of my study were artists like Leonardo, Velázquez, Ingres, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, and Rembrandt, although there were many more I found inspiring.

When I got to the great Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I had an interesting thought while standing before Rembrandt’s large canvas, commonly called The Night Watch, completed in 1642. The work is essentially a military group portrait painted in Rembrandt’s inimitable style. In a way that almost prefigured the later Impressionists, the Dutch master was notable for his depiction of figures and forms with richly textured swabs of color along with atmospheric plays of light and dark.

When I stood up close to the painting to examine it in detail, I saw that some of those splotches of brown or black paint were nothing particularly beautiful when seen up close—taken strictly by themselves, they could even be considered somewhat ugly. But when you stood further back, all of those splotches and dabs of paint, both light and dark, colorful or drab, became part of a larger tapestry, and the result was majestic.

Some time later, I thought: if we indeed experience thousands or perhaps even millions of lifetimes over the course of eons, each lifetime might be like one of those little dabs of paint on Rembrandt’s large canvas. A given lifetime might seem dreary or even painful as experienced up close and in isolation, but might play an integral role within the larger canvas of spiritual evolution—and that would become clear if one stood back far enough. I could imagine that even a lifetime spent wasting away in a medieval dungeon could play as important a role in that evolutionary arc as any dab of black or brown paint did in Rembrandt’s painting, complementing the rich gold and white highlights right alongside it.

So I do believe there is something profoundly important about surviving the mean streets of planet earth. It is often a life filled with disappointments and seemingly endless struggles, right alongside great beauties and awe-inspiring wonders; but whatever you may think about it, it certainly doesn’t seem meaningless.

At least not if you stand back far enough.

Ray Grasse worked on the editorial staff of the Theosophical Society in America during the 1990s. He is the author of several books, including The Waking Dream: Unlocking the Symbolic Language of Our Lives (Quest, 1996). This essay has been excerpted from his forthcoming book When the Stars Align: Reflections on Astrology, Life, Death, and Other Mysteries (Inner Eye, 2022). His website is www.raygrasse.com.

Printed in the  Spring 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hoepfl-Wellenhofer, Susanne,  "From Duality to Polarity in the Works of Jean Gebser" Quest 110:2, pg 32-34

By Susanne Hoepfl-Wellenhofer

The words duality and polarity are often used interchangeably, but discerning between these two concepts is extremely important in the metaphysical sense. Knowing the difference enables us to avoid misunderstandings and half-truths and clearly align our consciousness. This became clear to me when I discovered the writings of Jean Gebser (1905–73), a German-Swiss poet, cultural philosopher, historian, and intellectual mystic. Reading Gebser’s work is no easy task, and it took me many years to study all his books and lectures. But I was so intrigued by his concept of integral consciousness that I stuck with it.

Gebser concluded that human consciousness has transitioned through four levels: the “archaic,” the “magical,” the “mythical,” and the “mental-rational,” and is now transitioning towards the “integral” level of consciousness (Gebser, Ursprung, 83–164; Fuhr and Hellbusch, 22–35). He pointed out that this level must go past the rationalistic unambiguity and the dualistic either-or dichotomy of the mental-rational consciousness and into a both-and way of thinking (Gebser, Verfall, 39).

Gebser calls these transitions “mutations” and believed that they involve structural changes in both the mind and the body. He explained his thesis in his work, Ursprung und Gegenwart, which was published in various editions from 1949 to 1953 and translated into English as The Ever-Present Origin. 

The archaic structure is almost completely instinctual, zero-dimensional, nonperspectival, and there is a total absence of differentiation or sense of separation. Humans and the world are identical.

The magical structure marks the first step toward a waking human consciousness. It is one-dimensional and egoless, a preperspectival state of timelessness and spacelessness. The magical man was part of his environment and felt secure only within his group.  Its deficient form results in serfdom and collective trance (Gebser, Ursprung, 87–106; Fuhr and Hellbusch, 22–35).

In the mythical structure the soul experiences something as an other and lives in a two-dimensional polarity. It unfolds in symbols rather than in calculation. Its deficient form inflates symbolism and uses tales in an addictive way (Gebser, Ursprung, 106–25; Fuhr and Hellbusch, 22–35).

The domain of the mental-rational phase of consciousness is the thinking mind. The world is seen as an object. It is three-dimensional, and cognition operates on the principle of duality. The deficient form of this structure is a dissociation from the unity of experiencing and thinking and an overemphasis on logic. (Gebser, Ursrpung, 125–64; Fuhr and Hellbusch, 22–35).

The characteristic of the integral structure, which Gebser also called the aperspectival structure of consciousness, is a transparent lucidity capable of seeing through all dimensionalities and time forms (Gebser, Ursrpung, 165–72). In Jeremy Johnson’s words, “space is no longer empty of value or opaque as it is in the perspectival world but full and transparent. Integrality, then, is the fully expressed and innate wholeness of all the mutations” and “sees through to the spiritual reality that substantiates all worlds and all time forms: the ever-present reality of origin” (Johnson, 130). For the integral level of consciousness to arrive, we must discover what it means to be space-free and time-free, which, for Gebser, is learning to be ego-free.

For Theosophists who have read about the stages of human evolution in H.P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine and the timelines for the different root-races, it might be interesting to know that Gebser is deliberately vague about those time periods.  Ken Wilber, an integral theorist who acknowledged Gebser as an important source for his model, estimates that the archaic level of consciousness began 3 to 6 million years ago and lasted to around 200,000 years ago (Feuerstein, 58). The mutation of the magical consciousness coincided with the appearance of Homo erectus. This human species was the first to use fire (Feuerstein, 75). Feuerstein argues that the early, mythical structure could be placed around 20,000 to 12,000 BC (Feuerstein, 76). The entire period from around 10,000 BC to 500 BC, which may be the time of transition from the mythical to the mental-rational consciousness, was marked by tremendous upheavals (Feuerstein, 95).

 In his book Verfall und Teilhabe (“Decline and Participation,” which has not been published in English), Gebser emphasized that reaching the integral structure of consciousness required understanding the difference between duality and polarity.  He criticized the belief that these terms are interchangeable and supported his opinion with quantum theory and discoveries by Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Ernest Rutherford, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and others. He said that we must overcome Aristotelian determinism and its dualistic thinking—the belief that a given entity must be one thing or another (Alternativdenken)—the three-dimensional geometry of Euclid, the atomic theory of Democritus, and the heliocentric view of the universe, pioneered by Aristarchus of Samos in the third century BC. We must also overcome the belief that duality entails a negative and a positive that conflict with each other. Seeing polarity as complementary forces, in which the negative and positive attract each other and work together to create balance, will help us make our transition into the integral structure of consciousness (Gebser, Verfall, 39).

Gebser supplies specific examples for the transition from the mental-rational structure of consciousness to the integral one, such as: “Haste is replaced by silence and the capacity for silence”; “goal-oriented, purposive thoughts are replaced by unintentionalness” (Absichtslosigkeit); the pursuit of power is replaced by the genuine capacity for love; quantitative idle motion (Leerlauf) is replaced by the qualitative spiritual process. Prejudice is replaced by the renunciation of value judgments, manipulation is replaced by the patient acceptance of providential powers, action is replaced by poise/attitude (Haltung), and Homo faber, the human being as artificer, is replaced by Homo integer, the integrated human (Gebser, Verfall, 62; Feuerstein, 170).

In another lecture, Gebser mentions that he had received statements from young people who “distinguish themselves with a fundamentally new attitude. Compared to the previous deficient mental rationality, it expresses integral consciousness, although they do not harbor any resentment” toward the earlier mode (Gebser, Verfall, 59). He writes that these are “more self-critical; they know more about their weaknesses, which they openly admit and are working to overcome, and they make demands on themselves and not on the environment.” He states further that they are “open, in a completely unsentimental way, tolerant, capable of loving, not arrogant, silent, and shielded from the inside against the lure of money, property, power, fame, and no longer are exposed to the flight into the means [of escapism], the lie, the split, and mere sexuality” (Gebser, Verfall, 60).

The last book I read by Gebser was his first: Rilke and Spain, a short monograph on the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. In this book, Gebser shows that he grasped that the troubled times he lived in contained the embryonic beginning of the integral consciousness. We encounter Gebser’s first tentative explorations of this theme in this book (Feuerstein, 128). In discussing Rilke, Gebser writes: 

The notion of objects has lost its significance, together with perspectivity, achieved using adverbs by which objects were meant to be deepened or interpreted according to the viewpoint of the observer. What is gaining importance now is the spiritual light that prevails between objects—the tension and relation between them. (Gebser, Rilke, 41–42; Feuerstein, 128)

Gebser is pointing toward a mode of consciousness that is no longer based on perspective, as it is in the mental-rational structure. Gebser describes how Rilke’s great existential crisis eventually led him to come to terms with the phenomenon of death, leading him toward a nondualistic type of thought:

The Yes to life becomes at the same time a Yes to death. More than that, it is in two at the same time because it has erased the boundaries: It is a single space, a single world, which at every moment encompasses the two phases of development, because time, the organic component, has become the fourth dimension. (Gebser, Rilke, 46; Feuerstein, 128–29) 

Gebser emphasizes that the integral level of consciousness, which in his opinion has been constellating since the turn of the twentieth century, depends on each individual person for its full emergence. All must do the work of self-transcendence, which, as he admits, is the most difficult of all human tasks.

All work, the genuine work which we must achieve, is that which is most difficult and painful: the work on ourselves. If we do not freely take upon ourselves this preacceptance of the pain and torment, they will otherwise be visited upon us in individual and universal collapse. (Gebser, Ursprung, 676)

Studying Gebser and trying to get a deeper understanding of his thought eventually led me to Theosophy and helped me understand the difference between duality and polarity on a spiritual level. In The Secret Doctrine, Blavatsky explained that the manifested universe “is pervaded by duality, which is, as it were, the very essence of its existence as ‘manifestation.’” She added that the opposite poles of subject and object, and spirit and matter, are but aspects of the One Unity, in which they are synthesized. She went on to observe that “evil” merely denotes the polarity of matter and spirit, a struggle for life between the two manifested principles in space and time. But these principles are ultimately one, being rooted in the Absolute (Blavatsky, 1:15–16).

In simpler terms, duality implies separation, meaning that the two are separated. But polarity tells us that they are two poles of the same thing. Thus we are talking about polarity within unity.  That is the secret: understanding that we are all one with the Absolute and thus with all else.

It is not enough to merely understand the difference between polarity and duality. We must live this polarity within unity, think it, breathe it. That takes tremendous effort, and the path to integrating it into everyday life is different for everyone. As Pablo Sender explains in Evolution of the Higher Consciousness, in order to “stabilize the perception of unity,” we must gradually integrate it into daily life (Sender, 171). The concrete suggestions in Sender’s book have helped me to work on this goal daily. They have helped me understand that polarity is the dyad of equal, mutually complementary poles, based on the natural balance of the divine order.

Sources

Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. Two volumes. Wheaton: Quest, 1993.

Feuerstein, Georg. Structures of Consciousness: The Genius of Jean Gebser. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Integral Publishing, 1987.

Fuhr, Reinhard, and Hellbusch, Kai. “Jean Gebser: Das integrale Bewusstsein: English Summary of Jean Gebser, ‘The Integral Consciousness.’” Integral Review 1 (June 2005): 22–34: https://integral-review.org/issues/issue_1_jun_2005_full_issue.pdf.

Gebser, Jean. Rilke und Spanien [“Rilke and Spain”]. In Abendländische Wandlung [“Western Change”]. In Gebser, Gesamtausgabe [“Complete Works”], volume 1. 3d ed. Schaffhausen, Germany: Novalis Verlag, 2003.

———. Ursprung und Gegenwart [“The Ever-Present Origin”]. In Gebser, Gesamtausgabe, 3d ed., volumes 2 and 3.

———. Verfall und Teilhabe [“Decline and Participation”]. In Vorlesungen und Reden zu “Ursprung und Gegenwart” [“Lectures and Discourses on ‘The Ever-Present Origin’”]. In Gebser, Gesamtausgabe, volume 5:2. 2d ed., 1999.

Johnson, Jeremy. Seeing through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness. Seattle, Wash.: Revelore, 2019.

Sender, Pablo. Evolution of the Higher Consciousness. Ojai, Calif.: Fohat, 2018.

Susanne Hoepfl-Wellenhofer was born in Austria and has been living and working in the U.S. since 1986. She is currently the president of the D.C. Lodge, contributes to the Theosophical Wiki and the Online School of Theosophy, and mentors prisoners.  She retired from the German department of the George Washington University in 2019. She still translates from German to English and teaches yoga.

Printed in the  Spring 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Kezwer, Glen,  "Duality: The Problem and the Solution" Quest 110:2, pg 29-31

By Glen Kezwer

Two polar opposites: duality and oneness. The first is the problem confronting humanity; the second is the solution.

Duality is the vision which accepts two different realities, taking both to be equally real. These realities can be described as consciousness and matter, the inner Self and the world, the seer and the seen, the knower and the known, I and you. In other words, duality is the sense of otherness.

In one sentence, duality means that as soon as you wake up, there are two separate things: one is the body, and the other is your “I”—your inner consciousness, your Self. In terms of everyday perception, duality is the mechanism with which we normally view the world. This mechanism involves two elements: the seer who sees, and the world the seer experiences. Duality is the understanding that these two elements are separate. When we look at the world in this way, we do not perceive the underlying oneness. Yet this oneness is the essential truth—unperceivable to the senses—which underlies the physical universe in which we live. The Theosophical Society brands oneness as “the Unity of all life.”

Duality can be called difference. In fact, difference and duality are synonymous, and they come from the mind of a human being. 

Differences begin when the waking state of consciousness begins . . . You too have never found any differences while in the state of deep sleep. Even if you choose to differ with what I am saying, in order to make that choice you must resort to your waking state of consciousness, because this is where your mind arises. This shows that the waking state and the mind are one and the same reality. (Swami Shyam, 52)

This quote contains two important elements. The first is that we don’t experience duality while we are asleep. Most people tend to dismiss sleep as irrelevant, a state of unconsciousness or nothingness, which gives our physical and mental systems their needed rest but otherwise has no practical value. But let’s look a little deeper. No matter what we may be suffering from—a painful disease, mental anxiety or worry, grief at the passing of a loved one—that suffering completely vanishes as long as we are asleep. This is not a trivial point. It shows that we have the power within ourselves to be free from all suffering during those hours. The question is, can we create a state of freedom that is free of problems as deep sleep is, yet also embodies awareness? I will return to this question later on.

In the first paragraph of this article, I called duality the problem of humanity. By this I mean that when we are under the influence of duality, we experience all of the pain and suffering, but also the joy and happiness, of the world. We undergo duality from the moment we wake up in the morning until the moment we fall asleep at night. The world is entirely composed of differences. We see a multitude of objects that are separate from one another and especially from ourselves: human beings, cars, trees, mountains, milk cartons, and so on are all distinct and separate entities. Time and space separate all things and events. And this is the only way it could be; otherwise, there would not be a universe in which we live.

Why is this a problem? Simply put, duality creates pain and suffering, and human beings want to remove pain and suffering. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali call the suffering we want to avoid heya, which is echoed in the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths. The essence of the world is suffering, and human beings wish to avoid it.

The opposite of duality is oneness. (Actually, there is no opposite of oneness, since it is absolute, but for the purposes of our discussion here, this definition is useful.) Oneness is the ultimate goal of the path of spiritual pursuit, which unites everything into one seamless, undivided reality. This reality is the essence of all human beings, all living creatures, and all of creation. It is beyond space and time, birth and death, and all other pairs of opposites. It cannot be perceived by the senses or the mind, yet is the source of all. Oneness is poetically described by the Sanskrit mantra 

Om poornamadah poornamidam poornaat poornamudachyate
Poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaavashishṣyate
The inner world is oneness. The outer world is oneness.
If you take from oneness, oneness remains, and that which you take is oneness. (my interpretation) 

Since there is nothing in ordinary human experience to compare to oneness, to understand it, we can make use of the metaphor of the waves on the surface of an ocean. From the surface, all the waves appear different. They move at different speeds and come in different sizes and shapes, and some are breaking and some are not. Yet if we go down to the deeper water beneath the waves, all is still and calm. The waves represent the infinite forms which comprise the universe. They all look different, but just as the essential nature of each wave is water, which is one and the same everywhere, the essential nature of all the forms is universal oneness. If we plunge beneath the mind’s surface of thoughts, we find stillness and peace.

The dictum of Adi Shankaracharya, the chief formulator of the Advaita Vedanta, sums up oneness: brahm satyam jagat mithya. Brahm, the highest consciousness, which is the unchanging source of the universe, is real, and the world is an illusion. Essentially Brahm is one without a second, and the world exists only as long as one has not realized this truth.

How do we proceed from duality to oneness? To answer this question, I would like to introduce the four premises on which this article is written: (1) Duality causes pain and suffering, and at the same time happiness and joy. Happiness and unhappiness are just opposite sides of the same coin; both result from the experience of duality. (2) The mind is the creator of duality. (3) The mind is equivalent to the waking state. (4) The waking mind and the differences it creates can be transcended or overcome by observing them in meditation from the perspective of our essential inner being, the Self or Knower.

Our examination of duality and oneness should not merely be abstract philosophy. It should be relevant to our daily lives. As an example of how this works, let’s look at Patanjali’s three broad categories of pain.

1. Parinaam: pain due to our interactions with the constantly changing world in which we live. I recently had an interaction with an old friend who spoke rudely to me. It was definitely unpleasant and took some time to recover from. This is an example of pain caused by a change in my environment, from a state of being easy with my friend to uneasiness.

2. Taap: pain caused by worry or fear concerning possible future events. Many people are fearful of losing their home, job, or family or of becoming ill.

3. Sanskaar: pain resulting from the memory of a past unpleasant event. A friend of mine once sold his house, and shortly afterwards the housing market skyrocketed. Had he waited just a little while, he would have sold it for a much higher price. He lamented over this for years.

These simple examples represent the myriad types of pain a human being can experience.

Considering the second premise, that the mind creates difference, my starting point is the state of dreamless sleep. As I stated above, while we sleep, we experience no differences whatsoever—no worries, no happiness, no unhappiness, no disease, and in fact no world at all. In the state of deep sleep, nothing we experience while we are awake or dreaming appears. Of course, the entire gamut of the world returns to our consciousness when we wake up, which means that our minds return. With the appearance of the waking state, everything is created simultaneously. In an instant, you are a human being lying in a bed. Everything around you is familiar or unfamiliar, as the case may be. All that you perceive is different from you—your bed, your surroundings, the clock on the night table, the window looking out onto your backyard, and even your thoughts. The mind and the waking state are the same thing. Upon awakening, we are embedded in a world of duality, residing in time and space, which we call the waking state.

Is there a problem here? Well, yes, because in the waking state we suffer, both physically and mentally. I remember my father referring to the world as a “vale of tears.” I think his attitude is quite common. Of course, we also experience happiness, joy, love, and beauty in our lives, and we don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Furthermore, we do need duality in order to survive. I’m going to the dentist this morning. I have to know that I have a tooth problem, that the dentist is the person who can take care of it, where the dentist’s office is, how to pay him (often the hardest part), and so on.

The problem arises when we believe duality to be real. The mind says it is located in your head, and everything you perceive outside of you is not you. This is the essence of difference. It is the source of problems, the creator of friction, of rubbing: I like something; I don’t like something else. This leads to suffering and joy or conversely happiness and unhappiness.

It is important to dispel any notion that the mind is bad or somehow should be destroyed or eliminated. The eyes see, the ears hear, and the tongue tastes. In the same way, the mind generates thoughts on the basis of the sensory input it receives. That is what it is supposed to do. You need your mind to order from a menu, use your credit card, drive your car, or talk to your friends. It is simply doing its job, which is essential to our existence as human beings. The problem comes when we interpret the thoughts of the mind in either a positive or a negative way.

Happiness is decided upon by the human mind. The World Series is on now. When a game is over, the fans of the winning team celebrate and those of the loser are dejected, but there is only one game. So the problem must ultimately be handled on the level of the mind, which can be transformed, and not on the level of the events of the world. This is not to say that we don’t make every effort to improve our situation in life, but ultimately the mind must be transformed.

How do we get away from this problem, since the mind created it in the first place? Here I will return to the question I posed above: is there a state that is problem-free, as in sleep, yet also contains awareness?

This state is meditation, which creates a new perspective on the mind. In meditation your awareness turns into a sense that nothing is separate from you. In a scientific experiment, we need an observer and something observed. In meditation I will call the observer the Knower, which observes the thoughts that come and go in our minds. The Knower can also be called the witness or watcher. It provides an entirely new outlook on the mind. It perceives the mind and everything it creates, yet at the same time is free and untouched by all of its perceptions. As a free being, the Knower can choose to accept or not accept what the mind says. In other words, the Knower is free of the pain-producing thoughts of the mind.

Meditation in no way means that you have to stop your thoughts from coming. No matter how hard you try, you cannot do so anyway. Unfortunately, the popular misconception that they have to stop their thoughts in meditation leads many to abandon its practice. The key is to put your attention on the Knower-Self. If thoughts come, your meditation is not disturbed. The Knower is freedom. The Knower is oneness. Let your thoughts come and go, but keep your attention on the Knower. Your attention may stray from the Knower. When you realize this, understand that nothing wrong has happened, and gently return your attention to the Knower.

You will find that with practice, when you open your eyes after meditation, the awareness of oneness that was there does not disappear. You reenter the waking state, bringing the freedom of the meditative state into the waking state and realizing that all is you.

In other words, you will realize, as the Theosophical Society puts it, that “every existent being—from atom to galaxy—is rooted in the same universal, life-creating Reality. This Reality is all-pervasive, but it can never be summed up in its parts, since it transcends all its expressions.”

Source Material

Swami Shyam. Shyam’s Philosophy. Kullu, India: International Meditation Institute, 2003.

Glen Kezwer is a physicist who has been practicing and researching the science of meditation since the early 1980s. Following the spiritual path is the central focus of his life. He is the author of Meditation, Oneness, and Physics and The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as many articles on science, meditation, and spirituality. He is a course author with the online teaching website Transformationmeditation.com. He can be reached at gkezwer@gmail.com.

Printed in the  Spring 2022 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Srinivasan, A.V. (Sheenu) "Dualism or Nondualism? Your Choice!" Quest 110:2, pg 25-28

By A.V. (Sheenu) Srinivasan

The kingdom of God is within you.

—Luke 17:21

History records that ancient sages in every faith have asked some fundamental questions about life on earth. They have studied the meanings of the terms “I” and “you.” When we say “I,” does it refer to my body, my mind, or any other entity or state of being that is in us?

These sages identified a concept that they claimed to be inherent in every living being and defined it as soul. As with the mind, we cannot see it or touch it, but it is there: it exists. This is a belief that every faith system has acknowledged, although they continue to argue its status in relation to the universe at large: that is, the connection, if any, of one’s own soul with every other soul and with something that encompasses all.

Along the same lines, there has prevailed a desire to know the entity behind such regular but constantly changing phenomena such as the rising and setting of the sun, the phases of the moon, seasons, the birth, growth, decay, and death of living beings. Who controls these events? Who could be so powerful? Is there a being out there that we need to revere, fear, or love in order to maintain some sort of balance here on earth?

This enquiry has led over and over to the concept of a supreme power or Supreme Being. Should such a being exist, does it have a gender or a soul? If so, is there a connection between this Supreme Soul and individual souls? The general conclusion has been that there is such a being: divine, unseen, but essentially worthy of realization. But where does such a being dwell? Can one ever see or fully comprehend this being?

The supreme divinity (paramatman, the Supreme Soul), which Hinduism defines as Brahman, is deathless, beyond time, beyond space, and not bound by any laws of causation. It has no gender or form and is beyond description.

Hinduism claims that Brahman is the only Reality, arguing that realization of Brahman should be life’s goal because it will lead to moksha: a final release from repeated life and death cycles, whereby the individual soul finally merges with the Supreme Soul after following certain extraordinary spiritual practices. In fact Hindus believe that this is truly the goal of life: to once and for all escape the suffering that is inevitable while living on earth.

The study of the connection between the soul and the Supreme Soul has given us several philosophies to consider to give purpose, understanding, and meaning to life. Such a goal was mandated with crisp aphorisms (“Know thyself,” for example) and constituted a belief system in different cultures in the ancient world.

The nature of this connection among individual souls and the Supreme Soul is the subject of this discussion, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta (“culmination of knowledge”). Vedanta insists that you should come face-to-face with any existences beyond those you sense. You need to begin by admitting that “I” does not mean your body, your mind, or your ego. “I” refers to the soul, which is not matter. If there is a universal and Supreme Soul, you should encounter it directly and remove all doubts.

There’s no need to struggle in attempting to believe—just realize. Use the ancient tools of the six darshans (perspectives) on the Hindu Vedas—including Nyaya, logic, which has to do with sorting out the physical world and the mind-body-spirit connection, and yoga, which has to do with self-discipline. Bhakti yoga, for example, entails total devotion to the divine.

Three systems of Vedantic philosophy emerged from these considerations:

• Advaita (nondualism), propounded by the saint Shankaracharya in the eighth century CE.
• Vishishtadvaita (qualified monism or qualified nondualism) admits a personal God as ultimate reality. The proponent saint of this philosophy was Ramanujacharya, who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He acknowledged that Reality is indeed Brahman but allowed that individual souls as well as the universe are also real and separate.
• Dvaita (dualism). This system claims that the Supreme Soul and the individual soul are different. Its proponent saint was Madhvacharya, who lived in the thirteenth century CE.

The three Vedantic paths all have the same goal: reaching moksha—that is, breaking free of the cycle of rebirth and death. Hindus believe that rebirth is inevitable for those who die without moksha, but if this is achieved, all misery will end, and the soul will be at complete peace and bliss. As a result, one must strive for freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth.

Although all three Vedantic philosophies share a belief in God, individual souls, and the associated fundamentals (such as the necessary quest for knowledge, respect for nature, devotion, dharma, karmic consequences, and so on), differences among them exist. Here we will examine only two of these three belief systems: dualism (Dvaita) and nondualism (Advaita). 

Dvaita

Madhvacharya’s Dvaita school divides individual souls into three categories:

• Those fit to be liberated through the grace of God and spiritual practices.
• Those who are interested only in the material world, with little craving for a spiritual life.
• Those who are inherently evil and end in hell. In the Dvaita, hell awaits these individuals, even if it is mainly a purgatorial interval before the next birth.     

According to the Dvaita philosophy, an individual soul has its own consciousness, willpower, and ability to learn, know, act, and experience joy. As a reflection of God, it reflects some of God’s attributes. The individual soul is forever dependent on God. Each soul residing in a body is subject to bondage. Actions affect the soul, contracting it by bad karma (actions) and expanding it by good karma.

The primary godhead of Madhvas (followers of the founder, Madhvacharya) is Vishnu, who has these divine attributes: he is merciful and lovable, and he takes on human avatars while remaining as the Almighty. No evil attributes whatsoever are attributed to him.

Release from bondage occurs through many lives and depends upon the type of life led. Lives led with devotion to God following dharma (moral order) qualify for entrance to the heaven known as Vaikunta, the abode of Lord Vishnu. Otherwise, upon death of its associated body, the individual soul is subject to moving to another body. This cycle can continue forever, or until the soul qualifies for entrance to Vaikunta. Vishnu’s Vaikunta is full of happiness and is devoid of disease and death. It is the great end—no more births or deaths. Upon liberation, the individual soul retains its identity but becomes free of any suffering. Dvaita does not believe in liberation during one’s lifetime.

Dualists look upon themselves as servants of God. They are vegetarians on the grounds that they shouldn’t harm animals, which have souls and belong to God.

When the Dvaita speaks of God, it is referring to the avatars of Vishnu and the promise of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita that he will manifest here on earth whenever the dharma is in decline. According to the Dvaita, God descends to earth as needed because of his love for the devotees.

 Advaita

Someone saw God and asked, “Who are you?” God replied, “You.”

This brief dialogue explains the aphorism Tat tvam asi (“Thou art That”), which appears in the Upanishads, dramatizes the entire philosophy of nondualism, and summarizes all that is contained in Vedanta. Consequently, I could end the discussion right here. But to absorb all that is contained in that truth, we need to know more.

Who is Thou? What is That? How is Thou That? That, according to Advaita Vedanta, is Brahman. Thou is you. You are Brahman. You are divine. The Hindu sages proclaimed that every human (in fact every animal) is, in its essence, divine. Therefore there is no difference between the inner you and the inner me. We are the same, except that we have different bodies and different experiences. We are like passengers on a plane, all heading to the same destination.

Having pronounced that divinity is in you, the Upanishadic sages insist that you are not a sinner. Swami Shivananda Saraswathi (1887–1963), a saint who founded a religious order known as the Divine Life Society, declared that bliss is your birthright. Hindus believe that we need to enjoy life on earth while performing our duty till the end, at which time the body dies but the soul lives on.

Thou art That. If you and the next person and everyone and everything else are divine, how many divinities are there? An infinite number. Brahman contains all. If you believe you are divine (and Hindu sages say you must), your life on earth is governed by the divinity in you influencing your action, speech, and thought, all of which are divine. If everyone and everything behaved accordingly, all would be well; it would be heaven on earth, with divine actions, divine speech, and divine thoughts all around.

Is heaven on earth an unattainable dream? No, say the sages. According to them, that is what life on earth was meant to be. Thou art That. We are therefore the One. Trouble starts when we forget that inherent oneness, and the result is the imperfect world we see and live in. This, the Hindu declares, is ignorance of the Reality.

This approach lays down an ideal before us that is possible to attain: to live the divinity in us. It asks us to elevate our lives to meet that ideal and avoid the tendency to compromise it. Living the divinity within ourselves requires action that takes place amid inner calmness. This seeming conflict is insisted upon by the scriptures.

Vedanta stresses that the single most important goal of life is the realization of our true nature. We must know ourselves, know who we really are. As simple as this idea may sound, attaining self-realization is actually very hard, because we are distracted by our external focus. Such focus has undoubtedly helped humanity in many ways, such as the Green Revolution, which increased food production; the moon landing; and advances in genetics, computers, medicine, and the Internet. Yet this external engagement has also blinded us to the most fundamental need: to know who we truly are.

Although many a recent thinker has brought this lapse to our attention, it is not a new discovery. Centuries ago, Hindu sages urged, “Know thyself.” So did thinkers in other cultures. The Greek version, gnothi seauton (carved over the door to the temple of the oracle at Delphi), and the Latin nosce te ipsum all mean the same.

Hindus made a special effort to focus their attention inward for another reason: they found the inner universe equally fascinating and equally demanding as the outer universe.

The sages assured us that when we know who we really are, we will be able to assert the Truth stated in the Mahavakyas (“Grand Utterances”) this way:

 Aham brahmasmi (I am Brahman).

Tat tvam asi (Thou art That).

Ayamatma brahma (The extension of the self is Brahman).

According to the sages, “I am God” needs to be understood and repeated until it becomes an integral part of every human being. This truth, which affirms the oneness of the universe, is considered the greatest truth of Advaita Vedanta. It is also Vedanta’s mandate: realize who you are.

According to Vedanta, oneness, when realized, leaves us free. With the realization of our true identity—our oneness with everything and every being—outward differences in name, color, dress, speech, station in life, and so on become less important. The path an individual chooses to realize the self and to reach God doesn’t matter. Uniformity isn’t needed, because all paths eventually lead to the same Truth, which is why Vedantists are able to declare, “Truth is One, but the wise may express it differently” (ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti).         

The Hindu is not concerned about how you reach this realization. He doesn’t insist that you adopt his path; he is comfortable when you follow your own. A Hindu’s wish for you is that you be a better Christian if you are a Christian, a better Jew if you are Jewish, a better Taoist if you are a Taoist. No matter what path you choose, the Hindu believes that he will ultimately meet you when you both reach your goal.

Vedanta doesn’t care who the individual is or what the individual believes in. It asks that we develop a perspective from whose height all differences, real and important though they may seem to be, diminish until we are able to view unity, harmony, and beauty. Think of being in an airplane at 30,000 feet and looking down to see a beautiful, smooth terrain.

The core message of the Vedanta is that human beings cannot achieve happiness by mere experience of physical pleasures obtained through wealth: these are temporary and cannot last long. At best, they guarantee you another turn on the wheel of rebirth.

Vedanta aims at absolute happiness obtainable only through spiritual enlightenment. Such enlightenment alone is capable of cutting the link between endless action and the corresponding consequences. When the individual soul (jivatman) is freed from this connection, it is liberated from the cycle and unites with the source, Brahman.

As mentioned previously, one is free to follow any path one chooses to find God. In this sense, Vedanta is both a religion and a philosophy, reflected in the following Hindu prayer.

OM. Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to eternal life
Om, peace, peace, peace.

Concluding Thoughts

At first sight, the dualism of the Dvaita appears somewhat more realistic. You are you, a human, and there is a God who loves his devotees. Worshipping that godhead, seeking his grace, and leading a spiritual life leads you to the heavenly abode. Although this sounds simple, it is not necessarily easy to practice. Total surrender with unconditional love of the Almighty still does not exclude doing one’s duty and seeking higher knowledge.

In my opinion, Advaita, nondualism, is a huge leap ahead. It asserts that you must realize who you really are. You must strive to understand yourself with a focus and depth of thought until you know who you really are. Don’t give up, it says; dive deep and realize you are IT—Brahman. Once you cross that hurdle by overcoming ignorance, you are on the threshold of heaven, even in this life. Strict spiritual observances are recommended so you become free: when the body dies, the soul merges with the Supreme Soul, and you are done. No more rebirths and deaths, no more disease, no more struggle, no more conflicts. Your soul has reached its real home.

Heaven on earth will be the result if everyone reaches that state where they enjoy life on earth, with every action, thought, and utterance within the framework of dharma.

Has any human being ever been able to attain this goal? Yes, although the list is not long.

My spiritual hero, the Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, who, while addressing the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893, began his speech with the words “Sisters and Brothers of America,” lived a life that is truly divine, yet he was a human being just like you and me. His contributions to Vedanta have influenced seekers throughout the world and will last forever. To this short list, we can add Mahatma Gandhi; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mother Teresa; Pope Francis; and perhaps a few more of your choice who have revolutionized the world by giving hope and trying to attain a more equitable and peaceful world.

The list of famous individuals who disregarded every conceivable dictum and brought destruction to the world is long, and you have been reading about all of them in history. That, unfortunately, is the real, messy, cruel, dangerous world. It need not be, but humans tend to rush towards a nearby pile of coal while the pot of gold is just within reach. Every individual is important, and the choice that individuals make can influence the whole world.

That choice is yours, and yours only. Realize!

Dr. A.V. (Sheenu) Srinivasan is the author of many publications, including the books Vedic Wedding: Origins, Tradition, and Practice (which received a national best book award in 2007), A Hindu Primer: Yaksha Prashna (which won a Benjamin Franklin Award in 2016), and Hinduism for Dummies. His website is www.avsrinivasan.com.