Hello,
Being Is a Verb is a nice place to sit back, relax, and explore implications of the nondual understanding.
The ideas presented here are not abstract or theoretical, although they may appear to be at first. No special knowledge in philosophy, psychology, religion, or science is required, at all. In fact, any schooling or conditioning rooted in dualism (the concept that reality is composed of two fundamentally distinct principles, mind and matter) is an obstacle to understanding.
Sometimes simply an earnest desire for clarity and peace is enough to create an opening, a space for receptivity, through which a different way of being can be known. This is not a call for receptivity to new information; this is a call for the recognition of what is already self-evident by direct experience.
The material is presented as it is written, chronologically, and the topics are largely determined by what is on my mind at the time. One reader may start from the beginning while another may prefer the organization of the Topical Guide.
—Greg Reddick
What is Nondual Awareness?
Nondual awareness refers to the direct experience of perception minus the belief in a fundamental separation between mind and matter, between subject and object. Through understanding one knows that although separation is real as an appearance in awareness, the reality of awareness—that by which anything is known—is indivisible. Division and separation are activities of the mind, not of the aware presence which knows the content of the mind.
Nondual Awareness vs. Nondual Understanding
Nondual awareness can be difficult to embody due to several factors, including cultural conditioning and the egoic need for control stemming from a natural desire for security and survival. Nondual understanding, then, with its concepts, analogies, and philosophical frameworks like dual-aspect monism,* can serve as a helpful guide.
*Dual-aspect monism suggests that the two aspects of reality, mind and matter, are ultimately manifestations of the same underlying reality. According to the nondual understanding, this underlying reality is consciousness, or, to use religious terminology, God’s infinite being.
About Being Is a Verb
Being Is a Verb explores the essence of nondual awareness and the experiential reality behind the concept of God.
The Introduction provides samples of the understanding for context. The primary articles are on the Main Pages. The Topical Guide is an alphabetized and categorized list of the content for easy reference. Articles from each main page are listed in the Table of Contents.
The three pages of Q & A offer brief comments on topics like the similarities and differences between nondual interpretations of Jesus’ core teachings and traditional views of Christianity; the question of salvation; the nature of our sin nature; the nature of our true nature; witnessing presence; the deeper purpose of life; the nature of reality; the hard problem of consciousness; near-death experiences; the problem of evil; angelic beings; unfavorable influences and the paranormal; protection; and the innate freedom and happiness at the heart of experience.
Extra bits on are on Instagram: @nondualunderstanding
More about Being Is a Verb
Being Is a Verb explores wisdom traditions and the philosophy of mind from the perspective of contemplative Christianity and Advaita Vedanta (Sanskrit for “not two”).
Contemplative Christianity emphasizes a direct experience of God. Likewise, Advaita signifies the absence of a fundamental separation between the individual self* and the ultimate reality.
Setting aside Advaita for now, what is a contemplative Christian?
A contemplative can be described in various ways, but, here, a contemplative is someone for whom every phenomenal experience is understood to be an activity within awareness, or, in religious terms, God’s being. The contemplative understands that it is only through awareness that anything has experiential existence. Since this is the case, awareness can be described as the ground of being, or as the foundation upon which all perceptions and conceptions arise. A contemplative is simply someone who enjoys spending time resting in or as this awareness of oneness.
Contemplation is analogous to the experience of lucid dreaming in which awareness is aware of the dream while in the dream.
Another analogy is that of a stage actor in a play. The actor embodies the role with total conviction, through sorrow and joy, all the while aware of his or her true identity. This true identity is not the character; the true identity is the actor, or, more precisely, the actor’s aware presence.
For the contemplative, then, life becomes less dualistic. Phenomenal appearances are understood to be the activity of one consciousness in the same way that waves are understood to be the activity of one ocean.
This shift in understanding opens the door to peace and clarity. Emotions are still evoked, but they can be addressed without entanglement. Desires still arise, but they are no longer embedded in egoic agendas. Actions flow more spontaneously and effortlessly from a place of openness and, when we listen, wisdom.
So the contemplative life is less about retreating from the world and more about the dynamic expression of fundamental oneness experiencing a first person point of view.