Base Reality

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 direct experience of God. Advaita signifies the absence of a fundamental separation between the individual self* and the ultimate reality.

Setting Advaita aside 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 God’s infinite being, within awareness. 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 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 dilemmas and sorrow and joy, all the while aware of his or her true identity. The true identity is not the content of awareness, which in this case is the character; the true identity is the actor, or, more precisely, the actor’s aware presence.

For the contemplative, then, life becomes less dualistic. Waves are understood to be the activity of one ocean in the same way that phenomenal appearances are understood to be the activity of one consciousness.

This shift in understanding opens a door to peace and clarity. Emotions are still evoked, but they are handled without entanglement. Desires still arise, but they are no longer embedded in selfish agendas. Actions flow more spontaneously and effortlessly from a place of openness and, when we listen, wisdom.

So the contemplative life is not about retreating from the world, but about remaining in touch with the spontaneous, dynamic expression of the fundamental oneness, experienced from a grateful, first person point of view.

*In Advaita, there is no separation between the individual self and the ultimate reality because there is no separate entity apart from consciousness, and consciousness is the ultimate experiential reality. In the “not two” tradition, consciousness is one. Similarly, in the Christian tradition, Jesus, using the language of his culture, says, “I and the Father are one.”

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