Let’s look at the hierarchy – the true hierarchy, not the ones derived from social structures: religion derives from the spiritual, in its historical genesis, and its core of "mystical" truth; spiritual truth springs from the non-dual. So at the top, the absolute top, is what non-duality points to. In the East, they call it Atman.

Of course, in Truth, there is no top – it's just the way the human mind tries to put things in order, in time and space. You could also call it the "background" of all phenomena – the unknowable, universal "Consciousness" , if we had to put a label on it: a no-thing "it"...

In any case, regarding nonduality, or spiritual truth: if something is true, it is true in an absolute sense. That is, everywhere, at any time. And in that fact it has a deep commonality with science: anyone with any sense or intelligence — that is, a deep intuition, knows that if something is true in science or math, it’s true anytime, anywhere in the universe — or, more absolutely we could say regardless of time and space. That is, we can state unequivocally that in reality, there is (only) one reality.

Common Ground

These simplest of facts can be the hardest to state – and sometimes left better to poetry, or a more poetic style of expression...

Morning on the Seine near Giverny (1897) by Claude Monet. Original from the Art Institute of Chicago. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

Sometimes I hear things that indicate it’s not understood by people that truth is, by nature, always true. In other words, people sometimes think that there is something personal about what’s true. It’s very important to see the absolute common ground (in a subjective sense) in all spiritual teachings. Of course, this only holds if they are true, and not lies or guesses or mental blatherings, random noise, politics, opinions, etc. This common ground is one of the key underlying themes of this website and (future) book.

If what a wisdom teaching is saying or pointing to is true, then it’s true for all wisdom teachings. It has to be, or it wouldn’t be true. This should be obvious, but apparently sometimes isn’t.

This is how true spirituality differs often from religion: it is not about the form; it is not attached to a god or some local god or deity or entity or being or personhood or soul or author or teacher or any thing. Again, think of the parallel with science: the truth behind the law of gravity or pattern of prime numbers is only local or unique in the particular form it was expressed in — the person or team or language or culture from which it emerged — and not the truth that it’s indicating, which is absolutely universal. Truth itself is formless. Expressions have a form.

This fact that expressions have a form, but Truth, with a capital "t" doesn’t, can be a point of confusion or contention for students of spirituality. They will, for example, see the behavior of a teacher, or some way they expressed something, or some way a path or teaching expresses a truth or a practice, and compare it to their internal rules and expectations, or to other teachers, or other paths, then feel it affects the truth of the truth stated. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The messenger is not the message. The formless is not the form. Plain and simple.

The difference with science of course is how truths are found and verified, and in the subject matter. Science is via the senses and rationality, and the subject matter is how things move, the patterns in time and space: phenomena. Spirituality (and philosophy in the original, unpolluted sense, prior to modern academia: love of wisdom) is direct, intuitive, and verified internally, with self-evidence (like logic, but with “higher reasoning”: a different logic covered in a different essay), and in living and feeling-sensing in a universal way.

This is why words like “Universal Love (or The Good), Beauty and Truth” are used in spirituality, and not so much in science — you could say it's a science of “feelings” in that sense — but not emotions — feelings that come from stillness or silence, not motion per se.

But even here, we find language inadequate, because isn’t joy an emotion? It’s love in action you could say - the joy of a laugh with a friend, or playing with a dog or child, for example. Or the joy of an insight - these all seem to involve some kind of motion - for or within the bodymind — so could be called emotions in that sense. But they are not disturbing like the motion of anger for instance. One returns to peace quickly.

The senses, the outward perceptions, can only tell us so much, however. They can be deceptive, and need to be verified, for what they indicate, either for relative actions, or scientific truths. What is perceived as this body for instance, is perceived through the visual perception — I see arms and legs and a torso and the end of my nose — but all that tells me is there is a visual form of perceiving going on — it doesn’t tell me what is there, or here, in any absolute sense. It could be some distortion of perception, or a hallucination. I could be dreaming. But I verify things from different angles, times and different senses, to see if something is relatively true, so perhaps I want to take a relative action. It has operational truth. I sense with the body skin senses that something is too hot on the arm, and so look over and see it is leaning against a hot radiator, and then I smell the smell of a hot heater, and hear a hissing. My senses all converge on a relative truth: there is a damn hot heater too close to my damn arm, I take relative action in time and space to move the body away from the damn hot heater.

But even more importantly, this body perception is significant for what it does not tell me: that there is a person or a body here, in any real or absolute sense. Here is where upbringing, language and social conditioning conspire to enact an acting-as-if, an identification, a play of co-incidences that creates a belief within localized consciousness that this “avatar” shall we say, represents some kind of independent, long-lasting entity, with a local will. In other words, real. Religions will try and concrete-ize it in a spiritual way and claim there is a soul, and that we should be concerned with its salvation,forgiveness of supposed sins (from error - the original sin is seeing sin) or with the karma and with reincarnation. All nonsense, made for the convenience of the interests that serve up the religious offerings, and ask offerings and social control in return (a transaction, but ultimately innocent). We forget that it’s about Freedom, absolutely.

We forget that this experience sprouted out of nothing, like in a dream. We wake up in the morning, after the bliss of deep sleep, and thoughts and feelings coalesce around some kind of idea of persons and actions, memories and plans, forgetting the relative vaporware status of the whole thing… we get serious about the play, forgetting we are not just the actor, but the writer and director, the stage hands, and the stage, the theater and the universe in which the theater was created. How fun is that? No real need for heaviness, if it’s all “made of light” to begin with. Do we know what light is? No, of course not, but we experience it.

I’m not here to say what path is right or wrong; I am not cornered with paths at all, really (direct path, indirect, progressive, Advaita versus Buddhist versus esoteric Gnostic Christian, versus this or that, modern or old…all interesting, but irrelevant) or religions. And I am certainly not concerned with saving the world - that is way, way above my pay grade, and a dangerous path to arrogate oneself too, as we can see from history. How could I save something we don’t even know the nature of, other than what it is not? And why get involved in politics (or religion, which is a kind of high-minded politics, really: a worldy “effect”, not a cause or the ultimate Subject - it’s a form: too late) at all, other than for fun, if this is indeed, in some sense, dreaming? You can’t fix a dream, other than to change it temporarily (which can be good, if that’s your thing, your love), since what “fixes” a nightmare for example, is to wake up.

And yes, there is also creativity that happens. That’s the saving grace of this “realm”. The extreme flexibility of it. Nothing is set in stone. Creation is not in time, but is evident in time. So it’s not about the past or the creation of the universe. That’s why the "original sin" as it were, is the creation of the perception of sin right now. It’s already too late. You’re already in the world. You have to rewind it all. This has nothing to do with actions and of course there’s accountability and all that once you are talking about worldly social level.

So ask yourself: what do I want? No, I mean, what do I really want. Don’t answer so fast, unless it comes from deep love.

And, you can start this experiment by being of service. When you find yourself in such a situation, seize the opportunity. And be glad. It’s a rich life.