“I AM THAT”: A Nondual Perspective                                  Truth Journal- Winter 2024

Whenever we attend a meditation retreat or take part in a yoga class, it is common to hear phrases like: “I am That,” “I am not the body,” “I am not the mind,” or “I am the witness consciousness.”  Although we may intuit that these statements are true, if we are honest with ourselves, for most of us, these words are not a lived reality. This isn’t how we normally experience life. In this way, these phrases stand as lofty metaphysical promises that we can only hope to experience one day.

Devotees have repeated different permutations of these statements for thousands of years. So, they must be true, right? If we happen to be one of those seekers who still hasn’t experienced the larger Reality to which these sayings point, is it at least possible to rationally convince ourselves that they are true, to help encourage us to keep going? How can the affirmations, “I am not the body.” “I am not the mind.” “I am the witness consciousness.” or “I am That.” be logically demonstrated?

Let us use the philosophy of non-dualism to answer this question. Contrary to how it may first appear, non-dualism does not deny that we experience separate things in life. What Non-dualism is questioning is the independent reality of what we experience. If we start with the proposition, “We are consciousness,” then it logically follows that we experience everything in and as consciousness. What Non-dualism posits is that the things that we experience have no inherent independent reality of their own apart from the experience of consciousness itself.

As an example: the light in your room is different from the device on which you are now reading this article. You can demonstrate this. You can take this device into a different room and view this same device in a different light. If two things can be experienced separately, independent of one another, then they are clearly two different things. (Example: the “Light” and the “Device” on which you are reading this article.) 

Let us now apply this idea to the topic of consciousness; common sense tells us that our world is experienced by our consciousness. Now, is this world something separate from the experiencing consciousness? If we claim the world is separate from the experiencing consciousness, prove it. We cannot prove it. Because to prove it, we will first need to experience the world apart from consciousness, but nothing can be experienced apart from consciousness. Now, because this world cannot be experienced apart from consciousness, instead of saying “my consciousness is witnessing, or illumining the world”, it is more accurate to say “the world is within my consciousness.”

This is also true for the body/mind. Try to experience the body/mind and consciousness separately. It cannot be done. Anytime the body/mind is experienced, it is experienced within consciousness. From the Non-dualistic point of view, everything that is experienced is experienced within consciousness, not apart from consciousness. Likewise, regarding all things that are not, and/or cannot ever be seen separately from one another, it must be assumed that these things are connected in some way. They are not separate existences. Just as the table and the wood cannot be separated. The table is the “name” and “form” of the wood. So too, the universe is the “name” and “form” of consciousness… the consciousness which you are. Consciousness alone is appearing as the universe. This is the position of non-duality. Therefore, consciousness is non-dualistic. Just as there is no second table apart from the wood, similarly, there is no second universe apart from consciousness.

“I AM THAT.”

Primordial Peace, Eternal Silence                                                      September 24, 2024

Stillness is our inmost nature, and silence is what gives us the experience of that nature. If it were not for the preexisting reality of silence, we could not hear sound. Sound is movement. If not for the preexisting reality of stillness, there would be no movement. Silence precedes our experience of sound; stillness precedes our experience of movement. 

Just as all sound arises out of one undifferentiated silence, so too, our individual existences arise out of one primordial peace, one Eternal Silence, which can be understood as both the substance and the origin of our Pure Essence of Being. If it weren’t for silence, we could not hear sound, and yet, the various shifting sounds that we hear enable us to be aware of and to appreciate the one, unchanging Eternal Silence that is the essence of our soul, and which also stands as the everlasting beacon that can guide us back to the shores of our True Nature. 

What we call “life” is the movement of energy and spirit. This movement affords us the opportunity to live and to move and to experience the reality of our being, all in the space of the one Eternal Silence. Depending on our level of discernment, we are able to perceive this movement of life in a way that reflects back to us our current state of consciousness. The clearer our consciousness is, the more accurately we are able to experience the unchanging Oneness that is behind the perceived multiplicity and movement of life. We are then able to live our lives without being unconsciously influenced by the negative judgments and/or prejudices that previously colored the decisions we made in the past. This one underlying Eternal Silence, which is the single stage on which the movement of all life plays out, is the foundation of our individual existences. 

Paul Tillich, the German American philosopher and theologian, referred to this primordial state of quietude as our “Ground of Being.” It is on, in, and as this “Ground of Being” that, as is stated in the Biblical tradition, we “live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)

The cacophony of external sound, movement and conflict, which is a natural part of our life experience is a primary reason for much of the suffering in the world today. The discontent that is now being externally expressed in the world is actually an outward expression of our internal condition of unrest. Calming this unrest within the mind is the art of meditation. The way that this unchanging, underlying reality of primordial peace can truly be realized, both internally and externally, is by periodic episodes of intentional and deep meditation. It is in deep meditation that we access the space where all perceptual disturbances stop, and all mental fluctuations cease. It is in this way that we remember our Pure Essence of Being. It is in this way that we experience the primordial peace of Eternal Silence, our pure Essence of Being.

Becoming Who You Are                                                                     August 28^th, 2024                                                       

Zackary David Price

Our life is the “process of becoming” who we are. It is this “process of becoming” that leads to the realization of what we are. Although who we are is an ongoing revelation that is determined by the choices we make from moment to moment, by contrast, what we are is unchanging. By nature, what we are is eternally “whole” and “complete.” However, we are only able to realize what we are, by first engaging in the “process of becoming” who we are. It is solely through the expression of who we are that the undergirding what becomes realized. In the ancient world there existed a word that perfectly articulated the contours of this “process of becoming.” This word is entelechy.

Entelechy is an ancient Greek principle that means the fullest, or highest actualization of what an entity can become. This principle of entelechy also serves as the inherent “blueprint of wholeness” that exists within an entity from before the moment of the entity’s inception. An entity’s entelechy exists in the realm of eternity; however, it manifests into the flow of time by the predetermined laws of nature. It is this “blueprint of wholeness” that serves to guide the entity from the genesis of its development, and progressively draws it forth toward its destiny until it achieves complete actualization. Anexample of the principle of “entelechy” is a butterfly as it relates to a caterpillar. (i.e.: the butterfly is the caterpillar’s entelechy)

Although each individual person has an entelechy, at the most fundamental level, this “personal” entelechy is rooted in an enteral reality of “wholeness”. This reality of “wholeness” is the very ground of our existence. Another term for our entelechy is our “Pure Essence of Being”, or our “Soul.” 

Given that this reality of complete “wholeness” is both the essence and the foundation of a person’s entelechy, and given that this “wholeness” is eternal, then how does it exist in the moments when we cannot perceive it, such as when we are ill or unhappy? As stated earlier, not only is a person’s entelechy the most fully actualized version of what an individual may become, it is also this reality that draws the individual forth along their path toward realization. It is this “drawing forth” that allows us to witness the expression of beauty and love in the world. It is this “drawing forth” that inspires us to “remember” who and what we are. “Who” I am is the process that I go through in order to realize “what” I am, and “what” I am is already “whole” and “complete.” 

Because our entelechy is the innate reality of our eternal “wholeness”; and because the origin of the word “wholeness” is also the origin of the word “healing”, then our journey of “healing” is literally the revelation of our entelechy. It is this realization of the “wholeness of life”, which not only brings us back into a state of wellness when we sick, and back to a state of happiness when we are sad, but it is also this principle that can open our awareness to the beauty that is present in any given moment. 

One final word that shares the same origin as that of “wholeness” and “healing” is the word “holy.” Our entelechy is the seed of our “holiness.” Although we each live our lives within the flow of time, that part of us that exists outside of time is the part of us that is “holy.” It is through the alembic of our lives that this “holy” part of us is made manifest in the world.