Welcome to our 14th dialogue in the Wisdom series with A. H. Almaas, aka Hameed Ali. Roger said that this talk was especially nourishing, intriguing, stimulating and transmitting awareness. Hameed says that in many traditions that the individual is seen as an illusion. Hameed tells us it is an appearance. Shall we get into it? Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit, Life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists. With Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.

Welcome to the podcast Deep Transformation, Self, Society, Spirit. I'm Roger Walsh, our co host is John Dupuy and our guest today is A. H. Almaas, sometimes better known as Hameed Ali but pen name A. H. Almaas. And today we are having our 14th dialogue in our Age Wellness Wisdom series in which we're working away systematically through one of his central texts, the Inner Journey Home. And Hameed is providing an oral overview of his extensive work which underlies his training program the Diamond Approach and offers a profound understanding of the nature of reality and the ways in which we can awaken to it. And today we're up to chapter 19 on the topic of non conceptual awareness. We covered a little of this in our last dialogue, but now we dive into, particularly beginning with the topics of dichotomies. And this is such a profound discussion, I feel, I realize I'm a little repetitive. Of the last several dialogues I've said this is a really profound chapter and they are. And this is a profound discussion and topic. So we come to the topic that you Hameed, call transcending conceptual dichotomies. And you point out that our basic nature is, or one aspect or dimension of our fundamental nature or true nature is non conceptual awareness. But that's usually clouded by the mental operations of the psyche, which, and in particular you focus here on conceptual dichotomies, for example, being and non being and action and action and non action, et cetera. And you say that these dichotomies are the underpinning, and you say the final underpinnings of the way in which we structure the self and the world. And these overlay non dual awareness. So maybe you just like to take off from there.

So John had something to say.

Oh, thank you, Hameed. Yeah, I just want to say I don't know if we've done this before, but if you're. And I know a lot of you have contacted me and talked to me how much you're getting out of this. So please hit like if you're enjoying this. Also your comments are so important to us to let us know how we're doing if you have questions, just your feedback is all important. That's you're our mirror. And also subscribe because that means a lot to us and it helps us to contribute, in other words, to get this out to a world that sorely needs this dimension of reality and dimensions that we're exploring and to sit at the foot of this magnificent teacher. It's really something. So subscribe if you would.

Thank you. And thank you, Hameed. Good, Sounds good. So get to Raj's question first. I'll put it in contact. You know, which is that the book is really has sort of. It's one in one whole, but has two sides. First side is how we first experience ourselves and how that come about and what underlies it. Right. That's when we discuss the individual consciousness or what you call the soul and how it develops into an ego and what happened to it when the ego is. Is dissolved. And that then shows the journey, inner journey in your home to reality. But the reality and energy reality discussing in this book is that of non dual reality. So really the heart of the book is the non dual universe as we see it in this teaching and diamond approach. So a diamond approach has other realization besides non dual and non dual is important and central. And this book really delves into it in very much detail as you've seen, but also the other thing you want to see like in a non dual perception or reality. I divided into five major chapters. Each chapter basically explicates one dimension of non dual reality. So I present non dual perception not as an overall just non dual which most teachings do, which is non dual awareness or non dual reality or non dual whatever. And they don't talk about a different dimension. Here I presented a five dimension of non dual reality. They all usually can be all together as one thing, but they can be differentiated as five terms. There's no gradation between them, no hierarchy. It's just this, the non dual it differentiates into five distinct dimension. And that is very useful because each dimension elucidates some truth about our experience, our ordinary experience and how also very significant in understanding how our self develops and how the practice dissolves it. And each one of the dimension shows something important about that process. And that's why I didn't present it as just non dual. That by itself we'll just say the opposite. Non dual as separateness of being separate self doesn't give you more detail here. I'm giving a great deal of details about the self and our perception of the world and life and everything else from Some details that are not easy to get to. If you look at a non dual as one overarching reality or dimension, breaking it down to five dimensions. And for me, I didn't break it down in my mind, that's how it appeared to me. One dimension after the other, they're all non dual. And after I went through all the five, then all the five show themselves as one reality, which is the most teaching talk about. But each one really reveals something very important about how the self develops, how the mind developed, the origin of the mind, the origin of knowing, the origin of action, all of these things. You know that people have many questions and the question how does a functioning happen? How is doing happen, how change happens? And the different levels of the mental operation that creates the self, which is very useful in understanding how deep to deconstruct it. So very important to see that. And we are now discussing the third dimension that is discussed in the book, which is that of pure awareness on non conceptual awareness, which some non dual teachings emphasize. Or it's implied, I don't know. A teaching that comes out and explicitly states what I mean by non conceptual here, as you have seen, by non conceptual Hyen, I don't mean just non mental. Most people in the teaching, this talk about non conceptual mean doesn't involve the usual mental operation of the mind. By non conception mean here I mean no knowing. It's beyond the knowing capacity because any knowing implies some concept. And I in the last chapter, pure Presence, detail how there are two kinds of concepts. Basic concept, which is the pure knowing in the Yeshay or the Gnosis or of mystical experience, which is unknowing, but that knowing implies any specific knowing implies there's a concept that then when it's abstracted, it becomes a normal ordinary concept in the mind. And that's what I call ordinary concept. And those the ramification. And those concepts becomes the building blocks of the self.

So there's a difference between awareness and knowing.

Yes, knowing is another dimension. That's a dimension pure presence has in it a knowing capacity, which is the universal mind, which is the foundation of our individual mind. Because the mind is based on knowing. There's no knowing, there's no mind. So pure awareness is really no mind. There's no knowing at all when you say no mind. So maybe Zen gets into it, maybe some teaching, but I don't remember reading anywhere where it's explicitly discussed as in the distinction between the two kinds of concepts exists, which is two kind of knowing. And that is very important for a deconstruction process that happens in spiritual practice. And so it's a lot of detail. And some listeners probably like that. Some people might think it's complex. And it is. It's a lot of knowledge. If it's a lot, you could call it complex. But it is clarifying writing, you know.

And you also point out amid that not only is this pure awareness transcend concepts, but the actual experience of it is so, so refined, for want of a better word, that it doesn't even feel. You can't even say whether that it exists or that it doesn't exist. It kind of transcends that dichotomy of existence, non existence.

Yeah, very true. And because sometimes I wonder about like Dzouchen presentation when I read Long Champa and others. You talk about pure awareness. You talk about awareness as beyond dichotomies, but they also talk about us as including knowing. And so it's not very distinctly.

It's not the same thing.

It's not the same thing held out. Clearly. I'd like to see talking about two dimensions at the same time and not differentiating between the two. Because he says it's pure awareness fashion whatever. And beyond being and not being. He said that beyond being and not being. However, he also talks about knowing because rigpa has knowing in it. So it's not clear there in that formulation how knowing and pure awareness are related. Because pure awareness means no knowing. It's beyond knowing. It is just perception.

And is that how we can become aware of the ground of being, just pure awareness, without knowing, without conceptualizing it? Is that a desired state or dimension in our spiritual journey to. I don't know if you achieve it or it happens.

Yes, we will discuss why it's useful. I mean, you have. We won't call it desired. I don't know if anybody desire. They don't know what it is.

I knew that was kind of wrong when I said it, Hameed, but thank you.

I mean most people desire freedom or realization, but I don't know. But it can appear at some point if you're very deep in the process and you know, you experience a dimension of pure being, a presence that has the yeshay or the noises or the knowing I am that. You see, there's no, you know, I, you know, am, you know that you know what it is. And then the pure awareness is transcends that. It's basically pure awareness is the same dimension that takes off knowing, the garb of knowing. Just awareness is present and pure knowing too. Let me help you know, here Is just the awareness without the knowing part.

And could awareness be just the space? That's probably the wrong word. But that everything arises in before manifestation. It's just awareness.

Yeah, I mean all the non dual dimension can be seen that way as we can experience things arising from them. So yes, this will kind of happen. Usually when we get to a dimension of the absolute, we get to the really more of what I call the source dimension, you know, where everything but you can experience everything arising from any one of them. And in fact the chapter number four is about how things arise. We even discuss the process of the arising. What does that mean? Arising? Right. Is it really arising? That's a whole other thing. But we're staying now with pure awareness. And I'm trying to, you know, clarify you know, as much as possible. They can. The pure awareness is really there is perception without knowing what we perceive. So it is important. We're all even ordinary experience. There's awareness, but it is the awareness is not separate from the knowing and the normal awareness. In the ordinary awareness somebody is aware, they perceive and they say no, I'm perceiving and I'm perceiving a tree, right? And pure awareness, where I'm pure awareness, I'm perceiving the tree, but I don't know it's a tree.

So there's a kind of a gnosis, a pre conceptual gnosis. But there's no. None of the awareness is prior to the conceptual elaboration of identification, categorization.

Yeah, I don't know that can be called gnosis.

Okay.

You know, I don't. Because definition of gnosis is immediate knowing and not just awareness. Here is immediate awareness shown of the knowing. So it's beyond gnosis. It's just pure perception. Seeing and not knowing what you see. Just like a little baby. See, they perceive everything but they have no idea what they are because the capacity hasn't developed.

You know, is this pure awareness, this awareness Is that the unmanifest emptiness from which knowing and everything else the rest of the universe manifests itself? Is that a accurate statement?

Say that. But we could go to another dimension that is deeper. As we could say is the souls wall manifestation.

I was afraid of that.

Okay, we get to that, you know, in a couple more meetings. Yet to actually discuss that in terms of what I call the source dimension or the pure awareness. You can experience things at the ground of being. Each one of them when we are realizing, we see it as the ground of reality. Each one can be seen as the ground reality. But you go to the next one. That one feels like the ground is the one before it. This one, pure awareness is the ground of pure knowing, pure presence or pure being. This is the ground of it. You know.

And Amit, you list several dichotomies that kind of the mind. I guess the Advaitic Vedanta term would be superimposition. Superimposes over and obscures non conceptual awareness in the one which is for you emphasize being. Very important for practicing is the dichotomy of being and doing. And I want to lead into this a little and I want to. This is really important to me because this is a. You point to this as a sticking place and it's actually where I'm stuck in my own practice. I have a lot of interest in this. And you.

So you're coming back to the same point you ask. I'm sorry I didn't answer you right away because we had to sort of.

Right, well that's fine.

You know, the ground. But I'm laying it for you listeners.

Yeah, yeah, thank you very much.

And some people, they might be just coming to this meeting. They don't. Haven't listened to the next one. Otherwise.

Wow, that'll be something.

Yeah, well, yeah, some people hear about it, they're going to find this meeting. And so what does people talk about it? They won't know what we talked about.

Well, I have to go back over these a couple of times myself too.

This is true what you're saying, Roger. And non conceptual, because there are no concepts, it challenges all the different dimension of concepts. Right. And we realize that most concepts are based on dichotomies. There's a long and short, good and bad. Right. Dark and light, you know, life and death. All of these dichotomy concepts mostly come in dichotomies and come in opposites to define themselves. They come in pairs. So the one you mentioned is one of them. Fall in pairs.

You say that many people can, or many of your students can experience non conceptual awareness when they're say for example, sitting or in quiet rest. But most find it very difficult to operate from non conceptual awareness because when they're busy or active. Maybe I'll speak personally here because this is where I'm really wanting some help. Yes, it's at this stage, after many years of practice, it's fairly easy in say sitting meditation just to rest in non conceptual awareness. But for me it's very challenging to maintain that, to develop a continuity during activity. For example, as we're talking now, I'm flickering in and out of that there's sometimes there's a recognition and sometimes I'm just lost back into the conceptual mechanisms of mind. And you say that's very common, very challenging. And most people can't help but fall into this dichotomy of differentiating being from doing and mistaking and thinking when they're doing something they're not actually being. So it seems like you give a kind of almost like a cognitive therapy approach to how to move beyond this dichotomy. So I guess my basic question is, okay, how do we work with this? How do we develop the kind of continuity of non conceptual awareness that you're pointing to as a possibility?

Yeah.

And what does that feel like when you're operating from that space?

Well, that's a profound question and has many facets for the answers. But first I want to say most people who consider themselves realize and who are well known teachers have that problem when they're talking about it and they're sitting, meditating, they are in that state. They start living their life. They can't stay in that place. They become what I call the doer, you see. So there's the self as identity, you know, and the self as the doer. The doer is one manifestation of the self. And to be free from the doer is not easy for most people don't know how to operate, how to function from any one of those deep dimensions. Non conceptual, one of the most difficult. Like how do you live your life when life has many things and specific categories and stuff and. And so that's why I usually think in sitting meditation or any practice, to be in the state is half of the realization. The other half is actualization. Actualization is to actualize it in life and living, functioning, doing, that's the other half. But it means dealing, deconstructing the doer and even having the notion that the doer can be deconstructed. You know, many people don't know that yes, I am in this state, but then when I go about my business, I become this individual person who does these things, but not this, the usual self, the ego self, you know. Now there are many solutions to this depending on which dimension. And this dimension has a solution which is first of all to recognize, as Roger was pointing to, there is a difference between being and doing. Being and doing are a polarity, a conceptual polarity. And those conceptual polarity are exposed in this dimension. They are actually in fact the expo exposition. And the challenge appears by the difficulty that Roger, you're mentioning seeing that dilemma can reveal that there is a misconception polarity between being and doing, sitting and meditation, just being in that place or getting up and doing. So first of all, one of the things that this dimension helps with is to show, to reveal that there are concepts involved, you know, that underlies the whole construct, the whole way of looking at things, doing and being and life and all that. Those basic. Because the dichotomies here we're talking about very basic fundamental dichotomies that most people and hears he take to be just facts of reality. People don't think of them matter conceptual dichotomy. They can go beyond most people think. What do you mean go beyond it? I won't have a life. I won't know what to do. That's what people think. There is terror, there is an experience of annihilation, that there is ego, death that are all needed to go beyond those conception dichotomies. They're not easy. It's not like you know it in your mind and you, no, you go through an actual deep transformation that leads to a different kind death which is the death of mind and which include the dense of the doer. And that death for most people is terrifying. For most people say, well, the doer dies. Who's going to do these things? You see, who's going to live, who's going to do the jobs, who's going to cook, who's going to drive the car. But there's still caught in that concept that somebody needs to. There's somebody and a doer who does these things. That means the concept is still operative.

Yeah. And Amit, if I can just interpolate, it also feels like experientially, if I trace it back, it feels like there's a lack of trust that being in being that some sort of basic distrust that if there's not an I doing it then it won't happen. But that's a kind of distrust of being. It feels like.

It feels like annihilation.

Yeah, yeah. There is a basic distrust that the ego has. Ego thinks it's needed basically and true for most of life it is needed. So when you get to this stage, that lack of trusting being will come to the rescue. A being will show what happens. You know, that's a deep level of trust need to happen. But as John said, to get there requires dealing with fear and terror. And. And that distrust has a history too. Different people have different level of trust or distrust and that's because of their history, how they do if they develop lots of Trauma. It's hard for them to trust now somebody who had a lot of love. It's easy for them to let go and begin to trust. Learn to trust doesn't come automatically, but it's easier process. So the trust is an important thing. But that is a whole thing about the question of trust that I usually dealt with it in another dimension that deals with question, trust and distrust and more here. By the time in my work, by the time I came to this, that trust was established. A while ago, I still had to go through letting go of my mind. I didn't know I could let go of my mind that way. At the beginning it felt like, what's the hell going on? I don't know that I'm unclear or losing it or what. Because things were changing, my mind was sort of dissolving, you know, and it.

Feels like at every major step, feels like a loss of some kind.

It is like a loss, and that's why it's called a death, you know, the loss.

But there's a basic discovered an okayness with the process. It's okay.

That's the trust that Raj was talking about. The trust is the feeling. It's okay, it will work out. There is holding that true nature of being provide that heaven. It's, it's natural. I mean, the baby has that, that trust. They don't know things can go bad. They just run around, do their thing. Only when they get clobbered, they start learning. Uh oh. In reality, this world is not as big as I thought. You know, we're born with trust, you see, but we lose it because of what happens. And then we can regain it because it's natural. Trust is inherent in our true nature, our true beingness. So when we get to this level of realization, when we are so trusting, we can let go of our knowingness. Now we could get into the. How does doing happen? No doer from this dimension. Doing happened because everything happens, including doing on its own. Nobody does it. So it's not like I'm driving my car. No, the whole car and the road, all of it happens, including the driving. There is no individual operating. The whole universe function as one unified fabric of reality that, you know, takes us to the next chapter, which is about the dynamism of being. But we don't want to go there yet.

Yeah, I'll try. I'm always galloping ahead here. But there's a sense of when you let go of the doer, it's still going on, but it's more the perception. You're being done or whatever you thought you were. It's not doing, it's just the universe being done.

If that.

Yeah.

So that is you're fully grounded in this realization then whether you are sitting in meditation or you're walking, it's the same thing, the same state. Even the sitting is manifesting by itself. You're not sitting, there's nobody sitting. There's just reality aware of itself. So when you get up, it's nothing. You're not getting up. Reality is manifesting that appearance of somebody getting up, but that somebody. Because non dual nothing is separate. It's one unified fabric. The whole universe is one thing. There's no individual in this universe. There's the appearance of individual.

So far in terms of the question, how do we develop this continuity or use your language, how do we move into actualization that is more of a continuity or lived realization of this non conceptual awareness? You've spoken of trust. We trust being. We recognize the. We see through the dualism of thinking that action is separate from being in some way. Are there other ways to for this actualization to occur? And you, I just mentioned, you say.

That there are different ways. Yes, I'm talking about them. The most basic one, which is when you are really completely, you know, dissolved and there's only the pure awareness there, then pure awareness just continues. It's aware of sitting, aware of walking, aware of all of that when nobody's doing the walk away. It's just awareness. And also in the pure awareness, you don't even know you're walking. Because walking is a concept. And it's interesting how that is possible because most of us will think, well, how can you walk without knowing you're walking? How will you know where to go? Your awareness knows through its own wisdom and because your knowing is implicit in it, but it's not appearing as mind, it has been integrated into being. So usually, I mean, that's some what the masters sometime talk that way. Everything just happens, you know. And there are other ways. The other way is the individual way. Like there is actual from this pure awareness. When functioning happen, there's an individual that function. But that individual is not the ego individual. You see, it is like prolongation from the ground into, like a wave into a form that is not separate from the ground, that functions and does things. So we can experience ourselves as a form. But that requires the development of what I call the personal essence, the pearl. That's an importance of the pearl. So many of the teachers don't have the pearl. They haven't developed it. So they cannot do from that perspective. That's why they have to do it from the perspective of pure awareness, which is the most difficult one. This is really difficult. You really have to have no concept left holding you up, you know, and that's rare to find. Most people have still some concept hidden someplace. So some master, of course get there and they do it. But you know, to be able to. If you have developed the person as pearl beyond price, it appears in the non conservative level, but I call it the crystal pearl or non conceptual pearl, which is really an individual that we don't call an individual, but there is like a prolongation out of the ground that looks as if just doing things. And we might feel that we are that prolongation. But we don't lose the ground. The ground is our background. As our support, our beingness flows, our awareness flows and particalizes itself into an individual who does and has the skill of doing and thriving and things like that. That's another way of that functioning can happen. There are other ways, but these are the two basic ways.

Okay.

And. And I think some of us have flashes of that experience. I was thinking when I used to surf, I'd be on the wave. Everything, all my teenage problems, the world, the Vietnam War, everything. Just me and the wave. And sometimes I get that in music, you know, it's just what it is.

And yeah, that's true. These are sonas to carry. That's possible. Yeah. When you. You have to let go of your mind to be able to do it. It's sort of like completely instinctual. When you're on the wave, you know, you're. The knowing is not mental anymore.

And it feels magical and holy. I mean, it feels very, very special. And I guess we're talking about being able to kind of stabilize that kind of awareness. Instead of just these little flashes into.

A way of being, it becomes a way of being and living, you know, that is continuous. Yeah, that's not just in specific situations, but in all situations. Like going to sleep. Like sometime I go to sleep, for instance, and I go under the blanket and I wonder who's going under the blanket? There's nobody here going under the blanket. I realized. No, the whole blanket and the bed, all of it is manifesting and manifesting as some body, physical body going under the blanket. But all this appearance in this ground of being, which is really. Then you go to sleep like that. That's a very interesting way.

And for me, does the awareness continue unbroken as you fall asleep?

It can, I mean, or for me, frequently, no, I fall asleep, lose consciousness. Sometimes dreams happen. Can be, you know, awake dream or not, you know, but the sleeping is becomes even going beyond the awareness to cessation. True deep sleep is all awareness is gone.

And yet sometimes in the advanced dream yogas there's some remnant of awareness even in that sensation.

It sounds like there can be an awareness. Well, there are two things to report. There is what's called lucid dreaming, which is you can be aware continuous in dreaming and the dreaming can embody that realization is only you're still in this nameless awareness. Or it could be not. But also the other part you're mentioning, I think discussed by some teachings is that even in deep sleep there's some kind of awareness. That awareness is not awareness of anything specific. You see, it's more like just the barest awareness of stillness or peacefulness. And usually most people don't remember that when they wake up because they don't know that dimension of awareness and stillness.

Yeah, you're coming back into a whole different dimension and most of us lose it.

You know, the other Hindu teaching talk about the different three years different levels of sleep. And there is also another level of sleep when even the awareness is gone. And basically when you wake up, it's like what happened, you know, like it feels no time passed, nothing happened. Like I closed my eye, now I've opened my eye and that is even the sense of awareness is gone. So there are different levels. I don't know, they call them different levels of samadhi or something.

And sometimes the sense of self has to come back. Like what's my name? Where am I? Who am I? What's going on here? And then it, you know, oh, okay, I'm John, this is my bed, here's my dog, my wife. Sometimes that goes away and it kind.

Of falls back into place. Yeah, that's the thing. You see. Also one thing I think we need to discuss as you bring up, you know, John, which is just because we are in pure awareness, we don't always live in pure awareness. In fact, it's not possible. I don't know if anybody ever lived completely always in pure awareness. The other dimension arise like a dimension of knowing arises and you know what's happening. But you still realization is still non dual reality. But because the dimension pure being that has pure knowing is part of the non dual world. But I put it as a different dimension. But that dimension arises together with awareness. And that's actually what happens for most people who Realize they have the two dimensions happening at the same time, but they're seeing them as one dimension. Like there's a knowing.

So could we say that the doer becomes more transparent, if you will, to being. In other words, doing still going on. But it's not this rigid, reified thing that you talk about a lot, but it's more of a transparency.

You know, what feels like is that the doer is the pure non dual ground. And it's doing through a prolongation of itself that we call. John, I call the God finger, everybody, the God finger.

The God finger.

God who is a sphincter. And we call this person talking.

You know, that's great, Amit. I think you need to patent that.

I know. Yeah. That's one of my favorite expressions, the God finger sticking.

It does put a very different perspective on each of us.

Yeah, always a God finger, really.

Yeah, Right. There's only God fingers in the world, right?

Exactly.

Mahometa, I wanted to ask you. Why do you think that we evolved to this sense of separateness that we have to work through to realize back where we started from? I mean, maybe it's not started from, but it's kind of. Especially in the west, the sin separateness has been so an individuality. It's been so built into our culture and our teachings and our life. Why did that happen? Why did we become these entities or beings that think that we're separate? We're I'm not you and you're not me. And you know, I'm live, I'm going to die. It's individual thing. What is there a purpose behind that whole process?

I think you're forgetting we discussed that.

Oh, I probably did. I'm good at that.

I'll remind you, when you were talking about the person essence, we discussed that.

Okay.

You see, which is that you see, most teaching, many teachings, let's not say most teaching, like Advaita Vedanta, they think the individual is an illusion. There's no such thing. That we have an illusion that we are an individual, while in reality when we wake up, we realize, no, we're not. They've never been an individual. So for them it's an illusion. It basically, through the ground lies to itself so that it become so it can wake up to itself. And I always think, I don't like that theory. It seems that why would God need to lie to himself, you know, why not just, you know, manifest an individual, you know, that is part of itself. A God finger that, you know, appears as a human being and so I see the. Again for me that's a theory. It's not something I won't call knowing, which is just looking. And different things happen. I develop a perspective which is that the development of the individual and the ego and separateness is natural. It is part of the evolution necessary for God to become aware of itself. That is because you have to begin in some size, you have to begin in duality. Everybody begins in duality. As you know, you see, it's universal everywhere. So you wonder why does each one know develop to be a separate individual? How do they know to be to do that? You know, and there's a universal law there, you know, it's not our choice, you see, it just happens. And so when to say that it is an illusion, it's like who's illusion? I mean that is self contradicted. They say it's an illusion. And then the disillusioned person goes does these things and all that. But they say there is no one there saying well that's a contradiction, you know, how can there be if a deluded person is really causing their own suffering? You already back to duality. You're taking a dualistic view to explain non duality. So the real non dual view is that the non dual world manifest waves or God, finger or individual that are part of itself. And part of its development is that it develop them so that they begin to feel separate. And that separation is needed for the survival of the physical body. It's needed for actual survival because we the child doesn't know it is a person. It is an individual who take care of itself and survive and won't survive. And then they won't have that. And then being won't have the possibility of knowing itself. So it's a stage of development that happens.

Maybe it could be seen as a seed. The individual is a seed. I think you mentioned that I was reading recently that individual self is a seed. But that's not the end product. The seed is a necessary step for the tree or whatever it might be.

Yeah, it's a necessary step. Yeah, it's a necessary step. You need to be separate to survive. But then it's a. I see it as a stage of development. And most human being get arrested at that stage, at the ego stage. And they can, they believe that's it, that's the end. You see, it's just a matter of being more capable and separate individual or not. You know. And so therapy says you are a separate individual who can work and have relationship. That's A healthy individual. That's the goal of therapy, you see, unless you go to transpersonal therapy, that's different. You have to bring in a spiritual element. But I see it. My perspective is that it is part of what happened in this cosmic drama, that being manifest and being sort of make itself not be aware of its vastness by appearing as this individual who believes itself as a separate. But in reality there isn't one. It's not an illusion, it is an appearance. You know, things appear that way, but when you wake up, you realize, no, that was just an appearance and that I believed in. And being let you believe it makes the wave believe it is separate so that it goes on, lives survive. Learns how to water, brush his teeth and this and that, and take a shower, all of that's needed and stay healthy and go to the doctor and all of that, all that's needed. Otherwise, you know, remind me of some of the Indian gurus where their students have take care of them about everything. They take them to the doctor. They don't know anything like it. And it's true. That means they haven't developed their ego, hasn't developed enough. You see, they developed an ego. They have to develop an ego, but hasn't learned the functionality and became awake maybe and became this boundlessness without learning the skills of life.

Without the actualization, I think is how you phrase that.

Without the individual actualization that's possible.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many directions we could go here. But I want to come back to the dichotomies which take up so much of the focus of so much of this chapter and particularly come back for the moment to the one, as you point out, one of the most frequent and important dichotomies in life and spiritual practice, and that is the dichotomy between good and bad.

Stay tuned for part two, where we continue to delve into the depths of existence and the love, compassion and gratitude that are inherent in our true natures. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have which is steadily growing. But the more people we can reach and the more market marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done that a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support, and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence, and thank you for all you are and all you do.

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