The most basic teaching of nonduality, it could be summarized, is the transcendence of dualistic conceptions (such as good or bad, right and wrong).
The fundamental dualistic conception which is deconstructed in the initial phase of Self-realization, particularly, is that of I and not-I, self as apart from other—to even the extent that the Infinite could be perceived as other.
A duality which is more subtle, and which needs to be pointedly contemplated, is that of what is as contrasted to what could be (or, more tenacious, what should be).
Whatever the condition is which is actual, it is presently a fact. You cannot change a fact: you can only deny it; wish it were otherwise; or react in relation to it. Such a response is grounded in an idea, a concept, of what could (or should) be instead.
It is our idea of what could be, as opposed to what is, which becomes then an ideal: a standard—which is not actual, not present in reality—to which we aspire to change, or realign, the truth of fact.
Where this ideal-ization plays out most prominently, in our psyche, is in our disposition toward becoming, rather than being. To desire to become something other than what we actually are, in the moment, is to retain an image of the self which can be enhanced.
Where there is attachment to idealistic standards of what could be (or how I ought to be other than I am) there will not be the choiceless awareness which is the hallmark of the dissolution of dualistic conception. There are not “lapses” of idealized behavior or conditions, where there is the emptiness of choiceless awareness to begin with. For the Self-realized, whatever is present (good, bad or otherwise) is Being itself; one can then only acknowledge, “That too is It!” Or, as has been said, “The ‘what is’ is what it is!” The dualistic distinction is absent, of “This is it” (whatever it is, material or immaterial) versus “This is not it.”
The consequence of choiceless awareness is a quiet mind. And there being no attachment to an ideal of what a quiet mind ought to be, there is an absence of agitation in whatever state the mind is observed to be.
The net result is to be content with ‘what is’, rather than in conflict. It is a matter of effortlessly being present with what is present. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what is present. Even discontent could be present, and one can be content with that. That too is it.
This uncontrived equanimity is the peace and freedom of which the nondual sages have spoken. It is the transcendence of “suffering.”
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