Excerpt from "Dialogues With a Modern Mystic" - Andrew Harvey and Mark Matousek.

 Andrew Harvey, in "Dialogues With a Modern Mystic" Andrew Harvey and Mark Matousek.

Advaita is not monism. Advaita means "not-two." We and the

universe are not "one": then all distinctions would be destroyed.

We are "not-two," intricately interrelated with everything, both separate,

unique *and* united. The astonishment of this dance of

"not-two" grows slowly as the mind and heart open in  divine love

and wisdom. Imagine that there was a heap of gold and a skillful

smith. The smith made fir trees, geraniums, tables, human beings, lamps.

Every object had a different shape, a different

purpose and identity but was made of the same thing. Look at the

sea. All waves are rising and falling differently, in different rhythms,

with different volumes. Some catch the light some do not. You can see the

separations between the waves but what you also see quite clearly is that

all the waves are water. That is what the knowledge

of "not-two" is like. Things retain the separateness which the

senses give them, which we use to negotiate this reality, but the illumined

mind knows that all things are Brahman, waves of one infinite sea of light.

You know, in other words, that you and everything and the light that  is at

all times manifesting everything

are "not-two," and "you" come to exist normally on all levels of

the divine creation, and meet "yourself" in all states, events, conditions,

beings. This is sahaja, spontaneous negotiation of

and union with all dimensions at all moments. Nisargadatta

Maharaj explains most lucidly the marvelous transitions to this

state: "When the I am myself goes, the I am all comes. When the

I am all goes, the I am comes. When even I am goes, Reality

alone is and in it every I am is preserved and glorified."

It is wonderful that this the most ultimate and holy of all

possible experiences in this world, that of unity, of advaita, has

to be enjoyed by everyone in their own profound solitude, at that

diamond point of solitude at which everyone secretly joins and

meets God and each other and all things. This final experience

kept for this most sacred and secret moment and is too vast an

precious to be ever completely communicated. This is the

moment when the created one returns to the source of creation

the moment at which all laws, dogmas and techniques that helped

the mystic arrive at that diamond point vanish in the silence of

return to origin.

Andrew Harvey