Ever feel like you’re separate from the world, like a lone wolf? What if that feeling was just a trick of the mind? Non-duality suggests everything is connected, all part of one big, amazing reality. This article will dive into experiences that show you this truth.
The Core Understanding of Non-Duality
Non-duality means “not two.” It’s a concept that flies in the face of how we normally think. Usually, we see things as “this” or “that,” “me” or “you.” This is dualistic thinking. Non-duality, on the other hand, says all these separate things are actually one. It has roots in many spiritual paths, each with its own way of expressing this deep unity.
Beyond the Illusion of Separateness
Our minds are amazing, but they can also trick us. They create stories, build beliefs, and condition us to see the world in a certain way. This can lead to the illusion of separation. We start believing we’re isolated individuals, cut off from everything else. This belief causes suffering. It limits what we think is possible.
Think of the ocean. Waves look like separate things. But they’re all made of the same water. They rise and fall. Yet, they always come back to the ocean. We are all like waves, unique expressions of one ocean.
The Oneness of All Things
If non-duality is true, then everything is connected. This changes how we see everything. Our relationships become deeper. Our actions have more meaning. The world feels different. It feels alive and interconnected.
Try this: Pay attention to your breath. Notice how it connects you to the air around you. That air came from somewhere. Maybe a tree. Maybe an ocean. You are connected to all of that.
Common Experiences That Hint at Non-Duality
Certain experiences give us glimpses of non-duality. They aren’t the goal, but they point to a deeper truth. Keep an open mind.
Peak Experiences and Flow States
Have you ever felt pure joy? Or been so focused on something that time disappeared? These are peak experiences and flow states. In these moments, the sense of self fades. You become one with the experience.
Profound Connection and Empathy
Ever felt deeply connected to someone? Maybe you felt their pain as if it was your own? That’s empathy. It reveals the unity of consciousness. We are all connected on a deeper level.
Try loving-kindness meditation. Send feelings of compassion and kindness to yourself, then to others. Even those you dislike. See your heart start to open.
Practices That Facilitate the Realization of Non-Duality
Certain practices help us quiet the mind. They dissolve the ego. They show us the non-dual nature of reality.
Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation helps quiet the mind. Mindfulness helps us pay attention. Both help us experience the present. We can see things without judgment or interpretation.
Sit comfortably. Focus on your breath. When thoughts arise, just notice them. Let them go. Keep bringing your attention back to your breath.
Self-Inquiry
Self-inquiry is about asking, “Who am I?” Keep asking this question. Don’t try to answer with your mind. Let the question sink in. See what happens. It might dissolve the sense of a separate self.
Contemplation on Nature
Spend time in nature. Look at the trees, the sky, the water. Notice how everything is connected. Everything relies on everything else. This can reveal the unity of life.
Overcoming Challenges on the Path to Non-Duality
The path to non-duality isn’t always easy. Doubts and fears come up. Resistance arises.
The Role of the Ego
The ego wants to be in control. It wants to protect itself. Non-duality threatens the ego. The ego will resist.
Learn to recognize your ego’s patterns. Understand what motivates it. Don’t fight it. Just observe it.
Accepting the Unknown
You must surrender to the unknown. You have to accept that you don’t know everything. Clinging to beliefs will hold you back.
Living a Non-Dual Life: Implications and Applications
Realizing non-duality changes how we live. It affects everything.
Compassion and Ethical Action
When you see your connection to others, compassion arises. Ethical action becomes natural. You want to help everyone, because helping them, you are helping yourself.
Letting Go of Attachment
Non-duality helps us let go of attachment. We see that everything is impermanent. Nothing lasts forever. This frees us from suffering.
Conclusion
Non-duality is a transformative experience. It shows us that everything is connected. It’s not a belief, but a direct experience of reality. Keep exploring this path. You may find that the separation you felt was never real.
Unitary caring science has as its starting point a relational unitary ontology that honors the fact that we are all connected and that we belong to the source – the universal consciousness, spirit, infinite field of Universal Love – before and after the human plane of worldly experiences. Unitary caring science makes more explicit that unitary and connectiveness exist among all things in the great circle of life: change, illness, suffering, death and rebirth. A unitary caring science orientation moves humanity closer to a moral community, closer to peaceful relationships with self and other communities- nations, states, other worlds, and time. Unitary caring science also unites us with the non- physical, the spirit work, the soul of self and science alike.
Unitary Caring Science – Ethic Of Belonging
The starting point for Unitary Caring Science is based on the Ethic of Belonging, beginning with the belief and personal perennial wisdom of universal humanity dash that our human experience and journey through life and death are shared with all humanity across the globe. Human beings and the planet are united across time and space, belonging to the great sea of humanity.
An Ethic of Belonging comes before the ontology of separate being; it acknowledges ethically, morally, and practically that we all belong to the infinite field of Universal Cosmic Love. We all come from the source of infinite Cosmic Love, and we all return to the infinite source, Cosmic Love- the mystery of life. This locates our world view of unity within the sacred circle of life- death.
Science and spirit unite in Unitary Caring Science. This world view applies to all of humanity as we awaken to the emerging worldview necessary for the survival of humanity and Mother Earth.
Humanity is entering a new consciousness of unity, a reality that we are all connected with on mother earth. Without preparation in the unity caring science paradigm to address our phenomena and reason for existing, no progress is made in fulfilling its social, moral, and scientific responsibility to humanity.
The background for this emerging worldview includes greater awareness of the metaphysical, the unexplainable phenomena -the ineffable. When we enter Unitary Caring Science, we are reminded that data are not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom. Information alone does not lead to knowing or wise knowing. This view highlights our need to unlearn the outdated paradigms of previous eras of thinking and human evolution.
In the Buddhist philosophy, there is the notion of ‘the don’t know mind’ – a very good place to be. If we think we know- there is no space to learn anything new, there is nothing there. This view of knowing and non-knowing, emptying out, allows for unknowns and mysteries. We can call this experience non-local, mystical or the spiritual beyond the physical empirical ways of knowing and being in this world. This form of slash ‘nonknowing’ exists in higher domains of awareness of evolution and directly embraces experiences such as love, compassion, beauty, identity, reality, self, truth and meaning. This higher domain way of knowing is based on many years of experimental inspection and communal verification.
In fact, we can never truly know reality because we are limited by (and cannot go beyond) the input of our sense perceptions, as well as our cognitive processes that have evolved to individually accommodate and service that input. Our conscious perception of the world is a filtered and selective process, rather than a complete and accurate representation of everything happening around us. While our senses constantly gather information, the brain actively chooses what to focus on and process, resulting in a subjective and incomplete experience of our surroundings. The brain brings to bear its prior expectations about what is in the external environment to interpret the massive, constant, and ambiguous sensory information that it encounters. When we consider how much of our surroundings we can perceive, it becomes clear (after confining analysis to Earth and its immediate environment) that we usually capture only a small fraction of our surroundings and when we account for the vastness of the visible universe, that fraction shrinks much further. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that we only perceive a small fraction of the totality of physical reality. Therefore, the knowledge and wisdom of Not Knowing or Emptiness is the highest form of knowing possible to us.
Thus, the “mental manifestation” is a transformation of the objects in the outside world into a mental representation. On the one hand, there is an objective reality; on the other hand, we can only create a picture of that reality, and the structures in the pictures are different from the external reality they are intended to represent. This ties in with the Transcendent or All and echoes the Buddha’s resistance to search for and answer metaphysical questions.
Reference: Unitary Caring Science: Philosophy and Praxis of Nursing by Jean Watson, University Press of Colorado, 2018
The Non-Duality of Emptiness, or Sunyata,
According to Thanissaro Bhikkhu, the non-duality of emptiness, or Sunyata, is a mode of perceptional way of understanding experience. It adds nothing to, nor takes anything away from, the raw data of physical and mental events. This mode is called emptiness because it is devoid of the presuppositions we typically impose on experience to make sense of it: the stories and worldviews we construct to explain who we are and the world we inhabit.
It represents the underlying reality—the fundamental space or potential from which all things arise and into which they eventually dissolve. However, this “ground” is not a thing but rather the source and condition for all phenomena, including existence, perception, and even the concept of nothingness. In fact, existence is a profound mystery that cannot be fully explained through human language or thought. When we fully recognize that we live in an observer-dependent reality, we can adopt a more creative, inspired, innovative, open-minded, and accepting attitude toward a complex world. As theologian Rudolph Otto stated; The experience of the divine is a mysterious and overwhelming encounter with the numinous.
This involves the realization of non-duality, where distinctions and dualities dissolve, leading to a sense of unity, wholeness, and the loss of the perception of a separate self. This profound understanding of non-duality dispels the illusion of separation, revealing the inherent unity that underlies all existence. It transcends the habitual identification with a distinct, isolated self and instead unveils an essential interconnectedness that binds us to everything. This realization fosters a deep sense of belonging to being intimately woven into the fabric of reality and connected to the single, unified source from which all things arise. We are all connected and belong to the source of universal consciousness, spirit, and the infinite field of Universal Love.
Therefore, Sunyata is not a belief system; it is neither a matter of faith nor adherence to a doctrine. Rather, it is an experiential awakening to the realization of one’s true nature. This awakening brings transformative benefits, enhancing our personal well-being, deepening our fidelity and interconnectedness with others, and illuminating our overall understanding of life’s inherent nature.
Reference: CHAPTER 8 from the book THE GARDEN OF EDEN—IN THIS LIFE Copyright Rodger Ricketts Psy.D.,2025.
Until we go beyond the superficiality of basic sense perception and investigate and see the complex tapestry of existence, we stay in the it realm as Martin Buber explained in his book, I and Thou. Once we see the strands of our life within the unique fabric of existence with the magnificent, interconnected unity and complexity of life and living things, we are finally able to empathize with the essence of All and enter a thou relationship. Then our relationship with the world, with all living beings, changes fundamentally to seeing the empathetic symbiosis of ourselves with all other living life forms. It is at that point that existential care, affinity, compassion and friendliness appear and are expressed in our interactions and relationships with all the others.
In The Garden of Eden in This Life, (2025) Dr. Rodger R. Ricketts—a clinical psychologist, mindfulness teacher, and lifelong student of the Buddha’s teachings—unveils a profound perspective linking ancient wisdom, modern psychology, and the apophatic (negative) spiritual tradition. Drawing from over forty years of study and practice, he explores how non-dualistic teachings from Buddhism, science, and multiple faith traditions reveal the limits of language, the illusions of separation, and the path back to an integrated state of being.You will journey through concepts like Sunyata (emptiness), the via negativa, and the psychology of transcendence—discovering how humanity’s separation from nature and spirit can be healed through direct experience, compassionate living, and expanded awareness. Open these pages and begin your journey back to the Garden… in this life.
Non-Dualistic ApophaticHigher States of Consciousness
While Apophatic theology was often in the past regarded as heretical, blasphemy, and unorthodox, we have seen in the previous chapters that now the sciences including physics, cosmology, psychology, biology, ecology, linguistics, as well as meditation, all provide a secure platform for the non-dualistic Apophatic convictions and practice. Apophatic teachings and analysis clearly provide an alternative to the dominant Dualistic Cataphatic dogma. This acceptance and application of the non-dualist perspective is not just an academic survey but a way of living that has crucial truths that benefit the individual, interpersonal, biological, psychological, sociological, spiritual, societal, and ecological levels.
This book is meant to indicate the possibility and rationale that is encompassed in the title of Apophatic. To further explore in-depth the Buddha’s teaching of the Path to Awakening, the reader is referred to my previous books: The Buddha’s Teachings; Seeing Without Illusion, The Buddha’s Radical Psychology: Explorations and The Buddha’s Gift: A Life of Wellbeing and Wisdom.
Now we have the testimony of numerous modern articulate thinkers whose ability to describe their awakening perspectives leads a strong support to past spiritual leaders who, even in the threat of death, spoke their truths out of compassion for others. Remembering the insights of his personal mystical experience, Martin Buber, in his book, The Heart of Mysticism, described his higher states of consciousness: “Now from my own unforgettable experience I know well that there is a state in which the bonds of the personal nature of life seem to have fallen away from us and we experience an undivided unity.”
With this experience of Awakening, Buber understood the world without the alienating and separating dualistic subject/object dichotomy. Like the Buddha, out of compassion for humanity, Buber taught us how to experience and act in a non-alienated way. While Buber always emphasized that he understood relating to the world in an I-It manner, a ‘functional’ relationship between subject and object, is necessary, his primary concern was when a person was unable to respond from I-Thou, thus creating alienation and suffering. The relation between the person and Nothingness is a universal relationship that is found as the foundation for I-Thou, as authentic beings, without objectification. From an apophatic perspective, it is from the background of the I-Thou relation that I-It arises in the foreground.
Virtuous and Kind Behaviors
For this apophatic potential relational world to be realized, virtuous and kind behaviors are encouraged. This promotes sensitivity to the inner and outer world, more serenity, more authenticity, empathy and wisdom with less alienation, rumination, conflict, hatred, and bias.
The ‘I-Thou’ relation participates in the dynamic and living process of Being. That relationship simply Is. Through this relation, we interact with the world in its whole Being. It is not a means to an egocentric objective or goal of use and order but an authentic relationship involving respect and care for the whole being of each subject and existence.
Basic to the Apophatic relation, Lovingkindness or benevolence is a subject-to-subject relationship. Love cannot be an ego-based relation of subject to object but rather a relationship in which all members are subjects and share the immanent unity of Being. According to Buber, the I-Thou relationship is “the existential and ontological reality in which the self comes into being and through which it fulfills and authenticates itself.” This relation is characterized by mutuality and openness, directness, and being in the present.
I-Thou an expression of Inter-being relations
Using Buber’s ‘I-Thou’ as an apophatic example, communication is the fundamental expression of the uniqueness of relation within inter-being. These relational patterns of rapport and affinity are usually found when beings relate with lovingkindness, friendship, openness, and care. I meet you as you are, and you meet me as who I am. In this relationship, I am with you openly in my heart and mind. Living through relationships with this authenticity brings deep satisfaction, happiness and richness in life and opens a greater sense of the original relation with the Being. One easily expresses empathy and compassion, knowing that all are interconnected in unity. Such a perspective makes a different world, a world without violence. As Jesus said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ The Buddha said as well, “All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?”
As all Apophatic sages teach, by being ‘empty’ in the moment, here and now, we experience the wonder of existence. As we have seen in other chapters, the ultimate, even the very idea of the ultimate, cannot be known by discursive thinking. In the now, we live our life as it is. Also, through the practice of silent meditation, we focus on our life awareness. With this awareness, we experience our interconnectedness with all things and empathy and compassion for all sentient beings.
Knowing shatters illusions
Knowing begins with the release of illusions, with dis-illusion. Knowing means to penetrate through the fog, to arrive at reality; knowing means to ‘see’ the reality without illusion. Knowing is that the ‘ownership’ of truth is not possible. The Awakened relationship cannot be explained; it simply is. Through this ‘empty’ relation, we interact with the world in this whole Being. It is not a means to some object or goal but an authentic relationship involving respect for the whole being of each subject. Buber considers ‘I-Thou’ communication the fundamental expression of the uniqueness of relation within inter-being. These relational patterns of rapport and affinity are usually found when beings relate with lovingkindness, friendship, openness, and care.
In the I-Thou encounter, we relate to each other as authentic beings, without inquisition, prejudice, enmity, or predisposition. I meet you as you are, and you meet me as who I am. In this relationship, I am with you openly in my heart and mind. However, there are many people who never fully understand this deeper level of relation. This is tragic because living through relationships based on the non-dualistic perspective brings happiness, deep satisfaction and richness in life and opens a greater sense of the original relation with the Absolute.
When an I-Thou encounter occurs, I am meeting the other as thou with openness, directness, and presence by means of real mutual action, meaning and confirmation. As Buber wrote, “This person is other, essentially other than myself… I confirm it; I wish his otherness to exist, because I wish his particular being to exist.” We are interconnected, “not just with people, but animals too, and stones, clouds, trees” (Aitken 1984, p. 10). We are an integral part of everything.
Nothing exists by itself; nothing has a separate existence, an inherent separate self. As human beings we are Being, one with All. The truth is pure interbeing, beyond dualistic thinking of the alienated mind. Thus, one becomes aware of the impermanence and the Emptiness of the ‘IT’ world. Serenity comes with the acceptance of impermanence and interrelatedness. The insights of such Sages as the Buddha, the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, and Master Eckhart show that knowing begins with the awareness of the deceptiveness of our common-sense perceptions and cognitive constructions; our formulations of physical reality do not correspond to what is ‘really real.’ Therefore, most people are half-awake, half dreaming, and are unaware that most of what they hold to be true and self-evident is an ‘magician-like’ illusion produced by the influence of the dualistic alienated world in which they live.
Knowing, then, begins with the transformation of illusions, selfishness, and alienation. Knowing means to penetrate through the fog, to arrive at reality and to ‘see’ the reality without illusion. Knowing is not to own the truth, as possession is not possible, but to Be the truth. The Being mode of knowing allows us, as psychologist Erich Fromm (1992, pp.117-120) also observed, to go beyond ourselves, outside the ego. The Path’s result is kindness to oneself and another, to transcend the barriers that separate us from one another, and living life with recognition of interdependence and impermanence. When communicating at this level, we move beyond biased social roles, identifications, and objectification.
In I-Thou dialogues, we trust and can disclose deep, private aspects of ourselves that enable us to engage in deep and authentic relationships. The rigid, dualistic and egotistically dominated mind remains enmeshed in ignorance, greed, and anger that feeds on itself and, therefore, does not let go and rise above the suffering quagmire in which it remains. This ego rigidity needs an empathetic and compassionate approach to assist it in letting go and coming to know how it is possible to live in a world without the pain and distrust and suffering created through this dualistically based ignorance. And, in fact, the path can be clear and successfully traveled without much difficulty.
What is difficult is allowing oneself to give up the encased hatred, the anger, the greed, the biases of egoism and of selfishness. In the book, Lost Horizon, there is this passage: ‘Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come when brutality and the lust for power will perish by their own sword. When that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life.’
The new life away from that is and always has been pointed to by the apophatic teachers in the past and now. The whole movement is toward the development of maturity of perspective and, therefore, action with wisdom about the way we understand and think about existence. Therefore, incorrect ideas and beliefs must be renounced, which will change our human character and end further suffering.
For as the Buddha and other apophatic teachers have consistently taught, what is now clear through scientific investigation, that living beings, the environment and even the universe are deeply enmeshed and co-dependent on each other. This is one world and every action by all living and non-living forces interact with and alter the previous reality- some more than others. Therefore, once we become experienced, inspired, and apply the truths that the Buddha and others have discovered, and now are explicated in more modern terminology and description, there is a real possibility for a Heaven on Earth without the distraction of seeking supernatural intervention.
Heaven on Earth can briefly be described in a biocentric way as a world of humans acting through wisdom and empathy and compassion, The Buddha, one of the greatest Apophatic teachers, said in his last words to the monks, “It may be that after I am gone that some of you will think, ‘now we have no teacher.’ But that is not how you should see it. Let the Dharma and the discipline that I have taught you be your teacher. All individual things pass away. Strive on, untiringly.”
Now, as we have explored in this book the similar meditation instructions and doctrinal perspectives taught by the many Apophatic spiritual teachers, over time and different cultures, we know we can attain Awakening and know Emptiness and give up our suffering and the harmful consequences of dualistic alienation, for a life of wellbeing and happiness. Let us all assert the Apophatic Way and accomplish knowing the ‘unknowable’ – No-thing
Chapter 16 The Unity of All. Of the Book, God is No-thing. The Apophatic Assertion The Salvation for Humankind – revised -. Copyright Rodger Ricketts Psy.D.,2022. All rights reserved.
It was not a state of thinking but a state of living and being. It was pure consciousness. What I call a magnificence state of oneness that transcends duality. Getting me in touch with the parts of me that are eternal, infinite, and encompasses the whole. This was awesome; no longer becoming entrenched in beliefs that lock us into a state of duality and puts us in a constant state of judgment. What we endorse is considered good or positive and what we don’t is not, which also puts us in a position of needing to defend our beliefs. When others don’t agree and when we invest too much of our energy in defense, we become reluctant to let go even when ideas no longer serve us. That’s when our beliefs start to own us instead of the other way around. Having pure awareness, on the other hand, just means realizing what exists and what’s possible without judgments. Awareness doesn’t need defending. It expands with growth and can be all-encompassing, bringing us closer to the state of oneness. This is where miracles take place. In contrast, beliefs only allow what we deem credible while keeping us out of everything else.
Non-duality is a state of pure awareness which has a state of complete suspension of all previous held doctrine and dogma. It was when I was willing to let go, I received what I wanted, truly what was mine. Strongly held ideologies actually work against a person. Needing to operate out of concrete beliefs limits my experience because it keeps me within the realm of only what I know and my knowledge is limited and if I restrict myself to only what I am able to conceive, I’m holding back my potential and what I allow into my life. However, if I can accept that my understanding is incomplete and I’m able to become comfortable with uncertainty, this opens me up to the realm of infinite possibilities. After the non-duality, I am able to know and let go. When I suspend my beliefs as well as disbeliefs, I leave myself open to all possibilities. It also means that when I’m able to experience the most internal clarity and synchronicities, my sense is that the very act of needing certainly is a hindrance to experiencing greater levels of awareness. In contrast the process of letting go and releasing all attachment to any belief or outcome is cathartic and healing.
One who is enlightened must use conceptual thought and language to teach others about the way to Awakening as the Buddha did. In teaching the Four Noble Truths, language is necessary to converse rationally with others and to make important decisions, as the Buddha did regarding the Buddhist sangha and giving advice to kings and leaders, but the Truth cannot be known rationally.
Or as story about the nun Wu Jincang said to Hui-neng (638-713 CE), the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School (better known as the Zen Buddhist School), “I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas I do not quite understand. Please enlighten me.” His reply puzzled her greatly. “I am illiterate,” he answered; “please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning.” When she said to him, “You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?” he responded that the truth had nothing to do with words. “The truth and the words are unrelated. The truth can be compared to the bright moon in the sky, and words can be compared to a finger. I can use my finger to point out the moon, but my finger is not the moon, and you don’t need my finger to see the moon, do you?”
