Dr. Neil's Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality
NEW EPISODES THE 1st OF EVERY MONTH
You may have heard about spiritual awakening. Do you know someone who is living it? Join us as Dr. Neil Schuitevoerder describes the lived experience of an advanced stage of human consciousness and shares insight for seekers of all traditions. Dr. Neil will speak from the direct experience of Being, Brahman, Sunyata, or Pure Consciousness as he transmits Non-dual Reality to you -- non-dual space/time, non-dual thinking, non-dual love, the non-dual body, and his yogic abilities to travel the cosmos, move through the bardos and, at the same time, live as a psychologist, husband, father, and grandfather. His experience dispels many myths about awakening. He will be interviewed by his partner, Dr. Connie Zweig, author of Meeting the Shadow, Romancing the Shadow, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path, and the award-winning book The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul.
Dr. Neil's Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality
Who am I? Part 1: Living as an Ego
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The start of a 3-part series: Dr. Neil explores the stages of his development from sensory awareness to tribal identity to a separate individual identity with an integrated ego. This then led to transcending his individuality and local sense of self to include more and more aspects of life. His identity kept transcending and including old forms, until he experienced local non-duality, the emptiness of both self and object, I and Thou. His path was not one of negation but of inclusion of greater and greater identities. Part 2: Living as a Soul. Part 3: Living as Spirit: I am everything.
Today we're going to explore the perennial, religious, and spiritual question: Who am I? It's also at the root of psychology and so many disciplines that explore the nature of human life, human consciousness, and our essential human nature. And I'm going to ask Dr. Neil, from his perspective and level of consciousness, to address the question: who am I?
SPEAKER_00So yesterday, Connie and I went to explore retirement community. And we went around and asked people why they were there. One person said, I am here because I'm a vipassana teacher. That's a role. That's an identity, that's a role. And I immediately saw through that role and saw that she's somebody who's playing at being a vipassana teacher. That's her game. That's her uh, because that's not who she is, that's not who I am. Uh, we went to another person and asked them why they were there, and their answer was because they could do woodworking in this retirement community, and again, that's what they would do, not who they are. Uh, another person seemed to be uncertain and had endless questions about what was available, as if all possibilities needed to be there for her, and that was her identity.
SPEAKER_01Another said, I am a vegetarian.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Uh, many said that, in fact, there were a number of them. I'm a vegetarian, that's why I'm here. Well, which is not who they are, it's what they want, what they desire. So the uh the sense of having an identity which is tribal, let's call it that. Tribal in the sense that I want to be with people like me. I want to know if this opportunity has things that I would like, things that I could belong to, is tribal. It's uh it's tribal identity.
SPEAKER_01So it seems to me most people in postmodern Western, post-industrialized culture, mainstream culture, do as you say, they identify with what they do, which could be a craft like woodworking, I'm a writer, I'm a sculptor, or it could be a role in society. Um, I'm a CEO, I'm a nurse, it could be a role in the family, I'm a mother, I'm a grandfather, and that this is what people believe they are. Um, and then the other thing that's happening in the sort of uh politically correct world is more identification with race. Um, I'm a black activist, or with um religion, I'm a white evangelical, or I'm a Buddhist, or um like the Vipassana teacher. Um or you know, I'm a progressive Democrat, or you know, I'm a MAGA person, I'm a Trump supporter. So all these narrow identities that are so commonplace now are what you're saying we need to see through.
SPEAKER_00Yes, people seem to be identifying more and more with a tribal identification uh as a means to feel they belong, they are part of something. And the truth about it is these are roles, these are not soul definitions, spiritual definitions of who we are. If we look more closely, we begin to understand that these are identifications that are temporary, that are we pass through, just like birth. I am a human being. Well, the truth about it is I know I'm a human being, but I'm more than a human being. I'm an animal and more than an animal. I am on this planet and other planets, that's my identity. It's more than just a human being. I've been uh and will be uh more than a human being. I'm a spiritual being.
SPEAKER_01And so, what is this danger that we're facing as we live in these very narrow identities? What do we lose? What's being sacrificed with this?
SPEAKER_00Well, we're fighting each other. There are wars that are going on around the world. There's political wars going on, there's social wars going on, there's people identifying with one cause and pushing away all others or pathologizing, making bad wrong others, rather than beginning to see that we are everywhere, we are everything.
SPEAKER_01So, what I'm hearing you say is this is the root of projection and other making.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Um, but worse than that, this is the root of crime, this is the root of illness, this is the root of human degradation where we look at another and we can't see ourselves, and that's really what the spiritual journey is about being capa, being able to see the self in the other.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's beautiful. So when we fail to see ourselves in the other in a profound way, when we fail to see our interconnectedness at the level of consciousness, then we risk dehumanizing the other.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So if I ask the question of right at this moment, who am I, I get a sense of deep expansion, sense of being everywhere, and a sense of being connected with everybody and everything. This is not only in an abstract sense as a quality, but in a specific sense as a truth that is fundamental in its details.
SPEAKER_01Can you say more about what you mean by I am everything?
SPEAKER_00Um, well, if I look at the internally, my part of me, I see uh a human body, I see emotions, I see thoughts and beliefs and identity. I see uh I'm a psychologist, I'm Connie's husband, uh, I'm a father, I'm a grandfather, uh, I am South African, I am American, and the identifications are infinite. I am a soul, I'm uh immortal, I am I was born, uh, and I will be reborn, I will die, I will come back again. Um, so the sense of who I am is infinite and unbounded. So I am not just those things that we identify with as self. Uh I am in all human beings. My essence is in all human beings.
SPEAKER_01And what is that essence?
SPEAKER_00I I guess the the Hindu description is sattvamasi, thou art that. Who I am is that which is every everything. Uh bliss, joy, uh, being awareness, emptiness, expansion, all these are different qualities which I would say are deeper identifications. But there's more than that. There's qualities like love, joy, ecstasy, bliss, well-being, I am those two without subject or object, without an I, without a you, that is that is what I am without an I.
SPEAKER_01So when the identification with the narrow identities and rules dissolved, and the self emptied out, the small self emptied out, then what happened next? How did you continue to operate in the relative world?
SPEAKER_00Who is speaking right now? There's uh a mouth that's moving, there's uh sound that's coming out of the mouth, there are obviously some kind of thoughts behind it. Uh, there is a sense of knowledge of communication and uh expression of who I am, but I'm not identified with any of those. So if I look at myself, I'm not this mouth is not my mouth. It's moving by itself. This voice is not my voice, it's a voice, it's moving by itself, it's coming through this identity called Neil. Uh the these thoughts don't exist. I I do not have any thoughts. Thoughts are um constructed ideas that human beings have to which they identify themselves. But the truth of the truth about it is the soul, which is not who I am either, but expresses these thoughts, words, voice, so that there's a connection.
SPEAKER_01So I'm imagining that the first stage in the next identity is with the soul. I mean, there are there are these stages before becoming everything, developmental stages of levels of consciousness as they unfold. That's correct. And you know, there's a big debate in the consciousness world about whether every tradition is describing the same states or stages. But that's kind of hypothetical stuff. Let's focus on what happened with you. So as these lesser identities fell away, and you experienced yourself as empty and emptier and emptier, then what did you identify with?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it was rather the other way around. So fuller, more and more and more and more. So, you know, initially I was uh a baby, and joy and suffering became my identity. Food and mother and father, and eventually siblings, brothers, and sister became my identity, and uh, so there was a constant expansion. Um, I went to school and in South Africa and identified as a South African and as schoolmate, and uh afterwards many university years um and identified as a psychologist, as an accountant. Uh, so there was an expansion of who I am, who I was, to more and more. It was more uh transcend and include, become more and include what was previously there. Uh, and the the first integration of these into a single identification was what I'd call the ego. Ego, not in Freud's sense of it, ego, superego, ego in the Hindu sense of being a separate individual with body, emotion, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, compassion, um human being. So an individual rather than a and that individual may belong somewhere but or belong to a group, but um, it's still an individual. An individual um was the first major step. Being an e being an ego is the first major step. It's the first major step beyond tribalism, which is I am um I am a psychologist, I'm uh I'm a Jew, I'm a I'm a husband, I'm a child. First step be outside the group to I'm an individual, I'm an ego, I'm an individual that includes all of that and more. But there's an I that's at the core. So that's the first thing. So it's not so much about letting go as adding on.
SPEAKER_01So in psychology, we call that separation and individuation, but in the mystical traditions, they teach that that's the source of suffering because that's the experience of separation from the deeper mystical interconnectedness.
SPEAKER_00Well, the mystical traditions are very complex and they're different. So some are inclusive and some are work on negating. Uh negating in the sense of I can experience myself as a soul or a being if I reject myself as an ego or a separate person.
SPEAKER_01Yes, not this, not that.
SPEAKER_00Right. So that's that's true of certain traditions, Buddhist, Buddhism, Hinduism, but it's not necessarily true of Western spiritual traditions, which tend to be inclusive.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so for you, your experience was first you became a separate individual, and then how did it unfold into a deeper identification?
SPEAKER_00So becoming a separate individual was, I would say, the first major step, which is um I am not part of a tribe alone. I'm not um a separate person belonging to a group alone. I am an individual that has many qualities, and that uh aspect of myself that has many qualities and many as many identities opened the door to consider the idea that maybe I'm more than even that, more than even those identities.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So then what was the next phase?
SPEAKER_00The next phase was a sense of awareness that I'm I am emptiness. I am not not none of those. I am empty of identification, I'm empty of um description. I am in in a sense nothing.
SPEAKER_01So with that state, all of the mys disappear. My body, my role, my mind, my beliefs, my my religion.
SPEAKER_00Correct. All identification of separateness disappeared because there's nothing there. Those are all constructs of the mind, those all constructs of the emotion, those all constructs of the tribal identity or the physical identity.
SPEAKER_01So during that time, what was there any positive identification? You experienced emptiness of body, emptiness of mind. Was there any positive identity?
SPEAKER_00Yes, all the other identities were still there, they just were seen through. They were not real in a sense that uh they weren't the essence of who I am. So they were not, they're not, were not dis they haven't disappeared, and they still have not disappeared.
SPEAKER_01And that's what enabled you to continue to function.
SPEAKER_00Correct. In other words, um, if one does not hold on to all of these different identities, uh and uh one disappears them or lets them go, you you have a danger of being psychotic, needing to be uh in a monastery, be protected, needing to be in a cave where you have no relationships to anybody. Um so these are traditions that are more monastic, uh, where one negates uh identity rather than uh transcends and includes.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Ken Wilbur, for that idea. Okay, so you went beyond all this mimey mine, and you went beyond these local identities, Jewish, South African, American, and you moved into this level of emptiness. And I remember at the time, soon after that, then the object emptied out. So if we follow who am I with who are you, the object, can you say something about that?
SPEAKER_00Well, if it applies to myself, uh then it applies to everybody and everything. Um, so there was uh an awareness that the object of identification was as empty as the subject, the I, me, was as empty. Um and that was still abstract at that point, abstract in the sense that I knew it, but I couldn't see it, I couldn't hear it, I couldn't feel it. I knew it. But the eye had disappeared. I knew there was no eye, I knew there was no sense of self. So the identification that the object is also the object of sight and perception is also empty. That came a lot later. So the capacity to look at a tree, I can I can look at a tree now, and I see myself in the tree. I see my psyche, angels, demons, all kinds of beings that are helping that tree to grow, and I see it in myself. I look in the tree and I see myself and I see uh myself in this body at the same time. So the capacity to do that on a sensory level was the first part of the process of beginning to empty the mind of the terms in terms of the objects of the mind.
SPEAKER_01So the do uh the subject-object duality became non-dual with that level of consciousness.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's correct.
SPEAKER_01Do you want to say anything else about that?
SPEAKER_00What is non-duality means that not to. So the I am this body, and I'm also this mind, and I'm also this part, and I'm also this consciousness, and I'm also the tree. And I'm also the wall that's in front of me, and I'm also the sound that I'm hearing. And so there's a sense of initial duality. Non-duality. Um, it's not expanded in the sense of what came next. Uh, it's more local.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's good. We can call it local non-duality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a better word for it. Local non-duality. That's good. Thank you. Um, because later on, the non-duality became much more expanded, and the senses of psychic ability. Psychic in the sense that one can be in more than one place, one could be observing the galaxy or the universe or beings on another planet. So those kind of awarenesses came later.
SPEAKER_01So, is there any map? So, we're in the initial stages of non-duality now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, a famous Vedanta teacher, uh, Ramana Maharshi used this question, who am I, as his primary practice for his students, sitting with who am I over and over and over again until all these kind of local identifications um became empty or dissolved. And you sit in pure awareness or whatever your name is for that, pure consciousness, awareness. Um, Ramdas called it loving awareness, whatever we call that. So, what you're describing is um is similar, although you didn't do it as a contemplation on who am I, it just unfolded that way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a step-by-step process uh that was about following my inquiry of who I am. Ramana Maharishi was a monk, and he lived in a cave, and he lived a very separate existence, not identifying with his thoughts and his body and the world that he lived in. My path is a little different, and there are many different paths. So, my path is more about inclusion and transcendence and inclusion. Well, it's a householder path, it's a householder path, and it's necessary to have all of these steps and stages in order to be um functional in the world, and you know, and I am very functional in the world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're highly functional, which is really a curious thing given where your attention lives. So, and we should come back to that in a later podcast, because I think that's an important question. So, um, is there anything else to say about this? It seems to me we we skip the step of identifying with soul.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so what comes next? So I did not find my identity as a soul initially. My identity initially was emptiness and fullness, so fullness in the sense of being everything and everywhere. So those were the steps and the stages. Um, and of course, we can pick that up at another time if you want, or you know, what happened after the emptiness and what happened after the identification of self is empty and other is empty. So there were many more steps and stages.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so next time we'll start with what it's like living as a soul identity. Because I think that that whole idea of shifting from role to soul, to use Ramdas's phrase, shifting our identity from what we do to who we really are, which is what you're describing, um could be really interesting and meaningful to people.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_01See you next time.