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
Does Suffering Change with Awakening?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Dr. Neil explores the nature of suffering as it is experienced in dualistic and non-dual levels of consciousness. He points to identification and attachment as two roots of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. And he describes his own experience while speaking during the podcast with a headache.
Hi, welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to address a commonly asked question. Does enlightenment mean the end of suffering? How does suffering change with spiritual awakening to non-duality? We're going to explore that with Dr. Neil.
SPEAKER_01One needs to separate pain or distress from suffering. They're not the same thing. One can have pain or distress, emotional distress, spiritual distress, and not suffer, or one can suffer. So they these depend on how you relate to the pain or distress. This is my experience. So right now I have a headache. The body. At the same time, if I put attention on the cosmos, the universe, there is no pain. If I am that, there's no pain. If I put attention on the headache, I am having a headache, the duality, then there is pain.
SPEAKER_00So suffering is different in different levels of consciousness. Correct. Or states of consciousness. Correct. So when you're living as an ego, we explored identity in a series of three podcasts: living as an ego, living as a soul, and living as spirit. So what you just described is when you're living as an ego identified with your body and its pain, I am a headache.
SPEAKER_01I have a headache.
SPEAKER_00Or I have a headache.
SPEAKER_01Then there's suffering. In other words, when when one is ego-identified, uh, there is suffering. Um, and that might be um because one is attached to some notion of reality that uh is an ego, ego-oriented uh attachment.
SPEAKER_00Like a headache is bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like a headache, like I am this body. As soon as I actually put my attention outside of this body, there's no headache.
SPEAKER_00There's a dualistic experience and a non-dualistic experience that change the nature of our suffering.
SPEAKER_01Right. So the human experience is dualistic. In other words, when one identifies as having a body, having emotions, having thoughts, having beliefs, having compassion, then there's a capacity to see these as ego states, and there can be suffering around attachment or identification with these states. And this doesn't matter if you're awake or enlightened or not, it's a product of living a householder path, a path of being in the world. Uh, and together with it comes potential for suffering. Now, that doesn't mean you will suffer from it, as I've just said, I could put my attention outside of the body and not and not suffer, or I can actually be with it in the body and not suffer as well, just to have a headache.
SPEAKER_00So identification sounds like it's one of the key issues. So living as an ego, we're identified with body, mind, feelings, beliefs. I am what I believe, thoughts, images, pictures of how things should be.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So if you're trying to change the way things are, you're living in an ego state. Ego means I am a separate being with uh body, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and I have continuity as a separate being in this lifetime.
SPEAKER_00And that typically comes with attachment. I mean, all the spiritual traditions teach us to become non-attached. So, how is that a part of how does that contribute to our suffering?
SPEAKER_01Well, if one is living in a cave or one has a full-time job of being non-attached, one can actually avoid the suffering quite well because one does not identify oneself with ego. So there's a capacity for spiritual practice to lead you there. If you can be an ascetic, be a monk, be a sannyasi, be somebody whose only purpose in life is to be soul or spirit, consciousness. But if one is living in a body, living with emotions, living with thoughts, living with attachments. Attachments, um, which is necessary if you are going to function and operate in the world, then there's a potential for experiencing pain, distress, uh, suffering.
SPEAKER_00So let's try to give some examples. So there's physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering on the ego level. So right now you're experiencing physical pain, okay, and it sounds like you can experience it dualistically as an ego and non-dualistically as pure consciousness or spirit or that at the same time. Is that the case?
SPEAKER_01Uh at the same time, in terms of attention, yes. So uh if I put attention on the headache and the physical body, I can feel pain. Is there suffering? There's no suffering because I'm observing the pain in the head, or I can actually put attention on cosmos and not have suffering because I'm not in the body, my attention is not focused on the body, and the same is true of emotional distress.
SPEAKER_00Example.
SPEAKER_01Um, the other day I was feeling depressed. We're a very rare event for me, something that I've maybe had only a few times in my life, and I was curious about it. I had an intense curiosity about what this depression was about and and what it was uh focused on, and I had no desire to escape it, nor did I had a desire to uh change it. Uh, it was not suffering because I was totally present in the now with it, and of course, it passed, like all things.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, from my point of view of my method of shadow work, I would suggest that when that happens, you explore that what you're calling depression with curiosity, and you form it into a shadow character, right? So you look at what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you're sensing in your body, and you give it a name and you give it an image, and then you use self-observation to begin to break your identification with it, which is a little bit similar to what you're saying. When you identify with depression, I am depressed, you can be lost in it, and it can be really painful. But when you begin to witness or use self-observation, like you said, you were observing it and exploring it, and you're recognizing the you that's doing the observation is not the depression.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_00So there's kind of a similarity in what I teach and what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01Well, they both lead to the same outcome, which is separating oneself from the experience, observing what is happening, uh, labeling it, giving it a form or a name, uh, and not being attached to it.
SPEAKER_00Not falling into it and identifying with it.
SPEAKER_01Right. So one can actually experience it without being attached or identified. So your method is uh is spiritually oriented.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I know. But I mean, I didn't know it was going to come out in this conversation, but that's what I'm hearing as you talk about an unfamiliar part emerges and you use self-observation.
SPEAKER_01Right. So for me, it's already built in.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01So I I have enough awareness to be in an empty space where there is no headache or no depression at any moment.
SPEAKER_00And what about spiritual, existential suffering?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think there's there's suffering about letting go of such ananda, the being, consciousness, bliss, the state of your uh one way of describing spiritual awareness. So, and I think uh we all have have that before we come into a body, uh, and there's a sense of alienation from that and a desire to return to that, and most people are fixated uh on being happy.
SPEAKER_00So, spiritual suffering can be about existential questions, um about meaning, about death, about loss, um, feeling betrayed by a guru, feeling betrayed by God, um, feeling betrayed by a partner can also be spiritual suffering. So, what can you um say about how to work with that?
SPEAKER_01Well, I can't talk for others, but I can talk for myself. Uh so fear of death um is something that I have faced. Um, I've experienced myself as in a past lifetime, and as dying in that lifetime, and as going to Brahmaloka, a blissable state, and of desiring to come back into a body and doing so. Um there was some distress in leaving the body and in coming back into a body. Can't say there wasn't, but there was nothing overwhelming. Um, so fear of death is one of the great illusions that we live in our culture, um, in our world. The only way to overcome that truly is to realize yourself as the deathless one as being beyond life and death.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but let's humanize this. So, if I were to die, what do you imagine you would experience?
SPEAKER_01You and my wife. If you were to die, I would experience some distress.
SPEAKER_00I would also experience a sense of you passing onto another realm and connecting with you in that other realm and having a relationship with you uh as a soul, and emotionally, how would you deal with the loss?
SPEAKER_01Well, most of the loss of somebody close to you dying, my experience is because it feels like an end. You've lost the person, but if you can stay connected like I am able to do, uh so, um, then there's no loss, there's a different state of connection, and I've experienced that with friends and clients and colleagues and family. Um, my mother died about just over a year ago, and there was no loss because I I felt connected with the I still do, and we can speak to each other and communicate.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, because that's out of reach for most people, yes, you know, that's not the ordinary human experience. How can we understand how awakening changes suffering, the nature of suffering that seems so built into being human? And, you know, we we all have heard the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who before he was the Buddha, walked out of his father's palace where he was totally sheltered, and walked into the street and was despairing to see aging, illness, and death, and said, There's got to be a way out. And nirvana came to be understood as the end of suffering. So, how can we frame this for people now in a way that is, you know, kind of more everyday than your experience?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's kind of like practicing. So, for example, I have a good friend whose wife died about three months ago, and uh we've been talking a couple of times a week ever since, and he talks to her and communicates to her and and imagines what she would say or can be or how she would connect with him. So he's building in a relationship that is a spiritual connection with her. So how much of it is real depends on him, but it's a practice, a spiritual practice to actually not feel that death is an end and certainly not an end to relationship, just like uh the headache that I had when we started, it's still there, but I'm actually in a blissful state which allows me to be present with that headache without suffering, uh, or in a neutral state where I can observe it and stay present in the now, in the immediate now. So that's worth doing, practicing if one wants to uh suffer less.
SPEAKER_00Is there a purpose to suffering, to human suffering? Does it lead us anywhere? Does it accomplish anything?
SPEAKER_01Yes, like everything, it's a process of teaching one, helping one to understand what you can do to live in the for the best word, right action, right emotion, right thought, uh, positive thinking. Um, psychology has a great deal to do with this. So cognitive psychology attempts to reframe thoughts, beliefs, ideas, so that one is looking at things from a positive perspective rather than falling into the negative. Um, so there's a lot you can do to develop well-being and happiness, and that can allow you to suffer less.
SPEAKER_00So I I often said to my patients, it's your trauma, your pain and suffering that brings you to therapy and sets you on the path to self-knowledge.
SPEAKER_01Right. So, why did people come and see me as a psychologist? Well, it was always because there was something distressing them, something causing them to suffer or to feel uncomfortable. It was very rare for people to come and see me because they were happy and fulfilled, and life was good. So the the journey with the clients or patients has been to turn them around, to find value in what it is that they believe is causing them to suffer. Understand the beliefs, the attachments, the desires, the craving, the cause of the suffer and helps them to be more objective, more focused on well-being.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so let's come back to um identification and attachment, which we're kind of framing as the two root causes of suffering, right? I am a victim of trauma, right? I and I'm attached to that identity.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_00Or I am old or sick or helpless or invisible or powerless. So there's this first, there's this unconscious identification with something small, and then there's the attachment to that identity. Even the whole movement of identity now around race and gender and sexual orientation, these are there are these attachments to local identities, dualistic identities. Okay, so how does that contribute to suffering? I mean, it's clear when I say it that it there's no freedom in there, but how does that contribute?
SPEAKER_01You know, I was asked today um to describe my state. All I can say about it is that it's not bound, it's not one or the other, it's not dualistic, it's um it's free from attachment, free from identification with one particular, and that includes many spiritual dimensions like emptiness and uh being everything and being everywhere, uh being in bliss, includes all of those.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I've noticed as you've gone through these different levels, you don't get attached to them, you keep letting them go.
SPEAKER_01Correct.
SPEAKER_00And many people try to hold on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's an idea that enlightenment is a fixed state. One can get to enlightenment and then one is permanently in that state. That's a stuck place because whatever the enlightenment is, there's suffering in there if you fixated on it, if it's if you're stuck on a particular idea or state. So, you know, for example, in a past lifetime I was in a blissful state and eventually it became boring, and I began to suffer because I was attached to that blissful state. I believed that that was the purpose of life was to go to Brahma Loka, to go to the place where one is a constant bliss. But my experience was that uh over time that became a trap, and I had to free myself from that.
SPEAKER_00So the trap can be bliss, and the trap can be victim. Can be anything, can be anything. The point is that we're um we're freezing it in time and thinking that that's all there is.
SPEAKER_01Right. The one thing that you know for certain is that change is inevitable, and that flowing with change is freedom.
SPEAKER_00And so I know for me, one of my attachments to outcomes, there's this particular form of attachment to outcome that I have where I lose that flow with change. I lose the flow of natural change, and then I suffer.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, so outcome. Um, if you do things because you you uh you want something to happen which is natural and human. However, what happens if you don't get that? You know, if you're too attached to it, you're gonna suffer. And if you can actually allow yourself just to move on. And or learn from the experience. The suffering goes away when there's no suffering.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so there's a theme here that's developing in our podcast, which is that each of these experiences or feelings or qualities or traits is different in different levels of consciousness. We spoke about love. The evolution of love is different in different levels of consciousness. And now we're talking about suffering. And so it isn't one kind of fixed idea about human suffering. It's actually experienced differently depending on the evolution, the development of the person who is or is not suffering.
SPEAKER_01Right. The point of view of the person. So, you know, the point of view of Neil has a headache, and he shouldn't have a headache, that's going to cause suffering. Or uh Neil can't be with the headache, that'll cause suffering. Or I need to get rid of this headache, that'll cause suffering. Whereas just sitting with the headache and being in the present moment, the headache disappears. Because one is in the now, and one is in the total present moment. And that level of consciousness doesn't have the duality that causes a headache. Because you know, there's now, and then uh a second later there's another now, and second later there's another now.
SPEAKER_00Okay, but I would say I could have a headache and be in the present moment and still have a headache. I mean, it would still hurt. So maybe what I'm hearing is being in the now is also different in different levels of consciousness. Being present is also modified as we evolve.
SPEAKER_01The now is modified as we evolve.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because I can I can feel like I'm being fully present. That's not going to cure my head in.
SPEAKER_01Well, feeling is not the same thing as being fully present. Being present means you're aware of your body, you're aware of your emotions, you're aware of your thoughts and beliefs, you're aware of your ideas of reality. And you're able to be present with all of those. In fact, you're able to be, if you continue down that road, able to be empty of thought, empty of body, empty of emotions, empty of belief. And those flow. So right this moment, the mouth, Neil's mouth is speaking, and the voice is making sounds, and there's no, in other words, there's a level of consciousness that is not attached to the ego.
SPEAKER_00Or the body's pain.
SPEAKER_01The body's pain.
SPEAKER_00And so the suffering lifts in that level of consciousness.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00That's what I was trying to say. One last topic on this karma. So someone gets a disease at a young age or an old age. There are many um spiritual teachers who've had car accidents, who've had cancer. And, you know, my understanding is the body has its karma and it isn't necessarily related to their level of consciousness. How would you describe that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, karma is physical, karma is emotional, karma is group, karma is community, karma is human evolution. An asteroid hits the planet and everybody on it dies. That's group karma. So one is these processes are much more complex than uh an ego attachment to I'm experiencing this because it's karmic, because I did something wrong in the past. So it's far more complex than that. Uh one one can only escape it by identifying beyond all forms, not being attached to any form. So if an asteroid hits this planet, my consciousness is bigger than this planet. I will remain in that.
SPEAKER_00You mean your identity will remain in that won't end with the planet.
SPEAKER_01The cosmos, the universe, the cosmos, the emptiness, the source from which you're always created will continue.
SPEAKER_00And maybe that's why you're not scared of the climate crisis.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not scared of it because I actually see the earth as a live being uh with a consciousness and it's creating human behavior rather than being a victim of human behavior. And has some purpose. Maybe it wants to co-how human beings and start again.
SPEAKER_00I don't blame it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, that could be. We don't know what the consciousness of the planet is. We do know that, or I know that I am bigger than the consciousness of the planet.
SPEAKER_00So that explains to me why you're not anxious about the climate crisis. Because you your consciousness is untethered from all this local identity and even collective identity and even planetary identity. And so, in terms of the cosmic timeline, Earth can poof and it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01Well, it matters, but it's not who I am, and my essence remains. And when everything disappears, I am still here.