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
Dr. Neil Responds to Listener Questions
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Podcast listeners have posted some interesting questions to us: What is the difference between your Knower and the arrogance of a know-it-all? Is there an end point to the evolution of consciousness? Should we try to develop psychic abilities or siddhis (yogic powers), or will they inevitably unfold? How does advanced spiritual experience affect future lifetimes? What is your identity while living in nonduality? What happens to fun or pleasure for enlightened folks?
Hi, welcome back to the podcast. Today we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to respond to you, our listeners. Some of you have been sending questions, comments, posting replies, and there were some really good questions. So we're going to take our time today to allow Dr. Neil to respond. And maybe some of you have shared some of these questions. You're welcome to post your own. And we'll get to them when we can. Okay, so first of all, Dr. Neil, I'm going to start with this question from a listener who said, You sound egotistical when you talk about the knower. And I can say from my own experience, my father was a know-it-all. So what is the difference between a know-it-all and a knower in terms of consciousness of reality?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, that's something that depends on the level of your awareness. So we can think as individuals and duality. We can attempt to understand or know something, but there is something that happens when one experiences the knowing, which is really a non-dual state. Non-dual in the sense that there's no doer, there's no receiver, and there's no process. So knowing is a state of awareness, and knowing is the capacity to be everywhere and experience and perceive everything. Obviously, there are limits to that.
SPEAKER_01So, how is that different from intuition?
SPEAKER_00Well, the knower, the knowing uh manifests itself in the knower, which is the divine, which is all knowing. There's a level of consciousness that one can reach or connect to, and when knows things that have nothing to do with the body or the emotions or the thoughts or the history or the learning or the soul. This belongs to the divine sense of all knowing.
SPEAKER_01So the way that I would put it is it's not mediated by the ego mind. So the know it all is about ego mind, right? It's identification with what it knows, with the object of information.
SPEAKER_00Right. So somebody might be listening to me and thinking, how does he know that? He's kind of arrogant. He's kind of acting like he knows everything. And it's not me, it's uh there's no I involved in what I'm sharing. So the voice is speaking, and the ears are listening, but I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting here sharing something's being shared through me, and that's a non-dual state, which is totally different to someone who's egotistical, who's expressing themselves like they know everything.
SPEAKER_01Who's unconsciously identified with mind, information, beliefs, point of view, unconsciously or consciously? So it doesn't feel arrogant or egotistical to you when you describe your knowing.
SPEAKER_00No, I can say that um I can talk to my mother, who is deceased over a year, and uh because I'm there, I'm with her. So I'm on that plane. That plane's inside of me and is part of who I am.
SPEAKER_01So it's related to this capacity to be present everywhere, yes, or interconnected with everything, right? And that makes everything available to you, correct.
SPEAKER_00And you know, it may sound from a person who is ego-identified as a reflection of arrogance. And so I would advise you if you believe I'm being arrogant, look inside yourself and ask yourself if you have that part of yourself, or that is acting like you know the answers to everything, and maybe that's interfering with the process of hearing your inner voice, your inner knower.
SPEAKER_01So maybe there's a shadow projection going on.
SPEAKER_00I believe this.
SPEAKER_01But it's also, you know, as I said, with my dad, it's also easy to be triggered by know-it-alls in our culture because there is so much mental arrogance. So it's understandable. And at the same time, it's worth self-reflection because it may be keeping you from learning what you need to learn.
SPEAKER_00Everything is here to help you to get to the place of your own being, your own consciousness, your own divine nature. This is something to work on, not something to dismiss. So if you meet someone who's arrogant and they are displaying arrogance, and you feel offended by it, or you feel angry about it, or you feel hurt by it, or you feel abused by it, that's your message for yourself to grow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and to look at your own shadow. Look at your own shadow because you know how you disown that quality in yourself.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_01So another question is about the end of the evolution of consciousness. Is there an endpoint? Is there an ultimate level of consciousness when all of this kind of reaches its climax and stops unfolding?
SPEAKER_00Obviously, I can only share this from my own perspective. So that's only my point of view.
SPEAKER_01Um, the your level of consciousness.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my level of consciousness never seems to stop unfolding. And in fact, this podcast has become a mechanism for me to explore things that before I didn't explore, and seems to be opening up every day and every week new things. I would say that there are levels that one can reach which seem to be important. Important is um become aware of your ego, so be aware of the part of you that identifies yourself in terms of your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your beliefs, your roles. And so I'd say that capacity to be conscious of that, to be an observer of that, is an important step. Another important step is to be able to go beyond that to a place of emptiness, a place where you're not identified with your behaviors, your body movements, your sense of self, sense of body self. That's another step. And another step is to actually open up um subtle perceptions, so the capacity to visually observe the galaxy, the universe, uh emotionally, experiencing, emotional cosmos. I think that that's another level of awareness. Another level of beyond that is non-duality, experiencing states like love, bliss, joy, without a subject or an object or a process. Just that's the nature of divinity, the nature of the cosmos. And another step would be uh being able to recognize yourself in the subtle levels of consciousness physical, astral, mental, buddhic, ethnic, celestial, divine. So there are many levels to go through. Uh and different traditions follow different paths uh and open up a different order, different orders. But ultimately, I think there's doesn't seem to be any limit to where we can go. It's almost as if the divine is creating new formats for anybody seeking more knowledge.
SPEAKER_01So these stages of realization have unfolded in you in an unusual way, as we've been talking about in the podcast. They're not necessarily the same for other individuals, they may unfold really differently. Um, there's some debate about whether there is an ultimate state or stage, and whether it's the same for all traditions. The group discussions we've been having with people seem to say that it's not the same, that there are cultural differences and linguistic differences and um really distinctions in the higher states. Ken Wilbur has an excellent map about this for people who are interested in it. So the next question kind of follows from this. Are there signs or cities when you've reached these higher stages?
SPEAKER_00Uh signs or cities. So let me tackle the second part of this question. Cities are special powers and that are not normal for the average person. Do these occur as part of your unfoldment? Absolutely. Some people they occur before waking up, before enlightenment, and for some people they occur afterwards. Most of the teachers and the schools tell one us not to focus on them because they can actually do the word um a detour. A detour, yeah, a detour. But I don't believe that that's true. The old traditions actually take you through level upon level upon level, actually, maybe even starting with things like astral protection, outviewing, those types of things, uh, telepathy, developing those early on before one wakes up.
SPEAKER_01So there are different paths that focus, some focus on cities and some don't. And there's also different kundalini risings. So as the kundalini awakens, it takes different paths through the chakras. And this also determines whether you experience yogic powers or not.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I would say not important to pursue, but they will unfold with consciousness and development of consciousness. And if you do pursue them, importance is to realize that they're part of the oneness, part of the emptiness, part of our spiritual journey, and not to get caught up in egotistical frameworks.
SPEAKER_01Not to identify with them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, and it's they're very seductive because it's part of the reason why I'm not a teacher. I mean, I'm presenting my consciousness on this format, but I'm not a teacher of individuals, particularly, or groups in terms of spiritual consciousness. I don't charge for my services.
SPEAKER_01And why is that?
SPEAKER_00Because I don't want to be caught in the dilemma that I see so many gurus, priests, spiritual teachers, they they get caught in the projection, deduction, sexually, financially powerful base. And that's because they have people looking at them like they're gods.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so for example, Sai Baba, Satya Sai Baba from India, and Shri Saibaba, actually not Shri, Satya Sai Baba, the more recent one from India, really attracted millions of people because he could materialize things.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, now that could be advised to help people come to terms with themselves and their awareness and their consciousness and grow. On the other hand, you know, it's people bow down to someone like that and believe that that's what's important, magic, superior powers, and that can be a trap that can actually get you for lifetimes in the wrong mode.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So what does this mean, all of this? Reaching higher stages of consciousness? What does it mean for our future lifetimes, for our dying process and our future lives?
SPEAKER_00The goal is simply not to die. In other words, to be identified with a level of consciousness which is eternal, immortal, ever present, beyond time, beyond space as well. So death then becomes death with a physical form. In India they say drop in the body because it's not really who we are, it's a manifestation. So death is a transition that happens to soul to enlighten beings that doesn't take away from their awareness, that adds to the awareness. It's actually possible to wake up in the body as well. In other words, realize the body is immortal, go on forever. So most people, when they die, they leave their physical form and go to the etheric, astral, mental, body levels and exist on those planes separate from the physical plane. They might have some awareness of what is going on on the physical plane, but not in detail. But waking up fully means that the consciousness will continue on the physical plane after your body's dead, because their consciousness is everywhere, and that ability to perceive is everywhere.
SPEAKER_01So, what happens with rebirth?
SPEAKER_00Well, rebirth when you haven't reached that level of being everywhere. If you reach that level, you don't have to be reborn because you're already here, and you're manifested your consciousness on a physical plane, and you're able to perceive, not do, but perceive on a physical plane. So if you haven't reached that level, which is a pretty high level, you'll eventually have to reincarnate.
SPEAKER_01And so if you've I think the question is if you've attained non-duality, how does that affect your reincarnation?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's an illusion that we've we've done. Like I I remember my previous lifetime in I was a Brahmin priest in a Hindu temple in a Hindu temple, Shiva temple. I reached a level where I was able to be awake, where weight to my essence, and I went to Brahmaloka, blissful heavenly realm, which is the promise. And I was bored eventually because there was no growth. And there was no growth because I had not completed the task of waking up the personality, the body, you know, the soul, really. Uh so I had to come back. Uh, so one does not escape it.
SPEAKER_01And I know we have one of our teachers um had a lot more work to do psychologically and emotionally, even though he was in very high stage, and he's doing that work on a subtle plane now.
SPEAKER_00Correct. So he's not physically manifested, but he's manifested on an astral plane.
SPEAKER_01So he's not choosing rebirth.
SPEAKER_00No, he's choosing to actually do the work because there's more growth to be done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but not in the body, not in the physical body. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But most people are go to the astral or mental plane, and after a while they start to become aware of more subtle planes, and they can't hold it in their consciousness, so they fall asleep, and they carry it by the lords of karma back into form, into birth, and they're not choosing it, it's happening to them.
SPEAKER_01I see. Okay, there was another question about identity after non-dual awakening. What's the question? Who am I? For you, let's say, after awakening, who am I?
SPEAKER_00I who am I? I am the question because it's forever changing. I am everywhere, I include everything. There's nowhere I'm not. I'm perceptually aware of the cosmos, the universe, perceptually aware of subtle planes, people in the past on, and I'm living in the present moment, the eternal prison moment. So, and that keeps and it keeps changing and unfolding. So it's not static, it's dynamic.
SPEAKER_01And you told me this week you were doing shadow work to try to include, you know, the people who are difficult for you, who carry charge, negative projection for you, in that everything is consciousness realization.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I left something out. In other words, um, I found myself being everywhere physically, astral, mentally, and so on, all the planes of existence, feeling myself. And what came next was the sense of unity, oneness with everything. And I saw in the oneness that there was a part of me that I had ignored, shadowside, and that I needed to embrace that as part of myself as well. And I think this is very hard, a hard step and a difficult step for most people. So I postponed this one. So it's a long way down the line, but it's very difficult to actually see oneself as evil, megalomaniac, as uh all of those things that one looks and says, not me. But you know, in terms of oneness, it's all you.
SPEAKER_01So okay. Um, there have been a number of questions about psychic abilities and whether it's important to cultivate them intentionally or allow them to spontaneously emerge. And we addressed this a little bit earlier in this podcast, but Neil wanted to say a few more things about this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so psychic abilities manifest on many levels. On an astral level, which is the emotional level, there's an ability to feel and to know other people's feelings and thoughts, same on a mental level. And subtly, intuitively, one can also know certain things. And there's also the third eye, the ajana chakra, which is able to see through things, is able to see into the depth of things. Are these important? Most spiritual teachers don't emphasize these. They see them as traps, as places you can get stuck in, because the ego, the separate part of ourselves, can identify very strongly with some of these, and people can be inspired by them and believe that you have superpowers, uh, and that you have attained a high level, which is not necessarily true. One can actually be quite psychically um aware and not be uh wake or a certain level.
SPEAKER_01How is that possible? So, because we've all heard about you know black magic or witches or psychics who are clearly not awake, what is that about?
SPEAKER_00That's just uh the truth, which is you can develop certain powers. You know, in India they they have traditions where a person lies on a bed of nails and doesn't feel anything, or is able to keep their arm raised up until it almost drops off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a discipline, it's uh it's a magical discipline that that uh can be developed through practice and commitment and dedication, and especially if one believes that this is a path to enlightenment.
SPEAKER_01So is this a detour?
SPEAKER_00This is a detour. So, however, when one is awake, these things open up.
SPEAKER_01For some people. Because we know some people who don't, who are very high but don't have psychic abilities.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, at some point it will open up.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00In other words, it's natural for one to know things, to experience things, to see things. So, for example, I've given this example before this there's a wall in front of me. I can see inside of the wall there's studs. And I can see through the wall to what's outside of the wall. And I can see the other side of the planet. And uh and I can see the solar system.
SPEAKER_01And what organ are you seeing with?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a great question. Each one has a different uh organ of perception. So just like you, your eyes see in front of you, so the astrally, one can see inside a wall. Mentally, one can see way beyond that.
SPEAKER_01So it's with those other bodies that you're seeing those things.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and no. Yes, you can do that through other bodies and no. Ultimately, there's one seer in this cosmos. There's no duality, there's one being who sees everything.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I mentioned earlier in the cause in the podcast this issue of Kundalini risings. And I want to recommend this book, Kundalini Vidya, by Joan Harrigan. She's supposed to be coming out with the new edition, but I don't, God knows when that will happen. Um but it's a brilliant exploration of the many paths that kundalini can take as we do practices and how these special abilities develop differently depending on which chakras are opened. I mean, if you imagine there's a thousand-petaled lotus in the seventh chakra, and some people open, you know, two petals and some open a thousand, there's going to be very different experiences. So for a reference for those who want to explore this, I recommend that. Okay. I I just the other thing I want to let me say something about that. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um what what is Kundalini? Firstly, it's the divine meeting the divine. So it's Shakti, the that which is at the base of the spine, rising upwards and reaching out through the top of the head eventually, and in which the duality becomes absorbed in non-duality. But along the way, there are many pathways. Uh, and so the kundalini can rise up in seven or eight different processes, and uh and can open up to different experiences along the way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so it's a powerful explanation for about this question of cities or psychic abilities.
SPEAKER_00And we actually did this practice uh with uh Kunalini master.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so somebody had the question about how do you see the level of consciousness of other people? How can you, Neil, tell if someone else is awake? And again, I guess it's about perception. What is the organ of perception that is allowing you to see the other person's level of consciousness?
SPEAKER_00So at the deepest level of awareness is the divine. Divine knows everything, and the divine knows everything by experiencing knowing as part of its nature, knowing everything. And it has organs of perception, just like you know human beings' face, eyes have organs of perception. So the divine, the knower, knowing has organs of perception. And those are very similar to the human perceptions, except they're far more cosmic. So one can actually see things that are beyond that, and and can validate it, can be known.
SPEAKER_01Can you be more specific? So you're looking at someone, and I say to you, what's her level of consciousness? and you respond. How are you getting that information? Are you seeing which chakras are open? Are you seeing something in her aura? Are you what are you No?
SPEAKER_00Firstly, it's not it's not personal, it's cosmic, it's divine. So it's not me doing it, it's perceiving something that is everywhere, is known to the divine, it's cosmic awareness. I think cosmic consciousness would be another way of defining it.
SPEAKER_01Well, that has associations with the witness, so I don't think that's quite right. So it's interesting because most people, when they look at the other, they see self and object.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01They see the difference and the process. They see the difference. They're not thinking about the process of perception, they're thinking about I'm here and she's there.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And we're different, and we're separate.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So with divine perception, you're looking at the other person, right, and you're seeing you're seeing there's this there's an ego or self, there's an object of perception, there's a process of perceiving or knowing, and there's the divine, which is in all of those at the same time. It's non-dual.
SPEAKER_01But that's not giving you information about the other person's level of consciousness.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it does.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's what I'm trying to get to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the level of uh consciousness as much part of in the experience as their body.
SPEAKER_01What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00Well, the subject, there's a subject, there's a body, is experiencing this body, and it does it through its part senses, and the knowing, the knowing experiences, the knower experiences its knowing the same way, except it has all those senses.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so let's do it between us. Uh-huh. So you're looking at me. How do you see my level of consciousness?
SPEAKER_00Well, my attention is drawn to the sixth chakra right here.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And it's radiating.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And it's telling me that it has a voice to it if I listen.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00It's saying, uh, I've been here many times. I am a conscious being. I chose to forget.
SPEAKER_01So you're attuning to something subtle in the energy body.
SPEAKER_00Subtle, subtle. It's visual, it's auditory, it's abstract, it's knowing the past, present, the future.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, we hope that's helpful to answer, because several people had questions about this. And then lastly, people are asking about fun. This is all so serious. And it's so, in a way, austere sitting with our eyes closed for hours and hours longing for awakening. So are we splitting off entertainment or joy or fun or leisure or sex? What is going into the shadow here? And how do we how do we include having a good time?
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, having a good time is real. And it's um it certainly is part of the conscious journey. And it's about well-being, it's about happiness, joyfulness, bliss, ecstasy. And it's not about serious, just being serious. There are paths that that follow that tradition. But one has got to come back if that's that's the road one has taken.
SPEAKER_01So you're saying that austerity is you know for monastics, but for householders like us, we can have fun.
SPEAKER_00Even even monastics. Fun is joy, is laughter, is is spontaneous. Right now I'm I'm in bliss. So can you say that that's fun? Is bliss fun?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's different from surfing or going to the movies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you could have bliss in surfing uh in the movies, or dancing, or but not quite the same. This is uh full of the body and the mouth and the psyche and the cosmos. It's it's it's uh ecstatic. So one shouldn't deny oneself that. And I'm talking personally now because there are pathways where people do follow an austere road to the divine. But again, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like the monks who hold up their arms that you were describing.
SPEAKER_00Again, the truth about it is we were not brought here to be unhappy. We didn't choose to come here to be unhappy.
SPEAKER_01Okay, we hope this was responsive to your questions and that you enjoyed it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.