The Pointlessness of Nondual Pointing

Nonduality is about pointing. We cannot describe Ultimate Reality, but we can point to it. This idea is repeated often. You have undoubtedly heard many times the Zen proverb about not mistaking the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself. And this is helpful. It helps us look beyond ideas, words, doctrines, and beliefs to know Reality directly. What is not often mentioned is that pointing can itself be a barrier to spiritual awakening. Pointing is misleading. It assumes that Reality is over there somewhere, where we are pointing. Pointing is therefore mis-pointing. 

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Transcript

Nonduality is about pointing. We cannot describe Ultimate Reality, but we can point to it. This idea is repeated often. You have undoubtedly heard many times the Zen proverb about not mistaking the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself. And this is helpful. It helps us look beyond ideas, words, doctrines, and beliefs to know Reality directly. What is not often mentioned is that pointing can itself be a barrier to spiritual awakening. Pointing is misleading. It assumes that Reality is over there somewhere, where we are pointing. Pointing is therefore mis-pointing. 

Let me give you an example. I read nonduality books on occasion to see what people are saying and more importantly how they are saying it. I am reading a book on Nonduality now. I am not going to give the title or author because I do not want this to be a critique of this particular book or teacher. It is a short book but a good book that presents the standard fare that you get in most nonduality books, complete with a set of exercises to help people see directly what is being said.

In one chapter this teacher is pointing out how we can see that we are not a little self inside a body, but the open spacious awareness in which everything – including the body and world - appear. Over and over he repeats these words, often put in italics: “You’re not the one inside the body – you're the spacious awareness in which all sensations and thoughts appear.” I am sure you have heard things like this before. We are not in the body, the body is in us. We are not in the world; the world is in us.  

This can be helpful to get us beyond thinking of ourselves as a separate self in a separate body in an objective world that is out there somewhere. The problem is that pointing is itself a dualistic exercise. It presupposes that there is a place where we can point to another place. We are on earth and the moon is up there and the finger is somewhere between. That is dualistic. The truth is there is no here and there. There is no inside and outside. They are one.

This talk about inside and outside confuses the matter. It does not help to exchange a worldview that says we are inside the body for one that says that the body is inside us. It does no good to exchange a worldview that says that we are in the world for one that says the world is in us. Both worldviews are dualistic and therefore misleading. 

Another misleading pointer is the use of the word consciousness. This author talks a lot about consciousness, saying that most people assume that consciousness arises from body – specifically from the brain. But, he says, it doesn’t. He says it is the other way around. I will quote the book directly. He writes:

“What if ... we have been looking at it the wrong way? What if consciousness is not created by the body – but is the open space in which the body and everything else appears? If that feels strange at first, ask yourself a simple question: What’s the one constant thing that’s always been here? Your body has changed. Your thoughts have come and gone. Even your sense of who you are has shifted over time. But one thing has always been here, quietly noticing everything that comes and goes: consciousness. Consciousness – your true nature – is the spacious awareness in which everything appears.”

That sounds pretty good. But it comes down to what we mean by consciousness. As I read these folks, they seem to be talking about the human expression of consciousness. Human consciousness is not our true nature any more than the human body is. Think about what this author wrote. Is it really true that human consciousness has always been here? No. Human consciousness arose with humans. It did not exist before humans. But divine consciousness or cosmic consciousness – to use Bucke’s famous term – is always present; human consciousness is not. 

I wish there was another word besides consciousness to describe this divine reality from which consciousness arises and that takes expression in all sorts of animal and human consciousness. The Bible avoids the problem by not talking about consciousness. It used the words Life or Spirit or Light. The Breath of Life, the Spirit of God. In talking about Christ, the apostle wrote “in him was Life and the Life was the Light of men.” I like the words intelligence or awareness or Being. But a lot of people these days use the word consciousness, so we need to be careful how we use it. 

Intelligence is a fundamental building block of the universe. It is inherent in the nature of the universe. The tiniest one celled organism with one little flagellum that enables it to swim around has intelligence.  Plants have intelligence that allows them to open and close and follow the sun. This is part of the fabric of the universe. That is how life emerges from matter. The more complex the organism, the more complex the consciousness that emerges from this cosmic intelligence. 

Different types of consciousness arose through evolution through adaptation with the environment. Human consciousness does emerge from the brain as it adapts to the environment as experienced through our five senses. But only because intelligence is already present, inherent in the matter of the universe that makes up our bodies. It is just being organized in a more complex way by the human brain. 

Awareness is one with the universal Intelligence or Divine Mind which is deep within us and all around us. That is why it is misleading to have to choose between the world in us or us in the world. We do not have to choose. We are the world. It is not either/or. Both are true. Furthermore, nondual awareness is much more than human consciousness. Let me explain. 

I lose consciousness on occasion. For example, a few months ago I passed out in the bathroom three times in row. I bloodied up my face from hitting the tile floor and looked like a real mess. My wife called the doctor’s office, and they said to go to the ER to get checked out. So I did. The hospitalist was certain the syncope was caused by my heart because I have a heart condition where my heartbeat is irregular once or twice every day. They thought that was causing the fainting. 

So there was test after test that day, week after week, until they determined – once again – that it was not my heart. I told them that at the beginning because this has happened before. Not often. The episodes are years apart. It always has to do with getting overheated from temperature or physical exertion. It first happened first when I was a teenager. So I know what it is and how to prevent it – if I am careful to pay attention to my body. 

I am familiar with losing consciousness. Think about that phrase: losing consciousness. If you can lose consciousness, then consciousness is not the “one thing has always been here,” as this author says. Human consciousness is not present when we are unconscious. It is not present when I faint or am in deep dreamless sleep or under anesthesia. That consciousness comes and goes. So human consciousness is not permanent. It has not always been here. It comes at birth or before birth. It leaves for good at death.

My personal human consciousness dies with this body, but what I really am does not die. The underlying larger universal intelligence – call this God or the Divine if you want - that gave birth to my personal consciousness continues in all other humans and living creatures on earth. This Primordial and Eternal awareness or intelligence – some call this the Divine Mind - is what I really am. I do not die with the end of my personal individual human consciousness. 

But it seems that a lot of people talking about nonduality confuse temporary human consciousness with permanent nondual awareness. They confuse ordinary consciousness with God-consciousness. People play with tricks of perspectives in human consciousness and say that is Awakening. That is misleading. That is to point in the wrong direction. 

Nondual awareness is subtle and profound and deep and permanent. It is always present. We can be aware of this and are always aware as this. It does not change when this body passes out or is in deep sleep or dies. We know that intuitively. We know when we wake up in the morning that we did not cease to exist during unconsciousness. 

That awareness is what we are. Our consciousness rests in this – in our true nature – during deep sleep. That deep awareness is nondual awareness. Human consciousness changes, but the foundational Mind of the universe does not change. This universal Life or Light is what we really are. Human consciousness is just a temporary expression of it. 

This One Reality cannot be pointed to because we are too close to it. We are it. I am. I am that I am. All we can do is say, “This is it!” It is either that or remain silent. So we try pointers. But to point presupposes that there are two. Pointing presupposes duality. Here and there. Reality is nondual. There is nowhere but here. Therefore all pointing is ultimately pointless. But we point nevertheless, as I am doing today. That is my pointless pointing for today.