Richard Sylvester, in his book I Hope You Die Soon: Words on Non-Duality, expresses a form on non-duality that is radical to the core, and extremely difficult to express in language. Because non-duality means there is no self, no “I” separate from the world, words, which describe our physical and mental experience, fail us on this topic.
For non-dualists are always part of the world. For various reasons, primarily, I think, our biological heritage, we fail to view existence as non-dualists; we tell ourselves “stories” about reality, that are narrowly true, if true at all. So, I agree with Sylvester on this account. Where we part company a bit is his idea of how we get to such a state of “awakening,” to use Sylvester’s term. For Sylvester, we can’t do anything to bring it on. Not meditation, or drugs, or religious practice. It simply happens. It happens because it is always there anyway. He explains one of these experiences (which, of course, is not an experience at all, it is just the way things are, in this passage):
…I am standing in a shop in an ordinary country town. Suddenly but with great gentleness the ordinary is displaced by the extraordinary. The person again disappears completely and now it is seen clearly that awareness is everywhere and everything. The localized sense of self is revealed to be just an appearance. There is no location, no here or there. There is only oneness appearing as everything and this is what ‘I’ really am. ‘I’ am the shop, the people, the counter, the walls and the space in which everything appears. When the self disappears, and awareness is seen as everything, then this is seen for what it is, a wonderful hologram sustained by love.
What makes Sylvester radical is that he does preach a path or technique that brings us to the awareness of our non-dual state. It just happens. It will be or not be. He fond of such deterministic language. We can do nothing at all. For many, this idea will be difficult to swallow. We want to be spiritual or religious seekers, either attempting to merge with the Greater Whole, of God, or Whatever. We want action. Sylvester sees this as futile. Things will be, or they won’t be. We move from state to state without control. We are already "there." There is nothing else. We have to grow accustomed to his own brand of quietism without a fuss. Otherwise, this book will infuriate you.
For non-dualists are always part of the world. For various reasons, primarily, I think, our biological heritage, we fail to view existence as non-dualists; we tell ourselves “stories” about reality, that are narrowly true, if true at all. So, I agree with Sylvester on this account. Where we part company a bit is his idea of how we get to such a state of “awakening,” to use Sylvester’s term. For Sylvester, we can’t do anything to bring it on. Not meditation, or drugs, or religious practice. It simply happens. It happens because it is always there anyway. He explains one of these experiences (which, of course, is not an experience at all, it is just the way things are, in this passage):
…I am standing in a shop in an ordinary country town. Suddenly but with great gentleness the ordinary is displaced by the extraordinary. The person again disappears completely and now it is seen clearly that awareness is everywhere and everything. The localized sense of self is revealed to be just an appearance. There is no location, no here or there. There is only oneness appearing as everything and this is what ‘I’ really am. ‘I’ am the shop, the people, the counter, the walls and the space in which everything appears. When the self disappears, and awareness is seen as everything, then this is seen for what it is, a wonderful hologram sustained by love.
What makes Sylvester radical is that he does preach a path or technique that brings us to the awareness of our non-dual state. It just happens. It will be or not be. He fond of such deterministic language. We can do nothing at all. For many, this idea will be difficult to swallow. We want to be spiritual or religious seekers, either attempting to merge with the Greater Whole, of God, or Whatever. We want action. Sylvester sees this as futile. Things will be, or they won’t be. We move from state to state without control. We are already "there." There is nothing else. We have to grow accustomed to his own brand of quietism without a fuss. Otherwise, this book will infuriate you.
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