Can you believe what arises from nondual stillness? Is it just more "blah blah"?

Matthew.

Hi Gary, and thanks so much for taking the time to provide such a thorough response to my question (in earlier blogpost "Why do you teach dualistic approaches to nondual awakening?  What are you philosophically?). Really fascinating stuff. Thanks too for the history...a couple more questions to follow up ;)

1....I wonder if "monism" might be a better word to describe your experience/what you are teaching?...the link to the wikipedia page...following that link...it sounds to me that monism is indeed what you are describing... The word "nonduality," on the other hand, seems to include the "self" without reifying or separating it from everything else.

2...you write about allowing whatever teaching to emerge "out of the 'silence and stillness'" and...say that the "deepest Truth in the questioner seems to speak through this 'empty vessel'..." My question here is one of epistemology and is the more important...How on earth can you possibly know that you are speaking/living the "deepest Truth"? 

...you may have somehow managed to subdue / cut off conscious thinking, and now you are acting on unconscious thought patterns, emotions and impulses that are (also) socially constructed and that you take to be the "deepest Truth." How can you know that you are not doing that? 

Again, I really appreciate your taking the time to so generously answer questions, engage in dialogue, and explain your teaching. 

Hi Matthew,

your first question seems to fall into what is described in the blogpost as "...arguments over meaningless parsing of the finest points, often unknowable..."    As the wikipedia link which you cite describes, these two terms are "sometimes conflated". 

IME, there is little to be accomplished towards "awakening" in debating fine philosophical distinctions between two different words which are themselves merely "fingers pointing at the moon".  Words are inadequate to describe something which inherently experiential, beyond the reach of mind and fundamentally "transcendental".  

re your really interesting second question, i strongly support such "hard" questioning.  Over decades "on the path", i have encountered great delusion, self-deception, manipulation and exploitation.  Question everything and everyone.

Richard Feynman

i would encourage you to work on developing a powerful tool, your "intuition".  There comes a point where something "deeper" than the intellect, senses and emotions is all that can really be "trusted".  As the Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman famously stated, "You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."  

you may be uncomfortable w/"intuition", but it was the only thing i could unfailingly trust.  It is a deep "feeling" that something isn't "right", that this folk can't be trusted, or can be, that this relationship isn't going to work, etc.  you might find the blogpost "How do you make your decisions w/no 'I'?" useful as to how to work with "intuition". 

As explained in the "Why do you teach dualist approaches..." blog, i had to use this "intuition" approach, this waiting for what arose out of emptiness, as when the page turned and self-referential thoughts stopped, there was no other approach available.  To my great surprise, this approach was consistently validated as i found myself in  different management roles in many venues.  It worked in a large corporation, a small sports-technology business, a big university in research management and creating small companies, and on the BOT of a regional medical center.   

i still read the complex business plans, strategies, technologies and financials before meetings, but went to meetings “empty”.  Amazingly, solutions arose, exactly when appropriate, that were more perceptive, creative and insightful than anything i could have “thought up”.  Additionally, i was the only one 100% “present”, as others were someplace else (in their minds) for much of the meeting.  i was more effective than i had been in decades of working in similar environments.

It was not "acting on unconscious thought patterns, emotions and impulses that are (also) socially constructed".  Having insightful solutions to complex business and scientific problems just arise "out of stillness" that were exceptional, synergistic and creative beyond my abilities, and often beyond those of others in the meetings, demonstrated that this was a different, and better, operating modality.  

To validate that complex problem solving does take place "off line" (in primary consciousness), there are two excellent 2008 papers in PloSOne and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, respectively, "Deconstructing Insight: EEG Correlates of Insightful Problem Solving" by Simone Sandkuhler and Joydeep Bhattacharya, and "Posterior Beta and Anterior Gamma Oscillations Predict Cognitive Insight" by Bhavin Sheth, Sandkuhler and Bhattacharya.   Basically all complex problem solving takes place off-line and is communicated to secondary consciousness which then brags about it.  

This approach is how every facet of "'my" life unfolds, in stillness, being present for this energy to arise with whatever needs to be said, when it needs to be said.  There really is no alternative.  Fortunately, it works better than the unending "self-referential" discursive debate that had been the previous operating mode.

Secondary Consciousness Rider
Atop Primary Consciousness Elephant

   

You raise a valid point on how could i possibly “know” it is another's “deeper(est) Truth”.  What arises is, as described above, of a different quality, insightfulness, and utility, and was virtually always not something that i could have known or anticipated.  

i added to that blogpost a cognitive-neuroscientifically derived metaphor that you might find more useful, from the blogpost "Elephant or rider? intuition or reasoning? Reaching the 'other side' w/o argument".  This used the metaphor of the "primary consciousness" elephant (with massive parallel computational power and data storage) getting another "secondary consciousness" rider (on-line limited CPU and memory) to tell his/her own rider what (s)he already knows, but can't get his/her own rider to understand.  

As “my” secondary consciousness “rider” is not employed other than as spokesman or "problem framer, planner or solution reporter", it does not interfere w/post-processing before communicating w/the other rider.

"Prescience" also occurs, like being able to finish another's sentences even at a first meeting, or "feeling" another's energies, and acting in accordance with them, even before the other voices it.  These, however, do not prove that it is "their deeper Truth".  These are superficial (and i expect "common" but often overlooked) and there are other possible explanations. 

Institute of Noetic Sciences
Study on "Prescience"

you also might find the blog "Can 'nondual' folk know the future?  their brains can, but they can't", interesting.  This Institute of Noetic Sciences published work was done on 8 of us "persistent nonduals".  It demonstrated that this population apparently showed "presentiment" of randomly-generated audio stimuli.  i remain skeptical, but that is the science.   

 re your "you may have somehow managed to subdue/cut off conscious thinking", the science on that is pretty well worked out, as described in the blogposts "Folk who meditate decrease mind wandering" and "What is the Default Mode Network?"

There is no known way to “prove”, scientifically, that these insights come from the other’s primary consciousness.  However, IME, the more still, quiet and open others are, the deeper the communication and understanding appears to be, and the more useful and insightful the work is, at least so it appears.