Is there unity in denying duality? In a sense you are everything, but you don’t have to do it. You are everything because you are a part of everything, but my toes are not my fingers. Our nature is to express a part.

There is a lot of emphasis on unity in spiritual circles these days. They seem to feel that by blurring duality conceptually that they will find unity, but our world is inherently unified and dual. No amount of crying “ego” changes the natural order. Your sense of I, the natural sense of self, isn’t ego at all. Ego is when you get all the thinking behind it. When a young child declares “mine” are they really being egotistical, or are they simply aware of desire?

We seem to live in two worlds, a world of cognition or thinking, and a world of recognition. We have a lot of cognition about the world, and our thinking is inherently dual. In our anxiety about that we polarize it even more by resisting how we naturally see. We villainize much that is natural about our own beings, and ennoble things when they conform to our societal but unnatural prejudices. So when asked “Do you know yourself?”, it is mostly a confusing question isn’t it? They just start rattling off ideas when you ask if they really want that or believe that way.  They most often say “I don’t know”. That is where recognition comes in. In a sense, the answer “I don’t know me” is true, because cognition is limited to the present or the active. Even our own brains function by recognizing contrast, so we can’t know our potential by thinking about it, can we? If we think, isn’t that just the long list of stuff and experience that we in our hearts already know is “not me”?

This goes back to what I first learned, you are not your mind. I‘m still having trouble with that one. You aren’t that part of your awareness, no. Children do a lot of reflection if given a chance. It is quite natural rather than having an experience and automatically going into thinking mode, applying the same old, same old. I mean seriously, it’s right from experience to opinion about the experience isn’t it?

Is that why children love repetition? Yes, because they reflect. They hear and recognize, then maybe think.

So get something new each time? Yes, as do Zen monks. This has actually been measured. Their brain doesn’t fall into habituation while meditating. It is literally beginners mind.

Our conditioning to ideas about who we are, ideas about who anyone else is, totally ignore recognition. They say the worlds problems stem from the inability of a man to remain with himself quietly alone in an empty room. We are so conditioned to that cycle of event, to thinking, to action, to event, that being alone makes us feel unplugged, lonely. Why should we feel so disconnected in that way? Ever watch an infant play on the carpet for any length of time? Does their pattern of attention seem frantic? Anxiety about if they are doing something, or if someone is paying attention to them?

My nephew would wake in his crib at night and sit and look for hours. He was simply reflecting, and being awake looking in his crib is a very natural part of the human mind and our sense of identity.

Until they get older? But yes, they get older, and even if they weren’t forced out of the reflective or observer mind, they have been reflecting on the experience of watching their parents. It really sinks in, and they see that it’s actually sort of confusing. That there is stuff going on that they don’t see, and when they come to be aware of duality in social roles, well, that’s where they start growing up or rather growing lost. We get embarrassed about a child’s awareness of gender, and they see the embarrassment. We involve children in activities that have nothing to do with their inner natures, their temperaments, because it’s the expected thing.

There does seem to be a duality, but nature doesn’t have the balance of duality be all nice and neat, black and white. A male child may be attracted to baby dolls, a female child might be attracted to trucks and boisterous play, and if what we were doing was really in their best interest, would we not be nurturing who they are?

Our subconscious conditioning gets in the way of that? Yes, even if the child acclimates, their role and behaviours will be warped. I saw a good quote recently, “It is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick world“. What do you think?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~