Cosmic blanket
When we practice in nondual traditions, eventually we discover the continuity of all life. A simple way of understanding continuity is to recognize that we live in a totally responsive world. It is not possible to move or change one thing without the whole of Reality responding in some way.
Most of us have slept in a bed with another person. We know that if the other person rolls over during the night, we feel the blanket move. We are also affected.
Our companion might be considerate and try not to move the blanket too much, but there is no such thing as one side of a blanket moving and the other side remaining totally static. The blanket moves all at once. This is the way a blanket functions.
Even if we are rigid dualists, we know that our blanket is shared. If we fall asleep while our companion is reading a book by candlelight, and later on the candle tips over and sets the blanket on fire, we are going to jump out of bed! We are not going to remain under a burning blanket and stupidly proclaim: I don’t care, that is your side of the blanket, not mine!
We are even going to be helpful and try to put out the fire, or phone the fire department. And after we are sure that everyone is safe and sound, we might insist that our companion not read by candlelight. Maybe we will go out and buy a little lamp just to make sure. In these situations, we take measures to keep ourselves and our loved ones healthy and safe.
But in many other situations, we don’t recognize our continuity with life. Maybe we throw old paint down the drain without concern for how it is affecting other people and animals and lands. Or we stand by silently while our governments commit egregious crimes against our neighbors and people in other countries. We think these things will not affect us, but they do. We are all under the same blanket. In fact, we are the blanket.
Nondual=shared
At its simplest and most elegant, nonduality means everything is shared. We live in a shared world. Even our own bodies are the experiences of a single shared body.
Nothing belongs only to one individual. In fact, individuals have no objective, independent reality. We are one, continuous body with the capacity to have “many body” experiences.
The reality of your life is that you cannot take a single breath without the cooperation of an entire world, and you cannot help but be affected by what is happening elsewhere and to others.
Most people have the experience that reality is made up of sharply distinct objects. For a long time, modern physics has been fixated on finding the smallest object as if this would uncover the essence of reality.
The insistence on the independent object as the single defining characteristic of reality stems from anavamala. Anavamala is our root sense of separation, or our conviction that we are separate individuals. In Trika Shaivism, anavamala is the root form of ignorance, or our root limitation.
Relaxing into continuity
Human limitation begins with anavamala—our rigid identification with the small unit of “my self” and “my body.” As long as we are subject to the tension of anavamala, our range of vision, our ability to directly perceive and participate in the more subtle appearings of our world, is also impaired. We do sadhana (spiritual practice) to relax anavamala.
Relaxing anavamala doesn’t just mean that we have some kind of clinical or scientific or analytic perception of continuity. The direct perception of continuity occurs in our entire body, energy, and mind. It simultaneously and automatically engenders expanded capacities to love others and desire the well-being of all.
The direct perception of the continuity of all is a recognition of the nature of the Self, of the essence of existence. We are simultaneously awestruck and devotion-struck and compassion-struck.
Even if we are doing spiritual practice consistently, the experience of continuity tends to come and go. But when we eventually experience a deep and unbroken perception of continuity, there is no more need for rules or ethics and morality. We no longer need to be convinced that it is “good” or “right” to care for others. Our compassion and concern for others become utterly natural and spontaneous. We are simply moved to be of benefit.
Practices of continuity
Mantra practice is often the easiest way to begin to relax anavamala because the gross vibration of the mantra softens our experience of being in a distinctly separate body. When we relax, we begin to perceive our shared state.
As we continue in our sadhana over the years, our perceptions of shared life become more direct and immediate. Our senses begin to wake up to their subtle capacities. We begin to notice the pervasive “aliveness” and luminosity of the awake, natural state, even in so-called inanimate objects.
Eventually we can directly perceive the inherent wisdom that gives rise to all and is at all times communicating with us.
Duality is also continuity
Sadhana assists us to de-identify with “my self” and “my body” and begin to re-identify with the continuity and shared foundation of life. “Our body” has become much larger. We recognize ourselves within and as one with a single, communicative, organismic Reality.
But this does not mean sinking into insensible withdrawal or transcending human life. The aim of all Trika sadhana is to participate in everything—including everyday life—as an expression of the continuous base made of and full of alive, self-aware wisdom and virtue. Inside is not better than outside. Up is not better than down. It is all the same wisdom.
In Trika, one of the names for the pervasive natural state is “Shiva,” the beneficent. In Dzogchen, we call it “Samantabhadra,” the all-good.
Anandamayi Ma once ordered that an newly poured cement sidewalk at an ashram be dug up because it had inadvertently been placed over a young pepper plant. Mataji said she heard the plant calling to her for help.
When anavamala relaxes, we receive many kinds of communications from the diverse forms of life that make up our shared life. The world becomes a much richer place for us and a much less lonely place. The desire to be of benefit arises spontaneously without cultivation or contrivance.
The beauty of our world is that we can play at relating as many while immersed in the single continuity. We can experience the one and the many at the same time and discover the wellsprings of compassion. This is the meaning of shared, and the simple feeling of shared is something we can all come to recognize and express in our lives every day and in every circumstance.
with infinite love,
Shambhavi