Everyday examples to understand Non-Duality ( Advaita)

1. We ( humans) cut trees from earth, make paper out of it, add value to it and then run after it our whole lives!!!
2. Imagine someone playing a video game. Inside the game, there are many characters,incidents, interactions , gains/losses, happiness/sorrows etc etc.Once the game is over, does it matter what happened inside the game? Whatever the characters inside the game did is all an illusion and is not related to the player . Now imagine the same with only one difference. The outsider is only a witness to the game. The characters inside the game are the senses being controlled by the mind ( which is also inside the game), the game has world and many other beings. The Outsider witness is Atman. The actors inside are the mind/senses/world etc.
3. Waves in an ocean are of different shape/size/force/color even . Some have froth and some don’t. Some are high, some are low. Some make noise while others don’t. The waves get created, make their presence felt and then die. Is there any difference between the waves or the ocean? Its all water. The ocean is not impacted by the types/actions of the waves. Since all is water. There is no difference between a drop and a wave/ocean. It is the Atman everywhere in everything. There is no difference from one to another as there is only One.
4. Is there a difference between a spark and a fire? Both are fire and the form(size) is different. Is one spark different from the other OR from the fire? No. Tat Twam Asi ( Thou Art That).
5. If man’s happiness comes from things, he should be more happy when he has more of them and sad when he has none. We see that same object gives happiness and sometimes gives sadness . Also in deep sleep, he has nothing. His body and mind are not active and still he wakes up saying he had a great sleep.
6. Imagine sun rays falling on lake waves and reflecting onto a wall. The Wall has many colors and designs which are becoming visible, thanks to the light. Now let’s see each one in detail. The wall thinks it’s bright and moving on its own. But without the light and the Waves , there is no brightness or movement. So let’s go to the lake. Lake waves are moving but it doesn’t have its own light. The lake thinks its bright on it own. Without the light, neither the lake nor the wall is visible. And the light doesn’t belong to the lake. So if you go further, you will realize that the light is from the sun. Now is there a difference between the light and the sun? No. Now let’s understand the analogy. The wall with its colors and designs is the body. The lake with its waves is the mind. Both are energized by the light reflection from the sun. The sun which is the light is the Brahman. The light is not shaken by the waves nor is it changing its shape because of the designs and colors of the wall. The light is the truth ,everything else is false. You are the light. you are neither the lake nor the wall.
7. What is Maya — illusion : simplest explanation is any form/name. Since anything with a form or name is temporary. Absolute truth cannot be temporary ( that stays true for sometime and then it doesn’t). Form/names are in the mind and senses. Wave dies but does the water die? water becomes wave/vapor/rain/river/ocean but its water. Does size of the wave make a difference that its not water? No.
8. Two steps to realization : First the wave realizes that its not wave but water. Then it realizes that everything else — tidal wave/foam/bubble/big wave/small wave are all water and the same as itself.First realize that you are not body/mind but brahman, then realize that there is nothing else .
9. Seer and the seen can’t be the same. You see the body so you can’t be the body. You see the life gases so you can’t be them. Mind keeps changing and you can observe thought so you can’t be the mind. What’s watching the mind?I am experiencing different thoughts and feelings so I can’t be all of them. I am aware of the thought,the thought is not aware of me.
10. The birds have vanished down the sky.
    Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains. — a Chinese poem

11. Kabir Doha

Chalti Chakki Dekh Kar, Diya Kabira Roye
Do Paatan Ke Beech Mein,Sabit Bacha Na Koye

Translation
Watching the grinding stones, the lamp Kabir Cries
Inside the Two Stones, no one survives.

Kabir sees the two grinding mill stones as the duality that we live in. Heaven and earth, Good and Bad, Male and Female, High and Low — all around is duality. This play of opposites, this Chalti Chakki, this moving mill, this moving cosmos, it destroys everyone, no one is saved from it’s powerful grip and grinding action.

Whoever enters this duality is crushed. No one survives, which brings Kabir to tears. Kabir cries because rarely, if ever, does one see the oneness, the divinity, behind the duality.

12. Poem by Khalil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.

13. What is the absolute truth?

Vyavaharika satyam: (worldly truth) : This is relative. What was true once is no longer true. What is truth to one person is false to another … ( earth is flat, one religious belief against the other…). It changes with time, person, place…

Pratibhasika satyam: ( Attributed truth)

What is attributed as true. Sun light causes the room to be bright. That does not mean sun wants the room to be bright or is unhappy when it’s not.

Paramarthika satyam: (Absolute truth). This does not change with time or space or person . It has no qualifiers and is absolute.

14. Boond samani hai samunder mein, janat hai sab koi
Samunder samana boond mein, bujhe birla koi
बूँद समानी है समुंदर में, जानत है सब कोई |
समुंदर समाना बूँद में, बुझे बिरला कोई ||
When a drop merges into the ocean, everyone understands it
But when the ocean merges into the drop, seldom does one understand it

MEANING
It is very simple to understand that a devotee merges into God, but it is difficult to accept that God merges into a devotee.Reality is the union of God and devotee and all differences are lost. This is a state rarely found. God dwells in the heart of a devotee as an ocean merged into the drop.

15.How can the waking world be false? We can easily accept that the dream is false because we wake up and realize that the dream no longer exists.the same is difficult or not possible for the waking world because the waking world is much much longer than a dream. Except the duration, the waking world is also created by the mind just like the dream. Also since it’s the mind which created the waking world, mind cannot accept that it is an illusion. Because of these reasons, we think that the waking world is real and we find it difficult to accept otherwise.

16. Many religions talk about a god or a super human being and the religions and their practices are considered to support dualism. But you if you look at them carefully, realize that in the process of surrendering to a higher power you are trying to kill the ego. When you are doing self enquiry as well ,you are trying to negate or kill the body & mind which is again killing the ego. Thus both the processes of surrender and self inquiry still support the same non- dualism. In both these paths, you are trying to kill the ego to realize that you are the universal consciousness and not the body or the mind.

17. Irrespective of the path you choose to understand the absolute truth , once you realize the same, question becomes what should you do next. when you are the absolute truth, there is nothing to do to become the absolute truth. You already are. Perhaps the only thing to do is to practice to detach from the mind, its thoughts and its games to be in eternal bliss.

18. Advaita philosophy in one verse by Adishankara

किं ज्योतिस्तव भानुमानहनि मे रात्रौ प्रदीपादिकम्

स्यादेवं रविदीपदर्शनविधौ किं ज्योतिराख्याहि मे ।

चक्षुस्तस्य निमीलनादिसमये किं धीर्धियो दर्शने

किं तत्राहमतो भवान् परमकं ज्योतिस्तदस्मि प्रभो ।।

The Guru asks what is the source of light for the disciple. The disciple replies in the beginning that during the day it is the sun. The light of the sun illumines everything. He also says that at night, light from lamps reveal all objects. The Guru then asks the next question: “Tell me what reveals the sun as well as the lamps.” Quickly replied the student: “The eyes. Only when the eyes are there, can we see.” The next question the Guru asks: “O.K. Suppose the eyes are closed then who reveals everything?” The student replies: “O Lord, when the eyes are closed, it is the intelligence which is the source of revelation.” The Guru asks further: “Well, who reveals the intelligence?”

True, the intelligence cannot be the Supreme illumination, because there is something different from it that reveals the intelligence, its action, its changes. “Who is the one who reveals the intelligence?”

The disciple understands. He replies: “It is the ‘I’, the Self, who alone reveals the intelligence too.” The teacher confirms and imparts to the student the doubtless Truth: “O my child, do you understand now, ‘You’ alone are the Supreme brilliance.”

The student replies: “Yes, O Master, I am That.”

19. A person lost key to his home. He went out and started searching near a street light. A passer-by asked him what he was doing. The person responded that he lost his house key. The passer-by asked him where he lost it. The person said ' somewhere in the house’.

“ then why are you searching here?”

“ because it’s dark in the house’".

It is easy to search in the light but not in the dark. It is easy to follow a ritual or chant or do a process but difficult to self inquire.

20. नमशशिवायेति शिवं प्रपद्ये
शिव प्रसीदेति शिवं प्रपद्ये
शिवत्परं नेति शिवं प्रपद्ये
शिवोह मस्मीति शिवं प्रपद्ये

I bow to shiva in whatever I do, I surrender to shiva ( karma yoga)
Please bless me, I surrender to shiva ( bhakti yoga)
There is nothing other than shiva , I surrender to shiva( dhyana yoga)
I am shiva , I surrender to shiva ( jnana yoga)

21. मिटा दे अपनी हस्ती को , अगर कुछ मर्तबा चाहे |
कि दाना खाक में मिलकर गुले गुलज़ार होता है ||
— अल्लामा इक़बाल

Destroy your entire existence if you want to reach zenith. Even a seed has to become one with dust to sprout and blossom into flower.

Destroy your entire existence ( ego/body-mind attachment) if you want to reach Zenith ( self-realisation).

22. “Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

― Zhuangzi, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang-Tzu