What on earth is non-duality?
It's true
It's creative
It's philosophy
It's a liberation
It's true It's creative It's philosophy It's a liberation
By Michel Brokke
In 2017, I discovered the light of non-duality, and it has never left me. Non-duality literally means "not two." It refers to the idea that everything, absolutely everything, is unseparated. For instance, consider what you are made of: body cells. And those? They are made of molecules. Those molecules consist of atoms, which in turn consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons; the same components as the chair you are sitting on and everything else around you.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Beyond this metaphysical perspective, known in science as ‘monistic ontology’, I will explore non-duality from philosophical and artistic viewpoints. By examining non-duality from various angles, the chances are higher that your most fundamental beliefs about yourself and reality will begin to shift. If you are ready, I suggest you start by questioning who you are.
Are you your body? Are you your thoughts? Remember, those thoughts arise from your brain, which is just a collection of atoms. Therefore, the 'I' is merely a story created by the brain. Still with me? Let me put it differently: the 'I' is an illusion.
Knowing this, how important is your mortgage? Or those world-changing emails you’re working on? Or that pile of unmatched socks?
Another paradigm
Living with the non-dualistic insight can radically change your life. Yet, for most people, this change is too radical. They prefer to stick to the familiar stories they have always known. They would rather stay where they feel comfortable, and that is perfectly fine. However, a few prioritize freedom over comfort and will want to explore what is true. For them, life will turn upside down when the non-dualistic insight emerges, much like when people realised, a few hundred years ago, that the Earth is round.
Now, let’s explore non-duality through the lenses of science, philosophy, and the arts. Later, I will discuss how non-duality leads to freedom, and from there, to greater creativity.
The sciences
While non-duality is predominantly a philosophical term, science uses the terms ‘holism' or 'monism,’ which are related to the philosophy of non-duality. Mainly due to quantum physics, we can no longer ignore this phenomenon. Thanks in part to Nobel Prize winner Erwin Schrödinger, we know that the tiniest parts of our existence, also known as subatomic particles, can be hard to pin down; they sometimes behave like particles and sometimes like waves. This blurring of lines between particles and waves suggests that simply observing something can change what happens, which is known as the 'observer effect' in quantum mechanics. Although this does not prove that reality is one unified whole, it highlights the interconnectedness of everything around us and the illusion of a seperation between the observer and what is being observed.
Even before the breakthroughs in quantum physics, Albert Einstein challenged our most fundamental beliefs about reality. Through his theory of relativity, he demonstrated that time and space are relative, depending on each other and the observer. This discovery led scientists to explore the interconnectedness of everything in the universe and how we, as observers, are part of this interconnectedness.
Neuroscience builds on this concept. Although it hasn’t fully explained consciousness or why we experience a 'self,’ neuroscientists have revealed which neural activities produce a sense of separation from the world. I found evidence of this when I noticed my newborn son was not yet subjected to these neural activities; he simply did not experience a separation between his body and the rest of the world. For him, a mirror was more an extension of reality than the narcissistic indulgence it is for you and me. From an evolutionary perspective, it is logical that we produce this sense of self; it’s nothing more than an adaptive survival strategy, similar to how all living things, from bacteria to plants, strive to survive.
Philosophy
When reading the first part of this article, your first questions were probably, "Where do I see non-duality? And what do I gain from it?" This is logical, considering that we live in a society that values empiricism and utilitarianism. That is why I started with the scientific perspective. However, the philosophical perspective might be more interesting because it encourages us to look beyond our current thinking frameworks. While science answers questions based on continuously advancing insights, philosophy asks questions based on the realisation that we know very little.
In the 17th century, Baruch Spinoza rejected René Descartes' idea that mind and matter are two separate substances. In Spinoza's central work, "Ethics", he argues that everything that exists is a manifestation of one substance, which he called God or Nature: "Deus sive Natura". According to Spinoza, reality is not a distinction between mind and matter. Similarly, Kant and Schopenhauer suggested that our experiences of the world are shaped by the structures of our consciousness. The philosophy of Hegel also parallels a non-dualistic system in which all oppositions are ultimately resolved in a higher synthesis.
“Love says: ‘I am everything.’ Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing.’ Between the two, my life flows.”
Beyond recent Western philosophers, non-duality has long existed in Eastern philosophies. Zen Buddhism and Taoism, among others, emphasize the underlying unity of all things. The purest form of non-duality may be Advaita Vedanta, a movement that became popular in the West thanks to the many Western followers of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj.
The arts
While science empirically explores the unknown and philosophy does so conceptually, the arts explore it expressively and in a less linear manner. The arts generate experiences that provide new insights on an intuitive level, ranging from applied forms such as innovation and design to the traditional world of fine arts.
Take, for example, singer Billie Eilish. Her songs explore the nature of our existence. In the lyrics of "Everything I Wanted," she delves into understanding oneself beyond others' judgements. Iris Murdoch, the novelist and philosopher, emphasized that art plays a vital role in our understanding of the self. She believed that good art encourages us to see the world with a less self-centered vision. Not only in music and literature, but also in film, visual arts, and many other forms, artists often seek reality beyond the ‘self’ through a sense of beauty.
Beauty is therefore a crucial element in the arts. Through aesthetics, people feel connected to everything around them and experience a sense of unity. For example, promotional videos from the World Wildlife Fund often start with stunning images of nature. These visuals, captured by the best visual artists, touch our souls and remind us that there is no separation between humans and nature; we are nature. This realisation, brought about by the creators' aesthetic choices, makes us more likely to care for and protect nature. The powerful images have a greater impact than simply listing nature's properties.
Besides the experience of art, creating art also allows us to feel this unity. In fact, creators of any kind are at their best when the 'self' is no longer important. The renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this the experience of "Flow", where the self disappears, and we fully immerse in the moment. In this state of Flow, the stories in our head are turned off; there is no fear of failure or a search for more and better. In this state, ‘we just are.’
Creativity
It is clear, non-duality is everything, and at the same time, it stands for the great nothingness. It invites a radical insight that there is no 'I,' that thoughts are just energy waves, and therefore there is not much to worry about. By letting go of the separation between the self and the world, creators can work more freely.
The main reason behind this sense of freedom is that the non-dual realisation fosters a liberation from fear. This includes the fear of failure, the fear of not being good enough, and the fear that anything should be different from how it is. This disappearance of fear happens to be the most crucial ingredient for creation, innovation, and design, as proposed by David Kelly, co-founder of IDEO and a professor at Stanford University. He states that breaking down your fears is crucial for gaining more creative confidence.
Non-duality for organisations
For an organisation to be innovative, it requires a high level of creative confidence. When each person in the organisation is creative, the organisation becomes more adaptable and can easily adjust to changing circumstances. Besides the creative confidence of each individual, it is also important that leaders view the organisation holistically, as a whole system, from a non-dual perspective.
This brings us to one of my favourite scientific disciplines: complexity science. This discipline studies the emergent power of whole systems, also called ‘complex adaptive systems’. These systems are everywhere.
Think, for example, of the weather, a flock of birds, or our immune system. In all these systems, parts continually interact, leading to emergent properties. A flock of birds, for example, has no leader telling them which direction to go, yet the individual birds interact in such a way that they all move in the same and right direction.
The same can be said for organisations. The parts, such as teams or departments, interact so that emergent properties like innovation can occur. This means that if we look at organisations from a non-dual, unseparated perspective, we can see the incredible power arising from the whole system.
You are everything and nothing.
In conclusion, non-duality points to the existence of the great nothingness. Everything, including yourself and the objects around you, is made of the same fundamental particles. This perspective can profoundly change your life by making you aware that the 'I' and the separation between yourself and the world are illusory.
On an individual level, non-duality promotes freedom from fear, which is crucial for creativity. On an organisational level, this creativity can flourish when the organisation is managed as a complex adaptive system.
Whatever we call it, non-duality, holism, monistic ontology, emergence, or bread toaster, the word itself doesn't matter much. Non-duality is just a term and a concept of the mind, yet it points to a profound understanding beyond thinking. It emphasizes how little we know and transcends all stories. For this reason, non-duality must always be explained radically and uncompromisingly. As soon as you start mixing it with other concepts, people begin to turn it into an ideology, a belief system, spiritual hocus-pocus, or even worse: a religion.
Non-duality helps you transcend all those stories, as it stands for what it is not: there is no duality. What it is, we don't know precisely. That is the big question of science, philosophy, and the arts. For me, non-duality is a state of 'Being.’ This insight halts the search for identity, morality, ambition, the future, the past, and all other mind games.
Hallelujah.