dualistic

You'd think that coming into contact with non-dual awareness would mean a permanent nullification of all dualistic delusion. To hencefore and forevermore be a softly smiling, laid back dude saying things like "all is one" and "no self, no other". But I continue to find myself, as I always have, thinking and speaking on whatever level I'm presented or occupied with.

When I speak in a dualistic way, whether it's about observations or problems or anxieties or judgements, I do so genuinely. Nonetheless, there's an underlying awareness that none of it is ultimately real. It may be relatively real, real from the perspective of this person going through whatever he's going through, but it's ultimately empty and arbitrarily expressed. Especially when it comes to words like "I" and "myself". Words are being thought and spoken as part of a universal outpouring of energy and expression, and in those moments that's what it's appearing as - a person experiencing, thinking and speaking from a certain perspective. Yet at the same time there's the awareness of that process. Both dimensions are engaging at once, with the one taking place within the other.

Sometimes prideful/shameful thoughts enter and I find myself wishing I was different. More wise, more compassionate, less egotistical, less vulnerable to fear and doubt. But that person isn't who I am right now. I can't force any sort of change upon this person, not without paying for it. No matter what I do, no matter what I learn and experience, things unfold and change in their own time and in their own way. I can't jump to some transcended state where I only think, say and do "perfect" things in the world. That's not how this works and it's not who this person is - it's a fantasy. One that comes and goes like everything else.

In a human sense, the emergence of the non-dual seems to bring a watchfulness/perspective that lets one see through bullshit a lot quicker, and sometimes say profound things without really meaning to. Aside from that, life carries on.