The Visual8

Nondualism is not an easy concept. Because it challenges what our senses tell us.

We, the subject, are here. The door, the object, is over there.

Even when we walk to the door, the door is still the door. And we are not the door.

When something hits the door, you don’t feel it.

This is how we learned to navigate the world. Subject and object. Here and there.

To cognoscenti of consciousness, this is only half of the truth.

Let’s walk slowly into this concept of nondualism.

You were born into a family. Good chances that your last name is the same one as your parents and siblings.

You identify by your first name. And you identify by your surname. At the same time.

Welcome to familial nondualism.

You might say the same of a player and a team. They are both the individual and the collective.

When the team plays well, they behave as a single organism. Each player connected to each other. To the energy of the team.

We could zoom in and out of churches, schools, and neighborhoods and see the same dynamic. Both a set of individuals and a larger body.

Perhaps this is social nondualism.

Now consider the perspective of Resmaa Menakem. In his book, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017), Resmaa argues for a somatic understanding of race.

That we see the Black Body as an entity that spans time and place. That the traumas of the past are felt in physical bodies of today. The legacy of struggle and inequality are carried genetically from one generation to the next.

He suggests a kind of racial nondualism.

Keep going further.

Ask a evolutionary biologist about the human evolution, and she will speak of the species of homo sapiens. One entity with many lives over many generations on many continenents.

Possibly this forms human nondualism.

Michael Pollan writes about nature. He argues for a kind of botanical intelligence that moves beyond a single plant. For example, trees create flowers that attract bees so their pollen is spread. And that birds, which eat the fruit that result from this pollination, carry seeds to distant places to expand the population of trees.

Pollan argues that the plants are exerting their will on the animal kingdom. Humans, too, are duped into the same service.

Similarly, ecologist Suzanne Simard catalogued how trees talk with each other. They speak through mycorrhizal fungi beneath the soil. A kind of “Wood Wide Web.”

With these concepts firmly planted, it is not hard to extrapolate how all living things form a single, complex system.

If we choose to see it, we could identify life nondualism on planet Earth.

Now grow the aperture.

Astrophysicists theorize the origin of the universe. Their math points to a kind of singularity from which there was a Big Bang.

The stuff that makes up the galaxies we witness today are products from this event so long ago. The elements that make up matter in our universe are the result of Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN).

It says that the lightest elements of the periodic table, e.g. helium, hydrogen, and traces of lithium, are the products of the expansion and cooling following the Big Bang.

Heavier elements come later in the history of the universe.

Remember in the 1980’s when Carl Sagan declared that we are “made of star stuff?”  This is where he was going.

He nudged us closer to celestial nondualism.

Might there be yet one layer deeper? Yes.

Following the premise that consciousness is fundamental, there is a floor below.

Being fundamental means that it pre-exists matter. That is cannot be reduced further or explained as a result of something else.

Annaka Harris explored this idea of the fundamental nature of consciousness with notable thinkers in her book, First Light (2025).

If you follow the logic, then a fraction of one thing remains conceptually the same as the one thing. A slice of pizza is still the pizza.

If consciousness is that which everything else is derived, then there is no separation.

This is one way to make the point of nondualism for all that is.

Another way to make the point is to go deep inside.

Cognitive scientists suggest that reality is 100% perceptual.

That colors are the function of the human mind interpreting light waves hitting the retina. Or sounds are the result of conceptual processing of vibrations in the air.

In this way, nothing exists outside of our conscious mind.

Toss in Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious and we have a universal mind conceiving all things.

Or so the train of logic goes.

The point of nondualism is not to have a clever conversation at a cocktail party.

It is an opportunity to take greater responsibility. The way that player takes ownership to do her part for the team. To sacrifice for the greater good. To pick up trash that other people have left, because we live symbiotically with our environment and with each other.

It is equally an opportunity to let go. To realize that your limitations are self-imposed. That as soon as one person broke the four-minute mile, then many would break it.

Wonder sits in the heart of nondualism.

And that’s a pretty good start on a mystical experience, no matter what your faith tradition is.

Whether your intent is to bluff your way through a conversation of Eastern Spirituality or find a reason to make a difference, embracing nondualism is not a bad way to go.

Stay tuned for why all of this is also good for business. That is another post coming soon.