Deconstructing the Story of Space and Time

Non-dual teachings all assert that existence is a single reality appearing in many forms and that this is what we truly are.

These teachings claim that as we experience this reality directly, we automatically encounter its never-ending, immutable wholeness and completeness. This immediately divests the mind of the psychological insecurity of feeling we are individuals who must somehow control life to be happy, which limits and obstructs our enjoyment of daily life. The direct experience reveals life to be an unfolding flow of events that the mind can learn to trust, as each moment is part of an unfathomable process. Moreover, the life-affirming nature of this singular reality is revealed: we experience it as the very aliveness and innate energy that drives existence itself. A grateful appreciation of life's abundant beauty arises, an intimate, loving bond with the universe is felt, and a deep current of universal, courageous wisdom guiding us through life becomes accessible.

Across the world, those voices who articulate this realisation from direct personal experience universally attest to its freedom and joy, naturally wishing to share it as swiftly as possible. Their message is clear: there is a way out of psychological insecurity, and more—there is a way to unveil the remarkable, indomitable, life-affirming qualities that form the foundation for psychological healing, balanced nourishment and protection of mind and body, and the expression of innocence and creativity. There is a way to experience the natural abundance of the universe.

This profound shift arises from experiencing oneness, where feelings and thoughts of separation dissolve. Integrating this understanding into daily life validates it as a new way of living.

But how can we reliably access and maintain this experience of oneness?

We essentially have two routes:

We can "wake up" to the nature of the experiencer who is aware of experiences.

We can "wake down" to the true nature of experiences that the experiencer is aware of.

In truth, awakening involves both waking up and waking down.

We closely examine either the experiences taking place or the experiencer who witnesses them. In both scenarios, we eventually arrive at the same understanding.

Consider our daily experiences as an example:

Notice how sensory experiences have no existence apart from the experiencing of them.

Notice how there is no separation between sensory experience and the experiencer.

Notice that experiences and experiencing are inseparable.

Notice you cannot grasp sensory experiences, although your mind interprets them as existing in space and time, thus creating an illusion of solidity and separation.

The "space-time effect" positions these sensory experiences as if they were solid objects, seemingly nearer to or further from you—who is implicitly treated as another object.

The space-time effect is how the mind interprets raw sensory experience. On one level, this is incredibly useful: it helps the body survive and provides a vehicle through which we can enjoy the beauty of the world and form relationships with what appear as other forms.

This space-time interpretation gives meaning to experiences of dimension, weight and solidity.

However, the practicality and pleasure of this interpretation are diminished if we lose sight that it is just a feature of the mind and not our experience.

In this case, the mind invests meaning in its perceptive trick as though it were reality.

In this scenario, the mind creates a conditioned narrative—a belief—that a separate person exists in an environment populated by separate objects.

It is this psychologically conditioned overlay, layered onto raw experience, that leads us to interpret ourselves as separate entities living among other separate entities.

This reduces the entire flow of the universe to an egoic story of control.

This sense of psychological separation is the flip side of losing the direct experience of oneness.

The mind needs safety; once it loses the direct experience of wholeness, it instinctively attempts to recreate it provisionally.

The notion of being a person in the world is a provisional attempt at wholeness, which, unfortunately, includes psychological limitations and unpleasant reactive patterns.

An entire culture arises around this self-reinforcing belief system, bolstering it further.

Nothing reinforces the mind’s craving for security as effectively as collective group-think. Thus the mind can become an inner bully, even a tyrant, continually generating limiting thoughts to constrain movement and action, each accompanied by unpleasant emotional resistance.

Realising the provisional nature of this belief and the neuroticism it produces, some minds eventually seek a deep return to wholeness through various paths, attempting—in one way or another—to dissolve their sense and perception of separation and thus restore trust in life's natural flow and vibrancy.

Yet even within the world constructed from belief in separateness, there remains the possibility of awakening to non-separation and dismantling the story of a self bound by space and time.

It can initially be very challenging to recognise that the mind's interpretation of the self—of the self bound by time and space—is a distortion imposed upon the natural flow of reality.

The mind tends strongly to defend this belief since its sense of security depends upon it.

But once the mind recognises the irrationality of this belief through the rational, direct examination of experience, it opens to the possibility that its interpretation—of being a person living within an external world—may not be true. Thus, it is enabled to release the compulsion to impose such meanings upon events.

Returning to direct, raw sensory experience breaks down the illusion and consequently dismantles the story that we are a separate self observing its external environment.

Consider, for example, a typical mental narrative where two apparent people talk with each other:

Firstly, attend directly to the experience of hearing a voice:

Notice how it is impossible to grasp or hold onto this sound; in reality, it has no substance—even though the mind subtly suggests it does.

The experience itself is real, but it remains without form or substance—it is a real experience, a reality without form: a "no-thing" reality.

Notice, by examining direct experience rather than adhering to mind-created belief, that it is likewise impossible to locate the experiencer of sound. The experiencer must also be real—for sound is truly experienced—but this experiencer cannot be seen, grasped or located.

Thus, both the experience of sound and its experiencer of sound are a "no-thing" reality. By diligently investigating all experiences in this manner, it becomes clear that the only thing present is this no-thing reality, often called simply beingness, which is the essence of both the experiencer and the experience.

We conclude, despite the mind's insistence, that direct experience and rational evidence point solely to the existence of this underlying "no thing" reality.

Upon close examination, it is clear that it is beingness that is aware of what appears but is never touched or changed by what appears. It is always present regardless of what appears.

When we understand we are this no-thing aware beingness—in which everything appears as a myriad of perceived forms and of which these appearances are made—we instantly glimpse the timeless, spaceless, changeless, ever-presentness, wholeness and aliveness of what we are really and truly in essence.

We can continue enjoying the mind's perceptions, yet never lose touch with this timelessness and spaceless perception. We cease to buy into the story of a world comprised of separate objects.

We can enjoy the peace and wholeness that emerge from recognising we are not merely separate "somethings" while still appreciating the beauty of perceived forms as expressions of this no-thing reality that we understand we are.

Thus, we can naturally remain free of the mind’s conditioned habit of imposing separation onto reality, maintaining this liberated state and validating through lived experience that this way of existing truly works!

We can stop seeking security in experiences we perceive to be separate from us and instead shine out the freedom and security we intrinsically are and that is never touched by the experiences that arise. It's beautiful and so simple, really.

Instead of living as if we were a thing amongst other things, we exist as the flow of this no-thing reality that is everything appearing as something, established upon what we actually experience, rather than upon the mind's interpretation of it as being a separate person in a world of separate things.

Love,

Freyja