Getting Off The Wobbly Table

The Radical Inseparability and Inclusiveness Of What Is Appearing, Already Whole.

Obvious wholeness is often overlooked because no-thing no-thinging is assumed to be something that can be found, experienced, or attained. Yet where would it be found? How could it be recognised if it were not already the case?

The sense of separation only really knows how to grasp things, not no-thing, even though it secretly longs for the wholeness it cannot quite locate. Inquiry and direct pointing may begin to reveal the absence of any solid separate self, but even then often somethingness recoils when it encounters no-thingness.

The mind also seems deeply conditioned to turn abstractions into things. Awareness, beingness, no-thing, isness, amness, emptiness, presence, and even wholeness itself may quickly become subtle objects of identification, as though they refer to something that can be grasped, reached, held, or known. In this way the openness of non-dual pointing is often reabsorbed back into the familiar movement of conceptual certainty.

When contraction meets openness, there may be a sense that its own survival is under threat. Fear may instinctively pull it back toward the apparent safety of certainty and the familiar feeling of “I am here, this is me.” Better the devil you know, as they say.

Often the mind does not realise its own conditioning. It is so used to perceiving through the lens of separation that it rarely notices how deeply its perceptions, beliefs, reactions, and fears are organised around it. Perhaps this is nothing more than the apparent survival dynamic of separation itself.

Proverbially, it can feel like trying to move a table whilst still sitting on it. But, at some point there may appear a kind of shift, not necessarily dramatic, where the table itself suddenly comes into view, as though there is now the perspective of sitting beside it rather than upon it. In that moment there may be the simple clarity that separation was never the true foundation of seeing, and that there is an openness beyond its fearful orientation that the separate self could never truly secure for itself.

Yet beyond even the subtle identifications of beingness, presence, or amness, there remains the utterly ungraspable simplicity of what is appearing. Everything freely appearing as itself.

From the perspective of obvious wholeness there is ultimately nothing to fear because life is already the beautiful movement of whatever appears. Wholeness does not depend upon any particular appearance because there is nothing fixed to hold onto in the first place. Though ordinary human life continues with all its practical difficulties, emotional movements, joys, uncertainties, successes, and disappointments, no particular appearance seems capable of adding to or subtracting from wholeness.

With love,

Freyja

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Other ways to engage:

My books “The Quiet Confidence Of Not Being Anyone” and “Naturally Appearing” are available here:

https://amzn.eu/d/0ibn1Awc

I also host a monthly group dialogue space for open questions and shared exploration around nonduality. Details can be found via the link at the top of this Substack or at:

www.naturallybeing.one

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https://buymeacoffee.com/freyjatheaker

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A gentle note:

Nonduality is not psychotherapy and is not concerned with resolving psychological distress, nor does it reject it.

For some, engaging with this message can feel destabilising, as familiar reference points may seem to fall away. This is not unusual and often passes. However, if this feels overwhelming or ongoing, it may be supportive to pause and reach out to a trusted source of support, including a qualified professional.

Please take care of your wellbeing.