Dr. Neil’s Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality

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Demonstrating the Inquiry practice of the Diamond Approach, Dr. Neil moves into the present moment and articulates his experience as his consciousness expands from his local identity in the body outward to the solar system and the galaxy, as he perceives it, then unifies with it. His awareness moves from dualistic to non-dual realities as he inquires into the nature of the microcosm and the macrocosm and their intimate connection.

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Dr. Neil explores spirituality through the lifespan in the context of the new longevity. Is it important to build an ego before transcending an ego? Is it important to earn money, build relationships, and contribute to society before practicing meditation? What is the ideal age to begin a spiritual practice? What are the risks of starting too early and skipping developmental stages? What is the purpose of later life according to most spiritual traditions?

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Dr. Neil explores the nature of suffering as it is experienced in dualistic and non-dual levels of consciousness. He points to identification and attachment as two roots of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. And he describes his own experience while speaking during the podcast with a headache.

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Dr. Neil explores incorrect assumptions about awakening based on his lived experience, such as the belief that there is an ultimate state of consciousness, that the ego and shadow are eliminated, that physical health is required, that we can “get” enlightened, and that death interferes with our evolution.

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Dr. Neil describes the three stages he experienced as he evolved as a psychologist with his clients: Subject/object duality, in which he diagnoses and treats people; a reciprocal system or intersubjective field, in which the two are connected; and the non-dual field, in which the world soul is in the room. Each stage transcends and includes the earlier stages.

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Dr. Neil explores key questions: How can someone be awake in a high stage and still act out his or her personal shadow? Why is there an epidemic of gurus and priests acting out their shadows today? Why do we need to cultivate shadow awareness in the context of our spiritual lives? Because there is shadow material stored in the subtle body at each chakra, he goes through each one and describes the risk of eruption of shadow material at that stage.

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Dr. Neil explores the worlds beneath the root chakra: animal, plant, mineral, molecular, atomic and subatomic. Then he explores above the 6th chakra to the 7th and beyond, in which evolution moves from human to divine, from local non-duality to vast, cosmic non-duality.

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Dr. Neil details the personal experiences that shaped his evolution from infancy in the root chakra, tribal belonging in the second, budding individuality in the third, expanding identity with humanity in the fourth, further expansion to identify with the planet in the fifth, and the deepening of mystical experience in the sixth chakra. He explains that most of humanity remains gripped by tribalism in the second chakras and that this explains a lot of our current crises. It also sheds light on teachers who may have temporary experiences of higher states, then act out their shadows, because they remain identified with the second chakra.

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A few days after the US election, Dr. Neil explores the primary human levels of consciousness: alligator, tribal, individual, soul, and non-dual. He describes their traits and what it may mean for the tribal level to take power for the evolution of consciousness. He suggests that we can engage in activism with a broader and deeper awareness that we are all connected and that our activism does not stem from ego or personal attachment but is part of a larger flow of life. So, rather than spreading darkness by perpetuating more shadow projection, enemy-making, and right/wrong thinking, we can help to spread the light.

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Dr. Neil describes moving his attention between duality and non-duality during daily life as he looks at an object, speaks with someone, or feels something. This simultaneous bounded and unbounded awareness gives him access to blissful states and to subtle sources of knowing. He describes his initial awakening during a migraine and his current experiences of physical pain in the context of his vast awareness.

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Dr. Neil describes the evolution of human love through the stages (or chakras) of self/other in family love, romantic love, and spiritual devotion. He explores how it opens into non-dual love, where subject/object and space/time disappear into boundless love, a quality of the divine. And he describes his experience of our 30-year relationship as it evolved, for him, into non-dual love.

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Based on his direct experience, Dr. Neil explores life in the first plane beyond death, where some people travel after dropping their bodies. He describes several friends who recently died and their experiences of traveling through the bardos or planes beyond physical death, revealing common misunderstandings about the astral plane.

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Based on his direct experience, Dr. Neil describes his own journey through the stages of death (bardos). He also explores other peoples’ deaths, friends, parents, and his guru, as he follows them through the process of death and rebirth. Because his consciousness is everywhere at once—no near/far, no past/future – he lives here now and at the same time on the other side.

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Dr. Neil explores the expansion of his identity from an ego to the soul to the divine. His early, visual, local subject/object non-duality opened out into a vast non-dual reality that includes everything in the galaxy, beyond physical sight and beyond space/time. His current state: I am everything everywhere.

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Dr. Neil describes living as a soul, rather than an ego. He says that human beings are part of one soul, the human soul. And there are other soul groups, which is why we resonate with some people. The soul is always there; it’s never not there, even between lifetimes. It’s always becoming, or evolving, as distinct from the being or the unchanging nature of pure awareness or consciousness. He experiences both at all times and feels free of his desires or limitations because he is all of it at every moment. This is life as a soul.

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The start of a 3-part series: Dr. Neil explores the stages of his development from sensory awareness to tribal identity to a separate individual identity with an integrated ego. This then led to transcending his individuality and local sense of self to include more and more aspects of life. His identity kept transcending and including old forms, until he experienced local non-duality, the emptiness of both self and object, I and Thou. His path was not one of negation but of inclusion of greater and greater identities. Part 2: Living as a Soul. Part 3: Living as Spirit: I am everything.

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Dr. Neil distinguishes between sensory knowing and divine knowing or the inner Knower, the source of all knowledge. He discusses knowing with the subtle bodies and doing psychotherapy as a spiritual practice for this. He suggests that there is no part of life that's not directed toward waking up. It all fits together.

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A healer redirected Dr. Neil’s attention toward involution, coming into the body before transcending the body. He began to cultivate the lower chakras, which had been denied earlier. This healer taught Dr. Neil how to use a pendulum, which opened his 7th chakra. The “Knower” in him began to see directly into his patients’ bodies and psyches, and his therapy practice changed. His inner sight began to expand to his own body, through the walls, into the cosmos. And separation dissolved.

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Dr. Neil was first aware of being awake during a past lifetime in India. He recalls his physical birth, and then forgot his awakening to experience the human journey. He learned mystical practices early, but he grew sick and was told by a healer, his first teacher, that he was on the wrong path.

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What are your beliefs about awakening or enlightenment? How do you know if they are true? In this first episode, we will introduce one man's lived experience of non-duality, the reality that everything is consciousness or Buddha Nature or the same essence. So everything is connected to everything else -- 

Not Two -- Non-Dual.