2021-08-06

Study of Nonduality and Its Outcome So Far

Since about three years ago I've been learning nonduality from a number of non-Jewish Western nondual masters, including Eckhart Tolle, David Hawkins, Frank Wanderer, Steve Taylor, Adyashanti, Stephan Bodian, Jon Bernie, Jean Klein, and Rupert Spira, in addition to Chabad Chassidus, which is the most sophisticated form of Jewish nonduality.

The more I study it, the more difficult it has become for me, at least so far, to interact with not only strangers I meet for the first time but even friends and acquaintances I already know as most of them seem "asleep" in that they seem trapped in various forms of dualistic illusions, which manifest themselves in interpersonal relationships most prominently in the form of conceptual labeling. I simply can't bear any more being targeted for their constant unconscious conceptual labeling.

One thing I don't understand is why I have to be bothered by this if I'm fully aware that I am (period) with no illusionary dualistic identities these people label me with. I can't deny the possibility that something is fundamentally wrong with my study of nonduality as it is supposed to lead me to love all the other human beings. I'm also afraid that the very idea of mine that these people are trapped in dualistic illusions might be a suble form of dualistic illusion on my part and I'm labeling them conceptually.

In retrospect, my life was a series of self-imposed sufferings when I was "asleep" until I started to wake up in November 2017. My new, intensifying, suffering only occurs when I interact with other people. When I'm alone, seclude myself in nature, or interact with a small number of like-minded people I know, I feel serenity.

I've even starting thinking of becoming a hermit. But the problem is that ascecitism is not part of Judaism and there are no Jewish monasteries. So I have no choice but to continue living with other people in community.

The only viable solution I can think of not to allow anyone to destroy my serenity in interpersonal relationships is not to feed them with any material they will use in turn for their conceptual labeling. But I have to be resolute and persistent.