Excerpt: Non-dualism

There were three weird moments in the first half of my life that I sometimes reflect on. I remember the experiencing them at the time, and also reflecting quickly on the experience. But since then there was recollections of these moments, and who knows to what degree they have changed in nature. They may have been qualitatively different but even through the innocent categorising of them together here, I might be mentally drawing them in to one section to make a point. Dear Reader, I hope you read the below and consider whether anything similar has happened in your life. I will describe them below and leave my own understanding of it to the end.

The first and the most wondrous was during a trip to Surfers Paradise in Australia. At this time I cannot be certain of my age but probably around 10 years old. It is also the sketchiest of the three to include. There is a Ripley's Believe It or Not "Odditorium". To unpack that, many people my age or older will remember there was a show on television, Ripley's Believe It or Not?, where strange but real stories are presented. This show, and anything with the name Arthur C. Clarke, or supernatural stories, I was crazy for. So to find this "Odditorium" (i.e. a specialised exhibit venue of odd things) was like going to heaven. It had visual illusions, stories and artefacts to see. The route was a loop through one floor, with panels on either side of the route. Being ten or thereabouts and in an overstimulating sacred venue, I imagine I probably ran around on my own. At some point though somewhere between the middle and the end, I lost myself. I just remember at the end that for a time I felt as if in a timeless dream, but nevertheless everything in the dream was actually there, just nothing more than the material substance. The final exhibits were just what they were without the expectation that I would have layered on top. It was just what it was. And it felt timeless, it felt like over an hour but it was probably no more than ten minutes. At the end my family caught up with me and we went on.

The second was after we moved to Hobsonville. We had a PC in the so-called "Pool Room" that I was increasingly hogging it for my own personal interests of computer games, philosophy, computer programming and English or Japanese BBS ("bulletinboards", a form of online chat boards). Again I cannot put a year on this but likely 17 or 18 years old. I was thinking about non-dualism - probably when I was new to the idea - and for a moment looked away and briefly again lost myself. I cannot say for how long, but for that time things just were. I just was. And then the spell ended and I went on writing, albeit with a new perspective.

The third I can definitely place in a time: The AIESEC Weekend Away conference in 2001 where I was on the OC (Organising Committee). For context, I had returned from Taiwan in September 2000 and felt something of a change in my being; I supported the OC with an Asia Pacific AIESEC conference in Auckland in January of 2001 and felt unconstrained socially and started challenging my boundaries; and then the university resumed in March, new members joined and it was part of the calendar to have an early conference with new members as part of the education process and planning for the year. I remember bringing the same mind and energy to this that I had at the Asia Pacific conference in the little moments. The only duty I can recall at this time twenty years later was one of my menial roles, washing dishes, and it was there that for periods I would just lose myself again. I would be there but without thought. Just doing. 

Now, others may have these feelings regularly; I might be impoverished and treat these meagre shiny experiences as sacred, while similar may be a dime a dozen for meditators, or available with a tab of Ecstasy. But each moment I think grounded me and opened my mind. They felt akin to a religious experience. I have meditated for periods of my life without every coming close to this, even though you would think that was the most appropriate technique to achieve it. Only one of them was while contemplating something, the other two could have been while in "flow" dissociating from self and only on existence. Without any strict guidance in my own naming of things, I consider these moments when I dipped into a mindset of non-dualism where there is no division between mind and body; no right or wrong; good or bad. It was just is; no subject; no object; no predicate; just verb.