Individuality

[cabinintheforest]

Please tell me what you think individuality is, we are all individuals, however from the posts of some people on this forum they seem to be saying individuality is an illusion. Please explain it from the non duality perspective. Thanks.

[zendancer]

Cabin: To understand anything about non-duality, you have to be able to see both sides of a coin (the relative and the absolute) at the same time. Does the state of Kansas exist or not? It exists if we want to imagine that it does (a relative truth), but it does not exist in reality (an absolute truth). If you walk east from Colorado, you will not find a line on the ground separating a patch of Colorado dirt from Kansas dirt. Kansas is therefore a kind of illusion--something that we imagine. This is also true of human beings, but it is not as easy to see through that illusion. Do you exist? Well, yes and no. Just like "Kansas" you exist if you want to imagine that you do, but neither "you" nor "Kansas" exist in reality. Who you really are is infinite in all directions, but the idea that you exist as a separate entity is so powerful (and so regularly reinforced by imagination) that it is hard to see through the illusion. However, it is possible to have an experience in which that illusion totally collapses. It is only then that you will be able to see the other side of the coin. Right now you only see one side of the coin (the relative side). The Absolute remains hidden from view.

[klaus]

Hi cabinforest,

Individuality is the state of being indivisable but if you start asking what makes you an individual the state of individuality falls apart.

Are you your body, mind, emotions, feelings, thoughts. All divisable.
Where is your individuality?

These are processes and consciousness has identified with these processes through attention to them. It is this attention to these processes that creates a distinction called "I"

Remove identifing with these processes and there is no "I" only processes, remove attention from these processes there is only consciousness.

[eputkonen]

Feb 14, 2010 11:52:04 GMT -5 @cabinintheforest said:

Please tell me what you think individuality is, we are all individuals, however from the posts of some people on this forum they seem to be saying individuality is an illusion. Please explain it from the non duality perspective. Thanks.

There is an aspen forest in Utah called the Pando. Over a 100 acres of trees. If you saw it and I asked you how many trees are there, you would probably say thousands. But science dug beneath the surface (of what appears to be) and found that there is only one root structure and the individual trees are really one tree. Think of it like a tree laying on its side underground...what you see are branches sticking up while the truck is underground.

That is how we are, but we just don't see how we are not really separate individuals.

Like a mobius strip in which the twist is hidden in the hand. What we see is a loop with an inside and and outside...but in reality there is only one surface and there really is no inside and outside.

While there is the appearance of many...in reality there are not many but a unicity. Individuals are an appearance...like a mirage or any other illusion...but in reality it is not as it appears.

Using yet another analogy, it is like when you are dreaming...who you think you are is a part of the dream...as well as all the object you perceive in the dream. It all is you and came from you, but while in the dream they appear different and so you believe they are different from you. Nothing in the dream is different than the dreamer...who/what you really are.

[lightmystic]

Hey cabin,

nonduality is pointing to what happens when we are able to gently put down the assumption that "we are all individuals." When that assumption of separateness is able to be released, for even a moment, then we see what's left. And that is simply the lack of separateness that remains. And you can definitely call that a lack of individuality, because individuality itself implies something as separate from other things....

Does that make sense?

Feb 14, 2010 11:52:04 GMT -5 @cabinintheforest said:

Please tell me what you think individuality is, we are all individuals, however from the posts of some people on this forum they seem to be saying individuality is an illusion. Please explain it from the non duality perspective. Thanks.