Dr. Neil's Spiritual Awakening to Non-Duality

Send us Fan Mail This podcast opens with a description of the human stages of development or Growing Up, from caveman to enlightened sage. The hosts make the point that we can have an advanced state of consciousness at any stage, such as a heart opening in a tribal stage or a non-dual glimpse in a rational stage. We will then interpret that state experience through the lens of our stage – “Jesus loves me” or “We’re all connected in quantum reality.” For this reason, it’s essential to focus on our emotional, cognitive, and moral development, along with shadow awareness – Growing Up – because it’s invisibly shaping and interpreting our reality all along the way. But it is typically devalued in religious/mystical traditions as less important than spiritual development -- Waking Up. Dr. Neil describes his own experiences of Waking Up in earlier stages of development.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes the Witness as pure consciousness, the background that always is in all states of awareness. In the conventional waking state, we are not aware of it because we are identified with our subjectivity or with an object. When the Witness emerges, we separate and become identified with the Self or pure consciousness – I Am That – and feel free inside from identification with body, mind, feelings. This sense of freedom from subject/object, attraction/aversion is a cue that we are in the Witness. When we move into non-duality, the Witness seems to disappear at first. But it’s always already there – and reappears as we move our attention between duality and non-duality in the world.

Send us Fan Mail “The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.”—the third Chinese patriarch of Zen. Today Neil describes the role of preferences, likes and dislikes, love and hate after awakening. He addresses the question: How do we include the people or behaviors that we find unacceptable in the One? If we feel a great attraction or aversion to a politician, celebrity, or friend, do we need to do shadow-work post-awakening? He explains that these pairs of opposites, and their shadow material, are different in different stages of consciousness – and therefore require a different attention.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes the higher emotions that arose before and after his awakening: well-being in the physical and subtle bodies, nectar in the mouth, blissful equanimity, dynamic waves of ecstasy, and rapture or non-dual samadhi. He points out that these states are now available to him at will, with and without dualistic functioning in the world, as he works and speaks with people. The last state alone does not allow him to operate in duality.

Send us Fan Mail What is the location of an awakened consciousness that is beyond space/time? How do we situate ourselves in space when the dualities of local/nonlocal or near/far are dissolved? The mystical traditions teach that longing for union with the divine beloved or Source is inherent in the human soul. What happens when that distance disappears, union is attained –and, even more, we identify with that Source? Our cosmic location becomes “I am That which is Everything, Everywhere.” Or, as Dr Neil put it, “I’m free from being anywhere.”

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes an overview of his journey from psychic intuition to the Knower, to the Traveler beyond space/time, to the dissolution of subject/object and becoming One with the objects of perception near and far. At that point, he realizes that there is nowhere to go, Everything in his body. Then he experiences astral projection but not as the traveler; he becomes One with the astral body and plane. Then this expands to the mental, buddhic, and celestial planes. Then it expands to the galaxy, and he is That. His latest realization includes a golden orb whose beings are creating and dissolving the manifest world.

Send us Fan Mail Podcast listeners have posted some interesting questions to us: What is the difference between your Knower and the arrogance of a know-it-all? Is there an end point to the evolution of consciousness? Should we try to develop psychic abilities or siddhis (yogic powers), or will they inevitably unfold? How does advanced spiritual experience affect future lifetimes? What is your identity while living in nonduality? What happens to fun or pleasure for enlightened folks?

Send us Fan Mail "Form is emptiness; emptiness is form." This adage from the Heart Sutra describes non-dual reality in Buddhist terms: all form is basically empty, that is, neither permanent nor substantial. And emptiness, as the source and nature of form, is reality. Dr. Neil describes the stages of his direct experience of emptiness, from empty action, to empty speech, to empty mind, to empty self, to empty object, to empty cosmos. As he awakened to the formless self that underlies the forms of ego, he awoke to the emptiness of all forms—and the nonduality of self and world.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes how, since his unity with everything has stabilized, the sensory perceptions of his astral, mental, and celestial bodies have clarified. Each of them works differently. With nondual awareness, he is in union with everything but can separate himself out to see through walls, communicate with deceased people and masters in higher planes, and explore the galaxy. He emphasizes that these are not siddhis, or yogic powers, but the natural result of his expanding awareness of Oneness with the subtle realms.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes several states of consciousness beyond ego – pleasure, well-being, joy, ecstasy, and radiance. He explains that they exist as eternal frequencies and can be tuned into when the chakras and subtle bodies are prepared. They are beyond subject/object dualities, beyond doer/receiver, unlike ego states of pleasure or joy.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes soul awareness as a stage that emerged for him after his awakening to non-duality. He recalls six past lives (one that includes Me), their common themes, and the purpose of his soul group. He suggests that the value of remembering past lives is to expand our identity from the local, immediate body/mind we inhabit today to the soul, which cycles through births and deaths as it evolves without end.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil explores the development of a separate identity as a necessary step in evolution as part of the heroic ego’s journey. Then he describes current identity politics as an example of both progress and a hindrance to further development. If we get stuck in a local identity – race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, political tribe, age, religion, beliefs – the expansion of consciousness to our spiritual nature gets blocked. We will miss the freedom that comes from letting go of I, Me, Mine into an unbounded, infinite identification with Everything. The freedom of the shift from role to soul.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil explores several ways to access the astral plane. He describes a recent experience in which his astral body became transparent and infinite, like his physical body, containing everything in the universe. This opened a deeper emotional connection to people on the astral plane and a more profound identification with deathlessness.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes the conventional experience of time -- past, present, future -- as the ego’s time. But he suggests that this is a mental construct because he also experiences divine time, in which creation, maintenance, and destruction are ongoing in every moment, and soul time, which is more cyclic and has no beginning or end. Since he has consciously realized these three subjective experiences of time, he has changed the way he works with patients to focus less on the past and more on the present moment, because it’s all here now.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil explores human evolution from caveman, to tribal, to individual, to heart-centered levels of consciousness. Each stage has its own moral/immoral behavior. For those few who awaken to non-duality, morality is not rooted in subject/object, but Dr. Neil suggests that they must maintain both dual and non-dual awareness to act morally. When the subject and/or object disappear, there is a risk of acting out immoral behavior unless morality has been grounded and internalized in earlier stages.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes the role of physical, emotional, and mental separateness with me, his wife, as a foundation for the expansion of consciousness. He suggests that the divine manifests separate people and objects to experience itself in infinite ways. He explores the experience of emptiness as his essential nature and how it shapes his personal love, our love, and non-dual love without an object. The balance between separateness/independence and unity/Oneness is a tricky issue for every relationship. But, ultimately, we are all joined in the divine.

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Neil describes his personal journey of awakening from a past life to this rebirth, young age, teachers and guides, practices, and life circumstances. He emphasizes that his journey is not monastic; it’s a householder becoming a full human being and using what life offers as his spiritual curriculum.

Send us Fan Mail Who is healthy? Who is ill? As the individual human soul leaves the divine source and incarnates in a body/mind, it carries the influence of several kinds of karma: individual karma from lifetimes, group karma, and the collective karma of humanity (as we witnessed in the pandemic). It’s also influenced by genes, environment, and lifestyle choices. Dr. Neil explores the interconnections of health, longevity, and consciousness.

Send us Fan Mail What is attachment, and how does it evolve? Dr. Neil describes the nature of attachment when we identify as egos, as souls, and as Spirit or pure consciousness. Is non-attachment the goal of spiritual practice? He explores the experience of attachment while living in non-dual states and duality at the same time.

Send us Fan Mail Every great spiritual tradition teaches about sacred service. Dr. Neil points out that service is structured in consciousness. We can take action and serve others from an ego level, with attachment to the outcome and to our own needs, such as in transactional relationships. We can act and serve at a soul level, with deeper compassion and less attachment, but still within duality. And we can act or serve with a non-dual level of consciousness, in which subject and object disappear in unity and the divine flows through us.