No Duality Quotes & Sayings

At the level of second attention, however, this cycle is irrelevant. One doesn't need to repeal the law of karma at all. Despite all the activity on the surface of life, a speck of awareness inside is not touched. The instant they wake up in the morning, a saint and a sinner are in the same place. They both feel themselves to be alive and aware. This place stands outside reward and punishment. It knows no duality; therefore in stage four your challenge is to find this place, hold on to it, and live there. When you have accomplished this task, duality is gone. You are free from all bondage of good or bad actions. In Christian terms, your soul is redeemed and returned to innocence. — Deepak Chopra

WITH GOD THERE IS NO ROOM FOR TWO EGOS. You say "I," and He says "I." In order for this duality to disappear, either you must die for Him or He for you. It is not possible, however, for Him to die - either phenomenally or conceptually - because "He is the Ever-living who dieth not." He is so gracious, however, that if it were possible He would die for you in order that the duality might disappear. — Rumi

If we worship another, then we remain in duality. We have not fully entered the path within.

Through awareness, we learn to worship the essence of our nature and the truth of existence within the temple of our own consciousness. Our worship is a realization of truth and oneness. It is rejoicing within our being.

True worship is to fill ourselves with the awareness of eternity, to know our godliness as beings of light.

Worship no person, or image -- only the awareness of who you are becoming. — Robert S. Cosmar

When ye look at me I am an idle, idle man; when I look at myself I am a busy, busy man. Since upon the plain of uncreated infinity I am building, building the tower of ecstasy, I have no time for building houses. Since upon the steppe of the void of truth I am breaking, breaking the savage fetter of suffering, I have no time for ploughing family land. Since at the bourn of unity ineffable I am subduing, subduing the demon-foe of self, I have no time for subduing angry foe-men. Since in the palace of mind which transcends duality I am waiting, waiting for spiritual experience as my bride, I have no time for setting up house. Since in the circle of the Buddhas of my body I am fostering, fostering the child of wisdom, I have no time for fostering snivelling children. Since in the frame of the body, the seat of all delight, I am saving, saving precious instruction and reflection, I have no time for saving wordly wealth. — Milarepa

People use ideas of non-duality as an escape from reality. It is very easy to say there is no winning and losing and justify the fact that you didn't do a very good job. — Frederick Lenz

The category of Other is as original as consciousness itself. The duality between Self and Other can be found in the most primitive societies, in the most ancient mythologies; the division did not always fall into the category of the division of the sexes ( ... ) No group ever defines itself as One without immediately setting up the Other opposite itself. It only takes three travelers brought together by chance in the same train compartment for the rest of the travellers to become vaguely hostile 'others'. Village people view anyone not belonging to the village as suspicious 'others'. For the native of a country, inhabitants of other countries are viewed as 'foreigners'; Jews are the 'others' for anti-Semites, blacks for racist Americans, indigenous people for colonists, proletarians for the propertied classes. — Simone De Beauvoir

In life you find pleasure. In life you find pain. Pain and pleasure is an example of the duality in life. Enjoy them both, they are part of the ride. The key is to not turn the pain into something else - regret. — J.R. Rim

When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
Things are objects because of the subject;
the mind is such because of things.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion. — Sengcan

With those that you love, it's more or less understood - there's often a love-hate duality with no in-between. It's more complicated with those you are simply ready to love. — Elizaveta Mikhailichenko

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things are as they are,
of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion,
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies. — Sengcan

(The real brahmin is the one who ... has crossed beyond duality ... knows no this shore, other shore, or both ... (is) settled in mind ... without inflowing thoughts ... is without attachment ... endures undisturbed criticism, ill-treatment and bonds, (and is) strong in patience ... (is) without anger, devout, upright, free from craving, disciplined and in his last body ... has experienced the end of his suffering here in this life, who has set down the burden, freed! — Gautama Buddha

Seeking out causes is a pastime of the mind. There is no duality of cause and effect. Everything is its own cause. — Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Balsa seemed invincible, endowed with powers no other warrior could match, but in her profile he could glimpse the shadow of a young girl, hurt and buffeted by a cruel and hopeless fate. If he had never experienced what it was like to be at the mercy of fate himself, he would not have noticed, but now he could see it with unbearable, heartrending clarity. — Nahoko Uehashi

It is called equanimity when one has no attachment with the good (the auspicious) and no abhorrence for the bad (the inauspicious). The one without duality is in equanimity-state. In worldly interactions, people identify tolerance as equanimity! — Dada Bhagwan

To see through the illusion of duality, remember that fear and darkness have no substance in themselves, for they do not indicate the presence of a second universal force, but are only names given to the one Light unperceived. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

The truth is, Jung has brought back one member of the old duality, unreason, with a new name; it is no synthesis at all, but only the latest maneuver in the war against rationality that has been conducted with rising hysteria by literary intellectuals and humanists against the laws of a culture they have reason to distrust and disobey. The Jungian theory proposes to every disaffected humanist his "personal myth," as a sanctuary against the modern world. Against the vulgar democracy of intelligence, Jungian theory proposes an aristocracy of feeling. From this proposal derives Jung's persistent influence on modern critical and aesthetic style. — Philip Rieff

All things that seem good and evil are the opposite ends of one line, and it is difficult to say where evil ends and good begins, for these are comparative terms. A lesser good would seem evil when compared with a greater good, and the lesser evil in comparison with the greater evil would appear good. If there were no evil, good would not have been valued. Without injustice, justice would not have been appreciated. Therefore the whole of life's joy is expressed in duality. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

Why is it that a dog's menstruation made her lighthearted and gay, while her own menstruation made her squeamish? The answer seems simple to me: dogs were never expelled from Paradise. Karenin knew nothing about the duality of body and soul and had no concept of disgust. That is why Tereza felt so free and easy with him. (And that is why it is so dangerous to turn an animal into a machina animata, a cow into an automaton for the production of milk. By so doing, man cuts the thread binding him to Paradise and has nothing left to hold or comfort him on his flight through the emptiness of time.) — Milan Kundera

It's a Buddhist concept. Nonduality. It's about oneness, about how things that seem to be separate are really connected to one another. There are no separations ... This is not just a piece of wood. This is also the clouds that brought the rain that watered the tree, and the birds that nested in it and the squirrels that fed on its nuts. It is also the food my grandparents fed me that made me strong enough to cut the tree, and it's the steel in the axe I used. And it's how you know your fox, which allowed you to carve him yesterday. And it's the story you will tell your children when you give this to them. All these things are separate but also one, inseparable. Do you see? — Sara Pennypacker

Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality. — Simone De Beauvoir

...the mind is just as immeasurable as the vast universe. An integral being settles his mind just as the vast universe settles itself. He unites his mind with the unnameable Subtle Origin of the multi-universe in which there is no past, present or future. This is how an integral being deals with his mind. — Lao-Tzu

There is a strange duality in the human which makes for an ethical paradox. We have definitions of good qualities and of bad; not changing things, but generally considered good and bad throughout the ages and throughout the species. Of the good, we think always of wisdom, tolerance, kindliness, generosity, humility; and the qualities of cruelty, greed, self-interest, graspingness, and rapacity are universally considered undesirable. And yet in our structure of society, the so-called and considered good qualities are invariable concomitants of failure, while the bad ones are the cornerstones of success ... Perhaps no other animal is so torn between alternatives. Man might be described fairly adequately, if simply, as a two-legged paradox. — John Steinbeck

We should live each and every day with the certainty that this armor will protect us from danger, and then we will no longer be bound to the duality of existence. We have to find a middle path, where there is neither joy nor suffering, only profound peace. — Paulo Coelho

Sir always had a thing for calves. They were soft and smooth, like all skin on a woman. But the calf flesh was backed by muscle, so there was a firmness you wouldn't find at the hips, say, or in the small of the back. But it wasn't boney like the front of the leg. No, the calf was pretty much the closest thing to the perfection of breast tissue you could touch on a woman without getting your hand slapped away. — Joshua Edward Smith

Om was there in the existence, when no religion was formed or founded. It will be there in the existence, if all the religions are demolished. — Banani Ray

There should not be opinion regarding anything. Opinion means you are supporting it. 'Know' the wrong as wrong, 'Know' right as right. There should not be any attachment (raag) towards the right, and abhorrence (dwesh) towards the wrong. There is no such thing as right or wrong. Right and wrong is a duality, it is illusionary vision, it is a societal belief. God does not see it that way. In God's view, having a dinner on the table or going to toilet, they are both the same. — Dada Bhagwan

How wonderful it would be if everything could always be as clear and simple as it used to be when you were twelve years old, or twenty years old. If there really were only two colors in the world: black and white. But even the most honest and ingenuous cop, raised on the resounding ideal of the stars and stripes, has to understand sooner or later that there's more than just Darkness and Light out on the streets. There are understandings, concessions, agreements. Informers, traps, provocations. Sooner or later the time comes when you have to betray your own side, plant bags of heroin in pockets, and beat people on the kidneys - carefully, so there are no marks. — Sergei Lukyanenko

Day and night will not cease. Yet, you need not continue viewing them as opposites. There is no longer a need to think that night has the same power as day. There is just the power of light, with variations of intensity and interruption. Once the full scope of understanding is attained, duality fades away. Higher intelligence is manifested through integrated perceptions of wholeness which restore your recognition of the one spirit. The sons of God are those who do not explain life or manage it with dualistic concepts. The sons of God are those who seek to perceive wholeness in all things. — Glenda Green

There is no ideal in observation. When you have an ideal, you cease to observe, you are then merely approximating the present to the idea, and therefore there is duality, conflict, and all the rest of it. The mind has to be in the state when it can see, observe. The experience of the observation is really an astonishing state. In that there is no duality. The mind is simply - aware. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole - this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji and Hualiu could gallop a thousand li in one day, but when it came to catching rats they were no match for the wildcat or the weasel - this refers to a difference in skill. The horned owl catches fleas at night and can spot the tip of a hair, but when daylight comes, no matter how wide it opens its eyes, it cannot see a mound or a hill - this refers to a difference in nature. Now do you say, that you are going to make Right your master and do away with Wrong, or make Order your master and do away with Disorder? If you do, then you have not understood the principle of heaven and earth or the nature of the ten thousand things. This is like saying that you are going to make Heaven your master and do away with Earth, or make Yin your master and do away with Yang. Obviously it is impossible. — Zhuangzi

Like-dislike, good-bad, profit-loss; who gave rise to all these dualities? The society did. As far as God is concerned, there is no duality. If there are grains of food on one side and excrement on the other, in God's eyes, they are both "material (matter)". What does God say about this? "All are materials! — Dada Bhagwan

Why chase after thoughts, which are superficial ripples of present awareness? Rather look directly into the naked, empty nature of thoughts; then there is no duality, no observer, and nothing observed. Simply rest in this transparent, nondual present awareness. Make yourself at home in the natural state of pure presence, just being, not doing anything in particular. — Jamgon Kongtrul

Unfortunately, the main problem of the world isn't on money, as it might seem at first sight, but on the mind of those that either use it, create it, maintain it, capitalize on it, or simply, ignore it. What use would science have if people didn't have problems needing a solution? What use would art have if people didn't have a need to escape their reality? What use would reading have if there was no desire to aspire to? What use would dreams have if life was perfect? And so, I'm not saying that money is necessary. but that our mind is what makes it valuable. And once you understand this, you actually master it. The solution lays on the fundamental laws of duality. The more you disregard money, the more it becomes a fundamental part of your world. Those that love it, however, don't even need to touch it or worry about it. And how convenient that we tend to ask questions about the things we refuse to learn about. — Robin Sacredfire

All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate. But it's more than that; no mere carrot-and-stick affair; because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil; the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuosities of the serpent; in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see, metaphorically, all conceivable oppositions, Alpha against Omega, father against mother; here is the war of Mary and Musa, and the polarities of knees and nose ... but I found, very early in my life, that the game lacked one crucial dimension, that of ambiguity - because, as events are about to show, it is also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake ... — Salman Rushdie

All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast. Either one was a man or one was a woman, either a wanderer or sedentary burgher, either a thinking person or a feeling person-no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out, be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order, combine instinct and mind. One always had to pay for one with the loss of the other, and one thing was always just as important and desirable as the other. — Hermann Hesse

Because a Buddha completely trusts her own mind, curiosity comes naturally. A Buddha is actually curious about how the old bully is doing right now! With natural curiosity, the practice of mindfulness becomes effortless. When we actually start to want to be present, we start to care for everybody, so compassion becomes increasingly panoramic. As compassion expands, the mental barbed wire between yourself and your experience dissolves. Once that wall of duality crumbles, nothing can take you away from feeling at home in the universe, and no experience needs to be rejected as unworthy. This is what it really means to feel at home wherever you are. — Ethan Nichtern

Fear is only in duality. Fear is Mind. When you are your Self, there is no fear. — Sivananda

All being, it seemed, was built on opposites, on division. Man or woman, vagabond or citizen, lover or thinker - no breath could both be in and out, none could be man and wife, free and yet orderly, knowing the urge of life and the joy of intellect. Always the one paid for the other, though each was equally precious and essential. — Hermann Hesse

It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality. — Peter J. Carroll

Only no-mind can be without any duality, because it is empty. The no-mind is choicelessness. The no-mind is pure awareness. It is just the empty sky. — Rajneesh

But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind. — C. G. Jung

On the blank leaf glued to the inner back cover I drew the double curve within the circle, and blacked the yin half of the symbol, then pushed it back to my companion. 'Do you know that sign?'
He looked at it a long time with a strange look, but he said, 'No.'
'It's found on Earth, and on Hain-Davenant, and on Chiffewar. It is yin and yang. Light is the left hand of darkness ... how did it go? Light, dark. Fear, courage. Cold, warmth. Female, male. It is yourself, Therem. Both and one. A shadow on snow.' — Ursula K. Le Guin

All duality is a mind creation, all duality is created by the clinging and attached mind. When there is no attachment there is no duality. — Rajneesh

[F]or Zen there is no duality, no conflict between the natural element of chance and the human element of control. The constructive powers of the human mind are no more artificial than the formative actions of plants or bees, so that from the standpoint of Zen it is no contradiction to say that artistic technique is discipline in spontaneity and spontaneity in discipline. — Alan W. Watts

Use of No Use is Great Use. (Chuang Tzu) — Sung Yee Poon

It is one of my decided opinions that married people ought to have no one, be the tie ever so close and dear, living permanently with them, to break the sacred duality - no, let me say the unity of their home. — Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

It was shameless how life made fun of one; it was a joke, a cause for weeping! Either one lived and let one's senses play, drank full at the primitive mother's breast - which brought great bliss but was no protection against death; then one lived like a mushroom in the forest, colorful today and rotten tomorrow. Or else one put up a defense, imprisoned oneself for work and tried to build a monument to the fleeting passage of life - then one renounced life, was nothing but a tool; one enlisted in the service of that which endured, but one dried up in the process and lost one's freedom, scope, lust for life...
Ach, life made sense only if one achieved both, only if it was not split by this brittle alternative! To create, without sacrificing one's senses for it. To live, without renouncing the mobility of creating. Was that impossible? — Hermann Hesse

But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can't you just be yourself? When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself into two: "I" and "myself," subject and object. That mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself - "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. — Eckhart Tolle

Every 'no' is a 'yes' to something. — Eric Micha'el Leventhal

Hatred wants to annihilate, but it annihilates by destroying, by making our awareness dull, by suppressing, by dividing. True Nature does not really annihilate, because something is not wiping out something else--there is no duality. The kind of annihilation that True Nature makes possible is more of a recognition, a precise understanding that Being reveals in us. We have no inner agitation in our attitude; we see and understand whatever impediment is arising, but we do not give it energy in the form of reaction, and thus it becomes still on its own and does not appear. We experience this as a dissolving or a melting, but what is actually happening is that the energy fueling the obstacle disappears, the obstacle loses its dynamism, and it simply stops arising. — A.H. Almaas

In God there is no duality. In that Presence "I" and "we" and "you" do not exist. "I" and "you" and "we" and "He" become one ... Since in the Unity there is no distinction, the Quest and the Way and the Seeker become one. — Mahmud Shabistari

Mind is a duality; it is always split. There is no single point on which the mind agrees in totality. Half of the mind will agree and half of the mind will disagree, and whatever you choose, you are choosing only the half. The remaining half is going to take revenge. The unchosen part, the left over, will wait for its chance to show you that whatever you have chosen is wrong. But it does not matter which part you choose. Choice itself is wrong. — Rajneesh

Individuals make history, but it's also a collective thing, a wave that people ride in their time, a wave made of individual actions. So ultimately history is another particle/wave duality that no one can parse or understand. — Kim Stanley Robinson

In presence, there is no right or wrong, because there is no duality. There is no judgment. — Leonard Jacobson

Now that virtually every career is an option for ambitious girls, it can no longer be considered regressive or reactionary to reintroduce discussion of marriage and motherhood to primary education. We certainly do not want to return to the simplistic duality of home economics classes for girls and wood shop for boys. — Camille Paglia

Peace is when the heart is no longer in duality, when the struggle within has been resolved ... A voice has been calling out: "What you are looking for is within you. Your truth is within you, your peace is within you ... " — Prem Rawat

As the mask of deception falls off the face of humanity
Unveiling the grim reality of duality
In which everyone is a casualty, no one will be exempt
Truth has many shades
It's not a matter of black and white, but gray
Although many, we are one, so in the final analysis
Could it be that we are fighting a war that can't be won? — Morgan Freeman

Truth has no duality. — Debasish Mridha

If you want liberation [moksha], you will have to be rid of the duality of 'right-and-wrong'. If you want to attain an auspicious (good) state, then have abhorrence for the 'wrong', and attachment for the 'right'. There is no attachment or abhorrence in the pure state [shuddha]. — Dada Bhagwan

There's a duality of a guy calling on God: 'Where are you when I need you?' and then, at the same time, 'God helps those who help themselves.' I think that contradiction does exist in all of us, those of faith and those who profess to have no faith. — Joe Carnahan

The duality of positive and negative becomes subsumed in Oneness. There are no opposites in the totality and absolute perfection of the Oneness that we know as Divine. — Peter Santos

In love, for example - the so-called love - we are 'related.' We appear to be related. We create the fallacy of a relationship, but in fact we are just deceiving ourselves. The two will remain two. Howsoever near, the two will remain two. Even in sexual communion they will be two. This two-ness, this duality will never last. So a relationship is only creating a fallacious oneness. It is not there. Oneness can never exist between two selves. Oneness can only exist between two no-selves. — Rajneesh

Thinking belongs to duality. Love belongs to the Oneness. There is no thought without judgment, there is no Unconditional Love without the silence of the mind. — Human Angels

Always questioning what the mirror shows us (for there is no duality of you/me in higher consciousness). — Jay Woodman

The nature of a letter can also be revealed within its numeric value. All letters and numbers behave in a certain but recognizable way, from which we can deduce its nature. The number two is the only even prime. There is an inherent mathematical dilemma with, "one." No matter how many times you multiply it, by itself, you still can't get past "one" (1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 1). So, how does "one" move beyond itself? How does the same, produce the different?
Mathematically, "one" is forced to divide itself and work from that duality. Therein, hides the divine puzzle of bet (b). To become "two," the second must revolt from wholeness - a separation. Yet, the second could not have existed without the benefit of the original wholeness. Also, the first wanted the second to exist, but the first doesn't know what the second will become. Again, two contains potential badness, to a Hebrew. (Ge 25:24) — Michael Ben Zehabe

When you awaken, you know that everything that occurs at the level of mind is illusory in nature and so you no longer believe in it as the truth of life. It is sometimes happy and sometimes sad, because it is a world of duality. You relax and accept the dual nature of the world of the mind and the world of experience within time. This will create balance within duality which will open the doorway to Oneness. — Leonard Jacobson

From "Wetness and Water"
How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?
Do not try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire.
Do not wash a wound with blood.
No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes it's in front.
Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.
But that shadow has been serving you.
What hurts you blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest. — Rumi