Non-duality – to practice or not to practice

There is a contemporary category of schools that self-identify as “non-dualism”.

There are many different kinds of schools like this.

Some contemporary schools, popular on YouTube, take the view that non-dualism means that all dualistic phenomena are unreal, or unable to produce any meaningful effect.  In this view all teachings, teachers, meditations, practices and lifestyle changes are at best useless, at worst binding us to illusion, since they are all inherently dualistic.  This includes some schools inspired by Tony Parsons, some by Ramana Maharshi, and some by Nisargadatta Maharaj, and probably other teachers and non-teachers.

The term non-dual was coined by both Advaita Vedantins (“advaita”) and Mahayana Buddhists (“advaya”) at about the same time.  Both Early Buddhism and non-dual interpretations of Vedanta found in the Upanishads like the Mandukya were based on the idea that the nature of reality is beyond all dualities.  Dualities are qualities and attributes that form opposite pairs, such as red and not-red, big and small, existent and non-existent, created and uncreated.  All of these are necessarily concepts, since they are abstractions which we think and express in words.  We can also say non-duality means reality cannot be described or defined by any concepts, or any word descriptions. 

There are some subtle variations in the understanding of non-duality in various schools, and even within schools for different exponents, teachers, or interpreters of those schools.  I’ll ignore these sub-types of non-dualism that get into arcane philosophical disputes, which ultimately may be either distinctions without a difference, or attempts to keep both dualistic and non-dualistic conceptions of reality.

It is often pointed out that non-dualism is itself a word, a concept, and has a dual concept (dualism) so it is an oxymoron, self-contradictory.  This is universally acknowledged.  Non-dualism extinguishes even itself.

The questions addressed here are, is Gurdjieff’s teaching ultimately dualist or non-dualistic, and does non-dualism imply or prove that all practices are futile or harmful? 

Here is the definitive answer, the resolution of all confusion on the matter. Just kidding of course.  Obviously though if I didn't think this response had any merit I would not have written it.  I gladly leave it to you to decide.

People often use Gurdjieff's term "objective consciousness" to stand for enlightenment, liberation, or spiritual experiences in general.

In ISOTM that Gurdjieff uses the term objective consciousness to mean any "spiritual experience".  it's not just complete enlightenment, or what Gurdjieff calls merging with reality.  Most have had such experiences, perhaps often.  Experience of being outside of time or space, of love of God, the dreamlike nature of our experience, of the non-physicality of the source of our attention, that we are not our biological body, and so on, are all experiences of objective consciousness   They are temporary experiences.   Complete liberation, moksha, merging with reality, or whatever it is called in any tradition, is permanent, and includes all of those fragmentary contacts with reality as a unified insight or "gnosis", something known infallibly through identity, as what we in reality are.

All the practices of Gurdjieff's system, all his exercises, are to produce these experiences of objective consciousness.  And I think the vast majority of people who have had such experiences would agree they arose as a result of efforts to awaken and evolve.

Mere self-remembering is not objective consciousness.  It is something else called subjective consciousness by Gurdjieff, and rather than being spiritual or transcendental it is the ordinary and proper state for a human being.  Attaining subjective consciousness in Gurdjieff's system is a necessary precursor to attaining any experience of objective consciousness. Gurdjieff criticized other systems, and religion in general, as being unable to produce change because they don't know this secret, which is that man is asleep, having fallen below even subjective consciousness. This same criticism made by Gurdjieff, whether true or false, applies perfectly to non-dual teachings that say realization doesn't need any practice or exercise.  It's clear what Gurdjieff would say on this matter.

The effectiveness of practices and lifestyle to produce episodes of objective consciousness, their super-normal reality, and their inherent objective value, are facts that many of us have verified through our own experiences, not anything someone told us or from some philosophy or holy book. One teacher who advises doing no practices had their first profound awakening experience during a Zen sesshin. 

While today there is a big social media presence of so-called "non-dualists" who say exercises are useless and we don't have to do anything, except perhaps stop seeking, to awaken, I think they are clearly confused.  Even if some of them are enlightened, that doesn’t mean they are not also confused. This may require some explanation. I have one somewhere....  oh found it.

For someone to be enlightened only means for them to know the true nature of reality, possibly through having merged with it, or to put it another way, through realizing it is and always has been their true nature or identity, their ultimate real "I", the last metro stop.

But enlightenment doesn't confer on instant knowledge of everything.  It doesn't confer on them knowledge of how to do brain surgery, fix an internal combustion engine, or make moussaka.  They can't suddenly speak Tibetan, unless they are one which apparently is often the case.  They also don't know the full story of dog psychology, or human psychology, the psychology of sleep, which for example depends on how homo sapiens evolved in nature. Not having in depth knowledge of human psychology means not knowing the best way to guide sleeping humans. (Some non-dual teachers don't care about guiding sleeping humans, since for them, in reality, they are an unreal appearance. Fair enough.)

It doesn't confer on them knowledge of how our organic body works, such as how our liver works.  Just so there is no reason it should confer on them knowledge of our higher bodies, higher centers, or laws of the worlds of the ray of creation.  This knowledge is all in the realm of relative truth, by definition, since it is about worlds below the Absolute, world 1 of Gurdjieff.  Only within world 1, which is the true nature, do we have non-relative, non-dual gnosis.  Gurdjieff himself says this, in his extended explanation of why the law of three doesn't apply in world 1.  The law of three is necessary for dualistic knowledge, since it depends on three interacting principles- an active knower, a passive known, and a reconciling means of knowing that connects them.  For example, I am the active knower of the plate, the plate is the passive known object, and my eyes, or vision, is the reconciling factor.  That defines dualism, and dualistic knowledge.

Therefore, enlightened people don't necessarily know anything at all about the genesis and fading away of temporary or partial spiritual experiences which Gurdjieff includes as objective consciousness, since these are the results of contacting the higher worlds through higher centers that are below world 1.   And we have all, or most of us have, proven that exercises can produce spiritual experiences. The law of three is alive and well below world 1 (the Absolute, ultimate reality).

The "stop all practices" argument goes that since the Absolute (the true nature of reality and ourselves) is unborn, unchanging, and uncaused (a fact that is obvious upon intelligent reasoning by the most asleep person, aside from being a consensus of enlightened individuals), it cannot be attained through any exercise or practice.  If it could, that would mean it is caused.  If it is caused, it would be subject to beginning, change and ending, so it could not be the true Absolute.

But that argument is false. This is why. It is not the Absolute that wakes up.  It is us, through the passing away of all false identification (as Gurdjieff puts it), the passing away of the separate self, which is the passing away of our illusion of being separate from the Absolute.  This is just another way of wording "merging with reality".  The passing away of something always has a cause.  Thus, enlightenment is always caused, and exercises are highly effective. The truth revealed in enlightenment is not caused by anything, it is only revealed, as the veils drop away. But the fact that enlightenment itself is caused is evident in that every enlightened person can, if they wish, tell us the moment, or period of time, during which they became enlightened. They were not always so. There is no taboo on temporal events being caused. We depend on that to live. Gurdjieff wrote that his teaching was that when it rains the pavement gets wet.

The point of confusion arises because from the view of the Absolute, our separation was never real, it was merely a false assumption or projection onto reality.  Therefore, there is no such thing as awakening or liberation, to enlightened mind.  Everyone is already enlightened, they just don't know it, or in other words their body has no direct connection to it. However true the non-dual teaching that enlightenment is a non-event that didn't happen might be, it doesn't help us out at all as seekers of enlightenment. Ramana Maharshi, a person often credited with inspiring the contemporary non-dualist movement, frequently acknowledged this apparent paradox, affirming both sides, seemingly contradictory, to be true.

A group of people does find the "no-practice" non-dual teachings to be effective for them.  I suggest this is for two reasons.  You will find, to the degree you can check, that most if not all of these people have done years of practice in various schools before following some non-dual no-practice teacher. Secondly, these schools do teach practices, in spite of their denial.  Seeing and listening to an enlightened teacher is itself an important practice, based on the idea they can communicate some sort of awakening influence.  After this "darshan", people are going to continue to remember it and attempt to re-experience any awakening they felt during the darshan.  These are all practices that involve making efforts and focusing attention. 

You will find basically the identical practices to these, except acknowledged as practices, at the end of many paths, including notably in Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra which specialize in them.

According to Ramana we do exercises and practices to attain a realization that in reality we were always merged with the Absolute, so we didn't attain anything.  Yet we have to do practices to experience this (or equivalently stop experiencing duality as if it were absolute).  Ramana, who taught a non-dual reality, also taught people a number of practices and exercises as necessary to do to attain liberation.  This included a preliminary practice neti-neti and a more advanced practice nan-yar, as well as attending darshan to receive his own enlightened communication through his words and presence.  He even arranged various traditional religious rituals. He also said it was necessary to have a guru (teacher), something some contemporary self-declared non-dual teachers (they don't like to be called that, so call them speakers) strenuously deny even while charging large sums of money to attend their retreats.

P.S.

Non-dualism is not, and in the past never was, associated with denying the necessity of practice. 

Mahayana Buddhism is founded on a non-dual understanding of enlightenment or awakening (Buddhi means awakening) and all versions of it emphasize the necessity of intensive practices.  

Vajrayana Buddhism is also founded on non-dualism. Dzogchen has a glorious poetical liturgy describing and pointing out no-practice practices, in which the efforts become ever more subtle until they dissolve.  They say the fruit (enlightenment), the path (the practices), and the view (the understanding of what reality is), all become one thing, reality itself. Dzogchen also includes a diverse zoo of intensive, elaborate practices providing the required preparation for the most advanced Dzogchen non-practices.

Gurdjieff's system of exercises is particularly effective although most of the detailed instruction and explanation deals with beginning and middle stages of the path, without resorting to a third-party public elaboration of Gurdjieff based on his advanced teachings such as from Joseph Azize, de Salzmann, J.G. Bennett.

Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj are the two teachers most often, at least in my experience, cited by non-dual teachers who claim an Indian lineage-. Nisargadatta, although teaching a non-dual dharma, often gave people the practices of reciting mantras or chanting devotional hymns.  He taught meditation on the feeling "I am", refusing all other thoughts.  Neither of them taught to give up all efforts and practices as useless or harmful, instead they gave their followers practices to do.

U.G. Krishnamurti is a well-known teacher (or non-teacher) who has the view that any practice or effort does more harm than good. 

Among recent teachers who combine a non-dual understanding of ultimate reality with an enthusiasm for practices leading to enlightenment, and the incorporation of Gurdjieff’s ideas and exercises into their teachings, are Richard Rose, Jan Cox, and E.J. Gold.  Teachers who incorporate Asian non-dualistic traditions into their teaching of Gurdjieff’s ideas include William Patrick Patterson, J.G. Bennett, and, some argue with good reason, Jeanne de Salzmann.