Sometimes we see the world in black and white. We feel that we have no choice but to join the struggle of righteousness. This is the level 1 that modern (wo)man perceives. Yet, the spiritual traveler knows that beyond it there is a level of non-duality. We put our best foot forward in our daily actions, but we do not lose sleep over the outcome. Success or failure, the outcome is embedded in a higher order that is well taken care of.
Advaita—non-duality—might as well be translated as “it’s complicated!”. There is a world beyond the simple black and white, good and evil, success and failure. What if God told you that in a parallel universe Europe was blown up in an ugly nuclear war just because Adolf Hitler wasn’t around to catalyze thousands of years of war, aggression and murder in one single act of bringing Europe to its knees just before the dawn of the nuclear age?
“It’s complicated”, can be called level 2 in spiritual understanding. It’s the serene level of equanimity of mind as we know that everything that happens is as it is. As Shakespeare observed, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so!” Yet there is a level even beyond non-duality, a world of silence. In this world even the issue that our understanding has embraced as beyond good or bad disappears. This is level 3.
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