To the ordinary self, NDA appears as an object of sorts, something one might want to experience or as a capacity one might want to have. To NDA, however, the ordinary self and its constituting processes, to the extent that they can be phenomenally accessed, appear as contents within its space.[1]
– Josipovic and Miskovi
In the above quote Josipovic and Miskovic describe a vital aspect of nonduality. That is, the self (or what we think of as a self) is simply yet another thing (or object) in consciousness. Furthermore, there is no “I” aware of itself as an object in consciousness, because where would that “I” exist or be located? Rather there is simply no “I”. This is what is meant by the unification of subject and object.
The proposition here is that we human beings are already nondual; nonduality is not a ‘state’ to be reached (like we might say ‘flow states’ are). Rather we create and recreate the self as part of the process of grasping or reaching for sense. Sam Harris refers to this as selfing:
… your mental experience of the world is a process. It is not a static something. So the experience of being a self, an ego, in the middle of all of these changing neurophysiological states, it too must be a process. It’s a verb, it’s not a noun. You are selfing your experience. You are not a self standing in the middle of experience. Self is a kind of action. It’s the act of identifying. It’s the act of grasping.[2]
– Sam Harris
[1] Josipovic, Z. and Miskovic, V. (2020) ‘Nondual Awareness and Minimal Phenomenal Experience’. Frontiers in Psychology 11, 2087
[2] Harris, S. (nodate) Ego and Illusion. [online] available from https://dynamic.wakingup.com/course/CE2E59 [30 January 2024] (from 01:29min).
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