To the student of metaphysics “dualism” is a dirty word. All the problems of human existence are attributed to dualism. If asked what is dualism, the answer is usually that it is the belief that God and man are separate. That of course is true in a general and abstract way, but for demonstrable understanding of oneness, we need to be more explicit. It is a bit more understandable when we say that dualism is an assumption that the source of individual life, substance and intelligence is separate from man. And the fears, troubles, ills, tensions, etc. are experienced when we conduct our life under that false assumption. So we are not dealing with evil forces, we are dealing with a false point of view, assuming the center of individual gravity to be outside ourself. We lose our spiritual balance and are blown about by the winds of circumstance until we discover that Vital Center within as the only God there is or can be.

Until this discovery of the God identity within, all our life seems to be characterized by unfulfilment. The source of intelligence and substance must be located within if we are to find it reliable and substantial, and if we are to have practical recourse to it. To seek in externals for the source of life’s values places us just short of the real fulfilment. The student, for instance, who goes on metaphysical shopping trips, knocking on the doors of one practitioner after another, and delves in all the various systems of healing, is continually disappointed until he discovers that the source of what he sought is his very own being of Mind.

So there are the two ways of life. One, to seek and expect all the good things of existence to come from outer sources, and the other to discover it all is one’s own unfolding substance. The process of life is very simple and elementary. It consists of the conscious unfoldment of the self-principle, the individuation of Spirit, the self-substance appearing in specific and understandable formation, the dynamic self-Mind constantly emerging as the awareness of any given instant.

The operative dualism then is the assumption that the substance of life must be obtained from outside one’s self, in an untenable opposition to the fact that all my substance emerges as idea, from within oneself. This emergence is constant, even though unrecognized by most of us, placing, as we do, the source of being outside.

Life is non-dual, which means that individual man is his own Principle; so if I try to be Principle to you, I will drop into manipulation, and that would be disastrous. I cannot be Principle to others, nor can others be Principle to me. The center of spiritual gravity is always within, and only within.

Another way to explain the basic dualism is to see it as the belief that cause and effect are separate. Being, in order to be one in essence, is uncaused and without any effect outside its own being. Cause and effect are an attempt to explain being in the context of material and finite assumptions. Being is being, unborn and undying—IS-ness with no before and no after. I BE being, but when I try to explain being I get into a mire of contradictions. Being, wholeness, cannot be divided into cause and effect, birth and death. Our spiritual balance is lost when we dwell in the illusion of becoming or of having been. It can only be regained as the conscious now with no real “fore and aft.” There is no satisfactory way to explain being, it can only be experienced. “I am that I am” is not really a statement of being, it is the conscious base of being that needs no explanation.

The world seems to be a huge interlocking process of cause and effect. This structure is a total illusion, a device by which we seek meaning in the chaotic cosmos, and try to deal with it. While such an assumption gives an illusion of consistence and continuity, the only way we can really discover the existence and value of things is to seek beyond cause and effect to immediate beingness.

So oneness is much more than a totalling up everything in one mass, it is conscious individuation. No idea is derivative of any other idea, it is self-complete, with no cause nor effect. Certain things become evident with this discovery of oneness. If we stop seeking a cause for error we will stop finding the effect of error, for both cause and effect have no validity. The belief in cause and effect is the belief in magic. We think that if we tinker with the cause we can change the effect.

We have long been sidetracked on obsession with the good/bad dualism; many students consider that it is the basic dualism, but it isn’t. It is an erroneous derivative of the cause-effect dichotomy. We say that anything that contributes to life is “good” and anything that hinders life is “bad”. But this in turn takes for granted that the beginning and end of things reposes in some outside power, which is the old cause-effect dualism. Self-being, being itself consciously, does not have any cause outside of itself, and no effect outside itself, hence is forever immune to evil. It must be carefully noted that you will be trapped by dualism if you think you are receiving “good” from any source outside your own being of oneness.

So we learn not to get involved with the good-evil hassle. It will be resolved when we learn that “I” am my own being. And the most important thing to remember is that the essential being has no cause nor effect! If we know how to BE at this moment, we would experience a life of perfect freedom, liberated from all’ cause and effect, birth and death.

To be we must not seek to become. That is the first rule. I must BE without a purpose to achieve. The richness of the now is found abundantly adequate for all its self-expression. When I am consciously being what I am now, I no longer seek to obtain, and begin reflecting my infinitude of self. The more fully I am conscious of being—NOW—the more substantial my experience.

In giving up the urgency to become, I do not give up substance and value, for these can only be found in the conscious Presence, now-being. The more avid I am to achieve, the less I will achieve, because the less I am conscious of being.

To be, it is not necessary to visualize or describe (outline) the essence of being. To BE consciously what I formerly forgot or neglected to see as “I”, is the fullness of oneness. True oneness or wholeness is not everything brought together. It is the conscious IS-ness, this, here, now. To know one’s being as the only presence, (present) is to become practically one with and as life with no cause/effect split.

Conflict, want, illness, “sins” all derive from the assumption that I must obtain wholeness, achieve a purpose, This displaces the conscious base of being which is absent mindedness, empty of the life center. When I no longer seek to achieve a purpose, I am in a position to experience the nowness or substance of being. But of course we must be conscious of whatever we are being,—even what we are seeming to be, for the being is always right. It seems undesirable because of non-awareness of nowness. So we don’t stop to correct the appearance, but revert to the reality and consciously BE the experience whatever it seems like. The primary aim is conscious oneness as being, and this erases the dualism, and reverses the illusion that things are wrong.

There must be absolutely no effort to bring about some desirable result in the objective world, There is only one possible aim; to be conscious of nowness, for in it is found all substance and value, In plain words, the aim in treatment is to have no aim. The highest achievement is to cease the effort to achieve. Heaven is a direct now-experience and can only be found in the conscious now. If we burned all our metaphysical books, the whole of our science could be built again on the simple doctrine, “Be attentive to THIS, for this-ness constitutes all I am or have.”

When there is no screen of good-bad, we are in a position to see things for what they are instead of for what we supposed them to be. This means to literally see everything anew, Example: my fellow man seems to be ignorant. This is a sign that I am assuming Mind to be separate from its vital center of consciousness. Therefore I do not seek to supply knowledge to my fellow man, which would be acknowledgement of the error, I need only to consciously BE the error, assume the standpoint of ignorance, and see if by chance we have not been missing something. We say he doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain, but why should he, why shouldn’t he enjoy the rain, (the nowness)?

What is conventionally termed ignorance, when judged by ordinary standards, may really be full enjoyment of the now-substance. In the now being ignorance is found to be holy ignorance. We get many surprises when we free our consciousness from the conventional standards built on the false assumption of good-bad, cause-effect. A little four-year old boy gathered a bouquet of dandelions and gave them to his mother. She cried out, “those are weeds, throw them away.” I would rather have the child’s ignorance than the mother’s intelligence, for the baby saw nothing but beauty while the mother saw weeds. So it will be when we begin to be conscious of everything with no preconceptions. It is intelligent to be ignorant, divinely ignorant.

So we say, to be conscious of substance, beauty, value, be conscious of the now, for Heaven is at hand, in this very now, it is ones own being. This is surprisingly simple. It means to “be yourself,”—consciously! For we can do no other than be ourself, but if we are not consciously ourself we are constantly afraid and must seek in externals for the substance that is directly at hand. We seek to learn the cause of our life and experience, and thereby seek to control. Here and there wise men are beginning to question “the age of reason.”

Being has no reason. All our life we seek to make sense out of our existence, postulating a purpose, not only for each act of our daily life but for life itself. But however we accomplish our little daily purposes, or our over-all human purpose (to improve things) we come to a final inanity. But there is an inanity to life only because we seek to attribute some kind of purpose to existence.

The existential error is to ask the question, “Why? Life continually tells us in all its eloquent ways to continually BE without asking why. Being authenticates itself only by being, because being is strictly individual being and thus the final dualism of life is resolved. Being is self-justified and need not account for itself to any power outside itself.

Let us constantly devote ourself to the new golden rule—“Thou shalt tend to your own business of being yourself and let others do likewise”—This would heal all ills, personal, physical or social.