How to Find the Right Nonduality Teacher for YouBy Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
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To a newcomer, these teachings seem to point to the same realization. In reality, they are often describing different stages or revelations within the same awakening process. So, how do you know which teacher is right for you?
The answer begins with understanding that "nonduality" is not a single teaching. It is an umbrella term covering a wide range of approaches, insights, and realizations all related to progressive revelations that reality is "Not Two". Different teachers emphasize different discoveries because they themselves have stabilized in different perspectives (or layers of nonduality) or because they consider certain insights more important than others. None of these are right or wrong. In fact, because teachers stabilize at different locations they become a sort of 'clarity beacon' for that particular revelation. Beautiful in a way, reality has created a perfect staircase that, in my opinion, makes it easier for everyone to wake up and climb towards whatever location is right for them. >> Click HERE for a curated list of nonduality teachers. Get The FREE Awakening eBook✓ Discover what awakening is like
✓ Learn about the four stages between awakening & enlightenment ✓ Get exercises to progress Sign up below to get our FREE eBook. What Are Nondual Teachings?The word nonduality means "not two." It points toward the recognition that reality is not divided into separate and independent things in the way it initially appears. At first glance, this seems straightforward. However, different teachers mean very different things when they use the term because they are pointing to different realizations of 'not two'.
In "normal" consciousness, everything is duality (good/bad, right/wrong, true/untrue, everything/nothing). The falling away of one dual appearance is often be labeled as awakening or 'nonduality'. But literally everything is nondual, so this process of nondual revelation often deepens as more and more apparent dualities are see as 'not two'. Examples of Nonduality Teachings For some, nonduality means realizing that you are awareness rather than the body or mind. For others, it means seeing that there is no separate self anywhere. For others still, it means the collapse of the apparent perceptual distinction between observer and observed. Others describe a gradual process involving many stages of insight. And for a few, it is the recognition of mental frameworks that create the appearance of duality. As a result, two nonduality teachers may teach or speak about nonduality while describing entirely different experiences or realizations. For nonduality students, who don't know what each teacher is pointing to, it is impossible to tell that these are different perspectives pointing to different revelations or persepctives. So, let's explore what different nonduality teachers actually mean when they say 'nonduality'. 1. Awareness-Based Nonduality TeachersFor many seekers, awareness-based teachings serve as the entry point into nonduality. Teachers such as Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Swami Sarvapriyananda, and many contemporary teachers encourage students to discover that they are not their thoughts, emotions, or personal stories. Instead, they are invited to recognize the awareness that observes experiences.
A typical inquiry might ask: "What is aware of this thought?" or "What remains when thoughts come and go?" Through meditation, self-inquiry, and natural unfolding, students often begin to recognize the stable background of awareness (also called the observer, witness, presence, beingness, 'I Am', spaciousness, stillness, consciousness, etc...). The recognition is that this experience of awareness or consciousness is untouched by the changing contents of other experiences (i.e., thoughts, emotions, events, etc...). Find awareness-based nonduality teachers in our nonduality teachers list >> Relief & Transformation This revelation is often a huge relief. Anxiety, emotional reactivity, and identification with psychological narratives often diminish as awareness is found to be a safe haven untouched by negative thoughts and emotions. What makes this realization helpful is that awareness becomes a useful perspective and tool for better understanding all other aspects of experience. The contents of experience (namely, the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs) are no longer seen as who you are. Instead, this calm, neutral awareness can be accessed and 'rested in'. This is a very comforting place to be, free from complete attachment to what thoughts tell us. It is often thought to be the first stage of nonduality because suddenly you see that you are not the many things you thought you were. You are not the emotions, thoughts, and personality traits. Rather, you are consciousness or awareness. First Layer of Nonduality However, this is the just the very first layer of duality beginning to peel away. Because it is the first layer, it may, in a way, be the most transformative. But there still appears to be 1.) an awareness observing 2.) objects. This is still Two. Video Explanation of Awareness-Based Awakening2. No-Self Nonduality TeachersThe next category focuses less on awareness and more on the complete absence of a separate self, doer, or controller. Teachers such as Ilona Ciunaite and others associated with the Liberation Unleashed movement encourage students to investigate whether a self can actually be found anywhere in experience.
Rather than asking students to identify as awareness, these teachers examine the assumption that an independent self exists at all. Through inquiry, students look carefully at thoughts, sensations, feelings, and perceptions to determine whether there is a central controller, observer, or owner of experience. Many discover that no such entity exists. No-Self Realization This realization can produce a significant shift. Thoughts continue to arise. Decisions continue to occur. Life continues. Yet there is no longer a convincing sense that these experiences belong to a separate individual. The disappearance of the belief in self corresponds to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fetters in the Buddhist fetter framework and it often naturally unfolds into the 4th and 5th fetters. What distinguishes this approach from awareness-based teachings is that it generally doesn't replace the small self with a Big Self made of awareness (although the experience of there being 'something' that steps back from experience to observe it remains). 3. Perceptual Nonduality TeachersPerceptual nonduality goes beyond the insight or seeing through the self and begins to become embodied in actual physical, experiential integration of sense perceptions and space. You not only know there is no self, you actually see, hear, feel, taste, and smell with no bodily boundaries. A scent or sight is inside and outside. A pain or pleasure is not bound by the imaginary borders of your body.
Teachers such as Angelo Dilullo and others in his extended community describe nonduality in terms of this transformation of perception. The distinction between observer and observed (subject/object) dissolves, not merely as an idea but as a direct physical reality. Divided Sensate Experience Ordinarily, experience appears divided. There seems to be a subject located somewhere behind the eyes and a world existing outside that subject. Following this shift, this apparent division collapses. Visual experience no longer seems to happen "out there." Sounds no longer appear separate from the listener. Sensation is no longer different from sight or sound. The entire perceptual field becomes a seamless whole without an observer, without even a witness or pure awareness to observe it. The difference between seeing no-self as an insight (mind) and the experience of self falling away (body) The perceptual nonduality shift is so significant that some describe it as a second awakening. In one way, everything is the same, but the permanent perceptual transformation makes everything seem extremely close and intimate. There is no longer an imaginary boundary (in any of the 5 senses) to shield us from anything—not emotions, not sensation, nothing. So our predominate experience is no longer 'resting in calm awareness'. Quite the opposite. Everything is immediate and close without the illusion of awareness separating us from all our other experiences. Often, there is an existential fear that arises at the gateway to this revelation because the experienced boundary between you and everything is dissolving. There is no more hiding. The disappearance of perceptual, sensate, bodily separation corresponds to salayatana in the Buddhist nidana framework or the 6th, 7th, & 8th fetters in the Buddhist fetter framework. These stages focus on the sensation field and the seeing through of space, solidity, and eventually awareness itself (or the illusion that you could ever step back from experience at all to observe it). Video: A Description of Perceptual Nonduality4. Path-Based Nonduality TeachersPath-based teachers approach awakening as a process involving multiple stages of realization. Examples include teachers working with the fetter model (e.g., Kevin Schanilec, Daniel Ingram, the Awakening Curriculum) and other structured maps of awakening. Rather than treating enlightenment as a single event or attainment, these approaches view awakening as a progressive unraveling of self (or duality).
The vast majority of people who awaken will go through some sort of process, often similar to the paths described by these teachers. But keep in mind that all paths are possible and valid, so if your experience doesn't match the maps, that's okay! Each stage of the path reveals something new:
What makes this approach helpful is its commitment to precision. Rather than grouping all awakenings together, path-based systems attempt to distinguish different realizations and identify what assumptions remain active at each stage. Another strength of this approach is that it provides a framework for understanding why different teachers often seem to contradict one another. In many cases, they are describing different stages of realization rather than entirely different 'awakenings'. No realization is more real, more important, or better than any other. They just reflect different perspectives. Maps Keep Us From Getting Lost Maps like these can be enormously helpful because many awakening experiences feel final when they occur. Path-based teachers help students understand that awakening can, and does, continue unfolding long after an initial awakening. Limitations The mind loves to select an experience and label it as "The End". Yet, if one remains open, further layers of duality can increasing fall away, even after the fetters have been completed. You might say that the fetter model maps the 'emptiness path', which increasingly reveals 'self' as empty. However, self is not the only thing that is empty. Even at the 10th fetter, there still seems to be some beliefs/concepts that are active. These models still rely on illusions like 'a continuous self' and 'cause and effect'. They rely on conceptual mapping in mental space: THIS practice still seems to be connected to or linked to THAT outcome. Here, an experience of insight still seems different from non-insight. Path models do not speak to the integration of emptiness and fullness. Even the 10th and final fetter points to the realization of unknowing and the end of suffering, which is quite deep. Yet, even this realization relies on mental mechanisms that make unknowing and knowing seem different; they make suffering and not suffering experientially different. For most people, this path shows you that everything you thought was full is also empty. Fetter 10 is a perspective of Both/And. It is not yet the interpenetration of conceptual opposites, which dissolves even the Both/And perspective. Overview of The Ten Fetters Path5. Radical Nonduality TeachersTeachers such as Jim Newman, Tony Parsons, Andreas Müller, and Kenneth Madden often reject the entire notion of a path. According to this perspective, there is no individual, no seeker, no journey, and no awakening as a real event occurring in real time. Indeed, all of these experiences are still in the dream of separation. From this view, awareness is just identification with a Big Self that includes everything, awakening stages are stories, and practices are expressions of seeking energy rather than solutions to it.
What Deepens Here? What makes radical nonduality a deeper realization is the seeing of conceptual nonduality and differential nonduality. It is at these levels of nonduality that apparent experiences like relationships between two things and cause and effect are seen through. It becomes totally clear that nothing causes awakening, and thus the energetic compulsion to help, teach, guide, or coach falls away. Communications or responses may still arise but not from the belief that anything actually matters or causes awakening. Another difference is the disillusion of meaning. It is abundantly clear that words (even spiritual words) don't actually point to anything and even experiences such as love, wisdom, spaciousness, peace, and enlightenment are conceptual constructions. The spacious feeling of 'Here' and 'Now' is simply labeling that separates an apparent 'Here' and 'Now' from 'There and 'Then'. The sense that the present moment is somehow different from everything else is still illusion. An Annoying Message? For many people, this message initially sounds paradoxical, illogical, or frustrating. It offers no method, no roadmap, and no promise of progress. Yet, other people find it deeply liberating because it cuts through many of the illusions that remain in other perspectives. Video: Example of Radical NondualityIntegrated NondualityRadical nonduality can even deepen as emptiness or 'nothingness' integrates more and more completely with fullness or 'everythingness'. The experience of 'no-perspective' (which is characteristic of radical nonduality) is no longer elevated or prioritized over any other perspective. Self is no longer something special to see as 'not real' because everything is real and unreal.
Thus, teachers who continue to deepen can speak from all of the different levels of nonduality (as well as any perspective prior to awakening) without one perspective (even no-perspective) seeming more true than the others. There seems to be a deeper embodiment if the integration of emptiness and fullness in everything (e.g., anxiety, concepts, language, time, space, thoughts, etc...) such that wisest teaching is just as wise as a banana. Literally, eating a fruit matters no more or less than becoming enlightened. As such, the energy of truth (which is really just a concept/belief/thought/sensation complex) falls away even more, and one's favorite mode or way of teaching can no longer be believed to be the best, good, or even effective. There is no resistance to deeper insights and there is no objection to earlier ones. As such, responses that arise are free to communicate anything from any perspective. Teachers such as Alexis Nonduality and Emerson Nonduality seem to demonstrate signs of this integration. The Self Illusion Is Not The EndAll Pointing & No Pointing Is The Same
Rather than answers arising that point toward awareness, no-self, perceptual nonduality, or emptiness, answers coming from this level of nonduality can point in any direction. No direction is any more true than any other. Concepts/experiences are largely integrated such that the earlier experience of Both/And fades into interpenetration. For example, the sense that we are a self and no self simultaneously is the Both/And perspective. But now, there isn't actually any mental or experiential way to even distinguish self from no-self. They are literally the same process with mental labels that make them seem dual. Inviting In Fullness AND Emptiness Compassion arises in a new way that allows everything fully. There is no longer the energy that arises to "correct" another person's perspective or 'help' them awaken. Everything is already totally free without agenda. Thus, there is an embodied permission that invites all expressions to discover both their fullness and their emptiness. Quick OverviewMost awakening perspectives reflect one side of the everything/nothing duality:
All of these perspectives and explorations are valid and beautiful. Once integrated, there is a balancing by which the insight "everythingness = nothingness" is not only seen but embodied. Rather than seeing and holding paradox, this dissolves all paradox, because there were never really two things and thus, there was never really any paradox. The self and no-self are not separate and they are not separate from any other concept. Thus, in the end, seeing that there is no-self is the tip of the iceberg and seeing that there is no love, no knowing, no truth, no ultimate reality, no experience, no path, no awareness, no cause and effect is the deepening. And yet, the unreal aspect of All That Is is no more (or less) important than real aspect. The love, oneness, physic abilities, soul, etc... are All That Is too. Caveats It's also important to keep in mind that there are great teachers at all the levels. A teacher that has stabilized at awareness may be far more beneficial for help you recognizing awareness than another teacher who has stabilized further along. Other teachers, who blast through all the levels quickly may have relatively shallow understanding of earlier realizations. This is why everyone's unique perspective is valuable. In my own journey, the best teachers for me were often the ones who spoke very clearly about wherever I was stuck. However, it also becomes obvious once you move beyond those insights which perspective each teacher is looking from. Which Type of Teacher Is Right for You?The answer depends largely on what you are seeking.
Importantly, these categories are not always mutually exclusive. Many nonduality teachers and students incorporate elements from multiple nonduality approaches and move through several of these perspectives over time. And many people don't resonate with nonduality at all, preferring a more psychic, energetic, or archetypical path. What matter most is tuning into to what resonates with you. |
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Disclaimer: The content on this site is for exploration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
©2026 AwakeningCollective.org