(Oneness of all things)

One can probably say that well over 90 per cent of religions and spiritual paths in the world are dualistic in nature. Everything goes by two: spirit and matter, life and death, good and evil, God and man, heaven and hell, the past and the future, etc. The divinity is pictured (I am speaking metaphorically) as on top of a high mountain, and the believer has to climb it with the hope of one day reaching the top. In the calvinism of my childhood, the mountain was rather sadistically covered with soap. Each Sunday, we would receive a huge blow on the head in the form of the confession of sins which read: “Born in sin, inclined toward evil, incapable by ourselves of any good…” which knocked us back a good many feet, and we would once more start the slow, painful ascent. That wasn’t very rewarding, and after 20 years of this spiritual regimen of very dry bread and water I decided I needed another outlook with a little more joy and optimism.

In the non dual vision of things, where absolutely ALL is divine, infinite Love manifesting itself, the spiritual seeker is ALREADY at the top of the mountain, and only the fog prevents him from being aware of this. That is why on this path one tends to speak of a process of illumination, during which – sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly or instantaneously – the fog lifts and one bathes in the glorious sunlight of the Absolute. The darkness of ignorance is dissolved, and one FEELS the Truth (because this process totally sidesteps the so often tortuous, intellectual path). This non dualistic vision is wonderfully expressed in the words of my Death Row teacher Roger McGowen:

–  We are what we are looking for,
–  We seek what has not been lost.
–  When we look too hard, we miss what we seek.
–  God is all around us, why must we seek Him?
–  We are what we seek.

The text on The Gentle Art of Blessing reflects a strictly non dual vision of reality. When we bless, we reverse the imperfect material appearance – someone who is begging, this woman in the bus who looks so depressed, this criminal all the newspapers present as a monster, this politician described as a dangerous and malicious schemer, your small child who has been yelling the whole day. We bless the beggar in his/her abundance, the depressed woman in her deep peace, contentment and joy, the criminal in his innocence and beauty, the politician in his intrinsic integrity as a reflection of God, your child in his serenity and peace, etc.

Thank you, dear visitor to our website, for being an instrument of peace on this little planet through your blessings.

Pierre Pradervand

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