Nonduality: An Experiential Journey with GP Walsh

“Nonduality: An Experiential Journey” with GP Walsh

June 12, 2021

Zoom Online

This Saturday morning session with spiritual teacher GP Walsh was attended by twenty-one people in total. GP has offered a number of presentations through the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada over the last few years, in each case attracting a good number of interested students who have always seemed to very much enjoy his communication style. He began and ended the session with guided meditations focusing on the simple sense of being that is always present, the “non-phenomenal” knowing which brings a sense of a reality which is undivided. GP spoke of the Buddha and Krishnamurti, with their shared challenge in speaking of knowing ourselves when we cannot describe ourselves. They both said that we can only discover ourselves for ourselves and not through the knowledge of another. What we actually are has no subject-object dualism. The two spiritual giants sought the source and cure of suffering, which lies not in the experience of suffering but in the one experiencing it. As soon as we say ‘this shouldn’t be happening” we begin to suffer. Trying to control life only creates suffering. On the other hand, Krishnamurti says “I don’t mind what happens.”

After a presentation of roughly an hour, with some questions from the audience, GP opened the floor for further questions. The first question considered the apparent contradiction between spiritual inquiry and the performance of duties demanded by society. GP suggested we ask “who” or “what” is playing the human roles in life. It will be seen that there is actually no self or person performing the roles: there is just an emptiness, an indefinable movement of life. It is a recognition that what we are is the emptiness and not the personal identity or the images projected by thought, which is the source of all our problems. It was asked how we can know the difference between good and evil actions. GP replied that the Emptiness that we truly are is inherently discerning. If we ask what is the most loving thing to do, which is the vital question of each moment, the answer is an inner knowing of the heart. And we learn as we go.

Another questioner asked why the penny doesn’t drop completely or why is the understanding not totally realized for most of us. This opened a good deal of discussion and inquiry into “knowing” and “Being” and the belief in a separate self. As soon as a separate self is believed in, we begin to suffer. We can ask what appearances arise in and what remains when they depart. All preferences can be seen as arbitrary, which activates a letting go of attachment and, therefore, brings freedom.

It was another illuminating meeting with GP and the inquiring participants who joined the event.