Radical nonduality can be approached in two ways: as a lived experience and as a philosophy of life. The two can be closely connected, but they are not the same. This distinction matters for the relationship between radical nonduality and Dioramics.
A nondual experience can be profound. The usual separation between a distinct ‘I’ and the world can fall away or recede into the background. What remains is described differently by different people: as oneness, openness, presence, or simply as what is.
As a philosophy of life, radical nonduality makes statements about the meaning of such experiences and about the nature of the self and reality. It may hold, for example, that a separate self does not really exist, that there is no one who acts, or that ultimately there is no separation between subject and object.
From a dioramic perspective, a nondual experience is another way in which the world appears: another diorama. The philosophical explanation of that experience is a further step. Such an explanation may be meaningful, but does not necessarily follow from the experience itself.
The lived experience
In everyday life, we often experience ourselves as someone situated in a world: I look at a tree, I hear a sound, I think a thought. The world then appears more or less opposite a centre called ‘I’.
In a nondual experience, that relationship can change. The tree is seen, the sound is heard, thoughts appear, but the sense of a separate observer may be absent or less pronounced. The experience may be accompanied by a sense of connectedness, ease or freedom, though this need not be the case for everyone.
It is difficult to speak about this without reintroducing the very distinctions that may fall away in the experience itself. As soon as we say ‘I experience oneness’, language has already reintroduced an ‘I’ and an experience. This does not invalidate the experience, but does show how difficult it is to put into words.
From a dioramic perspective, this changed experience need not be explained before it can be taken seriously. It is one possible way in which a world appears, with a quality and meaning of its own.
Another diorama
A diorama is the interrelated whole within which a world appears: not only what is perceived, but also how what appears acquires meaning. The body, memory, expectation, language and a sense of self can play a role within this whole.
In a nondual diorama, the familiar opposition between ‘me here’ and ‘the world there’ may become less self-evident or be entirely absent. From a dioramic perspective, this does not mean that the diorama has disappeared. A world still appears, but the configuration of relations within which it appears has changed.
The word diorama does not necessarily presuppose a separate viewer standing outside experience. The sense of being a viewer can itself be part of what appears. When that sense changes or falls away, the diorama changes with it.
Nor need a nondual diorama be a permanent state. It may occur briefly, recur or come to have a more enduring place in someone’s life. How such an experience develops and what meaning it acquires differ from person to person.
From experience to a philosophy of life
An experience does not speak entirely for itself. People try to understand what has happened to them and place it within a language, a tradition or a story. An experience in which no separate self is found may thus be interpreted as an insight into the fact that a separate self has never existed.
That is one possible interpretation. But the move from I experience no separate self to in reality, no separate self exists is a philosophical step. The first statement describes an experience as well as possible. The second makes a claim about the nature of reality.
The same applies to the experience of oneness. That the world is not experienced as divided may be understood as the revelation of a fundamental unity. But it can also be understood as a change in how the world appears, without definitively establishing what reality is like independently of that appearance.
Dioramics opts for this latter restraint. It neither denies the experience nor explains it away in advance. It distinguishes between the experience and the conclusions drawn from it.
Radical nonduality as a philosophy of life
Radical nonduality is expressed in various ways. Some speakers emphasise that no separate individual exists who owns or directs life. Others maintain that there is nothing to attain, because the presumed seeker is itself part of the appearance of separation.
These statements may resonate with someone’s lived experience. They can also be heard, read and adopted as a worldview. A direct nondual experience therefore need not always precede them.
As a philosophy of life, radical nonduality can challenge existing beliefs. It can raise questions about the idea of an autonomous ‘I’ that stands entirely apart from the world and directs its life independently. In that sense, it can be a valuable partner in dialogue for Dioramics.
At the same time, a nondual philosophy of life can itself become a framework through which the world is understood. Concepts such as oneness, appearance, no one or this is all there is can guide what is noticed and how experiences are interpreted. From a dioramic perspective, these concepts, too, are part of a diorama.
The question of the self
Dioramics does not take the separate self as a self-evident starting point. What we call ‘I’ can be investigated as a changing interweaving of bodily sensations, memories, thoughts, feelings and social relationships.
The sense of being a separate someone can be strongly present, but can also recede into the background. In a nondual diorama, the experience of a centre confronting the world may be absent. In other circumstances, that centre may feel very real and self-evident.
Radical nonduality may conclude from this that, in reality, no separate self exists. Dioramics need neither affirm nor deny that conclusion in order to investigate the experience. It asks how the self appears, under what circumstances this changes and what meaning is given to it.
Awakening as a change of diorama
A profound nondual experience is sometimes described as awakening: the moment when someone sees reality as it truly is. From a dioramic perspective, another description can also be proposed: awakening as a profound change of diorama.
What was previously taken for granted — the sense of being a separate individual, for example — may lose its self-evidence. The world may appear more open, more immediate or less divided. Such a change can have great personal significance and affect the way someone lives.
But the intensity or compelling quality of an experience does not in itself establish that it offers a definitive view of reality free of perspective. From a dioramic perspective, a nondual diorama, too, is a mode of appearing. This need not make it less valuable; it does, however, distinguish it from an ultimate truth about everything that exists.
Affinity and difference
Dioramics and radical nonduality share an interest in what usually seems self-evident. Both can question the sharp separation between an inner self and an outer world. Both leave room to investigate what happens when that separation proves less fixed than we thought.
The difference lies in the significance given to such an inquiry. Radical nonduality may present the absence of separation as the fundamental nature of reality. Dioramics investigates that absence as one possible way in which the world appears: a diorama alongside other dioramas.
In doing so, Dioramics does not seek to prescribe what experience someone should have. Nor does it ask anyone to attain or hold on to a nondual experience. It invites attention to the world as it appears — whether that is a world in which a separate ‘I’ seems strongly present, or a world in which that separation falls away.
For a long time, I lived with the idea that my own lifeworld had to give way to that of the ‘enlightened’ masters and gurus. Their descriptions of freedom, peace and ease were so appealing that I wanted to live that way too. My own experience, with its restlessness, doubt and longing, seemed mainly to point to what I still lacked.
But their lifeworld was not directly accessible to me. I heard their words, read their books and saw how they presented themselves. From this, I formed an image of a life in which something fundamental had been resolved. It was partly this image that I longed for. While hoping to leave my own limitations behind, I measured my everyday life against an image whose full reality I could not know.
From a dioramic perspective, that longing takes on a different meaning. The lifeworld of someone ‘awakened’ need not be the destination of my own life. What someone describes can touch me, broaden my outlook and change how the world appears to me. But for this to happen, my own experience need not first be dismissed as inadequate. My doubt, longing and imperfection, too, belong to the life unfolding here.
See also this article by Miranda Warren