Summary 

This article summarizes the pivotal task of moving into nondual awareness by seeing through the veil of the separate self. Formerly this nondual state was understood as the final stage in an arduous journey of ego-transcendence; but nondual psychotherapists are now recognizing this nondual state as readily available to clients as part of the therapeutic process. The first author recounts his own journey of seeing through the illusion of the separate self and embracing nondual awareness.  Following this, he presents a nondual psychotherapy case study describing the process of a client having an awakening experience – the letting go of her egoic separate self in the moment – and her subsequent realization that surrendering is not a one-time event but an ongoing process.

Gary Nixon PhD, has been on the nondual 'pathless' path for over 25 years, is a transpersonal psychologist, and professor in the addiction counseling program at the University of Lethbridge. He has been facilitating nondual groups for the past ten years.

Nancy Sharpe BA BHSc, became excited about Wilber’s spectrum of consciousness model in her undergraduate counselor training and, after some pivotal transformational experiences, is contemplating a Master’s program in transpersonal art therapy.

Introduction: A Personal Account

I woke up suddenly gripped by terror. I could see myself desperately clinging to a self that was trying to survive forever. It was as if  the self might struggle for an eternity to go on but perpetually exist in fear of its own extinction. It was a terrible sensation of abject terror to consider that the self could endlessly remain in utter fear. I could plainly comprehend there was nothing to grab onto; that nothing was available to save me. Seeing that eternal condition and the absolute hopelessness of the situation, I let go – or rather letting go happened of its own accord. And then abruptly there was just vast stillness and silence. (Author’s journal entry)

A Turn to Transpersonal Psychology

        To understand and deal with the issue of ego death, separate self dissolution, and self-transcendence, one can turn to a strand of Western psychology that has developed over the last forty years to incorporate the full spectrum of psycho-spiritual development. Maslow (1968), one of the founding fathers of the transpersonal psychology movement, pointed out that religious experience is a higher or transcendent possibility occurring at the further reaches of human nature. In his view, this necessitated the development of a fourth psychology, one that is “transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interests, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization, and the like” (pp. iii-iv).

        Extensive work has now been done in the area of self-transcendence in Western psychology (Almaas, 1996, 2008; Assagioli, 1971; Boorstein, 1996; Grof, 1985, 1988; Hixon, 1978; Walsh & Vaughan, 1980, 1993; Washburn, 1988, 1994). However, much of the pioneering work in transpersonal psychology has been conducted by Ken Wilber (1977, 1986, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2006) who, through his integral model, has created a spectrum of consciousness system by synthesizing psychology, philosophy, and religion from both Western and Eastern perspectives.

        Wilber (1986) originally mapped out ten principal levels of psyche in a developmental, structural, holarchical, systems-oriented format. He synthesized the initial six stages from cognitive, ego, moral, and object relations lines of development of conventional psychology represented by such theorists as Piaget (1977), Loevinger (1976), and Kohlberg (1981). The final four transpersonal stages were developed from Eastern and Western sources of contemplative development such as Mahayana, Vedanta, Sufi, Kabalah, Christian mysticism, Yoga, Aurobindo, and Zen.  

        Since his early conceptions (Wilber, 1986), Wilber (2000, 2006) has moved away from a simple stacking of contemplative stages atop conventional stages and, instead, introduced the Wilber-Combs Lattice in which structures or stages of consciousness (archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, integral, super-integral) are placed on the vertical axis, and the major states are placed on the horizontal axis (gross, subtle, causal, nondual). Thus each structure can be experienced from a number of states. Similarly, each state can be experienced from a number of different structures. For Wilber (2006), this explained how two people can both be in a nondual state but interpret it from a different structure i.e., one using a rational structure and the other using an integral or super-integral structure.  Nondual states, as well as the other states, may be experienced from a number of different structures of consciousness.

        Wilber (2000, 2006) has made clear that the transpersonal states beyond normal, waking, gross consciousness are available to each one of us in day-to-day life. Wilber (1990) described the subtle state as one which “is marked by transmental illumination, intuition, and beginning gnosis, which brings a profound insight into the fundamental or archetypal forms of being and existence itself” (p.92). In certain traditions, such as Gnosticism and Hinduism, this is the state of direct phenomenological apprehension of personal deity-form (Wilber, 1986). The causal state is the realization of the unmanifest source or transcendental ground of existence. In various different traditions, it is referred to as the abyss (Gnosticism), the void (Mahayana), and the formless (Vedanta) (Adi Da, 1973; Goleman, 1988; Wilber, 1986). Here, all manifest forms are radically transcended so that they no longer need to appear or arise in consciousness. Thus, there is transcendence and release into boundless radiance and formless consciousness where there are no subjects and objects apart from consciousness as such. The final state is the nondual, which is an integration of form and formlessness where “the center of formlessness is shown to be not other than the entire world of form” (Wilber, 1990, p.99). In this state of consciousness, the extraordinary and the ordinary, the supernatural and the mundane are precisely one and the same. At this level of complete integration of formlessness and form, as well as at all prior levels as they arise, the ‘suchness’ of all levels is enjoyed and the attachment to manifest existence is lost (Wilber, 1986).    

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