Mindfulness and Nonduality: Are They Really Different?
For a long time, I felt that Buddhist mindfulness and nondual contemplation were much closer than many people assume. At first glance, they appear different. Nondual teachings often use ideas such as “everything is one” or “I am everywhere.” Mindfulness, on the other hand, appears much simpler. It asks us to observe thoughts, sensations, emotions, and external events without judgment.
Yet when I looked at my own experience, I found that mindfulness itself seemed to contain the seed of nonduality.
In mindfulness, both inner and outer experiences are allowed to appear together. Thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, sights, people, objects, and events are all given space within awareness. The mind does not immediately reject one thing and accept another. Judgment gradually weakens because thoughts and objects themselves do not judge. They simply exist.
As more and more experiences are allowed into awareness, the mind becomes increasingly full. In this sense, mindfulness can be understood literally. The mind becomes full of inner and outer conditions together. Nothing is deliberately excluded. Everything is allowed to express itself within awareness.
This naturally creates a sense of equality. Thoughts become equal to sensations. Inner experiences become equal to outer experiences. Objects become equal to feelings. The usual hierarchy created by the mind begins to weaken.
At this stage, nonduality may begin to emerge naturally.
Why I Found Some Nondual Contemplations Artificial
Many nondual teachings encourage contemplation through ideas such as “I am everything” or “I am everywhere.” Such contemplations may be useful in certain stages of practice. They can help establish a nondual orientation within the mind.
However, I personally found that these statements sometimes felt artificial.
During actual awakening experiences, there was no thought repeating, “I am everything.” There was no need to mentally convince myself of anything. The experience itself revealed a state in which everything already appeared equal.
For this reason, I gradually felt that mindfulness seemed more practical and more natural. Instead of forcing a philosophical conclusion, mindfulness simply allows reality to become present. If nonduality is genuine, it can emerge naturally from that openness.
In my own experience, mindfulness appeared closer to awakening than conceptual affirmations. You could add it as:
Looking back, I no longer feel that nondual contemplation and mindfulness are opposed to each other. During awakening itself, there was no need to think, “I am everything” or “I am everywhere.” The experience was direct and self-evident. However, in ordinary life mindfulness does not always remain equally strong. When mindfulness weakens, nondual contemplation can help restore it. I often find that contemplating, “Whatever exists, I am already therein,” naturally replenishes mindfulness and reduces the sense of separation. Earlier, I practiced such contemplations continuously, and their effectiveness increased greatly through Sharirvigyan Darshan and later Quantum Darshan. These contemplative frameworks gave practical depth and logic to nondual thinking, helping the mind become more inclusive, less judgmental, and more mindful. In my experience, nondual contemplation serves as a powerful support for establishing and renewing mindfulness, while mindfulness itself naturally grows toward awakening.
My Natural Mindfulness During Adolescence
Looking back again, I can now see that a natural form of mindfulness developed during my adolescence, especially during my secondary school years.
At that time, I was not consciously pursuing spirituality. I was not practicing nondual philosophy. I was not trying to become enlightened. Nor was I deliberately cultivating or sustaining a meditation image. If a meditation image appeared in the mind, it arose naturally through affection, devotion, or attraction rather than through intentional effort. There was no attempt to force, maintain, or strengthen it. Whatever emerged did so spontaneously, as a natural part of life and experience.
Therefore, instead, many different things gradually became present in my mind. Different friends, teachers, subjects, ideas, books, experiences, and observations all seemed to coexist within awareness. There was curiosity, but there was no particular goal behind it.
Life itself was entering the mind.
Nothing was being deliberately contemplated. Nothing was being forced. The mind simply became increasingly inclusive.
Many different kinds of knowledge and experience accumulated naturally. Looking back, this resembles mindfulness in a broad sense. Awareness was becoming fuller without deliberate effort.
How Fullness Gradually Developed
As this process continued, I noticed that the mind became increasingly spacious and inclusive.
It seemed that mindfulness was not merely paying attention to one thing. Instead, it was allowing more and more of reality to be present simultaneously.
First the mind becomes somewhat full.
Then it becomes more full.
Then even more full.
Everything in nature tends to grow. In a similar way, fullness itself seemed to grow.
The more inclusive awareness became, the less room remained for rigid judgment and separation.
Without realizing it, I was moving toward a completely different state of consciousness.
My First Awakening in a Dream State
Eventually, during adolescence, this process culminated in a brief awakening experience that occurred in a dream state.
The experience lasted only about ten seconds, yet it remains one of the most significant moments of my life.
During those few seconds, something extraordinary happened.
Everything inside and outside appeared equal.
Thoughts and external scenes seemed to exist within the same field.
Judgment disappeared.
The usual sense of separation weakened dramatically.
Most importantly, the mind felt completely full.
This fullness was unlike ordinary mental activity. It was not simply a collection of thoughts and sensations. Instead, it felt as though the mind had become connected to an infinite void.
Infinite Void and Infinite Fullness
Ordinarily, people think of fullness and emptiness as opposites.
However, during that awakening glimpse, they seemed to become one.
The void did not feel empty in the ordinary sense. Instead, it felt limitless.
Because awareness appeared connected to something infinite, the mind simultaneously felt completely full.
Thoughts, sensations, memories, and external scenes appeared within that vastness like waves appearing within an ocean.
The experience did not require any philosophical conclusion.
There was no thought saying:
“I am everything.”
“I am everywhere.”
The understanding was direct rather than conceptual.
Everything simply appeared equal within a limitless field of awareness.
The Absence of Judgment
One of the most striking aspects of the experience was the complete absence of judgment.
Normally, the mind constantly evaluates.
This is good.
That is bad.
This should stay.
That should go.
During the awakening glimpse, this activity vanished.
Objects did not judge.
Sensations did not judge.
Thoughts did not judge.
Everything simply appeared.
This absence of judgment created a profound sense of equality throughout experience.
Inner and outer reality seemed to stand on equal ground.
Human Forms and Natural Scenes
The awakening did not begin through deliberate contemplation of a meditation image.
Natural scenes appeared first.
Later, a few human forms appeared.
Among them were images that resembled a devotee and a goddess-like Devrani figure.
These may have arisen from memory.
However, they did not function as meditation objects.
They were not the cause of awakening.
They simply appeared within the experience like everything else.
Nothing possessed special status.
Everything appeared equally within awareness.
This is important because it distinguished the experience from later meditation practices that involved deliberate concentration upon a meditation image.
Mindfulness as Preparation for Awakening
Looking back, I increasingly felt that mindfulness functions as a preparation for awakening.
As mindfulness deepens, awareness becomes more inclusive.
Judgment weakens.
Rejection weakens.
The mind becomes fuller.
Eventually, fullness may become so complete that it opens into the infinite.
At that point, awakening can arise naturally.
For this reason, mindfulness appears to me not merely as a technique but as a developmental process leading toward deeper states of consciousness.
In this sense, mindfulness may be understood as preparation for awakening, samadhi, and increasingly nondual states of awareness.
A Reflection
My first awakening did not arise from philosophical study. It did not arise from repeating nondual formulas. It did not arise from deliberate meditation upon a particular image.
Instead, it emerged from a gradual expansion of awareness.
Friends, teachers, knowledge, books, lectures, experiences, observations, memories, and life itself became increasingly present within the mind.
The mind became full.
That fullness continued to expand.
Then, for a brief moment lasting about ten seconds, fullness extended into the infinite.
In that moment, everything appeared equal.
Judgment disappeared.
Bliss arose.
The infinite void and infinite fullness became one.
And awakening revealed itself directly.
Demystifying Kundalini 