There Can Only Be One Reality of Awareness
The very notion of “reality” points to that which is fundamentally true, the ultimate ground from which all else arises and within which all experience unfolds. From the nondual perspective, this ultimate reality is not a collection of separate objects or events, but a singular, unbroken field of awareness. The apparent multiplicity we perceive—the subjects and objects—are temporary, localized expressions within one, unified field of consciousness.
There can only be one ultimate reality of awareness. When we posit the existence of two or more distinct and separate awarenesses, a question arises. In what larger reality do they exist and interact (or fail to interact)?
For independent awarenesses to exist, there would need to be a larger framework, a more encompassing reality to contain them. This larger reality would be the true ground. And if this larger reality is itself aware, which is a consistent theme in sacred texts around the world and which is also our own direct experience of reality, then we have, in essence, returned to the concept of a single, overarching awareness that encompasses all. We are back to the One.
The experience of individual consciousness, the feeling of “I am aware,” or “I am,” is not a separate pocket of awareness distinct from some other awareness. Rather, it is the one universal awareness manifesting itself through the lens of individual body-minds. Just as sunlight appears as individual rays when refracted through different prisms, infinite awareness appears as individual consciousnesses when filtered through the faculties of perception. The light, however, remains one and the same, unchanged.
So the idea of multiple, fundamentally separate realities of awareness is inherently contradictory. Any attempt to define a second, independent awareness invariably leads to the necessity of a larger reality in which to exist. Since reality is undeniably aware—you are reading these words—it follows that awareness itself must be the fundamental and singular nature of reality.
“Whoever knows their self, knows their Lord.”