Via Positiva, Via Negativa

Today’s topic is a response to an email that I received from a listener in Indiana. He writes in part:

“So here is the reason I am writing to you… I would like you to talk about what non-dualism IS, as opposed to what it is NOT. It seems, from my dualistic roots, that non-dualism blurs into nothing-ness. In reality, I know this to be wrong. God is Light, which is the presence of all colors, as opposed to darkness, which is the absence of any color. The lie still plaguing my soul is non-dualism is absence, instead of presence. I want a vision of the fullness of non-dualism, to replace the lie that non-dualism is absence. Hopefully, I have not gone too abstract with my words… language just doesn’t fit with the Spiritual!”

I responded to him saying that what he asks is impossible. But Jesus said that if we have faith small as a mustard seed, then nothing will be impossible to us. So here goes.

There are two ways to approach Reality. They are usually called the Via Positiva and the Via Negativa. If you want to sound really educated you can call them the Cataphatic Way and the Apophatic Way. The positive way and the negative way.  In this episode I explore these two ways, and in particular try to express nondual awareness in positive terms.