💖 The Threshold of Wholeness: An Invitation to the Quiet Center

There comes a moment in every genuine life when the busy, chattering world—the one we’ve worked so hard to master—begins to lose its color. We stand at a threshold, feeling the gentle tug of a larger, unnamed reality just beyond the frantic pace of our own doing. We realize, perhaps with a quiet ache, that the meaning we seek is not out there to be hunted down, but in here, waiting patiently to be discovered.

This is the moment of Contemplation, not as a chore, but as an art of surrender. Like a tide that always returns, it calls us back to our deepest, unedited self. In this deep breath of quiet, we begin to feel the weary weight of “me versus everything else” lift. We recognize that the universe is not waiting for us to figure it out, but is already holding us, completely and without condition.

This journey is about finding the End of Two—the grace of Non-Duality. It is the simple, breathtaking realization that the seeker and the sought, the human and the divine, are not separated by an infinite gulf, but merely by a mistaken thought. To contemplate is to open our inner eye, not to a new God, but to the truth that God is the life we are already living, the very ground beneath our feet, and the shared, unbroken heart we all carry.

The true spiritual art is not in doing more, but in stopping—in resting in a quality of silence so profound that the restless, calculating mind surrenders its need to control and critique. This is the heart of contemplation: the conscious purification that moves us from mere self-actualization into the boundless reality of God-realization. Contemplation and non-duality is all about the art of how we go from one, immature, judging and fleshy egoic mind to a realised mind that sees reality just as it is, without the veils of egoic self-deception.

Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith.

Contemplation and non-duality is a discipline rooted in wisdom, born from the simple, radical decision to meet as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form.

1. The Death of the False Self: Silence and the True I

Before God-realization, we must confront the inner wall of our false self, that “illusory person” Thomas Merton described—the collection of roles, anxieties, and demands for approval that constantly whispers, “I am not enough.” Contemplation is the instrument that cuts through this noise.

When we commit to silence, we are not escaping; we are engaging in a necessary death. We are dying to the endless mind-chatter that is “repetitive and immensely self-referential,” as Richard Rohr notes. The contemplative sits and allows the superficial self to exhaust itself, waiting patiently for the emergence of the True Self—the self that is “hidden in the love and mercy of God” and which is utterly incapable of commenting upon itself.

The Art of Stopping: Contemplation, the End of Two Minds

The paradox here is essential: the deepest knowledge of God comes not from thinking about God, but from unknowing. Contemplation is a spiritual vision that is “too deep to be grasped in images, or in words.” It is the moment we realize we are not defined by our anxieties or our achievements, but by the love that is the source of our very being.

2. The Non-Dual Gaze: The End of Judging

This process of quiet surrender leads directly to the core of conscious awareness: the Non-Dual Gaze.

The dualistic mind, which dominates our society and religion, is a tool for survival. It loves to label, to judge: good/bad, in/out, worthy/unworthy. It is “endlessly argumentative,” dividing the whole of creation into two opposing camps. But contemplation is the “end of two,” the radical acceptance that reality does not need us to like it in order to be reality.

Contemplation teaches us to move beyond this dualistic thinking to a “panoramic, receptive awareness.” It is the practice of holding the apparent opposites together in one accepting gaze, realizing that the light and the shadow, the joy and the sorrow, the success and the failure are all part of the same seamless, interconnected whole. God is not just the ‘good’ part of reality, but the totality of it—the “both/and.”

By embracing non-duality, we stop fighting the moment and start receiving the Naked Now. The deep spiritual meaning of life is unveiled when we realize we are not separate, isolated observers, but participants in the Divine Life that pulses through all things.

3. The Fruit: Meaning, Empathy, and the Omega Point

As Mark L Lockwood emphasizes when it comes to Contemplation and non-duality, spiritual contemplation is the concentration of body-heart-mind and soul together, which unifies all aspects of who we are. It eliminates the “ego identities’ separation perspective,” grounding us into genuine, radical empathy.

• Meaning is Found in Giving Away: When the false self dissolves, we find that our purpose is not to acquire or achieve for ourselves, but to become a transparent vessel for universal love. We find God in others by recognizing our shared, hidden True Self.
• Conscious Awareness is Perpetual Presence: The conscious mind, birthed by contemplation, learns to live in the eternal NOW. We stop living in the past’s memory or the future’s anxiety, and find the Christ Principle—the Divine reality—right here, in this moment.
• The Omega Point is the Guide: Contemplation connects us to that “mysterious and invisible force” that guides us, refusing to let us settle or stay the same. It is the unceasing call to consciousness, a deepening into mystery that is not a finished line, but an Omega Point—the absolute limit of complexity and consciousness toward which everything is evolving.

“To be contemplative is to be truly intelligent. It is a lost art. Everyone jumps at their first thoughts, without considering a second thought, or their feelings, which are the short-hand scripts for the mind”.

The spiritual art of Contemplation and non-duality is simply the daily, humble commitment to sit on the park bench and wait for the heart to listen profoundly to the pure Love that is already sitting right next to us. We remain beginners all our life, but in that very humility, we are held and transformed. So, Come. Let us step tenderly across this threshold and listen for the wisdom that resides in the quiet center.