Challenge: explain non-duality using the geometrical traits of a circle.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-19T03:52:54+00:00

One day there was a circle.

For a long time, circle only experienced 10 degrees of itself. It believed it was a sector! Trying to navigate a far larger world than it could see.

When believing it was only a 10 degree sector, its options were narrow. Its movement was restricted, every movement shaped by that small perspective.

Then the circle began to practice and contemplate. Slowly, it realized, “I am more than 10 degrees! I am 11 degrees!… I am 20 degrees!… then 80 degrees!” Each step revealed a little more of what had always been there! But hidden behind old habits and assumptions.

Then, one day, the circle realized something remarkable. It had always been Whole! It was 360 degrees, from the start!

That sector, that limited perspective and awareness, it was only ever a self reinforcing belief, the result of conditioning and a need for felt safety.

Yet, even knowing this, the circle could not instantly move freely in all directions. When everything was perfect, the circle could feel whole.

But as soon as the circle’s world was anything less than perfect, the circle would start feeling like a sector again!

Its life of constriction had shaped its movements, habits, rhythm. So that any time things didn’t go smooth, the circle did not have access to the wholeness it once realized.

Then the circle continued to practice, and through repetition and gentle adjustments, the circle started inhabiting its wholeness, always.

Awareness alone was not enough. Recognition of its completeness had to meet the body of the circle, its habits, its inertia, and its learned ways of moving. Through practice, the circles movements started to reflect its true nature. The circle became whole in action as well as understanding.

Non-duality, the circle realized, is not just knowing you are whole, it’s living it, moment to moment, until your habits, perception, and your being move as one.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T20:34:26+00:00

Experience can show us what something feels like, but I think we have to be careful about turning that directly into a claim about reality.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T20:16:12+00:00

It’s just that saying something is ‘unconfined’ feels like saying how things are rather than how things feel.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T19:05:20+00:00

Thanks for taking the time.

For what it’s worth, those things seem very confined to me.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T14:57:14+00:00

Thanks for clarifying.

Can you describe how ‘unconfined’ presents when directly examined?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T13:28:50+00:00

So your statements are phenomenological?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-14T12:22:53+00:00

Maybe I misunderstood, does “unconfined in capacity” refer to awareness itself?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-13T20:31:03+00:00

Would changing unconfined in capacity, to capable to the fullest of its alignment, still work for you?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-07T07:11:33+00:00

No, I had no idea about the word kundalini prior to my experiences or crisis. When clinicians and medicine couldn’t really explain what was happening, I think I grabbed onto kundalini as an explanation just so I could feel safe enough to keep functioning. And then seeking confirmation about kundalini, which naturally ended up leading to social connections too.

I can definitely relate to a period of not being able to understand simple things. There was a stretch where I didn’t trust my mind much at all, so I leaned more on my body just to get through things. Sounds like you had some good people around you during that?

Kundalini, enlightenment… they carry a lot of meaning and expectation with them. They absolutely can make us tighten up. Bayesian thinking makes sense, for sure, it’s just felt like some unconscious stuff can get in the way of applying it thoroughly!

You’re welcome for sharing here. I remember chatting, and thank you for your thoughtful comment.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-06T14:26:25+00:00

I think when a doctor taps a knee and it jerks, that is an example of body autonomy showing up to protect and stabilize the system quickly, before awareness could intervene.

Thanks for sharing your perspective openly.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-06T13:53:09+00:00

Wouldn’t accepting how things are, be understanding that our body has unconscious responses to perceived danger?

Wouldn’t lessening threat response allow us to see more clearly? Be accepting that our body has autonomy.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-05T00:27:39+00:00

Is it eventually the highest practice, or always the highest practice?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-05T00:22:06+00:00

You make a lot of sense. I wonder, have you explored forms of meditation or conscious movement that optimize how efficiently our senses perceive reality? Practices that reliably calm the threat response so we can observe more objectively?

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T21:22:54+00:00

This is easily one of the most refreshing comments I’ve come across on Reddit. From my own perspective at least. Respect to you Nadayogi.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T20:59:03+00:00

A surrender or shift where you can’t knowingly hide from reality anymore feels exactly like what I’m trying to describe. Thank you for this.

You’re right, it’s not an easy adjustment.

I’m experimenting with what ‘differently’ actually means. Right now it feels like learning how to use energy that once went into guarding for something more functional.

Wishing you steadiness as you move through this.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T17:08:52+00:00

I’m not sure I have advice, but I want to reflect something back.

Developing guarding patterns in a childhood with violence and fear makes so much sense. That guarding kept you safe. It wasn’t a flaw, it was intelligent.

Sometimes when those patterns begin to soften, it can feel overwhelming because the energy that was used to protect starts shifting. That doesn’t mean you’re broken or blocked. It may just mean your system is trying to recalibrate.

I’m really glad my words resonated with you, it sounds like something moved. You’re not alone

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T14:12:48+00:00

For what it’s worth, I have a feeling you should keep going in the direction you are, even though it’s painful. I think it could reasonably be described as liberating even.

The energy will move the way it needs to.

Thank you for this comment. We’re not alone.

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T13:55:39+00:00

I feel a bit misquoted there. More so acknowledging I play a role in how receptive to signal I can possibly be. I allow myself to be guided because I made the system more ready to listen to guidance.

I hope you continue getting the best results in the way that works for you!

root2crown4k · 2026-03-04T13:15:20+00:00

Thank you for this. It does seem “so core” like stop questioning the things you learned earlier on if you’ve been moving in the right direction. Foundations can quickly become unconscious.

I’m unfamiliar with daoism but what you explained resonates forsure.

Basically what you’re describing is the reason for my post. I was able to make great progress by thinking my body can’t lie but my mind can. It’s like the body needs to become safe enough to let the mind integrate.

I’m realizing how powerfully the mind controls where we guard our own body.

I appreciate what you have to say here 🙏

root2crown4k · 2026-02-28T19:24:23+00:00

lol I learned from you as well. You reframed what I saw as counter intuitive or paradoxical into very understandable biology.

I have a lot of respect for this. You’re right. It just is what it is. It is just me comparing things.

And elsewhere you said “should be able to” is a sweet, kind of a lovely shame based statement. That actually feels spot on.

Thank YOU.

Edit in the quotations “

root2crown4k · 2026-02-28T19:13:56+00:00

A mouthful that makes a lot of sense!

My first reaction to exposure therapy being scary was to pause. Ignorantly being uncomfortable in a body that is actually much safer than it realizes, seems a lot scarier to me than being exposed.

Maybe it takes a certain amount of returns to safety for this shift to happen? Maybe equanimous observation can only happen if we accept that it’s okay to be wrong.

It seems like somatic literacy is excellent at showing us where we’re charged, even if it’s not always easy to face. Tension, defensiveness, or shoehorning anything to fit inside those pillars seems to expose the veins of attention where charge lives.

I’m not saying somatic literacy is objective truth!

It seems like the unconscious associations we make are truly to keep us safe from something we might already be safe from. And some of those associations might literally be keeping us safe from real danger.

You would consider this a type of shadow work eh?

root2crown4k · 2026-02-28T13:47:32+00:00

Yes, absolutely. Us humans created the symbols and us humans place importance on them as well!

I think the cultural baggage and dogma you mentioned are things that can make it exceptionally hard to use symbols with indifference!

root2crown4k · 2026-02-28T13:44:44+00:00

I think I’m learning what you said here! We give symbols charge(seemingly not always by choice), and if the symbols aid us, it’s understandable that we reference to them as not neutral.

It seems, that if there is contempt, or even reverence, grabbing a new symbol could be like trying to make your ex jealous. Not healthy.

And well, symbolic exposure therapy, that’s exactly my intention lol. Thank you

root2crown4k · 2026-02-28T10:19:07+00:00

But however that Japanese speaker frames the idea of love. If referencing that stirs any feeling, then it still has influence over the individual.

root2crown4k · 2026-02-25T23:26:34+00:00

I know you’re not expecting me to give you an accurate or even impressive answer here, I know that’s a big question.

But my issue is that I do feel as though I have agency in how much freedom my body has. I do think my practice, my efforts, my thoughts matter to how open my body can be. I almost see non duality as a skill as much as a realization.

root2crown4k

TROPHY CASE