Tag: paradox

When Simplicity Refuses to Stay Simple

Nonduality appears disarmingly straightforward. Nothing is separate. Reality is one. No division truly exists. The mind nods in agreement, almost bored by how obvious it sounds. That very ease, however, conceals a depth that resists containment. What seems immediately graspable slips away the moment it is examined.

Simplicity unsettles the intellect. Complexity gives the mind something to work with; layers, distinctions, problems to solve. Nonduality offers no such footholds. It removes the scaffolding the mind depends on while leaving awareness intact. The result feels paradoxical: clarity without structure, certainty without conclusion.

The mind instinctively tries to stabilize the insight by forming opposites. Simple versus complex. Absolute versus relative. Unity versus multiplicity. These contrasts feel necessary, even helpful. They provide orientation. Yet nonduality does not deny distinctions; it denies their independence. Distinctions function, but they do not stand alone.

Remove the boundary between simplicity and complexity, and both are revealed as conceptual movements rather than opposing truths. Simplicity contains complexity without effort. Complexity resolves into simplicity without loss. Nothing needs to be excluded for wholeness to be present.

This is where theory reaches its limit. Conceptual understanding can describe the inclusion of all distinctions, but description is not realization. Comprehension at this level is accurate yet incomplete. The mind can map the territory without stepping into it.

Nonduality understood as an idea remains elegant and coherent. Nonduality recognized as reality dissolves the need for coherence altogether. The question of complexity no longer arises, because nothing stands outside what is already complete.

Thought can approach this recognition, but it cannot cross the threshold. The final movement is not analytical but surrendering the need to resolve the paradox. What remains is neither simple nor complex, neither one nor many. What remains is what was never absent…Yet, it is.

Morgan O. Smith

AI for Wellness and Spirituality Summit

February 9 & 10, 2026

https://aiforwellnessandspirituality.com/mosm

Chase Your Own Tail with Full Awareness

The mind has always been fascinated with pursuit; chasing meaning, purpose, love, and even itself. Every spiritual seeker eventually discovers that what is being sought is also what is doing the seeking. This circular dance is not an error of logic but an essential revelation of consciousness attempting to know its own face.

Self-awareness begins as observation: the witness looking at the one who thinks, feels, or reacts. Yet as the circle tightens, the observer realizes it too is being observed. Awareness turns upon itself, chasing its own tail. The chase appears endless, yet there is no distance between hunter and hunted. Each rotation refines perception until the realization dawns; nothing was ever outside the circle.

To chase your own tail with full awareness is to engage life without trying to escape its paradoxes. The ego may protest, craving resolution, but awareness thrives in the friction between motion and stillness. Every question collapses into its own answer when seen through this lens. Each loop reveals that the seeker and the sought are made of the same light, turning endlessly within a field that neither begins nor ends.

Such pursuit is not futility; it is awakening disguised as repetition. The circle is not a trap; it is the geometry of return. The tail you chase is your own forgotten wholeness, the reminder that every step forward curves you back into what has always been whole, complete, and awake.

To awaken is not to stop the chase, but to see that you were never moving at all.

Morgan O. Smith

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Beyond Existence and Non-Existence

The Paradox of God

To say “God exists” is to affirm the ultimate. To say “God does not exist” is to deny the ultimate. Both affirmations and denials, however, are shaped by the mind’s insistence on certainty. The moment one tries to hold onto either pole, a paradox emerges.

When someone claims God exists, they project a reality beyond perception, yet they confine that reality to a category recognizable to human thought. When another claims God does not exist, they too impose a conclusion, binding the ineffable to the limits of negation. Both positions carry a strange truth and a strange error. Both dissolve the moment awareness sees through the duality of affirmation and denial.

Imagine truth as a horizon: from one angle, existence appears; from another, non-existence. Walk closer, and the horizon itself vanishes; it was never a line that could be grasped, but a function of perspective. God is not merely at the horizon but the condition through which horizon, perspective, and perceiver arise.

To say both are true is to honour that reality contains affirmation and negation. To say both are false is to point out that neither claim reaches the source. To say one is true and the other false is to remain in dualistic thought. To call them half-truths is to recognize their limitation yet still attempt to measure the immeasurable. To deny even a half-truth is to bow to silence.

The statement itself, that God exists and does not exist in all these paradoxical ways, becomes the closest gesture to truth. It is not the conclusion but the capacity to hold the contradictions without collapse that reveals God’s existence, not as a concept but as the unnamable presence behind every concept.

The paradox is not meant to be solved. It is meant to exhaust the mind until only awareness remains. What remains is not the proof of God, but the direct realization that the very effort to define or deny was always occurring within and as God.

Morgan O. Smith

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Designed for Longing

The Gift of Dissatisfaction

Satisfaction often appears as a destination, something to be reached, secured, and held onto. Yet the moment one grasps it, a subtle hunger begins to stir again. The new job, the relationship, the recognition, the spiritual experience—all of it, no matter how profound or fulfilling, eventually reveals its transience.

What if this is not a flaw in human nature, but the very design of it? To never be fully satisfied is not a curse but a compass. It pushes us forward, beckoning us into deeper terrains of discovery, love, and creativity. The ache of incompletion is what keeps us alive to possibility. Without it, our spirit would stagnate.

Satisfaction is not the absence of desire but the willingness to engage with desire without being enslaved by it. To live in peace with dissatisfaction is to realize that fullness and emptiness coexist. The longing itself becomes a teacher, whispering that no object, achievement, or moment will ever be enough, because “enough” is not an endpoint, but an ongoing movement.

To accept this is to loosen the grip on perfection. You no longer demand that life provide a final fix, a permanent conclusion. Instead, you walk with the paradox: satisfaction arises from embracing dissatisfaction. The search for completion unveils the truth that nothing was missing in the first place.

The wisdom here is subtle. Contentment does not mean settling. It means seeing the beauty of being forever unfinished, of being shaped by desire but not consumed by it. Your very dissatisfaction becomes evidence that you are part of an unfolding reality, one that will never exhaust its depth.

Satisfaction lies not at the end of longing, but in the freedom to let longing remain.

Morgan O. Smith

Get Your Free Copy of My Book, Bodhi in the Brain!

https://subscribepage.io/oTSZQu

Beyond Comprehension

Dwelling in the Field of Opposites

Want to understand the mind of God? Think of two opposites, accept those two opposites, become the two opposites, go beyond both, erase both, yet include. Even then, it won’t be understood.

Fire and water seem to be opposites. Yet steam arises at their meeting point—a form that is neither purely one nor the other, yet depends on both entirely. This is not the cancellation of difference but its transformation. What appears is both, neither, and something beyond classification.

To become opposites means allowing yourself to be fierce and gentle, clear and confused, bound and free, without settling on any of these as the final truth. It is to hold them fully, see their mutual necessity, and recognize that their apparent contradiction points to something that includes, exceeds, and dissolves them without denying them.

Human longing for comprehension seeks the safety of closure—a single statement that ends all questioning. Yet the source of all perspectives cannot be bound by any one of them. Every claim about it is true, false, and everything in between.

Stepping into the space where opposites remain distinct yet inseparable invites a new kind of seeing. Certainty and doubt illuminate each other. Every perspective holds a partial truth, a partial untruth, and a silent remainder that escapes both.

Silence here is not mere emptiness but a fullness that holds every possibility without settling on any. Words illuminate and obscure in the same breath. Every statement unveils something while hiding something else. Language does not capture what is beyond it but points, imperfectly, toward what cannot be bound.

This is not a teaching about removing opposites so they disappear into sameness. It is about becoming vast enough to hold their full tension, to see that going beyond them does not reject them but includes them in a larger whole. The mind of God is not merely where opposites cease to matter but where their interplay, necessity, and transcendence are equally revealed.

Here, everything can be affirmed, denied, and moved beyond at once. Nothing is excluded. Nothing stands alone.

Morgan O. Smith

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The Dance of Suchness

Nonduality in Search of Itself

Nondual suchness, the ground of all being, appears as duality—not as a mistake, but as an exquisite unfolding of its nature. This dynamic play of form and formlessness is not a separation, but a movement within unity, a way for the infinite to experience itself through the finite. This paradox, where oneness expresses itself as multiplicity, invites profound contemplation.

Duality arises as the perceivable world of contrasts: light and shadow, self and other, birth and death. Yet, these distinctions are mere appearances, like waves on the ocean. Beneath them lies the seamless nondual reality, unmoving and eternal. Why, then, does suchness manifest itself in this manner?

The answer lies not in concepts but in direct experience. Suchness manifests as duality to embark on a journey of rediscovery. The world of form becomes a mirror in which the formless can witness itself. This is the essence of the human experience: a seeming separation that eventually dissolves into the realization that the observer and the observed, the seeker and the sought, are one.

This process is neither linear nor bound by time. It is an eternal play, where the unmanifest takes form and, through the constraints of duality, rediscovers its boundless nature. This unfolding is the essence of life itself—an ongoing revelation of unity within multiplicity.

The search for self is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be embraced. Each moment offers an opportunity to dissolve the illusion of separation and recognize the timeless reality of suchness. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when seen through the lens of nonduality, where the play of duality is understood as a dance of wholeness seeking itself.

Recognizing this truth liberates the mind from its grasping and aversion. The journey of duality becomes an exploration, not a burden. Life, with all its joys and sorrows, becomes a sacred expression of the infinite exploring itself.

To awaken to this is to realize that the search itself was never necessary, for what was sought was always present, always whole. The seeker dissolves, leaving only the suchness that was always there—silent, infinite, complete.

Morgan O. Smith

Yinnergy Meditation, Spiritual Life Coaching & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith

The Paradox of Everlasting Peace

Beyond the Illusion

In spiritual exploration, the quest for peace is often seen as the ultimate goal. We meditate, reflect, and seek to align ourselves with the harmonious currents of existence, all hoping to find a state of unshakable serenity. Yet, within the paradoxical depths of nonduality lies a profound insight: once you find everlasting peace, peace no longer exists.

To understand this enigma, we must delve into the very nature of peace itself. Conventionally, peace is perceived as the absence of conflict, a state where turbulence and chaos are subdued, giving way to tranquillity. It is a fleeting condition, often disrupted by the inevitable fluctuations of life. In pursuing this ideal, we create a dualistic framework: peace versus chaos, calm versus turmoil.

However, the essence of nonduality invites us to transcend this dichotomy. It beckons us to a dimension where distinctions dissolve, and the illusory boundaries between opposites merge into a seamless whole. In this state, peace is no longer a transient phenomenon to be achieved or maintained; it becomes an intrinsic aspect of our being, inseparable from the totality of existence.


When we truly embody this realization, the very concept of peace undergoes a radical transformation. It is no longer something to be sought after, for it is already present in every moment, in every breath. The relentless pursuit of peace implies its absence, perpetuating a cycle of seeking and grasping. But in the awakened state, we recognize that peace is not an external condition to be attained but an ever-present quality of our true nature.

This shift in understanding does not render peace obsolete; rather, it dissolves the notion of peace as something separate from our experience. In the nondual perspective, peace and chaos are not opposing forces but expressions of the same underlying reality. The turbulent waves of existence and the still depths of tranquillity are both manifestations of the infinite ocean of consciousness.

Embracing this insight, we are liberated from the perpetual quest for peace. We cease to measure our inner state against an external ideal, recognizing that every experience, whether serene or turbulent, is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of our true nature. The search for peace transforms into a deepening awareness of the ever-present, unchanging essence that underlies all phenomena.


In this awakened state, we find ourselves in harmony with the flow of life, no longer resisting or clinging to specific outcomes. We become the silent witness to the ebb and flow of existence, resting in the unshakable stillness that is our true self. This is the paradox of everlasting peace: when we no longer seek it, we realize it has always been here, beyond the reach of our striving.

Morgan O. Smith

Yinnergy Meditation, Spiritual Life Coaching & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith

The Paradox of Divinity

Navigating the Infinite Within

In exploring the divine, we often encounter a profound paradox that challenges our linear understanding of existence. The assertion that “God is everything, and everything is God” serves as a gateway to a realm where dichotomies dissolve, and absolutes become fluid. This perspective invites us to consider the omnipresence of the divine in all aspects of existence, transcending the binaries of good and evil, presence and absence, creation and void.

The essence of this assertion lies not just in acknowledging the divine in all that is seen and unseen but also in embracing the inherent contradictions it presents. When we say “God is everything,” we affirm the divine’s presence in every particle of the universe, from the majestic galaxies to the smallest grain of sand. This omnipresence suggests a unifying essence that binds all of creation in a single, divine continuum.

However, the journey does not end with the recognition of divinity. The statement “everything is God” simultaneously opens the door to its negation, implying that if everything embodies the divine, then the divine must also encompass the concepts of non-existence, absence, and even the dualities of good and evil. This paradox challenges us to expand our understanding of divinity beyond the confines of human morality and logic, urging us to embrace a more holistic view of existence where opposites are not in conflict but in an eternal dance.


The notion that “God is both good and evil” invites us to explore the divine not as a judge presiding over a moral dichotomy but as the totality of existence itself, where light and darkness are part of the divine play. It compels us to question our perceptions of morality, good, and evil, suggesting that these are not absolute but relative concepts that emerge from our engagement with the world.

In this light, the divine is not a distant entity governing from above but a presence that permeates every aspect of our reality, inviting us to find the sacred in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary, and the unity in the apparent disarray. It calls us to a deeper understanding of nonduality, where the lines that separate self from other, sacred from profane, and creator from creation blur into insignificance.


This exploration of divinity challenges us to live with paradox, to find comfort in the discomfort of uncertainty, and to seek the divine not just in temples and texts but in the very fabric of our daily lives. It beckons us to see the world with new eyes, where every moment is an opportunity to encounter the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the ephemeral.

Morgan O. Smith

Yinnergy Meditation, Spiritual Life Coaching & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith

The Paradox of the Universe

When we gaze into the vast expanse of the universe, a fundamental question arises: What is the universe made of? It seems like a straightforward inquiry, one that science could answer with theories of matter, energy, particles, and forces. However, upon deeper reflection, the answer becomes less about physics and more about philosophy. The universe, in its most enigmatic form, is made of itself, which paradoxically, is nothing.

This concept, while initially sounding absurd, invites us to explore the nature of existence and the fabric of reality. The universe isn’t just a collection of galaxies, stars, and planets; it’s an intricate tapestry of existence, interwoven with the threads of time, space, and consciousness. To say the universe is made of itself is to acknowledge that it is a self-contained entity, not requiring an external creator or an outside source of substance.


Delving deeper, the idea of the universe being ‘nothing’ challenges our understanding of ‘nothingness’. In philosophy, ‘nothing’ is often considered a state of non-existence, an absence of everything. Yet, in the context of the universe, ‘nothing’ transforms into a concept of boundless potential. This ‘nothing’ is not an emptiness (not in the traditional sense) but a source of all creation, a primordial state from which everything emerged.

This perspective aligns with some interpretations of quantum physics, where the vacuum of space is not empty but teeming with energy and potentiality. It’s in this ‘nothingness’ that particles pop in and out of existence, creating the fabric of reality as we perceive it. Therefore, the universe is made of itself and nothing is not a contradiction but a profound insight into the nature of reality.


The implications of this thought are vast and deeply philosophical. It suggests that the universe, and by extension, our existence, is a self-generated, self-sustaining phenomenon. We are not just in the universe; we are of the universe – an integral part of this grand, incomprehensible entity that is both everything and nothing.

In conclusion, the question of what the universe is made of leads us down a path of deep philosophical contemplation. It reveals that the universe, in its essence, is a paradox, defying the conventional understanding of existence and non-existence. It’s a reminder of the mystery and wonder that surrounds us, an invitation to ponder the unfathomable depths of reality.

Morgan O. Smith

Yinnergy Meditation, Spiritual Life Coaching & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith

Embracing the Paradox of Nonduality

Beyond Cherry-Picking Reality

In pursuing spiritual understanding, the concept of nonduality presents a profound paradox. This philosophy, deeply rooted in various traditions, asserts that reality is an undivided whole, transcending the usual distinctions we make between self and other, here and there, or this and that. Nonduality suggests that these separations are illusions, conceptual divisions in the seamless fabric of existence.

However, a common pitfall in approaching nonduality is what could be termed “cherry-picking.” This is where one selectively embraces aspects of nonduality that appeal to them, while conveniently discarding others. It’s akin to admiring the beauty of a rose while ignoring its thorns. Yet, true nonduality, as a concept, includes and transcends all there is. It encompasses every aspect of existence, leaving nothing out, yet paradoxically, it also transcends everything we can conceive or perceive.


The crux of understanding nonduality lies in its experiential realization. Unlike concepts that can be learned from books or teachings, nonduality must be directly experienced to be truly known. This direct experience often defies language and intellectual comprehension. It’s a state of being where the boundaries that separate the self from the universe dissolve, revealing a fundamental unity.

This direct experience of nonduality often comes in fleeting moments of profound insight or deep meditation. In these moments, the constructs of the mind fall away, and what remains is a sense of oneness with all that is. This experience can be both exhilarating and disorienting, as it challenges the most fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world.


The journey to nondual realization is, therefore, not about acquiring new knowledge but about unlearning – letting go of the deeply ingrained patterns of thought that keep us locked in the illusion of separateness. It’s a process of deconstruction, where one sheds layers of conditioned thinking to reveal the underlying unity of existence.

In embracing nonduality, one must be wary of the temptation to cherry-pick. The whole of existence, with its beauty and brutality, its joy and suffering, is included in the nondual understanding. Nothing is excluded, yet everything is transcended. This paradox is at the heart of nonduality – a reminder that the ultimate truth lies beyond the grasp of our usual ways of thinking and perceiving.

In conclusion, nonduality offers a radical perspective that challenges our conventional understanding of reality. It invites us to look beyond our selective perceptions and embrace the totality of existence. While its true essence can only be known through direct experience, the journey toward this realization can transform our understanding of ourselves and the world.

 Morgan O.  Smith

Yinnergy Meditation & My Book, Bodhi in the Brain…Available Now!

https://linktr.ee/morganosmith