Intimacy. Union. We experience nonduality when in these states. In other words, our subjectivity and our in-the-moment experience of an object are merged. Subjectivity and objectivity are in union due to the intimacy of the experienced moment, like the bee and flower in the image below. For a human being, recognizing the extinction of the sense of two separate things or beings such that union is the engulfing experience is, in fact, a moment of prajna: nondual wisdom. The key word in the sentence is recognizing.

Our common experience within union is to go with the bliss. Prajna is not on our agenda. Union can be a gardener with his or her plants, two people making love, being awestruck by beauty, or feeling one’s bare feet in contact with Mother Earth. Intimacy can be in conversation, or with a taste in one’s mouth, or an orchestral sound be it from instruments, voice, or Nature. The human opportunities for union and intimacy, thus nondual Presence, are ongoing through each 24 hour day. The opportunities for prajna are as well through those same blissful moments of rapture.

The key is to notice the usually not noticed. Ah, once again, this pithy all encompassing invitation. We don’t notice the fact of nonduality in our most pleasant and Present experiences because the bliss or happiness or feeling of intimacy itself has captivated us completely. That’s not a problem unto itself. Yet, it is the very captivation that is addictive. Captivation also reinforces the subject/object duality, not nondual union and Presence. As a result, human beings categorize this person, this food, this such and such as good/pleasant/desired/and needed and others as not good/unpleasant/to be avoided or rejected/and unnecessary.

Watch this in yourself through one day, one hour even. When one is in union with person, place, or thing, Presence is forefront; subject/object are unified. Wholeness, contentment, and tranquility (with or without bliss) is being experienced. Importantly, in that moment, notice the wholeness and the whole. Add Awareness (prajna) to the rapture.