Depth and Existential Angst in Nondual Therapy

When I speak of depth in the context of nondual therapy, I’m not referring to a process of digging or going somewhere beneath the surface in the usual sense. Rather, I’m pointing to the depth of presence itself - a kind of depth that is not measured by effort, insight, or duration, but known in the immediacy of being.

This depth is not something separate or distant. It is always here. Always now. It cannot be added to or improved upon. And yet, as our identification with surface-level experience dissolves, we begin to feel this presence more vividly - not as an idea, but as the living, intelligent field of what we are. The more clearly presence recognises itself, the more apparent its infinite nature becomes.

The Depth of Presence Is Not Conceptual

The word "depth" can mislead us into imagining there's somewhere else to get to, something further to attain. But in nonduality, the depth I speak of is the very transcendence of this moment. It’s not a layer beneath the moment -it is the moment, unfiltered by mind, undistorted by story. It is the quiet, luminous field in which all things arise and pass.

As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said:

"When you demand nothing of the world, nor of God, when you want nothing, seek nothing, expect nothing, then the Supreme State will come to you uninvited and unexpected." 

This Supreme State is not an achievement - it is presence itself, recognised, as its own self-revealing.

Existential vs. Psychological Suffering

To commit to depth in nondual therapy is to be willing to move beyond the surface strategies of the fragmented self. Conventional therapy often works at the level of the psyche -healing wounds, reframing beliefs, integrating parts. While valuable and absolutely included in the nondual approach, conventional approaches tend to spin at this 'layer'. This often serves to make the fragmented self more functional, rather than dissolving the illusion of separateness itself.

From a nondual perspective, psychological and emotional suffering - the pain of rejection, abandonment, shame, or fear - is the visible layer. Beneath that, or more accurately through that, lies existential suffering: the pain of feeling separate from life. It is an energetic disconnection, the root angst of "I am not whole," "I am not safe," "I am alone."

Existential Angst: The Root and the Doorway

This existential angst is not pathological. It is not a flaw in the human system. It is the seed impulse of the separate self and, paradoxically, the seed of liberation. As long as we avoid this core pain, the personality will continue to spin stories, strategies, desires, and fears to avoid it - an endless cycle of seeking.

Desire in this sense arises not as a pure expression of being, but as an escape from fear. Every longing that seems personal is, in truth, an echo of the deeper yearning to return to what we are. But we rarely meet that longing directly, because it means turning toward what we have spent lifetimes avoiding. What's more, this is normalised. Everyone is doing it - including the majority of our healing and improvement spheres. 

Examples of Existential vs. Surface Patterns

• Existential Fear: I am ultimately alone, separate from life. Surface Pattern: Fear of abandonment, need for relationship, co-dependency.

• Existential Fear: I am meaningless. Surface Pattern: Compulsive achievement, drive for success or recognition.

• Existential Fear: I do not exist in any real way. Surface Pattern: Fear of being overlooked, desire to be seen or understood.

• Existential Fear: I will be annihilated or lost.Surface Pattern: Control, perfectionism, obsessive self-protection.

• Existential Longing: To merge back into the totality of life. Surface Desire: Romantic idealisation, spiritual seeking, addiction to peak experiences.

  
  

As J. Krishnamurti comments:

"The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence." 

To rest in the presence that observes even our most painful existential contractions without judgment is the beginning of true integration.

Meeting the Existential Is the Activation of Awakening

To meet existential fear is not to wallow in darkness. It is to activate the latent intelligence that awakens us. These fears are invitations to awaken from the illusion that we are separate from life. They are not problems to solve. They are seeds of our birthright - in plain view. The challenge arises because, these aforementioned existential fears, from the perspective of being a separate person in a body, in a world - they are true, and the experience is real. So, we will FEEL this through the activation of self-revealing.

For example, the fear of 'I will be annihilated or lost' - to an illusory separate self, through the process of nondual awakening where all that is false is illuminated and what is real remains - this is fear is 'true'. There is intelligence to it. A clue - but not one that can be understood conceptually. It must be investigated through exploring its nature directly through the felt sense. This means feeling what is here. What is created through this belief in separation must be explored through a radically empirical means. We can't think our way out of it - and this is not a mistake. Indeed, recognising the fact that we cannot think our way out of it is the greatest gift that we can receive in a human lifetime.

The way out is through

If we avoid these fears, our seeking continues -only changing shape but never resolving. When we finally turn to face the root separation, without trying to change it, something remarkable happens: - we come into direct contact with the ground of being. And in that contact, transmutation occurs.

This isn’t self-help. It is Self-remembrance.

The Role of Nondual Therapy

Nondual therapy, which is a natural commitment as this depth, is not about symptom management. It is a sacred container in which the false self can begin to dissolve, not by force, but by being truly seen. It is a meeting place where the deepest human vulnerability is held in the vastness of what cannot be broken.

As Sri Nisargadatta said:

"The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." 

To touch the truth of who we are is to allow the structure of the seeker to collapse.

Depth Is Here - and is everything that is truly longed for

Ultimately, depth is not elsewhere. It is not found by going forward or backward in our personal narrative. It is known when we stop, rest, and remain as the presence we already are. To live from this presence is to allow all that is false to fall away, and to discover that the fullness we longed for was never missing.

This is the path and the power of nondual therapy: the willingness to meet everything, even the unbearable, in the light of what cannot be destroyed.

Let it be seen.

Let it be met.

Let it be undone.

Again, as I paraphrase Nisargadatta - 'be friendly with it - it is here to dissolve you'