I am reading Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas by A.H. Almaas. He makes an interesting differentiation between the perspectives of various traditions.

Some traditions view Ultimate Reality (or God, if you prefer) as, “that which is left when everything that can be removed is removed”. Almaas calls this the Absolute. Other traditions view Ultimate Reality as a state of total completeness which is “all-inclusive, with the manifest and unmanifest existing in nonduality. Everything is present, including the Absolute, which is seen as its inner nature.”

Almaas categorizes the traditions as follows:

The Sufi and Kabbalistic traditions take the view that the Absolute is the ultimate reality. The Indian traditions are divided, with the Vedantists taking the Absolute to be the ultimate, while some of the yogic paths take the state of total completeness to be ultimate. The Buddhists disagree: The Theraveda tradition believes the Absolute is ultimate, while the Tibetan Buddhists are divided.

Almaas does not mention Taoism, but I believe it would fall into the “total completeness” category. We have discussed the difference in Buddhist and Taoist orientation before. I always gravitate towards Taoism, Tantra and yoga, while Laura leans toward Buddhism. Almaas’ explanation of Absolute vs total completeness helped me understand why I felt a fundamental difference between my set of traditions and Laura’s. It is really the difference of understanding oneness as a fullness or an emptiness, everything vs. nothing. Of course, either route leads to the other side of the coin, through fullness you find emptiness, through emptiness you find fullness.

Both orientations lead to nonduality or as Almaas puts it:

In either case, the perception of the unity of all existence - Holy Truth - remains the same. It is the perception that there are no divisions and no duality between things, that everything is one Beingness, one existence. This is the reality beyond egoic reality, true existence independent of the personal mind. It includes everything without any separations, and it does not matter whether you call it God, the One Mind, the state of the Buddha, the Tao, or the Divine Being.

In case you were unaware, we adore A.H. Almaas. We highly recommend his books to anyone interested in understanding themselves and reality.