Self-help is a dead-end because it’s going in the wrong direction. “How can I…?” is the wrong question based on the wrong setup. How can this conclusion be understood?

1. The separate, inside self emerges at the same time that the separate, outside world emerges. You can’t have one without the other. Hence, Ramana Maharshi will often say, “When the mind rises, the world rises.”

2. The separate, inside self is lack. For instance, it feels that it’s not loved, unworthy, insignificant, etc.

3. Being lack, the separate, inside self posits or projects happiness, peace, or fulfillment out there in the world. Thus, it takes whatever it’s lacking to be an object: wealth, home, relationship, success, status, personal love, etc.

4. Having projected or posited this happiness out there in the world, the separate, inside self thus desires and, in turn, has to seek this very object out there in the world. As Rupert Spira points out, “The separate self is not an entity; it’s an activity.” It’s, indeed, the very activity of seeking.

5a. When the separate, inside self secures the object, the seeking temporarily subsides. This is a glimpse of peace itself. 

5b. Or the separate, inside self does not get what it seeks.

6. Either way, soon the separate, inside self rises again and tries to secure that object or one like it in the hope of coming to rest. In fact, the separate, inside self keeps “iterating” on objects–changing, refining, specifying, and so on–with a view to securing that which it ultimately seeks.

7. It must be understood not only that the separate, inside self’s project is hopeless or impossible but also that the cycle of suffering, just so long as the outward-going seeking continues, is interminable. What has been described in 1-6 shows the deadlock built into the very setup.

8. Therefore, the key, so far as the path of knowledge (jnana yoga) is concerned, is to stop seeking. One stops by turning around to (a) investigate the separate, inside self and to (b) discover that there’s ultimately the true subject alone: that is, awareness.

That is, in lieu of continuing to accelerate forward, ones goes in reverse:

• Who is the seeker? What is this ego?
• Who is the ultimate? What is awareness?

9. How does the path end? With the recognition, first, that one is awareness and, little by little, that all is awareness alone.

1. You must understand, via a searching, deep inquiry, that dukkha is almost ubiquitous. This is true in two senses: you experience loads of discontent and thus long for contentment (ananda in sense 1). And you experience lots of disturbances, intrusions, agitations, volatilities, and restlessnesses and thus long for abiding peace (ananda in sense 2). 

You need to crack open your shell. If you don’t get the stunning near-ubiquity of dukkha experientially, then the nondual teaching, especially that of the Direct Path, won’t carry a sense of urgency. It’ll be sorta intellectually interesting–nice but without teeth; like going to a French salon or a Russian bath once a month–but not much besides that.

Go deep inside until you find the lion’s heart. You need to be a bit of a madman; let your hair be ablaze.

2. Next, you definitely need to grok the fact that worldliness won’t end suffering. You really need to pony up and be honest with yourself. Are you still trying to find the perfect place? Are you biting hard onto the idea of “having a calling” or of “offering your gifts to the world”? Are you gripping onto being a do-gooder? Are you doing cool spiritual things in order to acquire peak experiences? How about wealth, success, the perfect relationship, a great family–any takers? Make a searching inquiry of your attempts to squeeze onto the world in the hope of finding the end to suffering–and see clearly that it doesn’t work; that it won’t work; that it can’t work…….

You should be banging your head up against the wall and should feel that there’s no way out–no way but that expounded upon in Pt. 3.

3. Only once the first two points are thoroughly ingested will the “inward-facing path” make any concrete, tangible sense. It effectively says: “Stop caring about ending your suffering, and just find out who the one that is suffering actually is.” This is the turn from “it” to “I.” For Ramana Maharshi, this takes one into self-inquiry. For Atmananda, this involves traveling, so to speak, from objective experiences into the very heart of consciousness.

4. The point is that, henceforth, the subject pole is emphasized. Objects become pointers to this very same subject.

If you’ve come all the way to Pt. 4 in earnest, then you’ve gotten to the trailhead. Now: let’s begin.

When you squint hard, you’ll be able, for a short time anyway, to focus on a sight, one that may be at a distance. Notice that you’ll feel the sense of separation between you, the apparent seer, and the squinted at object. This is the gross level.

Suppose someone tells you to relax and to sink back into open, panoramic seeing. At this subtle level, you experience a dreamlike composition in which there’s a complete allowing. Seeing flows or floats while there remains a lovely wakefulness.

And what is this wakefulness? That’s you! Sink back naturally into being the gentle, spontaneous knowing that knows this relaxed, panoramic seeing. This is the “level” that’s beyond both the gross and the subtle. In fact, it’s no level at all.

Abide naturally as yourself, as this wide open wakefulness, as the nameless, knowing presence that you essentially are.

“[T]he knowledge ‘I am,'” states Rupert Spira in Being Aware of Being Aware, “is the experience in which the finite mind and infinite awareness intersect.”

We can, in fact, find at least three privileged intersections: “I am,” here, and now.

Do You Exist?

If someone were to ask you, “Do you exist?,” then you would be taken to the self-evident experience of aware presence. You wouldn’t think of something or other about yourself. You wouldn’t think that you were young or old, wealthy or poor, successful or unsuccessful. That’s because you wouldn’t think of anything at all. Instead, you would only experience simple, wakeful being.

This is an immense clue as to what you truly are. As the extroverted tendencies (samskaras) slowly dissolve, you’ll come not just to “visit” “I am” but to abide as “I am.” You’ll recognize that you’ve always been your essential being. You’ll taste the sweetness of awareness.

Where Is It?

Ordinarily, we think of “here” and “there.” But if someone were to ask you, “Where is your current experience occurring?,” you’d say, “Here.” And what about this experience? “Here.” The plane flying overhead might seem as if it’s “over there,” but the experience of seeing is, without question, always occurring “here.” The truth is that you’ll never actually discover “there” or “over there.” Rather, what you’ll find is that “here” is spaceless being: the very same wakeful being that is present as “I am.”

When Is It?

When is the current experience appearing? “Now.” And when is this memory thought appearing? “Now.” And when is this thought about an upcoming event appearing? “Now.”

Indeed, all experiences are only ever occurring “now.” Yet if they’re only ever occurring “now,” then there is no such thing as the past as such nor is there such a thing as the future as such. To be sure, there are thoughts about the past as well as thoughts about the future, yet both of these thoughts are appearing right when all other experiences are appearing, and that is “now.”

And if there’s no past or future existing in its own right, then what is one to make of the present moment? There is no present moment if the latter is understood as an event unfolding through time. Instead, there’s only “the eternal now” (in the words of Meister Eckhart).

The eternal now is the very same essence as that which is discovered through the inquiry into “I am.”

Three Portals, One Truth

An inquiry into “I am” reveals awake, aware presence. An inquiry into “here” reveals spacelessness; that into time reveals timelessness.

Spacelessness, timelessness, and aware presence are just three different names for the same thing. And this thing is not a thing. It’s the nameless truth that puts an end to all inquiries.

The ignorant person and the Sage, let’s say, find themselves in the desert. Both see the appearance of a pool of water in the distance.

The ignorant one, exclaiming “Finally, I will slake my deep thirst!,” runs toward it, only to discover that it’s a mirage. It’s actually just a heap of sand–just sand and more sand.

Meanwhile, the Sage, an enlightened being, is not surprised. He only ever saw the reality that is sand even though the appearance of the pool of water was no less and no more evident to him that it was to the ignorant person.

This is the only difference between the ignorant one and the Sage: both see the same appearances, but only the Sage knows–always–the underlying and all-pervasive Reality.