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.