Question: When going through a guided meditation with you, I find that knowingly being awareness is self-evident. However, when I go off to work, I feel as if I need to ‘keep trying’ to come back to awareness.

This is one of the commonest questions voiced by those on a nondual spiritual path: if awareness is “so obvious,” then why does it seem to “go into hiding” at times?

My answer is divided into three parts.

The Metaphysics

Only awareness is.

That is, advaita means “not two.” There simply aren’t two realities: self and other, self and Self, mind and world, seeker and sought-after, and so on.

Because there aren’t two realities, there can’t be “one” reality. For there to be “one reality,” there’d actually be two: the mind, for instance, and the Self. Follow the reasoning, then: since there’s never been two, there can’t be one. Countability, in short, goes out the window.

Hence (again): only awareness is.

The Epistemic Error

Now, if we’re being totally logically consistent, then there’s nothing more to say.

But since it seems as if there are (at least) two realities, we’re invited to provisionally accept the illusory appearance of separation.

That is, it seems as if I can be separate from awareness.

The Only Practice

The only practice, then, is investigation.

The investigation is self-investigation, or self-inquiry.

Its locus is the I-thought, I-sense, or I-feeling since only the latter gives rises to the apparent illusion that I am separate from That.

And the investigation–to put the matter analytically–could be said to consist of two parts. One, it is asked, “Is there actually a self evident ‘in’ or ‘behind’ this I-thought, I-sense, or I-feeling?”

When it’s experientially understood that there isn’t, then one proceeds to the second part. At which point, it’s asked, “What is the source of this I-thought?” Or: “What am I, truly?” Or: “What is the ultimate nature of this experience?”

Just open here in silence. Just see what happens.

In Review

Ramana Maharshi would say that you can’t reach the Self because you already are It.

Jnana yoga–especially as it’s expressed in self-inquiry–is simply the dissolving of resistance, of misunderstanding, of epistemic error. Self-inquiry is “carried on” until it’s clear that only awareness is. “Never,” says the Vedas, “is it not.”