In Astavakra Samhita, Astavakra states, “Cultivate indifference to everything” (X.1).

With the help of the direct path teaching of Atmananda, we can easily grasp what “everything” means. By “everything,” we mean “experience” or “direct experience.” When we ask, “What sorts?” we then come to a very simple, and provisional, taxonomy: perceptions (the world); sensations (the physical body); energy (the energy body); thoughts, feelings, and desires (the finite mind).

Then what does it mean to cultivate indifference to all of the above? Very simply:

• Can you let seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling successively appear without “bookending” that arising with likes or dislikes?
• Can you let any sensations appear without “bookending” that arising with attachments or aversions?
• Can you let energy appear without “bookending” that arising with any fascinations or repulsions?
• And can you let any thoughts, feelings, and desires appear without “bookending’ that arising with likes or dislikes?

Without any attachments or aversions, you naturally turn inward, going back the way you came. You “float back” to being-consciousness. It’s as if you were cutting wholly imaginary ropes that seemed to tie you–being-consciousness–to the world, the body, energy, or the mind.

Elegantly, this approach not only initiates pratyahara (“sense withdrawal”) but also, little by little, enables one to stabilize in being-consciousness itself.