1. You start out with the belief that you are a separately existing self in a world of other, separately existing things that live within a reality called space and time. Separation is the name of the game here. Almost everyone that comes to a nondual teaching is here. You heavily privilege appearances because that is all you see--separate appearances.

2. You see that what you took to be separately existing things are thoughts and sensory experiences. You see that space and time are also just thoughts, not separately existing things "out there." You see everything is a thought, first and foremost.

3. You notice that these thoughts and sensory experiences are really just movements that come and go within an unchanging and unmoving, ever-present formless, non-conceptual awareness, and realize that your real identity is this awareness. This feels like witnessing still, however, as if there is a witness that sees everything come and go. There is still a subtle belief that awareness and the appearances within awareness are separate in some way.

At this point, you may find yourself privileging awareness over appearances. You may experience awareness as an inert unchanging space or void where movement, change, and thought (i.e., the world) begin to fall into the background more and more. You may even find yourself in a deep rest period where the mind is silent. This is great! Just don't get stuck there. Signs that you are stuck there will be found in your words when you use awareness to deny the validity of any and all concepts (not seeing that you have made awareness into a subtle conceptual position). You essentially deny the world instead or merely seeing its illusory nature. This is where nihilism and fundamentalism can sneak in.

4. If you don't get stuck at number 3, you start to see that the appearances are inseparable from awareness. You cannot pull one apart from the other. And the whole notion of a dividing line between awareness and what appears is seen as silly and impossible. You don't even privilege awareness over appearances or vice versa. It's all inseparable. And so your humanness, down to the most unique thing about you and others, is totally included. In Zen, they call this "returning to the marketplace." In Living Realization, we borrow from the Buddhist texts that call this the "Middle Way." Separation is no longer experienced. And movement, form, and change return. It is precisely because of the empty and temporary nature of everything that change and movement can happen. Awareness no longer seems like a transcendental substratum or background. It is the movement of life itself in all its forms. The world is seen to be made of stories. The stories no longer cause suffering, seeking, and conflict therefore they are naturally welcomed. They are the movement of awareness itself. At this point, you stop returning or referencing awareness. You live your life, free of seeking. You are fully in the world.

This list is not necessarily a list of stages of seeing that unfold in time. The above list is a list of insights that can arise. Some realize these things very quickly or all at once. The vast majority, in my experience, find these realization unfolding over time. These are real insights that actually change the way you perceive reality. Cherish them when they arise, yet don't get stuck in any of them. Remain open. To live life in an undivided way is the real point of nonduality. That is number 4.

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