What are you REALLY? Absolute Freedom, fully present as undeniable presence, indescribable awareness, forever free and clear of any modifications. This Presence of Awareness is open, serene, and completely free.
This openness is whole, complete and a space we like to call “nothing wrong”. Is there really anything “wrong” with your being? With that awake presence? Don’t turn that into some intellectualizing; just notice what is ever-present and fully aware of whatever appears … right before your eyes, all is whole, lacking nothing, needing no “more or better or different” circumstances to be what it already always is.
As has been said since the beginning of the dream of time, you are that and nothing else. So don’t let the mind lie to you about that. It is just not true that "Something's wrong and 'I' am not good enough"! It is just NOT true there is something more, something better needed, than your actual awake beingness. Period. You are perfect. And the perfect being you are IS absolute freedom. Don’t lie about that!

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Almost nobody, it seems, can believe how simple awakening is. Enlightenment, or whatever you want to label it, realisation as some call it, is simply what you are, right now. It's no different than what is happening - here, now. The thoughts that label whatever reality is for you, the thoughts that tell you that this isn't it, even they are it. The feelings that seem to be discontent or frustration, they are it too. Those thoughts that tell you that it couldn't be so simple...that it couldn't be any different than whatever it is you seem to have been experiencing all your life...they are what you are looking for. The thoughts that say "How could this possibly be it? This is boring!" Well, the boring-ness is it too, as are the thoughts that label it "boring". Those thoughts are just what's coming up in what you are. What you are is here and now. What you are is everything. What you are is not dependent on what your mind makes of it all. You will never be any closer to what you are than you already are. Those thoughts that it might be something different...those are it, too. Nothing is not it. Everything is what you are looking for. What looks is what you are looking for. Looking is what you are looking for. Here it is!

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Self realisation, awakening and enlightenment are terms used to label the direct experience of Reality. This is not a regular experience (spiritual or otherwise) that one can have as the ‘I’ can not experience it. Yet it is a happening within the phenomenal world. The space between two ‘I’ thoughts offers this direct experience many times a day but while attention is focused on thoughts and they are taken to be real, well…then the ‘I’ movie is still more potent than the pull towards Truth.

Seeing through the matrix; realising that your perception of reality entirely hinges upon the belief that you exist as a separate individual, is for some a eureka moment but for others it goes un-noticed. In the latter case, some time (usually years) pass until it is recognised that thoughts are no longer believed. For some, a deep understanding follows; the intricacies of how creation can be taken as real is revealed. It is then that sentences from advaita such as ‘nothing ever happened’ make most sense. There is clear knowing of what is illusion and a direct knowing of what is beyond mind.

Advaita texts state that the stabilisation of self realisation leads to the ‘state’ of liberation. While the seeing through of the ‘I’ thought is the first step towards liberation; it does not automatically follow that self realisation leads to liberation in every case. From what jac has seen while travelling in the west in 2009 it seems in western cultures self realisation is taken to be the end of the line; the show is over. To a certain point this is so, yet self realisation is not liberation…there is more. What can change will continue to change against the unmoving background. To this end, the sense of the ‘I’ can again arise and desires may influence action or in some cases the pull towards total annihilation of the wandering mind continues until liberation.

Useful terms to denote the difference can be found in Indian culture; the guru is self realised and the satguru is liberated.

Manifesting as the satguru, the Absolute Seer has nothing to see. No ideas come to mind at all. Action taken is never guided by a concept. There is no sense of needing anything - ever. Liberation is the changeless state with no will, no ideas, no imagination and no doubt.

All traces of ‘I am’ can disappear, leaving no trace of individuality. What remains is consciousness experiencing consciousness. The ‘I am’ can come and go spontaneously as long as the body functions, but it is given no importance. This level of functioning of ‘I am’ is no more than an aid to existence.

The self realised can say ‘I am That’ and the liberated have realised the unreality of ‘I am’.

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You hear the saints laughing; "there is no journey, you are making it all up..." - And that is true, seen from Silence, but very unusable on your way of reaching the state of living surrendered.

Enlightenment is not something you stumble upon on your way to something else (in the pursuit of happiness, love or any kind of wealth). It is the result of demanding nothing but the Truth. Enlightenment cannot be handed over the counter at some Satsang. Whoever claims that just doesn't know! The beliefs rooted in your body, will still lead your course of actions, no matter how many altered states of consciousness you enter, by meeting enlightened beings! You are still left with your old life, once the (per)fumes of Light from the other One has vaporised.

Truth realization calls for hard work - doing your best on- and never accepting defeat in reaching the complete honesty of your own situation. Hard work of coming to realize, that you just don't know! From there you can start learning - with your being. Start living with your Life.

To Realize Truth and become free, it is demanded from you to investigate every part of your self - all the way down to the most subtle beliefs behind every movement of your body. But by starting from the beginning and with the very obvious - how you live your life - pealing away the layers of illusion from there - demanding Truth to be the case!

As your beliefs are met in pure honesty, and in combination with the demand of living Truth, you start burning away the ignorance in your cells, with the flame of Life. Which makes the Flame grow. This is integration. It is when and how the body comes to be the meetingplace between heaven and earth.

Being and seeing inside of you, with an awakened is helpful. It gives you the possibility to confront yourself even deeper and more honestly, than you could on your own. It saves time - but still you can only address the assumptions underlying the subjects, at which you are failing to master your life at this instant. How can you expect to learn how to master your higher levels of being if not even mastering yourself on ground!? It doesnt work to look into spiritual matters to escape the roughness of failing on the more obvious levels of living!

"It is all mind", they say, but yet not within your scope of reason or change.

It only takes one look in full honesty - true! But you grow stronger as you move closer to the flame - which means on a bodily level more and more able to stay Real and meet your Self deeper (trust me if you move your body into the flame all at once, you will burn it up - its not possible - integration takes time!).

But you have to begin at the beginning. By looking at your beliefs on the most obvious levels.

And from here just never give up!

Start digging, my friend. And the Truth will set you free.

What does duality really mean? It means "manyness", many separate and independent "things". So duality means "of things" or "thingness." Our normal experience of reality is that of "thingness". To be dual is to be more than one - so we're really talking about more than one "thing". Yes?

What does this mean? It means that this world is made up of separate things, each standing alone or apart, independent in their existence. This paradigm requires the subject/object equation - an "I", a separate "seer" apart from the "seen" or objective.

Vedanta simply says that the nature of existence isn't separated, that although there is an appearance of "things", those things don't have independent existence. Existence is existence - it's not separated. The appearances are of that singular existence, although there is the appearance of separation. The appearance of thingness is called "Maya".

So let's reverse-engineer duality. Let's find out how this idea of duality or "thingness" is created.

Can you think of nonduality? Can you think of "oneness"? No. Because to say "I am thinking of nonduality" immediately requires a separate "you" and an object of thought - two "things".

What is right in front of you? A computer screen. To call it a computer screen is to create duality. Calling it a computer screen assumes the one who is seeing it, the room in which it is located, the space in which the room is located, the universe itself.

What are you sitting on? A chair? Calling it a chair immediately calls into existence (in concepts) the entire universe. All that is not-chair. Do you follow?

Therefore it is mind and language (concepts) which creates this duality.

What IS is what? Right here and now. THIS is what IS. Isn't THIS reality? Right here and now? Whatever THIS may be called or conceptualized. And it's ok that the mind does this - that's it's job. It's normal. But in this conceptualization, the "world of separate things" is created. Even that's not a problem. But along with this, suffering comes, because the primary "thing" in this equation is "ME", the separate self, the one who is the self-reference AS a separate thing. This paradigm creates the very idea of isolation and limit.

Why? Because IF there is a world outside you, independent of you, then you are limited and isolated BY the world. You are a small and insignificant piece of the universe, which has a beginning and an eventual end.

This is not reality. You are not limited, you are not finite.

Watch how the mind automatically places "thingness" upon what IS, and in doing so, creates the world in imagination, automatically imagining a world. Therefore the first thought is automatically false. The first thought is automatically dualistic. That's just the way the mind works.

If we try to not think dualistically, we will always fail. To even think about nonduality requires a thinker, someone who will know nonduality or Oneness. Can there be someone apart from Oneness to think about it? To know it? To objectify it? No. Notice how the mind must place thingness upon that.

So there really isn't any problem, as long as we notice that this is what the mind is doing. In seeing through this mechanism, we find that what IS, still IS. Nothing has changed. But that mechanism of "thingness", that creation of "partness" is ONLY the work of the mind. In fact that dualistic mechanism is really very relative and arbitrary. It depends on the conditioning of the mind, what has been learned, etc. Reality cannot be relative and arbitrary.

So what IS remains what IS - only there is no way to talk about it, no way to think about it accurately, truthfully. The first thought is automatically false and only dualistic. Does this mean we stop thinking?

No. We just see the mind for what it is. Then what IS remains what IS, without the belief that it is made up of "things". And if it's not made up of "things", then what is it? What is reality, in direct experience, without this dualistic process?

Reality is just YOU. The "real" you is just THIS, just this moment, this "presence" - whatever IS, right here and now, is YOU. If this mental process of "thingness" were to fall away, would YOU fall away? Wouldn't you still know that you exist? Yes - because that knowledge of existence is the only knowledge which isn't conceptual - it's immediate and obvious without requiring a thought, without requiring a concept.

Therefore YOU ARE - that singular existence, that nondual reality, is YOU.

Henry is happily speeding down a winding mountain road... down to where there's a bridge across to the other side of the deep valley.

Henry rounds a sweeping bend where he gets a full view for the first time of the valley below... to immediately see that the bridge across the chasm is missing.

What would a human think at this time? "The bridge is not there; therefore I will surely die. The bridge cannot possibly be rebuilt quickly enough. I must turn back."

Henry was about to stop when he heard a voice, a voice powerful yet calm and unlike any he had heard before... "Continue on Henry. Don't think like a human. Things are not always as they seem Henry. You will be taken care of Henry."

So Henry continued on, although quite a bit slower than before. "Can't you go any faster Henri," the voice said. "Things are not always as they seem Henri. You will be taken care of Henri."

Henry speeded up. Although very apprehensive and more than a little fearful, there was something unusual about this voice, something that he trusted.

Henri was now rounding the last bend on the road that leads onto the bridge... the bridge that he knew was no longer there. His fear increased... it was the last moment! It took everything he had in him not to stop right there... yet the voice kept saying "Henry, continue on, continue on. Don't think like a human." Henri gripped the wheel, held his breath... and closed his eyes.

Moments later he heard the sound of men's voices calling out. Henri opened his eyes to see several workman on the side of the road waving him on to an area he had never observed before. And standing in full glory there was a beautiful new bridge! It was a bridge that was so big and so awesome that Henry realized that it had been under construction long before he came along, long before he needed it. It was being built completely out of sight, and only presented itself NOW... when he needed it. Henri crossed the bridge in joy, realizing the power of his partnership with Spirit.

It does not need to be complicated. Just simply sense your self and do not worry about inside or outside or going deeper. Sense that you exist right now, and then stay with that sense of "I" or "me". But do not worry about whether it is the right way of sensing your self. Simply sense your self just as you are right now. Once you sense your self just as you are right now, simply stay with that sense of your self. If a thought or feeling arises, notice who is having the thought or feeling. Obviously "I" am having the thought or feeling. And so then you just return to staying with that sense of "I"