Solitary Silence

The practise of spiritual solitary silence, or looking within is a method of self-journey within yourself. It has been practised in one form or another for centuries, from the Tibetian lamas in thier secluded caves to monks in thier quite cells.

The practise of spending time in silence and reflection is important for those trying to communion with that which is bigger than themselves. As Jesus once said, the Kingdom of God is within you. And as spiritual seekers we should take heed of the advice given. Whilst books, teachers have provided invaluable information only can we take the first step of the journey within.

There are several pointers to help us in making this time more productive than just taking a break out from the daily pressures of our life. Before I cam across this technique, I always intuitively knew that I needed silence and time off in isolation to find the answers to the questions that I was seeking. I used to always ask myself, "What am I called to do?" and "Why did God put me here?" or "How come I struggle with work so much?" There are no shortcuts, the answers to these questions can only be found by looking within, and they are best heard in quiet and silence.

Richard Rose gave me the best description of the attitude one should take. He said not to approach isolation as challenging God or the universe for an answer. Don't draw a circle in the sand and say you won't come out until you are enlightened. Instead, and this is my interpretation, work as hard as you can and be thankful for whatever happens

~ Shawn Nevins

When you make the commitment to spend time alone in a solitary retreat, don't forget to watch, to look at the various internal mechanisms before and during that time, your mind will try to get you to postpone, leave early, or pass the time day dreaming. If nothing more, you have made the effort to look within yourself and that's a good thing.

The Teachings Of Sri Ramakrishna

God Is All
I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting himself  himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, “God in the form of a saint, God in the form of a sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the un-righteous.”

God Is Within You
Do you know what I see? I see God as all. Men and other creatures appear to me only as hollow forms. moving their heads, hands and feet but within is God himself.

Perseverance In Your Search
There are pearls in the deep sea, but one must hazard all to find them. If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them. Dive again and again, you are sure to be rewarded in the end. So it is with finding God. If your first attempt proves fruitless, do not lose heart. Persevere in your efforts. You are sure to realize Him at last.

 Surrender And Trust
Trust completely in God.  What are you to do when you are placed in the world? Give up everything to Him, resign yourself to him, and there will be no trouble for you. Then you will come to realize that everything is done by his will.

Love Of God Is Essential
Unalloyed love of God is essential and all else is unreal.

Seeking

Years ago, there were lots and lots of seeking. It was like this: before and during spiritual seeking, I wasn’t badly suffering or in pain or unhappy with my life. It was a deep sense of loneliness, alienation, lack of fulfillment, and a strong yearning from the heart and mind to know, “What is this all about? What is the purpose of life? What happens after? What are all these mystical truths that are spoken of? Where is fulfillment found?”

Inner Life

Meditation arises spontaneously when our inner life can no longer remain still, when it begins to rumble and dream, revolt and excite us to awaken. 

Surrendering

Complete surrender is another name for liberation. So complete surrender does require that you have no desire of your own, that God’s desire alone is your own and that you have no desire of your own.

Surrender to him and abide by his will whether he appears or vanishes; await his pleasure. If you ask him to do as you please, that is not surrender but a command to him. You can’t have him obey you and yet think that you have surrendered. He alone knows what is best for you. Leave everything up to him. He is the the burden; you no longer have any cares.

The Real You

The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment.

The real you is timeless and beyond birth and death.
The body will survive as long as it is needed. It is
not important that it should live long.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
from his book, “I AM THAT”

Dare I Trust God!

See that you don’t know what to do about anything. Bear the discomfort, a new kind of pain, of not knowing and refuse to ask anyone else or even talk to them about it. Just go about your day and be interested in doing what you are doing while you are doing it. Keep coming back home. Watch! This is the answer. Stick with it. Dare to trust God to work it out for you.

Let Everything Pass Through You

All problems can be transformed into a spiritual practice. Feel yourself becoming invisible, as it were without the solidity of a material body. Now allow the noise of whatever causes you irritation, anger and frustration to pass right through you.

The countless job rejections, the car alarm, the dog barking, the children screaming, the traffic jam, not getting the job after all that preparation. Instead of resisting  and continually telling yourself “this should not be happening to me, why me?” Just let it be, let everything just pass through you.

The Law Of Attraction

The ‘law of attraction’ is like attracts like. It simply says that you attract into your life whatever you think about. This applies to everything, regardless of how insignificant the thing might be. Anything from a global empire to a empty parking space can be achieved far more easily if you visualize a successful outcome from the start.

Don’t believe me?  Try this exercise.

Pick something you do regularly and find an absolute nightmare. Then before you do whatever this thing is again start visualizing a successful outcome.

Let’s say that usually when you go shopping in your car you find it impossible to find a parking space. But this time, before you even get into your car, start seeing that empty car parking space.

• Visualize it
• See yourself effortlessly finding it
• Experience the wave of relief was over you as drive into that space – your car parking space.

When I was told about this technique. I thought it was crazy. I mean, how could it be possible to conjure up a car parking space by just thinking about it? To my amazement it worked. I couldn't believe how easy it was to find that space.

There’s nothing magical about it. It simply is that we achieve what we expect to get. So if we start out with a negative view about something, usually we’ll have a bad experience and prove ourselves right. Maybe that’s why I’m not getting any job offers at the minute.

When you start visualizing success, all sorts of positive changes come about. Instead of looking for all the reasons as to why we should be unhappy, we concentrate on the possibilities and our subconscious begins to work in actively seeking out ways of achieving what we want.

The bottom line is – you are what you think! Think negatively, and you’ll be a negative person. On the other hand, start visualizing successful outcomes in everything you do and you’ll start seeing powerful, positive changes in your life.

If you try this and it doesn’t work the first time then don’t give up. It may take time and be prepared to suspend and resist your inbuilt cynicism.

God Is Dead

The word God has becoming meaningless and empty through thousands of years of misuse. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind the word. The misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs and egoic delusions.

The word God is a concept. When the name is uttered, a mental image is created, perhaps an old man with a white beard, but still a mental representation of something or someone outside you.

Neither God or any other word describe the reality beyond the word, the only question is it a help or a hindrance in enabling you to experience that towards which it points. Does it point beyond itself to the transcendental reality, or does it lend itself too easily to becoming no more than an idea in your head you believe in, a mental idol?

Die Before You Die

One of the most powerful spiritual practices is to meditate deeply on the morality of physical forms, including your own. This is called: Die before you die. Go into it deeply. Your physical form is dissolving, is no more. Then a moment comes when all mind-forms or thoughts also die. Yet your true nature is still here – the divine presence that you are. Radiant, fully awake. Nothing that was real ever died, only forms and illusions. The realization of this deathless dimension is your true nature.

Life’s Lessons

Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed within it, although you may not see it at the time.

Non-Forgiveness

Non forgiveness is often towards yourself or another person, but it may just as well towards any situation or condition – past, present, or future – that your mind refuses to accept. There can also be non forgiveness with regards to the future. This is the mind’s refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future is ultimately beyond our control. So forgiveness is to relinquish and so to let go of grief.

It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self. So, forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life – to allow life to live through you.

Eckhart Tolle
from his book, “The Power Of Now”,p.100

Marriage

“It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery.” [Matt. 5:31-32].

Jesus is concerned with the tendency to run away from problems. As long as we take the way of escapism, the problems we run away from will continually come up in a new guise ate every turning of the road. Here he uses the theme of marriage and divorce as an example.

Marriage is not the gateway through which two people in love enter into a land where they “live happily ever after.” Happiness in marriage is a conquest and not a a bequest. Marriage is a license by which two people, who have seen the greater possibilities in each other, may work to bring forth these possibilities. In essence, it is a laboratory of  individual enfoldment.

Marriage can only succeed when both parties see something of the divine in one another. If you cannot see beyond the appearance in another person, then you do not really love him or her. And so true love is basically spiritual perception, an in-sight into innate divinity.

At The Heart Of Every Problem is “I”

If you look very closely at your problems, you will discover a very interesting little detail: in the midst of every problem is the person to whom it is happening. And that person is you, or from your perspective it is “I”.

Take a moment to make a short list of your problems, your struggles, your difficulties. Notice that as you write them down, there is the central theme running through them that they are happening to you. They are your problems. And that is why you call them "problems" in the first place!

All these problems and struggles are, right this minute, happening to many other people throughout the world. There are even not so pleasant things happening to others that are not happening to you. And those things don't bother you in the least. Why? Because they aren't happening to you!

Adyashanti likes to say, "No self, no problem." And it is true. Without "me" at the center, there is literally no problem. You can see that clearly when you look at an issue that does effect you in any way. But it is even more astounding when you realize that the "self" that you thought you were doesn't exist. There is no separate self, no "me," and when that is fully realized, you literally have no problems.

Every time you get a glimpse of the startling reality of no self, you find for a moment your freedom. No self = no problems. You may be busy, you may have lots to do, but problems? Nope. What a blessing!

The Sense of “I am”

When I met my Guru, he told me: "You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense 'I am', find your real Self." I obeyed him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me.  All my spare time I would spend looking at myself in silence.  And what a difference it made, and how soon!

My teacher told me to hold on to the sense 'I am' tenaciously and not to swerve from it even for a moment. I did my best to follow his advice and in a comparatively short time I realized within myself the truth of his teaching. All I did was to remember his teaching, his face, his words constantly. This brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am -- unbound.

I simply followed (my teacher's) instruction which was to focus the mind on pure being 'I am', and stay in it. I used to sit for hours
together, with nothing but the 'I am' in my mind and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all disappeared -- myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me. Only peace remained and unfathomable silence.

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
from his book, “I AM THAT”

No-Self

All beings fundamentally have no-self but we experience sufferings and afflictions because we attach to the ide of possessing a self. We often talk about achieving a state of selflessness or non-ego because the idea of a self is actually false and non-existent, but it’s hard enough just trying to ignore the physical body and its various sensations.

All the obstacles to attaining Enlightenment arise because we believe in the existence of a body and self, but if can ignore the body and abandon the idea of “ego”, then you can achieve Nirvana. So if we can get rid of the idea of a body and detach from the notions of possessing a self, we can ultimately reach enlightenment.

Zen, The Method Of No-Method

Zen is considered the highest of all possible cultivation methods in existence because it doesn’t rely on any method at all – it just directly points to the true nature of the mind. In Zen you don’t add anything to the mind in order to attain Samadhi, nor do you try to remove anything from the mind.

With Zen, you neither accept nor reject your thoughts to attain Samadhi, but you simply let them come and go without clinging to them. Since there is no effort for effortless watching or knowing that is always there, Zen is called the method of no-method.

In Zen, you simply watch the function of awareness and turn it inwards, reflecting it back to its source, to perceive the fundamental essence of this knower. Some refer to this process as “resting” sine it means “dropping the busy mind” or “letting everything go” while the function of knowing continues to stay. The mind is open and aware, yet mental busyness naturally comes to a rest.

Our minds are forever visited by chaotic and confusing thoughts, so In Zen we treat these thoughts like hotel guests that come and go without prolonging their stay. So if you simple watch your thoughts without adding any energy to these, in time all these thoughts will depart and you will arrive at Samadhi.

Every thought, has to depart because nothing stays – death will certainly come to thoughts  as it does to all other phenomena. Only one thing remains unmoved during all these transformations – the true self, which is the ultimate source of awareness. You can go east or go west, but the one thing  that never moves, has never left, and has never gone anywhere.

Whether we know something or don’t know something, our true mind know that we know or don’t know, so awareness always shines. In Zen, it’s the root source of this awareness we must find.

The Great Mystery

The attitude of the American Indian towards the Eternal, The Great Mystery that surrounds and embraces us, is as simple as it is exalted. To us it is the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.

The worship of The Great Mystery is silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. It is silent, because all speech is of necessity and feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of our ancestor ascended to God in wordless adoration.

It is solitary,because we believe that God is nearer to us in solitude, and there are no priests authorized to come between us and our maker. None can exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. All of us are created children of God, all stand erect conscious of divinity. Our faith cannot be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who are unwilling to receive it; hence there is no preaching, persecution, neither are there any scoffers or atheists.

Our religion is an  attitude of mind, not a dogma.

Jerry Katz
from his book, “Essential Writings on Nonduality”, p.81

All Is God

The computer you are staring at - that's God.

The words you are hearing in your head as you read - that's God, too.

The thoughts you are thinking as you try to understand what you are reading - still God.

The feelings that arise as you read - God, again.

The chair you are sitting in - God.

Your car - God.

Your neighbor - God.

Your co-worker whose very presence you detest with every fiber of your being - yes, he's God, too.

Your dog - definitely God.

Your mother - no, not Satan. God.

That hemorrhoid that's been bothering you for a while now - God.

The ego - nope, God, too.

The "illusory" world - God.
Anger, pride, fear, depression - all God.

It's all God. Everywhere you look. Every thought you think. Every feeling. Every thing you love and everything you hate. Your fears and your frustrations. All just God. What else could Oneness possibly mean? Anyway feel free to substitute a more spiritually neutral term like consciousness or spirit for God if that helps.

What You Really Want Is Freedom

When we progress on the spiritual journey, more often than not we have a desire to be Enlightened. We don’t know what Enlightenment really is, but we want want it because it sounds so wonderful. This wanting of enlightenment is not a bad thing, and it is useful as it helps us going when the going gets rough. So, if you desire Enlightenment, there is no harm in you wanting it. So just relax.

But really, when you investigate this desire for enlightenment, you will inevitably find that what you want isn’t really enlightenment. If enlightenment means anything, it means going beyond the entire mental and emotional system out of which wanting arises. You can’t really want what is beyond wanting! Therefore the obvious question is “What Do I really Want?”

What you really want is freedom. You want to be free to do anything and at the same time free from everything. You want to be in a perpetual state of free fall, no attachments to anything, just free, free. That’s what keeps you reading these blog posts, reading spiritual books, going to retreats, doing all the sitting and meditating. You want freedom.

And do you know what? You desire freedom more than anything, and yet freedom scares the shit out of you! Now take a peek inside and see if this is not the case. That’s the real spiritual journey! Okay, no more sitting under the tree to see what arises.

Whatever Is To Be Will Be

There is only will and that being is of Divinity. It is all part and process of the plan, the pain, the sorrow, the laughter, the injustice and justice. Yet the engineer of the Universe has it all worked out and the truth is that this is beyond our limited understanding. The things occurring within the drama of our life seem to have a mind of their own.

Going with the flow is a good mantra for sanity’s sake. Acceptance of all that is can be difficult especially when one is in a apparent dead-end job and the bills are due next month. There is an inner voice that tells us everything is perfect even though our opinionated voice yells No! No! No!

With the daily practice of meditation you may reach a point where life is lived non-reflectively. In Zen circles this is called “non-abidance of mind.” It is like floating down a river and not fighting against the currents. In essence it is life lived without intellectual reflection. It is about living life in the moment  and accepting as whatever happens as the will of God.

So is a dead-end job the will of God? Yes. Is a fascinating high-paying job the will of God? Yes. There is only oneness and whatever occurs with your life is ultimately the will of God. And oneness manifests as apparent dead-end jobs, apparent blessings, apparent weirdness and synchronicity.

The bigger picture is beyond our limited understanding and you’re right; we cannot make sense of it and it is absolutely unimaginable.

The Quest For Enlightenment – Jed McKenna

“The you that you think of as you (and that thinks of you as you, and so on) is not you, it’s just the character that the underlying truth of you is dreaming into brief existence. Enlightenment isn’t in the character, it’s in the underlying truth. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a dream character, of course, unless it’s your goal to wake up, in which case the dream character must be ruthlessly annihilated. If your desire is to experience transcendental bliss or supreme love or altered states of consciousness or awakened kundalini, or to quality for heaven, or to liberate all sentient beings, or simply to become the best dang person you can be, then rejoice!, you’re in the right place: the dream state, the dualistic universe. However, if your interest is to cut the crap and figure out what’s true, then you’re in the wrong place and you’ve got a very messy fight ahead and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.”

Jed McKenna, “THE ENLIGHTENMENT TRILOGY”

Consciousness & The Absolute

Here is a free e-book on the last and  final talks of Sri Nisargadatta Maharajah. Suffice to say it is  quite an interesting read as you learn how an Enlightened Sage perceived the world.  Enjoy

     Consciousness & The Absolute: The final  
     talks of Sri Nisgardatta Maharaj. 
      
     Click on the link above to download and
     save a copy of the file on your desktop.

      The document is in PDF format and is
      freely available.

What Is Seeing Who You Really Are?

Question: What is seeing Who you really are?

Douglas Harding: It’s so simple, it’s difficult to describe. Normally we are looking out at other things, but seeing Who you really are is looking at what you’re looking out of. It’s turning  the direction of your attention around precisely 180 degrees and looking at what is nearest of all, what is central to your life – the permanent ingredient in all that you are and do. Usually, I am intent on what is quite a long way off, a few inches or feet or miles off. But here’s a region that I’ve learned to ignore, under social pressure. I’ve learned to pretend that it doesn't exist, is unimportant, dangerous, and not to be looked at. It is right here-what I’m looking out of.

Douglas Harding
from his book, “Face to No-Face”,p.137

The Buddha’s Silence

When the Buddha became Enlightened he felt there was no way of telling what he had known, so he remained silent. For seven days he was silent. There is an anecdote about this incident.

When the Gods came to know of Buddha’s silence they went to his feet and said, “Tell what you have known, because a person like you is born on this earth after thousands of years. An opportunity  for the blind to learn about light and for the deaf to be filled with celestial music is rare. The lame will begin to walk and the dead will rise from their graves in the hop of life. We beseech you to speak!”

Buddha replied, “What I have known cannot be told. Those who will understand by my speaking can understand even without my speaking. Those  who are ready and who deserve to understand  will understand, even without my speaking. Those who cannot understand without my speaking will not understand even if I speak. So what is the harm in my remaining silent?”

Hearing this, the Gods become very anxious. They talked among themselves for a long time. Then again they asked, “But there are a few people who are just on the border; if your speak they will take a step and cross the line. Otherwise, they will remain where they are. There are people who will understand even without your saying and there are people who will understand you wrongly if you speak. But between these two, there is a another category of people, on the borderline, who will cross the river if you speak but who otherwise will remain on the bank.”

When water is heated to ninety-nine degrees centigrade, even the heat of your hand can turn it into steam. Water that has reached one hundred degrees centigrade will become steam even without your help. Water that is in the form of ice will only cool your hand, it cannot become steam; but water that is ninety-nine point nine degrees needs your help.

And so Buddha decided to speak for those people who were just on the borderline. The sage also speaks for those people who are in the middle, on the borderline.

The Big Question

This morning I was watching a television show called The Big Question and they ask serious questions and debate about social reform and politics here in the UK. But the thought crossed my mind, aren’t they missing the point entirely – the serious questions that should be asked is “Who am I?” What is death and Does god exist?” “Am I only a bag of blood and nothing more?”

Most people avoid these questions their entire life. Then when they are on their Deathbed they start panicking and worrying about the final minutes of their life.  So now stop wasting time, start taking your search for Truth seriously as you don’t have a lot of time left.

Your Life Mirrors What You Put Into It

Your life mirrors what you put into it or with hold from it.”When you are lazy, it is lazy,” says the author of Art and Fear. “When you hold back, it holds back. When you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets.  But when you commit, it comes on like blazes.”

True Blessings

A Taoist Tale

A man who lived in the northern frontier of China was skilled in interpreting events. One day, for no reason, his horse ran away to the nomads across the border. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, “What makes you so sure this isn’t a blessing?”

Some months later his horse returned, bringing a splendid nomad stallion. Everyone congratulated him, but his father said, “What makes you so sure this isn’t a disaster?” Their household was richer by a fine horse, which the son loved to ride.

One day he fell and broke his hip. Everyone tried to console him, but his father said, “What makes you so sure this isn’t a blessing.”

A year later the nomads came in force across the border, and every able-bodied man took his bow and went into battle. The Chinese frontiersmen lost nine of every ten men. Only because the son was lame did father and son survive to take care of each other.

Truly, blessing turns to disaster, and disaster to blessing: the changes have no end, nor can the mystery be fathomed.

By Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman
From his book, “Stories of the Heart, Stories of Spirit”

Prayer

Any Prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers and a corresponding answer obtained if it is uttered thrice:

Firstly- for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents.

Secondly- for the welfare of one's neighbor.

And only thirdly- for oneself personally. 

~ Gurdjieff

Nothing In Existence Perishes

Nothing in existence perishes, nor does anything new come into being. Forms change, appearances change, but the deepest mysteries  of life remain ever the same. Individuals come and go, waves in the ocean rise and disappear, but  that which is hidden in the individual, in the wave is eternal.

We have to look at ourselves in two different ways. We exist at two levels – one at the level of waves and another at the level of the ocean. And as the waves we are individual human beings, and as the ocean we are the supreme being.

The Buddha Said

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

~ Gautama Buddha ( c . 563–479 BC )

“Who Am I”– Self Enquiry

Who Am I is a meditation based on self-enquiry for attaining enlightenment which is closely associated with the Indian Sage Sri Ramana Maharishi.

I’ve been meditating on the question of “Who Am I?” and from my personal experiences I have come to believe that “The Self” is none other than Source or God.

In the past when I was meditating on the question of “Who Am I?” I always found it difficult to perceive an answer to the question as I found it impossible to answer. I would begin by asking myself Who Am I? and then this would be followed by more questions: Am I The Body? Am I The Mind? Am I My Thoughts? Am I My Emotions? Am I My Feelings? And there would come a point where I could no longer go any further with the questions as I felt like I had hit a brick wall.

Usually meditation teachers will tell you that obstacles are not distractions to the meditation; they are the meditation. And so blocks aren’t blocks to creativity. They are the creativity. The blocks arise for a reason but regardless you need to persevere on the spiritual path.

By continually asking yourself Who Am I? I have feelings, but I am not those feelings. I have thoughts, but I am not those thoughts. So then Who Am I? I have desires, but I am not those desires. Paying attention to the technique, you may realize that thoughts appear out of nowhere – out of empty space thoughts miraculously appear. But there is a further line of enquiry which I must ask myself: Where did that thought come from? Who is thinking those thoughts? Thoughts appear spontaneously, they seem to be transitory and are always fleeting. And as soon as one thought arises and disappears, another thought arises.

With the “Who Am I?” meditation you push back into the source of your awareness – the witness.

But then people usually make a rather unfortunate mistake with regards to self-enquiry. They think that if they rest in the Self or Witness, they may see something special, or feel something special – see something spiritual. But you won’t see anything.  And if you see something, then, that is just another object – another feeling, another thought, another image. But all those are objects; those are not what you really are.

Now as you rest in the witness – realizing, I am not feelings, I am not thoughts, I am not desires. You will notice a sense of freedom, a sense of liberation,  a sense of release – release from identifying with the body, mind and ego. All of which are objects that can be seen, and thus are not the true seer, the real self, the pure witness, which is what you really are.

So you won’t see anything in particular. Whatever arising is fine. Clouds float by in the sky, feelings float by in the body, thoughts float by in the mind – you can effortlessly witness all of these, just observe them. They all appear effortlessly. And this witness is not really seen. It is just a vast background of Emptiness, Openness and Freedom.

Through this method of self-enquiry and attentiveness it may begin to dawn on you that there is a source within you that is far deeper and more mysterious than you originally thought.