The Final "Seeing"

You will look back on your life, your past, and realize how easy awakening actually is, when you take the direct, or nondual path, which is seeing that you are not any thought or story about what is happening, but rather the awareness or consciousness which sees. In other words, you are always this, right here, right now—this beautiful person, this human being that sees, experiences, and responds intelligently and creatively to the situations, including the challenges and problems, that arise in your own life and the lives of those whom you love and care about. What is needed for this final “seeing” that will liberate you from inner conflict, stress, and suffering forever? It is simple: again, you must be extremely vigilant, watchful your own mental and emotional reactions and disturbances whenever they arise, and then to see to “whom” they arise—this imaginary “I,” the ego “self” or “person” that you take yourself to be. So vigilance, and in particular, self-vigilance is the watchword. Truly, this is a teaching for our time. The more moments you have of this relaxed, but alert presence, the more it becomes your true nature. But argue for your “story,” and it’s yours.

Glimmers of Freedom

Regarding awakening , it takes time to undo the illusory sense of “self,” the “story” you’ve been fabricating in your mind and in your emotional being since you were very, very young. But if you are committed to waking up and becoming free, the undoing gets easier and easier. It begins with getting glimmers, tastes of the freedom that is your true nature. You feel much clearer, more loving, more creatively empowered, although strangely it is not a personal sense of power, but impersonal—your power just is. It flows through you, from the universe itself. You intuit that your true nature is love, and this wonderful sense of inner freedom and empowerment.

Easy Awakening

Awakening is easy if you remember this: every time you experience conflict, upset, or suffering take a deep, slow breath, and relax as much as you can into being here now. Then notice how you are not any thought or story about what seems to be happening—not even the “I” or “me” thoughts—because they, like the emotional reactions they trigger, come and go. Rather, you are the clear, spacious awareness that is always, always here. The more you realize this, the more you embody the liberating sense of freedom that is your true nature. Then your heart opens to everyone, and everything in your life flows more easily because you no longer resist anything.

Permission

I want to say something here about permission. When people are not awake to their true nature, it’s as if they are always seeking someone’s permission—be it a parent, a friend, or someone else in society—to be themselves, to be who they want to be. And society, being what it is, and depending on its culture and customs, has rules and guidelines around behavior that is and is not acceptable. But awakening to the truth within frees you from needing anyone’s permission to be yourself. The more awake and free you are, the more you are guided by the flow of wisdom, love, and joy within. You need no one’s permission to be yourself, and are guided by the one simple rule that every conscious person lives by: do no harm, to self or other.

The Ego's Need to Be Right

You ego, in a nutshell, is simply your “I” or “me” thought. This means that everyone has an ego, so the idea of “ego annihilation,” still persistent in some spiritual circles, is an illusion. The shift in perception that is realization is to see that you have an ego, but you are not your ego. So long as you still believe you are this “I” or “me” you’ve taken yourself to be since you were very young, you will always feel separate and apart from other human beings, other “selves,” and from the flow of life itself. Ego or “self” identification is to live in duality, in conflict and suffering. There is the “me” and what it wants or likes (health, money, sex, possessions, etc.), and then there is the flip side, the “me” and what it doesn’t want, or doesn’t like. One of the main characteristics of ego-identification is that it always needs to be right, because it needs to affirm its own existence, the existences of this “self,” the “person” that it takes itself to be. For example, if it is preoccupied with thoughts of low self-esteem, low self-worth, or an existential meaninglessness, it may be drawn to the idea of suicide, “self” extinction. So, even in doing away with itself, it continues to get to be right. The shadow side of the ego’s need to be right is that, in order to maintain its belief in itself as a separate entity, it needs to make other egos, other “selves” wrong. This dynamic is behind most of the conflict and suffering in the world.