Shifting from Intellectual “Knowing” to Embodied Experience

The more you do the freedom practice whenever the slightest trace of conflict or suffering arises within you, the more you shift from intellectual, “head” knowledge of what is needed for inner freedom, to the embodied experience of it. The 8th Century’s Shankara, from India, was one of the original masters of nondual wisdom, the understanding of reality as fundamentally one, indivisible Whole. He said: “The realization of truth is brought about by discrimination, and not in the least by ten millions of acts.” What he meant by this is all the spiritual techniques and practices, and all the good works in the world, will not set you free. Working with the body or engaging in breathing techniques alone won’t do it. Meditation won’t do it. Serious meditators can sit for twenty or thirty years and not find true freedom. Not even compassionate service to mankind will do it. Think of Mother Teresa, working to help the poor, sick, and dying in Calcutta who, when she herself died, was a somewhat tortured soul according to her diary, questioning her very belief and faith in Jesus. The above practices are beneficial—and more love and compassion are for sure needed throughout the world—but only this fundamental shift in perception, the “discrimination” Shankara talked about, will set you free. The shift, the distinction is seeing that the limited, ego-bound perspective of “me, myself, and my story” is not real at all, precisely because your story comes and goes, shifts and changes. The more you see this, the more you relax into the present moment, into here and now, and the more you experience the expanded vision of clear, thought-free, present-time awareness. The more you stay in your mind, however—“thinking” about what you may have just realized—the more your understanding remains at the level of the intellect. It is just more “story,” more belief, and the experience doesn’t become your embodied reality. To make the shift, you must see that you are the seeing. You must become aware that you are not your body, mind, or senses because these can be observed. Rather, you are what is observing. What you actually are is pristine awareness or consciousness existing here, now, and expressing through this unique instrument, this individual body/mind/self called “you.” You are the timeless, unchanging awareness noticing and responding to the endlessly changing drama that is life. You are the consciousness giving birth to the entire world between your ears, the world that you have always thought of as “you!” When you realize this, and when you are fully alive and present in this moment now, then your experience is embodied.