Imagine opening your phone or logging into your computer and realizing you've been operating inside somebody else's account your entire life.
You've got their settings,
Their bookmarks,
Their notifications,
You've been using their user profile,
Their entire identity.
That's what misidentification is like.
We've been living through a profile that isn't actually ours.
And what if most of the fear,
Stress,
And suffering in our life isn't caused by ourselves or the world but actually caused by a case of mistaken identity?
This is our starting point.
You are not your user profile.
You are not your brain or physical body.
You are not your mind,
Your thoughts,
Or passing emotions.
So then who or what are you?
Let's see if we can log out of who you never were and log into.
.
.
Well,
Let's see.
Let's see.
This is the invitation to look inside.
Because thoughts are appearing in your awareness,
Right?
But is awareness appearing?
Sensations rise and fall in your awareness,
Like physical body sensations.
But does awareness rise and fall?
Or is it the open space in which everything comes and goes?
Take a look.
Like a child looks at a sunset,
We're not really trying to calculate answers.
We're just looking.
Sensations,
Thoughts,
Emotions,
Things rise and fall in our awareness.
But does the awareness come and go or is it just always there in the background?
So now,
Think.
If the entire world is something you perceive,
Then none of it can be the perceiver.
The mistake we've been making is pretty subtle.
We've just been identifying with the scene rather than the seer.
We've been identifying with objects,
The content of the story,
Not the one looking through our eyes.
That silent,
Aware presence that never comes or goes.
Freedom.
Real freedom begins the moment you shift from thinking,
I am this person experiencing this thing,
Into knowing you are the awareness of it.
No beliefs are needed here.
No philosophies,
Textbooks,
Priests or churches.
No temples or gurus.
This is just a direct,
Lived experience.
Like,
Check it out right now.
Now that we've seen the difference between what appears and the one who knows it,
Let's look directly into that knowing.
Everything you observe belongs to the category of the scene.
The changing.
The temporary.
What about the one who is aware of it all?
Let's turn our attention around and look at that.
Right now,
Notice that sounds are appearing,
Sensations are appearing,
Thoughts are appearing,
But what is aware of them?
And don't answer with words or definitions.
Don't reach for a belief.
Just look.
Because silently aware,
Effortlessly present,
Even in your most chaotic moments,
Is the one who is aware.
Look at the awareness that is looking,
The knowing that knows,
And see,
Does it have a shape?
Does it have a boundary?
A definite location?
Is it located in your head or your heart?
Does it stay within your skull or does it go past your skin?
What size is your awareness?
How old is your awareness?
Does it age?
Does it get anxious?
Does it change when things change or is it simply aware?
Now let's look even deeper into non-duality,
Because it might seem like awareness is here,
And then thoughts and body sensations and things that happen in the world,
That's over there somewhere.
But let's look at it.
Notice what happens when a thought shows up.
The moment a thought happens,
You know about it.
Otherwise,
You wouldn't know about it.
Same thing with a body sensation.
As soon as it appears,
It's known.
You don't need to reach out and strategize how to know about the body sensation.
It just arrives already felt.
And even the feeling of,
I'm the one doing this,
That works the same way.
It's just a feeling that comes up.
Sometimes it's there,
Sometimes it's not.
But when it comes up,
You know about it.
My point is that it's all a seamless happening.
Sounds are heard.
Sensations are felt.
And it's all just one seamless experience.
You never actually experience separate things with like awareness on one side and objects on the other.
There's just one seamless field of experience.
No clear dividing lines of any kind.
Even more profound,
When you look directly at awareness itself,
Is there anything there that could be harmed or damaged?
If you were aware of a raging fire,
Would your awareness get burned?
If you were aware of your body being cut or stabbed or bleeding,
Would your awareness bleed?
Would your awareness be stabbed?
What about sinking underwater?
Can awareness be drowned?
Does awareness rust away week by week?
Does it rot and decay as the years go on?
Or is aging just something else,
Another phenomenon that happens in awareness?
Can awareness ever really be destroyed?
Something should become strikingly clear.
Awareness has no qualities,
And therefore no limitations.
It has no definitive size or edges or beginning or end,
And there's nothing in it that can be burned,
Cut,
Drowned,
Smashed,
Broken,
Destroyed.
None of that.
It has been untouched throughout every moment of your life,
Whether you noticed that or not.
So some people want to name this,
Especially the more intellectual types like me.
Some call it consciousness.
Some call it pure awareness or pure being.
Some of the ancients called it the Atman,
Brahman,
Or Buddha mind.
The name you choose for it doesn't really matter.
In fact,
The Buddha refused to describe what it is.
Any answer would just turn it into an object.
It would turn this into yet another thing.
And it's just not.
The truth of who we are is beyond categories.
Lastly,
Non-duality is not a feeling to achieve.
The realization of it can feel amazing,
But non-duality is not a feeling.
Feelings come and go.
Non-duality is a recognition.
Self-recognition.
That you were never separate or incomplete.
Ever.
And you never can be.
Once you see this,
And you really see it,
Something deep inside will relax in you.
The exhausting project of trying to fix yourself,
Improve yourself,
And hold your life together,
That begins to melt away.
The sense of being a fragile,
Isolated individual starts to dissolve into.
.
.
Well,
You'll see.
You discover a peace that doesn't depend on circumstances.
It's a great relief,
Knowing that nothing really needs to be added,
Fixed.
Nothing has to be earned or retained.
You simply stop overlooking what has always been here.
Open.
Indestructible.
And free.
