If Self-realization is so simple, why does it seem so rare?

The answer to this question is an enigma. Any spiritual teacher with a clear abiding recognition as nonlocalized awareness will attest to the innate simplicity of Truth. These teachers, as Truth, point to the simplicity of recognition of Awareness as Awareness.

Seekers of Truth can parrot the statements regarding Awake Awareness and commonly voice an intellectual understanding, yet the simple experiential recognition appears to remain elusive.

There is a myriad of direct pointers to this primordial Awareness:

Stop.

“Be still and know that I am God.” ~ Psalm 46:10

“What you are looking for is what is looking.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi

“. . . knocking at the door. It opened. I was knocking from the inside.” ~ Rumi

What witnesses thoughts?

Any one of these pointers is sufficient, and often, none of them lead to recognition as Truth perceiving. We are focused on the objects of perception and miss the direct experience as perceiving.

Ramana Maharshi’s Self-inquiry Method, “Who (or what) am I?” may be the most direct approach to recognition as Truth. Often, however, the recognition is missed because we are looking for something different from what exists now. We already are nonlocalized awareness. Awareness is the only “thing” we can never not be.

We look for Eternity among the changing. We look for pure Subject among objects. The mind wants to know Awareness as an object. That will never happen. We have a lifetime of looking to the mind to answer all questions. That approach won’ t work for Self-realization. At our most recent satsang, a woman new to meditation and unacquainted with Self-realization rediscovered her essence as “just Being” and recognized the experience of true Silence for the first time. It does not take years of practice and discipline. It only takes a willingness to drop what we think we know and notice what is always there.

It is absolutely true that Self-realization is beyond simple. It is rarely noticed because we continue to look outward at thoughts, beliefs, the body, etc., and do not notice the unchanging, boundless Awareness behind the looking.

We cannot know Awareness, we can only be Awareness. Awareness is not an object to be perceived, it is the nonlocalized, boundless perceiver.

Awareness knows only Itself and perceives all “objects” simply as Itself.

Namaste, Steve and Bec

The Simplicity of Self-Realization

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