Pointers

In the next pause between thoughts, what is it that does not disappear?


**********


Your everyday wakefulness is your natural state. There is no person or entity there--just pristine spaciousness, with thoughts, emotions, and images sporadically appearing and disappearing. That is the luminous understanding to which we are pointing.


**********


Credible teachers, in addition to being self-realized, lay bare the assumption that non-conceptual awareness is not fully present, or that you, as an individual person, actually exists.


**********


You cannot recognize who and what you are intellectually. And neither can you do it through time, i.e., that if you devote 5 or 10-steady years to this, you'll get it. This Reality is so utterly beyond time, ideas, practices, and forms of meditation that it is almost grievous to observe people attempting to an end to their suffering by such barren means. It is seeing or understanding that gets you there.


**********


Enlightenment, Satori, Liberation, and Nirvana are all concepts. Don't look for what books or gurus say self-knowing is or is not. Rather, see that there is a palpable presence of awareness directly before you. It is at once vast, subtle, and penetrating. It is there between every thought and is itself the essence from which thoughts are formed. Take this moment to recognize who and what you are. For it is direct, first-hand knowledge that puts an end to all doubts, questions, and bewilderment.


**********


Here is a link to an essay/book appraisal I recently did for Advaita.org:
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/vastness_stevens.htm.