Awakening Mind Part 3, "Liberation" (2025) - Complete HD Film

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If Awakening is the end of seeking, then Liberation is the end of the seeker. Many on the path glimpse their true nature and experience what we call awakening... a moment when the veil lifts and the search collapses. But often, the subtle patterns of the seeker, the vasanas, the samskaras, the deep unconscious tendencies, continue to run quietly in the background.

Liberation is not another teaching, technique, or philosophy. It is a direct pointing to what remains when the path itself dissolves… when there is no one left to practice, no ground left to stand on, and no distance between presence and the spontaneous unfolding of life.

This film invites you beyond the threshold, past the initial glimpse, into the silence that is always here.
Not an end, and not a beginning, but pointing to that which never began and never ends, that which was never born and never dies.

Where should someone start

who is at the very beginning
of this understanding?

I would suggest asking yourself

very simply, who am I really?

At the beginning

the mind will exhaust every avenue
to try and find out who we are.

Who am I?

This question invites the mind
in an unknown direction.

Turn your mind inward and look at the “I”.

To actually have that experience
of God realization. Self realization.

We've never left home. We've never
left home anywhere on the journey.

And yet the journey seems to be
necessary for most of us.

A genuine seeker has no plan B.

So ask yourself, who is the I
who is aware of the thoughts?

I, a startling fact... I am not. I.

Then what am I? It's like a riddle.

We need to be aware of our Self
as we actually are.

We need to investigate our Self.

Ask yourself, who am I?

Ask yourself, who am I?

Enlightenment or liberation
is not about adding

anything whatsoever, but about
finding what is already present.

So some kind of investigation
is necessary.

Find out the meditator.

Find out who wants to meditate.

Meditation and self-inquiry
converge at a certain point

so that when we find out who we are, then
meditation is simply being who we are.

Meditation is what we are, not what we do.

Do you truly want liberation?

If you truly want liberation,
liberation is possible.

But awakening is not enough.
It's just the beginning.

What is liberation?

Liberation is the final stillness.

Not an experience, not a state.

You do not attain liberation.

You remember or wake up to
that which cannot be lost.

To awaken is to glimpse the timeless self.

To remember what you are
beyond the play of thought.

But liberation is silence after the echo.

The cessation.

Awakening is the end of seeking.

Liberation is the end of the seeker.

Liberation is not some
new project for the ego.

It's not an agenda to fulfill.

It's not realized by following a linear

path or dogmatic steps to completion.

But this does not mean that
there's no development process

or no spiritual maturation through time.

Liberation is when we become
a living bridge

between the time bound and the timeless,

so that the limited or separate self
surrenders

all self-centered thought and action.

Ramakrishna Paramahansa,

a revered Indian mystic and saint,

used the analogy of a doll made of salt.

Imagine that a salt doll decides
to investigate the ocean,

and as it gets closer to the ocean,
it merges into it.

It dissolves.

What happens to the salt
doll is analogous to what happens

when the individual self merges
with the true Self;

Atman or Brahman, the ocean of pure Being.

The ancient traditions
and spiritual masters

have always described liberation,
not in terms of acquiring something,

but in terms of a stripping away
of illusion,

resulting in the cessation
of egoic activity.

Patanjali, the originator of

the Yoga
Sutras, has said that the goal of yoga

is the cessation
of the whirlpool of the mind.

There are many lenses that
we can use to look at liberation with,

such as Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism,

Dzogchen, Mahamudra,

yogic systems and pointers
that are born out of the insights

of those who have realized
their true nature.

In every case, we find a continuum
from relative to absolute,

from identification with the limited self

to an ever deepening non-duality

and embodiment of the truth.

Let's begin our journey with Zen.

For over a thousand years,
Zen has spoken in paradox.

It points to the formless using form,

to silence using sound,

to truth through riddles,

and presence through absence.

One of the most enduring teachings in Zen

is a series of ten simple ink drawings.

The ox herding pictures...

originating in 12th century China
and refined in Japan.

These images depict
a lone seeker and an ox,

a metaphor for the pathless path
of liberation.

The ox represents our true nature;

the unlimited One Mind or the true Self

beyond the little self.

The ox herder is the one who seeks it.

Chasing after what cannot be grasped.

Searching for something
that was never truly lost.

These ten pictures trace an arc

from seeking, to finding,

to the total disappearance of the seeker
and the sought.

This is not a path
in the conventional sense.

There are no steps to follow.

No end to attain.

Zen calls it a pathless path.

A return to what has always been.

Hidden only by the belief
that we are separate from it.

In this film,
we explore the mystery of liberation,

not as an idea, but as a living, breathing

silence, that remains
when everything else falls away.

- Part One -
Searching for the Ox.

It begins with the sense
that something is missing.

An underlying sense
of unsatisfactoriness.

There is a restlessness,
a whisper in the soul,

that this world of form, of 'becoming'

cannot be all that there is.

The first ox herding picture
shows a young seeker

wandering in a tangled forest.

Eyes searching, heart uncertain.

This is the human condition.

Looking outside...

some seek for pleasure,

others seek for knowledge,

and still others in religion.

But all searching for the same thing;

the Truth, the Self, the Source or God.

The Ground of Being.

In Zen this search is not condemned.

It is honored, for even in the confusion,
there's sincerity.

Even in the wandering,
the scent of the ox is near.

Another lens to help us understand
liberation is a Advaita Vedanta.

In Advaita Vedanta, moksha

or liberation is not about gaining
something in the future.

It's not about achieving.

It's the clear seeing that

you are not what you took yourself to be.

The time bound self.

And it's about directly realizing
that which is beyond

the dualistic world of time.

What is Vedanta?

Like all such questions in Indian history.

It all goes back a few thousand years.

Vedanta is the source of spiritual
knowledge called Upanishads.

The Upanishads have one central teaching.

One central teaching throughout
the entire Upanishads, which is that

'know yourself'.

You are the supreme reality.

If you know yourself, you will know God.

You want to know God?

Don't go looking for God out there.

Go within.

You will find God here.

When you go within,
you'll find God is everywhere.

One thing that is common
to all the various schools and teachers

of Vedanta is that wonderful vision
of human life.

All the vedanta teachers
they teach the inner

divinity of the human being.

That we are Spirit,
that we are pure Consciousness.

We are pure Being with a material
and a psychological clothing.

The Upanishads teach
that what you are is One

without a second, one without another.

There is nothing apart from you, One
without a second.

In Sanskrit this is called Advaita.

Advaita means

not two; Non-Duality.

Dvaita means duality.

Advaita means non-duality.

Now the central teaching of Advaita
Vedanta can be put,

thankfully can be put very simply
and very directly.

You are That.

You and I and everybody else, we are
this pure Being,

this ultimate existence,
the ground of this universe.

Duality seems to be the baseline
of all living beings.

There is the person, the self or entity,
and there's

all these objects of perception
and we are separate from them.

Something is missing

and we want to achieve that
to be fulfilled.

So a yearning, a desire emerges

because of our sense
of lack of incompleteness.

So we are all seeking
fulfillment, wholeness, happiness.

This is a state of duality.
State of the ego. State of separateness.

Non-Duality is the complete opposite.

Non-Duality is a unity,
a lack of separateness.

You have no ends. You are boundless.

You are limitless. Because you are
just not separate from anything.

You are seamless, interwoven
with reality, with the universe.

Nothing is missing from you.

The felt sense of oneness
is sometimes called direct experience.

Many techniques and practices

bring our attention to the somatic field,
to the sensory field

where you could say the field
of changing phenomena itself.

In practices like Vipassana meditation.

Meditators are trained to observe the body
and mind without reaction.

To watch sensations arise

and pass away without grasping.

Everything is observed...
tingling, pressure, heat, emotions,

everything is allowed.

We learn to stop chasing pleasure
and avoiding pain.

And a sort of alchemy happens
when we open to everything as it is.

We start to love everything as it is.

We even love our pain.

This is how we begin to understand
impermanence,

not as a concept,
but as a living somatic truth.

We keep going in our practice until
we realize that which does not change.

There's only one thing
that does not change,

and that is the true Self,
which is not a thing.

Practices and techniques
themselves are eventually let go

because every practice,
every technique is still a doing.

It's still a part of the conditioned mind.

There are many different degrees

and types of union experience possible,

depending on the degree
to which the body mind has dropped off.

It can range from
a subtle experience of energy,

presence, bliss, well-being,

feelings of love and peace,
to radical, mystical,

ineffable, non-dual experiences.

What people refer to as Kundalini
awakening

is when this inner energy
is particularly strong.

When this energy comes into an alignment

there's a sense of union with all that is.

If you don't know who you are

and you have these types
of merging experiences,

the mind will almost inevitably
become a seeking mind.

The seeker is born.

All experiences, all pain
and pleasure come and go.

But who is it that remains?

Find out who remains.

- Part Two -
Seeing the Traces.

The seeker begins to notice something.

Not the ox itself,
but traces of its passing.

A glimpse of peace in meditation.

A line in a sacred
text that pierces the heart.

A moment
of stillness in the chaos of life.

These are not the truth,
but they point to it,

like footprints in the fresh snow.

The traces suggest that
something real has been here.

Something beyond the grasp of the mind.

The path takes on new urgency.

Now the seeker is no longer
wandering aimlessly.

There's a scent in the wind,

a trail through the underbrush.

But be aware,
these signs can become distractions.

Many mistake
the traces of the ox for the ox itself.

The finger for the moon,

the map for the territory,

the menu for the meal.

The problem in human life

from which
all of the problems stem... our suffering.

our struggles in this world,
our unhappiness, our existential angst

is because we do not know this truth
about ourselves.

That we are Brahman.
We are absolute reality.

We are pure Being according
to Advaita Vedanta. This ignorance

is at the root of our suffering

and therefore the way to remove

suffering, the way to attain
fulfillment in human life

is to remove this ignorance...

is to realize what we truly are.

Right now we think I'm just this guy,
this is my life and I'm struggling with it.

Doing sometimes a not so good job,
sometimes a slightly better job.

And that's how it goes until I die,
and then I don't know.

Either I don't exist after that it’s
all over, or religions

tell me there's some kind of post-mortem
existence.

Advaita Vedanta tells us all of
this. This present life

which we seem to have,
and a possible future life,

all of these are appearances...

they are not the ultimate reality
about ourselves.

They are not the truth about ourselves.

The truth about ourselves is that you are
or I am, all of us are Brahman.

Existence. Awareness.

Bliss. In-limitlessness.

So the pathless path
said says, you are already

an unlimited, ever present Being
whose nature is peace and happiness.

You don't need to do anything
to get there.

You are already that.
Simply see that and Be that knowingly.

But do you feel like that, though?

Is that your living experience?

Do your emotions express
themselves based on that?

Does your mind express itself
based on that?

Do you manifest that understanding 24-7?

Are you a living expression of that?

The renowned teacher of non-duality,

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is recognized

as a major exponent of Advaita Vedanta.

His approach was not to teach any system,

but to guide seekers to direct experience.

He said, don't rely on words and concepts.

You may know everything
intellectually, yet still not be free.

True realization is not
the same as knowledge, it is Being.

He made a clear distinction
between intellectual understanding,

which is grasping concepts

and realization;
direct experience of the self...

and liberation, which is the final

irreversible abidance in the Self

which is free
from unconscious conditioned patterns.

Like Nisargadatta,

Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi

was the embodiment of Advaita Vedanta.

An Indian sage who, without preaching

or trying to attract followers
guided seekers beyond the

"I" thought to the ever present Self,

unborn and undivided.

Ramana’s teachings center
around the direct way to liberation.

He didn't want us to go on any detours
unnecessarily.

He just gave us the simple way
to liberation... the easiest way,

the straightforward way.
And what he said is the sure way.

And all we have to do is discover
what we are.

Most of us, we think we're a person.

We think we're human being.

Ramana says you are not a person

and you are not actually a human being.

We are something
far greater, much deeper than this.

You are something else, something divine,
something wonderful.

That is called in this way
of speaking your true Self or the Self.

This true Self that we are,
we all know in our hearts this truth.

We all already know what we are.

Bhagavan Ramana told us that the first
thought we have is the "I" thought.

This, "I" thought,
identifies as being a body mind

and all other thoughts arise thereafter.

So all we have to do discover our Self
and discover

the falsity of this root thought;

'I am the body mind'.

We need to be aware of our Self
as we actually are,

and in order to be aware of our Self
as we actually are,

we need to investigate our Self.

Investigate our Self means we need to turn
our mind our attention inwards

to focus on our own Being.

Bhagavan suggests two questions we ask.

The first question
always has the same answer.

The first question is 'to whom
do these thoughts

or do these phenomena arise?'

The answer is always... 'to me.'

And second question is, 'who am I?'

So ask yourself, who is the 'I'
who is aware of the thoughts?

And don't give any answer.

Because if I give an answer
that would be another thought.

So without giving any answer,

I ask myself, 'who am I?'

And I just remain.

Another thought may arise.

And then I repeat the process.

There comes a time
when thoughts become less

and less and less
and just quieten out altogether,

when one experiences one's
core of one's nature.

Meditation is...

it is not meditation.
It is inquiry. It is the quest.

Bhagavan said, find out the meditator,

he said 'find out who wants to meditate?'
Where you inquire?

Where from this 'I' thought arises?

Because every day we find in deep sleep
the 'I' thought merges in the Source.

The Source where the 'I' thought merges

is the Heart.

And from there, when you wake up,

the first thing that comes out is this 'I'.

It is the first to sprout.
Then the mind blooms.

If it is partially opened, you will dream.

When it fully comes out, you wake up.

So the entire process of creation
is happening inside..

All the thoughts,
they depend on the 'I' thought.

And thoughts make the mind.

In essence the I thought is the mind.

- Part Three -
Seeing the Ox.

This is the moment of direct realization.

The seeker has followed the traces,

the teachings, the glimpses,
the scent of the real,

and now beholds the ox itself.

The Self.

Pure Awareness.

Buddha nature.

Not conceptually, but directly.

This is kensho...

Seeing one's true nature.

The veil parts.

There may still be thoughts,
emotions and egoic patterns

but in the moment
you are no longer identified with them.

You see.

And what you see is not a thing,

but it is the seeing itself.

In Zen they call this kensho.

Seeing one's true nature.

Not intellectually, not as belief,

but as a shock of clarity.

A clearing of the mind that leaves
no room for doubt.

The seeker now knows, I am not this body.

Not this mind.

Not this name.

I am pure,

unborn,

unbound.

The purpose of the human being
is to know yourself.

There is no other purpose.

That's the goal of life.

Self-Realization is the goal of life.

To know yourself, to know who you are

is that for which you have
received this human body.

It's a potential which when you find it

Oh, my God, it was always there.

There is a place in you to discover that.

It's not outside. It’s within.

That's the great discovery.

And that's the whole teaching of Jesus...

my Father and I are One.

And that is true
for each and every human being.

So the human body gives you access

to the life within, peace within.

And that peace by nature is a river that
brings you to the ocean that you are.

In the ancient traditions, Sages
spoke of different paths to liberation.

Some walked the path of Bhakti
or the devotional path;

their hearts aflame with longing,

singing to the Beloved
through every breath

until the singer dissolved into the song.

Others chose the path of karma yoga,

the path of selfless action

where every deed was an offering.

Every act a sacrifice of the little me
to something greater.

And the direct path was for those
who went the way

of wisdom, of self-inquiry.

These paths should not be seen
as separate roads,

but rather can be seen as facets

of a single jewel.

Sadhana is an ancient Sanskrit word

that refers to the practices
and techniques or activities

that lead to spiritual realization,
such as meditation, yoga, qigong,

or any consistent, focused activity
or effort intended for realization.

Occasionally in human history, a
new innovation arises...

a technique or practice that creates

effective conditions
of no escape for the egoic mind.

Here, we'd like to share with you
a relatively new innovation

that is one of the most powerful methods
on the planet today.

The dyad process is a sacred mirror,

as two individuals sit in silence

not to fix or teach, but to listen

and communicate with the whole Being.

The witness says, 'tell me who you are.'

Tell me who you are.

The one inquiring turns inward,

not towards ideas,
but toward the direct experience of being.

It is not a conversation.

It is communion.

When we inquire into the true Self,

what we see first is the false self.

The clearing process begins,
and all of the unconscious

stories, beliefs, samskaras
or condition patterns

come to the surface
to be witnessed without reaction.

As the process unfolds,
the mind is prepared for awakening

through single-pointedness
and deep surrender,

and a sort of sensory clarity is realized.

That which cannot be spoken

begins to shine through
between the words...

whispered across the silence,

between two hearts.

At the Samadhi Center
and in the Awaken the World initiative.

I've explored a lot of different
techniques over the years

and found
that the most effective technique

for specifically bringing about kensho
in the most expedient way

is this dyad technique
from Charles Berner.

Charles Berner combined,
you could say,

the rigor of the Zen tradition,
the Zen sessin, where they do

these really rigorous periods
of Zen meditation.

In Zen, they do work with koans.

The most famous koan is 'who am I?'

He combined the 'who am I' koan
with the self-inquiry that comes

from Vedanta teachers
like Ramana Maharshi

with the dyad technique
that is utilized in modern psychology.

So he brought these worlds together

and created this dyad process.

There's an intensity of this technique

that is very difficult to achieve

in traditional meditation practices.

The goal for a dyad
and the goal for self-inquiry in general,

is to awaken to our true nature.

So you could say
the goal is to find out who we are,

the true Self beyond name and form.

My favorite teacher, Dogen,
said, meditation is the dropping off

of mind and body.

And it's the same thing
that happens in self-inquiry.

You know, there's a dropping
off of mind and body and

who remains? You know, when
mind and body have dropped off,

who is it that remains?

I found that these dyads are the most
powerful experience that I've ever seen

for people awakening right before my eyes.

And even in my own experience

I found the dyads to verify

where I was on my own path.

And I could see immediately
if I was speaking from the person

or if I was speaking from the "I"
of my true nature.

- Part Four -
Catching the Ox.

The spiritual ego may rise in disguise.

And it is necessary to deepen
our surrender.

The fire of realization has been lit.

But the winds of habit still howl.

The ox has been seen,
but it does not come willingly.

The old self clings to its kingdom

even as it knows its reign is ending.

Thoughts rise like waves.

Habits, fears, identities

all return to reclaim the throne.

This is the struggle after awakening...

the sacred friction between
knowing the truth and living the truth.

The seeker tries to grab the ox,
to hold onto the glimpse,

to stay in stillness,
but the very effort becomes another trap.

In this stage, many become lost.

Some build shrines to the glimpse,

mistaking the memory for the real.

Others are lured by spiritual ego
wearing robes of humility

but secretly
wanting to be seen as awakened.

The mind ox cannot be caught by force.

It is tamed not by striving,
but by surrender.

Over time, a rhythm begins.

The ox resists less.

The seeking softens.

Awareness deepens,

and the line between the two
begins to blur.

To catch the ox is to stop chasing it,

to realize the mind's grip, and
to trust the unseen hand of grace.

The path becomes a paradox.

Less doing.

More Being.

Doing-not-doing.

The ox and the seeker
begin to move as one.

In true non-dual teachings,
you awaken to who you actually are.

Yes.

And then you continually celebrate.

You continuously acknowledge
consciously that recognition.

Over and over and over again
until it becomes more real,

more tangible, more palpable,

more undeniable than
your reality of being a human being.

Most people believe and feel
that they are a mixture

of thoughts, images, feelings,
sensations, perceptions,

activities, relationships, and so on.
And so involved are we

with the content of our experience
that we neglect or overlook

our essential, irreducible Selves
or Being.

And, in order to recognize our
essential Self, the spiritual traditions

elaborate pathways whereby
we might trace our way back

through the layers of experience,
until we recognize our essential Being.

Now, having recognized our essential
Being, there is nowhere else to go.

So once we have had a
recognition of our essential Self

it is no longer necessary to engage

in these pathways or practices
that take us all the way back to our Self.

We can start with our Self.
We don't end there.

So in the pathless path it is
recognized that in reality

there is no distance
from our self to our Self.

Many people who have an awakening...

there seems to be a sense of
getting the cosmic joke.

Awakening seems to the
mind like this mystery, and

there's this thing that
needs to be uncovered.

And, the report that comes back
from people in that moment,

especially there's this sense
that 'how how can it be this simple?'

This is ridiculously simple.

It's so simple that
the mind will always miss it.

And it's only when the mind

really gives up, that
it's so obvious what we are.

Somehow there's this flip into,
awareness.

There's been all this talk about awakening
and all these books and all these sutras

and teachings and YouTube videos,
on this subject.

And they're all pointing to something
that's so simple,

so self evident, that's always here.

It's almost absurd.

So there's there's an absurdity.

To searching for something
that is ever present.

Ramana Maharshi,
or Bhagavan to his followers,

used a simple but profound analogy

to describe spiritual awakening.

He described awakening to be

like pulling the plug on a fan.

The fan is the momentum
of the conditioned mind

which perpetuates the "I" thought...

and identification with the character.

Just as a fan continues to spin
after the plug is pulled,

the mind's conditioning and habitual

patterns persist after awakening.

In the moment of awakening or kensho,

there's no more identification,

no more witness, and witnessed.

But after this glimpse of awakening,

the mind will return at some point.

And often there's a sense that I had it.

But then I lost it.

Awakening to something

does not entail being
the living expression of that something.

It just means that you have a peak and
then you come back to the default state.

Something can change.

But fundamentally speaking, you will still
live your life based on conditioning.

So in Neo-Advaita or in these non-dual
circles, you know you are the Self.

It's great. You awaken the awareness.
That's beautiful.

And then what?
Are you that living expression?

No, that requires practice.

That requires removing the deep rooted
conditioning, the vasanas,

that which makes it come back
from our default state.

And that's why I continuously hear...

Oh, I had enlightening experience.

And then the ego came back.

The vasanas

or latent tendencies of the mind
are what trigger samskaras,

which are the old habit
patterns of the mind

which are operating unconsciously
after awakening.

There's an embodiment process that happens

as we abide continuously in presence.

There's nothing to do
except realize the truth

more and more deeply as unconscious
patterns come to the surface.

After awakening,
a new form of sadhana emerges...

a sadhana without any doer,

which you could call non-dual sadhana.

This form of sadhana is not separate
from life. It is life itself.

Ramana said that through
continuous vigilance,

we learn not to plug the fan back in.

But it is not vigilance
in any normal sense.

It is not a vigilance to do something,

but simply
a vigilance to abide as the Self.

A significant point on the pathless path

is when you have no preference
towards one state or another...

when you can look directly
at the mind without resisting it

and without getting snagged by it.

Allowing the body
mind to be exactly as it is.

Merely asking the question who am I?

We can come to some sort of,
some sort of conceptual

understanding of what we are
and what we are not.

But that doesn't really solve the problem.

We need to be aware of our self
as we actually are.

Bhagavan's path is a very,
very simple path.

It's extremely deep.

It is the ultimate.

It's the complete dissolution of our self
as a separate individual.

And, when we dissolve, we dissolve back
into what we actually are,

which is the infinite and eternal Being,
which is pure Awareness.

But merely saying
that in words is inadequate.

We have to experience that ourselves.

The goal of awakening, self-realization

or God realization or enlightenment,
or moksha or liberation

or samadhi, whatever the path may be
ultimately, the end goal is Oneness.

Oneness.

Oneness of experience,
oneness of awareness,

oneness of capital 'K' Knowing.

That it's not just that
I've read in a book that I'm divine,

or I've heard someone say it
so I know it intellectually,

but I actually know it experientially.

And that's the awakening.

- Part five -
Taming the Ox.

Who is the one taming
and what is being tamed?

The seeker begins to see that
the ox was never separate.

That every step of the journey
was the true Self

playing hide and seek with itself.

The one holding the rope
and the one being led are not two.

In the fifth stage,
the honeymoon with awakening is over.

It's no longer
about the pristine clarity of kensho,

but it becomes about the discipline
and integration into everyday life.

For many after awakening
there's a spiritual no-man's land,

which unfolds. A terrain of excavating
shadows, facing grief, sadness,

resistance, meaninglessness as
the vasanas and the samskaras

continue to arise within presence.

When I talk about post awakening,
there are a handful

of important points to
bring up with people.

One is that it can be surprising

how much shadow work materializes.
How much emotion work

we have to do to really integrate
that initial shift in identity.

I also find it's important
to point out to people

that a lot of this
is about trusting your own intuition,

your intuition that goes beyond
thoughts, beyond concepts.

More and more as this process unfolds.

The more you trust that intuition,

the more you know
when it's time to do some specific work

around beliefs, around emotions,

or whether it's time to continue

to just allow yourself
to surrender to the process.

So it can be a bit of a dance
you learn with the process itself...

there are times
when some intentional work is important.

Some intentional inquiry
or self-inquiry is important,

and there are times
when we just have to sit down

and let the process overtake us.

So to have these types of absorptions,
these types of deep samadhi,

these these types of deep,

deep, undeniable discontinuities
from the flow of consciousness,

you need unconditional surrender.

If an iceberg has 10% above the water
and 90% below the surface,

and I tell the iceberg, please surrender,

the iceberg's going to surrender 10%,
because that's all it knows.

So what do you need?

You need to first recognize yourself
below the surface.

Slightly uplift yourself to the surface,
to melt

to the center of consciousness,
to the center of awareness.

And then you can surrender
unconditionally.

when you have the type of surrender
these 'experience-less'

experiences become possible, which is

an absolute absorption, let's say...

absorption into complete

dissolution of everything.

But then something will come back
or seems to come back.

And that's where you have to pay
attention and explore and inquire.

It is said that when the student is ready,
the teacher appears.

The teacher can take many forms,
and it's important to understand

the place of teachers
or gurus on the pathless path.

We don't push away the teacher
when they appear, and at the same time

we don't become dependent, idolize
or project onto them.

In Sanskrit,
the term guru comes from the root 'gu',

which means darkness or ignorance,

and 'ru'
which means remover of that darkness.

A guru is one who guides us
on the path to liberation.

A true guru
or teacher has only one objective.

The teacher will point
you directly to your own Satguru,

or your own True guru,
which is awareness itself.

So it's true... when the student
is ready, the teacher appears,

but when the student is truly ready,
the teacher disappears

and awareness is realized to be our true
Self.

It is at this stage of the fifth
ox herding picture

that the reliance on external teachers

teachings and pointers falls away.

And this doesn't mean
that you don't have a teacher

or utilize teachings in your life.

But now you know that
all of these pointers are simply pointing

to Awareness itself,
which is ever present.

Once we begin to love awareness
above everything else,

or you could say love the divine
or God above everything else,

then we no longer need
thoughts, pointers, or teachings.

We don't have to get rid of thought,
but we see through it.

We become disinterested in it.

We stop reacting
and believing our thoughts,

and we see all thoughts and sensation

as empty of [the egoic] self.

The pitfall here is subtle but insidious.

It is believing that you are done.

It is mistaking a calm
mind for a free one.

It's very common for one
to cling to the memory of awakening

rather than being in direct experience.

In the fifth stage,
there's nothing that we can force.

It's about steady presence,

firm, gentle, unwavering.

Ramana called this vigilance.

Krishnamurti said, the ability to observe
without evaluating

is the highest form of intelligence.

Here we see through the evaluating mind,

which is based on the past,
based on memory.

We see through the preferences
of the mind,

which are based on the patterns
of craving and aversion.

In Christian language, you could say that
to give yourself

fully means to make the journey

from my will to God's will.

In yogic language, you could say that

when energy moves beyond the sixth chakra,
the command center,

as it makes its way to the crown chakra,

it is the surrender of personal will

to divine will.

Meister Eckhart said,

completely surrender your will to God,

and in return he will give you his Will

so fully and without reserve,

that it will become your own will.

- Part Six -
Riding the Ox home.

There's no more struggle.

The rope is loose.

The herder sings.

The ox walks on its own.

The path is effortless.

The destination forgotten.

Joy arises.

Not the joy of gain, but the joy
that flows from abidance in the self.

Sat-Chit-Ananda,

The bliss that flows
from an undivided mind.

A mind in which
the I thought has given way.

The mind no longer dominates.

Yet it is not denied.

Thoughts come and go like birds
through an open sky.

Feelings rise and fall like waves.

But the ocean is still in its depths.

This is not yet final liberation,

but the Self is now a trusted companion.

A taste of the truth is no longer rare.

It is the very world as it arises.

There's less separation or judgment
between this and that,

and seemingly separate,
contradictory paths

are allowed to coexist without resistance,
without a problem.

Life becomes one taste;

increasingly non-dual, integral
and embodied,

as one aligns with inner intelligence.

The pranic field, or conscious Spirit

that dances as all things.

There is an intelligence in the universe.

And if we are open to it,

it will flow through us in the same way
that that intelligence shows

caterpillars how to become butterflies
and seeds, how

to sprout into trees, and trees how
to give fruit.

Somehow there is a knowing.

For me, it was really just grace
that I found myself here.

That I found myself here
with an open enough heart.

And it's a question I get asked a lot.

You know, you're a scientist.

You're an academic.

How do you have faith in God
from a scientific perspective?

And for me, it's actually not a dilemma
or a conflict at all,

because science's truth
is only as good as its tools.

And that's fine
as long as science doesn't try

then to claim jurisdiction

over that for which
it has no tools to measure.

And that's the realm of spirituality.

And so what you have is people...

sages, saints, yogis, rishis, mystics

who actually developed their own tools.

Not beakers and Bunsen burners,
not telescopes and microscopes.

They developed tools of going inward.

And what they discovered inward

in some cases overlapped with

what scientific tools teach us.

It's always funny these days to hear
Western science,

quote unquote, discover something

that the Vedic scriptures

have been telling us
for thousands of years.

The idea that we are all interlinked,
interconnected, that we are not separate,

that this separateness is an illusion.

So today
we talk about quantum entanglement.

We talk about string theory.
The highest goal of the human birth,

the human experience,
which is to know the truth of who we are.

To actually have that experience of

God realization, Self realization,

not just intellectually or academically,

but really touch and know

that truth of themselves,
that divinity of themselves,

that inseparability of themselves

from the divine, from the universe.

It is not about choosing science
or religion, this or that.

It's about this AND that.

Quantum particles live in superposition.

They are this and that until measured.
In spiritual terms,

before a thought arises,
you are nobody and everybody.

Both form and emptiness.

As soon as you say, 'I am this body',

I am this role, or I am enlightened,

you collapse the field into the ego,

the mask is chosen
and the play begins again.

- Part Seven -
Ox Forgotten, Self Alone.

The ox is gone.

There is no longer a need to seek.

Nothing left to tame.

No rope, no rider.

Unmoving.

Unborn.

Unnamed.

Even the idea of enlightenment falls away.

This is the stage that the sages speak of

in riddles and mystics convey
through their silence.

Ramana called it the Heart,

Nisargadatta called it the Absolute.

Zen calls it no mind.

There is no doer, no thinker.

No one left to awaken.

Just this vast, naked, direct knowing,

untouched by the rise and fall of worlds.

When we awaken to something,

it's like we discover
the reality of our Being.

But awakening is not enough.
It's just the beginning.

When attention turns back into itself,

the first thing you'll recognize is.
Oh, there's something different here.

For the first time, you're not going
to objectivity, to objects.

So there will be an innate
knowing of self-awareness in you.

Like you just know. You know it on a level
beyond the mind

completely beyond the mind.

And it's not something you can doubt.

You just know it. How will the mind,

how will your vehicle translate that?

Usually it is as a sense of spaciousness,

a sense of emptiness,
a sense of well-being or tranquility

or just a sort of innate
knowingness beyond the mind.

It's as if you're recognizing
yourself in thoughts for the first time.

You used to refer to yourself
as an object, as an ego, as a person,

and now you're finding your subjectivity,
who you truly are.

When you tap into it, there's an
undeniability of having touched something

that has never been affected by anything.

That does not age, does not die,
was not born.

That innate knowingness

that cannot be conveyed through words

is the first type of recognition
that usually seekers have.

And then as they marinate
and get acquainted with that,

it starts to radiate as a sense

of space, weightlessness, lightness,

subtle delightfullness
that then can become joy, or bliss.

A sort of love...

Which are very important
fundamental qualities.

Because when even when you recognize
yourself, then the mind will come in

and will just push your attention away.

But if you have a sense of well-being,
a sense of love and joy,

it will be much easier to marinate
and rest on yourself

than if it's just dry,
empty self-awareness.

This type of non-dual sadhana
does not require any sort of imagination.

It does not require
the use of the mind for anything.

No no. You have to let go of everything.

Let go of imagination.

Letting go of the mind.

Letting go of the one wants to surrender.

Letting go of effort.

Letting go of effortlessness.

Letting go of letting go.

It's like consciously dying
while remaining alive.

It's not being afraid
of facing existential death,

even though you're not literally dying.
When you go to sleep at night

you go into this discontinuity
every night in deep sleep, every night.

But you do it unconsciously.

Now you have to do it consciously.

And that's the difference.

We are talking about non-dual practice.

Non-dual practice is so different
from dualistic practice,

because non-dual practice
does not imply that something is missing,

that you need to get or need
to pay attention to some object.

It's just about reposing or resting
on your own Source, on your own Being,

just being... not doing anything.

Turning the arrow of attention
back to yourself.

Resting in awareness, your own Being.

So this is not a practice.

It's a practice-less practice.

And it's very much required.

- Part Eight -
Both Self and Ox Forgotten.

The circle, the sacred Enso... not
nothingness, but everything ungraspable.

Luminous emptiness, or an emptiness
dancing as all things.

The place where the
"I" thought dissolves forever.

In Zen they say there's no one to attain

and no attainment.

This is not an end.

It is the vanishing of the need
for beginnings and ends.

Awake as that which was never born.

In non-duality, the ones we are
most concerned about

are the last three stages.
Last three pictures...

In the eighth one. It's nothing.
It's just an empty picture.

There's nothing going on there.

And for a lot of spiritual traditions,
non-dual traditions, that's the pinnacle.

It's like you go beyond all duality
and find the absolute true dissolution.

You find what lies beyond
the light of awareness.

You find the lightless light.
You find the unmanifest, the unborn.

So this is beautiful, but... but
this is eight picture.

There's still the ninth
and the 10th picture.

- Part Nine -
Returning to the Source.

T.S. Eliot said,

We shall not cease for exploration,
and at the end of our exploring

will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.

In Zen there's a teaching called
'mountains and rivers'.

At the beginning of the path mountains
are mountains, and rivers are rivers.

Upon some realization, mountains
are no longer mountains

rivers are no longer rivers.

But upon full liberation
mountains and rivers Are.

The concept of the mountain
and river has been dropped.

The filter is gone,
revealing the great reality.

The mountain, the river...
is revealed as Shiva.

The great Tibetan non-dual teacher
Longchenpa said

'Everything arises
as the play of awareness.'

The ninth one shows
the world without anyone in it,

which means you are not self
referencing yourself to anything anymore.

Not to a self, not to awareness,
not to anything.

You are complete groundless intimacy.

You don't need to refer to yourself
as anything. Not even a self,

not even a transcendental self.
Nothing whatsoever.

You are free from all types of self
references.

The world continues
without any self reference it.

It unfolds in whatever way it needs
to. The whole reality just plays.

A bird sings,

a leaf blows in the wind, a dog barks.

A person talks.

A supernova happens in space.

There's no need to have any self reference

as an identity, as a person.
Even a transcendental one.

- Part Ten -
Entering the Marketplace with Open Hands.

The mystery of the non-dual

reaches its culmination
in the 10th picture.

To be liberated beyond
freedom and bondage

is to abide in your true nature,
which was never bound.

But then the biggest change, the biggest
shift, happens on the 10th picture,

which shows the marketplace
and the farmer is back in the marketplace.

This is remarkably important
because otherwise we would believe

that we have to be saints to manifest
and embody

some degree of realization and insight,
which is not the case.

You are free to do whatever you want.

And how can any type of expression

not be an expression of that?

So in spite of what you do,

however, anything flows...

it doesn't make any difference.

You are free. Where is reality

found other than here,

in this moment,
in your current experience?

What else could it be?

How can you not
be a pure manifestation of reality?

Whatever your manifestation is.

Moksha,

Salvation, Nirvana,

Liberation, Self-Realization,

Satchitananda, Freedom,

Nirvana, Enlightenment, Manonasa,

and so on... are only concepts.

What do they mean to You?

They have significance
because you believe that you are bound.

They have significance
because you believe you are ignorant.

Removed that one who believes.

Remove that "I" and you will truly see.

But as long as bondage exists,

freedom, or the concept of freedom
or the yearning for freedom will exist.

When you are free, you are free
from both bondage and freedom.

When you are liberated, you are liberated
from both liberation and bondage

because they are a dualistic
interplay, interdependent, that coexist.

Liberation is everything.

There is no life without liberation.

There is no joy without liberation.

There is no freedom without liberation.

But at some point,

even liberation is left behind
because it is a concept.

We are interested in the raw,
direct experience.

As the saying goes,
we should never mistake

the finger for the moon.

The finger points to the moon.
But it's not the moon.

To be free beyond freedom is not to rise
above the world, but to walk barefoot

through it with nothing to gain
and everything to give.

Let me leave you with a story...

not as a teaching, but as a wink
from the mystery.

In a bustling marketplace

where the sacred and mundane mingle
without separation,

a man approaches a strange figure.

Round bellied, radiant-eyed,

clothed in rags
and laughing for no reason at all,

It is Hotei, the so-called
Laughing Buddha.

Not a teacher, but a question mark.

The man bowed slightly to this figure.

He recognizes something in Hotei.

"Please", he says,

'What is the meaning of Zen?'

Hotei steps forward, smiling wide.

He opens his arms and draws the man

into a full, warm embrace.

No words,

just the absolute
intimacy of the present moment.

The man exhales a long exhale.

Deep inside, something softens.

Another question arises...

'What is the highest wisdom?'

Hotei says nothing.

He bends and lifts his old cloth bag,
turns and walks away into the crowd

without looking back, and disappears.

This was his answer.

An embrace, a departure.

Presence and disappearance.

The fullness of love,

the freedom of non-attachment.

This is the pathless path.

Not to be understood, but to be lived.