Awake: It's Your Turn

At some point, you will have to be willing to let go of your life as you know it.

take any belief and ask yourself, “Can I find any evidence of this belief being true in my immediate (direct) experience?” For instance, we might notice the belief, “The experience of presence and clarity that was here yesterday seems to be gone today.” Then we put our attention fully into the sounds in our environment. Is there evidence here for o

Quite simply, inquiry is a method of investigating your fundamental nature and the fundamental nature of reality in a direct, nonconceptual way.

First, it is important to know that this statement is not referring to all types of thought. It is referring to a specific type of thought that just so happens to constitute the majority of our thinking. This statement is specifically referring to discursive, or self-referential thought. Self-referential thoughts are the endless thoughts about “me.

“What is this like when I don’t reference the past, or the future, or even the present? Where can I look now?”

it’s important to be very clear about what is a thought and what is real.

If I were to give the expansion movement a voice, it would say something like, “This is how unfiltered reality actually is.” Then the contraction movement would say “And this is what’s preventing you from experiencing unfiltered reality on an ongoing basis.”

If at any point you are reading along and find yourself overtaken by an experience of expansiveness, interconnectedness, or deep stillness, then just stop reading and turn your attention directly to that experience. Relax into that experience. Give the experience permission to be the only thing there is. The words on the page aren’t going anywhere.

At some point we realize inquiry isn’t something we do, and it never has been. It’s much more something we are. Or rather, it’s a radical immersion into something sacred, wondrous, humbling, and rather intimate.

Over time it will become clearer. What happens is the openness and the nonjudgmental investigation of our immediate experience becomes deeply enjoyable. When this enjoyment comes, you will start to sense the natural curious innocence that inquiry is touching into. This curious innocence as we surrender to this sacred rite is the exact set of condit