Self Illumination

"Be warm to yourself," he says, "Stop beating yourself up with concepts."

move away from this very instant, back into the story or into identity as a person. And it's fascinating to see how the mind will argue with this uncompromising stance, saying "yes, but..." and even defending and arguing for the reality of our suffering and our story. Gilbert can be quite challenging in all of this,

What you are is all that you need…Let the mind rest on nothing. Let it be spacious. A living openness.”

It is always immediate knowing. This knowing is ever prior to all thoughts or states in body-mind.

Your ‘immediate life’ is THIS moment, just as it is. Let the natural state resonate." If it seems to be otherwise, "Investigate—that is all that is necessary...We

"In the first instant of knowing there is a spaciousness, which is free from fixations.

"As a messenger, I am here to do a job," he writes. "Get the message and forget about me." Gilbert is descriptive but never prescriptive, emphasizing only the One-without-a-second from which no-thing stands apart.

What meaning does the word have for you, if all you have is sketchy ideas, some non-investigated notions taken on blind faith, notions about what it actually is?

Enlightenment is timeless Awareness.