The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world.

The whole of Advaita reduces to a series of very simple and testable assertions: Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling “I,” and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of

Whatever its relation to the physical world, consciousness is the context in which the objects of experience appear—the sight of this book, the sound of traffic,

it is impossible for me to feel like a self at all: The implied center of cognition and emotion simply falls away, and it is obvious that consciousness is never truly confined by what it knows. That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of fear is not fearful.

the self is the sense of being the subject of experience,

This is not surprising, because the self is the very thing to which these contents seem to refer: not the body or mind per se but the point of view from which both body and mind seem to be “mine” in every present moment.

Each of us is looking for a path back to the present:

could no more have felt envy at that moment than I could have wanted to poke out my own eyes. What did I care if my friend was better looking or a better athlete than I was? If I could have bestowed those gifts on him, I would have. Truly wanting him to be happy made his happiness my own.

Having an ego is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking.