Don't Follow It

Patterns show up... thoughts about needing to be something else, needing to be more, needing to fix some imagined flaw. Thoughts about unworthiness, about not being enough, about falling short of some invisible standard. They come the same way weather comes moving through without asking permission.

These thoughts and feelings can always arise. They come from conditioning that's baked deep in the system, old recordings that play in the mind without warning. Any of it can appear at any time, it is just the mind doing what the mind does. The important thing is simple… do not follow it.

When I first spoke with John Wheeler, I told him about these thoughts. I told him how convincing they felt, how they seemed to point to something wrong with me. John listened, and then he said something that cut right through the whole story… he said not to follow them. He said the thoughts are not the problem, following them is the problem… that stayed with me.

John did not get wrapped in the loop of asking who is there to follow it. He did not turn it into a puzzle. He knew the mind is just thought arising, and those thoughts create the sense of following. Yes, there is no one there to follow, but the thoughts are still followed. They are attached to, believed in, and taken as some kind of truth… that is how identification forms. It is not a person doing it, just the movement of thought being taken as real.

A thought can say anything. It can say you are broken, you are incomplete, you are unworthy, and you need to become something else. But the moment you look at the thought instead of believing it, the whole thing loses its weight. It is just a movement in mind, it has no authority on its own.

John pointed me back to the simple seeing that is already here, the open clarity that does not need improvement. The quiet presence that is not touched by the stories that pass through it. He pointed me back to what is aware of the thought, not the thought itself.

He also said that after enough time, the thoughts are still seen, but the relationship changes. They rise up and instead of pulling you in, there is a simple recognition, aquiet, almost gentle, “oh yes, that is what that is.” The thought appears, but it no longer carries the old weight. It is just another recording playing itself out.  The thought may still speak, but it no longer leads.

The Trap of Performance and the Clarity of Presence

There is a strange thing that happens around nonduality, and it happens so consistently that it almost feels built into the way the mind protects itself. People arrive with an idea of what they think it is, some imagined spiritual upgrade, some path toward becoming a calmer or wiser version of the same person they already believe themselves to be. They come as seekers, carrying the familiar tools of seeking, and they expect nonduality to fit inside that shape. They want chants, rituals, cross‑legged poses, the soft glow of spiritual identity, the vernacular that includes “om” and “namaste," the performance of serenity. They want something that feels like self improvement, something that promises a better tomorrow for the same imagined self they have always defended. Nothing is added to the person, there is nothing to get, and that to the mind seems like an enormous waste of time, because it needs to become.

But then they meet the actual pointing, the directness that cuts through the entire structure, and the mind recoils. The heart of nonduality is not a path for a person, not a method for a self, not a technique for becoming anything at all. It is the simple clarity that the one who seeks is imagined, that the one who wants to improve is imagined, that the one who fears disappearing is imagined... and for many, that is where the trouble begins.

Some arrive in nonduality spaces and immediately start arguing, not because they understand the pointing but because they feel it threatening the very thing they believe themselves to be. They take on a posture of superiority, not because they are confident, but because the idea of no self is terrifying to the mind that cannot imagine existing without its story. So they push back, they debate, they troll, they try to provoke reactions, all in an attempt to feel a sense of solidity, a sense of “me,” a sense of worth. The argument becomes a way to reassure themselves that they are still here, still someone, still important.

This is why so many misunderstand nonduality as some form of self help. They hear the words through the filter of the seeker, through the filter of the one who wants to fix something, heal something, become something. They imagine nonduality as a tool for the self, never seeing that the entire message is pointing to the absence of that self. They want comfort, but the pointing is not comforting. They want guidance, but the pointing removes the guide. They want a path, but the pointing reveals there is nowhere to go.

Nonduality is not spiritual performance. It is not a lifestyle,  not a belief system, not a technique. It is not a promise nor a refuge for the seeker. It is simply the clear seeing that the seeker is a thought, a movement of mind, a pattern appearing in the same way everything else appears.

And when that is truly heard, even for a moment, the entire structure of seeking collapses... the arguments, posturing, the need to be right, the imagined spiritual identity all collapses. What remains is this… unfiltered, unowned, unprotected, not belonging to anyone, not offering anything, not withholding anything. Just the immediacy that was here before the mind began trying to turn it into a project.

Some will continue to argue because the mind is frightened by what it cannot control. Some will continue to seek because the idea of no self feels like annihilation. Some will continue to misunderstand because they are still listening through the filter of becoming. But none of that touches what the pointing is actually pointing to.

Nonduality is not here to improve the self, it is here to reveal that the self was never here to begin with... and even all of this... every reaction, every argument, every attempt to defend a story, every movement toward or away from the message, is just another movement in the ever present awareness. It is neither good nor bad, it is simply what it is. The pattern can go in any direction, it already appearing in this, and it only takes looking in the right direction to see it… some do, many never do, yet the seeing is always here, untouched by whether it is recognized or not.

It Isn’t God, and It Isn’t Not God

Most conversations about God begin with the same quiet assumption that whatever we mean by “God” must be something outside ourselves. A being, a force, an intelligence, a presence. Something imagined as separate, something to believe in or reject. But the moment attention moves toward an external deity, the whole thing becomes a detour. It’s like imagining another “me,” just another concept wearing a different costume.

The mind keeps trying to shape it. It tries to prove, disprove, assign attributes, strip attributes, make the idea into something or into nothing. It builds a position, then defends it, it builds the opposite position, then defends that. Any interest or disinterest pulls attention back into thought, circling its own creations. It’s the same maneuver, just shifting language.

This is where the labels theism and atheism fall apart. They only make sense if the imagined object is taken as real. They depend on the idea that there is a “God‑concept” to accept or reject. But when the whole structure is seen as a mental construction, the labels don’t land anywhere. They don’t apply. They point to a stance about a concept, not to what is actually here.

What’s here doesn’t need a deity, a denial, or a position. It doesn’t need belief or disbelief, it doesn’t need a name. It’s already present before the commentary, before the mind begins sorting and labeling and arguing with itself. It’s the simple immediacy of experience, appearing as whatever is appearing… thought, sensation, breath, sound, the sense of being.

And for some this is what the word God is trying to point toward, though the moment it’s named it becomes something separate again, something imagined rather than what’s actually here. The naming pulls it back into the mind’s world, where it becomes something to hold or reject, something to argue about, something to define. But what’s here is prior to the naming, untouched by it.

It isn’t God, and it isn’t not God… it simply is.

The mind tries to turn that into a category, but it can’t. Categories belong to thought, and this is prior to thought. It doesn’t sit on one side of the argument or the other. It doesn’t validate theism, and it doesn’t validate atheism. Both depend on the same imagined object, the same imagined stance, the same imagined “me” who holds the stance.

When the imagined object dissolves, the stances dissolve with it.

What remains is this… unfiltered, unowned, unpositioned. Not supernatural, not philosophical, not theological. Just the immediacy that was here before the mind started talking about it.

Q&A

Q. If there is no separate self, who is seeking enlightenment?

A. Just thoughts appearing about seeking, no seeker.

Q. If the ego is an illusion, who wants to get rid of it?

A. “Ego” is only a concept for thoughts stitching together a story of a separate someone. There’s nothing there to get rid of, and no one who could do it... it’s just thoughts appearing.

Q. Nothing belongs to me, because everything belongs to me.

A. Even the idea of “belonging” implies a possessor and a possessed. Without that split, it’s just what’s appearing, with no owner anywhere.

Q. Why is it that when you pray for refuge from a particular vice, the desire for that vice immediately gets stronger?

A. Because the prayer assumes a someone who must resist, that assumption creates the tension that amplifies it. Asking for refuge strengthens the imagined controller, and the imagined controller strengthens the pull of what it fears.

Q. Procreating is an ego trip, sustaining the illusion of corporeality.

A. This assumes a doer choosing to procreate or not. Life unfolds the way it unfolds, and the mind’s radical claims about “not doing it” just build another ego around the idea of avoiding ego.

Q. How to decrease suffering using Non Dual teaching (not neo advaita) ?

A. Nondual teaching doesn’t reduce suffering by fixing it. It turns the attention to the one who claims to be suffering. When you look for that “self,” there’s nothing there. Without a sufferer, the suffering loses its center.

Q. How do you differentiate between what is "Ego" and what is the authentic self?

Seems a bit subjective to me unless there is an objective standard.

A. The ego is just the passing thoughts claiming to be the one who is thinking, choosing, doing, becoming. 

The “authentic self” isn’t another version of you, it’s just the awareness that’s already here before the thought says “me.”  

Ego is whatever appears as a story about you... awareness is whatever is noticing the story.

Q. What is ego? Identification with the body is ego.

A. Ego is just thoughts tied together into the sense of a “me” in a story. The body that supposedly belongs to that “me” is just another appearance. When those thoughts aren’t taken as a center, there’s no ego left to point to.

Q. Awareness requires two. The one who is aware and that which he is aware of.

A. Awareness doesn’t require two. The “one who is aware” and the “thing he’s aware of” both show up in the same seeing… whole, already complete, not divided into a knower and a known... the split is only a thought.