While rearranging my library I skimmed through some old books of Sailor Bob Adamson, John Wheeler, John Greven… just noticing how that line of pointers was always the most direct and clear. There was a simplicity in those words that didn’t try to impress, build a philosophy, or create a new system… they pointed straight to what’s here without dressing it up. That’s what made them powerful, they weren’t trying to be anything other than a clean reminder of the immediacy that’s already present. Having spoken with a couple of them directly over the years, I can say that’s genuinely how they talked, simple and direct, unadorned. They didn’t lean on mystical language or elaborate structures… they cut right through the noise and went straight to the heart of the matter. Just because these pointers are old doesn’t mean they’ve been reduced to some bumper‑sticker slogan. That’s only the mind wanting a new thing, a fresher, more impressive thing. As long as there is a pursuit of that, what’s here now will never be seen.
Over the years I’ve watched new language arise, often trying to discount those older pointers, trying to sound like a new and improved “path to enlightenment.” There’s nothing wrong with offering a fresh angle, but dismissing those simple, clear pointers and conjuring up some antithesis just to sound deeper really does nothing. The mind loves novelty… it loves to feel like it’s discovering a more advanced version of the truth, but truth doesn’t evolve. The words may shift, but what they’re pointing to doesn’t. When someone tries too hard to sound profound, the clarity gets buried under clever phrasing and conceptual weight.
Even the best words can only go so far. Without clarity, the mind colors everything, and the simplicity of those original pointers gets lost. They were never about sounding profound… they were about pointing directly to what’s here, without detours, without cleverness, without trying to reinvent the wheel. They cut through the imagined seeker, imagined path, and imagined distance. They didn’t offer a ladder, they removed the idea that a ladder was needed… that’s why they still stand. They remain clear because they never depended on complexity, they remain relevant because they never depended on time. They remain powerful because they point to what doesn’t move… the quiet, ever present knowing that was here before the words, during the words, and after the words fade.
When the word ego is used it brings to mind some “thing”, a self that’s different from some other self. Over time this has grown into the idea that the “ego” is almost an entity of its own. There’s talk about killing it, dissolving it, overcoming it, but in reality it’s nothing… only a collection of thoughts, memories, a story that make up an assumed identity. I use the word, but often choose an alternative because of the baggage it carries. There’s nothing wrong with the term as a concept, it just gets distorted when you hear something like the ego doing something, because what’s actually happening is simple… thoughts are arising, declaring an identity, claiming ownership of whatever appears. The word is just a placeholder for all that.
Take for instance the common phrase that the ego feels threatened. This is just a convenient way of saying that thoughts surrounding the idea of a person are being challenged, a feeling of defense arises in a body, thoughts follow, words follow, all giving the illusion that there’s a someone at the wheel responding to all of this… but it’s just happening. That’s all the ego ever is… nothing mysterious and nothing to kill or eliminate. It’s just part of the functioning that mistakenly came to be identified as an independent agent, a person with a will, a history, a life. All of this content is in the appearance, it just doesn’t belong to that, because that is only an idea, a story, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, as Charlie Hayes used to put it.
The word is only a convenience, just like saying I, me, and mine. They’re useful bits of language so we don’t have to lumber through a conversation. Ego is whatever is happening that’s being erroneously attributed to an identity, nothing more… qed.
“You are the observer” is the most common expression in nonduality. The question is “who is observing?” This often gets turned into a practice without seeing the depth of it. Any observation you are aware of is not it. The observing cannot observe itself, for it contains any observation. This is why it cannot be known, because it is the knowing.
Very frustrating to the mind, which wants so badly to know it. There cannot even be a known being of it, because the moment something is known, whatever is known is placed in front of the knowing of it. The mind keeps trying to take that step backwards, yet it misses every time, often believing the whole thing is elusive and far away. However, it is never gone… it is only the trying to see it, trying to be it, trying to think about it that makes it appear to be this slippery thing that it is not.
There is only the beingness of it, not what you’re reading in these words, for these are only pointers. The moment it’s talked about, it’s in duality, and that is never where it is. There is no “where” to it, even though we use phrases like “right here, right now.” These are great pointers, the same ones that were shared with me, but even those words fail to indicate it… no words can. This is why I was told over and over to forget searching in words, books, teachings. Reading and listening get the mind caught in the concepts rather than what they point to.
The observing is not something you do. It is not a stance you take, it is not a position behind the thoughts. It is not a watcher sitting somewhere in the background, it is simply the fact that whatever appears is known. The knowing is automatic, effortless, prior to any attempt to observe. The moment you try to observe, you’ve already stepped into the mind’s version of it, and that version is always one step removed from the simplicity of what is.
You can’t get there, because there is nowhere to get. You can’t understand it, because there is no one there to understand the very understanding itself. If this sounds like I’m saying give up, that is correct… any “you” who can seemingly do anything does give up. In the clear seeing that there is no one there to give up, never was, then this is all there is, right here, right now, before the words, before the doing, just this… seeing the seeing, observing the observing, the effortless knowing that never began and never ends.
The you that is believed to be who you are, the one that the vested interest in precedes almost every other thought, is nothing more than a memory. This is the story that gets referred to to determine who you are, and without it the character doesn’t exist. There’s a body, breathing happens, sleeping and waking and working happen. Joy arises, suffering arises, and the only thing that makes any of it stick is the sense that it belongs to a someone… a character in a story made of memories.
When looked at closely, is that even a reliable retelling of a character? It’s a memory built from a filtered version of reality, subjective and shifting, hardly reliable at all. And memories aren’t retrieved, they’re recreated each time they’re accessed, giving only a faint resemblance to something that once seemed solid. The mind keeps stitching these recreations together and calls it continuity, calls it identity, calls it me… but it’s only a string of impressions appearing now, never the same twice, never anchored to anything real.
And time doesn’t exist except in the mind, it is ONLY now, and even if the memories were accurate, where are they? They appear in the present, anchored to nothing. There is no past, it’s only a concept in the mind. Where is the past? Only what arises right here, right now, is what is. The entire sense of a life lived is nothing more than this present appearance referencing other present appearances and calling them a timeline.
This is the simplicity that keeps getting overlooked. The person is a memory, the story is a memory, the past is a memory… and the one who claims them is a memory too. What you are is the knowing of all of it, untouched by any of it, never held inside the story it witnesses. The character comes and goes, the memories shift and reshape, the narrative rewrites itself endlessly… but the knowing doesn’t move. It doesn’t remember, it doesn’t forget, it doesn’t change. It simply is, and everything else is only what appears within it.
Of course the idea of being too close is a misnomer because the “you” in that phrase is only a thought. A thought cannot be too close to anything, it cannot obscure anything, it cannot fail to see anything. Awareness is always present, but it is not a thing within experience. It is the knowing of the things, the knowing of the trying to know itself.
There is a striving to awaken, to get beyond suffering, to know this oneness, this no‑thing that cannot be known. People meditate, practice, do self-inquiry, and still life shows up. Then there is the feeling that it didn’t happen, that it isn’t working, that something is wrong. Thoughts appear like “I should be reacting differently” or “I should be calmer, never upset, never thrown off."..this is where the misunderstanding are. Life happens, the good and the bad, all arising and meeting a lifetime of conditioning that reacts how it reacts. Whatever happens is simply what happens… it is happening now, and the knowing of it knows it now.
Being “too close” carries the sense that this intimate knowing of who you think you are is the tool being used to get free of itself… it isn’t there, but it feels like it is. Thoughts and feelings show up to support the claim, which is why it’s difficult to shake the sense that something is there. This intimately known self, unreal as it is, doesn’t need to be abandoned. It couldn’t be abandoned anyway. There is simply the recognition that it is a collection of thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, all deeply believed to be who you are. As it is seen for what it is, the grip loosens, but the shadow of the person still lingers. Conditioning still plays out… it is as it is.
The knowing of it all is behind it, holding it, not participating, and within the appearance everything seemingly good and bad plays out with no sting puller, simply with thoughts arising, actions happening, and the whole thing unfolding exactly as it does. Nothing needs to be corrected, nothing needs to be purified, nothing needs to be transcended. The appearance moves the way it moves, and the knowing of it remains untouched. There is only what is, already seen, already known, already complete.
You are too close to see it... and while that isn’t literally accurate, it points to why the mind keeps missing what is right here. The mind tries to treat this like something distant that needs to be reached or understood, but the very thing it is trying to grasp is the thing it is already appearing in. That is why it feels elusive, and why the mind is not the right tool for the job.
It’s like the mirror that cannot reflect itself, the eye that cannot see itself, the fingertip that cannot touch itself. These examples aren’t meant to be clever, they show the basic limitation built into the mind’s approach. The mind wants to step back and look at what is looking, but it cannot do that, it can only look outward. It can only deal in objects, ideas, descriptions, and comparisons. It cannot turn around and grasp the source of its own appearance.
What you are is not an object the mind can inspect, it is the ground in which the mind arises. It is the reality the mind is made of, so when the mind tries to know this, it is trying to use something contained to understand what contains it. It is trying to use a reflection to understand the mirror, trying to use a thought to understand what thought comes from.
How can what holds reality know itself through what it holds, that is the whole point. The mind can circle it, talk about it, argue about it, doubt it, chase it, and try to define it, but it cannot reach it. It cannot verify it. It cannot stand outside of it and say what it is. The mind is too close, because the mind is inside it, made of it… it’s just another appearance within what you are.
This is why the mind feels frustrated when the answer is out of reach… the answer is not unclear, it’s simply not for the mind.
The mind wants a concept, a method, a structure, a path, a way to measure or confirm… but what you are is not something the mind can point to and say there it is. It is already what is before the mind appears.
You are too close to see it, because you are what is seeing, and the mind cannot grasp the one “thing” that does not appear as an object. It can only relax, fall quiet, and stop trying to hold what is already holding it.
Death assumes someone was born. In direct seeing, that someone is only an appearance, a movement of mind that seems solid because memory keeps stitching it together. The body appears, lives its cycle, and ends, but the body was never a separate self. It was an appearance in awareness, just like every thought, feeling, and story that seemed to belong to a me. What people fear losing at death is the imagined center, the sense of being a separate person moving through time. That sense of self is not a real entity, it is a pattern of conditioning appearing in the same awareness everything else appears in. When this is seen clearly, the whole idea of death changes, because the one who could die is recognized as an appearance, not a fact.
The appearance called me rises and falls. It shows up as memory, identity, preference, and story. It feels personal because the mind keeps referring everything back to itself. But the appearance has no owner, no independent existence. It is known, and whatever is known cannot be the knower. The knower is awareness, the simple fact of being present. Awareness is not born, does not grow, does not age, and it does not die. It is the constant background in which the appearance of a life comes and goes.
Physical death is the end of the organism. The body stops functioning and returns to the same field it came from. Nothing personal happens in that, it is just another appearance dissolving. The deeper fear is not about the body ending, it is about the imagined self ending. But the imagined self is already an appearance. It never had independent reality, it never existed as a separate entity. When this is seen, the fear of death loses its foundation, because the one who fears death is recognized as a thought pattern, not a real person.
The death of the person is the clear seeing that the separate self was never there. It is not an event, not an experience, not a transformation. It is simply the recognition that the me was an appearance in awareness, not a separate knower. When that recognition is present, the whole structure of fear, control, and continuity falls away. What remains is the natural state, the simple presence that has always been here. Nothing new is gained, nothing old is lost. The appearance continues as it does, but it is no longer taken to be a separate self.
Dying before dying means the imagined self ends now, not later. It means the appearance is seen as an appearance, and awareness is recognized as the constant. After that, physical death is just another event in the same field. It has no special meaning. It does not happen to a person, it is simply the end of an appearance, like a wave settling back into the ocean. The ocean does not lose anything when the wave ends.
What happens after death is simple… the appearance ends, and death never takes awareness itself. This isn’t a claim about what happens after death… death is only ever known as an appearance in awareness now. Awareness is not aware of its own death, only the ending of appearances. What knows death is awareness, so there can never be a death for awareness itself. There has never been any known non‑existence. Awareness was never born and cannot die… the only thing that dies is the belief in a separate self. When that belief ends now, death loses its meaning. It becomes just another appearance in the same seamless unfolding.
Q. If something is believed, that’s the way it is in truth for the believer. The believer is the doer, the doer suffers as does the believer.
A. Belief doesn’t make a “someone” real, it’s just a thought claiming there’s a believer. The sense of a doer is just another appearance. Suffering shows up when the thought “this is me” is taken as true, but the believer, the doer, the sufferer… all of that is just thought content appearing on its own.
Q. Learn to forget yourself.
You will be rewarded
A. There’s no one who can learn to forget themselves. The one who would do the forgetting is the very thing that’s imagined. When that’s seen, the idea of a reward falls away, because the one who could receive it was never there.
Q. The questions of "Who?", "When?", "Where?" and "What?" mean a person, time and space.
Are these conjured by the mind or real?
A. Those questions only appear with the sense of a person in time and space. They rise in mind because that’s all the mind can know. What’s here is prior to all of it.
Q. I am on my spiritual and intellectual journey. I’m interested in concepts that break paradigms. I’m particularly interested in things where there is, or potentially is, some evidence that links to the Western Scientific Tradition
A. Nonduality isn’t about collecting concepts or lining them up with science. It’s about seeing what’s here before any paradigm forms. The scientific angle can be interesting to the mind, but it’s still just another distraction. What’s pointed to in nonduality doesn’t depend on any of that.
Q. Mind remains restless till it encounters its source.
A. The mind is restless because it keeps imagining it’s separate from the very awareness it appears in. All that happens is just the moment when the mind stops insisting it’s the one doing, choosing, seeking, or arriving. The mind is just trying to maintain itself, when that effort drops, what’s here is obvious.
For many who come to this, the first thing heard is that the “me” they’ve carried their whole lives isn’t actually there. The mind pushes back because it has spent years building and protecting that idea. It feels personal, it feels important, it feels like everything depends on it. Yet what’s being pointed to is simple… the me was never more than a thought believed, a habit picked up early and never questioned.
There can be a hesitation here, a sense that letting go of the me is like stepping off a cliff. The mind doesn’t know how to move without the identity it has always used. It doesn’t see that the same mind created the sense of a self and the suffering that led to the search. What’s being pointed to isn’t a loss, it’s the seeing that nothing was ever held in the first place.
As the looking continues, something begins to show itself… life keeps moving even without a me at the center of it. The body wakes, breathes, walks, speaks… thoughts appear, feelings rise and fall, the world unfolds as it always has. Nothing stops, nothing collapses… the absence of a me doesn’t take anything away, it only removes the imagined owner of what was already happening.
It becomes clear that the me was never doing any of it. It was never the source of decisions, never the controller of outcomes, never the author of thought or emotion. It was only a story laid over the flow of life. When that story loosens, life doesn’t become empty or strange, it becomes simple, immediate, unburdened.
There is no need to hold anything together, no need to defend an identity, no need to maintain a narrative about who this is supposed to be. Life moves the way it always has, only now without the strain of pretending to be someone steering it. The clarity isn’t dramatic… it’s a recognition that nothing was ever missing, nothing was ever required, and nothing was ever personal.
The fear that once felt like standing at the edge of a cliff eases. It’s seen that there is no cliff, no fall, no danger… only the end of an illusion that never had substance. What remains is the same life that was always here, only now without the tension of a separate self woven through it.
In that, something simple is unmistakable… it’s finally OK to not be… it’s OK that there’s no me.
