INSTANT NO-SEPARATE-SELF AWAKENING VERSUS SELF-REALIZATION

I get so very tired of hearing friends and others on FB give no-self pointers.  For them, everything begins and ends with the discovery that self, I, me, are just concepts.  With the disappearance of that concept you supposedly are left in the poignant presence of infinite beingness and peace.

But this is only a baby step. The first baby step.

I assure you there is a self and there is a Self.  But the path to finding both only begins with the disappearance of the concept of self.

Then one needs to look within that beingness and find the "feeling" of life, the feeling that you exist, which Nisargadatta and Ramana and I call the I-Am sensation.  Focus on it.  Play with it.  Love it.  Follow it and abide in it.  If you do, it will grow and grow and great love will come into your life along with great bliss and joy.  But it takes time.  The outward looking of many years of being a human must be replaced with many years of looking inward, towards the body, the heart, emotions, and the emptiness/presence which permeates all.

Loving that presence, loving that I am, loving yourself, and more importantly, loving another madly, completely, totally, will one day result in Self-Realization, a recognition of the divine life-force of awareness and energy within you as you.

This is so, so, so very far from the near instant enlightenment of the neo-Advaitins and the direct pointers.  It is an entirely different universe with infinite flowing energies and a reality that never stands still and itself flows as easily as a small stream.  What wonder then.  This is real awakening.