AWARENESS  |  CONSCIOUSNESS  |  OPINION  |  PARADIGM SHIFT  |  AUG 23, 2019 AT 10:24 AM.

How to Awaken From the Matrix Using Self-Enquiry

Most of our suffering and confusion stems from a
fundamental misunderstanding of the way our experience
is actually happening.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

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(CJ Opinion) — I talk about the power of self-enquiry a fair bit in my musings
about enlightenment and human consciousness, so I thought it might be good
to tap out a simple how-to on the subject in case anyone nds it useful.

Self-enquiry, or self-inquiry, is a practice popularized in the west by the

circulation of nondualist teachings from the renowned Indian sages Ramana
Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. It requires no faith in any teacher,
teaching or tradition, nor even in the practice itself. Self-enquiry is a method
for inquiring for yourself into your own nature and discovering in your own
rsthand experience what lies at the end of that investigation.

Most of our suffering and confusion (which is what the propagandists I write
about rely upon to manipulate us into believing establishment narratives)
stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the way our experience is
actually happening. Partly due to culture, partly due to language, and partly
due to the fact that we begin life as helpless little things at the mercy of an
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o en terrifying world, we develop mistaken notions about ourselves, about our
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minds, and about the world, and we form conditioning patterns around those Enter your email...

mistaken notions. Self-enquiry works to correct those fundamental errors and

habits of perception, which allows for the possibility of a serene mind and an Subscribe

ef cacious way of functioning.

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Self-enquiry is a practice that you can engage in all day, every day, to whatever
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extent that you’ve got attention at your disposal for the endeavor. You can do it and It Could Help

at work, while driving, while eating, in the shower, whenever. There are many Restore Their
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different approaches to the practice, but here’s the way I’ve found useful, 88.9K Views

broken down into its ve distinct steps. If it speaks to you, bookmark it and
Australia is
refer to it as o en as you nd useful:
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Step 1: Begin with the premise that nothing you believe is true. Choppers to Feed
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Since our suffering is premised on a misapprehension of reality, it’s necessary
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to rst abandon all our beliefs about what’s real before beginning a sincere
investigation. Prince Harry Says
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The goal of self-enquiry is to come to a clear and present understanding of the
real that is true beyond a shadow of a doubt. This means you need to abandon Diver Has an
all your prior assumptions about what you are, what the world is, what Incredible Face-
to-Face
consciousness is, and begin your investigation from scratch. Start out
Encounter With a
assuming you’re like Keanu Reeves’ character in the beginning of The Giant Anaconda
in Brazil
Matrix and nothing you believe about anything is true. Then, from there, allow
66.2K Views
your investigation to show you what is true. Take nothing on faith and accept
no mental story as truth. Settle for nothing but direct, nonconceptual Cop Fired for
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experience.
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Step 2: Find out what you’re not. Wins Job Back
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Indian teachers call this part of the investigation “Neti, neti”, which means
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“Not this, not that.” Before you can discover your true nature, you’ve rst got to
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clarify the scene of your investigation by getting really clear on what Rumors of “Civil War” and
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you’re not.
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When I say “you”, I mean the subject that is reading these words and thinking Epstein’s Former Lawyers
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your thoughts about them right here and now. Simple, right? That’s me, I’m
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Caitlin, I’m a 44 year-old woman and I lived in the UK a couple of times and
now I live in Melbourne.
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But is it, though? Is it really that simple? Is that my actual, present experience After Months of Drought and
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of what I am, or is it a story made of thoughts? From where I’m sitting right
now, I can access memories of having lived in London, I can perceive
information about my address and my community, I can perceive thoughts
about being a “woman” and what that’s supposed to mean, I can experience
thoughts about the word “Caitlin” and know that that sound refers to this
particular body  tapping out these words right now… but I’m perceiving all of
those things. Since I am looking at them, that means they’re not the subject
that the word “I” is meant to refer to. They are all objects appearing to me,
therefore they are not me.

Similarly, there’s apparently a body which is tapping out these words right now
which have o en been referred to linguistically as “I” and “me”; “Mum, she
pushed me!”, “I’m hungry!”, “I look fat in this dress.” But is that body me? In my
own present experience without telling a story about it, can I nd any “me”
anywhere in my experiences of this body? Or is it just more sensations, objects
appearing to me, the subject which experiences them?

Go through every aspect of your present experience and see if you can nd any
hard, tangible thing that can be called “I” without having to believe a mental
story about it. The mind, the body, the senses, the whole thing. Go through
every part of your experience that you’ve ever assumed is “you” and demand to
be shown evidence for it being you. Spend as much time on this part of the
investigation as you need, whether it’s days, weeks, months or years, however
long it takes to feel con dent that there’s no self to be found in any of the
objects which appear in your eld of consciousness, only a sea of objects all
appearing to you, the subject, whose nature remains a mystery.

Step 3: Find the “I am” and hold onto it.

While in Step 2 you were investigating all the different objects in your eld of
consciousness, in Step 3 you’re trying to see your eld of consciousness itself,
as an object. You’ve already gured out that you’re not any of the objects in
your eld of consciousness, so are you that eld itself? In Step 3 we move
toward answering that question.

This one’s a bit tricky, but it’s absolutely essential. In order to fully awaken
from the matrix, you need to get all the way outside it. The thread you can
follow to get to this point is to nd in your experience the nonconceptual felt
sense of beingness, which the sages refer to as the “I am”.

The nonconceptual felt sense of being is just that: the sense of being. Everyone
experiences it, but it’s so simple and fundamental that hardly anyone ever
notices it. It’s a kind of nonconceptual “shimmer” that you would be able to
experience even if a team of neurologists went into your brain, cut off every
one of your ve senses, and silenced your thoughts. Even in such a state, with
no thoughts and no sense impressions, you would still have the distinct sense
that you are. This is why samadhi states are so educational for people, but you
can feel the nonconceptual sense of beingness even while totally plastered or
high.

You can nd that sense in your own direct experience without having to cut off
your mind and your senses, and it’s not necessarily dif cult at all: just nd the
nonconceptual sensation which allows you to know that you are. Ask yourself,
“Do I exist?” If you’re really being honest with yourself and not traf cking in
philosophy, the only answer which makes sense is “Yes, duh.” Then look in
your experience for how you know that. Don’t settle for conceptual answers,
accept only a felt sense of beingness which you would be able to immediately
and undeniably recognize without referring to thought or to any of the ve
senses.

That’s the feeling of your eld of consciousness itself. Once you’ve found it,
hold onto it for as long as it takes to become super clear and doubtless on it,
whether that’s days, weeks, months or years. Once you can perceive the “I am”
very lucidly, you are very close to awakening from the matrix. You have found
your way to the very edge of the dream.

But you’re not there yet.

Step 4: Recognize that even the “I am” is an object appearing to you.

What cracks the whole thing open, collapses the mind and forever kills the
possibility of mental suffering is the clear nonconceptual recognition that even
the felt sense of beingness is not what you are, since it too is an object
appearing to you. That’s perceiving the entire matrix/dream/illusion from the
outside.

The “I am” is as far as the illusion goes. It’s like the parameter or membrane of
the matrix. Before the “I am”, before the nonconceptual felt sense of
beingness, there’s only you. Your true nature. That’s what you are. You are the
ineffable subject that is prior to any objects in your eld of consciousness,
including your eld of consciousness itself. You are not separate or separable
from your eld of consciousness, in the same way a dreamer is not separate
from the dream, but your identi cation doesn’t belong there in the same way,
and for the same reason.

Once you’re crystal clear on this, mental chatter and the suffering which
ensues from it becomes pretty much impossible. All thoughts are premised
upon the existence of a self which exists as some object somewhere in your
eld of consciousness, so if you don’t identify as any of the objects in that eld
the mind doesn’t really have anything to build on. Thoughts might icker on
and off here and there, but since they’ve got no “me” object to play with they
zzle before they even start, like a lighter icked while submerged underwater.

Step 5: Consciously be that.

Step 5 is a lifelong project, and, weirdly, it takes practice. It’s never possible to
fall fully back into the matrix a er getting clear on your true nature, but it’s
very possible to let old mental habits which you formed under illusion take the
steering wheel of your life. Your task for the rest of your life is to be true to the
truth, to what you know to be true, and to refuse to give interest and attention
to mental habit. You’ll get better and better at this with practice, but at no point
will it ever get set on autopilot. Going on autopilot would just be going back to
sleep. You have to consciously choose to keep your eyes open.

Be what you are, consciously, in every instant. Let old habits of thought and
perception crumble in the light of your awakened nature. Tolerate no trace of
falseness in yourself. Let truthfulness be birthed into your physical form, and
into the world from which you know you are not separate.

By Caitlin Johnstone | CaitlinJohnstone.com | Republished with permission

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