I am currently working through the plethora of resources amassed and discussed on the Awakening to Reality website. It breaks down the path to awakening into 7 stages with descriptions of various practices and markers corresponding to each stage. I am starting from the very top and going page by page, resource by resource, video by video, to make sure I understand and assemble all the knowledge myself.

With that much content, it may take me more than a year to just get familiar with the material. Some of the concepts and insights I might already be familiar with but will see once I go over studying and reflecting on them earnestly here.

First Stage

The first stage deals with the experience of I AMness. The insights here include perceiving the illusory nature of individuality, dissolution of subject-object division, and experience of AMness as the ground for all phenomena to take place.

The core approach to this stage of realization is self-inquiry. Several methods from different paths and teachers are grouped in this category that supposedly lead to the same realization–each of us is just the conscious awareness at our core.

Adyashanti’s Meditative Self-Inquiry

The first resource that I reviewed that demonstrates this masterfully is this meditative self-inquiry by Adyashanti. The meditation itself is a perfect guide but I represented it in this diagram as that is how I learn best. The primary use of this, of course, is the direct and repeated practice of the guided meditation itself. Then repeated navigation and resting in this insight independently and, eventually, spontaneously.

This is where the rubber meets the road and words become useless. Words do lead you to the precipice of what needs to be experienced but the experience itself then takes over and a calm sure understanding dawns on you as a different type of language/communication of unmistakeable truth. Praise be the teachers that lead us to the light!