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Sometimes I look back at those days of deep silence in the spiritual retreats I attended, like "Living like Buddha" or those afternoons trying to decipher the emptiness in the "Heart Sutra". I realize that, deep down, I wasn't looking to become someone special. At that time, my search was perhaps more desperate: I sought to stop being who I thought I was, because I thought—I was convinced—that something was wrong inside me. I believed that silence would give me the pieces to fix an engine that, according to my judgment, was broken.
I write to you as the person who has always been on the spiritual path, even when I believed I was separated from my Self and living fully from reason and logic. Now I understand that self-deception has always been there, crouching in the shadow of my good intentions. It manifested in that habit of always looking to the future, controlling certain actions and behaviors in the hope of achieving a spiritual goal, a goal of peace that always seemed to be just a few steps away.
The Trap of Time and the Silence of the Self
Falling into the trap of time is a subtle process. The self-deception consisted of believing that I had to "find" my Divine Essence, a hidden treasure at the end of a map of efforts. But the reality is much simpler and, at the same time, more incomprehensible to the mind: I have always been One with my Self. Even on those gray days when I felt that the Ego controlled my life and dictated my fears, I realized that my Self was still operating there. It was present in so many incomprehensible ways for this Ego, which has always tried to manage and control a process that, by nature, is alien to it.
It is liberating to understand that, even inhabiting the Ego and believing we controlled everything, it was the Self who truly "Is" in every act and every circumstance. The Self does not absent itself when we make mistakes; it is present even in those aspects we consider good or bad according to the judgment of this human society. Judgment is an external layer, but the essence remains immutable beneath all our labels.
Realization: The Leap Without Procedure
We often believe that change is a painful and long process because we do not accept what we Are, and so we expect transformation to come from the outside. But the truth is that real change happens in an Instant: it is, simply, Realization. In that sacred moment there are no procedures, no schedules, nothing to manage. Only the Self makes you awaken when it has to, and there is no logical explanation for that event. It is a wonderful and disconcerting instant; it can come to you after a harsh event that shatters your paradigms, it can arise after a deep meditation or, simply, while you sleep, when the control of the mind finally yields.
After experiencing, searching, and inquiring so much on my own—going through retreats, books, and teachers—one comes to find that everything begins with acceptance, observation, and the full experimentation of what happens, without judgments. All this is born from living from the Consciousness of Love. How simple, how beautiful and, nevertheless, how much we have complicated ourselves looking for complex methods when the answer is not a procedure in itself; you simply reach the conclusion you have to reach when the time is right.
The Undeniable Unity: Body, Energy, and Essence
On my personal path, I understood that I had to be more compassionate with myself. That "Myself" is not just an abstract idea; it includes my Self, but it also includes this body that has been lent to me to live this physical experience, and this very capacity for reflection that now allows me to speak to you. To come to love myself and understand that I had to embrace every part of me, I first had to go through the desert of judging myself, criticizing myself, and demanding of myself with relentless harshness. I was never satisfied; I compared myself with unattainable ideals and wanted to change what was, precisely, my purest essence.
But one day, the veil fell and I realized that there are no parts in me: I am a whole. There is no body separate from the mind, nor a Self separate from my body. Everything is one. Although my physical body is not eternal, my Self is; and the body, although it seems to disappear at the end of the journey, is actually merged and recycled. It is an energy that is always the same. Even those shadows that I did not want to see and forcefully rejected were myself; the Self never separated from them.
This body connects us with life through the senses, and I am not just talking about the five basic senses, because this experience is not only physical, it is much deeper. To truly observe every detail—to listen and be present when listening without judging, to feel the pressure of clothing, the cold, the heat, to taste slowly, to smell—is an act of devotion. Breathing and caring for this body is, in itself, a profoundly spiritual act. Before matter there is energy, and learning to care for it is learning to care for our own light.
Observation: The Key That Dissolves the Shadow
Knowing that we are one, we understand that every interaction is an opportunity to grow, to create that sensitivity and that wisdom of knowing when to yield, give, or set boundaries. But that knowing does not come from the analytical mind, but from fully felt intuition. In acceptance you give thanks, you flow and you stop judging yourself, and then, you simply love. Because you cannot love the world if you do not first love yourself, and for that to happen, you cannot continue dividing yourself through judgment.
Sometimes there is much talk about the subconscious, and we wonder if hypnosis is necessary to cure it. I understand that in some cases it is a useful tool, but for me, observation is the master key. It is being attentive to what you feel and think in the now. But what are we really observing? Do we observe what they call the "shadow", that which we do not want to look at? Is it necessary to mentally bring back the past to be able to heal?
The shadow must be released, because in the absolute present, the shadow has no reality; there is no shadow if you are in presence. If an emotion triggered by a memory arises, that is what you must observe in that precise instant. In the word "heal" there is sometimes an implicit judgment that something is "sick" inside you. Language and labels can be a trap that returns us to the portal of judgment.
The Perfection of What Is
Truly observing is a portal to what we can enjoy with our senses and to that which scares us to look at, but which must be felt with intensity, without looking for reasons. Observing also implies looking with joy at our personal interactions. Every annoyance and every joy in our relationships is a source of self-knowledge. But not seen as a "mirror" where we judge what is wrong with us, but as pure and non-judgmental observation.
When I flee from my interactions, do I not assume the role of victim? It is not about seeking experiences that harm us, but about looking at the situation from another angle and recognizing when we have placed ourselves in that place of victimhood. Observing requires no words, nor thoughts; it is simply being there, from lightness and flow.
In that act of observing, compassion arises and, beneath all those emanations, there is always love. There is no need to dig into the subconscious analytically, because sometimes it is the mind itself that guides that process to maintain control. The feeling will show itself. There is no single path; all paths that lead you to Presence are correct.
Observe your body, what you think, and what you feel. Do it without putting words to it, like when you were a child and got lost observing something until you lost track of time. In that full observation, everything heals, because there is no past to repair nor expectations to meet. Everything is perfect exactly as it is. There is no need to seek enlightenment, nor Samadhi, nor Masteries. You are perfect as you are today, in absolute presence.
Continue reading: Nadir: Sonic Architecture of Awakening
