Some teachings recognize that the separate self is not an entity in its own right, and as a result deny the existence of a self. One of the ways of expressing this denial of the existence of a self is the phrase “There is nobody here.”It is the recognition of what I am not; it is not yet the recognition of what I am. So the first step we take is to disentangle ourselves from the content of experience and recognize ourself as its knower, the experiencer of the experienced, the witness of the witnessed. I am the knower, the presence of awareness with which all objective experience is known. I am not my thoughts, feelings, sensations or perceptions; I am that which is aware of my thoughts, feelings, sensations or perceptions. It is not necessary to get rid of thoughts. Any thought, irrespective of its content, is a portal back to our true nature. We just follow the thought to the process of thinking, and from the process of thinking to pure knowing or pure awareness itself. Even our most painful emotions become portals if we do not follow the emotion into the past or the future. If we follow it into the depth of our being, it reveals the stuff it is made of - awareness itself, or happiness itself.
Duration: 01:34:48