The great spiritual teaching of today’s time is to be here now. But what do you do when to be here now means great suffering? What do you do when “here” is excruciating and unbearable? What if you can’t bear the heart break of being here now? Non duality examines this.

One must tell the truth about now, and the truth cannot be found in thoughts.

Whatever the story is that the thoughts are desperately clinging to, it’s not true.

It is through this realization that one can shift, even just slightly, from illusion to reality.

The next logical place to go is energetic. The story-thoughts are energetic. This means, more than likely, that the physical system is uncomfortable. If the body is experiencing discomfort in the form of anxiety, pain, nausea etc, then it’s also possible to keep stripping the stories down even farther…

“I” am in “pain”…can now become “there is discomfort.”

Here we are, a bit closer to the truth.

All that we know is that the discomfort is here. We do not know who it belongs to. It does not belong to me, it is simply here, belonging to no-one. If it belonged to me, wouldn’t it always be here?

Let us examine discomfort next. Without the label “discomfort”, what else is here?

Sensation and reaction, perhaps?

Can this be allowed, since it is already here anyway?

What is this space that allowed it in and allows it in?

Now can one shift from the discomfort to the space that it arises in, since apparently this space is creating the discomfort and allowing it? What is that space?

Now, with curiosity, a vast open field of possibilities arises.

Do I really know this space? Can I describe it? Where does it begin, where does it end? Can I go anywhere, where this space is NOT?

AM I this space, since it goes everywhere I am?

Who am I?

“I” then becomes True. “I” becomes that which is true, exclusively.

There is something here. What is here?

“I” is here.

What is “I”?

I.

I.

I.

In this sense, the Truth is ruthless, and unavoidable. I is here, and only that is known. Outside of this space of “I”, this vast witnessing, stillness, nothing can actually be known. Everything is the substance that is this space.

The Truth presents that there is no substance present in experience other than awareness. In fact, every substance is simply that which is aware.

Now, here is where things get tricky in non duality.

The mind reads these words, associates images with them and images give rise to seeking.

The mind responds with “Kate says, there is space and that space is this Truth, or “awareness”. I must “get there” it will be “better than here, better than where I am.”

This thought process is a totally automatic functioning of the mind, it is happening on a subtle, subconscious level, in the shadows, not available to the conscious mind.

Thought imposes upon experience the dream of an experiencer.

The call here is to relentlessly be honest in deep suffering. The more challenging “here and now” is, the more deep this calling.

The answer of this call, will give you nothing. No-thing. Yet, it is no-thing that is ever wanted.