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Recognise

Seeing through what you take yourself to be. Teachers describe it as noticing what is already here, not as gaining something new.

Recognise names the exploration of identification and awareness. We ask how the sense of being a separate self appears in immediate experience. This is our editorial description of one aspect of the path.

A question to explore

Am I limited to this experience?

Notice a thought or sensation and explore what makes it feel like me. Leave room for an answer that is not a sentence.

Recognition in everyday life

A moment of openness and everyday conduct have different rhythms. Inquiry can continue while listening, working or meeting a difficult feeling. Recognition does not establish anyone’s attainment.

Editorial draft. This text is awaiting revision.

The field of experience

Thoughts, feelings, sensations, old tendencies and old pain appear in the field. As perception widens, more of it comes into view. Some of it stays under clouds, even when the view is wide open. A picture, not a measurement.

What teachers say about recognising

What the teachers point to is described as already present, so recognising it means noticing rather than gaining.

“There is no reaching the Self. If the Self were to be reached, it would mean that the Self is not now and here”

More of their words and who says this

Advaita and contemporary teachers describe recognition as seeing through an identification with body, mind or role, after which what was always aware is noticed. They agree that nothing new is acquired. They differ on whether this can be called an experience.

“You don't become aware, for you are awareness.”

Rests on teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Annamalai Swami, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Swami Dayananda, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Jean Klein, Gangaji, Mooji, Isaac Shapiro.

Self, awareness, God and non-self are different answers; what they share is questioning the person one takes oneself to be.

“The Self is that which is aware of mind and personal self.”

More of their words and who says this

Advaita teachers speak of the Self as awareness, devotional teachers of the Divine within, Buddhist teachers in the catalog of no fixed self and of interbeing. The Dalai Lama explicitly sets the Buddhist teaching apart from a permanent atman, so we show these views side by side and do not merge them.

“There is the experience but no experiencer.”

Rests on teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Mooji, Sri Ramakrishna, Amma, Ayya Khema, Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, J. Krishnamurti, Byron Katie, U. G. Krishnamurti.

There are several ways in, and most of them ask us to stop grasping rather than to acquire something.

“It is not an effort that we have to make; it is the cessation of a previous effort, which we didn't realize that we were making.”

More of their words and who says this

Self-inquiry, surrender, devotion, hearing a teaching, staying with “I am”, listening to the body, calm and insight, and questioning a thought are all described as doors. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda say knowledge and love meet, Ramana gives inquiry and surrender as two routes, and Adyashanti calls teachings strategies that suit different people.

“There are innumerable opinions and innumerable paths leading to God.”

Rests on teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Atmananda, Papaji, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Mother Meera, Neem Karoli Baba, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Gangaji, Ganga Mira, Billy Doyle, J. Krishnamurti, Byron Katie, Adyashanti, Ayya Khema.

Teachers say recognition matters because it reaches the root of seeking and of suffering that comes from a separate “I”.

“All living beings desire to be happy always, without any misery.”

More of their words and who says this

Ramana starts from the wish for happiness everyone shares; Tolle, Spira and Lucille speak of the end of a search, of peace and of a kinder relation to one’s own person; Byron Katie and the Plum Village trainings speak of suffering loosening when believed thoughts and the illusion of a separate self are seen. These are the teachers’ reasons; we promise no outcome.

“enables you to have a compassionate attitude toward everything that makes up the 'surface I'”

Rests on teachings of Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille, Isaac Shapiro, Byron Katie, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dalai Lama, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, The Mother.

Ways in

The doors teachers describe. None is ranked above another; many teachers use more than one.