After over twenty years of practice and contemplation, I have found that the greatest barrier on the spiritual

path is our conceptualization of it. That is, our artificially acquired notions of what the path is or ought to be, and what awakening looks like, frequently stand between us and the very natural awakening that is available to us right now. According to the View of nondual Shaiva Tantra, attaining first-level awakening (nava-samvea, immersion into your essence-nature, fully dwelling in your individual expression of universal Consciousness) is a relatively easy path. This is because for this awakening, you do not need to change a thing about yourself or your life. You do not need to get rid of the ego, the limited, programmed, socially constructed self you simply wake up out of the silly notion that the ego has anything to do with the real you. You wake up out of the dream that the stories ego tellsall just regurgitations of what it has been told to thinkhave any relevance to your Essence-nature.1 Do you see? We waste tremendous time and effort trying to change and improve ourselves, when ironically that all unfolds very naturally when we wake up from the dream that the self that can be changed and improved is the real I. It is not. It is merely an appendage, a secondary extension of the real I, which even now, at this moment, is vibrating in perfect harmony with itself. When we ground down in the already existent, already complete, already perfect expression of the Divine which is our Essence-nature, we get to watch the limited ego-self (which we now regard affectionately as something like a foolish pet or an eccentric uncle), slowly come into line with the vibration of our Essence. The slow pace of that process is no longer maddening because we do not think we are that limited, contracted, anxious egoself. The joy and freedom and ease of the first stage of awakening is available to you right now. Simply: 1) for the time being, stop trying to fix and improve yourself every act in that domain shows you are still playing egos game, which is rooted in self-hatred. 2) Disidentify with the contents of consciousness. This sounds abstract, but its not. The fundamental mistake is that you think the contents of your awareness thoughts and feelings tell you about who you are. They do not. (Yes, holy shit.) Because while all those conditioned and relative thoughts and feelings come and go,

The caveat to that is that the more you ground down in your Essence-nature, the more the ego comes into line with it, and starts to reflect that Essence. So someone who is well rooted in their Essence will tend to have a mind that reflects or expresses that Essence or some portion of it; but this is not usually taught at the beginners level, because then the student will still be looking to the ego-self for information about who they are and there needs to be a clean break away from that.
1

your Essence-nature is what remains.2 You have simply been looking for yourself in the wrong place. As it turns out, the one you are looking for is the One who is looking. And always has been. So, dis-indentifying with the contents of consciousness is a fundamental paradigm shift whereby you simply no longer look to those contents for information about your real ultimate nature. 3) As a corollary of 2), you no longer assume that any story your mind tells you about yourself (or anyone else) is true as stated. In fact, you assume it is almost definitely not true as stated, and any kernel of truth hidden in that story must be ferreted out through contemplation. 4) RELAX. Spend more time breathing, doing nothing, looking at the sky, holding flowers, dancing your ass off, whatever helps you simply be the vibration that you already are. Stop believing that there is anything to accomplish. When you are your Essence, life will accomplish things through you, and you dont need to be the doer. Sigh of relief. You can stop striving. At this very moment, resolve to stop living societys or other peoples version of your life story, and simply surrender into what already is and what already wants to come through you right now. Life, universal Life, is waiting constantly to offer itself to you and through you, and all you have to do is relax into and love what you already are. The very Center of what you already are is a vibration, a harmonic of the universal song, an always-already perfect and unique expression of the Universal. And if you really believe that, as you tell me you do, why dont you start living every moment as if it is actually really completely and fundamentally True? Never mind the b.s., people, lets get to the Juice thats already right here right now.

The protest that is often raised here is this: but some of those thoughts and feelings that come and go feel really good! I like them. Dont they tell me something about who I really am? It is the case that when we have an insight into reality, it is often accompanied by a good feeling. But the good feeling is a by-product of insight, one which you can certainly enjoy, but if you become attached to it or make a self out of it, then you will suffer, because good feelings like all feelings come and go. The real Self can only be that which remains. Its true that if you really ground down in your Essence-nature and see things from its perspective, a lot of good and even blissful feelings will arise. Just dont make them into self, or you will suffer when they subside. The real Self is completely okay with all coming and going.
2