Posted 11 April 2024 by Sal

Go to this linnk to read the interview.  Read More…

Posted 1 December 2023 by Sal

I often speak about a paradigm shift. What do I mean by that? It is not about getting a new concept or intellectual understanding. It is an actual experiential shift in your own way of being.   Read More…

Posted 5 November 2023 by Sal

From a conversation on a recent Online Open Meeting  Read More…

Posted 29 October 2023 by Sal

Here is my reply to an email from a friend.  Read More…

Posted 4 October 2023 by Sal

My answer is yes, I am the body. This goes against the modern neo-advaitan idea, “I am not the body, but only awareness, or the absolute.” Or, “there is no one here.” I don’t see it that way.  Read More…

Posted 13 September 2023 by Sal

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments. I agree with everyone who shared about the beautiful moments of life as being gracious. They certainly are.  Read More…

Posted 26 August 2023 by Sal

Perhaps you are familiar with the story about the Sirens in The Odyssey by Homer.  The Sirens, who lived on an island, were half bird and half woman. It was said that so alluring was their music and sweet singing that no one could resist them.  To succumb to them was to meet your doom. Sailors who were passing by the island had to stuff their ears with wax so as not to hear their songs.   If they did hear them, they would never make it home; they would swim frantically to the shore and be crushed to death on the rocky coast. However, if any mortal heard their song and managed to pass them by, the Sirens would die, as they needed their attention to feed their existence.  Read More…

Posted 8 May 2020 by Sal

We may insist that we are being beneficial or being benefited, lending or receiving a hand, offering or receiving value, imparting or receiving insights, helping or being helped, but that is all part of the projected mirage, which appears to be—someone sharing something to someone, but in reality is—no one sharing nothing to no one.  Read More…

Posted 17 April 2020 by Sal

Without grace we will continue to wander around the lifeless desert of ignorance and suffering forever. Grace is not a good feeling. It is a solid kick in the ass.  Read More…

Posted 16 April 2020 by Sal

This is the perennial message, shared by sages since the beginning of humanity. This message is not new and never changes. It is here and now eternally. Why not have a look and find out for yourself?  Read More…

Posted 1 March 2020 by Sal

You hear constantly on the spiritual path about how difficult and rare it is to come to know “who you are.” My question is always, “If it is who you are, why should you NOT know? Why should only Ramana know who YOU are?”  Read More…

Posted 23 January 2020 by Sal

Someone who is very philosophical and spiritually learned and who knows how to speak really well is not going to wake up. People who are philosophical are infatuated with their minds.  Read More…

Posted 3 December 2019 by Sal

You are not going to be any more free than you are right at this moment. Freedom isn't something you attain. Freedom is something you recognize, now. The idea that you will be more doubtless in the future is only that, an idea. It’s not true. You’re not going to be more free in the future. You are only going to recognize it’s doubtless, now.  Read More…

Posted 29 September 2019 by Sal

Believing thoughts like, “Oh my God, the mind said something! I’m so unenlightened!” is completely missing the point. When you say something like, “I’m not there yet,” or “I’m not fully resolved,” you’re mistaking who you are. You’re saying, “I am the mind. I am these thoughts.” But the truth is, you are not that. You are 100% resolved, completely finished, now!  Be who you are!  Read More…

Posted 18 August 2019 by Sal

To answer the question, ‘What is the meaning of life?’, it might be good to first find out who, or what, has that question. And, why is there even a need to ask this question, or to have an answer for it.  Read More…

Posted 7 August 2019 by Sal

Most people believe Bhakti means devotion to the guru, a god, singing bhajans, or performing other spiritual practices, which produces a loving, devotional feeling towards another, separate from them (god, deity, etc). That is a form of Bhakti, but I say the real, mature Bhakti is devotion to truth, being devoted to your own essential being. Be devoted to the truth that there is no other. Be devoted to the truth that actually, the guru, god, and the deity is you—there is only you.   Read More…

Posted 22 June 2019 by Sal

It does not matter what objects are here. Forget all of them. They don’t matter as they are all changing. But what is not changing is knowing. Knowing is here, right? You know the knowing. Be the knowing.  Read More…

Posted 16 April 2019 by Sal

My question is - Who are you? Are you willing to be who you are? Who you are doesn’t need this work or your work. It doesn’t need anything. Your fulfillment, your completion, your wholeness doesn’t have to do with being in a recovery program.  Read More…

Posted 9 April 2019 by Sal

The mind has a momentum of habits from a lifetime of being immersed in culture, but those habits are not you. You are just . . .  Read More…

Posted 29 January 2019 by Sal

A holiday is an atom bomb that’s going to blow your whole world apart. You’re going to realize you have no past and no future. You’re going to realize the entire story of you is a myth, it doesn’t exist at all and never did. It’s the end of your world.  Read More…

Posted 8 June 2018 by Sal

Joan Tollifson, who many people know to be a wonderful writer and spiritual teacher, read my books recently. She was kind enough to write a review for both of them and post it on her website. I am sharing her review here, as well as links to her website and Facebook pages.  Read More…

Posted 29 March 2018 by Sal

Self needs time to exist. In no time, there’s no self. Yes, of course, there are feelings in this body-mind, and that feels like “me,” here and now. But again, that in and of itself does not cause suffering. What causes suffering is the belief in the time-based self. However, that self does not exist. There is no actual self.  Read More…

Posted 22 March 2018 by Sal

Peaceful feelings come and go. The peace I’m speaking about is just the reconciliation that what is, is. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes it doesn’t feel good. That’s life, and you are reconciled with it. In that reconciliation, is an ease of being. It is the end of arguing, and with that then yes, you are more and more at peace and less and less in the mess of mental agitation.  Read More…

Posted 16 March 2018 by Sal

The first object is the felt sense of I Am. That is actually an object. Nisargadatta said to hold on to the felt sense of I Am, which is the first sense of self/ego, until that falls away and you go prior to it—to the true I. But I want to go directly there.  Read More…

Posted 8 March 2018 by Sal

Until you have come to know your essential being, you will be forever trying to change something about your mental and emotional experience and will never come to know the peace of freedom. Why? Because freedom is not an experience. Freedom is in, and as the result of, knowing.  Read More…

Posted 3 January 2018 by Sal

Spontaneous action comes from whatever the dominant thought or intention is, which you do not choose or create. This all happens by itself. You are not creating any of it.  Read More…

Posted 6 December 2017 by Sal

We are so used to knowing who we are, in the egoic-self-person-story-mythical-historical sense, that when that whole story is absent, for a moment or longer, and there is a clear knowing of its absence, it is completely natural to experience fear. It’s like free falling in space with nothing to hold on to.  Read More…

Posted 17 November 2017 by Sal

Someone recently wrote to me to ask my view on seeking. He also said that as far as liberation goes, there are some people he considers ‘authorities’ on the subject, he mentioned Ramana and Adi Da. Here is my reply to him.  Read More…

Posted 8 July 2017 by Sal

Shiva is a concept. In my view, that concept simply points to the changeless, knowing aspect of you. Ascribing will to Shiva or Source is yet another concept, and is based on the fact that you are not in control. It is true that there is no free will, but to then state you are not in control because Shiva, Source or God is, takes it one step too far, in my opinion.  Read More…

Posted 7 July 2017 by Sal

All of that crazy insanity you mentioned comes from ignorance. It comes from believing oneself to be separate. That is the root cause. In all of us, that root cause creates suffering. The more one believes in and worships self/ego, the more one suffers and creates suffering. It is narcissism. You are right that your malignancy has never been that malignant compared to many others, but the root cause is the same: ignorance. Therefore, one who knows about the root cause in themselves has to understand that it is the same root cause for everyone.  Read More…

Posted 5 July 2017 by Sal

What is an image on the movie screen? In fact, it is just one still frame. That one frame stands alone. Alone, that frame is not dependent on the previous frame. But when strung together one frame after the other, it gives the appearance of movement through time and space. But in truth, that movement is illusory. When one thought is strung together with another thought in the mind, and collated to create a self, then it appears that there is a movement of self through time and space.  Read More…

Posted 4 April 2017 by Sal

“I am consciously aware that I exist” This is the essential truth of who I am. “I exist as… anything”, is the ephemeral aspect of who I am, only apparently true.  Read More…

Posted 25 March 2017 by Sal

I’ve been speaking a bit lately on our weekly inquirer group calls about the two ways people engage in this type of work. It came to me to write a bit about it.  Read More…

Posted 24 February 2017 by Sal

Abiding in no time, is abiding as your essential being. It is being who you are, knowingly—Sat Chit.  Read More…

Posted 20 February 2017 by Sal

When you look at this present moment, with its countless sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations, unless your mind separates it all, you are not actually experiencing the countless things, you are experiencing this one present moment.  Read More…

Posted 13 February 2017 by Sal

You are not judging yourself in the first place. There are only thoughts, which are highly habitual, created from impressions in your mind from years of input. There’s the belief that those thoughts mean something about you and you need to value and attend to them. What if you do not value them?  Read More…

Posted 6 February 2017 by Sal

Continue to know thyself and continue to value what is true—here and now, I am, aware-knowing, existence-being. Don’t know it as a concept. BE IT. Knowing is being. That is the way of freedom.  Read More…

Posted 19 December 2016 by Sal

The most valuable thing is to know your essential nature is free. That is the most important thing. Everything else comes and goes without exception. When you recognize your essential nature, you care more deeply.  Read More…

Posted 6 December 2016 by Sal

At some point, you need to pick one spot on the cliff and jump.  Read More…

Posted 28 November 2016 by Sal

This personal I am feeling comes and goes, just like all other appearances. We have come to believe somehow on the path that that's going to disappear.  Read More…

Posted 15 November 2016 by Sal

You are aware, or know, that you are conscious. Thus, you must be prior to consciousness.  Read More…

Posted 7 November 2016 by Sal

When you come to know liberation, you get nothing—none of your cherished, spiritual hopes and ideas about what you were going to get with this thing called enlightenment. You don’t get what you thought you wanted. You get the end of all of that.  Read More…

Posted 31 October 2016 by Sal

How many people are willing to be free and to stand alone? To be reconciled with that fact that what is, is, and there is no escape? To be willing to be fully human, with all of its joys and pains?  Read More…

Posted 24 October 2016 by Sal

In the absence of beliefs and in wanting only what we can actually know, which is very little, we become very comfortable in knowing nothing, like, where did I come from?, where am I going?, what is the meaning of life?, what will happen after I die?, etc.  Read More…

Posted 18 October 2016 by Sal

There is only now, right? There is no past hidden somewhere. If there is only now and there is no past, where is the self, this story character created with its background and history, and whatever psychological things that have allegedly happened? Where is any of that stuff that you seem to remember and hold on to as a self, a me? Where is it now?  Read More…

Posted 24 September 2016 by Sal

Karma is the result of knowing your essential being is free, you lack nothing, and you are already complete and whole. Therefore, you are not fearfully concerned with the future outcome and are not overly bothered when things you desire don’t materialize or you lose things you have gained.  Read More…

Posted 8 September 2016 by Sal

Coming to recognize and reconcile with the truth that there is literally no past and no future has big implications. It means that nothing has ever happened. If you want freedom, you have to see that you have no history. This means your "poor me" history and your "great me" history are myths.  Read More…

Posted 6 September 2016 by Sal

I always say come to know what is true and this knowing sets you free. Because in seeing truth, all of the beliefs lose their validity. They are seen to be false. What we come to know is very different from what we believe it will be when we are seekers.  Read More…

Posted 29 August 2016 by Sal

When you authentically do inquiry work, it is beneficial. You can't change anyone else, but here in your own laboratory, you can come to know something that is essentially true, and in that knowing, resolve a lot of the pathology and malignancy that is both latent and dormant within the mind. The value of that is obvious.  Read More…

Posted 14 July 2015 by Sal

Knowing is not exclusively located in this body—there is no center of awareness. While there is clearly a vantage point from the body (the so-called personal sense of self), which is based on consciousness, the five senses, thoughts, and feelings, this is not the whole story.  Read More…

Posted 7 July 2015 by Sal

A common message that some spiritual teachers give to seekers on the path is that they need to look within or go inside, or something along those lines. But I think this can be misleading and confusing. It gives the impression that you are inside somewhere. This is exactly what we have to stop believing.  Read More…

Posted 28 June 2015 by Sal

"Trust your feelings." "Just go with what you feel." "You don't express your feelings enough." We've been trained by our cultures and societies to think this way, that how we feel is an indication of truth or wisdom, or in some way indicates how we are doing or what we should do. But is that really so?  Read More…

Posted 11 June 2015 by Sal

Freedom is not an experience. It is not dependent on how you feel—good or bad. It is not even dependent on recognizing your essential nature at all times. It is knowing without a doubt and being convinced that who you are, essentially, is free.  Read More…

Posted 10 June 2015 by Sal

You are here, before, during and after all appearances as the ground of knowing that knows all of the changing form and data. Your essential nature knows itself and all that appears in, to and as itself.  Read More…

Posted 3 June 2015 by Sal

I have been thinking about the phrase "all things will pass," which I understand. However, if things do actually pass (such as my father's death), but stay with me in an emotional way, are you just pointing to the actual event passing? And what do the words really mean? If something does pass, but it stays with me, what would you call that?  Read More…

Posted 31 May 2015 by Sal

Every time you stop and notice that you are aware, you are noticing your essential nature. We, including me, have been taught to believe that it will look like something—bliss, god, energy, silence, ecstasy, magic powers, or whatever else. No wonder it is so hard for us to accept the utter simplicity and obviousness of what we are.  Read More…

Posted 30 May 2015 by Sal

The essence of mind is empty. It is synonymous with true nature and is the natural default human condition.  Read More…