Being present in the Now becomes the object of the mind when its value is recognized. As a result, the mind begins its quest to "achieve presence", to "learn to live in the now" as if it were just another mind activity. Over the decades we spend in our heads the belief that our mind must be a party to whatever state or activity becomes "our truth". The notion that the mind could be left out and we would exit without it is (almost) unimaginable. Yet this is the very thing one must accept - leaving the mind out of the equation - when one stops leaving the present moment. Yes, leaving. We do not arrive at the Now, we stop leaving it through mind activity that is nothing more than pure imagination. Whether what we conceive of through our minds resembles "some reality" or not, it always is a distant derivative of true reality, Truth. Just like a tasty meal can only be experienced by the palate and never through its conceptual description (e.g. text on a menu), reality can only be lived without the reductionist, divisve activity of thought. Therefore, living in the Now is being free from thought, cultivating a mental silence so pure that it even makes one question what the word "mind" really means. Just a bundle of thoughts? Being free from thought does not mean not having any thoughts, ever. Silence dawns when thought loses its might and becomes no more than a servant of the ever present "I". "I am" is truth, and anchored in this realization one may even allow thought to create glimpses of illusion and not get lost again.

Addictions are distractions, coping mechanisms that the mind develops to, through diverting attention from itself, cover up its own "mischief", the real burden of the tyranny of the ego. Unquestioned identification with the ego renders the soul, the "I Am" awareness, a slave to egoic self-centered mind activity. People's fundamental addiction is to identification with the ego, a mere thought, the "I thought", adorned with a bundle of perceived traits and a history, held together by blind belief. Every worldly addiction is a result of one's addiction to false egoic identification, and therefore to thought. These addictions come in to help the ego distract attention from thought when that alone no longer can convincingly maintain the show of normality amidst the insanity of living a life subservient to a voice in one's head. Therefore, addictions are only the tip of the iceberg and not the core issue. When false identification is corrected through awakening to one's true self, these superficial addictions begin to fall away. The real difficulty with addictions is that they help mask the false and delay the recognition that one cannot possibly be happy and free while holding on to egoic identity. Even after this recognition has begun to emerge, the ego may fight back through using worldly addictions to make one submit to the ego's proposed solutions for "getting better". The grip of the egoic identity only loses its teeth when one has sufficient insight into its extremely cunning ways of ensuring its own survival.

There comes a time in many seekers' life when one begins to see how thoughts, often self-harming, control one's experience. When faith in thought is questioned, one usually wonders what can be trusted if one cannot trust his or her "own" thoughts? This can first feel daunting as we have been conditioned to believe that our thoughts are truly our own and that they make up the most intimate aspect of who we are. To go beyond, one must first realise that this is untrue. Our thoughts are bound to language and language we acquired in childhood. Our minds work much like AI in that the mind's repertoire of thoughts equals the total of all input of words to date, and this is continuously updated through interpersonal communication and the consumption of langauge-based material. Notwithstanding, there is an important distinction: while AI does not form a self-serving ego, our minds do, and this ego proclaims individuality and individual intelligence. And there you go, you have got a self-centered, self-serving program running in your consciousness whose only aim is its own survival even if that requires making you, its host, miserable. While in theory awakening does not necessitate a guru, in practice a guru is very useful when the seeker needs to place his of her trust in something other than thoughts.

What Is is the only reality in the present moment, and the present moment is all there is. Most people spend their lives resisting What Is, and this alone leads to almost all suffering they experience. Self-proclaimed rational people approach What Is with resistance, losing themselves in thought about what they imagine should be. This can only happen because we have become so addicted to thought that we have been thoroughly blinded by it. From early childhood onwards we develop an ego that is essentially a blindingly opaque filter of thoughts through which we perceive reality. As a result, our perceived reality is severely distorted by our individual conditioning, i.e. the particular characteristics of one's filtering ego. Consequently, we imagine what should be according to what our conditioning dictates, which inevitably leads to conflict and sorrow. On the path to awakening recognizing that one has been hijacked by one's conditioned mind, and subsequently surrendering to What Is are important milestones. What Is can never not be. What Is is God and the only reality.

Enquiring "Who am I?", as Ramana Maharshi taught, is one of the most effective approaches. Many are aware of this teaching, yet many give up on asking this question all too soon. Clearly, this question is not one to be answered by what one usually calls "the mind". But if the mind is not supposed to answer it, who is? No body is. No body is. Making it into a mantra and repeating it without paying complete attention to the totally of the question and the subsequent silence does not help either. What one needs to see through this question is the silence from which the words "Who am I?" emerge and the silence which the question fades into. Who am I? ? ? ? ?