Seven Steps to Awakening

These are my personal notes from the book Seven Steps to Awakening.

TIP

The Seven Steps

1. STEP ONE: Use the quotes as practice instructions. Know that a conceptual journey is not a journey to Awakening.
2. STEP TWO: Know that the world is a dreamlike illusion.
3. STEP THREE: See how the impostor self perpetuates its imaginary self and all illusion and suffering.
4. STEP FOUR: Increase your desire for liberation.
5. STEP FIVE: Be inspired, encouraged and motivated.
6. STEP SIX: Turn your attention inward.
7. STEP SEVEN: Practice the most rapid, effective and direct method that brings the impostor self to its final end.

INTRODUCTION

You, dear reader, have a choice.

• Choice A: To bring the impostor self and all forms of suffering to a final end and thus enjoy the perfect Awareness-Love-Bliss of your true Self forever.
• Choice B: To continue to be controlled by the impostor self; identified with a temporary physical body that is subject to hundreds of diseases while living in a world that has had more than fifteen thousand wars in the last five thousand years.

The most effective means to stop the tricks of the impostor self is to increase your desire for liberation. The desire for liberation is the desire for freedom from:

1. The impostor self.
2. This false dreamlike world.
3. All forms of suffering.

The desire for liberation is also the desire to live as the true Self so that you can enjoy Awareness-Love-Bliss forever.

There are positive and negative ways to increase your desire for liberation. Facing the negative aspects of the life the impostor self leads is a negative way to increase your desire for liberation. Comparing choice A with choice B is also a way to increase your desire for liberation.

When the desire for liberation becomes extremely intense:

1. Self honesty becomes intense.
2. Suddenly you can see the thousands of ways the impostor self tricked you in the past.
3. Suddenly you see the significance of the quotes that the false self never allowed you to see before.

In most people, the desire to allow the impostor self to continue is much greater than their desire for liberation. Until that problem is honestly faced and corrected, the impostor self will create many preservation strategies such as:

1. Distorting the teachings.
2. Choosing teachings that are not effective.
3. Avoiding the practice that leads to the impostor self’s final end.
4. Staying in the realm of concepts.
5. Pretending to its imaginary self that it is not engaged in preservation strategies, etc.

The impostor self directs the study of the teachings in a way that will ensure that the impostor self can continue its imaginary existence.

The intellectual and scholarly type of people tend to prefer the most literal translations. The intellectual and scholarly type of people almost never become free of the impostor self unless they cease to be the intellectual and scholarly type. The motivations of the sincere aspirant and the motivations of the intellectual and scholarly people are almost always quite different.

Not only avoiding arguing about spiritual teachings, but even avoiding the company of those who do spend time arguing about spiritual teachings has been advised by Sri Ramana Maharshi and other sages. Most people who consider themselves to be “devotees” do not even attempt to follow the advice given and that is an example of one of the impostor self’s many tricks.

Often English translations of these teachings have so many non-English words that the book becomes a foreign language course instead of a spiritual teaching. The quotes in The Seven Steps to Awakening contain almost no non-English words. This was accomplished by selecting quotes that contain only English words, with a few exceptions such as the words Guru and Yoga which are already familiar to most English readers.

INFO

Defining Vichara

In the book The Supreme Yoga, Swami Venkatesananda writes the following two definitions of the word vichara:

1. “Vicara or inquiry is not reasoning nor analysis: it is directly looking into oneself.”
2. “Vicara, usually translated ‘inquiry’ is direct observation.”

The spiritual meaning of the term “Self-inquiry” is directly looking into one’s Self, which can also be described as Self-attention. Since the true Self is awareness, this can also be described as attention to Awareness or Awareness aware of itself. This is not two awarenesses, one watching the other. This is just one Awareness aware of itself. And what is itself? Itself is Awareness. Thus, Awareness of Awareness.

Directly looking into one’s Self is directly looking into Awareness because the Self is Awareness.

Sometimes the quotes refer to “Self-knowledge.” “Self-knowledge” in these teachings does not mean conceptual knowledge. “Self-Awareness” or “Self-Experience” are closer to the spiritual meaning. When the quotes are warning against false knowledge, the word “knowledge” does mean conceptual knowledge.

QUESTION

After you read a quote, ask yourself these two questions:

1. “What is the purpose of this quote?”
2. “What would I have to do to put this purpose into practice?”

Ask those questions with every quote and then take the time to answer those questions.

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STEP ONE: Practice Instructions

Know that a journey that never goes beyond words, ideas, thoughts or concepts is not a journey to awakening.

Know the difference between:

• A: Using the teachings as practice instructions.
• B: Getting lost or stuck in concepts.

QUESTION

Every time you read a quote in The Seven Steps to Awakening, ask yourself these two questions:

1. “What is the purpose of this quote?”
2. “What would I have to do to put this purpose into practice?”

STEP TWO: Dreamlike Illusion

Know that the world is a dreamlike illusion.

Know that all of the following are dreamlike illusions:

• The world.
• The body.
• The universe.
• All dimensions.
• All events, motions and actions.
• Time.

Almost all of the words in a dictionary describe dreamlike illusions.

STEP THREE: The Impostor Self

See how the impostor self perpetuates its imaginary self and all illusion and suffering.

STEP FOUR: Desire for Liberation

Increase your desire for liberation.

Make your desire for liberation more intense than the energy of a trillion stars. Make your desire for liberation so intense that your entire life is dedicated to awakening.

The desire for liberation is:

• a. The desire to bring the impostor self to its final end.
• b. The desire to remain eternally as the true Self that is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss, free of all types of suffering.
• c. The desire to awaken from the human dream.
• d. The desire to live eternally in the direct experience of the absolute Self that has never known falsehood, suffering or illusion and that has never changed in all eternity.
• e. The desire to be forever free from the false and live eternally in the true.

STEP FIVE: Inspiration and Motivation

Be inspired, encouraged and motivated to:

1. Make and maintain the decision to bring the impostor self and all suffering to its final end and thus remain forever in infinite-awareness-love-bliss.
2. Actually practice all seven steps.

STEP SIX: Attention Inward

Turn your attention inward.

STEP SEVEN: Rapid Method

Spend as much time as you can every day practicing the most rapid, effective and direct method that brings the impostor self to its final end.