Non-Dual Awareness: Returning To Truth (Talk & Q&A)

This live event explores the essence of Non-Duality and its profound impact on daily life. Through guided meditation, you’ll experience the unchanging Presence of Awareness beyond thoughts and feelings. The talk will help you integrate this deep Knowing, reconnecting with your True Self—your innate peace and wholeness—by releasing identification with the mind and body. It also explores tools such as forgiveness and self-inquiry to support living from a place of peace, presence, and understanding.
This offering provides a solid foundation for embodying Non-Duality in everyday life.

Transcript

Hi everybody and welcome to this live event on exploring non-dual awareness returning to our true self welcome here if it's your first time my name is boyan and i teach non-duality through meditations body practices intuitive practices and more we will talk about this also in this live event so it will start with a short meditation then i will do a talk on this topic and then there will be also space for questions and answers so if you already have a question that you would like to ask please feel free to put it in the chat and i will answer it at some point or if something comes up for you as you listen you can also let me know your comments and your questions later so as people are arriving here i propose to start with the meditation so let's take a deep breath in close our eyes and return to what is some teachers and teachings introduce the idea of a true self what would that be in our actual experience here there is the breath there is sensations the body thoughts the mind maybe sounds maybe so of all of this what is the true self and often we think of ourself as the body and the mind our thoughts our interests our beliefs our desires our past but what if there is something constant in experience that amongst all of these ever changing things remains unchanged remains ever present here and now so the mind it is difficult to grasp that such a thing can exist or is because it is not the mind it is not a thought it is the very awareness with which we perceive all that we experience here we can all say i am aware i'm aware of thoughts i'm aware of the body i'm aware of smells tastes sounds that awareness is who we really are because it doesn't judge what is unfolding it doesn't have a limit doesn't have an end doesn't have a beginning is constant is changeless and i know this can sound a bit abstract at this stage so let's explore this more let's take a few deeper breaths and whenever you're ready you can open your eyes or remain with your eyes closed and i will talk more about the practical side of knowing this to be true so how do we make this knowing this this non-dual understanding that i am awareness and presence more practical in our day-to-day lives how do we maintain it as a as a state of being how can it guide our decisions how can it inform our actions our relationships and the first step in in all that i share and in this meditation and in all my courses is to come back to our true self to come back to presence because it is what is it is something we can trust it is not made up it's not a memory it is not a a future imagination it is here and now i am aware here and now and i am aware of this particular experience and from here then we can invite past hurts pains and forgive people but but more on that later though the first practice that i want to to share with you is to simply ask who is the i that has a problem and by asking this question frequently you will realize that the mind often identifies this pure awareness that we are with the body mind says i am this and i have an issue with a person a future situation a past situation but if you ask who is the i that has this issue and you do the meditation that we did in the beginning you come back to to presence to awareness which does not have an issue it simply is it has allowed the past to unfold it will allow the future to unfold and right now it is here in presence in peace in harmony nothing is wrong so this is a very powerful question that can dissolve problems in experience who is the i does awareness have a problem does awareness resist any thought any feeling any person any situation no of course not it simply is it allows it watches with weaknesses there is a beautiful quote by muji that comes to mind now that i am not a hotel i'm not here to hold on to thoughts and feelings but i allow them to pass through to flow through me that's what awareness does that's what our true self so-called does so another powerful practice because sometimes we do get hence we do get identified with our body mind with our separate self believing i am here the world is there it is scary it needs to be changed it needs to be fixed that person did this to me and i can't forgive them so a powerful question to ask in these cases is what would love do you can put your hands on your heart as you ask this simply ask what would love do in this situation because love is awareness it is unconditional love again it doesn't say no to any experience doesn't say and i don't love you to any thought to any feeling so by saying what would love do we return again to this i this presence that we are and another quote that comes to mind now i think it's either by rumi or hafiz is i tried to find god and i found only myself i tried to find myself and i found only god so this awareness that we're talking about is is god is unconditional love is truly allowing things to unfold as they do so it's a it's a powerful question to reconnect with this true self that we are so let me know if this makes sense so far how does it feel do you resonate with the message i have a few more things to to say and then i can go into questions and answers so the the other part of this is forgiveness you know looking to the past from this awareness from this presence allowing the experience to unfold as it does understanding our feelings our thoughts not resisting not suppressing anything allowing them to unfold and also seeing from the other person's perspective what did they do why did they do it how did we contribute to the situation and in that way we can truly forgive again returning to awareness means the past hasn't there is no past awareness is here there is no hurt and if the body mind doesn't feel that doesn't experience that then we have to allow the thoughts and the feelings to unfold until it is our experience and also forgiveness and through this process of understanding others and ourself we work with projection we work with knowing what is true what is real what is the mind's projection and the more we question our thoughts and beliefs question the i the more we find that it's a friendly universe reality is kind we are here to either heal or to serve others and it's a it's a beautiful and phonic and it's it's just fascinating how it keeps revealing more and more layers to be uncovered and understood from this pure awareness lastly you say i really appreciate this i have been experiencing some of this for a few years love yes what does love do changes everything let's break the illusion not knowing beautiful yes not knowing is is incredibly powerful and i'm really discovering its power every day because the mind is so quick to associate uh maybe one action to an event or to link a person with with with your problems and then when you question well is it true is it true that this is what happened who is the eye that has a problem what would love do you start seeing okay it's just the mind it's just a pattern maybe that's been there since my childhood maybe that that has repeated itself in many different ways up to this point now it's finally ready to be revealed and released so yeah definitely changes everything and um the mind cannot cannot know awareness it cannot know the past or the future it's just um i often call it a background sound like a radio that's playing but it's nothing to be taken too seriously yeah ellie you say i'm a follower of ramana maharshi and nisargadatta maharaj nice to hear you speak wonderful that you are already into non-duality and following these teachers and i'm glad you also resonate with my message yeah it's once you see it you can't unsee it and for me it's such a such a massive change in my own personal life the effect that that it has and the clarity that it brings that i can't help but share it with others spread the message and know that and this is an example of challenging thoughts as they happen i was going to say knowing that this is something that can change the world and then i question who is the eye that wants to change the world i come back to what is the world this is is okay as it is it it's i'm unfolding it is allowed by awareness and if i'm drawn to make a change i make it but knowing that it's still perfect as it is and that's also true for people you know if someone hurt you or said something to you you can love them and tell them that's how i felt when you did these things it's not like because awareness allows everything to be as it is and and everything to happen that you have to suppress your own desires and feelings on the contrary it's the more you you rest as awareness the more you know your true self the more you honor every thought and every feeling that arises you can express it fearlessly you can share all that is arising in your experience ask questions be open to be challenged be open to be wrong and it's a continuous exploration of what is actually true for the other person for you a beautiful unfolding and conversation yeah great that you find this also true lu yes i i followed rupert spire for a while back to it through a retreat i'll do a retreat with him that i became very inspired after studying a course in miracles being very dedicated and aiming to be closer and closer to god that i asked him several questions and his answers just helped me realize there is nothing to do to be closer to god i am is god and so then i was so he's just so amazed by this message that i worked for him part-time which if i felt ready to to start my own way of sharing and it includes things that are not necessarily in non-dual circles such as natural movement ways to to liberate the body to be more open and free day and also practices such as dowsing and intuition really to to feel on a deep level what what is um what is true for me here now what do i really want and that's why i call it the embodied non-dual understanding it's not to detach to go somewhere to to be awareness but not in the body it is to be fully fully human and yeah expressing every thought every feeling every everything that that arises wonderful to have so many people interested into non-duality here already for those that are new to it let me know if you have any questions if what i share resonates with you it still sounds too abstract maybe and i'm here to to answer any question also just to say a bit more about the title i love the word explore because it just puts the mind into that not knowing space let's explore what if i don't know what awareness is what if i um had no previous experience let's see what it is here and now let's explore it let's find if it has limits let's find if it stops at times let's find if um if there are moments in which i'm not aware all of these beautiful ways of coming back to what is i said in the beginning that i will tell you ways in which you can go deeper into these explorations and i will say a bit more about this before also then as questions and comments probably come up for people i will keep going to the comment section so i have two courses that are specifically about this non-dual awareness and how to make it practical first one is called redefining fulfillment as a state of being not a feeling so not trying to seek happiness in the body pleasure in the body joy in the body but knowing happiness as simply being the presence that we are and then the the seeking stops a lot of people are seeking to be better versions of themselves to to be closer to to god to source to be better human beings and and in my experience this happens naturally when we rest as this true self because the body and the mind aligns with this awareness that we are becomes more shining more transparent more open more free and the second course is called applied spirituality keys to enlightened living feel free to to have a look at it afterwards and and i'm doing a retreat in the uk in april so it will be a spring weekend retreat and this will be our first topic exploring non-dual awareness returning to our true self and then on day two and three we also explore natural movement and dowsing and intuitive practices i will also do some live events on those in the coming weeks just to to let you know what you can expect so yeah it would be great to see some of you here and yeah to connect live and in person and my biggest offering is a six-month program called applied non-duality the art of living in freedom and it includes all of these topics and more even more practical ones such as staying present in the busy world learning to love the human experience and things like that all explored from a non-dual perspective lastly you say i've had glimpses and you can go back i guess you cannot go back i used to read the gift by hafiz all the time now i understand a little what his poetry was about yeah and and i love this you know what you say understand a little and i think that's all we can ever do is understand a little and as soon as we we believe you know i understand non-duality i i know what awareness is i know my true self then we are we have put a limit on awareness we have put it in a in a box through the mind and the body and we are trying to fix an experience in time and space but it is not an experience in time and space and it is so so beyond what we can comprehend that it is uh it's good to be humble and there are so many books that are beautiful and that you can feel that the poets themselves were in a place of of peace just exploring experience sharing what they find and connecting our one self in different body minds through their sharing so many words in this talk and i feel like like just adding so many words to say what and i also like starting again saying hi everybody welcome to this live event because we are always at the beginning we are always here now we are yeah never never in the past never really even remembering or or learning from the perspective of awareness simply are you thank you so much for being here i hope that this has been enriching for you that has helped you reconnect with the truth inside of you that is inside of all of us and yeah i look forward to to connecting again in the coming weeks please again feel free to to check out my other content here and my website and i look forward to answering any questions you may have or seeing your your feedback thank you very much and at this moment what i'm most excited about is this retreat in april um to meet in person to to experience what we are all experiencing here together and again i think a lot of retreats are about finding something specific practices getting somewhere learning this will be just about sharing connecting being the love that we are being in truth together so thank you all very much see you again soon