The Looking Glass: A Classic Non-Dual Reading On Awareness

The Looking Glass is the most widely read piece ever published on Awakening Clarity Now. This writing was what first brought Fred Davis into wider recognition as a non-dual teacher and later became the inspiration for the bestselling book The Book of Undoing.

Over the years, Fred has received countless messages from readers who reported a sudden and unmistakable shift while encountering this piece - many describing a direct recognition of awareness while simply reading the words.

This Premium audio version was born from a suggestion by Terry Oldfield, whose music helped shape the atmosphere of the original presentation. Fred offers his deep gratitude for Terry’s music in this reading.

This recording is shared as a listening experience, not a teaching or practice. Nothing is asked of you except to listen - allow the words to do what they have done for so many others - point quietly, directly, and effortlessly to what is already here.

Photo by Ferdinand Stöhr

Transcript

The Looking Glass, Language as mirror. Notice that you're already awake. Right now, This moment, The only reason you can read these words is that you're already awake. You're already awake. You're as awake as it gets. You're already fully awake. Given that you're already fully awake, How then could you wake up further? Since you're already awake, Does that even make any sense? You can't wake up more from where you are right now, And you certainly can't wake up again. Since you're already awake, Does that idea even make sense? You can't wake up more from where you are right now. And given that you're already fully awake right now, You certainly can't wake up again. So much easier to stop the searching and notice what's already happening. Right? If you want to read a book through that body you're wearing, Or watch a video, Or send that body to a retreat for further clarity, So to speak, Or to get some context that has the potential to open the door to so-called further clarity, That's great. But before you do, Notice that you don't need to read another book, Watch another video, Or go to another retreat in order to wake up, Because you're already awake. It's so much easier than trying to wake up if you just notice that you're already awake. If you want to do meditation, Drum, Dance, Chant, Or what have you, For the sake of grounding yourself in that present human experience you believe you're having, Or calming that unit's mind so that you can better hear yourself talk to yourself, And better watch yourself dance for yourself, Terrific. Have at it. But be absolutely aware that you can't practice yourself into awakening. You cannot hope to achieve what you already are. It's so much easier to give up trying to wake up and notice that you're already awake. You're just not who you think you are. That's the only issue here. You're undergoing a case of mistaken identity, And all you need today is a little light reflected from this peculiar mirror, This mirror of clear language that is also you. There is only you, But you tend to get a bit cloudy sometimes, And forget that. It comes with the territory when your spaciousness apparently contracts around apparent human beings, And it's no big deal. It's fine. When you're ready to be clear, You find a bright mirror. So here you are, Back in front of the vanity mirror that is also you. Vanity, Vanity, All is vanity. This is all you, Every bit of it. You dancing for you, You preening for you, Just you showing off for yourself, To yourself, And loving it, Loving this loving of yourself. You think you're the human being listening to these words. You're not. Well, Actually, You are that human also, But you're not that unit exclusively. You're the awareness that's reading these words through that human unit. The human is not reading the words, You are. The human is a listening tool for you, Just as say, Reading glasses are a tool for the human. Now, Reading glasses never mistake themselves for being the reader, But humans almost always do. You think you need to wake up. You don't. All that has to occur is for you to recognize yourself as what you truly are. Awaken makes it sound like something special and new and different needs to happen. It sounds like it's going to happen later, Like it's going to happen soon. It doesn't, Ever. Recognition, On the other hand, Is simply about noticing what already is. See how much lighter the idea of recognition is versus that idea of waking up. Why make it hard on yourself when you're clearly longing to see, Be your true nature again? Why not do this the easy way? Be gentle on yourself. How much effort does it take for that human to recognize itself in a mirror? None. And the same is true for you. You just have to be willing to look in the mirror and see the reflection instead of the projection. Stop seeking outwardly for just a few minutes. After all, You have all the timelessness in the world. Reverse your attention. Take your plain old attention, What feels like your personal attention, And turn it around. Look back instead of out. Notice how easy it is to move your attention whenever and wherever you want to move it. Notice how whatever tension binds tends to expand. See how easy it is for you to pull globalized awareness, Meaning the background unfocused awareness that is always running, And reform it into localized awareness, Which we know as attention. What's the one thing attention never pays any attention to? Notice how once you've seen what you wanted to see, The apparent localization drops of its own accord. Once again, Leaving boundless, Globalized awareness in its stead. You zoom in, You zoom out, Yet you never move. It just happens. You don't have to do a thing. All of this is working for you. It's always here. Always running. And certainly, It's always awake. It has to be. It's you. And you are the one thing going on. There are no parts to you. No pieces to you. There is only the wholeness of you. And this is that wholeness. Look around. This is it. It's not something else. It's not something other. It's not somewhere else. It's not over there. It's here. It's now. It's this. It's this ordinary this. When seen from the eyes of oneness, Becomes the extraordinary ordinary. You have always been awake. Always will be. Cannot fail to be awake. Awakeness is not a trait of yours. It's what you actually are. So much easier than waking up. Just notice what's already here. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's go back to the attention exercise. What do you see when you turn back and look for yourself? Take your hand and think of it like a cobra watching the flute player. The cobra is moving back and forth and in and out. And I want you to take that cobra head. Move it into the dark space where you believe your head is. Look around in that dark space. Tell me. What do you find? Do you find someone? Do you find nothing? Do you find everything? Do you find nothing showing up as everything? Check. Really look. Do you find anything? Anyone? No. You can't find yourself because there's nothing objective there to see. There's a sense of something being there. But there's nothing locatable. Because there's nothing objective. But clearly there is something there. And it's absolutely alive. You can feel that, Can you not? Of course you can. Isn't there almost a stirring? Perhaps a tingling? A certain presence? Perhaps behind your eyes, In your chest or around your head? It's unfindable and it's undefinable. But it's there. Always. You can feel it if you let yourself. Now. Let yourself. Let yourself. The we who are you have a word. A sort of name for that undefinable living presence you discover when you look back and try to find yourself and cannot. We can't call it something. But neither is it nothing. Hence we have arrived at no-thing. But no-thing sounds like a noun. And it's not. It's really no-thing-ing or no-thing-ness. Because you're a verb. But we'll stick with no-thing just for this. This no-thing, This pure subjectivity, This keen awareness that's looking out through the eyes of that human you're wearing, Is what you really are. You have been on an endless search for something unfindable. It ends when you end it. So much easier to simply notice that you're awake rather than to try to wake something up. In non-dual teachings it is said the eye can't see itself. They mean that you are that invisible eye. You can't see yourself when you look back because you're the no-thing doing the looking. Let that hit you. Let that settle in. Right there, That bit of a line, Is the wide open gateless gate. Enlightenment in a nutshell. What you've been looking with, Your magical attention, Which is nothing more than focused awareness, Is what you've been looking for. Unfocused awareness, Which is the living background of all things. You've been a dog chasing its tail. You can chase it for an entire lifetime and never find it so long as you continue to look outward, Which is where your attention is naturally drawn. When we are captured by the content of this arising, Our eyes never turn to what it is that's experiencing the content. This endless seeking is the fate of most seekers. You don't have to be one of them. You can't see yourself, You can't really find yourself, But you can sense yourself. You can know yourself. And I say know in the way of grokking. You can come to grok yourself. The character does not grok itself. There is no character. Awakeness groks its own awakeness. Notice what you are. In fact, You can't know anything else. And you'll never know yourself later. There is no later. So notice yourself. Know yourself right now. Pay attention to attention. Notice that I didn't have to say. Wake up and look for yourself. I don't have to say that because you are already awake. And you are always already here. Ever since that unit, The thing that thinks it's an individual. The mental imaging. Ever since you started this so-called spiritual journey. You've been looking for some other level of awakeness. Listen to me closely. Don't miss it. There is no other level of awakeness. This everyday awakeness that you've experienced every day of your life. Is the very same awakeness awareness that all the saints and sages have talked about since time immemorial. There is only the single awareness. Only the not to. You are that very awareness. You are this very awareness. You are that by which these words can be heard or read or felt. You are that by which everything can be known. At every step in your so-called spiritual path. You've been looking for some other kind of awareness. There is no other level of awareness. And you've been looking for this other awareness. Out there. Haven't you? Can you find anything outside of awareness? I know it feels like that human body contains consciousness. That it is the holder of the most precious thing. Your awareness. It doesn't. It can't. A human can't hold you. Nothing can hold you. You hold everything. You are the aware space that everything appears in. This aware space. The only aware space there is. You permeate all humans. All sentient beings and all insentient beings. Every one of them inside and out. You hitherto thought there is actually something called your consciousness. There isn't. Pay close attention here. You are, Quote, Your consciousness, Unquote. And you are simultaneously everyone's, Quote, Personal consciousness, Unquote. I say this lightly, Almost laughingly, Because there is no personal consciousness. Consciousness is not something you have. It's what you are. Nothing can take that from you. Not even death. When the human body dies, You just change channels. Your focused attention goes elsewhere within your unfocused awareness. There is nowhere else for it to go. You dial up in another dream. It's always movie night for you. Let's look at the notion that awareness or consciousness is something you have. It's quite a convincing story that you've set up for yourself there. Shut those eyes for just a minute. If you're interested in having that long sought after spiritual awakening, That that particular human has been going on and on and on about for damn near forever, That it's driven itself crazy over, Then don't just read this. Do it. Read this all the way through. Then close your eyes. Relax that body. And go through the exercise. Notice that without benefit of sight, You can still tell that you're alive. You very much feel that you are. Sight or no sight. Imagine you're in utter silence. Wouldn't you still know you are alive in the absence of sound? Wouldn't you still be able to sense the usually subtle pulsing of aliveness within the body you're wearing? Of course you would. You would know. If we stuffed cotton in those ears, Wouldn't you still know that you were there? Or rather, That you are here? So without benefit of either sight or hearing, You can tell that you're alive. The knowledge that you are is not dependent upon certain conditions or tools. You cannot fail to know what you are. In fact, If I took that unit you're wearing and dropped it into a sensory deprivation chamber, You would still feel that you are alive. That knowing is not dependent on sensations, Perceptions, Thoughts, Memories, Or any other information. It's not dependent on anything. In fact, Everything is dependent on it. That knowing is primary. It's the only thing for which there is no opposite. Can you imagine not knowing yourself? No, You cannot. That knowing has no opposite. Thus it's unimaginable. It cannot not be. Knowing would have to be present in order to report that it doesn't know itself. The question collapses. That knowing is the one true no-thing. But that knowing is really knowingness, Is it not? You are not a static knowing. You are not some kind of grand noun. You are beyond nounness, Beyond persons, Places, Or things. All these years you've been looking for some sort of vague but grand object so that you could experience yourself. But you cannot experience what you already are. You are beyond verbeness, Too, However. Verbeness is in a display that is constantly shifting, Morphing, Changing from one extreme to the other and back again. Evolving and devolving, Forward and back, Is always arising to you, To that which does not move but is not static. You arise to yourself. We who are also you vaguely call that verbeness the world, Which expands or contracts to suit your purposes. You zoom in. You zoom out. It might be a thought, A sound, A room. It might be a whole universe. Regardless, Whatever arises is not other than you. You are what you know and what you know you are. The seeker is the sought. Notice that knowingness. Stop and notice it now. Become fully conscious of it. Hold it within attention. Be the attention so that you can come to recognize that attention clearly. Feel it. In the absence of that knowingness, There is no world. In the presence of that knowingness, The world arises fully formed. You don't have to do a thing. It just happens. Notice that the knowledge doesn't need to wake up. In fact, Cannot wake up. It's always already awake. See that it's the knowingness that's come to know itself. We call this knowingness knowing itself conscious awareness versus unconscious awareness, Which is still awake and alive and aware, But not consciously. Either way, It's still you. One way, You're cloudy. One way, You're clear. But there's just one thing going on, And that one thing is you. You are already home. You have always been home. There is nothing other than home. Stop seeking now. Notice home now. This, This very this, Is it. If you were already home, How would you ever find it by looking for it? You'd always be looking away from it. You find home only when you notice that you already are, Always have been, And always will be. Because there is nothing other than home. There is nothing other than this. Look. Look for yourself. I'm talking about this, This. This very this, Where you already are. We don't find home by going after it. We find it by stopping within it. Any directions on how to get home inevitably lead you away from home. But they are great for wearing you out. And it's all good fun, Until it's not. Take a quick inventory. What have you been using all these years in your search for enlightenment? Awareness. What has been reading all the books? Awareness. What has been watching all the videos and listening to the teachers? Awareness. If you meditate, What is it that watches your breath or your thoughts or counts or tries to let go of doing all that? Or gets annoyed because it can't adequately escape the nagging now in order to enjoy some other experience that would, Of course, Arise and fall within the nagging now? It's awareness. What is it that prays? Awareness. What is it who asks, Who am I, Until it wants to scream? Awareness has been on a millennia-long search for awareness. It's been looking for some other awareness. There is no other awareness. This, This is all this. Take that in. Don't look for the subtle. Notice the obvious. One cannot find otherness, No matter how hard or long it looks, Because there is no otherness for oneness to find. Definition of oneness could be said to be, No other to find. If you're searching for some other as you have been, And there is no other, How long can you look? Since all is oneness, Where do you imagine you're standing while you're looking for oneness? In oneness, As oneness, Always, Forever. So long as you insist on looking forward, So long as you are seeking something outside yourself, You'll never find yourself. Never hook up with yourself. Never, Ever awaken. At least not in this life. And this is the only one we know of. So please, For your own sake, Stop. Once you sense what you are, Once you take that giant leap into the utterly obvious, And recognize what you are, That which is looking, There may or may not be a sharp sense of realization. It doesn't matter. All of that bliss and fireworks, All the angels and trumpets, Fun as it might sound, Is just candy. And it's confusing candy. The unit will take that big explosion as it being enlightenment, And it will miss the download that really is enlightenment. The download is what we're after. The vehicle is completely unnecessary. It has nothing to do with awakening any more than a car has to do with the driver's body. It's about the journey, Not the vehicle. It's about the destination, Not the vehicle. Any bells and whistles are just that. Bells and whistles. Ornaments on the unnecessary tree. They're just pleasant distractions. What matters is simple recognition, Because however you display yourself to yourself, You're almost surely going to have to come back to fresh conscious recognition over and over and over again. This is what appears to be the discipline part. That's what it will feel like. This is the process part. That's what it will feel like. That will be your experience through that body. This is where you use that unit to help you. Don't try to transcend the unit. Use it. Because that unit uses a shovel to dig a hole it doesn't think it's the shovel. That unit is a tool. Deign to use it. All of the ramifications of the seeing being what is are not immediately obvious. They will fill in as your understanding increases. But this is not an understandable thing. There is an undefinable understanding. Coming to understand that this can't be understood is abandoning the search. You see what you see when you see it when you need to see it and not before. Work with what you have. Honor what you have and more will come. That's how it works. We are like spies. We work on a need to know basis. You may tell yourself it can't be this simple. It is. Recognition starts with seeing the seer or rather not seeing the seer. No seer, No seen. Only seeing. Only an object can see. Only an object can be seen. And you of course are not an object. You are more of a verb than you are a noun. All objects appear within you, Arise to you, Are you. You are what is primary. There may be plenty of other relatively real stuff. A whole world full of it. But you are the one true no thing. This seeing is so amazing that the unit will want to claim it. But who will it be that wants to claim it? That unit cannot hold such seeing in its head. Cannot store it up for later recall. Only you can behold you. Liberation is all about right now. This moment. Are you consciously awake to this current arising? Yesterday's seeing is yesterday's dust. Other than being a gnawing reminder it has no present value whatsoever. Freedom is now or never. Here or nowhere. This simple recognition of your true nature is not the end of your apparent spiritual journey. But it can be the end or at least the beginning of the end of all this compulsive seeking you've been doing. If you let it. It can be the most important step that you actually never take. Just stop. Don't step. Stop. Look at what's looking. Pay attention to attention. You can overcome this simple seeing if you want to. 99% of humans do. They do it all the time. This is why everyone wants a big splashy spiritual experience. They think that if they have a big splashy spiritual experience. An S&M style spiritual experience. Where they will be tied up and made to see the truth bearing no responsibility for it. They will not then be able to overcome it. With incessant thinking. People overcome it. All the time. I can plant the seed. But if you don't water and fertilize it. That tree is going to die. People think that just because they got a big lazy peek at things. That they can stay awake and lazy at the same time. They can't. They sit on their haunches and they get cloudier and cloudier. And they declare that they're clearer and clearer. Or they remember what it was like when they were clear. Or they remember that they had some kind of awakening thing. But they just can't remember what it was. And that's fine too. But it certainly can't be labeled skillful. You don't ever go to sleep. You don't have the capacity for sleep. But you can most certainly delude yourself. And appear to go to sleep. You can believe that you are asleep. It's what you do. In almost every single unit. That you're wearing. You're always awake. But you're not always consciously awake. In fact, You are rarely consciously awake. And because you've been unconsciously awake for thousands of years. In that package. Meaning the DNA and softer conditioning associated with the body you thought you were. When you first started reading this. You'll fall right back into unconsciousness. If you don't consistently and actively nourish it with constant light. Seek the light or watch it go out. You have to be willing to shine truth. Even when you don't feel like yourself. Even when you don't want to. On things you'd rather leave in the dark. You must hold nothing back. Willingness is your bridge. To being the shining on an ongoing basis. Don't even ask whose willingness is it. Just don't go there. Give yourself to the light fully. Or you don't give yourself at all. Don't bother trying to figure any of this all out. Or you'll end up right back on the same hamster wheel from which you just hopped off. You don't have to figure anything out. You can't figure anything out. I cannot explain what I don't understand. And I don't even understand. What we're talking about. Let the mind live in uncertainty. Let the body do what it does. You do what you do. Watch a silent alertness. You are not the watcher. You are the watching. You are the light behind alertness. You are the light prior to consciousness. But when you're watching as conscious awareness instead of unconscious awareness. Then what you see will change. When I change where I'm looking from. What I'm looking at changes. Look at any human life and you'll see lots and lots of hopeless blind patterns. Compulsive energy patterns. That are just running by themselves. With no one at the wheel. And no good end in sight. At one point many of these patterns were helpful. Now they're not. Yet they still run. And run. And run. And run. And they are the death of spiritual progress. If you look back you'll see a long trail of unskillful living. A long trail of suffering. If you're willing to really look at the patterns. Many of them will start to change. These patterns are very specific. So each one has to be shined down by the light of your conscious awareness. In order for it to be remedied. In order for there to be clearing. Awakeness colonizes the body one bit. One seeing. One unconscious pattern. At a time. Don't try to fix that unit. You can't anyway. That body is operating on its own. You are not its minder or manager or controller. It's doing what it does until it does something else. It will do so regardless. It won't do anything else until it sees that what it's currently doing isn't helpful. Isn't skillful. Isn't beneficial to the well-being of the unit or the world. But once it does see that. Once it truly and thoroughly sees it. Then that penetrated pattern. Will thin. It will recede. It will drop away of its own record. If it's supposed to. We can't know. What patterns are genuinely unskillful. Because you'd have to know everything. To know that. And our pledge here. Is to. You don't have to do a thing for this clearing. It just happens. Clarity arises. It may happen quickly or it may happen slowly. But once an unskillful pattern has been fully penetrated. Its days are probably numbered. This process of bringing light to all of your dark corners. Is what we call embodiment. Slowly. Sometimes excruciatingly slowly. You will begin to live up to your seeing so to speak. Behaviors will change. When you're done with that body. You have seven and a half billion more to turn to. And that's just on this planet. One down. Seven and a half billion to go. Your willingness. To be. Conscious awakeness. Consciously awake to this present arising. Everything is critical. Will you stand as awareness and see things as they really are. Or will you stand as a hypothetical center of consciousness. And wish for what isn't. And try to live in what isn't. And resist. What is. In every moment. You either ally yourself. With experience. Or thinking. Humans have a history of voting for thinking. Humans privilege thought. Over experience. That's why no one can wake up. Except for the ones who do. It'll take some work. To shift that default position. Within you. Awakeness. It'll take a lot of willingness. It will come. You never need worry where it comes from. You never need worry who it appears to. You never need to worry about anything at all. Nothing can cloud you. Nothing can hurt you. Always here. Always clear. But this willingness must extend all the way down. Even when you revert to feeling like you are that human character again. As you almost surely will. You have to be willing to take that character's thinking into inquiry. You have to be willing to remain forever open to doubt. To embrace uncertainty. Sureness will be a thing of the past. But living in the mysterious. Unfolding of yourself right now. Is so much more satisfying. Ask yourself again and again. Is what I'm thinking really true? Or is it a belief? An opinion. A position. A thought. Again and again. As you touch truth through action. As you experience. As you discover truth through continuous inquiry. That touch will bring a longer, Stronger, Profound experience of what you always already are. That which knows that you are. Or feels very strongly that you are. Eventually. The inquiry becomes less formal. And more spontaneous. You won't always have to take your thoughts about arisings through a process of formal inquiry. Life itself becomes constant inquiry. Delusion arises. It's questioned. Penetrated. And it drops. Pop. Pop. Like everything else. You don't have to do a thing. It just happens. Effortlessly. We could say that it's all for you. We who are also you call this effortless living abidance. We call it abiding enlightenment. Because you are then consciously living in the awakeness that you know yourself to be. And operating within the world as that awakeness. There's no friction as Tao runs through you. Did this nudge you out of your cloudiness? And move you back toward clarity? If it did. Be willing to read this. Again. And again. And again. If it's worked for you at all. It will work for you more. It will permeate deeper as you reread it. Repetition is the mother of clarity. Mark my words. Be wellness itself.