Questioner: Tom, if you can, please can you summarise the basic essential teaching in a paragraph?

Tom: It cannot be fully put into words, but it is something like this: You are actually and already the One Infinite Divine Spirit whose nature is Eternal Happiness and Bliss.

You are not the body-mind at all, and thinking that you are is the prime illusion, or ignorance, that brings all suffering.

In order to discover this Truth (that is already the case, ie. it is a fact), one must turn away from all objective phenomena, including thoughts, feelings, etc, and intuitively go towards the I AM and discover this for oneself. Cultivating a spirit of love, happiness, affection and devotion can be a great help in this endeavor.

The reason we must turn away from all objects is that in attending to various objective phenomena the notion ‘I am the body-mind’ is perpetuated. This is very important to understand and realise. Only when we turn away from objects, either intentionally or spontaneously/by grace, is there a possibility of Self-Realisation. Otherwise we remain trapped in the (false) beliefs ‘I am a body-mind or person’ and ‘the world is real’.

Once we realise the Self, there is no need to integrate this understanding into daily life or anything like that, as Self-realisation is not an understanding for the mind, and in Self-realisation, all duality ceases: there is no entity left to integrate, no understanding or knowledge to integrate, and nothing left to integrate with. There is only the Infinite Blissful Self.

Teachings, such as those that talk about being adverse to the world, and all genuine spiritual teachings in fact, are just there to encourage and facilitate this discovery, and the form the teaching takes depends on the context in which they are given, including where the apparent seeker is at.

It is not about being some block of wood (a body-mind) that is detached and cut off, but about discovering something, the only thing, that is true and real – your True Nature, your Self.

This discovery is truly the most wonderful ‘thing’. (It is not a thing)

This discovery is not for or by the body-mind (or ego) at all, but is ‘by the Self’ so to speak…here words fall short, but poetically we say the Self itself discovers or realises the Self.

Hope that makes sense

Thank you

(much longer than a paragraph, I know!)

Questioner: can you support the above teaching you have given using authoritative quotes from Sri Ramana Maharshi or the Scriptures?

Tom: yes, sure, if you carefully read this article here, you will see all these above points mentioned and backed up by quotes from Sri Ramana Maharshi. The only point not backed up by quotes in that article is about not needing to integrate the teachings after realisation/liberation, for more on that see here. For quotes from the Vedanta scriptures see here.

Best wishes & namaste.