What good is college now that we can learn everything for free on the internet? (with Nick Dirks)

1. Practice “No Head” Experiment

Become aware that you do not see your own head above your body in your direct experience, which is a fundamental aspect of the “headless way” and reveals that your self-perception differs from your external appearance.

2. Perform “Pointing Back” Experiment

Point your index finger back to where others perceive your face and observe what you actually experience; you will find “wide open space” rather than a face, revealing your true nature as boundless openness.

3. Imagine Self as Newborn Baby

Close your eyes and imagine yourself as a newborn baby, dropping all learned assumptions about your size, shape, and age, to experience raw sensations and sounds in boundless awareness, free from conceptual labels.

4. Observe Your Visual Field

Look directly at your field of view and notice how it fades out, appears oval, and floats in consciousness, with thoughts, feelings, and sounds also occurring within this boundless awareness, revealing a single, boundless opening of perception.

5. Recognize “I Am” Certainty

Shift your focus from external identity to the self-evident reality that “I am,” recognizing yourself as the boundless space full of sounds, sensations, and experiences, which provides a stable and reassuring inner security.

6. Meditate on the Observer

Focus your meditation not just on external sensory input (what you’re looking at/listening to) but also on the nature of the observer (“who is listening, who is looking, who am I?”) to awaken to your true nature as “just space for what is happening.”

7. Perceive Raw Sensory Input

Shift your perception from conceptualizations (e.g., “trees,” “lake”) to the raw sensory input (e.g., “colors entering your experience”) to understand your own experience beyond learned models and self-image.

8. Observe Objects in Awareness

Look at any object and notice that the place you are looking from is “just open” with “nothing here,” realizing that the object is “right here in my awareness” without perceived distance or separation.

9. Perceive Voices in Consciousness

When listening to voices, acknowledge their external source but also notice that, from your first-person perspective, both your voice and others’ voices are experienced “here in my consciousness, in this silence,” fostering a sense of unity.

10. Challenge Inside/Outside Distinction

Question the learned distinction between “inside” and “outside” by noticing that imagined thoughts (like a mountain) and perceived objects (like a lamp) both appear in your consciousness without a clear dividing line, reuniting you with the world.

11. Embrace Dual Truths of Self

Hold simultaneously the truth that “for me, the world was created” (your boundless nature) and “I am dust and ashes” (your personal, finite self), recognizing that both are true and essential aspects of your being.

12. Balance Personal, Boundless Identity

Maintain a healthy balance between identifying with your personal self (e.g., “Richard”) and being identified with boundless awareness, recognizing both as valid aspects of your experience rather than solely identifying with one.

13. Accept Feeling of Separation

Do not try to suppress or get rid of the feeling of separation, but rather accept it as part of your experience, balancing it with your awareness of boundless nature, as both are important and coexist.

14. Distinguish Suffering from Nature

Recognize that while the external world and your personal experience may contain suffering, your true nature at the center is free of tension and pain, which helps you cope better with both your own suffering and that of others.

15. Cultivate Profound Respect for Others

Recognize that everyone shares the same boundless, “headless” nature at their core, which fosters profound respect and transforms relationships by understanding that others are not just separate but also, in a deeper sense, yourself.

16. Adopt First-Person Language

Use language that articulates your direct, first-person point of view (e.g., “the room is in me” instead of “I am in the room”) to reflect the experience of boundless awareness, rather than solely relying on the third-person language of separation.

17. Prioritize Awakening to True Nature

Recognize that awakening to your true nature provides inner confidence, a feeling of being at home and safe, a joy that knows no variation, deepening relaxation, and profound intimacy with the world and others, rather than solely chasing external benefits.

18. Use Headless Way for Meditation

Apply the Headless Way to meditation by recognizing your true nature as “vast openness” (home), shifting meditation from a search for self to an enjoyment of simply “being there” in that awareness.

19. Practice “Floating in Void” Relaxation

When struggling to sleep or needing to relax, become aware of your body sensations and breathing, noticing they have no edge or shape, and allow them to float in the vast, boundless space of your awareness, like floating in the Dead Sea, for deeper relaxation.

20. Cultivate Awareness via Community

To deepen and normalize the awareness of your true nature, value the experience, share it with friends who also value it, and communicate about it, as this externalization helps it grow and become more real in your life.

21. Reflect on “No Face” Realization

After realizing you cannot see your own face or the “fourth wall,” pause and reflect on the significance of this insight and how it might be important for your understanding of self and reality.

22. Explore Douglas Harding’s Writings

Read Douglas Harding’s books, such as “On Having No Head,” to delve deeper into the philosophy of perception and understand how the “headless way” makes sense in terms of direct experience.

23. Utilize Headless Way Resources

Explore the extensive free resources available on headless.org, including YouTube videos, books by Douglas Harding, and free Zoom meetings, to deepen your understanding and experience of the headless way.