I am going behind a paywall for more those sincerely interested in-depth teachings on spiritual awakening

Vic Shayne
author and self-inquiry teacher

For years I have been writing books and articles. Fifty years to be precise. An internet search by my tech expert shows that I have written at least 700 articles, but I have never stopped to count. I have written on a number of topics, including biographies, natural healthcare, psychology, and consciousness. And over the last couple of decades I have been writing primarily about what many call enlightenment, illumination, or spiritual awakening. The ancient teachings from India referred to this as moksha, meaning freedom from the egoic mind.

My most recent book, Observations of A Reluctant Mystic, details a number of significant experiences in my life over the past 65 years that led me to a practice that the gurus of Advaita-Vedanta call self-enquiry. And with their teachings I set off to uncover the essence of what I am. It took me years, but here I am. So now this is what I write and teach about and what I am going to put behind a paywall.

This topic is not for everyone. This doesn’t mean it is exclusive, worthy of praise or devotion, or secretiveness. It just means that most people are not interested in knowing what they are at their essence. In fact, the idea doesn’t even occur to most people. For some, being a spiritual seeker is some sort of badge or claim and they like being a club member and follower of ideas that seem to be much greater than they are. And for most people, I suppose, the idea of ego death, enlightenment, and other such concepts create great fear of annihilation. This is a misunderstanding, but it’s a great deterrent nonetheless.

My message is not for the above people. It is for those who are ready to face themselves — face and dethrone the egoic self as the controlling element in one’s perspective of reality. But when I write articles, this message is not what most are interested in finding out. This is because you have to be ready and have a great desire to know what you are. You have to have a good inkling that the egoic self, the “I” or “me,” is that which stands in the way of a mind that is free of distorting ideas and beliefs. And you have to be tired of trying all the other routes that have gotten you nowhere. You know what you want and this has nothing to do with psychic phenomena, grand experiences, manifestation of material or spiritual gains, or self-aggrandizement. You simply need to know what you are because you’re tired of feeling like the effect of life’s ups and downs.

So, behind a paywall I am going to share what the few need to know. And when I say “need to,” I mean they find this the most important aspect of their lives. They want to stop the cycle of suffering and pleasure that seems never to cease. They want to know the truth about what they are and are willing to read and listen and then test for themselves if what they have read is true. They take to heart the fact that the only proof of what they are is their own knowingness. And they know that intellectual understanding and beliefs are no substitute for a full realization of what they are beyond the trappings of the egoic self.

I will be going into concepts that are blunt, to the point, and based on what I have gone through and discovered beyond the egoic self over the past couple of decades. And what I have discovered for myself is no great secret. It’s hidden in plain sight and gurus and sages have taught this truth for millennia. I am no greater or lesser than anyone else; it’s just that I have gone through the process and now have a perspective that is no longer obscured by the egoic self.

There is only one thing I ask of the readers who subscribe behind the paywall: Believe nothing and use your own power of observation based on your own self-enquiry to know what you truly are. Concepts, words, and teachings, whether they come from me or anyone else, are of no value unless they serve as a guide to point you back to the source of the self.

If you are ready to do this then come join me so you can do what I and others before me have done, which is to truly get past the suffering, frustration, fear, and desire of the egoic self.

Here is the first truth to ponder: You, in the role of the spiritual seeker, are actually seeking your own self so that your path will eventually take you back to yourself. This is something that nearly everyone overlooks. It’s the first trap of the ego that seeks awakening, because we have all been conditioned or habituated into believing that everything we want must be obtained, earned, or achievable only in a linear fashion.