Daily Nonduality Podcast

Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Spirituality
  • Updated Daily

Short, weekday reflections on our true, self-less nature. dailynonduality.substack.com

  1. 20h ago

    The deepest addiction

    We’re addicted to entertainment, social media, substances, sex, relationships, beliefs, and a long list of other things. But our core addiction is to the illusion of a personal life controlled through personal will. The deepest addiction of all is to “me” and my struggle. We may move from material to spiritual, and seek something larger than the egoic self. But this will be a more awake, conscious, spiritual, and so happier personal me. All this is innocent. (We’re also addicted to blaming and shaming — the result of believing in a doer with free will.) You don’t choose your addictions. You don’t choose the spiritual path. But what we’re looking for is beyond all selfing, even spiritual selfing. It’s found beyond all egoic drama, including all spiritual drama. At some point, for whatever reason, the drama briefly loses its ability to seduce. The entire mechanism is seen to be a highly convincing and addictive but fake distraction. The illusion of “me” living a personal life, collapses. We’ve all known these moments, even if we can’t put them into words or use different language to describe them. Once collapsed, it never comes together quite as convincingly as before. What was seen can’t be unseen. Inquiry is the invitation to look again and again at what has already been seen, and can be seen again anytime looking happens. Until we realize no one is separate from or doing the looking. That realization and the unbound peace it uncovers, is what we’re looking for. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    The deepest addiction

  2. 1d ago

    Being aware can’t be done

    Recognize your true nature. Be aware of what is aware. Just notice that right now, there is awareness, and be that, consciously, knowingly. Take attention off what comes and goes, off the body and mind, and rest as aware being. Right, says thought. I’m on it. I’ll be doing this as often as possible. Let’s check the instructions again. Ignore appearances, recognize pure being, be that. But wait, how do I be that? Where did it go? I lost it again! I swear I just had a glimpse but now I can’t find it. Okay, relax. What, right now, is aware? Ah … yes. Just being. But wait …! Round and round it goes. Conditioned thoughts continue to narrate an illusory doer. This imaginary someone must achieve its own ending by seeing through itself to what really is and abiding there! Thoughts then narrate the frustration of this impossible attempt: to end thought using thought. All this only cements the core thought that there’s a someone who must do being aware. But you don’t have to be aware. You can’t. Aware already is without your help. Without a so-called you doing or not doing anything at all, there is always already ordinary aware being. It was never not. Not some special awareness that was missing and must be achieved. This awareness, aware of the illusion of a you supposedly separate from it, trying hard to be aware of it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    Being aware can’t be done

  3. 2d ago

    Life without control is freedom

    Without control over life, are we powerless, helpless, incapable? Or does the sense of powerlessness really come from constantly trying to manage what can’t be managed? Do ambition, intention, and desire disappear when we realize we’re not in control? Or do these continue to appear unauthored, as before? What part of this life is being driven by a separate you? Is control ever a real event, or is it a belief we add? Do we ever control sensations, thoughts, or behavior of the body? Can we ever make those appear, disappear, or change to our liking? No. True relief is in that “no.” Realizing there’s no control, we stop seeking it. Things keep happening. Things like ambition, the desire to act, or the pursuit of spiritual goals continue to arise (or not) spontaneously. Responsibility, relationship, and care also arise, or not, just as before. But knowing there’s no control removes the need for any attempt at control. Then there’s the total ease of things simply unfolding as they do — for everyone, all of the time. Life flows without the judgment, resistance, and frustration of the one who was trying in vain to direct its flow. That is real freedom. It’s the lightness of being lived. The opposite of the dream of control is a life of effortless freedom. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    Life without control is freedom

  4. 3d ago

    Just life

    Just experience. Not my experience, not the experience I observe, not the experience I am aware of. Just experience. Just a thought, a mental vibration. Not my thought, not the thought I created or made to appear, not a thought based on or caused by previous thoughts. Just a thought. Just a sensation. Not my sensation, not a sensation caused by me, not a sensation with inherent meaning or purpose or messages to understand. Just a sensation. Just an action of the body. Not my action, not an action premeditated or caused by me, not an action caused by my thinking, not an action a me is responsible for causing. Just a body moving, an action. Just words. Not my words, not words a me came up with, not words a me made happen, not words that are a thing in themselves. Just words that can communicate something because they’re mental shorthand for experience. Just words that are pointers to a direct seeing, noticing, or knowing of what is. Just life. Not my life, not a life I control, not the life I was destined to live, not the life that I am responsible for living and getting right, not a life that must have some meaning or spiritual development. Just life, living itself. Including the convincing but mistaken belief in a separate someone owning that life. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    Just life

  5. Aug 21

    What has always been here, experiencing life?

    What has always been here, experiencing life? Don’t try to answer, but notice where the question points. * What has always been here, experiencing life? * What was here when you were 5 years old, 15 years old, and is still here today? * What will be here when you are 80? It is always the same, aware aliveness. It doesn’t come or go. Your essential being is always the same. It is eternal. Take a metaphorical step back from the mind. This pulls us into what seems like the background. It can seem like a spacious, silent vastness or a vibrating, energetic field of potential. It doesn’t feel personal. At all. There is no knowledge and there are no concepts here. There is only aliveness, being, knowing life as it is now. Silently and effortlessly look at this being, this aware presence. The verb looking is used as shorthand for perception. We are not trying to see anything. Don’t worry about anything happening or doing this right. Just try to look. Look directly at this alive, aware sense of being without trying to perceive or understand anything. It doesn’t matter how long you look. A fraction of a second is enough. Try, with all your heart, to notice and recognize what is aware. Notice that this aware presence isn’t empty or a void. It is vibrantly conscious and aware. The mind can’t understand this. It doesn’t compute mentally. So to the mind, this presence can feel boring or scary, an empty, infinite hole or void that will swallow us up. If such thoughts or feelings come up, just notice them and let them pass. Presence is sometimes described as a warm, subtly tingling aliveness. But don’t worry if it doesn’t feel that way for you. This awareness is the very presence of YOU. YOU have never been born. YOU will never die. — This is one of the 33 inquiries from the audio version of my book Seeing No-Self: Essential Questions to Reveal Our Nondual Nature. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    What has always been here, experiencing life?

  6. Aug 20

    What do you know for sure?

    Hear something often enough and it starts to feel like you know it. Repeat “no self” sincerely enough and it starts to feel like truth. Meditate on “all is awareness” deeply enough and it can feel like direct insight. But without all that:What do you know for sure?What is not hearsay or second-hand? That is all that counts.The rest of it is useless. When everything ever heard goes silent, what still is?Don’t name it or try to understand it. What remains is not something we’ve heard somewhere.It already was before we ever heard anything. It seems like nothing because it has no substance. But the direct, preverbal, mindless knowing of it, is what can free you from the belief that you were ever separate from it. This ordinary aliveness is doubtlessly present. What is not doubtless is the story of self or no-self in that aliveness. What is not doubtless are the endless explanations, meanings, and consequences concerning it. If it’s not clear, pretending won’t help.You don’t wake up on borrowed truth. What needs nothing from you to be the case?You can look (know) directly and wordlessly. This feels strange and frustrating but you might persist. Realize it as all that ever is, and the need for any explanation of it ends. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    What do you know for sure?

  7. Aug 19

    We know too much

    We have access to everything on the internet, and AI to digest it for us. Plus, we have all those books and videos we’ve been consuming for years. We’ve heard it all before: completely jaded but still unsatisfied. So even the most direct pointing is heard as something already understood. Yes, I get it, this is not-two, undivided.Yes, yes, I know, there is no separate self.But why is that not changing anything? The biggest obstacle is believing we already know what this is. It completely blocks the direct, unmediated noticing of it. But maybe we can trust that it really is that stupidly simple: noticing what already is without concluding anything. * Without listening to any interpretation of what this is. * Ignoring anything the mind provides as an answer. * Just noticing, mind-lessly. Any understanding of what this is only obscures it. It really is about less, not more.Less understanding, less getting it, not more. That only feels impossible because our entire identity is built on what we think we know — including what we think we know about what is being said here right now. I think, therefore I feel like I know things, giving me the false sense of control and security that I’m a tangible, separate self. But noticing what already is before thinking is possible.It is already going on all the time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    We know too much

  8. Aug 18

    Follow the breadcrumbs

    Any appearance, any experience can point us back to recognizing our true nature. Take any experience of separation, constriction, limitation, stress, or suffering. It’s always due to the interpretation by the mind, the selfing mechanism. Always. So any inquiry, any clear noticing of what is really going on, can take us home. Noticing the raw thoughts and sensations, and the mind’s interpretation relating them to a supposed separate me … if that is simply noticed, there’s a natural falling back into what is aware. The trick is not to get stuck in more judgment, more thought about what is only happening spontaneously, without anyone’s control. Let the inquiry point all the way back to what knows, to the freedom and peace of pure being, before any mind. Inquiries tend to work better with things we find stressful but really any experience at all points back to what experiences. It seems difficult at first, to pull back from the mind, to fall back from selfing and into the freedom of being. Inquiry, the way I share it, uses what the mind throws up as the way home. It uses the mind’s own b******t to go beyond it, like following the breadcrumbs out of the forest you were lost in. Then any situation, any experience, is the pointer to the peace and freedom of your true nature. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailynonduality.substack.com

    Follow the breadcrumbs
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About

Short, weekday reflections on our true, self-less nature. dailynonduality.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Kat (Katrijn) Van Oudheusden
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    18
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Katrijn Van Oudheusden
  • Show Website
    Daily Nonduality Podcast