The Path to Pure Being

Welcome to the Inner Edge, where I explore insights on wealth, fulfillment, growth, and mastery.

I’ve always wondered what is the right way to live.

This caused me to be in my head a lot. I’d be thinking about how to be or act.

I’d map out all the possible scenarios.

Yet, I never truly grasped what it all meant.

Years later I had a near death experience. And it taught me the power of letting go.

During the experience, everything I knew was slipping away.

My name, my identity, and my memories all started fading.

I tried to hold onto it and fought to remember who I was. 

But the harder I tried, the more it dissolved. I felt like I was being ripped away from everything that made me me.

And years later, I’ve been integrating it into my life.

Here’s what I learned (or unlearned):

I am not any of those things. Not my name. Not my thoughts. Not the identity I had carefully constructed over the years.

Really feeling that at the core of my being every moment is the hard part.

So what is life then?

Life just is.

After that experience, I spent months trying to make sense of what happened.

But that was it, there was nothing to make sense of. It was just a feeling.

And what I realized was a state of total independence and being.

A life where you don’t grasp for meaning, peace, or identity from anything external.

A life where you just are.

This isn’t ego. It’s not rejecting others. It’s not isolation.

It’s just being.

This are some deeper realizations I had when I had this experience.

• I am not my relationships.

• I am not my past.

• I am not my emotions.

• I am not my possessions, titles, or roles.

• I just am.

For most of my life, I would want to seek something.

Whether it was guidance, security, validation or belonging.

PS: I still find myself chasing these states.

But I’ve found it all to be temporary. Because nothing lasts. And when something you feel to be permanent ends up being impermanent, you suffer.

So I would constantly ask myself, how do I make sure I never have to suffer through life?

I thought deeply about all of it, and the more I would think, the more I would suffer.

Until one day, I did the opposite. I just let go and started observing.

And that’s when I found myself attaching to nothing. Just existing as pure awareness (meditation is so wonderful for this).

Like water exists in the ocean. Moving with the waves back and forth.

And this has (mostly) reduced anxious thoughts, fear, pride, jealousy and other emotions.

1. Who Are You Without Anything?

When you identify yourself with something, you start to lose yourself

• I would tell myself “I’m an entrepreneur” and really attach myself to that.

• I would tell myself “I’m a mentor” and really attach myself to that.

• I would tell myself “I’m a fit young guy” and really attach myself to that.

• I would tell myself “I’m a boyfriend” and really attach myself to that.

What happens when I’m not those things?

What happens if I get a job, stop being able to help people, get old, breakup? Then what?

I lose myself. Because I have attached myself to an identity that is temporary.
When you strip away everything, what remains?

Just awareness.

I’m not saying you can’t be/do any of those things. I still very much value a lot of them.

But the moment you identify with them is when you suffer.

Because you are not any of those things.

Something I’ve been doing:

• Sitting in complete stillness and asking myself "Who am I if I let go of everything I identify with?"

• Not trying to solve or analyze anything. Just observing and letting it flow through me.

2. Stop Orbiting

This one is a lot harder said than done.

But I’ll try to give some examples:

• When you orbit money → And money goes, you panic.

• When you orbit relationships → And people leave, you collapse.

• When you orbit beliefs → And beliefs fail, you feel lost.

But when you stop orbiting, you let things orbit you.

You still do the things required and live life, but you don’t attach yourself.

Even if you lost everything, you are still complete.

I know this is so easy for me to sit here and type while I’m so fortunate to have so much in my life.

But it is something I am realizing/working on and wanted to share.

Suffering comes from attachment.

3. Flow Without Resistance

When you resist life, you create suffering.

So what should you do? You observe. This might mean you still cry or feel bad. But now you are letting life flow.

• You lose someone → You don’t resist the pain. You watch it pass like a wave.

• A business fails → You don’t hold onto failure. You simply move forward.

• Someone insults you → You don’t react. You don’t absorb. You let it go.

The key to peace is to not fight what is. You only move with what is.

How to do this:

• Stop labeling experiences as "good" or "bad." They just are.

• Accept everything as part of the flow. Nothing is against you. It’s just movement.

4. Step Four: Detachment

Zen monks talk about killing the illusion of "me".

• Who is the "I" that suffers?

• Who is the "I" that seeks meaning?

• Who is the "I" that feels fear?

When you realize there is no fixed self, you become everything and nothing at the same time.

Something I’ve found fascinating.

5. Living This Way for the Rest of Your Life

It feels like the moments I’ve been in this state, I’m just living.

It’s not easy to always live like this (or maybe it is).

II’s still a work in progress for me. But here’s what I’m realizing:

It’s not about learning. It’s about unlearning.

This is not stopping learning in the literal sense.

I very much am so inclined to learn about subjects that fascinate me.

I want to learn more about how to grow my business and pursue what I enjoy.

I want to learn more about the world and my own attributes and tendencies.

But I don’t want to be attached to any of it.

I’ve spent my whole life attaching myself to a name, a body, a face, a status, wealth, relationships, achievements.

This is an entire identity built on things that can be taken away.

But none of it is me.

So now, I am slowly unlearning these things.

Unlearning the need to be seen.
Unlearning the fear of being nothing.
Unlearning the belief that I am the thoughts in my head.
Unlearning the illusion that I must chase define myself by something external.

Because what remains after all the unlearning?

Just being.

Just… I am.

Anyways that’s a wrap.

Time to go unlearn some things. Does anyone know if they have a school for that?