--- title: "Integrated Self-Inquiry — Risks and Yields (LA004)" heading: "Integrated Self-Inquiry — Risks and Yields (LA004)" subheading: "" updated: "2025-10-25T00:00:00+00:00" words: 775 url: https://ananda.icu/talks/living-awareness/la004-integrated-self-inquiry-risks-and-yields description: "Inquire yourself away — leap into yonder transcendence? If you're a sage in a loincloth — sure that's an option. The rest of us must reconcile our evolving self-awareness. Mindful self-navigation, unveiling, into living integration. Risk of dissociation is very real with unhinged practice. Encounter the aspects of your being and witness them as-is." ... [◂ Living Awareness](https://ananda.icu/cat/talks/living-awareness) ⁘ [📺 Video ▸](https://ananda.icu/video#LA004) [🎶 Audio ▸](https://ananda.icu/audio#LA004) ⁘ [LINK 🔗](https://ananda.icu/talks/living-awareness/la004-integrated-self-inquiry-risks-and-yields) [PDF ](https://ananda.icu/files/pdf/talks/la004-integrated-self-inquiry-risks-and-yields.pdf) [MP4 ](https://ananda.icu/files/video/talks/la004-integrated-self-inquiry-risks-and-yields.mp4) [OGG ](https://ananda.icu/files/audio/talks/la004-integrated-self-inquiry-risks-and-yields.ogg) **Words:** 775 ⁘ **Length:** 04:26 min ⁘ **Created:** 2025-10-25 Inquire yourself away — leap into yonder transcendence? If you're a sage in a loincloth — sure that's an option. The rest of us must reconcile our evolving self-awareness. Mindful self-navigation, unveiling, into living integration. Risk of dissociation is very real with unhinged practice. We then seek not only "I absolute", but also "I in roles". Encounter the aspects of your being and witness them as-is. We become non-reactive operators, seamless in each context. We ask "Who am I?" — but we also orient into "Where am I?", then "What am I there?", mapping the broad loom of our lives. Wherever you land — there you may unveil your absolute being, its reflections in countless contexts — in natural liberation. _#LivingAwareness #SelfInquiry #SelfAwareness #Transcendence #Dissociation #Insight #Orientation #Integration #AnandaICU_ [ Table of Contents ] - ¶ The Risk of Dissociation — The Need for Integration ↴ - ¶ Beyond Reactions — Operating in Our Roles ↴ - ¶ Waves Are There — We Are in Freedom ↴ **Progressive self-inquiry is consequential.** As you enter into deeper, cleaner and more coherent planes of self-awareness, you will witness things that cannot be unseen. In this process, there are both risks and yields, and therefore, skillful navigation and orientation is called for. ### The Risk of Dissociation — The Need for Integration ¶ First, into the risks and pitfalls. Suppose you keep on peeling off layers of _"I am not this, I am not that"._ Going deeper and deeper into progressively more abstract spheres of consciousness, you risk absolute dissociation, loss of touch with the world, the reality you live in. Now, if you happen to be a sage, a mendicant, dressed in a mere loincloth, living at the foot of the holy hill, then that transcendence, dissociation, may be quite manageable — just fine and all right. For the rest of us, that is hardly the reality we must face. We do not split away from our living context into a yonder utopia. We live here and now, and this self-awareness, the outcome of self-inquiry, must be integrated, must be incorporated into our day-to-day life in a seamless manner. With this in mind, we do not simply inquire, _"Who am I, and who am I beyond the who am I?"_ Rather, in each and every context where our attention lands, we also inquire, _"Where am I and what am I there?"_, understanding our roles in the contexts that are passing by. ### Beyond Reactions — Operating in Our Roles ¶ We do not attach to these roles. These egos, the embodiments of a particular concern domain, and our presence therein, we operate them, we interact in them as necessary. They are not I, they are not me and myself, the ultimate permanent self. They are not the nests we should be dwelling in — but they are the vehicles we need to be driving in. Now, the benefit in having established self-awareness on a plane beyond your roles is your detachment from reactions. You look upon the environments, and you look upon your roles from a plane higher than their operation. And as such, you exist in freedom while interacting with the world. Amidst the good, the bad, and the ugly. the beautiful even — you do not get caught up in your preferences. "I want this. I do not want that." – "This pleases me. This displeases me." You are not caught up in a mesh of reactions. You operate. You operate in reflection of the needs of the context. You operate in tune with the potentials you carry. That's all. ### Waves Are There — We Are in Freedom ¶ And as you operate in the world of complexity from a plane of freedom, you bring about fulfillment, reconciliation, harmonization — for the collective, for all that be in the environment. For you are free of subject bias, you are free of agenda that needs to be projected into whatever that we encounter. In this, you benefit yourself, you benefit others, you benefit all things ever. Then rise beyond your little self, operate in freedom, and in that, consummate each and every one of your potentials in each and every one of your roles in their respective environments. Without entanglement, in simple, natural emergence, in reflection of what is. In there, we find peace and equilibrium in the midst of a million waves. The waves are there, but you are not the waves. Let the ocean roar — let the birds soar across the dome of your sky. You are not the dome of the sky either. You are on a plane beyond. How fantastic that your universe, both inner and outer, should be spinning and turning just fine without an obsessive driver at the helm. Good riddance, what was — and happy trails to you across the loom of integrated existence, liberated in its own nature.