In Presence

The personal self is a bundle of habitual reactions. To react is to be expelled from the attention space.

It is the work of a lifetime to live without reactions. Non reaction enables direct reading of, and engagement with, sensing and feeling. A whole universe opens to one who is free of habitual reactions. This is what it means to be realized. Not some super-duper higher state of bliss and omniscience.

How to be free of reactions? First you have to see them in your behavior, your gestures and postures. Then sense them in the body. Then see the judgments and justifications which prolong them. Then cease to react to the judgments and justifications. Then, silence. Is this work ever finished? I don’t know. But an island of equanimity can arise where you can be reliable enough to work inwardly.

A bonus: Equanimity accesses more attention. Reaction loses it.
If you wish to be useful as one who works inwardly for the benefit of the world, you must begin the journey as soon as you can. Perhaps you will then be able to work before you die. Life is short. The way is long.