Introduction to Transcending - Beyond the Illusion of Self, to the Reality of What You Are
A first look at the opening of the upcoming book - for those seekers who have done a lot of work and still sense something is missing.
This is the full introduction to my upcoming book, Transcending - Beyond the Illusion of Self, to the Reality of What You Are, due for release mid March 2026.
The book was written from inside the very process it describes - the dissolving of the separate self, the end of the search, and the discovery that peace and happiness are not somewhere “out there,” but already present when the mind’s stories lose their hold. The introduction sets the tone for the rest of the work. It shares how this became clear in my own life, why the usual paths eventually stop working, and what it really means to live from what you are rather than who you think you are.
You are welcome to read this slowly, in your own time, and let it meet your actual lived experience rather than treating it as more theory. If something resonates, stay with it. If something challenges you, stay with that too. That edge is often where the most important openings happen.
Introduction
The journey of a seeker often begins without warning. Something shifts, something breaks, and what once made sense no longer does.
For some, it arrives as a sudden awakening – so clear and powerful that everything changes in an instant. For others, comes gradually through life’s challenges and hardship: the slow disintegration of a former life; the grief of losing what once defined them; the collapse of imagined identities constructed for safety. Years of repeating familiar and destructive patterns, facing fears, failures, hopelessness, depression, or profound loss can eventually lead to surrender. The need to control can no longer hold up the weight of pretending and the old self begins to give way. In that space, something deeper begins to emerge. Consciousness rises from within.
The problem of the mind
The mind doesn’t see clearly. It filters life through threat, fear, memory, and conditioning. It attaches, resists, judges, and tries to control. In that endless distortion, it finds problems that don’t actually exist. It builds a false identity that we call ‘I.’ Even our effort to go beyond it – through therapy, spiritual practice, ceremony, or self-improvement – can unknowingly reinforce it.
Many sincere seekers stay stuck not because they lack commitment, but because they haven’t fully seen through the workings of the subtle, refined ego. The false identity they adopt may be of someone ‘doing the work,’ ‘awakening’, even of ‘the teacher’, or ‘the one who knows’. Until it is clearly seen, it continues – disguised, refined, convincing, alluring, ‘successful’, popular, renowned, spiritualised, but still false. This is the mind trying to solve its own problem from within itself – like attempting to illuminate the sun with a flashlight.
For those who hear the call to awaken and who commit themselves fully to the path, the journey becomes one of highs and lows, and steady transformation. The illusions of the mind dissolve, layer by layer. Each release brings greater clarity, peace, and alignment with what is real. Progress may not always feel dramatic in the moment, but over time the shifts become undeniable. Life becomes the teacher, revealing exactly what needs to be seen with perfect timing.
The most devoted seekers don’t walk this path for attainment. At some point, truth becomes the only thing worth living for.. Old patterns of thought become obvious and less tolerable. Anything misaligned with our essence begins to register as distortion – like a frequency that no longer fits. There’s a relentless search for answers, guidance, and support. The movement is instinctive, as if being led by something greater than ourselves. There is a silent recognition, a light in the distance leading the way – a knowledge without language.
The approach to dismantling the illusion of self and realisations shared in this book are modern, practical, and born from direct experience – not from religious doctrine, philosophical abstraction, theory, conceptual understandings, blind belief, or borrowed ideas. It did not arise from following any lineage, pre-defined path, or established teaching, but through the raw meeting with life, the unravelling of distortion, and the living recognition of truth revealing itself.
This book as your guide
The real evolution for humanity is the dissolving of illusion and the return to our true nature - not as separate individuals, but as expressions of one living field of consciousness. It does not come from technological progress, social systems, or spiritual performance. It comes from the quiet recognition of what has always been here: the stillness beneath thought, the presence beneath identity, the love that needs nothing.
This evolution is not outward. It is inward.
This book is a guide through that inner return. It offers clear, direct principles for meeting what arises, dissolving the distortions that obscure truth, and seeing beyond the identifications of the ego and the limitations of the mind. It points to the clarity, freedom, and peace of awareness itself - the reality that has never left, waiting to be recognised beneath all that was once believed to be real.
This work is advanced only in this sense: it is for those who are genuinely committed to truth over comfort, identity, performance, or the illusion of safety.
For those willing to meet the deepest layers of themselves, face whatever arises, and walk the path of dismantling the illusory self with devotion and humility. For those who have explored, questioned, healed, and grown – yet sense that something essential is still missing.
It can also meet someone at the beginning, but only when they are already pulled by something deeper - a genuine draw toward truth itself. Without that sincerity, the work will not land.
The practices and clarity shared here will meet each seeker exactly where they are. Nothing is offered as belief; everything is meant to be tested directly. Take what resonates and discard the rest. When the moment is right, the right thing always lands.
There is no movement to join, no belief system to adopt, and no ‘way’ to follow. This book makes no claims of ownership – only an offering. It points, simply and clearly, to what is already here, beneath the noise of the mind. Truth does not belong to anyone. What’s shared here is not mine, and it is not yours. It is what it is.
Through the practices and pointers shared throughout this book, it becomes possible to dissolve illusions, clear emotional and energetic blockages, and open the way for a higher intelligence – whether you call that God, Source, or by no name at all. What’s revealed is not a better version of the self, but the end of the search for self altogether.
And with that, the end of suffering.
This book wasn’t written from a mountaintop after everything was complete; it was written inside the journey, as part of it. Many of the truths in these pages were clarified and confirmed in real time - through heartbreak, solitude, nature, family, and the quiet refining that followed. In that sense, the book has been my teacher as much as it is a guide for you - a living record of what life has revealed and continues to reveal.
It unfolds in three parts:
• Part One: The Call To Come Home explores the discovery of the Transcending practice, the nature of consciousness, and the core obstacles that obscure direct knowing.
• Part Two: Transcending presents simple but powerful practices for dissolving identity, releasing resistance, and aligning with truth at source.
• Part Three: The Evolution Of Consciousness shows what becomes possible when this practice is embodied – both individually and collectively.
Each part builds upon the last, offering not just understanding but a direct path to lived realisation.
Transcending is a solitary inward journey, yet it is universally available. It offers a direct way to return to peace, presence, and truth. This book is a clear, precise and contemporary guide for that return – pointing not to something new, but to what has always been right here all along.
Let us begin.
If you’d like to receive updates on the book’s release in early 2026, along with future deep-dive pieces on consciousness and the end of the search, you can subscribe to Not That, Just This. You’ll hear when copies are available and when new writings exploring consciousness are published.




I love this intro, Ryan. Cannot wait to get my hands on this book in March 🫶🏽