Are practices necessary to realize the Self? I will share a few thoughts as to why the answer is both yes and no - and why the emotional freedom and self-inquiry process, The Sedona Method, is one practice that is useful, among many others, when the answer is yes. 

First, let me start with why the answer is “no.” The Absolute Self needs nothing. It needs no practice, no time passage, or journey. It is the timeless source and substance of all. This includes your totality, including your humanness, as you read these words and also your perception that there is anything to gain from this article.

The great Indian sage, Ramana Mararshi said, “Everything, whether you call it the world or maya, or lila, or sakti, must be within the Self and not apart from it…” If this is the case, then we, as Self, lack nothing and need nothing, including a practice, to be that which we already are. So, is practice necessary for the Self to be realized? For the Self? No. Then for who? 

We are the Absolute appearing as you and me. In this appearance it seems that we have forgotten our true nature and believed we are separate from the All. Why? That is a longer article, but for now suffice it to say that blessedly we are driven by an innate urge to remember. But until we do, we are left perceiving an illusory separation. Thus, as long as this is our perception, the answer is yes, a practice or inquiry can be useful to see through the appearing separation.

For fun, from another angle, a dear friend and teacher, Francis Lucille, once had an answer to the question of, “If we are the Self, why do we need any practice?” With a glimmer in his eye, he responded, “Just to keep us out of trouble.”

In the Hebrew there is a saying, “Nature is the garment of God.” Thus all of nature (including us) and existence can be seen as a veil that is both an expression of, and that thinly masks, the infinite. Form and the formless. The mind, however, mistakenly perceives these as two and thus, based in separation.

Additionally, since believing in separation is the common state of humanity with all its ensuing ills, then it follows that remembering our oneness might be useful for our very survival on this spinning garden in space.

So what is The Sedona Method (TSM) and why is it useful as a practice? It fulfills two fundamental needs: One, when emotions feels more powerful than you, or you feel blinded by stories and the mind, it offers a simple series of questions to dissolve the identification with thought - revealing expansive awareness. Two, it supplements mindfulness in that it allows for observation, yet offers proactive shifting of experience when needed and helps expedite the quieting of the mind.

When taught in its highest form, TSM is cognitive first with the path leading beyond cognition, beyond thought, beyond all technique, to you as aware presence in which all techniques come and go. One of its strengths is the concrete skill of directly remembering this truth smack dab in the middle of daily life, emotions and all.

With The Sedona Method, thoughts and emotions are welcomed fully - and in this process they become the path to recognizing the true substance of what is welcoming them, unbound consciousness itself, the substratum of all existence. Found in the welcoming process is a life-changing sense of the healing love of benevolent presence as our very own essence.

As a mentor and teacher I am forever honored to witness people, sometimes for the first time, accept their humanity without judgment. This in itself can be a profound and deep healing, a transformative moment of the unconditional loving presence that has not been profoundly known (or remembered) until that life-changing moment.

As an example, at age 28, in my personal journey TSM gave me an empowered way to safely process my suppressed boyhood anger. Today, even in my humanness, although some feelings still come and go with less substance, there is an unshakable sense of the limitless One within and behind all.

In the end, both the yes and the no are important to include in this answer of whether a practice is needed.  As the Infinite that lacks nothing – we need no practice. But to walk the imagined bridge from our unconsciousness to what we innately know as the vast reality of our own being, a practice can be a pivotal component. Whether the practice is The Sedona Method, meditation, non-duality, sitting with a teacher, the path of yoga, or Zen, if it ultimately points you to see beyond even its own form, to the One source of all forms, it is a special practice indeed.