Someone asked me this question the other day. This is the answer I gave:

Haven’t you asked me this question before? I think you did, and I’m sure I did not give you an answer that satisfied you then, and I can’t give you an answer that will satisfy you now. Here is why:

What you are trying to do is to understand. If you can’t understand the reality directly, then you want directions on how to experience directly - directions that you can understand. You want an answer that makes sense.

In order for the answer to be sensible, reasonable, understandable, this answer has to relate to reality as you know it. It has to fit in with your ideas about how reality works, how life works, how you work. This answer has to refer to actions that you are familiar with, it has to refer to experiences that you are familiar with, or actions and experiences that are comparable with what you are familiar with.

I can’t give you such an answer. Inside of a reality as you know it, inside of life as you know it, there is nothing that can be done to experience the universe directly. Inside of a reality that your mind is familiar with, experiencing the universe directly is as possible as growing a horn out of your forehead and sprouting a pair of wings. It can’t be done. It goes against all the “laws of nature”, it goes against all the knowledge and all the understanding of how reality works, of what reality is. It goes against all physics and all maths and all sciences.

Inside of a reality of the human mind, experiencing the universe directly is not possible.

Inside of a reality where experiencing the universe directly is possible, directions are not needed. Reality doesn’t have to do anything in order to experience itself.

Inside of your reality, the answer to your question doesn’t exist.

I wrote this answer, I thought it was true and then I thought about it and realized that the answer is true. And it isn't.

It is true, because the experience of a direct awareness of the universe is incomprehensible to the mind. The mind does not recognize it, understand it, certainly doesn't value it. Yet we have it, every human, all the time experiences awareness.

Every moment of every day we experience a direct awareness of ourselves, of our bodies, of the air on our skin, of the thoughts in our heads. This is a direct awareness of the universe. It is the direct experience of what is, if a very limited one.

The only difference between what we would consider an ordinary, every day awareness and the enlightened awareness is it's scope. The ordinary, every day human awareness is limited. It is limited to what happens in one's head. It is limited to what happens in one's body. It is limited to what happens in the immediate environment of the body. The awareness that is an enlightened one has no such limitations.

It is not true that an awareness of the universe is an experience that is alien to a human, that is incomparable to anything the human is familiar with. Quite the opposite is true: the awareness of the universe is the same exact awareness as the awareness of the surface one's body is currently resting on.

It is true that the awareness of the universe is an experience that is alien to a human, that is incomparable to anything the human is familiar with, because the human mind doesn't understand how it can be possible that one can be aware of the universe the same exact way one is aware that one's fingers are tapping at a keyboard. From the mind's point of view this is nonsense. It is impossible. It doesn't exist.

And yet it does exist.

It is true, I think, that there is nothing one can do to achieve the awareness of the universe. It is true that one already has everything that is needed to become aware of the universe. One can become aware of anything, because awareness is what one is, and there are no limitations in awareness. But there are limitations in the human mind. And plenty of them.

So how does one experience it directly? The nature of universe? One uses the tool that allows one to be aware of the universe: awareness. One dwells in awareness. One practices being awareness. One rests in awareness and one allows awareness to expand. And the awareness will expand, because that is the nature of awareness. It is unlimited.

But the mind is limited. The mind wants to know, understand, think, figure out. Make something, change something, do something. Awareness is unlimited. Awareness will expand. But the mind has plenty of limits. The mind might be able to let go of those. Or it might not be.