presence: There is a kind of presence that does not arrive through understanding. It appears when the need to know loosens, and what remains is simply what is.
Presence is not something we hold. It is what holds us together … while life continues to move.
There are moments when presence becomes relational and immediate: a way of being together without answers … or strategies … or any “sense making” …
Understanding gives way to simply allowing …
What is possible when attention is shared? … when presence is co-generated … when no one involved is positioned as the one who knows …
Does meaning even arise in This?
In such inquiry, is there any need for anyone to stand outside the moment to explain it? Can anyone even stand outside the moment?
Is there any “one” even present? … or only a sense of “one?”
And more importantly is that “one” separate?
This is the territory Monica Khosla enters — not as philosophy, but as lived investigation.
In The First and Last Belief: A theory of Liberation in the age of neuroscience, she explores what happens when the foundational assumption of being a separate self is seen through. Rather than offering a new belief to replace the old one, she gently questions the very structure of belief itself — including the belief that anything can ultimately be known.
In doing so, she traces how the sense of personal authorship quietly organizes perception, thought, identity, and suffering, and how experience unfolds prior to interpretation. What is revealed is not a higher insight to attain, but the recognition that what we take to be “knowing” rests on unexamined belief structures — and that in exposing the illusion of separation itself, what remains is a natural simplicity of being that requires no cultivation or attainment.
The excerpt below returns to what she calls the First Belief — the felt sense of being a separate individual — and follows its implications to a startling simplicity: that even knowledge, meaning, and certainty may rest on illusion. What remains is not confusion, but immediacy. Not explanation, but This.
All italicized text (except noted otherwise) below is from The First and Last Belief: A theory of Liberation in the age of neuroscience by Monica Khosla, © 2025 Monica Khosla and is published here with generous permission from the author and Nonduality-Now. You can purchase the book at Amazon-US or Amazon-UK.
The excerpt below is from Chapter 15, The Last Belief. The title “Presence Without Answers” does not appear in the book and has been added by us for this preview post only.
Presence Without Answers?
Now, let us return to the First Belief—that illusory sense of being a separate being. This seems to be the beginning of any sort of belief. Indeed, as suggested in that earlier chapter, it could be seen as providing the underlying foundations that support each of the other belief-related towers. It then appears that, from the time of that first sense of separation onwards, all sorts of further beliefs about one’s self and the machinations of an external world (along with mythical creatures like Santa, fairies or Prince Charming) become possible.
I wonder what might happen if there comes a point where the nature of belief itself is really seen through? If the very idea of belief, and even knowledge itself, is discovered to be based on an illusion? If the possibility of truly knowing anything at all is seen to be illusory, then beliefs themselves can only be insubstantial guessing games or fantastical meaning-making in the face of this unknowable-ness.
You may have a hazy memory of Chapter 2 where I shared the story of What Happened to Monica and listed the illusions that (apparently, in the story of time) disappeared on the day of the yoga class. One of these was entitled The Illusion of Knowing Anything Beyond this Experiencing (p.16). Under this heading, I described the sudden realisation that “there is nothing underneath thought.” By this I meant that words are empty of any fundamental truth and do not arise from any sort of solidity or real knowing. They are just words. Thoughts are just thoughts; they are not pointing to anything that is enduring or knowable. They simply arise and disappear in emptiness and leave no trace. Life might appear as if it is possible to hold on to such thoughts or ideas and prove their veracity. Yet any sort of proof or reasoning is still just appearing and disappearing in unknowable-ness. There is always only This, right now—and even what This actually is, is beyond comprehension.
The above paragraph might seem incomprehensible too! Suffice to say that Monica does not believe she knows anything these days. Not really—even though she might well argue about something if she felt like it and appear unapologetically (some might say arrogantly) knowledgeable on certain topics. And there is certainly a sense, that seems like a “knowing,” of a kind of intelligence and unconditional love that seems to underlie everything. Despite all of this, it is simultaneously obvious that it is all empty and un-knowable, and there is only the appearance of words and opinions that can never really be substantiated.
We have spent much of this book exploring the apparent nature of what I have called the First Belief—that embodied sense of being a separate self. I have speculated that its neural encoding and related habits of behaviour might have some similarities with the kinds of “emotional learnings” that we work with in therapy, and that its disappearance may have something to do with the neurological process of Memory Reconsolidation. I have also suggested that the illusion of separation cannot be seen through by any individual, because there is no such thing as an individual who can do anything at all.
It seems that we can study how life appears and look to understand the natural laws that seem to underlie its consistency (such as those relating to gravity, sudden insight or the behaviour of the autonomic nervous system). But in the end, the immediate mystery of it all supersedes any sort of science or apparent knowing. This could be a dream, or a hallucination, or The Matrix, or God, or a computer simulation, or a neural representation of an external world that can never be directly experienced. Or something else unimaginable. There is no way of knowing—and no need to know, actually.
~ Monica Khosla
If nothing can finally be known, what remains is not an answer … but a shared stillness — present before and after thought.
Stay tuned for … the next post in this series exploring Monica’s The First and Last Belief …
All italicized text (except noted otherwise) above is from The First and Last Belief: A theory of Liberation in the age of neuroscience by Monica Khosla, © 2025 Monica Khosla and is published here with generous permission from the author and Nonduality-Now. You can purchase the book at Amazon-US or Amazon-UK.
And click here for a FREE downloadable copy of the Table of Contents, graciously and generously made available by the author.
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