The “Headless“ Way To Enlightenment: Douglas Harding’s Enlightenment Experiments

Douglas Harding, who lived into his 90s, spent his entire life instructing people on how to see the utterly obvious fact that they DO NOT have a head. Harding said that once this fact is seen - that we have no head - then we at the same time have the most profound insight into our true nature, non-duality, or what many mystical and religious traditions call, “enlightenment.” Douglas Harding was in his mid-thirties and living in India, looking out over the Himalayas, when he first realised that he could not find his head. Instead, where he thought his head should be he found a boundless field of awareness. This awareness was utterly inclusive and not limited to the boundaries of his body. This was not something that he had developed or achieved. It was rather merely the seeing of what was completely obvious and always already the case. It was, to quote Harding, to experience one’s self at the “zero point.” To see clearly what one truly is: open, boundlessly inclusive, empty, awareness. Douglas Harding’s