One Recognition Can Put an End to All Personal Problems

What overlooked fact of life, missed by 99% of people, creates unhappiness and conflict?

A single false belief about how everything exists is responsible for every problem in our private lives and the world. Do you know which one? Every single problem and source of suffering—from emotional hunger, desire, negative emotions, disappointment, physical illness, depression, pain, jealousy, hatred, racism, greed, and inequality, to war—exists only because 99% of people don't understand how everything exists. Our misunderstanding of existence causes our everyday experience to be opposite to what it should be. So, instead of experiencing harmony, peace, happiness, and bliss, we face endless problems and conflicts. What’s worse is that, instead of recognizing the root cause of all our problems and removing it, we cling to a false idea about existence, perpetuating our misfortunes. 

However, there is good news because simple science and logic can expose our misunderstanding and reveal a clear path to unmatched peace and happiness. It is amazing that we, as modern societies, don’t invest our efforts into understanding and eliminating this single false belief that, if exposed, would end all problems and wars forever. Not only are we not actively helping each other understand the root cause of all personal and world suffering, but we seem not to care even to try. We are so accustomed to false ideas that imprison us that, when we hear the facts of how everything exists, we have difficulty accepting them and often dismiss them as impossible.

How to recognize how everything exists?

This profound understanding of how everything exists, which can effortlessly eliminate all problems and suffering—even any future potential of them—was discovered by Nagarjuna almost 2,000 years ago, yet to this day, not a single public or private school offers a course on it. Isn’t it strange? We claim to want happiness and peace, yet we don’t focus on the only permanent way that could fulfill our wishes effortlessly. True peace and happiness can exist only when we recognize that the way everything exists is contrary to how they appear to our minds.

Currently, 99% of people perceive and experience everything as possessing an individual self—as if everyone has their own essence that has always been theirs, making them what they are today, and that their essence must be different from ours. All things appear that way to us, and we accept that as natural and true. However, this type of perception is completely opposite to how all living beings actually exist. All living beings, including ourselves and objects, seem to have an individual self, but in reality, we don’t. Instead, we have a universal self that is identical to everyone else and to the universe itself. 

This belief in independent existence is a mental fabrication. The appearance of a separate, self-contained identity—something that seems to exist “out there”—arises from our forgetfulness of the true nature of reality and from the labels we cling to so strongly. No object, no living being, possesses an individual nature capable of bringing itself into existence. Instead, everything and everyone is an expression of the same underlying universal nature.

This universal nature is both the producer and the manifestation—a dynamic, ever-unfolding reality with infinite potential for expression. What we call “differences” between people—such as skin color, facial features, language, or culture—are not inherent traits or personal possessions. These differences don’t belong to any individual; they are simply the universe exploring and expressing its limitless potential through countless forms. They are nothing more than fleeting ripples on the surface of an infinite ocean, brief moments in the continuous unfolding of existence.

We do not create or own these traits; they are the universe momentarily appearing as “us” and “them,” shaped by the labels our minds impose. From the tiniest particle of an atom to the vastness of the cosmos, nothing exists independently or in isolation. Everything is interwoven with everything else, empty of a separate self. In this profound interconnectedness, all things are selfless and ultimately identical in essence.

Who can claim to be an independent self.

Only something that is a wholly self-generated and singular entity could make such a claim. But if something—or someone—is not capable of bringing itself into existence, it must be the product of something else, shaped by conditions beyond itself. In this sense, it exists without an independent self; it is selfless.

When we honestly examine anything, we find that, contrary to our assumptions, nothing is self-created or singular in nature. No one possesses an individual self that has always belonged to them, nor can anyone be fundamentally separate from anything or anyone else. Every living being, every object, relies on parts, causes, and conditions to exist. Nothing arises in isolation in and of itself.

Yet, most of us believe otherwise. We hold tightly to the illusion of separation—the duality of “me” versus “them.” This perception contradicts the truth: the nondual nature of reality, where all things are interconnected and inseparable.

By experiencing ourselves as isolated individuals, we subject ourselves to the pain and suffering that come from this ignorance. It is only through the recognition and removal of this false belief that we can be freed from the misfortunes of separation. In this realization lies the key to true and lasting freedom.

Summary and the benefits of knowing how everything exists.

Vast Self Corp offers help to anyone or any organization seeking effortless happiness and peace. As long as we don’t recognize our false assumptions about everything and ourselves, there is no chance for happiness in our lives or the world. It is simply impossible. Just look back at the last hundred years of history for proof. Has there been peace and happiness in the world during this time? Real peace and happiness are the true nature of everything that exists, but because of our inability to see the facts of life as they are, we experience the opposite. It is our choice. We can begin to experience real peace when we start recognizing that our perception of ourselves and the world as two different selves is false. Science and logic explain the facts of how everything exists; we don’t have to force anything new onto our beliefs. We just need to recognize that our separate sense of self is robbing us of peace and happiness, creating constant misery in our lives and the lives of others. Isn’t it time we started living as we were meant to—free, peaceful, content, happy, and beyond the cause of suffering?