The
White
Paper
Why We Suffer and How
to Be Unconditionally Free
-
AN INTRODUCTION
ATMA SEGEV
Why We Suffer and How
to Be Unconditionally Free
-
AN INTRODUCTION
ATMA SEGEV
Why We Suffer and How to Be Unconditionally Free
-
AN INTRODUCTION
ATMA SEGEV
Table of contents
Table of contents
Chapter 1.
Introduction
How are you, really? Are you well? If you go beyond conventional ways to gauge your answer, beyond the notions of what is “realistic” to expect, what is your sincere answer?
Do you sense deep inside that there is a greater potential to life? Maybe your life circumstances are fine. Is that enough? Or do you feel an innate, inexplicable, perhaps yet-unformulated intuition that there is so much more to life than what you currently know?
I was taught that happiness is something occasional, felt in rare moments when things click and the sun shines on you. Those brief and fleeting instances of joy are all you can expect inside a life that ranges somewhere between dull and difficult.
How common is the notion that life is hard, that you can only try to get by and make the best of it?
I know now that this assumption is cardinally wrong.
Happiness is not a rare feeling that we’re lucky to stumble upon in our life. Life is happiness. You are happiness. This is not an affirmation we choose to believe in or a mindset we can acquire. It is a tangible fact.
You may assume that you’ll reach fulfillment by attaining a goal you have set for yourself based on a conditioned model of success. But, as you may have found out already, you don’t discover fundamental happiness—true, unconditional well-being and peace—by arranging your circumstances optimally.
That profound happiness is inherent to life: not to your life’s story, and not to your commentary about it, but to the essence of your life, of your own self. You realize that peace by realizing life as it truly is, by realizing its essence.
Can it be done? Most certainly. That is because the essence that you discover is the one you inherently and already have. This essence, which is the gateway to peace and peace itself, is who you already are and what life already is.
How is it done? By looking in the right place, in the right way. You don’t need to manipulate, gain, or remove anything. You just see things as they are. It is simple, and yet subtle.
That sense of deeper potential, that spark inside you, means that you are ripe to discover a glorious way of being—your natural state.
Chapter 2.
My Personal Story of Awakening
I began my spiritual journey at the age of twenty. I was living through a continuous battle for survival within myself. Powerful anxiety attacks had haunted me for several years and dictated the boundaries of my emotional environment. Those anxieties were an acute manifestation of my underlying condition: my life was entirely ruled by my thoughts, emotions, and conditioned perceptions and concepts.
It’s a painful manner of being, but it’s the standard way people live their lives. Looking around and within myself, that was all I knew.
With this mess, I flew to Northern India, where I joined my first meditation event in Dharamsala, in the Himalayas. It was a ten-day silent Vipassana retreat. I was dreading it, but it was a choice between what I feared could lead to madness and the ongoing torture of my anxieties and suffering. I chose the possibility of change.
I didn’t lose my mind in the retreat. I did, however, realize how powerless I was against the mind. But I also gained a sense of direction. The anxieties I experienced at that time played an important role in my journey because they made it clear to me that no improvement of circumstances could bring me salvation. I understood that the solution I was searching for could only be found inside and nowhere else.
Vipassana was a wonderful introduction to the world of meditation, but it didn’t present me with a practice I believed could truly help me. Soon after, I joined another meditation teaching, which was both practical and profound. From that point, I dedicated my life wholeheartedly to my practice, with the urgency of a drowning man and with the passion propelled by a deep intuitive knowing.
After two years of dedicated inner work, I was already in a much better place. I was able to disidentify from much of the mind’s commotion, and I had a clear sense of my own deeper self. I was even able to become absorbed in meditation to a certain extent. But still, when my anxieties appeared, I was no match for them. All I could do was try to soften their edges and wait for them to pass.
And then something unexpected happened that changed everything.
I was in Goa, India, during a break between retreats, when a friend came to my room with fiery eyes and announced, “Beloved, all is well!”
I said, “Yes, sure, I know.” Obviously, I didn’t really know that. Well-being is a relative term, and things seemed to be heading in the right direction, so yeah, all is well.
“No,” she said, “you don’t. All. Is. Well!”
And something miraculous happened. I got it.
It was as if I were permanently holding a tiny screen in front of my eyes, and on this screen were alternating messages. What I considered to be life was what I saw through that screen, governed by a changing sentence written on it.
And at that moment, the screen was suddenly gone.
What was left was just life, absolutely free of any interpretive message or filter. I was shocked to discover what life actually is. The relief was palpable. The constant weight of fear and suffering I was perpetually carrying was entirely gone. I felt this existentially, and even physically, a sense of lightness and luminosity spread in my body. A shutter that, without me noticing, had always contracted and dimmed my vision through fear and intrinsic mental content vanished. My vision opened and cleared. I was, for the first time, fully available to see. Figuratively and literally, I was seeing life with its unhindered openness.
The significance of this shift was beyond anything I had imagined possible. I met reality directly, and it was sheer, untainted peace, beauty, and joy. It was who I am and what life is made of. It was an earth-shattering realization, and at the same time, it was so clearly familiar, so clearly ordinary, in the deepest way possible. It was shockingly new and yet so fundamentally known, profound and blissful and yet so simple. Everything changed and yet nothing changed.
I was in heaven, and that heaven was nothing but life as it really is.
The following night I went to a nearby dark and secluded beach. Such a setting was usually fertile ground for my anxiety to show its face. And indeed, I felt an anxiety attack forming within me. I thought to myself: “It’s all fine until that thing comes into the picture. I have no chance against it!”
But then something entirely new entered my long and painful relationship with this tyrannical force. Just as I was able to remove that screen with its changing messages the day before, I saw through the illusion of this one too. The message carrying my anxiety was absolutely no different. It was just another sentence spoken to me by the mind. Nothing more.
I realized that when I believe the messages and take them on, I enact them and react to them. And when I don’t, whatever suffering they generate and promote cannot reach me. I understood that I have no other form of suffering than that prompted by those messages of the mind. The anxiety attack was the most painful sentence of them all, but I saw so clearly: It is no different from the most neutral of sentences. Both are entirely optional and irrelevant to what life actually is.
I woke up to the profoundly liberating understanding that I live in an entirely quiet world. Life is silent. So completely simple, and yet so profound and fundamentally liberating. The result of this understanding is a shift from hell to heaven, an unequivocal and profound realization that indeed All Is Well.
Chapter 3.
The white paper and the text
What happened to me in Goa? What caused my liberation? And liberation from what? I’ll use the following metaphor to explain it: Every person sees their life as a book. They read and follow the text, which narrates their own story and the story of their life’s situation. The text is in constant flux, as is the story it tells. At times it is a pleasant story; at other times, terrible. At times it’s a romantic tale, at times a horror. The font, the density of the words, and the spacing change. Everything in that text is always in motion. And every person follows it religiously and tries to influence it to the best of their ability.
What they don’t notice is the white paper underneath the text. “The white paper?! What are you talking about?! I’m busy with my story here!” That is not surprising considering how conditioned everyone is to focus on the text and see it as their life. They consider that written narrative to be the only place from which happiness and fulfillment can arise. That white paper is completely unaccounted for. It’s not part of the story.
But as you notice the paper, you begin to discover something remarkable. Unlike the turbulent text, the white paper never changes. More than that, it is never touched or affected by the stories that are written on it. Good, bad, or terrible—nothing taints it.
As you go on exploring this, you realize that even though the white paper doesn’t have the type of content we’re accustomed to consuming, it is not just empty. It is overflowing with inherent substance, with Isness. Eventually, you realize that this Isness is saturated with peace and meaning. You realize it because the you who relates to this book of life has changed. You have come in touch with a deeper dimension inside yourself.
Chapter 4.
The text
What is the text? It is your life’s story. It is the narrative of the events outside of you, in the form of your circumstances, and inside of you, in the form of your thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. It is everything that happens to you.
The reason for people’s basic suffering is that they are completely identified with that text and see it as their life. They wrongfully assume that their happiness and their identity are to be found in that narrative. Therefore, they put all their efforts into trying to improve the text. The assumption is that if the circumstances written in the story become favorable, they will be happy. It’s not easy to get the circumstances right, so they spend their whole lives pursuing it. Some do enjoy temporary relief before moving on to chase the next goal, driven by a sense of lack. The type of happiness that can come from this text is extremely shallow and ephemeral. Searching for fulfillment there is a futile and anxious race.
You might feel it yourself. Maybe everything seems fine in your life. Nothing to complain about. And yet, something is so clearly lacking. How is that possible? What is that undefined thing that is missing?
Maybe you know deep inside that there is more to this miracle of existing than just getting by, surviving, hustling for a fleeting spell of sun. Maybe you sense that at the root of being alive there’s something beautiful, an ever-flowing fountain of peace and meaning. But you have no idea how to act on that intuition. No one around you validates it. On the contrary, they all seem to be fine, conforming to the known model that you already feel can’t make you happy. In fact, judging by social media, everyone is doing great. Well, are they? Are you?
How can you fulfill the potential you feel intuitively inside, if it’s already quite clear to you that the text won’t provide it, no matter how it gets arranged?
You can fulfill it through the white paper.
Chapter 5.
The white paper
The text is your life’s story and everything you experience outside in your circumstances and inside in your body, mind, and personality. But what is the white paper?
The white paper is the pure, untainted, unaffected host of the text. It is what remains when the spell of following the story is dropped. It is the unchanging essence of your own self and of the totality of life.
The story is read and experienced through your mind. The white paper is met through your very being. The white paper is your very being. The white paper was always there and always will be there, and it is there right now. The story changes by default and can even not be there, but the hosting empty canvas is always there.
Let’s give you a sense of the text and white paper through doing an internal exercise.
Exercise: The Sentence and the One Listening to the Sentence
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Say a sentence in your head, any sentence. Try something insignificant like “five green apples.” Repeat it in your head. Say it and hear it being said. Possibly the spoken sentence triggers an image of green apples. That’s fine. Let it be. Continue saying the sentence and listening to it.
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Now raise the volume of that sentence. Say it louder and louder. Even shout it in your head. Now lower the volume more and more. Until it becomes a whisper.
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Note what is happening: there is a sentence spoken in your head and there is you hearing it. Notice clearly the two elements: there is a sentence, and there is someone listening to the sentence. They are not the same. Identify that.
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Now change the sentence. Say something like “twenty penguins.” And again, listen to it spoken. Play with the volume up and down. And notice the two elements: the sentence spoken and you listening to it.
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And again, a third sentence: “a tractor in a field.” Listen to it. Play with the volume. Notice that the sentence, the object of your listening, changed each time. Each of those thoughts came and went. What didn’t come and go? You. The listener didn’t come and go. Is that correct?
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The volume and quality of each sentence also changed before it was completely replaced. What didn’t change at all? That sense of self that was listening. Was it any different listening to the first sentence than it was listening to the third one?
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Feel clearly that the listener, yourself, that presence that is the subject to the changing sentences. Can you sense it? Can you feel how clearly distinct it is from the mental formations that came and went, to which it was a witness?
Further than that, is that presence new? Was it not there this morning? Was it not there when you were four years old? Was it ever not there?
And was it ever different? Was it different this morning? Was it different five years ago? The thoughts and emotions this presence followed and was aware of changed countless times, so did any events that occurred in the life of that presence. But did it itself ever change?
The sentences you heard in your head are the text. The presence that was hearing them, which is there right now as the subject to the act of reading and contemplating, is the white paper.
The white paper is not a different kind of thought; it just is. It is a direct sense of existence, of Isness. Whatever you perceive through your mind, namely your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and any events outside of you, requires the distance of observation. There’s always you perceiving something. But that presence is known directly. It is your very sense of self. You know it by becoming it, by embodying it.
Contemplate this: How do you know that you exist? What’s your unshakable proof that you’re alive? If you woke up in the morning and all your memories, thoughts, emotions, and bodily references disappeared, you would have no object inside or outside of you to relate to, no context to position yourself in: Would you still know that you exist? What is it that you would know in that situation? What is it that can’t disappear because it’s your very existence?
It’s your very presence, your very sense of I am. That is the white paper, the zero point of self.
That Isness of the essence is felt on two levels that are the two sides of the same coin: on the individual level it is that sense of presence and on the universal level it is the very Beingness of life, the Underlying Silence. We can also call it the Now. Even though the Underlying Silence is always available and accessible, in the same way that the ocean is always available to the drop of water that exists inside it, it’s a bit more subtle to experience than the individual one. Ultimately, they are the same.
Chapter 6.
The Journey From Suffering to Unconditional Peace
The two dimensions of being that exist in you are the text and the white paper. Now that you understand this, the question is how to shift from the initial predicament of suffering to actualizing the potential of profound peace and joy? How to realize the state of freedom?
Your freedom is determined by the reality you believe you live in.
Stage 1 –Your Reality Is the Reality of the Text
Initially, all you know is the reality of the text, and you suffer. You define yourself and your life through the turbulent and changing story. You seek meaning and fulfillment in it. You’re one with the narrative. Consequently, you are bound to react to any passing written sentence. That is, anything that occurs inside you in the form of your thoughts, emotions, and perceptions, or outside of you, in the form of circumstances, takes you with it. The way your mind interprets it defines how you feel about it. That is the definition of identification with the text, or the mind. There’s no true peace or happiness here.
Stage 2 – Both Realities, the Text and the White Paper, Are Your Realities
Then you discover the white paper. Now you have two realities available to you: the changing text and the unchanging white paper. A new and immensely significant depth is added to you: an essential level of existence that isn’t touched by the fluctuations that constantly occur in the text. This fundamentally transforms your relationship with and reaction to the events narrated in the text. Your focal point and view of the book of life change deeply.
Through practice and time, you learn to increasingly place the weight of your existence in the reality of the white paper. This stage culminates when the white paper becomes your primary reality of the two. You still consider both to be your realities, but the white paper evolves to be your default identity and internal environment.
Here, you are positioned beyond the grasp of the drama of the text. A distance is created between you and the story. You no longer automatically react to and enact everything that happens there.
That is a life-changing transformation and a significant milestone. However, it isn’t freedom yet.
Stage 3 – Your Only Reality Is the Reality of the White Paper
You become free when you know that the only reality you live in is the reality of the white paper. You don’t believe that you do, you know. Believing is just another sentence in the text.
As long as these two realities share the definition of your existence, no matter what the hierarchy is, there’s no freedom.
Disidentification from the text and going beyond the mind are crucial steps along the way, but you reach freedom when you disbelieve the mind from its core. Only when you realize that the white paper is not just your primary reality, but your only one, do you become free.
In the simplest terms, you become free when you realize that you live in an entirely silent reality and always have. That silence is unconditional well-being itself.
Living in the Reality of Text from the White Paper
If the white paper is the only reality, does the awakened state imply negating and disengaging from the text?
On the contrary. From the place of knowing unequivocally that you live in the reality of the white paper, of undisturbed silence, you are available for the first time to engage with the text in a real and healthy way. Certainly, you can act to improve the text, but you no longer seek your identity or fundamental fulfillment in it. Those are found unconditionally in your essence. From that place, the story of your life becomes a lovely playground of creativity and dynamism.
In which reality are you living now?
This is the litmus paper of freedom and the pivotal question you ask yourself throughout your journey and at every moment.
In which reality are you living now?
This is the litmus paper of freedom and the pivotal question you ask yourself throughout your journey and at every moment.
Chapter 7.
A Journey From A to A
This is not a journey from A to B. It is a journey from A to A. It is completed when you understand that there was never any journey to go through and that the destination isn’t an inch away from your starting point. After all, the white paper was and is always there. You are just misguidedly focusing on the text. You don’t need to reach or manifest a new terrain. You simply need to become aware of the one you already live in. The only one you can live in.
What yields freedom is an insight that takes place in your deepest intelligence—a seeing. Something clicks, and for the first time you see reality as it is. You discover that the text, with its turbulent narrative, isn’t needed to experience life. You don’t need to hold that screen in front of your eyes. You can just engage with life, with the great and beautiful outdoors, directly. And how wonderful that open, unbound field is.
Nothing needs to be reached, added, or removed for that insight to happen. And yet there has to be readiness. That readiness is a function of a dedicated and skillful process of practice and cultivation. In this process, your intelligence, consciousness, and energy evolve. Your practice is what brings you to the precipice of insight. You awaken when your deepest intelligence sees. But your spiritual efforts are imperative to create the optimal conditions for that insight.
Chapter 8.
A Beautiful Journey
It is a beautiful journey that extends well beyond just the ending of suffering. The state of freedom is in fact just our spiritual foundation, the basic transition from pain to spiritual sanity.
There are so many treasures to explore inside you, inside life. There is an abundant buffet of ways to actualize your potential. Life, true life, has so much beauty to offer, so much depth and meaning. The well of true meaning and actualization is found inside you. And that well is ever-flowing and ever-available.
There is work to be done, but it’s doable. Its reward is the actualization of the inherent ability to shine brilliantly in each moment with the light of beauty, peace, and meaning. It is indeed remarkable beyond words, but it is also nothing but your simple and natural state.
And then you no longer just sense some intangible, intuitive whisper inside you about what life could be. You are living that potential in every moment. You are that actualized potential.
When you are asked: “How are you?” your answer, from the core of your being to the offshoots of your human expression, can only be: All Is Well.
Chapter 9.
Atma Teachings
This is a taste of my teaching. The goal is to help seekers actualize the potential of true peace, joy, and meaning. It is a practical and sober approach, providing conceptual understanding, actionable tools, and in-person support and guidance. It is about helping you remove everything that stands in the way of realizing your natural state of freedom, which is waiting to shine through you. Additionally, it is about helping you further discover and actualize your deepest existential potential.
The Book: All Is Well
My forthcoming book, All Is Well, is due to be published later this summer. It is the most comprehensive and coherent way to get acquainted with the teaching. The book is a practical step-by-step guide to realizing the state of freedom. It charts a clear map and provides various contemplative and meditative exercises. The book serves as an introduction to the in-person and ongoing teaching and as an accompaniment to your unfolding journey.
In-Person Teaching
The spiritual journey is always your own journey. It is always you who walks your path, and it is yourself who you discover.
Still, you may find great sources of help and direction from others. There is immense benefit in receiving guidance from and being in the presence of a person who embodies the state you’re working toward. There is a natural emanation of the realized state from someone who embodies it that permeates the seeker and assists in their discovery and cultivation of that state.
The goal is fundamentally simple, and yet the path to realizing it is full of intricacies and subtleties. Therefore, any seeker can be assisted greatly by being guided personally by someone who has actualized and understands that path. A seeker should not become dependent on such a presence but certainly would be wise to benefit from it.
My teaching is offered in the following mediums:
Retreats
The space of a retreat is the environment where significant breakthroughs in your practice are most likely to occur. It is usually a seven-day silent retreat where you dedicate your entire time to intense practice among fellow seekers cultivating a similar intention, and with the personal guidance and presence of the teacher who embodies that state.
The first retreat is planned to take place near Dharamsala, Northern India, in the middle of October 2026. The next one is planned for spring 2027 (probably in Southern Portugal).
One-on-One Sessions
The seeker is advised to follow a daily routine of practice consisting of formal sessions of meditation and continuous moment-to-moment self-remembrance. To support this process and optimize its progression, a seeker is advised to join one-on-one sessions, either in person or online, with me for personal guidance.
Talks and Meditation Meetings
Alongside the one-on-one sessions, it is recommended to join me in group talks and meditation meetings that take place regularly online and at times also in person in various venues. The coming in-person teachings will take place in September and October 2026 in Dharamkot, Northern India. These meetings include guided meditations, talks, and Q&A. They provide a boost and support to your ongoing practice.
Chapter 10.
Connecting with the Teaching
Your life can be a celebration of peace, meaning, and beauty. There’s a journey to be made to actualize it, but it is a beautiful journey. When empowered by the right tools and guidance, it becomes a clearly doable adventure. If you find resonance and wish to embark on this road, I’ll be very happy to support you in it.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions via email: atma@atmateachings.com
You can also find the teaching via the following links:
Book page: atmateachings.com/book-all-is-well
Website: atmateachings.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@AtmaTeaching
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