Understanding is a nonlinear and voluminous process. Describing such a process requires several points of view – several projections or orthogonal models.
In the "Report," a sequential practical experience is presented – a vertical projection of the process of understanding. The "Continuation" is a view from a different angle – a horizontal description of the same process, a view "from above." The "Continuation" aims to rid the "Report" of distortion and one-sidedness.
Having advanced in the practice, the practitioner discovers that the practice is akin to a fractal, where the small fully repeats the large. Each stage has its own properties, yet the principle of how the processes are structured does not change. The practitioner sees that in space there is only space, and nothing else. He sees self-similarity.
Recursive nesting allows one to know the large through knowing the small. The practitioner sees and comprehends the absence of size and scale, the absence of center and periphery, the absence of any hierarchy.
Having completed a full cycle of the practice (a complete fractal pattern), the practitioner understands that there is no determinacy: neither the practitioner himself, nor any of his constituents have independent existence and are but a single relative process. Such a unified process cannot be given any clear and precise definition; it manifests itself in a multitude of other interdependent processes. This process has almost no determinacy: no form, no coordinates, no dimensions. Like any relative process, it has direction and properties.
This formless (not fully determinate) process can conditionally be called "direct and unconditional knowledge of itself" or consciousness.
The process "consciousness" begins in a certain immeasurable and indefinable "place," which can conditionally be called "reality." Despite its direct connection with reality, the process "consciousness" is real only relatively, and in itself (apart from reality) has no independent existence. The process "consciousness" is like a wave emanating from reality and consisting only of itself.
The cycle of the process "consciousness" begins in reality and ends there as well.
The beginning of the cycle is the acquisition of a certain determinacy. The process "consciousness" is almost entirely formless, and its acquired determinacy (its property) consists only in the fact that this process knows itself. This determinacy makes the process "consciousness" relative.
The acquisition of determinacy occurs upon exiting reality. Reality is the "place" where the not_happened becomes the happened, acquires properties (determinacy). Such acquired properties are interdependent – they support each other and do not exist separately. From these properties, features, and their combinations, everything that constitutes the practitioner himself and the vast surrounding world is born.
The end of the cycle is the loss of determinacy, the loss of properties. At this point, consciousness ceases to be a process: it does not leave reality, does not exit it, does not acquire determinacy. Movement ceases.
Depending on the phase, the practice of self-inquiry looks very different. Each phase has its own quite definite sets of features and properties. Advancement in the practice simplifies these sets; the practitioner gradually loses determinacy as such.
The process of transformation is difficult; it promises nothing but indeterminacy and deprivation: the consolation prize of happiness, peace, and bliss is absent.
The necessity of help is embedded in the very structure of being. The continuation of practice consists in helping living beings (including humans) in one way or another. The practitioner understands the words "help" and "compassion" differently. He has no ability to feel compassion; the practitioner has lost such a mechanism.
The absence of compassionate mechanisms in the practitioner changes the nature of help – it becomes impersonal and non-addressed. But even such help is a highly ambiguous affair; it will most likely yield no noticeable results and can look like anything.
The practitioner does not compete, does not prove, admits no benefit of any kind, and neither expects nor avoids anything. The practitioner is the vector of the least necessary action. Practice becomes life.
The most effective thing the practitioner can do is to continue the practice until its natural completion. The predispositions, skills, and abilities that the practitioner still has assist in this matter, lending the practice individual features.