By Tchera Niyego
“Grace is not something to be acquired. You only have to remove the obstacles to the recognition of its presence.” ~ Ramana Maharshi
Across many traditions, spiritual teachers have taught that the “ego” is not an entity, but an activity. What we call ego is ongoing psychological activity—memory, comparison, fear, desire—generated moment by moment. It is something that we are doing and not something we fundamentally are. Ego/self is a pattern of self-attention and linguistic framing—a contraction created through self-referencing.
The sense of “I” is simply the activity of observation identifying itself as a center.
“Man has no individual ‘I.’ But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate little ‘I’s… One “I” decides; another “I” later changes the decision.” ~ G. I. Gurdjieff
The Wholeness Work is a simple and precise approach to awakening that dissolves “I” structures—subtle inner separations formed through lived experience and maintained unconsciously over time. As these long-held structures of egoic self-reference relax and dissolve, what remains is revealed as Awareness itself—not as an object or state, but as the ever-present ground of experience.
The Wholeness Work was developed by Connirae Andreas, PhD, psychotherapist, author, and international trainer whose work has helped define and broaden the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP studies the structure of subjective experience—how our thoughts, language, and behavior shape experience, and how these patterns can be transformed to create meaningful change. Over decades of pioneering contributions, Andreas’ innovations include Aligning Perceptual Positions, Advanced Language Patterns, timeline techniques, and processes for resolving grief and shame. She is widely known for Core Transformation, a distinct method that gently yet powerfully transforms life challenges through accessing innate states like Peace, Oneness, and Presence (see my article Core Transformation: The Treasure Map to Inner Peace in Issue #91 of The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal).
Core Transformation engages the denser expressions of the psyche’s unconscious, while Wholeness Work attends to even subtler dimensions, together functioning as a seamless, complementary continuum for deep transformation and awakening. Andreas credits Dr. Milton Erickson as a key influence in her development of Core Transformation, while the inspiration for Wholeness Work came from Ramana Maharshi, one of the twentieth century’s most revered sages, whose teachings on self-inquiry and non-duality planted its seeds.
Ramana Maharshi emphasized the ego as the “I-thought” which vanishes when directly investigated. He taught that what rises as “I” in the body is the mind, or subtle body, and that it consists entirely of thoughts, arising only after the root, “I-thought.” Through inquiry—first asking, “To whom has this thought arisen?” and then, “Who am I?”—attention is traced inward, following the “I” to its source, where the mind subsides into Awareness.
Maharshi pointed out that the heart is the place of the mind’s origin, and when we inquire where the “I-thought” first arises, we discover that it rises in the heart. Retaining the mind in the heart is called inwardness, while allowing it to move outward is externalization. With repeated practice, the mind develops the ability to remain in its source. When the mind abides in the heart, the “I” dissolves, and the ever-present pure awareness, or Self, shines unobstructed.
However, this practice eludes most of us, as it presupposes the prior establishment of a palpably unified inner center—an organizing capacity that can steward competing impulses into a coherent direction through repeated non-identification, sustained conscious effort, and the gradual integration of parts.
When Andreas began experimenting based on this teaching, her immediate inclination was to start where most people actually are—experiencing ourselves as a small self. Rather than attempting to transcend this experience prematurely, she explored how to directly locate it within our inner landscape, attune to its structure through deep sensation, and then gently let it dissolve back into wholeness, allowing us to experience ourselves as the vast “whole” again.
“Enlightenment is intimacy with the ten thousand things.” ~ Dogen
Andreas highlights five keys that make the Wholeness process universally effective. The first key is noticing the precise location of the experience.
The Wholeness process begins by noticing what in our experience feels separate. This might be a feeling, a response, or a perspective—the sense of “I.” Sometimes it takes the form of a persona—an embodied “I” engaged in action, doing, or striving. Other times it may appear as a sensation through the body or one of the senses. By asking, “Where is this [experience we noticed] located?” we turn our attention inward and notice the location. While most of us are aware of our emotions, feelings, and thoughts, often we don’t register the specific location where we experience them.
The second key is shifting from meaning and interpretation to the quality of sensation. Lingering attention on the meanings we assign to experience prevents transformation at its most fundamental level. Instead, we ask, “What is the sensation quality?” By noticing qualities such as heaviness, pressure, vibration, fizziness, warmth, or coolness—or sensations we can’t quite name—and by simply attending to the sensation itself, attention disengages from narrative, allowing deeper integration to occur.
Now we can recognize, “I am aware of this [sensation we noticed].”
The third key is being clear about the meaning of Awareness. While the word is widely used, what people experience as its meaning is inconsistent and may not actually support useful integration.
Awareness is the capacity to notice, present throughout the body, and all around us. If a sound happens on one side, you would hear it automatically without effort. If a gentle breeze brushes your body, you’d also be aware of it effortlessly. And even when our eyes are closed, we can notice a sense of space all around. It may feel like spaciousness… like presence. It has no center or edge… And you can notice all of this, simultaneously, right now….
Let’s now return to the recognition, “I am aware of this [sensation we noticed].” “Where is the ‘I’ that is aware of this sensation? Where is this ‘I’ located? … Where is the perceiving happening from?” Finding the location of the “I” is the fourth key. It may be sensed in the head, body, or outside the body somewhere. There is an experiential location for the “I” within our personal space, and it needs to be directly noticed and worked with.
As the “I”—or a sequence of “I”s— then dissolve through the Awareness/Dissolving meditation (emerging from Andreas’ earlier Aligning Perceptual Positions work) what remains is a sense of presence, that can be characterized as an integration of subject with “beingness.”
As it turns out, holding internal separation in place requires surprisingly great effort, and it is delightful to feel the relief and the spontaneous surge of energy that naturally arise when it dissolves, leaving a sense of openness, ease, and aliveness.
Finally, the fifth key is experiencing original sensation of thought/feeling AS Awareness. Consistently, when the “I” dissolves, the original experience we started with—the object—has already shifted. It is often impossible to sustain the unpleasant experience without the separate “I”.
Approaching an unpleasant experience in a conventional manner only serves to replay it—reinforcing the negative emotional habit. By contrast, the Wholeness process guides us in experiencing the emotion embodied in the sensation as Awareness itself. It is through encountering the event as an undivided whole that the original experience is transformed.
With each unfolding of experience in/as Awareness, the rigidities of our personality structure soften, judgments—both negative and positive—ease away, and all that remains is presence itself.
“It all comes down to how we hold phenomenon.” ~ Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
Grounded in a coherent set of principles, Wholeness Work is a rich body of methods including Reclaiming the Inner Authority, Integrating What’s Missing, Dissolving Identities/Roles, The Letting-Go Process, Working with Aversions and Attachments, Integrating the Teacher, Wholeness Dreamwork, and more. These approaches explore the most effective ways to heal and transform the full range of emotions and challenges we all share.
Experiencing whatever emerges as undivided Awareness reveals that nothing is fundamentally unworkable—that every situation and every emotion can be included.
Tchera Niyego has lived and worked as an artist and facilitator in Istanbul, Tel Aviv, London, and New York City, and for over twenty-five years has studied and practiced approaches to the non-dual view through mystical oral traditions.
Now based in Dexter, MI, she offers transformational coaching to individuals, facilitates groups, and trains practitioners internationally. As a practitioner devoted to awakening innate wisdom, compassion, artistry, and play, Niyego supports contemplatives and creatives in navigating life’s challenges—whether anxiety, grief, trauma, self-criticism, unhelpful habits, health issues, or difficult relationships—helping clients release limitations and step into a fuller expression of aliveness.
For more information, email tcherina@usa.net to schedule a free discovery call with Niyego, and explore how Core Transformation and Wholeness Work may specifically benefit you.
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Across many traditions, spiritual teachers have taught that the “ego” is not an entity, but an activity. What we call ego is ongoing psychological activity—memory, comparison, fear, desire—generated moment by moment. It is something that we are doing and not something we fundamentally are. Ego/self is a pattern of self-attention and linguistic framing—a contraction created through self-referencing.