Douglas Harding

An often heard theme in the spiritual search is that our true nature is the simplest thing to discover, it is always present, is right under our noses, and we simply need to see. Douglas Harding brings this ancient admonition to life through a simple, practical set of experiments that anyone can do at any time.

Douglas Harding passed away on January 11, 2007. He was a remarkably sincere, gracious man whose sole interest was helping people help themselves to Reality, Satori, their true Self, the Absolute, Enlightenment, God, Everythingness and Nothingness, Nirvana, or whatever you want to call your true nature. Douglas Harding called it Headlessness. Harding’s simple experiments allow one to literally see that they are an empty Awareness that simultaneously contains, and is, everything.

This is all lot of empty talk unless you do the experiments. I read Harding’s On Having No Head years ago, but didn’t do the experiments and missed the point. It required attending a Headless Way workshop before I literally saw the reality of Douglas’ words.

I suspect Douglas Harding’s simple experiments are a revolutionary technique for approaching the perennial search for truth. The implications are stunning, if we accept them instead of making them another part of our experience. Go to the Headless Way webpage, do the experiments, and attend a Headless Way workshop if at all possible. It is vital you do the experiments honestly. Don’t think about what you ought to see, or rely on memory: be attentive. I also recommend Look for Yourself: the Science and Art of Self-Realization which is a collection of essays by Harding that lend insight into his philosophy and personality. For more Douglas Harding, a reader made this book suggestion: “While Harding writes well, [Face to No-Face] contains dialogs with him, showing another side of Harding. It is really both a good introduction to the Way and a great way to get to know Harding. I have had much more help from this book than from On Having No Head.”

To try some of Harding’s experiments, read his writings, and see how Richard Lang carries on the work of Douglas Harding at The Headless Way.

Listen to Douglas online at Audio Dharma.

Try three Harding-type experiments that I devised.

Read the essay “On the Value of Headlessness”.