The Two Words That Took Everything Away
I was twenty-six when I first encountered the phrase “neti neti.” I was reading a translation of the Upanishads in a coffee shop, and those two small words, “not this, not this”, landed in my chest like a stone dropped into still water. The ripples haven’t stopped.
The concept is deceptively simple. It’s a method of discovering what you truly are by systematically recognizing what you are not. But living with it, actually applying it, has been one of the most disorienting and ultimately freeing practices of my life.
I want to share what the Chandogya Upanishad and the broader Upanishadic tradition teach about the Self through this method, and what it’s meant for me personally.
Where ‘Neti Neti’ Comes From
The phrase “neti neti” appears most prominently in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, but the underlying method pervades the Chandogya Upanishad as well, particularly in its famous dialogue between the sage Uddalaka and his son Shvetaketu. The Chandogya is one of the oldest Upanishads, composed roughly between 800 and 600 BCE, and it contains some of the most foundational teachings on the nature of the Self (Atman) and its identity with ultimate reality (Brahman).
The teaching of “neti neti” is a via negativa, a way of knowing through negation. Rather than defining what the Self is (which, the sages argued, is ultimately impossible since the Self transcends all categories), you strip away everything the Self is not. What remains, what cannot be negated, is the Self.
“That which is the finest essence, this whole world has that as its soul. That is Reality. That is Atman. That art thou, Shvetaketu.” – Chandogya Upanishad, 6.8.7, translated by Patrick Olivelle (Oxford University Press, 1996)
“Tat tvam asi”, “That art thou.” This is the great declaration of the Chandogya. You are not a fragment of the divine. You are not a creation separate from the creator. You are That, the same infinite awareness that underlies all existence. And the method of neti neti is how you realize this, not as an intellectual concept but as a lived recognition.
How the Method Works
The practice begins with the body. You notice your physical form, its weight, its sensations, its boundaries. Then you ask: Am I this body? And you observe that you can be aware of the body. You can watch it from a place that is not the body itself. The body changes constantly, it was an infant’s body, a child’s, an adolescent’s, and now an adult’s, but the awareness observing it has remained continuous. So: neti. Not this.
You move to the mind. Your thoughts, emotions, memories, personality traits. Am I these? Again, you observe that you can watch thoughts arise and pass. You can notice emotions without being consumed by them (at least sometimes). The content of the mind changes moment to moment. But the awareness that watches the content doesn’t come and go. It’s the constant backdrop against which all mental activity appears. So: neti. Not this either.
You move to subtler identifications. Your name, your roles, your story. Am I the person others know? Am I my biography? Am I the narrative I tell about my life? Each of these, upon examination, is an object of awareness, not awareness itself. Neti. Neti. Neti.
What’s left when every identification has been stripped away? The sages of the Upanishads said: pure awareness. Consciousness without an object. The Self. Not the small self of personality and preference, but the infinite Self that is identical with Brahman, with the ground of all being.
Uddalaka and Shvetaketu, The Chandogya’s Central Story
The Chandogya Upanishad delivers this teaching through one of the most beautiful teacher-student dialogues in all of spiritual literature. Uddalaka Aruni, a sage, sends his son Shvetaketu to study the Vedas. Shvetaketu returns after twelve years of study, puffed up with intellectual knowledge, proud of his learning.
Uddalaka sees this and asks a devastating question: “Did your teachers tell you about that by knowing which everything is known?”
Shvetaketu is humbled. He hasn’t been taught this. And so Uddalaka begins a series of teachings, each illustrated with a concrete analogy, each ending with the refrain: “Tat tvam asi”, “That art thou.”
He tells Shvetaketu to dissolve salt in water. The salt disappears, you can’t see it, but every drop of water tastes salty. In the same way, Brahman pervades all of existence but cannot be perceived by the senses. It’s the invisible essence of everything.
“As the bees, my son, make honey by collecting the juices of distant trees, and reduce the juice into one form… these juices have no discrimination, they do not say ‘I am the juice of this tree’ or ‘I am the juice of that tree.’ In the same manner, all these creatures, when they have become merged in Being, do not know that they are merged in Being. That which is the finest essence, that art thou, Shvetaketu.” – Chandogya Upanishad, 6.9.1-4, translated by Patrick Olivelle (Oxford University Press, 1996)
The analogy of the bees and honey has stayed with me for years. Individual identity, the sense of being this separate person with this particular history, is like a drop of juice believing it’s distinct from the honey. Once merged, the separateness dissolves. Not the existence, the separateness.
Why This Isn’t Just Philosophy
I want to be clear about something: neti neti isn’t an intellectual exercise for me anymore, though it started as one. It has become a practice, something I do in real time, especially in moments of suffering.
When anxiety hits, I notice it and ask: Who is anxious? I observe the sensations. The tight chest. The racing thoughts. The urge to fix something. And I recognize: I am aware of all of this. The anxiety is an experience. It’s not who I am. Neti.
When self-doubt shows up, “You’re not good enough, you can’t do this”, I notice the thought and ask: Who is this thought talking to? And I find that the awareness hearing the thought isn’t the one being addressed. The thought is about the small self, the constructed identity. The awareness watching the thought is something else entirely. Something vast and unconcerned. Neti.
This doesn’t eliminate difficult emotions. I still feel anxiety, doubt, grief, anger. But neti neti creates space around them. They become weather instead of identity. They pass through the sky of awareness, and the sky remains untouched.
A Practice for Self-Inquiry
Here’s a structured exercise drawn from the neti neti method that you can practice in a quiet ten-minute sitting.
Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take a few breaths to settle.
Begin with the body. Notice physical sensations, the pressure of sitting, the temperature of the air on your skin, any areas of tension or ease. Observe these sensations as you would observe objects in a room. Then ask silently: “Am I these sensations?” Notice that you are the one observing them. They are objects of your awareness, not the awareness itself. Say internally: “Neti. Not this.”
Move to emotions. Notice any feeling-tone present, calm, restless, sad, neutral. Observe it without trying to change it. Ask: “Am I this emotion?” Notice the space between you and the emotion, the fact that you can observe it means you are not identical with it. “Neti.”
Move to thoughts. Watch the stream of mental activity, plans, memories, commentary. Don’t engage with any particular thought. Just watch them arise and dissolve. Ask: “Am I these thoughts?” Notice that thoughts come and go, but the noticing remains. “Neti.”
Now rest in whatever remains when body, emotion, and thought have been recognized as “not this.” Don’t try to name what remains. Don’t try to grasp it. Simply be it. Rest as the awareness that has been present throughout, watching everything but identical with nothing observed.
Stay here for as long as feels natural. When thoughts pull you back into identification, gently repeat “neti” and return to the open awareness.
What the Upanishads Gave Me
The Chandogya Upanishad didn’t give me a new belief system. It gave me a method for undoing belief systems, for peeling away every layer of “I am this” until what’s left is simply “I am.”
That bare “I am”, without adjective, without story, without limitation, is what the Upanishads call Atman. And they insist, with a confidence born of millennia of direct investigation, that this Atman is Brahman. The Self in you is the Self in everything. There’s only one awareness wearing countless masks.
I can’t claim to live in that recognition continuously. Most days I’m thoroughly identified with my name, my problems, my preferences. But the practice of neti neti has given me a thread I can follow back to something deeper whenever the surface gets too turbulent.
Two Words, Always Available
Neti neti asks nothing of you except honesty. The willingness to look at each identification and ask: Is this really what I am? The answer, every time, is no. And in the accumulated weight of all those gentle negations, something positive emerges. Not as a concept, but as a presence. The Self that cannot be negated because it’s the one doing the negating. The ancient sages pointed at it. You can find it right now, sitting exactly where you are.
