In an interview with conscioustv nonduality teacher Rupert Spira explains

what steps he took in order to realize his true nature His realization was
that there is absolutely nothing that he can do; already and all the time
heis/wasconsciousness or awareness that is looking at itself.

’To begin with I had a presumption that what I am is this individual entity
and that if this individual entity practices for long enough, studies hard
enough, this individual entity will gradually dissolve itself and of course
that's not the case! The individual entity cannot dissolve itself! So I
reached the stage of complete frustration. The separate entity trying to
get rid of the separate entity through all this means and it didn't work. So
a point came when I really stopped trying to get rid of this separate
entity, stopped seeing it as the problem and just turned around and
asked myself 'What is this entity that is unhappy, that is searching, that is
trying to quiet the mind, that thinks the mind is a problem. I started to
look for it. And that was a very decisive turning point.when I started to
look for the entity which was initiating all these so-called spiritual
activities.

And this in a way we could call it 'the journey home.' It's the moment the
prodigal son turns around, he gets to the end of the possibilities of the
body, the mind, and the world and he turns around, faces himself. So it
was a moment when I turned around and said 'OK, no more practices for
a while. I am going to stop these practices. They are like bandages they
are not going to the heart of the problem. What is this one, who is this
one that is unhappy? And as I began to look for this one I never found it.
So you had the feeling of being unhappy and you looked inside and what
you're saying is that you couldn't find the person or the part of you that
was unhappy. Is that right? My life and in this case my spiritual life was
motivated by a desire ... the entity that I believed myself to be 'I' this
inside self want to find happiness or enlightenment. 'I' want to find, 'I'
want to be enlightened, 'I' want to be happy. And this had I had explored
it normally in the world as one does,

Then I had begun to explore it spiritually, which is a kind of refinement,

we could say of the worldly search, but nevertheless it's still a search,
more are in the realm of the mind. In my case stilling the mind, states of
mind. So I had tried all these things, had got some temporary relief, but
no real satisfaction. So at some stage I turned around ' Who is this one?
Who is this 'I', this 'Rupert,' that wants to be happy or enlightened or
peaceful or whatever?' 'OK, if you are ruling my life, show up!'
'What are you? Where are you?' I want to know you. I want to get
acquainted with you.' And then I started looking. But we never find that
one! It became clear to me that up until then I had presumed that it is 'I-
this-body-mind 'I' this entity that knows the world. but it became clear
quite quickly to me that 'No, it's not 'I-this-body-mind' that knows the
world, it's 'I' this whatever exactly I am that knows the body-mind and
world! In other words, the mind and the body are known. I know my
thoughts, I know the body. The body doesn't know, I mean your cheek is
not listening to these words, an earlobe is not listening to these words, a
thought cannot hear! A thought cannot see! It became clear in my
experience. 'No, it's not a body-mind that knows or experiences, the
body-mind is experienced, it is known. But I know that it's known by 'me.'
What is this 'me' that I know I am, that is present, that is intimately myself
and that that knows thoughts but is not made out of a thought, that
knows sensations, but is not made out of a sensation? And of course
wherever you look, wherever you try to turn towards it it's always the
wrong direction. If I were to ask you now to stand up and take a step
towards yourself, where would you go? Every step that you take would
be the wrong direction and yet you could never get away from yourself! It
was like that.
I tried to look for myself 'No, I can't find myself in thoughts, I can't
find myself in sensations, images, feelings, thoughts. So you looked for
yourself in thoughts, you looked for yourself in sensations, you looked for
yourself in feelings. I said to myself 'Ok turn your attention now toward
your thoughts' and I would make these little exercises up with myself
'Give your attention to your thoughts' - whatever it was I was thinking
about - simple, easy 'what should we have for dinner tonight?' You give
your attention to that thought. Very easy. Then I would take myself Now
give your attention to your body the tingling sensation at the source of
my feet. Easy, I know exactly where to place my attention. And then I
would ask myself 'OK, now turn your attention towards whatever it is that
is aware of this thought or this sensation. Because whatever it is that is
aware of thought and sensation is what I call myself. It is 'I' that knows
the thought, that knows the sensation.And so I would say 'OK, give that
one your attention, turn towards that one.'
And to begin with - because we are accustomed to focusing on
objects. On thoughts, on sensations, on perceptions - I would begin to
look for myself for yet another object, a kind of super-object, a subtle
object
and whatever I landed my attention on was again some subtle
maybe a very subtle feeling in the body. Then I would ask myself 'No,
don't give that feeling your attention, give the one who knows that feeling
who is aware of it? Give that one your attention! To begin with I would go
out again towards an object and then it would collapse back. The
impulse to go out again, to find myself as some kind of a thing, some
kind of an object, the impulse would rise up and the futility of it, the
impossibility of it would just automatically collapse the effort. It was so
ridiculous to look for myself as some kind of an object, because I already
was myself is to close to myself to be found or known as any kind of an
object!
So there was a collapse of this looking for myself as an object and
it was replaced by a sense of 'I am myself already!' I can never know it
as an object, but that doesn't mean that I can't know it intimately in my
experience, not in a subject-object relationship, but it knows itself. It
became so clear that the way to know myself was simply to be myself.
That is awareness' way of knowing itself, by being itself! And it is always
itself! It became so obvious that I had mistaken myself for thought or a
sensation or a cluster of sensations or an image. And it became obvious,
to begin with in kind of momentary glimpses, but over time these
glimpses stabilized. It just became more and more obvious that I that I
was already intimately acquainted with what I was looking for!’