We live in a conceptual universe created by the mind which appears to be inhabited by separate individuals and is experienced as 'self' (subject) and 'other' (object). The 'I', 'me', 'ego', 'self' and 'Self' are all concepts created by the mind, which is itself a concept and as such just an aspect of the illusory conceptual universe.
The actuality is that there's just one thing happening - life, nature, what is...a single movement of energy appearing in myriad forms in which no artificial divisions exist. All apparent subjects and objects are intrinsic aspects of the indivisible whole.
Nondual reality - life, this 'one thing happening' - is impossible to describe because all language and thinking is conceptual. The most that can be said is that nondual reality is beyond concepts...and even this is conceptual and therefore not actuality.
The belief, inculcated from birth, that "I am a separate individual" is so convincing that it becomes the reference point for the apparent individual's view of the conceptual universe. This illusion of separation is a psychological falsehood based in the duality of "I" and "not I", subject and object. The apparent individual believes itself to be the subject and everything else to be objects. This is a reversal of actuality, in which Life may be conceptualised as subject and everything else as objects - though in nondual actuality there is neither subject or object, there's just what is.
The belief that 'I am a separate individual' is the 'dream' or 'illusion' that is the cause of all psychological suffering. The illusion is held in place by the 'Matrix' of the conceptualising mind and by ingrained habitual patterns which maintain the illusion in an endless loop until it's seen through.
Nature, the concrete world, does not exist in the conceptual, dualistic, subject-object form that is ordinarily perceived by the apparent separate individual. Nature is not separate from the apparent individual; apparent individuals exist within nature, or life.
The mind also creates the concepts of past and future, which don't exist.There is only ever now.
As human beings with the capacity for self-reflective consciousness, there is awareness that "I exist", or "I am", here and now. This "presence-awareness" registers everything that is sensed, thought and enacted by this apparent individual, which is actually life manifesting as a unique pattern of energy and conditioning. My true name is Life, not Paul. Life, masquerading as Paul, perceives intelligence in its aliveness - not as a quality that comes and goes, but as what it is. Life is intelligence.
Natural intelligence is inherent in all life but appears to be distorted by the illusion of separation, which causes it to become anthropocentric, fragmented, limited and destructive within the apparent, conceptual, dualistic universe. However, just as the illusion of separation is not apart from nondual actuality, human intelligence is not separate from natural intelligence, nature or life. There's just what is - neither good or bad, creativity or destruction, responsibility or irresponsibility, choice or no choice...everything just arises from and within the unconditioned natural non-conceptual intelligence that is life. Everything that arises IS intelligence and nothing can be different to what is.
Seeing this is 'realisation', 'awakening', 'liberation', 'freedom', 'enlightenment', 'swallowing the red pill'...although there's no one (no separate individual) that this can happen to, and there never has been. There's nothing to be gained because what was sought is always already present. All that happens is that a recognition occurs within the apparent individual that the reference point of the separate self is false, and as such it is no longer identified with.
The world of physical duality remains and has to be dealt with. Motivation may arise to act in one way or another, or not. But the dream is seen for what it is and the driven need to achieve in order to heal the primary wound and fill the bottomless hole of illusory separation evaporates, together with the fear of death...for who is there to die?