The total engagement that is required from the perspective of practice challenges the idea or the belief or the delusion that we can practice later, or practice more fully later, or put our heart into our practice later. “Now is for other things; later is for practice. Now is for e-mail and friends and gardening; later is for true engagement with reality.” We commit ourselves to our practice when we recognize that there is no time to waste, when we recognize that the situation is always urgent. We want nothing short of full engagement with reality—we want to see it, find it, live it, be it, touch it, be consumed by it, and consume it. We practice to express the passion of our heart for the truth, to express the fierceness of our soul for the authentic life. We practice so that when the moment of death arrives, we have no regrets. 

If we want reality to shine its truth, we need to be more open and open-ended in our practice. If we want reality to become luminous, we need to put our all into the practice. To engage with reality completely, so it reveals who we are and what it is, we need to invest the totality of our being in our practice. By practicing with all that we’ve got, it is possible to find out that we are the totality practicing. Being fully engaged with reality does not mean seeking any particular aspect of reality. Fully engaging reality is a process, a ceaseless journey without destination. 

So from the perspective of realization, we see that true practice is continual and total. Our sincere devotion to living a real life infuses everything we do with the luminosity of reality. When our practice embodies the value of realization, we understand that there are no interruptions to reality revealing itself. Reality does not take breaks. And when we put everything we’ve got into the engagement with life and with reality, the totality of the universe is practicing, and that practice is realization. When we practice with total openness, we are not trying to get someplace, not trying to find anything in particular. We practice, we engage, because that is how reality lives. That is how reality does its thing. That is how reality manifests itself. That is how reality becomes luminous and self-illuminating.

- A H Almaas, Runaway Realization