There are no steps to self-realization. There is nothing gradual about it. It happens suddenly and is irreversible. You rotate into a new dimension, seen from which the previous ones are mere abstractions. Just like on sunrise you see things as they are, so on self-realization you see everything as it is. The world of illusions is left behind.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajOnce you understand that the false needs time and what needs time is false, you are nearer the Reality, which is timeless, ever in the NOW.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajReality is neither subjective nor objective, neither mind nor matter, neither time nor space. These divisions need somebody to happen to, a conscious separate center. But reality is all and nothing, the totality and the exclusion, the fullness and the emptiness, fully consistent, absolutely paradoxical. You cannot speak about it, you can only lose yourself in it.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj