Thought itself is the problem, the impediment.

Thought itself is the problem, the impediment. One has to separate thought from mind/ego. Stop the ego stringing thoughts along the sutra of the ego. Breath control can help as it controls the prana. Meditating on one thought can open the door to beyond functional thought. Never mind worrying about 'mind awareness' and being in the 'mind now', go right to the source. Use the juncture of nose and lip concentrate there as thoughts arise dismiss them.This gives you the insight to the unreality of thought, but you are stripping the ego and it will react to protect itself. The ego will not always pretend to be non existent and give an illusion of non duality.It has to be occupied so one can use exercises like Japa, so the monkey mind is trapped.. As monkeys are caught with pots that once the put their hand into, to get the treat, they are caught. Why because like the mind the monkey won't let go of the treat so is trapped by its own desire or vasana..Eventually the mind will be trained and that is the door to NirVikalpa Samadhi. However the gap between Kevala Nirvikalpa and Sahaja Nirvikalpa/Moksha is huge. Somewhat getting to a stage where you know what a king is and have even put on the crown temporarily but that doesn't make you a king.

The knowledge now flows back in the reverse direction-through the levels of the mind, becoming Vidya Knowledge or Prajna helping to purify and cleanse the vasanas and desire/drives until one moves from Kevala to Sahaja.