Dear Ilona,
I love reading the conversational posts on your blog, you come accross as very patient and understanding yet don't allow any bullshit to slip by. I'm a fifty five year old man living in Australia and like Bedri I have been inquirying into this for many years and have a great deal of conceptual understanding of the illusion of self. Yet I have not seen it directly. Do you think that possibly some like myself are just simply unable go beyond that point?
Cheers
Ilona:
Thanks for email.
It is possible that the wall of knowing is so thick that simple thing is not visible.
Like in bedri's case, it took a month to make a hole in the concepts to allow the possibility of looking. Once looking starts it is simple, but to get to that point one needs to be ready to look at everything with fresh eyes.
Are you ready? I can help.
Philip:
Thanks for that Ilona,
It would be great if I could get some help.
At times I think so deeply about this my mind seems to seek revenge; it wakes me up at 2am with thoughts of unsolvable puzzles which trigger panic attacks. During the waking hours I have been meditating on the notion that everything is as it should be and could not be any other way, so I should give up any resistence to what is and go along with what ever comes up even the panic thoughts. This does work to a degree but not to shift anything in a lasting way, maybe it is just another theory or technique? Anxiety about what may happen in the future dominates most of my thinking and as you say it seems very thick and strong. The simple seeing seems very illusive.
Ilona:
No, it's not just another theory or technique. This is one time seeing and you done. What is seen, can not be unseen, just the same way as you can never believe that Santa is real.
It's not about fighting resistance, it's about clearing up crap inside that clashes and creates that resistance.
We are not looking here for new belief, but simple truth.
You know, truth will set you free.
What I want you to do is answer me with 100% honesty and only then, when the answer feels right. No rush, but when I point to look, really look.
So now look at the real possibility that there is no you in real life. That all is going by itself without a manager.
Look inside and tell me, what feeling comes up, do you recognise fear, resistance, frustration, what is it?
Describe what you see.
Philip:
Hey Ilona,
When I consider the possibillity that there is no me there is a great fear and saddness that arrises a feeling that I will loose my family and all that I have become. It seems far too unknown, to give into, what if I accept this and go mad. Maybe I don't trust it will deliver. I understand that there is no control really, but that understanding does nothing to reduce the fear of uncertainty.
I really don't know what truth is. Is it true all this exists?
Ilona:
Of course this looks scary and sad. Let it be ok. It's just fear, your family is fine and nothing will change. Everything is already running perfect, no matter what thoughts say about it.
Now look at that fear.
Can you see that this is a mechanism of protection, that this fear is hiding something from being found out? Can you notice how perfectly it does it's job, can you respect and honour that mechanism. ?
Now look at it and just let the fear be, without fighting it, now look behind.
What is behind? What do you see?
Philip:
Yes! Yes! I can see how tenacious the fear is as you say it seems to be protecting something and constantly testing my resolve. The fear is very efficient Yes. At times it is so overwhelming and debilitating but wow reading your email I had a glimpse of the behind and I started laughing out loud, this was in an architects office where I work so strange to have that moment in such a stiff uptight environment. I will write some more tonight.
Ilona:
Great!
Yes, please write more tonight.
Answer this:
What needs to need protected?
Digg more here ;)
Philip:
My life as I know it needs protection, this sense of me in the world, it seems like a delicate balance of good and bad. I can see the absurdity of that because it just causes so much misery when things go more to the bad, but itslike I'm right in it . its seems impossible to see a way out with out everything crashing or me going mad. The glimpses I get are only that and the whole thing rolls back in again. When you said what is behind the fear I felt a very calm sense of peace like a clear sky behind a dark dust cloud and it seemed so obvious I laughed. Yet I feel great frustration at not really seeing this fully, then I ask who or what is frustrated, is I who is frustrated, who is seeing the frustration. I have been to the RT site and I like what they do there but I find I so easily turn things into theories ideas concepts and forumula. Ilona you blow me away, you don't know me for Adam yet you take the time for this. Why? I mean don't get me wrong it is truely wonderful but no one I know would do this not even my therapist or my wife, amazing!
Even the writing of this is being criticised by a voice in my head as being useless at times it really is a battle going on in there. I will write some more later in the day its 8.40am here and freezing.
Cheers
Ilona:
It's a great start we are having here, you busted through fear in no time. Yes, behind fear is nothing, peaceful silent nothing and yet it makes so much fuss in human lives.
We will go through this step by step and at the end it will all become clear.
Trust that. The process has started. Now you just need to notice, that it is happening already. All by itself.
I'll help you with frustration. No one is feeling, seeing or owning it. You can look and go mad and never find it. Just do the same as with fear, look right at frustration, look at the friction of beliefs and burning for the truth. It's there, showing the way forward. Just a feeling that rises up. Feelings come and go like thoughts, notice that and just let them be there.
Now I want you to look at real possibility that there is no manager in life at all.
What comes up?
Thoughts, feelings, just examine everything and look what else is there.
Why I do this? There is no gift greater than man's freedom. I just want to keep delivering it. :) or in over words, this is just happening as part of the flow.
The battle in the head will dissolve once we look at it, for now don't look at content, but what is going on in there:
Thoughts racing, charged with emotions.
All this is effortless. Can you see?
It's midnight here in sunny England.
:)
Philip:
Frustration. There is tension in that I sense I am very close I can smell the freedom yet ........can't even say what it is. All the knowing is done. Is it courage?
Ilona:
Frustration is good at this time, just go with it, let it be there. Notice that it's a feeling+ labeling of the mind.
What do you mean by "all knowing is done"?
Carry on Phillip. What is it.....?
Philip:
It is lightness of being. I have this lightness pervading everything its like the heaviness is lifting from the body. The' knowing' that is done, what I meant is that I don't feel the need at the moment to read anymore Tolle etc Which I have in the past. I have this sense of something falling away and as you say just letting it all happen I'm not in control how could I be, it just appears that way, but that is ok for the character Phil because that is his nature, appearance, just appearing and seeing that appearance. Cool!
Sorry I am unable to write more at the moment will continue
Ilona:
Dear Philip.
How is it going? Are you through?
Philip:
Ilona,
Yeah! I can see the possibility yet there is great deception and dishonesty. As much as I want so much to directly see this (do I?) the fear is doing a great job as well as wanting to please you, because you have transcended this, which is more 'me' I know. I could write a paper on this yet there is nothing shifting nothing direct. Mind on Mind on mind tricks. Fuck it! Years of crusty protection how do you break through that?
At times its seems like a great chasm. I want to be honest, yet when I wake up in sweat at 1 in the morning there is nothing to hold on to. Help!
Ilona:
Hi Philip.
Great to see you are back.
I was gonna come looking for you.
You can not see this, as there is no you. There is only seeing happening, seen, seer and the seeing being the same one thing.
Fear is just a mechanism that protects the illusion from being find out. It is doing great job, but if you look behind you see that there is nothing there, nothing needs to be protected.
You don't need to understand everything about the wall in order to demolish it, right, you just hammer it through. By looking at protection itself, how does it work, what does or do?
What do you see here?
No there is nothing to hold on, everything you think you know is useles here.
Because there is no one there that needs to hold on, only thoughts arising : "scary, there's nothing to hold on"
Who is thinking those thoughs? Or maybe they are just passing by as a result of clashing of different beliefs?
Investigate that. Who is thinking? What is behind thinking? What influences thoughts?
Thought does not think, it it true?
Philip:
Hey. Yes something more direct. During a Panic atack at 4am this morning I saw that it was just this dense ball of thought begging to be acknowledged and the beginings of the wall of fear. For the first time I had clarity to see it for what it was just another dense black cloud passing through not belonging to anyone. There is no ownership, ownership brings the burden of maintaining something, I sensed that the control I was so desperate for was not possible or necessary, when I gave it up its like the grip of fear was dimished, and it wasn't mine just fear. Its like the opening I have been looking for, the gate. Beyond that black cloud I could sense the clear sky. Sweet sweet taste. I feel like I can push it more
Ilona:
But who/what is there to push?
Is it not all just happening by itself? The unfoldment, manifestation of life in every moment? Experience + labelling of the mind is also part of everything. All happening without control.
Is it true, that there is no "I" to experience, that I is just a thought that passes by just like that cloud of fear without control? A thought preceding other thought and thought does not think.
Who is sensing, or is it just sense of freedom appearing in awareness?
Now it's soooo close!
............
How is everything looking today?
Philip:
The 'I' is an assumed identity referring to some centre or personal
source, my source. It’s full of me-ness precious me-ness. The organism
has unity but it has no centre the whole centre thing is impossible
where did it come from, how could you think that. It’s all part of a
whole organism all interrelated. There is still this sense of absence,
like a hollow emptiness that is both frightening and beautiful. There
is letting be but letting be by who? Does there need to be a doer, or
is there just doing. Each time the mind needs to refer to an author
and doer the 'I' has come in yet that is also seen. Each seeing
emanates that sense of relief but it’s more than that but I don't have
the word, like I said before all I can say is that it is a sweetness a
sweet sweetness. I can't seem to talk to others about this it always
sounds so clumsy and comes out like an awkward philosophy so I don't.
There is no thinking about or no doing just seeing and the me-ness
makes no sense it seems to need that support. Things as you say look
after themselves the brain drives the car very well, it even designs
the house and the me seems to come in later to want to make sense of
it, really very funny when it is seen. The world is so full of my this
and my that its hilarious.
Ilona:
I had to read what you wrote 3 times to get what you are saying. Yes it is difficult to express in words. But I see you are starting to see!! :)
Remember movie matrix, when neo gets out and he looks around and says- my eyes hurt, and the answer comes- you have never used them before...
So is with thinking and putting sentences together. When you look at life with fresh eyes, and have to find your own words to describe what you see.
Sweetness. I like this word.
Me-ness, define that, please. Can you look a bit more here, what is that?
And what is Philip?
Philip:
Thank you for being so patient. The me-ness is the concern for the
fictious 'I'. Its like say taking offence at being insulted when
someone judges or cricitises you, say reacts to what you said as being
'stupid'. The character Philip has learnt to defend the me-ness. But
what is the me-ness but just this construct of the story of the person
Philip. Yet the person the me-ness seems to have this mind of its own,
it reacts and come up with offence no matter what. that is the
frustration. I can see all this but it still goes on. Is this just the
process of dismantling or am I missing something.
Thank you so much Ilona.
Ilona:
If I get it right, your word me-ness is the glue that holds illusion together.
How is that glue these days, still strong and sticky or is it getting looser?
Philip:
Yeah! Nice, the glue is brittle and falling away as we speak like old
resin. When I see this it reminds me of when I was a child a very
familar sense and an.... 'of course' moment, its like as if I had been
lost in this wilderness for 50 years and just managed emerge from the
darkness but its like something I knew all along its very familar. The
character Philip still seems a bit lost and bewildered having to be in
the world.
Ilona:
It's ok, Philip is fine. Just that a huge chunks of belief has been knocked out, he needs a bit of time to rebalance.
Conditioning will keep falling off for a while, depending on how many stored beliefs are in the system.
To help this process you can look at the most precious beliefs closest to the heart. Just examine what is there, identify and release.
So what is real?
Is there a self in any shape or form in reality?
Please give me the answers. :)
Philip:
Hey Ilona,
Life is profoundly empty and meaningless and what a relief. Ultimately there is nothing in the ' this', it’s like the present is paper thin but really nothing it has no dimension.The brain fleshes it out to give the whole thing dimension and to make sense of it in terms of this separate me. The brain has learnt so much about being in the world and still conducts process with that knowledge but hey the difference is it’s not doing it for anyone it’s just doing it. There
is no need for someone to control things and make decisions in fact that would not be possible there is no control life is in free fall.
Its just that somehow somewhere along the line something has assumed ownership of intent and outcome, as you say its all on auto matic. The strictures of this assumption are so obvious and profoundly different its like being anally retentive your whole life, the sphincter muscle holding it all in, try to control the uncontrollable for all those years and for what? Limitation... Fresh and new my tinnitus stop for the first time this morning in twenty years just silence, sweet....
Belief... Philip believes in goodness and integrity in the love of his
family and doing his best. All ok but just tasks mapped out within a
limited perspective.
Its so utterly obvious the world seems mad inside this totally unecessary limitation. I was reminded of that song by Delamitri
'swimming with your boots on driving, with the brakes on'Thank you Sweet Ilona in the emptiness you helped me see.
Ilona:
You are most welcome, Philip.
I'm so glad you looked and saw it. Thank you so much.
And welcome to the living free.
With love.
Ilona
............
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