Identity Shift: Awakening To The Natural State With Angelo Dilullo

Awakening to the natural state is an identity shift, and it's a shift from what you think and imagine yourself to be to seeing what is always here underneath all concepts. 

In this episode meet Angelo Dillulo. Angelo stands out from the crowd of non-duality teachers as a unique and energetic guide who is able to express clearly and create valuable content for everyone on the awakening journey. He points home, to the natural state in a simple language, and can cut through the veil to the point. 

In this episode we covered topics of what awakening is, what pre-awakening is, we discussed glimpses and their value, how the awakening experience may look for some people. We talk about helpful techniques, self-inquiry and what happens when identity shifts. 

In this video, Angelo Dilullo is kindly sharing his awakening story. 

You may know him from YouTube channel 
@SimplyAlwaysAwake 
or his book 
Awake, It's your turn. You can find the book on Amazon. 
https://www.amazon.com/Awake-Your-Turn-Angelo-Dilullo/dp/1737212323

Angelo has been sharing pointers, meditations and insights and is guiding many people in person and in retreats. To connect with him you can go to his website:
https://simplyalwaysawake.com/


If you need assistance with your own inquiry come to Liberation Unleashed where you can register for a free account and get a volunteer guide completely free of charge. Or if you need my support, send me an email through my website which is 

http://www.IlonaCiunaite.com I’ll be happy to help. 

Liberation Unleashed
Http://www.liberationunleashed.com

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Liberation Unleashed book is available on Amazon. 
https://www.amazon.com/Liberation-Unleashed-Breaking-Illusion-Separate/dp/B0BGNKWHQ6

#awakeningnow #ilonaciunaite #angelodilullo #selfliberation-inquiry 

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Podcast 
https://awakeningnow.buzzsprout.com

Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music 
https://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

Transcript

 hello Angelo hello hi I think you don't need an introduction like everyone knows you by now if not just Google Angelo [Laughter] Dilullo it's somebody here who is simply always awake it's wonderful to meet you finally it's been a while I seen your name around and your videos and talks wonderful yeah it's really nice to meet you I think we messaged a few times periodically over the last few years and um I've sent I've sent people your way as well to Liberation Unleashed and and um get a lot of good feedback so yes and I have a lot of um clients and people I work with that they go to your Retreats so we meet the same people yeah right it's really nice I think this day and age that there are um so many resources for people who are going through all of this and um you know instead of the idea of like one Guru with all the knowledge and wisd and and Enlightenment and everybody's kind of just hoping they get a little bit of that it's more like um you have a you have a sort of field of people who who can help um point the way back to your true nature so to speak yeah yeah yeah wonderful well I'm really honored to meet you and I'm impressed by all the work you're doing it's amazing well thank you it's very nice to meet you as well um and this podcast is called Awakening now so it's really we are talking about the same stuff but before we get into it can I ask you your definition of Awakening what is it oh yeah what's Awakening from what's Awakening to what's going on there well the first thing I I like to say when I start these kinds of conversations to you already know but to your listeners or anyone who may hear this is um you know anything I say uh really should be held lightly uh so um this moment is unique it'll never happen again uh and the circumstances are unique and the conditions and so forth and everything's always in flux so how I say things now what I say now may have significance for you now but I wouldn't hold it too heavily um because I I really try to encourage people to discover um discover say their true nature or discover the the deepest nature of Truth through their own um through their own experience and learning to trust their own deepest Instinct rather than um rather than holding a framework that they learn from someone else so with that said Awakening to me uh is uh I I guess I do want to make a distinction when I say Awakening I'm often talking about the first Awakening or first shift in identity and it's really a a significant um uh shift in what we take oursel to be what we perceive oursel to be and um it's a shift from being relatively unconscious uh strangely through the use of thought and Consciousness uh uh from a place where we feel like um we are bound in time moving through time on some kind of timeline uh we know our history we're sure of it we know how the future should play out and what we want and and and we we have some confidence that it's going to go that way and that we're in control of it uh and there's definitely a sense that there's someone here someone Central to all of that experiencing that is an agent that is in charge and in control and making choices and all this feels very solid but until we examine it closely we don't often don't realize it's really made out of thought and it's very small actually it's a very contracted experience of reality a contracted experience of self um and that's that's that's where we shift from uh and and the shift two becomes something very difficult to talk about in a lot of ways but I can tell you what it's not um it's it's suddenly being freed from that that contracted Paradigm that contracted experience and it's not just a shift in the way we think about things or the way we think about ourselves it's a it's a rather energetic uh shift from that binding way of perceiving identity to this kind of almost an infinite kind of identity it's uh we may or may not even perceive identity at that point depending on how deep that shift is but the experience is rather remarkable it usually feels uh like there's a there's a fluidity and a an expansiveness and a spaciousness to everything that we had somehow overlooked by by utilizing that that thought-based Paradigm and at the same time as remarkable as it is and as as awe um inducing as it is and freeing as it is it's paradoxical in the sense that we also know this is more real for sure like this is definitely more real than that world I was living in when I thought I was someone moving through time and making choices and struggling with life and doubting myself endlessly um so actually only in retrospect can we see the magnitude of the of the binding that was actually going on with that structured thought-based identity so that's I guess a primer for the the what I usually call the first shift and as big of a deal as that is and it is a big deal um it's still just the beginning actually this actually goes a lot deeper um so yeah nice thank you and well sometimes people have these glimpses which may last few seconds a few days maybe a few weeks and then you know all this spaciousness comes back to everyday normal thinking again so would you say that Awakening happened or a glimpse happened what happened yeah from your view sure yeah I mean it is a bit on a spectrum but I would say generally speaking especially if it happens in real time like I'm working with somebody or I see it happen or it's happened very recently for them it's usually pretty obvious to me whether it's really a shift in identity or it was more of a glimpse kind of thing and so sometimes I'll call these pre-awakening glimpses or they are experiential and the experiential part of it does sort of feel like that Awakening but it it really feels like the aperture closes completely back down like you all of a sudden you're just contracted back into the self and the sense of the one who's moving through time and just suddenly had this radical mystical experience that closed back down that's that self is still rather intact and that would sort of Define a a a glimpse rather than an Awakening for me I might use the example of psychedelics people use psychedelics and can have really radical and very very Altered States Of Consciousness but when you come out the other side you're still you and it can bring some insight with it it can bring some transformation but it often doesn't bring an Awakening it I think maybe it has for some people but a lot of times it doesn't necessarily bring a true shift in identity um so so the distinction I will make here is I Awakening is not a radically altered mystical experience it's not experiential actually um and you almost have to have an Awakening to even know what I mean by that to know the difference between what an experience is and seeing something fundamentally changed about the experiencer about the apparatus of experience itself and and taking that back to extrapolate at someone that whole mechanism breaks down with Awakening uh the that the the extrapolating of someone who's having the experience from experiences like experiences occur and they still occur whether there's a sense of self or not but but is there an experiencer is a huge difference it makes it makes all the difference um just like is there a sense of a doer makes all the difference when it comes to like dynamism and the and the the sort of mechanisms of movement and change and and integration and disintegration it's a world of difference between feeling like someone that's in charge of that that's moving that that's controlling that that's suffering from that and just being that like that's it the dynamism is not separate from anything you could look in word and identify uh so those are very different experiences so again it comes back to Identity ultimately did something actually shift or change about someone's identity the other small caveat I want to say about this is when say it's a big deal um it is a big deal uh tell me about it it's huge but it is a big deal um but it doesn't always mean you're G to get these crazy fireworks with it um for instance I can think of a few people who did have a shift and they and they've said like yeah it wasn't lot there wasn't a lot of mystical stuff going on and you know non-d stuff or whatever but I say did something fundamentally change about who you are and they're they're like absolutely 100% whatever came out the other side was not what I thought I was and um it changed and went or and or went away so uh so the anyone who's gone through that Awakening they they they're pretty darn sure that there's been a fundamental shift in their experience of self is what it comes down to yeah very interesting and can you tell us a little bit about how and when and what happened in your experience oh sure when was this first first Glimpse maybe first shipped sure yeah there were I think there were a couple of moments that I I can remember pretty clearly of of a glimpse um that told me and and the glimpses aren't useless I mean there's value to those they really show you weight there's something beyond what I'm taking to be reality so there's value to them and um the first one I remember I was in an a college course I wrote this in my book um but I was in a college course it was about Buddhism the lecture was about Buddhism it was by a professor who was a um a substitute Professor this day and because my normal Professor was sick I think substitute Professor came and he was I remember him being some kind of Monk but I didn't know I didn't know what class of Buddhism or whatever uh but he was a monk and he was just lecturing on Buddhism and I had heard the words he was using before I had heard about Enlightenment I had heard about the aold Noble Path and all these terminologies and when I had heard them before they seemed like a mental thing to me they seemed like a philosophy or like a a new way of looking at the world or life which maybe felt a little fresh but still felt like that confined suffering world I thought I lived in it didn't seem any different but for some reason the way he was talking about it I I just said I I I knew something was different about what he was saying he wasn't talking about a Doctrine he wasn't talking about a philosophy he was talking about a way to end my suffering personally like my own sense of being constantly anxious constantly contracted doubting all the time stuck in my head stuck in thoughts who am I what's the problem here what's going on what's wrong with me he was saying no no no no there's a way out of that that at least that's what I picked up um and my hand shot up and I was like hey uh you know this thing you're talking about is that possible like cannot actually happen in this lifetime and he stopped lecturing it was really cool he stopped and he took a couple steps forward and he looked at me and he kind of leaned in and he said there is no doubt and then he set back and he looked at me for a couple more seconds and then he just went on lecturing and I was like whoa I felt what he said he transmitted it to me he said no it's possible and that's what I'm talking about and then um yeah it was it was like I think something was really illuminated that with Buddhism at least part ofd Buddism was talking about was not what I thought it was talking about I thought it was more of the same all the thoughts and beliefs and philosophies and paradigms that people talk about how to feel better and all this stuff and I was like oh that's not what that's not what that was that's something very intimate very much like a catalyst I could feel it it was like he reached in and you know flipped a switch or something it was very very palpable and visceral and deep and it also felt beyond that time frame of my life somehow I don't know it felt Eternal sort of I can feel it now um and yeah so so what's strange about it is I didn't think much about that afterward but I was very moved by it the rest of that class I remember just sitting there kind of like feeling it and looking around wondering like did anyone else see what just happened does are the do other people get this like it was it was really a aha moment like is is this a really uncommon thing for people to pick up or does everybody know this and I'm not picking it up or you know anyway but I I didn't seem to like perseverate on it later on I I it just I guess it was like a seed was planted and it was doing its work behind the scenes but my mind just kept going on about what it always was going on about self-doubt and all of it um that was one and then there was another moment uh uh I believe this was after I think this was after but it was maybe a few months after I learned to meditate and when I learned to meditate it was really relieving for me because again I had massive anxiety like it was just constant in my head thoughts racing you know what's wrong with me what's wrong with me really contracted sense of emotion it was just like pushed down it felt horrible um that's how I felt probably from the time I was about 9 or 10 till I was 24 pretty much all the time um so so meditation felt good some of the times I would meditate not every time but some of the times it would just there would just be a a feeling of release from that that lasted during the meditation but not really long after uh and so I liked meditation but it certainly didn't break the spell of suffering it was just a momentary reprieve but but it was a couple months after I started meditating uh something did kind of shift but it shifted back very quickly it was like a glimpse and it was probably a couple days I think there were a couple of days where everything was in flow um it was very remarkable I remember calling my meditation teacher saying like wow everything is like connected everything's inter connected it's all flow there's nothing to worry about he was just laughing he's like yes yes yes you know it felt so good and then it closed up like the aperture was closed I was suffering on the other side of that again which maybe was the worst I ever felt when I when it's like you found the Garden of Eden and you've been kicked out it was brutal like it was brutal cuz I it was two days it was a couple days I felt really good finally I felt in flow and I didn't even know that was possible and it was just gone nowhere to be found so it was kind of worse it was like like oh my God uh but um but again it's a deeper pointing that yes there is something here that's not the usual it's not the usual stuff that you try to make yourself feel better with all the things everyone talks about you know um at the same time I did sense that in the ways that most people talk about feeling okay in life feeling better most of the strategies of what you're supposed to do when you feel bad it to me more and more and more it felt like all of that just makes it worse for me it did it's more seeking like you know to look back on it just more seeking but I didn't know that then it just I get sense to that all of the advice and the different ways people talked about themsel and um you know how to make the self feel better and and all this to me it just made it feel worse and so that was a very hopeless place to be I'm like living on a planet of people who maybe they feel good that way but I don't feel good that way and taking their advice just made me feel worse so it was very hopeless at the same time this this thing happened a couple times and it was kind of Otherworldly in a way it wasn't of the class of experience and communication that I had picked up from people it wasn't about that it was something just so different Timeless beyond the physical it was very profound so at the same time as it was really tragic to have that closed back down um I think it really was working behind the scenes there was something germinating there that was getting waiting for the right conditions perhaps to really blow up and it did and it

did to talk about yes that's true yeah yeah and then the words ended now we have to reinvent the language and kind of communicate this yeah yeah poetry we use a little poetry here and there

H there such a familiar place for many people to have that opening and

then having it taken away

again I think a lot of spiritual communities are full of of that people have had those sorts of glimpses and and yeah it's it's a Grace that it happens as you say from Beyond it's not something by deserving being a good person meditating meditating extra hours yeah so what's interesting to me is what goes from point A to point B like what how to cross over that you know what what's the next step or what's what's the magic mixture to to get you to the point where you're ready to really confront identity essentially you know yeah and for me it was just more suffering just got worse you know more intense but it was Grace it really was like it was I'm glad it happened it pushed me to the to to the edge where I had to look and you know not to be too dark about it but I mean really like my mind would say well why don't I just kill myself you that will end all this but it was really interesting because I had this Instinct that that wasn't the answer either the Instinct wasn't like you know I'm afraid to kill myself or you know oh I would leave people behind that really wasn't probably why I didn't do it it was more like no no no I'm being pushed to find something here there's something here that's more real than even the idea of this body being alive or dead like I knew it somehow instinctually so there was something was pushing me Beyond will right because in one sense killing yourself is the ultimate Act of will um and there was something that was just saying no no no there's a way there is a way um and uh

yeah do you want me to talk about the shift or I don't yeah I'm curious what was the last push oh the last push for me well it's probably a relationship yeah so I grew up in a I grew up in a very emotionally um like a blocked environment I guess it was like an emotional vacuum um my family was just uh very they just didn't have an ability to express emotion they weren't very connected at all um argued a lot it was just emotionally unhealthy so I didn't naturally Bond I didn't actually Bond like romantically it wasn't I didn't like I wanted to but I didn't know how at all it just felt really strange like a like a map I didn't have like everyone else had the map I didn't have that map so I didn't really date much or anything um very periodically but but anyway I met somebody that I really liked it was interesting I really connected with her um at the same time she was very much like my mother and she was probably had some dysfunction you know but but anyway there was something very hot about it like very like on fire about that just our interaction for a very short time and then when it it didn't this didn't work you know like we we basically broke up um but the the way it felt was like oh that was the last thing I was holding out for I was thinking without realizing that if I finally found a perfect romantic partner I could stop suffering and what I realized is like that actually increased the suffering in some ways it didn't didn't make it go away that's for sure it it made me feel better in some ways in other ways it made me feel worse but the suffering mechanism was still fully intact so so that was like a rug pull saying life is going up that's not going to work for you what are you gonna do now and I I was like [ __ ] I don't know what I'm gonna do now I kind of gave up in a way I mean I was kind of gave up on not really on I don't know how to say this giving up is a hard word to use because it has so many negative connotations but I think I I what I gave up on was the programming I gave up on the programming of here's how you be a good person here's how you be the right person here's how you be a happy person do good relationships work hard do all the things I gave up on believing that that actually leads you to Salvation or happiness because I For Me Maybe for some people it does and I think for some people it probably does for me it didn't period and so I gave up on that so when I threw that map away which is everything I learned about how to be a person from my parents from all of it I through that map away it started feeling really different it was it was very interesting this was right after the breakup and it very quickly this happened so um part of it was like this deeper desperation that I ever felt than I had ever felt but because I was letting it go deeper because there was nothing to cling on to anymore there was no conditioning to cling on to because I knew it was BS so um as that desperation went deeper it actually sort of changed it was more like it's the desperation itself the helplessness itself started to feel like what that person transmitted to me in the classroom it started to actually feel like something rather mysterious and that was curious like wait the desperation itself the utter helplessness um and letting go is that it is the same thing is that right you know I'm like processing this kind of instinctually but also a little bit mentally um and in one sense I was just going through the motions I was going to work I was doing the things I was doing the normal things I didn't stop or lay in my bed and do nothing I just I was just going through like whatever the next thing to do is in the moment I'm going to do it there's no reason not to do it but I felt like I was a little bit on autopilot in the in the relative world at the same time there was this thing going on inside deep deep deep that was this contemplation like well what is going likeit what is this if if I let go completely of everything I think I am and who who I think I should be if I let go of all that and that feels like the best thing that's ever been transmitted to me how can that be the same thing you know um there there was kind of a a movement in that direction and then I picked up this book called The Three Pillars of Zen which I had in my bookshelf and uh someone had I think someone gave it to me at one point but I never I had never even opened it I don't know why I knew to open it I opened it and there's a chapter that's really cool in there it's called Enlightenment encounters or Enlightenment stories so it's these people who are writing about going through this this shift that I'm talking about Awakening um and they they in Japan but some of them were Americans and some were Japanese and they just wrote it in their own way that it was just a narrative of like what it was like to go through that and every single one of them was just like this massive impact it like a physical like an energetic feeling that was just hitting pushing that deeper and deeper and deeper and I was like oh this is where I'm going I don't care I don't care if this B I did not care if the body died didn't matter you know I didn't really think it would die from going through this and letting go this deeply but I knew I was going to let go this deeply and I really didn't care I didn't care what happened to my body or my life cuz all that was just suffering so um so I said this is the only thing I've ever seen felt experienced in life that feels real that feels really real and I don't know what it is it's completely ineffable it's not a thought it's definitely not a thought it's not even an emotion I don't even know if it's a direction I don't ites it had no but it was completely mysterious it was absolutely mysterious um and I just that's I'm like I'm going there I'm going to go wherever that takes me however that works um and I did and uh yeah and and so that that started happening it was happening as I was moving through the world like for it was this was probably over a couple of days I was just going to work and making pizza and doing the things but this was continuing to happen and I noticed it most of the time I would just every time I put my attention back on I was like oh my gosh that's there and I I couldn't wait to get home and just sit and just sit with it with 100% of my attention but it was still there when I wasn't sitting it was always there but I didn't know what it was I didn't I still can't even say can't give it a name but it's it was a possibility let's say um so I just gave my attention to that it's like okay well this is the only thing that feels real even though I have no idea what it is but what was remarkable what was remarkable about it is that I didn't know what it was it was beyond my cognition it was beyond anything I could ever put together and relate to through an identity that's why it was remarkable so I didn't have to know what it was it felt I could feel what it was so I just kept orienting to it and it was kind kind of everywhere I was like well it's it's everywhere you know um but there still wasn't a shift yet but it was building for sure um and then I was sitting at one point I was meditating and focusing very much on this ineffable something that had come into my experience and being um and I noticed something very specific about thoughts this was when I really related to like what the binding itself was The Binding was thoughts and I noticed there was these thoughts that would say oh yeah I'm feeling very relaxed right now and then I would just say well that's a thought though I'm feeling relaxed that's a thought and then something else would say well if that thought goes away then I'm nothing and then I I would notice well that's another thought and then I finally noticed every all the monitoring thoughts of how am I doing right now what's going on how my feeling they always pointed back to this other unseen thought that was I essentially there that there's an eye that all this is happening too and once I realized that was a thought it was it was very it was instantaneous like the mind or I might just say Consciousness became so thoroughly quiet so thoroughly quiet um the best I can describe it as like static on a TV it's just but it was infinite in every direction there was no one experiencing it that was all that was like that was it the whole universe was made out of that let's say and that was that was absolutely the most remarkable experience ever but it was also not an experience and I remembered it it was funny I remembered like when I was little when I was maybe a baby or a toddler that was my primary experience of Consciousness and it turned into thoughts over time and then those thoughts turned into a sense of identity it was so funny that I could remember that and but it didn't matter I remembered it it was just but I knew I could lead myself back to that anytime just this pure Consciousness pure experience of Consciousness with no subject or object in it no sense of a self in it no sense of others in it it was just and I also knew that anything I'd ever believed understood perceived about the world was just an iteration of that Consciousness because that's that was the interface I'd always had and so I realized oh my God everything I thought was happening was just this Consciousness ah and now I have the pure access to all of it right now without any boundaries amazing and that was definitely a shift um and I just sat with that for uh I don't know for for an evening I just I stayed right there I was like oh my God if the rest of my life I will just find find my way back to this by sitting and it's there's 's no reason not to it's so incredibly freeing and then I had this funny insight and I don't even know where it came from but I was at this point it was very different like the identity structure was so different that I can't even talk about it because it was very vague but um there was this this thought that came to me it was really funny it was a revelation that I remember thinking this is what people want they're seeking all this other stuff through aspects of Consciousness but what they really want is cons to know what Consciousness actually is and to know it primarily without any sense of separate self in it um and I thought it was funny that I knew that like why do I know that uh I don't really think about what other people want or think I just it was just a strange thought but it was like it felt ancient like almost from another lifetime it was really strange so anyway didn't really care I just sat in it it felt incredible um definitely definitely the most peace I've ever felt and it was fundamental peaceful fundamentally peaceful and was fundamentally settled and fundamentally okay that's that's that's kind of the qualities of it and that was the night of the first shift um and then the next day uh the next day I woke up and I was going to go to work and I went to sit before work like I always did and I sat down and I led myself back to that immediately immediately I was just there uh and then a whole other thing happened that I don't even I just that there's no way to talk about it but even the Consciousness disappeared everything it was it was a you could call it maybe a cessation in Buddhism or something but it was the structure of reality was completely obliterated all together all boundaries all sense of self all sense of other all sense of relationality gone sense of inside outside just completely absolutely Blown Away gone I when I was experiencing that peric Unbound Consciousness there's no way I would have thought this could get deeper and this is orders of magnitude deeper it's just beyond beyond um and it's the most um this is the most beautiful thing but it's not a thing it's not there there's no way to talk about it but I know anyone can lead thems back to this through really fundamentally questioning certain assumptions we have about self essentially boundaries self and other subject object there's a lot of ways to do it go about that you can do it through feds and all these things but um yeah that was what I mean that was just like what the holy hell is happening it it was like reality was not what I thought it was physical reality physical reality was not what I thought it was there was nothing physical it was energy it was like it was just energy moving as an environment there was no one in it there was no Angelo doing anything it was just energy moving and appearing in the room as a body as a car as a and I was driving like I was driving it was like being on 10 hits of acid or something it was but it wasn't altered it was that's the weird thing it wasn't like an altered state it wasn't there weren't side effects it was like the trees I I remembered just flashes of memory because there was still this that the thoughts could still come and like make reflections of what was happening and try to turn it into something real but it was like the trees were just energy and the energy of the trees were the car driving and the Hand moving on the steering wheel and the feet and the sensations and the breath in the sky it was all the same thing just all one dance of total nothingness that was appearing as all these textures of that felt real but it was almost like it makes you want to laugh that it's real because it's not real in the way the mind says it's real but it's better than real that's that's the world I found myself in and that hasn't changed that was 27 years ago 25 years ago wow what a fascinating story yeah well than and it's available to anybody that's the beauty of it but but I will say you're going to go through a lot a lot of people will have to go through a lot to to do that and that the lot is a lot of going down through the emotion body and stuff I think that's a lot of times the barrier for people they don't realize like you may hit fear barriers you may hit heavy stuff you know like um uh but it's okay you know it's it's a very natural process it's available to anyone um and there's a lot of letting

go so do you have a magical mix of questions or

really great somebody comes into your retreat let say the 10th time still looking for awakening yeah what's your magic really it really varies so so um I have to relate this to the the insight and the realization itself um there was this part of the deeper shifts that and there were shifts involved in all this that I was that I'm talking about with the non-el and all of it but one of them was a deep deep fundamental realization that there is no there's no there's no precise way that things are it's almost like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle it's like there is no precise way that things are which is really confronting to the mind that wants a pattern or a map or whatever but it's absolute freedom in experience so with that said it's there's nothing more interesting to me than how to facilitate and help people do this if they want to do it that's that's absolutely the only really thing that's interesting to me anymore U because the rest of it I could just sit in that experience for the rest of my life and be completely content but uh but yeah of course if somebody is interested in this I'm they have 100% of my attention and I want to help them in any way I can um there are definitely techniques there are definitely processes there are definitely Maps but they are not one siiz fits all As I find and and so I think flexibility is really important in just being able to to move with somebody energetically so from the realization itself from this experience of energetics and like the the the sense of complete boundlessness and everything truly being energy when I interact with somebody I have no idea what the map is it's just instantaneous and the the best way I've been able to describe it is what I feel as fixation so if I'm talking with somebody um first of all I feel completely what they're feeling I don't I don't feel any boundary of like oh I'm here they're there that's not my experience my experience is just so non-dualistic that that I'm feeling what they're feeling and also I don't feel like there's anything wrong with it so that even though they're feeling suffering I can feel they're suffering but I also don't feel that there's anything wrong with their suffering so there's no resistance to suffering so somehow that lets us explore very deeply very quickly usually and then what I'll find is a is a sort of fixation like I'll I'll feel into something something feels like it's holding because all all the sense of identity is is a holding it's a it's a very specific type of contracted centered holding um at a deep level so what I find is I find a I find a like fixation sense or something in there and then we kind of explore it together and I don't even say that necessarily I just feel it um and then from that often a technique that I just remember will just pop up I'll be like oh have you tried this type of inquiry or something um so so you know that's one answer from my own personal perspective of how I interact with somebody in real time um if if I'm going to you know put a video out about like what somebody can do on their own where I'm not involved and they can't pick up those fixations themselves um then there are more practical answers um uh so it also depends on where you're at so first Awakening has in my experience has a little bit of a different set of um approaches that are helpful than maybe non- like so deeper realization where you're like contemplating the nature of boundaries and and that sort of thing there are a lot of approaches and that's a really fun one to do but I can come up with those all day long because there are no boundaries so so you're really just questioning an assumption that and looking really closely and seeing if it's really there because you really believe that there's a physical thing here and you're a physical thing here um and so um so those are kind of easy to come up with in a way and they're really fun the first Awakening I find is probably the most challenging broadly speaking um because it's so slippery like we were talking about before people do have glimpses and they and they get into spiritual groups and sometimes you're in a group with a teacher and there's there's a whole dynamic in that group and and you you don't really pick up that there's there's a possibility for you right now you know it's more like if I'm in the group long enough and I get to meet the teacher and over time maybe something will happen and it's like that whole Paradigm is very hypnotic so how do you break that Paradigm how do you break the Paradigm of the social hypnosis and in spiritual groups and things so all of those come into play when we're talking about a first Awakening so that's why the first Awakening can be tricky um and you know I refer people to what works for them I tell I I suggest they try things try inquiry try self inquiry you know um Ramana Maharshi has a very simple way of doing it you know a thought arises notice the thought and then ask yourself to whom does this thought refer look for it you know is there someone that that thought's pointing back to that's that's experiencing that thought and if if the thought comes that says I am then ask yourself well who am I then where's that what is that you know it's very simple actually for someone who's already done it for someone who hasn't done it It's tricky because they get so it's lost in Thoughts with this stuff so um you know if that doesn't work try where am I precisely where am I you know so sometimes I'll tell someone you know as you're listening to me right now you're listening some something seems to be taking in the sounds the sounds are moving through there's something at the center of your experience that may be questioning what I'm saying or judging it or saying it's right or wrong all that's fine can you find the center of that like what is it that's processing all of that where is it very precisely can you put your attention wherever that is yeah and pretty quickly people will find a can't like I I can't precisely find the me but I'm sure it's here so it's like okay we'll keep looking you know keep trying to precisely locate it and just that process itself can really transform for some people it can really cause a shift um I think one caveat to that approach is don't just take your init initial um reflection that you can't find it right now don't take that to be the shift keep looking until you're absolutely convinced that it's not there like something I really want something to shift there because we can believe anything that's the the weird thing about our minds and thoughts is they can accommodate anything so I I've met people I've had had some really strange interactions and but I've met people who have told me they believe in no self like they and and I just misperceived that that was just a belief for them they didn't really have the experience of it and I was talking to them and I really freaked them out like just just the way I was normally talking really caused like a kind of existential crisis for them I've had that happen more than once so I've really learned to like when I talk to people and they say something like I believe there's no self I mean you can read online about Buddhism and learn about a doctrine of no self doesn't mean you've realized it it doesn't mean that self structure has completely dismantled inside of you you know in the sense of you is just not there anymore it's a very different thing of course so so I you know I tell people don't don't just convince yourself that there's no self by looking superficially keep looking you know really try to look with Precision like where is that sense of me I thought it was here all these years but where is it you know and noticing the thoughts and don't get entangled in the thoughts it's like clearly those thoughts aren't what you are because those thoughts are appearing to what you are or to what you take yourself to be so if the thought is always an object so that's great where's the subject keep looking keep looking for the subject yeah so that's that's a that's one way um Zen has a really cool way and I sometimes recommend this I could call it the one-pointed approach um and this works for people who have like a lot of energy and they're very Dynamic and they're like I want to kill this thing I'm G to you know this Enlightenment thing I'm gonna give it all my energy all my you know and of course you can't force the hand of reality through will but if you have that much will why don't you use it wisely you know direct it down into to one point and turn it into something give it something the mind can't actually solve so in Zen there's this wonderful colon called what is Moo which there's no intellectual answer for that at all but people will bear all of that will upon the question moo moo until it's not even a question anymore it's just move like all of it's one-pointed approach until there's the Mind becomes so incredibly one-pointed that the thoughts calm down the sense and at some point you get it's almost like an obsession and then something just flashes and all of a sudden you realize that sense of self you thought you were that was driving the whole thing is just not there anymore it's kind of like everything is Mu all of a sudden but but it's a felt experience it's a it's a it's a shift it's a true Awakening so there there are different approaches and because I'm not necessarily a personal teacher or whatever and on my channel I I make videos for the wide public I never know who's going to see them I try to tell people try different things you know I have a playlist called Awakening approaches try different approaches um if you're working with a facilitator going through a very specific process may work really well if that facilitator is skilled in that process um and you have the back and forth but the back and forth is really important without the back and forth it's very easy just to get up in your head with any practice so um so that leads me to another answer is that I really do think having some kind of facilitator really accelerates the process probably more than anything is having someone who's really walked the path who's had the shift and deeper realization to to help you through it with whatever method works for them and and works for you probably that's the most potent thing is to actually interact with somebody who's gone through it because it just transmits there's a transmission is a very real thing um it's not handing something to someone it's not giving someone an Enlightenment but there is an energetic and empathic thing that happens where they start to pick up the way you're actually pointing them and the way you function um and probably that's why your process works really well you know uh so

yeah great thank you so much for all these tips sure and one other thing I want to say that's really fascinating this one this one was surprising to me a bit I guess because um maybe I had more of a masculine energy early on or something and uh there were for me it was like having to find the way or something uh but what I have noticed just working with a lot of people there are some people who move very much I might just say more in the feminine aspect where they just know what surrender is like I can just tell somebody who is in that space who's right at the edge and I can kind of feel it I can just say there's somewhere you've always wanted to go and you know this I know you're you might be scared to some degree but you it's okay you can just let go into that it's it's right there and you know it and they're crying going yes I know some people just wake up like that and it's like just let go you know you know where to go you know where you want to go it's been there your whole life and some people people are very intuitive understand that if you would have told me that I'd be like I don't know what the heck that doesn't make any sense to me like I need a concept or something when I was up in my head so that is another approach that I find sometimes and often people like that wake up very quickly um they've often had a lot of suffering before though like they've had pretty rough lives a lot of times and it's just like they're just tired of suffering and they they just really do want to let go and I kind of tell them it's okay I think one of the major here is the sense of Readiness mhm like when you are ready it's easy but to get ready it may be a long

journey when you're ready even one question or one look or one you know whatever it can be

anything can be a word in a book that you open many times when you're ready m that's what you experiened like I can die now I don't care

yeah yeah guess what we can do what we can do is help people to get ready and when they ready you know they jump like really going going into all these desperation and hopelessness and helplessness and just getting to know these deep intimate feelings

because otherwise they keep knocking knock knock I'm still

here yeah what a wonderful way to live life when you are no longer

seeking it's much small F push you MH yeah yeah it's uh yeah it's full on for sure um it's also deeply

intimate that that's maybe my favorite part is the intimacy uh it's the experience of non non-dualist like appearance um has such a radical intimacy to it and it never goes away that's the beauty of it it's uh you can't get you don't get used to it because there's no one there to get used to it it's just it's just so um and it's deep the interconnection I I would say although it's not like interconnection in the way the Mind thinks about it like a bunch of objects that are connected somehow but the the sense of as I listen to the sounds like I hear a fan um there's no there's no way to know a self from the fan sound the sound not the fan but there's no way to know the sense of a self or hearer from the sound so it's as if the sound is just here it's like um but that that contact even though it doesn't seem to the mind like actual contact like it seems like to the mind it would be distant it's far more intimate than any kind of mental contact it's um kind of like being in two places at once or being in every place at

once and it's an exploration you could just do for the rest of your life and never never get bored it's wonderful and then you turn your head and take a step into another room and it's completely different environment and a whole different set of textures you know

yeah I like this place where there are no more words nothing needs to be said nothing needs to be explored but it's

fun it's fun to

share um one thing I want to to ask you okay there are lots of models there are lots of stages there are lots of different people talking about different stages just and it's such a mixup like where do you go and here is this person looking how to get rid of the self I want to get rid of the self what to do too much information mhm what would be your advice yeah

well in regards to the idea of getting rid of the self specifically I would say don't worry about getting rid of something um dogen has a wonderful quote is to know the self is to forget the self but you can't skip the know yourself part you know um you got to look closely at what's actually occurring seemingly occurring what is occurring and so forth so it can seem like a lot is going away and a lot does go away with this process um but it doesn't go away by not wanting it there because if we just tell ourself I just don't want this self to be here usually what we're really saying is I feel like crap and if I think if that self goes away then I'll feel better but that's not really the mechanism the mechanism is looking closely it's all about clear seeeing in my experience um so I would say to somebody in in regards to like trying to get get rid of the self I would say um don't worry about that so much until you really know what the self is like do you know what the self is you want to get rid of like look for it find it you know learn about what that that experience is the experience of self um so what I would tell them is find whatever process works for you to look very very closely at your immediate experience right now and generally I mean experience that is not specifically based thought um because we again we can get lost in thoughts about anything but uh look really precisely at the experience of who or what believes a thought who or what do that thought seem to appear to who or what does the sound seem to appear to like find whatever way works for you based on your personality and your interests and so forth to precisely examine that it's really about looking closely um and it can be confusing that there is so much available for sure right it's like is it this is it this is it this so a couple things about that one is consider it a benefit that we have those different processes available because it is not a one-size fits-all there there are really good processes like Kevin Shanel X's way he described the feds um and using specific questions for those it does work um but it definitely doesn't work for everyone not that exact process doesn't work for everyone um for instance fed 6 and seven often just go together there sometimes six seven and eight go together like they just fall together so everyone's got a little bit of a different process um and he would he would say that himself so uh so try different things the fact that we have all these different available paths is great and Maps but um try try you know try one but give it a shot like really put your effort into it put your heart into it find a good facilitator to make sure you're doing it right and if it's just not working for you it's totally fine set it aside find another one you know if if that's if that's your way of moving or a teacher um if one teacher or facilitator or guide you're working with just not isn't resona resonating with you nothing's shifting find another one you know um see what happens so try some different things but when you but know yourself well enough to know whether you're willing to go deep because one thing that can happen is you can just try everything all the time but you're using that mechanism to just sort of stay up here you know like you're actually there's some there's a fear blockage or something that's just you're not really going deep with anything or anyone so you really have to check in with yourself and see what's happening if you're if you're moving around too much and bouncing around um but but do be aware that there are very good processes now that people have elucidated who have actual experience um have actual Insight also know that there are plenty of people out there who don't have insight and they're whatever their teaching is I don't even know what it is so that's just true there are charlatans out there there are people who abuse people out there you know through this stuff so um my litmus test when I refer people because I get a lot of people asking me for a teacher referrals um and I have a small number of people that I that work one-onone with people that I trust um or groups I can send them to as well like yours my litmus test and I always ask for feedback I have a form that that someone can fill out if I refer them is did they have a shift like is it working you know is is is it actually shifting that's what I really care about um and you know that's it you really got to take that responsibility as a practitioner that if something's really challenging you at the level of identity it's going to be uncomfortable but that's what we're trying to do and ultimately we're looking for that shift um and you know it is your responsibility to find the resource utilize the resource sufficiently enough to know whether it's working for you and then change if you need to um and that's that's just the way the world works but there are good resources out there uh for sure which is really cool yeah I kind of like that I kind of like that there's so many different things available but yeah there is that caution that if you're tend to bounce too much you know like you just want to taste all the different things and have experiences but not really wake up um yeah that's what's going to happen but so yeah very sound advice thank you yeah yeah

what are you drinking this is coffee coffee decaff yes it's ear morning for you for me it's evening drinking tea oh nice here in Mauritius is really nice tea they grow it here in the mountains yeah yeah it's like um volcanic soil so rich in minerals delicious nice

I like it when my head is completely empty there's nothing to ask me too I think what I wanted to ask I already asked yeah hey I'm I'm all for it you know I love eye gazing I love meditating and sitting in presence and you know in fact it's funny that's why didn't talk about Awakening at all for years after that shift it it really never even dawned on me to talk about it because like what can you say it's this you know yeah yeah

my cats are fighting play you got kitty cats I have three here in this room I'm hiding I'm

sleep that's another good um technique is watching animals watching the way they move yeah yeah they never lost in thoughts blessed I know yeah yeah yeah they don't second guess themselves I WR the meme somewhere said if a cat could talk he wouldn't yeah I love

it well thank you so much for your time your energy for your expertise and guiding all these people home yeah it's it's nice to be here and um we uh we'll have to have a conversation in the future as well on maybe on my channel that would be nice i' love that yeah yeah and thank you for leaving all these people home they keep knocking saying oh I'm ready I say okay here you go you're already free you already simply always awake and then they try to argue with me and give me all kinds of explanations why

not and I'm just sitting and looking and saying look at this what's here right now you're already awake

mhm somehow clouds part yeah sometimes with a lot of Tears or a lot of laughter it's just so beautiful to watch yeah yeah sometimes it takes a few few

meetings or more than a few yeah but it's so fascinating to watch that it is and there's a definitely a timing yeah as you said yeah it's the most fun is when someone is ready right on the edge it's really really fun yeah

okay thank you so much and thank you everyone who watched and listened and send us a comment if you like subscribe you know the

drill thanks you Ilona it was really nice to nice to meet you in person finally wonderful to meet you yeah okay take care bye bye