Non-dual insights don't actually fade away; what appears to fade is simply a shift in attention. When a thought says 'I had a non-dual experience and it's gone,' this means you're paying attention to the thought rather than the actual experience. The key to stabilizing realization is understanding that non-dual appearances don't go away—they remain constant. Instability, doubt, and being pulled back into thoughts often stem from buried polarity in consciousness that comes from old wounding, trauma, or resistance patterns. This is why shadow work is essential for stabilizing deeper realization, as it addresses the underlying patterns that cause practitioners to lose their non-dual insights.
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Ballsmasher and Romance (Awakening Q and A)Added:
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All right. So, we do this live once a month for people who are at sustaining member level and above for anybody who's interested in this. The recordings will be posted publicly. So, just be aware of that. But I answer your questions on this stream here. Uh, so I appreciate your engagement and let's get rolling.
Uh, see, first question is from Shayon.
I keep getting clear experiential non-dual insights that somehow fade and and a frustrating back and forth for the in what is this saying? Oh, for the indefinite time follows.
Can you talk about what factors make stabilizing them easier? Okay, first thing to un it's it's all about understanding and clear seeing and well not all but largely in this case and one of the most important points of understanding and this isn't necessarily conceptual it's a reminder of where your attention is and that is that non-dual appearances don't fade non-dual appearances don't don't go away so if a thought is saying I had a non-dual experience and it's gone all that means is you're paying attention to a thought.
So, it would be like if you're standing in your yard and you look over and you see the void open up, this massive void. And you're just like, "Wow, there it is.
There's the void." And then something calls your attention. You turn to the right and then your friend is like, "Oh yeah, the void's not there anymore." But now you're paying attention to your friend, right? And your friend's saying that and you're like, "Oh [ __ ] what happened to the void?" And he's like, "Well, it's just not here anymore.
Sometimes it goes away and comes and goes, but maybe we can talk about how we can get it back or stabilize it.
All you're doing is paying attention to that friend. You're paying attention to the thought if that makes sense. So that's the first part. That's that's key. Uh and because to the degree we believe any thought that becomes binding. It becomes distracting. It becomes chronically distracting. And then we get ourselves convinced that we're some separate being that's struggling in time and and spirituality and whatever is happening. Right? So I think that's the biggest most important thing. Now I can give you a conventional answer and that is what stabilizes realization in general. Again it's it's not changing the fact that non-duel is the nature of appearance, the nature of reality. Um what it's doing is helping you stop getting distracted with thoughts and that's shadow work. This is why I talk about shadow work frequently.
Uh, and I do shadow work and I offer shadow work circles and so forth because that's really what it comes down to in my experience, not with just with myself but with many many others is if there's a lot of instability, a lot of getting pulled back into thoughts and doubt and so forth. It's not just the thoughts that are doing that. It's there's some polarity that's that's buried in consciousness that comes from old wounding or old traumas or whatever resistance patterns so to speak. So, it's really about shadow work when when you want to stabilize deeper realization. This one's from Elena David. Hello, Elena David.
One of my favorite couples of all time.
Y'all are awesome. You're always here.
Always supportive. Great to hear from you both.
Okay, where are we? Bears Without Ears, what's up?
Put my bunny ears on. I forgot my bunny ears.
Um, Magros Senasa says, "Yo, in Spanish is I." Okay. I didn't know that. Peanuts, greetings from Jenny in Jerusalem. I like that alliteration. Jenny Jenny in Jerusale Jenny in Jerusalem. I last saw y'all in Waldingham. Glad to catch up.
Awesome. Very cool. Um, it's from Emanuel.
Good to see you. Nice to hear from you.
Ira says, "Hi, Angela. Hope all is well." Yep, everything is good here.
Uh Nikki, what's up? Hey, Jennifer. Good to hear from you.
It's been a busy day at work. Well, I hope you have the weekend off and I hope your flowers are blooming. One of the things I love to do is grow flowers. And in the past it was all rose bushes which do awesome throughout the summer but they don't really start blooming here in Colorado I think until about maybe late June. They don't bloom bloom early in the spring but they bloom all the way through October or like late or into autumn. But this year I planted a bunch of bulbs. So we've got crocuses and daffodils came up early. Those are gone.
Tulips are all coming up. Have been for two weeks at least and they're doing awesome. Still have a lot coming. And then irises are coming. So, I've been playing with with flowers. So, hopefully you have some flowers around you and you get to look at those because I love spring flowers. I know that's a little off topic, but it is what it is. This is from Christopher.
The name is spelled that way. It's like CC HR I S I I SS TT. Anyway, you get it.
What's up, Christopher?
This one's from Eileen. Hi, Angelo.
First time in a live event. Oh, cool.
Welcome. I'm glad you're here, too.
This is from uh Barb. First time for YouTube. Oh, very cool. Well, welcome.
Welcome. We always have a good time here. It's from Monique. Hi from Florida. Florida's got to be nice and toasty right now, huh?
This is Monica. Monica Panda. Hello.
Greetings from Chile. Oh, cool. Another South American friend.
I think I asked. Yeah, I did. I saw this. I saw this name for the first time the other day, Monica Panda. And she has this cute picture with a panda. So I said, "Do you have pandas around you?"
And she said, "No, only in the AI."
This is from um 777. What's up? We'll see you soon. I think uh Ayakan no uh Aakana Aakana, happy to see you live, it says. Yep.
Happy to be here. Good to hear from you.
Hey Deborah, love from the UK. All right, we'll be there in a couple months.
Um, Cecilia from Queensland, Australia.
Right on.
Greetings from Turkey. Very cool.
Just for now says, "Hi everyone." Carrie Sewell, hey, what's up?
Love from California. Anu, thank you.
Uh, this one's from Dana.
Hello. Good to hear from you. Hey, Orca.
Perfect Brilliant. What's up? Perfect Brilliant Stillness. I know of the book.
I know many people regard it highly. I don't I haven't not read it.
Perfect Brilliant Stillness sounds. Yeah. David Carse, I think.
Uh, this is from Nicola. Hi, Angelo.
What do you reply to a six-year-old when they ask you if this is real? Meaning this reality? I don't know. My instantaneous thing would be to smile and say, "What do you feel like it is?"
I'd say, "Is it real to you?" I actually would just say, "What do you see?"
Like instead of building a story line for kids, sometimes it's fun, especially young kids like that, building a story line or putting them in time, which happens frequently. See parents do that a lot. Like, are you excited for what's coming later? Or talking about what happened in the past, which is all fine.
And of course that happens when you're a parent, but sometimes it's nice to just say when you especially when you see a child that's in wonder, they're just kind of like in wonder looking around at things. It's like, what do you see? You know, how's it feel?
And yeah, depending on the child too, I might just say, does it matter?
Is it re is it real? Is it unreal? I don't know.
Feels. It feels like it feels, you know, it's bright and alive. It's fun.
Children can teach us so much.
From Monique. Uh, a few months ago, while on a walk in nature, I completely dissolved to the point where I couldn't even feel myself at all. At first, I felt peaceful and then the extreme fear came. Yeah. Okay. Let me go down a little bit here.
Sorry, I'm really this um the scrolling on the comments does this weird thing where it just suddenly just drops like a whole really far down and I try to remember to keep clicking on it so it doesn't do that but it does it frequently. Okay, so to finish Monique's question, a few months ago, while on a walk in nature, completely dissolved to the point where I couldn't even feel myself at all. Felt peaceful and then extreme fear came and then I kind of scared me. I went back to usual.
I didn't really think about it much after that as you have spoken about it before today. It happened again, but I noticed the fear wasn't there. Perfect.
That's a that's what I was going to say.
So fear, it really is helpful to regard fear and I mean the physiologic emotion of fear, the physical experience of like, whoa, this is terrifying, right?
Like increased heart rate, the feeling of fear. The body feels like fear, attention's just like very intense and broad looking, you know, around and everything's very vivid. That's the experience of fear. It's physiologic.
It's good to regard it as what it is, which is the portal of motion for the magician archetype, right? So all that really means is that the magician is the archetype of change. So when there's massive transformation like duality collapsing, often there's a fear response at first and then as you said, what often happens is if you don't tell a long story about it and you don't grasp onto it and you don't fight it and don't, you know, sort of so to speak freak out about it, it'll probably happen again and there may not even be fear, right? That's very common. So, especially with non-dual shift specifically, it's very common that the first time it can feel like massively absorbed into the whole environment and it's like, whoa, cool. And it's like there's just no one apart anymore. And then then the fear can hit, you know, and the second time it's often like, oh, this is just how it is. Very cool.
All right, this is from Jois.
What is the most valuable or interesting thing you have learned in the past year?
Oh gosh, it's really hard for me to think of things like that because I learn constantly. I learn so much. Um, I mean, just just getting better and better at facilitating deep shadow process. That's really fascinating. But it's not like one thing I've learned.
I've been honing it for the last year, getting better at it for sure, learning more and more ways to approach that process. That's been a lot of really cool insight. Um, learning a lot about existential wounds, but I'm learning that I already know about them, which is really interesting.
I just hadn't thought of structuring any writing that way, but as I'm starting to do it, it's like, oh yeah, I see these all the time. I see them in myself. I see them in other people. So, the existential wounds I've been writing about, um, which will become a book, that's really fascinating. Um, it's fascinating when I delineate each one of them, like I have I have eight of them basically that I delineated. But when I delineate them, and I think that's it's pretty it covers pretty much everything with very little exception.
But what what I see is like a lot of trauma and coping mechanisms and and so forth are built out of a mixture of them. So, that makes it confusing. But if you see each one discreetly um individually, it really helps. It it really starts to sort out how it got that way and what your beliefs are and and what the habits that result are. So that's been I've learned a lot there and really enjoyed the process of writing it. It feels like writing my first book in some sense. Yeah, thanks for asking.
Whoa, Ball Smasher, what's up? Ball Smasher's in the house.
Uh what's up, Adam?
Perfect Brilliant says, "Time and space do not exist, but causality does." I think I heard you say this is this what does it mean? You know, that's that's really what aligns with not only not only Zen and even Nagarjuna, um, Zen Buddhist doctrine, uh, it aligns exactly with physics actually with the spe the special theory of relativity.
The special theory of relativity doesn't work without the uh space-time interval, which is a an equation essentially that explains the relative nature of time and space such that if you really see deeply into what those mean, you'll realize that all that actually the what the the basis for physics in in at least special theory of relativity, you know, um and so forth.
is causality. It's not space and time because space and time are relative.
They they change constantly depending on how and where you measure them to the point of a beam of light or a photon a photon itself like a particle of light doesn't experience time or space because at the speed of light length contracts to zero and time dilates to infinity.
So, a beam one photon hitting your retina, right from a galaxy that's uh whatever hundreds of millions probably billions of light years away, that photon does not experience any distance between you and that galaxy.
So, through that photon, you're literally in contact with it. This is literally true. Like, it's been proven in in physics, right? Um and also that it's at exactly the same time. So while from our perspective, which is a relative perspective, even though that light took however many billions of years to travel here in that galaxy, we're seeing it as it was billions of years ago from the standpoint of the light itself, we're not. We're actually seeing it right now and we're in direct contact with it. So, so time is completely relative in that way, even mathematically through science, through special theory of relativity. But the space-time interval basically says that Time and space are just relative to relative to one another. Uh causality is the actual basis for what what can or cannot be essentially. That's pretty much what I was talking about. So um there's a series on YouTube called PBS Spacetime. They have a few videos on this that explain it pretty well. So the challenge though is when we're talking about insight, when we're talking about awakening is not to understand anything I just said or even believe it. It doesn't matter if you believe that or not or doesn't matter at all. You can actually experience timelessness directly.
In fact, you are experiencing timelessness right now. Seeing that psychological time is a totally different animal. That's relative time.
But your direct and actual experience when all of the perceptual filters are out of the way is eternal for sure. No space, no time. It's not only eternal, it's non-dualistic. So there's no space, no time. But that doesn't mean causality doesn't exist. So this is why there are there's a very famous set of coons, the most famous set of coons in Zen called the Muman Con. And the very first one is Moo. What is Moo? There's four. I think there's 40 in that set. It was compiled by Muman. Um the very first one is Moo.
What is Moo? Which is definitely the most popular well known and well-used [ __ ] in Zen. Um and then number two is one called Yakujo's Fox.
And Yakujo's Fox talks exactly about this that freedom ultimately liberated freedom is not freedom from causality.
It's freedom within causality.
And it's a very very very important distinction. It's probably in my in my view of coons. I could almost say this.
I'm not an expert in coons. I've done a bunch of them, but I'm not an expert.
But I could almost say that the first and second [ __ ] and the mumon cover everything. Moo is the breakthrough coan that wakes you up. And then the the next one talks about liberation essentially.
It's that it's that clear. It's really fascinating. So without going into a whole bunch more detail, there's that.
The thing is that the tricky part is it's impossible to think about causality without thinking about time. You can't.
That's the problem, right? Because the mind uses psychological time, which is the illusion.
Yeah. So, you can't think about causality without imagining time.
Maybe you can. I don't I don't know how you would. And without thinking, well, one thing happens and then another things happens. That's the way thoughts structure reality. But reality is not that way. Things can happen simultaneously and things can even happen in different orders depending on the perspective. Right? That's special theory of relativity. Okay, enough physics for today.
This one is Vicki. Is it really 90% practice, 10% information, or is it 95%.
Can you speak on this? It's 96 really.
There's no hard and fast anything to anything. Um and even practice um I think if you take the word practice out and make it direct experience then it's very accurate. I think it's helpful to watch this stuff watch videos it's helpful to read the books and all it's helpful to do that stuff but if you approach it like practice don't approach it like information then it's more like 99%.
You know, if you're watching my videos, some people say, "I watch every one of your videos." That's great. Hopefully, you're just feeling the resonance.
You're not trying to learn or memorize or take notes, right? It's a resonance thing. That resonance itself is practice. That is presence. That is immediate experience. So, if if I talk in terms of that direct experience is everything, information, conceptuality may help a little bit at the very beginning or something. Um or sometimes it helps to reatune you a little bit uh to direct experience or but that's usually just like a certain turning word or [ __ ] or what it does is it helps struct it helps restructure um beliefs around certain habits and and so forth especially as related as in relation to trauma. But even doing that you have to do physical work to get there. you have to do emotion work, deep emotion work to even get to those beliefs. So even in that like in in a circle setting or something, it's still 95% physical, emotional, and energetic.
So there you go. That's my answer.
If you ask me again, I might say something different, but I think that's pretty pretty pretty accurate.
Mon'nique, oh, sorry, that was the end of the last question she asked or the first question she asked. Okay, this one's from Gerro.
Grod Grod. Recently, I'm slowly realizing I can let go and it will be fine. But unconsciously, there is something that is afraid to lose control. How can we overcome this barrier?
Well, the biggest way to to circumvent that is to really see you weren't in control the way you think you are. It's and and really you're not really afraid to lose control as much as you're probably afraid to lose track of thoughts. That may sound silly, but I really think that's what it is. Just let those thoughts go for a while and see what happens. You'll hit a fear barrier.
You'll hit some there. some fear will come sooner or later because you're letting go of of the identity around thoughts or beliefs because you're not grabbing them. You're not grasping them anymore. You're not you're not reidentifying with thought after thought. But after a while, you will see really clearly that it was letting go of the thoughts that that you were avoidant of. I don't even know if we're afraid of it. We're just avoidant of it. Because again is if you identify as thoughts or identify with thoughts then thinking is what feels like you and essentially not actively thinking in that way not grasping thoughts and getting entangled in thoughts and identified with thoughts will feel like a kind of death to the thoughts in a way right to that to that mechanism that wants to keep doing that it'll feel like a something's letting being let go of in a really big way or a kind of death maybe I don't want to overstate the case about death because it's not physical death. But your mind might think it is. Your mind might say, "We'll we're going to die if we go any further here." Right? So anyway, all of this really comes down to seeing that it's it's probably not about control so much as just letting go. Just a willingness to just let go and see what comes next.
You you already know you can't control life. You already know you can't control reality. You can't control what's appearing right now. Try it. Can you control the sounds and sensations and all that? No, of course not. You can move through it. You can sort of rearrange your own position or something, but you can't control the the input that's constantly coming through, right? And you know that what you can do is let go of the thoughts that that keep telling you that you know what's going on that you know even the thoughts don't really I mean they kind of think at times they do seem to say you're in control of this, you're in control of that. But the vast majority of thoughts aren't even that. They're just daydreams, mind wandering, doubt, like just on and on. So, it's really just about letting go of the thoughts one by one and see where that leads you. From Monica Panda, what is the difference between kencho and feeling oneness?
Well, feeling oneness is a feeling for sure. Yeah, kencho, it doesn't mean there's no overlap.
Meaning like you can have a Kensho experience coinciding with a feeling of oneness or feeling oneness could be part of the kencho experience but you will know or kencho insight. You will know the difference though. You will know an experience from identity. That is that's the point of kencho is it's not an experience. Yeah. So let's see if there's a permanent shift of stillness and shift in personality like losing triggers and thinning out is that an awakening? that usually comes more a afterward the the losing triggers and so forth. You can have a kencho shift and well let me say this often for a period of time you do lose triggers like you may go a few months or even a a couple weeks to a few months and sometimes longer or you may not really feel very triggered anymore. You may feel very clear at you know in a kind of flow state just feel kind of at ease most of or all the time. You may feel like that for a while you may not. Some people don't get much of a honeymoon period, but then you will start seeing like, oh [ __ ] those habits are still here. The tendencies are here. They're strong still, and that's pretty typical. So, you should be aware of that. Um, yeah.
Mhm. So, yeah, that that's usually going to come after awakening. Now, you can do if you do deep work before awakening, you will see your triggers relaxing. You will see your um reactivity calming down if you do deep work. if you do deep emotional work. Yeah. But none of that is kencho. Kencho is kencho.
It's a self- validating, self-obvious realization.
So my question to you is you're asking it this kind of conceptually or almost like informationally, which is fine. You probably have a good reason for it. But I would just ask you, what is your experience? That's what really matters.
What is your experience? Because someone can talk to me like this in this way like theoretically and I can give you a theoretical answer sure or I can give an experiential answer of what I've seen but what really works for me is talking to someone and going okay well what's your experience you know what's happening for you right now or what happened in the recent past if you think you did have a shift um that usually can sort it out pretty quick whether it's happened or not but people can have massive heart openings massive oneness experiences endless ego deaths on on psychedelics and still not have an awakening. Just being honest. It's not an experience.
You can have extreme experiences with substances and medicines and some people have them anyway. Some people really do have massive energetic shifts and wild condalini stuff and people gotten knocked unconscious through condalini before. So all kinds of wild and intense experiences can happen but they're not kencho necessarily.
Most are not. Again there can be some coinciding but you'll know the experience from the insight.
Okay.
It's from Mon'nique. Um after realization in the honeymoon I was dealing with shadow. It almost feels like I've come full circle and the fallon peace is coming back. Fullon peace is coming back. I think you mean does this happen? Yeah, of course.
That's it. It's pretty much what it is.
You have a I mean, I could simplify and say you have an awakening or you have Kensho.
You feel rather clear. Everything feels clear. It's it's it's you know, in a way you didn't know before. The doubt is just not there or very little of it's there. And if it is, you know, it's a thought. And it's just like this this total settleness with reality, with life. You don't have the big spiritual questions are mostly gone. It's like they're thoughts. and you feel that ease and then the honeymoon period all wears off and you still have that insight. The insight doesn't go away but the intensity of physical experience, emotional experience and so forth and seeing your reactions and seeing the habit forces that are strong that doesn't go away right away. You they come back into focus now which is good.
It's lawful. This is how you work through things but that's usually the case. And then once you work through a lot of that, then the shadow work dissolve other perceptual filters that are more subtle. You start feeling just like you did with with the kencho. It's like kencho ongoing. Ah shanti uses terms like awakening and abiding awakening or something like that. That makes sense. Um yeah, it's just it's clearer and it's ongoing is what it feels like in deeper realization.
Bossm says, "I have not prepared any questions." Hey, it's all right to be unprepared, my friend. Sometimes it's better. Um, semi semihoneyed, hello Emanuel, I would love to hear you talking more about how reorientation back from dissociative patterns, especially in deep stage realization has to be about feeling emotions, really doing emotion work, feeling emotions.
It's helpful to see what makes you dissociate.
Right? That that's really important.
Like do you have a staltification wound?
Um what's causing you to dissociate?
What are your beliefs?
And a huge part of that is really seeing or an entitlement wound as well. I just did a video on entitlement wound.
Another one that that can result in that because the entitled the person who looks entitled they may I I said this in the video that it's entitlement is tricky in that people can really look down on it like as if it's like you're just spoiled or something but it's not really that fully it's that the child is treated in an entitled way but it's usually a compensation on the parents part. So there's something that child's not getting. Often it's boundaries and you know boundary setting and all that but a lot of times the child actually develops this sense of they really don't have the capability to do it on their own to do things on their own or I don't have enough and I need it from other people because it because they because they were centered or um elevated without objective justification. So so it they they don't always tolerate frustration well. They don't always tolerate hearing no well.
So that's just one example. But in that case, you would look and say, "Oh, okay.
I see. I I actually feel this like dependency on other people, but because other people aren't just coming forward to me in adult life like they did in my childhood, I start to dissociate. I feel like I I don't have enough and I can't get enough and I'm helpless. Like I feel helpless, like a relative helplessness."
So that's just one example. Seeing your process, seeing your pattern, what's going on, what the trauma is, what your beliefs are, what your coping mechanisms are. This is why I'm writing the existential wound stuff because that's where you find this. But really seeing what are the triggers that cause dissociation. That's really it. And ultimately, you'll have to feel the feelings. You'll have to see what the wounding is, how it's affected you, and then what are the steps to kind of rework those habit pathways and those belief pathways if that helps.
Um, yeah, we do we deal with this in circling sometimes and we have some processes that really work, but but in circling it's good because there's other people there and it really helps to have a relational field if it's done right.
Um, especially with someone who's dissociating, but it is a dissociation is a trauma response. Just be aware of that.
Um, this one's from Jos. I once heard you say working in the O feels as meditative as meditation for you. It can. Can you elaborate on how this is for you and how that how this developed?
Anything can be meditative. Everything is meditative. So for me, there was just one day when I was meditating years ago.
I think I was using a coan or meditating on moo. I don't remember what it was, but there was a it was clear that it felt like I was using a technique to meditate. And I I didn't think about that. It's just how I med always meditated. And all of a sudden it just dropped away. There's like oh you don't need a technique to meditate. This meditative experience is already here.
So it's always here. It's always here.
That's the simple answer that is true for me. It's meditation's always happening.
When I once that dawned, it was like, oh, shikantaza is so it's almost funny to even call it anything. Natural meditation. It's already happening. The universe is meditating itself.
You're just part of the meditation.
That's it. Yeah.
All right.
Uh, Kisumu, I am tracking some visceral or seemingly subconscious attempt to control outcomes trying to relax into it almost that it's a thought too. Feels non-verbal.
Pointers on how to see beyond it. Well, okay. If it's non-verbal, if it's if there's an associated feeling like there's a thought. Sure.
Yeah. If there's if there's something that's saying I'm trying to control outcomes, that's not a sensation. But if if what I think you're saying is if there's also there is something to it that is not a thought, there's an actual sensation there. There's a physical experience. That's great. So the key with that is you're not going to see beyond that. You have to accept that it's there. So I could say with thoughts and beliefs, it is kind of like dispelling them by seeing them clearly enough and they just kind of dispel themselves. With feeling, with sensation, emotion, it's not about resolving, getting past it, healing it, fixing it, understanding it. It's actually about seeing that there's no problem with it in the first place and never was. That's that's the key with anything that's indirect experience.
So feel it and watch your attention bounce because your attention may bounce into um some conceptuality and the conceptuality will look like, I need to do something to fix this. That's always a thought.
Anything that says I need to fix this or what do I do about it or what do I need to do about it or I don't know what to do about it or something's wrong or I don't know what to do or I don't have the capability to deal with this. All those are thoughts. Those are always thoughts. Now, if they're associated with a sensation, go to the sensation.
That's the 955 thing, right? Go to that sensation. Feel it. And if a thought says like, I can't handle this. I can't handle it. Oh, there my attention's already in thought. If if something is telling you you can't handle or it's too much or it's too big or whatever, just realize like it's that's intrinsically inaccurate because it's only a thought that you're paying attention to. The sensation is not the thought. Yeah. So, you just put your attention back in the sensation. So, for you, I think it's really being precise on where your attention is and just noticing the difference between a sensation and an interpretation. So, I think Alma and you are both right here. Okay. Mon'nique.
Yeah. I I thought I thought that's what you said. Yeah, she was correcting what she wrote up there. Jarmmo says, "Could you please describe how it feels to know all sense impressions are empty?" How it feels to know that? Okay, first of all, I don't know it. I see it. I hear it. I feel it, taste it, smell it.
So it's kind of like post equipose to say like how does it feel to know that? Because the knowing is the feeling. The knowing is the feeling.
It could only be not empty if your mind starts turning it into something like an object of experience. Starts with an object of experience. Well, really it starts with if you want to like think in terms of the aggregates, it starts with preference like enjoyable, not enjoyable, neutral.
Hedonic tone is the word is one description of it.
Feeling the the common translation is the word feeling, but it's not the usual connotation we use. Feeling means emotion or a sensation. They what they mean in the second aggregate feeling is hedonic tone means I kind of have a sense of I like it, I don't like it, or I'm neutral to it.
Yeah. And then from there it's like, oh, it's this. Oh, it's a it's pain. Or, oh, it's a it's an orgasm. Or, oh, it's a tree.
Right? That's the third scand. That's when we start to label and nominalize it and objectify it and then we subjectify as the subject to that object. So now we're in a dualistic experience already and we've only done three aggregates anyway. So um what what the empty nature is seeing none of those aggregates well that each of those aggregates themselves are empty.
That's it.
But it's the direct recognition, the direct evidence is the sound itself, is the sensation itself.
You see why it's like I can't answer that question exactly because it's in the sensation. It is the sensation.
And only when you recognize the empty nature of the sensation will you have full access to the intimacy of it too.
The intimacy is like that thing people say to me when they've heard me say this over and over and then they finally have that realization and they're like, "Holy shit." Like, "Whoa, I did not expect this." It's like, you're looking at the tree and all of a sudden there's no you looking at a tree. It's like you're that that like Nagardata says, I am that. But it's not an eye in that. It's that. It's like full treeness without the tree. It's energy. Yeah. this. It's impossible to talk about this stuff, but it's very accessible experientially.
Yeah.
Ball Smasher, dude. How do I find a girlfriend, man?
Well, let's see. Like, okay, your answer, like, what's your answer to give? Give me some advice, please, on what to do. You definitely have a different perspective. Okay, I would say to find a girlfriend. Here's your recipe. First of all, be willing to feel all the emotions associated with not having a girlfriend.
Be willing to feel what it feels like to be by yourself on your own sometimes whenever you are. When you're when you're just by your when it's just Ball Smasher walking around by himself feeling notice what you're feeling. Be honest with yourself. I'm feeling lonely or I'm feeling unsettled or I'm feeling maybe a little sad or maybe I'm feeling curious. Could be feeling whatever. It's fine. Just but just be real about it, right? Just start noticing what you're feeling. Putting your attention in your body. Now, you're probably going, "Well, what does that have to do with a girlfriend?" Well, here's the deal. If you're in your head around someone you're attracted to, um, that's not the time to try to practice presence because it's so triggering, right? you're already triggered. But if you practice this kind of vulnerable presence with yourself, vulnerable presence means you're being honest with what you're feeling. That's what I mean. Then and you're in that habit. Then when you're around somebody that you're attracted to, you can actually connect on that level. You can share. We've done this in circle by the way many times where yeah we've done it with both men and women actually who have challenges with like say romantic connection um or in that environment it's like all of a sudden they're in their head or anxious or whatever. Uh and we can set it up so that you actually practice this and demonstrate that like when you actually share what you're feeling in the moment with somebody, they're going to resonate with you. And if they don't, if it weirds them out, that's not the kind of person you probably want to be emotionally connected with. You don't almost certainly. So, so yeah, practicing actually just being vulnerable about what you're feeling, your own emotions. And then if you're interacting with someone and you're attracted to her and you just say, "Yeah, I mean, I'm feeling this kind of like excitement or um attraction. I'm feeling attraction. I'm feeling a little anxious. I'm feeling a little awkward. but I also like am interested in getting to know you or whatever. You're going to find that that goes so much farther than having a plan of what to say or being cool or whatever all the all the fake stuff. That doesn't work. Doesn't really work. Might work on some people, but it's not going to work on the person you really want to deeply connect with.
If you want to deeply connect with someone, just deeply connect with yourself. This isn't rocket science. And just be vulnerable and honest about what's going on in your emotion body with with someone.
And also realize like there are going to be many people you're not going to be compatible with. There going to be people who don't notice you or are not attracted to you even though you're attracted to them. But there's also going to be people that there's going to be mutual attraction and mutual interest.
Um, and then the other practical thing would just be go to places that you, you know, go to places where you're doing something you really like to do, whatever that is. I don't know what it is like for you, but you like I'm thinking of things I like to do.
Flowers. I like to I don't know. I would go to a flower convention maybe or something like that. or if you like working out or if you like certain kind of dance, just go to the places where you can do the kind of things you like to do and there's often social interactions going on there. I think that's better place to meet anybody than bars probably in my opinion but or online even. So, I don't know. That's just what I think. Good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Kisumu says, "I grow flowers, too. It's lovely. Orchids and desert roses in Brazil." Oh, that's cool. I have a good friend um who is from Brazil.
Orchids. I would love to grow orchids.
Yeah, I don't know if I I'm up to growing orchids. We can't do them here in Colorado in the environment we're in, but in even in my house, I'd probably kill them. But orchids are incredibly gorgeous, and you're in the place to do it.
All right, let me find where I'm at here.
Uh, this is my first. Happy to join and meet. This is green tulip. There we go.
Got tulips going. Tulips are the flower of the day.
Bluna.
Bluna.
I think. Could you talk uh again about the difference between the release of understanding that I am everything and it is not my responsibility and spiritual bypassing?
I I mean I'll simplify spiritual bypassing because it's the kind of thing like I know it when I see it and it's simply often people it's it's inter it's relational and it's often people will use spiritual concepts or terminology that may not even be their actual insight and probably isn't they probably haven't had the actual insight but they're using it in a way that's totally inappropriate to the situation Like someone's like, "Why did you eat all of my food out of the refrigerator at work or something?" And you're like, "There's no one to do that.
There's no one who could do that.
There's no refrigerator." That's an extreme example or a silly example, but that's the example. It's like using something you learned other people say about spirituality and try to apply it in inappropriate situations. That to me is spiritual bypassing.
Um, another internal form of spiritual bypassing would be it's it's relational, but it's like relational with yourself.
It would be like you had a breakup and you're feeling like all these your body some part of you wants to feel all this grief and these feelings, but you keep telling yourself like, "Oh, there's no one to feel that." And it's there's no there's no one here. You know, that's dissociating and it's spiritual bypassing. So you may have a tendency to dissociate in the first place which is a bit of a different thing and then the mental justification for it is bypassing and saying oh there's no one here to grieve. It's like maybe you just need to grieve just need to feel emotions even and and by the way even if there is no one there to feel the emotions you can still feel the emotions they can still be felt. In fact if if the person is out of the way it's often much more intensely felt. That's why I say that a lot of times when someone's doing this it's not their actual insight. They're just using some convenient justification or excuse for irresponsible behavior or not taking responsibility for their actions or something.
This one's from uh Peter.
It's blue bell season in the UK. Oh, cool. I would like to see some blue bells.
I'm going to be in the UK in the summer and I want to go see some gardens because the UK has London has incredible gardens. I noticed last year and I didn't go tour the like the major ones, but I think I will next time.
This is from Ash A.
Um, wrote thoughts for about two hours and I feel weird. Alma's suggestion to do this is working great. I guess the quietness in the head. Nice. Yeah, there you go. That's a really really good way to be kind of ruthlessly mindful.
Mindfulness starts with mindfulness of thoughts as such. In fact, I think mindfulness practice, that's really the that's where it shines is when someone's really identified with thoughts and to help you stop identifying so thoroughly with thoughts. And that's a really good way to do it if you're like, I'm going to write down every damn thought that comes. Now, once you've gotten good at that, you can kind of turn that into a um an inquiry practice or the kind of practice I talk about to approach awakening, which is just orient to the next thought and just wait for it. And you don't necessarily have to write it down once you have once you've made enough distance so that you can actually see a thought as a thought. Now you're in a good place where you can just say, "Oh, well, what's here without that thought?" And then just wait for the next thought if it comes.
And then when it comes, oh, there's another thought. Okay, now what's here without that thought?
And what's here will become more and more and more clear to you. Very simple.
All right, this one's um from Isaacana. When I meditated today, my head melted sideways and became very wide. Love it. Uh there were no boundaries on the sides. I don't know how to explain. I was like, "Okay, this is new." Yeah. So, that's a good example of like a a kind of non-dualistic experience. It may have been the non-dualistic aspects of consciousness.
Uh but yeah, that's good. It it shows your your sincere It shows you're having a a deep meditative practice or you're sincere about meditation um and not thinking about it. You're in you're in experience and just letting it flow. That's great.
This from barn sword. Excited to be here. Yay. Glad you're here.
Full on peace. That's from Monica. Yeah, I love full on peace.
It is full on. Orca says, "We're having gorgeous weather in the in Pacific Northwest. Been planting and weeding here, too. Our roses should be blooming midmay." Oh, good. Good. My hand had to hand good to have my hands in the dirt.
I love it. I love it. Uh I used to not think I like gardening so much. I don't know why, but I really dig I dig it. I mean, I'm not doing it constantly, but I like to plant things that keep blooming on their own a lot largely and stuff and don't require tons of maintenance, but once they get going, especially rose bushes, man, they're prolific. They're prolific plants.
Pacific Northwest has some of the most amazing roses, too.
Uh, this one's from Gerro. Gerrod, thank you for the pointing last time. Behind pleasure and desire to be a bad boy, there was shame and hidden deeper I saw guilt. Very deep rooted beliefs about pleasure. Thank you. You're welcome.
Infinite Nothing, what's up? Good to hear from you. Gota, that one makes me hungry. I want to get some guacamole.
I love Mexican food. Says, "Hello all.
Perfect Brilliant Stillness is a beautiful read. Don't read much of anything else these days, but that was a rare treat."
Yeah, check it out, guys. David Cars, I don't know if he's still around. Is he still alive? Uh this says, "I recovered repressed anesthesia awareness trauma from childhood which though which though required lots of psychedelics in order to recover. Do you think that anesthetics just help not to remember the memories?" If you have if you have memories that were uncovered from being under anesthesia, you were you're either light you were light under the anesthesia or it was a sedation procedure where it wasn't general anesthesia. Um when I say you were light, that would be a mistake actually.
um because you're in you're like comeomaosse state in uh under anesthesia. It's deeper than stage 4 deep sleep at night when you're at home.
Um but sometimes people have dreams, but the dreams are usually like as they're waking up and they'll describe them to me. Uh, it's usually like so by from from the time you're awake enough for me to extabate and pull your breathing tube out to the time you're like aware and your memories going in the recovery room, it can be like 30 to 40 minutes, sometimes longer. Not everyone's different, but in that period of time you're in this kind of twilight and sometimes your subconscious does all kinds of weird things. So yeah, but there are there have been cases of recall where people do remember things under anesthesia. Um it's it's actually rare statistically for general anesthesia. Again, for sedation procedures, it's not so much.
And I don't know what your situation was, but as a kid, um sometimes we'll do things like give ketamine, like a certain dose of ketamine in the emergency room by itself, which is a kind of deep sedation, but it's not general anesthesia. Um for like setting a broken fracture or something, broken arm for the child. Um because it does have analesia effects, which are pain control effects. does affect memory, but you're not deep deep unconscious. So there there are possibilities it could have been something like that as well.
Yeah, Shayon, thanks for the answer. That was that has been my experience recently.
The more shadow work I do, the clearer the insights get and insights pop up spontaneously. Exactly. Spontaneous.
Exactly. And you can do things to work towards that insight. Like you can the subject object um deconstruction that works. That's the set like Feder 6 thing that I have a playlist on if you want to like look through that. It does work. But understand as you're doing that work that's shadow stuff will come up like it will start lodging or dislodging your shadow material. Um because it one of the things that those ego boundaries do is they suppress shadow material. they suppress trauma.
So, you should always be aware of that.
This one's from Vicki. Hi, Angelo. Have lots of questions today. Hope that's okay. Would being on as good a possible therapist be better for awakening or would meditation be better?
This is a question about karma yoga. Um, for awakening, it's hard to compare those two because I don't say if you want to wake up, go see a therapist. And I usually don't tell people if you want to wake up meditate because neither one of those necessarily leads to awakening.
What what leads to awakening is intention.
An intention to really look very very precisely what's going on in your internal experience and the nature of thoughts and your identifi you're identifying with thoughts. So there's that. Now if you want to do trauma work trauma therapist uh if you want to calm your body mind meditation I think both of them are valuable but don't make any mistakes about the fact that practices don't wake you up necessarily they they can till the soil somewhat they can for help optimize the soil for for the germination of an awakening.
Meditation certainly can. Therapy probably can too, especially if you're doing like deeper inquiry. But it's it's really about intention, I think.
This one's from Campbell Miller.
Campbell Miller. Hello. I've been going through cycles of strong emotions followed by easeful fluidity. You're in a good place then. There's an energy in the body buzzing strongly. There's a sense of free falling everywhere. Any comments? No. You're doing great.
Really, just keep at it. Nice work.
Don't don't don't complicate it. You don't need to. You're doing awesome.
This one's from Ragnar. Hello from Vermont. Hello. I always love Vermont. I haven't even spent much time there.
Something I like about Vermont. Well, it's gorgeous, of course, but maybe it's Bernie. I like Bernie.
This one's from Ashe. I recently started feeling faith to Jesus and what he says.
You don't need the pool. You only need me. uh to the paralytic man. I felt Jesus as unfiltered reality and I don't have to seek. This is it. Awesome. This one's from Kassumu. Any references where I can read up or get more info in archetypes and how they relate to emotion like on fear being the portal to change a magician archetype.
There is a book called well these come from union writing like Carl Young um and he has a couple different people probably know his books better than I do the red book is like his big one but that's giant very yeah very deep and voluminous and so forth but um that's where this stuff came from but there's a book called I think it's called the the lover the magician the warrior and the king or something like that. You can look that up and and there's a book about that. They kind of break it down into those specific four.
I think is going to get close to what you're asking.
Also, just do inquiry on your own, you know, about about these archetypes. How do they move through your life? Where where do you where do you see your warrior energy?
Where are you in medicine? Where are you in your medicine with the warrior archetype? Where are you in your shadow with the warrior archetype?
Shadow would be like I repress anger or shadow would be like I indulge in anger and take it out on others. Those are shadow.
Where are you in your medicine? Um I have good boundaries. I set good boundaries. When I feel fear, I I do the right thing. I do what I need to do. I have the conversation I need to have.
That's warrior energy. Stamina, discernment, dedication, that feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Those are warrior medicine, right? So, it's good to look at your life and just see where am I in my shadow, where am I in medicine on any of these any of these archetypes?
Yeah, Monica Panda, interesting what you said about fear.
Thanks. What about resistance to fear?
Any approach to face resistance and not the fear itself?
Well, um yeah, yes.
Uh you can just ask is there any resistance in the system right now?
I think that's a good one. It's a helpful one. I've used that with people even in very deep realization.
The clearer you get, the clearer you get, the easier it is to inquire into things like this because it just shows up. It just shows you. The energy system just shows you what's there. So is there resistance in the system? Now, if that's too vague, you can ask, "Am I adding resistance right now?" If that's not hitting it, you can say, "What is it I'm not accepting?" That's that's that's resistance.
A says, "Uh, faith feels like being non-reactive. It's not thinking about Jesus or feeling a good feeling. It's just blind faith in what is and he is going to take care of it." I needed this context for unfiltered reality. So yeah, the thing with Jesus is to me the way you're especially the way you're talking about it is it's an archetype. Jesus is an archetype.
He's the he's really the lover archetype really. It's compassion. It's like the bodhicat of compassion abalokara something like that. But he's got some qualities in his story that are just different, right? Redemption, resurrection. So he's also the that's an archetype of awakening for sure. So whatever works when you invoke these energies, these archetypal energies. Not everybody needs to do that either. It doesn't it's not a thing for everybody.
But I can resonate with all of them, but I don't feel fixated or Yeah, I resonate with all of them almost like they're aspects of me, but I don't feel like um I don't know. I don't feel any identity around any of it either. Strange. Yeah, it's more like they come forward at times when conditions compel it perhaps.
Yeah.
Ball Smasher gives me a bunch of laughing faces. Okay.
Ela and David, while driving recently, it became clear to me, David, that we are always in the non-duel. Yes. Until the mind deludes us into thinking we're not. It is our true nature only obscured when thought. Yeah. when thought. See what else you're gonna say there.
Well, where is the rest of that comment?
Well, I think yeah, basically I think I get it and I totally agree, but when I find the rest of the comment, I'll read it. Shayon says, "Is it possible to do the circling for deep shadow work that you talk about online or does it have to be in person?" I think it's way better in person. You can do it online, but it's it's just way more effective in person, I think. Um, also, if you do it online, like with Rick Meisner or whatever, um, you know, it's only going to be like one person each time. So, but just watching it is very helpful, too.
Yeah, I would say you want to do it in person if you can. If you have a sometimes when people ask these questions, I don't know if this is you at all, but sometimes when people ask these questions, I'm like, the thing you don't want to do though may be the right thing to do. And you know, if somebody's really resistant to working in a group, that's probably where your the the catharsis will be. But I I do find it's way more powerful in a group. I mean, I can even do it with one-on-one with person over Zoom for an hour straight, and it's not nearly as powerful as it being in the circling environment. So, all right.
Deva says, "Hi, Angelo. So grateful for all your videos and all you do today.
Seeing through all thoughts in a different new way, recognizing this in an experimental way, an experiential way, excuse me. I know this is also a thought, but it keeps feeling like I am left dangling in the air. No place to be. These are also thoughts. Yes, but energetically it still feels like I am dangling with no place to land anymore."
Yes. And I get all of this is based on a belief or thought of I maybe you have a pointer.
I would just ask you. I mean it's true.
So it's it's it's often something people do realize when when they're going through this process at some point. It's like oh I don't have a landing place anymore. There's no basis for for me.
There's no basis for proceeding. And it can feel really unsettling at first like ungrounded or something. But what you ultimately realize you don't need that.
you don't need it. You know, the foundation isn't a real foundation. It's a mental foundation. That's what that's what you're really looking for. And so when you when you stop sensing that you need it or you stop believing that you need it, then the whole thing goes away.
The whole problem goes away. However, as you said, it's also a thought to say, I can't find anywhere to land. So, yeah, that that's right. That's why it seems like a problem is there's there's a thought saying I I can't find somewhere to land. Well, that's al is also a thought. There's there's nowhere to land and there's nowhere that you don't already reside.
It's not it's not nowhere. It's not everywhere. It's not somewhere. It's not you know like any of these conclusions of mind are exactly that. They're conclusions. It's the mind trying to find a place to land and there's no place to land. So you there can be some time a period of time where you do feel that kind of freef fall and that's okay.
At some point it'll feel really enjoyable.
Like this for me is always freef fall and it feels good.
because it's so natural.
It's so natural. Yeah. It's also intimate. It's also right here. There's no falling. There's just this. So, it's very stable, but it's also total freef fall.
That's how that's the freedom of not having to fixate on a thought or a belief in any position.
777 says, "I upped my subscription for the existential wound series and it's amazing." Oh, good. really painful but amazing. Thank you. You're welcome. I put a lot of work into the courses. So, when she's talking about the patron circle level, I just like doing extra stuff for people. I don't take anything away from the even non-paid people. Um I still make videos every day for everybody and do all these lives for the sustaining members, but the patron circle does get all the courses I make and then all the retreat recordings. So, um, yeah, the existential wounds has been surprising to me how much it it's intuitively coming. It's like every relationship I've ever had with anybody.
I mean, every kind of relationship, parents, like friends, just everything.
I'm like, "Oh, yeah. That's why I had that. That's why I had to go through that. That's why I had to learn that.
That's why I saw that pattern that I had never seen before because I didn't grow up with that pattern." Like, every one of them is in it. It's fascinating. And so, it's just coming very spontaneously just like my book was. Yeah.
Yeah. But I can see it is painful because Yeah. Just another It's just another way to like not hide something from yourself. You have to see it and feel it. But boy, the other side of that pain is so much clarity and ease because you just finally accept it and then then you really do heal from it. Balls measure says, "Dude, I don't know what else to ask. I'm doing some sematic word unlocking more freedom. It's nice. Super slow though. Uh, oh, I don't I know what to ask. Approval seeking. Can you talk about it? Like, I need people to say it's okay to do this. I'm still lacking agency. Can't just do whatever. I want to play life as me. Also afraid of judgment.
Yeah, I mean, these are common human things, right? Um, especially when you're younger, but even Yeah, it still goes into adulthood and later adulthood and all that. um feeling like I need validation, feeling I need permission.
And a lot of times I think I think like adults think they grew out of that, but they didn't grow out of it. They just structured their life so they're not challenged in certain ways by those things. Um yeah, not everybody. I mean, you definitely can work through that stuff. You certainly can work through that stuff. Um I will also point out that that's definitely related to the dating challenges.
seeing that that part of why you want to connect with somebody. I know you want to connect for romance and sex and connection and sharing experiences. Like I know all that and there's also a seeking validation in there that can can be really helpful to see that that I'm actually also seeking validation because when you realize like oh this person can't give me the validation I need to feel happy and satisfied.
Validation comes and goes all the time.
All day long in every context, right?
You have it, you don't have it, you have it, you don't have it. I walk people I walk by people all day every day that are avoiding gaze. They don't look don't even look at you, right? Feels like rejection all the time sometimes to be around people. So validation and not having validation is just part of being alive.
But but when we don't see that, oh, I'm looking for validation in my seeking a partner or whatever, and then we get secretly upset with them or resentful because they're not making us feel okay, it's because we haven't realized, like, first of all, they can give us validation, but there's going to be times that they're not giving us the validation we want, but that's not what we have to really realize. What we really have to realize is that's not what's going to make me happy. That kind of validation is not going to be deeply satisfying for me. And that's good because then I would be chasing it from other people the rest of my life. and you don't want to do that. So seeing all these things clearly is helpful and seeing how the validation piece fits into romance and everything else. Just seeing it, you're doing great. Just keep looking at it and feeling it. Feeling what is associated with it. Right? If I were to say to you, all of your validation is going to be removed tomorrow.
All the validation that you get from people, they're just going to forget about you. How does it make you feel?
Feel it. Feel whatever's there. It's an emotion. The more you feel those emotions, I promise you, it doesn't seem related necessarily, but the more you feel those emotions, the less triggering all this will be, the less in your head you're going to get, the less awkward you'll be when you have in intense emotional experiences around someone you're attracted to. Like, all that stuff will calm down when your body realizes when you realize your body has the capacity to feel all these emotions.
And emotions can be t intense, and that's fine, especially in situations like you're talking about.
Oh, here's the rest of the comment from Elena David. Uh, narrates our experience and labels our perceptions as form.
That's thought. The non-duel is what we are not is is what we are not something we need to strive towards. Yes, exactly.
I had to smile. So simple when seen. So what what he's saying is very obvious when it's when you see it. When you see it, it's like, oh, you're not making non-duality appear.
It's never even been hidden. It's right here all the time. It's just like this brilliance, this like the perfect brilliant stillness, right? It's the brilliance of luminous experience all the time, felt deeply. It's always here.
and then seeing like, oh my god, the mind has a thousand little tricks to pull me into thinking and distracting and telling me it's not here and telling me and then telling me, well, let's let's find a way to get it. It's all distractions. It's just distractions.
Yeah, it's always here. That's the beauty of this. Okay. Unknown drunk says, for any two events such as your birth and me eating breakfast this morning, you can construct a reference frame that makes those events simultaneous. Exactly. You can also construct a frame in which they occur in a different order apparently. And apparently that's been proven some in some elegant tricky experiment they've done somehow.
Do psychiatric meds affect awakening.
Well, I will say this.
Some people go, "Do I need to quit my SSRI to wake up? Do I if I'm on mood stabilizers for bipolar disorder, do I need to stop those to wake up?"
Definitely the answer is no. You really don't. No. Do they affect I mean they affect everything, right? They affect your cognition and stuff of course and but awakening is just not about your brain. It's not about your brain.
It's not about your neurotransmitters.
It's waking up to what is not that really and seeing that those effects can still be around. You're going to still have thoughts. You can still have you're going to still have emotions. You're still you could still have hallucinations. Like those things can still happen. You could have cognitive decline. We're all going to have cognitive decline at some point. So, you're not waking up and totally freeing yourself from your neurohysiology or something like that.
You're realizing what it is that was never asleep.
And no medication is going to stop that from happening. That's really critical to understand that, I think, because otherwise it just puts you in so much doubt like, "Oh man, you know, I have to get off this med." No, you don't. That's just a distracting thought. Just like the one that says non-duality went away and I have to find a way to get it back.
Same thing. Just a distracting thought.
Yeah. Trust me, reality is way more powerful than any psychiatric medication. If it wants to wake you up, it will.
Bears Without Ears says, "It's astonishing the amount of [ __ ] radio mind can put up to the to distract you from feeling intense sensations." Yeah, exactly. Intense. Exactly. When the when the sensations are intense, that's that's when the ego really goes on, you know, really cranks it up.
Yeah. The last couple of days it's been all about you need to have an awakening before doing shadow work.
You got to read this and watch that and so on and so forth. Yeah, that narrative is slippery, isn't it?
Unknown drunk says, "So, are we living in a block universe? Past, present, and future are already done. They just don't exist."
Yeah, I don't think there's a block.
I don't think there's a basis. I don't think there's a Someone asked once, are do you think we're in the base reality?
And I said, there is no base reality.
energy, unfiltered reality, the unconditioned, I'll say the unconditioned, what you wake up to, the unconditioned, it's like a magician.
It doesn't have to follow any rules. It doesn't have to follow any structure. It doesn't have to follow physics at all.
It's it's kind of like the closest thing physics points to that that this that would be my experience of what I'm talking about now would be something like like gluon flux fields or quantum field theory which isn't a theory. It's the most wellproven scientific model we have. Quantum fields theory essentially says there is no matter there's only fields interacting with one another.
Right? very much like that or glue on flux which is just like form.
It's like form before form forces creating the illusion of mass when there is no actual mass because it's all just fields.
Something like that. And those are following some apparent rules, right?
that have to do with relationship which is forces these fundamental forces just a handful of them but I think my direct experience would say that the unconditioned that that which we really finally realize that's only one thing that does even reality itself in in any way we could possibly know it is just like one sort of iteration.
I like how Adishanti said it. He He's really good at saying things like this that are spoton. He said, "All of reality, as we could ever possibly know it could completely disappear. All of physicality, matter, form, all of it could completely disappear. The whole entire universe and your true nature wouldn't even notice."
That's pretty good. It's It's like something like that. Yeah.
Oh, man. Bears Without Ears. Oh, that's the second part of your question. Okay.
This is Monica Panda. My 17-year-old realized he h uh he had a belief that says, "I am not enough. How do you suggest we approach it? What existential wound relates to this belief?" Well, it depends. A lot of them overlap in that belief. Um could be deprecation wound.
Uh could be stoltification wound.
Yep.
Stalttification is um one form of stification at least I think is the kind of wound of a generation. I think a lot of alphas and gen z's have this um call it like helicopter parenting or whatever. It's just removing so many obstacles that that they really start to question their ability to face doubt and fear and and actually fail and be willing to fail and fall in their face and get hurt a little bit and stand up and keep moving and brush themsel off and try something new and without a parent helping them and stuff.
That that's I think the overarching parenting style is kind of creating some of that now.
Um, so yeah. Um, I would say depending on where his strengths and weaknesses are, I might say something like seeing that that belief can be there and you can still do what you want to do.
Yeah, that belief can be there. It's a thought and you can still face the next challenge and you can fail and that's okay and you can feel frustrated and I won't rescue you. But I will tell you that I know you you have the capacity to have the flexibility to adjust and move on. And you do strengthen yourself through failing. You know, failure is not a failure is not the end of something.
Failure is just a one learning point, right? It's a step along the way. So those kinds of things I I think depending on what's going on with him, of course, but ultimately just seeing it's a thought and and always just see what feeling is associated with it and just say you can feel that feeling, whatever is associated with it. You might call it something like shame or just unworthiness or could be even like a kind of sadness. It's like you you can feel that emotion and still do what you want to do. You can still, you know, develop yourself, develop your life. And the reason I say that is he's 17. and he's working on becoming an adult and autonomy and you know all of that following his dreams and so forth. Okay, this one's from Seth. You had a fascinating interview recently with a guy who uses psychedelics and it's a her she she identifies as a she um and said that she came down with Louis body dement oh if she came body down with Louis body dementia realization would be lost your thoughts yeah I don't agree with that because realization doesn't come and go it's not contingent upon anything physical the point I think to take away we may disagree on the way it was said the thing to take away from that though is that well okay my stance my stance is this and this is my direct experience realization is not just a recombination of neurotransmitters that's not what realization is it just isn't what you realize what you wake up to the uncondition it's not an experience it's just not and with deep specifically no selfonata realization it becomes crystal clear now that doesn't mean you can't have a brain injury. Like I could have a brain injury. I could have a stroke and not be able to speak. It doesn't make reality not reality though. Very very important distinction.
So yeah, when I interview people like I don't necessarily always agree with what they say, but I'm not I'm not there to debate them either. I kind of give them the platform to speak and whatever. So yeah, I really had her on more for the not so much about the deep stage pointing, but more for the psychedelic stuff. um because people ask about it a lot and I probably won't have any more psychedelic people on but I thought that would be a good one just mostly because her and Zuben's interview was so good and I think the way she offers psychedelic support and so forth is very reasonable.
So, okay, Grateful Acres, I've never been anywhere after Moo. Oh, I like that. That says I came in late.
Yeah. Where you going to go? Where are you gonna go after Moo?
Wherever you go, right? Moo is a [ __ ] God, it's it's magical.
Talk about an archetype.
It's not an archetype. It's a catalyst.
It's amazing. It's an amazing thing.
It's an amazing [ __ ] T. Cupweather says, "Can someone come into this more through direct feeling, relationship, or the body rather than through thought inquiry?" Oh, for sure.
If so, what helps that path stay grounded?
Grounding exercises are really important. If you move in a very powerfully energetic way, especially if you are prone to massive expansion and dissociation or anything like that, then grounding exercises are very important. But yeah, typical grounding exercises is what I would recommend. Uh the only thing I will say is and I said this a bunch of different times is the reason I recommend awakening first is some people do have more access to their sematic experience.
But there's nothing like the access you have with non-dual realization. So it's possible you can just have a grounding in your body in the sensations that reasonably easily. Maybe you do a lot of yoga or chiang or you're a dancer or just a very, I don't know, kinesesthetic human, but that doesn't equate to awakening.
And you may actually be missing a far deeper experience of the direct energetics of the body without that awakening. So just be aware of that. I don't want to add doubt to you either. I mean, follow your own path. If you go really clearly and directly into experience, fully into experience, and you're willing to let go of ideas and thoughts and identities and so forth, then it doesn't matter which direction you go, you're going to wake up. So that's okay. You don't necessarily have to use a certain type of inquiry like we talk about or thought inquiry or whatever. But just be aware that I do see people who have access to the physical sensations more than others. They're not so in their head, but they kind of just stay there. And again, non-dual realization is a whole other it's orders of magnitude and clarity and intimacy through the physicality.
But without the without that shift in identity at the thought level, there will be a background level of thought that's just constantly operating. So you are feeling, but you're bouncing in and out of thought or you're you're really feeling it as a subject rather than realizing what appears when the subject object construct drops away, which is rather remarkable.
Great question.
Uh, Truthful says, "Hi, Angelo. Thanks for Alma. I'm doing sensing the body and feeling TR curiosity. See you soon."
Awesome. Alma is a a magical being. She's so good. I'm glad she's doing the lives with us. This is from Jarm Jarmo. Is there a test to see if you have had anata realization?
My experience seems so empty and impersonal, but the ATR blog says that you kind of need the luminosity aspect for it to be real anata.
Um, it's very hard for me to tell like well I can't tell through what you write.
That's the I I really like ATR and there's things I like about them, but writing is not a good way to gauge because people can write anything. They can say anything. So, I have to actually interact with somebody and then it's usually pretty obvious. Uh, especially in person, if I'm around somebody for a while, it's very obvious, but like if I'm interacting with somebody one-on-one, face to face, even over Zoom, I can usually pick it up. But I would have probably have to ask them questions and so forth. What you might want to do is go through the Feders with somebody, find somebody who can guide you through Feders. You can find people who do that reasonably cheap. Doesn't cost that much. Um, and they're very thorough. the way Kevin does it, the way Kevin Chanel does it. And yeah, see see if you have anything in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh fer without that luminous aspect too though, you may be somewhat dissociating because you can dissociate and feels like, oh, there's nothing here. It's all empty.
Blah blah blah. But my litmus test for that is a little bit more like, does it feel deeply satisfying?
Does it feel deeply settled?
If there's anything that doesn't feel settled satisfying or if you're getting triggered or you know you're having you're fixating in some way or another, are you you know are you living your best life? And if you're not, why?
Right? So that's kind of what I look at.
If if if it's if it's if there's discordance or a sense of any sense of dysphoria left or unsettledness or lack of clarity around anything, then then you may have had the insight, but it's not a balanced insight. There may be shadow material to to work on or something. So, those are my thoughts there.
This one's from El L El Pirate Christopher El Pirate. Uh, what are your thoughts on consciousness being on a sliding scale? sliding scale similar to Jung's integration as you integrate more of the larger consciousness into the personal perspective. I mean there is a kind of sliding scale in my experience.
So but it's kind of bifphasic.
There's probably No, you could you could break it down at all kinds of stages if you really like maps and stuff. Like I could probably break down pre-awwakening into a few stages like Yeah, I could probably make a course series on this if I wanted to break it down. And then after after the shift after awakening maybe one or two or three kinds of stages of clarity probably as far as consciousness itself and I'm not talking about ona I'm not talking about subject object construct so much although all perceptual fil filters exist within consciousness you could also break it down like the feeders so it really depends on how you want to talk about it okay how do you speak Angelo Don't know the creation of ideas and the transferring them. They seem so seamless and effortless. That's how it feels. It feels effortless. When you receive a question, do you simmer in the heart?
No, because it feels like it. I don't I don't think I simmer anywhere. So, if I pause, I don't even know where I'm looking.
I'm more just pausing and then then the words come. I just feel it.
It's like uh I don't know if you're standing on the edge of a pool and you sometimes you might just jump in the pool. Other times you might just kind of look at it for a minute and put your toe in. You don't know why you do it. You just do it. So I don't really know.
Sometimes I will drop into the heart if I'm talking to somebody who's like in this really deep trauma work or something like I might do that. Um sometimes I if somebody's talking about Yeah. So if somebody's talking about their process, especially if they're describing their physical sensations right now in real time, I definitely feel it in my body. Like my body mirrors it pretty quickly. So there's that, but I really don't know where the words come from. They just come.
Um, Phil Much better says, "Yes, yes. How much did I miss?" What's up, Phil?
finally made alive in ages. Oh, well, I'm glad you're here. I haven't seen your name in a while. This is from ITME.
Hey, Angelo. Experience now is gentle movement. Movement into consciousness is here, but the return to body sense is prominent. Just attention moving, acceptance, feeling. That sounds great.
That sounds really good. Yeah.
So, from uh semihoneyed, been watching your videos for years. I still can't think of anything to ask. It is just nice to watch. There is wanting to say something though. Maybe it's just looking for validation.
Like, look, I am special. There is nothing to ask. Am I a narcissist?
Well, based on this, I can't say you're a narcissist. I doubt it. Um, yeah, you can also just say hi. You can just say, "Hey, I want to say hi, Angelo."
You don't have to have something to ask.
For sure.
Yeah. Good to hear from you. Yeah, Nikki.
Very natural to want to be seen in community. I feel the same way. Doesn't mean we're narcissists. We're just human. Yeah.
Yeah. And also, like I said, you can just say, "Hi." So, it can be like you can be sitting there going in in community, right? You can be like, "Oh, what I want to say something." And then your mind's like, your ego is like, oh, you're just looking for validation.
Or you can just be like, I feel like saying something because I just want to say hi to the group.
Like, I just want to welcome people, right? Maybe it's maybe instead of an inflow, it's an outflow. Maybe it's an outflow of love and you want to just support everybody here, right? Your mind might not know the difference. Your mind might like make it into one or the other when it's really just it's just a connection. You're just feeling connection. You could just say, "I'm feeling connection." There's a lot of possibilities. You don't have to ask a question.
Okay. This is from Vicki. Do monastics get awakened more than people in other people in the world?
Okay. Well, since it's almost structured like a Where the heck? Sorry, I just lost lost some stuff here.
There. I scrolled down on accident.
Coming. Coming. I'm coming back here somewhere.
Okay. Do monastics get awakened more often than people in the world? So, I have no way of knowing that.
But I will say a surprising number of monastics don't wake up. And I know this from monastics who have woken up.
But, you know, like any community, a monastic community is a mixed community.
Not everybody goes to monastic communities, especially these days, because they're like, I'm going to do everything I can to possibly do to wake up in this lifetime, so I'm going to go.
That that's one reason people may go, but it's probably not the most definitely not the most common.
Um, people may go because they want to live a life of service. People may go because other aspects of their life just haven't worked out. Um, it can be a bit of an escape sometimes, some aspects of it, even though it can be a very difficult way to live. uh there can be a lot of reasons people go into monastic life. So as I mentioned earlier to me what really triggers awakening is intention. So that's that's the key to the whole thing. Uh but I it's hard to compare. I don't know. Yeah.
Is it possible that awakening can feel very calm? Awakening kills feels very very very calm. For me awakening felt like the calmst thing I'd ever experienced by far. Hands down. For sure.
Passenger 01. Hi Angelo. It feels like the fear of death is gone, but it feels like the fear of suffering is still here. Does it make sense? Sure. It seems cognitive paradoxical as fear of suffering comes from fear of death.
It's not the only thing that fear suffering comes from. It's not just fear. It's it's avoidance. Suffering is not fear. It's avoidance really. So it's avoidance of the thought of death. It's not avoidance of death. You can't. It's the avoidance of the thought of death.
But that's just one. We can also avoid discomfort. We can avoid embarrassment.
We can avoid we can try to avoid thoughts. We can try to avoid emotions.
So it's all that avoidance, resistance patterns. That's really what suffering is.
And then constantly trying to do something about it. All that is suffering.
This is um DK Dudeman. Hey Angelo, grief is so fresh here. Tragedy has struck.
Thank you for being here and speaking to us. I can feel the discomfort of the coping mechanisms from others, but with grief is so much love. Yeah, it really is.
Sorry about your loss. I know how it goes. Um, and yeah, those moments, we're all going to have them. We're all going to have loss. We're all going to have grief.
And often it comes out of nowhere. And there are going to be those moments where it just feels heartbreaking, right? A lot of sadness, a lot of grief.
And as you really go down into that grief, you realize it's love.
This is why it is said that the gateway emotion for the magician archetype is or I'm sorry for the lover archetype is grief or sadness.
There's medicine and shadow to sadness.
If you're feeling it, that's medicine.
That's your medicine. It's helping you transition.
It's helping you accept. It's helping you love.
Mhm.
Darman says, "But is it even seeing the tree?" Lol. It's just some kind of empty display at the moment. Yeah, there you go.
In the scene, there is only the scene.
In what is seen, there is only what is seen. So, there's no seeing of it.
There's no process of seeing. There's no seer. There's no object of seeing.
But you can't say it's there's nothing.
You can say there's no thing for sure, but you can't say there's no experience.
Like a hologram of storm of sorts. It says, "Yes, that's right. Bears without ears. I feel you." You know, death is something perceived as unavoidable and out of control. So there can be no illusion of control there. It's not the same with physical or emotional pain.
Just my two cents.
Kissing me says, "What you were saying about liking not liking experience, that's what I meant with the visceral tightening feeling and called it control of outcomes. I don't actually get verbal thoughts about it."
Yeah. Again, it's Yeah, I know what you mean. It's the But the labels are one thing and the sensation is something different. As those labels drop again and again and again and they drop in layers and some of them are very tenacious, you will find that the sensation will feel very different and it will still be the same sensation.
Yes, Jarma. Jarmmo, you're not imagining it.
Let me see. I'm getting close to my end of time. I'm see if there's anyone I haven't answered yet.
Ball Smasher says, "Yeah, I'm not looking for a girlfriend because I feel bad or I'm desperate. It's just I have a desire, but that advice is actually solid and that's what I've been doing."
Good, good, good. Pamela, I met my husband playing with a co-ed pickup soccer group, and I liked that he was very open, honest, and kind. Always met guys doing things I enjoyed anyway.
Yeah, it's kind of how I meet have Well, in the past I've met people, it's always been Yeah, it's always been doing things I enjoy or like that I am. Yeah, like true. I've never really met a long-term partner of any kind at a bar or anything like that.
It's nice to meet people who already have interests you have and usually if they have similar interest, they have similar values in some way. Usually Master says, "Had my heart broken a month ago, so I guess I'm doing it right." It happens for sure.
Uh, regained it and I'm back. Good for you.
DMO says, "How to cultivate the luminosity aspect of anata? Everywhere I look, it just seems empty. It's very interesting. Can spend hours in it, but maybe I'm missing something based on some writings." I would just say, "What do you feel? What are your sensations like?
What is the what is the visual field like? Does this look empty to you? Does that look empty? Does it look Does it look like it's not there?
Pinch yourself. Pinch yourself hard.
Does that feel empty?
Yeah.
The luminous aspect. Find your nurturing side. Find your feminine energy, feminine aspect. Work with a female non-dual facilitator. Um, do relational work. Learn to dance. Do some partner dancing. Cuddle more. Cuddle your pets, grow some plants. I don't know. These are just things that are coming to me.
Um, take risks, emotional risks.
Ball Smasher says, "And I was expressing all hurt, anger, vulnerability. Maybe she couldn't handle that." Could be. And well, that's a test, right? If somebody can't handle it, then maybe that's they're not fully emotionally available themselves. However, it's really helpful when you're feeling emotion to always own it yourself and just say, "This is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling this." You know, it's not about you. It's not your fault and it's not your responsibility.
I feel sadness. I feel you can say like, "Oh, when you said this, I felt this experience." But I'm not saying I'm not blaming it on you and it's not your responsibility. I'm just telling you my experience. So owning your own experience, if you're if you're if you're that simple about it and just say, "This is what I'm feeling. It doesn't have to do with you. I'm not putting on you." Um people will usually be right there with you usually, unless they're really uncomfortable with emotion themselves. So it is important to know the difference between emoting, communicating emotions, and like taking it out on people or me being passive aggressive. Like not saying you're doing that, but I just want to be clear that there's a distinction.
Brandon Brandon Barnor. Hey Angelo, have you seen Ninth Feder calm down energetically after some years? Oh, for sure. But concurrent with this, it seems like the actual egoic resistance is getting ramped up in thought. No.
No, I would say not. I would say if that's happening, there's definitely some shadow material brewing somewhere.
Yeah.
Yeah. I would go back and see make sure six better, seventh, eighth. Well, start with four and five actually.
Uh, passenger 001 says, "I struggle with a debilitating health issue. When not in a flare up, freedom shines in experience. When in a flare up, which could last days to months, it is obscured from suffering. Any tips?"
Thank you. Depends on the nature of the suffering. If it's if it look into what's really distressing and I assume there's pain involved. If there's pain, really look closely at any thoughts associated with the pain, including like this pain is stopping me from doing this or the fear thoughts of like how long will this last or the thoughts that say yeah, mostly those like there can be resentful thoughts associated with pain.
There can be time based thoughts associated with pain. I would just look for those subtle thoughts realizing that sure they're justified in one sense, but they're also making you miserable more than more than the pain is even. That's what I would really look at. the pain or the the disability, the l loss of function, whatever, whichever one is the most distressing. So feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel feel go right into that direct experience. Try to bring in some gratitude that it's forcing you to go directly into your sensations into your even pain. Watch the interview I had with Chelsea. It's beautiful. And she talks about chronic illness significant chronic illness with significant um dis disability associated with it.
DK Dudman says, "When I started, I was serious about breath practice, but it was actually thought to practice." Yeah, that's why I I was terrible at breath practice because I didn't understand.
I I didn't realize how much I thought I was feeling when I was actually thinking. But just recognizing when a thought was included in my attention instead of the breath, then bringing it back. That's really good. But at that point, maybe the per peripheral thoughts were still going wild. Yeah. Eileen says, "I experience awareness around uh thought ID, sematic feeling, sensations, beliefs, reactivity.
I experience awareness around. Okay.
Feeling in need of direction. I'd like to speak with someone. Maybe you. Any suggestions? Contact info. Um the best suggestion, well, if you want to talk with me, the ways I talk one-on-one with people would be this way. Um on the double barrel non-duality, we can talk face to face through Zoom. You can talk to Alma face to face when she does her lives through Zoom.
um any of my retreats, talk to me on stage or if we're at the conference, you can talk to me in person when we're not busy. Obviously, when I'm at silent retreats, we can't do that, but the conference retreat in in in May. Um not only myself, but a lot of the facilitators are all around and accessible if you want to go to those online retreats. So, those are the ways you can talk to me. Um if you want to work one-on-one with a non-dual facilitator, you can send me an email and I will connect you with somebody.
It's Angelo simply always awake.com if you want to work on going with a one-on-one non-dual facilitator.
Okay. And this is Jarmo says which in which in which bodhicatta boommy are you on? Don't even know what you're talking about.
Okay. This is from Christopher.
I do know what boomies are to some degree, but I don't I don't think in those terms at all. Okay.
Um, with the coan moo, I've heard you say you can put all your mental energy into it. Do you mean conceptless focus?
Yes. What do you think of directing specific thoughts into it? The thoughts are distractions from it. You can't direct a thought. Thoughts come and go.
When you notice a thought, moo.
When you get distracted by a thought, including a thought that says, "How can I direct this thought into moo?" Just moo. Just go back to moo. Just moo. Just moo. None of this other stuff. Just moo.
That's it. It's how it works.
Yeah. I wouldn't use moo as a mantra either. Just moo. Don't think about your respiratory cycle. Breathing in, breathing out. Don't worry about any of that. Just moo. Until it's so consolidated, there is nothing but moo.
That's the key. It's a onepointed approach.
Yeah. And even letting a thought pass by, even that is a thought. There's no one letting thoughts pass. There's just Moo. Only Moo. Moo sits. Moo stands. Moo goes to the bathroom. And take it off the mat. Moo is the kind of thing it has to be continuous.
Orca says, "I'm so glad you spoke about consciousness, awareness of general anesthesia. I'm having a 4-hour surgery next week and I'm terrified of being awake during surgery." You won't be.
Almost certainly won't. Yeah.
Yeah.
Is doing good and helpful work as strong of a spiritual practice as meditation?
Sure. Maybe karma yoga.
Yeah. Maybe.
I don't know.
Because I think what happens is we inter sometimes we interpret that as see I'm more about I think I'm getting toward toward the end by the way. Yeah. I'm running out of time here. Um I'm I'm more about authenticity. So for instance in Zen a lot of times you'll chant or probably in a lot of Mahayana stuff you'll chant something or recite like the bodhic sattva vows. I vow you know um dharmagates are endless. I vow to wake to them. Ignorance greed ignorance and hatred rise endlessly. I vow to abandon them. All this it's like I'm vowing to be a bodhic sattva. Now, if you've never even had an awakening, it's just not it's just disingenuous. You don't care about that.
You don't care to be a bodhis safeta.
Trust me, it's you want to wake up. You want to feel better. Like, be really honest with yourself. That's where I really I like honesty. I like to start with honesty. I'm not saying that there's nothing valuable about bodhic sattva orientation and and the archetypes themselves and the energies.
They're they're powerful. But I really like starting where you are. I really like to be really really honest with yourself and be okay with being a regular human who wants to have a girlfriend like Ball Smasher and who feels frustrated and angry and not I'm this isn't Ball Smash. This is just people, right? Frustrated and angry and resentful that your child is not turning out the way you want them to be and what all the things that come into being human. We should be honest with ourselves to start. That's got to be the starting place. That's what I really think. Um yeah. So from that standpoint, what happens I think sometimes is is if we if we have a total natural inclination such that there's nothing else we're going to do other than service and that's just who we are then you wouldn't even have to ask the question you just do it. But if you're like should I go into service to wake up? No, you should wake up to wake up.
You should wake up to wake up. You don't need to meditate. You don't need you wake up. Focus on that. Give that everything. Does that make sense? So short of that, just do what feels the most natural to you and that's fine. But but sometimes we get this idea like if I'm a really good person, the universe will reward me with awakening. But it's not how it works.
Um sometimes people think if I if I live a very austere life somehow or beat myself up, I'll wake up or I'll get the grace of God or something. That's also not true, right? Buddha realized this. Um, so yeah, a realization is not a is not an ultramarathon. It's not like you have to beat yourself to death or grind your ego down in some insane way, uh, live extreme situations or whatever.
And you also don't have to bargain with the universe for it either. So just be aware of that. Again, if you're inclined to do service work, that's awesome. I mean, I have tremendous respect for that. Do it. But don't conflate that with awakening necessarily. Awakening is undeserved.
You don't need to deserve it.
You need to be willing to surrender to it.
You don't have to be a good person.
That's another thing that surprises people. You don't necessarily have to be a good person.
um it will start to it will start to clarify and I don't want to say the word perfect but improve your character with time for sure after awakening and especially after deep realization it will but you can still have some really bad habits after awakening like it it just happens.
Um, so yeah, you don't have to be a good person. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to impress the universe. You don't have to work hard. You have to be willing to surrender to awakening.
That's what you have to do. Be willing to let go of your ideas of who you think you are and which sometimes include awakening ideas of that. You have to let go of that. That's what really, really does it. Okay, good question, Autumn. thought and intuition. The difference intuition is something that gets clearer and clearer and clearer as awakening deepens more and more in my experience.
Intuition also coincides really with the realization of non-doership that there's no doer anyway. The intuition is like the intuition of the entire environment.
That's that's intuition. My intuition is the leaves falling off the trees. It's the feeling of spring. It's the movement of the wind. It's the sensations in the body. It's all of that. That is my intuition. It's not a thought. It's directly accessible through the sense fields.
All right. Okay, y'all. Sorry I didn't get to everybody, but I got to most. Um, thank you so much. I really appreciate uh all of your support. I appreciate your uh engagement with the videos, comments, questions. I mostly appreciate your work, the willingness to do the work, to be a little less mind identified, to be a little less trigger happy, to be a little more present, to be a little more understanding and compassionate with yourself primarily, uh, and to be truth oriented and to be tenacious about your truth orientation, knowing that trusting that truth will be revealed, it can be revealed, that you can live without suffering. So, that's where I'm at. Um, much love to you all.
I do appreciate you all. Sorry I didn't get to everyone's question, but uh I will see you soon and take care everybody.
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