It seems the time has come

[serafena]

What brings you to Liberation Unleashed?:
I hadn't heard of LU before this evening. A series of unexpected promptings serendipitously led me to a YouTube video...and then another...and then another...until I finally looked this site up. I had an experience in recent years that caused me to start questioning everything I'd assumed and believed, and I'm finally feeling courageous enough to really LOOK at this...whatever it is. Life? self? I honestly can't tell anymore.

What do you expect of the conversation on this forum?:
I don't really have expectations. I'm hopeful that having a guide to assist me in the process of unraveling will help me overcome the reflexive "self-preservation" response that ends up stifling my inquiry.

What is your background in terms of seeking and inquiry?:
In my adult life I studied all manner of healing modalities; physical, energetic and spiritual/psychological. In recent years I've read Jed McKenna, Adyashanti, Bernadette Roberts and many more authors, so I'm familiar with the language of this process, and I have a drive to really know what's true. I've come to see, without a doubt, that the personality I've been assuming to be "mine" is a complete fraud, and I'm over it.

[Ilona]

Hi Serafena,
Welcome to LU forum.
We can have a conversation. Al I can do is give you some questions to work with, this is your process and you will have to answer your questions for yourself, by yourself. Please stay away from any more reading and watching videos on the subject while we are talking. Write to me every day, till we are finished. Complete honesty and writing from your own experience is required.

To start, tell me what does the word I refer to? What is this I and what does it do? Where is it?


Kind regards.

[serafena]

Hello, Ilona, and thank you for both your welcome and your message.

I sense a shift is very close, and I'm excited and grateful for this facilitation. Questions and accountability is exactly what I require.

Despite my conditioning to the contrary, "I" is just a persistent thought -- and a slippery one! It seems to be nothing more than a reference for separation and division of that which is observed in the world. For any comparison to take place or sense of placement/identification to happen one needs a point of reference, and "I" seems to be just that: a habitual, imaginary point of reference against which all that's observed is compared. "I" am here, the chair is under me, the tablet is on my lap. It seems to be the single point of paint dropped on an endless canvas so that I can get my bearings in what would otherwise be a beautifully overwhelming series of sensations.

And though I use it to identify what my body is doing sometimes, or what my thoughts seem to be doing, it's really nothing more than a convenient idea to help give a sense of stability or, again, placement.

Where is it? I laugh that I've never considered that question! I love it! And, of course, where could it be? Right now, as I ponder this, it seems to me that I've been obsessively gathering this thought around me, trying desperately to make it real out of repetition and habit! It's as though I've been attempting to gather a cloud around me, and trying to make it stick to something, in order that I might appear to be a cloud. It's a habitual thought, and I can't find the location of any thought at all.

May I ask a question? Why, do you think, are we so determined to be a separate thing? Because "I" seems like a stubborn insistence upon being SOMETHING, and something SEPARATE.

Wow...

[Ilona]

beautiful, thank you for answer.

May I ask a question? Why, do you think, are we so determined to be a separate thing? Because "I" seems like a stubborn insistence upon being SOMETHING, and something SEPARATE.

how would you answer that? what is that needs to identify? is there a false and real identity?

"I" is just a persistent thought -- and a slippery one!

can you explain more, how is it slippery? what can it do?

it looks that you are on the right track. can you say what it is exactly that you are looking for?

sending love

[serafena]

Thank you for replying so quickly.

To answer my own question I would have to theorize, which does not seem useful, because I've just understood that "why" doesn't matter. It's not immediate or direct. And that seems to answer the question of what it is that needs to identify as well. Thank you.

is there a false and real identity?

Not that I can tell! Awesome! Any kind of identity would have to be inherently false, wouldn't it? There is the immediate experience of looking at something, and then there are all of the labels that are added, which make up the identity of the object to whomever is looking at it. I see an object, I am trained to call it a cup, to call it ceramic, smooth, blue...but the object has no identity. Those words I say to identify it are its identity, but they go beyond the actual reality of the object. Man, this is fun!

how is it slippery? what can it do?

Slippery because I'm so conditioned to accept it as "the way life is" that I haven't had any practice looking at it! It seems hard to focus on. Getting used to looking at something I've taken for granted for as long as I can remember feels unfamiliar and disorienting.

What can it do? The thought of "I", or the feeling of it being slippery? If you're asking the former, it can do nothing in and of itself. It can be used to attempt to make a statement of solidity or ownership, but just now that seems like so much striving and wasted effort! Oh, how much work has it been to just try to be "something"? And if you were asking about the latter, then I suppose I answered it above -- create a sense, an illusion of instability that might lead one to avoid looking at it. But I'm looking!

can you say what it is exactly that you are looking for?

I wish to see myself with utter clarity, no more delusion or scrambling to appear as if I'm any thing in particular, and to experience that seeing beyond the strictly intellectual level. It dawned on me that I've been adding things on to...what? Something that I've assumed was there, that I've assumed had some kind of inherent meaning, but that the reality, whatever "is" beneath those assumptions, is so compelling as to overshadow the lifelong desire to prove anything about myself. I am more interested in REALLY EXPERIENCING the truth of what I am than in asserting anything about it. I would like help de-programming myself.

So I am here asking you to help me ask myself the questions that will allow me to give up my "assumption addiction" and just SEE.

Receiving and returning love

[Ilona]

Well spotted that question why creates theories and stories, not the truth.

Let's get right to the core now. Write to me what shows up for you, thoughts, sensations, feeling, when you let this thought in:

There is no I, no separate entity, no self, none as in zero. No manager, no controller, no thinker, feeler, witness, no person, no puppet master directing person. All there is is life flowing freely as one movement, with no separate parts.

Write immediately, capture the first reactions.

Sending love.

[serafena]

There is no I, no separate entity, no self, none as in zero. No manager, no controller, no thinker, feeler, witness, no person, no puppet master directing person. All there is is life flowing freely as one movement, with no separate parts.

I feel immense relief, a huge burden is lifted with this thought. "Ah, the pressure is off if this is true!" Then a feeling of sadness that I seem to grasp and appreciate the idea intellectually, but it's not felt deeply. After that comes a somewhat hopeless feeling, because thinking it does not make it my real experience. "What if this can't be completed?"

Now relief again, because I have not enjoyed the story of "me attempting to show up as something". It has always felt fraudulent. It's so much work to do that.

Now a very slight sense of panic (no...that's just what I'm labeling the body sensation of quickening in my belly, increased heart rate) at the idea of...what? I will try to put words around the flashes of ideas that are happening.

I have never been very good at this life thing as I've perceived it was "supposed to be done". Money, routines, schedules (those last two have seemed important because I have children in the home) can be difficult for me. So the panicked feelings in my body seem to rise up out of an idea like, "Will I undermine the little bit of security my kids have if I let go of managing everything?"

When I look clearly at that it seems selfish. I'm second guessing the word, "selfish", but you asked me for my immediate response, and so I will leave it.

And now we're back to an almost tearful sense of relief, even when considering the children. "How lovely it would be to show up 100% truthfully for them each day."

Thank you.

[Ilona]

thank you very much for describing it so fully.
is there a fear at all showing up?
is there anything at threat, anything that needs to be protected?
let me know if you find anything.
what could be lost?

much love

[serafena]

Fear. Ilona, mostly I feel fear that I can't do it, or that I'm crazy for going this direction! And THAT leaves me sobbing right now!

Looking deeper...

Fear of causing pain to my children -- what if they no longer feel safe or loved?

AHA! Selfish WAS the right word earlier. There's this story about how mothers should be that I heard and believed -- my needs and my life are secondary to keeping them safe and loved and helping them in the world. It's the fear that I'm being SO SELFISH in doing this. A part of me keeps saying, "Don't rock the boat! Do this selfish thing when they're out of the house," and then there's guilt because that might be true, but I don't care!

So the thing that seems to want protecting is the idea of "good mother" and "doing it right". How can I be doing this parenting thing right when I'm so ready to dissolve into the nothing that I've started suspecting I really am? That's what I see. Big thoughts of guilt.

It's funny, because I've looked at people who chose to live the life we're told to try for -- success, approval, striving -- and I've thought they might just be too afraid to see what else there can be. It wasn't them. It's me. Because there's the secret part of me that fears I'm delusional, and that all of the other billions of people on the planet, and those who have come before, must have been right by thinking that life was about creating a story. And if they're right, then I might just be driving myself crazy for no reason, but I've already gone too far to be able to reassimilate and live like the rest.

Thank you. Now I feel lighter for having found that.

And thank you for sending love. So glad to have someone to say these things to. Sending love in return

[Ilona]

i know it's intense.. sending more love your way.

How can I be doing this parenting thing right when I'm so ready to dissolve into the nothing that I've started suspecting I really am?

there is a misconception there. you are not nothing. there is no you to be anything or nothing. it's not that you are dissolving, there was no you in the first place.
it's all very simple.

it's like when kids find out that santa is not real, santa does not dissolve, does not disappear nor vanish, it was never real to start with. nothing changes, the man in the costume still brings gift, the show goes on... all that happens, is that kid no longer believes in a fantasy.

so here is this idea, that i is an entity, with free will and is the thinker of thoughts. but it's a fantasy, there is no i- the doer. it's a concept. some word that we use for communication purposes..

and so everything stays as it always was, the love and care for children is not going to diminish. life goes on as it did. feelings of motherly love do not happen because of a self.

focus now on the sense of being, of aliveness. this does not go anywhere. have a look, is there a Being, or plain being (verb) is there i that does being, or it's here with and without thought of "me"?

[serafena]

Those words! Those were the ones that were useful to hear! Thank you.

is there a Being, or plain being (verb) is there i that does being, or it's here with and without thought of "me"?

Being as a verb, not "a being". Again, what a funny thing we do with our language. There is not "a typing" that's inhabiting me right now, nor "a tea drinking". And I"m not possessed by "a breathing"! "Doing being" doesn't even make sense as a sentence -- so it's hilarious that we can imagine it as reality, isn't it? Being is just happening, and no matter how hard I attempt to claim responsibility, "I" am not doing that being.

Totally hugging you from here =)

[Ilona]

Wonderful!
Hugs back

Let this settle for today, we shall talk tomorrow.

:)

[serafena]

Yes, thank you. I appreciate this dialogue so much, and your assistance.

Have a lovely day

[Ilona]

How is it going today? What are you noticing?

[serafena]

Good morning!

I notice that the anxiety and anger and frustration I've been feeling for the last few months is melting away. I feel more at ease. And I've been organically getting things done that have seemed overwhelming. More smiles, fewer grimaces. And I slept in, which may or may not be related HA!