Seeking for the guide

[Hannele]

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
There is the ego "small self" that is not real. Only The Self (God, light) is real and true, but the ego tries to hide it. Ego is only a storyline, that keeps us in the prison of past experiences.

What are you looking for at LU?
I seek freedom!! Ive been depressed and anxious for so many years. Its more eksiatential than medical. I have practised spirituality, but I have still many fears. I know that the reason for it is my negative storyteller, the ego that keeps me trapped. I want out now and live fully!

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
Brake out from my minds prison I have made. I want to find my true self and peace. I want to face all my fears and finally look at them in a safe space. I want to be open and honest in front of an another person.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
Seeking for 20 years. Transendental Meditation, A Course in Miracles, kundalini yoga, reiki, shamanism.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 11

[Matthew]

Hi Hannele!

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?

There is the ego "small self" that is not real. Only The Self (God, light) is real and true, but the ego tries to hide it.

This intellectual understanding is not quite accurate.
In this process, we only look at the assumed "self" and its imaginary nature.
We look, if there is a "me" to be found in the center of experience. We look, whether there is an "I" making things happen or not. We look, if an "ego" even exists or not.
We do not consider concepts like "The Self" or "God" as things, which can be found by way of this inquiry.
What remains here, when the belief in being a person is absent, well this also needs no name.
But our focus is only on the assumed separate self, whether it truly exists or not.

Can you drop your ideas about "The Self", "God" and the like while doing this inquiry?
Can you be widely open and simply follow the pointers to no self?


With kindest regards
Matthew

[Hannele]

Hi Matthew,

Thank you for answering me :)

Can you drop your ideas about "The Self", "God" and the like while doing this inquiry?
Can you be widely open and simply follow the pointers to no self?

Yes I can. I come as open as I can to this process!

Is it okay if I just bold your questions?

<3 Hannele

[Matthew]

Is it okay if I just bold your questions?

That's fine!


What we'll do now may seem like an effort at first.
We will leave the realm of ideas and look only at direct experience. What is here now.
It may seem like an effort, since annoying beliefs have to be ignored at first. But what it really is, is relaxation.


So when you STOP and LOOK only at what is HERE NOW:

I seek freedom!!

What exactly HERE NOW is not free?
Can it be seen?
Can it be heard?
Can it be sensed in the body?
Is it a thought?

What seeks freedom.
What needs freedom.
What is not free?

[Hannele]

What exactly HERE NOW is not free?
Can it be seen?
Can it be heard?
Can it be sensed in the body?
Is it a thought?

What seeks freedom.
What needs freedom.
What is not free?

My mind is not free. I feel like I have thoughts that I have to think even if I don't want to. Thoughts and also emotions I feel keeps me stuck, like invisible prison. So I'm not free because I feel and think like that.

It can't be seen, yes it's a thought. But I feel that "there is no freedom" in my body, so I think I'm not free (I = my body) I can't hear it what seeks freedom, only feeling feelings like stucked and limited.

I can't find that what seeks freedom. That's only a thought. Only that thought thinks something needs to be free. And it feels in this body as restless energy. And it makes a thought that I (person, Hannele) think I need freedom from this restlesness.

I think here is an idea that this body wants to be free without this emotion.

[Matthew]

So yes.
There is a general sense of unfreedom.
And a general longing for freedom.

When we look for that, what is not free and needs freedom in the here and now, it becomes vague.
And when we look closer, it becomes empty.


This here can be over very quickly!

I can't find that what seeks freedom

What does that truly mean!?
Maybe...
Nothing seeks freedom?
Nothing needs freedom?

Maybe...
Nothing and no one is unfree
And
Nothing and no one was ever unfree?

[Hannele]

I feel excited now! I don't know am I on the right track but..

"I can't find that what seeks freedom"
What does that truly mean!?
Maybe...
Nothing seeks freedom?
Nothing needs freedom?

Maybe...
Nothing and no one is unfree
And
Nothing and no one was ever unfree?

I scanned my body and looked what's happening "in me". I looked at that emotion, restlessness, feeling anxious, feeling fear.. I feel it in my chest. I found that emotions comes only when I think different thoughts. Mostly scenarios what might happen in the future. And I was looking my thoughts "coming in" like they were in form of people who were talking those thought out loud in a room where I was. They didn't see me and I asked who is looking. I didn't found a person. Only what I did find was awareness. Awareness is looking. Awareness is aware of this body, these emotions "which are felt in this body", aware of those pictures thoughts are making, projecting. And freedom is letting go of a thought that I am a body, letting go of attachment to this body. Freedom is letting go of thoughts, not believing those thoughts.

[Matthew]

This sounds like a pretty good track...

Awareness is looking.

"Awareness" is sort of a clunky term.
It sounds as if awareness is a tangible "thing". A thing that does things.

Let us use the term "knowing".
There is knowing of the seen, knowing of the heard, knowing of the smelled, knowing of the tasted, knowing of the sensed and knowing of thought.


Does this knowing have a story?
Does this knowing have a name?


Is it "I", which is knowing?
Or is even "I" known?

[Hannele]

Does this knowing have a story?
Does this knowing have a name?

Is it "I", which is knowing?
Or is even "I" known?

No I don't find that knowing has a story. And I can't name it either.
Nameless. Without a story, yes. Free of labels.

There is no "I", only a story, concept, idea of "I"...

[Matthew]

That happened quickly.
And yet. Did something really happen?
Did something truly change?

There is no "I", only a story, concept, idea of "I"...

Was there ever truly an "I"?

[Hannele]

And yet. Did something really happen?
Did something truly change?

Yes, something happend. I saw a thought pattern, that everything I think is me "I" , a body, a person, personality is just an idea. And I don't see that it is absolut truth, maybe not true at all?

There is no "I", only a story, concept, idea of "I"...
Was there ever truly an "I"?

No there wasn't, only a story of "I" . And I can let go of that story and look what is happening in the now moment. I think that dropping the story and just be and let things happen through me might be the freedom I'm looking for...

[Matthew]

Very well.


So then, on the basis of that, let us pose this question again:

the freedom I'm looking for

What here now in actual experience is not free?

Is there a one or a thing to be found in actual experience, which is not free?


What can be found. An actual "one", or just a thought story about a "not free one"?
Does this "one" exist?

Have you ever been unfree?

[Hannele]

What here now in actual experience is not free?

Is there a one or a thing to be found in actual experience, which is not free?

I can't find "one" but here is something, a energy or something immaterial, life force..

What can be found. An actual "one", or just a thought story about a "not free one"?
Does this "one" exist?

Only a story, a thought "mind is not free", but without that thought, without thinking "things are not okay", everything is ok, everything just is and that's freedom.

Have you ever been unfree?

No, I've only thought that I'm not free.

[Matthew]

Have you ever been unfree?

No, I've only thought that I'm not free.

How does it feel to see this?

[Hannele]

"Have you ever been unfree?
No, I've only thought that I'm not free."
How does it feel to see this?

Liberating, but also sad because of thought "I've waisted so much time, and to be free was just a thought away". Is it really so simple?