Do You Know Who You Really Are? | Stay Spiritual Interviews Ilona Ciunaite

In the Stay Spiritual interview, I talk about the quiet flip from seeking to seeing — the moment when the pressure dissolves and looking into your own present experience becomes the first real step toward peace.

So many seekers carry a private heaviness that is difficult to name. It isn’t just the desire for awakening; it’s the subtle tension of feeling behind, of trying to catch up, of believing that others are closer to something you can’t quite touch. The desperation grows quietly, and often nobody sees it. In this conversation, I speak about how that weight begins to fall away when the attention turns from ideas of awakening toward the simplicity of what is here now. When the grasping relaxes, even just a little, something softer begins to open.

I also share the beginning of my own journey — the moment a single question revealed that nobody is running the show. It didn’t arrive with fireworks or certainty. It came as a simple seeing, unmistakable and ordinary, like noticing something in plain sight that had been missed for years. Nothing dramatic changed, yet everything shifted. I felt more like coming home than discovering something new.

If you’ve been seeking for a long time, if glimpses rise and fade, or if part of you quietly fears that you’re missing something essential, I hope this meets you with gentleness. You don’t need to push yourself any further. You don’t need to earn clarity. You don’t need to become someone different. The doorway is not in the future. It’s right here in whatever you’re experiencing in this moment.

Beneath the movement of seeking, there is a natural ease that never leaves. It becomes visible when the fight to get somewhere rests for a moment. When you turn toward your immediate experience — without pressure, without comparison, without trying to fix anything — you begin to feel the ground under your own feet again. And often, that is where the real shift begins.

Find James & Justin here:  @stayspiritual  

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Transcript

Awakening is a shift in perception of how you see yourself and the world. It comes with direct recognition of what you are, and what you never were.

You’re listening to Awakening Now, a podcast for those who are on the path of self-discovery and spiritual awakening.

This is episode number 114 Do you know who you really are?

My name is Ilona Ciunaite.

I’m a guide, an author, and co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community.

If you are in the process of awakening, this space is for you. For the past 14 years I have been guiding and supporting seekers at various stages of awakening.

In this conversation with James and Justin from Stay Spiritual podcast I speak about the quiet shift from seeking to simply seeing — that moment when the pressure softens and attention turns toward what’s here now. So many seekers carry a silent heaviness, a feeling of being behind or missing something essential. I talk about how that weight eases when the grasping relaxes, even a little, and how the space underneath begins to reveal itself. I also share the beginning of my own journey, when I saw there is nobody running the show.

All right, Ilona Ciunaite, thank you so much for joining us on the channel today. Uh we've been taking a look at some of your channel there. You got a lot of great stuff there on self inquiry, spiritual awakening, and inner peace. You have these amazing dialogues with people out there, and I'm curious how this all began for you. maybe you could give us a little bit of a backdrop on your story. Well, thank you so much for inviting me. It's such a pleasure to be with you. Great to meet you guys and thank you for the question. Well, it all started many years ago. long long time ago in 2010 I read a book called Spiritual Awakening by Jed McKenna and that's that was really um like a huge awakening for me because what I thought I knew was not true and it hit me hard and I wanted to find the truth you know what is the truth so it was searching. I was looking and eventually there was the last question that they asked and that question didn't come from my head. Somebody else showed me that question and the question was as simple as is there running the show. But as soon I asked that question,

it was like what? Oh, I never asked that before. Because the answer was just there. It was staring in the in the face. It was there was nothing there. Nobody running the show. Life is free flowing events, experiences, feelings, thoughts, and everything, but there is nobody there as I thought there was running the show. So when I saw that, I thought, "Wow, that's cool. Everyone's looking for this. They just don't know how to find it or they don't even know that this can be found." And yeah, that was early 2011 that I started sharing this message on Facebook in groups and and found some people who were into this as well. And that's how it started really. That was one one question that um made a difference in my life and I wanted to invite everyone to also find that freedom which comes without seeing that there's nobody running the show. Is there anybody there? Is anybody got a somebody? Can anyone ask that question and then actually have it and find the answer like like I'm saying you asked the is Alona running the show and then if I if I if I'm gathering this correctly from what you said you asked the question and the answer was Alona was not running the show. There was nobody there. There was nobody there. And so I'm sort of tongue and cheek asking is anybody there for anyone when somebody asks that? Is there somebody there? There might be a response. I'm just asking what do you what's your response? The response is the silence or the absence. That is the if you take that for the response, that's it.

You know, if you come to a friend, let's say you come to James house and you knock on the door, nobody's answering. How do you know he's not there?

Knock knock. Nobody's answering. Yeah. No one coming to the door. That's all you know. There's nobody there. I'm curious uh with this stuff uh because I listen to a lot of the your the people who come on your show and ask you questions about this stuff. And there seems to be a frustration behind things because I feel like for some people who are spiritually awakened this comes very easy to them naturally for some reason while other people the second they get a glimpse of what you're talking about there's this reconstruction that almost takes place immediately after it. Why is it that it seems some people be seem to be able to see this more clearly than others?

We are all different and our systems are wired differently like a human being and some people done a lot of work. Some people had it easy or some people had it really traumatic life and it all depends on how many practices what they did before how easy it is. But it's not like a rule. There are people that get curious about it and see it. Yeah. But there are also people who have a glimpse of too and don't know what happened and they there is no language about it. There is no nobody to speak with about it. It's a strange thing but but it's like when there is an opening when there's a seeing the system is designed to keep itself coherent with itself. The identity, what we call identity, what is it? It's the thoughts, feelings, behavior, all the stories, all the patterns, all the conditioning. And that's what we call identity. So that identity is there. It's seeing that I'm here. This is here. It's just doing its thing. I'm not that. I'm not it.

So many identities. that one. Sorry. So many identities, and I'm subject to this little uh quirk, is so many identities uh misguidedly think that they're unique. Misguidedly think that there's something unique going on with them. like and of course there is in a sense but I'm saying um uh

I feel like when that when when phrases like there's nobody there or uh you when you were describing what makes up a lot of these like characters and identities that come forward like trauma and conditioning and stuff like that like every now and then I'll I'll kind of be like well why am I behaving the way I behave you know what I mean and then there's almost a a temptation to honor what's been crafted, the jigsaw piece that's been whittleled down to fit into this this thing. Um, and it is what it is in a nutshell. Like it's real tempting for for the ego to always reestablish itself as like some vector in on the graph. You know what I mean? And it's going to and in my experience, it's just going to do that. It doesn't even matter if it's like well like I I know a little bit about what it's like to to from a not disassociated state but like an actual intimate with reality grounded state just sort of be and and see the ego structure and see the personality and identity and stuff like that. Um but it's conditioning is relentless. Like I'm doing it right now. I'm being responsive. Um, and it's and and it's real tempting to think that there's something unique about that. But I find that uh if you're brave enough to do it to look at yourself more objectively than that can be effective can be helpful in this. try to look for why try to look for why it's not the case that um evidence of nonsp specialness in some sense I think can be uh a little bit of a pointer it might be too convoluted what I'm saying it might be too much added on to a far simpler process um you know what but I but I wonder often there's this word special right but uniqueness is something else. Uniqueness is not special. It's just every everything is unique. Yes. Yes. Special. Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose what I'm really saying is I wonder why some people present in some ways and some people present in other ways. Like I I I watched the interview you did with Angelo. I just watched a part of it and often times it's it's like really compelling uh seeing two people get together and they're calm and they're measured and they're they're reflecting wisdom and health and and uh a peace like peacefulness and then I consider myself and the way I am and the kind of like you know smartass I usually pull forward and when I'm philosophizing there's a lot of like paradox I like to play around with. And and then I even think about uh people that have practiced spirituality over time that have had extreme quirks like you know they've been like an open alcoholic or they've been um they actually engage in rage every now and then like this one Zen master would would have a fit or something like that or maybe they hit their disciples or something. It's like that's not it. like some people are it seems like they're they're naturally they reflect a peacefulness and uh oh maybe you could just talk about that. Maybe you could talk about the embodiment of peace versus somebody that's still acting out or playing out clearly old uh uh like conditioned by trauma characteristics.

Good question. Well, as I said, this bundle what we call me, it's here. It's just going out meeting people doing its work and playing in the world. But when you see that this is not what I am, these thoughts is not what I am. These feelings is not what I am. The sense of me or the sense of self is not what I am. The real question then is what am I or what am I really? And that again brings into that silence into that backdrop which is just openness space

being but then again we go into this and like oh now I'm looking through these glasses and seeing world through me that's that's me I'm talking right but when that seeing happens there is a distance which can always be checked on and checked

But but yeah that personality is doing its thing and the the system wants to keep itself safe doesn't like to be dismantled and the beliefs want to keep themselves all attached to each other because otherwise you know the whole structure has to rebuild itself. So that moment of seeing is a moment of when the deconstruction starts happening. It's a cycle that seems to repeat itself. A dismantling and then like for some people some people it seems like the dismantling happens and then they rest an abiding awareness. For for some of us it seems like the pattern repeats. It's like a dismantling process happens and then a restructuring. The spiritual ego is recreated and then it's dismantled over and over again. That's probably true for me. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I asked the question about it. I mean that's something that it's a it's a complex issue. It seems like some people are abiding in this awareness more uh consistently than others. And uh that's that's so it appears because we don't know how much work they done or where they came from, how they grew up. That's true. If you look at it like a layer cake, a layer cake, right? Lots of layers. Lots of layers. Then when the space opens, we see the top layer, right? That layer gets eaten or gets resolved. Yeah. there's the next layer that gets resolved and there is a next layer. So, we're just working our way through all these layers of So, from your understanding, does it have to does it have to be that way or could there be someone who's more inclined that uh they receive this and they there's like a getting it or something that that is faster like they just like again I feel like some people have these moments they go to one retreat and they have an awakening that changes them forever while others seem to be on this path for 10 years, 20 years. But how do you know that? Yeah, I don't I don't we don't know that. I speak to speakers. I speak to seekers every day for last 14 years. I never seen anyone getting it and here you go. Hallelujah. Miracle never happened. There is a moments of expansion. And there is moments coming back into conditioning and doing the work and clearing and experience of all kinds of I would say cosmic washing machine process where getting cleaned. Yeah. And then there's more expansion again and then happy blissful moments again. But it's not like once expansion happens that's it. We keep moving, keep living. That's my experience. If if you're comfortable me referring to it, I'll be vague and we can cut it if it's not good. But um I I want to consider where you've chosen to dwell for a moment if that's okay. Like without giving too many details about where you're at. Is that all right? Like you're you're living. So, um it you described living in somewhere that sounds kind of like uh a nice climate and a and a somewhat remote type of location compared to uh many of us that live mainland in the west or something. Yes. Um, and I think about the the baseline given environment of that like like not everybody lives in the same conditions. Like some people live in literally war torn countries or some people live in uh maybe a gated nice eloquent community but there's a undercurrent of hostility and competition in there or somebody lives in a an impoverished area where the values are just a little bit different. And so the characters that emerge, you know what I mean? if somebody strolled into town and they were, you know, calmly looking at each other like that might be even interpreted a certain way. And and I guess in a nutshell, what I'm saying is I I'm sort of fixated on on behavior as a result of awakening. And so much of what constitutes behavior is environment in my opinion. Like it's a it's a big thing. Like if you live in an English-speaking community, you speak English. That's a direct overt example. But it also affects face pulling and what kind of gestures and what kind of mannerisms are acceptable. and and and I'm and I'm sort of coining back I'm I'm repeating the same thing I initially was saying because I just I'm trying to circle and and corner the notion of behavior outward displays of whatever has happened because at the end of the day the experience of enlightenment of all the things that there could be has got to be like number one for it's it's personal like like this is something that you at the end of the day the the individual ual will will know the reality of it or not. Um so what can you say about behavior? Like what can you say about somebody who say you encounter somebody that doesn't even know anything about spirituality and they're a bit of they're kind of canankerous. They're kind of a grouch. They're salty. They're they're they're abrasive but they would never they're not even interested in enlightenment and they're doing things like an enlightened person would do. like they're they're not um seem to be suffering all the time or they're not seem to be uh they seem to have gathered something that other people that maybe spent a decade in a monastery take to understand what role does behavior and conditioning play in this. You know what I mean? Like um is it appro is there anything that's appropriate to do? Is it like once you have once you're awakened you better start being peaceful? you better start embodying peace or else it's not real. Like is that like that's such a joke. It's such a joke. It It's a joke. People think, but I actually think it's a valid question, you know, because people might be confused on on how things appear. Yeah. Okay. It's difficult to answer that because everyone's unique, right? So I can only speak from my own experience from my life and also what I see in people I work with. But the the identity that that bundle that we think is me doesn't awaken that thing. No, it doesn't awaken. Whatever conditioning was there is still there. It's still there even of course. Where would it go? It's been programmed like your computer programs running. It's just running. What changes really is the relationship with that bundle cuz it's seen from a different place. It's not seen from here. It's seen from here. Like you can see it. And that that person there that doesn't exist cannot awaken. That's the tricky thing. It cannot awaken. It doesn't even exist. what you are. It doesn't even exist. Story of it's just patterns, thoughts, emotions, behavior, feedback loop, thoughts, feelings come up, actions happen. More thoughts, more feelings, more actions. And it's like a loop. It's like a spinning fan. You know fan when it has blades and you can see blades when it's switched off but once you plug it in you don't see the blades anymore. You see a disc but that disc is not there. Mhm. It seems like there is. So that bundle cannot awaken but it can get it starts to get dismantled but it doesn't get dismantled how to say just just by accident. There's also awareness and seeing what is there that helps it to start opening up. So when you're looking from this place that I am this me, world around me, life is happening to me. It's like sitting in a jar and trying to read the label but the label is outside kind of have to step out of it to see it. Mhm. So this this recognition or seeing that meeting that silence of stillness the first time or second time or 100 time it's like getting out of the chair and seeing what else is here.

So that is not asleep. It doesn't awaken. But that movement is what we call awakening out of the jar into this. Do you ever get cringed out? Like do do you do you speak to um audiences? Like do you speak to groups of people? Cuz like do do you do you do you ever go in front of people and teach and speak? I I I should probably know this, but I actually don't know that much about you. Not in person. Only on Zoom. On Zoom. I wonder sometimes I wonder sometimes that like the big the big hitters, you know what I mean? Like uh like Spearas. Yeah. Yeah, the Rupert Spears, the Ganga Ges, and the Adio Shanties. If they're ever like go to one of their retreats or something and they're like thoroughly cringed out by all the aping, all the aping that goes on because there's something appealing like I I I look with a lot of admiration for people that are that are chilled out because I'm often not chill. And uh Do you want to get chilled? Um, well, it's funny like I was watching this uh movie Eden on on uh Amazon Prime and these people they they go off to try to build a utopia for themselves on a remote island and there's all types of people there and there's like one of the people that there is is there is like consumed with like um I don't know they're just hyper competitive and status driven and they at one point in the movie you see this person look over at a more earnest individual and the earnest individuals crying at some beautiful music and so the competitive sort of ego-driven person wets their eyes when no one's looking to look like they're crying and moved by it too. And we sometimes we judge that in culture, but it's like there's no character that didn't emerge from conditionings and for reasons. It's like all these all these characters and identities, they they emerge for good reason, you know? They're there for everything from intellectual capacity to trauma to the rules of the culture to all these different things. But when you see through it, when you if you actually do see through all of it, I wonder if it's just only met with compassion and understanding and empathy or if every now and then it gets a little cringy, you know, like why does anyone pick anyone care? Why does anyone ever settle on a character? Why? And and sorry to respond to your question, do I want to be chill? Yeah, sometimes I want to be chill. I want to be more chill. And I realize that a big part of that is just a choice. But lo and behold, I keep coming forward. Um this this other type of character keeps emerging. Yeah, that that's okay. But the chilling is not that this this character is doing something different. Chilling is seeing that it's okay. Mhm. It's okay. Whatever is going on, whatever, there's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with anyone. Mhm. Correct. That's what everyone is looking for to know that I'm okay. I can be relaxed in my own skin, in my own life, in my own being. You're complete. That's what everyone's looking for. You're complete. There's nothing to get to. It's it's it's fine. Those are you can feel what you're feeling. not naturally adopted in our culture, those qualities. Well, there seems to be a lot of resistance here after listening to a bunch of your conversations with uh some of the people that talk to you on your channel. Some people were saying like, "I still want my suffering." Like, is that part of the problem here? How honest that is? I know. I was like, uh, a lot of people and I love that that person said that and I have to say that's the truth about some of the things within myself. There's things that I'm doing that cause me suffering, but I don't want to give it up. But I also want uh I also want all the benefits and all the good things of that, you know, spiritual awakening may entail, right? So it's like what do you what do you choose in here? Yeah. Yeah. I love that this system is built to protect itself. As I mentioned before, it doesn't want to change, but there is a part that knows they can be different and it wants that it wants that deep piece. once that love. Yeah. Now there is a a tension between those two. And if you have that longing inside your heart that is loud and clear, you start listening to that, then it doesn't matter if the system crumbles or just dismantled. You just want want that. Yeah. And then you know that this is not you. So it's easier to let that go. It's easier to see these patterns like, "Oh, that that's what my dad used to do all the time. I see now I don't need that anymore." Oh, yeah. It's like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's disturbing when you start seeing all your your parents characteristics. Like not just your dad, your mom, and your dad, whether you're a boy or male or female, you can say, "Oh, that's why I'm doing that." You know, that's or that's a shadow of that. That's a shadow of their their thing. You know what I mean? Um, so it's awakening to that. It's not awakening from that. It's awakening to to it. Whatever is here to whatever's here. Becoming aware. In other words, starting seeing it consciously these patterns and knowing that this is not what I am. It's easier. I think that there's something so valuable in what you said um in what that person said about like even if it's shaky or incomplete or whatever it is. I love the rawness of of a statement like how vulnerable and and like deserving of some kind of an insight. Somebody that's willing to say I want my suffering. You know, I like I recognize that there's some part of me that wants my suffering. I feel like so many people uh can't are struggling to get to that kind of transparency or trying to are are are struggling to get to um that kind of recognition of like that's part of what's going on is a is a unchecked desire for suffering. Not not like a straightup desire for suffering, but just an understanding that um that's involved with a lot of these patterns that we live out is like cycles of suffering. I'm sure there's a mixture of fear in here about like I don't want to lose the story. I don't want to lose what I got going on here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is a story of being unsafe. Yeah. And this is the main thing that we really need to see that you are safe right now and it's okay. But our minds are bi biologically wired to predict the future based on the past experiences and interpretations of experiences. So it doesn't want what happened in the past to repeat in the future. So it always goes in and repeats predicts what the future will be in order to be safe. Yeah. And you know what's the the craziest thing that the fear that we feel it's the fear of feeling. It's not something will happen but it's how we're going to feel if that something will happen. It's a fear of what can people do? What can people do to make room for this and let go of their control freak natures? What can we do to just make room? Well, first of all, are you safe right now? This is the the key. Are you safe right now? Just asking this question. How do you know that? How do you know that? I don't. Yeah, but you you you see that there is no danger. There's nothing threatening. Yeah. It's kind of self-evident. But couldn't a person if somebody was on a battlefield and they were you know they asked they had actually time to ask themselves there's bullets whizzing by their head and they go am I safe

right let's let's not go there because you know if you really want to know the life will bring you situation

okay but that's true you know I don't I'm I don't want to be like lead myself into like some deep understanding of that question I I suppose what I'm saying because we can only speak from experience not hypothetically not theoretically that's the that's the thing we only have our own experience that we know right so the safety is not in the thoughts about some hypothetical scenario it's checking in this moment are you safe right now that's number one thing the second thing is is it safe to feel what I'm feeling right now whatever that is and here you don't need to be in a battlefield. You can be dreading your office meeting tomorrow and feeling unsafe. But is it safe to feel that? Yeah. Is it safe to feel these intensity or the depths or these horrible negative emotions? That's what the safety is. Because if you get that, it's safe to feel. Your mind doesn't need to go and protect you from the future feeling. Can we talk about hypotheticals? Sure. So, what I mean by that is um I only want to talk about it because it's there because it's there like like we're clearly not in a battlefield right now. That's not what's going on. But, um the fact that that that's like I I see the merit in going let's not go there. Like for so much of my life, that's exactly where I I already have been over that ground of wait a sec. Somebody said let's not go there. Let's go there. You know, okay, let's go there. Fine. Uh uh and so for I guess for old time's sake, I just want to say I'm trying to I'm trying to embrace what you what you said about not going there cuz my natural response so often is to go there. Like I was uh I don't want to talk about my my too much in detail about my actual um what I've done for certain tasks and jobs in this life that involved going into situations like that. But that has been my natural response for a good chunk of my life is to go headlong into the area that you're actually not supposed to. It's not like you're not supposed to, but what's the use of it? Like is it helping? But what is the use of it though? Why do people is it helping? I don't know. I think people run the scenarios because that's the part of tied into the survival mechanism, right? They're running the scenar the negative all those negative scenarios so that when if the potential of something happening right well some people are emergency room surgeons like some people are firefighters some people are those white helmet guys that go into disaster zones and and literally un pull out people out of rubble like go into dangerous situations like that's literally something you're so yeah you're speaking for the people that who may even be watching this that are like hey you know Like that's all fine and dandy what you're talking about, but like I do this thing every day, right? Is that who you're and and while at the same time trying to honor what you said like it's it's a weird thing that I'm doing. I'm saying I actually think it's effective to go set that aside right now. Are you is everything okay now? But in the moment of recognizing that you're safe even right now, a thought may emerge that beckons for you to indulge it. Or you might actually have something in real time emerge. These these are all hypotheticals, right? And they can always be me. But this is the this is the conditioning that we talked about. That's how the mind is conditioned. Yes. It doesn't want to stay here now because there's nothing to So what's the value of the what's the value of the conditioning? There's there's clearly value to it. Yeah. Well, we live human life. We meet people. We need to know how to behave, what to say. It's conditioning. Yeah. But at the end of the day, but but if you want to see if you don't go into imagine futures, you you check what is here right now. Yeah. I actually think that if you if you uh saw this clearly like the this is just a potential just to satisfy anybody that feels like this has not been satisfied. I feel like if you actually lived this, embodied it, realized it, it was realized within you that you might actually even be able to be on a battlefield and still carry that kind of awareness and peace. Then it's a hypothetical. We can forget about it after this, but I'm saying I think if it was fully embodied, it would transfer over even to uh extreme situations that the mind wants to wrestle with and wants to philosophize about endlessly. I think it can be satisfied by realizing like, well, that's not what's going on right now. So, let's meet us ourselves where we're at and we're safe right now. Take that with you. You know, it's it's occurring right now. Right now is the only time happening. Yes. There is no future in that way. There's there's right now. And the safety and the exit out of these loops is through recognition that it's safe to feel when you're whatever you're feeling. whatever you're feeling. Yeah. Even feeling unsafe is safe to feel. Yeah. Well, you're definitely communicating something uh which appears to be complex, but you may laugh at that. I don't know. But the um with all the people that you've talked to, different spiritual teachers and stuff like that, what have you found is kind of like the the best method or something that you found the most success success with when trying to communicate what you're what you're talking about here with a great question. See, we can only speak to people at the level where they are at at the openness that you are at. So if somebody comes in and just wants to chat about it, you speak in one way. If somebody is really looking and really is trying to get it, you speak a different way. But it's like meeting meeting what is here with your presence, meeting with your awareness and knowing that everything's okay, everything's allowed and what works is looking. Not thinking, not chatting, not trying, not reading, looking. That's that's the key of the keys. But nobody knows how to look, where to look, what to see because it's so always here. It's it's like a white noise. It's always here. We don't hear it. We don't pay attention to it because it's always here. So, it takes some amount of focused attention and also readiness and willingness to seeing.

That's when it's when it becomes clear. But you cannot tell that to just people on the street because they're not there. Yeah. But if somebody's listening here and want to get something from it, it's like we all have our our own experience and this is where to look. What is true? What is true in this moment? Yeah. there seems to be more and more uh people like yourself emerging on the scene. And at the exact same time, it seems like with social media and the uh the zeitgeist, the current uh political tensions, everything that's going on, it seems like two things are happening at once. Do you have any thoughts on like the state of the world, spiritual awakening, how it fits in? What's going on right now? Yeah, I have many thoughts. I just need let me uh download them because they are just ready somewhere there. I just need to wait for them to come in. Um okay, I have a visual like there's a stick and there are two end. Yeah. negative, positive, white, black, tension, peace, war, love, hate, everything is like on the same stick and it's just various degrees of that, right? So sometimes this this end comes up, sometimes that end comes up. We don't see everything. We assume like if if everything is bad, that means there is no good. But that that end didn't disappear. It's still here. So it all goes in waves and just showing up in various degrees. That's life. It's got its pulse. It's got its movement. It's you know what you pay attention that what becomes more visible. Right? So whatever is going on in the world on negative side there is as much going on in positive side.

It cannot be otherwise because it's all in balance like ingyang you know symbol ingyang the whole contains the white and the black and the black and the white and the white and the black it's complete. So in a way people think that this is everything is going wrong is just as much everything is going right. Yeah. I'm just we like I said or Justin mentioned earlier we had done an episode recently about like what a utopian society might look like for humanity. Is that something that's possible considering that there almost it sounds like there almost has to be a negative for whatever positives going on. Does that mean humanity's will continue to have its struggles maybe in a different you know it'll be different as it evolves with technology and everything goes on but will will it always be that way? I think it's always been that way and it will continue to be that way and you know what makes a hero strong? What makes a hero strong? like a hero in the story. A a an enemy. Or an enemy. Yeah. A nemesis. Yeah. Somebody to fight with. Then I don't want to have anyies. Yeah. But your inner enemies. What's that? Your inner enemies. You always need to have some enemies to become a hero. Some people don't seem to have too many and some people have a lot. Maybe they made peace. Maybe they are still fighting. But it's okay. It's all okay. Okay. So, but there's always white and black and this opposites having a a dance. Some people are all white and some people are all black. Um, so do you have preferences then for peace? Sure. So if preferences emerge and you can say something about preferences like are there people that you shift yourself away from or people you gravitate towards from your from your state of consciousness. Sure. That to me that reflects a little bit of a sc like a kind of a scalable hierarchy or or a value distinction or something like that. Um and you know uh I don't know can we talk about that? Yeah. What what if everything that is happening around or outside in your experience I'm not talking hypothetical in experience is a reflection of your inner state. What if like a mirror? Yeah. What if everything that is happening in your life is a reflection of your inner state, of your beliefs, of your preferences, of your ideas? What if you're a reflection of everything outside of you? Everything reflects you about you. But what if you invert it? What if who you end up being is a reflection of everything that's going on for them? But for you everything that is happening in you difference. Yes. In the mind there is a difference because the mind imagines me and the other but in experience there is only this experience. Yeah. Yeah. So everyone that you meet and every situation that happens is reflecting to you about you about your inner state like what you believe that's what you see. If if you had some grotesque in infirmity and you were walking through a village and everybody was turning away from you or clearly behaving differently towards you than the king who strolls by who gets his ring kissed by every passer by. That would be a reflection of you would become the embodiment of the reflection of others unless you were stubborn. And if you were stubborn, they might kill you or put you in some kind of sanatorium, like insane asylum. Like, he doesn't get it. We tried to tell him he was Quasimoto and he kept walking around like he was Jesus. So, we committed him or we've There's ways of making people fit the paradigm we all agree is true. Nice movie.

Yeah. But it feels like a reality for a lot of us, you know, like like sometimes I call maybe very egoically I say like this reality is such a fun house of surprises because just when I think things are away, it surprises me and it's another way and that's the nature of psychology often times like the nature of psychology is is um reverse reverse psychology. It's like you're going to have a hard time finding a mate if you're sweating desperately. the person that wants a mate so bad is gonna put everybody off. But if you genuinely don't are are aloof and don't care so much, that can become compelling and attractive counter like counter everythingly. Well, yes, that's that's exactly what I mean by it's a reflection. If you are um content and happy, Yeah. then the world will show up in that way. Yes. Yeah. But that's but that's a but that's a trick and and it's it's not as though that can't be interrupted you know um if I start to value the peace that comes from um aw like being in an awakened abiding sort of gentle nonwarlike non-confrontational non exhausting all my processing power state sitting and philosophizing if I if I stay peaceful is that not like a preference I've been I've now been the same preference that I might have for candy or the same preference I might have for a sugar spike or something like that. It's seems non-integrative. Integration would be the enlightened person that does find himself possibly in the bug of a Gita like on a battlefield ready to go do war. But but that doesn't stop that doesn't stop the it's not a behavior. It's not a controlled uh character that emerges. It's a genuine understanding that I again from the beginning I say at the end of the day only the individual would know whether or not it's true. Like there's a story I I this is going to be a real a real paraphrase, okay? But I heard once that there was this guy that was a public speaker and he was and he was a kromagin like he would he would go to things and he was always like vitriolic. He was he had a lot of spitting a lot of criticism and he was vitriolic and he was a salty character. And then somebody on his time off not speaking to people saw him in a local public dancing free and having a good time and they go, "What the hell? You were this you're this character that goes around from town to town judging everybody and whatever the case is." And and he goes, "Yeah, that's but that's for them. This is for me." You know what I mean? like he it was like the reality is in a nutshell like don't believe everything you see. What like sometimes there's going to be somebody that is they've honed the magic trick. This is the prestige of magic tricks. You'll never see them perturbed and it's not real. And then you might see somebody that is that guy's must be miserable as hell. And it's not necessarily the case. Only the inner world would know that. But the reason why somebody might present as a as aggressive or unsettled and the reason why somebody might be calm as a cucumber uh are for reasons are are for still conditioned reasons. It just doesn't ref you know what I mean? Am I have I lost you guys? Do you know what I'm talking about? Anybody? I hear you. Yes. Yes. It's all it's all like for example why does it rain? There are many reasons and conditions why it rains. So why am I calm? There are many reasons and conditions that I'm calm. Or why am I angry? There are many reasons and conditions that I'm angry in this moment. It's all flowing. It's not like one thing. [Music] I love it. I love it. And it's a little sad. There's a part of me that's that's that's sad because um it's it's a call to be genuine kind of in my opinion. And and sometimes situations are just what they are. You know what I mean? Like I get I suppose any situation could be met with grace and understanding and wisdom, but when it hurts it hurts. It doesn't matter what you call yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's funny because I think with a little bit of freedom, you can see things that hurt and you can see why you've dis why you've categorized or distinguished them as as even a negative, even something that hurts. You know, like I think about some of my earliest memories being taught as a little kid and my mom used to say that's yucky. Like if I was getting into something, you know what I mean? Playing with the playing with something gross, you'd be like yucky, bad. And we're taught all this stuff that like it's oh it's bad to feel that bad to feel bad. You know, often times men men the classic thing is men are told that they they can't cry. Yeah. Or they're supposed to be tough. And I'm like you're going to make a generation of sociopaths. Let them cry for Pete's sake. You know what I mean? Like you could potentially make people sociopath like detached from emotion. You know, why is why is crying why is sadness bad? Why is heartbreak even really why is it categorized as bad?

Deep question that is. It's because we don't like it. So it's bad. Why don't we like it? Why do we like it? It doesn't feel good. It doesn't doesn't feel good. Sometimes after a good cry, a good cry, you can feel good. Yeah. Yeah, there can be some of release in tension. You know, some people do things that the rest of us deem doesn't feel good and they do that uh you know, whatever casual like for fun, you know what I mean? Like some people engage in things that are from our collective perspective bad or don't not feel good and that's like their jam. That's like what some people do. That's being trapped in their in their conditioning and not even knowing that it's optional. Mhm. Why do you keep doing things that you think it's bad for you?

It's just automatic conflict of interest. It's not like you decided. That's that's like a but the system is set to do that. That's it. It's just doing what it's doing. But it's also it's also kind of like a like a insane conflict of interest. It it to me it speaks of it's a that's a mind categorizable like phenomenon is like why would you do something that you don't like or why would you do something that goes against what you know to be good or right or what you prefer or something like that. That's like somebody with with more than one identity going on in their head, you know, working against there's not just one, right? It's like a tribe. And I think of a old Bible verse where I the one of the disciples is after Jesus has passed, he's saying, "Why do I do the things I don't want to do? I and I don't do the things I want to do." And I go, "Uh, so many of us are like that. That's like so many because we got we got conditioning ises and we've got multiple characters rattling around in our head with different vested interests in different things. Yeah. If you look at your computer, right, like let's say it's Windows, there are so many programs installed and maybe there is a virus and it's just doing stuff that it's doing. It's not positive or negative. It's just there. Yeah. M so there is a conflict in the system. Mhm. And it's showing up because it starts slow doesn't do what you want to do or doesn't shut down when you tell it shut down. There's something is wrong. But these programs they they don't know. They are not conscious. They're just doing what they doing. It's nobody's fault. It's not Windows fault that it's not working. Some programs are designed to get offended when you say they're not conscious. Like sometimes we can all get offended. Some software programs are are are their code is written to go I'm here. I'm awake. And some software programs get offended when you when you threaten to take them down. But it's it is software that's running on a code on a computer. It's just a code. It's just code. Yeah. So my job is to go into the code, see it so it can self adjust. That's it. Right. Right. Well, in terms of your spiritual awakening and its evolution over the years, is there a rock bottom that someone arrives at or do you continually evolve in your conscious awareness? Are you constant? Do you feel like you're expanding or there's uh uh something that happens? There is no done. Pardon? There is there is no done. There is no done. There is no finish. Something that's always growing. Could you talk about that? Like what that feels like and how along the path uh like maybe you could uh point out for other viewers who are on the same path, how what what are some of the things they might see down the road as they continue this journey? Nice question. Well, there's a lot of clearing, cleaning, deconstructing, questioning. There's also a lot of settling into feeling okay in yourself and that doesn't end. As I said, it's like a layer cake. There's an opening. There's other stuff coming up that was hidden before and that clears and then there's more opening. That's how we that's how we grow, how we evolve. It's just by seeing deeper things, things that now maybe mind doesn't even imagine. Yeah, but it's it's a very individual journey because there is no humans alike. So to speak about the journey as some kind of map for me is ridiculous because there's no map to being you. Nobody can tell you how how you should be, what you should feel, what you're going to encounter in your in your path. But the tendency is to see through these patterns so that there's less and less and less resistance to what is here. It's not about changing. When's everything going to be complete and finished and okay though? I'm just kidding. When you decide that it's enough, you know, I spoke to this woman. She was 84, I believe, and she said she lived her life. She was never contained.

It was never nothing enough. She's 84. Yeah. And I really felt so, you know, touched by that because when are you going to enjoy your life if not now? What are you waiting for? If not now, can live all your life and look back and say that I wasn't enough. Life wasn't enough. I never got what I wanted. Those are the rules. Those are the those are the unspoken rules. Very often, the unspoken rules of of a capitalistic society is that it's not it's not enough. It's not okay. It's anti- capitalism in my opinion to to uh to be to recognize that it is as complete as it's going to get. You know, like in real time, if you're on fire, get out of step out of the fire so that you're not burning and melting to death. Like that's a pretty obvious thing, right? But I'm saying the the the burning feeling that it's not complete. I'll I'll be complete when or I'll feel satisfied. It'll it'll be done. I'll be it'll be over then is a capitalist notion. I think I think it's just a cultural thing. Yeah, it is a cultural thing. We are born in it. Yeah. We're born in it. Yeah. What do you say to for your own happiness? You never can find it, right? What do you say to the new What do you say to the new person that comes to you? Like maybe they stumbled across your content and they're like, "Spiritual awakening? What the heck is that?" How do you present something like this to someone who's brand new? I rarely speak to people who are brand new because when people come, they already know they are looking for something else. But if somebody is just starting, somebody is just what is that awakening? What is that? It's like there is a hole inside that is never going to get satisfied until it's met. Like we can go and seek and we don't even know that we are seeking by maybe shopping or getting a new house or new car or something. Always trying to fill that hole but that hole is not going to be filled by external things. We don't even know maybe then we are seeking

but but that that thirst or that longing that longing is real and that longing longing is calling home to something deeper to something real

in whichever way you can just put your hand on your heart and listen for that and feel that longing and acknowledge it's there. That's the start. I' I've found a lot like I think there's a lot of religions that kind of sometimes use that emptiness thing that you're talking about and they want you to fill it with something. Like when I was a kid, people used to go, "You have a Jesus-shaped hole in your heart and you need to fill they narrow down that sense of emptiness and they're like, hey, I know you feel empty." It's like, how did you know? Yeah. But are you really feeling it or are you just accepting it? It's an invitation to go in. It's like a doorway. But yeah, what what seeking is if you look at seeking as an energy, right? Seeking is always out looking for something outside into the future. Somebody has I don't have that end is out going. But this end is running away. It wouldn't be going out if it wasn't running away. It's on the same stick. So the running away of that empty feeling inside looking for something to fill that hole cannot be filled by something imagined. It has to do this thing. It has to do this. What's here?

Then the seeking ends because it's here. You don't it's not hiding or hidden. it's here and then exploration starts and that's how something starts happening and shifting. There's there's so many opportunities for more ego more ego to happen like one is like I often when I'm trying to meditate will fall asleep and it's really nice to sit down and put on some guided meditation and then fall asleep. Um um what was I going to say? Like

so there's something potentially addictive about about uh stimulation in the sense of like peace or well-being like like ah break from the the rat race or something like that. there's a potential there for that to turn into its own um egoic thing. Uh there's a potential to get lost in the void like nature that that openness that we were talking about or stay in some self-reflective state. What am I trying to say here? I'm really struggling. I'm struggling. I'm I'm I'm I just want to co I want to cover every base possible and I want to look for any potential for there to be an opportunity for the ego to ruin what otherwise might be just a clean pristine uh awakening which is something that you it can be addiction to drama you know such a thing addiction to drama addiction to drama addiction to the story of awakening yeah yeah addiction It's a very difficult to let go of that one. Yeah. What's left to have a fantasy of like I'm spiritually awakened.

That's a fantasy. That's a nice fantasy. Yeah. Like a golden carrot. But what's left is life without seeking. Cuz you know, as they say when it flips, seeking is desperate. It's painful. because I don't have what that is have. I want something I don't have. Maybe I'm not good enough to get it. But if it flips and you start looking in your own experience, in your own present state, then the desperation falls away. That's all. It's all still here, but the desperation is no longer there. Then you need to run away from it. And sometimes yes comes out teachers they all have their way of talking about consciousness um and as a as a like a cleancut definition or understanding what can you communicate about consciousness

cool I don't use so much word consciousness or awareness I prefer the simple simple word knowing knowing It's not a thing. It's not a someone. It's knowing that that quality of cognizing.

Can call it awareness. It's easy to make it into something. Knowing is a verb. What can you what can you know to know that you are here?

Is something happening or isn't it? Do you know if there you can kind of know being hurt? Yeah. You know it's nothing. No quality to that.

What? Nothing. I'm waiting for the next question. Um yeah. All right. Um, how do you know when the next question comes in? You just know.

Consciousness. Yes. Okay. Let's talk a little bit, I guess, then about self-incquiry. What are the tools and getting the the the the tips the tips and tricks? What's a good way to approach self inquiry when investigating what you're talking about here? That's a serious question and I'll answer it seriously if it's okay. Yeah. Get somebody to help you because you cannot get out of you cannot get out of the jar using the same brain that got you there.

But if somebody else can help you to find right questions don't need answers. You read all the answers they don't work. You need questions that will help you to get out of the jar.

And sometimes you may read a question or they you can watch a video and you can hear a question that is really bugging you that's a a live question in you but the mind avoids to answer it because that would mean game over. So if somebody's there with you like a guide or some facilitator or you know they can hold your attention on that question until it dissolves then you get all the help you need. You don't need to wait 80 years to see it. It makes me want to ask chat GPT what are some self inquiry questions you can give me to help me awaken which makes me think about Yeah, like technology and its role in spiritual awakening. I don't know how much you pay attention to what's going on with AI and all the stuff in the world, but maybe this is going to be the thing that kind of like catapults us, helps helps us enter into that realm. Do you have any thoughts on uh on emerging technologies and spiritual awakening? Yeah. Yes, I do. My chat GBT assistant also has a lot of thoughts.

Uh it is limited but it's like a mirror that can reflect your thought processes and give you feedback which is helpful but but it's not coming from presence. It's coming from a code. So it's still in the jar in a different kind of jar. Maybe it's helping a little but it cannot speak from presence.

can help you asking questions, maybe hold attention, but still your mind is is the one that is going to turn away or answer the question. Yeah, I'm sure it would probably be just gathering other good questions that have been posed by other spiritual sages over the years, right? And then it's going to regurgitate that and spit that out to you. Yeah. But we don't want the answers. That's the thing. We don't want answers. We want question that will dissolve itself. Yeah. Like for example, the only question there is who am I really?

You know the question and ask that.

That's a good one. What about mantras? Because some people point to mantras. Say do mantras. Yeah. It helps the monkey mind to play with the toy. That's how it's good. You were gonna ask a question. Yeah. How much do you indulge in woo woo woo woo woo stuff or or extraordinary stuff like uh you interested at all in aliens or or uh telepathy or or cities? That that all depends on your description of wobble. Maybe it's natural. you interested in that stuff at all? Um,

I'm not down to earth how to say real. If something comes up and it's interesting, I will go in there and explore and have fun. But then

I don't know what's wo woo for me, what's woo woo for you. Mhm. I don't talk to aliens. Not yet. But who knows? You ever heard of that type of thing going on? You ever Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I heard? I got an email another day from some um you know people they doing stuff like courses or sessions and they said that you can connect to the threei atlas that's the higher consciousness coming to upgrade you and do you want to pay me some money and I'll connect you. I was laughing so much but difficult. What do I know? Maybe it's true for them, but you got to pay. For me, that's wobble. For for me, this is wo. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody at least somebody knows what that thing is, you know, coming to upgrade. That's so cool. I don't I don't know. I don't know. There's It seems to be no end to to the craziness that you can pick your phone up and look at and and it's real serious business, too. always often with a fee of some sort. Yeah, I think that fee is good because it kind of uh separates people who are interested or just dabbling who want to go all the way in. So, if you want to go all the way in, it's kind of your ticket. It's kind of your that's where it starts. Yeah. Well, Elana, I want to thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come and join us and share some of your insights and thoughts with us. This has been really a pleasure for us. I thought maybe to close things out, maybe you could leave with our audience maybe the overarching message of your channel and then after that uh let them know where they can find you, what you got going on and all that good stuff. Oh, thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to share with you. It's fun. You guys are fun. I love it. And um the message is self inquiry leads to awakening that leads to inner peace.

That's a message that it can happen for you if you're ready. Well, first you need to be willing, then you need to be ready. And then you want you need to want this no matter what in a way that it becomes something very very strong. you can't sleep. You need to know that's when the shifts start happening. Most people, some people just would, you know, have a dream and wake up. Who knows? Lucky. But otherwise, the self inquiry is the way because once you start questioning the belief system, it cannot it cannot stay as it was. It starts opening. Some things start looking differently. And it may be a long process very very subtle and very gentle process or you can come with a big boom. Who knows how it is for you? But you will not know if you will never start. Awesome. And you can find you can find me on my website. Yeah. And on YouTube. And I do Zoom meetings on third Thursday. Everyone can join free. and the other stuff is coming soon. All right. Well, great. This was a pleasure. Thanks for being on the show. It was great having you. Thank you. Thank you, guys. All the best.

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