What Happened to the Original Awakening Message? with Ananta Kranti

In this episode of Awakening Now, I speak with Ananta Kranti about awakening and what the word actually points to.

When Ananta first began sharing this message, awakening was described very simply — waking up from the dream of being a separate self. Today, the word is used in many different ways, and this can create confusion about what is being pointed to.

We explore how the message has evolved over time, and what can be lost when the recognition of what we are becomes mixed with ideas, identities, or concepts.

Ananta shares about the shift that happened while she was in prison, and how a moment of complete exhaustion and letting go revealed something that could not be taken away.

We also speak about current trends in the spiritual space — the movement between recognizing awareness and working with the human experience. There is a natural place for both, and also a risk of losing clarity when the foundation is not seen directly.

We look at projections onto teachers, the expectation of perfection, and the possibility of recognizing freedom exactly as life is now.

This is a grounded conversation about awakening, identity, and the living recognition of what does not come and go.

Music by Valdi Sabev.
 In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.

Transcript

Ilona 0:00

You are listening to Awakening Now, a podcast for those on a journey of awakening. This is episode number 124. What happened to the original awakening message with Ananta Kranti? My name Ilona Tsunaite. I am a guide and author and co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community. And 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 in various stages. What happens before, during this shift, and after. And in this conversation today with Ananta, we explore how the meaning of awakening has evolved from a simple recognition of what we are to something that is often described in many different ways today. We also look at what remains essential and what can be easily overlooked. Ananta Kranti has been sharing this message for over two decades, guiding people through direct recognition and the integration that follows. And listen to her own story, the way she got awakened. It's incredible. Let's begin. Welcome to the show. And today I'm speaking to Ananta Kranty. Hello, Ananta.

Ananta 1:29

Hello, hello, once again.

Ilona 1:32

So nice to have you on the show.

Ananta 1:35

Yeah, it's so beautiful to meet with you today.

Ilona 1:39

And for those who do not know Ananta or never heard about her, which I think a serious seekers in this space would have heard of you because you have been giving Satsang and doing all these teachings for so many years.

Ananta 1:59

Yeah, I was actually pondering on that today. Like I was reflecting. There are reasons why I was reflecting, but I was reflecting back on where I first began to speak. It was around year 2000. Yeah.

Ilona 2:18

And I had an opportunity to meet Ananta when she was living in UK. It was so strange how everything, how our energies moved around the same places. Because I lived in this tiny, tiny place called Gorey, not far from Brighton on the beach, from all the places. And I used to do these monthly meetings in a Quaker's house. And there was this guy coming to these meetings. There was a little community going, and this guy, Lawrence, one day he said, Oh, you should meet Ananda. She lives in my house. And Lawrence lives just a literally a few roads away in the same gory. So one day I came in to see you in Satsang. And I don't think you remember me or saw me there.

Ananta 3:10

Yeah, I I do vaguely remember because I I was just on a flying visit. I was coming to England for three weeks, and uh it was during that three weeks that we held this meeting. So I do remember, yeah. So after so many years less I remember you checking me out, like is she for real? Is she for real?

Ilona 3:39

And the funny thing, funny thing that when I moved away from Goring, I gave all my plants to Laurence. Hi Lauren and I was always giving sad songs in between all my plants. How fun is that?

Ananta 3:57

I was yeah, all of my retreats had all your plants around me. They actually made the setting. It's like yeah, yeah.

Ilona 4:12

So welcome to this show, and my show is called Awakening Now. And it's it's for people going through this process of awakening before, during, and after, and whatever is helpful. I'm just inviting different people who have who have something to share, some message, something that could be helpful for people on the path. And to start with, I want to ask you what is awakening in your definition? And you may be using a different word, whatever word that is, but you know what we're talking about, right? Yeah, I know what we're talking about. So what are we talking about?

Ananta 4:58

So yeah, um like you said, the word itself now is I feel is being used in ways, you know. When I first started talking about this, it was really about um waking up from the dream of who you who you believed you are, to realize that you are actually existential. Awareness, life itself, whatever can't really be contained in words, but that which gives life to all things, looking through a pair of eyes and looking through every pair of eyes, waking up to recognize self-recognition, like you know, like that waking up from that dream, like I am life itself. So when I first started um speaking about this and walking this, it was that it was it was waking up to that as that, and um quite naturally it became very easy and deeply passionate to point to that and bring about that recognition to people like very quickly and instantly, and it was it was a passion, you know, because I was already in um bodywork, I was a bodyworker, and um I was helping people to break free within the trauma, like to relive the trauma and release it from the body and go through this process of undoing and breaking free. And then when this shift happened in me, it was very clear that that work could only go so far. And if a person or a or a human mind, identity didn't recognize itself before, during, and after the story of me, if there was no recognition, then there will be another layer of trauma and another and another because the story of me keeps going around. So awakening was waking up out of that, and now I see that it's being used in in many different ways, and uh somehow it's become much more of a uh do we really know what we're talking about when we say awakening? We have to really check in with someone, like you know, what does that mean for you? Yeah.

Ilona 8:06

Would you like to share this awakening with a shift?

Ananta 8:11

What happened to you? I could I could go there, you know. Um I think I've made so many interview conversations about that time in the prison and when that breaking free from being in prison. Um you know, I could really go there. I just wonder if that's um okay. I'll I'll try to take a different angle with it. Um so when that shift happened, you know, I was solitary confined for already like uh I'd been solitary about 18 months or something, more than what? Yeah, it was three years altogether. In a solitary, yes.

Ilona 9:12

No, I don't know. See oh okay, that's why you asked. Okay, now it makes sense. I don't want you to repeat something, I know.

Ananta 9:22

Okay, yeah. So yeah, I was solitary confined in a prison cell, in a in a yes, in a real prison, yes, in a uh Japanese prison. Um and so being solitary meant that I never ever had a conversation with anybody ever. And yeah, it was it was super, super zen. But I was taken to a factory five days a week, Monday to Friday, to work on machines, forced labor. And um, in that factory, there were about 50 of us, and it was all in complete silence. So the only words that are exchanged are the about the work, like you've got to do that, you gotta do that, and it's all in Japanese. So there's no conversation, right? So um I was a long time in this process of really facing, facing whatever human can face in that situation, and it's ego death at every at every from every corner it's ego death. Because not only was I, you know, I was living such a free life, wild and free, and then the next minute I was taken out of that free life and placed in like a concentration camp style Zen prison. And so my world was gone. And after, say, like, I mean, the the shock was massive, but after about 18 months, my world was really gone, like it was a far, far away memory of a world outside. Now I was in this system, you know, and I was the only white woman. I mean, there were Colombians, but I was the only Western. And um I was being in that silence, I was being like there was stuff going on between prisoners that were doing life to like mentally mentally torture, you know, happening in the silence. So all of this was happening all in the silence, and it was all and it was all happening in awareness, but nobody could see it physically, so the guards couldn't see it, and then people couldn't see it. So all this was happening, and it was killing me, right? So I'd go back to my cell every evening, just wanting to die. I hear you, yeah. Really, really, really just wanting to die, you know, like breaking down, not knowing would I get out of there, and if when, because you don't get a date, right? So this process was really, really, really deep and really ongoing and really stripping and stripping and stripping. And the only thing that was constant was presence because I had to be present to the needle on the machine and get this thing right. Because if I didn't get it right, I'm gonna get punished. So I was constantly, constantly present while all this other breaking down of my mental, emotional, and every you know, it's a long story, so I don't want to fill up the whole space with that. But one so the only thing I had was Osho books, and I have told this in several interviews, that's why I was a bit hesitant of do we want to take up the space with that? So I was reading that, and I'd just read one page a day, and he was always talking truth. He was talking this, he was pointing to what he was calling enlightenment, right? So I wasn't a seeker chasing enlightenment, I was a prisoner in a cell looking for relief, right? And I had a deep, deep commitment to he was my guru. I had that, you know. So when I was reading these books each day, it was going straight in, it was going deep into where he was pointing. So there was, I was just like, you know, my eyes were light, and everything was expanding at the same time. This human was breaking. And uh one night out of complete and utter exhaustion, because my mind was fighting the situation 24/7. I didn't sleep, you know, I was always looking at the calendar, always trying to figure out all the scenarios of getting out of there. And one night I arrived back in the cell, and at the time you're allowed to lay down, because otherwise you've got to sit, you can't lean against anything. And uh at the time we're allowed to lay down, but when I laid down the exhaustion, I just let go. I wasn't trying to get anything or get anywhere, I just let go exhaustion, and I fell into the pain, which was extreme in my body, it was extreme in every muscle, in every nerve, in every every level of experience. Extreme pain was there, and it pain from working on the machine and doing a repetitive movement day in, day out. There was pain, pain, pain, and I couldn't, I had nothing left to resist, so I just fell into the pain, and as I fell into it, it was like I started to just fall, fall, fall into the deeper layer of that pain and fall and breathe and fall and fall and fall until a moment came where everything just opened. And this is basically the same way that when I'm walking and retreats and through that dropping, call it dropping. I just dropped through a layer of oh identity. I dropped through all that's in the way of the vastness, I dropped through that, and the opening. Now there was no experience of a body, no experience of someone in a prison. It was all gone. It just all opened and opened and opened into light, freedom, and it was light and beautiful, and I just keep letting go and just kept letting go, and there's no thought. And you know, one thought did come, it was like, what's this? And the thought just dropped, and I just it just kept opening and opening and opening until I was in this vast, wide open, free bliss freedom. There was no prison anymore, it was all gone, everything was gone, and I traveled there all night, and I actually, I mean, it sounds a bit crazy, but I actually could go anywhere I wanted. I could go, you know, I found myself in supermarkets in England, taking things off the shelf. I could go anywhere, it was it was just a whole lucid, lucid dreaming space opened within that vastness. Anyway, so I I didn't know what that was, I didn't care, I didn't question it. The only thing is that when I woke up the next morning, the mind was no more running at the calendar trying to figure out when I get out. I was just here. And I've told it many times I could just see the sunrise over the mountain through the bars on the window. I didn't see the bars, I saw the sun rising, so I saw the beauty, and so everything shifted to I was just here now. I didn't it didn't even matter anymore when I'd get out, you know. So everything shifted, but I couldn't put a label on that and say, oh, this is an awakening, or this is, you know, it didn't matter. It didn't, it just that I was, and what I can say looking back on it, you know, and it's still so fresh to me today because it it really is eternity, it's it's here, it's now, it's not it is yes, the story is a memory of 30 years ago, 29 years ago. Um but the the experiencing and the the real the recognition, the realizing the is here now, it's never gone anywhere. It's because it was of what is always here now, right? So um after that a lot changed. I was still physically in pain, I was still experiencing, and but I saw everything differently, and there was a smile deeply because everything else had been taken away, but it was like I found some something that couldn't be taken, so because that couldn't be taken, and this smile inside could never be taken, this was free, and because of that, the value of it was everything. So I would say that that was a real key, because it wasn't just a moment of recognition, and then going back to, you know, it was the value was everything, everything, everything, everything. And looking back, I can see that um what really set that up was that I was totally, totally only being awareness all the time because I had no relationships, I had no relationship to any other person. So all the roles and all the relationships were gone. So what what is then left? Being aware, and that's all that was left. So, you know, that was a that was the great gift in it all, but so that yeah, I could extend that, you know, it's all what I talked about with Lisa in her interviews. Okay, um put the link for people if they want to hear it.

Ilona 20:56

Yeah, Lisa can.

Ananta 20:58

Yeah, it's all there, yeah. Yeah.

Ilona 21:04

Thank you for sharing.

Ananta 21:07

Well, thank you for asking, but uh like I say, you know why I hesitate because I told it so many times that I think that we can go we can we can touch on some new things.

Ilona 21:21

Yes, what are you drinking?

Ananta 21:40

I love it.

Ilona 21:48

Okay, let's bring bring our conversation to today to nowadays. You have been you have been really busy lately, and maybe you

Ananta 22:00

for some time doing all these group teachings and um as usual live events it's wonderful and do you notice any trends that are active or alive like what's happening now in the scene there are so many yeah but one that's quite alive for me and was alive this morning as I was just making my smoothie and you know one that's working through me um so yeah linking the story I just told to this also um so the trends that I've seen in this uh kind of seekers journey and um the awakening of of being the awakening of you know because so many seekers are want to get there and imagine that if they get there and then you know all of all of that um so at some point and if and especially when I first started speaking um there was a an emphasis and it had to be this way there was great emphasis on the absolute recognition of pure awareness recognizing itself to itself bang there is no other self I can find in here that has any substance there's no entity in here other than this that is aware that recognition um the emphasis we can call it the absolute recognition okay the absolute yeah like the absolute awareness that is before like before every thought feeling experience sensation I like to call it the masculine aspect but um that was very much when non-duality first was being uh became popular and you know the advaita vedanta and the whole um teachers were talking always pointing to that and that had to be like that it absolutely and me too you know I start all of my retreats with this recognition first it has to be you know recognized so um so when I first started sharing this I was always naturally naturally naturally naturally there's no there's no even question about including the body including the uh story of me you know it is included so we don't have to include it it's it's included right I couldn't tell you that story about prison without the story of me without the um experience of the body right so it's already included it's not that oh we have to include it right so from when I first started speaking that was what made me start speaking because I was seeing people walking around saying well I'm pure awareness and nothing touches that and I'm you know there was a kind of a denial of the the human layer and so I came out you know like ah but you know because I had to learn how does it all come together how do because that's what I faced when I got out of prison I'm knowing I am this without any doubt and now I got all these triggers and now I got this female stuff going on and hormones and this and that and how does it all come together so this was my living inquiry in in the integration the never-ending integration right so that was natural it's not something I had to decide like oh yes but it's included so what I see in the trends is that it seemed to have swung all the way it at one point it swung all the way to there's nobody here is no separate self there is no other there's a which is all true but leaving out the the integration in the human more of a denial and I what I see now is there's this trend where it's kind of the human has claimed it's I'm here recognize me don't deny me you know with the trauma and with the all of that comes with the nervous system and all of that and absolutely absolutely you know it's raising its hand it's saying recognize me I'm included da da da da da da and the trend seems to have gone swung back to this um like the human it has to have its place where somehow there's such a danger there of overlooking yes this is all true and yet who are you really you know who are you in the first place who are you and where do you come from where where are you coming from and because yes I agree with all of it I agree with being trauma informed I believe I agree with the working the integration which I have always worked in all my retreats I'm always working with that yet there has to be from where I look a fundamental recognition of who am I really who am I right you know and unless there is this this true recognition not just an understanding of oh well I know that I am just there's really nobody here and I'm pure awareness and da da da but so quickly back to this identity fighting for the identity without a clear recognition of who am I really like really truly directly intimately seeing knowing experiencing without that this human cannot really be met in freedom in true freedom you know it's still somehow watered down the recognition of who am I is watered down this is the trend that I'm noticing that it can be not always but it there's a danger of it being watered down like it yeah yeah I know I'm absolute awareness but this is the main point I'm all my human stuff and if that is overlooked if the if the fundamental recognition of of what one is because all this human is going to pass away absolutely all of it we will lose everything yeah and if we don't know what cannot be lost not just at the end of the life on the deathbed but in every moment when we're losing things like relationships when we're losing things like we lose things you know it's the nature of life we lose things things get taken away we lose people we love we lose uh financial security we use we lose things that we hope we can rely on but nothing is reliable right this in this play that we are living in our human journey nothing is reliable it will all be taken away so if we if we don't have an anchor if we are not anchored in who we really are in the midst of this human journey then we cannot be truly free right but if we recognize if the fundamental truth of who we are is recognized and then we are here to walk our human journey from the point of this recognition and then we when we have troubles with another human triggers um stories all of it yes it touches it makes irritation it makes anger it makes all these heartbreak whatever it can make yet the seeing through that nothing's out of place everything is you know it's all one thing that's revealing itself to itself we cannot have this wide open view and meet the particular and feel all the humanness really and truly without being identified with that identification without a true deep direct knowing of our fundamental nature within our nature you know so this is with a trend that I'm watching looking at because look it's true is it is it okay okay if I keep going with it because this yes it's important message thank you yeah this is what was removing through me this morning because you know I see things in the landscape and da da da um the uh the flawed spiritual teacher right so when a seeker doesn't really know themself deeply doesn't really know the point of view that I was just uh sharing they project on everyone not just the spiritual teacher but they project on everyone mommy daddy uh relationship the the projections are as if real right they are oh it's all the projections real or not the projections we yeah so when the the seeker is with a spiritual teacher and they project um now sometimes it's rooting in rooted in mummy daddy stuff they want to be saved they want someone else to do it for them or they project perfection like uh like hold them up in to on a pedestal and project perfection like they just the the perfect then they then they should be like this and they should be like that and if only I can get there then I will be uh saved or whatever right whatever the projection is and then when the spiritual teacher which is a human being which is a human being which is transmitting a message that has at some point been a revelation in their human journey you know it's is it beyond the human but including the human cannot happen without the human right so the human remains the human the human is not uh updated to a perfected saint or something that'd be nice right you know I don't want to live up to that i'm not I'm uh I'm no saint you know me neither saved myself from day one by right from the first day saying hey you know always always like I'm human and I'm not perfect and I've got all these things but what I feel is that this is part of the teaching it's the it's part of the teaching it's like look at me I'm not perfect why do you have to wait to be perfect to be free you know so because when that projection is there then those seekers cannot accept their flaws they cannot accept their their oh but sometimes I feel jealous and sometimes I feel not good enough or sometimes these things are activated oh therefore I'm not there yet and well what about finding freedom with those all those things being allowed to freely be here just as aspects of consciousness that are waiting to be met and waiting to be fully welcome to be what they are you know like I I feel that every flawed spiritual teacher that's being brought down off the pedestal or whatever they should never have been on anyway um it's only you know it's only confirming the teaching of this is not about the human perfection is not about perfecting the human and what what came through me this morning as I was yeah was the memory when I got the point on this because my first um when I got out of prison my first teacher who really uh was speaking very clearly and eloquently and was the reason why I could recognize you know I started recognized that's what's happening here that's that's it you know was Gangaji was Gangaji yeah she's so eloquent so clear so and she was a advaita and she was very very and it was just like ah it was just confirming this deep smile inside that can't be taken and then you know of course I'm projecting on Ganga Jee's like Ganga G yes of course and that and I love that and I bow down to that and I and I love that play of that you know I have no problem bowing down to the truth I have no problem you know and doesn't mean like someone is higher and someone is lower I don't care about all this shit you know so um at some point her partner her husband had an affair within the sangha and it all became public and there was all this big outrage he had an affair with someone in the sangha right he did what he did what blokes do what men do he did he did what men do right he he he did the the terrible thing of following his dick I guess I mean sorry Eli I didn't mean to say that about you but who knows what you did it could be all pure who knows but that's how it yeah to me perfection because I was seeing it and every all these people were like oh I should take can I cannot be a teacher now just take it down come down at the round and all this screaming going on and I was just like wow perfect teaching what a perfect teaching is showing look you can have this realization and still have your human unfolding playing out there can you recognize yourself right now as you are no matter what no matter what is not there yet can you recognize yourself who you really are deeper than everything right now in the midst of all your flaws that was the teaching you know and that's what we're seeing in the in the the um undoing of the spiritual the teacher student master disciple era coming undone that's what we're seeing is is these um all these false project projections and uh in often cases it's guys being called out for sexual things um but to me it's just it's just not it's not exposing it's just it's just perfect you know it's just showing it as it is so we had a technical difficulties but we are back and I think it was so such a powerful message is that we broke the internet and the computers and everything but whoever needs to hear this is serious this is very serious that you don't need to be perfect and you don't need to wait for anything to recognize your true nature what you are no you don't need to be good enough pretty enough rich enough or anything enough it's enough now because it's not even about the person yes who doesn't exist but then again you know the danger in that because then it's like if if is this this is the point is if the ego hears that then and and this this was one of the um you know like you get these pointers that have come down from great sages and great people who've been messengers pointers have come and then the ego takes it and uses it and it's exactly like that okay I'm all perfect there's nothing to do so then I can just smoke dope all day and uh lay on the couch and not that there's anything wrong with those things but that's not it either it's not for the ego yeah it's it's a beautiful beautiful um process of true self-realization like what are we here on this planet who are we what are we doing here yeah mostly sorically and being in their table but that's just on the surface right there's so much more going on yeah we we are consciousness and for consciousness to to know itself through human experience and realize itself beyond experience through the human journey is ultimate freedom like we get to live freedom while still being in prison in the body yeah yeah freedom in jail that's why I made so many videos freedom in jail you know because it's it's the same for the mind it's like the jail is the mind and if we find freedom in jail the mind can stay it does stay, right?

Ilona 43:54

All right where would it go? It's like you see colors, you hear sounds You perceive thoughts and images, where would that go?

Ananta 44:04

And it's a beautiful tool when it does go, like in cases like dementia or Alzheimer's.

Ilona 44:12

Yeah.

Ananta 44:13

You know, who are we when we lose the ability to use the mind? Still here. Yeah, it's it's a massive respect to the mind. You know?

Ilona 44:52

I see a trend, a big trend. What I see is that the most common thing people say now is I get this intellectually, I don't see this in experience. How do you what would be your comments on that? How would you say? I'll come to you and say, you know what, Ananta? I get it. I read every book. I saw your videos.

Ananta 45:21

Yeah.

Ilona 45:22

I get it. I don't see it. It's not my experience.

Ananta 45:27

Right. So what is it in you? What is it in you that knows that you get it? Yet you know it's intellectual. What is it in you that knows that? Good question. Yeah, I don't give answers, I give questions.

Ilona 45:54

Good questions, yes.

Ananta 46:11

So it points right back to that, which cannot be known in any other placeless place than by itself, right? And what's often missing in that scenario is direct recognition of that without the thinking process jumping straight on and telling a story about it or owning it. And it's it's really for me always about stopping that, finding a way to stop that thinking process.

Ilona 46:58

Right. And then people come up and say, it's blank. There is no answer. Nothing's coming up. I don't think I'm not taking it. Give me something. I know it's a podcast and we have to talk. So that would otherwise people are gonna start checking if the devices are not broken, run out of battery. But for me, these these moments of silence are what these podcasts are about, really truly deeply meeting.

Ananta 48:59

What could be beautiful right now, but it's it's not possible. But if people could now raise their hand and ask a question, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ilona 49:12

I think you can write the question in the comments if they have a question, yeah, yeah, and come to meeting to meetings alive in person, and what whatever programs you do.

Ananta 49:29

There's nothing like it. There is nothing like it. I miss online is fantastic, it's amazing. We are so lucky, but in person is something else.

Ilona 49:55

Okay, our time is coming to the end, and I want to ask you uh a final question. Okay, go for it. Is there anything that you want spontaneously in this moment that wants to be said?

Ananta 50:27

You know, for hundreds, if not thousands of years, messengers have been coming with this message, the same message in so many variations, and never has it been like it is now, where it's in it's actually become so available and so almost in mainstream, you know, is so available, like and the the danger is that the value of what this message points to gets watered down or lost. There is a danger in that because ultimately, from where I look, this is the greatest value of the life. To come to know this in your heart, in your being, and to live from this is the ultimate, you know, everything else can be going wrong, it can be so-called wrong, you know, it can all be whatever it is, it'll all pass away, but this it comes with you, it's always with you, and it leaves with you, you live with your depth of consciousness. So I would say, from my point of view, give the whole life to that. That's powerful, and that's what brings us together in this moment, is exactly that because that's what we value.

Ilona 52:28

Yes, and thank you so much, Ananda. Such a pleasure to connect with you again.

Ananta 52:37

Thank you so much.

Ilona 52:39

Same, same, very beautiful, and Ananda, is there anything coming up that you want to invite people to?

Ananta 52:52

Yes. If this message touches you and you feel deeply uh authentically called, come and join me. Take a jump next month, April 22nd to 27th, in person in Portugal. I would love to meet you in the deep end.

Ilona 53:15

There are really nice clips there. Thank you. And if this message finds you and you feel something resonating or something that is curious, it doesn't matter who is the finger that points to that, who is sharing the message, it's about the message. Um thank you for listening. See you next time. Thank you. Thank you.