Thursday 6 October 2016

Integration: Saying YES to All

When I started pointing to no self, I knew one thing: the belief in being a separate entity that is driving the body through life- is the core of human suffering. I called that mechanism I Virus, it was so clear to me that delusion can end and that it's my mission to make this message widely heard. The I Virus is the default program, everyone believes their I is separate from everyone else's.

Seeing through the fallacy of the idea of separateness and all ideas that attempt to describe 'what is' we call crashing the gateless gate. At the very beginning I knew I had to stand my ground and keep focus purely on the gate, I knew that there will be other realisations and integration, that seeing will deepen. I knew that at some point I won't be able to point to the gate as effectively. I mean, I was focused on pointing only to this- look, there is no 'you'.
I stood my ground, I even wrote a book and put all I had, that worked for people. There is nothing more or different I can say today. It feels that this mission is complete.

On this blog I have never shared about integration, about what tools I use, what practices I have, what works for me. We all have our own way to deepen the inner journey. I feel I would like to start sharing that just in case someone finds it inspiring and useful.

LU is running, meaning everyone is doing their part. LU is focused on guiding to see no self and that shall remain, I can step to a side and do my own thing now. I have given all I have to point to no self.

There are many many people now that realised the absence of I entity as it was thought to be. What's next? - is a common question that everyone asks.

Next is integration. Right after initial seeing I called the next phase Falling- meaning, all that does not serve falls away while all that is new and fresh falls into place. There is nowhere to land, falling is happening, destroying all certainty about how things are. Some deeply rooted beliefs and emotional traumas don't fall away so easily. Some things remain unconscious until they are examined closely again and again. I use Deep Looking process to access those areas and it proves to be very effective in releasing structures that hold an apparent person in contracted state.

All we want is freedom, expansion, love, acceptance, peace. All that does not simply come with crossing the line of the gateless gate. The gate is only an opening. The exploration continues. The falling stage can be very intense and confusing. It's not a ticket to happy ever after as many may have expected. So life brings us to looking again and again till it's absolutely clear that imagined controller is imagined.

I have gone through deconstruction process before I faced the question of no self directly. It was a painful time and there was a lot to question, including most precious beliefs that did not want to go away easily. At times it felt like killing ego, like cutting pieces away brutally and all that was necessary.

There was a lot left to clear after the opening. Some things fell off and were only noticed missing when looked back. Some things felt like I have to train the mind, to tame it, to find a new way to relate to the mind itself. It was very helpful for me to learn to say YES to everything that was showing up.

My friend Elena inspired me to try what she have learned from Pamela Wilson. Simply by saying Yes to all got me to allow whatever intense emotions were happening to just be ok. At the beginning, it felt like a practice. I kept remembering to just say yes in situations where mind would usually scream- "no, not again, I don't want this!"  After a while it kind of became natural and I could be OK within previously unwanted situations. It felt like overriding the default program manually and it worked.

There are a lot of great tools and modalities that help us deal with the baggage that still remains after crashing the gate. Being mindful, remembering to notice, to look at what is true at any given moment allows us to observe the tendencies and drop habitual patterns.

There are lots of great teachers that are helpful on after the gate journey, like Adyashanti, Byron Katie, Rupert Spira, Greg Goode, Scott Kiloby, to name a few. And of course, life brings the right teacher at the right moment in the form that is most acceptable for us. Whatever life presents, whatever presents life gives are the right ones that we need at that moment. There are no mistakes.

People are talking about stuckness, falling into traps and being unable to move forward. I know how that feels very well and I'm not immune to that either, but there is also knowing that stuckness is impossible, life is a flow; flow does not stick to anything, and whatever shows up as the next lesson, has to be learned in order to move into more expanded state. Suffering that shows up lights the path pointing directly to what is still unresolved. The unwanted emotional states are pressing to look deeper to find the root, to deal with the issue directly, without further avoiding and putting it on hold.

My life has changed dramatically just after initial crossing the line. I was working for somebody for many years and felt unhappy about the situation, so life presented an opportunity to start our own tattoo business. We have moved to another town, to a new spacious house, with a garden. It felt like a big shift and it served me well. There was a lot of residue around relationships that did not simply resolve, I had addictions and unhealthy patterns. This was a biggie for me. I had periods of highest high and lowest low, struggle to release and longing for love. All that is part of being human. All that was welcome as I was saying Yes to all. I did not expect a happy ever after and I cried a bucket of tears (or two), I got into depressive states and I was looking for the next tool to ease suffering, but in the background of all this dance there was peace and trust, that all is unfolding as it should and there are no skipping parts. There was trust that life knows what it's doing even in the darkest hours.

It is not uncommon to get into the dark night of the soul period. Once beliefs start falling off there


may be emptiness, passivity, desperation, nihilism and giving up on life. This is too part of the process. This shall pass regardless of what stories about permanence mind creates and believes. This state is necessary on the path of clearing. It's purging all that is no longer needed and is not helpful. If you find yourself in this state, please seek out support, just talking about with people that went through it will give reassurance that even this is ok and it will pass.

Awakening from the dream of separation is not meant to be pleasant as we get to face our bullshit that we treasured for years. This can be so intense, but even intensity is ok.

Okayness does not mean passivity or giving up on what is important. It's a state of trusting life, trusting that the next necessary step is exactly the step that needs to be taken. It is surrendering to life as we no longer imagine that we are the drivers. We know what step is ahead of us, what we need to do now, what issues are here to be resolved. Once the step is complete, a new step presents itself and we know what to do- we do what is happening.


This process is about unlearning all that we knew was true and settling into not knowing. This gives a sense of freshness, of mystery, of something higher at work, magic if you like. When we become less and less structured by mind created shoulds and shouldn'ts there is freedom to experience all without judgement of right and wrong. That is a blessing and there is noticeable peace underneath all mind chatter. It's always here, always available in the moment. Being able to notice that allows us to rest in the middle of a storm.
There is work to be done even while knowing that there is no doer. There are tools that work better than others. It's all part of humaning. We are designed to seek pleasure and move away from pain- it's natural to want to be happy and want dear people around us to be happy too. So I say Yes to clearing all that needs to be cleared and healing all that still needs to be healed.

May we all stop running away from pressing issues and face them head on fearlessly and gracefully.


Peace to all.
May all beings be in joy.






1 comment:

  1. What a beautifully wonderful sharing! Thank you Ilona, and namaste!

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