Video from SAND 2014
Here is the video recorded at the Science and Nonduality conference in October last year. Enjoy :-)
http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/oneness-beyond-belief-unmani/
Posts
REAL INTELLIGENCE
Just feeling into the baby growing inside my belly… He doesn’t know that he is a baby. He doesn’t know that he is a boy. He doesn’t know that he is a human. He doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t know which country we are in. He doesn’t know that he is someone. He is just wide open intelligence (and he doesn’t even understand what those words mean). The intelligence that he is, doesn’t need to understand any of those concepts, because it is Life itself – so much more than concepts.
And of course the funny thing is that, although we all start like that, in our mother’s womb knowing nothing about anything, really nothing changes when we grow up. Even when we think we know everything about who we are and how to live this life, our true nature is still that same wide open intelligence, that doesn’t know in thinking, but knows as Life itself.
~ Unmani
LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS
We long to be truly met, and to merge with the other. We long to be seen as the Love that we really are, and to lose ourselves completely in that, all the while knowing that it is safe, and that the other will love us unconditionally no matter what we do, say or feel. However, in most human relationships, we live in fear more than the Love we really are. We have been hurt before, so we protect ourselves. We hold back and do not give everything that we would so love to receive. We assume that it is not safe to let down our boundaries, so we play power games where winning provides an illusion of safety. We wait for the other to provide safety (and blame them if they don’t), before we risk opening up. It is a painful roller-coaster of highs and lows, of getting temporary experiences of love, and then losing them…
What you really long for, has to start with yourself. You can not wait for the other to open up. You can not forever point the finger at the other, and avoid looking at yourself. You have to courageously take the first step to let down the walls of protection. You have to risk losing the power games, and even risk losing the relationship. It is the only way to meet, and be met, in the Love that you truly are.
~ Unmani
PEACE
When we say that we are searching for peace, we usually imagine that peace means the absence of agitation, discomfort or thought. However, if you chase this kind of temporary peace, it is just an endless chasing. When you live as a human in this world you will never be able to hold onto a permanent state of peace that is not disturbed by the occasional human sensation, emotion or thought. But the real Peace, is when you no longer need or care about these temporary experiences of peace. When you know the Peace that does not depend on an experience of any kind, you know that this Peace can not be held onto, but it also can not be lost.
~ Unmani
NEW VIDEO DOWNLOAD ‘WHAT IS THE POINT OF SUFFERING?’
There is a new download on the website, of the recent meeting in Paris entitled ‘What is the point of suffering?’ It is in English with French translation.
https://www.die-to-love.com/shop/video-downloads/
THE PARADOX OF INSECURITY
We spend so much time and energy building boundaries, walls and secure places: maintaining relationships, jobs, collecting possessions… All with the idea that if I can get it all perfectly arranged somehow, that that will bring me real security and safety. Maybe that sense of safety and security can last for a while, but inevitably at some point something happens to disturb it all. Whether it is losing your job, a relationship break-up, illness, or some kind of tragedy. You have to eventually face the reality that nothing is certain. Nothing, or no one, can be relied upon to be here forever.
However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t dive into relationships, maintain jobs, or acquire possessions. Why not? Lose yourself completely in whatever you do, or whoever you are with, only knowing that you have nothing to lose really. This is the heartbreaking paradox of life: that because you have nothing to lose, you may as well lose it all.
~ Unmani
REALITY IS A BIT TOO REAL
Acknowledging what is really here, and not what you would like to be here, is the most simple and obvious truth. And yet, it seems that so often we prefer to live in a dream of what could be. The dream can appear to be safer or better. And reality can seem just a bit too real.
~ Unmani
THE DRAMA OF LIFE
Often when we are going through some life tragedy, or even when some minor event happens, we can see how thought tends to add a layer of drama on top of whatever is happening. We all have the tendency to be ‘drama queens’, believing that whatever is happening, means so much more than it really does. There is the original feeling or experience, but then there is some extra excitement, or tension that usually comes with the subtle, or not so subtle, thought story that it all means so much to or about ‘me’.
The belief about ‘me’ adds some special meaning that could be positive or negative. It could be a story of how this experience means that I am a very good or kind person, and that people will like me. Or it could be that this experience means that I have done something wrong, or perhaps that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Whether the story is positive or negative is beside the point – it is all that extra layer of drama, and belief that what happens means something about ‘me’, and makes ‘me’ special in some way.
We get so accustomed to living with this layer of dramatic meaning on top of every experience, that we start to believe that this drama is what makes us feel alive. We even fear not having a drama or meaning, because we believe that would be so empty, boring and dead. We get used to living with this level of adrenalin rushing through our bodies, and have grown so familiar with that dramatic sense of agitation that comes along with every experience, that we even believe that the agitation itself is ‘me’. Although it is painful and exhausting to live like this, the alternative can seem so unknown and terrifying.
There is no need, and it is not possible anyway, to try to stop believing in a ‘me’ or to try to stop creating meanings. However, we can see how this whole mechanism works. We can get to know it, and start to see the whole game. In seeing it, there is already some relief. In knowing that it is just the nature of thought, to create meanings for ‘me’, we don’t expect it not to, but we also don’t take it so seriously when it does. Just because thought says that this experience means something about ‘me’, it doesn’t mean that it really does. And if this experience, whatever it is, doesn’t mean anything about ‘me’, then perhaps this also doesn’t mean that life is empty or dead (this is also an added layer of dramatic meaning). It is all just as it is, meaningless, and yet alive and enough in itself.
Unmani, 9th January 2015
LIFE IS FULL OF SURPRISES
Life is full of surprises if you are open to seeing and appreciating them. If you think you know it all or have seen it all before, then life will rarely be able to surprise you. You will be walking around with your head in a paper bag, only able to see and experience what you think. Like a zombie or a robot, just running the software that you know. Nothing is fresh and alive… But at some point life manages to get through, and rip off the bag. This often happens with something that is so unexpected that it shocks you alive again. Perhaps a tragedy or a loss. Or perhaps if you are lucky, someone comes along that touches you so deeply that you crack open and bleed. However it is, it could be painful, frightening, or overwhelming. Your old software will probably complain, and even shout and scream. But in the end you are grateful. Grateful to come alive again.
WHO ARE WE TO KNOW HOW LIFE SHOULD BE?
We often think we know how we would like our life to turn out. We think we know what we want for our future. We think that our hopes and dreams should be fulfilled and that if they are not, then that must mean that there is something wrong with us. But who are we to know how life should be? It seems that only when we truly give up any idea that we can control what happens, or any hope that our dreams will come true, that life brings exactly what is needed. This is not some ‘new age’ attitude of ‘trusting the universe’, or some kind of nihilistic passivity, but an absolute surrender to the nature of life. Whether we like it or not, Life includes the whole spectrum of experience and not only the ones we want or agree with. Whatever happens may not always be comfortable, but it is exactly as it should be, because it is.
Unmani
www.die-to-love.com
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