Testimonials

Mike | Imperium | Douglas Mitchell | Susy Sturm | Daniel Ingram | Shane Wilson

Mike

Hi Bonnie

And here was I thinking that Nemo was a male!!

Thats great news, thank you! "Thank you" seems a totally inadequate response to someone who has just shown me the true nature of life, but that's all I have, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

Before we started the process, I was expecting a confrontational process that would, I felt lead to me failing to find myself. In fact, I felt totally supported and sensitively extended throughout our dialog, and that says a huge amount about your level of skill and understanding. I found the entire process thoroughly enjoyable. I was a teacher and I recognise a craftsperson at work! I looked forward to each of your email posts to me with great anticipation

It was that post you wrote to Mikko that cracked the shell. After that, everything sort of flowed and the understanding, the "seeing" was there without me feeling that I had to frantically search for it. That feeling has not left (with yesterday's mind-driven moment aside which I wrote about on the blog and from which I quickly recovered) and has, if anything, deepened.

Thank you for your willingness to continue chatting on email. I really enjoyed our dialog and your comments and would have been sad if there had have been no opportunity for it to continue. Thank you

I do have a Facebook account. Its currently inactive after I pot pissed off with the spam traffic it generated, but I will reactivate it when I return home on Friday. I have a feeling that going through the gate is when the real journey starts and I'm sure going to need on-going support, advice and encouragement.

In love and with gratitude

Mike

http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=542

 

Imperium

Hi All Seekers,

Having been a serious seeker myself, I hope to share my experience on how to stop the seeking addiction, hope this can be helpful for some :)

In summary, I have been seeking for 6 years and reading over 500 books but it led me only to temporary blissful/peaceful experiences which kept the seeking addiction going stronger and stronger. Then I found out about Liberation Unleashed and BAM!, seeing that self is just a thought/story and doesn't exist in reality stopped the addiction.

Thanks to Ilona for being there for me, guiding me, slaying my thoughts after thoughts. I call her the thought slayer. You see (focus, look hard til headache and then relax, just effortless noticing), somewhere in between, you see that there is no I, you never existed! All non-dual teachings have been saying find out who you are, you are existence, you are awareness but you don't exist, there is no you in whatever form or shape! No wonder you never stop seeking - you have been trying to find a self that doesn't exist. Stop all your seeking, start posting at Liberation Unleashed forum. It's free and you have nothing to lose except the illusion of self.

My story (for those who are interested to continue reading)
I have been seeking for almost 6 years, reading about 2-3 hours daily about enlightenment, non-duality. I have accumulated over 500 books from Adyashanti, Bob (Sailor) Adamson, Charlie Hayes, David Godman, Eckhart Tolle, Francis Lucille, Greg Goode, Gangaji, Gilbert Schultz, John Wheeler, Katie Davis, Leo Hartog, Michael Langford, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Papaji, Ramana Maharshi, Steven Wingate, etc... Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against them, it's just that their methods are not direct enough (at least for me). Every quarter, I looked at Amazon.com's Listmania! List of Top 10-30 non-dual books recommended by users and collect all of them. Every book review that says "This is it!" and I'll buy it.

My hobby is reading non-dual books on lazy Sunday (especially when raining outside), occasionally, there are some blissful/peaceful experiences, wowwww, niceeeee, sweeettttt. Then it disappears followed by disappointment and despair, then more reading and seeking - a vicious cycle! Reading how to live life when life is waiting for you to live it! All these led me to nowhere, why? Because there is no one!! You don't exist!!

Tips I think maybe helpful for someone new to Liberation Unleashed Inquiry
1. If you are stuck, look at the Start Page on Ilona's blog
http://markedeternal.blogspot.com/p/start-here.html

2. Everyone say look, just look. This is the most frustrating point to me. Of course I am looking you fool!!! But I am not seeing it!!! Like someone ask you to hear, you want to slap him (sorry) and say of course I am hearing. In my humble experience, it is a matter of auto-focusing like the camera, you need to focus really hard until you have a headache and then relax until effortless noticing (like seeing your nose). Somewhere in between, you will have glimpse of what they meant by look, there is no self.

2. If you look at the posts, you see people are asked to just notice the experience, see the thoughts, see how the story of self arises. Then BAM!, the person passes through the gate. Sometimes, even when there are no exchanges/messages in a few days. Now that also frustrates me a lot - how does he goes from strong belief in self, no messages/exhanges in between, then BAM!, he says he sees no self. It's like the conversation has no logical progression or not making any progress but suddenly it clicks! I was thinking how can that dude sees it so easily when it took me weeks and no progress - am I an idiot or what?? But believe me, once the seed of "seeing" is implanted, give it time to run its course, the anti-virus program is running in the background killing the self slowly. For some, it may take 10 minutes chat in Facebook (I know curse those lucky jerks), some may take 2 months. Let it slide gradually, don't lose hope. For me, it takes about a month with 25 days showing no progress (in logical thinking), then suddenly within 5 days, BAM!, all starts to sink in.

http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=8622#p8622

 

Douglas Mitchell

I want to write a testimonial in gratitude to liberationunleashed.com and Elizabeth. This is a website dedicated to guiding people in a one on one relationship with a liberated person who is no longer identified with the self. They claim fast results. They weren't kidding. It only took two weeks in my case. I speak conventionally using the I because it would be impossible not to. The liberator asks you questions as pointers to the root of the self illusion. My root was that "I am awareness". Does it really take a self to claim ownership of awareness to experience awareness? I was asked to look, really look and see if a self was there when aware. I was stunned to realize that direct experience does not require ownership, directorship, or control by an I. The senses work just fine and are interpreted by the brain with no regard for an I to grab hold. This is only the beginning for me but with support, which they provide to maintain this recognition, I will no longer be under the spell of self. Give them a try.

Doug's conversation with Elizabeth http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=278

 

Susy Sturm

My boyfriend emails me this link to Liberation Unleashed. He’s always sending me stuff like this. Sometimes I ignore it...we’ve been in this seeking business a long time. Later when I ask, he doesn’t remember how he came across it. So I’m looking at this page and two words light up. “Direct Pointing.” That’s good, very good. I like it. So I go to the forum and read some dialogues. Very clear, we know clarity when we see it, right? We long time seekers? So then I look up the Liberation list and whoa...this many people have seen through the illusion of self in how much time? A year? No way. No..possible..way.

Okay. This is a challenge. This could be fun. I know my stuff. So I go with Ilona. I don’t know a thing about her. Could be guy for all I know, or a made-up name, like the one I will use. I like anonymous. Nothing to compare or distract you. Well, I’ll have her/him figured out before this dialogue is over. (Ha, we know who has whose number in the end.)

So right out of the chute.

Ilona: What are your expectations for awakening? List them.

Suzy: Okay. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Ilona: All are ignored. Except Five. “Ha! Magical thinking. It’s not like this at all.”

Suzy: Magical thinking? Really? Hmm. So I fire off a bunch of questions, you know seekers love questions.

Ilona’s Response: Do you exist?

Suzy: “Do I exist?” I’m on it. Did she answer my questions? I’m not sure but I’m into this. This is deep. So I answer and fire off more questions. She answers one or two questions briefly, I think. Not much for chatter this one. So we tackle a few more subjects over the next day or two. This is good. I’m enjoying this, I know this stuff.

Ilona: So, is there anything not happening on automatic?

Suzy: This is easy. Too easy. “No, everything is on automatic.” This I know for sure. Read this so many times. I continue to blather on about my spiritual practice and this problem I have with it. So I say to her, “I stop in silence to just ‘be’ and it’s a problem, you know, because I’m in the natural state when I stop, but then the mind comes back in. But I think if I just keep coming back to it often enough then then maybe the natural state will become automatic.”

Oops! Get it? Small discrepancy here which I failed to notice but Ilona’s on it like a duck on a June bug. I just said everything was on automatic and now I’m wishing something in my life was on automatic? Hello? So I think I know this stuff? So maybe I “know” it but I’m just not “seeing” it.

Ilona: So look, what’s not automatic here?

Suzy: Now I’m in a defensive mode...after all the “me” hates to be wrong. “No, no, I meant to say ‘continuous’, not ‘automatic.” (Like there is a difference?) She doesn’t buy this.

Ilona: Look again. Look deeper. What’s not on automatic?

Suzy: Busted. The discrepancy is in my face. And spaciousness is arising. A long walk and giggling arises. It’s a done deal.

So now I’m on the Lib list. One of many, growing like crazy. You see it works like this. Ilona and friends, they ask questions. You answer, you blather. You may try to engage them in useless conversation but they don’t bite, they focus, they question. And in your blathering you give them clues as to how close you are getting to seeing that there is no separate self. They don’t buy into your great intellectual understanding of this. It’s pretty well worthless. It’s all about the looking. Look now. Look again. Look deeper. At some point you get excited when you are giving the wrong answers. If you had all the right answers you wouldn’t need to be doing this. That’s how they trap you deep in the rabbit hole, Ilona and friends. No escape. No escape is good. Very good.

Suzy's conversition with Ilona http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=184

 

Daniel Ingram

In response to the notion that this is anti-traditional or that this is not fundamentalist Theravadan stuff in some way: if you look at the old texts, the practice instructions for insight again and again are: "That is not self, that is not me, that is not mine, that is impermanent, that is causal, that is empty. This is not self, this is not me, this is not mine, this is impermanent, this is causal, this is empty." Again and again, they were asked to observe this, contemplate this, experience this, know this directly for everything, exactly as these Direct Pointers are onto, and more power to them.

I don't know what people are doing in vipassana, but if it is something other than seeing the Three Characteristics, of which two are strongly emphasized by the Direct Pointers, then I would say that isn't vipassana, and is something else being sold as vipassana but isn't.

I like this very immediate, very hardcore, very straightforward approach. I have this feeling that there are levels to it beyond the obvious, but this is a discussion for another time. Regardless, good stuff.

Daniel Ingram - http://www.interactivebuddha.com/index.shtml

 

Shane Wilson

As is true for many spiritually motivated people, life had been filled with seeking and searching for the gate to enlightenment. Looking for a way to open that gate once it was found was the goal. For many years there was a great deal of striving to become something more and the idea of acquiring more spiritual knowledge and doing more practices seemed to be the logical solution to find an end to this striving. Of course all of it was desire driven, but now the desire was for the desire-less state. In Theravada Buddhism, this is call Nibbana, in Sanskrit Nirvana, some know it as enlightenment or awakening. When it comes down to it, the best single word we can use is “Freedom”.

When we speak of freedom, several things can come to mind. The opposite of Freedom is imprisonment, which can be looked at as a physical or mental detention or confining. In the area of Buddhism, where I have spent many years practicing as a Theravada Monk and currently as an ordained Buddhist minister. We refer to the fetters or bindings that imprison us to this life of non-contentment, this non-contentment is the motivation that is pushing the seeking and searching. Freedom from this cycle is the end of searching. That is what we seem to wanted more than anything, in my situation I was not finding it through the classical Methods of practice such as the three or more daily hours of meditation that I had been doing or through the study of the scriptures.

Earlier this year I heard of these people who were doing things a little bit different. People were waking up but the method was so foreign to me that I could not believe it could work. People were attaining enlightenment on the internet? People using their computers to wake up in the privacy of their own home or even at the office! People were realizing their true nature in such an abnormal way. I could only imagine what my previous Buddhist teachers would think, some of who where in Thailand and have never even used a computer. I needed to find out more about this. I figured out how to get a message off to Elena Nezhinsky, one of the key people behind this phenomenon. The rest is a story of freedom for many people.

Freedom from what? From the mind made prison that I was living in. Even as a serious practitioner, serious enough to ordain as a Buddhist monk and minister I had not experienced this freedom.

Shane Wilson - http://www.meditationlearningcenter.com/home.html

Elena's conversation with Shane : http://completehumanity.blogspot.com/2011/11/theravada-meditation-teacher-shane.html

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