Hug that child and tell her how precious and beautiful she is and how very much you love her.
Have a heart-to-heart conversation and express openly how you feel about her as well as listen attentively to what she has to say to you. Stay with her till she feels lighter.
Protection
Everyone has protective mechanisms, both “outer” and “inner,” for good and practical reasons. But when you look inside and ask “What is here that needs to be protected right now?,” the answer that comes may be a surprise. You may see that the mind creates and protects images.
Images do not need to be protected, as there is nothing that can harm a mere image in any way. Think about it: What is the worst thing that can happen to an image? However, the protection mechanism may still start up.
Try This for Yourself Simply ask yourself, “Is it true, does this still need to be protected?”
If the answer is yes, then find out what is really feeling threatened.
Keep looking deeper, and look behind the fear.
What is there?
When you see that there is nothing that needs to be protected, when you really see that, the structure of protection collapses. It becomes obvious that this protection is guarding only an idea, not something that is really present. Nothing can be harmed in any way, because it’s nothing. Emptiness.
I’ve had many Deep Looking sessions with many people, and in only a few cases did big release not happen, and when it didn’t happen, it only meant that more patience was needed to unlock the old, rusty locks. Many sessions ended with people feeling light and blissful or falling asleep; sometimes I fell asleep too, as it does take a lot of concentration to go all the way through the process till the end. But what I noticed is that when a client releases, release happens for both people participating in the session. It is quite interesting to be part of this process as deepening of peace happens for both people.
Anyway, theory is one thing, reading or listening to someone else’s process is another, but diving right in and trying Deep Looking for yourself is something that has to be experienced. You can do it anywhere, anytime—in the middle of busy day or while meditating. Directness, immediacy, and intimacy are right here, in the asking of a direct question, from which authentic action can arise.
In the beginning, it may feel strange to talk to the heart and mind, especially if you see that “mind” and “heart” are just labels, empty ideas. But give it a try, explore this method and see for yourself. It may get you into deeper peace, and there is nothing at all to fear or to lose using this method. If it doesn’t work for you, never mind.
If you find the method useful, share it with a friend, pass it on, try it with someone, and experiment. Find what works for you. Peace is already here, waiting to be noticed.
It’s a mystery how Deep Looking works, but it surely does. The process allows you to go right to the root of stuck energy. It lets you examine the beliefs and feelings around an issue, and a release happens, a deep release that clears the space around the issue. Deep Looking fills the space where tightness and unease used to be with love and appreciation.
When the mind and heart are content and at peace, you can ask the mind if it knows that the heart is its home.
Ask the mind if it is already at home, and if the answer is no, ask the mind if it wants to go home, to join with the heart.
Make sure both sides, the mind and the heart, agree, and then just close your eyes for a few minutes and feel the heart. You can put a hand on the chest to make the sensation more vivid. Then just close your eyes for a bit and feel the heart.
Feel the energy moving and simply be with it.
Descriptions fail at this point; there is no need to name the feeling.
After this release, the opening continues. There may be more issues left to release, so the opening will unfold through the next few days. Release is an energetic shift, a change in how you relate to what is, how you feel most of the time—a new default frequency.
If you use the Deep Looking technique by yourself, it may take patience and time. Each time you use it, there is a little release. In a few days or weeks, there will be a noticeable difference. If you use this technique with a partner, somebody who helps you hold the focus, the release can be really big and sudden. The whole point of a having a partner is to have someone to keep you at it, all the way through.
When I first started using this technique, I did it by myself, but then I started practicing it with friends and people I had never met. It is amazing to see from the inside how the mind mechanisms work. The mind protects the heart. In this noble task it became confused, and suffering was created. Instead of looking for the root cause and releasing it, the mind created more and more security structures to protect the heart from suffering, and that only created more suffering. In the end, the heart may feel small, wounded, and helpless. All the heart wants is to love. It can love freely, but the mind keeps it “safe” from possible hurt. Sometimes it offers protection just in case, without examining if that protection works for the good or only creates more tension.
The heart is at peace when it’s expanded, limitless, conditionless—when it loves what it loves and enjoys the feeling of it.
If you listen to what your mind and heart really want, if you start to communicate with those two, eventually the knot will loosen and the tightness will melt away. What is left is openness and acceptance. Peace with what is.
You can communicate with the body, too. You can ask yes and no questions and see what reactions appear—opening sensations, or expansion, are a yes; closing and tightness, or contraction, are a no. It’s very simple. And Deep Looking works with physical symptoms, too. Behind physical symptoms there are often unconscious mechanisms of the mind.
Friederich
My conversation with Friederich took three months. It wasn’t a joyful time, and the process was not quick, but the transformation that happened was beautiful. We talked about how story creates itself, then resistance came up, and our conversation became intense. Anger, hate, and desperation came up. We had a Deep Looking session, and he was able to relax. I was so happy for him.
[Note to the reader: English is not Friederich’s first language, so we had to revise some of his words, while retaining the meaning and his unique voice.]
Friederich: Hi Ilona, I found your e-mail address in your book Gateless Gatecrashers.
Although it would seem that “I” have a “clear” understanding that there isn’t really any “me,” the sense of it is still rather strong! So, clearly, clear seeing hasn’t happened—yet. But, hopefully, the time is ripe for it. So please, let me know if we can communicate through this medium, or if we would have to do it through your forum! Thanks for reading.
Ilona: Hi Friederich. Thank you for your message, it’s great to hear from you. Yes, we can communicate through this medium, and it would be my pleasure to have a chat with you. Here are some questions for you to ponder:
Focus on the sense of “me.” What is it? Where is it? Is it a sense of being/aliveness, or a sense of “me”? Does that sense disappear if it’s labeled differently, let’s say, “broccoli”?
Is the sense of being happening to you? Or as you? Is there “you” in the sense or only in thought? Without thought does the sense of being disappear?
Is sense of being personal? Is there anything that is doing “being” that can switch it on or off?
Describe what you notice.
Sending love.
Friederich: Dear Ilona, Wow! That’s so great! Thank you. The “sense of me” is definitely growing less, even since yesterday’s e-mail. I read the first chapter of your book and came to a point where the question arose, Why the heck did I write her so desperately yesterday? It’s really no big deal! Or, is that just a “strategy to avoid the seeing of no me?” We will see.
I’m finding it hard even to find a “sense of me.” It seems to be something showing up, appearing, and disappearing as a temporary “thing”—a p
art of what is. When it seems to appear, it is sensed as surrounding and including the body, with a sense of being and aliveness, which is just here quietly, simply present. If the “sense of me” is given a different name—say that it’s labeled “broccoli”—then it doesn’t feel personal anymore: it’s just seen as a thing—neutral—and more space is experienced.
No, definitely, a sense of being isn’t happening “to me” but is “me”! Without thinking or thoughts, there is definitely only is-ness…being. It lasts only a fraction of a second, and then all thoughts are back. And no, the sense of being isn’t personal; it’s simply something that is—and in a way, it feels like this “sense of being” would be, sort of, the real “me.” And no: there isn’t anything doing being. Being is simply what is.
But then, for some reason, a “sucking in” seems to happen, an identification with thoughts, emotions, and sensations with a story. Then aliveness seems gone, and eternal hell seems to be back. When I wrote “for some reason,” that wasn’t completely accurate. Most of the time, the “sucking in” is triggered by some outside event.
This unit called Friederich has been built with a rather intolerant personality, which makes it almost impossible to live with other people. Add to that a paralysis from the neck downwards for more than thirty-four years, and because of the last five years spent lying in bed for most of the day and night some very resistant bedsores in both of its buttocks, and you get an idea of how “perfectly” it is all scripted! LOL! I mean, it’s like, Change or suffer and die! Realize your true nature or you will keep suffering.
Thank you for your willingness to support me on this adventure, and to dedicate some of your time to this nonexistent “me”! Or, more accurate yet, to the bursting the bubble of the nonexistent “me”!
The next day…
Friederich: Ilona—knowing how committed you are to support others in seeing clearly, and having no answer from you yet, I suspect that maybe, for whatever reason, you are not getting my e-mail. So, I am sending it here again, hoping that this time it will land in your mailbox! Thank you.
Ilona: Hi Friederich. Thank you for your e-mail; indeed the message got lost and it’s good that you sent it again yesterday. I normally reply in a day or two. If I don’t, it’s either because I’m very busy or something did not reach me.
You can write to me every day, this way the mind gets to focus and clarifies what is going on. This process is yours, so just write what you notice, what is going on, even if I don’t reply to every e-mail.
What you wrote about being rings true. Yes, being just is. The sense of me is not constant. It arises and passes away within situations. The sense of me is not even a sense of me, but a contraction, plus labels that say “me.”
For a day, examine the language and how it is constructed. We have a subject/object doing action.
Notice “I” breathe—does that make “I” the breather or is it a way to describe breathing happening?
I lie in bed—is it “I” that is laying?
The computer sits on a table—is there a computer doing sitting?
There is an exercise for you on my blog called “Labels,” do it here or on paper and notice how language creates an illusion of doer [see page 76 in this book].
Answer the questions from the post, plus tell me, how does the labeling experience affect actual experience? How does labeling what is happening affect what is happening?
Sending love.
Friederich: Thank you, Ilona! You not getting my e-mail was a good opportunity for insight because a lot of old patterns of, apparently, not being good enough and being rejected came up, and the belief that the story is true happened again! Depression, resentment, and anger arose again and were experienced as “I” am that anger, that resentment, that depression. Until the identification with the story was seen through again, especially after the last e-mail was sent to you!
Reading the exercise recommended by you, and other posts on your website about the myth of permanent enlightenment, helped seeing more clearly that whatever is, is. If permanent enlightenment happens, then so be it. If getting caught up in the story and believing it happens again, then so be it. If it happens over and over again, then so be it. Anyway, it’s just another story.
So then, this is what came up in the twenty-minute exercise:
I’m lying in bed, dictating this text. I’m doing my best to speak very clearly so that my dictation device can write exactly what I’m dictating, and not write some errors. At the same time, I’m thinking thoughts about worrying about making mistakes, getting stirred up by noises people around me could make which would negatively affect my dictations. Hence, the accuracy of my dictation. I’m trying to breathe slowly in order to avoid tension. I’m getting nervous and anxious because I’m hearing the neighbors moving around and making noise, which could affect the quality of my dictations because the software can’t differentiate between my voice and other noises. Hence, everything gets (in a way) translated into words! Which for me is very annoying and makes me very angry and feeling like a victim! I’m waiting for the next thing to write, but nothing comes up. I’m looking at the clock and still have two minutes to go! I would rather wake up once and forever instead of doing these kinds of exercises! I’m tired of the whole shit!
Laying in bed is happening as well as speaking into the microphone so that the dictation device can transcribe the spoken words into written words. Listening to the river is happening as well as breathing. Anger is rising because of the inability to pronounce the word “breathing” (the dictation device always understands it as “briefing”). A desire for “perfection” is here, a judgement that says “what is” isn’t perfect, but something else would be instead. Laying in bed is noticed as well as thoughts and emotions coming and going. Waiting for the nurse is also noticed, as well as a certain lightness and slight joy about the day. Watching the clock is noticed as well as two more minutes and liking to complete the ten-minute exercise! It is seen that describing what happens and what is in this way feels much lighter and smoother, more flowing, whereas the traditional way feels harder, “cut out,” like, “cemented in.”
So, it seems that there would be a choice in both ways of living. Describing what life is seems to be equally “valuable”—because both of them appear to exist—and the second way of seeing definitely feels much more gentle and soft.
Who knows? Maybe there is a purpose behind a “slow” awakening instead of a spontaneous and permanent one! I mean, the only one having a preference in this, wouldn’t that be the illusionary “I”? LOL! Isn’t everything already exactly the way it is supposed to be? Even the apparent “I,” “believing” the story to be his or her story? Who or what is it anyway that is identifying itself with the I-thought? Isn’t that infinite aliveness itself, since there is nothing else?!
It seems that if awakening isn’t spontaneous and permanent, great alertness and commitment is needed. Alertness and commitment in sticking to the “non-me” narration of what is instead of the “I” narration. If it is seen that everything is really only happening without a me doing it or making it happen, then there is immediate ease and smoothness present.
It is clearly seen that without labeling, there would be only presence, no experiencing. As soon as language comes in, labeling starts. Even in such subtle forms as naming things by their name, experiencing kicks in and, of course, even more so when labeling experiences and emotions as good and bad, right and wrong, enjoyable not enjoyable, liking or not liking.
It seems that there is no way to stop this from happening. Labeling/wording just appears to happen with no one doing it.
Thanks for your time!
And for your love!
Ilona: Thank you for the reply, Friederich. You can trust that all is unfolding as it should. Seeing no self is not enlightenment, it’s a first step, crossing a line, the beginning of the awakened journey. It is not a door to happily ever after, it’s a door to the exploration of what this is.
> Seeing that there is no one here, no entity, clears the want for enlightenment, as it is seen that there is no one here to achieve that. The whole story of enlightenment can no longer find a place that can stick. No more seeking, but exploration does not end.
Okay. Let’s dig deeper. Yes, you see it, labeling is just happening without a doer.
Now, focus on the narration, the voice in the head. Let it talk in whatever way it wants to talk and take a look:
What is there that is listening to it?
What is that voice talking to/at?
Is it always telling the truth?
What is it arguing with?
What is there that cares?
Which story is the voice engaged in?
Have a look. Is there a me, or a story about me?
Is there Friederich, or a story about Friederich?
Does the voice in the head know anything?
What is it that knows of this voice?
Looking forward to your answers. Sending love.
Friederich: Dear Ilona, Thanks!
Seeing that there is no one here, no entity, clears the want for enlightenment, as it is seen that there is no one here to achieve that. The whole story of enlightenment can no longer find a place that can stick. No more seeking, but exploration does not end.
It seems here there is still a “curiosity” to explore more.
What is that voice talking to/at?
It seems as if this voice would talk to a “me” but then, upon further seeing, it also seems that there is only an awareness of that voice talking and that “I” identify with this awareness as “me.” It feels lighter to just phrase it as “awareness that voice is happening.”
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