Pass the Message On
When I saw through the illusion, I went on Google and searched for quotes about enlightenment. It was remarkable that I could finally understand what they meant. The words of the sages and the Buddha finally made perfect sense. I came across these words attributed to Gantama Buddha:
Not one or two, Subhuti, not one or two, but all beings, men, women, animals, birds, trees, rocks. All the beings in the world. One should create such a determination that I will lead all of them into nirvana.
The quote spoke to me. I felt that I had to ring the wake-up call. I knew that waking up and waking the rest, or at least as many as I could, was what I was here to do. I had finally found a way to help, and I had to share it with all. The fire in me would not let me rest until my call was heard. I kept ringing the bells, singing my song, writing the Marked, Eternal blog, talking to people on Facebook groups, making waves, getting banned from groups, joining others, and creating others. In the beginning, the rebellious spirit took over, and all I could think of was how to make more people see the simple and obvious: there is no separation from life itself.
I met Elena in one of the groups, and we became best friends. A few months later, Liberation Unleashed was born, and more and more people started to join, having a look and seeing for themselves. It was exhilarating.
I had hundreds of dialogues on forums and through e-mail. Some days it took me a couple of hours to answer all of the queries. Slowly, the community emerged, and those who saw started to guide those who came to see. The message was heard and was passed on in all different ways. I have met many amazing people who inspired each other to carry on, who make guiding available for everyone. The movement took over and has been growing ever since.
I’m very grateful to all the people at Liberation Unleashed who dedicate their time to guide. It’s a most beautiful gift that one can give, the gift of freedom. And I sincerely hope that one day, understanding separateness as a mind-created illusion will be a common-sense thing, and that we can all live in harmony and respect each other. It is my wish that acting out of love will replace self-centered egoic behavior, and that humans will come back to their naturalness, in which peace is the norm and not some threat or unachievable goal. It seems there is a long way to go, but who knows what is coming.
If you find that realizing there is no separateness has had an impact on your life, then pass the message on and be a part of the ripple. Help your seeker friends find the way through the Gateless Gate. The more people who see this, the merrier. We are all in this together. What good is freedom if people next to us are suffering, right? This is no longer something for only the chosen ones; it is available for anyone who dares to look.
Thank you for taking this journey with me. I would like to hear from you about your journey and whether or not this book was helpful. If you feel a little stuck, please come to the forum at http://www.liberationunleashed.com, where someone will be able to help you.
I’ll leave you here, as I have talked enough. Be well, and enjoy the ride as it takes you deeper into wherever it takes you.
Love,
Ilona
A Note of Gratitude
Thank you for taking this journey.
I would also like to use this opportunity to thank all the people who shared their process with readers. Thank you Nona, Sacha, Lakshmi, Shanti, Rowland, Friederich, and Marty.
A warm thank you to my husband, Narimantas, for keeping me grounded and giving me space to do this work. Thank you for all of the twenty years we have shared together, for your love, and for your support.
A huge thank you to Catherine Noyce and her husband, Julian, for making this book possible, and for taking care of many details that made this book what it is.
I have so much appreciation and so few words to express it. I bow in honor to all who inspired me, who pushed me to look further, who made me question what I thought was truth, and who opened my eyes and heart. The list is huge! I am forever grateful to Elena Nezhinsky, my best friend and inspiration; Pamela Wilson, for demonstrating how to gently untangle the knots; whomever wrote the Jed McKenna books, for cracking the foundation of the castle of lies and pushing me to deconstruct it brick by brick; and Ciaran Healy, for finishing the job with a single pointer. My deep gratitude to Julie Rumbarger, for helping me to join the pieces of this text into a whole, for fixing my broken English, and for being a beautiful friend.
I want to thank all the people who joined this movement and are helping one another, spreading the word, and guiding selflessly over the Internet and in person. Thanks to all the administrators who look after the LU forum and its groups.
The silent revolution has already begun. Thank you for taking part.
Afterword by Elena Nezhinsky
I met Ilona in October 2010, online in one of the spiritual groups. A year later, Liberation Unleashed was born. It is fascinating how, when something new is about to come into existence, life always provides a vehicle for it. In this case, it was our meeting. We felt a genuine interest and respect for each other and, most of all, had a mutual wish to help people to end their suffering. We were adding to each other’s strengths, fitting tightly for the one goal we had: to translate our own experience of awakening for others. We were looking for ways to make the process of guided inner inquiry as efficient as possible, and a process that could resonate with people of all ages and all varieties of life lived.
If I used an image to describe the creation of Liberation Unleashed and the first year of our work, it would be of fire. That fire was inside us; we were burning with a deep desire to help others to see—to see the truth of no separation. Ilona and I spent many nights talking to each other online because we simply couldn’t fall asleep. The excitement of the work was too great for us to slumber. With each person we had the honor to work with, we often felt an outpouring of love and joy that lingered for many days after the inquiry was complete. We felt the possibilities of this work and its benefit to people, and we were riding a huge wave of expansion.
There were others there who supported the movement, and noticing the community growing around the world was overwhelming. I often had tears in my eyes thinking about what was really happening, thinking about all the people working with others selflessly day and night, fitting this work in between family and day jobs.
The collaboration of Ilona and me in the beginning, and then others joining soon thereafter, made this method of looking into reality very efficient for the right type of seeker. This method is not something that either of us developed, nor is it anything new. Looking directly at reality and questioning one’s beliefs about it is embedded in many spiritual and religious paths. It is often hidden behind years of preliminary work, the work that strengthens the character first before destroying it—that is, the illusion of it. It happened that this work, which we later called Direct Pointing, was in great need at the time, and still is. It just so happened that some of us were there, and the right match, to bring it forth for people who were asking for help to end their spiritual seeking.
People seeking on a spiritual path are the same, regardless of whether they live in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Latin America, the United States, or Russia. Regardless of our nationality, education, profession, religion, or spiritual background, at some point we might become exhausted by the seeking, by the wish to constantly improve what we perceive to be ourselves and our lives. We start to doubt our tradition, path, or technique. We see that the more we seek, the more seeking ground is in front of us. We feel burnt-out on the path and start looking for a way out. Awakening is not a qualitative process, it is a quantum leap; it is a dying of the old ways of seeing; it is an opening of new perception. If one is ready to release old, habitual ways of looking at life, one is ready to make a leap. In Liberation Unleashed, we found where one should look and how one should look to release old ideas, so the leap would be possible. In this book, Ilona structured this method of inquiry with clear steps and instructions so that
anyone, even those who don’t have a guide or prefer to look alone, can start the work. Her work in this book is brilliant, and each step she presents has been tested by hundreds of people in one-on-one work by Liberation Unleashed guides.
Today Liberation Unleashed is an amazing community of volunteers around the world. They do their work online, in live meetings, and via Skype and telephone. What we all have in common is the same spark, a burning desire, to help anyone who is looking to see the selfless nature of being. Everything that works—what we have found, developed, and tested—is available in several books we published and at our forum, website, and blogs. All of the material we publish on the Internet is in the public domain. Please use it for your own benefit, to see the truth, and for the benefit of others. We are ever growing, and if you feel the desire to help in any way, be that guiding others or applying other skills in our community, we welcome you!
Please take each step very seriously. And may you be successful in this undertaking!
—Elena Nezhinsky
Ilona Ciunaite was born in Lithuania. Always interested in the mind and how it works, she has a degree in psychology and a mind-set to focus on freedom for herself and those who find her. Ciunaite lives in England with her husband Narimantas, a tattoo artist from whom she learned the art of tattooing. Together they run a custom tattoo studio in West Sussex (http://www.mantas-tattoo.com).
Ciunaite’s search for truth started in 2002, when for the first time she “experienced silence of the thinking mind, a sweet sense of being, contentment, peace,” and “feeling at home.” In 2010, she discovered Jed McKenna’s books, which were a shock to her belief system and catapulted her “out of hypnosis” and toward the realization that all she believed was not truth. It wasn’t until the initial deconstruction was done, after months of painful self-inquiry, that Ciunaite felt at peace: there was an emptiness, a not knowing, a not believing anything about anything. Then the last step was taken and the separate self was seen to be an illusion. She started writing a blog, Marked, Eternal, where she shared thoughts about this newfound freedom and invited readers to look for themselves in their own experience. Later, Ciunaite and her friend Elena Nezhinsky helped develop a process called Direct Pointing, which consists of a dialogue between a guide and a seeker. In September 2011, the Liberation Unleashed website and forum was launched. Together Ciunaite and Nezhinsky published a book, Gateless Gatecrashers, that consists of conversations leading to self-realization, and which can be downloaded for free from the Liberation Unleashed website.
Liberation Unleashed is a global movement of people helping others to see through the illusion of self. Ciunaite has had hundreds of conversations with people from all around the globe. Her main focus and work is helping people end their seeking by inviting them to question their fundamental assumptions and look at their own experience. She does not give answers, only questions. In this way a seeker may see what is going on for themselves and free their minds from conditioned patterns to explore whatever comes next. Ciunaite holds live meetings and group sessions in the UK. All of her work can be found on her blog Marked, Eternal at http://markedeternal.blogspot.com and on The Gate forum at http://liberationunleashed.com.
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