Courage to Stop

“There is an inner voice  You cannot even listen to - Because it is you…” ~ Kavita, Love Songs of the Undivided

“So often we believe that if we do something, we will get somewhere. We try to bargain with life. We hope that if we work hard or inquire deeply enough, we will arrive at the treasure that every seeker hopes for – fulfillment, freedom, love. But life does not accept a superficial bargain. Life only accepts all or nothing. Full immersion – death. While you are trying to get somewhere (even if you pretend you are not), you are still believing illusion to be true. You are still believing that this pretence of a life is real. You are still holding on to the idea that you can be saved by some future experience. Life will not accept a bargain based in fear of reality. While you still prefer the dream of hopes, over real life, that is all you will get.

However, if you are longing and praying for freedom and are willing to sacrifice everything that you believe in for it, then life will no doubt honour that bargain. This is the death that I am referring to. Being willing to sacrifice your whole life and everything you hold sacred for what is real.

I remember making this bargain with life for the first time, (there were several other similar or even more desperate bargains made in the years that followed) when I was a very depressed and suicidal teenager. I clearly remember saying/praying (to Life) that I would be willing to sacrifice my whole life, and every bit of meaning that it held. I didn’t have some clear idea of what I wanted in exchange, I just knew that my experience of life felt false, and I was willing to lose all of it, even if it meant physically dying in the process. A life of pretending to be something or someone that I knew was false, was not worth living for.

This sacrificing everything that is false right now, simply because it is false, leaves a wide open space. Empty. Not needing to fill it with some new false idea or attitude, but sacrificing the falsity of that too… and that too… and that too… Empty… Nothing… And in that nothing, Life is felt. Life is experienced just the way it is. It doesn’t fit into some kind of idea of how it should be. It doesn’t necessarily feel good. Most likely it will feel uncomfortable to not rely on an idea of how to live or be. Maybe fear will be felt. Maybe freedom will be experienced. Maybe thoughts will come back in trying to claim something again. But whatever comes in gets sacrificed on the altar to life. Burnt in the fire of Love.

And this is Love. The continual losing everything you believe in, the continual opening, and cracking, the continual humility of letting go of every position you have defended, admitting feelings you have tried to cover up, even if it hurts. Nothing left to hold on to. Any holding is seen in the light of Love and known to be a false dream. No safety. Nowhere to hide. Love is open reality. Love is seeing what is really here now, and no longer kidding yourself. This is the courageous fire of Love that sees through everything that is not reality.

Love is not a certain experience of feeling loving. Love is surrender to whatever is right now. Feeling the pain, feeling the explosive joy, feeling the shame, feeling the sense of agitation, or irritation, or peace. Love makes no distinction and has no preference. It is all Life. It is all felt and experienced the same no matter what label thought puts to it, Love doesn’t care.

If you think about it, it seems that you have the option as to whether you die to Love in this moment, or choose to put it off for some future moment. But this death is only right now. I did not call my website ‘dying to love’ because it is not about trying to die, wondering how to die, or thinking about one day dying. There is no middle ground of trying to understand how you can do this dying, or imagining that you could do it one day… That is simply buying into the illusion again. Putting it off or trying to figure it out is the only way the mind can deal with it. Don’t deal with it. Don’t bother trying to do it. Trade in all of that effort for the reality of what is experienced right now. To die to what is false is only ever obvious, immediate and choiceless. The choice is only when the mind gets involved and ponders as to whether it is a good day to die or not…

Love is courage – the courage to simply stop.”

~ “Unmani is originally from the UK, but has lived a nomadic life in many countries around the world from the age of 18.  Since Unmani was a child, she has never identified with being a separate individual, and always felt deeply at one with life. But as her environment did not reflect this Oneness, she felt lost and alone, as if she had been dropped on an alien planet. Truth was always her only passion and reason for living. She spent years traveling around the world in search of the truth. Eventually Unmani’s wake up call was answered when she met the Zen master, Dolano. Unmani finally woke up out of self-doubt and confusion, and acknowledged her true nature as that same Oneness that she had always known since she was a child.

In 2013 she met the love of her life, the wonderful musician, and courageous lover of life, Robert. They now have a son called Sky. For Unmani, becoming a mother, continues to be an endless awakening to this very human life.
Unmani has been holding meetings and retreats all over the world for since 2003, and in this time people have been deeply touched by her work: She meets each person exactly where they are at, and in whatever they need at the time, while at the same time holding them in the truth of who they really are beyond it all. This combination, and paradox, of the personal and impersonal, brings so much depth, openness and healing to people’s lives. They wake up to who they really are, and discover how this is lived and integrated into their daily lives.”
~ die-to-love.com