Die to Love

Recognising who you really are is the destruction
of all that is stagnant, fake and known. ~ Unmani

There is nothing worth saving in the predatory sexual culture being put to the torch by victims and journalists. - Ross Douthat

The unreasonable woman adapts the world to herself...
All progress depends on the unreasonable woman. ~ G B Shaw (not)

“Usually female spiritual teachers are either pretty soft, sweet and virginal, or they are like the mother archetype. As a woman, I am not really like that. I am a firey, sensual, wild woman who can also be soft and sweet, or mothering, or shy and vulnerable, but I am not limited to one aspect or way of being. In the past perhaps, I have compromised the wild nature in order not scare people off and to fit in with my surroundings. Now, it can not hide any longer and seems to burst out more and more. The energy likened to the goddess Kali (the destroyer of illusion), is coming through what I do and say more and more. It is a powerful force of love…

I like Die to love because it is a description of the way life is. There is a continual death of everything you think you know or believe in, and this death is a death or sacrifice to love in each moment. Lose what you think you are to love. Offer it up on the altar of love right now. I like using the 2 words that we love and fear most, in one sentence. We fear death because we imagine it as being the end of our lives that we have believed in. But we also often long for it because we are exhausted with this trying to be someone. We love the idea of love and we long for the fantasy of love but we fear the reality of it because we know that true love is all-consuming – like death.

What I am doing in these meetings and retreats (and in fact in life in general) is dying to love. Every thought, hope, or fear is being burnt up in love. And this is not the dreamy, feeling of love, but a ruthless sword that chops off heads. Gently but directly there is an unveiling of who we really are, beyond everything we think. Actually realising the ‘freedom from mental slavery’ that we long for, means questioning the reality of every belief that appears in this that I am, and recognizing that I am not this, not that. Not just talking about it. This can be uncomfortable but also very liberating and real…

I remember after being with Dolano that certain major chunks of beliefs were seen for what they were. And those big chunks were seen through quite quickly in the time after being with Dolano. Then in the several years since then, there have been smaller bits, and occasionally bigger bits. So it’s gotten more subtle. One of the big chunks after being with Dolano, was that recognizing I have no parents. And that was quite a big one for me at the time, because there was a feeling of being part of a family. I felt that somehow I belonged to this family. Then I really saw that I don't have any parents. That was quite a big chunk because all the conditioning that came from believing that I was someone who was part of that family, was seen that it actually has nothing to do with me…

For example, when you have a reaction to something that your parents do, you have that reaction because it feels really important. Somehow you are defending your self in a way that it feels really important. You really care about it. (Laughter)

And that caring about it fell away. Pretty immediately even though I wasn't actually with my parents at the time.  So I couldn't really couldn't test that out straight away. I only saw them about a year and a half later. But definitely when I saw them and I was actually living with them, it was very different. In fact not only was it with my parents, but in relationships with friends or people close to me. Its been the same thing, almost a feeling that I don't care about them.  That sounds heartless and cold, but it’s not at all. Actually it only sounds heartless in comparison to the old conditioning of needing and, protecting and defending myself. But actually this way of seeing my parents was not without absolute love. Such love that I don't need to hold onto them, or to defend myself with them. Since then there has been much more freedom in our relationship.

And with that freedom is the love - real love without it being referenced back to ‘me’ all the time… It was only some years later when I got back to England, my parents treated me the same way they had always had. I guess they saw a change in me. They saw that there was something that was deeply relaxed in me that hadn't been like that before. They saw that I wasn't trying to push anything onto them. I wasn't trying to change them, or to persuade them to believe anything which I had done in the past.

So when they saw that there was this deeper relaxed nature in me. And I was not really into speaking about it. This was before I started doing meetings.  They actually started asking me themselves. And I was only very reluctant to speak about it, because I had experienced how speaking about it is a very delicate thing. Speaking about it, is just regurgitating words and concepts, and it is not it at all.  There is a way of pointing to this that is way beyond the words… They noticed a difference and I guess they have also relaxed much more. If I look back at how they were when I was growing up, they are much more open, relaxed, and free-er themselves, than they were…

We are all just like children, just playing at being serious, at being grown up. It is all just play really.  So in retreats, usually the first few days are pretty serious, as in, looking at the deeper questions in quite an intense way. But about half way through the retreat, things start to change and lighten up in the group generally. In the evenings we do more playful things, or creative and artistic things, but all in a very playful and sometimes very ridiculous way. I don't know if you have seen some of the photos on Facebook?  At the last retreat we dressed up in crazy outfits, or played twister, painted each other and created a big group painting, and all kinds of crazy stuff…

So people can see how they have believed that something about themselves is important, or serious or they believe that they really care about something. Then seeing, through play, how that belief is just a pretense. Its a kind of letting down the boundaries, the barriers, relaxing.  We all love to play, we are just scared. We are scared of revealing that wanting to play, that silliness, just being ridiculous. Usually in life it is not safe to do that. So in a retreat I do what I can to create a safe environment within the group so that everybody feels safe together.  So that the group dynamic feels safe enough to let down some of those boundaries…

We start with really investigating who I really am.  And that really is the only real safety net. So while you think that you are someone that needs to be perfected, or needs to be grown-up or serious, important, or whatever it is, that means that you can’t really let down your guard. In recognizing who you are, you recognize that all of those issues, all of those beliefs, just appear in that and don't mean anything about who I really am. Who I really am does not need any protecting or perfecting. So this is the real way that people feel more comfortable to let their guards down during retreats, because they start to recognize the only real safety net of their true nature.  Then they are free to slowly, start to unravel and relax into that.

In the last retreat I did in Portugal, the first few days was relatively calm, then half way through, people started to experience, to look at that more painful stuff. And there was a lot of anger expressed, whether they go into the story of it, is not really the point, although sometimes a little bit of their story is necessary. But a lot of just shouting, clenching fists, shaking, jumping up and down, just moving the energy of that anger, or fear or pain, tears. And it is all held in that safety net of who I really am, so that it's ok to express it, to feel it, and it doesn't mean anything about me. Its ok to be there, to be felt, to just pass just like anything else. We are so used to holding onto it and making it mean something about me, that it becomes this big drama, this big issue that we own.  But actually it’s ok, to just be felt, and sometimes to be expressed. Because it doesn't mean anything about me, it can just come and go, and then come back again, and then go again. It is always just ‘stuff’. Just ‘stuff’ that is felt. When it is not ‘my’ stuff,  it is not as frightening as we may have thought it was, because it doesn't mean anything about me…

We do have natural times of silence at most of the beginnings of the meetings. It starts with a period of silence and at times we sit with our eyes closed, but its not kind of any formal practice. We do all kinds of exercises that might trigger more stuff. For example sitting with a partner and touching each others hands in a very innocent way. Just feeling the sensation of touch. That can trigger a lot of stuff with some people. Some more than others. And then we talk about that. We share how it is, how it was. So not so much practices but little exercises. It is something that has kind of evolved very fluidly. I think the first retreat I tried one thing and I was like ‘wow’.  I was really surprised at how it seemed to trigger stuff and work with people. So I tried a bit more. and each retreat it has got even more crazy.

I resist calling it a method because it’s not something I'm holding in my mind. I'm checking physically all the time, ‘does it feel right to be doing this with this group?’, ‘what does this group need?’.  So it’s quite spontaneous.”

~ 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 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 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.
www.Die-to-Love.com