Awakening Now

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“How do I awaken?” is the question many sincere seekers carry. Hidden inside it is often an expectation that awakening will bring permanent peace, clarity, or distance from difficult emotions.
In this live Zoom meeting, Ilona explores that expectation directly with participants. Together we look at what happens when confusion, fear, hopelessness, or inner tension are treated as a problem to get rid of. Instead of trying to escape experience, the invitation is to meet it. Again and again the inquiry comes back to something simple: is it safe to feel what is here right now?
We also explore the pressure of time, the sense of “wasting life,” and the belief that life should be different than it is. Another participant looks at the sense of control in the head and discovers something freeing: a sensation cannot control anything. It can be felt, seen, and allowed.
This episode is for you if you understand awakening intellectually, yet still feel like a separate self, still get pulled into emotions, or still search for a better moment. The conversation points to one direct truth: awakening is not awakening away from experience. It is awakening to what is here.
Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.
Support the show
Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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In this episode of Awakening Now, Loch Kelly and Ilona Ciunaite explore awakening, nonduality, effortless mindfulness, and the subtle places seekers often become stuck after the first glimpse.
Loch shares a clear and grounded perspective on awakening as a shift of identity — from living as the separate self to recognizing awareness as primary. The conversation moves beyond concepts into embodiment, emotional healing, integration, and what it means to live from awake awareness in ordinary life.
Together, they speak about:
 – longing for “the shift”
 – glimpses that come and go
 – spiritual dissociation
 – pure awareness and embodiment
 – emotional healing after awakening
 – awareness-based living
 – interbeing and heart-mind
 – the difference between temporary states and true recognition
During the episode, Loch also guides several direct experiential glimpses live in the conversation.
This episode may resonate deeply with seekers who feel close to recognition, yet still pulled back into old identity, conditioning, and emotional patterns.
Guest: Loch Kelly
 Website: Loch Kelly Official Website
App: Mindful Glimpses App
Get 20% off your first year of Loch’s Mindful Glimpses app + a 14-day free trial:
https://mindfulglimpses.com/specialoffer/
Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.
Support the show
Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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In this episode of Awakening Now, I speak with Greg Goode about self-inquiry and what is actually being seen through.
Greg Goode is a nonduality teacher and author with a background in philosophy. He is known for his clear and structured approach to inquiry, guiding people to look directly at experience and question what seems obvious — especially the sense of being a separate self.
In our conversation, we explore a simple but often overlooked shift: seeing is not about finding truth or adopting a new perspective, but about recognizing and deconstructing what is false.
We look at how the sense of self appears, how it is reinforced through thought, and why it can feel so real even when examined closely.
This is a grounded and practical conversation — an invitation to look, rather than to believe.

More from Greg:
https://radiuspress.org/greggoode/

His latest book, Enlightening the Physical World, explores the nature of matter through both philosophy and direct experience:
https://radiuspress.org/enlightening-the-physical-world-investigating-matter-with-berkeley-and-the-direct-path/

Direct Path playlist with Terry Moore:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf0MTUdIZxcwgcyMSNTyeDHvwmaOg2w8K
Music by Valdi Sabev.
In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.
Support the show
Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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In this episode, I speak about the upcoming 8-week guided experience and what it is really about.
The enrollement is open untill the 20th of April. 
More info here. 
https://ilonaciunaite.com/8-week-program/ 
There is no shortage of information about awakening. You can read, listen, understand more and more. And still, something may feel unsettled.
Here we look in a different way.
Not at ideas, but at direct experience.
I share how this process is structured, what you will be exploring, and why a simple, precise looking can open something that thinking cannot reach.
This is not about becoming something new.
It is about seeing clearly what is already here.
If you feel a quiet readiness, you will recognise it.
And if there are questions, doubts, or hesitation, you are welcome to meet them here as well.
Music by Valdi Sabev. In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.
Support the show
Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com

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Today I share a very simple way of looking at experience.
Using a drawing of two lines, we explore what is here in direct experience.
One line represents life as it is happening — movement, thoughts, sensations, everything that appears.
 The other points to simple being — the sense of presence, the knowing that you are here.
Between these, there is what we often take ourselves to be — a kind of “bundle” made of reactions, thoughts, and patterns. This bundle seems to be the one living life, making decisions, trying to control what happens.
In the talk, we look at this directly.
In this episode, we continue that exploration in a live Q&A.
A participant describes their experience using the image of a lotus and scribbled lines — something clear and present, and the movement of thoughts appearing over it.
From there, we look more closely.
Is there something underneath that needs to come forward? Or is that another way of thinking about what is here? Again and again, the attention returns to what is actually happening.
Thoughts appear. Reactions happen.
 A sense of “me” seems to form in the middle as a relationship.
But when this is looked at directly, what is really there?
There is a simple shift in seeing — from being caught in the movement, to noticing what is always here.
Music by Valdi Sabev.
In loving memory and gratitude for the music he shared.
Coming this April, an 8-week Experience of Guided Self-Inquiry to see through the illusion of a separate self. More info here:
https://bit.ly/4m3juCG
Support the show
Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com