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In this episode, I invite you to look directly at the sense of self — not as an idea or a belief, but as lived experience.

Before thoughts arise, before emotions move, before any story about “me” appears, there is a simple knowing of being here. A sense of existing. A feeling of “me.” This sense of self is so familiar that it is rarely questioned and often taken for granted.

Together, we explore what this sense of self actually is. Where it appears in the body. How it shows up as sensation, pressure, orientation, or effort. How it organizes experience and creates the feeling of being at the center of life.

You’re invited to notice how the sense of self becomes especially clear in moments of pride or hurt, and how easily identification forms around these sensations. We look at how the sense of “me” can feel solid and personal, and what happens when it is met directly with attention.

This is not about getting rid of the sense of self, fixing anything, or changing experience. It’s about seeing clearly. When the sense of self is looked at directly, something often softens. Identification relaxes. What remains is openness, presence, and a quiet knowing that does not come and go.

Nothing here needs to be believed. This is an invitation to look for yourself.

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After awakening, many people expect the body to relax and life to feel settled. The belief in a separate self has dropped, so ease should naturally follow. Yet for many, the body still contracts. Emotions rise. Old protection remains. This often creates confusion and self-doubt.

In this episode, I speak about why this is a natural part of awakening, and why nothing has gone wrong.

Seeing through the self illusion is a mental recognition. A belief drops. This shift is often quiet and simple. But the nervous system does not reorganize instantly. The body may still carry years of contraction and learned protection that now begins to unwind.

Awakening is not only about clarity in the mind. It is also about allowing the system to feel safe enough to open. When the imagined character no longer needs protection, old defenses can soften. This process can feel uncomfortable at times, even though it is part of integration and healing.

If you have already seen the truth but still feel tight, guarded, or unsettled, this episode offers reassurance. The absence of ease does not mean awakening failed. It may simply mean the body is learning that it is safe to relax.

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Many people on the spiritual awakening path reach a moment where understanding is no longer enough.

You may clearly understand non-duality, awakening, or the self illusion intellectually. You may know the language, have had glimpses, and seen moments of clarity. And yet something hasn’t shifted. There is still confusion. There is still a sense of “me.” And that can feel deeply discouraging.

In this episode of Awakening Now, I share an unedited recording from a live Zoom meeting where I respond to an email that says: “I understand this intellectually, but I don’t feel it.” What I hear is not failure, but honesty — a turning point where the old strategy of seeking through understanding begins to collapse.

I speak about why seeing through the self illusion is not an emotional experience, and why clarity is not a feeling. Confusion, doubt, frustration, and a sense of “me” can still arise after awakening, and they do not mean you didn’t see.

This conversation explores the difference between direct pointing — seeing through the illusion of a separate self — and meeting what continues to arise after that recognition. Old emotional patterns, sensations, and conditioning don’t mean you’ve gone backwards. Often, they are the next layer asking to be met.

If you feel stuck after awakening, exhausted from seeking, or confused about why insight hasn’t brought lasting peace, this episode offers clarity, reassurance, and a grounded understanding of what is actually happening.

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Have you been craving awakening? Waiting for the moment when everything finally softens, the mind gets quiet, the heart opens, and you can finally stop searching?

In this awakening now episode, I sit with Won Bo, a Lithuanian nun living in Korea. From the very first minute, something in her presence invites you to slow down, soften, and see what’s already here. Nothing dramatic. Nothing mystical. Just truth, lived by someone who has dedicated her whole life to clarity.

We explore the ordinary moments seekers overlook, the craving that hides beneath “spiritual progress,” the tenderness of glimpses that fade, and the simplicity of Zen’s most direct practice: What am I?
Not to find an answer… but to fall back into don’t-know, the space where awakening unfolds by itself.

If you’ve ever felt “not enough,” or wondered why awakening feels distant even after years of seeking, this conversation may feel like a quiet homecoming.

WHAT WE EXPLORE TOGETHER

• Why she chose the monastic path  and what actually surprised her
• A clear, gentle definition of awakening that removes pressure
• How the Three Poisons silently guide your daily reactions
• The subtle trap of craving awakening (and how to recognize it)
• Why glimpses fade and why that isn’t a failure
• A practice you can use at any moment of your day
• How “don’t-know” becomes a lived, spacious way of being


If you want to explore this more deeply, I created a short guide called Introduction to Deep Looking. It’s a gentle way to meet what’s here and begin unwinding the tension underneath seeking. You can receive it by signing up on my website. 

Here is the link:
https://ilonaciunaite.com/deep-looking-ebook/

If you read it and something moves in you, you are always welcome to write to me and share what opened.

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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed musichttps://www.youtube.com/c/ValdiSabev/featured

⚠️ DISCLAIMER

This content is for educational purposes only and **not** a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If anxiety is severe or you have thoughts of self-harm, please seek help from a licensed mental-health professional immediately.

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Awakening is a shift in perception, a clear seeing of what you are and what you’ve mistaken yourself for. it reveals what was here all along

You’re listening to Awakening Now, a podcast for those who are on the path of self-discovery and spiritual awakening.

This is episode number 115. The Reality of Awakening: Why the Honeymoon Fades and How to Meet What Returns

My name is Ilona Ciunaite.

I’m a guide, an author, and co-creator of the Liberation Unleashed community.

If you are in the process of awakening, this space is for you. For 14 years, I’ve supported people through awakening—both the clarity and the confusion that follow the first insight.

This episode brings together three segments from a single live meeting, offering a clear look at the reality of awakening beyond the initial insight. We explore the honeymoon phase of awakening—why early openness and clarity fade, why old conditioning returns, and how awakening is not a final event but an ongoing recognition of presence. This part brings clarity to seekers who feel confused when expansion shifts into contraction.

The episode then moves into two practical sessions on emotional integration. First, we meet an inner child that has been calling for attention and driving compulsive behaviours like overeating and seeking validation. Then, in a live session with Tammy, we look at fear, intensity, and the belief that relaxing is unsafe, and how presence meets these movements without fixing or resisting them. Throughout all three segments, the focus is on meeting emotions directly, seeing through the mind’s stories, and recognising what is already here beneath every wave. 

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In the Stay Spiritual interview, I talk about the quiet flip from seeking to seeing — the moment when the pressure dissolves and looking into your own present experience becomes the first real step toward peace.

So many seekers carry a private heaviness that is difficult to name. It isn’t just the desire for awakening; it’s the subtle tension of feeling behind, of trying to catch up, of believing that others are closer to something you can’t quite touch. The desperation grows quietly, and often nobody sees it. In this conversation, I speak about how that weight begins to fall away when the attention turns from ideas of awakening toward the simplicity of what is here now. When the grasping relaxes, even just a little, something softer begins to open.

I also share the beginning of my own journey — the moment a single question revealed that nobody is running the show. It didn’t arrive with fireworks or certainty. It came as a simple seeing, unmistakable and ordinary, like noticing something in plain sight that had been missed for years. Nothing dramatic changed, yet everything shifted. I felt more like coming home than discovering something new.

If you’ve been seeking for a long time, if glimpses rise and fade, or if part of you quietly fears that you’re missing something essential, I hope this meets you with gentleness. You don’t need to push yourself any further. You don’t need to earn clarity. You don’t need to become someone different. The doorway is not in the future. It’s right here in whatever you’re experiencing in this moment.

Beneath the movement of seeking, there is a natural ease that never leaves. It becomes visible when the fight to get somewhere rests for a moment. When you turn toward your immediate experience — without pressure, without comparison, without trying to fix anything — you begin to feel the ground under your own feet again. And often, that is where the real shift begins.

Find James & Justin here:  @stayspiritual  

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Trust yourself in awakening. In this intimate conversation, Ilona Ciunaite and nonduality guide Luchana Uzunova explore spiritual awakening, embodiment, and living as awareness in daily life.
 What unfolds after seeing through the self-illusion? How does peace deepen, fear soften, and the body learn to trust life again?

We talk about the real texture of awakening beyond concepts: being at peace with not-knowing, dissolving the “center,” integrating emotions, meeting fear with curiosity, and allowing life to move without the old protection patterns. Luchana shares how embodiment turns insight into lived freedom — not as a one-time event, but as an ongoing, human, ordinary, beautiful process.

If you’ve already glimpsed what you are and wonder what’s next, this episode is for you. Stay to the end for Luchana’s closing invitation: “If it can happen for one, it can happen for all.”

Subscribe for more on awakening, self-inquiry, and integration.

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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music 
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Connect with Luchana:
Website → https://awakeningawakened.com/
YouTube → @LuchanaLubo 
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/LuchanaU

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Most seekers begin this journey with expectations — about how awakening should look, how it should feel, or what will be lost or gained. But these assumptions quietly block the very seeing they long for.

In this short talk, Ilona Ciunaite points to the five biggest mistakes seekers make on the path of awakening: projecting outcomes, fearing loss, doubting simplicity, chasing experiences, and dismissing what’s already here.

This is a direct invitation to pause the search and look for yourself. What is actually happening right now? What is imagined?
Awakening isn’t a distant event or a dramatic experience — it’s the simple recognition of what’s always been here.

Watch until the end to see how subtle expectations keep the mind spinning and how the simplest look can shift everything.

Subscribe for more conversations, guided sessions, and insights on the journey of awakening.
Join Ilona’s monthly live events and find more resources at https://ilonaciunaite.com
This video will help you understand how:
– Fear that “I’ll lose family/job/body” is a protection pattern that blocks looking.
– Mind objects to simplicity and prefers to analyze and build stories.
– Awakening is everyday living, not a final state or fireworks.
– Seeing “nothing” is a real seeing; don’t reject it because it is not an experience.

When you stop chasing what isn’t here and turn attention to what is, awakening naturally reveals itself.
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Music by Valdi Sabev, Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music 
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If you are touched by conversations, you can support my podcast  https://www.buzzsprout.com/2223929/support

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In this conversation, Ilona Ciunaite speaks with Pierce Salguero — scholar, author, and long-time meditator — about his book The Lamp Unto Yourself and his multidharma model that honors the many paths of awakening.

Together they explore how different traditions point to the same essence of truth and freedom, how awakening unfolds beyond conceptual understanding, and how the light of awareness guides each of us from within.
 This dialogue offers both a wide view of the dharma and a grounded invitation to live what we see.

You’ll hear about:
– The multidharma approach to awakening
– The balance between scholarship and lived experience
– The universality of awareness across traditions

If you’re interested in the intersection of awakening, mindfulness, and diverse dharma paths, this episode will widen your view and bring the teaching closer to home.

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Music by Valdi Sabev. Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music:
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In this guided Deep Looking session, Ilona Ciunaite invites you to look directly into your own experience and explore the nature of the self.
 Rather than answering with the mind, you’re guided to notice thoughts, sensations, and awareness itself — to see what is truly here, beyond concepts and ideas.

This session focuses on the heart — feeling instead of thinking, softening attention, and allowing what is present to be fully met.
 As you follow the questions, you may begin to sense that experience happens effortlessly, without a “me” at the center.

You’ll explore:
– The illusion of self and how to look without thinking about it
– The difference between intellectual knowing and direct seeing
– How to integrate awakening through everyday awareness

Watch slowly. Pause where you need to. No effort, no belief — just looking.

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Music by Valdi Sabev. Visit his channel for more calm and relaxed music:
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Websites
http://ilonaciunaite.com
http://liberationunleashed.com