Clara Llum is a spiritual teacher who found herself going through a process of spontaneous enquiry very early in her life, revealing the Self as the Unlimited One back in the 1970′s. Since then she has explored most eastern traditions, become familiar with many approaches to awakening to Truth, and begun delivering Satsang in 1986.
Today we will be sharing this interview where I asked her a whole bunch of questions about awakening.
Interview Topic Highlights
· What is Enlightenment?
· Misunderstandings about Enlightenment
· The value of Beliefs on the way to Realization
· Brief visits to the Self vs. Full Realization (non-abiding vs. abiding awakenings)
· The Law of Attraction and choosing better feeling thoughts
· Quieting vs. Silencing the mind
· The role of the mind
· Not knowing vs. doubting
· The most important thing to know to reach Enlightenment
For the sake of clarity, my questions will be italicized while Clara’s responses will be in bold.
Our conversation begins with us noticing how animated and alive we often are when we express ourselves.
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The other day Scott Kiloby and I sat down together and had a conversation about enlightenment.
The full 45 minute conversation is available in MP3 hotness here.
I was gonna relisten to it to give you guys a bulleted list of topics that we discuss and be all cliff notesy, but I’m growing somewhat fond of doing nothing. 
Try meditation: it’s better then sitting around doing nothing.
- Nicholas Powiull
Anyways, check out the interview! –> Click here to listen <–
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Like me, Scott also does YouTube videos talking about awakening. One cool project he’s putting together is a compilation of audio talks with various teachers, writers, and friends who are also into non-duality. You can check ‘em out by going to www.kiloby.com and clicking on “The KiloLogues.”
This is sooooo not what I thought it would be or what I was expecting it to be, this whole awakening thing.
It feels like I’m being wiped out, deleted, cleansed away, the little “me” anyways. I’m not completely done by any stretch of the imagination, but rather right in the midst of the process.
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My ability to write is transforming massively and I’m letting go of my identity as a writer… almost as a natural byproduct of what’s happening. The personal self is not deliberately surrendering it away. It is almost being dissolved by a power greater than itself.
I’ve read lots of books on spirituality and accumulated an abundance of intellectual knowledge. I can tell you all about wonderful spiritual theory and sound really smart and well-versed, like a student who’s studied intensely for a test.
But now, all of that accumulated “stuff” is being lovingly cast aside as the emptiness is being progressively revealed and rested in. It feels like the source of my writings is changing. Rather than my writings being primarily collected understandings and interpretations of spirituality, there no longer really is a writer that I could point to… not really.
The writer is the Self itself, writing about itSelf to itSelf for no other reason to be conscious of itSelf and to help awaken more of itSelf to itSelf.
The direct experience of the Self so unbelievably overshadows any intellectual understandings that the latter simply pales in comparison.
It’s like no longer desperately clinging to the light of a tiny candle when you realize you ARE the sun.
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I keep going in and out of awakening, experiencing non-abiding awakenings. It’s like repeatedly being temporarily enlightened, but it doesn’t stick. Fortunately I don’t “fall back” as far every time, so maybe I’m getting a little better at this or something… 
What’s most fascinating about this is that through lots of trial and error, I’m getting good at detecting exactly what the differences are between the two states and what the pitfalls are that pull me out of the awakened state.
Here are the 4 key elements I can point to that draw “me” out of awakening, or more accurately recreate a false sense of self:
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A question that seems to be popping up lately from many directions is basically this in one form or another:
How can everything possibly be perfect? What about the homeless, rape, child molestation, murder, torture, mental illness, world hunger, suicide, war… these things are horrible! Just look at life as we know it. It’s full of suffering! How could any God design a world that includes all these horrific things and then call that perfect?
What an outstanding question, isn’t it? I love this question because it’s really taking no crap and it’s not buying into the lovey dovey perspective that life is all wonderful, full of rainbows and hearts, clovers and blue moons! It’s a very practical and pragmatic perspective.
Let’s get down to brass tacks. I hope you brought your brass tacks!
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A transformation is happening again. It seems to be slower and more deliberate this time, like a bulldozer that’s wiping out all sense of “me.”
The Process Develops
Previously there were glimpses into my true nature, but the mind was still quite active and so it was very easy, and almost desirable actually due to habit and familiarity, to recreate a sense of “me” out of the nothingness, a false sense of self who was experiencing all this stuff.
What’s happening now is more of an unfolding process it seems. Because the mind is quieter, there’s not much thought left with which to recreate a self. Thoughts arise, but they are brushed off instantly and automatically. It’s like they don’t stick to anything. There is the ability to think thoughts deliberately, but it’s actually quite challenging and not a pleasurable experience at all. Even if thoughts were thunk (is that a word?), there’s not really much ability to actually believe in the thoughts anymore anyways. They’re just thoughts that arise.
The Body Keeps Moving Right Along
The body is somehow still operating just fine. It can brush its teeth, turn on a tv, get something to eat, and so on, but I have no idea how this happens. When something is looked at such as my face in the mirror, the tv, or food, it just is what it is. The appropriate labels and concepts are hard to conjure up into the conscious mind, and even when they are, they aren’t very meaningful or helpful anyways. The body simply seems to just know what to do and how to interact with the world. It’s a great mystery.
It’s kinda like when you’re riding a bike. It all just seems to happen. You don’t think to yourself “pedal, foot, turn, handlebars, tire, brakes, other foot.” You don’t think about any of this stuff. It’s not necessary. The body just moves. Yet this is beyond that because even thinking about the “parts” is tough too.
Everything Just Is
The physical world seems to be just one of beingness. Its expression is an expression of colors and shapes and stillness. You could say there’s movement if you thought about it, but the stillness is the main event, the only event really.
There is a sense of appreciation for having gone through similar experiences before with a talkative mind. Now it is being realized just how valuable it is to have the mind go quiet during this transformation.
It’s not something that’s being forced. It’s just happening seemingly all on its own. Surrender and allowing is the default state of being, if you want to refer to states of being. There is really only beingness itself. Isness. Pure existence.
Knock knock. Who’s there? *Silence*
Looking within, there is no sense of self. There’s a sense of emptiness and spaciousness. It feels like as if there was an egg, a hollow egg inside me. There is this body and emotion and energy swirling about, yet at the very center where “I” should be, there’s nothingness. Just stillness and space.
It’s like there is a home that is alive and active, yet there’s no one home to make it this way. It is simply alive and active because that’s the natural expression of what is in this moment.
Unforced Happenings
A big and critical difference that’s present this time is not trying to hold onto this experience, but allowing whatever is to be. Whether I’m enlightened or unenlightened is totally okay. All options are completely acceptable. There’s no clinging to any experience. There’s just stillness.
What is is always here and so trying to hold onto it is a ridiculous notion anyways.
Total surrender into what is until there’s no one left to do the surrendering. What an irony…
I would like to introduce you all to my wonderful friend Marie Levit.
For those of you familiar with the book series Conversations with God by author Neale Donald Walsch, Marie has the same conversations with God, as does her daughter Lou. Marie’s first book, Healing God, picks up where Neale’s books left off.
For example, for those of you who are familiar with Neale’s book What God Wants, the message is that God needs nothing from us, despite what many religions have told us. Marie’s message adds to this, suggesting that God needs everything from us. A bit more on this God as everything/nothing will be touched on later in this post.
If you’d like to see two sample chapters from her upcoming book Healing God, you can read about What God Desires and God’s Messengers. (At the time of this writing, her book is with the same publishers who printed Conversations with God. It has been approved for publication and I’ll let you guys know when it is available for purchase!)
Marie Levit
The main reason I write this post today is because not long ago, Marie realized her Oneness with God and she’s shared her experience. With her permission, I’m going to repost her story here and share it with each and every one of you.
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