Sep 12, 2026 · 59 min · 12 segments
Send me your thoughts in a Text Message What happens when the person who taught you the most about awakening is also the one who needed you to stay…
Nicole WordlawGuest
Ilona CiunaiteHost
Maybe you could go a little bit into what did you imagine or what were you hoping for? Yes.
I imagined that an awakened being was like my story of the Buddha, a person at the top of the mountain that I say in the book, all peace, all love, all wisdom, that somebody had arrived and had supernatural capacities and their experience of the moment was a supernatural capacity.
So they no longer felt, um, They didn't feel pain anymore in the way that I was feeling pain.
So that you would sit with that person and they would have these amazing powers.
And I thought that that's what would start to happen as a person awakened, they become beyond human.
And it felt to me like my teachers were saying something about that, that they were saying they lived in a state of bliss that was a before after.
In fact, the first time I sat, the first time I meditated was with SN Goenka.
But he would say over and over again, all of these very positive, you know, you wake up, you have so much energy, you don't need to sleep anymore.
So good to say that because there are so many people at the same place listening to whoever says what enlightenment or awakening or a shift is and then hoping that this image is going to come true according to whoever.
Curious now, when did you realize or how that happened that You recognize that it's not what other people say.
This was probably the gift of having the two spiritual teachers, the one who charged a lot of money, and then my former partner.
But I think I'm going to be careful how I say this because somehow there are many, many, many things happening in this moment I don't understand.
Maybe you could go a little bit into what did you imagine or what were you hoping for? Yes.
I imagined that an awakened being was like my story of the Buddha, a person at the top of the mountain that I say in the book, all peace, all love, all wisdom, that somebody had arrived and had supernatural capacities and their experience of the moment was a supernatural capacity.
So they no longer felt, um, They didn't feel pain anymore in the way that I was feeling pain.
So that you would sit with that person and they would have these amazing powers.
And I thought that that's what would start to happen as a person awakened, they become beyond human.
And it felt to me like my teachers were saying something about that, that they were saying they lived in a state of bliss that was a before after.
In fact, the first time I sat, the first time I meditated was with SN Goenka.
But he would say over and over again, all of these very positive, you know, you wake up, you have so much energy, you don't need to sleep anymore.
So good to say that because there are so many people at the same place listening to whoever says what enlightenment or awakening or a shift is and then hoping that this image is going to come true according to whoever.
Curious now, when did you realize or how that happened that You recognize that it's not what other people say.
This was probably the gift of having the two spiritual teachers, the one who charged a lot of money, and then my former partner.
But I think I'm going to be careful how I say this because somehow there are many, many, many things happening in this moment I don't understand.
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