Guidance for Non-dual Awakening

Are you serious about the spiritual journey?
Are you finding the post-awakening terrain difficult to negotiate?

Would you value guidance or a down-to-earth spiritual chat ?

There are times in the spiritual journey we may feel called to seek

out guidance or advice from someone who has traveled before us.

Whether you wish to understand an authentic spirituality, seek awakening beyond the everyday mind and its stories, or whether you have awakened and wish to explore the terrain of awakened living, I can meet you wherever you are, and offer guidance for the path ahead.

"The state we call realization
is simply being oneself."
- Ramana Maharshi -

"Waking up to our true nature is the first step toward liberation."
- Bonnie Greenwell -

I can offer guidance on ...

- stabilisation and integration of non-dual awakening -

- clarifying what awakening is or isn't -

- understanding the pre- and post-awakening terrain -

- working with inquiry, grounding and direct experience -

- understanding the pull of conditioning and separation -

- understanding when therapeutic work may be needed -

- deepening -

- understanding of the Kundalini process,

both pre- and post-awakening -

- understanding suffering, depression and "the dark night of the soul" -

- discussion of embodiment and living - family, friends, work

and everyday life -

- clarification of doubts, disorientation, questions, discouragement, fear and confusion -

- addressing sticking points, pitfalls and cul-de-sacs -

- understanding the spiritual marketplace - teachers, gurus, (or charlatans), practices, paths, lineages etc -

- living the profound ordinariness and freedom of our natural state -

I speak from ...

- a grounded and authentic spirituality -

- the direct experience of awakened presence or silence -

- over thirteen years of knowing my true home as Life itself -

- over four years providing mentoring and guidance to others -

My sole aim is to point you back to your own true self

... and to explore that which holds you back from living that truth.

"Awakening or enlightenment is actually simple

... definitely not easy, but certainly very simple.

It is our natural state.

It is our true nature as human beings.

It's not special, it's not high-level, it's not an altered state of consciousness

... it is right under our very noses and we totally miss it.

It is simply seeing reality exactly as it is."

- Marianne Broug -

Spiritual questions

I offer a unique opportunity to explore spiritual questions and experiences in an open and authentic dialogue. These may include:

What is spirituality really about?

What is a true spiritual awakening?

Why does my life feel empty and unsatisfying? Why am I suffering? Why do I feel depressed?

Why does awakening elude me, even though I've been practicing for many years?

What is this yearning for stillness, presence or greater depth? What is this
yearning for Home?

I have had an awakening and although at first I experienced extraordinary peace and bliss, I now feel like I am in uncharted territory. Everything has changed.

I feel so unmotivated, I no longer have the same interests as my friends, and my family are worried about me.

I had a glimpse of oneness, but now everything looks separate again. Why am I continually swept back into identification with the small self?

I feel disillusioned and/or overwhelmed by the spiritual marketplace. How do I discriminate between charlatans and the "real deal"?

I have no-one in my life with whom I can chat about spiritual matters.

I need to clarify experiences.

How do I go about finding a teacher?

I am having Kundalini experiences and am afraid to talk about them with anyone. I sense that they might think I'm mad. (I have been trained in Kundalini support by Bonnie Greenwell)

I would love to be met from awakeness.

Meetings in Silence

Silence is truth.

Silence is bliss.

Silence is peace.
And hence Silence

is the Self.

- Ramana Maharshi -

You are all searching for the silence of the mountain. But you’re looking for something outside. This silence is accessible to you right now, inside the center of your own being.

- Ramana Maharshi -

Ultimately, Silence is what we are. Silence is the ultimate teacher.

Our world gives so little time for Silence or Depth. On all levels our world is filled with noise. In social situations, silences are quickly covered over with words or busy-ness. In our inner world our mind chatters incessantly. In spiritual circles there may be Silence in the meditation room itself, but so often as we sit on our zafu, we embark on an internal battle with ourselves, with our bodies and with our minds. If we crave a deeper Silence we often withdraw into nature or solitude. We rarely have the opportunity to deepen into Silence with one another, allowing everything to be met exactly as it is.

Meetings in Silence give an opportunity to simply sit in a space with another, in Presence, Silence, Openness and Truth. Meetings in Silence give you the opportunity to meet your True Self.

The session can be wholly in Silence, or I am quite willing to negotiate a session in which we can incorporate both Silence and mentoring (allowing questions and inquiry to arise naturally from depth). If this is the case, we can work out the length of the session beforehand, and also the fee. If there is enough interest I also hope to offer in-person groups for Meetings in Silence.

Practicalities

Payment method

Payment is made using PayPal, so you need to have a working PayPal account. Once we have organised a session time, I will send you payment details. Sessions must be pre-paid within 2 days of making a time in order to confirm the appointment. If no payment is made the booking will be cancelled. For in-person sessions, payment can also be made at the session.

Cancellation Policy

To avoid a cancellation fee of $30, a miniumum of 48 hours is required for appointment rescheduling and cancellations. Changes made with less than 24 hours notice will incur the full fee of the session. When you make the booking, you are agreeing to this cancellation policy.

Questionnaires

Prior to commencing sessions, I will give you a questionnaire to fill in. I have two separate questionnaires, one for those who wish guidance with the Kundalini process and another for those who are interested in general guidance. These questionnaires will give me an overview and sense of who you are, and also give you an opportunity to reflect on your life, your questions and your spiritual journey, prior to commencing mentoring.

Agreement and Disclaimer

I require that all mentees read the Agreement and Disclaimer and I will draw the attention of all intending mentees to these documents prior to service being provided. A mentee’s willingness to participate in any mentoring session will be taken by me to mean that they have read, understood and accepted each and every clause of the Agreement and Disclaimer.

Some further notes on mentoring

Sessions

I am available via Skype, in person or by phone.

For new mentees, please contact me via the contact form, with a few words about why you wish to connect with me.

Sessions are 50 minutes in length, although a longer time can be negotiated, particularly if you wish time to also sit in silence or are having an in-person session.

Rates

Rates for a 50 minute session are very low, and are simply a recompense for my time. I offer a sliding scale of AUS $60 - $80. Please let me know where you place yourself on this scale.

THE NEED for a MENTOR or GUIDE.
- a personal reflection -

Although I had been on a spiritual path much of my life, awakening itself came as a complete surprise. I had read about awakening and enlightenment but had dismissed them as a fairy tale, not something an ordinary woman in ordinary suburbia could experience.

However, the moment I awakened I knew what had happened. I knew that THIS was what all the talk from spiritual teachers had been about.The change in identity and perspective was unmistakable. Suddenly I understood that this was the true self for which I had been looking all my life. I understood why people called it Home. I also saw that the egoic or Marianne 'me' I had believed myself to be for most of my life, was actually a fabrication. There wasn't a 'small' or separate 'me' distinct from the whole of life. It didn't exist and it never had.

Although at first there was a 'honeymoon period' of relief, joy and clarity, quite soon I realised that life wasn't going to be quite as easy as I had originally thought. Literally everything was different. I was like a child learning to walk and talk again. There was still joy and peace, but now there were also times of upheaval, confusion and and disorientation. Relationships, sleep, cognition, body, motivation, life trajectory, sexuality, gender identity ... it all changed. In addition many aspects of my old ways of functioning continued to pop up, particularly when there was stress or upset in my life. Although the awakened perspective was always available and known, over and over I still found myself identified within the very narrow view of the conditioned or egoic 'me'. At times I felt like a crazy person.

I knew I needed to talk with someone to help unpack the awakening, help me understand the new terrain, provide pointers in navigating in the world and also help with releasing the old conditioning. It seemed that finding someone to help me wasn't going to be easy. Old spiritual friends found my claim of awakening arrogant, and local teachers I approached only confirmed my awakening and assumed I would be fine moving forward on my own. In retrospect I see that if I had had a mentor or guide when I first awakened, it would have saved much time and confusion. A few years later, as I looked for a teacher again, it seemed that although they were helpful to a degree, they inevitably had a strong agenda and there was no room to ask the 'dumb' questions and find my own feet and languaging.

And so now, after many years, witnessing over and over the value of mentorship, I offer myself in this role ...

MY OWN QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS

( some dot points I jotted down shortly after awakening)

I need help with integration – how does this function?
I wish to be met from this place.
I don’t have a background, practice or teacher that authenticates this.
Aware that I am listening to the silence between people rather than their words – remind myself that I must listen to the words they are speaking. I am forgetting how to talk. I’m not really interested in anything I have to say.
I am aware that this is not ‘mine’ - what does that mean?
It's so easy to get caught up in what a spiritual life should look like eg. love and light – but this seems totally beside the point. How do I deal with all the spiritual notions about how we’re supposed to be. Anger, if it comes from this wholeness, is just as spiritual as goodness and light.
I can only speak from truth. It feels SO uncomfortable not to speak from truth. How do I deal with people to whom I can't speak from truth?
What are people doing when they are seeking? There is nothing to seek. No one to enlighten, no one to awaken. Nothing to teach.
I don't understand all that New Age stuff any more. What are people doing?
Question re what people ordinarily call ‘spiritual self’ or inner self … this supreme consciousness is beyond all notions of an inner self.
what is relationship now? Is there such a thing as relationship? People just talk to bolster their ego or everyday self.
I don’t want to theorise, I want to live.
I am struggling with words. All the words in the world aren’t going to get you there, and yet you need them. The mind can’t do it because the mind wants to have it and own it.
Question – if people haven’t done therapy I can see that they are using spirituality to console themselves or escape from what is going on. Spiritual bypassing.
Question about depression – depression is taking us within but consciousness is already always present.
Consciousness is not love or peace or bliss. These are by-products. People act them out or pretend … but acting them out does not awaken anyone – it actually obscures because you can think you are ‘there’.
People are going at the whole spiritual thing the wrong way around – one must get engrossed and fully take on all the dirt, grime, hell – one can’t just bypass this stuff. Can someone awaken without being first being fully immersed? Or does that work then need to be done after awakening?
Is this the emptiness of Buddhism – or potentiality and fullness? Or is it both?
My honesty and vulnerability can be problematised by others – my crying or whatever is not a “problem” for me. It just comes and then it goes.