The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Unmani's website is http://not-knowing.com/
My interview with Unmani is here:
http://nonduality.org/2011/07/20/nonduality-street-interview-with-unmani/
Here's the download link:
http://nonduality.com/nondualitystreet_unmani.mp3
The interview was posted in an earlier edition of the Highlights, however in this issue I am including transcribed portions of the interview:
What do people want from you?
I don’t know. People have lots of ideas and project a whole lot of stuff onto me, but all I’m doing is pointing to who I am. I do that in a variety of ways.
How do you inspire this look into the dark side or into conditionings?
It all starts with recognizing who you are. Just by looking at conditionings and patterns without knowing who you are, there’s the belief that the conditioning is ‘mine’ and so it is always referred back to this ‘me.’ Therefore it is held onto and it seems to mean something about ‘me.’ Somehow all of these conditionings are a kind of protection mechanism for ‘me’. Why should the conditionings go if there’s still a me to be protected?
I prefer to look at the root and see that there is no me to be protected. Those protection mechanisms may still come up because they’re old things that keep repeating. But they can come up and they seem to not actually have anything to do with me. There’s a loosening that happens in recognizing that the conditionings aren’t mine. They’re free to be there, maybe forever, but they’re also free not to be there. Because it doesn’t matter either way. The conditioning isn’t mine. It doesn’t mean anything if it goes away and it doesn’t mean anything if it stays forever. Because who I am doesn’t get touched by that. That’s what I mean by the safety net to explore all of that. You see that what is explored is not ‘mine.’
People can see that and then it seems they lose it, they get hooked back to attachments, cravings, they have a bad night. Then maybe they can get back into realizing the source of attachment and craving and they can get some peace. What do you recommend in that regard?
Getting it and losing it, which seems to happen for a lot of people, is really about a belief in ‘me.’ What’s happening is that the experience of getting it is an experience and the experience of losing it is another experience. Somehow there’s been a confusion, a belief that the experience means something about me. When I recognize it, then I, ‘me,’ is recognizing it. When I am no longer recognizing it and the patterns come back, the reaction is “Oh damn I’ve lost it.” It is still referred back to me, as if I’ve got this problem that I get it and I lose it. But the fact is there is no me ever, even when you believe there is. So when you think you’ve got it, you haven’t got anything. And when you think you’ve lost it, you haven’t lost anything. It’s just experiencing coming and going and changing and moving, and none of it means anything about ‘me’ because there is no ‘me.’
Does anything mean anything at all?
No. It only has meaning for what it is, meaning in just the fact that it is. It doesn’t have any more meaning in the conceptual way, because then it could have endless meanings. There’s no end to thought and how thought could come up with more reasons and meanings. Thought’s amazing in that way, it’s endless.
To whom does it have meaning? If there is no one, does it have meaning? Tree simply means tree.
Is everything too much to say?
It is and yet saying goes on happening. Saying, I find, is like painting a painting or dancing a dance. It’s a work of art. Every word is an attempt to say it and each word is completely impossible. It’s impossible to say it and yet saying it still goes on. You could just sit in silence and not say anything but then we dance instead.
Read Unmani's book Die To Love:
http://www.o-books.com/index.php?id=100&p=1347