Speaker A
So, hi, my name is Lorraine of Sator Space, and I have got the absolute pleasure of having a conversation today with Vince Schubert. How are you, Vince?
Vince Schubert discusses awakening as revealing true humanity beyond conditioning, sharing his 45-year seeker journey and insights on experiential awareness.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Awakening is about recognizing and experiencing reality beyond conditioned identity and thoughts.
- It is a gradual, ongoing process with subtle shifts rather than a single event.
- Freedom from suffering arises by not obeying compulsive thoughts.
- Community and guidance play a crucial role in supporting the awakening journey.
- Awakening is fundamentally about being more human rather than spiritual attainment.
What the video covers
- Vince Schubert defines awakening as revealing the humanity beneath societal conditioning and recognizing the present moment experience.
- Awakening involves experiential awareness that one is not their thoughts and can observe them without obedience.
- The journey of awakening is gradual with shifts and insights occurring over time rather than a single epiphany.
- Vince’s own awakening happened after 45 years of seeking, culminating in a pivotal conversation and involvement with Liberation Unleashed.
- The concept of 'gateless gate' is introduced, emphasizing awakening as a continuous, never-ending journey.
- Thoughts are identified as the root cause of suffering, and awakening involves freedom from compulsive obedience to them.
- The discussion highlights the importance of community and guidance, such as Vince’s group and Liberation Unleashed, in supporting awakening.
- Awakening is framed as becoming more fundamentally human rather than a purely spiritual path.
- The video explores the challenges and shifts in identity that occur as one awakens.
- Lorraine shares her personal experience of awakening facilitated by Vince’s guidance and direct pointing.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Meeting Vince Schubert
- 04:05Defining Awakening and Experiential Reality
- 08:21The Ongoing Journey of Awakening
- 12:09Vince’s Awakening Experience and Liberation Unleashed
- 16:44Challenges and Insights on the Awakening Path
- 20:59Non-Dual Experience and Identity Shifts
- 24:26Conditioning, Thought Patterns, and Suffering
- 28:58Community Support and Continuing the Conversation
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'm good. Pleasure. Always good. So, just for a little bit of a preframe for this conversation, the conversation is around awakening and what that means and, you know, why there's such a—I don't know, I guess a
Speaker A
movement, if you can call it that, with people wanting to wake up at the minute. I'm sure the internet helps us with that. But I met you, Vince, because I had that interest myself, and I was going through a YouTube channel
Speaker A
called The Awakening Curriculum, and I'd heard Pranella many times throughout a lot of those interviews, interviews for people to say, you know, if you're interested in this and exploring it directly for yourself, go to Vince's group. And she kept saying, "Go to Vince's
Speaker A
group, go to Vince's group," and I was like, who is this Vince, and where do I find Vince, and where can I get this group? And I went googling and searching on some of her YouTube channels, and of course I
Speaker A
found your group, and I joined that group, not knowing anything really. I was just like, I'm interested in this. I feel a drawing. I feel a pull, and I just found it was a really nice container for people to explore, I guess,
Speaker A
their definition of reality on where, because that's what we're looking at, right? It's the fundamentals of who we are as beings and identity and what that reality looks like. So, that's enough of the intro.
Speaker A
I'll talk about the group again later. But Vince, you really hold space in that group. I was there last week, and you reminded everyone who was chatting away that the only thing we have is here and
Speaker A
now. What is going on for us here and now in this moment? And that can help us on this awakening journey, if you like, if we can call it that. But Vince, just to start this conversation off, what
Speaker A
is your definition of awakening?
Speaker A
Okay, that's a good one. Yeah, the big guns. Well, definition, you're asking for definition to describe something called awakening.
Speaker A
I mean, back when we were seekers, it was seen to be a spiritual path, but these days I see it as becoming more human or rather revealing the humanity underneath the conditioning that we grow up with. The conditioning of how we
Speaker A
should be, who we should be, what we should do, all of that stuff that society imposes on us one way or another. If we can recognize that they are conceptual overlays on reality, then we're not compelled to automatically be obedient to them. We
Speaker A
may still choose to go along with them, but it is more of a choice.
Speaker A
But choice, of course, once we—Yes, let's not get into that at the moment. But yeah, so awakening is a human being that is aware of what is actual.
Speaker A
And what is actual? The only thing that is actual is your current experiencing. And even that is an interpretation.
Speaker A
So removing the necessity to be someone, which we talk about in this path, we talk about recognizing that there's not an actual self running the show, and that therefore that foundation for control and choice and decisions, etc.,
Speaker A
isn't there. So awakening is recognizing those things, but recognizing them not just at an intellectual level but rather at a level of experience.
Speaker A
Now, I've said all of that. It doesn't sound like much of a definition, but we can expand on it. There's a few key points in there around, you know, awakening, you know, can be seen to be
Speaker A
awakening into who you really are beyond the concepts that you mentioned, you know, and you also mentioned becoming aware at an experiential level that you are not your thoughts.
Speaker A
Yeah, very much so. Yeah. And when you realize that, you can sort of step back a bit. I guess, in an entry level, it's about becoming the watcher. You can be the watcher of those thoughts and realize that they're popping into your
Speaker A
head. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how most of our conditioning is expressed, as thoughts that impose ways to be.
Speaker A
So one of the big things that happens with people that wake up is that in the beginning especially is the recognition that our thoughts are not us and that we don't have to obey what our thoughts say. But if there's an
Speaker A
inclination to obey what our thoughts say, then that is there for a reason. That happened for a reason, and we can investigate that reason and become free of the necessity to be obedient to what the
Speaker A
thoughts say. So it's our thoughts that cause most of, probably all of, our suffering. It comes from the way we think. And I think that, Vince, you helped me directly through LU Liberation Unleashed doing some direct pointing for me,
Speaker A
which was obviously fundamental for me. But that awakening to, you know, who you are and you're not your thoughts—If I'm not my thoughts and I'm not this identity, then who I am? It can be quite a big shift
Speaker A
in somebody's perspective of who they are. It can be a big shift in, but for me, that didn't happen all at once. For me, that happened over—it started a few months ago, and
Speaker A
then it went away, and then it came back, and then there was over a few days, you know, another insight and another insight and another insight, and then you sort of laugh at the hilarity or the absurdity that a human being
Speaker A
could have anything or, you know, just things like that. But for me, that happened over a period of time. So how did that happen for you, Vince? How did that happen?
Speaker A
It happened—it, well, that's a tricky one. I would say most of the people I've guided, it would happen like that, like you said. So not many people have a giant epiphany and come out the other side awake, or those that do usually get visited by
Speaker A
doubts sometime after that and go through it again. So it's worth emphasizing that this is a journey that never ends. Right? So those little shifts that happen as we realize things will continue for a long time.
Speaker A
They certainly get further and further apart, but they get more and more subtle as well. So they continue there. Now that you've mentioned Liberation Unleashed, it's worth mentioning that that has been a big part of my life. So once I, after I woke
Speaker A
up, I discovered Liberation Unleashed. And when they accepted that I had had a shift, I started guiding almost immediately there. And that was, that was now 14 years ago. So I've guided a lot of people over that
Speaker A
time. The terminology they use is "through the gate." They call it a gateless gate, but as a seeker, it's a gate. Once somebody wakes up, it's seen to be a gateless gate. So we also recognize that once we wake up,
Speaker A
there's no such thing as waking up, but that's another story. Yeah, we come back to some direct pointing.
Speaker A
But I did hear you talk about your journey before, Vince, and it was a—we can—Sorry, I probably interrupted you there. Could you just go back and share a little bit what that was like for
Speaker A
you?
Speaker A
Sure. Yeah. Thanks for that. No, I'd actually forgotten what I was talking about there. Yeah. Right.
Speaker A
So, I did have a somewhat abrupt waking up in 2011, but I need to say that I was a seeker, a searcher, for well over 45 years before that time. So, I would—I read everything, and I was obsessive
Speaker A
looking to get enlightened from when I was 20. I was really active. I started being active, and I'm sure before that there was the dissatisfaction with life that caused that to culminate at 20, but at 20 I started actually looking and doing
Speaker A
things to try and get enlightened. And it wasn't until I was 65—and at 65, excuse me, at 65, I had an epiphany. And it was when I was speaking to a man in America. I discovered him on the
Speaker A
internet, and he charged me $50 to talk to him for an hour. And as he was talking to me, he said to me, he said, "Vince, the mosquito bite of seeking is never going to heal while you keep scratching
Speaker A
it." And that just blew my mind. I just went—
Speaker A
And all of a sudden, this didn't seem so mundane. This wasn't painful. This was actually pretty magical at that moment.
Speaker A
And so I I went around saying, "This is it. This is it." For quite a while after that.
Speaker A
Yeah. But that changed my life that that that that it was it wasn't until I went to Liberation Unleashed, which was quite soon after that. And although I didn't realize it at the time, Liberation Unleashed, it only really just got going
Speaker A
as well. But they asked me about the self. Is there a self there running the show? And it was straight away, I never even thought about it before then, but it was straight away really obvious that all there was that constituted a self
Speaker A
was stories I had about Vince. Stories. Story. I had a I had a a book full of stories from from when I was really young. I had 65 years of stories accumulated about my likes and dislikes and how I looked and how other
Speaker A
people related to me, what other people thought of me, what I thought of everything else, how the world should be. It just no end to the stories that I had. And I also recognized somewhere I don't know if I was at that time but I
Speaker A
anyway somewhere I recognized that the sense of self not there was no actual self there was just these stories but the sense of self was me responding to those stories me reacting to them how I felt about things when one of those
Speaker A
stories got activated and that was my sense of self. And I also got asked at Liberation Unleash, and this was a really big one for me because it it really focused me in a in a in a much
Speaker A
deeper way to what was going on. And that was they asked me whether in experiencing is there an experiencer experiencing a thing? And it beca once again it was really obvious to me that I had to stop experiencing in order to think about an
Speaker A
experiencer or what was being experienced. So consequently it was obvious that there was only actual experiencing going on. There was no experiencer. That was just a mental concept. And I couldn't have that mental concept while I was experiencing. And the same thing about
Speaker A
whatever object was being experienced or whatever whatever conditions were being experienced that they could only be a mental construct.
Speaker A
experiencing was my actual reality. That was it. That was very even though. Sorry. On you go. Sorry. Even though. Even though what I was experiencing was my interpretation of whatever it was. And and along with that experiencing was the recognition that
Speaker A
when I became aware of what I was experiencing, what I was actually aware of was a memory of experience because it happened half a second ago. The experience was done and dusted. And the really really big thing was how crazy is it to want something
Speaker A
that's finished to be different. It's done and dusted. So any idea about it being different is bound to produce suffering or adding to reality.
Speaker A
Yeah. That was very well articulated, Ben. It was very well articulated there. There's a bit of tongue twisters in there as well with experiencing and experienc but it was really well articulated.
Speaker A
Um, you know, a lot of the the stuff that we read around this or even the Buddha said, you know, mind is suffering and that mental construct again, as you say, wishing anything could be different as it is is is crazy
Speaker A
because it's in the past. Whatever. That's where suffering comes in. And whatever is happening, you know, physically, there's a a body sensation what that seconds before we actually see the thought or experience it anyway.
Speaker A
Exactly. Um and I think you know those fundamental questions it can be really it could be really challenging for someone starting out on that journey like what do you what do you mean this is just stories I am I am going to do this in
Speaker A
the future this is fact and we believe that because we've been taught to believe that so it's really challenging to try and um shift that it's even it's even a bit more fundamental. I mean, that's that be that's easy to see how I'm going to do
Speaker A
something in the future as a story. But if you're walking along a path and you get a a an impression of a great big glob of green sitting on a brown stick on the ground in front of you, your brain immediately says
Speaker A
tree. Now, here's the trick. depending on your intention. But if it's if you're not going to go up and interact with that tree, you will think that you're walking past a tree, but you're not. You're actually walking past
Speaker A
your idea of a tree. And it's your idea of what goes on in the world that most people relate to.
Speaker A
It's not the actual thing. It's not an actual other person that you're having a relationship with when you're talking to somebody. It is your idea of them that you're that you've put out. You've projected out there and that's what
Speaker A
you're relating to. That's concept. That's not actual. So, if you were to go up to that tree and and put your your fingers on the branch of the the trunk of the tree, you could say, "I'm touching the trunk."
Speaker A
That's not that's that's conceptual as well. What is actually happening is these things we call fingers are experiencing a sensation of this thing we call a trunk.
Speaker A
But the actual thing, the actuality of it is that there's only sensation. There's no trunk. That's a concept. There's no fingers. That's a concept. There's no me. That's a concept. There's no tree. That's a concept. They So, this makes this is a
Speaker A
lot harder to get your mind around because what it means is that most people go through life relating to ideas that they've put out there, not to what is actual. So those who have woken up have a much are much more likely to now and
Speaker A
it's not I'm not saying it would happen 100%. But much more likely to recognize what is actual as compared to what is conceptual what is the idea and and that can only come through the sensory experiences. The s you know there's the
Speaker A
there's the senses. The senses are how you are perceiving um the the now. Would that be right? And thought is also another sensation. It it's coming in.
Speaker A
It's appearing. It's appearing. Um so there is the sensation of an actual thought turning up. But what that thought is about is pure fantasy. But there's a there's a twist here. And that is that without the fantasy there's no thought.
Speaker A
We can experience the fact of a thought, but what the thought is about is just fantasy. It's a concept. It's not actual. And I think it might be helpful just for anybody who might be listening to this for the first time and hearing
Speaker A
this information and these concepts. I guess for the first time, you know, it's it's helpful for the human experience to label things so that we can talk and Absolutely. Yes. Of course. Yeah. So, you know, do we have a head and fingers
Speaker A
as we're looking at them, you know? Yes. And and as we're um having conversations, sometimes it really helps to look at, you know, what what's actually happening in the in the absolute as opposed to the relative that the human being experience. Um, so just
Speaker A
for people who might switch off now and say, "Well, of course we've got fingers, you know, I'd like to um just do you want to talk to that, Vince?" Sure. Yeah.
Speaker A
It's It's not that somebody who is awake is going to say, "I don't have fingers." That's a that's a youthful concept in terms of communication, in terms of describing what goes on. The difference is that the person who is
Speaker A
awake is going to be very likely blown away by the quality of sensations that come in through these things we call fingers. they're going to go, "Ah, this is something else." Right? Whereas the person who's not awake is going to go,
Speaker A
"Well, I'm touching the tree." And if I say to them, "What does it feel like?" They might say, "Oh, it's cold or it's smooth or something like that." There are the labels again. Whereas the awake person is going to go,
Speaker A
oh, what do you see in the moment? I'm consumed by goosebumps again when we're just thinking about that. They're going to be the awe the awe of it. I call it the magic of of of existence is much
Speaker A
more apparent to somebody who doesn't stop at the label of fingers and touch or even sensation. Right? So the labels are great for focusing our attention in a particular direction, but they they the words are never the thing and
Speaker A
labels are words and so they they stop you short of actual experience or if there is experience it's it's it's limited. So the the idea of recognizing what is concept and what is actual is that the actual is mind-boggling. You
Speaker A
you cannot get your mind around it. So when we we come back to that tree and we go there's just this sensation when I touch it or there's a sensation of smell or there's a sensation of coolness because of the shade or or a relief from
Speaker A
the heat that was outside of the shade. But there are these these sensations that go on. But the awe that that can be experienced in that is just mind-blowing.
Speaker A
So if we if we limit oursel to the concept that it's a tree, that has use. That has use. If you're going into a nursery, you're going to buy a tree. You're going to say to the nurseryman, I want a tree of a
Speaker A
certain kind. That's useful. But we're not talking about the useful nature of society as such. What we're talking about is the possibility to experience what is actual at a really fundamental level. And that's what what happens when people wake up.
Speaker A
Now can I can I ask you um Vince so and this is just um so from what I can perceive there are there are and I know it's challenging to put things into stages but I think there there are stages that there's there's
Speaker A
initial awakening or dropping of identity or that realization that you're not that identity or looking at who you are and then there's um there's another level which is a nondual realization you know where there's a collapse between you and I and the um distance.
Speaker A
So when you're talking about the when you're touching the tree, you know, are you speaking through a non-dual experience? Are you living your nondual or you just actually in the Can you explain a little bit about that please?
Speaker A
Yeah, the non-dual experience is something that generally arrives later um when when so in the beginning we you what you mentioned was that we recognize there's no self running the show, right? But but that doesn't fall away completely
Speaker A
instantly. It might for some. It's possible. It certainly can happen. But the remnants of that will persist for a while. There are there are bits of identification that we're not aware of until they get triggered. And so that's
Speaker A
what I when I say it's a continuing path is that we continue to discover remnants of identification that we didn't know were there until circumstances activates them. And then we go, you know, oh, and there's a there's an instant recognition
Speaker A
that there's an identification with a self still there. Even though we intellectually know and we mostly experience no self running the show, those bits will come come up when we when when they are much more dissolved and we don't any longer get
Speaker A
triggered into identification by desires or aversions. ill will is often referred to as the next step beyond that is where people start to appreciate how form is a product of thought.
Speaker A
We create form without thought. Now, this starts to sound pretty woo wooish because it kind of gets beyond it's beyond what most people have experienced with the initial shift. But when we recognize that we create form with our
Speaker A
mind, that can have a a pretty big effect on the way we see things. Not that it's a permanent situation either. It's just that that it can be seen that way and then we'll go back to the old way in order to navigate
Speaker A
through the world. But essentially that's that's just a recognition of how much our mind plays into this game. So we're getting kind of advanced if you like. The next step after that is to recognize what's there. If there's no
Speaker A
actual form, if form is a product of my mind, what's there when there's no form?
Speaker A
So, so the formless becomes something to consider. That's a an even bigger mind boggle to get you.
Speaker A
You're not going to get your mind around those things. They can only be experienced.
Speaker A
And like some of the concepts you're talking about here are some of the again it's it's difficult to put the stages but there are levels of deepening um of Yes. Yes. And that's what we're talking about here much deeper level. Yeah.
Speaker A
And and it's at that at that formless level where we start to realize or the form and the formless level where we start to realize that things only exist because of my attention to them. But my attention is mine. It's my
Speaker A
attention. Not not when I say mine. Yeah, that's a tricky one. When I say mine, I don't mean I own it. I mean it it originates from the same place as the attention originates from and it's a creation of the attention. And that's
Speaker A
when we recognize that there's no difference between us and what every anything or anybody else. So that is again you're not going to think about it. You can't get your mind around it.
Speaker A
It can only be experienced. So people will have this experience where I am it and it is me.
Speaker A
I haven't heard anyone anyone who I've listened to or watched over the period will always say our language doesn't support it. Our language there is no language that can talk about the the experience. Yes. Yes. Um and what you
Speaker A
are describing though of those when you're talking about the desire and the ill will and then um the perception that um can sort of follow a fetter model. So there is what we um and that breaking comes from Buddha
Speaker A
um and the you know the first fet like is that identity you know seeing who you truly absolutely yeah and and in fact probably the first the first eight feders are about identity but the first five are about at a grosser level of
Speaker A
identity right and then we get the when then we get to six seven and eight um it's a more subtle levels of identity. They're the remnants that I I was talking about that that but when we get to say Feda 8 it
Speaker A
talks about well Panilla who I would always you know I lovely lady I would see her as a mentor she talks about the conceit of I am in Federate. So the conceit of I am is that well of course I exist.
Speaker A
But it but it's yeah that's that's seen through. When that feather falls it is seen that I only exist as a thought. That's not even right. But but that's kind of close. I've led you I've led you down a rabbit hole here. Um
Speaker A
Vince you pull that back because that is is a whole other um level a big experience but if I could pull you back to your own awakening when it happened you know you've been that seeker for all that time and then you had the awakening
Speaker A
and you went through LU and it became your life. Um would you ever turn back?
Speaker A
Was there anything would you ever turn back and not do the seeking? And I know you can't, but um yeah, it's a crazy head.
Speaker A
Yeah. Are you asking me would I give up what I what what life is what I experience as life now? No. Never.
Speaker A
Never. This is this is Am I allowed to say this is beautiful. Why would I want anything else? Of course you can't.
Speaker A
Okay. And I think for for listeners, you know, it's just when I started looking at this, I was like, is this real? You know, like it's actually almost unbelievable. I'm like, are these people talking about can we actually achieve
Speaker A
what we call and anyone enlightened these days and anyone who you talk to now who's gone through an awakening knows that this enlightenment is a is not is not an enlightenment as people imagine. So, that's right. Yeah. Um,
Speaker A
you'll hardly ever hear me use that word enlightenment. It's it's it's like I don't know what it is. I call waking up because it can describe something or I I'll accept liberation because that can describe something, you know, that we've
Speaker A
already talked about. But in actual fact, what I say is forget about spirituality. This is just being more fundamentally human.
Speaker A
Yeah. It it is it is what we are when we remove the oppression of having to be a certain way. That's that's all. It's really simple. It's really simple. A lot of people start off with that pointing, you know, and just ask yourself, who am
Speaker A
I? You know, who am I? Is this one way of um pointing? So, Vince, did you have any what were the biggest challenges of this process for you? You know, because there is that Yeah. Were were there challenges with integration of dropping
Speaker A
those first fetterss? Was how did you navigate life with you your wife with your kids? Did anything change? Was were things different? How how did you navigate?
Speaker A
Well, I would have to say the the words again. The internal change was astounding. The internal change is astounding if I remember how it used to be. And that's getting a bit hard to do.
Speaker A
But yeah, but externally my friends don't know I'm awake. My wife thinks this is a load of rubbish. So, you know, on the outside, things appear much the same.
Speaker A
But how can I how can I share my appreciation for, you know, if I say to my wife, "Oh, look at the color of that flower. Isn't that Isn't that amazing?" And I'm and I'm kind of melting with it. I It's just
Speaker A
I'm vibrating with the intensity of that. And she goes, "Yeah, yeah, it's pretty. It's it's not sharable. It's it's it is just what it is, you And I when I first woke up, I wanted to wake up the whole world. I wanted to I wanted
Speaker A
everybody to get to it. Now I have to admit there's still a bit of that there.
Speaker A
But there's also a lot more sensibility about the possibility of doing that. So now I recognize that you can only help people who ask for help. If they don't want if they don't think there's anything wrong or whatever, you don't
Speaker A
you don't say anything to them. So, all of the people in my social group where I live here have no idea about me being awake. Okay. Some of the closest friends know that I do this weird thing and have
Speaker A
meetings with people, but they don't know what it's about and they're not interested. They they don't ask, you know, otherwise I would I would share it with them, but they don't. So, you know, Yeah. It just is the way it is. Yeah.
Speaker A
Now, so problems is with integration. No, I don't there are no problems with that.
Speaker A
Um, there was I I guess I could put a story around early days enthusiasm being a bit of a problem, but things have settled down and it's become very very normal, very ordinary in a way. But I there I would hardly ever go
Speaker A
through a day where I wouldn't be blown away by something I come across. You know, a a a classic is after walking the dog this morning. I was walking back up the road and I came across a pothole that just blew my mind
Speaker A
away. Just the shape of the pothole, the edges of it. There was a rock sitting in the middle of it and it was just just beautiful and amazing. But I You know, I know it sounds crazy. I can
Speaker A
I can imagine it sounds totally crazy to people, but you know, look, I I almost cried with telling you that. It was just so poignant. It was just something that happens to me all the time, you know, and anyway, there you go. It is what it
Speaker A
is. A couple of things on that. um maybe backtrack a little bit because you know you did say I can't remember exactly what you said but you said something um you know after the initial awakening and how things you
Speaker A
know these realizations were coming up and you also mentioned that you know you can you can see the thoughts for what they are and you can choose you can say no or if there's an inclination to go towards that thought
Speaker A
then you can accept it. When you say that inclination, how do you differentiate between ego and intuition?
Speaker A
Cuz there'll be some sneaky shadow ego stuff in there. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. Yeah.
Speaker A
Well, here here's a good little story about it. So what what I would refer to as ego is a kind of a self a grandisement if that's a word. I like that. I like that. I'll use that one. So
Speaker A
I I this that goes back sometime and I don't remember the actual incident but I remember thinking oh I didn't get triggered by that. Isn't that good? And it was like when I said isn't that good? I had this picture of myself
Speaker A
patting myself on the shoulder. Oh, you you you got it, Vince. You got it.
Speaker A
That's ego. That's identification. That's ego. Yeah. Oh, I've forgotten what was the rest of the other part of your attention. Persist, you know, how do you differentiate between ego and Oh, and intuition. Yes, I remember now. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. It's a it's a it's a classic one to say what is your gut saying? Now when you when you when you look at that you become aware of something that is really difficult to describe and if it app if it if it presents itself to
Speaker A
you as a thought it will present itself as a possibility. it'll be a soft gentle possibility very likely with a question mark at the end of it.
Speaker A
Whereas if it comes from the ego, it'll be definite capitals underlined with an exclamation mark. And so there's a there's a kind of a a different experience of something that comes as intuition. And so you're learning to trust your intuition. And I say learning
Speaker A
very very specifically there because most people don't even recognize when intuition is working because they they have placed well above that knowledge as important. So if you recognize that from the moment you go to to kindergarten and people give praise,
Speaker A
they'll be giving praise for being smart and they'll omit that for being not smart. And so we learn to put knowledge and information and memory up on a pedestal right from the very early days.
Speaker A
So we've got a lifetime of conditioning with that stuff. And what we're saying, what I'm saying is that that has no place in awakening. That has no place in real life. It has a use, but it's a very
Speaker A
limited use. So if you think about it this way, what comes from your intuition will be about a situation. What comes from your ego will be about you.
Speaker A
M so self-referential thoughts you might label as ego or self or identification I actually dislike the word ego because a thousand people have a thousand different meanings for it so it's never quite clear what it is a bit like that with
Speaker A
what enlightenment is you know everybody has a different idea about what enlightenment is so those things are better not used you know general Generally speaking, it's like what reality is. I don't like the word reality particularly. I much rather
Speaker A
say what is actual. Yeah. And your experience right now. Yeah. Well, that's the only thing that's actual.
Speaker A
Did you did you find did you find you you know when you said you know you you noticed that as you were um can we say deepening in your awakening that you might not be triggered by things is it
Speaker A
was it your experience that you then went through a lot of shadow work did that present itself to you no you didn't okay no no and and the story that I've got about that is that during that 45
Speaker A
years of seeking I did a lot of shadow shadow work in a lot of ways. You know, I did I did all sorts of mostly alternative kind of things, but I did a lot of guest therapy. I did I did
Speaker A
encounter groups. I ended up running encounter groups. I did so much of that. You know, there was a 5-year period in my life where I was a hypnotherapist.
Speaker A
So, I was very much into the unconscious mind and that kind of stuff. So 45 years of seeking was also 45 years of exposing all a lot of that shadow work. So when it happened, no there wasn't much of
Speaker A
it. But some of the things that I've discovered recently more recently that have been triggered certainly I could call that shadow work.
Speaker A
Um, I recognized probably one of the most recent ones, a good example is where I I recognized, well, a situation occurred and I found myself feeling annoyed at somebody and I was annoyed because on the outside it was
Speaker A
because they were exhibiting being what I considered to be uh I don't know how to put it st anyway. All right. The actual situation was I I was parked in a driveway doing some work um and in a in
Speaker A
a duplex in a house that was two houses together and I was parked in the other person's driveway and she came out and asked me to move my car which I thought was perfectly reasonable. I thought she must
Speaker A
have wanted to get her car out of the drive out of the garage and get out because mine was in the road. And I moved my car and nothing happened. She didn't come out. And I eventually went, "You You just wanted me to move
Speaker A
because it was your driveway. You didn't want to get out. There was no practical reason. You was you were expressing you some ownership bullshit." And that annoyance was there.
Speaker A
And when I investigated it, I came across this belief I had that had been a bit hidden that the world should be the way I think it should be.
Speaker A
She should be the way I think she should be. Everybody in the world should be the way I think they should be. And of course, you you you say something like that, all you can do is crack up
Speaker A
laughing because it's so ridiculous, you know. Yeah. Yeah, but there it was, you know, and so I thought that that was a good one. That was a bit of shadow work that I I revealed. Um, but I only saw it
Speaker A
as a belief, right? There was then, but then it was probably a couple of months later something else happened and I I I don't actually remember what it was. But again, I got triggered and this time I I went a lot deeper in looking
Speaker A
for what was going on. And whether I manufactured it or whether it was a real memory, all memories are a fabrication.
Speaker A
But but whether it actually happened or not, I don't know. But I had this image of myself as a three, four, 5 year old somewhere very young standing in front of the fridge, hands on hips, stamping my foot, saying, "I want ice cream." And
Speaker A
I was telling my mother to get ice cream out of the freezer for me cuz it was up top, I think. Probably. I don't know.
Speaker A
Anyway, um and what I realized was that I believed that wanting to the point where I demanded was enough for me to get things. That me wanting things was an actual had power. Yeah.
Speaker A
Now, that particular one hasn't come up again since then. I just, you know, that that might be how we call shadow work.
Speaker A
Something that's that's been embedded in there for a long time. Um, and it revealed itself. And now I feel much much more, this is a tricky one, I feel more accepting of Donald Trump and his idiot performance. you know, it's whereas
Speaker A
before that I was getting quite angry at the idea of what he was doing to the world and and to America and so on. Um, I used to get very angry at at what was happening in Gaza or Ukraine.
Speaker A
And even though I could see that they that that they weren't affecting me personally directly, that my story about them was that they were wrong, you know, and that then that that power that was in me wanting that to be
Speaker A
different should be enough to change it. Well, of course that that's not going to happen. And that was crazy. So these days, it's not to say that I'm content with that situation, but I'm accepting of that situation. It is the way it is.
Speaker A
And I still think it's I still think it's wrong, but I don't have that anger anymore that I used to have when I about it. Yeah. So I don't know if that's clear enough, but that's Yeah. Yeah, it
Speaker A
is. But I think that the reason I was asking was I think you've been you might you may have been in a unique situation where you'd done a lot of that personal development first before that initial awakening. I think that might be
Speaker A
different for other people who may that amount of um personal development then all of a sudden they're because that that shadow work is um well for me it's it's the stickiness to the identity. Yes. you know so for me one
Speaker A
was around you know significance and I was holding on to that you know for and I didn't know that I was holding on to it I had to dig deep deep deep what is still holding on here what it is and I
Speaker A
would see these little things would come up and um it wasn't until I could let go of I did these things I achieved that I made these achievements wrapped around my identity and my void so it wasn't until all that stuff presented itself
Speaker A
could I actually see it for what it was and let it go and I think you know that might be the case for a lot of people.
Speaker A
Sure. attachment to the identity we don't know we have in some for some people well in fact for more than some probably I wouldn't say a lot but for a significant number of people they they will go through a a painful a painful part of
Speaker A
the realizing giving giving up see it's this is crazy. It's not It's not that there was ever an actual self running the show, but the belief in the self provided a lot of people with a sense of security or a
Speaker A
sense of control. Control is a really really big one. And so in that intermediate stage where they recognizing that they never ever actually had control, there is still the feeling that they're giving up control.
Speaker A
And that that can be really frightening for some people. You know, they can feel like without that control, things can go very wrong. And that that concern can mean that people suffer severely at that point. So this Yes. I mean, it's good of
Speaker A
you to bring this up. It's most important to realize that you got to be pretty sure that you want this stuff because you're going to it's like you're going to go through some stuff to get there. It's not uh it's not a not a free
Speaker A
ride. so to speak. And why why do you think there's this why do you think there's why do you think there's so many people waking up at this time in the world?
Speaker A
Um yeah, good question. Um and it's definitely an issue. I mean, at Liberation Unleashed, um I've seen 20 30 people lined up waiting for a guide to come along and help them. At the moment, there's not.
Speaker A
There's only one or two there, but um mind you, that's because I'm working with 10 people at the moment and I know Stacy's working with probably about eight people and so on. So there and there's more guides as well. So but but
Speaker A
there is a lot constantly. So the number of people that have gone through liberation unleashed which would be a very small fraction of the people in the world who are looking at the idea of waking up um thousands have gone through there
Speaker A
thousands in the time that I've been with them there would be definitely a couple of thousand people who have gone through it. I would say the internet is one of the really really big things. So when I when I was a
Speaker A
seeker, you know, back in 2011, which doesn't sound like that long ago, um the internet was still in its infancy. There was no YouTube, or at least if there was, I didn't know about it. So these days, of course, you get you can get
Speaker A
thousands of people on YouTube talking about this stuff. Um and there's all the other social media things that that that people post things on about it as well. Um and then there's um place Per the Perfectly okay group is is amazing.
Speaker A
They have they have something like 80 meetings every week and there are literally 3,000 people that go to those things. Some are some are also at others as well. Um so there is there is a lot going on. There's a lot I
Speaker A
mean we we all know about Alan Watts. you know, he was probably one of the very very first people. There was a lot of his early videos are in black and white. They're that early, you know. Um, so he really brought a lot of this stuff
Speaker A
from the east to the west, right? But it grew. It grew after that. And then you get the likes of Oprah and Deepac Chopra and various other well-known people you know who did um Echard Ty he he introduced a huge number of people to
Speaker A
this kind of thing. So but but a big part of it so a part of my seeking just before I woke up was going to some non-dual meetings.
Speaker A
Um, and one of the really big things I got out of that was the re the what's the right word? The belief, the recognition, the uh I guess it was a belief that ordinary us ordinary people can can get
Speaker A
enlightened. That's what I thought at the time. But now I say wake up just, you know, once upon a time it was like only dedicated people who went to India and lived in a cave could do this kind
Speaker A
of thing. And even the Indians had it so that they were essentially it was after retirement that people went off by themselves to seek enlightenment. Um, and it was very rare for a householder, this is the way the Indians used to put
Speaker A
it, for a householder to wake up that to get enlightened. That didn't happen very often because they had other duties that got in the road and it takes 100% dedication to do that. Well, they they were myths. They were they were
Speaker A
propagated in contemporary Zen literature about the the dedication that was required and only a certain people could get there and only if they deserved it and lived the a perfect life they were celibate or whatever whatever requirements that were there. Well, it
Speaker A
turns out it's all Total You know, the reality is it's there for anybody and everybody to do that. And when enough people are awake, and certainly we're still very much a minority in the world, but when enough people are awake, our education system
Speaker A
will change. We won't be pushing putting knowledge or information up on the pedestal that we once did. It will take a a useful place, but it won't be the be all and end all of everything. You know, it won't be you have to go to university
Speaker A
and acquire a huge amount of knowledge in order to be a professional. all that kind of stuff will change. So, it's a it's a tricky one, but I think that the availability of of guides is a huge thing and the fact that people are
Speaker A
starting to recognize it as a real thing and the fact that it is possible for everybody uh is behind the the the the growth of it and oh boy, it's it's it is growing at a phenomenal rate. Yeah,
Speaker A
I think for me, you know, it's it's it was just YouTube, you know, and then again, it was cracking that first belief. Is is this possible for me? Yes.
Speaker A
In this lifetime, can I do this as me? And um when there's so much evidence of that from credible people, you know, that belief gets chipped away at chipped away and then you're like, "Oh, wait a minute then. Let what do I do? What what
Speaker A
do I do to to to start that?" Now um as I say your group um helped me um Vince and and then also LU which was through um you and just for people listening you know LU liberation unleashed is a place
Speaker A
where people can get guidance for free you don't have to pay for that absolutely yes you can go on there and register and a guide will come and we'll do some direct um pointing you know just to get you over that first that first
Speaker A
fetter or that first awakening around identity if you're so aligned to that or you feel like that but also um Vince you run your group and you run meetings is it four times a week. Yeah. Yeah. So can
Speaker A
you tell us then because who's the group for? Who who's it for? What's what's its purpose? Well maybe if I tell you how it came into being. So, so I agree with with Liberation Unleashed and just by the way that's liberation unleashed.com
Speaker A
to if you want to go there but um that's their focus very much on the what when we put it in the Federa terms in the of the first Federa right or the first and second Federa which is doubt.
Speaker A
So, so they're really interested in seeing through the delusion that there's an actual self there running the show.
Speaker A
And so that's it. So they they the Buddhist would call that stream entry. And so so in a sense that's what they do, stream entry. And the the what I saw as a problem was that after people got stream entry, after
Speaker A
they'd seen through that delusion and it just became an illusion and they had that first shift, they were kind of abandoned. You know, there there was a there was a Facebook group that they were invited to join where other people who had been
Speaker A
through, but it was never very active. So what I imagined happened is that a lot of people just went back to sleep.
Speaker A
They just their old habits just kicked back in and away they they just went back to the way they were. Maybe they were slightly improved. Maybe they didn't suffer as much but essentially they uh they didn't keep going on the
Speaker A
path so to speak. to find some of the the deeper realizations and move towards some of the stuff we talked about earlier when we get up to the higher feeders.
Speaker A
Um so my my uh initial uh motivation for starting the group was to give these people that have gone through the gate somewhere where they could talk to other people who'd gone through the gate because my own experience was
Speaker A
that you you finish Liberation Unleash and you go home and who are you going to talk to? You can't talk to your family about it. You can't talk to your friends about it. They've got no idea where you're coming from or what you're
Speaker A
talking about. So simply to be able to talk to other people who thought like you who who had this experience was going to be a really good support and and I often what when I was guiding somebody when they when they had gone
Speaker A
through the gate I frequently would recommend if I if I thought saw them is having if they were lucid enough is be way I put it is that I would recommend that they started guiding because that would keep them in the loop and that
Speaker A
would give them the opportunity to deepen. So they were helping other people they were paying it forward. what they got for free they were paying forward and the consequence was that they were keeping it alive. So you know the groups and doing
Speaker A
that was really I thought really really important. But it turned out really weirdly, it turned out, not weirdly, it turned out that that straight away after the group started and people would start talking to each other that they I got
Speaker A
all this amazing feedback about the value of doing that. how where and and here we are a couple of years later uh since I started those groups and I still get constant feedback from people about how great it is to even some
Speaker A
people on my mailing list don't ever attend the groups but they watch the videos afterwards and they'll and you'll see comments on the on the YouTube channel where all those videos are saying you know oh that was great oh
Speaker A
that was really good or oh I really identified with that and so on and so on, you know. So, a video that I I I put up can easily have 80 or 100 views by other people. Um, and yet only five
Speaker A
people have turned up to the group or 10 or 20 people have turned up to the group. So, yeah.
Speaker A
Um, so the idea is for that I I and and I want it to spread not because I want more work but because I think the more people that are awake the better place this world will be. Um, so that and that's that's a big
Speaker A
one. And you do got you do them in different days and different time zones as well then so that you can you've got something that everybody can engage. But what I noticed, Vince, is you've got people in the group though who have been
Speaker A
through the gate, who might have moved on to all different stages of deep realization, but you've also got people who are just exploring it and who haven't gone through the gate. Yes.
Speaker A
Yeah. Look, I'm happy for anybody to come along if they're interested. Yeah. Yeah. They can be seekers. That's fine.
Speaker A
I'll I'll help a seeker wake up if it's possible. Um, and there are other people that come along to the groups that also are guides and who are quite happy to to chip in and help those people. And it's
Speaker A
great. I mean, you know, one one other guide, Marius, he's he's great friend and he balances me beautifully. You know, I waffle on with all this woo woo stuff and he kind of comes back to earth really quick. So,
Speaker A
it's it's good stuff. You know, there's a great balance. There's what I call hive wisdom that happens in the groups because even people who have not woken up don't realize that out of their mouth comes stuff that's really awake. You
Speaker A
know, they just they just because they're so relaxed and so spontaneous and authentic, they get in touch with stuff that they didn't even know was there. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. I I find it I find it refreshing, you know, to go in there sometimes and just there's always there always something that you're going to resonate with. There might be a doubt or a realization or a perspective or a
Speaker A
question. Um, I think I said earlier like last week when I was on your group, the the one thing was all we have is what we're going through right now. And just that one comment from you changed everybody's it
Speaker A
changed the focus of everybody because everybody dropped into them now and the conversation shifted just with that one um conversation which is fantastic. But I think it is important you know these groups again they're for free people can
Speaker A
join them up. We can join I'll put all your details below on this YouTube and like the link to register and and also for LU I put my hand up to be a guide myself through. Great. Yep. Y put all
Speaker A
that information down. So what what advice then? What what advice or steps would you give? So for anyone who's listened this far must have an interest somehow in awakening, right?
Speaker A
Or deepening the realization for someone who you know might think, okay, well I'm interested in exploring this. What advice would you give to the the new seeker?
Speaker A
Well, I'd probably say go to LU, go to Liberation Unleashed as a as a a good beginning step.
Speaker A
Um, I mean there's lots of things come to mind. I say watching watching countless YouTube videos, try to consider whether or not they're actually changing your experience or whether or not you're just getting high watching them.
Speaker A
And if you're just getting high, you need help to go beyond that. So having a guide to help you is really valuable. We fool ourself too easily. We we we we get in the rut of our old perception
Speaker A
and so we don't discover new stuff. And what this is about is discovering new stuff or discovering a different perspective on it. So having a guide is is good value. But appreciate that the guides at Liberation Unleashed are not charging.
Speaker A
They're doing it for free. They're giving up their time. And you know when I if I if people I'm guiding at LU I I can spend an hour every single day on one person. So you can imagine you know
Speaker A
luckily the 10 people that I'm guiding at the moment is that they they kind of share their I don't I don't insist that they do it every day. So consequently, I might have two or three or four to do
Speaker A
each night um with and because I've been doing it for a long time, I do a lot of copying and pasting. So it I can kind of get the time down a little bit to do that. Uh cuz I've said what I've been
Speaker A
saying for 14 years now. So, a lot of a lot of those things are they're just repetitions of, you know, um and I use I use a chatbot that I developed uh for help as well these days and that certainly makes a big
Speaker A
difference. So, I've got a website um and I and I which I developed over a long period of time and certainly it needs a lot more work but what I did was I made a a PDF of the website and then I
Speaker A
fed that to the chatbot and I trained the chatbot on that as its knowledge base. And so now that's that's a useful useful tool for you know it'll quickly show me what what people are are saying and so on. So that kind of can save me a
Speaker A
lot of time as well. Um yeah so but yeah look so and of course there's a huge variety in the YouTube stuff that's out there as well.
Speaker A
Um, and I'm not saying that this is the only path or liberation un unleashed is the only way to go about this. People will go to non-duality YouTubes and they will they will wake up from that. Most don't, but a lot I don't I
Speaker A
shouldn't say that. I don't really know how many do wake up, but you can you just be careful. I mean I I recognized that when I was a seeker I was for example one of the things I did was I
Speaker A
listened to the Jed McKenna audio books again and again and I didn't help me wake up well I didn't wake up from listening to them but I got high on them every time and I do I do recognize that
Speaker A
that was a big deal I was just make made me feel good to watch those things right so back then I was fully identified as a seeker and a seeker of course is a good person, a spiritual person. And so that
Speaker A
was part of my identity thing. You know, it was a big deal to to be identified as a seeker. Um, but it was only it was only after that leaving all that stuff behind when I recognized that I couldn't
Speaker A
be a seeker and be awake at the same time that it happened for me. Yeah, I could often be the last. I think I think YouTube for me it really did help me just to again break through the belief
Speaker A
of what was possible. Yeah. uh and also gave me a sort of you know afterwards and looking at some I'm like oh so this must be the the shadow work they were talking about or oh this must be this
Speaker A
that I thought might so it was actually good for me to get a preemptive stages after that but I think initial awakening that comes to the direct self inquiry so so what what what when I if I'm I I
Speaker A
mentor other guides as well. And what I say to other guides is always good guiding is where you ask a question that isn't seeking an answer, but rather is helping somebody have a discovery as they contemplate the question. So what we want is to help
Speaker A
people to discover stuff and then it's it's a visceral experiential happening. It's not it's not just an intellectual transfer of knowledge which is useless. There's you've already got a headful of knowledge. We don't need it anymore. And so when you're watching YouTube videos,
Speaker A
I'm just talking to the people in general now. When you're watching YouTube videos, if you're not making discoveries, forget it. That's you're wasting your time. It's got to be about what you discover about yourself.
Speaker A
Yep. So Vince, um, thank you for sharing everything today. I'm sure we could deep dive on any one of those aspects we talked about today. We could make a series, which I'd actually like to do.
Speaker A
I'd like to interview you again. Um, if you're open to that. Um, I love hearing your perspectives. You can tell, you know, it comes from deep experience and understanding. And I just love how you're so open with the the guiding and
Speaker A
the sharing and getting other people to do the same. um because we want to, you know. Um Yeah. Yeah. There's the wonder, of course. Yeah. But if you could go back to your um your past self before the
Speaker A
awakening and you could give yourself one little whisper, what would it be? What the what came up when you asked that question was enjoy.
Speaker A
Beautiful. Enjoy. Yeah. I I Yeah, we could go on about that, but if you're not enjoying life, it's there's something wrong.
Speaker A
Yeah, Ben, thank you very much.
Topics:awakeningspiritual awakeningnon-dualityLiberation UnleashedVince Schubertself-awarenessconditioningthought observationawakening journeyidentity shift
